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THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

In 1337 William II. succeeded to the sovereignty of the state of Hainault. Following the example of his father, he confirmed the

Jews

in their privileges.

These, however, had a considerable money value for the state. document is extant (see below), dated Valenciennes, 1337, which grants to thirty Jews for five years a safe-conduct ("sauf-conduit") for a money charge of 2,000 florins. In the neighboring duchy of Brabant the Jews were no less fortunate under John III., who inherited all his father's goodwill for them. Unhappily, the Jews of Belgium at this time were, like their brethren all over Europe, persecuted on charges of having desecrated the host, of having killed infants, and of having poisoned wells. The storm that swept over the Jews of Belgium annihilated them; and so completely was the work of destruction done that scarcely a trace of their existence has remained. series of massacres appears to have taken place during a period of

A

A

twenty years, which finally culminated

Brussels

Massacre of 1370. xiii.

in the Brussels massacre of 1370.

In the Metz Memorbuch, Brabant is mentioned as one of the lands in which Jews suffered in 1349 (" Monatsschrif t,

36; Salfeld, " Martyrologium, " pp. 270,286). particulars of these tragedies are involved in a

Belgium

the blind fanaticism which wrought such dreadful havoc among innocent men, women, and children. But one solitary document in reference to this dreadful catastrophe has been unearthed in the treasury of Brabant. It is a receipt signed by Godefroi de

Tour, receiver-general of Brabant,

la

Brabant

Tax in 1370.

who

therein

acknowledges the payment of the annual tax imposed on Jews living in Brabant. This is, in all probability, a page, or a fragment, of a collection of similar receipts. The following is

"Revue

a translation (see Carmoly,

Orientale," 1841,

p. 172): " Received from the Jews who this year resided in Brabant, payment of their annual tribute and also of goods belonging to them received after they had been burned on Ascension Day,

Accomplices in the crime of piercing the host: first, 14 francs Arnold the Jew, 14 francs francs and 11 sheep Medey Willacs, 32 14 francs Mestam, Joseph Wazoel, and Leonec, nothing, because they had left and were not residing this year at Brussels the same of Wynandus the Physician, for he had not made payment of his tribute this year, although he 1370.

Wynand de Pondey,



Medey de Sallyn, 14 francs Simon Claere,









resided at Brussels."

No

other references to this massacre have

come

light, either in the national archives or in the

to

annals

"In the city of Brussels, in the duchy of Brabant, where the duke had his seat, a large number of Jews resided, at the head of whom was a very rich man, said to be the treasurer of John III. The former was on very friendly terms with the duke. When the Flagellants arrived, carrying red crosses wherewith

" The neglect of the historians of local historians. of that century, " says Foppens, in his " History of the City of Brussels," "has been the cause why neither the edict nor the names of these sacrilegious Jews nor their sentences have been preserved." On the Jewish side, the Memorbuch of Mayence commemorates the Jewish martyrs of Brabant. An elegy written in Hebrew in honor of the martyrs has been published by Carmoly, who has translated it The into French (" Revue Orientale," 1841, p. 172). Memorbuch of Pfersee, near Munich, recalls, the mar-

to inflame the people against the Jews, the treasurer hastened to the duke and entreated his protection. The latter assured

tyred Jews of Flanders (plj^l), and so does Joseph

The

good deal of obscurity. The following narrative in connection with the Black Plague is taken from Li Muisis, a contemporary historian (" Chronique Manuscrite de la Bibliotheque de Bourgogne," No. 13,076; see Carmoly, "Revue Orientale," 1841, p. 169):

that no ill would befall them. But the people, already excited by the denunciations of the Flagellants, approached the duke's eldest son, demanding that they should be allowed to put all the Jews to death, and obtained from him a promise that he would intercede with his father, the duke, that no punish-

him

ment should follow

their action.

They thereupon rushed with

Jewish quarter, destroyed the houses of the Jews, dragged their unfortunate victims through the streets, and without distinction of age or sex massacred them. Five hundred, it is said, perished on this occasion. Nor was the duke's treasurer spared. Taken alive and put to the torture, he was made to confess that he was engaged in the plots to fierce cries to the

poison the wells and to defile the consecrated host. He was Similar butcheries occurred in other towns in alive. the duchy, more particularly at Louvain, where the Jews were all delivered to the flames (1349 and 1350)."

burned

Whether this narrative refers to a separate event, or is identical with the massacre of the Jews at Brussels on May 22, 1370, is open to doubt, The deIn each case the tails of both are strangely similar. number of Jews that perished is given at 500. The principal Jew that figures in both narratives is the banker of the duke. The charges against the Jews in are similar, and the mode of death is the same accounts. There can, however, be no doubt of both

the massacre at Brussels on

May

22,

1370.

The

event has been locally signalized as the miracle of a periodical St. Gudule, and was commemorated by Eighteen tableaux, representative of the fete-day. of various incidents of the piercing of the host and painted the miracle of the blood spurting forth, were evidence of for the church, and are to this day an

"The Jews ha-Kohen ("Emek Habaka," p. 55). of rmJ&PB," says the latter, "were accused of profaning the host and adjudged to die. Many, however, saved themselves by conversion and their descendants arc still to be found numerously in that

country. Few records have survived respecting the Jews who resided in the Middle Ages in the various states which comprised the Catholic portion Archeof the Pays-Bas and of the Liege counology and try, the greater part of which was formerly the territory of Belgium and Antiquities. of the grand duchy of Luxemburg. Nearly all that is known has been published by Baron de Reiffenberg, Carmoly, and Emile Ouverleaux. Koenen (" Geschiedenis der Joden in Nederland ") has written of the middle countries of the Pays-Bas, and Felix Hachez of the Jews of Mons and of Hainault ("Essai sur la Residence a Mons "), while Rahlenbeck has given an account of the Jews

Antwerp ("Les Juifs a Anvers," in "Revue de Belgique," 1871, pp. 137-146). But altogether there is a singular dearth of records both in Jewish and Belgian annals of the thousand-year-long stay of the Jews in Belgium. The materials for a full history of their social, intellectual, and religious condition at

Benjamin of Tudela ("Itinerary," i. are wanting. 106) has a passing reference to them, and the " Maharil " (JTinDE> Tl. 12a) speaks of the religious customs