The Erfurt massacre refers to the massacre of the Jewish community in Erfurt, Germany, on March 21, 1349. Accounts of the number of Jews killed in the massacre vary widely from between 100 and up to 3000. Some Jews set fire to their homes and possessions and perished in the flames before they could be lynched. The many Black Death persecutions and massacres that occurred in France and Germany at that time were sometimes in response to accusations that the Jews were responsible for outbreaks of the Black Death, and other times justified with the belief that killing the local Jews would prevent the spread of the Black Death to that locale. Although these beliefs, and the accompanying massacres, were frequently encouraged by local bishops or itinerant Flagellants, the Catholic Church, including Pope Clement VI under whom the Flagellants and the Black Death began, and his successor, Innocent VI, were firmly against it. In a papal bull condemning the Flagellant movement in late 1349, Pope Clement VI criticized their "shedding the blood of Jews". Erfurt later suffered the ravages of the Black Plague, where over 16,000 residents died during a ten-week period in 1350. Massacres were generally accompanied by extensive looting. One of the items looted in the Erfurt massacre was what is now the oldest remaining manuscript of the Tosefta, which dates from the 12th century. The Erfurt Manuscripts, including the Tosefta, came into the possession of Erfurt City Council after the Massacre, and in the late 17th century ended up in the library of the Lutheran Evangelical Ministry, at Erfurt's former Augustinian Monastery. The Ministry sold them to the Royal Library in Berlin, the present dayBerlin State Library, in 1880, where they are now kept. According to one reference, there are bloodstains on the Tosefta manuscript. Many of the Jews of Erfurt preemptively hid their valuables. Some of those valuables, probably belonging to merchant Kalman of Wiehe, were found in 1998, and are now referred to as the Erfurt Treasure. Among those murdered was prominent Talmudist Alexander Suslin.
