Reverting to•Europe the ascendency of Christianity, as we have already said, was baneful to the Jews. Imperial edicts and ecclesiastical decrees vied with each other in the rigor Of their intolerance towards this unhappy people. They were prohibited front making converts, from invoking (in Spain at least) the divine blessing on the country, from marrying Christian women or holding Christian slaves; they were bur. dened with heavy taxes; yet no persecution apparently could destroy the immortal race. About this time they are found in large numbers in Elyria, Italy, Spain, Minorca, Gaul, and the Romau towns on the Rhine; they are agriculturists, traders, and artisans; they hold land; their services, in fact, cannot be dispensed with; Constantine, during whose reign a fierce revolution, incited by his co-regent, Gallus, broke out among the Arians and Jews (333), terms them, iu a public document, "that most hateful of all people;" yet in spite of this, they till important civil and military situations, have special courts of justice, and exercise the influence that springs from the possession of wealth and knowledge. The brief rule of Julian the apostate even shed a momentary gleam of splendor over their destinies, and the transport which they manifested on obtaining his permission to rebuild the temple at Jerusalem, is one of the most sublime spectacles in their history. The death of this emperor, however, frustrated their labors, and the rapid increase of ecclesiastical power was, of course, hurtful to them in a variety of ways, although the emperors now began, in the decline of their authority, to protect them as far as they could, In 418 A.D. they were excluded from the military service; and in 429 A.D. the patriarchate at Tiberias was abolished. After the fall of the West Roman empire their fortunes were different in different countries. In Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia they were for a time almost unmolested; in the Byzantine empire they suf fered many oppressions; while in the 6th and 7th c., the Franks and Spanish Visigoths inflicted on them frightful persecutions The sudden volcanic outburst of Mohammedanism in the Arabian peninsula was at first disastrous to the Jews in that part of the world. For several centuries, a Jewish kingdom had existed in the s.w. of Arabia. It was called Himyaritis or Homeritis, and was in a flourishing condition 120 years before Christ. About 230 A. D., the Jewish religion even mounted the throne of Yemen. Twice, however (by the Ethiopian kings, Aidog and Ez-Baha), were the Jewish kings driven from it, and the Christian religion was introduced in that part. in 530 A.D. At first Jewish tribes around Mecca and entertained opinions favorable to Mohammed as an Arabian chief, but Ivlien Islam began to threaten their own faith, and even existence, they rose in arms against its founder. Mohammed proved the stronger: he subdued the Chaibar tribes in 627 A.D., and the Arabian Jews were finally dispossessed of their territories, and removed to Syria. The spread of Mohammedanism through Asiatic Turkey, Persia, Egypt, Africa, and the s. of Spain was, nevertheless, on the whole advantageous to the Jews. Excepting accidental such as those in Mauritania (790 A.D.) and in Egypt (1010 A.D.), they enjoyed, under the caliphs and Arabian princes, comparative peace. In Moorish Spain their numbers greatly increased, and they became famous for their learning as well as for trade. They were counselors, or physi chili To the and this period may well be considered the golden age of Jewish orator phitois or highest emine'RelirosT.h, and not isolated but in and it is a well-established frier them is chietlydue—through the Arab meditim—the and subsequent spreading of ancient philosophy, in .Europe., %There are some medical to ancient Greece even now extant only in their Arabic trans lations, the originals being probably lost forever. Different from their fate under Moslem rule was that which they had to endure in Christendom about this Only few and far between were those Christian monarchs who rose above the barbarism of the churches. About the beginning of the 11th c. the Byzantine emperor, Basil II., renewed the persecution; from quite different causes the same thing had already begun in Babylonia, where the caliphate had passed into the hands of rulers hostile to the Jews; and before the close of the 11th c. the Prince of the Captivity had perished on the scaffold, the schools were closed, the best of the community had fled to Spain, and those that remained were reduced to an abject condition from which they have never risen. In Italy their position was made tolerable by considerable pecuniary Here and there, at intervals, a spirit of Christian intolerance might break out, but they enjoyed for the most part the protection of the popes.
More favorable was their lot during the 8th and 9th centuries in France, especially in Paris, Lyons, Languedoc, and Provence. At the court of Louis is Debonnatre they were actually all-powerful. After 877 A.D., however, when the weak Carlovingians had begun to rule, and the church was advancing with imperious strides, a melancholy change ensued—kings, bishops, feudal barons, and even the municipalities, all joined in a carnival of persecution. From the 11th to the 14th c. their history is a successive series of massacres. All manner of wild stories were circulated against them: it was said that they were wont to steal the host, and to contemptuously stick it through and through; to inveigle Christian children into their houses, and murder them; to poison wells, etc. They were also hated for their excessive usury, though there can be no doubt that more blame is attachable to those whose tyranny, by depriving them of the right to pos sess land, had compressed their activity into the narrower channels of traffic. Oc•a sionally, however, their debtors, high and low, had recourse to what they called Christian religion as a very easy means of getting rid of their obligations. Thus, Philippe
Auguste, under whose rule the Jews seem to have held mortgages of enormdus value on the estates of church and state dignitaries, simply confiscated the debts due to them, forced them to surrender the pledges in their possession, seized their goods, and banished them from France; but the decree appears to have taken effect chiefly in the n.; yet in less than 20 years the same proud but wasteful monarch was glad to let them come back and take up their abode in Paris. Louis IX., who was a very pious prince, among other religious acts, canceled a third of the claims which the Jews had against his sub jects, "for the benefit of his soul." An edict was also issued for the seizure and destruc tion of their sacred books; and we are told that, at Paris. 24 carts filled \ nth copies of the Talmud, etc., were consigned to the flames. In the reign of Philippe the fair they were again expelled from France (1306 A.D.) with the usual accompaniments of cruelty; but the state of the royal finances rendered it necessary, in little more than a dozen years, to recall them; and they were allowed to enforce payment of the debts due to them, on condition that two-thirds of the whole should be given up to the king] But a religious epidemic, known as the rising of the shepherds, having seized the common people in Languedoc and the central regions of France (1321 A.D.), they signalized them selves by horrible massacres of the detested race; so horrible, indeed, that in one place, Verdun, on the Garonne, the Jews, in the madness of their agony, threw down their children to the Christian mob, from the tower in which they were gathered, hoping, hut in vain, to appease the demoniacal fury of their assailants. In the following year the plague broke out, and the wildest crimes were laid to their charge. One shudders to read of what followed; in whole provinces every Jew was burned. At Chinon a deep ditch 10.a8 dug, an enormous pile raised, and 160 of both sexes burned together! Yet Christianity never produced more resolute martyrs; as they sprung into the place of torment, they sang hymns as though they were going to a weeding. Finally, in 1395, they were indefinitely banished from the middle of France.
Their first appearance in England dates from the period of the Saxons. They are mentioned in the ecclesiastical constitutions of Egbright, archbishop of York, 740 A.D. ; they are also named in a charter to the monks of Croyland, 833 A.D. William the con queror and his son, William Rufus, favored them; the latter. on the occasion of a public debate between them and the Christians. even swore with humorous profanity that if the rabbins beat the bishops, " by the face of St. Luke" he would turn a Jew himself. The same reckless monarch carried his contempt for the religious institutions of his kingdom so far that he actually farmed out the vacant bishoprics to the Jews; and at Oxford, even then a seat of learning, they possessed three halls—Lombard hall, Moses hall, and Jacob hall, where Hebrew was taught to Christians as well as to the youths of their own persuasion. As they grew in wealth they grew in unpopularity. On the day of the coronation of Richard the lion heart (1189 A.D.), some foreign Jews, being per ceived to witness the spectacle, from which their nation had been strictly excluded, a popular commotion against them broke out in London; their houses were pillaged and burned; and though sir Richard Glanville, the chief-justiciary of the realm, acting under the orders of the indignant king, partially succeeded in arresting the havoc, and even in bringing some of the mob to justice (three were hanged), yet the barbarous bigotry of priests and people prevented anything like just or salutary punishment. Similar scenes were witnessed at Norwich, Edmundsbury, Stamford, and York; in the last of these towns, most of the Jews preferred voluntary martyrdom (Kiddush. Rashem) in the syna gogue to forced baptism. When Richard returned from Palestine their prospects bright ened a little; though still treated with great rigor, yet their lives and wealth were pro tected—for a consideration! John Lackland at first covered them with honor, but the popular and priestly hatred only became the stronger; and on a sudden, the vacillating and unprincipled king turned round on his protegs, after they bad accumulated great wealth, and imprisoned. maltreated, and plundered them in all parts of the country. Under Henry III. they were mulcted enormously. Accused of clipping the coin of the realm, they had, as a penalty, to pay into the royal exchequer (1230 A:D.) a third of their movable property. To this reign belongs the now exploded story of the crucifixion of the Christian boy, Hugh of Lincoln. The accession of Edward did not mitigate their misery; some efforts, indeed, were made to induce them to np their profession of usury, as was also done in France and elsewhere duriug the same period, but the fact is, that they were so heavily taxed by the sovereigns or governments of Christendom, and at the same time debarred from almost every other'fade or occupation—partly by special decrees, partly by the vulgar prejudice—that they could not afford to prosecute ordinary avocations. 'I he attempt made by the Dominican friars to convert them, of course, failed utterly; and in 1253 the Jews—no longer able to withstand the constant hardships to which they were subjected in person and property—begged of their own accord to be allowed to leave the country. Richard of Cornwall, however, persuaded them to stay. Ultimately, in 1290 A.D., they were driven Irom the shores of England, pursued by the execrations of the infuriated rabble, and leaving in the hands of the king all their property. d;:bts, obligations, and mortgages. They emigrated for the most part to France and Germany. Their number is estimated at about 16,000.