An interesting example remains to us in Boccaccio's
"Decameron," whose stories were told by a group of pleasure-lovers who
had fled from plague-stricken Florence.
In many localities the hatred of the Jews by the people led to frightful
excesses of persecution against them, they being accused by their
enemies of poisoning the wells. From Berne, where the city councils
gave orders for the massacre, it spread over the whole of Switzerland
and Germany, many thousands being murdered. At Mayence it is said that
twelve thousand Jews were massacred. At Strasburg two thousand were
burned in one pile. Even the orders of the emperor failed to put an end
to the slaughter. All the Jews who could took refuge in Poland, where
they found a protector in Casimir, who, like a second Ahasuerus,
extended his aid to them from love for Esther, a beautiful Jewess. From
that day to this Poland has swarmed with Jews.
This persecution was discountenanced by Pope Clement VI. in two bulls,
in the first of which he ordered that the Jews should not be made the
victims of groundless charges or injured in person or property without
the sentence of a lawful judge.
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