Page:Readings in European History Vol 1.djvu/463

 .. The People in Country and Town 427 ity, and had Christians in their houses as menservants and maidservants, who were open backsliders from the faith of Jesus Christ, and jtidaized with the Jews. And this was contrary to the decree of God and the law of the Church. And whereas the Lord had said by the mouth of Moses in Deuteronomy (xxiii. 19, 20), "Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother," but " to a stranger," the Jews in their wickedness understood by " stranger " every Christian, and they took from the Christians their money at usury. And so heavily burdened in this wise were citizens and soldiers and peasants in the suburbs, and in the various towns and villages, that many of them were constrained to part with their possessions. Others were bound under oath in houses of the Jews in Paris, held as if captives in prison. The most Christian King Philip heard of these things, and compassion was stirred within him. He took counsel with a certain hermit, Bernard by name, 1 a holy and religious man, who at that time dwelt in the forest of Vincennes, and asked him what he should do. By his advice the king released all Christians of his kingdom from their debts to the Jews, and kept a fifth part of the whole amount for himself. Finally came the culmination of their wickedness. Cer- tain ecclesiastical vessels consecrated to God the chalices and crosses of gold and silver bearing the image of our Lord Jesus Christ crucified had been pledged to the Jews by way of security when the need of the churches was press- ing. These they used so vilely, in their impiety and scorn of the Christian religion, that from the cups in which the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ was consecrated they gave their children cakes soaked in wine:. . . In the year of our Lord's Incarnation 1182, in the month of April, which is called by the Jews Nisan, an edict went forth from the most serene king, Philip Augustus, that all the Jews of his kingdom should be prepared to go forth by 1 Not St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who died some thirty years before, whose advice in regard to the treatment of the Jews will be found above, p. 332.