of his cities
which had persecuted the Jews--a vain and inhuman proceeding which,
moreover, is not exempt from the suspicion of covetousness; yet he was
unable, in his own fortress of Kyberg, to protect some hundreds of Jews,
who had been received there, from being barbarously burned by the
inhabitants.

Several other princes and counts, among whom was Ruprecht of the
Palatinate, took the Jews under their protection, on the payment of
large sums; in consequence of which they were called "Jew-masters," and
were in danger of being attacked by the populace and by their powerful
neighbors. These persecuted and ill-used people--except, indeed, where
humane individuals took compassion on them at their own peril, or when
they could command riches to purchase protection--had no place of refuge
left but the distant country of Lithuania, where Boleslav V, Duke of
Poland, 1227-1279, had before granted them liberty of conscience; and
King Casimir the Great, 1333-1370, yielding to the entreaties of Esther,
a favorite Jewess, received them, and granted them further protection;
on which account that country is still inhabited by a great number of
Jews, who by their secluded habits have, more than any people in Europe,
retained the manners of the Middle Ages.

GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO

When the evil had become universal in Florence, the hearts of all the
inhabitants were closed to feelings of humanity. They fled from the sick
and all that belonged to them, hoping by these means to save themselves.
Others shut themselves up in their houses, with their wives, their
children and households, living on the most costly food, but carefully
avoiding all excess. None was allowed access to them; no intelligence of
death or sickness was permitted to reach their ears; and they spent
their time in singing and music and other pastimes.

Others, on the contrary, considered eating and drinking to excess,
amusements of all descriptions, the indulgence of every gratification,
and an indifference to what was passing around them as the best
medicine, and acted accordingly. They wandered day and night from one
tavern to another, and feasted without moderation or bounds. In this way
they endeavored to avoid all contact with the sick, and abandoned their
houses and property to chance, like men whose death-knell had already
tolled.

Amid this general lamentation and woe, the influence and authority of
every law, human and divine, vanished. Most of those who