Studien zur Geschichte der Juden im mittleren Rheingebiet während des hohen und späten Mittelalters
Description:... Describes the development of Jewish settlement and communal institutions in the middle Rhine region (including the cities of Speyer, Worms, Mainz, and Frankfurt). Pp. 220-266 chronicle pogroms and expulsions in the 11th-15th centuries, emphasizing, however, that, except for the great wave of pogroms at the time of the Black Death, these were rare local incidents and that generally Jews could live in peace among their Christian neighbors. Discusses the roles of the rulers, both as protectors of Jews and as instigators of persecutions; often the Jews were victims of quarrels between rulers. Among the causes for pogroms mentions the blood libel, closely related to the deicide accusation; the wish to cancel debts to Jewish moneylenders; and, for the great pogroms of 1348-51, which wiped out all the Jewish communities of the region, the Black Death. Jews returned to the region only for a brief period. At the end of the 14th-beginning of the 15th century, unrest in the population caused by economic hardships led to the Jews' expulsion from all the cities of the region.
Show description