Imperial authority, traditionally concerned with the protection of the Jews, had temporarily collapsed in the Franconia region of Germany during the civil strife between the elected King of the Romans, Count Adolf of Nassau, and his Habsburg rival Duke Albert of Austria.

Already in 1287, the death of Werner of Oberwesel in the Rhineland had been blamed on Jews and about five hundred had been killed in revenge, followed by a series of blood libels.

When, at the same time, the Jews in the Hohenlohe town of Röttingen are accused of having obtained and desecrated a consecrated host, one "Lord Rindtfleisch", whom the sources refer to either as an impoverished knight or—more probably—a butcher (the term Rindfleisch means "beef" in modern German spelling), gathers a mob around him and burns the Röttingen Jews on Sunday, April 20.

Rintfleisch declares to have received a mandate from heaven to avenge the sacrilege and exterminate the Jews.

The Colmar Dominican Rudolph refers to him in Latin as a carnifex, i.e., butcher or executioner, but it is not clear if Rudolph meant his original profession, or his behavior as a slaughterer of the Jews.

According to contemporary sources, the Lord of Röttingen, Kraft von Hohenlohe, is encumbered with debts to Jewish lenders.

After this, …