THE AUTONOMOUS CENTER IN POLAND AT ITS ZENITH (1501-1648)
1. SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS
In the same age in which the Jewish refugees from Spain and Portugal
were wending their steps towards the Turkish East, bands of Jewish
emigrants, fleeing from the stuffy ghettos of Germany and Austria, could
be seen wandering towards the Slavonian East, towards Poland and
Lithuania, where, during the period of the Reformation, a large
autonomous Diaspora center sprang into life. The transmigration of
Jewish centers, which is so prominent a feature of the sixteenth
century, found its expression in two parallel movements: the demolished
or impoverished centers of Western Europe were transplanted to the
countries of Eastern Europe on the one hand, and to the lands of
contiguous Western Asia on the other. Yet the destinies of the two
Eastern centers--Turkey and Poland--were not identical. The Sephardim of
Turkey were approaching the end of their brilliant historic career, and
were gradually lapsing into Asiatic stupor, while the Ashkenazim of
Poland, with a supply of fresh strength and the promise of an original
culture, were starting out on their broad historic development. The
mission of the Sephardim was a memory of the past; that of the
Ashkenazim was a hope for the future. After medieval Babylonia and
Spain, no country presented so intense a concentration of Jewish energy
and so vast a field for the development of a Jewish autonomous life as
Poland in the sixteenth and the following centuries.[42]
The uninterrupted colonization of Slavonian lands by Jewish emigrants
from Germany, which had been going on during the Middle Ages, prepared
the soil for the historic process which converted Poland from a colony
into a center of Judaism. The large Jewish population settled in the
towns and villages of Poland and Lithuania formed, not a downtrodden
caste, nor a homogeneous economic class, as in Germany, but an important
social entity, unfolding its energy in many departments of
social-economic life. It was not tied down to two exclusive occupations,
money-lending and petty trade, but it participated in all branches of
industrial endeavor, in production and manufacture, not excluding rural
avocations, such as land tenure and farming. The men of wealth among the
Jews farmed the tolls (transit and customs duties) and the excise (state
taxes collected on wine[43] and other articles of consumption), and
frequently attained to prominence as the financial agents of the kings.
When, at a later date, the Jews were hampered in the business of
tax-farming, their capital found a new outlet in the lease of crown and
Shlakhta estates, with the right of "propination,"[44] or liquor
traffic, attached to it, as well as in working the salt mines, in
timbering forests, and opening up the other resources of the soil. The
big merchants were busy exporting agrarian products from Poland into
Austria, Moldavo-Wallachia, and Turkey. The lower classes engaged in
retail trade, handicrafts, farming, vegetable-growing, gardening, and,
in some places, particularly in Lithuania, even in corn-growing.
The economic activity of the Jews, entwined with the material
life of the country by numerous threads, was bound to produce a similar
variety of form also in their legal condition. Considering the peculiar
caste structure of the Polish state and the relative political freedom
enjoyed in that semi-constitutional country by the "governing
classes"--the landed nobility, the clergy, and partly the burghers--the
legal position of the Jews was of necessity determined by the conflict
of political and class interests. Bridled by an oligarchic constitution,
the royal power was bound to clash with the vast privileges of the
landed magnates, the big Shlakhta. The latter, in turn, on the one hand
fought the claims of the petty rural Shlakhta, and on the other resisted
the advance of the Christian urban estates, the business men, and
craftsmen, who were a powerful factor, owing to their municipal autonomy
and their well-organized guilds. The fight was carried on in the Diets,
municipalities, and law courts. Within this conflict of economic
interests the clergy of the dominant Catholic Church pursued its own
line of attack. Having been weakened during the Reformation, it now
renewed its strength in consequence of the Catholic reaction and the
arduous endeavors of the Jesuits.
These estates differed in their relation to the Jews, each in accordance
with its own interests. Medieval ideas had already taken such deep root
in the Polish people that, despite the constitutional character of the
country, a humane and lawful attitude towards the Jews was out of the
question. They were appraised according to the advantages they could
bestow upon this or that class, and since in many cases what was
advantageous to one class was disadvantageous to another, a conflict of
interests was unavoidable, with the result that the Jews were the
objects of protection on the one side and the targets of persecution on
the other.
The Jews of Poland were favored by two powers within the state, by
royalty and in part by the big Shlakhta. They were opposed by two
others, the clergy and the burghers. Aside from the interests of the
exchequer, which was swelled by regular and irregular imposts upon the
Jews, the kings derived personal benefits from their commercial
activities. They valued the financial services of the Jewish
tax-farmers, who paid large sums in advance for the lease of customs
duties and state revenues or for the tenure of the royal domains. These
contractors and tenants became, as a rule, financial agents of the
kings, owing to their ability to advance large sums of money, and were
incidentally in a position to exert their influence upon the court in
the interest of their coreligionists. The high nobility in turn
appreciated the usefulness of the Jewish farmers and tenants to their
estates, which they themselves, with their aristocratic indifference and
indolence, knew only how to mismanage. The protection which this class
accorded the Jews, principally at the Diets controlled by them, was in
exact proportion to the services rendered by the Jews as middlemen
between them and the peasants. The magnates accordingly were entirely
indifferent to the welfare of the rest of Jewry, the toiling masses of
the Jewish population.
Uncompromising hostility to the Jews marked the attitude of the urban
estates, the merchants and artisans of the burgher class, with a
considerable sprinkling of German settlers, whose influence was clearly
noticeable. These organized tradesmen and handicraftsmen looked upon the
Jews as their direct competitors. The magistracies, acting as the organs
of municipal self-government, placed severe restrictions upon the Jews
in the acquisition of real estate and in the pursuit of business and
handicrafts, while the trade-unions occasionally set the riotous mobs at
their heels. Still more resolute was the agitation of the Catholic
clergy, which frequently succeeded in influencing legislation in the
spirit of ecclesiastic intolerance.
The interaction of all these forces shaped the legal and social status
of the Polish-Lithuanian Jews in the course of the sixteenth and in the
beginning of the seventeenth century, at a time when Poland was passing
through the zenith of her political prosperity. The vacillations and
upheavals in the position of the Jews were conditioned by the shifting
of forces in the direction of the one or the other above-mentioned
factors in the course of history.
2. THE LIBERAL RÉGIME OF SIGISMUND I.
The opening years of the sixteenth century found the Jews fully restored
to the rights of which their enemies had attempted to rob them at the
end of the preceding century. Alexander Yaghello, the very same
Lithuanian Grand Duke who, from some obscure motive, had banished the
Jews from his dominions in 1495,[45] found it necessary to call them
back as soon as he ascended the throne of Poland, after the demise of
his brother. In 1503, "having consulted the lords of the realm," King
Alexander announced his decision to the effect that the Jews exiled from
Grodno and other cities of Lithuania should be allowed to return and
settle "near the castles and in the localities in which they had lived
formerly," and should be given back the houses, synagogues, cemeteries,
farms, and fields, which had previously been in their possession. The
reasons for this change of front may easily be traced to the vast
economic importance of the Jews of the Polish Kingdom, which had shortly
before, in 1501, entered into a closer union with Lithuania, and to the
invaluable services of the Jewish tax-farmers, on whom the royal budget
to a large extent depended.
One of these "royal financiers" was the wealthy Yosko,[46] who farmed
the customs and tolls in nearly half of Poland. To stimulate the
endeavors of his financier, King Alexander exempted Yosko and his
employees from the authority of the local administration, placing him,
after the manner of court dignitaries, under the jurisdiction of the
royal court. But, taken as a whole, the King was even now far from
friendly to the Jews. In 1505 he permitted the inclusion of the ancient
charter of Boleslav of Kalish, the _magna charta_ of Jewish liberties,
in the code of organic Polish laws, which was then being edited by the
chancellor John Laski. But he was careful to point out that he did not
thereby intend to ratify Boleslav's charter anew, but allowed its
reproduction "for the purpose of safeguarding [the Christian population]
against the Jews" (_ad cautelam defensionis contra Judaeos_).
Alexander's successor, Sigismund I. Yaghello (1506-1548), King of Poland
and Grand Duke of Lithuania, favored a more liberal policy towards his
Jewish subjects. Though a staunch Catholic, Sigismund was free from the
spirit of anti-Jewish clericalism, and he endeavored to the best of his
ability to live up to the principle proclaimed by him, that "equal
justice should be meted out to the rich and mighty lords and to the
meanest pauper." This lofty principle, so little compatible with the
policy of class discrimination, could, however inadequately, be applied
only there where the power of royalty was not handicapped by the mighty
Shlakhta and the other estates. The only part of the Polish Empire where
such a condition still existed in the time of Sigismund I. was
Lithuania, the patrimony of the Yaghellos. There the royal, or rather
the grand ducal, authority was more extensive and its form of
manifestation more patriarchal than in the provinces of the Crown, or
Poland proper. By intrusting a large part of the public tax contracts
and land leases to the Jewish capitalists, the King could feel easy in
his mind as to the integrity of his budget. The general contractor of
the customs and other state revenues in Lithuania, Michael Yosefovich
(son of Joseph), a Jew from Brest-Litovsk, exercised occasionally also
the functions of grand ducal treasurer, being commissioned to pay out of
the collected imposts the salaries of the local officials as well as the
debts of his royal master.
Prompted by the desire of rewarding the services of his financier and at
the same time putting the communal affairs of his Jewish subjects in
better order, Sigismund appointed Michael Yosefovich to serve as the
elder, or, to use the official term, the "senior," of all Lithuanian
Jews (1514). The "senior" was invested with far-reaching powers: he had
the right of conferring directly with the king in all important Jewish
affairs, dispensing justice to his coreligionists in accordance with
their own laws, and collecting from them the taxes imposed by the state.
He was to be assisted by a rabbi or "doctor," an expert in Jewish law.
Whether the Lithuanian Jews acknowledged Michael Yosefovich as their
supreme authority is open to doubt. The wealthy contractor, whom the
will of the King had placed at the head of the Jews, could not in point
of fact preside over their autonomous organization and their judiciary
and rabbinate, since what was required was not officials, but men with
special knowledge and training. All Michael could do was to act as the
official go-between, representing the Jewish communities before the King
and defending their rights and privileges as well as their commercial
and fiscal interests. In any event Michael was more useful to his
coreligionists than his brother Abraham Yosefovich, who, likewise a
tax-farmer, sacrificed his Judaism for the sake of a successful career.
King Alexander conferred upon Abraham the rank of Starosta of Smolensk,
while Sigismund raised him to the exalted position of Chancellor of the
Lithuanian Exchequer. Abraham and his offspring were soon lost in the
ranks of the higher Polish nobility.
In agricultural Lithuania with its patriarchal conditions of life the
antagonism between the classes was in its infancy, and as a result the
right of the Jews to freedom of transit and occupation was but rarely
contested. They lived in the towns and villages, and were not yet so
sharply marked off, in language and mode of life, from the Christian
population as they became afterwards. The Jewish communities of Brest,
Grodno, Pinsk, and Troki, the last consisting principally of Karaites,
who had a municipality of their own, were important Jewish centers in
the Duchy, and enjoyed considerable autonomy. The rabbi of Brest, Mendel
Frank, received from the King extensive administrative and judicial
powers, including the right of imposing the _herem_ and other penalties
upon the recalcitrant members of the community (1531).
In the large cities of Poland proper the position of the Jews was not
nearly so favorable. Here commercial life had attained a higher stage of
development than in Lithuania, and in many lines of business the Jews
competed with the Christians. Taking advantage of the autonomy granted
to the estates in the shape of the Magdeburg Law, the Christian business
men and handicraftsmen, represented by their magistracies and
trade-unions, were constantly endeavoring to restrict their rivals in
their commercial pursuits. This was particularly the case in Posen,
Cracow, and Lemberg, the leading centers respectively of the three
provinces of Great Poland, Little Poland, and Red Russia (Galicia). In
Posen the Jews were hampered by the burgomaster and the aldermen in
carrying on their business or in displaying their goods in stores
outside the Jewish quarter. When the Jews protested to the King, he
warned the authorities of Posen not to subject their rivals to any
hardships or to violate their privileges (1517). The Christian merchants
retorted that the Jews occupied the best shops, not only in the center
of the town, but also on the market-place, where formerly only
"prominent Christian merchants, both native and foreign [German], had
been doing business," and where, in view of the concentration of large
masses of Christians, the presence of Jews might lead to "great
temptations," and even to seduction from the path of the "true faith."
The reference to religion, used as a cloak for commercial greed, did not
fail to impress the devout Sigismund, and he forbade the Jews to keep
stores on the market-place (1520). The professors of Christian love in
Posen similarly forbade their Jewish fellow-citizens to buy foodstuffs
and other articles in the market until the Christian residents had
completed their purchases. A little later the King, in consequence of
the influx of Jews into Posen, gave orders that no new Jewish settlers
be admitted into the city, and that no houses owned by Christians be
sold to them, without the permission of the Kahal elders. The Jews were
to be restricted to definite quarters and to be denied the right of
building their houses among those belonging to Christians (1523).
The same was the case in Lemberg. Yielding to the complaints of the
magistracy about the competition of the Jews, the King restricted their
freedom of commerce in several particulars, barring them from selling
cloth in the whole of [Red] Russia and Podolia, except at the fairs, and
limiting their sale of horned cattle to two thousand head per year
(1515). The Piotrkov Diet of 1521 passed a law confining the trade of
the Lemberg Jews to four articles, wax, furs, cloth, and horned cattle.
These restrictions were the result of the widespread agitation which the
pious Christian merchants had been conducting against their business
rivals of other faiths. The magistracies of the three cities of Posen,
Lemberg, and Cracow, attempted to form a coalition for the purpose of
carrying on a joint economic fight against Jewry. In Cracow and its
suburb Kazimiezh[47] the Jews had to endure even harsher restrictions in
business than in the other two metropolitan centers of Poland.
Competition in business occasionally resulted in physical violence and
street riots. Anti-Jewish attacks were taking place in Posen and in
Brest-Kuyavsk,[48] and outbreaks were anticipated in Cracow.
Representatives of the last Jewish community made their apprehensions
known to the King. Sigismund issued a decree in 1530 denouncing in
vehement terms the insolence of the rioters, who were hoping for
immunity, and rigorously forbidding all acts of violence, under penalty
of death and confiscation of property. To allay the fears of the Jews he
ordered the burghers of Cracow to deposit the sum of ten thousand gulden
with the exchequer as security for the maintenance of peace and safety
in the city. The burgomasters, aldermen, and trade-unions were warned by
the King that in all their differences with Jews "they should proceed in
a legal manner, and not by violence, by resorting to force of arms and
inciting disorders."
The King was powerless, however, to shield the Jews against other
unpleasant manifestations of the Polish class _régime_, such as the
extortions of the officials. The highest dignitaries of the court no
less than the local administration were ever ready to fish in the
troubled waters of the conflict of classes. The second wife of
Sigismund, Queen Bona Sforza, an avaricious Italian princess, sold the
offices of the state to the highest bidder, while the courtiers and
voyevodas were just as venal on their own behalf. The queen's favorite,
Peter Kmita, Voyevoda of Cracow and Marshal of the Crown, managed to
accept bribes simultaneously from the Jewish and the Christian
merchants, who lodged complaints against each other, by promising both
sides to defend their interests before the Diet or the King.
During the fourth decade of the sixteenth century the Jewish question
became the object of violent disputes at the Polish Diets, the deputies
of several regions having received anti-Jewish instructions.[49] Now the
controlling factor in the Polish Diets was the Shlakhta, whose attitude
towards the Jews was not uniform. The big Shlakhta, the magnates, the
owners of huge estates and whole towns, were favorably disposed towards
the Jews who lived in their domains, and added to their wealth as
farmers and tax-payers. But the petty Shlakhta, the struggling squires,
who were looking for places in the civil and state service, arrayed
themselves on the side of the burgher class, which had always been
hostile to the Jews. This petty Shlakhta bitterly resented the fact that
the royal revenues had been turned over to Jewish contractors, who, as
collectors of customs and taxes, attained to official dignity, and
gradually forced their way into the ranks of the nobility. The income
from the collection of the revenues and the influence connected with it
this Shlakhta regarded as its inalienable prerogative. The clergy again
saw in this enhancement of Jewish influence a serious menace to the
Catholic faith, while the urban estates had a vital interest in limiting
the commercial rights of the Jews.
At the Piotrkov Diet of 1538 the anti-Jewish agitation was carried
on with considerable success. It resulted in the adoption of a statute,
or a "constitution," containing a separate Jewish section, in which the
old canonical laws cropped out:
We hereby prescribe and decree--it is stated in that
section--that from now on and for all future time all those who
manage our revenues must unconditionally be members of the
landed nobility, and persons professing the Christian faith....
We ordain for inviolable observance that no Jews shall be
intrusted [in the capacity of contractors] with the collection
of revenues of any kind. For it is unworthy and contrary to
divine right that persons of this description should be admitted
to any kind of honors or to the discharge of public functions
among Christian people.
It is further decreed that the Jews have no right of unrestricted
commerce, and can do no business in any locality, except with the
special permission of the king or by agreement with the magistracies; in
the villages they are forbidden to trade altogether. Pawnbroking and
money-lending on the part of Jews are hedged about by a series of
oppressive regulations. The capstone of the Piotrkov "constitution" is
the following clause:
Whereas the Jews, disregarding the ancient regulations, have
thrown off the marks by which they were distinguishable from the
Christians, and have arrogated to themselves a form of dress
which closely resembles that of the Christians, so that it is
impossible to recognize them, be it resolved for permanent
observance: that the Jews of our realm, all and sundry, in
whatever place they happen to be found, shall wear special
marks, to wit, a barret, or hat, or some other headgear of
yellow cloth. Exception is to be made in favor of travelers,
who, while on the road, shall be permitted to discard or conceal
marks of this kind.
The fine for violating this regulation is fixed at one gulden.
The only articles of the "constitution" of 1538 which had serious
consequences for the Jews of the Crown--the Jews of Lithuania were not
affected by these regulations--were those barring them from tax-farming
and subjecting them to commercial restrictions. The canonical law
concerning a distinctive headgear was more in the nature of a
demonstration than a serious legal enactment, since compliance with it,
owing to the high state of culture among the Polish Jews and their
important rôle in the economic life of the country, was a matter of
impossibility. Behind this regulation lurks the hand of the Catholic
clergy, which was alarmed at that time by the initial successes of the
Reformation in Poland, and was in fear that the influence of Judaism
might enhance the progress of the heresy. The excited imagination of the
clerical fanatics perceived signs of a "Jewish propaganda" in the
rationalistic doctrine of "Anti-Trinitarianism," which was then making
its appearance, denying the dogma of the Holy Trinity. The specter of a
rising sect of "Judaizers" haunted the guardians of the Church. One
occurrence in particular engendered tremendous excitement among the
inhabitants of Cracow. A Catholic woman of that city, Catherine
Zaleshovska by name, the wife of an alderman, and four score years of
age, was convicted of denying the fundamental dogmas of Christianity and
adhering secretly to Jewish doctrines. The Bishop of Cracow, Peter
Gamrat, having made futile endeavors to bring Catherine back into the
fold of the Church, condemned her to death. The unfortunate woman was
burned at the stake on the market-place of Cracow in 1539.
The following description of this event was penned by an eye-witness,
the Polish writer Lucas Gurnitzki:
The priest Gamrat, Bishop of Cracow, assembled all canons and
collegiates in order to examine her [Catherine Zaleshovska, who
had been accused of "Judaizing"] as to her principles of faith.
When, in accordance with our creed, she was asked whether she
believed in Almighty God, the Creator of heaven and earth, she
replied: "I believe in God, who created all that we see and do
not see, who cannot be comprehended by the human reason, who
poureth forth His bounty over man and over all things in the
universe." "Do you believe in His only begotten Son, Jesus
Christ, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost?" she was asked.
She answered: "The Lord God has neither wife nor son, nor does
He need them. For sons are needed by those who die, but God is
eternal, and since He was not born, it is impossible that He
should die. It is we whom He considers His sons, and His sons
are those who walk in His paths." Here the collegiates shouted:
"Thou utterest evil, thou miserable one! Bethink thyself! Surely
there are prophecies that the Lord would send His Son into the
world to be crucified for our sins, in order that we, having
been disobedient from the days of our ancestor Adam, may be
reconciled to God the Father?" A great deal more was said by the
learned men to the apostate woman, but the more they spoke, the
more stubborn was she in her contention that God was not and
could not be born as a human being. When it was found impossible
to detach her from her Jewish beliefs, it was decided to convict
her of blasphemy. She was taken to the city jail, and a few days
later she was burned. She went to her death without the
slightest fear.
The well-known contemporary chronicler Bielski expresses himself
similarly: "She went to her death as if it were a wedding."
During the same time there were rumors afloat to the effect that in
various places in Poland, particularly in the province of Cracow, many
Christians were embracing Judaism, and, after undergoing circumcision,
were fleeing for greater safety to Lithuania, where they were sheltered
by the local Jews. When the rumor reached the King, he dispatched two
commissioners to Lithuania to direct a strict investigation. The
officers of the King proceeded with excessive ardor; they raided Jewish
homes, and stopped travelers on the road, making arrests and holding
cross-examinations. The inquiry failed to reveal the presence of
Judaizing sectarians in Lithuania, though it caused the Jews
considerable trouble and alarm (1539).
Scarcely had this investigation been closed when the Lithuanian Jews
were faced by another charge. Many of them were said to be on the point
of leaving the country, and, acting with the knowledge and co-operation
of the Sultan, intended to emigrate to Turkey, accompanied by the
Christians who had been converted to Judaism. It was even rumored that
the Jews had already succeeded in dispatching a party of circumcised
Christian children and adults across the Moldavian frontier. The King
gave orders for a new investigation, which was marked, like the
preceding one, by acts of lawlessness and violence. The Jews were in
fear that the King might lend an ear to these accusations and withdraw
his protection from them. Accordingly Jews of Brest, Grodno, and other
Lithuanian cities, hastened to send a deputation to King Sigismund,
which solemnly assured him that all the rumors and accusations
concerning them were mere slander, that the Lithuanian Jews were
faithfully devoted to their country, that they had no intention to
emigrate to Turkey, and, finally, that they had never tried to convert
Christians to their faith. At the same time they made complaints about
the insults and brutalities which had been inflicted upon them, pointing
to the detrimental effect of the investigation on the trade of the
country. The assertions of the deputation were borne out by the official
inquiry, and Sigismund, returning his favor to the Jews, cleared them of
all suspicion, and promised henceforward not to trouble them on
wholesale charges unsupported by evidence. This pledge was embodied in a
special charter, a sort of _habeas corpus_, granted by the King to the
Jews of Lithuania in 1540.
All this, however, did not discourage the Catholic clergy, who, under
the leadership of Bishop Gamrat, continued their agitation against the
hated Jews. They incited public opinion against them by means of
slanderous books, written in medieval style (_De stupendis erroribus
Judaeorum_, 1541; _De sanctis interfectis a Judaeis_, 1543). The Church
Synod of 1542 assembled in Piotrkov issued the following "constitution":
The Synod, taking into consideration the many dangers that
confront the Christians and the Church from the large number of
Jews who, having been driven from the neighboring countries,
have been admitted into Poland, and unscrupulously combine
holiness with ungodliness, has passed the following resolution:
Lest the great concentration of Jews in the country lead, as
must be apprehended, to even worse consequences, his Majesty the
King be petitioned as follows: 1. That in the diocese of Gnesen
and particularly in the city of Cracow[50] the number of Jews be
reduced to a fixed norm, such as the district set aside for them
can accommodate. 2. That in all other places where the Jews did
not reside in former times they be denied the right of
settlement, and be forbidden to buy houses from Christians,
those already bought to be returned to their former owners. 3.
That the new synagogues, even those erected by them in the city
of Cracow, be ordered to be demolished. 4. Whereas the Church
suffers the Jews for the sole purpose of recalling to our minds
the tortures of our Saviour, their number shall in no
circumstances increase. Moreover, according to the regulations
of the holy canons, they shall be permitted only to repair their
old synagogues but not erect new ones.
This is followed by seven more clauses containing various restrictions.
The Jews are forbidden to keep Christian servants in their houses,
particularly nursery-maids, to act as stewards of estates belonging to
nobles ("lest those who ought to be the slaves of Christians should
thereby acquire dominion and jurisdiction over them"), to work and to
trade on Catholic holidays, and to offer their goods publicly for sale
even on weekdays. It goes without saying that the rule prescribing a
distinguishing Jewish dress is not neglected.
This whole anti-Jewish fabric of laws, which the members of the Synod
decided to submit to the King, failed to receive legal sanction. Still
the Catholic clergy was for a long time guided by it in its policy
towards the Jews, a policy, needless to say, of intolerance and gross
prejudices. These restrictions were the _pia desideria_ of priests and
monks, some of which were realized during the subsequent Catholic
reaction.
3. LIBERALISM AND REACTION IN THE REIGNS OF SIGISMUND AUGUSTUS AND
STEPHEN BATORY
Sigismund I.'s successor, the cultured and to some extent liberal-minded
Sigismund II. Augustus (1548-1572), followed in his relations with the
Jews the same principles of toleration and non-interference by which he
was generally guided in his attitude towards the non-Christian and
non-Catholic citizens of Poland. In the first year of his reign
Sigismund II., complying with the request of the Jews of Great Poland,
ratified, at the general Polish Diet held at Piotrkov, the old liberal
statute of Casimir IV. In the preamble of this enactment the King
declares that he confirms the rights and privileges of the Jews on the
same grounds as the special privileges of the other estates, in other
words, by virtue of his oath to uphold the constitution. Sigismund
Augustus considerably amplified and solidified the self-government of
the Jewish communities. He bestowed large administrative and judicial
powers upon the rabbis and Kahal elders, sanctioning the application of
"Jewish law" (_i. e._ of Biblical and Talmudical law) in civil and
partly even criminal cases between Jews (1551). In the general voyevoda
courts, in which cases between Jews and Christians were tried, the
presence of Jewish "seniors," _i. e._ of duly elected Kahal elders, was
required (1556). This liability of the Jews to the royal or voyevoda
courts had long constituted one of their important privileges, since it
exempted them from the municipal, or magistrates' courts, which were
just as hostile to them as the magistracies themselves.
This prerogative--the guarantee of greater impartiality on the part of
the royal court--was limited to the Jews residing in the royal cities
and villages, and did not extend to those living on the estates of the
nobles or in the townships owned by them. Sigismund I. had decreed that
"the nobles having Jews in their towns and villages may enjoy all the
advantages to be derived from them, but must also try their cases. For
we [the King], not deriving any advantages from such Jews, are not
obliged to secure justice for them" (1539). Sigismund Augustus now
enacted similarly that the Jews living on hereditary Shlakhta estates
should be liable to the jurisdiction of the "hereditary owner," not to
that of the royal representatives, the voyevoda and sub-voyevoda. As for
the other royal privileges, they were extended to the Jews of this
category only on condition of their paying the special Jewish head-tax
to the King (1549). The split between royalty and Shlakhta, which became
conspicuous in the reign of Sigismund Augustus, had already begun to
undermine the system of royal patronage, more and more weakened as time
went on.
The relations between the Jews and the "third estate," the burghers, did
not improve in the reign of Sigismund Augustus, but they assumed a more
definite shape. The two competing agencies, the magistracies and the
Kahals, regulated their mutual relations by means of compacts and
agreements. In some cities, such as Cracow and Posen, these compacts
were designed to safeguard the boundaries of the ghetto, outside of
which the Jews had no right to live; in Posen the Jews were even
forbidden to increase the number of Jewish houses over and above a fixed
norm (49), with the result that they were obliged to build tall houses,
with several stories. In other cities, among which was included the city
of Warsaw,[51] the magistracies managed to obtain the so-called
privilege _de non tolerandis Judaeis_, _i. e._ the right of either not
admitting the Jews to settle anew, and confining those already settled
to special sections of the city, away from the principal streets, or
keeping the Jews away from the city altogether, allowing only the
merchants to come on business and stay there for a few days. However, in
the majority of Polish cities the protection of the King secured for the
Jews equal rights with the other townspeople. For, as one of the royal
edicts puts it, "inasmuch as the Jews carry all burdens in the same way
as the burghers, their positions must be alike in everything, except in
religion and jurisdiction." In some places the King even went so far as
to forbid the holding of the weekly market-day on Saturday, to safeguard
the commercial interests of the Jews, who refused to do business on
their day of rest.
With all the estates of Poland the Jews managed reasonably to agree save
only with the Catholic clergy. This implacable foe of Judaism doubled
his efforts as soon as the signal from Rome was given to start a
reaction against the growing heresy of Protestantism and to combat all
other forms of non-Catholic belief. The policy of Paul IV., the
inquisitor on the throne of St. Peter, found an echo in Poland. The
Papal Nuncio Lippomano, having arrived from Rome, conceived the idea of
firing the religious zeal of the Catholics by one of those bloody
spectacles which the inquisitorial Church was wont to arrange
occasionally _ad maiorem Dei gloriam_. A rumor was set afloat that a
poor woman in Sokhachev, Dorothy Lazhentzka by name, had sold to the
Jews of the town the holy wafer received by her during communion, and
that the wafer was stabbed by the "infidels" until it began to bleed. By
order of the Bishop of Khelm three Jews who were charged with this
sacrilege and their accomplice Dorothy Lazhentzka were thrown into
prison, put on the rack, and finally sentenced to death. On learning of
these happenings, the King sent orders to the Starosta of Sokhachev to
stop the execution of the death sentence, but the clergy hastened to
carry out the verdict,[52] and the alleged blasphemers were burned at
the stake (1556). Before their death the martyred Jews made the
following declaration:
We have never stabbed the host, because we do not believe that
the host is the Divine body (_nos enim nequaquam credimus
hostiae inesse Dei corpus_), knowing that God has no body nor
blood. We believe, as did our forefathers, that the Messiah is
not God, but His messenger. We also know from experience that
there can be no blood in flour.
These protestations of a monotheistic faith were silenced by the
executioner, who stopped "the mouths of the criminals with burning
torches."
Sigismund Augustus was shocked by these revolting proceedings, which had
been engineered by the Nuncio Lippomano. He was quick to grasp that at
the bottom of the absurd rumor concerning the "wounded" host lay a
"pious fraud," the desire to demonstrate the truth of the Eucharist
dogma in its Catholic formulation (the bread of communion as the actual
body of Christ), which was rejected by the Calvinists and the extreme
wing of the Reformation. "I am shocked by this hideous villainy," the
King exclaimed in a fit of religious skepticism, "nor am I sufficiently
devoid of common sense to believe that there could be any blood in the
host." Lippomano's conduct aroused in particular the indignation of the
Polish Protestants, who on dogmatic grounds could not give credence to
the medieval fable concerning miracle-working hosts. All this did not
prevent the enemies of the Jews from exploiting the Sokhachev case in
the interest of an anti-Jewish agitation. It was in all likelihood due
to this agitation that the anti-Jewish "constitution" adopted by the
Diet of 1538 was, at the insistence of numerous deputies, confirmed by
the Diets of 1562 and 1565.
The articles of this anti-Semitic "constitution" were also embodied in
the "Lithuanian Statute" promulgated in 1566. This "statute" interdicts
the Jews from wearing the same style of clothes as the Christians and
altogether from dressing smartly, from owning serfs or keeping domestics
of the Christian faith, and from holding office among Christians, the
last two restrictions being extended to the Tatars and other "infidels."
The medieval libels found a favorable soil even in Lithuania. In 1564 a
Jew was executed in Bielsk, on the charge of having killed a Christian
girl, though the unfortunate victim loudly proclaimed his innocence from
the steps of the scaffold. Nor were attempts wanting to manufacture
similar trials in other Lithuanian localities. To put an end to the
agitation fostered by fanatics and obscurantists, the King issued two
decrees, in 1564 and 1566, in which the local authorities were strictly
enjoined not to institute proceedings against Jews on the charge of
ritual murder or desecration of hosts. Sigismund Augustus declares that
experience and papal pronouncements had proved the groundlessness of
such charges; that, in accordance with ancient Jewish privileges, all
such charges must be substantiated by the testimony of four Christian
and three Jewish witnesses, and that, finally, the jurisdiction in all
such cases belongs to the King himself and his Council at the General
Diet.
Soon afterwards, in 1569, the agreement known as the "Union of Lublin"
was concluded between Lithuania and the Crown, or Poland proper,
providing for closer administrative and legislative co-operation between
the two countries. This resulted in the co-ordination of the
constitutional legislation for both parts of the "Republic,"[53] which,
in turn, affected injuriously the status of the Jews of Lithuania. The
latter country was gradually drawn into the general current of Polish
politics, and hence drifted away from the patriarchal order of things,
which had built up the prosperity of the Jews in the days of Vitovt.
Sigismund Augustus died in 1572, three years after the conclusion of the
Union of Lublin. The Jews had good reason to mourn the loss of this
King, who had been their principal protector. His death marks the
extinction of the Yaghello dynasty, and a new chapter begins in the
history of Poland, "the elective period," when the kings are chosen by
vote. After a protracted interregnum, the Shlakhta elected the French
prince Henry of Valois (1574), one of the instigators of the Massacre of
St. Bartholomew. This election greatly alarmed the Jews and the
liberal-minded Poles, who anticipated a recrudescence of clericalism;
but their fears were soon allayed. After a few months' stay in Poland,
Henry fled to his native land to accept the French crown, on the death
of his brother Charles IX. The throne of Poland fell, by popular vote,
to Stephen Batory (1576-1586), the valorous and enlightened Hungarian
duke. His brief reign, which marks the end of the "golden age" of Polish
history, was signalized by several acts of justice in relation to the
Jews. In 1576 Stephen Batory issued two edicts, strictly forbidding the
impeachment of Jews on the charge of ritual murder or sacrilege, in view
of the recognized falsity of these accusations[54] and the popular
disturbances accompanying them.
Stephen Batory even went one step further in pursuing the principle,
that the Jews, because of their usefulness to the country on account of
their commercial activity, had a claim to the same treatment as the
corresponding Christian estates. In ratifying the old charters, he added
a number of privileges, bearing in particular on the freedom of
commerce. The King directed the voyevodas to protect the legitimate
interests of the Jews against the encroachments of the magistracies and
trade-unions, who hampered them in every possible manner in their
pursuit of trades and handicrafts.
Stephen Batory intervened on behalf of the Jews of Posen, who had long
been oppressed by a hostile magistracy. Setting aside the draconian
regulations of the city fathers, the commercial rivals of the Jews, he
permitted the latter to hire business premises in all parts of the city
and ply their trade even on the days of the Christian festivals.
Anticipating the possibility of retaliatory measures on the part of the
townspeople, the King impressed upon the magistracy the duty of
safeguarding the inviolability of life and property in the city, at the
risk of incurring the severest penalties in the case of neglect (1577).
All these warnings, however, were powerless to avert a catastrophe.
Three months after the promulgation of the royal edict the Jewish
quarter in Posen was attacked by the mob, which looted Jewish property
and killed a number of Jews. Ostensibly the riot was started because of
the refusal of the Jews to allow one of their coreligionists, who was on
the point of accepting baptism, to meet his wife. In reality this was
nothing but a pretext. The attack had been prepared by the Christian
merchants, who could not reconcile themselves to the extension of the
commercial rights of their competitors. Batory imposed a heavy fine on
the Posen magistracy for having failed to stop the disorders. Only when
the members of the magistracy declared under oath that they had been
entirely ignorant of the plot was the fine revoked.
As far as the Jews are concerned, Stephen Batory remained loyal to the
traditions of a more liberal age, at a time when the Polish populace was
already inoculated with the ideas of the "Catholic reaction" imported
from Western Europe--ideas which in other respects the King himself was
unable to resist. It was during his reign that the Jesuits, Peter Skarga
and others, made their appearance as an active, organized body. Batory
extended his patronage to them, and intrusted them with the management
of the academy established by him at Vilna. Was it possible for the
King to foresee all the evil, darkness, and intolerance which these
Jesuit schools would spread all over Poland? Could it have occurred to
him that in these seats of learning, which soon monopolized the
education of the ruling as well as the middle classes, one of the chief
subjects of instruction would be a systematic course in Jew-baiting?
4. SHLAKHTA AND ROYALTY IN THE REIGNS OF SIGISMUND III. AND VLADISLAV
IV.
The results of the upheaval which accompanied the extinction of the
Yaghello dynasty assumed definite shape under the first two kings of the
Swedish Vasa dynasty, Sigismund III. (1588-1632) and Vladislav IV.
(1632-1648). The elective character of royalty made the latter dependent
on the Shlakhta, which practically ruled the country, subordinating
parliamentary legislation to the aristocratic and agricultural interests
of their estate, and almost monopolizing the posts of voyevodas,
starostas, and other important officials. At the same time the activity
of the Jesuits strengthened the influence of clericalism in all
departments of life. To eradicate Protestantism, to oppress the Greek
Orthodox "peasant Church," and to reduce the Jews to the level of an
ostracized caste of outlaws--such was the program of the Catholic
reaction in Poland.
To attain these ends draconian measures were adopted against the
Evangelists and Arians.[55] The members of the Greek Orthodox Church
were forced against their will into a union with the Catholics, and the
rights of the "dissidents," or non-conformists, were constantly
curtailed. The Jesuits, who managed to obtain control over the education
of the growing generation, inoculated the Polish people with the virus
of clericalism. The less the zealots of the Church had reason to expect
the conversion of the Jews, the more did they despise and humiliate
them. And if they did not altogether succeed in restoring the medieval
order of things, it was no doubt due to the fact that the structure of
the Polish state, with its irrepressible conflict of class interests,
did not allow any kind of system to take firm root. "Poland subsists on
disorders," was the boast of the political leaders of the age. The
"golden liberty" of the Shlakhta degenerated more and more. It became a
weapon in the hands of the higher classes to oppress the middle and the
lower classes. It led to anarchy, it undermined the authority of the
Diet, in which a single member could impose his veto on the decision of
the whole assembly (the so-called _liberum veto_), and resulted in
endless dissensions between the estates. On the other hand, one must not
forget that, while this division of power was disastrous for Poland, the
absolute concentration of power after the pattern of Western Europe, in
the circumstances then prevailing, might have proved even more
disastrous. Under a system of monarchic absolutism, Poland might have
become, during the period of the Catholic reaction, another Spain of
Philip II. Disorder and class strife saved the Polish people from the
"order" of the Inquisition and the consistency of autocratic hangmen.
The championship of Jewish interests passed by degrees from the hands of
royalty into those of the wealthy parliamentary Shlakhta. Though more
and more permeated by clerical tendencies, the fruit of Jesuit
schooling, the nobility in most cases held its protecting hand over the
Jews, to whom it was tied by the community of economic interests. The
Jewish tax-collector in the towns and townlets, which were privately
owned by the nobles, the Jewish _arendar_[56] in the village, who
procured an income for the _pan_[57] from dairying, milling, distilling,
liquor-selling and other enterprises--they were indispensable to the
easy-going magnate, who was wont to let his estates take care of
themselves, and while away his time in the capital, at the court, in
merry amusements, or at the tumultuous sessions of the national and
provincial assemblies, where politics were looked upon as a form of
entertainment rather than a serious pursuit. This Polish aristocracy put
a check on the anti-Semitic endeavors of the clergy, and confined the
oppression of the Jews within certain limits. Even the devout Sigismund
III., who was subject to Jesuit influence, continued the traditional
rôle of Jewish protector. In 1588, shortly after his accession to the
throne, he confirmed, at the request of the Jews, their right of trading
in the cities, though not without certain restrictions which the demands
of the Christian merchants had forced upon him.
Nevertheless the economic struggle in the cities continues with
ever-increasing fury, manifesting itself more and more in the shape of
malign religious fanaticism. In many cities the municipalities arrogate
to themselves judicial authority over the Jews--the authority of the
wolves over the sheep--contrary to the fundamental Polish law, which
places all litigation between Jews and Christians under the jurisdiction
of the royal officials, the voyevodas and starostas. The king, appealed
to by the injured, has frequent occasion to remind the magistracies that
the Jews are not to be judged by the Magdeburg Law, but by common Polish
law, in addition to their own rabbinical courts for internal disputes. A
pronouncement of this nature was issued, among others, by King Sigismund
III., when the Jews of Brest appealed to him against the local
municipality (1592). Their appeal was supported by the head of the
Jewish community, Saul Yudich (son of Judah), contractor of customs and
other state revenues in Lithuania, who wielded considerable influence at
the Polish court. He bore the title of "servant of the king," and was
frequently in a position to render important services to his
coreligionists.[58] But where the Jewish masses were not fortunate
enough to possess such powerful advocates in the persons of the big
tax-farmers and "servants of the king," their legitimate interests were
frequently trampled upon. The burghers of Vilna, in their desire to
dislodge their Jewish competitors from the city, did not stop at open
violence. They demolished the synagogue, and sacked the Jewish
residences in the houses owned by the Shlakhta (1592). In Kiev, where
the Jews had been settled in the Old Russian period,[59] the burghers
were endeavoring to secure from the King the privilege _de non
tolerandis Judaeis_ (1619).
The hostility of the burgher class, which was made up of Germans to a
considerable extent, manifested itself with particular intensity in the
old hotbed of anti-Semitism, in Posen. Attacks on the Jewish quarter on
the part of the street mob and "lawful" persecutions on the part of the
magistracy and trade-unions were a regular feature in the life of that
city. In the case of several trades, as, for instance, in the needle
trade, the Jewish artisans were restricted to Jewish customers. In 1618
a painter employed to paint the walls of the Posen town hall drew all
kinds of figures which were extremely offensive to the Jews, and
subjected them to the ridicule of an idle street mob. Two years later
the local clergy spread the rumor, that the table on which the famous
three hosts had been pierced by the Jews in 1399[60] had been
accidentally discovered in the house of a Jew. The fictitious relic was
transferred to the Church of the Carmelites in a solemn procession,
headed by the Bishop and the whole local priesthood. This demonstration
helped to inflame the populace against the Jews. The crowd, fed on such
spectacles, lost the last sparks of humanity. The scholars of the Jesuit
colleges frequently invaded the Jewish quarter, making sport of the Jews
and committing all kinds of excesses, in strange contradiction to the
precept of the Gospels, to love their enemies, which they were taught in
their schools.
Based on malicious fabrications, ritual murder trials become endemic
during this period, and assume an ominous, inquisitorial character.
Cases of this nature are given great prominence, and are tried by the
highest Polish law court, the Crown Tribunal,[61] without any of the
safeguards of impartiality which had been provided for such cases by the
ancient charters of the Polish kings, and had been more recently
reaffirmed by Stephen Batory. In 1598 the Tribunal of Lublin sentenced
three Jews to death on the charge of having slain a Christian boy, whose
body had been found in a swamp in a near-by village. To force a
confession from the accused the whole inquisitorial torture apparatus
was set in motion, and execution by quartering was carried out with
special solemnity in Lublin. The body of the youngster, the involuntary
cause of the death of innocent victims, was transferred by the Jesuits
to one of the local churches, where it became the object of
superstitious veneration. Trials of this kind, with an occasional change
of scene, were enacted in many other localities of Poland and Lithuania.
Simultaneously a literary agitation against the Jews was set on foot by
the clerical party. Father Moyetzki published in 1598 in Cracow his
ferociously anti-Jewish book entitled "Jewish Bestiality" (_Okrucieństwo
Żydowskie_), enumerating all ritual murder trials which had ever taken
place in Europe and particularly in Poland, and adding others which were
invented for this purpose by the author.[62]
A Polish physician, named Shleshkovski, accused the Jewish physicians,
his professional rivals, of systematically poisoning and delivering to
death good Catholics, and declared the pest, raging at that time, to be
a token of the Divine displeasure at the protection granted to the Jews
in Poland (_Jasny dowód o doktorach żydowskich_, "A Clear Argument
Concerning Jewish Physicians," 1623).
But the palm undoubtedly belongs to Sebastian Michinski, of Cracow, the
frenzied author of the "Mirror of the Polish Crown" (_Zwierciadlo korony
Polskiej_, 1618). As a docile pupil of the Jesuits, Michinski collected
everything that superstition and malice had ever invented against the
Jews. He charged the Jews with every mortal sin--with political
treachery, robbery, swindling, witchcraft, murder, sacrilege. In this
scurrilous pamphlet he calls upon the deputies of the Polish Diet to
deal with the Jews as they had been dealt with in Spain, France,
England, and other countries--to expel them. In particular, the book is
full of libels against the rich Jews of Cracow, with the result that the
sentiment against the Jewish population of that city rapidly drifted
towards a riot. To forestall the possibility of excesses the King
ordered the confiscation of the book. The incendiary attacks of
Michinski also led to stormy debates at the Diet of 1618. While some
deputies eulogized him as a champion of truth, others denounced him as a
demagogue and a menace to the public welfare. The Diet showed enough
common sense to refuse to follow the lead of a writer crazed with
Jew-hatred; yet the opinions voiced by him gradually took hold of the
Polish people, and prepared the soil for sinister conflicts.
Sigismund III.'s successor, Vladislav IV., was not so zealous in his
Catholicism and in his devotion to the Jesuits as his father. He
exhibited a certain amount of tolerance towards the professors of other
creeds, endeavored to uphold the ancient Jewish privileges, and made it,
in general, his business to reconcile the warring estates with one
another. However, the strife between the religious and social groups had
already eaten so deeply into the vitals of Poland that even a far more
energetic king than Vladislav IV. would scarcely have been able to put
an end to it. Instead of harmonizing the conflicting interests, the King
sided now with one, now with another, party. In 1633 Vladislav IV.
confirmed, at the Coronation Diet,[63] the basic privileges of the Jews,
granting them full freedom in their export trade, fixing the limits of
their judicial autonomy, and instructing the municipalities to take
measures for shielding them against popular outbreaks. But at the same
time he forbade the Jewish communities to erect new synagogues or
establish new cemeteries, without obtaining in each case a royal
license. This restriction, by the way, may be considered a privilege,
inasmuch as an attempt had been made by Sigismund III. to make the right
of erecting synagogues dependent on the consent of the clergy.
Though on the whole desirous of respecting the rights of the Jews,
nevertheless, in individual cases, the King acted favorably on the
petitions of various cities to restrict these rights, and occasionally
revoked his own orders. Thus in June, 1642, he permitted the Jews of
Cracow to engage freely in export trade, but two months later he
withdrew his permission, the Christian merchants of Cracow having
complained to him about the effectiveness of Jewish competition.
Complying with the application of the burghers of Moghilev on the
Dnieper,[64] he confirmed, in 1633, his father's orders concerning the
transfer of the Jews from the center of the city to its outskirts, and
subsequently, in 1646, sanctioned the decision of the magistracy
prohibiting the letting of houses to them in a Christian neighborhood.
The law forbidding Jews to engage in petty trade on the market-place
effected in some cities a substantial rise in the prices of necessaries,
and the Shlakhta petitioned the King to repeal this prohibition for the
city of Vilna. Vladislav complied with the petition, but, to please the
Vilna municipality, he imposed at the same time a number of severe
restrictions on the local Jews, making them liable to the municipal
courts in monetary litigation with Christians, confining their area of
residence to the boundaries of the "Jewish street," and barring them
from plying those trades which were pursued by the Christian
trade-unions (1633). The same policy was responsible for the anti-Jewish
riots which took place about the same time in Vilna, Brest, and other
cities.
Nothing did more to accentuate these conflicts than the preposterous
economic policy of the Polish Government. The Warsaw Diet of 1643, in
endeavoring to determine the prices of various articles of merchandise,
passed a law compelling all merchants to limit themselves by a public
oath to a definite rate of profit, which was fixed at seven per cent in
the case of the native Christian (_incola_), five per cent in the case
of the foreigner (_advena_), and only three per cent in the case of the
Jew (_infidelis_). It is obvious that, being under the compulsion of
selling his goods at a cheaper price, the Jew on the one hand was forced
to lower the quality of his merchandise, and on the other hand was bound
to undermine Christian trade, and thereby draw upon himself the wrath of
his competitors.
As for the Polish clergy, true to its old policy it fostered in its
flock the vulgar religious prejudices against the Jews. This applies, in
particular, to the Jesuits, though, to a lesser degree, it holds good
also in the case of the other Catholic orders of Poland. A frequent
contrivance to raise the prestige of the Church was to engineer
impressive demonstrations. In the spring of 1636, when a Christian child
happened to disappear in Lublin, suspicion was cast upon the Jews, that
they had tortured the child to death. The Crown Tribunal, which tried
the case, and failed to find any evidence, acquitted the innocent Jews.
Thereupon the local clergy, dissatisfied with the judgment of the court,
manufactured a new case, this time with the necessary "evidence." A
Carmelite monk by the name of Peter asserted that the Jews, having lured
him into a house, told a German surgeon to bleed him, and that his blood
was squeezed out and poured into a vessel, while the Jews murmured
mysterious incantations over it. The Tribunal gave credit to this
hideous charge, and, after going through the regular legal proceedings,
including the medieval "cross-examinations" and the rack, sentenced one
Jew named Mark (Mordecai) to death. The Carmelite monks hastened to
advertise the case for the purpose of planting the terrible prejudice
more firmly in the hearts of the people.
Another trial of a similar nature took place in 1639. Two elders of the
Jewish community of Lenchitza were sentenced to death by the Crown
Tribunal on the charge of having murdered a Christian boy from a
neighboring village. Neither the protestation of the Starosta of
Lenchitza, that the case did not come within the jurisdiction of his
court, nor the fact that the accused, though put upon the rack, refused
to make a confession, were able to avert the death sentence. The bodies
of the executed Jews were cut into pieces and hung on poles at the
cross-roads. The Bernardine monks of Lenchitza turned the incident to
good account by placing the remains of the supposedly martyred boy in
their church and putting up a picture representing all the details of
the murder. The superstitious Catholic masses flocked to the church to
worship at the shrine of the juvenile saint, swelling the revenues of
the Bernardine church--which was exactly what the devout monks were
after.
While the Church was engineering the ritual murder trials for the sake
of "business," the municipal agencies, representing the Christian
merchant class, acted similarly for the purpose of ridding themselves of
the Jews and getting trade under their absolute control. This policy is
luridly illustrated by a tragic occurrence, which, in the years 1635 to
1637, stirred the city of Cracow to its depths. A Pole by the name of
Peter Yurkevich was convicted of having stolen some church vessels. At
the cross-examination, having been put upon the rack, he testified that
a Jewish tailor, named Jacob Gzheslik, had persuaded him to steal a
host. Since the Jew had disappeared and could nowhere be found,
Yurkevich was the only one to bear the death penalty. But before the
execution, in making his confession to the priest, he stated--and he
repeated the statement afterwards before an official committee of
investigation--the following facts:
I have stolen no sacraments from any church, and have never made
my God an object of barter. I merely stole a few silver and
other church dishes. My former depositions were made at the
advice of the gentlemen of the magistracy. The first time I was
conducted into the court room Judge Belza spoke to me as
follows: "Depose that you have stolen the sacraments and sold
them to the Jews. You will suffer no harm from it, while we
shall have a weapon wherewith to expel the Jews from Cracow." I
had hoped that this deposition would obtain freedom for me, and
I did as I had been told.
But Yurkevich's statement had no effect. He was convicted on the
strength of his original affidavit, though it had been squeezed out of
him by trickery and torture, and he was burned at the stake. As for the
Jews of Cracow, they had to bear the penalty in the shape of a riot, the
mob attacking the Jewish ghetto and seizing forty Jews, who were carried
off to be thrown into the river. Seven men were drowned, while the
others saved themselves by promising to embrace Christianity (May,
1637).
FOOTNOTES:
[42] According to approximate computations, the number of Jews in Poland
during that period (between 1501 and 1648) grew from 50,000 to 500,000.
[43] "Wine" is used here, as it is in the original, to designate
alcoholic drinks in general.
[44] "Propination," in Polish, _propinacja_ (pronounced _propinatzya_),
from Latin and Greek _propino_, "to drink one's health," signifies in
Polish law the right of distilling and selling spirituous liquors. This
right was granted to the noble landowners by King John Albrecht in 1496,
and became one of their most important sources of revenue. After the
partition of Poland this right was confirmed for the former Polish
territories by the Russian Government. The right of propination,
exercised mostly by Jews on behalf of the nobles, proved a decisive
factor in the economic and partly in the social life of Russo-Polish
Jewry.
[45] See p. 65.
[46] [Popular Polish form of the Jewish name Joseph.]
[47] See p. 64, n. 1.
[48] [_I. e._ Brest of Kuyavia, a former Polish province on the left bank
of the Vistula. It is to be distinguished from the well-known
Brest-Litovsk, Brest of Lithuania.]
[49] The parliamentary order of Poland was somewhat complicated. Each
region or _voyevodstvo_ (see above, p. 46, n. 1), of which there were
about sixty in Poland, had its own local assembly, or _sejmik_
(pronounced _saymik_), _i. e._ little Diet, or Dietine. Deputies o£
these Dietines met at the respective _sejms_ (pronounced _saym_), or
Diets, of one of the three large provinces of Poland: Great Poland,
Little Poland, and Red Russia. The national _sejm_, representing the
whole of Poland, came into being towards the end of the fifteenth
century. Beginning with 1573 it met regularly every two years for six
weeks in Warsaw or in Grodno. Before the convocation of this national
all-Polish Parliament, all local Dietines assembled on one and the same
day to give instructions to the deputies elected to it.
[50] [Gnesen as seat of the Primate; Cracow as capital.]
[51] [Warsaw was originally the capital of the independent Principality
of Mazovia. After the incorporation of Mazovia into the Polish Empire,
in 1526, Warsaw emerged from its obscurity and in the latter part of the
sixteenth century became the capital of united Poland and Lithuania,
taking the place of Cracow and Vilna.]
[52] According to another version, they forged the contents of the royal
warrant.
[53] [With the gradual weakening of the royal power, which, after the
extinction of the Yaghello dynasty, in 1572, was transformed into an
elective office, the favorite designation for the Polish Empire came to
be _Rzecz_ (pronounced _Zhech_) _Pospolita_, a literal rendering of the
Latin Res _Publica_. The term comprises Poland as well as Lithuania,
which, in 1569, had been united in one Empire.]
[54] They are referred to in his edicts as _calumniae_.
[55] [The Arian heresy, as modified and preached by Faustus Socinus
(1539-1604), an Italian who settled in Poland, became a powerful factor
in the Polish intellectual life of that period. Because of its liberal
tendency, this doctrine appealed in particular to the educated classes,
and its adherents, called Socinians, were largely recruited from the
ranks of the Shlakhta. Under Sigismund III. a strong reaction set in,
culminating in the law passed by the Diet of 1658, according to which
all "Arians" were to leave the country within two years.]
[56] [_Arendar_, also _arendator_, from medieval Latin _arrendare_, "to
rent," signifies in Polish and Russian a lessee, originally of a farm,
subsequently of the tavern and, as is seen in the text, other sources of
revenue on the estate. These arendars being mostly Jews, the name,
abbreviated in Yiddish to _randar_, came practically to mean "village
Jew."]
[57] [Literally, _lord_: the lord of the manor, noble landowner.]
[58] There is reason to believe that he is the hero of the legendary
story according to which an influential Polish Jew by the name of Saul
Wahl, a favorite of Prince Radziwill, was, during an interregnum,
proclaimed Polish king by the Shlakhta, and reigned for one night.
[59] [See pp. 29 _et seq._ Kiev was captured by the Lithuanians in 1320,
and remained, through the union of Lithuania and Poland, a part of the
Polish Empire until 1654, when, together with the province of Little
Russia, it was ceded to Muscovy.]
[60] See p. 55.
[61] [Stephen Batory instituted two supreme courts for the realm: one
for the Crown, _i. e._ for Poland proper, and another for Lithuania. The
former held its sessions in Lublin for Little Poland and in Piotrkov for
Great Poland (see p. 164).]
[62] A second edition of the book appeared in 1636.
[63] [In addition to the regular Diets, which assembled every two years
(see above, p. 76, n. 1), there were held also Election Diets and
Coronation Diets, in connection with the election and the coronation of
the new king. The former met on a field near Warsaw; the latter were
held in Cracow.]
[64] [Moghilev on the Dnieper, in White Russia, is to be distinguished
from Moghilev on the Dniester, a town in the present Government of
Podolia.]