About 1504 an attack of unusual ferocity on some Frankfort traders aroused the elector's wrath, and during the next few years the execution of many lawbreakers and other stern measures restored some degree of order.
With the apparent intention of restoring order in Jerusalem, he assembled the Sanhedrin, and being, as a Sadducee, cruel in the matter of penalties, secured the condemnation of certain lawbreakers to death by stoning.