How popular hostility was aroused and strengthened is illustrated in a letter addressed, in 1208, by Innocent III to the Count of Nevers. Although, he says, the Jews, against whom the blood of Jesus Christ cries aloud, are not to be slain, lest Christians should forget the divine law, yet are they to be scattered as wanderers over the earth, that their faces may be filled with ignominy and they may seek the name of Jesus Christ. Blasphemers of the Christian name are not to be cherished by princes, in oppression of the servants of the Lord, but are rather to be repressed with servitude, of which they rendered themselves worthy when they laid sacrilegious hands on Him, who had come to give them true freedom, and they cried that His blood should be upon them and their children. Yet when prelates and priests intervene to crush their malice, they laugh at excommunication and nobles are found who protect them. The Count of Nevers is said to be a defender of the Jews; if he does not dread the divine wrath, Innocent threatens to lay hands on him and punish his disobedience.[243] The Cistercian Cæsarius of Heisterbach, in his dialogues for the moral instruction of his fellow monks, tells several stories which illustrate the utter contempt felt for the feelings and rights of Jews, and in one of them there is an allusion to the curious popular belief that the Jews had a vile odor, which they lost in baptism--a belief prolonged, at least in Spain, until the seventeenth century was well advanced.[244] Even so enlightened a prelate as Cardinal Pierre d'Ailly, in 1416, reproves the sovereigns of Christendom for their liberality towards the Jews, which he can attribute only to the vile love of gain; if Jews are allowed to remain, it should be only as servants to Christians.[245] General prohibitions of maltreatment availed little when prelate and priest were busy in inflaming popular aversion and popes were found to threaten any prince hardy enough to interpose and protect the unfortunate race.
Of course under such impulsion there was scant ceremony in dealing with these outcasts in any way that religious ardor might suggest. When, in 1009, the Saracens captured Jerusalem and destroyed the church of the Holy Sepulchre, the rage and indignation of Europe assumed so threatening a form that multitudes of Jews took refuge in baptism.[246] When religious exaltation culminated in the Crusades, it seemed to those who assumed the cross a folly to redeem Palestine while leaving behind the impious race that had crucified the Lord, and everywhere, in 1096, the assembling of crusaders was the signal for Jewish massacre. It would be superfluous to recount in detail the dreary catalogue of wholesale slaughters which for centuries disgraced Europe, whenever fanaticism or the disappearance of a child gave rise to stories of the murder rite, or a blood-stained host suggested sacrilege committed on the sacrament, or some passing evil, such as an epidemic, aroused the populace to bloodshed and rapine. The medieval chronicles are full of such terrible scenes, in which cruelty and greed assumed the cloak of zeal to avenge God; and when, in rare instances, the authorities protected the defenceless, it was ascribed to unworthy motives, as in the case of Johann von Kraichbau, Bishop of Speyer, who, in 1096, not only saved some Jews but beheaded their assailants and was accused of being heavily bribed; nor did Frederic Barbarossa and Ludwig of Bavaria escape similar imputations.[247] It was safer and more profitable to combine piety and plunder as when, in April, 1182, Philip Augustus ordered all Jews to leave France by St. John's day, confiscating their landed property and allowing them to take their personal effects. His grandson, the saintly Louis, resorted without scruple to replenishing his treasury by ransoming the Jews and the latter's grandson, Philippe le Bel, was still more unscrupulous in 1306, when, by a concerted movement, he seized all the Jews in his dominions, stripped them of property, and banished them under pain of death. In England King John, in 1210, cast Jews into prison and tortured them for ransom, and his grandson, Edward I, followed the example of Philip Augustus so effectually that Jews were not allowed to return until the time of Cromwell.[248]