The condition of the Jews during the sixteenth century in those parts of Germany and Central Europe where their presence was still tolerated, does not materially differ from what it had been for many previous generations. We hear of fewer outbreaks of lawless violence, and the atrocities committed on them seem a shade less barbarous. But the history is in the main such as the Christian chronicler must record, and the Christian reader peruse, with feelings of shame and sorrow. At Mecklenberg, just at the end of the previous century, the oft-repeated, though never proved, accusation had been revived of bribing a Christian priest to sell the consecrated Host; which the Jews who purchased it immediately proceeded to stab, drawing forth (it was alleged) the very blood of the Lord Jesus, whose body it was. A grave and minute inquiry was set on foot. Thirty Jews, together with the priest, were condemned to be burned at the stake for the offence. Some Jewish women and children were implicated in the charge. One of the former is related to have put two of her daughters to death, in order to save them from the horrors that awaited them, and to have been on the point of killing a third, when she was snatched from her. Two years afterwards, another charge was brought against some Hungarian Jews, or rather another form of the same charge: this time the offence being murdering a Christian in order to drink his blood.[172] The accused were put to the torture—not so much, we learn, to elicit the fact whether they were guilty, as whether the whole Jewish people of Hungary were not implicated in the crime. Monstrous as this may seem, it was not the first time, by any means, that such a belief had been entertained.[173] Possibly, indeed, it was hoped that under the pressure of their agony the sufferers would confess that, or anything else that they were required to admit, and so give a pretext for a general massacre. If so, the attempt failed, for we find that only those who had been accused of the crime suffered for it.

A few years afterwards, at Nuremberg, and again at Cologne, expulsions of the Jews took place. In both cities, though a number of charges were alleged against them, the real offence seems to have been their commercial success, and the heavy load of debt contracted to them by the citizens of the two towns. The shortest mode of paying off the liabilities, it was found, lay in finding their creditors guilty of some offence for which they were punishable by the confiscation of their property, including, of course, all debts owing to them. But these expulsions, however unjust, do not appear to have been stained by the additional guilt of bloodshed.

In 1509, a Jew who had been converted to Christianity, Pfeffercorn by name, filled with the zeal for which proselytes are always remarkable, suggested to the Emperor Maximilian that all books which upheld or set forth Jewish doctrine, and especially the Talmud, the great repository of Jewish fable, should be everywhere destroyed. He had already written more than one book, in which he charged his countrymen not only with denying the truth of the New Testament, but with departing from the commandments of the Old. He accused them also of using imprecations against Christians, both in public and private. These had so much effect upon Maximilian, that he is reported to have been half inclined to grant his request. He resolved, however, to appoint a commission of learned men to examine and report on the matter. At the head of this was placed Reuchlin[174] (otherwise Capnio), the most famous Hebrew scholar of his day, and a man of large and liberal views. He advised the Emperor that such of the Jewish books as contained blasphemies against our Lord (as undoubtedly some of them did) had better be destroyed; but those which simply treated of the tenets and ritual of the Jews ought to be retained. He pointed out how impossible it was to suppress books which a certain number of readers were resolved to preserve. This would have been at any time difficult, but since the invention of printing it had become morally impossible, as the Jews had now begun to make free use of the printing-press.[175] We cannot wonder much that a man of Pfeffercorn’s temper would not acquiesce in a decision like this. He attacked Reuchlin in an angry pamphlet, to which Reuchlin replied. The dispute was referred to the Pope, and Hochstraten, a Dutch Inquisitor who had espoused Pfeffercorn’s quarrel, repaired to Rome to advocate it; but the papal decision was in favour of Reuchlin. The Jewish books were spared. Nevertheless, it may be doubted whether the affair was favourable to them. The result was to attract the attention of Christian scholars to these Jewish attacks on Christianity, and replies were in consequence written, which were probably more damaging to Judaism than any burning of their books could have been.

Out of this controversy a number of sects seem to have arisen—at least, they are first noticed by writers about this time, and they disappear from history soon afterwards. Among these Seidelius of Silesia, George de Novara, and Francis David are the most remarkable.[176] They held opinions culled, some from Judaism, some from Christianity, and differed widely from one another. They had the usual fate of eclectics, being rejected and despised by both parties.

In 1516 the Jews had a narrow escape of being expelled from Frankfort. An assembly, consisting of deputies from various sovereigns and free towns, was held in that city, for the purpose of organizing measures for their banishment. Fortunately for them, the deputies could not agree among themselves. The Jews were, however, driven out of Brandenburg. Lippold, physician to the elector of that country, was charged with having poisoned his employer. He made a confession under torture, and was executed; after which all his countrymen were driven into exile.

Towards the middle of this century the Jews were for the first time expelled from Prague. They had dwelt unmolested in that city from time immemorial. No one knew when they had first settled there; but tradition said it was in times when Bohemia was yet heathen; and inscriptions on some of the older graves in their moss-grown cemetery are quoted in proof of the fact. The very latest date assigned for their arrival is the tenth century of Christianity. They had built a noble synagogue, and had opened an academy, over which a renowned Jewish doctor presided. But in the troubled times which followed the burning of Huss and Jerome of Prague they continually fell under the suspicion of one, or, it might be said, both parties, the Jews being too cautious to ally themselves with either. This feeling grew stronger when the Reformation itself had fairly engaged men’s minds. Among the mutual jealousies and suspicions which had taken possession of men’s minds, that of the secret plottings of the Jews in favour of their antagonists, was one of constant occurrence. It chanced that terrible conflagrations broke out in some of the larger cities, and among others, in Prague. The Jews were instantly suspected of having caused it. Being suspected was in those times very nearly the same thing as being convicted of it. All those that escaped the flames were banished from the city, with the exception of ten families, who obtained permission to remain. The Emperor was not convinced of their guilt, but the feeling that had been provoked was too strong for him to cope with. He saw plainly that nothing but the death or the banishment of Jews would satisfy the people, and he chose the more merciful of the alternatives offered him. Towards the latter end of the year the real incendiaries were discovered, and the Jews were then permitted to return.

About eight years afterwards another outcry was raised, this time it being affirmed that the Jews had been praying that disaster and ruin might befall the Christians. Their books were seized as a punishment, and carried off to Vienna, so that the Rabbins had to officiate in the synagogues as well as they were able, reciting everything from memory. We must suppose that this charge was disproved, as the other had been, for the books were soon afterwards restored. Even this was not the end of their troubles. Before the year was out, there came another peremptory order for all the Jews, except the ten privileged families, once more to leave the city and settle elsewhere in Bohemia; and this time it does not appear that they were allowed to return.

Merseburg again—the capital now of one of the regencies of the Prussian States, which consists almost entirely of cessions made by Saxony in 1815—was another of the cities in which the Jews claimed to have resided without interruption for nearly fourteen centuries. Yet, so widespread had the feeling against them become, that they were forced, in 1559, to quit this city also, notwithstanding that the Emperor Ferdinand was willing to help them to the utmost of his ability. He not only protected them, indeed, but granted them a privilege which had been accorded to their ancestors in the East, many centuries before—that of having their own special ruler, who was known by the same title as that borne in the earliest Christian times by the Patriarch of the East, viz., the ‘Prince of the Captivity.’

In Moravia, in 1574, a similar flame of persecution broke out. We are not informed what were the precise charges, but no doubt they were much the same that were alleged against almost all Jewish congregations in Central Europe about this time. Many Jews, we learn, were burnt at the stake, and many more put to death in other ways. They appealed to the Emperor Ferdinand, who appears always to have been willing to assist his Jewish subjects to the best of his ability. He did interfere, and stopped the executions, but not before many victims had been sacrificed.

In Franconia, six years afterwards, there was something of a similar outbreak. In this instance the Jews were accused, as they were in many other places, of having set on fire the town of Bamberg. But here they escaped without undergoing any further severity than having to make good the loss which those had suffered whose property had been destroyed.

In Poland and the Ukraine a more merciful state of things prevailed. In both these the Jews enjoyed entire freedom alike from pillage and persecution. In the first-named country they were chiefly engaged in trade, which they almost monopolized; in the latter, almost exclusively in agriculture.

But in Russia proper the race of Israel continued to be, as tradition declares it always to have been, harshly treated—such Israelites, that is to say, as were still permitted to dwell in the country, the Jews generally having been expelled from it, as the reader has learned (A.D. 1113). Late, however, in the previous, and early in the present century, during the last years of the long reign of Ivan III., a most singular apostasy to Judaism is recorded to have taken place, the truth of which we should certainly be inclined to doubt, if it had not been so respectably attested. A Jew named Zacharias, about A.D. 1490, began to attempt the conversion of certain Russian priests to Judaism, and succeeded to an extraordinary extent in the design. The converts adopted all the Jewish rites, except that of circumcision; which they dispensed with, because, in event of discovery, it would be a certain proof against them. The apostasy spread rapidly and widely. Ecclesiastics occupying the highest positions in the Church, even the Patriarch Zosimus himself, became perverts. The conspiracy, if it may be so called, was at last discovered, and a great number of these ‘secret Jews’ summoned before the council and convicted. They were punished after a more merciful manner than that adopted towards their brethren in Spain. They were set on horseback, with their faces towards the tails of their steeds, dressed after a bizarre fashion to resemble devils, and paraded through the streets amid the jeers of the rabble. Zosimus was sent back to the monastery of which he had been archimandrite. But, though the evil was detected, it is doubtful whether it was extirpated. It is said to have lingered in the Russian Church long afterwards.

Rabbi Joseph ben Meir is the great Jewish historian of this period. He was born at Avignon in 1496, and wrote a Universal History, and a History of his own Times. The latter, though its statements must be taken with reserve, is regarded generally as a valuable book. David Gans also, born 1541, was a renowned scholar and author. He died in Prague, A.D. 1613.