In a lawsuit between Jews and Christians, the process was to be conducted and the oaths administered according to Jewish law, and Jews could not be compelled to undergo ordeals by fire and water. Yet, not long after this, they were mocked at by the holy combatants in the sacred war. The German Jews and those of northern France were just then full of the hope of the coming of the Messiah. A mystic had calculated that the son of David would appear towards the end of the 250th cycle of the moon, between the years 1096 and 1104, and would lead back the sons of Judah to the Holy Land. But instead of the trumpet-blast of the Messianic redemption they heard only the wild cries of the crusaders: "The Jews have crucified our Saviour, therefore they must acknowledge him or die." The first armies of the crusaders, one led by the pious Peter of Amiens and his eight knights, the other by Gottschalk, did no special harm to the Jews; they plundered Christians and Jews alike. But the hordes that followed, the scum of the French, English, and Flemish, in the absence of Mahometans, began the holy work of plundering and murdering with the Jews. It was a shameless mob of men and women, who indulged in every sort of excess. But these blasphemous crusaders were sanctified warriors; their sins, past and future, had been absolved. A monk threw out the inflammatory suggestion that the Jews should be brought to Christianity by force, an inscription, found on the grave of Jesus, having made their conversion the duty of all believers. This plan seemed to the wild crusaders alike profitable, easy to fulfil, and pleasing to God. They reasoned that the Jews were infidels like the Saracens, both deadly enemies of Christianity, and that the crusade could begin on the spot, if the beginning were made with the Jews. When the troops assembled in France and Germany, they were marked by the cross on their garments and by the blood of the Jews. The massacres in France, however, were few in number, although the first gathering of crusaders occurred there. In Germany security reigned at that time, and the Jews of the Rhine district had no suspicion of the sad fate which was about to befall them. However, at the bidding of the head of their congregation, they assembled to pray for their imperiled brethren in France. But these fortunately escaped with but little damage, because the princes and priests energetically took the part of the Jews. Only in Rouen, which belonged to England, the crusaders drove the Jews into a church, and, placing their swords at their breasts, gave them the choice between death and baptism. The persecutions first received a tragic character on German ground.