NEW POSITION OF THE JEWS IN CHRISTIAN LANDS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE
THIRTEENTH CENTURY.
Effects of the Death of Maimuni--Abraham Maimuni, the son
of Maimuni--Hostility of the Papacy against the Jews--
Pope Innocent III--The Albigenses--Emigration of Rabbis
to Palestine--The Lateran Council and the Jewish Badges--
Synod of Rabbis at Mayence--The Dominicans and the Rise of
the Inquisition--King Jayme of Aragon and his Physician
Benveniste--Stephen Langton and the Jews of England--
Gregory IX and Louis IX of France--The Jews of Hungary.
1205-1232 C. E.
Maimuni, the most intellectual rabbi and the deep religious
philosopher, constitutes the zenith in mediæval Jewish history, and
soon after his death the shadows begin to incline. Gradually the
sunshine lessens, and gives way to dismal gloom. His intellectual
bequest produced a far-reaching cleavage, which divided Judaism,
or its leaders, into two hostile camps, and aroused a weakening,
factional spirit which presented points of attack to deadly foes. The
Church, whose arrogance was constantly gaining ground, interfered in
the disputes of Judaism, and brought into play against the refractory
Synagogue seductive allurements, terrifying punishments, secret poison,
or blazing fire. Maimuni's death and the ascendancy of the papacy were
two misfortunes for Judaism which removed it from its lofty position to
the deepest degradation.
Maimuni's death not only produced a gap and a standstill in the
spiritual aspirations of the Jews, but deprived them of a dignified and
mighty leader, who had been able to bring together under one standard
a people scattered all over the world. To him the congregations in the
East and West had freely submitted, he had had prudent counsel for
every contingency; but after his departure the Jews stood without a
leader, and Judaism without a guide. His son, Abulmeni Abraham Maimuni
(born 1185, died 1254), certainly inherited his deep sense of religion,
his amiable, peace-loving character, his high dignity as supreme head
(Nagid) of the Egyptian Jews, and his position as court physician to
Saladin's successors; but his intellect and energy were not transmitted
to him. Abraham Maimuni was skilled in medicine, was physician in
ordinary of the Sultan Alkamel--a brother of Saladin--and presided
over the hospital at Cairo, together with the physician and Arabic
historian Ibn-Abi Obsaibiya. He was likewise a Talmudical scholar,
defended the learning of his father with Talmudical weapons, and
delivered rabbinical judgments. He was also well versed in philosophy,
and composed a work to reconcile the Agada with the philosophical
ideas of the time. But Abraham Maimuni was a man of learning, not of
original, intellectual power. He followed with slavish fidelity in
the footsteps of his great father, and appropriated his method of
thought, surrendering his own intellectual independence. Abraham made
the Maimunist system of teaching his own. Hence it happens, that what
is striking originality in the father, appears in the son as a copy
and an insignificant commonplace. Abraham Maimuni, it is true, enjoyed
wide-spread esteem, but he was by no means an authority compelling
attention and claiming submission.
In Europe, too, there were no men of commanding influence after the
death of Maimuni. There appeared local, but not generally recognized
authorities. There existed no man who could step into the breach to
pronounce the right word at the proper moment, and point out the right
way to wavering minds. If Maimuni had had a successor of his own
spirit and character, the dissensions between the faithful and those
who interpreted the Bible literally would not have effected such great
disasters, nor would mysticism have been able to lure men's minds into
its web.
Whilst Judaism was thus left without a leader, there sprang up against
it, in the early part of the thirteenth century, a power, exercising
ruthless, inexorable oppression, such as had not been practised against
it since the time of Hadrian. The pope Innocent III, who was the father
of all the evils experienced by the European nations up to the time of
the Lutheran reformation: the tyrannical domination of the Roman Church
over princes and peoples, the enslaving and abasing of the human mind,
the persecution of free thought, the institution of the Inquisition,
the _auto-da-fé_ against heretics, _i. e._, against those who dared
doubt the infallibility of the Roman Bishop;--he was also the pope
Innocent III who was an embittered enemy of Jews and Judaism, and dealt
severer blows against them than any of his predecessors.
The little band of Jews was like a thorn in the side of the mighty
potentate of the Church, who enthroned and dethroned kings, distributed
crowns and countries, and who, through his army of papal legates,
spies, Dominican and Franciscan monks, with their bloodthirsty
piety, had subjugated the whole of Europe, from the Atlantic ocean
to Constantinople, and from the Mediterranean to the Arctic regions.
This handful of human beings, with their clear intellect, their
purified faith, their moral force and their superior culture, was a
silent protest against Roman arrogance. At the beginning of his reign,
Innocent, although not exactly well-disposed to the Jews, was at least
ready, like his predecessors, to protect them from unjust treatment.
New crusades were now being preached against the Sultanate of Egypt,
which had declined in power since the death of Saladin, in order to
wrest from its control the Holy City. The crusaders, now that they
had obtained a remission of sins, might say, "We may commit offenses,
since the taking up of the Cross has absolved us from all sins, ay,
and even enables us to redeem the souls of sinners from purgatory."
Jew-baiting, compulsory baptism, plundering and assassination, were
once more the order of the day. The Jews, seeing that they needed
special protection, appealed to Innocent to curb the violence of the
crusaders. Most graciously did he vouchsafe them that which the leader
of any respectably organized band of brigands would not have refused.
The Jews were not to be dragged by force to be converted, neither
were they to be robbed, injured, or killed without judicial sanction.
They were not to be molested during their festivals by being whipped,
and having stones thrown at them; and, lastly, their cemeteries were
to be respected, and their dead were neither to be disinterred nor
dishonored. So much had Christianity degenerated, that decrees like
these, and a constitution (Constitutio Judæorum) like this, had to be
promulgated for the sake of the Jews. So deluded were its leaders, that
the head of the Church passed these resolutions, not from the simple
motive of humanity, but from a perverse notion that the Jews must be
preserved, so that the miracle of their general conversion to Jesus
might have an opportunity of being accomplished.
The Jews, who by the experience of a thousand years had learnt the art
of recognizing foes and friends behind their masks, were by no means
mistaken as to the real sentiments of Innocent towards them. When
Don Pedro II, King of Aragon, returned home from his journey to Rome
(Dec., 1204), where he had caused himself to be anointed and crowned
by the Pope, receiving at the same time his territory as tributary to
Peter's chair, the Aragonian congregations were in great anxiety as
to what might befall them. Don Pedro had taken an oath, that he would
persecute all heretics then in his country, defend the liberties and
rights of the Church, and faithfully obey the Pope. What if the liberty
of the Church should be interpreted thus: That the Jews were either to
be driven out of the land, or degraded to the position of bondmen! The
Aragonian Jews, apprehending something of the sort, appealed to their
God in fervent prayer, appointed a general fast, and, with a scroll of
the Torah, assembled to meet the king on his return. Their fear on this
occasion, however, was groundless. Don Pedro, who was not very warm
in his allegiance to the Pope, and was intent only on strengthening
his own power, had no thought of persecuting the Jews. Besides, owing
to his periodic money difficulties, he could not do without them; he
had become their debtor. Innocent, however, watched the princes with a
jealous eye, lest they should concede to the Jews anything beyond the
bare right to live. The French king, Philip Augustus--the arch-enemy
of the Jews, who, having tortured and plundered them, had driven them
out of his country, and recalled them only because of his pecuniary
embarrassments--was reprimanded by the Pope for favoring the Jews. The
Pope wrote that it offended his sight that some princes should prefer
the descendants of the crucifiers to the heirs of the crucified Christ,
as if the son of the bond-woman could ever be the heir of the son of
the free-woman; that it had reached his ears that in France the Jews
had obtained possession, through usury, of the property of the Church
and of the Christians, and that, in spite of the resolution of the
Lateran Council, under Alexander III, they kept Christian servants
and nurses in their houses; and further, that Christians were not
admitted as witnesses against the Jews, which was also contrary to
the resolution of that assembly; and again, that the community of Sens
had built a new synagogue which was situated higher than the church
of that neighborhood, and in which prayers were read, not quietly,
as before the expulsion, but so loudly as to interrupt the divine
service in the church. Lastly, Innocent censured the king of France
for allowing the Jews too much liberty. They had the audacity during
the Easter week to appear in the streets and villages, scoffing at the
faithful for worshiping a crucified God, and thus turning them away
from their faith. He vehemently repeated the diabolical calumny that
the Jews secretly assassinated Christians. As to the public and daily
murders of Jews, the chief of the Church had little to say. He exhorted
Philip Augustus to maintain true Christian zeal in oppressing the Jews,
and did not fail to mention at the same time that the heretics in his
country ought to be exterminated. The spiritual ruler of Europe could
find no rest while Jews and heretics remained. In the same year (May,
1205), Innocent wrote a sharp pastoral letter to the king of Castile,
Alfonso the Noble, a protector of the Jews, because he would not suffer
the priests to deprive the Jews of their Mahometan slaves by causing
them to be baptized, or to collect tithes from the farms of Jews
and Mahometans. The Pope threatened the proud Spanish king with the
displeasure of the Church, if he should continue to allow the Synagogue
to thrive, and the Church to be reduced. Innocent insisted upon the
Jews' paying tithes to the clergy on all lands which they had acquired
from the Christians, so that the Church, whose power depended so much
on money, should suffer no loss. His plan of coercion, to give force to
his directions, was indirect excommunication. As he could not punish
Jews with excommunication, he threatened to inflict that penalty on
Christians who carried on any intercourse with such Jews as would not
humor his apostolic caprice.
The deep prejudice of Innocent against the Jewish race was made still
more evident by a denunciatory letter which he wrote to Count Nevers,
who was favorably disposed to the Jews. Because this count did not
embitter the lives of the latter, and abstained from molesting them,
the Pope wrote to him thus (1208): "The Jews, like the fratricide Cain,
are doomed to wander about the earth as fugitives and vagabonds, and
their faces must be covered with shame. They are under no circumstances
to be protected by Christian princes, but, on the contrary, to be
condemned to serfdom. It is, therefore, discreditable for Christian
princes to receive Jews into their towns and villages, and to employ
them as usurers in order to extort money from Christians. They (the
princes) arrest Christians who are indebted to Jews, and allow the
Jews to take Christian castles and villages in pledge; and the worst
of the matter is that the Church in this manner loses its tithes. It
is scandalous that Christians should have their cattle slaughtered,
and their grapes pressed by Jews, who are thus enabled to take their
portion, prepared according to their religious precepts, and hand over
the leavings to the Christians. A still greater sin is it that this
wine prepared by Jews should be used in the church for the sacrament
of the Lord's Supper. Whilst the Christians are excommunicated for
favoring the Jews, and their land is laid under the ban, the Jews are
all the time laughing in their sleeves at the fact that, on their
account, the harps of the Church are hung on willows, and that the
priests are deprived of their revenues." Innocent in his pastoral
letter threatened Count de Nevers, as well as his supporters, with the
severest punishment which the Church was capable of inflicting in the
event of their continuing to favor the Jews. He was the first pope who
directed against the Jews the burning fury and inhuman severity of
the Church. Everything provoked his wrath against them; he begrudged
them the very air and light, and only a delusive hope restrained him
from openly preaching a crusade and a war of annihilation against
them. Innocent was well aware why he so thoroughly abhorred Jews and
Judaism. He hated those among them who indirectly agitated against
the rotten form of Christianity, upon which the papacy had built its
power. The aversion of the truly God-fearing and moral Christians to
the arrogance, unchastity, and insatiable covetousness of the hierarchy
had in some measure been prompted by the Jews. The Albigenses in
southern France, who were branded as heretics, and who were the most
resolute opponents of the papacy, had imbibed their hostility from
intercourse with educated Jews. Amongst the Albigenses there was a
sect which unhesitatingly declared the Jewish Law preferable to that
of the Christians. The eye of Innocent was, therefore, directed to the
Jews of the south of France, as well as to the Albigenses, in order to
check their influence on the minds of the Christians. Count Raymund VI
of Toulouse and St. Gilles, styled by the troubadours and singers of
that time "Raymund the Good," who was looked upon as a friend of the
Albigenses, and consequently cruelly harassed, was also credited by
the Pope with favoring the Jews. In the list of transgressions which
he drew up against the count, Innocent charged him with the crime of
employing Jewish officials in his state, and of generally favoring the
Jews. In the bloody crusade which the Pope opened against him and the
Albigenses, the Jewish communities of southern France necessarily came
in for their share of suffering. Raymund was humbled, and had to submit
to being dragged into the church naked, and scourged by the papal
legate, Milo. He was also forced to confess that, amongst other sins,
he had committed the gross crime of entrusting public offices to Jews.
Thereupon the legate ordered him, under penalty of losing his dignity,
to humbly take an oath that he would discharge all Jewish officials
in his country, that he would never again appoint them, and never
admit any Jews to either public or private offices. The unfortunate
prince was compelled, the sword being pointed at his breast, to make
and to repeat this declaration (June, 1209). Thirteen barons who
were connected with Raymund, and were regarded as protectors of the
Albigenses, were similarly forced by Milo to give an assurance on oath
that they would depose their Jewish officers, and that they would
never again place any public trust in their hands. In the meantime, a
fanatical crusading army was organized against the Albigenses at the
instigation of the Pope and the bloodthirsty monk, Arnold of Citeaux.
It was led by the ambitious and rapacious Count Simon de Montfort, and
it marched against the Viscount Raymund Roger and his capital Béziers.
Roger was doubly hated by the Pope and his legate as the secret friend
of the Albigensian heretics, and as the protector of the Jews. On the
22d July (1209) the beautiful city of Béziers was stormed, and its
inhabitants were massacred in the name of God. "We spared neither
dignity, nor sex, nor age," wrote Arnold, the man of blood, to the
Pope, "nearly 20,000 human beings have perished by the sword. After
the massacre the town was plundered and burnt, and the revenge of God
seemed to rage upon it in a wonderful manner." Even orthodox Catholics
were not spared, and to the question of the crusaders as to how the
orthodox were to be distinguished from the heretics, Arnold answered,
"Strike down; God will recognize His own." Under these circumstances,
the flourishing and cultured Jewish communities of Béziers had still
less reason to hope for any indulgence. The result was that two hundred
Jews were cut down, and a large number thrown into captivity. The
Jews, on their side, marked this year of the Albigensian crusade as a
"year of mourning."
In consequence of the diplomatic victory over Raymund of Toulouse, and
the military victory over Raymund Roger of Béziers, the intolerant
Church had acquired supremacy not only in the south of France, but
everywhere else. The audacity of free-thinkers, who claimed the right
to form their own opinion upon religion, the Holy Scripture, or
upon the position of the clergy, was punished by bloodshed. In the
Church language of that epoch, the Pope had to wield the spiritual
and the secular sword. Those who thought rationally were killed, and
independent thinking was branded as a crime. The disciples of the
philosopher, Amalarich of Bena, who maintained that Rome was licentious
Babylon, and the Pope, the Antichrist; that he dwelt on the Mount of
Olives, _i. e._, in the luxury of power, and that intelligent men, who
considered that to build altars for saints, and to worship the bones of
martyrs was idolatry, were burnt as blasphemers in Paris. Philosophical
writings which were brought over to France from Spain, and which might
have enriched or fertilized Christian theology, amongst others the
works of the great Jewish philosopher, Solomon Gebirol, which had been
translated by order of an archbishop, were interdicted, and forbidden
to be read by the Parisian synod. The light which was just dawning on
the nations of Europe was extinguished by the representatives of the
Church.
The Jews of southern France and of Spain were the only apostles of
higher learning. But the Church begrudged them even this glory, and
worked with all its might to degrade them. The Council of Avignon
(Sept. 1209), presided over by the papal legate, Milo, at which Count
Raymund was again laid under the ban, and at which the severest
measures were passed against heretics, resolved that all barons of
free cities should take an oath that they would entrust no office
whatever to Jews, nor allow Christian servants to be employed in Jewish
houses. One of the ordinances of this council prohibited the Jews from
working on Sunday and all Christian holidays, and also forbade them to
eat meat on Christian fast-days. Everywhere the Jews felt the heavy
hand of the Romish Church, which stretched forth unhindered to degrade
them to the dust.
In England, the Jews had at that time three enemies: the licentious,
unprincipled John Lackland, who shrank from no expedient to extort
money from them; the hostile barons, who saw in them the source of the
king's wealth, by depriving them of which they thought to gain the
means of damaging the power of the king; and, lastly, Stephen Langton,
whom the Pope had appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, and who had
introduced the tyrannical spirit of the Church into England. At the
beginning of his reign, King John assumed the appearance of friendship
towards them, for as he had usurped the crown of his nephew, and in
consequence had France and a part of the English nobility against him,
he naturally sought to win over to his side the moneyed classes of the
people. He appointed a Talmudical scholar, Jacob of London, as chief
rabbi over all the English communities (presbyteratus omnium Judæorum
totius Angliæ), and all his subjects were warned against attacking
either his property or his dignity. The king called this chief rabbi
his "dear friend." Every outrage that was offered to the latter was
looked upon by the king as a personal insult to himself. He further
renewed and confirmed the privileges and liberties of the Jews which
they had received from Henry I, including the remarkable provision that
a Christian was bound to prefer his complaint against a Jew before a
Jewish tribunal. The Jews, it is true, had to pay much money--4000
silver marks--for these generous concessions. But it was a great boon
that they received protection and freedom of movement in return for
their money. When the Jews were in peril from a London mob, John wrote
a threatening letter to the authorities of the capital, reproaching
them with the fact that, whilst the Jews in other parts of England were
unmolested, those of London were exposed to injury, and stating that he
would hold them responsible for all bodily and material damage suffered
by the Jews. As, however, John proceeded to quarrel more and more with
his barons, and became involved in oppressive money difficulties, he
gradually abandoned his mild demeanor, which had never been genuine,
and adopted a totally different attitude towards the Jews. On one
occasion he imprisoned all the English Jews in order to extort money
from them (1210), and he demanded from one Jew of Bristol alone the sum
of 10,000 marks of silver. As the latter could not, or would not pay,
John had his teeth extracted one by one.
The crushing antipathy against them from all sides, and their yearning
for the Holy Land, which the poet Jehuda Halevi had aroused, induced
more than 300 rabbis of France and England to emigrate to Jerusalem
(1211). The most renowned of them were Jonathan Cohen of Lünel, who
had been in correspondence with Maimuni, and was one of his admirers,
and Samson ben Abraham, an opponent of the school of Maimonides. Many
of the emigrants stopped on their way at Cairo in order to make the
acquaintance of Maimuni's son, who received them with great respect
and joy. Only Samson ben Abraham, the exponent of a one-sided Judaism,
avoided meeting the son of the man whom he considered almost a heretic.
The French and English emigrants, who were honorably received, and
provided with privileges by the Sultan Aladil, Saladin's able brother,
lost no time in building houses of prayer and learning in Jerusalem,
and transplanted the Tossafists' method of exposition to the East.
Intellectual activity, even in the field of the Talmud, did not,
however, thrive in the Holy City. It seemed as if the curse of heaven
had fallen upon this once glorious, and now distressed city, for since
the Roman legions, under Titus and Hadrian, had struck down her noblest
sons, she had become altogether barren. Not a single man of importance
had sprung up in the city since the destruction of the Synhedrion.
Jerusalem, like the whole of Palestine, was notable only on account
of its illustrious dead. Pious men, who yearned for the home of their
ancestors, searched only for their graves, for living fountains were
no longer there. Jonathan Cohen and his associates conscientiously
visited the spot upon which the Temple had once stood, the graves of
the patriarchs, kings, prophets and doctors of the Mishna, and wept,
and prayed upon the ruins of departed glory. They met the Exilarch
David, of Mosul, who bore a letter of recommendation from the Caliph
Alnasir Ledin Allah, which secured him free access to every place of
interest. In the East the Jews were still allowed to maintain a certain
show of dignity; caliphs and sultans, the wielders of the spiritual and
the worldly might, granted them so much--for money. In Europe, however,
the very lives of the Jews were continually in peril from a fanaticism
which was ever being goaded into activity.
The Almohade Prince of the Faithful, Mahomet Alnasir, of northern
Africa, had called to arms the entire male population at his disposal
for a holy war against the increasing power of the Christians in
Mahometan Spain, and led at least half a million warriors across the
sea into Andalusia. The strong city of Salvatierra, in spite of the
gallant defense of the knightly order of Calatrava, fell into the
hands of the Mahometans (September, 1211). In this long siege, the
Jewish community of Salvatierra was destroyed, and a remnant fled
to Toledo. The Christian kings of Spain, terrified by this danger,
laid aside their mutual hostilities in order to oppose the powerful
enemy with united forces. But as the Christian population of Spain
did not feel itself strong enough to undertake a war against the
Mahometans, Alfonso the Noble, King of Castile, appealed to Innocent
to decree a general crusade against the Crescent, and the Pope very
readily consented. Thus it was that many European warriors crossed the
Pyrenees, amongst them the bloodthirsty Cistercian monk, Arnold, with
his troops, who had assured themselves of future bliss by all sorts
of barbarities practised on the Albigenses and the Jews of the south
of France. The wrath of the Ultramontanes, as they were called, in
contradistinction to the Spanish warriors, against everything that was
not Roman Catholic had risen to the point of frenzy; they took umbrage
at the comparatively happy state of the Jews in the Spanish capital,
at their wealth, their freedom, and their importance at court. These
foreign crusaders, animated by Arnold's violent fanaticism, suddenly
attacked the Jews of Toledo, and killed many of them (June, 1212), and
all the Jews would have fared very badly, had not the noble Alfonso
interfered in their behalf, and had not the Christian knights and
citizens of Toledo, animated by a sense of honor, repelled the attacks
of the fanatics. This was the first persecution of the Jews in Castile,
the attack, however, being made by foreigners, and disapproved by the
natives.
The Church, however, soon educated the Spanish kings and the people to
become the enemies of the Jews. The extraordinary change of sentiment
towards the Jews which had set in since Innocent's pontificate was
shown by a resolution of the Synod of Paris of the same year. King
Louis VII, and even his son Philip, had stoutly resisted the canonical
institute which provided that the Jews were not to employ Christian
servants. But now the French councils, under the presidency of the
papal legates, and with the consent of the king, sought to extend
this narrow-minded provision, so that not only was a Christian woman
prohibited from nursing a Jewish child, but a Christian midwife was
not even allowed to attend upon a Jewish woman in confinement, because
Christians, who stayed with Jews, took a liking to Judaism. It was
with reason, therefore, that the Jews, on hearing of the formation of
a new council, were greatly alarmed lest they should be subjected to
a new species of tyranny. When, therefore, the papal legate, Peter,
of Benevento, convened a synod in Montpellier (beginning of 1214), to
which he invited priests and laymen, in order completely to divest the
Count of Toulouse of his dominions, and hand them over to Simon de
Montfort, and to adopt the severest measures against the remnant of the
Albigenses, the Jews of the south of France felt that a great danger
was menacing them, and at once took steps to avert it. At the instance
of the illustrious Don Isaac (Zag) Benveniste, physician in ordinary to
the king of Aragon, many Jewish congregations sent each two deputies to
use their influence with clergymen and laymen, that no new restrictions
might be imposed upon the Jews. And it seems that they succeeded in
warding off the danger; for the council of Montpellier omitted all
mention of the Jews in its deliberations.
Hardly had this local danger been averted, when another and more
general one appeared to be advancing. This threw all those Jews who
received tidings of it into the greatest consternation. Innocent
III had, through an encyclical, pastoral letter, convoked to Rome
the representatives of entire Christendom for a general Œcumenical
Council, at which the energetic prosecution of the crusades against
the Mahometans in the Holy Land, in the Pyrenean peninsula, and
against the heretics of the south of France, was to be decided upon;
the deposition of the Count of Toulouse, and the transference of his
estates to Simon de Montfort were to be ratified, and the reformation
of the Church, _i. e._, the extension of her power in the states, was
to be promoted. The congregations of the south of France, who had been
informed that a severe blow was about to be dealt the Jews at the
meeting of this council, were completely staggered. Isaac Benveniste
accordingly invited Jewish deputies to the town Bourg de St. Gilles,
in order to select certain influential and able men as deputies to
Rome, who should endeavor to prevent the enactment of resolutions
against the Jews. The names of the delegates chosen for this purpose
are unknown, because their labors proved fruitless. The great Fourth
Lateran Council was presided over by Pope Innocent III, and comprised
over 1200 deputies from many Christian states, both churchmen and
laymen. At this council, the papacy was permitted to make the greatest
demands ever preferred by it. To its action is due the founding of
the two orders of the Dominicans and Franciscans, distinguished by
their hatred of freedom and their bloodthirstiness. This council,
which wrapped round Christian Europe the ignominious coil of spiritual
servitude, and threw it back into the ignorance of barbarism, inflicted
deep wounds on Judaism. On the feast of the Maccabees, during which the
children of Jacob celebrated their deliverance from Syrian tyranny,
this council, which placed the yoke of the deepest degradation on
the posterity of the Maccabean heroes, brought its deliberations to
a conclusion (30th November, 1215). Though in the midst of gigantic
undertakings, the Pope and the Elders of the Council nevertheless did
not forget the Jews. Four of the seventy canonical decrees then passed
dealt with the Jews. One canon set forth that Christian princes should
keep strict watch over the Jews, lest they exact too high an interest
from their Christian debtors. This restriction is not altogether
unjustifiable--although, indeed, the Christian clergy and laity
promoted Jewish usury, and profited by it; and Christian companies,
like the Lombards and the Caorsini (called also Ultramontanes),
practised usury on an enormous scale. The Church did not take any
notice of the financial needs of the time, and kept to the strict
letter of the Bible. The council, from its point of view, was also in a
measure justified in forbidding baptized Jews to retain Jewish customs,
because it would have been suicidal to the Church to allow freedom of
conscience. If the accusation was true that some Jews at that time
mocked at the Christian processions at Easter, then the authorities
of the Church were partly right in forbidding them to show themselves
openly on that day; although equitable legislation would not place
restrictions on a whole community on account of the transgressions of a
few indecorous members. Still more unjust was the canon which not only
decreed that the Jews should give tithes of their houses and property,
but also that the head of every Jewish family should pay a yearly tax
at the Easter festival. The Catholic clergy considered themselves
lords, to whom the Jews, their subjects, were to bring tribute. But
it was characteristic of the spirit of Innocent, the persecutor of
the Albigenses, that the law was renewed, that "no Christian prince
shall bestow any office on a Jew." The transgressor of this rule was
to be punished with excommunication, and every Jewish official was
to be excluded from the society of Christians until he resigned his
office in disgrace. The council, however, was unable to bring forward
even a show of reason for this canonical decree; neither the New
Testament, nor the Fathers of the Church, however much they hated the
Jews, had offered a precedent for it. The Lateran Synod was compelled
to go back to the Provincial Council of Toledo, under Recared, king
of the Catholic Visigoths, in order to find a precedent for this
scandalous law. The depth of the degradation of the Jews, however,
was reached by the decision of the council that Jews in all Christian
countries and at all times should wear a dress differing from that
of the Christians. The reason urged was that in many countries where
Jews (and Mahometans) wore the ordinary costume, intermarriages took
place between the Jews and the Christians. By a sophistical argument
it was shown that this law was contained in the Bible, and that Moses
had commanded the Jews to wear a peculiar dress. Therefore it was
decreed that, from the twelfth year of their age, Jews were to wear a
peculiar color as a badge of their race, the men, on their hats, and
the women, on their veils. This stigma on the Jews was an invention of
Pope Innocent and of the Fourth Council assembled at Rome. It cannot,
however, be strictly called an invention, because the pope borrowed the
idea of forcing the Jews to wear a peculiar badge from the fanatical
Mahometans. The Almohade Prince of the Faithful of Africa and southern
Spain, Abu-Yussuff Almansur, had forced those Jews who had adopted
the Mahometan faith through compulsion to wear a hideous dress, heavy
clothes with long sleeves, which almost reached the feet, and instead
of turbans, large bonnets of the ugliest shape. Said this fanatic:
"If I knew that the converted Jews had adopted the Mahometan belief
with an upright heart, then I would allow them to intermarry with the
Mussulmans. If, on the other hand, I were convinced that they are still
sceptics, I would put the men to the sword, enslave their children,
and confiscate their goods. But I am doubtful about this point;
therefore they shall appear distinguished by a hateful uniform." His
successor, Abu-Abdullah Mahomet Alnasir, allowed them to change this
mean apparel for yellow garments and turbans. By this color the class
of people who were outwardly Moslems, yet in their heart of hearts
still Jews, was characterized in the first decade of the thirteenth
century in the kingdom of Morocco. This barbarous treatment of the
Jews, Pope Innocent III now imitated, and their greatest humiliation
during six centuries of European life dates from November 30th, 1215.
Provincial councils, assemblies of estates and royal cabinets
thenceforward, in addition to their deliberations on the exclusion of
the Jews from all honors and offices, determined on the color, form,
length and breadth of the Jew-badge, with pedantic thoroughness. The
Jew-badge, square or round in form, of saffron yellow or some other
color, on the hat or on the mantle, was an invitation to the gamin to
insult the wearers, and to bespatter them with mud; it was a suggestion
to stupid mobs to fall on them, to maltreat, and even kill them; and
it afforded the higher class an opportunity to ostracize the Jews, to
plunder them, or to exile them.
Worse than this outward dishonor was the influence of the badge on
the Jews themselves. They became more and more accustomed to their
ignominious position, and lost all feeling of self-respect. They
neglected their outward appearance, because they were nothing but a
despised, dishonored race, which could not have even the least claim
to honor. They became more and more careless of their speech, because
they were not admitted to cultured circles, and in their own midst they
could make themselves understood by means of a jargon. They lost all
taste and sense of beauty, and to some extent became as despicable
as their enemies desired them to be. They lost their manliness and
courage, and a child could place them in terror. The punishment which
Isaiah had prophesied for the house of Jacob was fulfilled to the
letter: "Thou shalt speak out of the ground, and thy speech shall be
low out of the dust." The great misery of the Jews during the Middle
Ages began with Pope Innocent III. In comparison with their subsequent
sufferings, all foregoing persecutions from the beginning of the
Christian domination seemed like innocent bantering. But the Jews did
not readily comply with the decree which forced them to wear the mark
of shame. This was especially the case with the communities in Spain
and southern France, which, having held an honorable position, would
not suffer themselves to be humiliated without a struggle. Besides,
there were influential Jews at the courts of Toledo and Saragossa,
either as ambassadors to foreign courts or as treasurers of the royal
coffers, who exerted their utmost efforts to prevent the enforcement
of the decree. When Pope Innocent III died (1216), and Pope Honorius
III, who was of a mild temperament compared with Innocent, ascended
the papal throne, the Jews hoped for a repeal of this canonical law.
Isaac Benveniste seems to have been particularly active in this
direction, as he had been in trying to ward off the disgrace when
first contemplated. They were successful in delaying the enforcement
of the canonical decree. At least, King Alfonso IX of Leon did not
compel the Jews of his land to wear the badge, and Pope Honorius was
compelled to exhort the bishop of Valencia and two brother bishops
to see that the decree was duly enforced, and that all Jews were
excluded from offices of honor. The communities of southern France
viewed with joy the victorious progress of the army of the repeatedly
excommunicated Raymund VII of Toulouse against the crusading army
and Simon de Montfort, because their security depended on the victory
of the Albigenses. The Duke of Toulouse and his barons, in spite of
their oaths, continued to promote Jews to offices, for they saw that
their administrative policy would lead to their advantage. It may be
that it was on account of the secret and open devotion of the Jews for
Raymund that Simon de Montfort's wife Alice of Montmorency, ordered all
the Jews of Toulouse--of which town she had charge--to be arrested,
offering them the choice between death and conversion, although her
husband, as well as his brother, had sworn to the Jews that their lives
would be safe, and that freedom should be allowed them for the due
exercise of their religion. At the same time, Alice ordered that Jewish
children under the age of six should be torn from their parents, and
given over to the priests in order to be baptized and brought up as
Christians. The heartless woman had no feeling for the pangs that the
Jewish mothers suffered. In spite of this, the majority of the members
of the Toulouse community refused to become Christians.
When, however, Simon de Montfort heard of this cruel persecution of the
Jews by his wife, he ordered the prisoners to be released, and to be
allowed to practise their religion in freedom. The joy of the unhappy
people when they were told of this deliverance (1 Ab--7th July, 1217)
was great, but it was mixed with sadness, for the Cardinal-Legate
Bertrand had decided that the children that had been baptized should
not be allowed to return to their parents. The legate also insisted
upon the Jews' wearing the distinctive badge. In the meantime, there
came a counter-command from the Pope, that the decree should not be
too strictly enforced, but the cause of this change in the papal
policy is unknown. In Aragon the Jews obtained the same immunity from
the indignity of the Jew-badge through the untiring efforts of Isaac
Benveniste, physician in ordinary to the king, Jayme I (Jacob). This
illustrious man had rendered the king such important services that the
latter, with the consent of the bishops of the country, recommended
him to the Pope, and strove to obtain for him recognition from the
papal chair. Wonderful to relate, Honorius took up the matter, and, in
recognition of his merits in eschewing usury, and zealously assisting
Catholics, sent Isaac Benveniste a diploma that he should in nowise be
molested. For his sake also the Jews were exempted from wearing the
badge (1220).
However friendly Honorius affected to be in this matter, he was
nevertheless far from being disposed to countenance the appointment
of Jews to posts of dignity. In an autograph letter of the same year,
he exhorted King Jayme of Aragon not to entrust any Jew with the
office of ambassador to a Mahometan court, for it was not probable
"that those who abhorred Christianity would prove themselves faithful
to its professors." In this spirit the pope wrote to the archbishop
of Tarragona, to the bishops of Barcelona and Ilerda, to prevail on
the king of Aragon to employ no Jews in diplomatic legations, and to
abolish a practice so perilous to Christendom. The pope also exhorted
the Church dignitaries of Toledo, Valencia, Burgos, Leon, and Zamora,
to use their influence with the kings of Castile, Leon, and Navarre
for the same purpose. How little did the pope know the incorruptible
fidelity of the Jews towards their sovereigns, and their love for the
land of their birth! So far from abusing the trust reposed in them,
the Jewish ambassadors applied the utmost zeal in executing their
commission successfully. But since Innocent III, it had become a fixed
principle of the Church to degrade and humiliate the Jews. Although
Honorius had exempted the Jews of Aragon from wearing the badge of
disgrace, he insisted that those of England should not be released from
it.
In that country, Stephen Langton, who had been appointed archbishop
by the Pope, held the reins of government, after the death of the mad
tyrant John Lackland, and during the minority of his son Henry III.
This prelate exercised his power as if he were the wearer of the crown.
At the council of Oxford, which he summoned in 1222, several decrees
with reference to the oppression of the Jews were promulgated. They
were not to keep any Christian servants, and were not to build any
new synagogues. They were to be held to the payment of the tithe of
their produce and the Church taxes, according to the decision of the
Lateran council. Above all things they were to be compelled to wear on
the breast the disgraceful badge, a woolen stripe four fingers long
and two broad, of a color different from the dress. They might not
enter the churches, and still less, as had hitherto been their custom,
might they place their treasures there for security from the attacks
of the brigand nobles. These restrictions were imposed on the English
Jews because they had been guilty of monstrous crimes, and had proved
themselves ungrateful; but the nature of their crime is not mentioned.
Was perhaps the fact that a deacon had in the same year gone over
to Judaism, laid to their charge? In after years such an occurrence
caused the expulsion of the Jews from England. This time the deacon was
summarily burnt at the stake for his apostasy. The Church knew no more
effective means of refuting a heresy than the blazing fire.
It is remarkable that the hostile measures of the Pope against the
Jews at that time had least effect in Germany, and that under Emperor
Frederick II they enjoyed a comparatively favorable position. It is
true that they were "servi cameræ" of the empire and the emperor, and
were even so called; but nevertheless princes, especially the archdukes
of Austria, now and again entrusted into their hands important
offices. Those Jews who had access to the courts of the princes
always labored to free themselves from the Jew-tax, and to obtain
privileges from their patrons. As, however, it was the custom in the
German congregations to distribute the tax among all the members of
the congregation in proportion to their means, it happened that if the
richer and more influential men obtained exemption from it, the poorer
members found themselves greatly encumbered, and accordingly complaints
were made about it to the rabbinical authorities of that time. A synod
of rabbis, which met at Mayence (Tammuz--July, 1223), discussed this
question, for the purpose of adjusting it. There were at this synod,
which numbered more than twenty members, the most influential rabbis
in Germany: David ben Kalonymos, of Münzenburg (in Hesse-Darmstadt),
a famous Tossafist; Baruch ben Samuel, of Mayence, composer of a
Talmudical work; Chiskiya ben Reuben, of Boppard, the courageous
champion of his persecuted co-religionists; Simcha ben Samuel, of
Speyer, likewise a Talmudical author; Eleazar ben Joel Halevi, called
Abi-Ezri, from his Talmudical works; lastly, the German Kabbalist,
Eleazar ben Jehuda of Worms, called Rokeach, a prolific author, who,
through his mysticism, helped to obscure the light of thought in
Judaism.
This rabbinical synod of Mayence renewed many ordinances of the times
of Rabbenu Tam, and established others besides. Its decisions mark
the condition of the German Jews in the beginning of the thirteenth
century. The synod enacted that Jews should on no account incur blame
by dishonorable dealings with Christians, or by the counterfeiting of
coin. An informer was to be compelled to make good the loss which he
had caused by his information. Those who had freedom of access to the
king (emperor), were none the less under the obligation to bear the
communal burden in raising the tax. He who received a religious office
through Christian authorities incurred the penalty of excommunication.
In the synagogues, devotion and decorum were to prevail. The
brother-in-law was to complete the release of his widowed sister-in-law
from her levirate marriage without extortion of money and without
trickery, and he was not to keep her in suspense. He who would not
submit to the regulations of the synod, or did not respect a sentence
of excommunication, was to be delivered over to the secular power.
The determination of disputed cases was left to the rabbinate and the
congregations of Mayence, Worms, and Speyer, as the oldest German
Jewish communities.
In spite of the many exertions of the cultured Jews to avert the
disgrace of wearing the badge, papal intolerance gradually gained the
ascendancy, and the edict of the Lateran Council of 1215 henceforth had
sway. Even Emperor Frederick II, the most intelligent and enlightened
prince that Germany ever had, whose orthodoxy was more than doubtful,
had at length to bow to the will of the papacy, and introduce the
Jew-badge by law in his hereditary provinces of Naples and Sicily.
In southern France, where, in consequence of the war against the
Albigenses, the spirit of persecution had been intensified among the
clergy more perhaps than in other Christian countries, the edicts of
Innocent III for the degradation and humiliation of the Jews found
only too zealous supporters. At a council at Narbonne (1227), not only
were the canonical ordinances against them confirmed, the prohibition
of taking interest, the wearing of the Jew-badge, the payment of a tax
to the Church, but even the long-forgotten decrees of the ancient time
of the Merovingian kings were renewed against them. The Jews were not
allowed to be seen in the streets at Easter, and they were prohibited
from leaving their houses during the festival.
In the next year the Albigensian war came to an end, and the horrors of
a blind, revengeful, bloodthirsty reaction began. The preacher-monks,
the disciples of Domingo, glorified Christianity through the agonies
of the rack and the stake. Whoever was in possession of a Bible in
the Romance (Provençal) language incurred the charge of heresy at the
court of the Dominicans, who had the exclusive right to bloodthirsty
persecutions. Their allies, the Franciscans or Minorites, energetically
seconded them. It was not long before these destroying angels in monks'
cowls placed their clutches upon the sons of Jacob.
Four men appeared simultaneously on the stage of history, who were
thoroughly pervaded with the spirit of Christianity, and especially
with its oppressive, unlovely, inhuman form, and they rendered the
life of the Jews in many countries an inconceivable torture. The first
was Pope Gregory IX, a passionate old man, the deadly enemy of Emperor
Frederick II, whose sole ambition was the extension of the power of
the Church and the destruction of his opponents, who cast the torch
of discord into the German Empire, and annihilated its unity and
greatness. The second was King Louis IX of France, who had acquired
the name of "the Saint," from the simplicity of his heart and the
narrowness of his head; he was a most pliant tool for crafty monks, a
worshiper of relics, who was strongly inclined to adopt a monk's cowl,
and most readily assisted in the persecution of heretics, and who
hated the Jews so thoroughly that he would not look at them. Similar
to him was his contemporary Ferdinand III of Castile, who inherited
also the crown of Leon, and was likewise recognized by the Church as
a saint, because he burnt heretics with his own hand. Lastly, the
Dominican-General Raymond de Penyaforte (Peñaforte), the most frantic
oppressor of the heretics, who applied all his efforts to convert
Jews and Mahometans to Christianity. In this spirit he exercised his
influence upon the kings of Aragon and Castile, and caused seminaries
to be established, where instruction in Hebrew and Arabic was given,
in order that these languages might be employed for the conversion of
Jews and Saracens. These tyrannical, pitiless enemies, furnished with
every resource, were let loose upon the Jews. Gregory IX exhorted the
bishop of Valencia (1229) to crush the arrogance of the Jews towards
the Christians, as if the Church were hovering in the greatest peril.
Consequently, under Jayme I, of Aragon, the position of the Jews of
Aragon and of the provinces belonging to it took an evil turn. Spurred
on by clerical fanaticism and by greed for gold, this king declared the
Jews to be his clients, _i. e._ in a manner, his "servi cameræ."
Everywhere the hostile spirit which first proceeded from Innocent,
and was spread by the Dominicans, assumed the form of severe laws
against the Jews. At two Church assemblies, in Rouen and Tours (1231),
the hostile decrees of the Lateran Council against the Jews were
re-enacted, and at the latter meeting another restriction was added,
the Jews were not to be admitted as witnesses against Christians,
because much evil might arise from the testimony of Jews.
The narrow-minded disposition of the Church towards the Jews was felt,
through the increased power of the papacy after Innocent, even by
the Jews dwelling on the banks of the Lower Danube and the Theiss.
In Hungary they had settled at a very early date, having immigrated
thither from the Byzantine and Chazar empires. Since there were many
heathen and Mahometans among the dominant Magyars, the kings had to
be very tolerant towards them; besides this, the Christianity of the
Magyars was only superficial, and had not yet affected their feeling
and mode of thought. Consequently, the Jews of Hungary from time
immemorial had had the right of coinage, and were in friendly relations
with their German brethren. Till the thirteenth century, Jews as well
as Mahometans were farmers of salt mines, and of the taxes, and filled
various royal offices. Mixed marriages between Jews and Christians
also occurred frequently, as the Church had not yet established itself
in the country. This enjoyment of dignities by the Jews in a country
only half Christian, could not be tolerated by the Church: it was a
thorn in its side. Accordingly when King Andreas, who had quarreled
with the magnates of the country, and had been compelled to issue a
charter of liberty, applied to Pope Gregory IX for help, the latter, in
a letter to Robert, Archbishop of Gran, ordered him to compel the king
to deprive both Jews and Mahometans of their public offices. Andreas
at first submitted to the papal will, but did not carry out the orders
of the Pope zealously, because he could not well dispense with his
Jewish officials and farmers. On this account and for other grounds of
complaint, the archbishop of Gran passed sentence of excommunication on
the king and his followers by order of the Pope (beginning of 1232). By
various strong measures, Andreas was at last compelled to obey, and,
like Raymund, of Toulouse, solemnly to promise (1232) that he would
not admit Jews or Saracens to offices, nor suffer any Christian slaves
to continue in their possession, nor allow mixed marriages, and lastly
that he would compel them to wear a badge. The same oath had to be
taken, by order of the papal legate, by the crown prince, the king of
Slavonia, and all the magnates and dignitaries of the kingdom.