In Germany they were looked upon as the special property of the sovereign, who bought and sold them, and were designated his Kammerkneehte (" chamber-servants"). As already said, they made their appearance in that region almost as early as the time if Constantine. About the 8th c. they are found in all the Rhenish towns; in the 10th a., in Saxony and Bohemia; in the 11th, in Swabia, Franconia, and Vienna; and in the 12th, in Brandenburg and Silesia. The same sort of treatment befell them in the. empire as elsewhere; they had to pay all manner of iniquitous taxes—body-tax, capitation-tax, trade-taxes, coronation-tax, and to present a multitude of gifts, to mollify the avarice or sup ply the necessities of emperors, princes, and barons: A raid against the Jew was a favorite pastime of a bankrupt noble in those days. The crusades kindled a spirit not in Ger many only, however, but through all Christendom, hostile to the "enemies of Christ." TICVCS, Metz, Cologne, _Mainz, Worms, Spires, Strasburg, and other cities, were deluged with the blood of the " unbelievers." At such epochs, the passions of the populace and of the lower clergy could not be restrained. The word her (said to be the initials of Hierosoly mu est perdita, Jerusalem is taken) throughout all the cities of the empire became the signal for massacre, and if an insensate monk sounded it along the streets, it threw the rabble into paroxysms of murderous rage. The Jews were expelled—after being plundered and maltreated—from Vienna (1196 A.D.), Mecklenburg (1225 A.D.), Breslau (1226 A.D.), Brandenburg (1243 A.D.), Frankfort (1241 A.D.), Munich (1285 A.D.), Nuremberg (1390 A.D.), Prague (1391 A.D.), and Ratisbon (1476 A.D.). The "Black Death," in particular, occasioned a great and widespread persecution (1348-50 A.D.). They were murdered and burned by thousands, and many even sought death amidst the conflagrations of their synagogues. The race almost disappeared from Germany; only, however, to return, for their services were indispensable. Only here and there, however, they possessed the rights of citizens, or were allowed to hold unmovable prop erty; in general, they were permitted to prosecute only commerce and usury, and the law turned on them its harshest aspect. Repeatedly, too, the emperors gratified at once piety and their greed by canceling their pecuniary claims. In many places, they were compelled to live in certain parts of the town, known as the Judenstt'asse (Jews' streets).
Switzerland, they came at a comparatively late period, commenced to perse cute them about the middle of the 14th century. In the course of the 15th c. they were expelled from Schaffhausen, Zurich, Geneva, Thurgau, and other places.—Their treat ment was more humane in Poland and Lithuania. As early as 1264 A.D. they enjoyed in these countries certain important privileges. Favored by Casimir III. their numbers were swelled, after 1348 A.D., by fugitives from Germany and Switzerland.—Russia and Hungary, like most' other countries of Christendom during the middle ages, received, persecuted, and banished them.
In Spain the condition of the Jews was long highly favorable. The horrible perse cutions of the Gothic princes in the 6th and 7th centuries made it, of course, absolutely inevitable that the first gleam of a Moorish scimiter on the coast would two• them into allies of the invaders. During the whole of the brilliant period of Moorish rule in the Peninsula they enjoyed. indeed, what must have scented to them, in comparison with their common fate, a sort of elysian life. They were almost on terms of equality with their Mohammedan masters, rivaled them in civilization and letters, and probably sur passed them in wealth, The Spanish Jews were consequently of a much higher type than their brethren in other parts of Europe. They were not reduced to the one degrading occupation of usury, though they followed that too; on the contrary they were husband men, landed proprietors, physicians, financial administrators, etc.; they enjoyed special privileges, and had courts of justice for themselves. Nor was this state of things con
fined to those portions of Spain under the sovereignty of the Moors: the Christian mon archs of the north and middle gradually came to appreciate the value of their services, and we rind them Mr a time protected and encouraged by the rulers of Aragon and Cas tile. But the extravagance and consequent poverty of the nobles, as well as the increas ing power of the priesthood, ultimately brought about a disastrous change. The estates of the nobles and (it is also believed) those attached to the cathedrals and churches, were in many cases mortgaged to the Jews; hence it was not difficult for "conscience" to get up a persecution, when goaded to its " duty" by the pressure of want and shame. Gradually, the Jews were deprived of the privilege of living where they pleased; their lights were diminished, and their taxes augmented. In Seville, Cordova, Toledo, Valen cia. Catalonia, and the island of Majorca, outbursts of priestly and popular violence took place (1391-92 A.D.); immense numbers were murdered, ana wholesale theft was per petrated by the religious rabble. Escape was possible only through flight to Africa, or by accepting baptism at the point of the sword. The number of these enforced con verts to Christianity is reckoned at 200,000. The fate of the Jews in Spain during the 15tli c., however, beggars description. Persecution, violent conversion, massacre, the tortures of the inquisition—we read of nothing but these! Thousands were burned alive. " In one year, 280 were burned in 'Seville alone." Sometimes the popes, and even the nobles, shuddered at the fiendish zeal of the inquisitors, and tried to mitigate it, but in vain. At length the hour of final horror came. In 1492 A.D. 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 Jews offered an enormous sum for its revocation, and for a moment the sovereigns hesitated; but Torquemada, (he Dominican inquisitor-general, dared to compare his royal master and mistress to Judas; they shrank from the awful accusation; and the rum of the most industrious, the most thriving, the most peaceable, and the most learned of their subjects—and consequently of Spain herself—became irremediable. This is perhaps the grandest and most mdlancholy hour in their modern history. It is consid ered by themselves as great a calamity as the destruction of Jerusalem. 300,000 '(sonic even give the numbers at 650,000 or 800,000) resolved to abandon the country, which a residence of seven centuries had made almost a second Judea to them. The incidents that marked their departure are heart-rending Almost every land was shut against them. Some, however, ventured in France; others into Italy, Turkey, and Morocco, in the last of which countries they suffered the most frightful privations. Of the 80,000 who obtained an entrance into Portugal on payment of eight gold pennies a head, but only for eight months, to enable them to obtain means of departure to other countries, many lingered after the expiry of the appointed time, and the poorer were sold -as slaves. In 1495 A.D. king Emanuel commanded them to quit his territories, but just at the same time issued a secret order that all Jewish children under 14 years of age should be torn from their mothers, retained in Portugal, and brought up as Christians. Agony drove the Jewish mothers into madness: they destroyed their children with their own hands. and threw them into wells and rivers, to prevent them from falling into the hands of their persecutors. The miseries of those who embraced Christianity, but who, for the most part, secretly adhered to their old faith (Otissim, yielding to violence, forced ones"), were hardly less dreadful. and it was far on in the 17th c. before persecu Lion ceased. of suspected converts happened as late as 1655 A.D.