considered in reference to the treatment of Jews, from the fact that the German emperors were in possession of all the prerogatives once claimed by those of Rome. As the Jews, since the days of Vespasian and Titus, had been compelled to pay a yearly tax to the Roman emperors, the German rulers declared themselves the direct heirs to this golden gift-pence. Hitherto the massacres of Jews in Germany had taken place only at intervals, and in a few places; but now, under the reign of Louis, owing to riots and civil wars, they became much more frequent. During two consecutive years (1336-1337), a regularly organized band of peasants and rabble, who called themselves "the beaters of the Jews," made fierce attacks upon them with unbridled fury and heartless cruelty. Two dissolute noblemen were at the head of this troop; they gave themselves the name of Kings Leather-arm (Armleder) from a piece of leather which they wore wound round the arm. In this persecution, as in that of Rindfleisch, the fanaticism and blind superstition inculcated by the church played an important part. One of the Leather-arms announced that he had received a divine revelation which directed him to visit upon the Jews the martyrdom and the wounds which Jesus had suffered, and to avenge his crucifixion by their blood. Such a summons to arms seldom remained unanswered in Germany. Five thousand peasants, armed with pitchforks, axes, flails, pikes, and whatever other weapons they could lay hands upon, gathered around the Leather-arms, and inflicted a bloody slaughter upon the Jewish inhabitants of Alsace and the Rhineland as far as Suabia. As frequently happened during such barbarous persecutions, numbers of Jews, on this occasion also, put an end to their own lives, after having slain their children to prevent their falling into the hands of the Church. Emperor Louis the Bavarian did indeed issue commands to protect the heretic Jews (April, 1337), but his help came too late, or was of little effect. At length the emperor succeeded in capturing one of the Leather-arms, whom he ordered to be executed.