History of the Jews, Vol. 4 (of 6)

CHAPTER IV.

THE BLACK DEATH

Rise of the False Accusation against Jews of Poisoning the Wells – Massacres in Southern France and Catalonia – The Friendly Bull of Pope Clement VI – Terrible Massacres in all Parts of Germany – Confessions wrung from the Jews on the Rack – The Flagellants as a Scourge for the Jews – King Casimir of Poland – Persecution in Brussels – The Black Death in Spain – Don Pedro the Cruel and the Jews – Santob de Carrion and Samuel Abulafia – Fall of Don Pedro and its Consequences for the Jews – Return of the Jews to France and Germany – The "Golden Bull" – Manessier de Vesoul – Matathiah Meïr Halevi – Synod at Mayence.

The assistance of the pope was of very little use to the Jews, and the protection of the German emperor was like the support of a broken reed. Within ten years they learned this comfortless experience; for soon came most mournful days for the Jewish communities in most parts of Europe where the cross held sway, to which the slaughter by the Leather-arms and the brutal atrocities of Deckendorf were but a weak prelude.

The glimpse of good fortune which the Spanish Jews enjoyed under Alfonso XI served only to bring down upon their brethren in the other Christian countries a widespread, intense, indescribably cruel persecution with which none of the massacres that had hitherto taken place can be compared. The destroying angel called the Black Death, which carried on its ravages for over three years, made its way from China across lands and seas into the heart of Europe, heralded by premonitory earthquakes and other terrifying natural phenomena. Sparing neither rank nor age, it left a devastated track behind, sweeping away a fourth part of all mankind (nearly 25,000,000) as with a poison-laden breath and stifling every noble impulse. In Europe the invisible Death with its horrors turned the Christians into veritable destroying angels for the Jews. Those whom the epidemic had spared were handed over to torture, the sword, or the stake. Whilst neither Mahometans nor Mongols who suffered from the plague attacked the Jews, Christian peoples charged the unhappy race with being the originators of the pestilence, and slaughtered them en masse. The church had so often and impressively preached that infidels were to be destroyed; that Jews were worse than heretics, even worse than unbelieving heathens; that they were the murderers of Christians and the slayers of children, that at last its true sons believed what was said, and carried its doctrines into effect. Owing to the prevailing misery, discipline and order, obedience and submissiveness were at an end, and each man was thrown upon his own resources. Under these circumstances, the effects of the education of the church appeared in a most hideous form. The Black Death had indeed made itself felt among Jews also; but the plague had visited them in a comparatively milder form than the Christians, probably on account of their greater moderation, and the very careful attention paid their sick. Thus the suspicion arose that the Jews had poisoned the brooks and wells, and even the air, in order to annihilate the Christians of every country at one blow.

It was charged that the Spanish Jews, supposed to be in possession of great power and influence over the congregations of Europe, had hit upon this diabolical scheme; that they had dispatched messengers far and wide with boxes containing poison, and by threats of excommunication had coerced the other Jews to aid in carrying out their plans, and that these directions issued from Toledo, which might be viewed as the Jewish capital. The infatuated populace went so far as to name the man who had delivered these orders and the poison. It was Jacob Pascate, said they, from Toledo, who had settled in Chambery (in Savoy), from which as a center he had sent out a troop of Jewish poisoners into all countries and cities. This Jacob, together with a Rabbi Peyret, of Chambery, and a rich Jew, Aboget, was said to have dealt largely in the manufacture and sale of poisons. The poison, prepared by the Jewish doctors of the black art in Spain, was reported to be concocted from the flesh of a basilisk, or from spiders, frogs and lizards, or from the hearts of Christians and the dough of the consecrated wafers. These and similar silly stories invented by ignorant, or, perhaps, malicious people, and distorted and exaggerated by the heated imagination, were credited not alone by the ignorant mob, but even by the higher classes. The courts of justice earnestly strove to learn the real truth of these rumors, and employed the means for confirming a suspicion used by the Christians of the Middle Ages with especial skill – torture in every possible form.

As far as can be ascertained, these tales concerning the poisoning of the brooks and wells by Jews first found credence in southern France, where the Black Death as early as the beginning of the year 1348 had obtained many victims. In a certain town of southern France, on one day (the middle of the month of May), the whole Jewish congregation, men, women, and children, together with their holy writings, were cast into the flames. From that place the slaughter spread to Catalonia and Aragon. In these provinces, in the same year, anarchy was rife, because the nobles and people had revolted against the king, Don Pedro, in order to secure certain of their privileges against the encroachments of the monarch. When the tales of the poisoning of the wells had taken firm root in the minds of the people of these countries also, the inhabitants of Barcelona gathered together on a Saturday (towards the end of June), slew about twenty persons, and pillaged the Jewish houses. The most distinguished men of the city received the persecuted people under their protection, and aided by a terrible storm, loud thunder and flashes of lightning, they made a successful attack upon the deluded or plunder-seeking assailants of the Jews.

A few days later the community at Cervera was attacked in a similar manner, eighteen of its members killed, and the rest compelled to flee. The Jewish philosopher, Vidal Narboni, happened to be in the town, and in the assault he lost his possessions and his books. All the congregations of northern Spain knew themselves in danger of being attacked; they instituted public fasts, implored mercy from heaven, and barricaded those of their quarters which were surrounded by walls. In Aragon, however, the higher classes came to the help of the Jews. Pope Clement VI, who had taken so much interest in the astronomical works of Gersonides, and who, terrified at the approach of death, had shut himself up in his room, still felt for the sufferings of an innocent, persecuted people. He issued a bull in which, under pain of excommunication, he prohibited anyone from killing the Jews without proper judicial sentence, or from dragging them by force to be baptized, or from despoiling them of their goods (the beginning of July). This bull was probably of some use in southern France, but in the other parts of the Christian world it produced no effect. One country followed the example of another. The ideally beautiful region surrounding Lake Geneva next became the scene of a most frightful persecution. At the command of Amadeus, duke of Savoy at that time, several Jews suspected of poisoning were arrested and imprisoned in two small towns, Chillon and Chatel, on Lake Geneva. A commission of judges was appointed to inquire into the charges brought against the prisoners, and, if convicted, they were to be severely punished. In this country, then, a prince and his tribunal believed the preposterous fable of the poisoning by Jews. On the Day of Atonement (15th September, 1348), three Jews and a Jewess in Chillon were made to undergo torture: the surgeon Valavigny, from Thonon, Bandito and Mamson, from Ville-Neuve, and, three weeks later, Bellieta and her son Aquet. In their pain and despair, they told the names of the persons from whom they had received the poison, and admitted that they had scattered it in different spots near wells and brooks. They denounced themselves, their co-religionists, their parents and their children as guilty. Ten days later the merciless judges again applied the torture to the enfeebled woman and her son, and they vied with each other in their revelations. In Chastelard five Jews were put to the torture, and they made equally incredible confessions of guilt. Aquet made the wild statement that he had placed poison in Venice, in Apulia and Calabria, and in Toulouse, in France. The secretaries took down all these confessions in writing, and they were verified by the signatures of their authors. To remove all doubts concerning their trustworthiness, the crafty judges added that the victims were only very lightly tortured. In consequence of these disclosures, not only the accused who acknowledged their crime, but all the Jews in the region of Lake Geneva and in Savoy were burnt at the stake.

The report of the demonstrated guilt of the Jews rapidly made its way from Geneva into Switzerland, and here scenes of blood of the same horrible description were soon witnessed. The consuls of Berne sent for the account of the proceedings of the courts of justice at Chillon and Chastelard. They then put certain Jews to the torture, extracted confessions from them, and kindled the funeral pyre for all the Jews (September).

The annihilation of the Jews on the charge of poisoning was now systematically carried out, beginning with Berne and Zofingen (canton Aargau). The consuls of Berne addressed letters to Basle, Freiburg, Strasburg, Cologne, and many other places, with the announcement that the Jews had been found guilty of the crime imputed to them; and also sent a Jew, bound in chains, under convoy, to Cologne, that every one might be convinced of the diabolical plans of the Jews. In Zurich the charge of poisoning the wells was raised together with that of the murder of a Christian child. There, also, those who appeared to be guilty were burnt at the stake, the rest of the community expelled from the town, and a law passed forbidding them ever to return thither (21st September). The persecution of the Jews extended northwards with the pestilence. Like the communities around Lake Geneva, Jews in the cities surrounding Lake Constance, in St. Gall, Lindau, Ueberlingen, Schaffhausen, Constance (Costnitz), and others, were burnt at the stake, put to the wheel, or sentenced to expulsion or compulsory baptism. Once again Pope Clement VI took up the cause of the Jews; he published a bull to the whole of Catholic Christendom, in which he declared the innocence of the Jews regarding the charge leveled against them. He produced all possible reasons to show the absurdity of the accusation, stating that in districts where no Jew lived the people were visited by the pestilence, and that Jews also suffered from its terrible effects. It was of no avail that he admonished the clergy to take the Jews under their protection, and that he placed the false accusers and the murderers under the ban (September). The child had become more powerful than its parent, wild fancy stronger than the papacy.

Nowhere was the destruction of the Jews prosecuted with more thoroughness and more intense hatred than in the Holy Roman Empire. In vain the newly-elected emperor, Charles IV, of Luxemburg, issued letter after letter forbidding the persons of the Jews, his "servi cameræ," to be touched. Even had he possessed more power in Germany, he would not have found the German people willing to spare the Jews. The Germans did not commit their fearful outrages upon the Jews merely for the sake of plunder, although a straightforward historian of that epoch, Closener of Strasburg, remarks that "their goods were the poison which caused the death of the Jews." Sheer stupidity made them believe that Jews had poisoned the wells and rivers. The councils of various towns ordered that the springs and wells be walled in, so that the citizens be not poisoned, and they had to drink rain water or melted snow. Was it not just that the Jews, the cause of this evil, should suffer?

There were some too sensible to share the delusion that the Jews were the cause of the great mortality. These few men deserve a place in history, for, despite their danger, they could feel and act humanely. In the municipal council of Strasburg, the burgomaster Conrad (Kunze) of Wintertur, the sheriff, Gosse Sturm, and the master workman, Peter Swaber, took great trouble to prove the Jews innocent of the crimes laid at their door, and defended them against the fanatical attack of the mob and even against the bishop. The councilors of Basle and Freiburg likewise took the part of the unhappy people. The council of Cologne wrote to the representatives of Strasburg that it would follow the example of the latter town with regard to the Jews; for it was convinced that the pestilence was to be considered as a visitation from God. It would, therefore, not permit the Jews to be persecuted on account of groundless reports, but would protect them with all its power, as in former times. In Basle, however, the guilds and a mob rose in rebellion against the council, repaired with their flags to the city hall, insisted that the patricians who had been banished on account of their action against the Jews, should be recalled, and the Jews banished from the city. The council was compelled to comply with the first demand; as to the second, it deferred its decision until a day of public meeting, when this matter was to be considered. In Benfelden (Alsace) a council was actually held to consider the course to be followed with regard to Jews. There were present Bishop Berthold of Strasburg, barons, lords, and representatives of the towns. The representatives of Strasburg bravely maintained the cause of the Jews, even against the bishop, who either from malice or stupidity was in favor of their complete destruction. Although they repeatedly demonstrated that the Jews could not be the cause of the pestilence, they were out-voted, and it was decided to banish the Jews from all the cities on the upper Rhine (towards the close of 1348).

The Jews of Alsace, through the decision of Benfelden, were declared outlaws, and were either expelled from the various places they visited, or burnt. A hard fate overtook the community of Basle. On an island of the Rhine, in a house especially built for the purpose, they were burnt to death (January 9th, 1349), and it was decided that within the next two hundred years no Jew should be permitted to settle in that city. A week later all the Jews of Freiburg were burnt at the stake with the exception of twelve of the richest men, who were permitted to live that they might disclose the names of their creditors, for the property of the victims fell to the community. The community of Speyer was the first sacrifice amongst the communities of the Rhineland. The mob rose up and killed several Jews, others burning themselves in their houses, and some going over to Christianity. The council of Speyer took the property of the Jews, and confiscated their estates in the neighborhood. The council of Strasburg remained firm in its protection of the Jews, sending out numerous letters to obtain proofs of their innocence. But from many sides came unfavorable testimony. The council of Zähringen said that it was in possession of the poison the Jews had scattered. When tried it proved fatal to animals. The council would not let it go out of its hands, but would show it to a messenger.

A castellan of Chillon had the confessions of the Jews tortured in the district of Lake Geneva copied, and sent them to the council of Strasburg. Only the council of Cologne encouraged Wintertur to support the cause of the Jews, and to take no notice of the demands of their enemies. At length the trade-guilds rose against Wintertur and his two colleagues, who were deposed from office. A new council was chosen that favored the persecutions of the Jews. In the end, the entire community of Strasburg – 2,000 souls – were imprisoned. The following day, on a Sabbath (14th February, 1349), they were all dragged to the burial ground. Stakes were erected, and they were burnt to death. Only those who in despair accepted the cross were spared. The new council decreed that for a period of a hundred years no Jew should be admitted into Strasburg. The treasures of the Jews were divided amongst the burghers, some of whom were loth to defile themselves with the money, and, by the advice of their confessors, devoted it to the church.

Next came the turn of Worms, the oldest Jewish community in Germany. The Jews of this town had the worst to fear from their Christian fellow-citizens, Emperor Charles IV having given them and their possessions to the town in return for services, so that "the city and the burghers of Worms might do unto the Jews and Judaism as they wished, might act as with their own property." When the council decreed that the Jews should be burnt, the unfortunates determined to anticipate the death which awaited them from the hangman. Twelve Jewish representatives are said to have repaired to the town hall and begged for mercy. When this was refused to them, they are said to have drawn forth the weapons concealed in their clothes, to have fallen on the councilors, and killed them. This story is legendary; but it is a fact that nearly all the Jews of Worms set fire to their houses, and that more than 400 persons were burned to death (10th Adar–1st March, 1349). The Jews of Oppenheim likewise burnt themselves to death to escape being tortured as poisoners (end of July). The community of Frankfort remained secure so long as the rival emperors, Charles IV and Gunther of Schwarzburg, were fighting in that neighborhood; the latter holding his court in Frankfort. When he died, and the contest was ended, the turn of the Jews of Frankfort came to be killed. On being attacked they burned themselves in their houses, causing a great conflagration in the city. In Mayence, where the Jews had hitherto been spared, a thief, during a flagellation scene, stole his neighbor's purse. An altercation arose, and the mob seized the opportunity to attack the Jews. They had, no doubt, been prepared, and 300 of them took up arms, and killed 200 of the mob. This aroused the anger of the entire Christian community, which likewise took to arms. The Jews fought a considerable time; at length, overpowered by the enemy, they set fire to their houses (24th August). Nearly 6,000 Jews are said to have perished in Mayence. In Erfurt, out of a community of 3,000 souls, not one person survived, although the council, after their slaughter in the whole of Thuringia, including Eisenach and Gotha, had long protected them. In Breslau, where a considerable community dwelt, the Jews were completely destroyed. Emperor Charles gave orders to seize the murderers and give them their due punishment. But he had taken no steps to hinder the horrible slaughter enacted everywhere, although informed of the plots against the Jews. In Austria, also, the outcry was made that the Jews were poisoners, and terrible scenes ensued. In Vienna, on the advice of Rabbi Jonah, all the members of the congregation killed themselves in the synagogue. In Krems, where there was a large congregation, the populace of the town, assisted by that of a neighboring place named Stein and the villages, attacked the Jews, who set fire to their houses and died (September, 1349), only a few being saved.