The Jew In The Medieval World: A Source Book, 315-1791 1258422786, 9781258422783

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TheJecv tt!: Mooieval Womo A Sounce 8ook:3lS-1791

Jacob RaOer.2 Mar-lc(Js revised edition with an introduction and updatrd bibliographies by

MARc SAPERSTEIN

TheJeUJ�MoojevaL WouLo

�eUJ�MeOievaL Womo ASormce Book: 3lS-1791

Jacob RaOen Mancr.Js revised edition with an introduction and updated bibliography by

Marc Saperstein

HEBREW UNION COLLEGE PRESS CINCINNATI

To Nettie

The original publication of this book was made possible by the National Fed­ eration of Temple Sisterhoods. It was first published in 1938 by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. ©

Revised edition copyright 1999 by the Hebrew Union College Press

Reprinted 1990 by the Hebrew Union College Press, Hebrew Union College­ Jewish Institute of Religion, by agreement with Jacob Rader Marcus Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Marcus,Jacob Rader, 1896-1995 The Jew in the medieval world : a source book, 315-1791 / Jacob Rader Marcus : with introduction and updated bibliographies by Marc Saperstein.­ Rev. ed. p. cm. Previously published: New York: Atheneum, 1983. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 0-87820-2I7-X (paper : alk. paper) I. Jews-History-70-1789 Sources. 2. Jews-Politics and government Sources. 3.Jews-Social life and customs Sources. I. Saperstein, Marc. I. Title. DSI24·M34 1999 909'·04924'oo7-dC21

XlU

Introduction by Marc Saperstein Preface by Jacob Rader Marcus Abbreviations

xxv XXXII

SECTION I

THE STATE AND THE JEW

3

1. Jews and the Later Roman Law, 315-531 I. LAWS OF CONSTANTINE THE GREAT, 3 15 11. LAWS OF CONSTANTIUS, 339 Ill. A LAW OF THEODOSIUS Il, 439 IV. A LAW OF JUSTINIAN, 53 1

4 4 5 6

2. Julian and the Jews, 36 1-363 362-363 363

I. JULIAN PROPOSES TO REBUILD JERUSALEM, Il. THE FAILURE TO REBUILD THE TEMPLE,

3· Islam and the Jews, 600-1772

9 9 10 14 14

()

I. PACT OF OMAR, THE NINTH CENTURY ?

Il. THE STATUS OF JEWS AND CHRISTIANS IN MOSLEM LANDS,

16

1772

4. The Jews of Spain and the Visigothic Code, 654-68 1 I. MEMORIAL OF THE JEWS PRESENTED TO THE KING, 654

22 22

Il . JEWS SHALL NOT REMOVE THEMSELVES OR THEIR CHILDREN OR SLAVES FROM THE BLESSING OF BAPTISM,

68 1

24

5· The Expulsion of the Jews from France, rr82

27

6. The Charter of the Jews of the Duchy of Austria, 1244

3I

7.

Medieval Spanish Law and the Jews 38

Las siete partidas, 1265 8. St. Louis and the Jews, before 1270

v

46

vi

Contents

9. The Black Death and the Jews, 1 34 8- 1 3 49 1 34 8 CREMATION OF STRASBOURG JEWRY, 1 349 EPITAPH OF ASHER ABEN TURIEL, 1 349

I. THE CONFESSION OF AGIMET OF GENEVA, 11. THE

Ill. THE

49 50 51 53

1 0. An Oath Taken by Jews, about 1 3 9 2

56

I I. The Expulsion from Spain, 1 49 2

59

1 2. The Massacre o f the New Christians o f Lisbon, 1 506

65

1 3 . The Cairo Purim, 1 5 2 4

70

1 4. A Petition for the Readmission of the Jews to England, 1 65 5

76

1 5. The Settlement of the Jews in North America, 1 654- 1 65 5 ' I. STUYVESANT S ATTEMPT TO EXPEL THE JEWS, 1 65 4

80 80

11.

' AMSTERDAM JEWRY S SUCCESSFUL INTERCESSION FOR THE

1 65 5

MANHATTAN IMMIGRANTS,

81

Ill. THE ANSWER OF THE WEST INDIA COMPANY TO STUYVESANT,

1 65 5

IV. THE JEWS OF NEW YORK CITY,

1 74 8

83 83

1 6. The Readmission of the Jews into Brandenburg, 1 67 I

86

1 7. Rhode Island Refuses to Naturalize Aaron Lopez, 1 76 2

92

I. WHY THE COURT REFUSED TO NATURALIZE AARON LOPEZ,

92

1 76 2

11. EZRA STILES BELIEVES THAT THE JEWS WILL NEVER BECOME

CITIZENS,

1 76 2

Ill. THE CHARACTER OF AARON LOPEZ,

1 782

18. The Charter Decreed by Frederick II for the Jews of Prussia, 1 7 5 0

93 94 97

SECTION 11

T HE C HURCH AND THE JEW 1 9. The Council of Elvira, about 3 00

113

20. Christianity Objects to the Sabbath and to the Jewish Dating of Easter, about 189-about 3 81

11 5

vu

Contents 1.

EASTER AND PASSOVER ARE OBSERVED ON THE SAME DAY IN ASIA MINOR, ABOUT

II6

189

II. THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA CHANGES THE DATE OF EASTER,

325 Ill. CONSTANTINE DECLARES SUNDAY A LEGAL HOLIDAY,

32 1

II7 II8

IV. THE COUNCIL OF LAODICEA FORBIDS CHRISTIANS TO OBSERVE THE SABBATH, BETWEEN

343

AND

II8

38 1

2I. St. Arnbrose and the Jews, 388 1.

120 120 122

AMBROSE TO EMPEROR THEODOSIUS

II. AMBROSE TO HIS SISTER

22. Pope Gregory the Great and the Jews, 590-604 I. GREGORY TO THE BISHOPS OF ARLES AND MARSEILLES,

11.

GREGORY TO FANTINUS OF PALERMO,

59 1

598

124 124 125

23· The Crusaders in Mayence, 1096

128

24· The Accusation of the Ritual Murder of St. William of Norwich, 1 144

135

25· The Ritual Murder Accusation at Blois, I 17 1

142

26. The York Riots, I 190

147

27· Innocent and the Jews, 12 15

153 153

1.

CONCERNING THE INTEREST TAKEN BY JEWS

II. THAT JEWS SHOULD BE DISTINGUISHED FROM CHRISTIANS IN DRESS Ill. THAT JEWS NOT BE APPOINTED TO PUBLIC OFFICES

154 155

IV. CONVERTS MUST NOT OBSERVE THE OLD CUSTOMS OF THE JEWS V. THE EXPEDITION TO RECOVER THE HOLY LAND

156 156

28. The Jewess Who Became a Catholic, about 1220

159

29· The Burning of the Talmud, 1239- 1248 I. aDO TO INNOCENT IV, 1247

163 164 166 167

11.

CONDEMNATION OF THE TALMUD BY ODO,

Ill. A DEFENDER OF THE TALMUD DIES,

124 1

1248

30. A Bull of Pope Gregory X, 1272

169

3 1. The Passau Host Desecration, 1478

174

Vlll

Contents

3 2 . Reuchlin's Appeal to Bonetto de Lattes, 1 5 I 3 3 3 . Martin Luther and the Jews, 1 5 2 3 - 1 543 I . THAT JESUS CHRIST WAS BORN A JEW, 1 5 2 3 H. CONCERNING THE JEWS AND THEIR LIES, 1 543 3 4· The Burning of the Talmud in Italy, 1 5 5 3 3 5 . The Spanish Inquisition at Work, 1 5 68

1 95

3 6. The Martyrdom of the Reizes Brothers, 1 7 2 8

202

3 7 . The Punishment for Sacrilege, 1 76I SECTION III

JEWRY AND THE INDIVIDUAL JEW A. JEWISH SELF-GOVERNMENT 3 8 . Jewish Autonomy in Babylon, about II68

2 09

3 9· The Ban of Solomon ben Adret, 1 3 05

2 14

40. Sumptuary and Other Police Laws, 1 4 1 6- 1 740 I. FORLI, ITALY, 1 4 1 8 H. VALLIDOLID, SPAIN, 1 43 2 III. CRACOW, POLAND, 1 595- 1 6 1 6 IV. LITHUANIA, 1 6 3 7 v. METZ, FRANCE, 1 690- 1697 VI. CARPENTRAS, PAPAL-FRANCE, 1 7 40

2 19 2 20 2 20 221 221 221 222

4 1 . Josel o f Rosheim, 1 5 3 7- 1 547

2 24

42 . The Shulhan Aruk, 1 564- 1 565

227

43 . The Council of Four Lands and the Lithuanian Council, about 1 5 8 2 - 1 76 4

233

I. PHILANTHROPY AND JUSTICE AMONG POLISH JEWS, ABOUT

H.

1 64 8 BANKRUPTCY LAWS O F THE COUNCIL O F FOUR LANDS,

162 4

2 34 235

III. LAWS OF THE LITHUANIAN COUNCIL GOVERNING TAX COLLECTIONS AND RECOURSE TO COURTS,

162 3 - 1 6 3 2

44 . The Constitution of the Jewish Community of Sugenheim Town, 1 7 56

2 36 2 40

IX

Contents B. JEWISH SECTS, MYSTICS,

AND

MESSIAHS

45· The Messiah in Crete, about 4 3 I

253

46. The Medieval Jewish Kingdom of the Chazars, 740- 1 2 59

255

I. THE LETTER OF RABBI HASDAI, SON OF ISAAC IBN SHAPRUT, TO THE KING OF THE CHAZARS, ABOUT

255

960

Il. THE LETTER OF JOSEPH THE KING TO HASDAI SON OF ISAAC IBN SHAPRUT, ABOUT

2 56

960

47· Anan and the Rise of Karaism, about 7 60 905 (?) 1 161

I. A RABBANITE ACCOUNT O F THE ORIGIN O F KARAISM, 11. ABRAHAM IBN DAUD'S ACCOUNT OF ANAN, ABOUT

rn.

A KARAITIC ACCOUNT OF ANAN,

1 757

IV. A KARAITIC ATTACK ON RABBINICAL TRADITION,

960- 1 000

262 263 2 65 2 65 2 67

4 8. Aaron the Mystic, of Bagdad, about 8 70

2 70

49· Practical Cabala, about 900- 1 400

2 74 2 74 2 75

I.-IV. THE SWORD OF MOSES, TENTH CENTURY V. THE WISDOM OF THE CHALDEANS, FOURTEENTH CENTURY

50. David Alroy, False Messiah, about II46- 1 1 47

2 78

5 1 . David Reubeni and Solomon Molko, 1 5 2 4- 1 5 3 2

283

5 2. Isaac Luria, the Cabalist, 1 5 3 4- 1 5 7 2

2 89 289 2 92

I. A SHORT BIOGRAPHY OF THE "LION," ABOUT ' H. ABRAHAM GALANTE S THEFT,

1 60 7

1 569- 1 5 7 2

5 3· Shabbethai Zebi, False Messiah, 1 666

2 95

54· The Rise of the Hasidim, about 1 7 3 5- 1 740

3 04

I. THE CAREER OF THE BESHT BEFORE HE BEGAN HIS PUBLIC MINISTRY, ABOUT 11. TAINTED MONEY

1 700- 1 740

Ill. FASTING AND TRUE RELIGION

3 04 305 306

5 5· An Attack on the Hasidim, 1 786

311

5 6. The Frankists, 1 7 5 5- 1 8 1 7 I. FRANK AND HIS IDEAS, 1 7 5 5 - 1 7 5 9 H. THE LATTER DAYS OF FRANK, 1 760- 1 79 1

3 14 315 317

x

Contents C. JEWISH

NOTABLES

5 7· Saadia, 8 8 2 -942

323

5 8 . Paltiel of Egypt, about 95 2-about 9 76

3 30

5 9· Samuel Ha-Nagid, Vizier of Granada, 993 -d. after 1 056

335

60. Rashi, about 1 1 00

340

I. FORCED CONVERTS TO CHRISTIANITY DURING THE DAYS OF THE FIRST CRUSADE,

H.

1 096- 1 1 05

RASHI DEFENDS AN UNFORTUNATE WOMAN, BEFORE

1 1 05

340 34 1

6 1 . Rashi's Grandson and the Crusaders, 1 1 4 7

3 44

62 . Maimonides, 1 1 3 5- 1 2 04

34 7 34 7 34 8

' I. MAIMONIDES LETTER TO IBN DJABIR, ABOUT ' H. MAIMONIDES LETTER TO SAMUEL IBN TIBBON,

1 191 1 1 99

3 52

6 3· Ethical Wills, Twelfth and Fourteenth Centuries 1. H.

' A FATHER S ADMONITION, OF JUDAH IBN TIBBON, ABOUT

II60-II80 THE TESTAMENT OF ELEAZAR OF MAYENCE, ABOUT

1357

352 355

6 4· The Oath o f Amatus, 1 5 5 9

3 59

65 . Joseph Nasi Rebuilds Tiberias, 1 5 64

3 63

66. Mordecai Meisel, Financier and Philanthropist, 1 5 2 8-I 60I I . MEISEL THE PHILANTHROPIST, 1 59 2 ' H . THE CONFISCATION O F MEISEL S WEALTH, 1 60 1

3 67 3 67 3 69

6 7· An Accident and Its Consequences, about 1 600

3 72

68. The Memoirs of Gliickel of Hameln, 1 646- 17 I 9 I. THE DANGERS OF PAWNBROKING, ABOUT 1 645 H. THE THIEF WHO DIED A MARTYR, ABOUT 1 670

3 76 3 76 3 77

69· Baruch Spinoza, Philosopher, 1 6 3 2 - 1 6 7 7

381

70. Solomon Maimon in Poland, 1 760- 1 76 5

391

I. A POLISH JEWISH SCHOOL OF THE MIDDLE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

H.

THE MARRIED LIFE OF YOUNG MAIMON

Ill. PRINCE RADZIWILL AND HIS JEWS

391 3 92 3 93

Contents D.

xi

THE Ir-..'NER LIFE OF THE JEW

7 1 . A Jewish Skipper and His Crew, 404

3 99

7 2. Bodo and the Jews, 8 3 8-847

404

7 3· A Jewish Merchant in Arabia and Thibet, about 9 1 3

407

74· How the Medieval Jew Understood the Bible, I !OS

41 2

7 5 · Maimonides on Art and Charity, I 1 80

41 7 41 7 41 8

I. GIFTS TO THE POOR 11. ART AND IDOLATRY

76. The Shylock Legend, 1 2 00- 1 5 8 7 I. THE HARD CREDITOR, ABOUT 1 2 00 n. THE CHRISTIAN SHYLOCK, 1 5 8 7

42 1 42 2 424

7 7· Jewish Education, about 1 1 80- 1 680 I. A COURSE OF STUDY, ABOUT 1 1 80 11. BOOKS AND SCHOOLS, ABOUT 1 2 00

42 8 42 9 43 2

Ill. ORDER OF INSTRUCTION OF THE HOLY CONGREGATION OF THE SEPHARDIM, BEFORE

1 680

43 3

7 8. A Proposed Jewish College, 1 564

43 8

79· The Woman who Refused to Remain the Wife of an Innkeeper, 1 470

447

80. Palermo and Alexandria, 1 4 88

45 3

8 1. A Jewish "Beautician," 1 5 08

45 8

82. Jewish Books and their Printers, 1 5 3 1 - 1 7 1 9 I. GERSHON SONCINO WRITES A TITLE PAGE, 1 5 3 1 - 1 5 3 2 ' n. A PRINTER S APPEAL FOR CUSTOMERS, 1 545 Ill. A N APPROBATION, PERMIT O F THE RABBIS, 1 600 IV. THE CENSORSHIP O F HEBREW BOOKS I N ITALY, 1 6 3 7 V. THE REVELATIONS OF A COLOPHON, 1 7 1 9

460 460 462 463 465 467

8 3· Turkish Jewry, 1 5 5 3 - 1 5 5 5

47 0

8 4· Gambling: an Attack and a Defense, 1 5 8 4

477

xii

Contents

85· Anti-Christian Polemics, before 1594

48 2

8 6 . The Notebook of Asher ben Eliezer Ha-Levi, 1598- 1 6 3 4 I . A NARROW ESCAPE, 1 62 5 H . DEFAMATION I N THE HAPSBURG LANDS, 1 6 2 6- 1 6 2 7 Ill. TROUBLE WITH THE LOCAL OFFICIALS, 1 629

4 86 4 86 48 7 48 7

8 7· Seventeenth Century Memoirs I. THE TROUBLES OF JOSEPH OF SIENNA,

H.

BOYHOOD IN MORAVIA,

1 66 3 - 1 68 1

1 625- 1 6 3 2

8 8 . Leon of Modena on Je\vish Languages and Money-Lenders, 1 6 1 6

497

I. OF THEIR LANGUAGE, PRONUNCIATION, WRITING, AND

497 499

PREACHING

H.

OF THEIR TRADING AND USURY

502

89. A Letter of Baruch Reiniger, a Butcher, 1 6 1 9

90. Ten Commandments for the Married Woman, before 1 62 0 505 9 1 . The Barbers' Guild at Cracow, 1 6 3 9

508

9 2 . The Cossack Revolt and the Fall of Nemirov, 1 64 8

51 3

9 3 . The Ransom of Captives, 1 649- 1 708

518

I. THE LITHUANIAN NATIONAL JEWISH COUNCIL AUTHORIZES THE R...o\ NSOM OF POLISH JEWISH CAPTIVES,

H.

519

1 649

THE LITHUANIAN COUNCIL RAISES MONEY T O RANSOM JEWISH CAPTIVES HELD IN THE TURKISH LANDS,

1 652

520

Ill. A N APPEAL T O RANSOM AN ITALIAN JEWISH PRISONER OF WAR,

1 708

52 1

94 . A Gentile Seeks to Force a Jewess into Marriage, before 1 690

52 3

95. An Attack on Hypocrisy, about 1 700

525

96. Ber of Bolechow and His Times, 1 7 2 8

529

Acknowledgments

53 3

References to Sources

535

Index

547

MARC SAPERSTEIl\'

K

T is difficult today to appreciate fully the achievement of Jacob Marcus's source book, The Jew ill the Medieval World. First pub­ lished in 1 93 8, its enduring value is demonstrated by its continued use in college courses and by its imitation forty years later in an­ other highly successful collection, The Jew in the Modern World. I In specific areas, there arc now more complete and useful collections (see notes 1 1 and 14 below ), but none comparable to Marcus's for a sweeping view, via primary sources, of Jewish historical experi­ ence from bte antiquity through the early modern period-with introductions and annotations that make those sources accessible to the general reader. Knowing that Marcus subsequently established his reputation as the pre-eminent authority of American Jewish history, it is rather hum­ bling to behold his mastery of the sources for the earlier periods. Com­ piling this book was not simply a matter of selecting readily available texts. The 96 units in the book contain selections from some 1 3 7 sources. Of these, S8 texts were taken by Marcus from existing English translations. The other 79 were translated by Marcus for this book: 47 from Hebrew, 1 7 from German, 6 from Latin, 5 from French, two each from Yiddish and Italian.2 While many of these texts have since been re translated and are now accessible in fuller versions, others re­ main available in English only through this Look. We should also ap­ preciate the enormous range of different kinds of documents-Jewish, Christian, and Muslim, legal, historiographical and literary, prescrip­ tive and descriptive, official and popular3-that appear. Some of these were obvious choices: for example, the selections from the two treatises of Martin Luther, or from the Hebrew Crusade chronicles, none of which apparently was available in English at the time.4 Others were unusual original selections, even stunning discov­ eries, perhaps used in the context of Jewish history for the first time and often cited from Marcus by subsequent historians.s They illumi­ nate not only the central features but also the peripheries and diverse contours of the Jewish experience. Alongside the familiar giants-Sa­ adia Gaon, Samuel ha-Nagid, Rashi, Maimonides, Isaac Luria, and the Baal Shem Tov-surprisingly unusual figures come to life: a Jewish ship captain in the early fifth century who apparently refused to touch the rudder under stormy conditions once the sun set on Friday evening XlII

XlV

Introduction

until he was convinced that there was danger to life (7 1 ); a Jewish "beautician" sharing her expertise on facial creams with the countess Catherine Sforza (8 1 ); a hapless Jew conscripted into the Polish armed forces during the Tatar invasion who accidentally shoots a passerby during target practice (67); a feeble-minded Jew sentenced to be hanged by a French secular court in 1 76 1 for the "sacrilege" of eating a consecrated wafer ( 3 7). In addition to the famous events-the Expulsion from Spain ( 1 1 ), the Cossack massacres (92), the Sabbatian messianic movement (5 3 )­ we encounter happenings previously known only to the specialist scholar: the conversion to Judaism of a prOIninent Frankish church­ man from the imperial court of Charlemagne's son (7 2); the visionary though abortive proposal to establish a Jewish university in sixteenth­ century Mantua (78); the deliverance of Cairo Jewry by the forces of Suleiman the Magnificent from the confiscatory taxes and life-threat­ ening persecutions of a renegade local ruler ( 1 3 ). Marcus's sources ex­ pose us to an array of individuals and experiences far beyond the nineteenth-century model of Jewish history in the medieval world as a "history of suffering and spirit" (Leidens- und Geistesgeschichte), illumi­ nating the ways Jews earned their livelihoods, related to their spouses, tried to regulate their communal affairs, and interacted with their neighbors in more or less normal times. What follows is a brief attempt to explore the underpinnings of the finished work, to clarify or reconstruct some of the decisions Marcus made and their implications for our understanding of Jewish history.

Periodization C( Every encompassing work of history raises problems of periodiza­ tion. What justifies separating out a certain group of years and treat­ ing them as a unified whole, distinct from the years that preceded and succeeded them? Marcus's title is The Jew in tbe Medieval World, but his discussion of periodization on the first page of his introduction reveals that the title is somewhat misleading: he clearly did not hold that "the medieval world" endured for almost 1 500 years. What he really in­ tended was "medieval Jewry, " or "the medieval age in Jewish history," which began before the "medieval world" came into being and ended considerably after most of Europe had entered the "modern" era. He begins this period in the year 3 I 5 c.E., "when COllstantine the Great, under the influence of Christian religious totalitarianism, 6 began to enact against the Jews disabling laws." He ends the period in Septem­ ber, 1 79 1 , with the proclamation of political and civil emancipation in

Introduction

xv

France, "the first real manifestation of the modern age" (p. xiv») The unifying characteristic of this period, then, is that Jews lived under spe­ cial legislation imposed upon them by the dominant religious commu­ nity. The choice of these dates, and the events they represent, tell us something important about Marcus's view ofJewish history. We should note that they are not internal to Jewish experience; rather, they relate to actions taken by major powers outside the Jewish community that affected Jewish status. And they pertain not to cultural but to political events. Thus, possible markers such as the completion of the Talmud for the beginning of the Middle Ages, or the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah) for the beginning of the modern era, are relegated to sec­ ondary importance for the purpose of periodization. Other historians have made different decisions about the most cru­ cial turning points in Jewish experience. A History of the Jewish People was edited by the Israeli historian Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson, who wrote the medieval section. Here the material was both divided into chrono­ logical units and apportioned to different authors. The "Era of the Mishnah and the Talmud," covered by Shmuel Safrai, is given the dates 70-640 [C.E.]. It begins with the destruction of the Temple and ter­ minates with the Arab conquest of the Land of Israel, which put an end to the Sanhedrin, the last vestige ofJewish autonomy in the homeland; it is the history of the Sanhedrin and the Patriarchate that "formed the backbone, as it were, of the Jewish history of the period" (pp. 3 07, 3 10). 8 The disparity between an American historian's decision to begin the Jewish Middle Ages with the conversion of Constantine-a politi­ cal transformation that affected most of Diaspora Jewry-and Israeli historians' decision to begin the Middle Ages three centuries later with the Arab conquest of Eretz ¥Israel and the resulting loss of its central­ ity, demonstrates quite dramatically the impact of perspective on peri­ odization. (Indeed, a survey of the documents in the book reveals clearly the Diaspora-centeredness of Marcus's outlook. Only docu­ ment 2 , on the Emperor Julian's permission to rebuild Jerusalem, doc­ ument 5 2 , on Isaac Luria in Safed, and document 6 5 , on the rebuilding of Tiberias, deal specifically with the Jewish community in the land of Israe1.9 A glance at the entries "Israel, land of," "Jerusalem," and "Safed" in the index to Ben-Sasson's survey will reveal how much more a ttention is given to these locations in the Israeli historian's treatment of the Middle Ages.) \\!hat about the terminus ad quem? Here too, there is no unanimity among Jewish historians. ID In choosing the juridicial emancipation in

XVI

Introduction

the wake of the French revolution, Marcus followed a course most no­ tably represented by Simon Dubnow. Other leading authorities, in­ cluding Heinrich Graetz, preferre d to emphasize cultural transformations such as the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah) associ­ ated with Moses Mendelssohn and his circle, which began a generation before 1 79 1 . The Zionist historian Ben Zion Dinur chose a particu­ larly idiosyncratic and ideologically charged "turning point" event: the migration to the land of Israel led by Judah the Hasid in 1 700. Ben­ Sasson ended the Middle Ages not with the new commitment to rea­ son but with "the spiritual crisis experienced by Jewry during the second half of the seventeenth century, after the collapse of the mes­ sianic Sabbatean movement" (p. 3 8 5), which he associates with the emergence of skeptical critiques ofJewish tradition (pp. 7 1 8- 2 3 ). In his Social and Religious History of the Jews, S. W. Baron chose the date 1 650 to terminate a ten-volume unit that treats "the era of West­ ern Jewry's predominance, before the onset of Jewish emancipation" (SRHJ 3 :v). And Kenneth Stow's recent survey of "The Jews of Me­ dieval Latin Europe" breaks off in the middle of the sixteenth century, with the new policies of the "Counter-Reformation" Pope Paul IV Many younger Jewish historians have come to follow the consensus in general European historiography, referring to the period between the Expulsion from Spain and the Emancipation as the "Early Modern Pe­ riod." Marcus's chronological parameters therefore reflect a kind of medieval imperialism, a maximalist definition that many other histori­ ans would eschew. But this broad canvas serves to increase the wealth of materials on display for the reader in the present book. Organization

C( The organization of the material is topical in its large divisions, and chronological within those divisions. As Marcus explains in his own introduction, the sources are divided into three main sections, "The State and the Jew," "The Church and the Jew," and "Jewry and the In­ dividual Jew," the last devoted to a study of "the Jew 'at home.'" This third section has four sub-categories: "Jewish Self-Government," "Jewish Sects, Mystics, and Messiahs," "Jewish Notables," and "The Inner Life of the Jew." Here too there are conceptual issues to be raised. First, the three major divisions seem more plausibly to suggest only two categories: the first on "External Relations," with sub-categories of State and Church, and the second as Marcus constructed it. He himself noted that "the 'separation' of Church and State is bound to be arbitrary," as

Introduction

XVII

religion and politics were deeply intermingled in the Middle Ages (xxviii). I I We might explore the problematics of these categories fur­ ther, particularly in the section on "the Church." This term implies an institutional structure, an organized body of believers. Clearly, docu­ ments 1 9-2 2 , 2 7 , 2 9-3 0, and 34- 3 7 belong under this heading, as they are texts produced by or reflecting the behavior of the institutional leadership of the Church: popes, councils, the Inquisition. Martin Luther's writings ( 3 3 ) bring us into the domain of the Protestant Reformation; even if Luther held no official position, his role as religious leader is beyond question. The documents describing the massacres by Crusaders in 1 096 ( 2 3 ) are more questionable as they were not church-sponsored; they may be justified under this rubric perhaps because the First Crusade was called by the Pope (though there is no hint of an anti-Jewish agenda), and bishops tried to pro­ tect the threatened Rhineland Jews. But the documents describing the ritual murder accusations of I 144 and 1 1 7 1 (2 4-2 5), the riots in York of II90 (2 6), and the Passau host desecration of 1 478 ( 3 I) do not involve Christian leadership institu­ tions at all. To subsume them under "The Church and the Jew" may give the erroneous impression that the Church endorsed such behav­ ior on the part of Christians. Nor is it at all clear why the York mas­ sacre, where the chronicler highlights the economic motivation of the rioters, belongs in the section on the Church, while the "Massacre of the New Christians of Lisbon" (1 3 ), where the chronicler tells of a re­ ligious trigger and emphasizes the role of Dominican friars as instiga­ tors and "the rabble" as perpetrators, is placed in the section on the State. (Similarly, why is the account of the "Cossack Revolt," 92 , in "Inner Life"?) Perhaps then a preferable arrangement would have been to have three sub-sections under "External Relations": State, Church, and "Popular Interactions." The final category would include the three anti-Jewish riots (26, 1 3 , 92) and other expressions of popular tension not sanctioned by official institutions or spokesmen for the Church or State. The organization of "Jewry and the Individual Jew" also raises some interesting questions. "Jewish Sects, Mystics, and Messiahs" is de­ scribed by Marcus as dealing with "the various schisms and heresies throughout the ages." TIllS implies that there was a "normative" model of Jewish thought that included rabbinic scholarship and perhaps phi­ losophy, with everything else falling under the rubric of schism or heresy. Otherwise, it is difficult to see why Isaac Luria and the Baal Shem Tov, certainly as influential in their own domains as those in­ cluded under "Notables," are excluded from that category and labeled

XVI11

Introduction

just "Mystics." Or why the ban of Solomon ben Adret against the study of philosophical texts ( 3 9) and the quite similar ban against the Ha­ sidim ( 54) are found in different subsections. Placing Karaism and Hasidism in a category called "Jewish Sects" rather than a more neutral term such as "religious movements" reflects the perspective of these groups' opponents and risks giving a distorted picture.12 The implication that mysticism is a deviant, sectarian phe­ nomenon is no longer accepted by the consensus of modern Jewish scholarship in the wake of Gershom Scholem's life-long achievement. As for the "Jewish Notables": Gluckel of Hameln, for all the impor­ tance of her memoir as a source for the history of the Jewish woman and family, was not a "notable" for contemporaries at all; the selection goes better with the other memoirs in sub-section D (86, 8 7 , 96). The same is true for the "Ethical Wills" (6 3 ): only by a stretch would Judah ibn Tibbon be considered a "notable" in his own time, and the second selection, in Marcus's own words, "is the work of a simple and frank German Jew." All this is to emphasize that the documents should be analyzed in their own light, and connections should be made between texts in different sections of the book. The texts themselves are what is crucial; the organizational framework need not be considered decisive. Selection and Omissions

« Any selection of texts will reflect the editor's predilections and tastes. Marcus articulated some of these in his introduction: his prefer­ ence for the account of a contemporary bystander to the "dry" docu­ ment produced by the "chief agent" (hence the decision not to include the Edict of Expulsion from Spain), I 3 the weight given to the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries over earlier periods, and to central Europe over Spain and the Sephardic Diaspora. Other choices made by the ed­ itor also deserve to be highlighted. It should be obvious that much greater emphasis is given to the Christian than to the Muslim envi­ ronment, although at one point in the Middle Ages ninety percent of the Jews in the world lived under Islam. Only two units (containing three documents) of the first forty-four pertain to the Islamic realm. For sources on Jews in the medieval Islamic world, the book has cer­ tainly been superseded.14 Marcus's decision to expand the portrayal of Jewish life beyond the record of persecution and not to make this collection a "martyrology" provides an important and welcome antidote to what S. W Baron fa­ mously called "the lachrymose conception of Jewish history."15 Here he follows the lead of Israel Abrahams' classic, Jewish Life in the Middle

Introduction

XIX

Ages (first published in 1 8 96!), a work frequently cited in his own bib­

liographies, with its pioneering emphasis on "everyday life." The source material in Section D, "The Inner Life of the Jew," provides wonderful insights into the experiences and mind-sets of Jews who were by no means "notables," often reflecting the normal uncertainties and vicissitudes of life r::lther than catastrophic persecutions. The reader should be aWlre, however, that with the effort to reflect broader Jewish experience, there is what appears to be a conscious (though not clearly articulated) decision to pass over the more power­ ful intellectual and spiritual streams and their impacts. Rabbinic schol­ arship is exemplified by a number of important responsa (60, 6 7, 79, 94). But Jewish philosophy, reaching its apex in the achievement and legacy of Maimonides, is represented in only one document ( 3 9 ), which is an attempt to ban the study of its Greek sources. Kabbalah ap­ pears only in its most popular and superficial expressions ("practical Cabala," 49), not as a profound and powerful spiritual force. In a sec­ tion entitled "How the Medieval Jew Understood the Bible" ( 74), we might well expect to find not just Rashi, but passages from the Guide to the Perplexed and the Zohar. No one today compiling a source book that included religious movements within medieval Judaism would fail to include Hasidut Ashkfnflz (medieval German Jewish Pietism) or sub­ stantial material from its central literary creation, Sefer Hasidi.ml, rep­ resented in MarCl:S's book by ody a f,::w brief paragraphs on education in document 77. The omissions from the section on "Jewish Notables" are somewhat puzzling-. Marcus himself pointed out that Rabbenu Gershom does not appear in the collection, explaining this lacuna by the absence of ap­ propriate source mlterial (p. xxvii). His emphasis that this is a source book of Jewish history, not an attempt to treat Jewish literature (p. xxvi), may account for the absence of such towering figures as Judah Halevi, Abraham ibn Ezra, Levi ben Gerson, or Maharal of Prague. But Don Isaac Abravanel, certainly one of the greatest of Jewish notables, who combined political stature and intellectual productivity to a measure rivaled only by Samuel the Nagid, is mentioned only in a passing ref­ erence in an account of the expulsion ( r r ) , despite the abundant avail­ able source material by amI about him. Moses ben Nahman, the pre-eminent scholar of thirteenth-century Spanish Jewry, who repre­ sented his people before the King at the spectacular Disputation of Barcelona, does not appear at .111. Hasdai Crescas, outstanding rabbinic scholar, incisive critic of Aristotelian physics, recognized by the King as leader of Aragonese Jewry, and author of a poignant description of the r 3 91 riots, is completely missing. So is Moses Mendelssohn, except

xx

Introduction

for two brief mentions in the editor's notes to section 1 8. The absence of these "Jewish notables" indicates that there is much more of me­ dieval Jewish life that is worth encountering. Annotation

« It should be emphasized that the technical format of annotation dif­ fers from contemporary conventions. As Marcus explains in his Pref­ ace, "Phrases or sentences in parentheses ( ) are by the original writer of the source; materials in square brackets [ ] are insertions by the ed­ itor. It is hoped that they will not prove disconcerting" (p. xxix). My own experience in teaching from this book is that students often disre­ gard this distinction, citing passages in square brackets as if they were an integral part of the source. The contemporary practice of relegat­ ing interpretive and explanatory comments to footnotes would make the distinction much clearer. For technical reasons, this was not feasi­ ble in the present updated edition. While the annotation is extremely helpful in providing background and clarification for the textual material, occasionally the editor's com­ ments seem to reveal an apologetic purpose. In the first sustained ac­ count of a ritual murder accusation, Thomas of Monmouth cites a convert named Theobald as follows: "He verily told us that in the an­ cient writings of his fathers it was written that the Jews, without the shedding of human blood, could neither obtain their freedom, nor could they ever return to their fatherland." To this the editor adds: "[There is no such statement in Jewish law or literature.]" (p. 1 3 9)' That, it must be said, is somewhat misleading. Many statements in the Prophets, rabbinic works, and liturgical texts speak of bloodshed as an integral component of the messianic scenario, and the above-cited paraphrase of Theobald's undoubtedly refers to this tradition. It was not the reference to apocalyptic bloodshed in Theobald's statement, but his conclusion, "Hence it was laid down by them in ancient times that every year they must sacrifice a Christian in some part of the world to the Most High God," that represents the spurious and dan­ gerous innovation. The annotation to a passage about the Black Death, "[This Jew does not seem to know that the books of Moses and the scroll of the Jews are identical!]" (p. SI) appears to be a rather gra­ tuitous effort to diminish the stature of a Jew who confessed under tor­ ture to poisoning wells.16 If the above annotations may reflect an apologetic impulse, a few others strike me as dubious generalizations. A reference by a Christian writer to Ottoman Jewry's hope for the ingathering of the exiles and

Introduction

XXI

the restoration of a Jewish state elicits the comment: "Uewish nation­ alism was very strong in the I6th century]" (p. 47 2); not only is the term "nationalism" anachronistic, but the assertion in the primary text would apply to virtually every pre-nineteenth-century Jewish commu­ nity. A law in the Spanish code, Las siete partidas, providing a procedure for adjudication of ritual murder charges, is annotated, "[Christians al­ ready believed that Jews kidnapped and killed Christian children for religious purposes]" (p. 3 9). This suggests that all Christians believed it, which was certainly not the case; the more important points to make about this passage might be the King's statement that he had no hard evidence of the charge, only rumors, and his insistence that his royal court alone adjudicate all such cases. Finally, an occasional annotation is historically questionable. Mar­ cus seems to take the historicity of "Paltiel" in the Scroll of Ahimaaz as self-evident, asserting at the end of the passage, "[Paltiel was not only vizier but in all probability also the political head of the Jews. He bore the title of Nagid or 'Prince' of the Jews in the Fatimite Empire, which then extended from Sicily, over North Africa, to Syria.]" (p. 3 3 3 ). Contemporary scholarship is much more skeptical about such claims.17 Yet such questions may be raised about only a minuscule number of the annotations. For the most part, they reveal enormous learning and illuminate the texts in an extremely helpful manner. Bibliography

a:: For obvious reasons, the component of the book that is most unsat­ isfying today is the bibliographical section at the end of almost every document. These bibliographies have not been updated since the first publication in I 9 3 8. As a result, the original bibliographical entries fail to include a 60 year period that witnessed the flourishing of Jewish Studies and a profusion of academic investigation and publication. While some of the works contained in the bibliographies may still be worth consulting, many of them are considerably outdated. It is this readily-remedied lacuna that prompted the present revision. My decision was to leave the original bibliographies intact, so that one can see the state of the field in the late I9 3 0S, and to supplement them with material from the past two generations. As the book is in­ tended primarily for nonspecialists, I have followed Marcus's practice and limited the selections to material available in English; the reader should be aware that, in many cases, the number of references could be doubled or tripled by including Hebrew studies. My categories are somewhat different from those in the original

XXIi

Introduction

bibliographies. First, I have cited references in "Surveys," primarily the multi-volume Social and Religious History of the Jews by S. W Baron (JPS and Columbia University Press, 1 9 5 2 - 1 98 3 ), the one-volume History of the Jews (Harvard University Press, 1 976) edited by Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson (who wrote the medieval section), Kenneth Stow's more recent Alienated Minority (Harvard University Press, 1 992), and the Encyclopedia Judaica. Second is a section on "Studies." I have listed this material chronologically rather than alphabetically or thematically, using the original publication date (even if the work first appeared in a different language or in a periodical); the original date is listed in square brackets at the end of the citation. Third are references to "Ad­ ditional Source Materials" available in English. In some cases, I have listed "Historical Fiction," where the specific topic covered by the text is used as the setting for a work of belles lettres, in the thought that such works may be of interest to the reader whose purview goes be­ yond pure history. Washington

D.e.

August, 1 998 NOTES 1.

Paul R. Mendes-Flohr andJehuda Reinharz, eds., The Jew in the Mod­ em World: A Documentm) HistOl) (N.Y.: Oxford University Press,

2.

Based on "References to Sources" at the end of the book. According to this, two texts were translated by Marcus from other languages

3·

1 9 80).

(68, Gluckel of Hameln, and 74, Rashi) even though there were English translations available. Note his express interest in a particular genre because it provides "in­ sight into the mind of the average medieval man [and his] attitude to the Jew" (p. 1 5 9 ).

4-

A quotation from Luther's earlier, more positive work and an extensive paraphrase of the negative material in the later work were accessible in the translation of Graetz's Hist01Y ofthe Jews, 6 vols. (Philadelphia: JPS,

5·

Examples would b e 8 1 ,cited by Cecil Roth, The Jews i n the Renaissance (Philadelphia: JPS, 1 9 5 9 ), pp. 48- 49 , 3 4 3 ; 86, for which Marcus's selection is still the only portion of this memoir available in Eng­ lish (see Mark Cohen, Preface to The Autobiography ofa Seventeenth­ Centlll) Venetian Rabbi [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1 9 88], p. xxii); 1 8, reprinted from Marcus in The Jew in the Modem World, pp. 2 0- 2 5 . This is a very surprising (and somewhat disturbing) phrase to describe Christian doctrine in the early fourth century. Given the resonance

6.

1 894),4:47°, 5 48- 5 1 .

Introduction

7·

8.

9·

10.

II.

12.

XXlll

of "totalitarianism" both in 1 9 3 8 and today, its appropriateness is questionable even for the policy of the Nicaean Church toward Christian theological diversity, but, as the selections reveal, it clearly does not apply to the legislation of Constantine pertaining to Jews or to the normative policy of the Church toward Judaism. (The date 3 I S for the earliest text in the book is given in the Codex Theodosianus for this law of Constantine, but it has been challenged by modern scholars in favor of a 3 2 9 dating: see Amnon Linder, The Jews in Roman Impel'ial Legislation [Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1 9 8 7 ], pp. 1 2 4- 2 S. ) The latest document i n Section I , o n the State, i s Frederick the Great's legislative mixture of medieval and modern elements. While the two events appear to be symmetrical, there is a signifI­ cant difference. The action of the French Assembly was recognized as a revolutionary inauguration of a new era by contemporary Jews and non-Jews alike. The conversion of Constantine and his quite limited legislation regarding Jews was not considered to be nearly so dramatic at the time; it deserves to be considered epoch-making only in retrospect, as an emblem of what was to come. The choice of the Arab conquest of Palestine for the transition be­ tween Antiquity and the Middle Ages reflects the legacy of Ben Zion Dinur, who began his monumental Israel in the Diaspom with the Arab conquest, maintaining that until then, "Jewish history was, in the main, the history of the Jewish people living in its own land." Ben Zion Dinur, Ismel and the Diaspora (Philadelphia: JPS, 1 9 6 9),p. 3 . One might add also document 4,the "Pact of Omar," which may have originated in the Muslim conquest of Palestine and affected the sta­ tus of Jews in that as well as in other Islamic lands. See Michael A. Meyer, "Where Does the Modern Period of Jewish History Begin?" Judaism 2 4 ( I 9 7 S): 3 2 9 - 3 8,and Mendes-Flohr and Reinharz, The Jew in the Modern World,pp. 3 -4. Bibliographical ref­ erences to the positions noted below can be found in these articles. For the period of the High Middle Ages, compare the far more pre­ cise and nuanced classification in Robert Chazan, Chw'ch, Jew in the Middle Ages (West Orange, N.].: Bchrman House, 1 9 80). For a revealing example of Marcus's outlook, see the introduction to the section on Karaism. After stating the Karaite understanding that "Anan [ben David) is thus not the founder of a heresy, but the last great Jewish reformer," he concludes with his editorial judg­ ment, "This entire concept of Jewish history is, of course, false" (p. 2 3 4). David Alroy (So) and Shabbethai Zebi (S2 ) are each labelled "False Messiah." For my critique of such terminology as under­ mining the possibility of understanding the historical dy namics of movements that coalesced around such figures, see Essential Papers on klessianic Movements and Ideas in Jewish History (New York: NY U Press, 1 99 2 ), pp. 4 -S.

XXIV

'3·

'4-

'S·

16.

'7·

Introduction An example of a more "colorful" document chosen at the expense of the more sober account with perhaps less justification is the hostile Muslim treatment of David Alroy, 5 0. Notably by Norman Stillman, The Jews of Amb Lands (Philadelphia: JPS, 1 979)· See the excellent discnssion of the origins and legacy of Baron's repu­ diation of this conception by Ismar Schorsch, "The Lachrymose Conception of Jewish History," in From Text to Context (Hanover: Brandeis University Press, 1 994), pp. 3 76-4° 3 . The Jew may well have been asked, "Do y ou swear by the five books of Moses that this is true?" "Yes." And later, "Do y ou swear by the scroll of the Jews that this is true?" "Yes." The ignorance, if any, may have been that of the Christian who reported the inquiry in the text. It is the torture, rather than the presumed lack of Jewish knowledge, that invalidates the testimony Cf. Waiter Fischel, Jews in the Economic fl1ld Political Life of Mediaeval Islam (New York: Ktav, 1 969), pp. 64-68, rejecting the identifica­ tion of Paltiel with known figures from Islamic records, and Baron, S RHJ 5 :4°-4 1 : "It is very doubtful whether Paltiel himself revived the ancient title of nagid."

JACOB RADER MARCUS

�IIS

source book attempts to reflect the life of the medieval Jew as seen through the eyes of contemporaries. The documents and historical narratives given here have been selected with the view of allowing the actors and witnesses of events--that is, the historical facts--to speak for themselves. The author of this work has not set out with any conscious, apologetic motive. His sole interest is to give in translation material which will reflect conditions as they actually were. Anti-Jewish legislation, narratives, and memoirs are printed here without any attempt to "edit" them: they are reproduced as written because they portray faithfully the anti-Jewish sentiment which was so characteristic of a large group of non-Jews at the time of their composition. When, however, there is a fear that the unsuspecting reader might accept as authentic history naive and fabulous stories of ritual murder, host desecrations, and the like, the necessary notes for clarification have been added. Just what centuries ought to be included in the concept "medieval Jewry" is not easy to determine. The medieval age in general his­ tory is not altogether synchronous with the medieval age in Jewish history. The medieval epoch in Jewish life is much more extensive at both ends. It may be said to begin about 3 1 5 when Constantine the Great, under the influence of Christian religious totalitarianism, began to enact against. the Jews disabling laws which ultimately re­ duced them to the status of second-class citizens. Throughout the centuries that followed, the Jew enjoyed (or suffered under) a type of legislation, voluntarily chosen or imposed by the state, which differed from the legislation for the dominant Christian or Moslem masses. The Jews were never more than a tolerated group even when accorded exceptionally favorable privileges, and they were nearly always cordially disliked. Thus, in general, it is safe to say that large patches of the medieval period were characterized by political and social disabilities. Not all the disabilities were necessarily destructive -if they had been the Jews would not have survived. The medieval age comes to an end for Western Jewry with the proclamation of political and civil emancipation in France in Septem­ ber, 1 79 1 . The rise of the democratic state meant the abrogation of special class and group legislation and the promulgation of one D:V

XXVI

Preface

organic statute under which all inhabitants of a state were to live. With the rise of the democratic state, religion or "race" ,vas no bar to citizenship; there was one law for all people. This process of emancipation began in France in 1791 and ac­ cordingly in our sources we have not gone beyond the eighteenth century. One might argue that this terminus is arbitrary, that the majority of the Jews lived in Eastern Europe and that medieval legislation and life prevailed there till after the World War. That is true, but our plea is that we have decided to stop at the first real manifestation of the modern age, and that there is nothing typical of nineteenth century Russian czaristic medievalism that is not al­ ready described in the sources from 3 1 5 to 1791. It might also be argued with some justice that even in Central Europe, medievalism is still continuous as reflected in the legislation of the National Socialist regime in Germany. However, it has not yet been determined whether the changes in Germany are to be permanent or whether they are merely episodic; whether they are merely atavistic, the last resurgent effort of a dying medievalism, or whether they are the precursors of some new and different world order. The fact is that the great western world powers that have been associated with liberalism, democracy, and "modernism" still maintain themselves and have definitely ended the exceptional status of the Jews. For the present at least we prefer to end the medieval age with 1791. This work is an attempt at a source book of Jewish history. It makes no attempt to treat of literature as such. Yet, inasmuch as all sources of Jewish origin are, by a liberal definition, literature per se, there is practically no phase of Jewish literature that is not reflected in this book. A brief turning of the pages will disclose historical narratives, codes, legal opinions, martyrologies, memoirs, polemics, epitaphs, advertisements, folk-tales, ethical and pedagogical writings, book prefaces and colophons, commentaries, communal statutes, and the like. The problem of what to select has been difficult. There have been other source books and anthologies before this-most of them in German and in Hebrew-and the writer has found them helpful and has been grateful for their guidance. With very few exceptions, however, their interests have been almost exclusively literary. Their reliability, too, may be questioned by virtue of the fact that they frequently overlook the primary sources and quote instead secondary or tertiary sources. Many of these older source books were apolo­ getic in motivation, lacked adequate introductions and notes, and

Preface

XXVI!

were not so organized in their arrangement of the material as to give a systematic concept of medieval life and legislation. Docu­ ments of purely historical import are seldom found. The difficulties of selection become more obvious when it is realized that there are at least fifteen centuries of medieval Jewish life, that in this work alone sources are translated from over a dozen languages and dialects, and that the lands treated extend from the Dutch Colony of New Amsterdam (New York) to the borders of China. Accordingly, the principles that have motivated the selections have been those of importance, interest, clarity, and diversification. It has been attempted, within the compass of a fair-sized volume, to omit nothing of prime importance. We are not sure that we have always succeeded. Nothing is said, for instance, of Rabbenu Gershom, one of the great figures of early central European Jewish life. But this is due to the fact that our sources often fail us and that we have only scattered references and doubtful texts relating to great men and important events: material that cannot be used in a source book. On the other hand there is no dearth of stories, and very interest­ ing ones, too, dealing with the persecutions of the Jew. Here we have an embarrassment of riches. No attempt, therefore, has been made to exhaust the material dealing with the persecutions and expulsions of the Jews of England, France, Austria, Portugal, Lithuania, etc. No attempt has been made to exhaust the records of the crusades. We wish to emphasize: a source book is not a martyrol­ ogy. We have selected only those accounts of brutal mistreatment and expulsion which are of prime importance, typical, and, we hope, interesting in some degree. We have at times preferred the account of a witness or of a contemporary to that of the chief agent. In our opinion the reasoned, cautious account by Joseph Ha-Kohen of the activities of Reubeni, the sixteenth century Messianic adventurer, is superior, in its com­ pactness and objectivity, to the diary of Reubeni himself. We have found the anonymous description of the Spanish expulsion in 1 49 2 by a contemporary Italian Jew more informative than the dry, matter-of-fact official decree of expttlsion. It will be noticed that there is a preponderance of material dealing with the later Jewish Middle Ages, the sixteenth through the eight­ eenth centuries, and particularly with the central European area. The reason for this stress on the last few centuries is that many sources for the earlier centuries have been lost or destroyed; the invention

XXVlll

/

Preface

of rinting in the fifteen century, however, has served to increase an to preserve our records, and the spirit of individualism and classicism that came in with the Renaissance has tended to stimulate the writing of historical narratives and personal memoirs. The em­ phasis on German Jewish materials is for two reasons. In the first place Germany is one of the few countries with a continuous stream of Jewish history since at least the tenth century. The second and more important reason is that general and Jewish historical science reached its highest development in nineteenth century Germany in a vast library of primary sources and explanatory literature. There is a wealth of Jewish historical materials in the German lands and we have accordingly availed ourselves of them liberally, as long as they were fairly typical of Jewish life. The material we have selected is divided into three main sections. A glance through the Table of Contents will at once reveal the character of its organization. The first section deals with the rela­ tion of the State to the Jew and reflects the civil and political status of the Jew in the medieval world. The second section treats of the profound influence exerted by the Church-both Catholic and Protestant-�m Jewish life and well-being. It is obvious that this "separation" of Church and State is bound to be arbitrary. For instance, the anti-Jewish legislation of the Visigothic kings is as much ecclesiastical as it is regal; the attitude of the Mayence arch­ bishop during the Crusade of 1 096 is as much political as it is clerical, for the archbishop was both the civil and the religious head of the city. Within the topical divisions, the materials are presented in chronological sequence. The third and final section is devoted to a study of the Jew "at home." This general section is composed of a series of four sub­ divisions which treat of the life of the Jew in its various aspects. The first subdivision, "Jewish Self-Govemment," attempts through codes, communal statutes, and the like to give some idea of the autonomy which medieval Jewry enjoyed in all parts of Europe till the dawn of emancipation. The second group of sources, "Jewish Sects, Mystics, and Messiahs," describes the various schisms and heresies throughout the ages, and particularly the pseudo-Messiahs who have played so important a part in rousing the nationalist and political hopes of the unhappy masses. The third group, "Jewish Notables," is a collection of materials throwing light on the achieve­ ments or struggles of a group of men-and some women, too­ notable for the part they have played in Jewish life. The final group, "The Inner Life of the Jew," is an effort to portray the Jew in

Preface

XXIX

almost every type of social, cultural, political, and economic activity. No attempt has been made to devote a special section to Jewish economic life as such. Business contracts, receipts, inventories, and the like, though important, are as a rule equally boring. Yet no effort has been spared to select materials which will adequately reflect the economic interests and problems of the medieval Jew. It is no exaggeration to say that practically every selection in this book throws some light on the business life of the Jew so that even he who runs may read. A glance at the caption "Economic Life" in the Index will show the wealth of material on this subject. One of the basic problems of a source book such as this is to insure clarity and understanding, no mean task, for the medieval world was in many of its institutions and its ideals totally different from ours. The average reader-and this includes the Jew as well as the non-Jew-has a double problem when he undertakes to under­ stand or penetrate within the ambit of a cultural epoch that was both medieval and Jewish. To illuminate the obscurities the author has prefaced each item with a detailed introduction. In addition many notes have been inserted within the text in the hope of re­ solving difficulties. Phrases or sentences in parentheses ( ) are by the original writer of the source; materials in square brackets [ J are insertions by the editor. It is hoped that they will not prove dis­ concerting. The author has attempted, as far as it was possible for him, to make his translations from the original sources and from the best editions. Wherever translations already existed, these have been employed unless incorrect or too paraphrastic. Occasionally, too, even though translations have been adopted that were based on earlier texts, the author has checked and corrected the translations to accord with later, more critical editions. In his own translations the author has leaned to the side of literalness with the hope of thus giving the reader some concept of the medieval idiom. No unjustified liberties have been taken with the original texts. Obvious errors have, of course, been corrected; recurrent pious phrases and honorific titles such as "of blessed memory" and "rabbi" have frequently been omitted. The punctuation and paragraphing have been supplemented and modernized, and archaic spellings have at times been changed. The spellings and transliterations from the Hebrew have been adopted, with exceptions, from the Jewish En­ cy clopedia. Arabic and other Oriental transliterations follow, in large part, the Encyclopaedia of Islam. Diacritical marks have been omitted. The attempt has been made to secure uniformity in spell-

xxx

Preface

ing, not always as easy as it may seem. A rather prominent American Jewish merchant of the colonial period, whom we mention, is known as Isaac Elizer, Eliezur, and Elizur, and all three spellings are au­ thenticated. Manasseh ben Israel is a common spelling of the name of the famous Dutch Jewish scholar and publicist, but he himself signs his name: Menasseh. Biblical quotations as a rule are cited from the translation of the Jewish Publication Society. It would defeat the purpose of this book to translate completely, for example, Frederick the Great's general-patent for Prussian Jewry ( 1 7 50), a ponderous charter of about fifteen thousand words. Many documents, therefore, because of their size are quoted in extract only. All omissions are indicated by four dots ( . . . . ). Detailed references to the sources may be found at the back of the book. No attempt has been made to list the monographs or literature con­ sulted for use in the introductions and notes. The relevant literature is known to the research historian; others are probably not interested in such detail. There now remains to the author the pleasant task of expressing his appreciation to all who have helped in the preparation of this work. A page of acknowledgments to those publishers and authors who have graciously permitted the use of their translations is ap­ pended. To the Librarians of the Hebrew Union College, the University of Cincinnati, the Jewish Theological Seminary, and the Jewish Division of the New York Public Library, the writer expresses his thanks for their unfailing courtesy in supplying him with the many works he found it necessary to consult. Dr. William Rosenau of Baltimore has been kind enough to read the manuscript and to give the author the benefit of his suggestions. Dr. Jacob Menkes of New York has been most helpful, especially in matters touching on the history of the Polish Jews. Thanks are also due to Dr. Emanuel Gamoran, Educational Director of the Commission on Jewish Edu­ cation, for his valued advice and constant interest in the preparation of this work. My dear teacher and colleague, Dr. Jacob Z. Lauterbach, Profes­ sor Emeritus of Talmud and Rabbinics at the Hebrew Union Col­ lege, has been most gracious in always putting at my service his great knowledge of rabbinic literature and his fine critical mind; Dr. Sol B. Finesinger, Professor of Talmud at the Hebrew Union College, has given most generously of his time in checking much of my work. To both of these men, my dear friends, who have been most helpful I wish to express my sincerest thanks.

Preface

XXXI

Finally the author wishes to express his deepest gratitude to Mr. Samuel Sandmel whose work in the correction of the manuscript and whose loyal assistance in every possible way made him an invaluable companion in the preparation of this work. I also wish to express my gratitude to Morton A. Bauman for the personal interest he has mani­ fested in the preparation of the typescript. The purpose of the bibliographies which follow almost every item is to refer the reader to standard textbooks and to suggest literature and additional sources for the more advanced students. No attempt has been made to supply a bibliographical apparatus for the scholar or the research worker. A historian trained in Jewish history does not need such an apparatus. The historian, however, who has no Jewish back­ ground but is interested in furthering his knowledge of Jewish history is advised to consult the Jewish Encyclopedia, the Jiidisches Lexikon, and the Encyclopaedia Judaica. Such a historian will also find useful Cecil Roth's systematic bibliography on "The Jews in the Middle Ages," in the Cambridge Medieval History, VII, 93 7 - 947 . Because this source book is not intended primarily for researchers, no foreign literature has been given in spite of the fact that many, if not most, of the basic monographs in the field of Jewish history are in Ger­ man, Hebrew, French, etc. Three textbooks are constantly referred to: 1. Elbogen, History of the Jews (Elbogen); C. Roth, A Bird's-Eye View ofJewish History (Roth); and A.L. Sachar, A History of the Jews (Sachar). Elbogen's History is a brief but sound work by the eminent Jewish historian. Roth's Bird's Eye View attempts to cover the entire range of Hebrew and Jewish history in less than 400 pages; the book is readable, sound, but almost too brief in spots. Sachar's book is popular, but well-rounded and well-propor­ tioned, and probably the most useful one-volume work for the average reader. Among the readings for advanced students three works are con­ stantly cited: H. Graetz, History ofthe Jews, 6 vols. (Graetz); H. Graetz, Popular History of tile Jews, s vols., translated by A.B. Rhine (Graetz­ Rhine); and M.L. Margolis and A. Marx, A History of the Jewish People (Margolis and Marx). Graetz's History of the Jews is the standard general Jewish history. It is an abbreviated translation made from an early G erman edition. Through somewhat antiquated and frequently biased, it will always re­ main the classic work, distinguished by scholarship of a high calibre. Graetz's Popular History of the Jews is a summary of the material in the larger History of the Jews. It was translated by A. B. Rhine and aug­ mented with material on the East European Jews not found in the

XXXI !

Preface

original Graetz works. In this respect the Popular History of the Jews is superior to the History of the Jews. The Margolis and Marx History of the Jewish People is the best one­ volume history of the Jews in any language. It is really an encyclopedic reference work, painstakingly accurate, and always useful Works and source-materials which do not concern themselves di­ rectly with Jewish history are rarely quoted. Students who wish infor­ mation about this literature are referred to A Guide to Historical Literature, by Allison, Fay, Shearer, and Shipman, and to similar Euro­ pean works. Cincinnati, Ohio October, 1 9 3 7

ABBREVIATIONS

d.

died

EJ H UCA JE

Encyclopedia Judaica Hebrew Union College Annual Jewish Encyclopedia

JPS

Jewish Publication Society

JQR M G WJ

Jewish Quarterly Review MonatschriJt fur Geschicbte and Wissenschaft des Judentums

N.S. O.S.

new series old series

PAAJR REJ ZGJD

Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research Revue des etudes juives ZeitschriJt fur die Geschichte tierJuden in Deutschland

SECTION I

The State and the Jew

1. Jews and the Later Roman Law 3 1 5-5 3 I

LIE

Middle Ages, for the Jew at least, begin with the advent to power of Constantine the Great ( 3 06-3 3 7 ) . He was the first Roman emperor to issue laws which radically limited the rights of Jews as citizens of the Roman Empire, a privilege conferred upon them by Caracalla in 2 I 2 . As Christianity grew in power in the Roman Em­ pire it influenced the emperors to limit further the civil and political rights of the Jews. Most of the imperial laws that deal with the Jews since the days of Constantine are found in the Latin Codex Theodosianus (43 8 ) and in the Latin and Greek code of Justinian ( 5 34) . Both of these monumental works are therefore very impor­ tant, for they enable us to trace the history of the progressive deterioration of Jewish rights. The real significance of Roman law for the Jew and his history is that it exerted a profound influence on subsequent Christian and even Moslem legislation. The second-class status of citizenship of the Jew, as crystallized in the Justinian code, was thus entrenched in the medieval world, and under the influence of the Church the disabilities imposed upon him received religious sanction and rele­ gated him even to lower levels. In our first selection-laws of Constantine the Great-Judaism is denied the opportunity of remaining a missionary religion because of the prohibition to make proselytes. The laws of Constantius ( 3 3 7-36 I ) , the second selection, forbid intermarriage between Jewish men and Christian women. A genera­ tion later, in 388, all marriages between Jews and Christians were forbidden. Constantius also did away with the right of Jews to possess slaves. This prohibition to trade in and to keep slaves at a time when slave labor was common was not merely an attempt to arrest conversion to Judaism ; it was also a blow at the economic life of the Jew. It put him at a disadvantage with his Christian com­ petitor to whom this economic privilege was assured. The third selection, a law of Theodosius II (408-450 ) , prohibits Jews from holding any adnntageous office of honor in the Roman state. They were compelled, however, to assume those public of3

The Jew in the Medieval World

4

fices which entailed huge financial losses and almost certain ruin, and they were not even granted the hope of an ultimate exemption. This Novella (New Law) III of Theodosius II also makes a direct attack on the Jewish religion by reenacting a law which forbade the building of new Jewish synagogues. This prohibition was known a generation before this. It was reenacted now, probably to pacify the aroused Christian mob in the Eastern Empire which desired to crush the religious spirit of the Jews who were massing at Jerusalem and confidently looking forward to the coming of a Messianic re­ deemer in 440. This disability, later taken over by some Moslem states, was reenunciated by the Church which sought to arrest the progress of Judaism, its old rival. A Latin law of Justinian ( 5 2 7-565 ) , the final selection, does not allow a Jew to bear witness in court against an orthodox Christian. Thus as early as the sixth century the Jews were already laboring under social, economic, civil, political, and religious disabilities. I. Laws of Constantine the Great, October 1 8, 3 1 5-NCERNING JEWS, HEAVEN-WORSHIPPERS, · AND SAMARITANS

«We wish to make it known to the Jews and their elders and their patriarchs that if, after the enactment of this law, any one of them dares to attack with stones or some other manifestation of anger another who has fled their dangerous sect and attached himself to the worship of God [Christianity], he must speedily be given to the flames and burnt together with all his accomplices. Moreover, if any one of the population should join their abomi­ nable sect and attend their meetings, he will bear with them the deserved penalties. 11. Laws of Constant;us, August 13 , 339-