HISTORICAL SURVEY OF THE GYPSY IN EUROPE
Before proceeding to the topographical portion of my subject, it
may be well to review summarily the historical accounts of the Romá
who overspread Europe during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
Grellman, a classic upon the subject of “Chinganology,”[147] proved
that the last movement to Western Europe set out, not from Bohemia, but
from Hungary and the adjacent countries, including (Old) Rumelia and
Moldavia. In 1417 some three thousand settled in Moldavia, whilst late
in the same year hordes of Tatars, then so called, appeared before the
gates of the Hanseatic towns on the Baltic coast, first Luneburg, and
then Hamburg, Lübeck, Wismar, Rostock, and Stralsund.[148] Next year
they migrated to middle Germany, to Meissen, Leipzig, and Hesse; and
presently turned their steps towards Switzerland, entering Zürich on
August 1, 1418. There they divided their forces. One detachment crossed
the Botzberg, and suddenly appeared as “Saracens” before the Provençal
town of Sisteron. The main body, led by “the dukes, the earls, and
a bevy of knights,”[149] turned towards Alsace, swarmed through
Strasburg, and halted under the walls of Nuremburg.
It is not easy to determine the date of their arrival in Spain, where
they may have dwelt in far more ancient times; indeed, during the
fifteenth century the Iberian Peninsula was popularly supposed to be
their birthplace.[150] On the other hand, many Spaniards believe them
to be Germans, and called their tongue “Germania,” Gypsy German.
In 1433 they invaded Bavaria; and thence they spread over Germany,
Denmark, and Sweden.
Their first appearance in French Christendom seems to be when a tribe
of one hundred and thirty-two souls, under “a duke,” “a count,” and ten
“knights,” startled the people of Paris, August 17, 1427. Pasquier, an
eye-witness, who records the arrival of these “Christian penitents” at
Paris, where they lodged in La Chapelle, outside the city, gives them
ugly features, with crisp black hair.[151] If he be correct, the horde
either must have sojourned long in Africa, or must have had intercourse
with negro and negroid. There is no more constant characteristic of the
modern Gypsy, after his eye, than the long, coarse, black Hindu-Tatar
hair.
From an old work[152] it would seem that the Gypsies drifted to England
about 1500, though this is uncertain. The writer, in his book published
in 1612, says: “This kind of people about a hundred years ago began to
gather an head about the southern parts. And this I am informed and can
gather was their beginning: Certain Egyptians [_sic_] banished their
country (belike not for their good condition) arrived here in England;
who for quaint tricks and devices, not known here at that time among
us, were esteemed and held in great admiration; insomuch that many
of our English loiterers joined with them, and in time learned their
crafty cozening. The speech which they used was the right Egyptian
[_sic_] language, with whom our Englishmen conversing at least learned
their language.”
We first hear of them in Italy in the early part of the fifteenth
century. On July 11, 1422, a horde of fully one hundred, led by a
“duke,” encamped before Bologna, passing by Forli, where some of
them maintained they came from India. At Bologna these “mild Hindus”
represented that they were bound on an expiatory visit to the Pope.
Elsewhere they became “penitents,” who, expelled by the Saracens from
their homes in Lower Egypt, had confessed themselves to his Holiness,
and had been condemned to seven years’ wandering and dispersion by
way of penance. Thus was visited upon their heads the crime of those
“perverse pagans” their forefathers, who refused a drink of water
to the Virgin and Child flying from the wrath of Herod. This was
only fourteen centuries after, and we know that _lenta ira deorum
est_. There was quoted concerning them the forty years’ dispersion
of Ezekiel: “And I will make the land of Egypt desolate in the midst
of the countries that are desolate, and her cities among the cities
that are laid waste shall be desolate forty years: and I will scatter
the Egyptians among the nations, and will disperse them through the
countries” (xxix. 12). The prophet’s minatory ravings against the old
Egyptians, who had been a “staff of reed to the house of Israel,” were
also recalled to explain their bondage and vagabondage. Hence some
declared that it was sinful to maltreat these pseudo-pilgrims.
The Gypsies travelled to Rome and secured a papal safe-conduct twenty
years after their first appearance at Bologna. Hypocritical legend
secured them passes and passports from the European powers who were
then engaged in the perilous Ottoman Wars. They were more or less
supported by the Emperor Sigismund and the bishop of the same name,
who, A.D. 1540, at Fünf-Kirchen employed them in casting iron and
cannon-balls for the benefit of the Turks; by Ladislas II., King of
Hungary, and other potentates. The Gypsies doubtless imitated the Jews
in hedging between the two belligerents, and in betraying both of them
for their own benefit; and this doubtless was part of the cause of the
persecution which the two scattered races endured. Purely religious
movements of the kind are rare in history; but they are numerous when
religion mixes itself, as it ever has and always will, with politics.
Presently public opinion changed, and the natural reaction set in.
Lorenzo Palmireno, A.D. 1540, declared in one of his books “that the
Gypsies lie,” and the lives they led were not of penitents, but of
“dogs and plunderers.” They were now loaded with all the crimes of
the Middle Ages--espionage in the cause of the infidel, incendiarism,
professional poisoning and other forms of assassination, cannibalism,
sorcery and bewitching, blaspheming God and the saints, and personal
intercourse with the foul fiend in the shape of a grey bird.
In 1499, shortly after the institution of the Holy Office, A.D. 1481,
and the expulsion of the Jews, A.D. 1492, the “Great Pragmatic,” signed
by Ferdinand and Isabella at Medina del Campo under the influence of
Jimenez de Cisneros, the archbishop who disgracefully broke faith
with the Moors of Grenada, formally attacked the vagrant race.[153]
It decreed that the Egyptians and stranger tinkers, _caldereros_,
should settle as serfs for sixty days, and after that time leave the
kingdom under severe personal penalties. This decree was renewed under
Charles V. by the Cortes of Toledo, in 1523, and of Madrid, in 1528,
1534, and 1560, with the condition that “those found vagabonding for
the third time should become the life slaves of their captors.” Under
the timorous Philip III., 1619, the Professor of Theology to the
Toledo University, Dr. Sancho de Moncada, addressed a discourse to the
king justifying the wholesale slaughter of the race, even women and
children, by the dictum, “No law pledges us to bring up wolf-cubs.”
Following the lead of the Catholic kings, the Diet of Augsburg,
1500-1548, revoking all previous concessions, banished the Gypsies
from the Holy German Empire under similar conditions. This ordinance
was also revived in 1530, in 1544, in 1548, in 1551, and in 1577,
the last time confirmed by a police regulation at Frankfurt. In 1545
the Superior Tribunal of Utrecht punished a Gypsy who had disobeyed
a decree of exile by flogging until blood was drawn, by splitting
his nostrils, and by shaving his head before he was driven to the
frontier.[154]
In England the liberal and Protestant Henry VIII.[155] sanctioned an
Act of Parliament persecuting the Gypsies to extermination; and it was
renewed by Philip and Mary, and by Elizabeth.
Francis I. of France followed the example of his neighbours; and
under Charles IX. the persecution was renewed by the States-General
assembled at Orleans, 1561, who decreed extermination by steel and
fire. Another and similar edict appeared in 1612. Charles V., besides
his proclamations in Spain and Germany, condemned the Gypsies of the
Netherlands to enrolment under pain of death, and this was confirmed
by the States-General in 1582. Fanatic Poland in 1578 issued a law
forbidding hospitality to Gypsies, and exiling those who received them.
Pius V. showed himself equally inhuman, and the Romá were driven from
the duchies of Parma and Milan, from the republic of Venice, and the
kingdom of Denmark. Sweden distinguished herself by the severest laws
of expulsion in 1662, 1723, and 1727.
From these barbarities arose the Gypsies’ saying, “King’s law has
destroyed the Gypsy law.” The latter consisted of fidelity to one
another; the code contained only three commandments, of which the first
two were addressed to women:
“Thou shalt not separate from the Rom (Gypsy law).”
“Thou shalt be faithful to thy Rom.”
“Thou shalt pay thy debts to the Rom.”
These Draconian laws against the Gypsies died out during the
development of civilization, and received their death-blow at the hands
of the great and glorious French Revolution, 1789.
* * * * *
I propose now to collect a series of notices upon the subject of the
Gypsies and the Jats which are not readily procurable by students; many
are obtained from books little known to the public, and not a few are
gathered by myself. And with a view of introducing some order into the
scattered tribes, we will begin from the farthest East, the old home.
FOOTNOTES:
[147] _Histoire des Bohémiens_, French Translation of 1810.
[148] The _Edinburgh Review_, “Origin and Wanderings of the Gypsies,”
July, 1878, adopted the opinion of F. Bataillard that a single
scouting-party was in Europe between 1417 and 1427.
[149] [“They appeared in various bands, under chiefs, to whom they
acknowledged obedience, and who assumed the titles of dukes and earls”
(_Weissenburch_).]
[150] The opinion is refuted by Francisca de Cordova; yet the _Histoire
de Los Gitanos_, by J. N., published in Barcelona 1832, expressly says
that the Gitanos, whom he has specially distinguished from the Gypsies
descended from the Arab or Moorish tribes, came from the coast of
Africa as conquerors at the beginning of the eighth century.
[151] [Hoyland writes: “When they arrived in Paris, nearly all of them
had their ears bored, with one or two silver rings in each, which they
said were esteemed ornaments in their own country. The men were black,
their hair curled; the women remarkably black, and all their faces
scarred” (_Historical Survey of the Gypsies_).]
[152] A quarto work by S. R., published to detect and expose the “art
of juggling” in 1612.
[153] For the special persecutions in Spain and Portugal under Philip
III. (1619), Philip IV. (1633), Charles II. (1692), and Philip V.
(1726), whose decrees prevailed until 1749, see _El Gitanos_. [“German
writers say that King Ferdinand of Spain, who esteemed it a good work
to expatriate useful and profitable subjects--Jew and even Moorish
families--could much less be guilty of an impropriety in laying
hands on the mischievous progeny of the Gypsies. The edict for their
extermination was published in the year 1492. But instead of passing
the boundaries, they only slunk into hiding-places, and shortly after
appeared in as great numbers as before” (_Hoyland_).]
[154] [“Even at the present day a Gypsy in many parts of Germany is not
allowed to enter a town; nor will the inhabitants permit him to live in
the street in which they dwell” (_Simson_).]
[155] [“An outlandish people, calling themselves Egyptians, using no
craft nor feat of merchandise, who have come into this realm, and
gone from shire to shire, and place to place, in great company; and
used great subtlety and crafty means to deceive the people--bearing
them in hand that they, by palmistry, could tell men’s and women’s
fortunes; and so have deceived the people for their money; and also
have committed many heinous felonies and robberies” (22 _Henry VIII.,
c._ 10).]