The Toledoth Jeschu, therefore, cannot have been written at the beginning of the fourteenth century, when the Jews had such experience of the indifference of a Pope to their wrongs. We are consequently forced to look to the thirteenth century as its date. And the thirteenth century will provide us with instances of persecution of the Jews in Germany, and Popes exerting themselves to protect them. In 1236, the Jews were the subject of an outburst of popular fury throughout Europe, but especially in Spain, where a fearful carnage took place. In France, the Crusaders of Guienne, Poitou, Anjou and Brittany killed them, without sparing the women and children. Women with child were ripped up. The unfortunate Jews were thrown down, and trodden under the feet of horses. Their houses were ransacked, their books burned, their treasures carried off. Those who refused baptism were tortured or killed. The unhappy people sent to Rome, and implored the Pope to extend his protection to them. Gregory IX. wrote at once to the Archbishop of Bordeaux, the Bishops of Saintes, Angoulême and Poictiers, forbidding constraint to be exercised on the Jews to force them to receive baptism; and a letter to the King entreating him to exert his authority to repress the fury of the Crusaders against the Jews. In 1240, the Jews were expelled from Brittany by the Duke John, at the request of the Bishops of Brittany. In 1246, the persecution reached its height in Germany. Bishops and nobles vied with each other in despoiling and harassing the unfortunate Hebrews. They were charged with killing Christian children and devouring their hearts at their Passover. Whenever a dead body was found, the Jews were accused of the murder. Hosts were dabbled in blood, and thrown down at their doors, and the ignorant mob rose against such profanation of the sacred mysteries. They were stripped of their goods, thrown into prison, starved, racked, condemned to the stake or to the gallows. From the German towns miserable trains of yellow‐girdled and capped exiles issued, seeking some more hospitable homes. If they left behind them their wealth, they carried with them their industry. A deputation of German Rabbis visited the Pope, Innocent IV., at Lyons, and laid the complaints of the Jews before him. Innocent at once took up their cause. He wrote to all the bishops of Germany, on July 5th, 1247, ordering them to favour the Jews, and insist on the redress of the wrongs to which they had been subjected, whether at the hands of ecclesiastics or nobles. A similar letter was then forwarded by him to all the bishops of France.