Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 11.djvu/240

* JEWS. 214 JEWS. the rights of citizens, or were they allowed to liold immovable property. Repeatedly the em- perors gratified at onoe their piety and their greed by eanceliiig the. .Jews' ijecuniary eluims. In many ])Ia(es they were compelled to live in a certiiin part of the town, known as the Juden- gnsse (.lews' street) or ghetto. As elsewhere in Christendom, so in (iermany the Crusades kin- dled a spirit hostile to the 'enemies of Christ.' 'Hie word /ic/i (said to be (he initials of Hicro- soli/ma est jirrdita, .Terusalein is taken) thnmgh- out all the cities of the Kmpire liccame the signal for massacre, and, if a fanatic monk sounded it along the streets, it threw the rabble into paroxysms of nmrderous rage. The .lewa were expelled — after being plundered and mal- treated — from Vienna (llOti), Mecklenburg (I-22.5), Breslau (122fi), Brandenburg (124,3). Frankfort (1241). Municli |128.')), Nuremberg (1390), Prague (l.SOl). Mainz (1420). Saxonv (1432), Bavaria (14.50), and Regensburg (1476). Switzerland, whither they came at a eom- ])aratively late period, commenced to ])crsecute them about the middle of the thirteenth century. They were expelled from Bern (1288), Ziirich (143(i), Geneva (1400), Basel (1576), and SchafThausen in the fifteenth <'entury. In Spain, as we have seen, the condition of the Jews was long favorable. During the whole of the brilliant period of Arab and ^loorish rule in the Peninsula, they were almost on terms of equality with their Mohammedan masters, ri- valed them in letters, and prol)ably surpassed them in wealth. Nor was this state of things confined to those portions of Spain under the sovereigntv of the Moors; the Christian monarchs of the north and interior gradually came to ap- preciate the value of their services, and we find them for a time protected and encouraged by the rulers of Aragon and Castile. But the ex- travacance and consequent (mvcrty of the nobles, as well as the increasing power of the priesthood, ultimately brought about a disastrous change. Oradially the .Jews were deprived of the privi- lege of living where they pleased : their rights were diminislied, and their taxes augmented. In Seville, Cordova, Toledo, Valencia, Catalonia, and the island of ^Majorca outbursts of priestlv and popular violence took place (1391-02) ; im- mense numbers were murdered, and W'holesalo theft was perpetrated by the religious rabble. Escape was possible only through flight to Africa. or by accepting baptism at the point of the sword, ilany thousands became enforced con- verts to Christianity, though many of these, known as ^fa'r^no.'!, secretly continued to profess the rites of the .Jewish religion. In 1480 the Inquisition was introduced. Hundreds of Jews were burned at the stake. Sometimes the popes, and even the nobles, shuddered at the fiendish 2j>al of the inquisitors, and tried to mitigate it; but in vain. At length the hour of final horror came. In 1492 Ferdinand and Isabella issued an edict for the expulsion, within four months, of all who refused to become Christians, with the strict inhibition to take neither gold nor silver out of the country. The .Tews offered an enormous sum for the revocation of the edict, and for a moment the sovereigns hesitated, till Torque- mada. the Dominicnn inquisitor-general, dared to compare his royal master and mistress to ,Tudas. To the number of 300,000 (some even give the numbers at 0.^0,000 or 800,000) they resolved to al)and(m the coimtry, which a residence of seven centuries had made almost a second .Judea to them. -Vlmost every land was shut against them. Some ventured into France; others into Italy, Turkey, and Morocco, in the last of which coun- tries they suffered the most frightful privations. Of the 80,000 who obtaine<l an entrance into Portugal on jjayment of eight gold pennies a head, but only for eight months to enable them to obtain means of dei)arturc to other countries, Diany lingcied after the expiration "f the ap- pointeil time, and the poorer were sold as slaves, 111 14l)(i King Kmmanuel conuaanded them to quit his territories, but he at the same time issued a secret order that all .Jewish children inider four- teen years of age slwaild be torn from their mothers, retained in Portugal, and brought up as Christians. -Vgonv drove the .Jewish mothers into madness; they destroyed their children with their own hands, and threw them into w<lls and rivers, to prevent them from falling into the hands of their jiersecutxirs. The miseries of those who embraced Clnistianit.v, but who for the most part secretl.v adhered to their old faith, were hardly less dreadful, and it was far on in the seventeenth century before persecution cea.sed. Suspected converts were burne<l as late as 1700 in Portugal, and 1821 in South America. The wanderers appear to have met with better treatment in Italy and Turkey than elsewhere. During the liflecnth and sixtecnDi centuries they are to be ftnuid — except at intervals of persecu- tion — in almost eerv city in Ital.v, chielly en- gaged in money-lending, Abrabanel, perhaps the most eminent .Jewish scholar and divine of his day, rose to be confidential adviser to the King of Naples. In Turkey they were held in higher estimation than the conquered Creeks: the latter were termed tcshir (slaves), but the .Jews. (»»»- saphir (visitors) ; they were allowed to reopen their schools, to estaldish synagogues, and to settle in all the coiiinicicial town-^ of the Levant, The invention of printing, the revival of learn- ing, and the Keforniation are generally asserted to have been beneficial to the .Jews; but this can be regarded as true only in a limited sense. A'hen the .Jews began to use the presses at their earliest stage for their own literature, sacred and otherwise, the Emperor Maximilian was urged to Older all Hebrew writings to lie committed to the fiames ; and but for the strenuous exertions of .Johann Reuchlin (q.v.), ignorance, treacherv, and bigotry might have secured a triumph, l.uther. in the earlier part of his career, looked with no unfavorable eye on the adoption of violent means for their conversion ; but. on the other hand, we find at least one distinguished Roman Catholic. Pope Sixtus V.. animated liy a far more wise and kindlv spirit toward them than anv Protestant prince of his time. In l.'i.'jS he abolished all the persecuting statutes of his predecessors, allowed the .Jews to settle and trade in every city of his dominions, and to enjoy the free exercise of their religion, and in the adminis- tration of justice and taxation placed them on a footing with the rest of his subjects. That the Reformation itself had nothing to do with subse- quent ameliorations in the conditions of the .Jews is plain from the fact that in many parts of Cermany. Protestant as well as Catholic, their lot became actually harder than before. They were driven out of Bavaria (1-553), out of Bran-