The exiles who failed to find an asylum in the tolerant principalities of France emigrated to Germany and Italy; only a few directed their steps to Spain, formerly the most hospitable refuge for persecuted Jews. Since the massacres of 1391 that country had become a purgatory to the native Jews, and so long as foreign Jews could find a shelter elsewhere, they naturally avoided its frontiers. French communities migrated in a body to Piedmont, and settled in the towns of Asti, Fossano, and Moncalvo, where they could maintain unchanged their old synagogue ritual. The fate of the larger number of the French exiles may be described in the words of Amos: "As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him." Almost everywhere they were met with a storm of barbarity, not unfrequently stirred up against them by baptized Jews. In Germany an apostate named Pessach, who, with Christianity, had adopted the name of Peter, brought serious accusations against his brethren in race, with a view to bringing about another persecution. To the usual charges that the Jews called Jesus the crucified or the hanged, and that they cursed the Christian clergy in one of their prayers, Pessach-Peter added others. He stated that an abusive allusion to Jesus was contained in the sublime Alenu prayer, which pictures the future reign of God on earth, and he made other lying and ludicrous charges. The result was that a large number of the Jews of Prague were arrested and imprisoned (August 3d, 1399). Among them was the foremost and, perhaps, only really learned German Jew of the Middle Ages, Lipmann (Tab-Yomi) of Mühlhausen, a scholar accomplished alike in Biblical and Talmudical lore, who had read not only Karaite authors, but also the New Testament in a Latin version. The clergy called upon him to answer Pessach-Peter's charges. His defense was forcible, but seems to have had little effect, for on the day Emperor Wenceslaus was deposed, and Rupert of the Palatinate elected his successor (August 22d, 1400), seventy-seven Jews were executed, and three weeks later three more led to the stake. CHAPTER VI. JEWISH APOSTATES AND THE DISPUTATION AT TORTOSA.