In the year of the Lord 1347, there was such great plague and mortality in almost the whole world that, according to the estimate of trustworthy people, scarcely one person in ten survived. People did not remain sick for long, but soon died on the second or third day. The plague raged so fiercely that many cities and villages were left entirely empty of people.

In Bologna, Venice, Montpellier, Avignon, Marseille and Toulouse, in each city, a thousand people commonly died in a single day. The plague was still raging powerfully in France, Normandy, England and Ireland.

Some said that this pestilence came from corruption of the air. Others, however, said that the Jews had wanted to destroy all of Christendom by poison and had poisoned wells and springs everywhere throughout the lands. Many Jews, after being tortured, confessed this: that they had raised spiders and toads in pots and cauldrons, and that they had obtained poison from lands beyond the sea. They also said that this crime was not known to all the Jewish people, but only to the more powerful among them, so that it would not be made public.

As evidence for the truth of so great a crime, they said that little sacks full of poison had been found in many wells and springs. Therefore, throughout all Germany, in cities, towns, villages, fields and forests, almost all the springs were blocked up and sealed with firm masonry, so that no one would drink from them or cook food with their water. At that time, people had to use either river water or rainwater.

For God, the Lord of vengeance, revealing the malice of the Jews, did not allow them to pass through this unpunished. Everywhere throughout all Germany, with few places excepted, they were burned. Many also accepted baptism out of fear of punishment and were spared their lives.

This was done to the Jews in the year of the Lord 1349, and it still continued strongly, because many people in various regions, noble and common, conspired against them and their defenders, so that they would never stop until the whole generation of the Jews had been destroyed.