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Early Middle Ages and Crusades

Ritual murder accusation

1195·Spire

Toll
une dizaine

The toll is reproduced exactly as the source states it — never rounded, never added to another. Tolls overlap from one event to the next.

Isaak ben Ascher Halevi and his daughter killed, then the rabbi and eight other Jews; houses looted and burned, Henry VI demands compensation from the city

A Christian woman was found dead on the outskirts of Spire, and the accusation of ritual murder fell upon the community. Isaac ben Asher ha-Lévi, of the family of the first Rhenish commentators, was killed along with his daughter; the rabbi of the city and other members of the community were killed afterward, the houses pillaged and burned, and Isaac's body dragged through the streets.

The survivors made their way to Worms. Emperor Henri VI, who considered the Jews as belonging to his chamber, demanded that the city make amends: the destroyed houses were rebuilt at the burghers' expense and the synagogue restored.

Spire had been, a century earlier, the only Rhenish city where the bishop had protected the Jews against the crusaders. That the accusation of ritual murder — born in England at Norwich, appearing on the continent at Blois — should in turn take hold there is a sign that it had ceased to be a local rumor and become a motif available everywhere.

Period :
Early Middle Ages and Crusades
Type :
Trials and executions
Region :
Western Europe
Country :
Allemagne
Sources

Éphraïm de Bonn, *Sefer Zekhirah* ; *Memorbuch* de Nuremberg ; annales de Marbach.

At the same place4

  1. 3 mai 1096Sabbath attack by the crusaders of Emicho of Flonheim; Bishop Jean shelters the survivors in his castles and has murderers executed11
  2. 1198Attacks during the conflict between Philip of Swabia and Otto of Brunswickinconnu
  3. 1349Black Death massacresinconnu
  4. 1435Riot against the Jewryinconnu

In the same country301

  1. 1012Expulsion of the community by Henri II; Gershom ben Juda, "light of the exile", loses his son there, forcibly convertedtoute la communauté
  2. 1096Massacres of the First Crusade in the Rhineland~800 à Worms, ~1 000 à Mayence ; total 5 000-12 000
  3. 18 et 25 mai 1096Two massacres~800
  4. Mai-juin 1096The archbishop disperses the community in seven neighboring towns; the crusaders massacre them one by one in Juneplusieurs centaines
  5. 27 mai 1096Assault on the palace of Archbishop Ruthard~1 100
  6. Juin 1096The refugees of Cologne take their own lives in the refectory hall at the moment of the Sabbath mealinconnu
  7. Juin 1096Jews driven into the Danube and forcibly baptized en masse; Henry IV would later permit them to return to Judaismtoute la communauté baptisée
  8. Juin 1096Massacre of Cologne refugees in the Middle Rhine towninconnu

And 293 more in the catalogue.

Event 176 of 2483, in chronological order · Early Middle Ages and Crusades: 89 events in the catalogue

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