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Whilst in southern France and Spain the balance was inclining now to one side, now to the other, in the dispute about the admission of scientific studies into Jewish circles, the German communities were passing through a series of the most deplorable events, which drove to Spain a man who spoke the deciding word in favor of the excommunication and proscription of free inquiry. He was of high morality, rare disinterestedness, of pure aspiration and sincere piety, and possessed profound Talmudical learning, but was filled with the fanatical hate of his countrymen against profane knowledge. The emigration of Asheri or Asher from Germany to Spain inaugurates an unhappy period for the Spanish and Proven?al Jews in their efforts for the progress of culture.

Asher ben Yechiel of the Rhine district, sprang from ancestors who centered their whole world in the Talmud. A disciple of the celebrated Me?r of Rothenburg, Asher acquired the acute Tossafist method, composed Tossafist works, but had a finer sense of system and order than this school. After the death of his master, whose corpse the unprincipled emperor, Adolph of Nassau, refused to give up for burial without remuneration, Asheri was reckoned among the most influential rabbinical authorities of Germany. A paroxysm of persecutions of the Jews broke out in his time, far worse than those during the crusades; it robbed thousands of innocent men of their lives, or sentenced them to a lot worse than death. A civil war raged at that time in Germany between Adolph of Nassau and Albrecht of Austria, who were contending for the empty glitter of the German crown. This strife promised impunity for audacious attacks on the Jews, who were proscribed by the church and society, and an opportunity was easily found. A report was spread that the Jews of the little town of R?ttingen had desecrated a sacramental wafer and pounded it in a mortar, and blood was said to have flowed from it. A nobleman of the place, named Rindfleisch, took up the cause of the host alleged to have been desecrated, declared that he had received a mission from heaven to root out the accursed race of Jews, and gathered a credulous, besotted mob around him to assist in his bloody intentions. He and his troops first of all consigned the Jews of R?ttingen to the flames . From this place the rabble of slaughterers, under Rindfleisch's leadership, traveled from town to town, always swelling their numbers with others of their description, and destroyed all the Jews who fell into their hands, even those converted to Christianity. Rindfleisch, impelled by audacity and spurious enthusiasm, fairly forced the inhabitants of various towns to ill-treat their Jewish fellow-citizens brutally. The great community of W?rzburg was completely blotted out . In Nuremberg the Jews had at first fled for refuge into the fortress, but being attacked there, too, they took to arms, and though assisted by humane Christians, were overpowered at last, and all butchered . Asheri's relative and fellow-student, Mordecai ben Hillel, who had compiled a very important rabbinical work, fell at about the same time, together with his wife and five children. Many parents, lest their children from fear of death should renounce their faith, threw them with their own hands into the flames, and plunged in after them. In Bavaria the congregations of Ratisbon and Augsburg were the only ones to escape the slaughter. In the first city, where they had the right of citizenship from time immemorial, the mayor protected them with great zeal. In Augsburg, too, the mayor and council defended them against the destroyers, Rindfleisch and his horde.

This bloody persecution spread from Franconia and Bavaria to Austria, swept away more than a hundred and forty congregations and more than 100,000 Jews, and lasted nearly half a year. The Jews of Germany all trembled, and were prepared to meet destruction. This would certainly have come if the civil war in Germany had not been brought to an end by the death of Emperor Adolph, and the election of Albrecht. The second Habsburger energetically restored the country to a state of peace, brought to book the perpetrators of the outrages on the Jews, and imposed fines on the towns which had participated in them, on the ground that he had suffered losses in his purse through the immolation of his "servi camerae" and their goods. The majority of the Jews baptized through fear returned to Judaism, apparently with the connivance of the emperor and the representatives of the church. The after-throes of this massacre were likewise bitter enough. The wives of those who had perished could not authenticate the death of their husbands through Jewish witnesses, as no men remained alive competent to give testimony. They could appeal only to the statement of baptized Jews, whose evidence was considered by many rabbis to be invalid according to the Talmudical marriage laws. Asheri, however, was sensible enough to unbend from this strictness, and allowed the widows to marry again on the evidence of baptized Jews returned to Judaism.

Asheri did not feel very secure in Germany after this bloody massacre, or perhaps he was threatened with danger on the part of Emperor Albrecht. It was said that the emperor demanded of him the sum of money which the Jews were to pay as ransom for the imprisoned Me?r of Rothenburg, for which Asheri had become security. He accordingly left Germany , and traveled from one country to another with his wife, his eight sons and grandsons, and on account of his reputation, he was everywhere treated with the utmost respect, especially in Montpellier, even before the breaking out of the controversy. He finally settled in Toledo, the largest city of Spain . With joy the illustrious German rabbi was installed by the Toledo congregation in the vacant rabbinate. With Asheri the dismal spirit of over-piety, so hostile to knowledge, entered into the Spanish capital.

Asheri did not conceal his antipathy to profane culture. He could not conceive how pious Jews, in southern France and in Spain, could occupy themselves with subjects outside of the Talmud. With the utmost scorn he discountenanced the very aspiration of the Spanish and Proven?al Jews on which they prided themselves. He thanked his Creator that He had protected him from the baneful influence of science. He did not give the southern Frenchmen and the Spanish Jews credit for thoroughness even in knowledge of the Talmud, and maintained that the German and northern French Jews alone had inherited wisdom from the time of the destruction of the Temple. A man like this, incapable of appreciating the sciences, and harboring enmity to everything not in the Talmud, was bound to exercise an influence prejudicial to knowledge. Next to him Solomon ben Adret himself appeared more or less of a freethinker. Abba-Mari forthwith availed himself of the man, from whom he expected effectual support for his party. He requested him to express his views on the pending question. Asheri, of course, gave Abba-Mari his unqualified approval, but was of opinion that he did not go far enough, for the evil would not be eradicated, if the pursuit of the sciences were allowed at a ripe age. The poison of heresy had spread too far, every one was infected by it, and the pious were open to the reproach that they shut their eyes to it. His proposal was that a synod should be convoked, and a resolution be taken that study was to be devoted solely to the Talmud, while the sciences were to be pursued only when it was neither day nor night--that is, not at all. This exclusive fidelity to the Talmud, which rejected all compromise, advocated by an energetic man of pure character, made an overpowering impression on the unsettled minds of Spanish Jews. Ben Adret himself, who had hitherto always hesitated to lead the movement, all at once declared that he was prepared to pronounce the ban, if Abba-Mari and the prince, Kalonymos, would prepare it. An officious zealot, Samson ben Me?r, disciple of Ben Adret, took upon himself to collect assenting signatures from twenty congregations. Toledo was especially reckoned upon, having been swayed by Asheri's mind, and next, Castile generally, which as a rule followed the guidance of the head community.

How artificial and opposed to the sentiment of the majority this zeal was, became apparent especially in the congregation of Montpellier, styled the tower of Zion by Abba-Mari's party. In this congregation the zealots did not venture to collect signatures for the sentence of excommunication. As if in defiance, one of the Tibbonides announced that he would give a reading from Anatoli's book of sermons on a certain Sabbath, and immediately drew a numerous audience. Abba-Mari, who had repeatedly boasted to Ben Adret of his mighty influence, and had persuaded him that the whole congregation, except a few deluded people, were on his side, now had to admit that Montpellier was not to be reckoned upon in this affair. In the consciousness that their party was in a minority in southern France, the two leaders, Abba-Mari and Kalonymos, of Narbonne, made the ecclesiastical ban unexpectedly mild, both as to wording and contents. First, the reading of works on natural science and of metaphysical books only was to be prohibited, all other branches of learning being expressly allowed. Secondly, the writings of Jewish authors, even those dealing with natural science or metaphysics, were to be excluded from the inhibition. Abba-Mari, with a view to meeting his adversaries half-way, had made the proposal to fix the period when the study of every department of learning was to be allowed, not at the thirtieth, but at the twenty-fifth year of the student's age. Ben Adret, however, who could not tolerate half-measures nor brook retreat, had now become more severe. He who formerly had to be driven and urged on, now became the propeller. Asheri's influence is not to be mistaken. On the Sabbath of Lamentation in commemoration of the destruction of Jerusalem, he and his colleagues ordered the anathema against the study of the sciences to be read amid solemn ceremonies, the scroll of the Law in the arms of the reader . Whoever read any scientific book before the twenty-fifth year of his age was liable to the penalty of excommunication. The ban was to remain in force for half a century. The philosophical expounders of Holy Writ were doomed in the hereafter, and in this world subjected to excommunication, and their writings condemned to be burnt. As no exception was made of scientific works composed in Hebrew, according to the formulation of the ban, not only Anatoli's book of sermons was exposed to proscription, but also Maimuni's philosophical writings. Ben Adret and his college allowed only the study of medicine, on the ground that its practice is permitted in the Talmud. This was the first heresy-tribunal in Jewish history, and Ben Adret was at its head. The Dominicans had found docile emulators among the Jews.

According to the communal system in the Middle Ages, every congregation was independent, and the resolutions of one congregation had no force with another. The ban accordingly had validity only in Barcelona, unless some other congregation confirmed it. Ben Adret, however, labored to have it adopted by other congregations. The sentence, signed by Ben Adret, his two sons, and more than thirty of the most influential members of the Barcelona congregation, was dispatched to the congregations of Spain, Languedoc, northern France, and Germany. But the ban was not so readily adopted as the authorities of Barcelona had flattered themselves it would be. Jacob ben Machir and his party had already received notice that a blow was being meditated against them, and accordingly made preparations for a countermove. They resolved from the first to frustrate the effect of the ecclesiastical interdict of the study of science. They drew up a resolution in Montpellier which contained three important points. A sentence of excommunication was to fall upon those who, out of religious scruples, ventured to debar or withdraw their sons, whatever their youth, from the study of any science whatsoever, regardless of the language in which it was treated; secondly, upon those who presumed to utter an irreverent or abusive word against the great Maimuni, and, lastly, also upon those who presumed to denounce a religious author on account of his philosophical system. The last point was introduced for the sake of Anatoli's memory, which his opponents had vilified. Thus there was ban against ban. Jacob Tibbon and his friends caused their resolution in favor of science and its advocates to be announced in the synagogue, and the great majority of the congregation of Montpellier took his side. Party zeal, however, impelled the Tibbonides to take an ill-advised step, which threatened to produce the same evil consequences as had ensued at the time of the first conflict in Montpellier with the obscurantists. As Jacob ben Machir Profatius and others of his party had influence with the governor of the city, they wished to secure his assistance in the event of their opponents' endeavoring violently to carry the Barcelona interdict into effect. The governor, however, explained to them that he was interested only in one point: that the Jewish youth should not be prevented from reading other than Talmudical works. He should strongly deprecate any attempt to discourage the study of extra-Talmudical literature, because, as he frankly expressed himself, he would not consent to their being deprived through fear of excommunication of the means to potential conversion to Christianity. To the other points he was indifferent.

Abba-Mari and his party were now in despair on account of the activity of their opponents. As the resolution in favor of the unrestricted study of science had been adopted by the majority of the community, according to rabbinical law it was binding on the minority as well, and therefore on their leader, and they could not legally stand by the interdict of Barcelona. Thus the zealots, the provokers of the conflict, had their hands tied, and were caught in their own net. They did what they could; they protested against the resolution of the Tibbonides, and advertised their protest far and wide. But they could not conceal that they had suffered a defeat, and were obliged to consult certain authorities as to whether the resolutions of the Tibbonides were binding on them. Ben Adret was thus placed in an embarrassing position. The party of Jacob ben Machir believed, or wished to have it believed, that the prohibition of the rabbis of Barcelona in reference to the study of scientific books, was meant to apply to Maimuni's works, too. They obtained the credit of having taken up the cudgels in behalf of Maimuni's honor, and of contending for the glory of Judaism; whilst their opponents, Ben Adret included, through their narrow-mindedness and obstinacy, were exposing their religion to the scorn of educated Christians. The vindicators of science seemed to be continually gaining in public opinion. There now appeared on their side a young poet, whose eloquent defense, written in a highly imaginative style, made a great impression. It gives a faithful picture of the feeling and excitement which agitated the souls of the champions of science, and, therefore, awakens interest even in the present day. In a modest manner, but with manly spirit, the poet tells Ben Adret truths which he never had the opportunity of hearing in his own circle. This young poet, more famous through his letter than through his verses, was Yedaya En-Bonet ben Abraham, better known under the name of Bedaresi and under the poetical pseudonym of Penini . Yedaya Penini, son of the bombastic poet, Abraham Bedaresi, had more talent as a poet than his father. He possessed a lively imagination and overflowing wealth of language, and lacked only restraining tact, and a dignified, universally acceptable, uplifting aim for poetry. This deficiency gave his poems the appearance of empty grandiloquence and artificiality. He had inherited the defect of his father, inability to control the superabundance of words by the law of beauty. He was too ornate, and he moralized, instead of elevating and impressing. In his seventeenth year Yedaya Bedaresi wrote a book of morals , and in his earliest years, whilst his father was still alive, he composed a prayer of about one hundred verses, in which all the words begin with the same letter , and which his father, and perhaps his contemporaries, admired, but which is nevertheless very insipid. An admirer of Maimuni and Ibn Ezra, Bedaresi considered science and philosophy of equal importance with Judaism, or, like most thoughtful men of that time, he believed that the one contained the other.

Bedaresi conceived that his deepest convictions had been assailed by Ben Adret's anathema, and that it had in reality been directed against Maimuni's name, and, therefore, he could not restrain himself from addressing a sharp rebuke to the excommunicators. As he lived in Montpellier and was certainly attached to Jacob ben Machir's party, it is quite probable that he wrote the defense of Maimuni and of science, sent to Ben Adret, at their instigation . This missive, like most of those written in this controversy, was intended not only for the individual addressed, but for the Jewish reading public in general. After Bedaresi had expressed his respect for the upright, learned rabbi of Barcelona, he remarked that he and his friends were not indignant about the ban, for science was invulnerable, and could not be injured by the fulmination of excommunicators. They were only hurt that Ben Adret should brand the Jewish congregations of southern France as heretics and renegades, and expose them to contempt in his message to many congregations and countries. Ben Adret, he continued, had allowed himself to be taken in tow by Abba-Mari, and had made a mountain of a mole-hill. From time immemorial, from Saadiah's age, science was not only tolerated in Judaism, but cherished and fostered, because its importance in religious knowledge was indisputable. Moreover, the denouncers of heresy were not consistent; they excluded the science of medicine from the ban, although this science, like every other, had a side which was in conflict with religion. How could they dare impugn the writings of Maimuni, whose dazzling personality outshone all his great predecessors? At the end, Yedaya Bedaresi observed that violent faction fights had broken out in Montpellier. Did they wish to continue to foment party strife, that the absence of unity among the Jews might occasion the Christians unholy satisfaction? "We cannot give up science; it is as the breath to our nostrils. Even if Joshua would appear and forbid it, we could not obey him, for we have a warranty, who outweighs you all, Maimuni, who has recommended it, and impressed it upon us. We are ready to set our goods, our children, and our very lives at stake for it." In conclusion, he invited Ben Adret to advise his friends in Montpellier to relinquish heresy hunting, and desist from stirring the fire of discord.

Ben Adret and several who had signed the decree of excommunication, Moses Iskafat Meles and Solomon Gracian, were so unpleasantly affected by Bedaresi's letter, and feared its effect so much, that they hastened to offer the explanation that they had in no wise animadverted upon Maimuni's writings, whom they revered in the highest degree. They even exhorted Abba-Mari's party to make peace with their opponents, to vindicate their dignity before their common enemy. But the controversy was now at a stage when it could no longer be settled peaceably. The mutual bitterness was too violent, and had become too personal. Each party claimed to be in the right from its own standpoint; neither could consent to a compromise nor make concessions. Each adhered to its own principles; the one sought to enforce the freedom of science, the other protested that Jewish youth, before maturity, must be guarded from the deleterious poison of knowledge. Whilst the adherents of Abba-Mari were seeking legal decisions to prove the ban of their opponents unauthorized, a sad event happened, which, like a whirlwind, tore friends asunder, and dashed enemies against each other.

THE FIRST EXPULSION OF THE JEWS FROM FRANCE, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

Philip le Bel--The Jews of France plundered and banished-- Estori Parchi; Aaron Cohen; Laments of Bedaresi--Eleazar of Chinon, the Martyr--Return of the Jews to France; their Precarious Position--Progress of the Controversy regarding the Study of Philosophy--Abba-Mari and Asheri--Death of Ben Adret--Rabbinical Revival in Spain--Isaac Israeli II-- Samuel and the Queen Maria Molina--Don Juan Emanuel and Judah Ibn-Wakar--The Jews of Rome--Robert of Naples and the Jews--Peril of the Jews in Rome--Kalonymos ben Kalonymos, his Satires--Immanuel and Dante--The Poet Judah Siciliano-- Leone Romano and King Robert--Shemarya Ikriti--Position of Karaism--Aaron the Elder and the Prayer-Book of the Karaites.

How many of the refugees, reduced to beggary, fell victims to the hardships of their journey cannot be known. The bitter plaints of those oppressed by the heavy affliction sound mournful and touching even at this distance of time. Estori Parchi, then a youth of many accomplishments and noble heart, a relative of Jacob ben Machir, whose parents had emigrated from Spain to southern France, thus describes his sorrow: "From the house of study have they torn me; naked was I forced as a young man to leave my ancestral home, and wander from land to land, from people to people, whose tongues were strange to me." Parchi at length found a resting-place in Palestine. Another fugitive, the learned Aaron Cohen of Narbonne, poured forth this elegy: "Unhappy me, I saw the misery of the banishment of the sons of Jacob, like a herd of cattle driven asunder. From a position of honor I was thrown into a land of darkness." The sudden turn of fortune which changed rich men into beggars, and exposed the delicate and those used to the comforts of life to bitter privation, filled the bombastic poet Yedaya Bedaresi with gloomy reflections. In vivid colors he painted the trouble and pain of life, and man's helplessness and nothingness. His "Trial of the World" , suggested by personal observation and bitter experience, consequently makes a depressing and mournful impression, and reflects faithfully the melancholy feelings of the ill-starred race.

The expulsion of the Jews from France by the stony-hearted Philip le Bel did not come off without martyred victims. Those who transgressed the time of grace, yet rejected solicitations to abjure their faith, were punished by death. A martyr of this time, Eleazar ben Joseph of Chinon, is specially famous. He was a learned, noble-minded man, a correspondent of Ben Adret, master of many distinguished disciples, among them the youthful Parchi, one of the last of the Tossafist school. He was condemned to the stake, although no crime could be laid at his door except that he was a Jew. With him died two brothers. The expatriated Jews dispersed in all parts of the world; many traveled to Palestine. But the majority remained as near as possible to the French borders, in Provence proper, at that time partly under German suzerainty, in the province of Roussillon, which belonged to the Aragonian king of Majorca, and in that island. Their intention was to wait for a favorable change of fortune, which would permit them to return to the land of their birth. They had not speculated falsely. King Philip himself was induced by avarice to unbend from his severity.

This view, that qualities prejudicial to Judaism were inherent in science, gained supremacy after Ben Adret's death , when Asheri was acknowledged in Spain and in the neighboring countries as the only authority in religious matters. Asheri, his sons and companions who had migrated with him from Germany, transplanted from the Rhine to vivacious Toledo that spirit of honest, but tormenting, narrow-minded and intolerant piety; that gloomy disposition which regards even harmless joy as a sin; that feeling of abjectness, which characterized the German Jews of the Middle Ages, and they inoculated the Spanish Jews with it. The free activity of the mind was checked. Asheri concentrated all his mental power on the Talmud and its exposition. His chief work was a compilation of the Talmud for practical use . On all occasions he endeavored to enforce a difficult, painful, and severe discipline. If any one desired to express his thoughts on any department of knowledge whatsoever, he had to array his subject in the garments of contrite orthodoxy. When the erudite Isaac ben Joseph Israeli II, of Toledo, published an astronomical work , he had to adjust it to Talmudical standards, and introduce it by a confession of faith, for only in this manner could he find grace in Asheri's eyes.

Don Ferdinand's death brought in its train a time of unquiet, of civil war, and social anarchy for Spain. As the Infante Alfonso was still a child in the cradle, several persons, the clever Maria de Molina, the young queen-mother Constantia, and the uncles of the young king contended for the guardianship and the regency, and provoked faction feuds in the country . Donna Maria de Molina, who conducted the government, did not extend her hate against her son's Jewish counselor to the community to which he belonged. As in the lifetime of her husband she had had a Jewish favorite, Todros Abulafia, so during her regency she had a Jewish treasurer, Don Moses. When the council of Zamora renewed canonical laws hostile to the Jews, the cortes of Burgos demanded the exclusion of Jews from all honors and offices, and the pope issued a bull that Christians were to be absolved from their debts to Jews on account of usury, the wise regent submitted only in part. She ordered that Jews should not bear high-sounding Christian names, nor enter into close intercourse with Christians; but she most emphatically declared herself against the unjust abolition of debts, and published a law that no debtor could make himself free of his obligation to professors of the Jewish faith by appealing to a papal bull.

The regency of Don Juan Emanuel inaugurated an improvement in the condition of the Castilian Jews . The regent was a friend of learning, himself an author and poet, and was consequently held in esteem by educated Jews. A Jew of Cordova, Jehuda ben Isaac Ibn-Wakar, found high favor in his eyes, and probably acted as his treasurer. At his solicitation Juan Emanuel once more invested the rabbinate with penal jurisdiction, which the Jews had partly lost during the regency of Maria de Molina, and had practiced only privately.

Jehuda Ibn-Wakar, however, was an admirer of Asheri, and, like the latter, of excessive piety, desiring to have every religious transgression punished with the utmost severity. When a Cordovan uttered a blasphemy in Arabic, Ibn-Wakar asked Asheri what was to be done with him, and the latter replied that his tongue should be cut out. A beautiful Jewess having had intercourse with a Christian, Don Juan Manuel resigned her to the punishment of the Jewish court, and Jehuda Ibn-Wakar condemned her to have her face disfigured by the removal of her nose, and Asheri confirmed the sentence.

The southern Spanish and Castilian congregations still lived in peace, and in the undisturbed possession of their goods; on the other hand, the northern Spanish, and still more the southern French congregations were exposed to bloody attacks by fanatical hordes, which the church had unfettered, and then could not restrain. Jews once more lived in France. Louis X had recalled them nine years after their banishment . This king, himself seized by a desire to abrogate the ordinances of his father and indict his counselors, had been solicited by the people and the nobility, who could not do without the Jews, to re-admit them into France. He accordingly entered into negotiations with them in reference to their return. But the Jews did not accept his proposal without deliberation, for they well knew the inconstancy of the French kings, and the fanatical hatred of the clergy against them. They hesitated at first, and then submitted their conditions. These were, that they be allowed to reside in the same places as before; that they should not be indictable for former transgressions; that their synagogues, churchyards, and books be restored to them, or sites be granted for new places of worship. They were to have the right of collecting the money owing to them, of which two-thirds should belong to the king. Their former privileges, as far as they were still in force, were to be again extended to them, or new ones conceded. King Louis accepted all these conditions, and granted them also the right of emigration under certain restrictions. In order to conciliate the clergy, he, on his side, imposed the conditions that they wear a badge of a certain size and color, and hold neither public nor private disputations on religion. Two high officials were appointed to superintend the re-settlement of the Jews. Their residence in France was fixed for twelve years; if the king should resolve to expel them again after the expiration of that period, he put himself under the obligation to give them a year's warning that they might have time to make their preparations. The king published this decree, declaring that his father had been ill-advised to banish the Jews. As the voice of the people solicited their return, as the church desired a tolerant policy, and as the sainted Louis had set him the precedent of first banishing and then readmitting them, he had, after due consultation with the prelates, the barons, and his high council, permitted the return of the Jews. The French Jews streamed back in masses to their former dwelling-places, regarding this event as a miraculous redemption. When Louis X died a year after, and his brother Philip V, the Long, ascended the throne, he extended their privileges, and protected them especially from the enmity of the clergy; so that they and their books could be seized only by royal officers. But they were not free from vexation by the degenerate clergy, who insisted that the Jews of Montpellier, who thought they could venture on certain liberties, should re-affix the Jew-badge on their dress. At one time they accused the Jews of L?nel with having publicly outraged the image of Christ on the Purim festival; at another time they ordered that two wagonfuls of copies of the Talmud be publicly burned in Toulouse. Such occurrences, however, were mere child's play compared with what they had to endure from the bigoted multitude.

Nearly all the crusading enterprises had commenced with the murder of Jews; so this time. The shepherd-gangs which had collected near the town of Agen cut down all the Jews they met on their march from this place to Toulouse, if they refused to be baptized. About five hundred Jews had found refuge in the fortress of Verdun , the commandant having placed a strong tower at their disposal. The shepherds took it by storm, and a desperate battle took place. As the Jews had no hopes of rescue, they had recourse in their despair to self-destruction. The unhappy people selected the oldest and most respected man of their number to slay them one after the other. The old man picked out a muscular young assistant in this ghastly business, and both went to work to rid their fellow-sufferers of their miserable lives. When at last the young man, after slaying his aged partner, was left alone, the desire of life came strong upon him; he declared to the besieging shepherds that he was ready to go over to them, and asked to be baptized. The latter were just or cruel enough to refuse the request, and tore the renegade to pieces. The Jewish children found in the tower were baptized by force. The governor of Toulouse zealously espoused the cause of the Jews, and summoned the knights to take the approaching shepherds prisoners. Thus many of them were brought in chains to the capital, and thrown into prison. But the mob, which sympathized with them, banded together, and set them at liberty, the result being that the greater part of the congregation of Toulouse was destroyed. A few seceded to Christianity. On the capture of the shepherds near Toulouse, the Jews in the neighborhood, who had been granted shelter in Castel-Narbonnais, thought that they were now free of all danger, and left their place of refuge. They were surprised by the rabble, and annihilated. Thus perished almost all the Jews in the neighborhood of Bordeaux, Gascogne, Toulouse, Albi, and other towns of southern France. Altogether, more than 120 Jewish congregations in France and northern Spain were blotted out through the rising of the Shepherds, and the survivors were so impoverished by spoliation that they were dependent upon the succor of their brethren in other parts, which flowed to them in abundance even from Germany.

The following year, too, was very unfortunate for the Jews, the trouble again beginning in France. This persecution was occasioned by lepers, from whom it has its name . The unhappy people afflicted by leprosy in the Middle Ages were banished from society, declared dead as citizens, shut up in unhealthy quarters, and there tended after a fashion. Once, when certain lepers in the province of Guienne had been badly provided with food, they conceived and carried into effect the plan of poisoning the wells and rivers, through which many people perished . When the matter was traced back to the lepers, and they were examined under torture, one of them invented, or somebody suggested to him, the lying accusation that the Jews had inspired them with the plan of poisoning the waters. The charge was generally believed; even King Philip V had no doubt about it. Sometimes it was asserted that the Jews wanted to take revenge for the sufferings experienced at the hands of the Shepherds the year before; again, that they had been persuaded by the Mahometan king of Granada to cause the Christians to be poisoned; or it was suggested that they had done it in league with the Mahometan ruler of Palestine, to frustrate the intended crusade of King Philip. In several places Jews were arrested on this accusation, unmercifully tortured, and some of them burnt . In Chinon a deep pit was dug, fire kindled in it, and eight Jewish men and women thrown in, who sang whilst dying. The mothers had previously cast in their children, to save them from forcible baptism. Altogether five thousand are said to have suffered death by fire in that year. Many were banished from France, and robbed by the heartless populace. Philip was convinced later on of the untruth of the accusation; but as the Jews had been accused, he seemed to think that the opportunity might be used to swell the treasury. Accordingly, the congregations were condemned by Parliament to a penalty of one hundred and fifty thousand pounds ; they were to apportion the contributions among themselves. Deputies from northern France and from Languedoc, met and enacted that the southern French Jews, decimated and impoverished by the previous year's massacre, were to contribute forty-seven thousand pounds, and the remainder was to be borne by the northern French Jews. The wealthiest Jews were put under arrest as security for the payment of the fine, and their goods and debts distrained.

In the same year a great danger threatened the oldest of the European communities. Misfortune came upon it the more unexpectedly as till then it had tasted but little of the cup of misery which the Jews of England, France and Spain so often had to drink to the dregs. It was because Rome did not belong to the pope, but to the families of Orsini and Colonna, to the Ghibellines and Guelphs--the great and minor lords, who fought out their party feuds in that city--that the Jews were left untouched by papal tyranny. It was well for them that they were little considered.

At about this time the Roman Jews had made an advance in material welfare and intellectual culture. There were some who possessed houses like palaces, furnished with all the comforts of life. Since the time when, through the concurrence of favorable circumstances, they had tasted of the tree of knowledge, learning and poetry were cherished by the Italian Jews. The seeds which Hillel of Verona, Serachya ben Shaltiel and others had scattered, commenced to bear fruit. When the flower of intellectual glory in southern France began to decay through the severity of Talmudical rigorists and the bloody persecutions, it unfolded itself in Italy, especially in Rome. At that time the first rays of a new cultural development, breaking through the gloom of priestcraft and the rude violence of the Middle Ages, appeared in Italy. A fresh current of air swept the heavens in Italy in the beginning of the fourteenth century, the epoch of Dante, thawing the icy coat of the church and of knightdom, the two pillars of the Middle Ages. A sense of citizenship, the impulse towards liberty, enthusiastic love for science, were the striking symptoms of a new spirit, of a striving for rejuvenescence, which only the emperor, the embodiment of rude, ungainly knighthood, and the pope, the incarnation of the stern, unbending church, failed to perceive. Every greater or lesser Italian lord made it a point of honor to encourage art and science, and patronize poets, artists and learned men at his court. Nor were the Jews overlooked at this juncture. One of the most powerful Italian princes, Robert of Anjou, king of Naples, count of Provence , vicar-general of the Papal States and for some time titular lieutenant of the Holy Roman empire, was a friend of science, a warm admirer also of Jewish literature, and consequently a protector of the Jews. Several Jewish litt?rateurs were his teachers, or at his instance undertook scientific and theological works.

Either in imitation of the current practice or from sincere interest in Jewish literature, rich Jews, who played the part of small princes, invited Jewish authors into their circle, lightened their material cares by liberal support, and stimulated their activity by encouragement. Thus it came to pass that three Jewish Italian men of letters had the courage to compete with the Spaniards and Proven?als. These were Leo Romano, Judah Siciliano, and above all the poet Immanuel Romi, who once more ennobled neo-Hebrew poetry, and raised it to a higher level. The Roman congregation at that time displayed exceptional interest in Jewish writings. Of Maimuni, the embodiment of science for them as for the rest of the Jewish world, they possessed the copious Religious Codex, and the translation of his "Guide;" but of his luminous Mishna commentary, composed originally in Arabic, only those parts which Charisi and Samuel Ibn-Tibbon had done into Hebrew. The representatives of the Roman congregations, to whom probably the poet Immanuel also belonged, wished to have a complete edition of the work, and sent a messenger to Barcelona to Ben Adret expressly for the purpose of procuring the remaining parts. The affair was not so simple as the Roman Jews had imagined. The greater portion of the anxiously desired commentary of Maimuni on the Mishna, on account of peculiar difficulties, was not yet rendered into Hebrew. The greatest obstacle was the circumstance that the Spanish Jews, except those in Toledo and in the neighborhood of the kingdom of Granada, had forgotten Arabic. Ben Adret, who wished to oblige the Roman congregation, endeavored to get the required portions translated into Hebrew. He encouraged scholars, learned both in Arabic and the Talmud, to undertake this difficult task, and Joseph Ibn-Alfual and Jacob Abbassi of Huesca, Solomon ben Jacob and Nathaniel Ibn-Almali, the last two physicians of Saragossa, and others divided the labor among themselves. Jewish literature is indebted for the possession of this most valuable work of Maimuni to the zeal of the Roman congregation, of Ben Adret, and these translators.

The Roman community was roused from its peaceful occupations and undisturbed quiet by a rough hand, and awakened to the consciousness that it existed under the scourge of priestcraft and the caprice of its rulers.

It is related that a sister of the pope , named Sangisa, had repeatedly exhorted her brother to expel the Jews from the holy city of Christendom. Her solicitations had always been fruitless; she therefore instigated several priests to give testimony that the Jews had ridiculed by words and actions a crucifix which was carried through the streets in a procession. The pope thereupon issued the command to banish all the Jews from Roman territory. All that is certain is that the Jews of Rome were in great danger during that year, for they instituted an extraordinary fast, and directed fervent prayers to heaven , nor did they fail to employ worldly means. They sent an astute messenger to Avignon to the papal court and to King Robert of Naples, the patron of the Jews, who happened to be in that city on state affairs. The messenger succeeded, through the mediation of King Robert, in proving the innocence of the Roman Jews in regard to the alleged insulting of the cross and the other transgressions laid to their charge. The twenty thousand ducats, which the Roman community is said to have presented to the sister of the pope, silenced the last objections. The Jews of Rome entered their school of trouble later than the Jews of other countries. For that reason it lasted the longer.

Whilst King Robert was residing in southern France, he seems to have made the acquaintance of a learned, genial Jewish satirist, Kalonymos ben Kalonymos, and to have taken him into his service. This talented man possessed solid knowledge, was familiar with the Arabic language and literature , and in his youth translated medical, astronomical, and philosophical writings from that language into Hebrew. Kalonymos ben Kalonymos was not merely a hewer of wood and drawer of water, an interpreter in the realm of science; he had intellect enough to make independent observations. Disregarding the province of metaphysical speculation, he was more interested in pure ethics, which he especially wished to inculcate in his co-religionists, "because neglect and ignorance of it leads men to all kinds of perversities and mutual harm." He did not treat the subject in a dry, uninteresting style, but sought to clothe it in attractive garments. With this end in view, Kalonymos adapted a part of the Arabic encyclopedia of science for a dialogue between man and beasts, giving the theme a Jewish coloring.

Much more gifted, profound, and imaginative was his older friend and admirer, Immanuel ben Solomon Romi . He was an anomaly in the Jewish society of the Middle Ages. He belonged to that species of authors whose writings are all the more attractive because not very decent. Of overflowing wit, extravagant humor, and caustic satire, he is always able to enchain his readers, and continually to provoke their merriment. Immanuel may be called the Heine of the Jewish Middle Ages. Immanuel had an inexhaustible, ready supply of brilliant ideas. And all this in the holy language of the Prophets and Psalmists. Granted that the neo-Hebrew poets and thinkers, the grammarians and Talmudists, had lent flexibility to the language, but none of Immanuel's predecessors had his power of striking from it showers of sparkling wit. But if, on the one side, he developed the Hebrew language almost into a vehicle for brilliant repartee, on the other side, he robbed it of its sacred character. Immanuel transformed the chaste, closely-veiled maiden muse of Hebrew poetry into a lightly-clad dancer, who attracts the attention of passers-by. He allows his muse to deal with the most frivolous and indelicate topics without the slightest concealment or shame. His collection of songs and novels tends to exert a very pernicious and poisonous effect upon hot-blooded youth. But Immanuel was not the hardened sinner, as he describes himself, who thought of nothing but to carry on amours, seduce the fair, and deride the ugly. He sinned only with the tongue and the pen, scarcely with the heart and the senses.

Though he often indulges in unmeasured self-laudation, this simple description of his moral conduct must still be credited: "I never bear my enemies malice, I remain steadfast and true to my friends, cherish gratitude towards my benefactors, have a sympathetic heart, am not ostentatious with my knowledge, and absorb myself in science and poetry, whilst my companions riot in sensual enjoyments." Immanuel belonged to those who are dominated by their wit, and cannot refrain from telling some pointed witticism, even if their dearest friends are its victims, and the holiest things are dragged in the mire by it. He allowed himself to be influenced by the vivacity of the Italians and the Europeanized Jews, and put no curb upon his tongue. What is remarkable in this satirist is that his life, his position, and occupation seem to have been in contradiction with his poetical craft. In the Roman community he filled an honorable position, was something like a president, at all events a man of distinction. He appears to have belonged to the medical profession, although he made sport of the quackery of physicians. In short, he led the domestic life of his time, a life permeated by morality and religion, giving no opportunity for excess. But his honorable life did not prevent him from singing riotous songs, and from writing as though he were unconscious of the seriousness of religion, of responsibility and learning. Immanuel was acquainted, if not on intimate terms, with the greatest poet of the Middle Ages, the first to open the gates of a new epoch, and to prognosticate the unity of Italy in poetic phrase. Probably they came to know each other on one of Dante's frequent visits to Rome, either as ambassador or exile. Although their poetic styles are as opposite as the poles--Dante's ethereal, grave, and elevated; Immanuel's forcible, gay, and light--they, nevertheless, have some points of contact. Each had absorbed the culture of the past; Dante the catholic, scholastic, and romantic elements; Immanuel the biblical, Talmudical, Maimunist, philosophical, and neo-Hebraic products. Both elaborated this many-hued material, and molded it into a new kind of poetry. The Italians at that time were full of the impulse of life, and Immanuel's muse is inspired by the witchery of spring. He wrote ably in Italian, too, of which a beautiful poem, still extant, gives evidence. Immanuel was the first to adapt Italian numbers to the neo-Hebraic lyre. He introduced the rhyme in alternate lines , by which he produced a musical cadence. His poems are not equally successful. They are wanting not in imagination, but in tenderness and grace. His power lies in poetical prose , where he can indulge in free and witty allusions. In this style he composed a host of short novels, riddles, letters, panegyrics, and epithalamia, which, by clever turns and comic situations, extort laughter from the most serious-minded readers.

In one of his novels he introduces a quarrelsome grammarian of the Hebrew language, a verbal critic who takes the field in grammatical campaigns, and is accompanied by a marvelously beautiful woman. Immanuel enters into a hair-splitting disputation that he may have the opportunity of coquetting with the lovely lady. He suffers defeat in grammar, but makes a conquest in love. Immanuel's description of hell and paradise, in which he imitated his friend Dante, is full of fine satire. Whilst the Christian romantic poet shows gravity and elevation in his poetical creation, represents sinners and criminals, political opponents and enemies of Italy, cardinals and popes, as being tortured in hell, metes out, as it were, the severe sentences of judgment day; his Jewish friend, Immanuel, invents scenes in heaven and hell for the purpose of giving play to his humorous fancy. Dante wrote a divine, Immanuel a human, comedy. He introduces his pilgrimage to heaven and hell by relating that he once felt greatly oppressed by the burden of his sins, and experienced compunction; at this juncture his young friend Daniel, by whose untimely death he had lately been deeply affected, appeared to him, and offered to guide him through the dismal portals of hell and the elysian fields of the blessed. In the chambers of hell Immanuel observes all the wicked and godless of the Bible. Aristotle, too, is there, "because he taught the eternity of the world," and Plato, "because he asserted the reality of species" . Most of all he scourges his contemporaries in this poem. He inflicts the torment of the damned upon the deriders of science; upon a Talmudist who secretly led a most immoral life; upon men who committed intellectual thefts, and upon those who sought to usurp all the honors of the synagogue, the one to have his seat by the Ark of the Covenant, the other to read the prayers on the Day of Atonement. Quack doctors are also precipitated into hell, because they take advantage of the stupidity and credulity of the multitude, and bring trusting patients to a premature grave. His young, beatified guide goes with him through the gates of Paradise. How the departed spirits rejoice at the poet's approach! They call out, "Now is the time to laugh, for Immanuel has arrived." In the description of paradise and its inhabitants, Immanuel affects to treat his theme very seriously; but he titters softly within the very gates of heaven. Of course, he notices the holy men, the patriarchs, the pious kings and heroes of the Jewish past, the prophets and the great teachers, the poets, Jehuda Halevi and Charisi, the Jewish philosopher Maimuni. But next to King David, who fingers the harp and sings psalms, he observes the harlot Rahab who concealed the spies in Jericho, and Tamar who sat at the cross-roads waiting. Dante excludes the heathen world from paradise, because it did not acknowledge Christ, and had no share in the grace of salvation. Immanuel sees a troop of the blessed, whom he does not recognize, and asks their leader who they are. "These are," answers the latter, "righteous and moral heathens, who attained the height of wisdom, and recognized the only God as the creator of the world and the bestower of grace." The pious authors, David, Solomon, Isaiah, Ezekiel, on seeing Immanuel, darted forward to meet him; each one thanks him for having expounded his writings so well, and here older and contemporary exegetists come in for their share of Immanuel's sly satire.

Neo-Hebraic poetry, which began with Jos? ben Jos?, and reached its zenith in Ibn-Gebirol and Jehuda Halevi, attains its final stage of development in Immanuel. The gamut had now been run. After Immanuel, the Hebrew muse became silent for a long time, and it required a fresh and powerful stimulus to awaken it from slumber to new energy. Verses were, of course, written after his days, and rhymes polished, but they are as far removed from poetry as a street-song from a soul-stirring melody. The fate of Hebrew poetry is illustrated in Immanuel's career. For a long period he was popular, every one sought his friendship, but in old age he fell into neglect and poverty. His own statement is that his generosity dissipated his means. He was as much derided as he had formerly been praised. He left Rome with his family, traveled about, and found repose at length at the house of a wealthy, influential friend of art in Fermo, who interested himself in him, and encouraged him to arrange the verses and poems written at different periods of his life into a symmetrical whole.

The praises which Immanuel bestows on his own productions, and his boast that he casts the old poets into the shade, certainly tend to produce a bad impression. Nevertheless, like every expert in his profession, he was far removed from that repulsive vanity which perceives its own depreciation in the recognition of another. To true merit Immanuel gave the tribute of his warmest praise, and modestly conceded precedence to it. Not only did he extol the highly honored Kalonymos, basking in the sunshine of the king's favor, with the most extravagant figures of speech, but he praised almost more heartily the poet Jehuda Siciliano, who lived in straitened circumstances. He gave him the palm for poetical verse, maintaining his own superiority in poetical prose. But for Immanuel, nothing would have been known of this poet. Poor Siciliano had to waste his power in occasional poems for his subsistence, and was thus unable to produce any lasting work. With glowing enthusiasm Immanuel eulogizes his cousin, the young and learned Leone Romano, Jehuda ben Moses ben Daniel , whom he calls the "Crown of Thought." In paradise he allots to him the highest place of honor. Leone Romano was the teacher of King Robert of Naples, and instructed him in the original language of the Bible. He knew the language of learned Christendom, and was probably the first Jew to pay attention to scholastic philosophy. He translated for Jewish readers the philosophical compositions of Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, and others. Leone Romano composed original works of exegesis, set forth in philosophical method. Greatly as his contemporaries admired his learning and intellect, which had achieved so much when he had scarcely arrived at man's estate, he exercised no influence whatever on posterity.

The Roman society which promoted science and poetry may be said to have included also the grandson of a Roman emigrant who took up his abode in Greece, Shemarya Ikriti of Negroponte . He stood in close relation with the Roman community and King Robert. Familiar with Talmudical literature, as he probably was rabbi in Negroponte, he devoted himself to philosophical speculations, and was, perhaps, well read in the Greek philosophical literature in its original language. In his youth, Ikriti, like many of his contemporaries, occupied himself with translations of philosophical works. Later on he conceived a plan of practical utility, in which he thought he could turn his knowledge to account. He sought to smooth over the difference between the Rabbanites and the Karaites, and lastingly to reconcile the sects at enmity with each other for centuries, "that all Israel may once more be united in one fraternal bond." Shemarya of Negroponte was the first, perhaps the only Rabbanite, who, if he did not extend the hand of reconciliation to Karaism, at least showed a friendly disposition towards it. He recognized that both parties were in error; Karaism was wrong in rejecting Talmudical traditions unconditionally; but the Rabbanites sinned against truth in placing the Talmud in the forefront, and overlooking the Bible. In Greece there may have been Karaites at that time who had come from Constantinople. To these Shemarya Ikriti addressed himself to incline their minds towards union with the mother community.

For the difficult task of bringing discordant faiths into harmony, much intelligence and energy were required, and Shemarya could furnish only good will. He was not deficient in knowledge, but his mental grasp was not sufficiently powerful. At the instance of King Robert, who interested himself in Jewish literature, he wrote a commentary on the Bible, and forwarded to him, with a dedication, the books first completed . It read as follows: "To our noble king Robert, adorned like King Solomon with the crown of wisdom and the diadem of royalty, I send this exposition of the cosmogony and the Song of Songs." His Biblical commentaries were set forth with great diffuseness, covered a great range, and were not calculated to appeal to the Karaites, and draw them over to the side of rabbinical Judaism. His attempt at reconciliation miscarried, perhaps was not made in the proper spirit; for there was a disposition on the part of some Karaites to treat his overtures favorably, and his efforts would not have failed, if they had been conducted with skill. Nevertheless, Ikriti was held in such esteem in his time that the Roman congregation took an interest in his labors, entered into correspondence with him, while the Karaites assiduously read his works, and in later times considered him a member of their own party.

Karaism was still dragging itself along in its decaying, stiffening form. Internal schisms remained unaccommodated. Different Karaite congregations celebrated the festivals at different times: the Palestinians, according to the observation of the new moon, and the extra-Palestinian congregations, in common with the Rabbanites. Their extremely severe marriage laws were not finally settled even at this epoch. Karaism at that time had three centers--Cairo in Egypt, Constantinople in the Byzantine Empire, and Sulchat in the Crimean peninsula. Some importance was possessed by Aaron ben Joseph the Elder, physician in Constantinople . He came originally from the Crimea, made extensive voyages, and acquired a knowledge of medicine and philosophy. Aaron I also made himself intimate with Rabbanite literature to a degree that few of his sect attained. He made use of Nachmani's commentary on the Pentateuch, and from this circumstance arose the mistake of later Karaites, that Aaron had sat at Nachmani's feet. His familiarity with Rabbanite literature had a beneficial effect on his style; he wrote much more clearly and intelligibly than most of the Karaite authors. He was even disposed to accept the tradition of the Talmud.

He completely fixed the Karaite prayer book , hitherto in an unsettled condition, incorporating into it hymns written by Gebirol, Jehuda Halevi, Ibn-Ezra, and other Rabbanite liturgical poets. Aaron himself possessed very little poetical genius, and his metrical prayers, with which he enriched the prayer book of the Karaites, have no great poetical merit, but by the admission of hymns written by Rabbanites into his compilation, he showed that he knew how to appreciate the devout sublimity in the prayers of the Spanish Jews, and that he was not altogether devoid of taste. If Shemarya, of Negroponte, had undertaken to effect a reconciliation between the Rabbanites and the Karaites in a more intelligent and energetic manner, there can be no doubt that Aaron would willingly have offered his assistance, provided, of course, that he had known of Shemarya's attempt. There was not wanting among Karaites a strong inclination for union. Owing to the activity of Abraham Maimuni II, a great-grandson of the renowned Maimuni, who had succeeded to the post of Chief of the Rabbanite communities in Egypt after the death of his father David, an important Karaite congregation in Egypt on one day openly acknowledged the teachings of the Rabbanites. In Palestine, too, frequent conversions of Karaites to Talmudical Judaism took place. On this account the rabbis of the time were more favorably disposed towards them. On the one hand, the strict Talmudist Samson of Sens denounced the Karaites as heathens, whose wine was not to be partaken of by orthodox Jews; on the other hand, Estori Parchi, who had been banished from Provence, and who, emigrating to Palestine, had settled in Bethshan, recognized them as co-religionists, led astray by erroneous notions, but not to be rejected.

THE AGE OF THE ASHERIDES AND OF GERSONIDES.

The Holy Land was once more accessible to its children. The Egyptian sultans, into whose power it passed after the fall of Accho and the expulsion of the Christians, were more tolerant than the Christian Byzantine emperors and the Frankish crusading kings. They did not hinder the coming of Jewish pilgrims who desired to lighten their over-burdened hearts by praying and weeping over the ruins of the past, so rich in recollections, or at the graves of their great men there interred; nor did they oppose the settlement of European exiles, who again cultivated the soil of the land of their fathers. The long, firm, yet mild, reign of the Mameluke sultan, Nassir Mahomet , was a happy time for the Jews who visited Palestine. Whilst under the rule of the Christian governors of the country no Jew was permitted to approach the former capital, at this time Jewish pilgrims from Egypt and Syria regularly came to Jerusalem, to celebrate the festivals, as in the time when the Temple shone in all its splendor. The Karaites established special forms of prayer for those who went on pilgrimages to Jerusalem: at their departure, the whole congregation assembled to give utterance in prayer to the bitter-sweet emotions connected with Zion. The immigrants who settled in Palestine engaged in agriculture. They came to feel so thoroughly at home there that the question was mooted whether the laws of tithes, of the year of release, and others ought not to be again carried into effect. In consequence of the freedom and tolerance which the Jews were enjoying, many enthusiastic spirits were again seized by the ardent desire to kiss the dust of the Holy Land. Emigration to Palestine, especially from the extreme west, became very common at this time.

A pupil of Me?r of Rothenburg, named Abraham, a painstaking copyist of holy writings, considered his dwelling in the Holy Land a mark of divine grace. Two young Kabbalists, Chananel Ibn-Askara and Shem Tob Ibn-Gaon from Spain, also traveled thither, probably to be nearer the source of the mystic doctrines, which fancy assigned to this country, and took up their residence in Safet. But instead of obtaining fresh information upon the doctrines of the Kabbala, one of them-- Ibn-Askara died in his youth--introduced new features of the science. Shem Tob ben Abraham Ibn-Gaon, from Segovia , whose teacher in the Talmud had been Ben Adret, and in the Kabbala Isaac ben Todros, was a zealous adherent of the secret science, and described even Maimuni as a Kabbalist.

The congregation of Jerusalem was at this time very numerous. A large portion of the Rabbanite community led a contemplative life, studied the Talmud day and night, and became engrossed with the secret lore of the Kabbala. There were also handicraftsmen, merchants, and several acquainted with the science of medicine, with mathematics and astronomy. The artistic work of the famous calligraphers of Jerusalem was in great demand, far and near. Hebron, too, possessed a vigorous community, whose members engaged chiefly in the weaving and dyeing of cotton-stuffs, and in the manufacture of glass wares, exported in large quantities. In the south of Palestine, in company with Mahometans, Jewish shepherds again pastured their flocks after the manner of the patriarchs. Their rabbi was also a shepherd, and delivered discourses upon the Talmud in the pasture fields for such as desired to obtain instruction.

It is scarcely to be wondered at, if the Spanish Jews were unduly elated because of the promotion of a few from their midst to state offices. Such prominent public men were for the most part a protecting shield for the communities against the avaricious and turbulent lower orders of the nobility, against the stupid credulity and envy of the mob, and the serpent-like cunning of the clergy, lying concealed but ready to attack the Jews. Jewish ministers and counselors in the service and the retinue of the king, clothed in the costume of the court, and wearing at their sides the knightly sword, by these very circumstances, without special intercession, disarmed the enemies of their brethren in faith and race. The impoverished nobles, who possessed nothing more than their swords, were filled with envy of the rich and wise court Jews; but they were compelled to stifle their feelings. The masses, guided by appearances, did not venture, as was done in Germany, to ill-treat or slay any Jew they chanced across, as an outlaw and a pariah, because they knew that the Jews were held in high favor at court. They often overrated their influence, believing that the Jews at court could obtain a hearing with the king at any time. Even the haughty clergy were obliged to restrain themselves so long as Joseph of Ecija, Samuel Ibn-Wakar, and others, were in a position to counteract their influence.

If the Castilian Jews compared the condition of their brethren in neighboring countries with their own, they must certainly have felt exalted, and entitled to be proud of their lot. In Aragon, at this time united into one kingdom with the islands of Majorca and Sicily, the persecuting spirit of the church, which Raymond de Penyaforte had stirred up, and Jayme I had perpetuated by means of oppressive laws, was rampant. In Navarre, which for half a century had belonged to the crown of France, the hatred against the Jews burned with a frenzy hitherto to be met with only in Germany. The last of the Capets, Charles IV, was dead, and with the accession of Philip VI to the French throne the House of Valois began. It is noteworthy that even Christians believed that the extinction of the lineal successors of Philip le Bel was retribution for his merciless expulsion of the Jews from France. The people of Navarre strove to separate themselves from the rule of France, and form an independent state. It is not known in how far the Jews stood in the way of their project. Anyhow it is certain that suddenly, throughout the whole country, a bloodthirsty enmity arose against the Jews, prompted by envy of their riches, and fostered by the monks. A Franciscan, named Pedro Olligoyen, made himself most prominent in goading on the deluded mob against the innocent Jews. In the large congregation of Estella a most horrible massacre began on a Sabbath . The infuriated mob raised the cry, "Death to the Jews, or their conversion."

The other favorite of King Alfonso was his physician, Don Samuel Ibn-Wakar . This man had a scientific education, was an astronomer, and perhaps the astrologer of his master. Although he occupied no public office, and took no part in state affairs, yet, through the favor of the king, he possessed very great influence. There existed between Don Joseph of Ecija and Ibn-Wakar the jealousy which is common among courtiers who bask in the rays of the same sun. On account of their rivalry, these two favorites sought to injure each other, and thus they and their co-religionists incurred the hatred of the people.

Some wealthy Jews, probably relying upon the favorable position of their friends at court, carried on money transactions in an unscrupulous manner. They extorted a high rate of interest, and mercilessly persecuted their dilatory Christian debtors. The king himself encouraged the usury of the Jews and Moors, because he gained advantage therefrom. The complaints of the people against the Jewish and Mahometan usurers grew very numerous. The cortes of Madrid, Valladolid and other cities made this point the subject of petitions presented to the king, demanding the abolition of these abuses, and the king was compelled to yield to their entreaty.

The minds of the people, however, remained embittered against the Jews. The cortes of Madrid thereupon called for several restrictive laws against the Jews, such as, that they should not be allowed to acquire landed property, and that Jewish ministers of finance and farmers of taxes should not be appointed . Alfonso replied, that, in the main, things should continue as they had been before. Don Samuel Ibn-Wakar rose even higher in the royal favor. Don Alfonso intrusted him with the farming of the revenues derived from the importation of goods from the kingdom of Granada. He, moreover, obtained the privilege empowering him to issue the coinage of the realm at a lower standard. Joseph of Ecija now became jealous and offered a higher sum for the right of farming the import-taxes from Granada. When he thought he had supplanted his rival, the latter dealt him a severe blow. Ibn-Wakar succeeded in persuading the king that it would be more advantageous to the people of Castile to carry the protective system to its uttermost limits, and prohibit all imports from the neighboring Moorish kingdom .

Whilst the two Jewish courtiers were striving to injure each other, the enemies of the Jews were busily at work to imperil their reputation and the existence of all the Castilian congregations. They inflamed the minds of the people by representing to them that, owing to the depreciation in the value of money, brought about by the farmer of the coinage, Ibn-Wakar, the price of the necessaries of life had risen, these articles being exported to the neighboring countries, where they were bartered for silver, which had a higher value in their own land. The enemies of the Jews also brought the influence of the church to bear to arouse the prejudices of the king against all the Jews. Their champion was a Jew, who no sooner had embraced Christianity, than he became a fanatical persecutor of his brethren. This was the infamous Abner, the forerunner of the baptized and unbaptized Jew-haters, who prepared, and at length accomplished, the humiliation and banishment of the Spanish Jews.

Abner of Burgos, or as he was afterwards called, Alfonso Burgensis de Valladolid , was well acquainted with biblical and Talmudical writings, occupied himself with science, and practiced medicine. His knowledge had destroyed his religious belief, and turned him not only against Judaism, but against all faiths. Troubled by cares for his subsistence, Abner did not obtain the desired support from his kinsmen in race. He was too little of a philosopher to accept his modest lot. His desires were extravagant, and he was unable to find the means to satisfy them. In order to be able to live in ease and splendor, Abner determined, when nearly sixty years of age, to adopt Christianity, although this religion was as little able to give him inward contentment as that which he forsook. As a Christian, he assumed the name of Alfonso. The infidel disciple of Aristotle and Averroes accepted an ecclesiastical office; he became sacristan at a large church in Valladolid, to which a rich benefice was attached, enabling him to gratify his worldly desires. He attempted to excuse his hypocritical behavior and his apostasy by means of sophistical arguments.

Alfonso carried his want of conscientiousness so far that not long after his conversion to Christianity he attacked his former brethren in faith and race with bitter hate, and showed the intention of persecuting them. Owing to his knowledge of Jewish literature, it was easy for him to discover its weak points, employ them as charges against Judaism, and draw the most hateful inferences. Alfonso was indefatigable in his accusations against the Jews and Judaism, and composed a long series of works, in which he introduced arguments partly aggressive, partly defensive of his new faith against the attacks upon it by the Jews. In his abuse of Judaism, the Hebrew language, in which he composed with much greater ease than in Spanish, was made to do service.

Alfonso had the brazen impudence to send one of his hateful writings to his former friend, Isaac Pulgar. The latter replied in a sharply satirical poem, and pressed him close in his polemical writings. The Jews of Spain had not yet become so disheartened as to suffer such insolent attacks in silence. Another less renowned writer also answered Alfonso, and thus a violent literary warfare broke out.

King Alfonso was not very constant; he transferred his favor from one person to another. He took into his confidence a man unworthy of the distinction, named Gonzalo Martinez de Oviedo, originally a poor knight, who had been promoted through the patronage of the Jewish favorite, Don Joseph of Ecija. Far from being grateful to his benefactor, he bore deep hatred against him who had thus raised him, and his hostile feeling extended to all Jews. When he had risen to the post of minister of the royal palace, and later to that of Grand Master of the Order of Alcantara , he revealed his plan of annihilating the Jews. He lodged a formal charge against Don Joseph and Don Samuel Ibn-Wakar, to the effect that they had enriched themselves in the service of the king. He obtained the permission of the king to deal with them as he chose, so as to extort money from them. Thereupon Gonzalo ordered both of them, together with two brothers of Ibn-Wakar, and eight relatives with their families, to be thrown into prison, and confiscated their property. Don Joseph of Ecija died in prison, and Don Samuel died under the torture to which he was subjected. This did not satisfy the enemy of the Jews. He now sought to destroy two other Jews, who held high positions at court--Moses Abudiel and Ibn-Yaish. He implicated them in a charge, pretending all the while to be friendly towards them. Through their downfall Gonzalo Martinez thought to carry into effect his wicked plan against the Castilian Jews without difficulty.

The eight sons of Asheri, his relatives, who had emigrated with him from Germany to Toledo, together with his numerous grandsons, dominated Spanish Judaism from this time onwards. They introduced a one-sided Talmudical method of instruction deeply tinged with a gloomy, ascetic view of religion. The most famous of the sons of Asheri were Jacob and Jehuda, both intensely religious, and of unselfish, self-sacrificing dispositions; they were, however, limited to a very narrow range of ideas. Both were as learned in the Talmud as they were ignorant in other subjects, and possessed every quality calculated to bring the decay of religion into accord with the increasing sufferings of the Jews in this third home of their race.

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