Towards the end of the thirteenth century, with the new influx of French exiles, things altogether looked so desperate in the German states, that a large number of Jews, principally from the Rhenish provinces, determined on emigrating to Palestine. Rudolph of Hapsburg, the then reigning Emperor, was very angry at this prospect of losing so large a slice out of his revenue. He at once confiscated all the Jewish goods on which he could lay his hands, and, as a speculation, seized on the chief Rabbi of Germany, and held him as a prisoner in one of his castles in Alsace. Rudolph calculated on getting a large ransom for his Rabbi, and the Jews would gladly enough have paid generously for his release. But the Rabbi refused to be ransomed. He would not play into his enemies’ hands in that way. It was too easy a mode of raising money, and one that, if he yielded to it, would most certainly become a precedent. So the Rabbi declined his liberty on such terms, and he died a prisoner. Unlike England and France and Spain, Germany never went to the length of expelling her Jews altogether, but she would hunt them, now and again, from place to place in her dominions, and the hospitality she extended to them was, at best, the hospitality of a sponging-house. There is not a state, nor a province, nor a city of now united Germany which has not, at some time or other, taken its evil share in ill-treatment of the Jews. Prague, in Bohemia, could, perhaps, tell the most sensational tales of all, if it were well or wise to write out such sad stories in sober pen and ink. But the good old rule is best: ‘Write kindnesses in marble, and _injuries in dust_.’ It is sufficient to say emphatically that things did not improve. Towards the end of the fifteenth century the poor persecuted Jews of Germany made another effort at emigration, but not to Palestine this time, for the feeling which inspired the crusades had done its work, and the site of the ‘Holy Sepulchre’ was considered, at this date, too holy for Jewish feet to profane with their tread. By order of the Popes, the masters of vessels, bound for any parts connected with Palestine as a destination, were forbidden to carry Jewish freight or Jewish passengers. Their own land was denied to outcast Jews. Emigration, however, of some sort was growing imminent. Poland and Turkey, in their undeveloped civilisation, were found to be tolerant of aliens, and in these countries Jewish settlements began to be made. There was no general desertion of the German states, but the Jewish element in many of the cities perceptibly dwindled, and, by degrees, only Frankfort, Worms, and Ratisbon continued to be important centres of Jewish life.