11. In 1298, 120, 000 German Jews died during the Rintfleisch Massacres
Just over 200 years after the People’s Crusade slaughtered thousands of innocent Jews in the Rhineland, another wave of persecution arrived to Germany’s Jewish population. Jewish people in the Franconia region had historically enjoyed protection from German rulers, but the eruption of civil strife between two rival powers led to a state of lawlessness, which allowed the barely-contained antisemitic feelings of ordinary people to boil over unabated. Vicious Christians rose up after hearing talk of the Jews of Röttingen stealing a communion wafer (the body of Christ miraculously transformed during the Eucharist) and defiling it out of anti-Christian sentiment.
The charge was as ludicrous as it sounds. But to a medieval Christian taught antisemitism in church and surrounded by Judensau illustrations, it was exactly the sort of thing one would expect the murderers of Christ to do. Led by an enigmatic leader named Rintfleisch (‘beef’, suggesting he was a butcher by trade), a mob travelled to Röttingen, rounded up its 21 resident Jews, and burned them alive on April, 20, 1298. The mob then travelled throughout Bavaria, slaying in total 120, 000 men, women, and children in 146 communities. Rintfleisch claimed God authorised him to exterminate the Jews.