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finally driven out from the rest of the country by the insane King
Charles VI., at the end of the fourteenth century.
1394–5
In Germany wherever the dead body of a Christian
was found, the murder was promptly laid at the door of the Jews,
who on such occasions were bidden to be baptized or die. So firm a
hold had the blood-accusation got upon the minds of the people that
there was no mystery which could not be cleared up by a simple
reference to the Jews. The outbreak of the Black Death in Germany
also was attributed to Jewish malevolence. It is now held that this
scourge originated in India and was conveyed to Europe by trade
routes and armies, or that it arose from the insanitary conditions of
mediaeval life. But the mediaeval world was convinced that it could
only be the work of the Jews. Their comparative immunity from the
disease, due perhaps to their superior temperance, lent colour to the
theory; confessions extorted by torture dissipated all doubts on the
subject. It was commonly believed that the Jews of Spain, those
redoubtable professors of the Black Art, had invented this fiendish
method for the extermination of Christianity; that they had
despatched emissaries with boxes of poison concocted of basilisks
and lizards, or even of Christian hearts, to all the Jewish
congregations in Europe and had persuaded or compelled them to
disseminate death among the Christians by poisoning the wells and
springs. The arch-poisoner was even indicated by name. The Jews
were in consequence subjected to a widespread persecution, at the
hands of a mob maddened by the terrible and mysterious epidemic.
Despite the Emperor’s energetic efforts to save his
1348–50
serfs, the more disinterested exertions of humane
burgomasters, sheriffs, and municipal councils, and Pope Clement
VI.’s Bull in which the absurdity of the poison charge was solemnly
exposed, the wretched people were slaughtered and burnt by
thousands in many parts of Germany, and at last they were banished
from the Empire. Yet their services were so valuable that they
gradually returned, only to submit to new social restrictions and
contumelious enactments on the part of the Church.
Similar scenes were performed through the length and breadth
of Switzerland and Belgium.
In Poland alone, which had long been a haven of refuge to the
hunted Jews, these abominable calumnies found a very limited
market as yet. It was there enacted that a charge of ritual murder
brought by a Christian against a Jew, unless the accuser succeeded
in substantiating it, should be punished with death. This generous
treatment of the Polish Jews, it is said, was partly due to King
Casimir IV.’s love for a Jewish mistress. Through her influence the
children of Israel obtained many privileges which placed them on a
footing of social equality with the Christians. At a time when they
were oppressed, reviled and butchered in almost every Western
country, in Poland their lives and liberties were as safe as those of
the nobility itself. Whilst the native peasants were still treated as
serfs, the Jews were allowed the aristocratic privilege of wearing
rapiers. Any Jew might, by simply renouncing his religion, become a
nobleman. As stewards of the estates belonging to the Polish
magnates, the Jews possessed even the power of inflicting capital
punishment on the Christian slaves of the soil: so much so that
during the terrible pestilence not more than ten thousand Jews were
massacred in Poland.
CHAPTER VIII
The first mention of Jews on this side of the Channel is said to occur
in the Church Constitutions of Egbert, Archbishop of York, towards
the middle of the eighth century; the second in a monastic charter of
some hundred years later. But they do not seem to have crossed
over in any considerable force till the Norman Conquest. Among the
foreigners who followed William to his new dominions
1066
were many families of French Jews. Their ready
money and their eagerness to part with it rendered them welcome to
the king and his barons. The former received from them advances,
when his feudal dues were in arrear; the latter had recourse to the
Jew’s money-bag whenever the expense of military service or the
extravagance of their life made a loan necessary. To men of lower
rank also, such as litigants who were obliged to follow the King’s
Court from county to county, or to repair to Rome in order to plead
their cases before the Pope’s Curia, the Jew’s purse was of constant
help. No less useful was the Jew to the English tax-payer. In those
days of picturesque inefficiency taxes were levied at irregular
intervals and in lump sums. The subject, suddenly called upon to pay
a large amount at short notice, was only too glad to borrow from the
Jew.
However, such intercourse with the Gentiles, high and low,
notwithstanding, the Jews formed in England, as they did on the
Continent, a people apart. In each town the synagogue formed a
centre round which clustered the colony. Newcomers gravitated
towards the same centre, and thus spontaneously grew the Jewries
of London, Norwich, York, Northampton, and other English cities.
These Jewish quarters were the King’s property and, like his forests,
they were outside the jurisdiction of the common law. But, while their
judicial and financial interests were under royal control, the Jews
were allowed full liberty of worship, were permitted to build
synagogues and to conduct their religious affairs under their own
Chief Rabbi, thus constituting a self-governing and self-centred
community. The literary activity of the Jews during their sojourn in
England reveals a marvellous detachment from their environment.
Commentaries and super-commentaries on the Old Testament and
the Talmud, learned treatises on minute points of ritual and
ceremonial, discussions on the benedictory formulas that are
appropriate to each occasion of life: on rising in the morning, or lying
down at night, on eating, washing, on being married, on hearing
thunder, and a myriad other profound trivialities—such was the stuff
that their studies were made of. And whilst Norman and Saxon, Celt
and Dane were being welded into one English people, Israel
remained a race distinct in face, speech, domestic economy,
deportment, diet of the body and diet of the soul.
The singularity of the Jews’ habits, their usury, the wealth
accumulated thereby, and the ostentatious display of it, must from
the very first have evoked among the English feelings of distrust and
jealousy, dislike and contempt, such as at a later period inspired a
genial poet to pronounce that “Hell is without light where they sing
lamentations.” But during the first century of their residence in the
country they seem to have suffered from no active manifestation of
these feelings. William the Conqueror favoured them, and William
Rufus actually farmed out vacant bishoprics to them.
1087–1100
The latter prince’s easy tolerance of Judaism is
denounced by the monkish historians in many quaint tales, which,
though meant to throw light on William’s irreligion, also serve to
illustrate his sense of humour. At one time a Jew, whose son had
been lured to Christianity, went to the King, and, by means of
prayers and a present of sixty marks, prevailed upon him to lend his
assistance in recovering the strayed lamb. The King did his utmost to
carry out his part of the contract, but, on finding the youth obdurate,
told the father that inasmuch as he had failed he was not entitled to
the present; but inasmuch as he had conscientiously striven to
succeed, he deserved to be paid for his trouble, and he kept thirty
marks. On another occasion William summoned some Christian
theologians and some learned Rabbis to his presence, and, telling
them that he was anxious to embrace that doctrine which upon
comparison should be found to have truth on its side, he set them
disputing for his own entertainment.
The King’s good-natured attitude was even shared by his
antagonists. St. Anselm, the Norman Archbishop of Canterbury, for
example, and other eminent ecclesiastics, in their efforts to convert
the Jews, did not overstep the limits of argument; at times of peril
churches and monasteries afforded an asylum to the effects and to
the families of Jews; no attempt was made to poison the relations,
such as they were, between the two elements; and there are
instances of Jews helping the monks with prayers and otherwise in
their efforts to resist the encroachments of Archbishops, and even of
Jews drinking with Gentiles.
Meanwhile, the Continent was undergoing the spiritual travail
which resulted in the tremendous explosion of the Crusades.
England, as a member of the Catholic family of nations, and in many
ways under Continental influence, could not long remain deaf to the
cry which rang throughout Christendom. The unsettled condition of
the country under the first three Norman kings, and the convulsions
to which it fell a prey under the fourth, had hitherto prevented
England from responding to the Pope’s call in an adequate manner;
but the religious fever was infectious, and on reaching England it
translated any vague sentimental dislike of the Jews that may have
existed into an open and determined hostility, which led to deeds of
violence such as had already disgraced the Continent.
The atrocious charge of sacrificing Christian children and using
their blood in their mysterious Passover rites, or in medicine, is now
for the first time heard under the definite form which has since
become familiar; and the English town of Norwich seems to be
entitled to the unenviable credit of its birth. The populace of that city
was one day, in 1144, horrified by the rumour that the Jews had
kidnapped and murdered a boy, named William, for the purpose of
obtaining his blood. A renegade Jew brought forth the libel, and the
local bishop adopted it. The sheriff considered the evidence
insufficient, and refused to sanction a trial before the Bishop’s Court.
But the people, encouraged by the clergy, took the law into their own
hands, and, despite the sheriff’s efforts to protect the Jews, many of
the latter were slaughtered, while the rest fled in fear for their lives.
1155–1189 Within the next thirty-four years the same blood-
accusation recurred at Gloucester and Bury St.
65
Edmunds, and led to a similar catastrophe. But during the reign of
Henry II. anti-Jewish feeling, with the last exception, was firmly
checked. That King, renowned in history as “the greatest prince of
his time for wisdom, virtue, and abilities,” followed in the footsteps of
William the Conqueror and William Rufus, and, in the opinion of the
monastic chroniclers, sullied his otherwise stainless character by the
favour which he showed to the Jews. He delivered them from the
jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts and granted to them the
privilege of settling their disputes in their own Beth Din, or Religious
Tribunal, and of burying their dead outside the cities in which they
dwelt. Henceforward the Jews were to be regarded as the King’s
own chattels, and to enjoy the protection of the King’s officers, as
they did in Germany, and on the same terms.
Royal favours, of course, are never granted without an
equivalent. The wealth of the Jews, being moveable and
concentrated in few hands, was much more accessible to the King
than that of his Christian subjects. They were, accordingly, made to
pay more than the latter. When, in 1187, Henry levied a contribution,
he received from the Jews alone nearly one-half of the whole
amount, they contributing one-fourth of their property (£60,000),
while the Christians one-tenth (£70,000). But, though the King’s
Exchequer was the richer for the King’s clemency, the Jews enjoyed
the right to live and grow wealthy. England was not a loser by this
toleration of the children of Israel. Their ready money, despite the
high rates of interest at which it was lent, supplied a powerful
stimulus to industry and to architecture. Many a castle and cathedral
owed their existence to Jewish capital. And not only the means of
erection but also models for imitation were due to the Jews, who by
their example taught the rude English burgesses the superiority of a
stone house over a mud hovel, as is shown by the buildings at Bury
St. Edmunds and Lincoln which still bear the name of “Jews’
houses.” Indeed, in this and subsequent reigns we hear marvellous
tales of Jewish opulence and magnificence, such as that of Abraham
fil Rabbi, Jurnet of Norwich, and Aaron of Lincoln, and even of
unwelcomed proselytes to Judaism. Both these blessings, however,
material prosperity and religious popularity, proved curses in
disguise to their possessors. The riches of the Jew could not but
rouse the cupidity of mediaeval barons, and his dissent the bigotry of
mediaeval priests. Moreover, it would have been contrary to all the
laws of probability and human nature had the Jews been left
unmolested much longer in a land where the crusading spirit was
abroad, where the popular hatred of the Jew had been recently
fanned by abominable calumny and by royal favour, and where the
civil authority was so frequently set at naught by feudal lawlessness.
Last and most ominous sign, the Jews by an Act, passed in 1181,
were forbidden to keep or bear arms.
1189 Where prejudice is, pretexts for persecution are not
wanting. A favourable opportunity for the expression of
public feeling was offered by the coronation of Richard Coeur de
Lion. Richard was the first English King who took up the cross
against the infidels, and his reign was appropriately inaugurated by
an anti-Jewish demonstration. The Jews were by royal edict
forbidden to show their unchristian countenances in the Abbey
during the ceremony. But some of them, armed with rich gifts from
their people to the King, presumed to take up their station outside
the Church. The street was thronged with the servants and retainers
of the barons and knights who assisted at the coronation, as well as
by a miscellaneous mob, drawn thither by curiosity. The foreign
faces of the Jews were soon detected by the fanatical crowd, in
holiday mood, and were at once made the marks of insult and riot.
The wretches tried to escape; the populace pursued them; and one
at least was obliged to save his life by baptism. Later in the day a
rumour got abroad that the King had ordered a general slaughter of
the Jews. The alleged command found many persons only too ready
to carry it out. All the Jews that happened to be out of doors were cut
to pieces, without remorse and without resistance, while those who
had wisely remained at home were attacked by the zealous and
greedy crowd, who broke into their houses, murdered the inmates,
plundered their effects, and ended by setting fire to the Jewry. The
riotous and avaricious instincts of the populace once roused, the
havoc spread far and wide, and the city of London soon became a
scene of pillage and rapine, in which no invidious distinction was
made between Christian and infidel, but all were impartially robbed
who were worth robbing. The King’s endeavours to bring these
atrocities home to the guilty resulted in the discovery that the
punishment would involve so great a number that, after having
hanged three offenders, he was forced to desist. The very magnitude
of the crime saved its authors.
Nor did the excitement terminate in the capital. The good news
of the massacre of the Jews travelled to the provinces, and
everywhere found the field ready to receive the seed. All the
principal towns in England swarmed at that time with Crusaders
preparing for their expedition. The sight of these warriors stirred the
martial and religious spirit of the people, and, when they started the
campaign against the Crescent by falling upon the native Jews, they
found numerous and enthusiastic auxiliaries among the burgesses,
the priests, and the impoverished gentlemen. Indeed, how could any
one refuse to help in the destruction of God’s enemies, who in many
cases also happened to be the assailants’ creditors? In York the
immediate excuse for an attack was a certain Joceus, who, being
forcibly baptized in London on the day of Richard’s coronation, on
his return home renounced the creed thrust upon him and thereby
earned the odium of apostasy. Accompanied by a number of his co-
religionists the hunted man sought refuge with all his treasures in the
castle. The mob, incited by a fanatical Canon and led by the
castellan, laid siege to the castle. The Jews had recourse to
desperate measures. Some of them, acting on the heroic advice of a
Rabbi, killed their own wives and children, flung the corpses from the
battlements upon the besieging crowd, and then prepared to consign
the castle and themselves to the flames. The others capitulated, and
were massacred by the mob, at the instigation of a gentleman deeply
indebted to them. Then the crowd, headed by the landed proprietors
of the neighbourhood, all of whom owed money to the Jews,
hastened to the Cathedral, where the bonds were kept, and burnt
them on the altar, under the benedictions of the priests.
Like deeds were perpetrated at Norwich, Bury St. Edmunds,
Lynn, Lincoln, Colchester, and Stamford, and in all these places, as
in London, the King’s officers found themselves powerless to prevent
or punish. Richard, however, could not afford to have his Jews
butchered or driven out of the country. He, therefore, issued a
charter, confirming to the wealthiest among them the privileges
which they had enjoyed under his predecessors: the privilege of
owning land, of bequeathing and inheriting money-debts, of moving
to and fro in the country without let or hindrance, and of exemption
from all tolls. In return for his protection, the King claimed a closer
supervision of their property and profits. His Treasury was to know
how much they had, and how much they made. Staffs of Jewish and
Christian clerks, appointed in various parts of the country, were to
witness their deeds, enter them into a special register, and see that
three copies were made of every bond: one to be placed into the
hands of a magistrate, another into those of some respectable
private citizen, and a third to be left with the Jew. Debts due to the
Jews were really due to the King, and might not be compounded or
cancelled without his consent. Disputes between Jews were to be
settled at the royal Courts, and, in a word, a severe and vigilant eye
was to be kept on the Israelites and their money-bags.
1199–1216 John, Richard’s miserable successor, whose reign
brought nothing but ruin to himself and shame on his
country, found it expedient to continue towards the Jews the lucrative
generosity initiated by better men. The oppression of the Jews was a
monopoly of the crown, and John made it quite plain that he would
not tolerate any rivals. He invested Jacob of London with the dignity
of Chief Rabbi over all the Jewish congregations throughout England
and styled him his “dear, dear friend,” warning his subjects that any
insult or injury offered to him would be regarded by the King as an
insult to himself. He extended to the whole colony the favours and
immunities granted to a privileged few by Richard, and, like him,
accompanied this act of grace with an even more rigorous control of
their affairs. The Jews had to pay dearly even for this limited and
precarious protection. The sole difference between the treatment of
them on the part of the King and that meted out to them by his
subjects was that the latter despoiled them spasmodically, the former
systematically. It was no longer a question of occasional
contributions, such as the £60,000 wrung from them by Henry II.,
and like impositions levied to defray the expenses of Richard’s
Crusade, but a steady and unsparing bleeding: tallages, inheritance
duties and a heavy percentage on all loan transactions, in addition to
confiscations and general fines, or fines for breaches of the law, with
which the King would now and again diversify the monotony of
normal brigandage. The procedure was perfectly immoral and yet
perfectly legal. The King’s treasury was replenished out of the
pockets of men who were as absolutely his as his own palaces, and
whom he could sell or mortgage as any other property, according to
his convenience. Even the King’s commissioners—Jews deputed to
collect the tallage—had power to seize the wives and children of
their own co-religionists. It is computed that at this period the Jews
contributed about one-twelfth of the whole royal revenue.
1210 But John’s cruelty was boundless as his
meanness. Not content with ordinary measures of
extortion, he suddenly ordered all the Jews—men, women and
children—to be imprisoned and forced to yield all they possessed.
Thus by one fell swoop were snatched from them the fruits of a life’s
laborious accumulation, and many were brought to the verge of
starvation. Men and women, until yesterday opulent, were seen
begging from door to door in the day time, and at night prowling
about the purlieus of the city like homeless and hungry curs. Those
who were suspected of being the owners of hidden treasure were
tortured until they confessed, and, in the case of a Jew of Bristol, at
least, a tooth a day was found an efficient test of a Jew’s
squeezability. Grinder after grinder was drawn from his jaw in
horrible agony, till the victim, after having lost several teeth, paid the
10,000 marks demanded of him. By such a fiscal policy the King’s
protégés were made to feel the full weight of royal favour. But even
this condition of serfdom and occasional torture was preferable to
the lot that was in store for them in the future. John, whatever his
own standard of humanity might have been, when the citizens of