THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA
Alsace
(hite of 1223; but most of the remainder are of the fourteentli century. The second code of laws, promulgated by the prince-bishop of Strasburg about the year 1200, jiresi'ribed that the Jews of that city should furnish the episcopal standards ("iTkuiutcubuch der Stadl In 12;i;i a Jews' quarfir exStrassburf;," i. 4.'^1). isted in the city C'Urkundenb. " i. l.^.-i), and the (enn " was applied to some of the Christian inhab"Jew itants either as a sobriquet, or because they Wi're descended from baptized Israelites. Under the emperor Frederick II., there were Jews in Hagenau (Hicher de Lenones, ad annum Vi'M: Hoelnner. "Fonles," iii. !)S); and. some time later (about 12()0). those of Weissenburg were accused of ritual nuirdcr. and expelled from the town (" Annales de Colmar"; Hochmer, "Fontes," ii. 4). The author of Ibe anonymous appendi.x to the "'Annales de Colmar" (about i;!(IO) chyrurgici pauei, ]iliysi(i says: "In Alsatia paticiores; Judei pauci; hareliei in locis phirimis abundabant" (In Alsjitia there were few surtreons and fewer physicians; Jews also were few, but in most places heretics aljounded: "Annales de Colmar," ed. Gerard et Liblin, p. 230). When the bishop of Strasburg, Walter von Geroldseck, quarreled with the citizens, one of his grievances was the maltreatment of the Jews by his rebellious subjects; and in an agreement entered into with his successor the town council engaged not to exact the payment of imposts from the Jews for five years (" Urkundenb." i.
Another tombstone bore the
.
.
.
374).
For nearly three quarters of a century the Jews of Alsace were simply tolerated but in the last decade of the thirteenth century their perseEra of cution began. In 1290 the people of Persecu- Miilhausen rose against the Jewish tion. usurers. One of them, a certain Solman of Neuenburg, was beaten to death by the mob; and King Rudolph I. l>v proclamation annulled all debts to the Jews, amounting to 200 silver mark.s— about S20. 000 or ,£4.000 of the present day (Mosmaim. "Cartulaire de Mulhouse," i. 88). Two years later (1292) the Jews of Colmar were accused of ritual murder, and a ri(jt ensued (Boehmer, During the following year the "Fontes," ii. 30). people of Rufach, aided perhaps by the avaricious
clergy, began to show intolerance toward the Jews of that city, who tied precipitately to Colmar (///. ii. 31). In the "Annales de Colmar'" (p. 168) it is recorded that in 1296 a Jew of Sulzmutt, having been accused of theft, was hanged by his feet on a gibbet and remained in this position for eight days, when, according to the account, he succeeded in freeing himself. Another Jew was murdered at Ensisheim in 1299
(tb. p.
182).
Persecution, once begun, diminished somewhat at certain intervals, but never ceased entirely. When Kins; Henry VII. of Germany in 1308 delivered the Jews of Rufach and Sulzmatt to John of Dirjilieim, bishop of Strasburg, several of them were imprisoned, and others perished at the stake for unknown reasons. A second massacre of the Jews occurred in Rufach in the year 1338, on the anniversjiry of the conversion of St. Paul: and .shortly afterward nearly all the Jews were expelled, at least temporarily, from the bishopric of Upper Alsace ("Alsatia Illustrata," iv. 262).
was particuscattered over the neighboring country: and from the meager records of contemporary writers it appears that the movement against them ultimately developed into a general uprising of the peasantry. In Jlay, 1337. Urabehoven, a knight of Dorlisheim, and Zimberlin, a
The
period between 1337 and 1338
larly vuifortunate for the
Jews
456
noble of Andlau (according to another authority, a simple innkeeper), collectively taking the name of " Kiinig AiiMi.KDiCK " (King lieather-arm). placed themselves at the head of a mob of peasants and niassjicred the Jews of Ensisheim, Massacres. MUhlhaiisen. Rufach, and other towns.
They
Ihi'U
marched on Colmar
anil
summoned
the magistnites of the city to surrender the Jews to them; but the citizens of Sirasliurg having decided to assist in the defense of the threatened city, the mob dispersed ("Chroniiiue <le Kienigshoven," ed. Hegel, p. 7.')9). At about the same time the Jews of Riheauville. who in 1331 ha<l been turned over by Louis of Uavaria to the Sieur de Ribeaupierre as surely tor a loan of 40(1 marks in silver (corresponding to Sso.ooo of tlut ])re.sent day),
were accu.scd of Ijcini; jKiisoners and were massacred ("Alsjxtia Illustrata," iv. 2(i2i. Isolated cases of murder also oecurre<l at Strasburg. In 1337 a Jew accused of killingalittlegirl was bvirned and the child was buried with great
liomp. and honored by the crowd as a martyr (Grandidier, "
Nouvelles (Kuvres Im'dites." v. 344). Still Strasburg pniclii ally remained the city of refuge for the Jews of AI,s;iee up to about the middle of the fourteenth century; and as its comStrasburg merce and industry developed, the imjierial free city adjusted its relations a City of Refuge, with the .lewsinamannerthat. though onerous,
was
at least endurable.
In
accordance with an agreement made in 132.'"), the .lews occupied a quarter of their own in the eily of Strasburg anil had their own cemetery (" Urkundenb." ii. 394). If they could not acquire real estate, they were not compelled to submit their actions at law to any judges other than the mayor a privilege that assured them a measure of protection, though it was doubt-
—
A
certilicate of protection (Srhntzhriif) issued in 1338 to sixteen persons, and valid for five years, cost 1,072 marks, of which 1.000 were jiayablc to the city, 60 to the king, and 12 to the bi.shop. As compensation fortius, the Jewswere permitted toengage in money-lending; the rate on loans being fi.xed for them at .5 or 6 per cent a week, or at 43 per cent less costly.
annum ("Chronique de Ka'nigshoven,"
ed. Heappend, iv. 977). The degree of culture among these Jews is shown, at least relatively, by the fragments of their gravestones which have recently been unearlhcd. and by
per
gel,
the fact that Jews of other cities attended the lectures of the rabbis of Strasburg. There is still e.xtant a letter of the mayor of Sehlettstadt to the mayor of Stra.sburg jmiying the latter to allow some of the .lews of the former place to sojourn in Strasburg, in order that they might take advantage of the teaching of the rabbis there ("Urkundenb." v. 1029). Then came that horrible "year of terror." which descended upon all Alsace and swept away most of its Jewish communities. A letter of " Confes- Rudolph of Oron, bailiff of Lau.sanne sions" (Nov. 1.5, 1348). announced to the Under Tor- mayor of Strasburg that certain .lews of Lausjinne had confessed, under torture. ture, that by order of, and in collusion with, their coreligionists of Italy they bad poisoned all the wells in the Rhine valley. It was, they said, to avenge the cruelties of King Leather-arm that the Jews spread around this poison, which would not kill them, but would kill the Christians ("Urkundenb." V. 164-210). In December. 1348, the city council of Obemai (Enhcim) notified that of Strasburg that they had put to the torture five Jews, arrested at the last large fair at Speyer, and that these had admitted their participation in this crime
