I apologize if the time frame is too broad, and if pogrom is not an appropriate label for anti-Jewish violence in this time period. I recalled an anecdote my rabbi included in a sermon a couple years back about a particular Jewish village where the rabbi and his congregants donned armor to resist a pogrom. He only mentioned it in passing but it stuck with me and recently popped into my head. I distinctly recall him mentioning armor, which led me to this timeframe.
Are there any recorded events that could have inspired this story? If so, how would the Jews have obtained the armor and weapons, and given that they probably were not trained fighters, were they at all successful?
I'm trying to remember back to my Eastern European Jewry class from more than 10 years ago but a good primary source is the Abyss of Despair. It chronicles Jewish experiences during the pogroms that occurred during the Khmelnytsky Uprising. The author mentions that during the defense of several towns the Jews were armed along with the rest of the burgers as a town militia and manned the walls.
Recorded events, yes. The Chronicle of Solomon bar Simson records the pogrom in Mainz during the First Crusade. As translated by Shlomo Eidelberg in The Jews and the Crusaders: The Hebrew Chronicles of the First and Second Crusades, p.30:
They donned their armor and their weapons of war, adults and children alike, with Rabbi Kalonymos at their head...The [crusading] troops and legions surged in like a streaming river until finally Mainz was overrun from end to end...The Jews armed themselves in the inner court of the bishop, and they all advanced toward the gate to fight against the errant ones and the burghers. The two sides fought against each other around the gate, but as a result of their transgressions the enemy overpowered them and captured the gate. The hand of the Lord rested heavily on His people, and all the Gentiles assembled against the Jews in the courtyard [of the bishop's palace, where the community had gathered] to exterminate them.
Later on, after killing their children to prevent them from being slaughtered by the Crusaders, the women throw rocks down on the attackers (35).
Simson is writing very much after the fact (although apparently in Mainz), drawing on earlier sources, and his writing shows definite signs of hagiography/martyrology--you can see a little bit of it there in the idea that the pogroms were a punishment against the Jewish communities for disobeying the Lord. Eliezar bar Nathan's chronicle, which parallels Simson's account in many respects, doesn't talk about any resistance in Mainz, either (although Nathan has an even clearer agenda). The Mainz Anonymous, which is most likely a later (14th century?) account, parallels Simson's including the account of donning armor (trans. Eidelberg, 108-09).
So while it could be "just" a story, the fact that Simson doesn't talk about resistance in similar attacks on the communities in Speyer, Worms and (especially, since they were after Mainz and the Jews knew to expect no mercy) Cologne and Trier suggests a basis in reality. Especially since the general tone towards the murdered Jews is that they died "sanctifying God's name" (the phrase used over and over) by submitting to Christian swords or being thrown in the river. The Mainz community is not treated as braver or more worthy for having fought and failed. Accepting martyrdom is the value.