Before that time the Jews dwelt between the Cathedral and the bank of the Main, that is, from the bridge down as far as the Lumpenbrunnen, and from the Mehlwage as far as Saint Bartholomew’s.  But the Catholic priests obtained a Papal bull forbidding the Jews to live so near the high church, for which reason the magistrates assigned them a place on the Wollgraben, where they built their present quarter.  This was surrounded by high walls, the gate of which was held by iron chains to keep out the rabble.  For here, too, the Jews lived in misery and anxiety, and with far more vivid memories of previous suffering than they have at present.  In 1240 the unrestrained populace had caused awful bloodshed among them, which people called the first Jewish massacre.  In 1349, when the Flagellants, in passing through the town, set fire to it, and accused the Jews of the deed, the latter were nearly all murdered or burned alive in their own houses; this was called the second Jewish massacre.  After this the Jews were often threatened with similar slaughter, and during the internal dissensions of Frankfort, especially during a dispute between the council and the guilds, the mob was often on the point of breaking into the Jewish quarter, which, as has been said, was surrounded by a wall.  The latter had two gates in it, which on Catholic holidays were closed from without and on Jewish holidays from within, and before each gate was a watch-house with city soldiers.

When the Rabbi with his wife came to the entrance to the Jewish quarter, the soldiers, as one could see through the open windows, lay on the wooden bench inside the watch-house, while out before the door in the sunshine sat the drummer beating capriciously on his large drum.  He was a heavy, fat fellow, wearing a jerkin and hose of fiery yellow, greatly puffed out at his arms and thighs, and profusely dotted with small red tufts, sewed on, which looked as if innumerable tongues were protruding from him.  His breast and back were padded with cushions of black cloth, against which hung his drum.  He had on his head a flat, round black cap, which in roundness and flatness was equaled by his face, and the latter was also in keeping with his dress, being an orange-yellow, spotted with red pimples, and distorted into a gaping grin.  So the fellow sat and drummed to the melody of a song which the Flagellants had sung at the Jewish massacre, while he gurgled, in a coarse, beery voice—­

  “Our dear Lady true
   Walked in the morning dew,
       Kyrie eleison!”

“Hans, that is a terrible tune,” cried a voice from behind the closed gate of the Jewish quarter.  “Yes, Hans, and a bad song too-doesn’t suit the drum; doesn’t suit it at all—­by my soul—­not the day of the fair and on Easter morning—­bad song—­dangerous song—­Jack, Jacky, little drum—­Jacky boy—­I’m a lone man—­and if thou lovest me, the Star, the tall Star, the tall Nose Star—­then stop it!”

These words were uttered by the unseen speaker, now in hasty anxiety, now in a sighing drawl, with a tone which alternated between mild softness and harsh hoarseness, such as one hears in consumptive people.  The drummer was not moved, and went on drumming and singing—­