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354 Avignon

THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

Avila

On

the demand of the Three Estates, Pius II. in 1457 issued an edict forbidding Jews to sell grain or other articles of food; to make contracts with Christians, or to take mortgages upon their property. Sixtus IV. renewed these restrictions Leo X. in 1513 prohibited them from acquiring stores of grain before the harvest, and from going into the fields. Alexander VI., Clement VII, Paul IV., and Pius V. renewed and intensified these prohibitions, canceled all debts of ten years' standing owed to Jews, and compelled them to wear, under extreme penalties for disobedience, the infamous Jew-badge. In 1567 the Council of Avignon gravely proposed nothing less than the absolute cessation of all relations between Jews and the rest of the population. It forbade Christians, as the canon laws regularly did, to accept unleavened bread from the Jews, to employ their physicians, to enter their bathing-houses, to associate or to play with them, to be present at their marriages or their festivities, to enter their service as nurses or servants. It also forbade masons to speak to them during their work, barbers to dress their beards, etc. Further, it forbade Jews to deal in horses or mules; to pass the night outside the Ghetto, or to go out at all on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday in Holy Week to show themselves on the street during the hours of church service or to buy any articles pertaining to religious uses. Finally, Pius V. issued a decree banishing Jews from his dominions. It is true, indeed, that a rigorous application of the foregoing regulations would have rendered the For the bull of Pope Pius V. quite superfluous. Jews, completely paralyzed in all their commercial





would have of necessity quitted the comte beg from more hospitable countries the right to live. But in actual practise, the excessive harshness of these laws was considerably modified; and although the situation of the Jews was always sufficiently precarious and wretched, there were nevertheless moments when they Levies upon the were treated with a certain degree of toleration interested toleration, no Jews. activities,

to

—

doubt, but the best obtainable. For the right of sojourn in Avignon, Jews had to pay a heavy tax to the representatives of the popes and the city. From the papal legates down to their cooks, from the consuls down to their coachmen, every official, and even the wives of certain officials, had the right to exact from them gifts and presents upon certain occasions, which, added to the regular taxes, must have amounted to very considerable sums. Being poor, the CarritSre, to pay these, was obliged to have recourse to loans from individual Christians, convents, and churches, and sometimes even from the city. But the shackles imposed upon its commerce, as well as the poor state of trade in the country generally, prevented the Jews not only from paying their debts, but also the interest thereon. Their obligations therefore increased from year to In year, and attained at time huge proportions. addition to the regular taxes, both papal legates and the estates had no scruples in levying extraordinary Thus in the contributions when they needed them. seventeenth century, after the sojourn of the troops of Marshal de Belle-Isle in the county, the estates

354

demanded of the Jews no

less

than 90,000 francs as

their share of the expenses of supporting the

army

although, with the rest of the people of Avignon, they had already contributed in advance. Naturally they were compelled to borrow this large sum. But these very debts which, as has been stated, they contracted only under force and constraint, turned out to be for their benefit and made their banishment impossible. Their creditors, despairing of ever getting back their money, protested against the severity of these bulls and pontifical regulations,

which hurt themselves indirectly, inasmuch as they prevented their Jewish debtors from honoring their obligations. They, therefore, insisted upon a less rigorous application of them, and opposed vehemently any idea of expelling the Jews. The history of the Jews of Avignon in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is one long struggle between the city, the estates, and the Holy See. These three powers could never agree upon measures When the papacy needed for or against the Jews. funds, infractions by the Jews of the bulls and regulations of the councils were tolerated so long as the papacy profited by them. Thereupon, loud complaints from the populace would arise to remind the legates of their duty, and to insist upon the stringent application of the old prohibitory laws or even upon

On the expulsion of the inhabitants of the Carriere. the contrary when the Holy Church laid too many fetters upon the commerce of the Jews, and threatened their expulsion, the consuls flew to their aid, as is proved by certain inedited extracts from the instructions which they gave to their agent at the papal court. In 1616, upon the demand of the estates, the pope seems to have decided to order the exrjulsion The tidings produced great disof the Jews. ,

quiet at Avignon, and the consuls, representing their wrote to their delegates at Rome as follows " We are determined to oppose this new movement, and the petition which they are making, or will make, in this regard, as prejudicial to certain individuals and contrary to the public weal. We desire that you oppose it in the name of our city, demanding that we be heard." constituents,

In another letter addressed to the same, they said " In continuation of what our predecessors wrote to you, concerning the Jews of the county, to insist that they shall not be expelled from the said county, we say to you that this city has right on its side to maintain that the Jews shall not leave this county, as well as to demonstrate that their residence in the country is necessary seeing that the said Jews are indebted, both severally and as a community, in certain very considerable sums, as well to monasteries as to convents, noblemen, citizens, and merchants of this town another reason being, that the said Jews comport themselves decently and obey the



.

.

.

rules of duty."

Thanks to this mutual antagonism of the three powers, the Jews were able to pass through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with expulsion only hanging as a menace over their heads. If dealing in land and grain was forbidden, if Jews were excluded from the positions of tax-collector and from other public offices, they continued to devote themselves, nevertheless, to small trading, pedling, and dealing in horses and mules. But if their material existence, so uncertain and so wretched, was on the whole endurable, their moral condition was appalling. The Church, which permitted them to live, thought it necessary to