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,