The history of the Jews: From the war with Rome to the present time

It has been noted in a previous chapter that, up to the end of William Rufus’s reign, the chief hardship that befell the Jews in England was, that the Norman kings extracted large sums from them, partly as loans—for which, perhaps, payment was hardly contemplated by either party—and partly as the price of the protection afforded them. The same state of things continued during the reigns of Henry I., Stephen, and Henry II. Throughout this long period,—not much less than a hundred years,—the Jews continued to gather in riches without molestation, to an extent which proved ruinous to themselves in subsequent generations, little as they anticipated such a result at the time.[107] There were not wanting signs, however, which might have indicated the approaching danger. During the reign of Stephen, A.D. 1145, the charge was made against the Jews,—for the first time in England, if not in Europe,—of having kidnapped and crucified a boy at Norwich, in contemptuous parody of the Saviour’s passion. The case was brought before the notice of the king, and the accused were adjudged to pay a fine to the Crown—a most suspicious termination of the inquiry. No further outbreak, however, occurred: and during the protracted reign of his successor, Henry II., the same condition of things continued. That able and powerful monarch, whatever might be his difficulties with the clergy, repressed with a strong hand all overt acts of violence against the peculiar people, who looked to him for protection.[108] But he could not prevent their growing unpopularity. Society had become largely influenced by the crusading spirit. The loss of Jerusalem,—which had been wrested by so large an expenditure of blood and treasure from the hold of the Infidel,—roused everywhere a more bitter feeling than ever against the enemies of Christ. It was mainly through the Crusades that the Jews had acquired their wealth; and the spectacle of unbelievers living in ease and luxury, at the cost of the faithful servants of Christ, whose bones were whitening the plains of Palestine, or who had returned to England to pine in poverty, stirred public indignation to the utmost. The train was already laid for a furious onslaught upon them. It needed but a spark to bring about the explosion.

The crisis came almost immediately after the death of Henry. Anxious at once to show their loyalty and secure the protection of the new sovereign, the Jews sent a deputation, consisting of men of the highest repute among them, to attend the coronation of King Richard, and present him with rich gifts suitable to the occasion. Their presence was regarded as a profanation of the ceremony, and orders were sent them to stay away. They obeyed, but a few of their number, supposing themselves unknown, or that they would not be noticed, ventured into the Abbey. They were detected and dragged violently out. The popular fury was inflamed. The houses of the Jews were everywhere broken open, plundered, and set on fire. The king endeavoured to put a stop to the riot, but in vain. The pillage and murder went on throughout the entire night. On the following day order was restored, many of the rioters were arrested, and a strict inquiry made. Three were hanged, but it is a curious illustration of the state of the public feeling of the day, that none of these were punished for injuries done to the Jews. Two of the three had robbed a Christian, pretending that he was a Jew, and the third had set on fire the house of a Jew, but, unluckily for the offender, a Christian’s house had been burned along with it. It would really seem that, in the existing state of public feeling, the government dared not punish any one for the simple offence of injuring a Jew!

The news of the outbreak ran like wild fire through the country, and everywhere the rabble were roused to the same violence. In Norwich and Stamford, and other large towns, the Jews were attacked, their houses gutted, themselves maltreated and slain. At Lincoln, the humane governor of the castle gave them timely warning. They retired with their valuables within its shelter, and were preserved. At York, a Jew named Benedict, who had declared himself a convert to Christianity to save his life, and had afterwards recanted, became the special object of popular fury. He had died of exhaustion and terror before the commencement of the émeute; but the mob, disregarding that circumstance, attacked his house, burned it to the ground, and murdered his wife and children. The other Jews—as many of them, that is, as had heard in time of the danger that was threatening them—took refuge within the walls of York Castle, thinking, probably, to escape as their brethren at Lincoln had done. Those who were left behind were ruthlessly massacred, man, woman, and child, a few only excepted, who submitted to be baptized.

The Jews within the castle seem to have been received favourably by the governor. But they suspected him of treachery. Unhappily, their Christian brethren had given them but too good reason for their suspicious temper. A rumour was circulated among them that he meant to open the gates to the rioters, conditionally on being rewarded for his treachery by receiving a large portion of the plunder. One day, when he had gone out into the town, they took the desperate step of shutting the gates against him, and, manning the walls, declared they would defend themselves against all who might attack them. The governor’s indignation was roused to the utmost at this ingratitude. It chanced that the sheriff of the county was in York, attended by an armed force. The governor appealed to him to recapture the fortress from the traitors who had seized it. The sheriff assented, and, aided by the mob, made an assault on the castle. The besieged defended themselves manfully, and for a long time kept their enemies at bay. At last it became evident that they could resist no further. Then their Rabbi, a man of learning and high character, addressed them, and warned them that there was nothing but death before them—a speedy and honourable death by their own hands, or a death attended by every circumstance of insult and barbarity by the hands of their enemies. Surely it was better to choose the first.

This proposal was agreed to by nearly all present. They collected their valuables. Such as were combustible they burned, the rest they buried. They then set fire to the castle in several places, slew, first of all, their wives and children, and then one another. The Rabbi was the last to die. He stabbed the last survivor of his flock, and then drove the sword into his own heart. The fearful scene which had taken place, a thousand years before, in the Castle of Masada, was repeated, with scarcely any variation but those caused by the difference of time and place. If any evidence were required of the resolute and unchangeable character of the Jewish people, this story would surely suffice.

In the morning a renewed assault was made, and then came the fearful discovery of what had taken place. The conduct of the victors fully justified the forebodings of the Rabbi; the few who had shrunk from death at the hands of their countrymen were dragged out of their hiding-places and butchered. Then the work of plunder began. The gold and jewels were carefully secured, but the papers, of which there was a great store, were burned. This was an unhappy mistake for the rioters. The papers were mostly bonds and acknowledgments of debts, the reversion of which, by the law, became the property of the Crown. Consequently, by this act, large sums were forfeited which would have enriched the royal treasury. The reader will not be surprised to hear that a commission of inquiry was straightway sent down to York. But the papers had been hopelessly destroyed, and the ringleaders of the outrage had fled to Scotland. The chief citizens entered into recognizances for the better observance of order; but it does not appear that any of the perpetrators of this horrible murder of 500, or some say 1500, innocent persons ever underwent any legal penalty.

When Richard returned from his captivity, however, he resolved to place the affairs of the Jews in a more satisfactory condition. He found that during his absence the utmost lawlessness had prevailed. The Norman baron had been in the habit of seizing on any wealthy Jew, carrying him to his castle, and inflicting any amount of torture on him, till he paid the sum demanded of him.[109] He forbade this, declaring the Jews to be the chattels of the Crown, with which it would be treason to meddle. A special court in the king’s Exchequer was set apart for the management of Jewish finances. The amount of property belonging to every Jew was duly registered and assessed. This was no doubt arbitrary and extortionate, but still it was better than lawless pillage, and probably did not prevent the Jews from continuing to amass large fortunes. During the remainder of his short reign they experienced no further persecution.

Richard died in the last year of the century, and John, the cruellest and most detestable of the English kings, succeeded to the throne. But for a time his usage of the Jews was milder than that of any of his predecessors. He issued a charter restoring to them all the privileges they had possessed in the times of the pure Norman kings. They might dwell where they pleased; might hold lands and fees; their evidence was to be of equal value with that of Christians; and, if charged with an offence, they could be tried only in the King’s Court. With what motive this was done, it is not easy to say. John may have simply wished to conciliate their goodwill and so induce them to be as liberal to him as possible. But the suspicion that he meant to allow them time and opportunity for accumulating vast riches, and then seize on them himself, has much to justify it. It is, again, not unlikely that the countenance which he showed them rendered them more than ever odious to his subjects; and when this became patent, he was in no way inclined to incur unpopularity on their account.[110] Any way, some ten years after his accession, there was a sudden and total change in his demeanour towards them. Without any reason assigned, the whole of the Jews were arrested, cast into prison, and their property confiscated to the Crown. Suspecting that they had disclosed to the authorities only a portion of their wealth, and that large secret hoards still existed, he caused them to be put to the most cruel tortures, to compel them to give up these also. The well-known tale of the Jew of Bristol, of whom 10,000 marks of silver[111] were demanded, and who, on his refusal, was sentenced to lose a tooth every day until he paid it, is perfectly well authenticated. He allowed, it is related, seven of his teeth to be knocked out of his head, and then, to save the remainder, consented to the payment. The king is said to have obtained as much as 60,000 marks by this pillage of his subjects. Nor did the cruelty and injustice end here. The rebellious barons, regarding the Jews as the property of the Crown, seized upon their treasures and demolished their houses, to repair the breaches in the walls of London.

Before concluding the history of the twelfth century, it will be proper to give some brief account of the various impostors claiming to be the expected Messiah who made their appearance during its continuance, and also to say something of the great doctors and learned men who adorned the period in question.

As regards the first of these subjects—adventurers claiming to be the Messiah of prophecy have put forward their pretensions throughout the whole of Jewish history, from the times of Judas of Galilee to those of which we are now writing; but never in such numbers as at this era. The first of them appeared in France in 1137. He was put to death, many synagogues were destroyed, and their congregations severely punished on his account. Another followed, a few years afterwards, in Spain, where he received the support of a learned Rabbi in Cordova. Notwithstanding this, he seems to have had but few disciples, and soon subsided into insignificance. A third, in Moravia, attracted more attention. He claimed to have the power of rendering himself invisible, and several times—it is presumed by the help of some juggling trick—succeeded in escaping from his pursuers. His followers at last, dreading the anger of the king, delivered him up, and he was hanged.

Several more made their appearance in the East, chiefly in Arabia and Persia. One of these, who had been cured, by what he thought a miracle, of his leprosy, drew great multitudes after him. His pretensions were exposed by the Jewish doctors; but nevertheless large numbers of Jews were slain in consequence of the tumults he excited. Another, an Arabian, is chiefly remarkable for the ingenuity by which he escaped torture. He told the king that if his head should be cut off he would rise again from the dead. The king instantly beheaded him with his scimitar, but only to find that the impostor had by this stratagem baffled his tormentors.

But the most famous of all was Eldavid, on whose strange history Disraeli has founded his ‘Wondrous Tale of Alroy.’[112] He was born about the middle of the twelfth century, in Amaria, a city tributary to the sovereign of Persia. He was acquainted with Talmudical learning, and had learned, it was said, some strange cabalistic secrets. He raised an insurrection among his countrymen, whom he deluded by several apparent miracles. After some unavailing attempts to get him into their power, the Persians bribed his father-in-law, with a promise of ten thousand crowns, to betray him. His father-in-law invited him to a feast, and there assassinated him.