The Erfurt massacre was a

massacre A massacre is the killing of a large number of people or animals, especially those who are not involved in any fighting or have no way of defending themselves. A massacre is generally considered to be morally unacceptable, especially when per ...

of the Jewish community in

Erfurt Erfurt () is the capital and largest city in the Central German state of Thuringia. It is located in the wide valley of the Gera river (progression: ), in the southern part of the Thuringian Basin, north of the Thuringian Forest. It sits i ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, on 21 March 1349. Accounts of the number of Jews killed in the massacre vary widely from between 100 and up to 3000. Any Jewish survivors were expelled from the city. Some Jews set fire to their homes and possessions and perished in the flames before they could be lynched. The many

Black Death persecutions There were a series of violent attacks, massacres and mass persecutions of Jews during the Black Death. Jewish communities were falsely blamed for outbreaks of the Black Death in Europe. Violence were committed from 1348 to 1351 in Toulon, Barcelo ...

and massacres that occurred in France and Germany at that time were sometimes in response to accusations that the Jews were responsible for outbreaks of the

Black Death The Black Death (also known as the Pestilence, the Great Mortality or the Plague) was a bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Western Eurasia and North Africa from 1346 to 1353. It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causi ...

, and other times justified with the belief that killing the local Jews would prevent the spread of the Black Death to that locale. Although these beliefs, and the accompanying massacres, were frequently encouraged by local bishops or itinerant Flagellants, the Catholic Church, including

Pope Clement VI Pope Clement VI ( la, Clemens VI; 1291 – 6 December 1352), born Pierre Roger, was head of the Catholic Church from 7 May 1342 to his death in December 1352. He was the fourth Avignon pope. Clement reigned during the first visitation of the Bla ...

under whom the Flagellants and the Black Death began, and his successor, Innocent VI, were firmly against it. In a papal bull condemning the Flagellant movement in late 1349, Pope Clement VI criticized their "shedding the blood of Jews". Erfurt later suffered the ravages of the Black Plague, where over 16,000 residents died during a ten-week period in 1350. Among those murdered was prominent Talmudist Alexander Suslin. A few years after the 1349 massacre, Jews moved back to Erfurt and founded a second community, which was disbanded by the city council in 1458.

Erfurt manuscripts

Massacres were generally accompanied by extensive looting. The items looted in the Erfurt massacre included the Erfurt manuscripts, written in Hebrew, including a

Tosefta The Tosefta (Jewish Babylonian Aramaic: תוספתא "supplement, addition") is a compilation of the Jewish oral law from the late 2nd century, the period of the Mishnah. Overview In many ways, the Tosefta acts as a supplement to the Mishnah ( ...

, which is now the oldest surviving such manuscript, dating to the 12th century. After the massacre, the Erfurt manuscripts, including the Tosefta, came into the possession of Erfurt City Council and in the late 17th century ended up in the library of the Lutheran Erfurt Evangelical Church Library, at Erfurt's former Augustinian Monastery. They were found in the church library in 1879 and 16 of these manuscripts were transferred in 1880 to the Royal Library in Berlin, the present day

Berlin State Library The Berlin State Library (german: Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin; officially abbreviated as ''SBB'', colloquially ''Stabi'') is a universal library in Berlin, Germany and a property of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. It is one of the larg ...

, where they are now kept, and called the Erfurt Collection.Erfurt Collection: Erfurt Hebrew Manuscripts
(Accessed: 8 June 2017) According to one reference, there are bloodstains on the Tosefta manuscript. Many of the Jews of Erfurt preemptively hid their valuables before the attack. One such hidden cache of valuables probably belonging to merchant Kalman of Wiehe was found in 1998. The cache is now referred to as the

Erfurt Treasure The Erfurt Treasure is a hoard of coins, goldsmiths' work and jewellery that is assumed to have belonged to a Jew of Erfurt, Germany who hid them in 1349 before perishing in the Erfurt massacre, one of the persecutions and massacres of Jews dur ...

and is on permanent display at the newly restored 11th-century Old Synagogue museum in Erfurt.

References

{{Massacres of Jews 14th-century massacres Massacres in Germany Medieval anti-Jewish pogroms Jewish German history Black Death

1349 Year 1349 ( MCCCXLIX) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events January–December * January 22 – An earthquake affects L'Aquila in southern Italy with a maximum Merca ...

Conflicts in 1349 1340s in the Holy Roman Empire 1349 in Europe Epidemic riots

Erfurt manuscripts

See also

References