Who was falsely accused of starting the plague by poisoning wells?

During the time of the Black Death, also known as the plague, which swept through Europe in the 14th century, Jewish communities were often scapegoated and falsely accused of causing the plague. One of the main accusations was that Jewish people were poisoning wells and water sources, supposedly to spread the disease among the Christian population. These baseless accusations led to widespread persecution, violent attacks, pogroms, and massacres against Jewish individuals and communities. The claims of well-poisoning were driven by fear, ignorance about the true nature of the disease, and deep-rooted anti-Semitic sentiments that existed in medieval Europe.

The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 75-200 million people in Eurasia, peaking in Europe from 1347 to 1351. As the exact causes and mechanisms of the disease were unknown at the time, many people looked for someone to blame for the suffering and death caused by the plague. Due to their minority status and existing negative stereotypes, Jewish people were convenient targets for such accusations.

It wasn't until much later that it was understood that the Black Death was caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, which was transmitted through the bites of infected fleas carried by rodents, not by poisoning. Historical studies now show that these false accusations and the resulting violence against Jewish populations were part of the broader context of medieval anti-Semitism, and the well-poisoning myth was simply one expression of the prejudices and fears prevalent at the time.