[92] For a very complete account of the Jews in China, see Brotier’s note, in the third volume of his edition of Tacitus.
[93] When questioned as to the absence of these vowels, they are said to have answered, that God delivered the words to Moses with such rapidity that he had no time to insert the vowels.
[94] Thus, Father Alvarez, the Portuguese Jesuit who wrote a history of China, affirms that the Jews had not been settled there for more than 600 years.
CHAPTER XIII.
A.D. 740-980.
THE JEWS UNDER CHARLEMAGNE.
The Mahometan invaders of Spain having accomplished the conquest of that country, again turned their arms northwards, and passed the Pyrenees, but only to encounter, on the plains of Tours, decisive and disastrous defeat.[95] We learn that the Jews were suspected of having invited, or at least encouraged, the attempt. To repeat the remark made in a previous chapter—when we call to mind the treatment they had received at the hands of some of the Frankish kings, and contrast it with the toleration exhibited by the Moslem conquerors of Spain, such an accusation does not seem to us a very improbable one, though no certain evidence of it has been produced. Similarly, some sixty years afterwards,[96] when the Moors again burst into Aquitaine, and were repelled by the Count of Toulouse, the Jews are charged with having betrayed that city into the hands of the invaders. After the retreat of the enemy, and recapture of the town, it is said that the emperor had resolved to punish severely the treachery of the Jewish conspirators, but was persuaded to limit the retribution he exacted to their leaders. Basnage disputes altogether the accuracy of the allegation. But some truth in the story there must be. It is an unquestioned fact that for a considerable period after the Saracen irruption—as late indeed as the twelfth century—it was the custom at Toulouse for a Jew, acting as the representative of the whole of his co-religionists in the city, to appear three times in every year at the gate of one of the churches in Toulouse, and there receive a box (or, as some report, three boxes) on the ear,[97] and at the same time pay over a fine in the shape of thirteen pounds of wax. It would be difficult to understand what could have been the origin of a custom like this,—which reminds us of the penalty imposed on the citizens of Oxford, for their alleged participation in the bloodshed of St. Scholastica’s day, and which was exacted up to the commencement of the present century,—unless it was the story of their betrayal of the city, as above related.
But if Charlemagne was cognisant of the disaffection of his Jewish subjects, he took the wisest, and, as the sequel proved, the most effectual mode of curing the evil. A study of this great man’s life will convince us that he regarded his sovereignty, not merely as a trust committed to him by the Divine Ruler of the Universe—for that many sovereigns have done—but as a trust held on behalf of the Catholic Church of Christ, which was, in his view, identical with the State.[98] It followed therefore that, in his eyes, whosoever refused obedience to the Church was a rebel to the State; and the Jews, according to this view of the matter, must be the most inveterate of all rebels. It is creditable to him, therefore, that he not only abstained from religious persecution, but awarded the most even-handed justice to his Hebrew subjects. He required of them no more than simple obedience to the laws of the land in matters which did not put any constraint on the conscience. Thus, in the instance of nuptial contracts, he did not allow them to marry within the degree prohibited to his other subjects, nor to dispose of their property after a manner contrary to his laws. But these are requirements to which citizens of any country might be reasonably expected to conform. So again, the edicts which forbade them to keep Christian slaves, or to purchase or keep in pawn the sacerdotal vestments, or the sacred vessels used in churches, were obviously made, not for the injury of the Jews, but for the benefit of the Christian community. Had such practices indeed been permitted, they could have had no other effect than that of exciting prejudice and disgust against the Jews. But there was no restriction imposed on their commerce, no special fines levied on their effects. They dwelt in ease and luxury, in houses as handsome and well furnished as their inclination prompted and their purses would allow. The most splendid quarter in the rich town of Lyons was that inhabited by the Jews. In Narbonne, of the two prefects of the city, one was always a Jew.
The same state of things continued through the reign of the son and successor of Charlemagne, Louis le Debonnaire. At his court we are told the Jews possessed so much influence, that nobles and envoys of foreign princes paid court to them, and offered bribes to secure their favour. An officer known as the ‘Master of the Jews,’ whose business it was to take special care of their interests, resided in the precincts of the palace. They were permitted to enjoy, not only all rights possessed by their Christian fellow-subjects, but even more. The day on which markets were wont to be held, if it chanced to be a Saturday, was sometimes altered for their convenience. Charters are still extant, in which special privileges, such as exemptions from tolls and taxes, or permission to hire Christian slaves, are granted to Jews. In criminal and civil actions, their rights were as much respected, their evidence was accounted as good, as that of the other citizens of the country. Their lives were protected by a heavy penalty imposed on any one who slew them. They were exempted from ordeal by fire or water. Their slaves could not be baptized without their consent. They were free to build their synagogues where they pleased, and carry on their peculiar form of worship within them.
A condition of things like this could hardly fail, sooner or later, to provoke the anger and jealousy of the clergy. Agobard, Bishop of Lyons, saw with indignation the growth of their wealth and importance. It was not only that the ports were crowded with their merchantmen, the quays piled with their bales, the streets thronged with their slaves; that while Christian men walked afoot, clad in mean apparel, and lodged in humble cottages, the Jew reclined in his chariot arrayed in gorgeous attire, or feasted in a splendid palace. This might be borne. But their synagogues vied in magnificence with the stateliest Christian churches, and their preachers drew away crowds who ought to worship at Catholic altars. It was even said that they sold Christians as slaves to the Moors. Agobard exerted his episcopal power to remedy the mischief, so far as he was able. He forbade under pain of spiritual censure, his flock to sell Christian slaves to the Jews,[99] or to work for them on Sundays or holidays, or to buy wine of them, or deal with them at all during the season of Lent.
It is a marked sign of the times, that the Jews ventured to appeal to the king against this exercise of the bishop’s authority. Louis sent three commissioners to Lyons to inquire into the matter, who decided against the bishop. Mortified and astonished, he preferred fresh charges against the Jews, and when these also failed of their effect, himself repaired to Paris, and demanded a personal interview with the emperor; it was all in vain. He was refused an audience, informed that the emperor had dismissed his appeal, and was ordered to return to his diocese! We can hardly believe that this took place in a country which, two centuries before, had seen Jews forcibly dragged to the font for baptism, and, three centuries afterwards, witnessed their forcible expulsion from the country, for no other offence than that of their national existence.
Under Louis’s successor, Charles the Bald, the Jews still continued to enjoy immunity from the persecution; but signs were not wanting that this state of things was not long to endure. Remegius, Bishop of Lyons, following up with more success the efforts of Agobard, caused—we are not told by what means—so many Jewish boys and girls to be brought to baptism, that the parents were fain to send their children to be educated in Arles and other cities. Following up his advantage, Remegius petitioned the emperor that the Bishop of Arles might be admonished to pursue the same course as himself. It would appear that Charles granted this request, for we are informed that great numbers of Jewish children were now baptized. Not long afterwards he is said to have been poisoned by his Jewish physician, Zedekias, who was believed to have been incited to the murder by his countrymen. Whether this is true or not must be regarded as a doubtful matter. It was certainly a most fatal as well as a most wicked policy, if it was really adopted. The effect of the death of Charles was to break up the existing authority in France. The strong hand which upheld the law was withdrawn. Disorder and anarchy ensued, from which none suffered so much as the Jews. Popular rumours accused them of secretly abetting the inroads of the Normans, from which the country now began seriously to suffer. It was urged that when the invaders overran districts and sacked cities, the Jews alone escaped injury. This was possibly due to the same causes which had exempted them from suffering during the incursions of the Goths and Huns and other Northern nations, and which have been adverted to in a previous chapter. But, however that may be, it was believed that they were secretly in league with the Northmen, and they became in consequence everywhere the objects of popular execration and attack. At Beziers, in Languedoc, it became the practice every year to drive them about with volleys of stone, from Palm Sunday to Tuesday in Easter Week. During the feeble reigns of Louis II., III., and IV., Lothair, Charles II., and III., scarcely any mention is made of them. But what little is told goes to prove that their position was continually growing worse. As the power of the kings diminished, the protection they were able to extend to the Jews diminished also. The great feudatories dealt with them as they pleased, disregarding the royal authority, or employing it for the oppression of the Jews. During the reign of Charles III., called the Simple, we find the Archbishop of Narbonne demanding (A.D. 897) and obtaining from the king a grant of all the landed property in the possession of the Jews throughout his diocese. Whether this was the effect of an act forbidding the Jews to hold landed property, or mere lawless pillage, makes little difference. Similarly, in 889, the Archbishop of Sens, without any cause assigned or reference to the royal authority, expels the whole of the Jews from the bounds of his episcopate.