THE FIRST EXPULSION OF THE JEWS FROM FRANCE, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.
Philip le Bel--The Jews of France plundered and banished--
Estori Parchi; Aaron Cohen; Laments of Bedaresi--Eleazar
of Chinon, the Martyr--Return of the Jews to France; their
Precarious Position--Progress of the Controversy regarding
the Study of Philosophy--Abba-Mari and Asheri--Death of
Ben Adret--Rabbinical Revival in Spain--Isaac Israeli II--
Samuel and the Queen Maria Molina--Don Juan Emanuel and
Judah Ibn-Wakar--The Jews of Rome--Robert of Naples and the
Jews--Peril of the Jews in Rome--Kalonymos ben Kalonymos,
his Satires--Immanuel and Dante--The Poet Judah Siciliano--
Leone Romano and King Robert--Shemarya Ikriti--Position of
Karaism--Aaron the Elder and the Prayer-Book of the Karaites.
1306-1328 C.E.
Philip IV, le Bel, at that time the king of France, one of those
monarchs who made arrogant and unprincipled despotism familiar to
Europe, suddenly issued a secret order (21st January, 1306), imposing
the strictest silence, to the higher and lower officials throughout
his kingdom, to put all the Jews of France under arrest on one and
the same day, without warning of any kind. Before the Jews had fully
recovered from fasting on the Day of Lamentation in remembrance of the
destruction of Jerusalem, and as they were about to begin their daily
business, the constables and jailors appeared, laid hands upon them,
and dragged young and old, women and children, to prison (10th Ab-22d
July). There they were told that they had to quit the country within
the space of a month, leaving behind both their goods and the debts
owing to them. Whoever was found in France after that time was liable
to the penalty of death. What could have induced this prudent rather
than clerical prince so suddenly to change his sentiments towards the
Jews? It was certainly not clerical intolerance, nor was it yielding
to the will of the people. For the French, even in the Middle Ages,
were not bigoted, and it was not their wish to remove the Jews to free
themselves from usurers. Avarice was the first motive of this cruel
order. For Philip's feud with the pope, and his war with the rebellious
Flemish, had so exhausted his treasury, and had rendered necessary
so unsparing an extortion of money that, as the ballads of the time
scoffingly said, "The fowl in the pot was not secure from the king's
grasp." The king wanted to replenish his coffers from the property
of the Jews. Another circumstance is said to have moved him to this
hard-hearted resolution. The German emperor Albrecht, who at that time
was not on good terms with Philip, had demanded the surrender of the
kingdom of Arles; further, that he should deliver up Jesus' supposed
crown of thorns, and lastly, that he should acknowledge the authority
of the successor of Vespasian, Titus, and Charlemagne over the French
Jews, _i.e._, yield to him a portion of the hard-earned property of the
Jews. Philip is said to have consulted his lawyers, to decide to whom
the authority over the Jews appertained, and as they adjudged it to the
German emperor, the idea occurred to him to fleece the Jews of their
property, and to send his "servi cameræ" naked and bare to Albrecht.
Before the world the king covered his act of violence, inhuman as it
was unstatesmanlike, with the excuse that incredible outrages of the
Jews had rendered their expulsion imperative. That he had aimed at the
possessions of the Jews was shown by his relentless plundering. The
officials left the unhappy Jews nothing beyond the clothes they wore,
and to everyone not more than seemed necessary for a day's living (12
gros Tournois). Wagonfuls of the property of the Jews, gold, silver
and precious stones were transported to the king; and less valuable
objects were sold at a ridiculously low price. At the appointed time
(September, 1306), they were banished, about 100,000 souls, from the
country which their ancestors had inhabited, in part at the time of the
Roman republic, long before Christianity had spread into France. Some
who could not separate themselves from their property and the country
which they loved went over to Christianity. The whole congregation of
Toulouse is said to have been guilty of this cowardice, which scarcely
seems credible. The celebrated seats, at which so much intellect had
been displayed, the colleges of Rashi, Tam, and the Tossafists: Troyes,
Paris, Sens, Chinon, Orleans; the places in which a higher culture had
had its temple: Béziers, Lünel, Montpellier, whence the combatants
for and against science were plunged into common misery,--all these
schools and synagogues were sold to the highest bidder or given away.
A German or an English king might have destroyed the holy places of
the Jews--King Philip le Bel made a present of a synagogue to his
--coachman. An approximate idea can be formed of the sums which the
expulsion and robbery of the Jews brought in to the king, if it is kept
in mind that the sale of the Jewish goods in the house of the prefect
of Orleans alone brought in 337,000 francs.
How many of the refugees, reduced to beggary, fell victims to the
hardships of their journey cannot be known. The bitter plaints of
those oppressed by the heavy affliction sound mournful and touching
even at this distance of time. Estori Parchi, then a youth of many
accomplishments and noble heart, a relative of Jacob ben Machir, whose
parents had emigrated from Spain to southern France, thus describes his
sorrow: "From the house of study have they torn me; naked was I forced
as a young man to leave my ancestral home, and wander from land to
land, from people to people, whose tongues were strange to me." Parchi
at length found a resting-place in Palestine. Another fugitive, the
learned Aaron Cohen of Narbonne, poured forth this elegy: "Unhappy me,
I saw the misery of the banishment of the sons of Jacob, like a herd
of cattle driven asunder. From a position of honor I was thrown into a
land of darkness." The sudden turn of fortune which changed rich men
into beggars, and exposed the delicate and those used to the comforts
of life to bitter privation, filled the bombastic poet Yedaya Bedaresi
with gloomy reflections. In vivid colors he painted the trouble and
pain of life, and man's helplessness and nothingness. His "Trial of the
World" (Bechinath Olam), suggested by personal observation and bitter
experience, consequently makes a depressing and mournful impression,
and reflects faithfully the melancholy feelings of the ill-starred race.
The expulsion of the Jews from France by the stony-hearted Philip le
Bel did not come off without martyred victims. Those who transgressed
the time of grace, yet rejected solicitations to abjure their faith,
were punished by death. A martyr of this time, Eleazar ben Joseph of
Chinon, is specially famous. He was a learned, noble-minded man, a
correspondent of Ben Adret, master of many distinguished disciples,
among them the youthful Parchi, one of the last of the Tossafist
school. He was condemned to the stake, although no crime could be laid
at his door except that he was a Jew. With him died two brothers. The
expatriated Jews dispersed in all parts of the world; many traveled
to Palestine. But the majority remained as near as possible to the
French borders, in Provence proper, at that time partly under German
suzerainty, in the province of Roussillon, which belonged to the
Aragonian king of Majorca, and in that island. Their intention was to
wait for a favorable change of fortune, which would permit them to
return to the land of their birth. They had not speculated falsely.
King Philip himself was induced by avarice to unbend from his severity.
The vehement struggle in Montpellier about permitting Jewish youth to
engage in the study of the sciences, remarkable to relate, continued
after the banishment from France (September, 1306), and the mutual
hatred of the two parties was in no way abated by suffering. A portion
of the Tibbonide party had settled in Perpignan, which belonged to the
king of Majorca, who was no favorer of the Jews. At his command copies
of the Talmud were once more delivered up to the _auto-da-fé;_ but
as he hoped to gain some advantage by the settlement of intelligent,
industrious Jews, he suffered them. Abba-Mari and another portion of
the congregation of Montpellier at first took up their abode in the
town of Arles, but as he could not stay there, he, too, emigrated to
Perpignan (January, 1307). But the opposing party, which had influence
with the king or governor, endeavored to hinder his settlement in that
place. Abba-Mari's partisans, by making representations to the king,
succeeded in obtaining permission for him to live in Perpignan. Here
the controversy raged anew. Solomon ben Adret and Asheri, particularly
the latter, whose decision of character had acquired for him the chief
authority, again interfered. Asheri declared that he had given his
signature in a half-hearted manner to the decree prohibiting young
men from occupying themselves with profane studies; for, according to
his opinion, it was too great a concession to permit it at the age
of twenty-five. Science ought to be prohibited altogether, for it
inevitably lures on to unbelief. The defenders of science were to be
condemned without mercy, since the afflictions of exile had made no
impression on them, suffering had not broken their spirit of defiance,
and had not chastened their hardness of heart.
This view, that qualities prejudicial to Judaism were inherent in
science, gained supremacy after Ben Adret's death (1310), when Asheri
was acknowledged in Spain and in the neighboring countries as the only
authority in religious matters. Asheri, his sons and companions who
had migrated with him from Germany, transplanted from the Rhine to
vivacious Toledo that spirit of honest, but tormenting, narrow-minded
and intolerant piety; that gloomy disposition which regards even
harmless joy as a sin; that feeling of abjectness, which characterized
the German Jews of the Middle Ages, and they inoculated the Spanish
Jews with it. The free activity of the mind was checked. Asheri
concentrated all his mental power on the Talmud and its exposition.
His chief work was a compilation of the Talmud for practical use
(1307-1314). On all occasions he endeavored to enforce a difficult,
painful, and severe discipline. If any one desired to express his
thoughts on any department of knowledge whatsoever, he had to array
his subject in the garments of contrite orthodoxy. When the erudite
Isaac ben Joseph Israeli II, of Toledo, published an astronomical work
(1310), he had to adjust it to Talmudical standards, and introduce it
by a confession of faith, for only in this manner could he find grace
in Asheri's eyes.
At about this time, during Asheri's rabbinate in Toledo, prominent Jews
once more obtained influence at court. King Ferdinand IV (1295-1312)
had a Jewish treasurer named Samuel, whose counsels he followed in
political matters too. The dowager queen, Maria de Molina, who had
held the reins of government during her son's minority, with feminine
passionateness hated the favorite Samuel, who is said to have nourished
the enmity between mother and son. One day, when Samuel was in Badajos,
and was preparing to accompany the king to Seville, he was attacked by
an assassin, and so severely wounded that he was left for dead. It is
not known who instigated the deed. The king had such care and attention
devoted to Samuel, that he recovered from his wounds.
Don Ferdinand's death brought in its train a time of unquiet, of civil
war, and social anarchy for Spain. As the Infante Alfonso was still
a child in the cradle, several persons, the clever Maria de Molina,
the young queen-mother Constantia, and the uncles of the young king
contended for the guardianship and the regency, and provoked faction
feuds in the country (1312-1326). Donna Maria de Molina, who conducted
the government, did not extend her hate against her son's Jewish
counselor to the community to which he belonged. As in the lifetime of
her husband she had had a Jewish favorite, Todros Abulafia, so during
her regency she had a Jewish treasurer, Don Moses. When the council of
Zamora (1313) renewed canonical laws hostile to the Jews, the cortes of
Burgos demanded the exclusion of Jews from all honors and offices, and
the pope issued a bull that Christians were to be absolved from their
debts to Jews on account of usury, the wise regent submitted only in
part. She ordered that Jews should not bear high-sounding Christian
names, nor enter into close intercourse with Christians; but she most
emphatically declared herself against the unjust abolition of debts,
and published a law that no debtor could make himself free of his
obligation to professors of the Jewish faith by appealing to a papal
bull.
The regency of Don Juan Emanuel inaugurated an improvement in the
condition of the Castilian Jews (1319-1325). The regent was a friend
of learning, himself an author and poet, and was consequently held in
esteem by educated Jews. A Jew of Cordova, Jehuda ben Isaac Ibn-Wakar,
found high favor in his eyes, and probably acted as his treasurer. At
his solicitation Juan Emanuel once more invested the rabbinate with
penal jurisdiction, which the Jews had partly lost during the regency
of Maria de Molina, and had practiced only privately.
Jehuda Ibn-Wakar, however, was an admirer of Asheri, and, like
the latter, of excessive piety, desiring to have every religious
transgression punished with the utmost severity. When a Cordovan
uttered a blasphemy in Arabic, Ibn-Wakar asked Asheri what was to be
done with him, and the latter replied that his tongue should be cut
out. A beautiful Jewess having had intercourse with a Christian, Don
Juan Manuel resigned her to the punishment of the Jewish court, and
Jehuda Ibn-Wakar condemned her to have her face disfigured by the
removal of her nose, and Asheri confirmed the sentence.
The southern Spanish and Castilian congregations still lived in peace,
and in the undisturbed possession of their goods; on the other hand,
the northern Spanish, and still more the southern French congregations
were exposed to bloody attacks by fanatical hordes, which the church
had unfettered, and then could not restrain. Jews once more lived in
France. Louis X had recalled them nine years after their banishment
(1315). This king, himself seized by a desire to abrogate the
ordinances of his father and indict his counselors, had been solicited
by the people and the nobility, who could not do without the Jews, to
re-admit them into France. He accordingly entered into negotiations
with them in reference to their return. But the Jews did not accept
his proposal without deliberation, for they well knew the inconstancy
of the French kings, and the fanatical hatred of the clergy against
them. They hesitated at first, and then submitted their conditions.
These were, that they be allowed to reside in the same places as
before; that they should not be indictable for former transgressions;
that their synagogues, churchyards, and books be restored to them,
or sites be granted for new places of worship. They were to have the
right of collecting the money owing to them, of which two-thirds
should belong to the king. Their former privileges, as far as they
were still in force, were to be again extended to them, or new ones
conceded. King Louis accepted all these conditions, and granted them
also the right of emigration under certain restrictions. In order to
conciliate the clergy, he, on his side, imposed the conditions that
they wear a badge of a certain size and color, and hold neither public
nor private disputations on religion. Two high officials (prud'hommes,
auditeurs des Juifs) were appointed to superintend the re-settlement
of the Jews. Their residence in France was fixed for twelve years; if
the king should resolve to expel them again after the expiration of
that period, he put himself under the obligation to give them a year's
warning that they might have time to make their preparations. The king
published this decree, declaring that his father had been ill-advised
to banish the Jews. As the voice of the people solicited their return,
as the church desired a tolerant policy, and as the sainted Louis had
set him the precedent of first banishing and then readmitting them,
he had, after due consultation with the prelates, the barons, and
his high council, permitted the return of the Jews. The French Jews
streamed back in masses to their former dwelling-places, regarding
this event as a miraculous redemption. When Louis X died a year after,
and his brother Philip V, the Long, ascended the throne, he extended
their privileges, and protected them especially from the enmity of the
clergy; so that they and their books could be seized only by royal
officers. But they were not free from vexation by the degenerate
clergy, who insisted that the Jews of Montpellier, who thought they
could venture on certain liberties, should re-affix the Jew-badge on
their dress. At one time they accused the Jews of Lünel with having
publicly outraged the image of Christ on the Purim festival; at
another time they ordered that two wagonfuls of copies of the Talmud
be publicly burned in Toulouse. Such occurrences, however, were mere
child's play compared with what they had to endure from the bigoted
multitude.
Philip V had the idea, repugnant to the spirit of the time, of
undertaking a crusade to wrest the Holy Land, after so many vain
attempts, from the hands of the infidels. This enterprise appeared so
foolish to the discerning, that even Pope John XXII, the second of the
popes that resided in Avignon instead of at Rome, dissuaded him from
it. Nevertheless, the fancy, as soon as it was known, inflamed the
minds of the rude populace. A young man of excited imagination gave out
that a dove had settled at one time on his head, at another, on his
shoulder, and when he had sought to seize it, it had transformed itself
into a beautiful woman, who urged him to gather a troop of crusaders,
assuring him of victory. His utterances found credulous hearers, and
the lower people, children, and swine-herds attached themselves to him.
A wicked priest and an unfrocked Benedictine monk used the opportunity
to force their way to the front, and thus arose in northern France
(1320) a numerous horde of forty thousand shepherds (Pastoureaux,
Pastorelli, Roïm), who moved in procession from town to town carrying
banners, and announced their intention of journeying across the sea to
deliver the so-called holy sepulcher. Their attention was immediately
turned to the Jews, possibly because they wanted to raise money for the
purchase of weapons by robbing the Jews of their possessions, or a Jew,
as is related, had made sport of their childish heroism. The massacre
of the Jews by the shepherds (Gesereth-ha-Roïm) is another bloody page
in Jewish history.
Nearly all the crusading enterprises had commenced with the murder of
Jews; so this time. The shepherd-gangs which had collected near the
town of Agen (on the Garonne) cut down all the Jews they met on their
march from this place to Toulouse, if they refused to be baptized.
About five hundred Jews had found refuge in the fortress of Verdun (on
the Garonne), the commandant having placed a strong tower at their
disposal. The shepherds took it by storm, and a desperate battle took
place. As the Jews had no hopes of rescue, they had recourse in their
despair to self-destruction. The unhappy people selected the oldest and
most respected man of their number to slay them one after the other.
The old man picked out a muscular young assistant in this ghastly
business, and both went to work to rid their fellow-sufferers of their
miserable lives. When at last the young man, after slaying his aged
partner, was left alone, the desire of life came strong upon him; he
declared to the besieging shepherds that he was ready to go over to
them, and asked to be baptized. The latter were just or cruel enough
to refuse the request, and tore the renegade to pieces. The Jewish
children found in the tower were baptized by force. The governor of
Toulouse zealously espoused the cause of the Jews, and summoned the
knights to take the approaching shepherds prisoners. Thus many of them
were brought in chains to the capital, and thrown into prison. But the
mob, which sympathized with them, banded together, and set them at
liberty, the result being that the greater part of the congregation
of Toulouse was destroyed. A few seceded to Christianity. On the
capture of the shepherds near Toulouse, the Jews in the neighborhood,
who had been granted shelter in Castel-Narbonnais, thought that they
were now free of all danger, and left their place of refuge. They were
surprised by the rabble, and annihilated. Thus perished almost all
the Jews in the neighborhood of Bordeaux, Gascogne, Toulouse, Albi,
and other towns of southern France. Altogether, more than 120 Jewish
congregations in France and northern Spain were blotted out through
the rising of the Shepherds, and the survivors were so impoverished by
spoliation that they were dependent upon the succor of their brethren
in other parts, which flowed to them in abundance even from Germany.
The following year, too, was very unfortunate for the Jews, the trouble
again beginning in France. This persecution was occasioned by lepers,
from whom it has its name (Gesereth Mezoraim). The unhappy people
afflicted by leprosy in the Middle Ages were banished from society,
declared dead as citizens, shut up in unhealthy quarters, and there
tended after a fashion. Once, when certain lepers in the province of
Guienne had been badly provided with food, they conceived and carried
into effect the plan of poisoning the wells and rivers, through which
many people perished (1321). When the matter was traced back to the
lepers, and they were examined under torture, one of them invented,
or somebody suggested to him, the lying accusation that the Jews had
inspired them with the plan of poisoning the waters. The charge was
generally believed; even King Philip V had no doubt about it. Sometimes
it was asserted that the Jews wanted to take revenge for the sufferings
experienced at the hands of the Shepherds the year before; again, that
they had been persuaded by the Mahometan king of Granada to cause the
Christians to be poisoned; or it was suggested that they had done it
in league with the Mahometan ruler of Palestine, to frustrate the
intended crusade of King Philip. In several places Jews were arrested
on this accusation, unmercifully tortured, and some of them burnt
(Tammuz--July, 1321). In Chinon a deep pit was dug, fire kindled in
it, and eight Jewish men and women thrown in, who sang whilst dying.
The mothers had previously cast in their children, to save them from
forcible baptism. Altogether five thousand are said to have suffered
death by fire in that year. Many were banished from France, and robbed
by the heartless populace. Philip was convinced later on of the untruth
of the accusation; but as the Jews had been accused, he seemed to think
that the opportunity might be used to swell the treasury. Accordingly,
the congregations were condemned by Parliament to a penalty of one
hundred and fifty thousand pounds (Parisian); they were to apportion
the contributions among themselves. Deputies (procureurs) from northern
France (de la langue française) and from Languedoc, met and enacted
that the southern French Jews, decimated and impoverished by the
previous year's massacre, were to contribute forty-seven thousand
pounds, and the remainder was to be borne by the northern French Jews.
The wealthiest Jews were put under arrest as security for the payment
of the fine, and their goods and debts distrained.
In the same year a great danger threatened the oldest of the European
communities. Misfortune came upon it the more unexpectedly as till
then it had tasted but little of the cup of misery which the Jews of
England, France and Spain so often had to drink to the dregs. It was
because Rome did not belong to the pope, but to the families of Orsini
and Colonna, to the Ghibellines and Guelphs--the great and minor
lords, who fought out their party feuds in that city--that the Jews
were left untouched by papal tyranny. It was well for them that they
were little considered.
At about this time the Roman Jews had made an advance in material
welfare and intellectual culture. There were some who possessed houses
like palaces, furnished with all the comforts of life. Since the time
when, through the concurrence of favorable circumstances, they had
tasted of the tree of knowledge, learning and poetry were cherished
by the Italian Jews. The seeds which Hillel of Verona, Serachya ben
Shaltiel and others had scattered, commenced to bear fruit. When the
flower of intellectual glory in southern France began to decay through
the severity of Talmudical rigorists and the bloody persecutions,
it unfolded itself in Italy, especially in Rome. At that time the
first rays of a new cultural development, breaking through the gloom
of priestcraft and the rude violence of the Middle Ages, appeared
in Italy. A fresh current of air swept the heavens in Italy in the
beginning of the fourteenth century, the epoch of Dante, thawing the
icy coat of the church and of knightdom, the two pillars of the Middle
Ages. A sense of citizenship, the impulse towards liberty, enthusiastic
love for science, were the striking symptoms of a new spirit, of a
striving for rejuvenescence, which only the emperor, the embodiment
of rude, ungainly knighthood, and the pope, the incarnation of the
stern, unbending church, failed to perceive. Every greater or lesser
Italian lord made it a point of honor to encourage art and science,
and patronize poets, artists and learned men at his court. Nor were
the Jews overlooked at this juncture. One of the most powerful Italian
princes, Robert of Anjou, king of Naples, count of Provence (Arelat),
vicar-general of the Papal States and for some time titular lieutenant
of the Holy Roman empire, was a friend of science, a warm admirer also
of Jewish literature, and consequently a protector of the Jews. Several
Jewish littérateurs were his teachers, or at his instance undertook
scientific and theological works.
Either in imitation of the current practice or from sincere interest
in Jewish literature, rich Jews, who played the part of small
princes, invited Jewish authors into their circle, lightened their
material cares by liberal support, and stimulated their activity by
encouragement. Thus it came to pass that three Jewish Italian men of
letters had the courage to compete with the Spaniards and Provençals.
These were Leo Romano, Judah Siciliano, and above all the poet Immanuel
Romi, who once more ennobled neo-Hebrew poetry, and raised it to a
higher level. The Roman congregation at that time displayed exceptional
interest in Jewish writings. Of Maimuni, the embodiment of science
for them as for the rest of the Jewish world, they possessed the
copious Religious Codex, and the translation of his "Guide;" but of
his luminous Mishna commentary, composed originally in Arabic, only
those parts which Charisi and Samuel Ibn-Tibbon had done into Hebrew.
The representatives of the Roman congregations, to whom probably the
poet Immanuel also belonged, wished to have a complete edition of the
work, and sent a messenger to Barcelona to Ben Adret expressly for the
purpose of procuring the remaining parts. The affair was not so simple
as the Roman Jews had imagined. The greater portion of the anxiously
desired commentary of Maimuni on the Mishna, on account of peculiar
difficulties, was not yet rendered into Hebrew. The greatest obstacle
was the circumstance that the Spanish Jews, except those in Toledo and
in the neighborhood of the kingdom of Granada, had forgotten Arabic.
Ben Adret, who wished to oblige the Roman congregation, endeavored
to get the required portions translated into Hebrew. He encouraged
scholars, learned both in Arabic and the Talmud, to undertake this
difficult task, and Joseph Ibn-Alfual and Jacob Abbassi of Huesca,
Solomon ben Jacob and Nathaniel Ibn-Almali, the last two physicians
of Saragossa, and others divided the labor among themselves. Jewish
literature is indebted for the possession of this most valuable work of
Maimuni to the zeal of the Roman congregation, of Ben Adret, and these
translators.
The Roman community was roused from its peaceful occupations and
undisturbed quiet by a rough hand, and awakened to the consciousness
that it existed under the scourge of priestcraft and the caprice of its
rulers.
It is related that a sister of the pope (John XXII), named Sangisa,
had repeatedly exhorted her brother to expel the Jews from the holy
city of Christendom. Her solicitations had always been fruitless; she
therefore instigated several priests to give testimony that the Jews
had ridiculed by words and actions a crucifix which was carried through
the streets in a procession. The pope thereupon issued the command
to banish all the Jews from Roman territory. All that is certain is
that the Jews of Rome were in great danger during that year, for they
instituted an extraordinary fast, and directed fervent prayers to
heaven (21 Sivan-18 June, 1321), nor did they fail to employ worldly
means. They sent an astute messenger to Avignon to the papal court
and to King Robert of Naples, the patron of the Jews, who happened to
be in that city on state affairs. The messenger succeeded, through
the mediation of King Robert, in proving the innocence of the Roman
Jews in regard to the alleged insulting of the cross and the other
transgressions laid to their charge. The twenty thousand ducats, which
the Roman community is said to have presented to the sister of the
pope, silenced the last objections. The Jews of Rome entered their
school of trouble later than the Jews of other countries. For that
reason it lasted the longer.
Whilst King Robert was residing in southern France, he seems to have
made the acquaintance of a learned, genial Jewish satirist, Kalonymos
ben Kalonymos, and to have taken him into his service. This talented
man (born 1287, died before 1337) possessed solid knowledge, was
familiar with the Arabic language and literature (which was very
remarkable in a Provençal), and in his youth (1307-1317) translated
medical, astronomical, and philosophical writings from that language
into Hebrew. Kalonymos ben Kalonymos was not merely a hewer of wood
and drawer of water, an interpreter in the realm of science; he had
intellect enough to make independent observations. Disregarding
the province of metaphysical speculation, he was more interested
in pure ethics, which he especially wished to inculcate in his
co-religionists, "because neglect and ignorance of it leads men to all
kinds of perversities and mutual harm." He did not treat the subject
in a dry, uninteresting style, but sought to clothe it in attractive
garments. With this end in view, Kalonymos adapted a part of the Arabic
encyclopedia of science (which was in circulation under the name of
"Treatises of the Righteous Brethren") for a dialogue between man and
beasts, giving the theme a Jewish coloring.
In another work, "Touchstone" (composed at the end of 1322), Kalonymos
ben Kalonymos held up a mirror for his Jewish contemporaries, in which
they could recognize their perversities, follies, and sins. To avoid
giving himself the appearance of an irreproachable censor of morals, he
enumerated his own sins, more in satire than as a confession. Kalonymos
whimsically satirized even Judaism. He wished he had been born a woman,
for then he would not have had to bear the burden of six hundred and
thirteen religious laws, besides so many Talmudical restrictions and
rigorous ordinances, which could not possibly be fulfilled, even when
a man tried with the most exacting conscientiousness. As a woman,
he would not have to trouble himself with so much reading, to study
the Bible, the Talmud, and the subjects belonging to it, nor torment
himself with logic, mathematics, physics, astronomy, and philosophy. By
and by Kalonymos' satire grew deeply serious. The degradation of his
Jewish co-religionists, and the bloody persecutions occasioned by the
Shepherds and the lepers, dispelled his mocking humor, and satire was
changed into lamentation. In Rome, which King Robert assigned to him as
a place of residence, Kalonymos, having been furnished with letters of
recommendation, obtained entry into a joyous, vivacious, imaginative
circle of men, by whom he was stimulated to write a peculiar parody.
He composed a treatise for the Jewish carnival (Purim), in which he
imitated the tenor and spirit of the Talmud, its method, controversies,
and digressions, with considerable wit. It is a fine parody, exciting
laughter at every step, and one can not tell whether it was intended
as a harmless carnival joke or as a satire on the Talmud. Kalonymos
occupied a position of importance in the Roman congregation. Handsome
in form, of abundant accomplishments, solid character, all his
excellencies enhanced by the good opinion of King Robert of Naples,
he was everyone's favorite. The Italian Jews were proud of him. But
Kalonymos was not a true poet, still less an artist.
Much more gifted, profound, and imaginative was his older friend
and admirer, Immanuel ben Solomon Romi (born about 1265, died about
1330). He was an anomaly in the Jewish society of the Middle Ages. He
belonged to that species of authors whose writings are all the more
attractive because not very decent. Of overflowing wit, extravagant
humor, and caustic satire, he is always able to enchain his readers,
and continually to provoke their merriment. Immanuel may be called the
Heine of the Jewish Middle Ages. Immanuel had an inexhaustible, ready
supply of brilliant ideas. And all this in the holy language of the
Prophets and Psalmists. Granted that the neo-Hebrew poets and thinkers,
the grammarians and Talmudists, had lent flexibility to the language,
but none of Immanuel's predecessors had his power of striking from
it showers of sparkling wit. But if, on the one side, he developed
the Hebrew language almost into a vehicle for brilliant repartee,
on the other side, he robbed it of its sacred character. Immanuel
transformed the chaste, closely-veiled maiden muse of Hebrew poetry
into a lightly-clad dancer, who attracts the attention of passers-by.
He allows his muse to deal with the most frivolous and indelicate
topics without the slightest concealment or shame. His collection of
songs and novels tends to exert a very pernicious and poisonous effect
upon hot-blooded youth. But Immanuel was not the hardened sinner, as
he describes himself, who thought of nothing but to carry on amours,
seduce the fair, and deride the ugly. He sinned only with the tongue
and the pen, scarcely with the heart and the senses.
Though he often indulges in unmeasured self-laudation, this simple
description of his moral conduct must still be credited: "I never
bear my enemies malice, I remain steadfast and true to my friends,
cherish gratitude towards my benefactors, have a sympathetic heart,
am not ostentatious with my knowledge, and absorb myself in science
and poetry, whilst my companions riot in sensual enjoyments." Immanuel
belonged to those who are dominated by their wit, and cannot refrain
from telling some pointed witticism, even if their dearest friends are
its victims, and the holiest things are dragged in the mire by it.
He allowed himself to be influenced by the vivacity of the Italians
and the Europeanized Jews, and put no curb upon his tongue. What
is remarkable in this satirist is that his life, his position, and
occupation seem to have been in contradiction with his poetical craft.
In the Roman community he filled an honorable position, was something
like a president, at all events a man of distinction. He appears to
have belonged to the medical profession, although he made sport of
the quackery of physicians. In short, he led the domestic life of his
time, a life permeated by morality and religion, giving no opportunity
for excess. But his honorable life did not prevent him from singing
riotous songs, and from writing as though he were unconscious of the
seriousness of religion, of responsibility and learning. Immanuel
was acquainted, if not on intimate terms, with the greatest poet of
the Middle Ages, the first to open the gates of a new epoch, and to
prognosticate the unity of Italy in poetic phrase. Probably they came
to know each other on one of Dante's frequent visits to Rome, either
as ambassador or exile. Although their poetic styles are as opposite
as the poles--Dante's ethereal, grave, and elevated; Immanuel's
forcible, gay, and light--they, nevertheless, have some points of
contact. Each had absorbed the culture of the past; Dante the catholic,
scholastic, and romantic elements; Immanuel the biblical, Talmudical,
Maimunist, philosophical, and neo-Hebraic products. Both elaborated
this many-hued material, and molded it into a new kind of poetry. The
Italians at that time were full of the impulse of life, and Immanuel's
muse is inspired by the witchery of spring. He wrote ably in Italian,
too, of which a beautiful poem, still extant, gives evidence. Immanuel
was the first to adapt Italian numbers to the neo-Hebraic lyre. He
introduced the rhyme in alternate lines (Terza rima in sonnet form),
by which he produced a musical cadence. His poems are not equally
successful. They are wanting not in imagination, but in tenderness
and grace. His power lies in poetical prose (Meliza), where he can
indulge in free and witty allusions. In this style he composed a host
of short novels, riddles, letters, panegyrics, and epithalamia, which,
by clever turns and comic situations, extort laughter from the most
serious-minded readers.
In one of his novels he introduces a quarrelsome grammarian of the
Hebrew language, a verbal critic who takes the field in grammatical
campaigns, and is accompanied by a marvelously beautiful woman.
Immanuel enters into a hair-splitting disputation that he may have
the opportunity of coquetting with the lovely lady. He suffers defeat
in grammar, but makes a conquest in love. Immanuel's description of
hell and paradise, in which he imitated his friend Dante, is full of
fine satire. Whilst the Christian romantic poet shows gravity and
elevation in his poetical creation, represents sinners and criminals,
political opponents and enemies of Italy, cardinals and popes, as
being tortured in hell, metes out, as it were, the severe sentences of
judgment day; his Jewish friend, Immanuel, invents scenes in heaven
and hell for the purpose of giving play to his humorous fancy. Dante
wrote a divine, Immanuel a human, comedy. He introduces his pilgrimage
to heaven and hell by relating that he once felt greatly oppressed by
the burden of his sins, and experienced compunction; at this juncture
his young friend Daniel, by whose untimely death he had lately been
deeply affected, appeared to him, and offered to guide him through the
dismal portals of hell and the elysian fields of the blessed. In the
chambers of hell Immanuel observes all the wicked and godless of the
Bible. Aristotle, too, is there, "because he taught the eternity of
the world," and Plato, "because he asserted the reality of species"
(Realism). Most of all he scourges his contemporaries in this poem.
He inflicts the torment of the damned upon the deriders of science;
upon a Talmudist who secretly led a most immoral life; upon men who
committed intellectual thefts, and upon those who sought to usurp all
the honors of the synagogue, the one to have his seat by the Ark of
the Covenant, the other to read the prayers on the Day of Atonement.
Quack doctors are also precipitated into hell, because they take
advantage of the stupidity and credulity of the multitude, and bring
trusting patients to a premature grave. His young, beatified guide
goes with him through the gates of Paradise. How the departed spirits
rejoice at the poet's approach! They call out, "Now is the time to
laugh, for Immanuel has arrived." In the description of paradise and
its inhabitants, Immanuel affects to treat his theme very seriously;
but he titters softly within the very gates of heaven. Of course, he
notices the holy men, the patriarchs, the pious kings and heroes of the
Jewish past, the prophets and the great teachers, the poets, Jehuda
Halevi and Charisi, the Jewish philosopher Maimuni. But next to King
David, who fingers the harp and sings psalms, he observes the harlot
Rahab who concealed the spies in Jericho, and Tamar who sat at the
cross-roads waiting. Dante excludes the heathen world from paradise,
because it did not acknowledge Christ, and had no share in the grace
of salvation. Immanuel sees a troop of the blessed, whom he does not
recognize, and asks their leader who they are. "These are," answers
the latter, "righteous and moral heathens, who attained the height of
wisdom, and recognized the only God as the creator of the world and the
bestower of grace." The pious authors, David, Solomon, Isaiah, Ezekiel,
on seeing Immanuel, darted forward to meet him; each one thanks him for
having expounded his writings so well, and here older and contemporary
exegetists come in for their share of Immanuel's sly satire.
Neo-Hebraic poetry, which began with José ben José, and reached its
zenith in Ibn-Gebirol and Jehuda Halevi, attains its final stage of
development in Immanuel. The gamut had now been run. After Immanuel,
the Hebrew muse became silent for a long time, and it required a fresh
and powerful stimulus to awaken it from slumber to new energy. Verses
were, of course, written after his days, and rhymes polished, but they
are as far removed from poetry as a street-song from a soul-stirring
melody. The fate of Hebrew poetry is illustrated in Immanuel's career.
For a long period he was popular, every one sought his friendship, but
in old age he fell into neglect and poverty. His own statement is that
his generosity dissipated his means. He was as much derided as he had
formerly been praised. He left Rome with his family, traveled about,
and found repose at length at the house of a wealthy, influential
friend of art (Benjamin?) in Fermo, who interested himself in him, and
encouraged him to arrange the verses and poems written at different
periods of his life into a symmetrical whole.
The praises which Immanuel bestows on his own productions, and his
boast that he casts the old poets into the shade, certainly tend to
produce a bad impression. Nevertheless, like every expert in his
profession, he was far removed from that repulsive vanity which
perceives its own depreciation in the recognition of another. To true
merit Immanuel gave the tribute of his warmest praise, and modestly
conceded precedence to it. Not only did he extol the highly honored
Kalonymos, basking in the sunshine of the king's favor, with the most
extravagant figures of speech, but he praised almost more heartily the
poet Jehuda Siciliano, who lived in straitened circumstances. He gave
him the palm for poetical verse, maintaining his own superiority in
poetical prose. But for Immanuel, nothing would have been known of this
poet. Poor Siciliano had to waste his power in occasional poems for
his subsistence, and was thus unable to produce any lasting work. With
glowing enthusiasm Immanuel eulogizes his cousin, the young and learned
Leone Romano, Jehuda ben Moses ben Daniel (born about 1292), whom he
calls the "Crown of Thought." In paradise he allots to him the highest
place of honor. Leone Romano was the teacher of King Robert of Naples,
and instructed him in the original language of the Bible. He knew the
language of learned Christendom, and was probably the first Jew to pay
attention to scholastic philosophy. He translated for Jewish readers
the philosophical compositions of Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas,
and others. Leone Romano composed original works of exegesis, set
forth in philosophical method. Greatly as his contemporaries admired
his learning and intellect, which had achieved so much when he had
scarcely arrived at man's estate, he exercised no influence whatever on
posterity.
The Roman society which promoted science and poetry may be said to
have included also the grandson of a Roman emigrant who took up his
abode in Greece, Shemarya Ikriti (Cretan) of Negroponte (flourished
1290-1320). He stood in close relation with the Roman community and
King Robert. Familiar with Talmudical literature, as he probably was
rabbi in Negroponte, he devoted himself to philosophical speculations,
and was, perhaps, well read in the Greek philosophical literature
in its original language. In his youth, Ikriti, like many of his
contemporaries, occupied himself with translations of philosophical
works. Later on he conceived a plan of practical utility, in which
he thought he could turn his knowledge to account. He sought to
smooth over the difference between the Rabbanites and the Karaites,
and lastingly to reconcile the sects at enmity with each other
for centuries, "that all Israel may once more be united in one
fraternal bond." Shemarya of Negroponte was the first, perhaps the
only Rabbanite, who, if he did not extend the hand of reconciliation
to Karaism, at least showed a friendly disposition towards it. He
recognized that both parties were in error; Karaism was wrong in
rejecting Talmudical traditions unconditionally; but the Rabbanites
sinned against truth in placing the Talmud in the forefront, and
overlooking the Bible. In Greece there may have been Karaites at that
time who had come from Constantinople. To these Shemarya Ikriti
addressed himself to incline their minds towards union with the mother
community.
For the difficult task of bringing discordant faiths into harmony,
much intelligence and energy were required, and Shemarya could
furnish only good will. He was not deficient in knowledge, but his
mental grasp was not sufficiently powerful. At the instance of King
Robert, who interested himself in Jewish literature, he wrote a
commentary on the Bible, and forwarded to him, with a dedication, the
books first completed (1328). It read as follows: "To our noble king
Robert, adorned like King Solomon with the crown of wisdom and the
diadem of royalty, I send this exposition of the cosmogony and the
Song of Songs." His Biblical commentaries were set forth with great
diffuseness, covered a great range, and were not calculated to appeal
to the Karaites, and draw them over to the side of rabbinical Judaism.
His attempt at reconciliation miscarried, perhaps was not made in the
proper spirit; for there was a disposition on the part of some Karaites
to treat his overtures favorably, and his efforts would not have
failed, if they had been conducted with skill. Nevertheless, Ikriti was
held in such esteem in his time that the Roman congregation took an
interest in his labors, entered into correspondence with him, while the
Karaites assiduously read his works, and in later times considered him
a member of their own party.
Karaism was still dragging itself along in its decaying, stiffening
form. Internal schisms remained unaccommodated. Different Karaite
congregations celebrated the festivals at different times: the
Palestinians, according to the observation of the new moon, and the
extra-Palestinian congregations, in common with the Rabbanites. Their
extremely severe marriage laws were not finally settled even at this
epoch. Karaism at that time had three centers--Cairo in Egypt,
Constantinople in the Byzantine Empire, and Sulchat (Eski-Crim) in the
Crimean peninsula. Some importance was possessed by Aaron ben Joseph
the Elder, physician in Constantinople (flourished about 1270-1300). He
came originally from the Crimea, made extensive voyages, and acquired
a knowledge of medicine and philosophy. Aaron I also made himself
intimate with Rabbanite literature to a degree that few of his sect
attained. He made use of Nachmani's commentary on the Pentateuch, and
from this circumstance arose the mistake of later Karaites, that Aaron
had sat at Nachmani's feet. His familiarity with Rabbanite literature
had a beneficial effect on his style; he wrote much more clearly and
intelligibly than most of the Karaite authors. He was even disposed to
accept the tradition of the Talmud.
He completely fixed the Karaite prayer book (Siddur Tefila), hitherto
in an unsettled condition, incorporating into it hymns written by
Gebirol, Jehuda Halevi, Ibn-Ezra, and other Rabbanite liturgical
poets. Aaron himself possessed very little poetical genius, and his
metrical prayers, with which he enriched the prayer book of the
Karaites, have no great poetical merit, but by the admission of hymns
written by Rabbanites into his compilation, he showed that he knew
how to appreciate the devout sublimity in the prayers of the Spanish
Jews, and that he was not altogether devoid of taste. If Shemarya,
of Negroponte, had undertaken to effect a reconciliation between
the Rabbanites and the Karaites in a more intelligent and energetic
manner, there can be no doubt that Aaron would willingly have offered
his assistance, provided, of course, that he had known of Shemarya's
attempt. There was not wanting among Karaites a strong inclination for
union. Owing to the activity of Abraham Maimuni II, a great-grandson
of the renowned Maimuni, who had succeeded to the post of Chief
(Nagid) of the Rabbanite communities in Egypt after the death of his
father David, an important Karaite congregation in Egypt on one day
openly acknowledged the teachings of the Rabbanites. In Palestine,
too, frequent conversions of Karaites to Talmudical Judaism took
place. On this account the rabbis of the time were more favorably
disposed towards them. On the one hand, the strict Talmudist Samson
of Sens denounced the Karaites as heathens, whose wine was not to be
partaken of by orthodox Jews; on the other hand, Estori Parchi, who
had been banished from Provence, and who, emigrating to Palestine, had
settled in Bethshan, recognized them as co-religionists, led astray by
erroneous notions, but not to be rejected.