Only six years after granting the first privileges for Jews in the empire a wave of pogroms swept the country, triggered by an epidemic of the plague, which was blamed on the Jews, and the First crusade.
On 3 May 1096, Count Emicho of Leiningen stopped in Speyer on his way to the crusade and, together with burghers of Speyer and peasants from nearby, attacked the Jews and the synagogue [REF].