Who Were the Sea Peoples?

While the blood libel actually occurred far too often in the Middle Ages, Philip Daileader claims that he has not been able to discover a single instance of a Catholic bishop supporting the charge. Universally, he says, they dismissed the idea as nonsense. Similarly, when hoi polloi of the People's Crusade attacked Jews in France and Germany, "The Church opposed these attacks, and local clergy often came to the defense of Jews in their community." Jews suffered a lot at the hands of the common people of Europe through the Middle Ages. Almost always, church officials denounced these episodes and tried to protect the Jews from their attackers.