va, where the first criminal proceedings
were instituted against them, after they had long before been accused by
the people of poisoning the wells; similar scenes followed in Bern and
in Freiburg, in 1349. Under the influence of excruciating suffering, the
tortured Jews confessed themselves guilty of the crime imputed to them;
and it being affirmed that poison had in fact been found in a well at
Zofingen, this was deemed a sufficient proof to convince the world; and
the persecution of the abhorred culprits thus appeared justifiable.

Already in the autumn of 1348 a dreadful panic, caused by this supposed
poisoning, seized all nations; in Germany, especially, the springs and
wells were built over, that nobody might drink of them or employ their
contents for culinary purposes; and for a long time the inhabitants of
numerous towns and villages used only river and rain-water. The city
gates were also guarded with the greatest caution: only confidential
persons were admitted; and if medicine or any other article which might
be supposed to be poisonous was found in the possession of a
stranger--and it was natural that some should have these things by them
for private use--he was forced to swallow a portion of it. By this
trying state of privation, distrust, and suspicion the hatred against
the supposed poisoners became greatly increased, and often broke out in
popular commotions, which only served still further to infuriate the
wildest passions.

The noble and the mean fearlessly bound themselves by an oath to
extirpate the Jews by fire and sword, and to snatch them from their
protectors, of whom the number was so small that throughout all Germany
but few places can be mentioned where these unfortunate people were not
regarded as outlaws and martyred and burned. Solemn summonses were
issued from Bern to the towns of Basel, Freiburg in Breisgau, and
Strasburg, to pursue the Jews as poisoners. The burgomasters and
senators, indeed, opposed this requisition; but in Basel the populace
obliged them to bind themselves by an oath to burn the Jews and to
forbid persons of that community from entering their city for the space
of two hundred years. Upon this, all the Jews in Basel, whose number
could not have been inconsiderable, were enclosed in a wooden building,
constructed for the purpose, and burned, together with it, upon the mere
outcry of the people, without sentence or trial, which, indeed, would
have availed them nothing. S