Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VIII.djvu/610

 596 HEBREWS and other writers of piyutim (liturgical songs in Hebrew rhymed verse), the historian Josi- pon, and the astronomer Shabthai Donolo, flourished in Italy in the 9th and 10th centu- ries, and the lexicographer Nathan in the llth. From Italy science spread to the cities on the Rhine, to Lorraine and France. In the llth and 12th centuries we find in Germany Simeon, the author of the talmudical Yalkut (" Glean- ing Bag "), the poet Samuel the Pious, and the writer of travels Petahiah ; in northern France, Gerson, surnamed the "light of the exiled," the liturgical poet Joseph Tob Elem, the re- nowned commentators Solomon Isaaki and his grandson Solomon ben Meir, and the authors of the talmudical Tosafoth ("Additions"), Isaac ben Asher, Jacob ben Meir, &c. Spain, after the conquest by the Saracens, who car- ried thither culture, science, and poetry, was destined to develop the most prosperous and flourishing condition which the Jews enjoyed in the middle ages. Persecutions became rare and exceptional. The Jews enjoyed civil rights and rose to high dignities in the state under the Moorish princes, and were almost as well treated by the Christian monarchs ; and their culture and progress in science not only kept pace with their prosperity, but also out- lived occasional adversity. In the 10th cen- tury we see there the lexicographer Men- ahem, the astronomer Hassan, and the rich, liberal, and scientific Hasdai, the friend and physician of the caliph Abderrahman III., at Cordova; in the llth the talmudical scholars Samuel Hallevi and Isaac Alfasi (of Fez), the grammarian Abulwalid, the philosopher David Mokamez, the ethical writer Behai, and Solo- mon Gabirol, equally celebrated as Hebrew po- et and Arabic philosopher ; in the 12th the the- ologian Abraham ben David, the astronomer and geographer Abraham ben Hiya, the poet Mo- ses ben Ezra, the traveller Benjamin of Tudela, the philosophical poet Jehudah Hallevi, whose glowing songs rival the beauties and purity of the Psalms, the great critic, philosopher, and poet Aben Ezra, and finally Moses Maimonides, who as a philosopher and writer on the law by far surpassed all his contemporaries. The diffusion of science among the Jews now at- tained its height in Europe, as well as in Egypt, whither Maimonides fled after a perse- cution at Cordova (1157), and where he and his son Abraham officiated as physicians to the court of the sultan. Spain numbered among its vast number of scholars in the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries, the poets Harizi, the He- brew imitator of the Arabian Hariri, and Saho- la ; the astronomers Aben Sid, one of the au- thors of the Alfonsine tables, Israeli, and Al- hadev ; the philosophical theologians Palquera, Lattef, Caspi, Hasdai, Albo, and Shemtob ; the celebrated commentators Nahmanides, Adde- reth, Geruridi, Behai, Yomtob, and Nissim ; the cabalists Todros, Gecatilia, Abelafia, and De Leon. In Provence and Languedoc, where high schools flourished in Lunel, Nimes, Nar- bonne, Montpellier, and Marseilles, from the 12th to the 15th century, we find the three grammarians Kimhi and their follower Epho- di ; the poets Ezobi, Jedaiah, and Calonymus ; the commentators Zerahiah Hallevi, Abraham ben David, and Menahem ben Solomon ; the philosophers Levi ben Abraham, Levi ben Ger- son, and Vidal ; the four Tibbons, all translators from Arabic into Hebrew, and the lexicogra- pher Isaac Nathan. Italy had in the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries the poets Immanuel, an im- itator of Dante, Moses di Rieti, and Messir Leon ; the talmudists Trani and Colon ; the cabalist Recanate; the astronomer Immanuel; various grammarians and translators from Ar- abic and Latin; and finally the philosopher Elias del Medigo. Germany had in the same period the talmudists Meir, Mordecai, Asher and his son Jacob, and Isserlin, the cabalist Eleazar, and others. The Karaites, too, had a number of scholars, as Hadassi, the two Aarons, and others. During the earlier part of this long period of literary activity in the West the Jews enjoyed peace and prosperity, with various interruptions, in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, the islands of the Mediterranean, in Hungary, especially under the national kings, and in Poland, which hospitably received the numerous exiles from all neighboring countries, under the Piasts, particularly the last of them, Oasimir the Great ; but there were none in Muscovy and in .the Scandinavian states ; and in England, where they appear before the time of Alfred, in France, where only the early Car- lo vingians, and especially Charlemagne, favored them, and throughout Germany, their condi- tion was in the last degree deplorable. Cir- cumscribed in their rights by decrees and laws of the ecclesiastical as well as civil power, ex- cluded from all honorable occupations, driven from place to place, from province to province, compelled to subsist almost exclusively by mer- cantile occupations and usury, overtaxed and degraded in the cities, kept in narrow quarters and marked in their dress with signs of con- tempt, plundered by lawless barons and penni- less princes, an easy prey to all parties during the civil feuds, again and again robbed of their pecuniary claims, owned and sold as serfs (KammerTcnecJite) by the emperors, butchered by mobs and revolted peasants, chased by the monks, burned in thousands by the crusaders (who also" burned their brethren of Jerusalem in their synagogue), tormented by ridicule, abusive sermons, monstrous accusations find trials, threats and experiments of conversion, the Jews of those countries offer in their me- diaeval history a frightful picture of horrors and gloom. In England they had their worst days in the reign of Richard I., at whose coro- nation they were massacred at York (1189), John, Henry III., and Edward I., who expelled them altogether from the realm (1290). From France they were for the last time banished under Charles VI. (1395). Germany, where the greatest anarchy prevailed, was the scene