Chapter XXIX: Darkness Before the Dawn

=1. The Stars die out.=――Maimonides was not only the greatest of the fixed stars in the Jewish literary firmament of the Middle Ages, but he was also the last star that found a chance of shining through the ever-gathering gloom. Denser and denser grew the thick clouds, and, one by one, the stars waned and died out. Even had stars continued to arise, brilliant enough and near enough to pierce that terrible thick darkness, life to the Jewish nation was fast becoming so mere a hurrying from death, that the frantic, stumbling struggle would have left little opportunity or inclination for stargazing. There was no leisure to look up. Jews had to ‘take heed to their ways’ in the saddest and most sordid sense. And even the heedfulness was hopeless of result. The brute force, and the bigoted faith, of the age were both arrayed against the Jews, and oppressions culminated in edicts of expulsion. In 1290 the race was exiled from England, in 1394 from France, and in 1492 from Spain.

=2. Whither the Exiles went.=――The English exiles had little choice of asylum. The ‘sea-girt isle’ pushed them from her shores, and the nearest ports must have seemed to promise least misery in the way of transit, and most chance of safe landing somewhere. As the opposite coast of France came in view, it must have looked to those poor sea-sick and heart-sick fugitives as if the worst of their troubles were over. They disembarked at any and all of the French ports which would take them in, and journeyed hither and thither inland, eager and grateful to share the comparative security of their French brethren. They did not stay to think how unsafe it all was; they did not look back to see how, but sixteen years before, under a decree of Philip the Fair, the Jews of France had been in like evil case with themselves, nor did they look forward through a gloomy hundred years to see all this dreary drama of exile acted over again, with added details of hardship. It was, perhaps, well for them that they could only see a little way at a time.

=3. Life in Germany.=――The English Jews who went further, and found a refuge in the German states, like the Continental Jews who joined them there, when exiled a century later, were certainly no better off. Germany, so called, extended from Russia in the east to the Netherlands in the west; and Jewish settlements existed in all the principal states and provinces. In the flourishing cities on the banks of the Danube or the Elbe, on the Maine or the Rhine, the Jews were all nominally ‘serfs of the Imperial Chamber,’ and avowedly under the protection of the Emperor. This ‘protection’ consisted in the Emperor, for the time being, possessing the first, and, in theory, the sole right of plunder. German Jews were the Emperor’s Jews――his absolutely. He might sell them, or pawn them, or make presents or legacies of them. And, as a rule, the Emperors did protect this property of theirs from other depredators. If the vassal princes of the various states desired to plunder the Jews, they had to do it after a fashion that should not be found out. For this ‘protection,’ the Jews, of course, had to pay a tax to their protector. On some occasions it was raised so high as a third of each man’s ascertainable property. To regular, or irregular, taxation the Jews generally submitted, for any outbreak of resistance only made matters worse.

Towards the end of the thirteenth century, with the new influx of French exiles, things altogether looked so desperate in the German states, that a large number of Jews, principally from the Rhenish provinces, determined on emigrating to Palestine. Rudolph of Hapsburg, the then reigning Emperor, was very angry at this prospect of losing so large a slice out of his revenue. He at once confiscated all the Jewish goods on which he could lay his hands, and, as a speculation, seized on the chief Rabbi of Germany, and held him as a prisoner in one of his castles in Alsace. Rudolph calculated on getting a large ransom for his Rabbi, and the Jews would gladly enough have paid generously for his release. But the Rabbi refused to be ransomed. He would not play into his enemies’ hands in that way. It was too easy a mode of raising money, and one that, if he yielded to it, would most certainly become a precedent. So the Rabbi declined his liberty on such terms, and he died a prisoner.

Unlike England and France and Spain, Germany never went to the length of expelling her Jews altogether, but she would hunt them, now and again, from place to place in her dominions, and the hospitality she extended to them was, at best, the hospitality of a sponging-house. There is not a state, nor a province, nor a city of now united Germany which has not, at some time or other, taken its evil share in ill-treatment of the Jews. Prague, in Bohemia, could, perhaps, tell the most sensational tales of all, if it were well or wise to write out such sad stories in sober pen and ink. But the good old rule is best: ‘Write kindnesses in marble, and _injuries in dust_.’ It is sufficient to say emphatically that things did not improve. Towards the end of the fifteenth century the poor persecuted Jews of Germany made another effort at emigration, but not to Palestine this time, for the feeling which inspired the crusades had done its work, and the site of the ‘Holy Sepulchre’ was considered, at this date, too holy for Jewish feet to profane with their tread. By order of the Popes, the masters of vessels, bound for any parts connected with Palestine as a destination, were forbidden to carry Jewish freight or Jewish passengers. Their own land was denied to outcast Jews. Emigration, however, of some sort was growing imminent. Poland and Turkey, in their undeveloped civilisation, were found to be tolerant of aliens, and in these countries Jewish settlements began to be made. There was no general desertion of the German states, but the Jewish element in many of the cities perceptibly dwindled, and, by degrees, only Frankfort, Worms, and Ratisbon continued to be important centres of Jewish life.

=4. A New Crusade.=――At the beginning of the sixteenth century there was a new sort of crusade got up against the Jews, and what might be called a paper warfare opened upon them in Germany. It was mostly the fault of one man, a wretched apostate named Joseph Pfefferkorn, who, from the same vulgar love of profit and notoriety which had induced him to change his faith, published a silly and offensive pamphlet, ridiculing and abusing the habits and customs of his former co-religionists. Such a crusade as this wretched convert inaugurated was sure of supporters. His chief point for malicious attack was the Talmud, which he represented as the stronghold and storehouse for Jewish crime, stupidity, and superstition. He invented his examples to prove his rule. And the Talmud, for such an object, was well chosen. It is extremely easy to make assertions against a book which very few people can read. Those who were ignorant of the real contents of the Talmud naturally did not like to confess to their ignorance. Jews were an unpopular subject, and it looked so wise and dignified to agree in a condemnation which was apparently founded on much learned research. The Emperor Maximilian listened to Pfefferkorn’s lying revelations, and we may be sure that the priests pricked up their ears. It was all but decided that the ‘horrible book’ which Pfefferkorn denounced should be burnt wholesale. But a saviour was at hand for ‘Rabbi Talmud,’ as some of the most ignorant of all called it, actually believing, in their hot haste, that all this wickedness which they were called on to shudder at was contained in a man, and not in a book! There was living at the time a sensible and learned Christian scholar named Reuchlin. He was heartily ashamed of all the stupid malignity, the spite, and the folly. He made a spirited appeal, and not in vain, to the Senate of Frankfort and to the Elector of Mayence. ‘Read the book,’ he bravely urged, ‘before you burn it. The best way to fight Judaism is to try and understand something about it. Burning is no argument.’ The Dominican monks were very angry with Reuchlin, but he gained his point, and the Talmud was not burnt that time.[43]

=5. What became of the Spanish and Portuguese Exiles.=――The Jews who were expelled from the Peninsula underwent awful experiences. There were so many of them seeking new homes, that governments, not cruelly disposed, yet hesitated in their own interests from offering asylum to such crowds. In Italy, to which many turned in the hope of a genial climate and congenial pursuits, scant hospitality was experienced. Genoa distinctly closed her gates against the fugitives; Venice received them, but shut them up in a _ghetto_ (1516); and Rome, even the Jews of Rome, were very doubtful as to the expediency of extending a welcome. Naples was more generous, but the result was hardly more fortunate for the Jews. In deference, perhaps, to Abarbanel, who led a party of refugees to his kingdom, Ferdinand of Naples received them graciously, and took Abarbanel into his own service. But hardly were they settled in their new homes, when the Black Pestilence broke out in Ferdinand’s State, and for a whole year made ravages among his subjects. Great numbers of the Jewish exiles crossed the Straits of Gibraltar, and made settlements on the northern coast of Africa, and in Egypt. A painful difference, at best, such rough colonising must have proved to the cultured grandees of Spain, and worse than roughnesses were in store for them. The resources of civilisation, in those parts of the world, were not equal to such a sudden influx of strangers needing to be fed, and, delicately nurtured and luxuriously brought up as these Jews had been, they had to suffer the horrors of actual famine. Of those who managed to survive, many were seized by captains of privateering vessels, and sold into slavery, and some lingered on, to meet a worse fate at the hands of the natives. The barbarous tribes of Africa had not arrived at the civilised pitch of persecuting Jews for religion’s sake, but they had mastered the elementary reasons for persecution. They had got so far as to believe that Jews, however poor they looked, were potential mines of wealth, made and designed for plunder. On this belief they acted in a shockingly literal manner. Numbers of Jews who fell into the hands of these savages were actually ripped open by them, in the hope that gold was the ordinary lining of Jewish bodies.

Some eighty thousand of the exiles travelled no further than Portugal, and there, for three or four years, they seemed tolerably secure. But in 1496 dynastic considerations induced King Manuel of Portugal, contrary to his own convictions, to follow the lead of his parents-in-law, Ferdinand and Isabella. An edict of expulsion against ‘Jews and Moors’ was pronounced. Ten months were granted for preparation, and then the Jews of Portugal were dispersed, as their Spanish brethren had been, over Italy, Africa, and Western Turkey, and gradually, and by degrees, a small contingent found a safe asylum in the Netherlands.

From 1497 till 1808, when Napoleon put an end to the ‘holy court’ of the Inquisition, no declared Jews were to be found in the Spanish Peninsula. Plenty of secret Jews remained, who, under their name of Marannos, or New Christians, continued, generation after generation, to fill high offices in Church and State. The Marannos were true at heart, and by stealth, to Judaism, and not seldom at the tribunal of the Inquisition they had to pay the penalty of the suspicions which their deceit excited. The Marannos preferred, when they could, to marry among themselves, but there were, of necessity, frequent alliances, prompted by love or by ambition, between the highly placed New Christians and the grandest and most orthodox Catholic families of Spain. In course of time there were very few Catholic nobles who could not trace back to at least one Jew or Jewess amongst their ancestors. In the middle of last century, Joseph, King of Portugal, wishing to make a distinction between his subjects of pure, and those of mixed, descent, asked his minister Pombal if he could arrange for a peculiar hat to be recommended to the wear of New Christians. The next day Pombal brought his master three of such hats. ‘For whom are these?’ asked the king. ‘One is for your Majesty, one is for me, and one is for the Inquisitor-General,’ answered Pombal. The minister’s genealogical researches, we may suppose, rather disconcerted the king, but as they went to show that the new hats would have to be pretty generally worn, King Joseph gave up the idea of distinguishing the Jewish descended grandees of his kingdom.