Massacres of the Armleder in Alsace

The community of Ribeauvillé, in Upper Alsace, was attacked by the Armleder. The town was under the jurisdiction of the lords of Ribeaupierre, who held their Jews as a seigneurial revenue.

The Alsatian lords welcomed willingly, in their small towns, the Jews whom the free cities excluded, because they drew a protection tax from them. This dispersal among a multitude of lordships gave Alsatian Judaism its distinctive character — rural and village-based — and allowed it to survive where the urban Judaism of Germany disappeared.