Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/396

 ogQ GERMANY. It was not only by t-lie massacre of the Jews that the people sought to placate the wrath of God. The gregarious enthusiasm of which we have seen so many instances was by no means extinct. In 1320 France had seen another asseinblage of the Pastoureaux, when the dumb population arose, armed only with banners, for the conquest of the Holy Land, and an innumerable multitude wandered over the land, peaceably at first, but subsequently showmg their devotion by attacking the Jews, and finally manifesting their antagonism to the hierarchy by plundering the ecclesiastics and the churches, until they were dispersed with the sword and put out of the way with the halter. In 1334 the great Dominican preacher, Venturino da Bergamo, roused the population of Lom- bardy to so keen a sense of the necessity of propitiating God that he organized a pilgrimage to Rome for the sake of obtammg par- dons, variously estimated as consisting of from ten thousand o three miUions of penitents. Clothed in white, with black cloaks 1349-Henrici Rebdorff. Chron. ann. 1347.- Albert! Argent, de Gestis Bertold. Ztisius, II. 17T).-Mascaro, Me.orias de ««- ann 1348^Gesta T.v.ror. ann. 1349.-Chron. Cornel. Zantfliet (Martene Ampl. Coll. V. 253-4).-Erphurd. Variloq. ann. 1348-9 (Menken. II. 506-7). Accusations such as were brought against the Jews were no new thmg. In 1331 all the lepers throughout Languedoc were burned on the charge that they had been bribed by the Jews to poison the wells. Doubtless torture wa^ e.u- p oyed to obtain the confessions which were freely made. The story went tha the Kin. of Granada, finding himself hard pressed by the Christ.ans gave gre t umfto^leading Jews to effect in this way the "«-«f ""^;- J^^:, Jews fearing that they would be suspected, employed the lepers. Four great c undls of lepers were held in various parts of Europe, where every lazar-house was represented except two in England ; there the attempt was reserved upo and the poison was distributed. King Philippe le Long was in Po.tou at the time- when the news was brought him he returned precipitately to Pan», rnce he issued orders for the seizure of all the lepers of the kingdom. Num- bers of them were burned, as well as Jews. At the royal castle of Ch.non, nea Tours, an immense trench was dug, and filled with blazing wood, where, m a ■ r,lle day,one hundred and sixty Jews were burned. Many of them, of ei h sex%an/gayly as though going to a wedding, and leaped into the flames, w, le molhers cast in their children for fear that they would be taken and baptized by The Christians present. The royal treasury is said to have acquired one hundred and fifty thousand livres from the property of Jews turned and exde.h- GuiUel. Nangiac. Contin. ann. I321.-Grandes Chroniques V. 345-ol.-Chron. Cornel. Zantfliet. ann. 1321.