shooting guild (somewhat like a town militia). Preserved as an incunable print from 1487, printed in Mainz by Peter Schöffer (about 1425–1503), is an invitation from the mayor and town council to any and all who considered themselves good marksmen with the crossbow to come to a shooting contest on 23 September. Jewish population On 31 March 1283 (2 Nisan 5043) in Kreuznach (קרויצנאך), Rabbi Ephraim bar Elieser ha-Levi – apparently as a result of a judicial sentence – was broken on the wheel. The execution was likely linked to the Mainz blood libel accusations, which in March and April 1283 also led to pogroms in Mellrichstadt, Mainz, Bacharach and Rockenhausen. In 1311, Aaron Judeus de Crucenaco (the last three words mean "the Jew from Kreuznach") was mentioned, as was a Jewish toll gatherer from Bingen am Rhein named Abraham von Kreuznach in 1328, 1342 and 1343. In 1336, Emperor Louis the Bavarian allowed Count Johann II of Sponheim-Kreuznach to permanently keep 60 house-owning freed Jews at Kreuznach or elsewhere on his lands ("… daß er zu Creützenach oder anderstwoh in seinen landen 60 haußgesäsß gefreyter juden ewiglich halten möge …"). After further persecution in the time of the Plague in 1348/1349, there is no further evidence of Jews in Kreuznach until 1375. By 1382 at the latest, the Jew Gottschalk (who died sometime between 1409 and 1421) from Katzenelnbogen was living in Kreuznach and owned the house at the corner of Lämmergasse and Mannheimerstraße 12 (later: Löwensteiner Hof) near the Eiermarkt ("Egg Market"). On a false charge of usury, Count Simon III of Sponheim (after 1330–1414) had him thrown in prison and only released him after payment of a hefty ransom. He was afterwards taken into protection by Ruprecht III of the Palatinate against a yearly payment of 10 Rhenish guilders. At Gottschalk's suggestion, Archbishop Johann of Nassau-Wiesbaden-Idstein lifted the "dice toll" for Jews crossing the border into the Archbishopric of Mainz. The special taxes for Jews ordered in 1418 and 1434 by King Sigismund of Luxembourg were also imposed in Kreuznach. In the Middle Ages, the eastern part of today's Poststraße in the New Town was the Judengasse ("Jews' Lane"). The Kleine Judengasse ran from the Judengasse to what is today called Magister-Faust-Gasse. In 1482, a "Jewish school" was mentioned, which might already have stood at Fährgasse 2 (lane formerly known as Kleine Eselsgass – "Little Ass's Lane"),