Sabbath attack by the crusaders of Emicho of Flonheim; Bishop Jean shelters the survivors in his castles and has murderers executed

Spire was the first of the Rhenish communities to be struck. The attack took place on a Sabbath day, while the community was gathered; it did not last long, because Bishop Jean intervened.

This prelate had founded the community a few years earlier by calling Jews from Mayence, so that his city might profit from them, and he had given them a remarkable charter — the right to trade, to own land, to judge their own affairs. He kept his word: he sheltered the survivors in his castles, pursued the killers and had several of them executed, a measure for which no other Rhenish city offers any equivalent.

Spire was therefore, that year, the only one of the three communities of the *Chum* — Spire, Worms, Mayence — not to be annihilated. The Hebrew chronicles say so in plain terms, and the bishop is named therein with gratitude.