CAPISTRANO AND HIS PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS.
Pope Eugenius IV, under the Influence of Alfonso de Cartagena,
changes his Attitude towards the Jews--His Bull against the
Spanish and Italian Jews in 1442--Don Juan II defends the
Jews--Pope Nicholas V's Hostility--Louis of Bavaria--The
Philosopher Nicholas of Cusa and his Relation to Judaism--John
of Capistrano--His Influence with the People is turned against
the Jews--Capistrano in Bavaria and Würzburg--Expulsion
of the Breslau Community--Expulsion of the Jews from Brünn
and Olmütz--The Jews of Poland under Casimir IV--Capture
of Constantinople by Mahomet II--The Jews find an Asylum in
Turkey--The Karaites--Moses Kapsali--Isaac Zarfati--Position
of the Jews of Spain--Persecutions directed by Alfonso de
Spina--The Condition of the Marranos.
1442-1474 C.E.
About the middle of the fifteenth century, venomous hatred of Jews,
become characteristic of Spain and Germany, began to increase, and at
the end of that century reached its highest development. In Spain it
was stimulated principally by envy of the influential positions still
enjoyed by Jews in spite of misfortune and humiliation; in Germany,
on the contrary, where the Jews moved like shadows, it arose from
vague race-antipathy, of which religious differences formed only one
aspect. An unfortunate event for the German communities was the death
of Emperor Sigismund (towards the end of 1437) at the moment when the
council of Basle was casting a threatening glance in their direction.
This prince was not a reliable protector of the Jews. Often enough he
bled them to relieve his ever-recurring pecuniary embarrassments, and
he even charged them with the expenses of the council of Constance.
But so far as lay in his power he set his face against the bloody
persecutions of his Hebrew subjects. He was succeeded as German
king and emperor by the Austrian Archduke Albert, who had already
distinguished himself by inhumanity towards Jews. Albert II was a
deadly enemy of Jews and heretics. He could not exterminate either, for
the Hussites had courage and arms, and the Jews were an indispensable
source of money; but whenever it was sought to injure them he gladly
assisted. When the town council of Augsburg decided to expel the Jewish
community (1439), the emperor joyfully gave his consent. Two years
were granted them to dispose of their houses and immovables; at the
end of that time they were one and all exiled, and the grave-stones in
the Jewish cemetery used to repair the city walls. Fortunately for the
Jews, Albert reigned only two years, and the rule of the Holy Roman
Empire, or rather the anarchy by which it was convulsed, devolved on
the good-natured, weak, indolent, and tractable Frederick III. As a set
off, two fanatical Jew-haters now arose--Pope Eugenius IV and the
Franciscan, John of Capistrano, a cut-throat in the guise of a lowly
servant of God.
Eugenius, whom the council of Basle had degraded step by step,
depriving him of his dignities and electing another pope in his place,
ultimately triumphed through the treachery of some of the principal
members of the council and the helplessness of the German princes, and
was again enabled to befool the Christian nations. Eugenius, though of
narrow, monkish views, was at first not unfavorably disposed towards
the Jews. At the beginning of his pontificate, he confirmed the
privileges granted Jews by his predecessor, Martin V, promised them
his protection, and forbade their forcible baptism. But he was soon
influenced in an opposite direction, and developed extraordinary zeal
in degrading the Jews and withdrawing all protection from them. The
prime mover in this conversion seems to have been Alfonso de Cartagena,
a son of the apostate Paul de Santa Maria. Appointed bishop of Burgos
on the death of his father, Alfonso warmly espoused the cause of Pope
Eugenius at the council of Basle, and hence rose high in the favor of
the pontiff. He alone could have been the author of the complaints
against the pride and arrogance of the Castilian Jews which induced
the pope to issue the bull of 1442. This document was addressed to
the bishops of Castile and Leon (10th August, 1442), and was to the
effect that it had come to the knowledge of his Holiness that the
Jews abuse the privileges granted them by former popes, blaspheming
and transgressing to the vexation of the faithful and the dishonor of
the true faith. He felt himself compelled, therefore, to withdraw the
indulgences granted by his predecessors--Martin and other popes--
and to declare them null and void. At the same time Eugenius repeated
the canonical restrictions in a severer form. Thus, he decreed that
Christians should not eat, drink, bathe, or live with Jews (or
Mahometans), nor use medicines of any kind purveyed by them. Jews (and
Mahometans) should not be eligible for any office or dignity, and
should be incompetent to inherit property from Christians. They were
to build no more synagogues, and, in repairing the old, were to avoid
all ornamentation. They were to seclude themselves from the public
eye during Passion Week, to the extent even of keeping their doors
and windows closed. The testimony of Jews (and Mahometans) against
Christians was declared invalid. Eugenius' bull emphatically enjoined
that no Christian should stand in any relation of servitude to a Jew,
and should not even kindle a fire for him on the Sabbath; that Jews
should be distinguished from Christians by a peculiar costume, and
reside in special quarters. Furthermore, every blasphemous utterance
by a Jew about Jesus, the "Mother of God," or the saints, was to be
severely punished by the civil tribunals. This bull was ordered to
be made known throughout the land, and put in force thirty days
later. Heavy penalties were to be exacted for offenses under it. If
the culprit was a Christian, he was to be placed under the ban of the
church, and neither king nor queen was to be exempt; if a Jew, then
the whole of his fortune, personal and real, was to be confiscated
by the bishop of the diocese, and applied to the purposes of the
church. By means of circular letters, Eugenius exhorted the Castilian
ecclesiastics to enforce the restrictions without mercy. He dared not
be outdone in Jew-hatred by the council of Basle. At about the same
time, or perhaps earlier, Eugenius issued a bull of forty-two articles
against the Italian Jewish communities, in which, among other things,
he ordered that, under pain of confiscation of property, Jews should
not read Talmudic literature.
The papal bull for Castile was proclaimed in many of the towns, as it
would appear, without the consent of the king, Juan II. The fanatics
had won the day; all their wishes were fulfilled. The misguided people
at once considered Jews and Mahometans outlawed, and proceeded to
make violent attacks on their persons and property. Pious Christians
interpreted the papal ordinances to mean that they were not to continue
commercial relations of any kind with the Jews. Christian shepherds
forthwith abandoned the flocks and herds committed to their charge by
Jews and Mahometans, and plowmen turned their backs upon the fields.
The union of towns (Hermandad) framed new statutes for the more
complete oppression of the proscribed of the church. In consternation
the Jews appealed to the king of Castile. Their complaints had all
the more effect upon him as their damage meant damage to the royal
exchequer. Accordingly, Juan II, or rather his favorite, Alvaro de
Luna, issued a counter decree (April 6th, 1443). He expressed his
indignation at the shamelessness which made the papal bull an excuse
for assaults on the Jews and Mahometans. Canonical, royal and imperial
law agreed in permitting them to live undisturbed and unmolested among
Christians. The bull of Pope Eugenius placed Jews and Mahometans under
certain specific restrictions; but it did not follow that they might
be robbed, injured or maltreated, that they might not engage in trade
or industry, nor work as weavers, goldsmiths, carpenters, barbers,
shoe-makers, tailors, millers, coppersmiths, saddlers, rope-makers,
potters, cartwrights or basket-makers, or that Christians might not
serve them in these pursuits. Such service involved neither relaxation
of Christian authority nor dangerous intimacy with Jews. Nor did it
appear that the avocations mentioned conferred any of that prestige
which solely the bull was designed to deny to Jews.
Christians should certainly abstain from the medicines of Jewish or
Moorish physicians, unless compounded by Christian hands; but this did
not mean that skillful doctors of the Jewish or the Mahometan faith
should not be consulted, or their medicines not used, when no Christian
physician was available. Juan II imposed upon the magistracy the duty
of safeguarding the Jews and Mahometans, as objects of his special
protection, and instructed them to punish Christian offenders with
imprisonment and confiscation of goods. He furthermore ordered that his
pleasure be made known throughout the land by public criers, in the
presence of a notary.
Whether this sophistical decree was of any real use to the Jews is
doubtful. Don Juan II had not much authority in his kingdom, and
was obliged to make frequent concessions to hostile parties, with
whom his own son occasionally made common cause. The Castilian Jews
were consequently abandoned to the arbitrary authority of the local
magistrates during the remainder of the reign of this well-meaning but
weak monarch, and were obliged to come to terms with them whenever
protection was required against violence or false accusations. Did any
misfortune threaten a Jew, then the tailor would fly to his princely
patron, or the goldsmith to a grandee of high position, and seek to
avert it by supplications or gold. It was truly no enviable situation
in which the Jews found themselves.
Eugenius' successor, Pope Nicholas V (March, 1447-March, 1455),
continued the system of degrading and oppressing the Jews. As
soon as he ascended the throne of St. Peter he devoted himself to
abolishing the privileges of the Italian Jews, which Martin V had
confirmed and Eugenius had not formally revoked, and subjecting them
to exceptional laws. In a bull, dated June 23d, 1447, he repeated
for Italy the restrictions which his predecessor had formulated for
Castile, re-enacting them in the fullest detail, not even omitting the
prohibition against the lighting of fires for Jews on the Sabbath. But
though Nicholas' bull was only a copy, it had much more real force than
the original; for its execution was confided to the pitiless Jew-hater
and heretic-hunter, John of Capistrano. On him devolved the duty of
seeing, either in person or through his brother Franciscans, that the
provisions of the bull were literally obeyed, and infractions strictly
punished. If, for example, a Jewish physician provided a suffering
Christian with the means of regaining health, Capistrano was authorized
to confiscate the whole of the offender's fortune and property. And the
saintly monk, with heart of stone, was just the man to visit such a
transgression with unrelenting severity.
The Jew-hatred of the council of Basle and the popes spread like a
contagion over a wide area. The fierce and bigoted Bavarian Duke of
Landshut, Louis the Rich--"a hunter of game and Jews"--had all
the Jews of his country arrested on one day (Monday, October 5th,
1450), shortly after his accession to power. The men were thrown into
prison, the women shut up in the synagogues, and their property and
jewelry confiscated. Christian debtors were directed not to pay their
Jewish creditors more than the capital they had originally borrowed,
and to deduct from that the interest already paid. After four weeks of
incarceration the unhappy Jews were obliged to purchase their lives
from the turbulent duke for 30,000 gulden, and then, penniless and
almost naked, they were turned out of the country. Gladly would Louis
have meted out the same treatment to the large and rich community
of Ratisbon, which was within his jurisdiction. As, however, his
authority was recognized only to a limited extent, and as the Jews of
the city were under the protection of the council and its privileges,
he was obliged to content himself with levying contributions. Many
Jews are said to have been driven by anxiety and want into embracing
Christianity.
As the rest of the European Jews regarded their Spanish brethren as an
exalted and favored class, so the papacy directed special attention to
them in order to put an end to their favorable position in the state.
Either on the proposition of the king to modify the severe canonical
restrictions against Jews, or on the petition of their enemies to
confirm them, Pope Nicholas V issued a new bull (March 1st, 1451). He
confirmed the old exclusions from Christian society and all honorable
walks of life, and entirely abolished the privileges of the Spanish and
the Italian Jews.
The unpitying harshness of canonical legislation against the children
of Israel was unconsciously based on fear. All-powerful Christianity
dreaded the influence which the Jewish mind might exert on the
Christian population in too familiar intercourse. What the papacy
concealed in the incense-clouds of its official decrees was disclosed
by a philosophical writer and cardinal standing in close relation
with the papal court. Nicholas de Cusa (from Cues on the Moselle),
the last devotee of scholasticism, into which he tried to introduce
mystic elements, enthusiastically advocated, in the face of the
dissensions of Christendom, a union of all religions in one creed.
The church ceremonies he was prepared to sacrifice, nay, he was ready
to accept circumcision, if, by such means, non-Christians could be
won over to the belief in the Trinity. He feared, as he distinctly
said, the stiffneckedness of the Jews, who cling so stubbornly to
their monotheism; but he consoled himself with the reflection that
an unarmed handful could not disturb the peace of the world. It is
true, the Jews were unarmed; but, mentally, they were still powerful,
and Nicholas resolved to devote himself to the task of depriving
them of intellectual strength. The pope had appointed him legate for
Germany, where he was to reform church and cloister (1450-1451). But
the cardinal also occupied himself with the Jewish question. At the
provincial council of Bamberg he put into force the canonical statute
concerning Jew badges, which provided that men should wear round
pieces of red cloth on their breasts, and women blue stripes on their
head-dresses--as if the branding of Jews could heal the dissolute
clergy and their demoralized flocks of their uncleanness. The only
result of the isolation of the Jews was their protection from the taint
of prevailing immorality. The cardinal was not successful in purifying
the clergy, or in putting an end to the fraud of bleeding hosts and
miracle-working images, against which he had exclaimed so loudly. The
church remained corrupt to the core. There would have been abundant
cause to fear the Jews, if they had been permitted to probe the
suppurating wounds.
Especially troublesome to the church were the thousands of baptized
Jews in Spain, who had been driven into its fold by the massacres,
pulpit denunciations, and legal restrictions to which their race
was exposed. Not only the lay new-Christians, but also those who had
taken orders or had assumed the monk's garb, continued to observe,
more or less openly, the Jewish religious laws. The sophistry of the
converts, Paul de Santa Maria and Geronimo de Santa Fé, regarding
the testimony in the Old Testament and the Talmudic Agada to the
Messiahship of Jesus, the Incarnation of God, the Trinity and other
church dogmas, impressed the Marranos but little. In spite of baptism,
they remained stiff-necked and blind, _i. e._, true to the faith of
their fathers. Don Juan of Castile, at the instigation of his favorite,
Alvaro de Luna, who was anxious to strike at his arch-enemies, the
new-Christians, complained to Pope Nicholas V of the relapses of the
Marranos, and the pontiff knew of no remedy but force. He addressed
rescripts to the bishop of Osma and the vicar of Salamanca (November
20th, 1451), empowering them to appoint inquisitors to inquire
judicially into cases of new-Christians suspected of Judaizing. The
inquisitors were authorized to punish the convicted, imprison them,
confiscate their goods and disgrace them, to degrade even priests, and
hand them over to the secular arm--a church euphemism for condemning
them to the heretic's stake. This was the first spark of the hell-fire
of the Inquisition, which perpetrated more inhumanity than all the
tyrants and malefactors branded by history. At first this bull seems
to have been ineffectual. The times were not ripe for the bloody
institution. Besides, the Christians themselves helped to keep up the
connection of the baptized Jews with their brethren in race. They
denied equal rights to new-Christians of Jewish or Mahometan origin,
and wished to exclude them from all posts of honor. Against this
antipathy, inherent in the diversity of national elements, the pope was
compelled to issue a bull (November 29th, 1451), but it was powerless
to uproot the prejudice. It could be removed only by higher culture,
not at the dictation of a church chief, even though he boasted of
infallibility.
How absurd, then, to continue driving such proselytes into the church!
Yet this was done by the Franciscan monk, John of Capistrano (of
Neapolitan origin), who is responsible for immense injury to the Jews
of many lands. This mendicant friar, of gaunt figure and ill-favored
appearance, possessed a winning voice and an iron will, which enabled
him to obtain unbounded influence, not only over the stupid populace,
but also over the cultivated classes. With a word he could fascinate,
inspire, or terrify, persuade to piety or incite to cruelty. Like the
Spanish Dominican, Vincent Ferrer, the secret of Capistrano's power
lay not so much in his captivating eloquence as in the sympathetic
modulations of his voice and the unshakable enthusiasm with which he
clung to his mistaken convictions. He himself firmly believed that,
with the blood he had gathered from the nose of his master, Bernard
of Siena, and his _capuche_, he could cure the sick, awake the dead
and perform all kinds of miracles, and the misguided people not
only believed but exaggerated his professions. His strictly ascetic
life, his hatred of good living, luxury and debauchery, made an
impression the deeper from its striking contrast to the sensuality
and dissoluteness of the great bulk of the clergy and monks. Wherever
Capistrano appeared, the people thronged by thousands to hear him, to
be edified and agitated, even though they did not understand a syllable
of his Latin addresses. The astute popes, Eugenius IV and Nicholas
V, recognized in him a serviceable instrument for the restoration of
the tottering authority of St. Peter. They rejoiced in his homilies
on the infallibility of the papacy and his fiery harangues on the
extermination of heretics, and the necessity of withstanding the
victoriously advancing Turks. They offered no objection if, at the
same time, he thought proper to vent his monkish gall upon harmless
amusements, pastimes and the elegancies of life, seeing that they
themselves were not disturbed in their enjoyments and pleasures. Among
the standing themes of Capistrano's exciting discourses--second only
to his rancor against heretics and Turks, and his tirades against
luxury and sports--were his denunciations of the impieties and the
usury of Jews. This procured his appointment by Pope Nicholas to the
post of inquisitor of the Jews, his duty being to superintend the
enforcement of the canonical restrictions against them. He had in
Naples occupied the position of inquisitorial judge for the Jews, on
the nomination of Queen Joanna, who had empowered him to punish with
the severest penalties any failure to observe the ecclesiastical law or
wear the Jew badge.
When this infuriate Capuchin visited Germany, he spread terror and
dismay among the Jews. They trembled at the mention of his name. In
Bavaria, Silesia, Moravia, and Austria, the bigotry of the Catholics,
already at a high pitch on account of the Hussite schism, was further
stirred by Capistrano, and, the Bohemian heretics being beyond its
reach, it vented itself upon Jews. The Bavarian dukes, Louis and
Albert, who had on one occasion before driven the Jews out of their
territories, were made still more fanatical by Capistrano. The former
demanded of certain counts, and of the city of Ratisbon, that they
expel the Jews. The burgomaster and town council, however, refused, and
would not withdraw the protection and the rights of citizenship which
the Jews had enjoyed from an early period. But they could not shield
them from the hostility of the clergy. Eventually even the Ratisbon
burghers, despite their good will for their Jewish fellow-citizens,
fell under the influence of Capistrano's fanaticism, and allowed
themselves to be incited to acts of unfriendliness. In the midwife
regulations, promulgated during the same year, occurs a clause
prohibiting Christian midwives from attending Jewish women, even in
cases where the lives of the patients were at stake.
The change of public feeling in respect to the Jews, brought about by
Capistrano, is strikingly illustrated by the conduct of one eminent
ecclesiastic before and after the appearance of the Capuchin in
Germany. Bishop Godfrey, of Würzburg, reigning duke of Franconia,
shortly after his accession to the government of the duchy, had granted
the fullest privileges to the Jews. More favorable treatment they
could not have desired. For himself and his successors he promised
special protection to all within his dominions, both to those settled
and those who might settle there later. They were to be freed from
the authority of the ordinary tribunals, lay and ecclesiastical, and
to have their disputes inquired into and adjudicated by their own
courts. Their rabbi (Hochmeister) was to be exempt from taxes, and
to be allowed to receive pupils in his _Yeshiba_ at his discretion.
Their movements were to be unrestricted, and those who might desire to
change their place of residence were to be assisted to collect their
debts, and provided with safe-conduct on their journeys. It was further
promised that these privileges should never be modified or revoked,
and the dean and chapter unanimously recognized and guaranteed them
"for themselves and their successors in the chapter." Every Jew who
took up his abode within Bishop Godfrey's jurisdiction was provided
with special letters of protection. But after Capistrano had begun his
agitation, how different the attitude towards Jews! We soon find the
same bishop and duke of Franconia issuing, "on account of the grievous
complaints against the Jews in his diocese," a statute and ordinance
(1453) decreeing their banishment. They were allowed until the 18th
January of the following year to sell their immovables, and within
fourteen days after that date, they were to leave, for "he (the bishop)
would no longer tolerate Jews in his diocese." The towns, barons,
lords, and justices were enjoined to expel the Jews from their several
jurisdictions, and Jewish creditors were deprived of a portion of the
debts owing to them. When Jews were concerned, inhuman fanaticism could
beguile a noble-hearted prince of the church and an entire chapter of
ecclesiastics into a flagrant breach of faith.
Capistrano's influence was most mischievous for the Jews of Silesia.
Here he showed himself in truth to be the "Scourge of the Jews," as
his admirers called him. The two chief communities in this province,
which belonged half to Poland and half to Bohemia, were at Breslau
and Schweidnitz, and the Jews composing them, not being permitted to
possess real property, and being, besides, largely engaged in the
money traffic, had considerable amounts of money at their command. The
majority of the nobles were among their debtors, and several towns were
either themselves debtors or had become security for their princes.
Hence it is not unlikely that some debtors of rank secretly planned
to evade their liabilities by ridding themselves of the Jews. At any
rate the advent of the fanatical Franciscan afforded an opportunity for
carrying out such a design.
Capistrano came to the Silesian capital on the invitation of the
bishop of Breslau, Peter Novak, who found himself unable to control
his subordinate ecclesiastics. Summoning the clergy to his presence,
the Franciscan preacher upbraided them for their sinful, immoral, and
sensual lives. The doors of the church in which the interview took
place were securely bolted, so that no lay ear might learn the full
extent of the depravity of the ministers of the Gospel. But nearer to
his heart than the reclamation of the clergy was the extermination of
the Hussites, of whom there were many in Silesia, and the persecution
of the Jews. The frenzied fanaticism with which Capistrano's harangues
inspired the people of Breslau directed itself principally against the
Jews. A report was spread that a Jew named Meyer, one of the wealthiest
of the Breslau Israelites, in whose safe-keeping were many of the bonds
of the burghers and nobles, had purchased a host from a peasant, had
stabbed and blasphemed it, and then distributed its fragments among
the communities of Schweidnitz, Liegnitz, and others for further
desecration. It need hardly be said that the wounded host was alleged
to have shed blood. This imbecile fiction soon reached the ears of the
municipal authorities, with whom it found ready credence. Forthwith
all the Jews of Breslau, men, women and children, were thrown into
prison, their entire property in the "Judengasse" seized, and, what
was most important to the authors of the catastrophe, the bonds of
their debtors, worth about 25,000 Hungarian gold florins, confiscated
(2d May, 1453). The guilt of the Jews was rendered more credible by
the flight of a few of them, who were, however, soon taken. Capistrano
assumed the direction of the inquiry into this important affair. As
inquisitor, the leading voice in the prosecution of blasphemers of the
consecrated wafer by right belonged to him. He ordered a few Jews to
be stretched on the rack, and personally instructed the torturers in
their task--he had experience in such work. The tortured Israelites
confessed. Meantime another infamous lie was circulated. A wicked
baptized Jewess declared that the Breslau Jews had once before burnt
a host, and that, on another occasion, they had kidnaped a Christian
boy, fattened him, and put him into a cask studded with sharp nails,
which they rolled about until their victim gave up the ghost. His
blood had been distributed among the Silesian communities. Even the
bones of the murdered child were alleged to have been found. The guilt
of the Jews appeared established in these various cases, and a large
number, in all 318 persons, were arrested in different localities,
and brought to Breslau. Capistrano sat in judgment upon them, and
hurried them to execution. At the Salzring--now Blücherplatz--where
Capistrano resided, forty-one convicted Jews were burnt on one day (2d
June, 1453). The rabbi (Phineas?) hanged himself; he had also counseled
others to take their own lives. The remainder were banished from
Breslau, all their children under seven years of age having previously
been taken from them by force, baptized, and given to Christians to
be brought up. This was Capistrano's wish, and in a learned treatise
he explained to King Ladislaus that it was in consonance with the
Christian religion and orthodoxy. The honest town clerk, Eschenloer,
who did not venture to protest aloud against these barbarities, wrote
in his diary, "Whether this is godly or not, I leave to the judgment of
the ministers of religion." The ministers of religion had transformed
themselves into savages. The goods of the burnt and banished Jews were,
of course, seized, and with their proceeds the Bernardine church was
built. It was not the only church erected with bloody money. In the
remaining Silesian towns the Jews fared no better. Some were burnt, and
the rest chased away, stripped almost to the skin.
When the young king, Ladislaus, was petitioned by the Breslau town
council to decree that from that time forward no Jew would be allowed
to settle in Breslau, not only did he assent "for the glory of God
and the honor of the Christian faith," but he added, in approval of
the outrages committed, "that they (the Silesian Jews) had suffered
according to their deserts," a remark worthy of the son of Albert II,
who had burnt the Austrian Jews. The same monarch also sanctioned--
doubtless at the instigation of Capistrano, who passed several months
at Olmütz--the expulsion of the Jews from the latter place and from
Brünn.
The echoes of Capistrano's venomous eloquence reached even Poland,
disturbing the Jewish communities there from the tranquillity they
had enjoyed for centuries. Poland had long been a refuge for hunted
and persecuted Jews. Exiles from Germany, Austria and Hungary found a
ready welcome on the Vistula. The privileges generously granted them
by Duke Boleslav, and renewed and confirmed by King Casimir the Great,
were still in force. The Jews were, in fact, even more indispensable
in that country than in other parts of Christian Europe; for in Poland
there were only two classes, nobles and serfs, and the Jews supplied
the place of the middle class, providing merchandise and money, and
bringing the dead capital of the country into circulation. During a
visit which Casimir IV paid to Posen shortly after his accession,
a fire broke out in this already important city, and, with the
exception of its few brick houses, it was totally destroyed. In this
conflagration, the original document of the privileges granted the Jews
a century before by Casimir the Great perished. Jewish deputations from
a number of Polish communities waited upon the king, lamenting the
loss of these records, so important to them, and praying that new ones
might be prepared according to existing copies, and that all their old
rights might be renewed and confirmed. Casimir did not require much
persuasion. In order that they might live in security and contentment
under his happy reign, he granted them privileges such as they had
never before enjoyed in any European state (14th August, 1447). This
king was in no respect a slave of the church. So strictly did he keep
the clergy within bounds that they charged him with persecuting and
robbing them. He forbade their meddling in affairs of state, saying
that in such matters he preferred to rely on his own powers.
Either the king was misled by a false copy of the original charters,
or he desired to avail himself of the opportunity of enlarging their
scope without appearing to make fresh concessions; at all events, the
privileges accorded under the new statute were, in many respects, more
considerable than those formerly enjoyed by the Jews. Not alone did
it permit unrestricted trading and residence all over the then very
extensive kingdom of Poland, but it annulled canonical laws often laid
down by the popes, and only recently re-enacted by the general church
council of Basle. Casimir's charter mentioned that Jews and Christians
might bathe together, and in all respects enjoy free intercourse with
each other. It emphatically decreed that no Christian could summon
a Jew before an ecclesiastical tribunal, and that if a Jew was so
summoned, he need not appear. The palatines in their several provinces
were enjoined to see that the Jews were not molested by the clergy, and
generally to extend to them powerful protection. Furthermore, no Jew
might be accused of using Christian blood in the Passover ceremonies,
or of desecrating hosts, "Jews being innocent of such offenses, which
are repudiated by their religion." If a Christian charged an individual
Jew with using Christian blood, his accusation had to be supported
by native, trustworthy Jewish witnesses and four similarly qualified
Christian witnesses, and then the accused was to suffer for his
crime, and his co-religionists were not to be dragged into it. In the
event, however, of the Christian accuser not being in a position to
substantiate his charge by credible testimony, he was to be punished
with death. This was a check on ever-recurring calumny with its train
of massacres of Jews. Casimir also recognized the judicial autonomy of
the Jewish community. In criminal cases between Jews, or between Jews
and Christians, the ordinary tribunals were not to interfere, but the
palatine, or his representative, assisted by Jews, was to adjudicate.
In minor law-suits the decision was to rest with the Jewish elders
(rabbis), who were permitted to inflict a fine of six marks in cases
where their summonses were not obeyed. To keep the authority of the
Jewish courts within reasonable bounds, Casimir's charter enacted that
the ban should be pronounced on a Jew only with the concurrence of the
entire community. Truly, in no part of Christian Europe were the Jews
possessed of such important privileges. They were renewed and issued
by the king with the assent of the Polish magnates. Also the Karaite
communities of Troki, Luzk, etc., received from Casimir a renewal and
confirmation of the privileges granted them by the Lithuanian Duke
Witold in the thirteenth century.
The clergy looked with jealous eyes on this complaisance to the
Jews, and zealously worked to induce the king to change his friendly
attitude. At the head of the Polish priesthood thus hostile to the
Jews stood the influential bishop and cardinal of Cracow, Zbigniev
Olesnicki. The protection accorded the Jews and Hussites by the king
was to him a source of deep chagrin, and, to give effective vent to
his feelings, he sent in hot haste for the heretic-hunter Capistrano.
Capistrano entered Cracow in triumph, and was received by the king
and the clergy like a divine being. During the whole of his stay in
Cracow (August 28th, 1453, to May, 1454), aided by Bishop Zbigniev, he
stirred up King Casimir against the Hussite heretics and the Jews. He
publicly remonstrated with him on the subject, threatening him with
hell-fire and an unsuccessful issue to his war with the Prussian order
of knights, if he did not abolish the privileges enjoyed by Jews, and
abandon the Hussite heretics to the church. It was easy to predict a
defeat at the hands of the Prussian knights, seeing that the pope and
the whole of the Polish church were secretly assisting them against
Casimir.
Therefore, when the Teutonic knights, in aid of their Prussian allies,
took the field against Poland, and the Polish army, with King Casimir
at its head, was ignominiously put to flight (September, 1454), the
game of the clerical party was won. They spread the rumor that the
disaster to Poland was a consequence of the king's favor to Jews and
heretics. To retrieve his fallen fortunes, and to undertake a vigorous
campaign against the Prussians, Casimir needed the assistance of Bishop
Zbigniev, and the latter was in a position to make his own terms.
The Jews were sacrificed--the king was compelled to give them up.
In November, 1454, Casimir revoked all the privileges he had granted
the Jews, on the ground that "infidels may not enjoy preference over
the worshipers of Christ, and servants may not be better treated than
sons." By public criers the king's resolve was made known throughout
the land. Besides, Casimir ordered that the Jews of Poland wear a
special costume to distinguish them from Christians. Capistrano was
victorious all along the line. Through him the Jews were abased even
in the land where they had been most exalted. The results of this
misfortune were not long in showing themselves. The Jewish communities
mournfully wrote to their brethren in Germany, "that 'the monk' had
brought grievous trouble," even to those who lived under the scepter of
the king of Poland, whose lot had formerly been so happy that they had
been able to offer a refuge to the persecuted of other lands. They had
not believed that an enemy could reach them across the Polish frontier;
and now they had to groan under the oppression of the king and the
magnates.
Meanwhile, heavy but deserved judgment descended on Christendom. After
an existence of more than a thousand years the sin-laden Byzantine
empire, which had stood its ground for centuries in spite of its
rottenness, had at length collapsed with the fall of Constantinople
(May 29th, 1453). The Turkish conqueror, Mahomet II, had given New Rome
over to slavery, spoliation, massacre, and every horror and outrage,
yet had, by no means, requited the wrongs she had inflicted on others
and herself. From Constantine, the founder of the Byzantine empire,
who placed a blood-stained sword in the hands of the church, to the
last of the emperors, Constantine Dragosses, of the Palæologus family,
everyone in the long series of rulers (with the exception of the
apostate Julian) was more or less inspired by falsehood and treachery,
and an arrogant, hypocritical, persecuting spirit. And the people, as
well as the servants of state and church, were worthy of their rulers.
From them the German, Latin and Slavonic peoples had derived the
principle that the Jews ought to be degraded by exceptional laws, or
even exterminated. Now, however, Byzantium itself lay shattered in the
dust, and wild barbarians were raising the new Turkish empire on its
site. Heavy vengeance had been exacted. Mahomet II, the conqueror of
Constantinople, threw a threatening glance at the remainder of Europe,
the countries of the Latin Church. The whole of Christendom was in
danger; yet the Christian rulers and nations were unable to organize
an effective resistance against the Turkish conquerors. The perfidy
and corruption of the papacy now bore bitter fruit. When the faithless
pope, Nicholas V, called upon Christendom to undertake a crusade
against the Turks, his legates at the diet of Ratisbon were compelled
to listen to unsparing denunciation of his corruption. Neither the pope
nor the emperor, they were told, had any real thought of undertaking a
war against the Turks; their sole idea was to squander upon themselves
the money they might collect. When the Turks made preparations to
invade Hungary, and threatened to carry the victorious crescent from
the right to the left side of the Danube, Capistrano preached himself
hoarse to kindle enthusiasm for a new crusade. His tirades had ceased
to draw. Their only effect was to assemble a ragged mob of students,
peasants, mendicant friars, half-starved adventurers and romantic
fanatics. The ghost of mediævalism vanished before the dawn of a new
day.
It seems almost providential that, at a moment when the persecutions
in Europe were increasing in number and virulence, the new Turkish
empire should have arisen to offer an hospitable asylum to the hunted
Jews. When, three days after the chastisement which he inflicted
on Constantinople, the sultan, Mahomet II, proclaimed that all the
fugitive inhabitants might return to their homes and estates without
fear of molestation, he gave a benevolent thought to the Jews. He
permitted them to settle freely in Constantinople and other towns,
allotted them special dwelling-places, and allowed them to erect
synagogues and schools. Soon after his capture of Constantinople,
he ordered the election of a Greek patriarch, whom he invested
with a certain political authority over all the Greeks in his new
dominions, and also nominated a chief rabbi to preside over the Hebrew
communities. This was a pious, learned, upright Israelite, named Moses
Kapsali. Mahomet even summoned this rabbi to the divan, and singled
him out for special distinction, giving him a seat next to the mufti,
the Chief Ulema of the Mahometans, and precedence over the patriarch.
Moses Kapsali (born about 1420, died about 1495), also received from
the sultan a kind of political suzerainty over the Jewish communities
in Turkey. The taxes imposed upon the Jews he had to apportion among
communities and individuals; he had to superintend their collection
and to pay them into the sultan's exchequer. He was furthermore
empowered to inflict punishment on his co-religionists, and no rabbi
could hold office without his sanction. In short, he was the chief and
the official representative of a completely organized Jewish communal
system.
This favorable situation of the Jews had a stimulating effect on the
degenerate Karaites, who migrated in considerable numbers from Asia,
the Crimea and southern Poland, to take up their abode with their more
happily placed brethren in Constantinople and Adrianople. The Karaites,
whose fundamental principle is the study and reasonable interpretation
of the Bible, were in so lamentable a state of ignorance, that their
entire religious structure had become a system of authorized dogmas
and traditions more rigid even than that of the Rabbanites. The extent
of their intellectual decline may be measured by the fact that in the
course of a century they failed to produce a single moderately original
theological writer. Those with a bent for study were compelled to sit
at the feet of Rabbanite teachers and receive from them instruction
in the Scriptures and the Talmud. The proud masters of Bible exegesis
had become the humble disciples of the once despised Rabbanites. The
petrifaction of Karaism is illustrated by an event in European Turkey.
A Karaite college, consisting of Menachem Bashyasi, his son Moses
Bashyasi, Menachem Maroli, Michael the Old, his son Joseph, and a few
others, had permitted the lights necessary for the Sabbath eve to be
prepared on Friday, so that the holy day need not be spent in darkness.
The college gave adequate reasons for the innovation. According to
a Karaite principle, not only an ecclesiastical authority, but any
individual is justified in abolishing an ancient custom, or annulling
former decisions, if he can cite sufficient exegetical authority.
Nevertheless, stormy opposition arose (about 1460) against this
decision, aimed at a custom derived, perhaps, from Anan, the founder
of Karaism, and hence possessing the sacredness conferred by the rust
of seven centuries. Schism and friction were the result. The section
of the community which ventured to prepare the lights required for the
Sabbath eve was abused, and charged with heresy. Moreover, the schism
relating to the commencement of the festivals was still unhealed.
The Palestinian Karaite communities and their neighbors continued to
distinguish between an ordinary and a leap year by the state of the
barley harvest, and to regulate their festivals by the appearance
of the new moon. On the other hand, the communities in Turkey, the
Crimea, and southern Poland, used the calendar of the Rabbanites. These
hereditary differences were eating more and more into the solidarity of
the sect, for there was no means of composing them, and agreeing upon
uniform principles.
The conspicuous decrepitude of Karaism and the ignorance of its
followers afforded the Rabbanites in the Turkish empire an opportunity
for reconciling them to Talmudic Judaism, or, at least, overcoming
their bitter hostility towards it. Rabbanite teachers, Enoch Saporta,
an immigrant from Catalonia, Eliezer Kapsali, from Greece, and Elias
Halevi, from Germany, stipulated that their Karaite pupils, whom they
instructed in the Talmud, should thenceforward abstain, in writing and
in speech, from reviling Talmudic authorities, and from desecrating
the festivals of the Rabbanite calendar. In the difficult position in
which studiously inclined Karaites found themselves, they could not
do otherwise than give this promise. The Turkish chief rabbi, Moses
Kapsali, was of opinion that, as the Karaites rejected the Talmud, they
might not be taught in it. But he was a disciple of the strict German
school, which, in its gloomy ultra-piety, would allow no concessions,
even though the gradual conversion of a dissenting sect could be
effected.
When contrasted with the miserable condition of the Jews in Germany,
the lot of those who had taken up their abode in the newly-risen
Turkish empire must have seemed unalloyed happiness. Jewish immigrants
who had escaped the ceaseless persecutions to which they had been
subjected in Germany expressed themselves in terms of rapture over the
happy condition of the Turkish Jews. Unlike their co-religionists under
Christian rule, they were not compelled to yield up the third part of
their fortunes in royal taxes; nor were they in any way hindered in the
conduct of business. They were permitted to dispose of their property
as they pleased, and had absolute freedom of movement throughout the
length and breadth of the empire. They were subject to no sumptuary
laws, and were thus able to clothe themselves in silk and gold, if they
chose.
The fruitful lands taken from the slothful Greek Christians were
occupied by them, and offered rich reward to their industry. Turkey
was, in short, correctly described by an enthusiastic Jew as a land "in
which nothing, absolutely nothing, is wanting." Two young immigrants,
Kalmann and David, thought that if German Jews realized but a tenth
part of the happiness to be found in Turkey, they would brave any
hardships to get there. These two young men persuaded Isaac Zarfati,
who had journeyed in Turkey in earlier times, and whose name was by no
means unknown in Germany, to write a circular letter to the Jews of the
Rhineland, Styria, Moravia and Hungary, to acquaint them with the happy
lot of Jews under the crescent as compared with their hard fate under
the shadow of the cross, and to call upon them to escape from the
German house of bondage and emigrate to Turkey. The lights and shadows
of his subject could not have been more sharply defined than they are
in Zarfati's letter (written in 1456), whose graphic, often somewhat
too artificial language does not readily lend itself to translation:
"I have heard of the afflictions, more bitter than death, that have
befallen our brethren in Germany--of the tyrannical laws, the
compulsory baptisms and the banishments. And when they flee from one
place, a yet harder fate befalls them in another. I hear an insolent
people raising its voice in fury against the faithful; I see its hand
uplifted to smite them. On all sides I learn of anguish of soul and
torment of body; of daily exactions levied by merciless extortioners.
The clergy and the monks, false priests, rise up against the unhappy
people of God and say: 'Let us pursue them even unto destruction; let
the name of Israel be no more known among men.' They imagine that their
faith is in danger because the Jews in Jerusalem might, peradventure,
buy the Church of the Sepulcher. For this reason they have made a
law that every Jew found upon a Christian ship bound for the East
shall be flung into the sea. Alas! how evilly are the people of God
in Germany entreated; how sadly is their strength departed! They are
driven hither and thither, and they are pursued even unto death. The
sword of the oppressor ever hangs over their heads; they are flung into
the devouring flames, into swift flowing rivers and into foul swamps.
Brothers and teachers! friends and acquaintances! I, Isaac Zarfati,
from a French stock, born in Germany, where I sat at the feet of my
teachers, I proclaim to you that Turkey is a land wherein nothing is
lacking. If ye will, all shall yet be well with you. The way to the
Holy Land lies open to you through Turkey. Is it not better for you
to live under Moslems than under Christians? Here every man may dwell
at peace under his own vine and his own fig-tree. In Christendom, on
the contrary, ye dare not clothe your children in red or in blue,
according to your taste, without exposing them to insult and yourselves
to extortion; and, therefore, are ye condemned to go about meanly
clad in sad-colored raiment. All your days are full of sorrow, even
your Sabbaths and the times appointed for feasting. Strangers enjoy
your goods; and, therefore, of what profit is the wealth of your rich
men? They hoard it but to their own sorrow, and in a day it is lost
to them for ever. Ye call your riches your own--alas! they belong
to your oppressors. They bring false accusations against you. They
respect neither age nor wisdom; and, though they gave you a pledge
sealed sixty-fold, yet would they break it. They continually lay double
punishments upon you, a death of torment and confiscation of goods.
They prohibit teaching in your schools; they break in upon you during
your hours of prayer; and they forbid you to work or conduct your
business on Christian feast-days. And now, seeing all these things, O
Israel, wherefore sleepest thou? Arise, and leave this accursed land
for ever!"
Isaac Zarfati's appeal induced many Jews to emigrate forthwith to
Turkey and Palestine. Their grave demeanor, extreme piety, and peculiar
apparel at once distinguished them from the Jews of Greece and the
Orient, and ere long the new-comers exercised considerable influence
upon the other inhabitants of the countries in which they settled.
There were peculiar circumstances connected with the prohibition of the
emigration of Jews to Palestine. The Jewish inhabitants of Jerusalem
had obtained permission from a pasha to build a synagogue on one of
the slopes of Mount Zion. The site of this synagogue adjoined a piece
of land owned by Franciscan monks, or rather containing the ruins of
one of their chapels, known as David's chapel. When this permission
was given to the Jews, the monks raised as much clamor as though all
Palestine, including the Holy City, had been their peculiar inheritance
since the beginning of time. They forthwith carried their complaints to
the pope, and represented that, if the Jews were permitted to take such
liberties as this, it would not be long before they took possession of
the Church of the Holy Sepulcher itself. The pope at once issued a bull
directing that no Christian shipowner should convey Jewish emigrants to
the Holy Land. As the Levantine trade was at that time almost entirely
in the hands of the Venetians, the doge was prevailed upon to issue
stringent orders to all the shipmasters of the mainland and the islands
not to give passage to Palestine to any Jews.
It is, indeed, strange that, while the Christian powers were under the
impression that they had hemmed in the children of Israel on all sides
like hunted animals, the Turks of Eastern Europe opened a way of escape
to them. Ere another half century had passed, their Spanish brethren,
savagely hunted from the Peninsula, were destined to seek the same
asylum.
It must, however, be admitted that under the sway of the Castilian
king, Henry IV, and that of John II, of Aragon, the condition of the
Spanish Jews was one of comparative peace and comfort. But it was the
calm that went before the storm. The doubly impotent Castilian king
was gentle to a degree ill-befitting a ruler of men. Although, as
Infante, Don Henry had allowed himself to be persuaded by his partisans
to replenish his exhausted coffers by plundering the houses, not only
of the Jews, but also of the new-Christians or converts from Judaism,
he had no personal antipathy to the people of Israel. A Jewish
physician was his confidential minister. Not long after his accession
to the throne he had even sent him to the Portuguese court on the most
delicate mission of obtaining the hand of the young, beautiful princess
of Portugal for his sovereign. The Jewish diplomatist brought his
mission to a successful conclusion, but was assassinated in the hour of
his success.
In spite of the papal bull and the repeated ordinances of the cities,
Don Henry employed a Jewish farmer of taxes, one Don Chacon, a native
of Vitoria; and he, too, fell a sacrifice to his office. A rabbi, Jacob
Ibn-Nuñez, his private physician, was appointed by Henry to apportion
and collect the tribute of the Jews of Castile; while Abraham Bibago,
yet another Jew of eminence, stood high in the favor of John II of
Aragon.
The example of the courts naturally affected the greater nobles, who,
when their own interests were not concerned, troubled themselves very
little about ecclesiastical edicts. The practice of medicine was still
entirely in the hands of Jews, and opened to them the cabinets and the
hearts of kings and nobles. It was in vain that papal bulls proclaimed
that Christians should not employ Jewish physicians. There were few
or no Christians who understood the healing art, and the sick had no
recourse save to the skill of the Jews. Even the higher clergy had but
little regard for the bulls of Eugenius, Nicholas, and Calixtus. They
had too much care for the health of the flesh to refuse the medical aid
of the Jews on account of a canonical decree. Most of the tyrannical
restrictions belonging to the minority of John II and the times of the
regent Catalina were completely forgotten. Only on one point did Henry
insist with rigor. He would not permit the Jews to clothe themselves
luxuriously. This was partly on account of his own preference for
simplicity of dress, partly because he was desirous that the envy of
Christians should not be excited against them. Under the mild rule of
Don Henry, the Jews who had been more or less compulsorily baptized
either returned to their faith, or at least observed the Jewish ritual
unmolested. During the Feast of the Passover they lived upon rice
entirely in order, on the one hand, to partake of nothing leavened,
and, on the other, to avoid the suspicion of Judaism.
Hatred of the Jew, which burnt most fiercely in the great towns,
naturally made it impossible for the orthodox to behold without
indignation this favoritism towards the supposed enemies of their
faith, and they made use of a weapon whose efficacy had been proved in
other lands. The cry went forth: The Jews have put Christian children
to death! Then came the report that "a Jew in the neighborhood of
Salamanca had torn a child's heart out;" or, "Jews elsewhere have cut
pieces of flesh out of a living Christian child," and so on. By means
of such rumors, the fanaticism of the mob was speedily inflamed, the
magistrates took up the matter, and the accused Jews were thrown into
prison.
The king, well aware of the origin and object of these accusations,
had them thoroughly sifted, with the result that the innocence of the
accused was completely established. Notwithstanding this fact, the
enemies of the Jews maintained their guilt. Some insinuated that the
judges had been bribed; while others asserted that the new-Christians
had exerted themselves in behalf of their kinsmen, and that the king
himself was partial to them.
Among all their enemies the man who raged most bitterly and fiercely
against the Spanish Jews was a preacher in Salamanca, Alfonso de Spina,
a Franciscan monk, of the same order and opinions as Capistrano.
Instead of the venomed tongue, he used the poisoned pen against them.
This man enjoyed a certain amount of fame, because he happened to have
accompanied Alvaro de Luna, the once all-powerful minister of John
II, to the scaffold as his confessor. This bigoted priest thundered
unceasingly from the altar steps against the Jews and their patrons,
and especially against the new-Christians as secret adherents of
their former faith. As his preaching did not appear to him to produce
sufficient effect, De Spina issued, in 1460, a virulent work in
Latin, directed against Jews, Moslems, and other heretics, under the
title "Fortalitium Fidei." In this book he collected everything that
the enemies of the Jews had ever written or said against them. He
reproduced every absurd legend and idle tale that he could procure,
and seasoned the whole collection with every device of rhetoric that
his malice could suggest. In his opinion it was only right and natural
that all Moslems and heretics should be exterminated root and branch.
Against the Jews, however, he proposed to employ apparently lenient
measures. He would simply take their younger children from them, and
bring them up as Christians, an idea for which he was indebted to
the scholastic philosopher, Duns Scotus, and his fellow Franciscan,
Capistrano. De Spina most deeply deplored that the various laws for
the persecution of the Jews, promulgated during the minority of John
II, were no longer in force under his successor. In most trenchant
words he rebuked the king, the nobles and the clergy for the favor that
they showed to Jews; and, in order to inflame the mob, he untiringly
retailed all the old fables of child-murder, theft of the host, and
the like, in the most circumstantial narrative, and insinuated that
the partiality of the king permitted these abominable crimes to go
unpunished.
The fanaticism aroused by Alfonso de Spina was by no means without
effect; indeed, the most lamentable consequences ere long resulted from
it. A monk, crucifix in hand, proposed a general massacre of the Jews
of Medina del Campo, near Valladolid, and his words were favorably
received. The inhabitants of the town fell upon the Jews, and burnt
several of them alive with the sacred books which they happened to
find in their possession. Murder was naturally followed by plunder
of the victims' goods. The king had the ringleaders of this outrage
punished; but this was all that he could do. He was unable to prevent
a recurrence of such scenes. He had been compelled to recognize the
abject position of the Jews officially in the statute book which his
advisers, his secret enemies, Don Pacheco, Marquis of Villena, and
the Count of Valencia, prepared at his request. Don Pacheco, who by
his intrigues brought both king and country to confusion, was himself
of Jewish blood, his mother, who had married a Spanish noble, being
the daughter of a Jew named Ruy Capron. Notwithstanding this fact, he
included the most odious enactments in Don Henry's revised statute
book. All the earlier disabilities were revived: the exclusion of Jews
from all offices, even from practice as apothecaries, the wearing of
distinctive badges, restriction to the Jewries of towns, and even
confinement to their houses during Holy Week.
The civil war kindled by the intrigues of Don Pacheco and other
courtiers through the burlesque deposition of Don Henry in Avila, and
the coronation of his younger brother, Alfonso, bore more heavily on
the Jews than even on the general population of Castile.
In 1467 Alfonso's party had by treason become master of Segovia, and
immediately a riot against the Jews began here. The enemies of this
unhappy people spread the report that, on the suggestion of their
rabbi, Solomon Picho, the Jews of the little community of Sepulveda,
not far from Segovia, had during Holy Week so cruelly tortured a
Christian child that it died upon the cross (April, 1468). On the
motion of Bishop Juan Arias, of Avila, of Jewish race, several Jews
(eight or sixteen, according to different accounts), whom the popular
voice had accused, were hauled from Sepulveda to Segovia, and there
condemned to the stake, the gallows and the bowstring, whereupon
the Christians of Sepulveda fell upon the few remaining Jews of the
community, massacred some, and hunted the rest from the neighborhood.
Is it not strange that in Castile and in Silesia, in Italy and in
Poland, the selfsame accusations were raised, and followed by the same
sentences?
Scarcely was Alfonso's party dissolved by the death of its puppet king
before another sprang up, which professed to defend the rights of the
Infanta Isabella, sister of Don Henry. The utter weakness which Henry
betrayed encouraged the rebels to make the most outrageous assaults
upon his prerogatives. The cortes convened at Ocaña in 1469, wishing
to humiliate him, took up the Jewish question. They reminded him
of the laws of his ancestors, and told him to his face that he had
violated these laws by endowing Jews with the chief offices in the
collection of the royal revenues. They further asserted that, owing
to this distinguished example, even princes of the church had farmed
out the revenues of their dioceses to Jews and Moslems, and that the
tax-farmers actually levied their contributions in the churches. In
conclusion, they insisted that the edicts be once more stringently
enforced, and that heavy penalties be imposed for their transgression.
The finances of this monarch, who, in consequence of his liberality
and the expense of putting down the ever-recurring revolts against
his authority, was in constant need of money, would have been in a
sorry condition had he intrusted them to Christian tax-farmers. The
latter bid only a small amount for the privilege; moreover, they might
have made use of the rebellious factions to rid themselves of their
obligations. A king who said to his treasurer: "Give to these that they
may serve me, and to those that they may not rob me; to this end I am
king, and have treasures and revenues for all purposes"--such a king
could not dispense with Jewish financiers.
Thus there existed, in Castile, an antagonism between the edicts
against the Jews and the interests of the state; and this antagonism
roused the mob, inspired alike by ecclesiastical fanaticism and envious
greed against their Jewish fellow-townsmen, to the perpetration of
bloody outrages. The fury of the orthodox was also excited against
the new-Christians, or Marranos, because, happier than their former
fellow-believers, they were promoted to the highest offices in the
state by reason of their superior talents.
The marriage of the Infanta Isabella with Don Ferdinand, Infante of
Aragon, on the 19th of October, 1469, marked a tragical crisis in
the history of the Spanish Jews. Without the knowledge of her royal
brother, and in open breach of faith--since she had solemnly promised
to marry only with his consent--she had followed the advice of her
intriguing friends, and had given her hand to the Prince of Aragon,
who, both in Jewish and in Spanish history, under the title of "The
Catholic," has left an accursed memory behind him. Don Abraham Senior
had promoted this marriage, hoping by it to increase the welfare of his
brethren. Many new complications arose in Castile out of this union.
Isabella's partisans, anticipating that under her rule and that of her
husband the persecution of the Jews would be made legal, took up arms
in Valladolid, Isabella's capital, and fell upon the new-Christians
(September, 1470). The victims assumed the defensive, but were soon
compelled to surrender. Thereupon they sent a deputation to Henry,
begging him to protect them. The king did, indeed, collect troops,
and march against the rebellious city, but he had to be grateful that
he himself was well received by the citizens, and could not think of
punishing even the ringleaders.
Two years later the new-Christians underwent a persecution, which
surely must have caused them to repent having taken shelter at the
foot of the cross. The religious populace blamed the Marranos, not
altogether without reason, for confessing Christianity with their lips
while in their souls they despised it. It was said that they either
did not bring their children to be baptized, or if they were baptized,
took them back to their houses and washed the stain of baptism off
their foreheads. They used no lard at their tables, only oil; they
abstained from pork, celebrated the Jewish Passover, and contributed
oil for the use of the synagogues. They were further said to have but
small respect for cloisters, and were supposed to have profaned sacred
relics and debauched nuns. The new-Christians, were, in fact, looked
upon as a cunning and ambitious set of people, who sought eagerly for
the most profitable offices, thought only of accumulating riches, and
avoided hard work. They were believed to consider themselves as living
in Spain as Israel did in Egypt, and to hold it to be quite permissible
to plunder and outwit the orthodox. These accusations were not by any
means merited by the new-Christians as a body, but they served to
inflame the mob, and caused it to hate the converts even more bitterly
than the Jews themselves.
The outbreak above referred to arose as follows: A certain princess
was going through the streets of Cordova with the picture of the
Virgin under a canopy, and a girl, a new-Christian, either by accident
or design, poured some water out of a window on the canopy. The
consequence was a frenzied rising against the converted Jews. An
excited smith incited the Christian mob to avenge the insult offered
to the holy picture--for it was said that the girl had poured
something unclean upon it--and in an instant her father's house
was in flames. The nobles sought to defend the Marranos, and in the
skirmish, the smith was killed. This so enraged the already furious
mob that the men-at-arms were forced to retire. The houses of the
new-Christians were now broken into, plundered, and then reduced to
ashes; while those who had not been able to save themselves by flight
were massacred in the most barbarous manner (March 14th-15th, 1472).
The fugitives were hunted like wild beasts in the chase. Wherever
they were seen, the most horrible death inevitably awaited them. Even
the peasant at work in the field struck them down without ado. The
slaughter which thus began at Cordova spread rapidly from town to town.
Those of the Cordovan fugitives who had found a temporary refuge in
Palma lost no time in seeking a stronghold to afford them protection
from the tempest of persecution. One of their company, Pedro de
Herrera, held in the highest respect both by his fellow-sufferers and
the governor, De Aguilar, went to Seville to seek an interview with
the duke of Medina-Sidonia, lieutenant-governor of the province. He
asked for the fortress of Gibraltar as a city of refuge for himself
and his brethren, under their own command. In return, he promised to
pay a considerable yearly tribute. The duke had signified his consent
to this proposition, and the new-Christians had betaken themselves to
Seville to sign the contract, when the friends of the duke took alarm.
They believed that the Marranos were not to be trusted, and expressed
the fear that they might enter into an alliance with the Moors, and
deliver the key of the Spanish coast into their hands. The duke,
however, insisted upon completing the contract, whereupon the opponents
of the scheme gave the signal to the mob of Seville, which instantly
rose against the new-Christians in an outburst of fanatical frenzy. It
was with difficulty that the governor protected them. They were forced
to return hastily to Palma, were waylaid by the country people, and
ill-treated and plundered (1473).
Thus the plan of Pedro de Herrera and his friends served only to bring
greater misery upon them, endangering the whole body of new-Christians
as well as the Jews themselves. As early as this, the idea took shape
among both the converted and the unbaptized Jews to leave the now
inhospitable Peninsula and emigrate to Flanders or Italy.
Attacks upon the new-Christians were now so frequent that they
suggested to the cunning and ambitious minister, Pacheco, the means
of carrying out a _coup d'état_. This unscrupulous intriguer, who for
two decades had kept Castile in constant confusion, saw with secret
chagrin that the reconciliation of Don Henry with his sister and
successor bade fair to completely annul his influence. To bring about
new complications he determined to gain possession of the citadel
(Alcazar) of Segovia, at that time occupied by the king. With this end
in view, he instigated, through his dependents, another assault upon
the baptized Jews, during the confusion of which his accomplices were
to seize Cabrera, the governor of the castle, and, if possible, the
king himself. The conspiracy was betrayed only a few hours before it
was to be carried into action; but the attack upon the new-Christians
was perpetrated. Armed bands perambulated the streets of Segovia, broke
into the houses of the Marranos, and slew every man, woman and child
that fell into their hands (May 16th, 1474).
The crowning misfortune of the Jewish race in Spain came in the death
of Don Henry in the following December. The rulers of the united
kingdoms of Aragon and Castile now were his sister, the bigoted
Isabella, who was led by advisers hostile to the Jews, and Ferdinand,
her unscrupulous husband, who pretended to be excessively pious.
Sad and terrible was the fate that impended over the sons of Jacob
throughout the length and breadth of the Pyrenean Peninsula.