Part 630

"The survey of the settlement of the Jews in Europe begins, as we leave Asia, with the Byzantine Empire. They already lived in its cities before Christianity acquired the empire of the world. In Constantinople the Jewish community inhabited a separate quarter, called the brass-market, where there was also a large synagogue. They were, however, expelled thence by an emperor, either Theodosius II., or Justinus II., and the synagogue was converted into the 'Church of the Mother of God.' … In Greece, Macedonia, and Illyria the Jews had already been settled a long time. … In Italy the Jews are known to have been domiciled as early as the time of the Republic, and to have been in enjoyment of full political rights until these were curtailed by the Christian emperors. They probably looked with excusable pleasure on the fall of Rome. … When Italy became Ostrogothic under Theodoric, the position of the Jews in that country was peculiar. Outbreaks of a spirit of hostility to them were not infrequent during this reign, but at the bottom they were not directed against the Jews, but were meant to be a demonstration against this hated Arian monarch. … Those nations … which were baptised in the Arian creed betrayed less intolerance of the Jews. Thus the more Arianism was driven out of Europe and gave way before the Catholic religion, the more were the Jews harassed by proselytising zeal. … In spite of the antipathy entertained against them by the leaders of opinion, the Jews of Italy were happy in comparison with their brethren of the Byzantine empire. … Even when the Lombards embraced the Catholic faith the position of the Jews in Italy remained supportable. The heads of the Catholic Church, the Popes, were free from savage intolerance. Gregory I. (590-604), surnamed the great and holy, who laid the foundation of the power of Catholicism, gave utterance to the principle, that the Jews should only be converted by means of persuasion and gentleness, not by violence. … In the territory which was subject to the Papal sway, in Rome, Lower Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia, he steadfastly persisted in this course in the face of the fanatical bishops, who regarded the oppression of the Jews as a pious work. … In the west of Europe, in France and Spain, where the Church was first obliged to make its way laboriously, the situation of the Jews assumed a different and much more favourable aspect. … It was a long while before Catholicism gained a firm footing in the west of Europe, and the Jews who had settled there enjoyed undisturbed peace until the victorious Church gained the upper hand. The immigration of the Jews into these important and wealthy provinces took place most probably as early as the time of the Republic or of Cæsar. … The presence of the Jews in the west of Europe is, however, not certain until the 2d century. The Gaulish Jews, whose first settlement was in the district of Arles, enjoyed the full rights of Roman citizenship, whether they arrived in Gaul as merchants or fugitives, with the pedlar's pack or in the garb of slaves; they were likewise treated as Romans by the Frankish and Burgundian conquerors." The Burgundian King Sigismund, who embraced the Catholic faith in 516, "first raised the barrier between Jews and Christians. … A spirit of hostility to the Jews gradually spread from Burgundy over the Frankish countries. … The later of the Merovingian kings became more and more bigoted, and their hatred of the Jews consequently increased. … The Jews of Germany are certainly only to be regarded as colonies of the Frankish Jews, and such of them as lived in Austrasia, a province subject to the Merovingian kings, shared the same fate as their brethren in France. … While the history of the Jews in Byzance, Italy, and France, possesses but special interest, that of their brethren in the Pyrenean peninsula rises to the height of universal importance. … Jewish Spain contributed almost as greatly to the development of Judaism as Judæa and Babylonia. … Cordova, Grenada, and Toledo, are as familiar to the Jews as Jerusalem and Tiberias, and almost more so than Naherdea and Sora. When Judaism had come to a standstill in the East, and had grown weak with age, it acquired new vigour in Spain. … The first settlement of the Jews in beautiful Hesperia is buried in dim obscurity. It is certain that they came there as free men as early as the time of the Roman Republic, in order to take advantage of the productive resources of this country. The tortured victims of the unhappy insurrections under Vespasian, Titus, and Hadrian were also dispersed to the extreme west, and an exaggerated account relates that 80,000 of them were dragged off to Spain as prisoners. … The Jews … were unmolested under the Arian kings; … but as soon as the Catholic Church obtained the supremacy in Spain, and Arianism began to be persecuted, an unfavourable crisis set in."

_H. Graetz, History of the Jews, volume 3, chapter 2._

JEWS: A. D. 615. Siege and capture of Jerusalem by the Persians. Sack and massacre.

See JERUSALEM: A. D. 615.

JEWS: A. D. 637. Surrender of Jerusalem to the Moslems.

See JERUSALEM: A. D. 637.

JEWS: 7th Century. General persecution. First expulsion from Spain.

In the seventh century, during the reign of the Eastern Roman Emperor Heraclius (A. D. 610-641) the Jews were subjected to a more general and bitter persecution than they had experienced before at the hands of the Christians. "It is said that about this time a prophecy was current, which declared that the Roman empire would be overthrown by a circumcised people. This report may have been spread by the Jews, in order to excite their own ardour, and assist their projects of rebellion; but the prophecy was saved from oblivion by the subsequent conquests of the Saracens. … The conduct of the Jews excited the bigotry, as it may have awakened the fears, of the imperial government, and both Phocas and Heraclius attempted to exterminate the Jewish religion, and if possible to put an end to the national existence. Heraclius not only practised every species of cruelty himself to effect this object within the bounds of his own dominions, but he even made the forced conversion or banishment of the Jews a prominent feature in his diplomacy." Thus Heraclius induced Sisebut, the Gothic king in Spain, and Dagobert, the Frank king, to join him in forcing baptism on the Jews, with the alternative of flight.

_G. Finlay, Greece under the Romans, chapter 4, section 5._

{1925}

"Urged by the request and incited by the example of Heraclius, Sisebuto [or Sisebut] issued an edict in the year 616, that, within a year, the Jews in Spain should either embrace Christianity, or should be shorn, scourged, and expelled from the kingdom, and their property confiscated. … It was a premium on hypocrisy; for hypocrisy was an instrument of self-preservation. Ninety thousand Jews made a nominal submission."

_H. Coppée, Conquest of Spain by the Arab-Moors, book 2, chapter 3 (volume 1)._

See, also, GOTHS (VISIGOTHS): A. D. 507-711.

JEWS: 7th Century. The Epoch of the Geonim. The Exilarchate and the Gaonate.

After the death of the Caliph Othman (A. D. 655), when the followers of Mohammed were divided into two camps—the partisans of Ali and the partisans of Moawiyah, "the Babylonian Jews and Nestorian Christians sided with Ali, and rendered him their assistance." Prominent among the Jewish supporters of Ali was Mar-Isaac, the head of a school. "The unhappy Ali valued this homage, and, doubtless, accorded privileges to the Jewish head of the school. It is quite probable that from this time the head of the school of Sora occupied a certain dignity, and took the title of Gaon. There were certain privileges connected with the Gaonate, upon which even the Exilarch—also politically appointed—did not venture to encroach. Through this there arose a peculiar relationship between the two entirely opposing offices—the Exilarchate and the Gaonate. This led to subsequent quarrels. With Bostanaï [then Exilarch] and Mar-Isaac, the Jewish officials recognised by the Caliph, there begins a new period in Jewish history—the Epoch of the Geonim. … For the space of 40 years (680 to 720), only the names of the Geonim and Exilarchs are known to us, historical details, however, are entirely wanting. During this time, through quarrels and concessions, there arose peculiar relations between the officials of the Jewish-Persian kingdom, which developed into a kind of constitution. The Jewish community in Babylonia (Persia), which had the appearance of a state, had a peculiar constitution. The Exilarch was at their head, and next to him stood the Gaon. Both together they formed the unity of the community. The Exilarch filled political functions. He represented the Babylonian-Persian Judaism under the Caliphs. He collected the taxes from the various communities, and paid them into the treasury. The Exilarchs, both in their outer appearance and mode of life, were like princes. They drove about in a state carriage; they had outriders and a kind of body guard, and received princely homage. The religious unity of Judaism, on the other hand, was represented in the two chief schools of Sora and Pumbaditha. They expounded the Talmud, giving it a practical application; they made new laws and institutions, and saw that they were carried out, by allotting punishments for those who transgressed them. The Exilarch shared the judicial power in common with the Gaon of Sora and the head of the school of Pumbaditha. … The head of the school of Sora, however, was alone privileged to be styled 'Gaon'; the head of the school of Pumbaditha did not bear the title officially. The Gaon of Sora enjoyed general preference over his colleague of Pumbaditha."

_H. Graetz, History of the Jews, volume 3, chapter 4._

JEWS: 8th Century. Conversion of the Khazars to Judaism.

See KHAZARS.

JEWS: 8th Century. Origin of the Karaites.

See KARAISM.

JEWS: 8-15th Centuries. Toleration by Moors and Christians in Spain, followed by merciless persecution and expulsion. Treatment in Portugal.

"Under the Moorish government in Spain the lot of this persecuted, tormented people was more tolerable than in any Christian country. … Under the Christian kings of the 12th and 13th centuries, they rose to still greater influence as financial advisers and treasurers, astronomers and physicians; in Toledo alone they numbered 12,000. … Their condition in Spain from the time of the Moorish supremacy to the end of the 13th century was upon the whole more favourable than in any other country of Europe. … The 14th century brought disaster to the Jews of the Peninsula and elsewhere. … They were detested by the people; first in one town and then in another they were attacked and murdered, and their synagogues were burned down; and at length, in 1391, the storm broke upon them in all its fury, and raged through the length and breadth of Spain. … Many thousands were slain; whilst 200,000 saved themselves by receiving baptism, but it was discovered in a few years that 17,000 had lapsed into Judaism. A century later, in 1492, a royal edict commanded all Jews to quit the country, leaving their goods behind them. As the Inquisition at the same time forbade the sale of victuals to the Jews, the majority … were compelled to submit to baptism. Of those who withdrew into exile—the numbers are variously reckoned from 170,000 to 400,000—the greater part perished from pestilence, starvation, or shipwreck. The descendants of those who survived, the Sephardim, found refuge in Italy, and under Turkish rule in the East, and, for a short space, even in Portugal. … In Portugal the Jews fared even worse than their brethren in Spain. … The Inquisition was … introduced as the approved means for handing over to the exchequer the wealth of the new Christians."

_J. I. von Döllinger, The Jews in Europe (Studies in European History, chapter 9)._

ALSO IN: _H. C. Lea, Chapters from the Religious History of Spain, pages 437-468._

_W. H. Prescott, History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, part 1, chapter 17 (volume 2)._

See, also, INQUISITION: A. D. 1203-1525.

JEWS: 11th Century. First appearance of Jews in England. Their treatment as usurers.

"Their first appearance in England is said to have been due to the Conqueror, who brought over a Jewish colony from Rouen to London. They were special favourites of William Rufus; under Henry they play a less conspicuous part; but in the next reign we find them at Lincoln, Oxford, and elsewhere, and there can be no doubt that they were already established in most of the chief English towns. They formed, however, no part of the townsfolk. The Jew was not a member of the state; he was the king's chattel, not to be meddled with, for good or for evil, save at the king's own bidding. {1926} Exempt from toll and tax and from the fines of justice, he had the means of accumulating a hoard of wealth which might indeed be seized at any moment by an arbitrary act of the king, but which the king's protection guarded with jealous care against all other interference. The capacity in which the Jew usually appears is that of a money-lender—an occupation in which the scruples of the Church forbade Christians to engage, lest they should be contaminated with the sin of usury. Fettered by no such scruples, the Hebrew money-lenders drove a thriving trade."

_K. Norgate, England Under the Angevin Kings, volume 1, chapter 1._

"The Church declared against capitalism of any kind, branding it as usury. It became impossible in Angevin England to obtain the capital for any large scheme of building or organisation unless the projectors had the capital themselves. Here was the function which the Jew could perform in England of the twelfth century, which was just passing economically out of the stage of barter. Capital was wanted in particular for the change of architecture from wood to stone with the better classes, and especially for the erection of castles and monasteries. The Jews were, indeed, the first in England to possess dwelling-houses built with stone, probably for purposes of protection as well as of comfort. And as a specimen of their influence on monastic architecture, we have it on record that no less than nine Cistercian monasteries of the North Country were built by moneys lent by the great Aaron of Lincoln, who also boasted that he had built the shrine of St. Alban. … The result of the Church's attitude towards Jews and towards usury was to put the king into a peculiar relation towards his Jewish subjects. The Church kept them out of all other pursuits but that of usury, which it branded as infamous; the State followed suit, and confiscated the estates of all usurers dying as such. Hence, as a Jew could only be a usurer, his estate was always potentially the king's, and could be dealt with by the king as if it were his own. Yet, strange to say, it was not to the king's interest to keep the Jews' wealth in his own hands, for he, the king, as a good Christian, could not get usury for it, while the Jew could very soon double and treble it, since the absence of competition enabled him to fix the rate of interest very high, rarely less than forty per cent., often as much as eighty. … The only useful function the Jew could perform towards both king and people was to be as rich as possible, just as the larger the capital of a bank, the more valuable the part it plays in the world of commerce. … The king reaped the benefit of these riches in several ways. One of his main functions and main source of income was selling justice, and Jews were among his best customers. Then he claimed from them, as from his other subjects, fines and amerciaments for all the events of life. The Pipe Rolls contain entries of fines paid by Jews to marry, not to marry, to become divorced, to go a journey across the sea, to become partners with another Jew, in short, for all the decisive events of life. And above all, the king got frequent windfalls from the heirs of deceased Jews who paid heavy reliefs to have their fathers' charters and debts, of which, as we have seen, they could make more profitable use than the king, to whom the Jew's property escheated not qua Jew, but qua usurer. In the case of Aaron of Lincoln the king did not disgorge at all at his death, but kept in his own hands the large treasures, lands, houses and debts of the great financier. He appears to have first organised the Jewry, and made the whole of the English Jews his agents throughout the country. … In addition to these quasi-regular and normal sources of income from his Jews, the king claimed from them—again as from his other subjects—various contributions from time to time under the names of gifts and tallages. And here he certainly seems, on occasion at least, to have exercised an unfavourable discrimination in his demands from the Jews. In 1187, the year of Aaron of Lincoln's death, he took a tenth from the rest of England, which yielded £70,000, and a quarter from the Jews, which gave as much as £60,000. In other words, the Jews were reckoned to have, at that date, one quarter of the movable wealth of the kingdom (£240,000 against £700,000 held by the rest). … They acted the part of a sponge for the Royal Treasury, they gathered up all the floating money of the country, to be squeezed from time to time into the king's treasure-chest. … The king was thus … the sleeping-partner in all the Jewish usury, and may be regarded as the Arch-usurer of the kingdom. By this means he was enabled to bring pressure on any of his barons who were indebted to the Jews. He could offer to release them of their debt of the usury accruing to it, and in the case of debts falling into his hand by the death of a Jew, he could commute the debt for a much smaller sum. Thus the Cistercian abbeys referred to above paid Richard I. 1,000 marks instead of the 6,400 which they had owed to Aaron of Lincoln."

_Joseph Jacobs, The Jews of Angevin England, introduction._

JEWS: A. D. 1076. Capture of Jerusalem by the Seljuk Turks.

See CRUSADES: CAUSES, &C.

JEWS: A. D. 1096-1146. Massacre of Jews in Europe by Crusaders.

The lawless and savage mobs of Crusaders which followed in the wake of the disorderly hosts of Peter the Hermit and Walter the Penniless, A. D. 1096, expended their zeal, at the outset of their march, in hunting and killing Jews. "Acting on the notion that the infidels dwelling in Europe should be exterminated before those in Asia should be attacked, [they] murdered 12,000 Jews. In Treves, many of these unfortunate men, driven to despair, laid violent hands on their children and on themselves, and multitudes embraced Christianity, from which they lapsed the moment the peril had passed. Two hundred Jews fled from Cologne and took refuge in boats; they were overtaken and slain. In Mayence, the archbishop, Rudhart, took them under his protection, and gave them the great hall of his castle for an asylum; the pilgrims, nevertheless, forced their way in, and murdered 700 of them in the archbishop's presence. At Spires the Jews valiantly defended themselves. At Worms they all committed suicide. At Magdeburg the archbishop, Ruprecht, amused himself by attacking them during the celebration of the feast of tabernacles, and by seizing their property."

_W. Menzel, History of Germany, chapter 145 (volume 1)._

The fervors of the Second Crusade [A. D. 1146] inclined, in Germany, to the same direction, of Jew-hunting; but St. Bernard, the apostle of the Crusade, was enlightened and humane enough to suppress the outrage by his great influence. {1927} A monk named Radulf, self-appointed preacher of the Crusade in Germany, stirred up the people of the cities of the Rhine against the Jews, and numbers were massacred, notwithstanding attempts of the emperor, Conrad, to protect them. But Bernard went in person to the scene, and, by his personal authority, drove the brutal monk into his convent.

_T. Keightley, The Crusaders chapter 3._

ALSO IN: _H. Graetz, History of the Jews, volume 3, chapters 9 and 11._

_H. C. Adams, History of the Jews, chapter 15._

JEWS: A. D. 1099. Conquest of Jerusalem by the Crusaders.

See JERUSALEM: A. D. 1099.

JEWS: 11-17th Centuries. Alternating toleration and oppression in Poland.