History of the Jews, Vol. 4 (of 6)

For the same offense – that is, for no offense at all – the communities in the vicinity of the Bohemian capital were "confined, oppressed, ill-treated and persecuted." The reigning pope issued a bull condemning the outrages (July 2d, 1389), and based his action upon the edict of Pope Innocent IV, which enacted that Jews should not be forcibly baptized, nor disturbed in the observance of their festivals; but he failed to produce an impression on the consciences of the faithful. It was in vain, too, that the Jews appealed to their liege lord, the German emperor Wenceslaus, in whose capital the persecution had originated. This prince – who, had he not been an emperor, would certainly have been a freebooter – was a man of sense only on the rare occasions when he was not intoxicated. His reply to the representations of his Jewish subjects was that they had deserved the attacks made upon them, as they had had no right to show themselves outside their houses on Easter Sunday. For the goods and chattels they had left behind them he exhibited more concern, promptly ordering them to be appropriated to his empty exchequer. This was the measure of his general attitude towards the Jews. During several years he attempted to possess himself of their monetary claims on his Christian subjects, and to carry out his design he convened (1385) a conference of representatives of the Suabian cities, which met at Ulm. Despite the impoverishment of the German communities, he exacted from every Jew, even from every Jewish youth and maiden, the so-called "golden penny" poll-tax, amounting to one gulden annually. He openly declared that the possessions of the Jews were his personal property, and forbade them to sell or mortgage anything. And still Emperor Wenceslaus was not the worst of rulers in the eyes of the Jews. The rabbi, Avigedor Kara, of Prague, boasted his friendship; and the Jews of Germany whispered significantly to one another that his allegiance to the teaching of Christ was very weak.

This storm of spoliation and persecution had no far-reaching consequences in the history of the German Jews. It could not affect their abject condition, for they had been too long accustomed to turn their cheeks submissively to the smiter. Quite different were the effects of a contemporary persecution in Spain. Here the very heart of the Jewish race was attacked, and the results made themselves felt in the history of the whole Jewish people. The Spanish Jews had until then been more hated than despised; the horrors of this persecution, however, so thoroughly cowed their spirits, so paralyzed their energies, and humbled their pride, that they, too, became the scorn of their oppressors. As in Prague, the outbreak was the work of an ecclesiastic and a mob, but here it assumed the vastest proportions, and developed permanent results, the operations of which were disastrous in the extreme. It arose in Seville through the agitation of a fanatical priest, Ferdinand (Ferrand) Martinez, who seemed to consider implacable hatred of the Jews as the essence of his religion. His discourses were devoted to stirring up the populace against them, and he thundered against their hardened infidelity, their pride, their heaped-up riches, their greed, and their usury. In Seville he found the people only too ready to listen to him, for there the Jews were hated with special intensity. The citizens could not forgive them the important part they had played in the civil war between Don Pedro and Don Henry II, and particularly the suspicious circumstances of the death of Joseph Pichon, who had been so popular among them. As long as Don Juan I lived, Martinez took care to restrain the mob from open violence, for though the king regarded the Jews with but little affection, he was in the habit of punishing lawless outbreaks with the utmost severity. No sooner was he dead, however, than the bigoted cleric thought he might dare the utmost. The circumstances of the government were favorable to the development of his plans. The new monarch, Henry III, was a boy of only eleven years of age, and in the council of regency discord reigned, threatening to involve the country in another civil war.

One day (March 15, 1391) – a memorable day, not only for the Jews and for Spain, but for the history of the entire world, for on that day the first germ of the monstrous Inquisition was created – Martinez, preaching as usual against the Jews, deliberately incited the mob to riot in the expectation that many Jews would abjure their religion. The passions of the multitude became inflamed, and broke out in wild uproar. The authorities of the city, the Mayor (Alguacil mayor), Don Alvar Perez de Guzman, and two of the magistrates interposed to protect the Jews, arresting two of the ringleaders in the riot, and ordering them to be flogged. This proceeding excited the fanatical mob only the more. In their fury they put a large number of Jews to death, and threatened with a like fate the governor of the city, Don Juan Alfonso, and the officials who were attempting to shield the unfortunate Hebrews. A few of the leading Jews of Seville, perceiving that the local authorities were not strong enough to grapple with the rising, hurried to the court of the young king, and appealed to the council of regency to stop the slaughter of their brethren. Their representations were favorably received. Messengers were dispatched forthwith to Seville with instructions to tell the populace to abstain from further outrage. The local nobility seconded the action of the king, and, ranging themselves on the side of the Jews, succeeded in mastering the rioters. When the Christian inhabitants of the neighboring towns showed a disposition to imitate the scenes enacted in Seville, the council of regency also sent messengers thither armed with the same powers. Thus, for a brief moment, the threatened Jew-hunt was delayed, but by no means suppressed. It was soon renewed with greater violence, and on a far more extended scale. The young king and a few of the members of the council of regency were probably earnest in their desire not to permit the massacres, but, unfortunately, they were not sufficiently interested to take adequate precautions against them. One such precaution should have been to silence the outrage-monger, Ferdinand Martinez, or at least to prohibit his inflammatory harangues; but they did nothing of the kind. They left him perfectly free to level his poisonous eloquence at the Jews, and he was not slow to take advantage of their inaction. Encouraged by the dissensions in the government, and the disorder which consequently reigned throughout the entire land, he again set himself to stir up the rabble of Seville, and this time with greater success. Hardly three months after the last outbreak, the mob resumed (June 6th, 1391) its holy work of massacre by setting fire to the Jewish quarter (Juderia) and slaughtering its inhabitants. The result was that, of the important and wealthy community of Seville, which had numbered 7,000 families, or 30,000 souls, but few remained. Murder counted not more than 4,000 victims, but to escape death the majority permitted themselves to be baptized. Women and children were sold into Mahometan slavery by the bloody rioters. Of the three synagogues of Seville two were transformed into churches. Among the large number who sought refuge from fire and sword at the baptismal font was Samuel Abrabanel, the ancestor of the afterwards celebrated Abrabanel family, and an ornament of his community in the reign of Don Henry II, with whom he possessed great influence. He adopted the Christian name of Juan de Sevilla.

From Seville the persecution swept like a raging torrent over a large portion of Spain. Its progress was stimulated more by a craving for plunder than by fanatical eagerness to proselytize. Cordova, the parent community of the Peninsula, the mold in which the high character of Spanish Judaism had been cast, was the next scene of its activity. Here also many Jews were cruelly murdered, and a large number forced to embrace Christianity. On the fast day commemorating the fall of Jerusalem (Tammuz 17th–June 20th) the population of the capital, Toledo, rose against the largest Jewish community in Spain. The blood of the believers in the unity of God, who steadfastly refused to change their faith, deluged the streets. Among the many martyrs who fell at Toledo were the descendants of the Asheri family. They met death with the same unflinching courage as their German brethren. Jehuda ben Asher II, one of Asheri's great-grandsons, who lived in Burgos, but happened to be at Toledo, took with his own hands the lives of his mother-in-law and wife, and then his own. Here also a large number went over to Christianity. About seventy communities were visited by this terrible persecution, among them those of Ecija, Huete, Logroño, Burgos, Carrion, and Ocaña. At Ascalona not a single Jew remained alive. The thoroughly maddened Christian population meditated a similar fate for the Moors, or Mahometans, living in the kingdom of Seville. The more prudent among them, however, pointed out the danger of such a step, reminding them that the Christians living in the Mahometan kingdom of Granada, or held as prisoners by the Moors on the other side of the straits of Gibraltar, might be sacrificed in retaliation. The massacre of the Moors was consequently abandoned. The Jews alone were made to drain the cup of bitterness to the dregs, because they were too weak to protect themselves. Nothing demonstrates more impressively that the clergy had succeeded in transforming the people into a race of cut-throats.

In the kingdom of Aragon, where both ruler and people were opposed to Castile, and, as a rule, held that to be wrong which in the latter state was considered right, the hatred and persecution of the Jews were promoted with the same zeal. Here the government was in the hands of the weak but well-meaning king, Juan I, who, absorbed by his love of music and the chase, wielded but little authority, and was the laughing-stock of his generally uncultured subjects. About three weeks after the outbreak at Toledo, the inhabitants of the province of Valencia rose against the Jews (Ab 7th–July 9th). Of the 5,000 souls that constituted the Jewish community in the city of Valencia, not one was left. Some 250 were murdered, a few saved themselves by flight, and the rest embraced Christianity. Throughout the length and breadth of the kingdom the defenseless Jews were attacked with fire and sword, the community of Murviedro alone being spared.

The sanguinary madness then crossed the sea, and alighted on the island of Majorca. In the capital, Palma, a crowd of roughs and sailors paraded the Monte-Zion street, in which the Jews resided, and holding aloft a cross, rudely formed by tying together two cudgels, shouted "Death to the Jews" (August 2d–Ellul 1st). One sturdy Jew, assaulted by the rabble, ventured to defend himself, and severely punished his assailants. Hereupon the mob broke out in uncontrollable violence, and 300 martyrs fell to its fury. Among the victims was the rabbi, En-Vidal Ephraim Gerundi, whose controversy with Solomon Zarfati has already been referred to. A large number of Jews here also sought safety in baptism.