A parallel evolution took place in Germany. When Otto the Great wished to show his piety by endowing the newly-built church of Magdeburg, he did so by bestowing upon it the revenue which he derived from the Jews. Likewise Otto II., sixteen years later, made an offering of the Jews of Merseburg to the local bishops. At the beginning of the eleventh century there occurred in Germany an event which may be regarded as the prelude to the subsequent persecutions of Judaism. ♦1005♦ The chaplain of the Duke Conrad suddenly scandalised the Christian world by going over to the Synagogue, and exasperated the brethren whom he had forsaken by producing a scurrilous lampoon on Christianity. The Emperor Henry caused to be published a reply in every respect worthy of the apostate’s pamphlet. Six years after the Jews were driven forth from Mayence, a decree was issued ordering the Jews of various towns to be branded, that they might not seek refuge in baptism, and so rigorous was the persecution that a contemporary Jewish poet commemorates it in lugubrious songs, wherein he expresses the fear that the children of Israel might be forced to forget the faith of their fathers. But the alarm was premature. Though, as a general rule, traffic in goods and in money were the only callings left open to the Jews, in some of the German states they still possessed the rights of citizenship and were permitted to own real estate. Thus the first period of the mediaeval drama came to a close, as the second was opening. CHAPTER VII THE CRUSADES TOWARDS the end of the eleventh century there arose in Europe a gale of religious enthusiasm that boded no good to infidels. The zealous temper which at an earlier period had found a congenial pursuit in the extirpation of heathenism from Saxony, Lithuania, Poland, and the Baltic provinces, and in the suppression of heresy among the Vaudois, the Cathari or Albigenses, and others at a later, was now to be diverted into a different channel. During the preceding ages the authority of the Popes had been advancing with stealthy, but undeviating and steady, strides. Their own industry, foresight, and prudence laid the foundations of their political power; the piety and the ignorance of the nations which recognised their spiritual rule consolidated it. Every succeeding age found the Bishop of Rome in a higher position than that occupied by his predecessors, until there came one who was fitted to make use of the immense heritage of authority bequeathed to him.