Clement VI shields the Jews
1348 · Event
As massacres of Jews accused of poisoning wells spread up the Rhine, the pope at Avignon issues bulls declaring the accusation absurd — the plague kills Jews too, and where no Jews live at all — and orders clergy to protect them, on pain of excommunication. The bulls are widely ignored, but they stand as the era's clearest official voice of sanity.
On these timelines: The Black Death, Judaism, The Papacy, Major Religions, Christianity
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Around 1348
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