rced to swallow a portion of it. By
this trying state of privation, distrust, and suspicion, the hatred
against the supposed poisoners became greatly increased, and often broke
out in popular commotions, which only served still further to infuriate
the wildest passions. The noble and the mean fearlessly bound themselves
by an oath to extirpate the Jews by fire and sword, and to snatch them
from their protectors, of whom the number was so small, that throughout
all Germany but few places can be mentioned where these unfortunate
people were not regarded as outlaws and martyred and burnt. Solemn
summonses were issued from Bern to the towns of Basle, Freyburg in the
Breisgau, and Strasburg, to pursue the Jews as poisoners. The
burgomasters and senators, indeed, opposed this requisition; but in Basle
the populace obliged them to bind themselves by an oath to burn the Jews,
and to forbid persons of that community from entering their city for the
space of two hundred years. Upon this all the Jews in Basle, whose
number could not have been inconsiderable, were enclosed in a wooden
building, constructed for the purpose, and burnt together with it, upon
the mere outcry of the people, without sentence or trial, which, indeed,
would have availed them nothing. Soon after the same thing took place at
Freyburg. A regular Diet was held at Bennefeld, in Alsace, where the
bishops, lords, and barons, as also deputies of the counties and towns,
consulted how they should proceed with regard to the Jews; and when the
deputies of Strasburg--not indeed the bishop of this town, who proved
himself a violent fanatic--spoke in favour of the persecuted, as nothing
criminal was substantiated against them, a great outcry was raised, and
it was vehemently asked, why, if so, they had covered their wells and
removed their buckets. A sanguinary decree was resolved upon, of which
the populace, who obeyed the call of the nobles and superior clergy,
became but the too willing executioners. Wherever the Jews were not
burnt, they were at least banished; and so being compelled to wander
about, they fell into the hands of the country people, who, without
humanity, and regardless of all laws, persecuted them with fire and
sword. At Spires, the Jews, driven to despair, assembled in their own
habitations, which they set on fire, and thus consumed themselves with
their families. The few that remained were forced to submit to baptism;
while the dead bodies