Assault on the palace of Archbishop Ruthard

Mainz was home to the largest and most learned of the Rhineland communities: that of Rabbenou Gershom, "the Light of the Exile," whose ordinances still governed Jewish life in Germany, and the one where Rashi came to study before returning to Troyes.

The Jews took refuge in the palace of Archbishop Ruthard, who had agreed to protect them for payment. The crusaders of Emicho forced the gate. The Hebrew account of those hours is the longest and most detailed of all: it names the families, reports the words exchanged, describes fathers who slaughtered their own on the threshold to spare them baptism.

The archbishop fled; the emperor held him responsible and stripped him of his see for a time. The community was reborn, and it was in Mainz that, in the following century, the Rhineland synods were held that refounded Ashkenazi Jewish law. But the lists of martyrs from that day were read every year, and the Ashkenazi liturgy of Tisha B'Av preserves their trace.