Part 631

"It cannot be denied that this frugal, careful race formed the only class of traders in the land [16th-17th centuries]. That branch of industry which the nobleman despised, owing to pride or carelessness, and from which the peasant was excluded by stupidity and ignorance, fell to the share of the Jews. Though their presence may have been a misfortune for the nation in after years, they were certainly at the same time a national necessity. … Perpetually oppressed by capricious laws, the race raised itself by perseverance and cunning. Ill-treated, persecuted by fire and sword, still they returned, or others took their place; robbed and plundered repeatedly, the wealth of the land was yet theirs. … The first Jewish immigrants were exiles from Germany and Bohemia. In 1096 they fled to Poland, where at that time there was more religious tolerance than in the rest of Europe. The cruelty and greed of the first crusaders caused this exodus of the Jews. … Casimir the Great [1333-1370], instigated by his love for Esther, the beautiful Jewess of Opocno, gave the Jews such civil rights and privileges as a Polish king could grant, which conduced to the advantage of the land; but already in the time of Lewis of Hungary, 1371, they were sentenced to exile. Notwithstanding this, we find them scattered over the whole of Poland in 1386. Christians were forbidden on pain of excommunication to have any intercourse with Jews or to purchase from them. When they settled in towns they were forced to live in particular suburbs. … The incredible increase of the Jewish population, supposed to be three times as rapid as that of the Polish inhabitants, was very alarming, as the Jews managed to avoid all public burdens and taxes. Sigismund Augustus [1548-1572] resolved, in spite of their objections, to impose a poll tax of one florin per head, and at the same time to discover by this means their actual number. It was estimated at 200,000, but only 16,000 florins were paid as tax. Their power was increased by John Sobiesky, to whom they had prophesied that he would ascend the throne. He favoured the Jews so much, that the senate in 1682 implored him to regard the welfare of the state, and not let the favours of the crown pass through their hands. The laws forbidding the Jews on pain of death to trade with the peasants, to keep inns, to sell brandy—laws which were passed anew in every reign—show that they never ceased to carry on these trades, so profitable for them, so ruinous for the peasant."

_Count Von Moltke, Poland: chapter 6._

ALSO IN: _H. Graetz, History of the Jews, volume 4, chapter 18._

JEWS: A. D. 1189. Massacres in England.

At the time of the accession of Richard Cœur de Lion, king of England, the crusading spirit had inflamed a specially bitter hatred of the Jews. Some of the obnoxious people were imprudent enough to press in among the spectators of King Richard's coronation. They were driven back with blows; "a riot ensued, and the Jews' quarter was plundered. A day elapsed before the king's troops could restore order, and then only three rioters were punished, for damage done to Christians. Thus encouraged, or allowed, the frenzy of persecution spread over the land. Generally it was the country people who were setting out as pilgrims for Palestine, who began the crusade at home, while the cities interposed to preserve the king's peace. But the rumour that the unbelievers were accustomed to crucify a Christian boy at Easter had hardened men's hearts against them. The cause of murder and rapine prevailed in Dunstable, Stamford, and Lincoln. At York, the viscount allowed 500 Jews to take refuge in the castle. Fearing, in spite of this, to be given up, they closed the gates against the king's officers. They were now besieged by the townsmen, under orders of the viscount, and the defence of men untrained to arms and without artillery lay only in the strength of the walls. They offered to ransom their lives, but the crowd thirsted for blood. Then a rabbi rose up and addressed his countrymen. 'Men of Israel, hear my words: it is better for us to die for our law than to fall into the hands of those who hate it; and our law prescribes this.' Then every man slew his wife and children, and hurled the corpses over the battlements. The survivors shut themselves up with their treasures in the royal chamber, and set fire to it. The crowd indemnified themselves by sacking the Jews' quarter, and burning the schedules of their debts, which were kept for safety in the cathedral."

_C. H. Pearson, History of England during the Early and Middle Ages, volume 1, chapter 32._

ALSO IN: _H. C. Adams, History of the Jews, chapter 16._

JEWS: 12-15th Centuries. Treatment in France.

In France, during the Middle Ages, the extorting of money from the Jews was one of the devices depended upon for replenishing the royal treasury. "It is almost incredible to what a length this was carried. Usury, forbidden by law and superstition to Christians, was confined to this industrious and covetous people. … The children of Israel grew rich in despite of insult and oppression, and retaliated upon their Christian debtors. If an historian of Philip Augustus may be believed, they possessed almost one-half of Paris. Unquestionably they must have had support both at court and in the halls of justice. The policy of the kings of France was to employ them as a sponge to suck their subjects' money, which they might afterwards express with less odium than direct taxation would incur. Philip Augustus released all Christians in his dominions from their debts to the Jews, reserving a fifth part to himself. He afterwards expelled the whole nation from France. But they appear to have returned again—whether by stealth, or, as is more probable, by purchasing permission. St. Louis twice banished and twice recalled the Jews. A series of alternate persecution and tolerance was borne by this extraordinary people with an invincible perseverance, and a talent of accumulating riches which kept pace with their plunderers; till new schemes of finance supplying the turn, they were finally expelled under Charles VI. and never afterwards obtained any legal establishment in France."

_H. Hallam, The Middle Ages, chapter 2, part 2 (volume 1)._

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

{1928}

JEWS: 13-14th Centuries. Hostility of the Papacy and the Church. Doctrine of the Divine condemnation of the Jews to Slavery. Claim of the Emperors to ownership of them.

"The declaration by Innocent III. [Pope, 1198-1216] that the entire nation was destined by God on account of its sins to perpetual slavery, was the Magna Charta continually appealed to by those who coveted the possessions of the Jews and the earnings of their industry; both princes and people acted upon it. … The succeeding popes took their stand upon the maxims and behests of Innocent III. If the Jews built themselves a synagogue, it was to be pulled down; they might only repair the old ones. No Jew might appear as a witness against a Christian. The bishops were charged to enforce the wearing of the distinctive badge, the hat or the yellow garment, by all the means in their power. The wearing of the badge was particularly cruel and oppressive, for in the frequent tumults and risings in the towns the Jews, being thus recognisable at a glance, fell all the more easily into the hands of the excited mob; and if a Jew undertook a journey he inevitably became a prey to the numerous bandits and adventurers, who naturally considered him as an outlaw. … Where popes failed to interfere, the councils of the various countries made amends for the omission; they forbade, for instance, a Christian letting or selling a house to a Jew, or buying wine from him. Besides all this, the order was often renewed that all copies of the Talmud and commentaries upon it—consequently the greater part of the Jewish literature—should be burnt. … The new theory as to the Jews being in a state of slavery was now adopted and enlarged upon by theologians and canonists. Thomas Aquinas, whose teaching was received by the whole Roman Church as unassailable, pronounced that since the race was condemned to perpetual bondage princes could dispose of the possessions of the Jews just as they would of their own. A long list of canonical writers maintained, upon the same ground, the right of princes and governors to seize upon the sons and daughters of Jews and have them baptized by force. It was commonly taught, and the ecclesiastical claim still exists, that a Jewish child once baptized was not to be left to the father. Meanwhile princes had eagerly seized upon the papal doctrine that the perpetual slavery of the Jews was ordained by God, and on it the Emperor Frederick II. founded the claim that all Jews belonged to him as Emperor, following the contention prevalent at the time that the right of lordship over them devolved upon him as the successor of the old Roman Emperors. … King Albert went so far as to claim from King Philip of France that the French Jews should be handed over to him. … From the 14th century this 'servitude to the state' was understood to mean complete slavery. 'You yourselves, your bodies and your possessions, belong,' says the Emperor Charles IV. in a document addressed to the Jews, 'to us and to the empire; we may act, make and do with you what we will and please.' The Jews were, in fact, constantly handed about like merchandise from one to another; the emperor, now in this place, now in that, declared their claims for debts to be cancelled; and for this a heavy sum was paid into his treasury, usually 30 per cent."

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

JEWS: A. D. 1290. Banished from England.

"At the same time [A. D. 1290], the King [Edward I.] banished all the Jews from the kingdom. Upward of 16,000 are said to have left England, nor did they reappear till Cromwell connived at their return in 1654. It is not quite clear why the King determined on this act of severity, especially as the Jews were royal property and a very convenient source of income. It is probable, however, that their way of doing business was very repugnant to his ideas of justice, while they were certainly great falsifiers of the coinage, which he was very anxious to keep pure and true. Earlier in the reign he had hanged between 200 and 300 of them for that crime, and they are said to have demanded 60 per cent. for their loans, taking advantage of the monopoly as money-lenders which the ecclesiastical prohibition of usury had given them."

_J. F. Bright, History of England, period 1, page 179._

The expulsion was in compliance with a demand made by Parliament. "We have no record of any special action or crime on the part of the Jews which suggested the particular parliamentary demand in 1290." It had been made four years before, when, "in one night, all the Jews in England were flung into prison, and would most likely have been expelled there and then, had they not outbribed the King with £12,000."

_G. H. Leonard, Expulsion of the Jews by Edward I. (Royal History Society Transactions, new series, volume 5, 1891)._

JEWS: A. D. 1321. Persecution of Lepers and Jews.

"In the year 1321, a general rumour prevailed through Europe that the unhappy beings afflicted with leprosy (a disease with which the Crusaders had become infected in the East …) had conspired to inoculate all their healthy fellow-creatures with their own loathsome malady. … The King of Grenada and the Jews were denounced as the prime movers of this nefarious plot directed to the extermination of Christianity; and it was said that the latter, unable to overcome the many impediments which opposed their own agency, had bribed the lepers to become their instruments. This 'enormous Creed,' in spite of its manifold absurdities, found easy admission; and, if other evidence were wanting for its support, torture was always at hand to provide confessions. Philip V. [of France] was among the firmest believers, and therefore among the most active avengers of the imaginary crime; and he encouraged persecution by numerous penal edicts. At Toulouse, 160 Jews were burned alive at once on a single pile, without distinction of sex, and, as it seems, without any forms of previous examination. In Paris, greater gentleness was manifested; those only were led to the stake from whom an avowal of guilt could be extorted."

_E. Smedley, History of France, part 1, chapter 8._

{1929}

"The lord of Parthenay writes word to the king that 'a great leper,' arrested on his territory, has confessed that a rich Jew had given him money, and supplied him with drugs. These drugs were compounded of human blood, of urine, and of the blood of Christ (the consecrated wafer), and the whole, after having been dried and pounded, was put into a bag with a weight and thrown into the springs or wells. Several lepers had already been provisionally burnt in Gascony, and the king, alarmed at the new movement which was originating, hastily returned from Poitou to France, and issued an ordinance for the general arrest of the lepers. Not a doubt was entertained by anyone of this horrible compact between the lepers and the Jews. 'We ourselves,' says a chronicler of the day, 'have seen with our own eyes one of these bags, in Poitou, in a burgh of our own vassalage.' … The king ordered all found guilty to be burnt, with the exception of those female lepers who happened to be pregnant. The other lepers were to be confined to their lazarettos. As to the Jews, they were burnt indiscriminately, especially in the South."

_J. Michelet, History of France, book 5, chapter 5 (volume 1)._

JEWS: A. D. 1348-1349. Accused of causing the Black Plague.

On the appearance in Europe, A. D. 1348, of the pestilence known as the Black Death, "there was a suspicion that the disease was due to human agencies, and, as usual, the Jews were asserted to have contrived the machinations by which the calamity was created. They were charged with poisoning the wells, and through France, Switzerland, and Germany, thousands of these unhappy people were destroyed on evidence derived from confessions obtained under torture. As far as he could, the Emperor Charles IV. protected them. They escaped persecution too in the dominions of Albrecht of Austria. It is said that the great number of the Jewish population in Poland is due to the fact that Casimir the Great was induced by the entreaties of one Esther, a favourite Jewish mistress of that monarch, to harbour and shelter them in his kingdom. It should be mentioned that Clement VI. forbad the persecution of the Jews at Avignon."

_J. E. T. Rogers, History of Agriculture and Prices, volume 1, chapter 15._

ALSO IN: _H. Graetz, History of the Jews, volume 4, chapter 4._

JEWS: A. D. 1391. Massacre and expulsion from Spain.

See above: 8TH-15TH CENTURIES; also, INQUISITION: A. D. 1203-1525.

JEWS: A. D. 1492. Expulsion of Jews from Spain.

See INQUISITION: A. D. 1203-1525.

JEWS: 17th Century. Toleration in Holland. Attractiveness of that country to wealthy Israelites.

See NETHERLANDS A. D. 1621-1633.

JEWS: A. D. 1655. Toleration in England by Cromwell.

"Wednesday, December 12, 1655. This day, 'in a withdrawing room at Whitehall,' presided over by his Highness [the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell], who is much interested in the matter, was held 'a Conference concerning the Jews';—of which the modern reader too may have heard something. Conference, one of Four Conferences, publicly held, which filled all England with rumour in those old December days; but must now contract themselves into a point for us. Highest official Persons, with Lord Chief Barons, Lord Chief Justices, and chosen Clergy have met here to advise, by reason, Law-learning, Scripture-prophecy, and every source of light for the human mind, concerning the proposal of admitting Jews, with certain privileges as of alien-citizens, to reside in England. They were banished near Four-hundred years ago: shall they now be allowed to reside and trade again? The Proposer is Manasseh Ben Israel,' a learned Portuguese Jew of Amsterdam; who, being stirred up of late years by the great things doing in England, has petitioned one and the other, Long Parliament and Little Parliament, for this object; but could never, till his Highness came into power, get the matter brought to a hearing. And so they debate and solemnly consider; and his Highness spake;—and says one witness, 'I never heard a man speak so well.' His Highness was eager for the scheme, if so might be. But the Scripture-prophecies, Law-learnings, and lights of the human mind seemed to point another way: zealous Manasseh went home again; the Jews could not settle here except by private sufferance of his Highness."

_T. Carlyle, Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, part 9, letter 207._

"Cromwell … was able to overcome neither the arguments of the theologians, nor the jealousies of the merchants, nor the prejudices of the indifferent; and seeing that the conference was not likely to end as he desired, he put an end to its deliberations. Then, without granting the Jews the public establishment which they had solicited, he authorized a certain number of them to take up their residence in London, where they built a synagogue, purchased the land for a burial-ground, and quietly commenced the formation of a sort of corporation, devoted to the Protector, on whose tolerance their safety entirely depended."

_F. P. Guizot, History of Oliver Cromwell, book 6 (volume 2)._

JEWS: A. D. 1662-1753. Condition in England. Defeated attempt to legalize their naturalization.

"The Jews … were not formally authorised to establish themselves in England till after the Restoration. The first synagogue in London was erected in 1662. … There does not appear … to have been any legal obstacle to the sovereign and Parliament naturalising a Jew till a law, enacted under James I., and directed against the Catholics, made the sacramental test an essential preliminary to naturalisation. Two subsequent enactments exempted from this necessity all foreigners who were engaged in the hemp and flax manufacture, and all Jews and Protestant foreigners who had lived for seven continuous years in the American plantations. In the reign of James II. the Jews were relieved from the payment of the alien duty, but it is a significant fact that it was reimposed after the Revolution at the petition of the London merchants. In the reign of Anne some of them are said to have privately negotiated with Godolphin for permission to purchase the town of Brentford, and to settle there with full privileges of trade; but the minister, fearing to arouse the spirit of religious intolerance and of commercial jealousy, refused the application. The great development of industrial enterprise which followed the long and prosperous administration of Walpole naturally attracted Jews, who were then as now preeminent in commercial matters, and many of them appear at this time to have settled in England,"—among others, the family of Disraeli. In 1753, the Pelhams attempted to legalise the naturalisation of Jews; "not to naturalise all resident Jews, but simply to enable Parliament to pass special Bills to naturalise those who applied to it, although they had not lived in the colonies or been engaged in the hemp or flax manufacture. … {1930} The opponents of the ministry raised the cry that the Bill was an unchristian one, and England was thrown into paroxysms of excitement scarcely less intense than those which followed the impeachment of Sacheverell. There is no page in the history of the 18th century that shows more decisively how low was the intellectual and political condition of English public opinion. According to its opponents, the Jewish Naturalisation Bill sold the birthright of Englishmen for nothing, it was a distinct abandonment of Christianity, it would draw upon England all the curses which Providence had attached to the Jews. The commercial classes complained that it would fill England with usurers. … The clergy all over England denounced it." After fierce opposition, the bill was finally passed; "but as the tide of popular indignation rose higher and higher, the ministers in the next year brought forward and carried its repeal."

_W. E. H. Lecky, History of England, 18th Century, chapter 2 (volume 1)._

JEWS: A. D. 1727-1880. Persecutions and restrictions in Russia. The Pale.