and burnt alive (Fig.
362). In order to perpetuate the memory of the miracle of the bleeding
hosts, an annual procession took place, which was the origin of the great
kermesse, or annual fair.

In the event of any unforeseen misfortune, or any great catastrophe
occurring amongst Christians, the odium was frequently cast on the Jews.
If the Crusaders met with reverses in Asia, fanatics formed themselves
into bands, who, under the name of _Pastoureaux_, spread over the country,
killing and robbing not only the Jews, but many Christians also. In the
event of any general sickness, and especially during the prevalence of
epidemics, the Jews were accused of having poisoned the water of fountains
and pits, and the people massacred them in consequence. Thousands perished
in this way when the black plague made ravages in Europe in the fourteenth
century. The sovereigns, who were tardy in suppressing these sanguinary
proceedings, never thought of indemnifying the Jewish families which so
unjustly suffered.

[Illustration: Fig. 362.--The Jews of Cologne burnt alive.--From a Woodcut
in the "Liber Chronicarum Mundi:" large folio, Nuremberg, 1493.]

In fact, it was then most religiously believed that, by despising and
holding the Jewish nation under the yoke, banished as it was from Judaea
for the murder of Jesus Christ, the will of the Almighty was being carried
out, so much so that the greater number of kings and princes looked upon
themselves as absolute masters over the Jews who lived under their
protection. All feudal lords spoke with scorn of _their Jews_; they
allowed them to establish themselves on their lands, but on the condition
that as they became the subjects and property of their lord, the latter
should draw his best income from them.

We have shown by an instance borrowed from the history of England that the
Jews were often mortgaged by the kings like land. This was not all, for
the Jews who inhabited Great Britain during the reign of Henry III., in
the middle of the thirteenth century, were not only obliged to
acknowledge, by voluntarily contributing large sums of money, the service
the King's brother had rendered them in clearing them from the imputation
of having had any participation in the murder of the child Richard, but
the loan on mortgage, for which they were the material and passive
security, became the cause of odious extortions from them. The King had
pledged them to the Earl of Cornwall for 5,000 marks