What is Jews In The Middle Ages?

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The history of Jews in the Middle Ages (approximately 500 CE to 1750 CE) can be divided into two categories. The history of the Jews in Muslim Arab lands (mainly Islamic Spain and North Africa) covered in the Islam and Judaism and Golden age of Jewish culture in the Iberian Peninsula articles, and the history of Jews in Christian Europe, covered in this article.

From the Fall of Rome to the Late Middle Ages (500-1500)

Church Laws in the Early Middle Ages

By the ninth century most of Europe was under Christian rule. However this left a privileged niche for Jews in the new order. Christians were forbidden by their scriptures to loan money or any other practice now described as usury; therefore the only men from whom loans could be secured were Jews. While this status did not always lead to peaceful conditions for the Jewish people, they were the most compatible non-Christians for the position due to their shared devotion with Christians to the same Abrahamic God. While many Jews rose to prominence in these times, Judaism was mostly practiced in private to avoid persecution.

Their fate in each particular country depended on the changing political conditions. In Italy (see History of the Jews in Italy) they experienced dark days during the endless wars waged by the Heruli, Rugii, Ostrogoths, and Lombards. The severe laws of the Roman emperors were in general more mildly administered than elsewhere; the Arian confession, of which the Germanic conquerors of Italy were adherents, characterized by its tolerance.

In the Iberian peninsula, from the most ancient times, Jews had lived peaceably in greater numbers than in the land of the Franks. The same good fortune remained to them when the Suevi, Alans, Vandals, and Visigoths occupied the land. It came to a sudden end when the Visigothic kings embraced Catholicism and wished to convert all their subjects to the same faith. Many Jews yielded to compulsion in the secret hope that the severe measures would be of short duration. But they soon bitterly repented this hasty step; for the Visigothic legislation insisted with inexorable severity that those who had been baptized by force should remain true to the Christian faith. Consequently the Jews eagerly welcomed the Arabs when the latter conquered the peninsula in 711 (see Islam and Judaism).

Those Jews who still wished to remain true to the faith of their fathers were protected by the Church itself from compulsory conversion. There was no change in this policy even later, when the pope called for the support of the Carolingians in protecting his ideal kingdom with their temporal power. Charlemagne, moreover, was glad to use the Church for the purpose of welding together the loosely connected elements of his kingdom when he transformed the old Roman empire into a Christian one, and united under the imperial crown all the German races at that time firmly settled (see History of the Jews in Germany). After his death in 843, his empire fell apart, and the rulers of Italy, France, and Germany left the Church free scope in her dealings with the Jews.

Sicut Judaeis Non

The "Constitution for the Jews" was more or less the official position of the papacy regarding the Jews throughout the Middle Ages and later. Pope Alexander III is the author of the oldest existing version of the bull. The bull was reaffirmed by many popes, even hundreds of years after Alexander III. Excerpts from the translation of the bull follows:

"[The Jews] ought to suffer no prejudice. We, out of the meekness of Christian piety, and in keeping in the footprints or Our predecessors of happy memory, the Roman Pontiffs Calixtus, Eugene, Alexander, Clement, admit their petition, and We grant them the buckler of Our protection. For We make the law that no Christian compel them, unwilling or refusing, by violence to come to baptism. But, if any one of them should spontaneously, and for the sake of the faith, fly to the Christians, once his choice has become evident, let him be made a Christian without any calumny. Indeed, he is not considered to possess the true faith of Christianity who is not recognized to have come to Christian baptism, not spontaneously, but unwillingly. Too, no Christian ought to presume...to injure their persons, or with violence to take their property, or to change the good customs which they have had until now in whatever region they inhabit. Besides, in the celebration of their own festivities, no one ought disturb them in any way, with clubs or stones, nor ought any one try to require from them or to extort from them services they do not owe, except for those they have been accustomed from times past to perform. ...We decree... that no one ought to dare mutilate or diminish a Jewish cemetery, nor, in order to get money, to exhume bodies once they have been buried. If anyone, however, shall attempt, the tenor of this degree once known, to go against it...let him be punished by the vengeance of excommunication, unless he correct his presumption by making equivalent satisfaction." (from: Synan, Edward. The Popes and the Jews in the Middle Ages. 231-232.)

This bull was reaffirmed by many popes including Celestine III (1191-1198), Gregory IX (1235), Innocent IV (1246), Alexander IV (1255), Urban IV (1262), Gregory X (1272 & 1274), Nicholas III, Martin IV (1281), Honorius IV (1285-1287), Nicholas IV (1288-92), Clement VI (1348), Urban V (1365), and Boniface IX (1389-1404). (The Apostolic See and the Jews, Documents: 492-1404; Simonsohn, Shlomo, p.68,143,?,211,242,245-246,249,254,260,265,396,430,507)

The Crusades

Main article: History of the Jews and the Crusades

The trials which the Jews endured from time to time in the different kingdoms of the Christian West were only intimations of the catastrophe which broke over them at the time of the Crusades. A wild, unrestrained throng, for which the crusade was only an excuse to indulge its rapacity, fell upon the peaceful Jews and sacrificed them to its fanaticism. In the First Crusade (1096) flourishing communities on the Rhine and the Danube were utterly destroyed; see German Crusade, 1096. In the Second Crusade (1147) the Jews in France suffered especially. Philip Augustus treated them with exceptional severity. In his days the Third Crusade took place (1188); and the preparations for it proved to be momentous for the English Jews. After unspeakable trials, Jews were banished from England in 1290; and 365 years passed before they were allowed to settle again in the British Isles (see History of the Jews in England). The Jews were also subjected to attacks by the Shepherds' Crusades of 1251 and 1320.

Accusations of ritual murder, blood libel and Host desecration

Main articles: Blood libel against Jews, Ritual murder#False accusations, and Host desecration

Throughout the Middle Ages, Jews were frequently accused of ritual murder and of using human blood (allegedly, the blood of Christian children was especially coveted) in Jewish services. In many cases, such libels served as the basis for cults, in which the alleged victims of human sacrifice were elevated to the status of martyr, and in some cases, canonized as saints, as it was in the cases of Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln (d. 1255) or Simon of Trent (d. 1475). Although the first known instance of blood libel is found in the writings of Apion, who claimed that the Jews sacrificed Greeks in the Temple of Jerusalem, no further incidents are recorded until the 12th century, when blood libels began to proliferate.

In some cases, the authorities spoke against the accusations, for example Pope Innocent III wrote in 1199:

No Christian shall do the Jews any personal injury, except in executing the judgments of a judge, or deprive them of their possessions, or change the rights and privileges which they have been accustomed to have. During the celebration of their festivals, no one shall disturb them by beating them with clubs or by throwing stones at them. No one shall compel them to render any services except those which they have been accustomed to render. And to prevent the baseness and avarice of wicked men we forbid anyone to deface or damage their cemeteries or to extort money from them by threatening to exhume the bodies of their dead.^[1]

The charge was circulated that they wished to dishonor the Host, which Catholics believe is the body of Jesus Christ.

Black Death

Main article: Black Death#Persecutions

When the Black Death raged through Europe, the charge was given that the Jews had poisoned the wells.^[2] The only court of appeal that regarded itself as their appointed protector, according to historical conceptions, was the "Holy Roman Emperor." The emperor, as legal successor to Titus, who had acquired the Jews for his special property through the destruction of the Temple in the year 70, claimed the rights of possession and protection over all the Jews in the former Roman empire.

Expulsions

Everywhere in the Christian Occident an equally gloomy picture was presented. The Jews, who were driven out of England in 1290, out of France in 1394, and out of numerous districts of Germany, Italy, and the Balkan peninsula between 1350 and 1450, were scattered in all directions, and fled preferably to the new Slavic kingdoms, where for the time being other confessions were still tolerated. Here they found a sure refuge under benevolent rulers and acquired a certain prosperity, in the enjoyment of which the study of the Talmud was followed with renewed vigor. Together with their faith, they took with them the German language and customs, which they have cultivated in a Slavic environment with unexampled faithfulness up to the present time.

As in Slavic countries, so also under Muslim rule the persecuted Jews often found a humane reception, especially from the eighth century onward in the Pyrenean peninsula. But even as early as the thirteenth century the Arabs could no longer offer a real resistance to the advancing force of Christian kings; and with the fall of political power Arabic culture declined, after having been transmitted to the Occident at about the same period, chiefly through the Jews in the north of Spain and in the south of France. At that time there was no field of learning which the Spanish Jews did not cultivate. They studied the secular sciences with the same zeal as the Bible and Talmud.

But the growing influence of the Church gradually crowded them out of this advantageous position. At first the attempt was made to win them to Christianity through writings and religious disputations; and when these attempts failed they were ever more and more restricted in the exercise of their civil rights. Soon they were obliged to live in separate quarters of the cities and to wear humiliating badges on their clothing. Thereby they were made a prey to the scorn and hatred of their fellow citizens. In 1391, when a fanatical mob killed thirty thousand Jews in Seville alone , many in their fright sought refuge in baptism. And although they often continued to observe in secret the laws of their fathers the Inquisition soon rooted out these pretended Christians or Maranos. Thousands were thrown into prison, tortured, and burned, until a project was formed to sweep all Spain clean of unbelievers. The plan matured when in 1492 the last Moorish fortress fell into the hands of the Christians. Several hundred thousand Jews were forced from the country which had been their home for 1,500 years. Many of them fled to the Balkan peninsula, where a few decades before the Crescent had won a victory over the Cross through the Ottoman Turks. Sultan Bayazid II of the Ottoman Empire, learning about the expulsion of Jews from Spain, dispatched the Ottoman Navy to bring the Jews safely to Ottoman lands, mainly to the cities of Selanik (currently in Greece) and İzmir (currently in Turkey). Ladino (a form of mediaeval Spanish influenced by Hebrew) was widely spoken by the Jewish communities of the Turkish Empire into the 20th century.

Late Middle Ages and the Renaissance

The late fifteenth century saw the death of the Byzantine empire and the final enslavement of the Greeks to the Turks, the expulsion of Jews from Spain and Columbus reaching the Americas. It was an age of inventions and discoveries that brought about an immense change in ideas. It appears that many Jews migrated east, towards the Slavic countries of Eastern Europe. They had to seek refuge in the realms of the Slavs and the Turks. Their external circumstances were not at first unfavorable. They even attained to high positions in the state, at least in Turkey (serving several internal political objectives of the Sultan-mainly balancing the gaining influnce of the Greek and Armenian traders over the Ottoman economy). Don Joseph Nasi was made Duke of Naxos; and Solomon Ashkenazi was ambassador of the Porte to the republic of Venice.

In Poland the Jews were a link between the nobility and the peasants by working in trade and industry. But there were trials brought upon the Polish and Lithuanian Jews through the Cossack hetman Chmielnicki (1648) and by the Swedish wars (1655). Hundreds of thousands of Jews are said to have been killed in these few years.

In 1648, a youth from Smyrna, Shabbethai Ẓebi, claimed to be the Messiah based on the prophecies of the Zohar, a popular Jewish text at the time. Though he gained some a substantial fellowship, it did not last long; probably because he converted to Islam in 1666.

Fugitives from Spain and Germany had come also to Italy, and founded new communities beside Greeks who had fled hither from Constantinople-bringing the treasures of classical antiquity with them—became the leaders and guides of the humanists to the source of Jewish antiquity. The Italian Jews taught Hebrew, and learned Latin and Greek.

The inclination to study esoteric doctrines spread at that time even among the Jews who had founded new communities in the Protestant states on the shores of the North Sea under Dutch and English protection. This new mysticism strongly influenced the German Jews. The elector Friedrich Wilhelm of Brandenburg allowed them to settle in Berlin, and protected them with a strong hand from injury and slander.

Enlightenment

The Middle Ages ended, according to most scholars, c. 1500-1550. They gave way to the Early Modern Era, c. 1550-1780. Ideas of the European Enlightenment began to affect some Jews in Western Europe (particularly in France and Germany) c. 1780. This marks the end of the Early Modern Era, and the dawn of the Modern Era. The Jewish Enlightenment Haskalah, gradually influenced many Jews across the European continent, reaching to Eastern Europe by the mid- to late-19th century.

See also

• Golden age of Jewish culture in the Iberian Peninsula
• History of anti-Semitism

External links

• The Church and the Jews in the Middle Ages
• Medieval Jewish History - Index of resources on the web
• Jewish Virtual Library
• Ferdinando I De Medici, Document Inviting Jewish Merchants to Settle in Livorno and Pisa, in Italian, Manuscript on Vellum, Florence, Italy, 10 June 1593 (fac-simile)

References

• This article incorporates text from the 1901–1906 Jewish Encyclopedia, a publication now in the public domain.

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