Pathogenesis: A History of the World in Eight Plagues

by Jonathan Kennedy

In 1348, Pope Clement VI issued two papal bulls that pointed to fundamental flaws in the well-poisoning libel: Jews were dying in similar numbers to gentiles in continental Europe and the plague was also devastating England, which had expelled its Jewish community in 1290. The Patriarch condemned those taking part in attacks on Jews as having been “seduced by that liar, the devil” and threatened them with excommunication. But his intervention had limited impact. The most powerful secular leader in Europe, Charles IV, the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia, encouraged the violence.[*1] He offered the Archbishop of Trier the property of those Jews in Alsace “who have already been or may still be killed” and promised the Margrave of Brandenburg the best three houses in Nuremberg “when there is next a massacre of the Jews.”[25] Local political elites took advantage of the situation too. In Cologne, Jewish property was split between the town council and archbishop, and the proceeds were used to beautify the cathedral and build a new town hall. In Augsburg, the man who opened the town gates to assailants from outside—the Bürgermeister, Heinrich Portner—was heavily indebted to Jewish moneylenders.[26] After the massacre, there was no one left alive to collect the money owed.