13th–14th centuries
Accusation of poisoning the wells
1348·Zofingue
The toll is reproduced exactly as the source states it — never rounded, never added to another. Tolls overlap from one event to the next.
Jews tortured and executed, their confessions sent to neighboring towns
In Zofingue, in the Argovie, Jews were arrested, tortured and executed on the accusation of having poisoned the town's wells. Their confessions were copied and sent to neighboring towns.
It is this detail that makes Switzerland the cradle of the disaster. The confessions wrested in a few French- and German-speaking towns were circulated as authentic documents, from town to town, throughout the entire Rhine valley. The rumor traveled faster than the epidemic itself: communities were destroyed in towns where the plague had not yet arrived.
- Period :
- 13th–14th centuries
- Type :
- Trials and executions
- Region :
- Western Europe
- Country :
- Suisse
Actes des procès suisses ; Delumeau, La Peur en Occident.