Dispersion of the Jews.--Jewish Quarters in the MediÆval Towns.--The Ghetto of Rome.--Ancient Prague.--The Giudecca of Venice.--Condition of the Jews.--Animosity of the People against them--Severity and vexatious Treatment of the Sovereigns.--The Jews of Lincoln.--The Jews of Blois.--Mission of the Pastoureaux.--Extermination of the Jews.--The Price at which the Jews purchased Indulgences.--Marks set upon them.--Wealth, Knowledge, Industry, and Financial Aptitude of the Jews.--Regulations respecting Usury as practised by the Jews.--Attachment of the Jews to their Religion.

A painful and gloomy history commences for the Jewish race from the day when the Romans seized upon Jerusalem and expelled its unfortunate inhabitants, a race so essentially homogeneous, strong, patient, and religious, and dating its origin from the remotest period of the patriarchal ages. The Jews, proud of the title of "the People of God," were scattered, proscribed, and received universal reprobation (Fig. 357), notwithstanding that their annals, collected under divine inspiration by Moses and the sacred writers, had furnished a glorious prologue to the annals of all modern nations, and had given to the world the holy and divine history of Christ, who, by establishing the Gospel, was to become the regenerator of the whole human family.

Their Temple is destroyed, and the crowd which had once pressed beneath its portico as the flock of the living God has become a miserable tribe, restless and unquiet in the present, but full of hope as regards the future. The Jewish nation exists nowhere, nevertheless, the Jewish people are to be found everywhere. They are wanderers upon the face of the earth, continually pursued, threatened, and persecuted. It would seem as if the existence of the offspring of Israel is perpetuated simply to present to Christian eyes a clear and awful warning of the Divine vengeance, a special, and at the same time an overwhelming example of the vicissitudes which God alone can determine in the life of a people.

M. Depping, an historian of this race so long accursed, after having been for centuries blessed and favoured by God, says, "A Jewish community in an European town during the Middle Ages resembled a colony on an island or on a distant coast. Isolated from the rest of the population, it generally occupied a district or street which was separated from the town or borough. The Jews, like a troop of lepers, were thrust away and huddled together into the most uncomfortable and most unhealthy quarter of the city, as miserable as it vas disgusting. There, in ill-constructed houses, this poor and numerous population was amassed; in some cases high walls enclosed the small and dark narrow streets of the quarter occupied by this branded race, which prevented its extension, though, at the same time, it often protected the inhabitants from the fury of the populace."

In order to form a just appreciation of what the Jewish quarters were like in the mediÆval towns, one must visit the Ghetto of Rome or ancient Prague. The latter place especially has, in all respects, preserved its antique appearance. We must picture to ourselves a large enclosure of wretched houses, irregularly built, divided by small streets with no attempt at uniformity. The principal thoroughfare is lined with stalls, in which are sold not only old clothes, furniture, and utensils, but also new and glittering articles. The inhabitants of this enclosure can, without crossing its limits, procure everything necessary to material life. This quarter contains the old synagogue, a square building begrimed with the dirt of ages, and so covered with dirt and moss that the stone of which it is built is scarcely visible. The building, which is as mournful as a prison, has only narrow loopholes by way of windows, and a door so low that one must stoop to enter it. A dark passage leads to the interior, into which air and light can scarcely penetrate. A few lamps contend with the darkness, and lighted fires serve to modify a little the icy temperature of this cellar. Here and there pillars seem to support a roof which is too high and too darkened for the eye of the visitor to distinguish. On the sides are dark and damp recesses, where women assist at the celebration of worship, which is always carried on, according to ancient custom, with much wailing and strange gestures of the body. The book of the law which is in use is no less venerable than the edifice in which it is contained. It appears that this synagogue has never undergone the slightest repairs or changes for many centuries. The successive generations who have prayed in this ancient temple rest under thousands of sepulchral stones, in a cemetery which is of the same date as the synagogue, and is about a league in circumference.

Paris has never possessed, properly speaking, a regular Jewish quarter; it is true that the Israelites settled down in the neighbourhood of the markets, and in certain narrow streets, which at some period or other took the name of Juiverie or Vieille Juiverie (Old Jewry); but they were never distinct from the rest of the population; they only had a separate cemetery, at the bottom or rather on the slope of the hill of Sainte-GeneviÈve. On the other hand, most of the towns of France and of Europe had their Jewry. In certain countries, the colonies of Jews enjoyed a share of immunities and protections, thus rendering their life a little less precarious, and their occupations of a rather more settled character.

In Spain and in Portugal, the Jews, in consequence of their having been on several occasions useful to the kings of those two countries, were allowed to carry on their trade, and to engage in money speculations, outside their own quarters; a few were elevated to positions of responsibility, and some were even tolerated at court.

In the southern towns of France, which they enriched by commerce and taxes, and where they formed considerable communities, the Jews enjoyed the protection of the nobles. We find them in Languedoc and Provence buying and selling property like Christians, a privilege which was not permitted to them elsewhere: this is proved by charters of contracts made during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, which bear the signature of certain Jews in Hebrew characters. On Papal lands, at Avignon, at Carpentras, and at Cavaillon, they had bailes, or consuls of their nation. The Jews of Rousillon during the Spanish rule (fifteenth century) were governed by two syndics and a scribe, elected by the community. The latter levied the taxes due to the King of Aragon. In Burgundy they cultivated the vines, which was rather singular, for the Jews generally preferred towns where they could form groups more compact, and more capable of mutual assistance. The name of Sabath, given to a vineyard in the neighbourhood of MÂcon, still points out the position of their synagogue. The hamlet of Mouys, a dependency of the communes of Prissey, owes its name to a rich Israelite, Moses, who had received that land as an indemnity for money lent to the Count Gerfroy de MÂcon, which the latter had been unable to repay. In Vienna, where the Israelites had a special quarter, still called the Jews'

Square, a special judge named by the duke was set over them. Exempted from the city rates, they paid a special poil tax, and they contributed, but on the same footing as Christian vassals, to extraordinary rates, war taxes, and travelling expenses of the nobles, &c. This community even became so rich that it eventually held mortgages on the greater part of the houses of the town.

In Venice also, the Jews had their quarter--the Giudecca--which is still one of the darkest in the town; but they did not much care about such trifling inconveniences, as the republic allowed them to bank, that is, to lend money at interest; and although they were driven out on several occasions, they always found means to return and recommence their operations. When they were authorised to establish themselves in the towns of the Adriatic, their presence did not fail to annoy the Christian merchants, whose rivals they were; but neither in Venice nor in the Italian republics had they to fear court intrigues, nor the hatred of corporations of trades, which were so powerful in France and in Germany.

It was in the north of Europe that the animosity against the Jews was greatest. The Christian population continually threatened the Jewish quarters, which public opinion pointed to as haunts and sinks of iniquity. The Jews were believed to be much more amenable to the doctrines of the Talmud than to the laws of Moses. However secret they may have kept their learning, a portion of its tenets transpired, which was supposed to inculcate the right to pillage and murder Christians; and it is to the vague knowledge of these odious prescriptions of the Talmud that we must attribute the readiness with which the most atrocious accusations against the Jews were always welcomed.

Besides this, the public mind in those days of bigotry was naturally filled with a deep antipathy against the Jewish deicides. When monks and priests came annually in Holy week to relate from the pulpit to their hearers the revolting details of the Passion, resentment was kindled in the hearts of the Christians against the descendants of the judges and executioners of the Saviour. And when, on going out of the churches, excited by the sermons they had just heard, the faithful saw in pictures, in the cemeteries, and elsewhere, representations of the mystery of the death of our Saviour, in which the Jews played so odious a part, there was scarcely a spectator who did not feel an increased hatred against the condemned race. Hence it was that in many towns, even when the authorities did not compel them to do so, the Israelites found it prudent to shut themselves up in their own quarter, and even in their own houses, during the whole of Passion week; for, in consequence of the public feeling roused during those days of mourning and penance, a false rumour was quite sufficient to give the people a pretext for offering violence to the Jews.

In fact, from the earliest days of Christianity, a certain number of accusations were always being made, sometimes in one country, sometimes in another, against the Israelites, which always ended in bringing down the same misfortunes on their heads. The most common, and most easily credited report, was that which attributed to them the murder of some Christian child, said to be sacrificed in Passion week in token of their hatred of Christ; and in the event of this terrible accusation being once uttered, and maintained by popular opinion, it never failed to spread with remarkable swiftness. In such cases, popular fury, not being on all occasions satisfied with the tardiness of judicial forms, vented itself upon the first Jews who had the misfortune to fall into the hands of their enemies. As soon as the disturbance was heard the Jewish quarter was closed; fathers and mothers barricaded themselves in with their children, concealed whatever riches they possessed, and listened tremblingly to the clamour of the multitude which was about to besiege them.

In 1255, in Lincoln, the report was suddenly spread that a child of the name of Hughes had been enticed into the Jewish quarter, and there scourged, crucified, and pierced with lances, in the presence of all the Israelites of the district, who were convoked and assembled to take part in this horrible barbarity. The King and Queen of England, on their return from a journey to Scotland, arrived in Lincoln at the very time when the inhabitants were so much agitated by this mysterious announcement. The people called for vengeance. An order was issued to the bailiffs and officers of the King to deliver the murderer into the hands of justice, and the quarter in which the Jews had shut themselves up, so as to avoid the public animosity, was immediately invaded by armed men. The rabbi, in whose house the child was supposed to have been tortured, was seized, and at once condemned to be tied to the tail of a horse, and dragged through the streets of the town. After this, his mangled body, which was only half dead, was hung (Fig. 359). Many of the Jews ran away and hid themselves in all parts of the kingdom, and those who had the misfortune to be caught were thrown into chains and led to London. Orders were given in the provinces to imprison all the Israelites who were accused or even suspected of having taken any part, whether actively or indirectly, in the murder of the Lincoln child; and suspicion made rapid strides in those days. In a short space of time, eighteen Israelites in London shared the fate of the rabbi of their community in Lincoln. Some Dominican monks, who were charitable and courageous enough to interfere in favour of the wretched prisoners, brought down odium on their own heads, and were accused of having allowed themselves to be corrupted by the money of the Jews. Seventy-one prisoners were retained in the dungeons of London, and seemed inevitably fated to die, when the king's brother, Richard, came to their aid, by asserting his right over all the Jews of the kingdom--a right which the King had pledged to him for a loan of 5,000 silver marks. The unfortunate prisoners were therefore saved, thanks to Richard's desire to protect his securities. History does not tell what their liberty cost them; but we must hope that a sense of justice alone guided the English prince, and that the Jews found other means besides money by which to show their gratitude.

There is scarcely a country in Europe which cannot recount similar tales. In 1171, we find the murder of a child at Orleans, or Blois, causing capital punishment to be inflicted on several Jews. Imputations of this horrible character were continually renewed during the Middle Ages, and were of very ancient origin; for we hear of them in the times of Honorius and Theodosius the younger; we find them reproduced with equal vehemence in 1475 at Trent, where a furious mob was excited against the Jews, who were accused of having destroyed a child twenty-nine months old named Simon. The tale of the martyrdom of this child was circulated widely, and woodcut representations of it were freely distributed, which necessarily increased, especially in Germany, the horror which was aroused in the minds of Christians against the accursed nation (Fig. 361).

The Jews gave cause for other accusations calculated to keep up this hatred; such as the desecration of the consecrated host, the mutilation of the crucifix. Tradition informs us of a miracle which took place in Paris in 1290, in the Rue des Jardins, when a Jew dared to mutilate and boil a consecrated host. This miracle was commemorated by the erection of a chapel on the spot, which was afterwards replaced by the church and convent of the Billettes. In 1370, the people of Brussels were startled in consequence of the statements of a Jewess, who accused her co-religionists of having made her carry a pyx full of stolen hosts to the Jews of Cologne, for the purpose of submitting them to the most horrible profanations. The woman added, that the Jews having pierced these hosts with sticks and knives, such a quantity of blood poured from them that the culprits were struck with terror, and concealed themselves in their quarter. The Jews were all imprisoned, tortured, and burnt alive (Fig. 362). In order to perpetuate the memory of the miracle of the bleeding hosts, an annual procession took place, which was the origin of the great kermesse, or annual fair.

In the event of any unforeseen misfortune, or any great catastrophe occurring amongst Christians, the odium was frequently cast on the Jews. If the Crusaders met with reverses in Asia, fanatics formed themselves into bands, who, under the name of Pastoureaux, spread over the country, killing and robbing not only the Jews, but many Christians also. In the event of any general sickness, and especially during the prevalence of epidemics, the Jews were accused of having poisoned the water of fountains and pits, and the people massacred them in consequence. Thousands perished in this way when the black plague made ravages in Europe in the fourteenth century. The sovereigns, who were tardy in suppressing these sanguinary proceedings, never thought of indemnifying the Jewish families which so unjustly suffered.

In fact, it was then most religiously believed that, by despising and holding the Jewish nation under the yoke, banished as it was from JudÆa for the murder of Jesus Christ, the will of the Almighty was being carried out, so much so that the greater number of kings and princes looked upon themselves as absolute masters over the Jews who lived under their protection. All feudal lords spoke with scorn of their Jews; they allowed them to establish themselves on their lands, but on the condition that as they became the subjects and property of their lord, the latter should draw his best income from them.

We have shown by an instance borrowed from the history of England that the Jews were often mortgaged by the kings like land. This was not all, for the Jews who inhabited Great Britain during the reign of Henry III., in the middle of the thirteenth century, were not only obliged to acknowledge, by voluntarily contributing large sums of money, the service the King's brother had rendered them in clearing them from the imputation of having had any participation in the murder of the child Richard, but the loan on mortgage, for which they were the material and passive security, became the cause of odious extortions from them. The King had pledged them to the Earl of Cornwall for 5,000 marks, but they themselves had to repay the royal loan by means of enormous taxes. When they had succeeded in cancelling the King's debt to his brother, that necessitous monarch again mortgaged them, but on this occasion to his son Edward. Soon after, the son having rebelled against his father, the latter took back his Jews, and having assembled six elders from each of their communities, he told them that he required 20,000 silver marks, and ordered them to pay him that sum at two stated periods. The payments were rigorously exacted; those who were behind-hand were imprisoned, and the debtor who was in arrear for the second payment was sued for the whole sum. On the King's death his successor continued the same system of tyranny against the Jews. In 1279 they were charged with having issued counterfeit coin, and on this vague or imaginary accusation two hundred and eighty men and women were put to death in London alone. In the counties there were also numerous executions, and many innocent persons were thrown into dungeons; and, at last, in 1290 King Edward, who wished to enrich himself by taking possession of their properties, banished the Jews from his kingdom. A short time before this, the English people had offered to pay an annual fine to the King on condition of his expelling the Jews from the country; but the Jews outbid them, and thus obtained the repeal of the edict of banishment. However, on this last occasion there was no mercy shown, and the Jews, sixteen thousand in number, were expelled from England, and the King seized upon their goods.

At the same period Philippe le Bel of France gave the example of this system of persecuting the Jews, but, instead of confiscating all their goods, he was satisfied with taking one-fifth; his subjects, therefore, almost accused him of generosity.

The Jews often took the precaution of purchasing certain rights and franchises from their sovereign or from the feudal lord under whose sway they lived; but generally these were one-sided bargains, for not being protected by common rights, and only forming a very small part of the population, they could nowhere depend upon promises or privileges which had been made to them, even though they had purchased them with their own money.

To the uncertainty and annoyance of a life which was continually being threatened, was added a number of vexatious and personal insults, even in ordinary times, and when they enjoyed a kind of normal tolerance. They were almost everywhere obliged to wear a visible mark on their dress, such as a patch of gaudy colour attached to the shoulder or chest, in order to prevent their being mistaken for Christians. By this or some other means they were continually subject to insults from the people, and only succeeded in ridding themselves of it by paying the most enormous fines. Nothing was spared to humiliate and insult them. At Toulouse they were forced to send a representative to the cathedral on every Good Friday, that he might there publicly receive a box on the ears. At BÉziers, during Passion week, the mob assumed the right of attacking the Jews' houses with stones. The Jews bought off this right in 1160 by paying a certain sum to the Vicomte de BÉziers, and by promising an annual poll-tax to him and to his successors. A Jew, passing on the road of Etampes, beneath the tower of MontlhÉry, had to pay an obole; if he had in his possession a Hebrew book, he paid four deniers; and, if he carried his lamp with him, two oboles. At ChÂteauneuf-sur-Loire a Jew on passing had to pay twelve deniers and a Jewess six. It has been said that there were various ancient rates levied upon Jews, in which they were treated like cattle, but this requires authentication. During the Carnival in Rome they were forced to run in the lists, amidst the jeers of the populace. This public outrage was stopped at a subsequent period by a tax of 300 Écus, which a deputation from the Ghetto presented on their knees to the magistrates of the city, at the same time thanking them for their protection.

When Pope Martin IV. arrived at the Council of Constance, in 1417, the Jewish community, which was as numerous as it was powerful in that old city, came in great state to present him with the book of the law (Fig. 364). The holy father received the Jews kindly, and prayed God to open their eyes and bring them back into the bosom of his church. We know, too, how charitable the popes were to the Jews.

In the face of the distressing position they occupied, it may be asked what powerful motive induced the Jews to live amongst nations who almost invariably treated them as enemies, and to remain at the mercy of sovereigns whose sole object was to oppress, plunder, and subject them to all kinds of vexations? To understand this it is sufficient to remember that, in their peculiar aptness for earning and hoarding money, they found, or at least hoped to find, a means of compensation whereby they might be led to forget the servitude to which they were subjected.

There existed amongst them, and especially in the southern countries, some very learned men, who devoted themselves principally to medicine; and in order to avoid having to struggle against insuperable prejudice, they were careful to disguise their nationality and religion in the exercise of that art.

They pretended, in order not to arouse the suspicion of their patients, to be practitioners from Lombardy or Spain, or even from Arabia; whether they were really clever, or only made a pretence of being so, in an art which was then very much a compound of quackery and imposture, it is difficult to say, but they acquired wealth as well as renown in its practice. But there was another science, to the study of which they applied themselves with the utmost ardour and perseverance, and for which they possessed in a marvellous degree the necessary qualities to insure success, and that science was the science of finance. In matters having reference to the recovering of arrears of taxes, to contracts for the sale of goods and produce of industry, to turning a royalty to account, to making hazardous commercial enterprises lucrative, or to the accumulating of large sums of money for the use of sovereigns or poor nobles, the Jews were always at hand, and might invariably be reckoned upon. They created capital, for they always had funds to dispose of, even in the midst of the most terrible public calamities, and, when all other means were exhausted, when all expedients for filling empty purses had been resorted to without success, the Jews were called in. Often, in consequence of the envy which they excited from being known to possess hoards of gold, they were exposed to many dangers, which they nevertheless faced, buoying themselves up with the insatiable love of gain.

Few Christians in the Middle Ages were given to speculation, and they were especially ignorant of financial matters, as demanding interest on loans was almost always looked upon as usury, and, consequently, such dealings were stigmatized as disgraceful. The Jews were far from sharing these high-minded scruples, and they took advantage of the ignorance of Christians by devoting themselves as much as possible to enterprises and speculations, which were at all times the distinguishing occupation of their race. For this reason we find the Jews, who were engaged in the export trade from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, doing a most excellent business, even in the commercial towns of the Mediterranean. We can, to a certain extent, in speaking of the intercourse of the Jews with the Christians of the Middle Ages, apply what Lady Montague remarked as late as 1717, when comparing the Jews of Turkey with the Mussulmans: "The former," she says, "have monopolized all the commerce of the empire, thanks to the close ties which exist amongst them, and to the laziness and want of industry of the Turks. No bargain is made without their connivance. They are the physicians and stewards of all the nobility. It is easy to conceive the unity which this gives to a nation which never despises the smallest profits. They have found means of rendering themselves so useful, that they are certain of protection at court, whoever the ruling minister may be. Many of them are enormously rich, but they are careful to make but little outward display, although living in the greatest possible luxury."

The condition of the Jews in the East was never so precarious nor so difficult as it was in the West. From the Councils of Paris, in 615, down to the end of the fifteenth century, the nobles and the civil and ecclesiastical authorities excluded the Jews from administrative positions; but it continually happened that a positive want of money, against which the Jews were ever ready to provide, caused a repeal or modification of these arbitrary measures. Moreover, Christians did not feel any scruple in parting with their most valued treasures, and giving them as pledges to the Jews for a loan of money when they were in need of it. This plan of lending on pledge, or usury, belonged specially to the Jews in Europe during the Middle Ages, and was both the cause of their prosperity and of their misfortune. Of their prosperity, because they cleverly contrived to become possessors of all the coin; and of their misfortune, because their usurious demands became so detrimental to the public welfare, and were often exacted with such unscrupulous severity, that people not unfrequently became exasperated, and acts of violence were committed, which as often fell upon the innocent as upon the guilty. The greater number of the acts of banishment were those for which no other motive was assigned, or, at all events, no other pretext was made, than the usury practised by these strangers in the provinces and in the towns in which they were permitted to reside. When the Christians heard that these rapacious guests had harshly pressed and entirely stripped certain poor debtors, when they learned that the debtors, ruined by usury, were still kept prisoners in the house of their pitiless creditors, general indignation often manifested itself by personal attacks. This feeling was frequently shared by the authorities themselves, who, instead of dispensing equal justice to the strangers and to the citizens, according to the spirit of the law, often decided with partiality, and even with resentment, and in some cases abandoned the Jews to the fury of the people.

The people's feelings of hatred against the sordid avarice of the Jews was continually kept up by ballads which were sung, and legends which were related, in the public streets of the cities and in the cottages of the villages--ballads and legends in which usurers were depicted in hideous colours (Fig. 366). The most celebrated of these popular compositions was evidently that which must have furnished the idea to Shakespeare of the Merchant of Venice, for in this old English drama mention is made of a bargain struck between a Jew and a Christian, who borrows money of him, on condition that, if he cannot refund it on a certain day, the lender shall have the right of cutting a pound of flesh from his body. All the evil which the people said and thought of the Jews during the Middle Ages seems concentrated in the Shylock of the English poet.

The rate of interest for loans was, nevertheless, everywhere settled by law, and at all times. This rate varied according to the scarcity of gold, and was always high enough to give a very ample profit to the lenders, although they too often required a very much higher rate. In truth, the small security offered by those borrowing, and the arbitrary manner in which debts were at times cancelled, increased the risks of the lender and the normal difficulties of obtaining a loan. We find everywhere, in all ancient legislations, a mass of rules on the rate of pecuniary interest to be allowed to the Jews.

In some countries, especially in England, precautionary measures were taken for regulating the compacts entered into between Christians and Jews. One of the departments of the Exchequer received the register of these compacts, which thus acquired a legal value. However, it was not unfrequent for the kings of England to grant, of their own free will, letters of release to persons owing money to Jews; and these letters, which were often equivalent to the cancelling of the entire debt, were even at times actually purchased from the sovereign. Mention of sums received by the royal treasury for the liberation of debtors, or for enabling them to recover their mortgaged lands without payment, may still be found in the registers of the Exchequer of London; at the same time, Jews, on the other hand, also paid the King large sums, in order that he might allow justice to take its course against powerful debtors who were in arrear, and who could not be induced to pay. We thus see that if the Jews practised usury, the Christians, and especially kings and powerful nobles, defrauded the Jews in every way, and were too often disposed to sell to them the smallest concessions at a great price. Indeed, Christians often went so far as to persecute them, in order to obtain the greatest possible amount from them; and the Jews of the Middle Ages put up with anything provided they could enrich themselves.

It must not be supposed, however, that, great as were their capabilities, the Jews exclusively devoted themselves to financial matters. When they were permitted to trade they were well satisfied to become artisans or agriculturists. In Spain they proved themselves most industrious, and that kingdom suffered a great loss in consequence of their being expelled from it. In whatever country they established themselves, the Jews carried on most of the mechanical and manual industries with cleverness and success; but they could not hope to become landed proprietors in countries where they were in such bad odour, and where the possession of land, far from offering them any security, could not fail to excite the envy of their enemies.

If, as is the case, Oriental people are of a serious turn of mind, it is easy to understand that the Jews should have been still more so, since they were always objects of hatred and abhorrence. We find a touching allegory in the Talmud. Each time that a human being is created God orders his angels to bring a soul before his throne, and orders this soul to go and inhabit the body which is about to be born on earth. The soul is grieved, and supplicates the Supreme Being to spare it that painful trial, in which it only sees sorrow and affliction. This allegory may be suitably applied to a people who have only to expect contempt, mistrust, and hatred, everywhere. The Israelites, therefore, clung enthusiastically to the hope of the advent of a Messiah who should bring back to them the happy days of the land of promise, and they looked upon their absence from Palestine as only a passing exile. "But," the Christians said to them, "this Messiah has long since come." "Alas!" they answered, "if He had appeared on earth should we still be miserable?" Fulbert, Bishop of Chartres, preached three sermons to undeceive the Jews, by endeavouring to prove to them that their Messiah was no other than Jesus Christ; but he preached to the winds, for the Jews remained obstinately attached to their illusion that the Messiah was yet to come.

In any case, the Jews, who mixed up the mysteries and absurdities of the Talmud with the ancient laws and numerous rules of the religion of their ancestors, found in the practice of their national customs, and in the celebration of their mysterious ceremonies, the sweetest emotions, especially when they could devote themselves to them in the peaceful retirement of the Ghetto; for, in all the countries in which they lived scattered and isolated amongst Christians, they were careful to conceal their worship and to conduct their ceremonial as secretly as possible.

The clergy, in striving to convert the Jews, repeatedly had conferences with the rabbis of a controversial character, which often led to quarrels, and aggravated the lot of the Jewish community. If Catholic proselystism succeeded in completely detaching a few individuals or a few families from the Israelitish creed, these ardent converts rekindled the horror of the people against their former co-religionists by revealing some of the precepts of the Talmud. Sometimes the conversion of whole masses of Jews was effected, but this happened much less through conviction on their part than through the fear of exile, plunder, or execution.

These pretended conversions, however, did not always protect them from danger. In Spain the Inquisition kept a close watch on converted Jews, and, if they were not true to their new faith, severe punishment was inflicted upon them. In 1506, the inhabitants of AbrantÈs, a town of Portugal, massacred all the baptized Jews. ManoËl, a king of Portugal, forbad the converts from selling their goods and leaving his dominions. The Church excluded them from ecclesiastical dignities, and, when they succeeded in obtaining civil employments, they were received with distrust. In France the Parliaments tried, with a show of justice, to prevent converted Jews from being reproached for their former condition; but Louis XII., during his pressing wants, did not scruple to exact a special tax from them. And, in 1611, we again find that they were unjustly denounced, and under the form of a Remonstrance to the King and the Parliament of Provence, on account of the great family alliances of the new converts, an appeal was made for the most cruel reprisals against this unfortunate race, "which deserved only to be banished and their goods confiscated."