Part 34

To the uncertainty and annoyance of a life which was continually being threatened, was added a number of vexatious and personal insults, even in ordinary times, and when they enjoyed a kind of normal tolerance. They were almost everywhere obliged to wear a visible mark on their dress, such as a patch of gaudy colour attached to the shoulder or chest, in order to prevent their being mistaken for Christians. By this or some other means they were continually subject to insults from the people, and only succeeded in ridding themselves of it by paying the most enormous fines. Nothing was spared to humiliate and insult them. At Toulouse they were forced to send a representative to the cathedral on every Good Friday, that he might there publicly receive a box on the ears. At Béziers, during Passion week, the mob assumed the right of attacking the Jews' houses with stones. The Jews bought off this right in 1160 by paying a certain sum to the Vicomte de Béziers, and by promising an annual poll-tax to him and to his successors. A Jew, passing on the road of Etampes, beneath the tower of Montlhéry, had to pay an obole; if he had in his possession a Hebrew book, he paid four deniers; and, if he carried his lamp with him, two oboles. At Châteauneuf-sur-Loire a Jew on passing had to pay twelve deniers and a Jewess six. It has been said that there were various ancient rates levied upon Jews, in which they were treated like cattle, but this requires authentication. During the Carnival in Rome they were forced to run in the lists, amidst the jeers of the populace. This public outrage was stopped at a subsequent period by a tax of 300 écus, which a deputation from the Ghetto presented on their knees to the magistrates of the city, at the same time thanking them for their protection.

When Pope Martin IV. arrived at the Council of Constance, in 1417, the Jewish community, which was as numerous as it was powerful in that old city, came in great state to present him with the book of the law (Fig. 364). The holy father received the Jews kindly, and prayed God to open their eyes and bring them back into the bosom of his church. We know, too, how charitable the popes were to the Jews.

In the face of the distressing position they occupied, it may be asked what powerful motive induced the Jews to live amongst nations who almost invariably treated them as enemies, and to remain at the mercy of sovereigns whose sole object was to oppress, plunder, and subject them to all kinds of vexations? To understand this it is sufficient to remember that, in their peculiar aptness for earning and hoarding money, they found, or at least hoped to find, a means of compensation whereby they might be led to forget the servitude to which they were subjected.

There existed amongst them, and especially in the southern countries, some very learned men, who devoted themselves principally to medicine; and in order to avoid having to struggle against insuperable prejudice, they were careful to disguise their nationality and religion in the exercise of that art.

They pretended, in order not to arouse the suspicion of their patients, to be practitioners from Lombardy or Spain, or even from Arabia; whether they were really clever, or only made a pretence of being so, in an art which was then very much a compound of quackery and imposture, it is difficult to say, but they acquired wealth as well as renown in its practice. But there was another science, to the study of which they applied themselves with the utmost ardour and perseverance, and for which they possessed in a marvellous degree the necessary qualities to insure success, and that science was the science of finance. In matters having reference to the recovering of arrears of taxes, to contracts for the sale of goods and produce of industry, to turning a royalty to account, to making hazardous commercial enterprises lucrative, or to the accumulating of large sums of money for the use of sovereigns or poor nobles, the Jews were always at hand, and might invariably be reckoned upon. They created capital, for they always had funds to dispose of, even in the midst of the most terrible public calamities, and, when all other means were exhausted, when all expedients for filling empty purses had been resorted to without success, the Jews were called in. Often, in consequence of the envy which they excited from being known to possess hoards of gold, they were exposed to many dangers, which they nevertheless faced, buoying themselves up with the insatiable love of gain.

Few Christians in the Middle Ages were given to speculation, and they were especially ignorant of financial matters, as demanding interest on loans was almost always looked upon as usury, and, consequently, such dealings were stigmatized as disgraceful. The Jews were far from sharing these high-minded scruples, and they took advantage of the ignorance of Christians by devoting themselves as much as possible to enterprises and speculations, which were at all times the distinguishing occupation of their race. For this reason we find the Jews, who were engaged in the export trade from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, doing a most excellent business, even in the commercial towns of the Mediterranean. We can, to a certain extent, in speaking of the intercourse of the Jews with the Christians of the Middle Ages, apply what Lady Montague remarked as late as 1717, when comparing the Jews of Turkey with the Mussulmans: "The former," she says, "have monopolized all the commerce of the empire, thanks to the close ties which exist amongst them, and to the laziness and want of industry of the Turks. No bargain is made without their connivance. They are the physicians and stewards of all the nobility. It is easy to conceive the unity which this gives to a nation which never despises the smallest profits. They have found means of rendering themselves so useful, that they are certain of protection at court, whoever the ruling minister may be. Many of them are enormously rich, but they are careful to make but little outward display, although living in the greatest possible luxury."

The condition of the Jews in the East was never so precarious nor so difficult as it was in the West. From the Councils of Paris, in 615, down to the end of the fifteenth century, the nobles and the civil and ecclesiastical authorities excluded the Jews from administrative positions; but it continually happened that a positive want of money, against which the Jews were ever ready to provide, caused a repeal or modification of these arbitrary measures. Moreover, Christians did not feel any scruple in parting with their most valued treasures, and giving them as pledges to the Jews for a loan of money when they were in need of it. This plan of lending on pledge, or usury, belonged specially to the Jews in Europe during the Middle Ages, and was both the cause of their prosperity and of their misfortune. Of their prosperity, because they cleverly contrived to become possessors of all the coin; and of their misfortune, because their usurious demands became so detrimental to the public welfare, and were often exacted with such unscrupulous severity, that people not unfrequently became exasperated, and acts of violence were committed, which as often fell upon the innocent as upon the guilty. The greater number of the acts of banishment were those for which no other motive was assigned, or, at all events, no other pretext was made, than the usury practised by these strangers in the provinces and in the towns in which they were permitted to reside. When the Christians heard that these rapacious guests had harshly pressed and entirely stripped certain poor debtors, when they learned that the debtors, ruined by usury, were still kept prisoners in the house of their pitiless creditors, general indignation often manifested itself by personal attacks. This feeling was frequently shared by the authorities themselves, who, instead of dispensing equal justice to the strangers and to the citizens, according to the spirit of the law, often decided with partiality, and even with resentment, and in some cases abandoned the Jews to the fury of the people.

The people's feelings of hatred against the sordid avarice of the Jews was continually kept up by ballads which were sung, and legends which were related, in the public streets of the cities and in the cottages of the villages--ballads and legends in which usurers were depicted in hideous colours (Fig. 366). The most celebrated of these popular compositions was evidently that which must have furnished the idea to Shakespeare of the _Merchant of Venice_, for in this old English drama mention is made of a bargain struck between a Jew and a Christian, who borrows money of him, on condition that, if he cannot refund it on a certain day, the lender shall have the right of cutting a pound of flesh from his body. All the evil which the people said and thought of the Jews during the Middle Ages seems concentrated in the Shylock of the English poet.

The rate of interest for loans was, nevertheless, everywhere settled by law, and at all times. This rate varied according to the scarcity of gold, and was always high enough to give a very ample profit to the lenders, although they too often required a very much higher rate. In truth, the small security offered by those borrowing, and the arbitrary manner in which debts were at times cancelled, increased the risks of the lender and the normal difficulties of obtaining a loan. We find everywhere, in all ancient legislations, a mass of rules on the rate of pecuniary interest to be allowed to the Jews.

In some countries, especially in England, precautionary measures were taken for regulating the compacts entered into between Christians and Jews. One of the departments of the Exchequer received the register of these compacts, which thus acquired a legal value. However, it was not unfrequent for the kings of England to grant, of their own free will, letters of release to persons owing money to Jews; and these letters, which were often equivalent to the cancelling of the entire debt, were even at times actually purchased from the sovereign. Mention of sums received by the royal treasury for the liberation of debtors, or for enabling them to recover their mortgaged lands without payment, may still be found in the registers of the Exchequer of London; at the same time, Jews, on the other hand, also paid the King large sums, in order that he might allow justice to take its course against powerful debtors who were in arrear, and who could not be induced to pay. We thus see that if the Jews practised usury, the Christians, and especially kings and powerful nobles, defrauded the Jews in every way, and were too often disposed to sell to them the smallest concessions at a great price. Indeed, Christians often went so far as to persecute them, in order to obtain the greatest possible amount from them; and the Jews of the Middle Ages put up with anything provided they could enrich themselves.

It must not be supposed, however, that, great as were their capabilities, the Jews exclusively devoted themselves to financial matters. When they were permitted to trade they were well satisfied to become artisans or agriculturists. In Spain they proved themselves most industrious, and that kingdom suffered a great loss in consequence of their being expelled from it. In whatever country they established themselves, the Jews carried on most of the mechanical and manual industries with cleverness and success; but they could not hope to become landed proprietors in countries where they were in such bad odour, and where the possession of land, far from offering them any security, could not fail to excite the envy of their enemies.

If, as is the case, Oriental people are of a serious turn of mind, it is easy to understand that the Jews should have been still more so, since they were always objects of hatred and abhorrence. We find a touching allegory in the Talmud. Each time that a human being is created God orders his angels to bring a soul before his throne, and orders this soul to go and inhabit the body which is about to be born on earth. The soul is grieved, and supplicates the Supreme Being to spare it that painful trial, in which it only sees sorrow and affliction. This allegory may be suitably applied to a people who have only to expect contempt, mistrust, and hatred, everywhere. The Israelites, therefore, clung enthusiastically to the hope of the advent of a Messiah who should bring back to them the happy days of the land of promise, and they looked upon their absence from Palestine as only a passing exile. "But," the Christians said to them, "this Messiah has long since come." "Alas!" they answered, "if He had appeared on earth should we still be miserable?" Fulbert, Bishop of Chartres, preached three sermons to undeceive the Jews, by endeavouring to prove to them that their Messiah was no other than Jesus Christ; but he preached to the winds, for the Jews remained obstinately attached to their illusion that the Messiah was yet to come.

In any case, the Jews, who mixed up the mysteries and absurdities of the Talmud with the ancient laws and numerous rules of the religion of their ancestors, found in the practice of their national customs, and in the celebration of their mysterious ceremonies, the sweetest emotions, especially when they could devote themselves to them in the peaceful retirement of the Ghetto; for, in all the countries in which they lived scattered and isolated amongst Christians, they were careful to conceal their worship and to conduct their ceremonial as secretly as possible.

The clergy, in striving to convert the Jews, repeatedly had conferences with the rabbis of a controversial character, which often led to quarrels, and aggravated the lot of the Jewish community. If Catholic proselystism succeeded in completely detaching a few individuals or a few families from the Israelitish creed, these ardent converts rekindled the horror of the people against their former co-religionists by revealing some of the precepts of the Talmud. Sometimes the conversion of whole masses of Jews was effected, but this happened much less through conviction on their part than through the fear of exile, plunder, or execution.

These pretended conversions, however, did not always protect them from danger. In Spain the Inquisition kept a close watch on converted Jews, and, if they were not true to their new faith, severe punishment was inflicted upon them. In 1506, the inhabitants of Abrantès, a town of Portugal, massacred all the baptized Jews. Manoël, a king of Portugal, forbad the converts from selling their goods and leaving his dominions. The Church excluded them from ecclesiastical dignities, and, when they succeeded in obtaining civil employments, they were received with distrust. In France the Parliaments tried, with a show of justice, to prevent converted Jews from being reproached for their former condition; but Louis XII., during his pressing wants, did not scruple to exact a special tax from them. And, in 1611, we again find that they were unjustly denounced, and under the form of a _Remonstrance to the King and the Parliament of Provence, on account of the great family alliances of the new converts_, an appeal was made for the most cruel reprisals against this unfortunate race, "which deserved only to be banished and their goods confiscated."

Gipsies, Tramps, Beggars, and Cours des Miracles.

First Appearance of Gipsies in the West.--Gipsies in Paris.--Manners and Customs of these Wandering Tribes.--Tricks of Captain Charles.--Gipsies expelled by Royal Edict.--Language of Gipsies.--The Kingdom of Slang.--The Great Coesre, Chief of the Vagrants; his Vassals and Subjects.--Divisions of the Slang People; its Decay and the Causes thereof.--Cours des Miracles.--The Camp of Rognes.--Cunning Language, or Slang.--Foreign Rogues, Thieves, and Pickpockets.

In the year 1417 the inhabitants of the countries situated near the mouth of the Elbe were disturbed by the arrival of strangers, whose manners and appearance were far from pre-possessing. These strange travellers took a course thence towards the Teutonic Hanse, starting from Luneburg: they subsequently proceeded to Hamburg, and then, going from east to west along the Baltic, they visited the free towns of Lubeck, Wismar, Rostock, Stralsund, and Greifswald.

These new visitors, known in Europe under the names of _Zingari, Cigani, Gipsies, Gitanos, Egyptians_, or _Bohemians_, but who, in their own language, called themselves _Romi_, or _gens mariés_, numbered about three hundred men and women, besides the children, who were very numerous. They divided themselves into seven bands, all of which followed the same track. Very dirty, excessively ugly, and remarkable for their dark complexions, these people had for their leaders a duke and a count, as they were called, who were superbly dressed, and to whom they acknowledged allegiance. Some of them rode on horseback, whilst others went on foot. The women and children travelled on beasts of burden and in waggons (Fig. 369). If we are to believe their own story, their wandering life was caused by their return to Paganism after having been previously converted to the Christian faith, and, as a punishment for their sin, they were to continue their adventurous course for a period of seven years. They showed letters of recommendation from various princes, among others from Sigismund, King of the Romans, and these letters, whether authentic or false, procured for them a welcome wherever they went. They encamped in the fields at night, because the habit they indulged in of stealing everything for which they had a fancy, caused them to fear being disturbed in the towns. It was not long, however, before many of them were arrested and put to death for theft, when the rest speedily decamped.

In the course of the following year we find them at Meissen, in Saxony, whence they were driven out on account of the robberies and disturbances they committed; and then in Switzerland, where they passed through the countries of the Grisons, the cantons of Appenzell, and Zurich, stopping in Argovie. Chroniclers who mention them at that time speak of their chief, Michel, as Duke of Egypt, and relate that these strangers, calling themselves Egyptians, pretended that they were driven from their country by the Sultan of Turkey, and condemned to wander for seven years in want and misery. These chroniclers add that they were very honest people, who scrupulously followed all the practices of the Christian religion; that they were poorly clad, but that they had gold and silver in abundance; that they lived well, and paid for everything they had; and that, at the end of seven years, they went away to return home, as they said. However, whether because a considerable number remained on the road, or because they had been reinforced by others of the same tribe during the year, a troop of fifty men, accompanied by a number of hideous women and filthy children, made their appearance in the neighbourhood of Augsburg. These vagabonds gave out that they were exiles from Lower Egypt, and pretended to know the art of predicting coming events. It was soon found out that they were much less versed in divination and in the occult sciences than in the arts of plundering, roguery, and cheating.

In the following year a similar horde, calling themselves Saracens, appeared at Sisteron, in Provence; and on the 18th. of July, 1422, a chronicler of Bologna mentions the arrival in that town of a troop of foreigners, commanded by a certain André, Duke of Egypt, and composed of at least one hundred persons, including women and children. They encamped inside and outside the gate _di Galiera_, with the exception of the duke, who lodged at the inn _del Re_. During the fifteen days which they spent at Bologna a number of the people of the town went to see them, and especially to see "the wife of the duke," who, it was said, knew how to foretell future events, and to tell what was to happen to people, what their fortunes would be, the number of their children, if they were good or bad, and many other things (Fig. 370). Few men, however, left the house of the so-called Duke of Egypt without having their purses stolen, and but few women escaped without having the skirts of their dresses cut. The Egyptian women walked about the town in groups of six or seven, and whilst some were talking to the townspeople, telling them their fortunes, or bartering in shops, one of their number would lay her hands on anything which was within reach. So many robberies were committed in this way, that the magistrates of the town and the ecclesiastical authorities forbad the inhabitants from visiting the Egyptians' camp, or from having any intercourse with them, under penalty of excommunication and of a fine of fifty livres. Besides this, by a strange application of the laws of retaliation, those who had been robbed by these foreigners were permitted to rob them to the extent of the value of the things stolen. In consequence of this, the Bolognians entered a stable in which several of the Egyptians' horses were kept, and took out one of the finest of them. In order to recover him the Egyptians agreed to restore what they had taken, and the restitution was made. But perceiving that they could no longer do any good for themselves in this province, they struck their tents and started for Rome, to which city they said they were bound to go, not only in order to accomplish a pilgrimage imposed upon them by the Sultan, who had expelled them from their own land, but especially to obtain letters of absolution from the Holy Father.

In 1422 the band left Italy, and we find them at Basle and in Suabia. Then, besides the imperial passports, of which they had up to that time alone boasted, they pretended to have in their possession bulls which they stated that they had obtained from the Pope. They also modified their original tale, and stated that they were descendants of the Egyptians who refused hospitality to the Holy Virgin and to St. Joseph during their flight into Egypt: they also declared that, in consequence of this crime, God had doomed their race to perpetual misery and exile.