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

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СКАЧАТЬ 1368) severely prohibiting all such unseemly compulsion. Subsequently, Charles prolonged the period for remaining in the country by ten years, and later on by six more. All this was brought about by the indefatigable Manessier (1374). His zeal in the Jewish cause and the advantages the king derived from his exertions were rewarded by the exemption of himself and his family from every kind of tax, contribution and service to the crown (1375).

      Although the German and French Jews appeared to revive after their dreadful sufferings, it was only a material revival; their spirit remained dead. Their intellectual powers had disappeared. In France, where, during more than two centuries, from Rashi to the last of the Tossafists, the study of the Talmud had been carried to its most flourishing point, and where remarkable acuteness and intellectual depth had been developed, the new emigrants exhibited so astonishing an ignorance that they were obliged to commence their studies anew. The indulgences of the kings, John and Charles, certainly spoke of rabbis who should be invested with authority to try Jewish criminals; but there was not a single profound Talmudist among them; indeed, according to the avowal of contemporary writers, not more than five of even mediocre attainments. The only devotee of Talmudical study, Matathiah ben Joseph Provenci, has left nothing in writing to testify to his ability. Held in such esteem by Charles V that he and his family were exempted from wearing the distinctive badges prescribed by law, and apparently related to the receiver general, Manessier de Vesoul, Matathiah was in the best position to deal with the prevailing ignorance. He re-established a college at Paris, assembled pupils, expounded the Talmud to them, ordained them to rabbinical offices, and caused copies of the Talmud to be written. In consequence of his energy and his comparatively great learning, he was chosen by the newly established French communities to the office of chief rabbi and chief justice in civil and penal cases, his appointment being confirmed by the king. His school had to supply the communities with rabbis, but his pupils enriched rabbinical literature by their contributions as little as he himself. Even Provence, once so fruitful of Jewish literature, had become intellectually impoverished.

      In Germany, where the rabbis had once been so proud of their traditional knowledge, the Black Death, with its attendant persecutions and banishments, had so thinned the ranks of the Jews that extraordinary intellectual decay had set in. The illiterate and the superficial, in the absence of better men, were inducted into rabbinical offices. This mischievous practice was vigorously opposed by Meïr ben Baruch Halevi, a rabbi, who, in his time, passed for a great authority in Germany (1370–1390). Rabbi at Vienna, as his father had been before him, Meïr Halevi (Segal) ordered that no Talmudical student should exercise rabbinical functions unless authorized by a rabbi of standing. Until then it had been the practice for anyone who felt able and willing to assume the rabbinical office without further ceremony, or, if he perchance settled in the neighborhood of his teacher, to obtain permission from him. As from the time of Gershom of Mayence there had always been great Talmudists in Germany, public opinion counteracted the abuse of this liberty; for had an unqualified person arrogated to himself the exercise of rabbinical functions, he would have incurred general derision and contempt. After the Black Death, however, this deterrent lost much of its force through the scarcity of Talmudists. The order of Meïr of Vienna, that every rabbi should be ordained, that he should earn the title (Morenu), and that, without such preparation, he should be precluded from dealing with matrimonial matters, marriages and divorces, was dictated by the exigencies of the times, not the presumptuousness of its author. The insignificance of even the most respected of the German rabbis of this period is apparent from the fact that not one of them has left any important Talmudical work; that, on the contrary, they all pursued a course productive of mental stagnation. Meïr Halevi, his colleague Abraham Klausner, and Shalom, of Austria, rabbi at Neustadt, near Vienna, devoted themselves exclusively to writing down and perpetuating the customs of the communities (Minhagim), to which, formerly, but very little attention had been given. They and their disciples, Isaac Tyrnau of Hungary, and Jacob Mölin (Maharil) have left behind them nothing but such insipid compilations. If the Austrian school, which at this time preponderated, was so wanting in intellectuality, how much more the Rhenish, from which only names have come down to us.

      Through the disasters that resulted from the Black Death, the memories of old times had become so obliterated that the Rhenish rabbis found themselves compelled, in consequence of differences of opinion on points of marriage law, to convene a synod, exclusively for the purpose of restoring old regulations. At the meeting at Mayence (15th Ab–5th August, 1381) a few of the rabbis, together with some of the communal leaders, renewed the old decisions of Speyer, Worms and Mayence (Tekanoth Shum); as, for instance, that the childless widow should be released, without extortion or delay, from the obligation of marrying her brother-in-law, and should receive a definite portion of the property left by her husband. Among the rabbis who took part in this synod there is not one name of note.

      CHAPTER V.

      THE AGE OF CHASDAÏ CRESCAS AND ISAAC BEN SHESHET

      The Jews of Spain after the Civil War – Joseph Pichon and Samuel Abrabanel – The Apostates: John of Valladolid – Menachem ben Zerach, Chasdaï Crescas, and Isaac ben Sheshet – Chayim Gallipapa and his Innovations – Prevôt Aubriot and the Jews of Paris – The French Rabbinate – Revival of Jewish Influence in Spain – The Jews of Portugal – The Jewish Statesmen, David and Judah Negro – Rabbis and Clergy – Persecutions in Germany and Spain – The First Germs of the Inquisition – Second Expulsion of the Jews from France – The Convert, Pessach-Peter – Lipmann of Mühlhausen.

1369–138 °C.E

      The heart of the Jewish race had become not less crippled and sickly than its members. In Spain disintegrating forces were at work on the firm nucleus of Judaism, which had so long defied the corroding influences of ecclesiastical and civil animosity. The prince, whom the Jews at the dictates of their loyalty had so sturdily resisted, against whom they had even taken up arms; the bastard, Don Henry de Trastamara; the rebel who had brought civil war upon his native land, and flooded it with a marauding soldiery; the fratricide, who had burst the bonds alike of nature and law, had, after the victory of Montiel, seized the scepter with his blood-stained hands, and placed the stolen crown of Castile on his guilty head. Of the large Jewish population, a considerable proportion had, during the protracted and embittered civil war, met death on the field of battle, in the beleaguered towns, and, armed and unarmed alike, at the swords of the mercenaries of the "white company."

      The Jewish community of Toledo, the Castilian capital – the "Crown of Israel" of the Middle Ages, and, in a measure, the Jerusalem of the Occident – did not number, after the raising of the siege, as many hundreds of Jews as previously thousands. The remainder of the Jews of Castile had been reduced to beggary by the depredations and confiscations of friend and foe. Not a few, in their despair, had thrown themselves into the arms of Christianity. A striking picture of the unhappy condition of the Castilian communities at this period is furnished by a contemporary writer, Samuel Çarça: "In truth, plunderers followed on plunderers, money vanished from the purse, souls from the bodies; all the precursory sufferings of the Messianic period arrived – but the Redeemer came not!"

      After Don Henry's victory, the Jews had good reason to tremble. One pretext for making war on his brother was the favor shown by Don Pedro to Jews. Now he had become the arbiter of their destinies. Would he not, like another Vespasian or Hadrian, place his foot on the necks of the vanquished? The gloomiest of their anticipations, however, were not realized. Don Henry II was as little able to dispense with the Jews as his predecessors, or the French and German princes. Jews were the only financiers able to keep the state exchequer in prosperity and order, and for this purpose Don Henry stood in need of them more than ever. During the war he had incurred debts for the payment of the troops with which Du Guesclin had assisted him, and for help received in other quarters he had made promises which had to be redeemed. The country had become impoverished by the protracted war. Who was to procure the necessary sums, and provide for the systematic collection of the taxes, if not the Jews? Henry was not blind to the merits of the Jews exemplified in their constancy to his brother. Instead of punishing the conquered, he appreciated their fidelity, saying: "Such subjects a king must love and reward, because they maintained proper loyalty СКАЧАТЬ