Alleged ritual murder, executions

A child was found dead in Diessenhofen, on the Rhine. A Christian servant in the household of a Jew from the city confessed under torture that he had been paid to kill the child, then recanted; he was executed, and the accusation was turned against the community.

The arrests spread to Schaffhouse and Winterthour, and members of these communities were burned. Neighboring towns were less concerned with the substance of the matter than with its form: the Jews fell under their jurisdictions and contributed to their revenues, and the affair was brought before the imperial authorities.

It belongs to the series of ritual murder trials which, from the Upper Rhine to Swabia, preceded by half a century the expulsions from the cities of the Empire: where violence did not suffice, judicial procedure did the rest.