Medieval antisemitism
Prior to his conversion, Constantine placed the religion of the Jews on a footing of legal equality with those of other subjects. After his conversion the Jews were oppressed with new restrictions and exactions, and the Christians were forbidden to associate with them. Constantine banished the rabbis (AD 337), and made the marriage between a Christian woman and a Jew a capital crime.
The condition of the Palestinian Jews (AD 359) sank so low, and their communication with other Jewish communities was so difficult, that their patriarch Hillel II resigned their right to determine for all Jews the dates of the Jewish festivals, and issued computation of these dates, a calendar that remains among the Jews of the world to this day.
From these afflictions were saved for a moment by the accession of Julian. He reduced their taxes, revoked discriminating laws, lauded Hebrew, and acknowledged Yahweh has "a great god." Julian was gracious to Hillel, whom he honored on a number of occasions.
In an autograph letter to him, Julian assured him of his friendship and promised to ameliorate further the condition of the Jews. Before setting out for the war with Persia, Julian addressed to the Jewish congregations a circular letter in which he informed them that he had "committed the Jewish tax-rolls to the flames," and that, "desiring to show them still greater favors, he has advised his brother, the venerable patriarch "Julos", to abolish what was called the 'send-tax'.
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He asked Jewish leaders why they abandoned animal sacrifice; when they replied that their law did not permit except at the temple of Jerusalem, he ordered that the temple should be rebuilt with state funds. Upon Julian's sudden death; state funds were withdrawn; the old restrictive laws were re-enacted and made more severe, and the Jews, again excluded from Jerusalem, returned to their villages, their poverty, and their prayers. In 425 Theodosius II abolished the Palestinian patriarchate. Greek Christian churches replaced the synagogues and schools, and after a brief outburst in 614, Palestine surrendered its leadership of the Jewish world.
The Jews could hardly be blamed if they hoped to fare better in less Christian lands. Some moved east into Mesopotamia and Persia, and reinvigorated that Babylon Jewry which had never ceased since the Babylonian Captivity of 597 BC. In Persia Jews were excluded from state office, but all Persians except the nobility were likewise excluded, there was less offense in the restriction.
Life and Community
Jewish communities developed in all the North African cities, and in Sicily and Sardinia. In Italy they were numerous, and though occasionally harassed by the Christian population, they were for the most part protected by the pagan emperors, Theodoric, and the Popes.
In the temples, the synagogues, and the schools of Palestine and Babylonia the scribes and the rabbis composed those enormous bodies of law and commentary known as the Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds. Moses, they held, had left to his people not only a written law in the Pentateuch, but also in an oral law, which had been handed down and expanded from teacher to pupil, from generation to generation. As the Sadducees disappeared after the dispersion of 70 AD, and the rabbis inherited the tradition of the Pharisees, the oral law was accepted by orthodox Jews as God's commandment, and was added to the Pentateuch to constitute the Torah or law by which they lived, and in which, quite literally, they had their being.
The thousand year-long process by which the oral law was built up, given form, and put into writing as the Mishnah; the eight centuries of debate, judgment, and elucidation that accumulated the two Gemaras as commentaries on the Mishnah; the union of the Mishnah with the shorter of these Gemaras to make the Palestinian, and the longer to make the Babylonian, Talmud -- this is one of the most complex and astonishing stories in the history of the human mind. The Bible was the literature and the religion of the ancient Hebrews; the Torah was the life and the blood of the medieval Jews.
Rabbis like Jochanan, Rab, and Samuel were pioneers in the work; others like Rabba, the son of Nachmani (270-330), Abayi (280-338), and Rava (299-352) gave the finishing touches to the method of the Talmud. The Palestinian Gemara in its present form extends only over 39 out of the 63 treatises of the Mishnah, thus indicating a probable loss of many treatises. The deficiency may partly be due to persecutions which abruptly closed the schools in Palestine, and partly to the fact that the Palestinian Gemara hardly received the favor and attention which commentators have given to the Babylonian.
Because the law of the Pentateuch was written it could not meet all of the needs and circumstances of a Jerusalem without freedom, or a Jewry without Palestine. It was the function of the Sanhedrin before the dispersion and of the rabbis after it, to interpret the legislation of Moses for the use and guidance of the new age or place.
The Rabbis of the dispersion constituted the most unique aristocracy in history. They were no closed hereditary class; many of them rose from the poorest of ranks; most of them earned their living as artisans even after achieving international repute, and until the end of this period received no payment for their work as teachers and judges. Rich men sometimes made them silent partners, business enterprise, or took them into their homes or married their daughters to them to free them from toil.
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| Benjamin of Tudela |
In the near east and southern Europe the Jews were active in industry; in several cases it was they that brought advanced handcrafting techniques to Western lands. Benjamin of Tudela found hundreds of Jews glass-workers at Antioch and Tyre; Jews in Egypt and Greece were renowned for the excellent dyed and embroidered textiles; as late as the thirteenth century Frederick II called in Jewish craftsmen to manage the states silk industry in Sicily. Hebrew artisans in southern Europe were organized in strong guilds, and competed successfully with Christian craftsmen. But in Northern Europe Christian guilds acquired a monopoly in many trades. State after state forbade the Jews to serve Christians as smiths, carpenters, tailors, shoemakers, millers, bakers, or physicians, or to sell wine, flower, butter or oil in the markets, or buy a home anywhere but in the Jewish quarter.
So restricted, the Jews took to trade. Rab, the Babylonian Talmudist, had given his people a shrewd motto: "Trade worth hundreds of florins, and you can afford meat and wine; put the same into agriculture, and at most you may have bread and salt." The Jewish peddler was known in every city and town; the Jewish merchant at every market and fair. International commerce was their specialty, almost their monopoly, before the eleventh century; their packs caravans and ships crossed deserts, mountains, and seas, and in most instances they accompanied their goods. They served as commercial links between Christendom and Islam, between Europe and Asia, between Slavic lands and the Western states.
They were helped in their skill and patience in learning languages; by the understanding of Hebrew, and similarly of laws and customs, among widely separate Jewish communities, and by the hospitality of the Jewish quarter in every city to the foreign Jew; so Benjamin of Tudela traveled halfway across the world, and found himself everywhere at home.
Ibn Khordadbeh, director of the post for the Baghdad Caliphate in 870, told in his 'Book of Routes' of Jewish merchants who spoke Persian, Greek, Spanish, and Slavonic, and described the land and sea routes by which they traveled from Spain and Italy to Egypt, India and China.
The capture of Jerusalem by the Crusaders, and the conquest of the Mediterranean by the fleets of Venice and Genoa, gave the Italian merchants an advantage over the Jews, and the Jewish commercial leadership ended with the 11th century.
In a hostile environment where popular violence might destroy, or royal cupidity confiscate their immovable goods, the Jews were forced to the conclusion that their savings should be liquid and mobile form. They first looked at the business of money - changing, then receiving money for commercial investment, then lending money for interest. The Pentateuch and Talmud had forbidden this among the Jews, but not between Jew and non-Jew. As economic life grew more complex, and the need for financing became more acute with the expansion of commerce and industry, or through silent partnerships in an enterprise and its profits -- a device allowed by the rabbis and several Christian theologians.
Before the thirteenth century Muslim and Christian borrowers -- including ecclesiastics, churches, and monasteries -- applied for Jewish loans; so Aaron of Lincoln financed the building of nine Cistercian Monasteries and the great monastery of St. Albans.
In the thirteenth century A.D. Christian bankers invaded the field, adopted the methods adopted by the Jews, and soon surpassed them in wealth and range. "The Christian usurer, although he did not have to safeguard himself anything like the same extent against the chances of murder and pillage was no less exacting than the Jew." Both alike pressed the debtor with Roman severity, and the kings exploited them all.
All moneylenders were subject to high taxation, and, in the case of the Jews, to occasional outright confiscation. The kings made it a principle to allow high interest rates, and periodically to squeeze the profits out of the financiers. The cost of collection was high and in many cases the creditor had to bribe the officials to allow him to capture his due. In 1198 Innocent III commanded the Christian princes, in preparation for the Fourth Crusade, to compel full remission of interest demanded of Christians by the Jews.
In 1230 Henry III, charging that the Jews had clipped the coins of the realm (apparently some had), confiscated a third of all movable property of the English Jews. A series of imposts from 1252 to 1255 drove the Jews to such desperation that they begged permission to leave England en mass, permission was refused.
Loans continued nevertheless, and as the risk was greater, interest rates rose. Edward ordered all Jews in England arrested and their good seized. Many Christian lenders were also arrested, and three of them were hanged, drawn, and quartered in London; there were additional executions in the countries, and the property of hundreds of Jews was confiscated to the state.
In the uneven intervals between confiscations the Jewish bankers proposed, and some became too visibly rich. There were rich and poor among the Jews, despite rabbi Eleazar's dictum "all men are created equal before God -- women and slaves rich and poor." The rabbis sought to ameliorate poverty, and check profiteering wealth, by a variety of regulations. They emphasized the responsibility of the group for the welfare of all, and softened the stings of adversity with organized charity. They did not denounce riches, but they succeeded in giving learning a prestige equal to that of wealth. They branded monopoly and "corners" as sins; they forbade the retailer to profit more than a sixth of the wholesale price; they fixed maximum price and minimum wages.
Periodically, and as early as the second century, each member of the congregation, however poor, was assessed by the official overseers for a contribution to the Kupah or more generally the "community chest," which took care of the old, poor, or sick, and for the education and marriage of orphans. Hospitality was accorded freely, especially to wandering scholars; in some communities incoming travelers were billeted in private homes by officers of the congregation. Jewish philanthropic societies grew to a great number. Of the middle age advancements not only were there many hospitals, orphanages, poorhouses, and homes for the aged, but there were organizations providing ransoms for prisoners, dowries for poor wives, visits to the sick, care for the destitute widows, and free burial for the dead.
Circumcision, the weekly bath, and prohibition of wine and putrid meats as a food, gave the Jews superior health and protection against disease rampant in their Christian sphere. Leprosy was frequent among the Christian poor, who ate salted meat or fish, but was rare among the Jews.
Discriminated against at every turn, pillaged and massacred, humiliated and condemned for crimes he didn't commit, the Jew, like the physically weak everywhere, resorted to cunning in self-defense. The frequent use of Jews in high financial office suggested that the Christians had confidence in their integrity. Of violent crimes -- murder, robbery, and rape -- Jews were seldom guilty.
Jewish women were modest maidens, industrious wives, prolific and conscientious mothers, and early marriage reduced prostitution to a human minimum. Rabbi Asher ben Yehiel ruled that a bachelor of twenty, unless absorbed in the study of the law, might be compelled to marry by the court.
Marriages were arranged by the parents; few girls, says a Jewish document of the eleventh century, were "indelicate or impudent enough to express their own fancies or preferences," but no marriage was fully legal without the consent of both parties.
Polygamy was practiced by rich Jews in Islamic lands, but was rare among Jews in Christendom. Post-Talmudic rabbinical literature refers a thousand times to a man's "wife," and never his "wives." About the year 1000 Rabbi Gershom ben Judah of Mainz decreed the excommunication of any polygamous Jew, and soon thereafter, in all of Europe except Spain, polygamy and concubinage became almost extinct among the Jews.
The Family was the saving center of Jewish life. External danger brought internal unity; "warmth and dignity... thoughtfulness, consideration, parental and fraternal affection," that marked and mark the Jewish family. The young husband, merged with his wife in work, joy and tribulation, developed a profound attachment for her part of the larger self; he became a father and the children growing up around him stimulated his reserve of energy and engaged his deepest loyalties.
Almost from their birth he saved to provide a dowry for his daughters and a marriage settlement for his sons, and he took for granted that he should support them in the early years of their married life. In many cases the bridegroom came to live with the bride in her father’s home. Songs of praise of a woman's beauty were considered indecorous; public conversation between the sexes -- even between man and wife. Daughters only inherited in the absence of sons; otherwise they had to depend upon brotherly affection, which seldom failed.
The Jew, with the vanity of the commonplace, prided himself on his reproductive ability and his children; his most solemn oath was taken by laying his hand upon the testes of the man receiving the pledge; hence the word testimony. Every man was commanded to have at least two usually there was more. The child was reverenced as a visitor from heaven, a very angel become flesh. The father was reverenced as a vicar from God; the son stood in his father’s presence until bidden to be seated, and gave him a solicitous obedience.
Every Friday eve of the Sabbath the father called his wife, children, and servants around him, blessed them individually, and led them in prayer. To the doorpost of every major room was attached a tube (mezuzah) containing a parchment roll inscribed with two passages from Deuteronomy (vi, 4-9; ix, 13-21), reminding the Jews that God is one, and must be loved "with all thy heart and soul and strength."
Antisemitism
What were the sources of hostility between Jew and non-Jew? The main sources have ever been economic, but religious differences have clothed and obfuscated economic rivalries.
The Muslim, living by Muhammad, resented the Jewish rejection of their prophet; the Christians, accepting the divinity of Christ, were shocked to find that his own people would not acknowledge that divinity. Good Christians never saw anything unchristian about holding a whole people, through the centuries, responsible for the actions of a tiny minority of Jerusalem Jews in the last days of Christ. The Gospel of Luke told of how "throngs" of Jews welcomed Christ into Jerusalem (19:37); how when he carried the cross to Golgotha, "there followed him a great company of people, and of women, who also bewailed him and lamented him" (23:27); and how, after the crucifixion, "all the people come together at that sight... smote their breasts." However, these evidences for Jewish sympathy for Jesus were forgotten when, in every holy week, the bitter story of the Passion was related from a thousand pulpits; resentment flared in the heart of many, and in these days the Israelites shut themselves up in their own quarter and in their homes, fearful that the passion of simple souls might be stirred to a pogrom.Around that inherent misunderstanding rose a thousand suspensions and animosities. Jewish bankers bore the brunt of the hostility aroused by interest rates that reflected the insecurity of the loans. As the economy of Christendom developed and Christian merchants and bankers invaded the fields once dominated by Jews, economic competition fomented hate, and some Christian moneylenders actively promoted antisemitism.
Jews in official positions, especially in finance department of governments, were a natural target for those who disliked both taxes and Jews. Given such economic and religious enmity, everything Jewish became distasteful to some Christians, and everything Christian to some Jews. The Christian reproach for Jewish clannish exclusiveness, and did not excuse it as a reaction to discrimination and occasional physical assault. Jewish features, language, manners, diet ritual all seemed to the Christian eye offensively bizarre. The Jews ate when Christians fasted, fasted when Christians ate; their Sabbath of rest and prayer had remained Saturday as of old, while that of Christians had been changed to Sunday; the Jews celebrated their happy deliverance from Egypt in a Passover feast that came too close to Friday on which Christians mourned the death of Christ. Jews were not allowed to eat food cooked, to drink wine pressed, or to use dishes or utensils that had been touched by a non-Jew; the Christian interpreted these ancient laws -- formulated long before Christianity -- as meaning that to a Jew everything Christian was unclean; he retorted that the Israelite himself was not usually distinguished by cleanliness of person or neatness of dress.
Mutual isolation begot absurd and tragic legends on both sides. Christians in the 12h century accused Jews of kidnapping Christian children to sacrifice them to Yahweh, or to use their blood as medicine or in the making of unleavened bread for the Passover feast. When a few Jewish merchants flaunted their opulence in costly raiment the Jews as a people were accused of draining the wealth from Christendom into Jewish hands.
There were some lucid intervals in this madness. Ignoring state laws that forbade it, above all in Spain and southern France, Christians and Jews often mingled in friendship, sometimes in marriage. Christian and Jewish scholars collaborated -- Michael Scot with Anatoli, Dante with Immanuel. Christians made gifts to Synagogues, and in Worms a Jewish park was maintained through a legacy from a Christian woman. In Lyons the market day was changed from Saturday to Sunday for the convenience of the Jews.
In secular governments, finding the Jews an asset in commerce and finance, gave them a vacillating protection; and in several cases where the state restricted the public movement of Jews, or expelled them from its territory, it was because it could no longer safeguard them from intolerance and violence.
The attitude of the Church in these matters varied. In Italy she protected the Jew as "guardians of the law of the Old Testament," and as living witnesses to the historicity of the scriptures and to the "wrath of god" But periodically church councils, often with excellent intentions, and seldom with general authority, added to the tribulations of Jewish life. The Theodosian code (439), the council of Clermont (535), and the Council of Toledo (589) forbade the appointment of the Jews to positions in which they could impose penalties on Christians.
The Council of Orleans in (538) ordered Jews to stay indoors in holy week, probably for their protection, and prohibited their employment in any public office. The Third Council of the Lateran (1179) forbade Christian midwives or nurses to minister to Jew, and the Council of Beziers (1246) condemned the employment of Jewish physicians by Christians.
Fourth Council of the Lateran (1215) arguing "at times through error Christians have relations with women of Jewish or Saracens, and Jewish or Saracens with Christian women," ruled "that Jews and Saracens of both sexes in every Christian province at all times shall be marked off in the eyes of the public from other people through the character of their dress" after their twelfth year they were to wear a distinctive color - the men on their hats or mantles, the women on their veils. The character of the badge was determined locally by state governments or provincial church councils; ordinarily, it was a wheel or circle of yellow cloth, some three inches in diameter, sewn prominently upon the clothing.
The Decree was enforced in England in 1218, in France in 1219, in Hungry in 1279; it was only sporadically carried out in Spain, Italy, and Germany before the 15th century when Nicolas of Cusa and San Giovanni de Capistrane campaigned for its full observance. In 1219 the Jews of Castile threatened to leave the country en mass if the decree should be enforced, and the ecclesiastical authorities consented to its revocation. Jewish physicians, scholars financiers, and travelers were often exempt from the decree. Its observance declined after the 16th century and ended with the French Revolution.
The General Attitude of the Papacy
By and large, the Popes seemed to have been the most tolerant prelates in Christendom. Gregory I, though so zealous for the spread of the faith, forbade the compulsory conversion of the Jews, and maintained their rights of Roman citizenship in lands under his rule. When bishops in Terracina and Palermo appropriated synagogues for Christian use, Gregory pressured them to make to make a recompense. To the Bishop of Naples he wrote: "Do not allow the Jews to be molested in their performances of their services. Let them have full liberty to observe and keep all of their festivals and holidays, and both they and their fathers have done for so long."
When Pope Eugenius III came to Paris in 1145, and went in pomp to the cathedral, which was then in the Jewish quarter, the Jews sent him a delegation to present him with the Torah, or scroll of the law; he blessed them, they went on their way happy, and the Pope ate paschal lamb with the king. Alexander III was friendly to the Jews and employed Jehiel, a descendant of Nathan ben Jehiel, to manage his finances. Gregory IX, founder of the inquisition, exempted the Jews from its general operation or jurisdiction, and in 1235 he denounced mob violence against Jews: He issued the protective bull Etsi Judaeorum and reminded all Christians of the terms of the bull Sicut Judaeis. Similarly, on Sept. 5, 1236, he issued orders to several archbishops and bishops of southwestern and western France to compel the crusaders to make good the losses the Jews had suffered at their hands.
This noble appeal was widely ignored, and in 1272 Gregory X had to repeat the denunciation of the ritual murder legend, and to give his words force he ruled that thereafter the testimony of a Christian against a Jew should not be accepted unless confirmed by a Jew. Expelled from so many countries at one time or another, they were never expelled from Rome or from the Papal Avignon. "Had it not been for the Catholic Church," writes a learned Jewish historian, "the Jews would not have survived the middle age in Christian Europe."
Before the Crusades the active persecution of the Jews in medieval Europe was sporadic. The Byzantine emperors continued for two centuries the oppressive politics of Justinian toward the Jews.
In 1095, Pope Urban II proclaimed the First Crusade; some Christians thought it desirable to kill the Jews of Europe before proceeding so far to fight Turks in Jerusalem. Godfrey of Bouillon, having accepted the leadership of the Crusades announced that he would avenge the blood of Jesus upon the Jews, and would not leave one of them alive; his companions proclaimed their intention to kill all Jews who would not accept Christianity.
The Crusaders planned to move south along the Rhine, where lay the richest settlements in northern Europe. The German Jews played a leading part in the development of Rhenish commerce, and behaved with restraint and piety that had won the respect of Christian laity and clergy alike. Bishop Rüdiger Huzmann of Speyer was on cordial terms with the Jews of his district, and gave them a charter that gave them a guarantee protecting their autonomy and security. In 1095 the emperor Henry IV issued similar charter for all of the Jews in his realm. Upon these peaceful Jewish congregations the news of the crusades its proposed route, and threat of its leaders, broke with paralyzing terror. Some Jews of the city took refuge with Bishop Johannsen, who not only protected them but caused the execution of certain Crusaders shared in the murders at the church in Speyer. At Mainz Archbishop Ruthard hid 1300 Jews in his cellars; Crusaders forced a way in and killed more than one thousand; the bishop was able to save a few by concealing them in the cathedral (1096).
"In the name of the holy and undivided trinity, I, Rüdiger, with the surname of Huozmann, bishop of Speyer, in my endeavor to turn the village of Speyer into a city, believed to multiply its image a thousand times by also inviting Jews. I had them settle outside the quarters of the other inhabitants and as not to have them disquieted by the insolence of the lowly folk I had them surrounded by a wall. Now the place of their habitation which I acquired justly (for in the first place I obtained the hill partly with money and partly by exchange, while I received the valley by way of gift from some heirs) that place, I say, I transferred to them on condition that they pay annually 3 ½ pounds in silver for the use of the brethren. I have granted also to them within the district where they dwell, and from that district outside the town as far as the harbour, and within the harbour itself, full power to change gold and silver, and to buy and sell what they please. And I have also given them license to do this throughout the state. Besides this I have given them land of the church for a cemetery with rights of inheritance. This also I have added that if any Jew should at any time stay with them he shall pay no thelony. Then also just as the judge of the city hears cases between citizens, so the chief rabbi shall hear cases which arise between the Jews or against them. But if by chance he is unable to decide any of them they shall go to the bishop or his chamberlain. They shall maintain watches, guards, and fortifications about their district, the guards in common with our vassals. They may lawfully employ nurses and servants from among our people. Slaughtered meat which they may not eat according to their law they may lawfully sell to Christians, and Christians may lawfully buy it. Finally, to round out these concessions, I have granted that they may enjoy the same privileges as the Jews in any other city of Germany. Lest any of my successors diminish this gift and concession, or constrain them to pay greater taxes, alleging that they have usurped these privileges, and have no episcopal warrant for them, I have left this charter as a suitable testimony of the said grant. And that this may never be forgotten, I have signed it, and confirmed it with my seal as may be seen below. Given on September 15, 1084, etc." [...]
As the Crusaders approached Cologne, the Christians hid the Jews in their homes; the mob burned down the Jewish quarter, and killed the few Jews upon whom they could lay their hands. Bishop Hermann, at great danger to himself, secretly conveyed the Jews from their Christian hiding places to Christian homes in the country; the pilgrims discovered the maneuver and killed every Jew they found. Bishop Arnold of Cologne gave them a fortified castle as refuge. Archbishop Henry at Mainz admitted into his house some Jews pursued by a mob; the mob forced a way in and killed them before his eyes. The Archbishop appealed to St. Bernard, the most influential Christian of his time; Bernard replied with a strong denunciation, and demanded an end to the violence against the Jews. When Rodolphe continued his campaign Bernard came in person to Germany, and forced the monk to return his monastery. Prior to the events at Mainz, Rodolphe left his monastery without permission and preached a pogrom in Germany, and thereby increased the volatility of the tenuous environment. At Wurzburg, Jews were attacked despite the protests of Bishop Embicho, and killed twenty; many others, wounded, were tended by Christians (1147), and the bishop buried the dead in their garden.
"The city of Mainz responded to the Jewish population in a variety of ways, behaving, in a sense, in a bipolar fashion towards them. Sometimes they were allowed freedom and were protected; at other times, they were persecuted. The Jews were expelled in 1012, 1462 (after which they were invited to return), and in 1474. Jews were attacked by mobs in 1283. Outbreaks of theBlack Death were usually blamed on the Jews, at which times they were massacred, such as the burning of about 6,000 Jews alive in 1349." [...]
The Cistercian monk Rodolphe attracted enormous crowds; he preached that Jewish enemies of God must be punished. His preaching was followed by massacres in Strasbourg, Cologne, Mainz, Worms, Speyer, and in other French and German cities. From Germany to France, Jews were massacred at Carentau, Rameru, and Sully. In Bohemia hundreds of Jews were massacred by Crusaders. After the terror had passed, the local Christian clergy did what it could to help the surviving Jews, and those who had accepted baptism under duress were allowed to return to Judaism without incurring the dire penalties of apostasy.
These programs began a long series of violent assaults, which continued till our time. In 1243 the entire population of Belitz, near Berlin, was buried alive on the charge that some of them had defiled a consecrated host. In 1283 an unsolved murder at Baden was blamed to the Jews, and a massacre was ensued. In 1298 every Jew in Rottingen was burned to death on a charge of sacramental desecration. Rindfleisch, a pious baron, organized and armed a band of Christians sworn to kill all Jews; they completely exterminated the Jewish community Wuzburge, and slew 698 Jews at Nuremberg. The persecutions spread, and in half a year hundreds of Jewish congregations were rubbed out. The Jews of Germany, having repeatedly rebuilt their communities after such attacks, lost heart, and in 1286 many Jewish families left Mainz, Worms, Speyer, and other German towns, and migrated to Palestine for a renewal of life and vivacity.
References:
Durant, Will. The Age of Faith: The Story of Civilization
Graetz, Heinrich. History of the Jews
Abrahams, Israel. Jewish Life in the Middle Ages
Michael, Robert. A History of Catholic Antisemitism
Brakke, David. Demons and the Making of the Monk: Spiritual Combat in Early Christianity
Pirenne, Henri.Their Origins and the Revival of Trade
Forge, Charles. Richard the first and the Third crusade
Adler, Cyrus. The Jewish encyclopedia: a descriptive record of the history, ...
Tuchman, Barbara Wertheim. A distant mirror
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