JEW
910
JEW
Rrandenburg (1243\ Frankfort (1241), Munich (12851, NureIlburg(1390),l'ra^'ue (1391), and Katisbon (1476). The " Black Death," in particular, occasioned a great and wiiiespread persecution (1348-1350). They were murdered and burned by thousands,- and many even sought death amidst the conflagrations of their syna- gogiies. From Switzerland to Silesia the land was drenched with innocent blood, and even the interfer- ence of the emperor and the pope long proved insutH- cicnt to put an end to the atrocities that were perpetra- tecL When the race had almost disappeared irom Ger- many, feelings of humanity as well as the interests of his kingdom caused Charles IV to concede them some privileges; and in the Golden Bull (135G) the future condition of the Jews was so clearly pointed out, that it prevented, in a great measure, further bloodshed, though it still continued to leave them subject to oppression and injustice. Their residence was forbidden in some places, and in many cities to which they had access they were confined to certain quarters or streets, known as ghettos or Jews' streets (Jiulenstrasse).
No better, nay worse, if possible, was their condition in France from the 11th to the 16th centuries. All man- ner of wild stories were circulated against them : it was said that they were wont to steal the host, and to con- temptuously stick it through and through ; to inveigle Cliristian children into their houses and murder them ; to p<jison wells, etc. They were also hated here as else- where on plea of excessive usury. Occasionally their debtors, high and low, hesitated not to have recourse to wliat tliey called Christian reUgion as a very easy means of gettuig rid of their obligations. Thus Philippe Au- gustus (117!)- 1223 j, under whose rule the Jews seem to have lield mortgages of enormous value on the estates of Church and state dignitaries, simply confiscated the debts due to them, forced them to surrender the pledges in ilieir ]wssession, seized their goods, and finally even b uiished them from France ; but the decree appears to h ive taken effect chiefly in the north ; yet in less than twenty years the same proud but wasteful monarch was glad to let them come back and take up their abode in I'ans. Louis IX (1226-1270), who was a very pious prince, among other relii/ious acts, cancelled a third of the claims which the Jews had against his subjects, "/()/• the benefit of his soul." An edict was also issued for the seizure and destruction of their sacred books, and we are told that at Paris twenty-four carts filled with copies of the Talimirl, etc., were consigned to the flames. See Talmud. The Jews w^ere also forbidden to hold social intercourse with their Christian neigh- bors, and the murderer of a Jew, if he were a Chris- tian, went unpunished. Need we wonder, then, that when, in the following century, a religious e])idemic, known as the Rising of the Shepherds, seized the com- mon people in Langucdoc and the central regions of France (A.I). 1321), they indulged in horrible massacres of tlie detested race; so horrible, indeed, that in one place, Verdun, on the (iaronne, the Jews, m the mad- ness of their agony, threw down their children to the Chriil'uin molt from the tower in which they were gath- ered, hoping, but m vain, to apjtease the demoniacal fury of tlieir assailants. " One shudders to read of what fol- lowed ; in whole provinces every Jew was burned. A t Chimin (I ilcfij) ,liirh irits dm/, an enormous pile raised, awl 1 60 of hoth sexes burned tor/ether ! Yet Christianity never produced more resolute martyrs; as they sprang into the place of torment, they sang hymns as though they were going to a wedding;" paid, though "savage and horrible as such self-devotion is. it is impossible not to admire the strength of heart which it discovers; and, without iuspiraticm, one might foretell that, so long as a solitary heart of this description was left to beat, it would treasure its national distinction as its sole remain- ing pride." At last, in 1594, they were indefinitely ban- ished from France, and the sentence rigidly executed (see Schmidt, Gesch. Frankreichs, i, 504 sq.).
Such is the frightlul picture of horrors and gloom
which the Jews of Germany, France, England, and Ita- ly offer in their mediieval history. " Circumscribed in their rights by decrees and laws of the ecclesiastical as well as civil power, excluded from all honorable occupa- tions, driven from place to place, from provmce to prov- ince, compelled to subsist almost exclusively by mer- cantile occupations and usurj-, overtaxed and degraded in the cities, kept in narrow quarters, and marked in their dress with signs of contempt, plundered by lawless barons and penniless princes, an easy prej^ to all parties during the civil feuds, again and again robbed of their pecuniary claims, owned and solil as serfs (chamber- servants) by the emperors, butchered bj- mobs and re- volted peasants, chased by the monks, and finally burn- ed in thousands by the Crusaders, who also bunied their brethren at Jerusalem in their sjaiagogues, or tormented by ridicule, abusive sermons, monstrous accusations aiid trials, threats and experiments of conversion."
In Spain and Portugal, indeed, the days of prosperity to the Jews lingered longest. As we have already no- tided, they enjoyed in these countries, while they re- mained mider Moorish riUe, almost equality with the JNIoslems. As in France under the Carlovingiaiis, so in Spain under Saracen rule, their literature betokens an uncommon progress in civilization — a progress which left far in the distance all other nations, even those who professed to unfurl the banner of the Cross. But this was especially true of the Spanish Jews. Acquainted with the Arabic, they coidd easily dive into the treas- ures of that language ; and the facility with which the Jews mastered all languages made them ready inter- preters between Mussulman and Christian. It was through their original thinkers, such as Avicebron (Ibn- Gebirol, q. v.) and Moses jMaimonides (q. v.), that the West became leavened with Greek and Oriental thought (Lewes, Philos. ii, 63), and the same persecuted and de-' spised race must be regarded as the chief instruments whereby the Arabian philosophy was made effective on European cidture. " Dans le monde Musulman comme dans le monde chretien," said the late professor Munk, of Paris {Melanges, p. 335), " les Juifs exclus de la vie publique, voues a la haine et au mepris par la religion dominante, toujours en presence des dangers dont les mena(;',ait le fanatisme de la foule, ne trouvaient la traiiquillite et le bonheur que dans mi isolement com- plet. Ignores de la societe les savants Juifs vouaient aux sciences un culte desinteresse." But all their abil- ity, learning, and wealth did not long ward off the un- restrained religious hatred of the common people, who felt no need of culture, and enjoyed no opportunities to borrow money from them. The world, which before seemed to have made a kind of tacit agreement to allow them time to regain wealth that might be plundered, and blood that miglit be poured out like water, now seemed to have entered into a conspiracy as extensive to drain the treasures and the life of this devoted race. Kingdom after kingdom, and people after people, fol- lowed the dreadful example, and strove to peal the knell of the descendants of Israel ; till at length, what we blush to caU Christianity, with the Inquisition in its train, cleared the fair and smiling provinces of Spain of this industrious part of its popiUation, and brought a self-inflicted curse of barrenness upon the benighted land (INIilman, Hist, of Jews, iii ; comp. Prescott, Ferd. and Is- abella, pt. i, ch. vii ; Jost, Gesch. d. Israeliten, vi, 75, 110, 184, 216, 290 ; Da Costa, Israel and the Gentiles, p. 221).