♦899–914♦
Charles the Simple was induced by his love of God and fear of the Pope to surrender all the lands and vineyards of the Jews in the Duchy of Narbonne to the Church. Boso, King of Burgundy and Provence, also made to the Church a gift of the property of his Jewish subjects, and this cavalier treatment of the wretched people continued under the first Capets, their degradation keeping pace with the progress of Papal influence. So deep was the suspicion now inspired by them, that when King Hugh Capet died in 996 his Jewish physician was generally accused of having murdered him.
♦965♦
A parallel evolution took place in Germany. When Otto the Great wished to show his piety by endowing the newly-built church of Magdeburg, he did so by bestowing upon it the revenue which he derived from the Jews. Likewise Otto II., sixteen years later, made an offering of the Jews of Merseburg to the local bishops. At the beginning of the eleventh century there occurred in Germany an event which may be regarded as the prelude to the subsequent persecutions of Judaism. ♦1005♦ The chaplain of the Duke Conrad suddenly scandalised the Christian world by going over to the Synagogue, and exasperated the brethren whom he had forsaken by producing a scurrilous lampoon on Christianity. The Emperor Henry caused to be published a reply in every respect worthy of the apostate’s pamphlet. Six years after the Jews were driven forth from Mayence, a decree was issued ordering the Jews of various towns to be branded, that they might not seek refuge in baptism, and so rigorous was the persecution that a contemporary Jewish poet commemorates it in lugubrious songs, wherein he expresses the fear that the children of Israel might be forced to forget the faith of their fathers. But the alarm was premature. Though, as a general rule, traffic in goods and in money were the only callings left open to the Jews, in some of the German states they still possessed the rights of citizenship and were permitted to own real estate.
Thus the first period of the mediaeval drama came to a close, as the second was opening.
CHAPTER VII
THE CRUSADES
Towards the end of the eleventh century there arose in Europe a gale of religious enthusiasm that boded no good to infidels. The zealous temper which at an earlier period had found a congenial pursuit in the extirpation of heathenism from Saxony, Lithuania, Poland, and the Baltic provinces, and in the suppression of heresy among the Vaudois, the Cathari or Albigenses, and others at a later, was now to be diverted into a different channel. During the preceding ages the authority of the Popes had been advancing with stealthy, but undeviating and steady, strides. Their own industry, foresight, and prudence laid the foundations of their political power; the piety and the ignorance of the nations which recognised their spiritual rule consolidated it. Every succeeding age found the Bishop of Rome in a higher position than that occupied by his predecessors, until there came one who was fitted to make use of the immense heritage of authority bequeathed to him.
Gregory VII., surnamed Hildebrand, ascended St. Peter’s throne in 1073. Though born in an obscure village and of humble parentage, he was a person endowed by nature with all the qualities necessary to make a successful master of men: strong and ambitious, and possessed of an ideal, he was a stranger to fear as to scruple. It was related of him that, whilst a lad in his father’s workshop and ignorant of letters, he accidentally framed out of little bits of wood the words: “His dominion shall be from one sea to the other.” To his contemporaries the story was prophetic (we may be content to regard it, true or not, as characteristic) of his career. Gregory’s dream was to deliver the papacy from the secular influence of the Emperor and to establish a theocratic Empire. This was the guiding principle of his policy, and, though his plans were flexible to circumstance, his purpose remained fixed. Like all great men, Hildebrand knew that, where there is a strong will, all roads lead to success. The first step to this end was the purification of the Church of the corruption into which it had sunk under his depraved predecessors, and the organisation of its soldiers under strict rules of discipline. This was effected by the suppression of simony and the enforcement of celibacy on the clergy. At the same time Gregory did not neglect that which was the main object of his life: to make Europe a vassal state to the pontifical see. The thunderbolts of excommunication, which Gregory, the son of Bonic the carpenter, wielded with Zeus-like majesty and impartiality, were freely hurled against his enemies in the East and West. In the Emperor Henry IV. the Pope met an adversary worthy of his heavenly artillery. But, undismayed by Henry’s power, and unrestrained by considerations of humanity, he plunged Christendom into that long-drawn strife between the Guelf and Ghibelline factions which makes the history of Europe for generations a melancholy tale of murder and outrage, ending in a blood-stained triumph for St. Peter.
After having temporarily humbled Henry IV. and forced him in the dead of winter to do penance in his shirt, the iron Pope turned his weapons against the Jews. In 1078 he promulgated a canonical law forbidding the hated people to hold any official post in Christendom, and especially in Spain. Alfonso VI., King of Castile, two years later received an Apostolic epistle congratulating him on his successes over the Mohammedans, and admonishing him that “he must cease to suffer the Jews to rule over the Christians, and to exercise authority over them,” for such conduct, his Holiness affirmed, was “the same as oppressing God’s Church and exalting Satan’s Synagogue. To wish to please Christ’s enemies,” he added, “means to treat Christ himself with contumely.” However, Alfonso was too busy in the campaign against his own enemies to devote much attention to the enemies of Christ—or of Gregory Hildebrand. None the less, the letter marks an epoch. What hitherto was prejudice now became law.
In Germany also the Pope’s anti-Jewish decrees met with only partial obedience. Bishop Rudiger of Speyer granted many privileges to the Jews of his diocese. Their Chief Rabbi enjoyed the same judicial authority over his own community as the burgomaster over the Christian burgesses. The Jews were allowed to buy Christian slaves and to defend themselves against the intrusion of the mob. For all these boons they paid three and a half pounds of gold annually. The Emperor Henry IV., Gregory’s antagonist, confirmed and augmented these privileges. He forbade his subjects, under severe penalties, to compel the Jews, or their slaves, to be baptized. In litigation between Jews and Christians the Jewish law and form of oath were to be followed; and the former were exempted from the ordeals of fire and water. But in spite of these favours their lot was such as to encourage Messianic expectations. The Redeemer, a prince of the house of David, was confidently awaited about this time (1096) to lead the chosen people back to the Holy Land. However, fate had other things in store for them.