During the first two centuries of the occupation of the Holy City by the Saracens, the latter had been ruled by the Ommiad or Abasside Caliphs—men who, for the most part, governed equitably, and were courteous and tolerant in their dealings with strangers. The number of pilgrims who visited Palestine was small, and they were uniformly received with friendliness. But in the tenth century, when the idea was widely entertained throughout Western Europe that the world was on the very point of coming to an end, and further, that all who died in the Holy Land would certainly be saved, the number of those who travelled thither was greatly multiplied. Those who returned brought back with them tales of outrage and unprovoked insult, which everywhere roused indignation. Jerusalem had passed into the hands of the Turks, a fierce and uncultured race, who had adopted Islamism in its most fanatic spirit. The murder of men, and the outrages offered to women, were good deeds in their eyes; and where they abstained from this extremity of violence, it was only to display their hate and scorn under some other form. The resentment which these wrongs called forth had spread through all European countries. The air was, as it were, everywhere charged with inflammable vapour, and it needed only the torch which Peter the Hermit had lighted to cause it to burst forth in one consuming flame. ‘Death to the Infidels. It is the will of God!’ was the cry that rang throughout Europe. All men hastened to obey the call. From the king on his throne to the journeyman in his workshop, they bound the cross on their shoulders, and went forth to rescue the Holy Land from the profane grasp of the unbelievers.
This is the age of the five celebrated Talmudists, called ‘the Five Isaacs,’ all of them bearing that name. They are distinguished as Isaac of Cordova, of Lucena, of Barcelona, of Pumbeditha, and of Fez. The Spanish Poet Halevi was born towards the close of this period. From the middle of the eleventh century, Spain was for four hundred years the chief seat of Rabbinical learning. The great schools were at Barcelona, Granada, and Toledo.
To this era also belongs the renowned Solomon Gabriol, poet and philosopher, author of ‘The Fountain of Life.’ He was born at Malaga, 1021, and died A.D. 1070.
FOOTNOTES:
[100] It was this Alphonso who wrote the singular letter to Yusef, king of the Almoravides, inviting him to fight a pitched battle on the ensuing Monday, ‘because,’ he said, ‘Friday would not suit the Mahometans in his army, or Saturday the Jews, or Sunday the Christians.’
[101] There appears, indeed, to have been at that time an amount of toleration which may well surprise us. One Mossey, a Jew of Wallingford, was wont, we are told, openly to ridicule the miracles of St. Frideswide. He would crook his fingers as if they were paralysed, and presently straighten them, or limp like a cripple, and then suddenly leap or dance, crying out ‘A miracle!’ This was a calm on the edge of a storm such as has rarely been seen!—‘Rise, Fall, and Future Restoration of Jews,’ ch. iii.
[102] It is plainly intimated by Bernard of Clairvaulx that there were Christians (he probably meant Lombard merchants) who exacted more excessive usury than the Jews themselves.
CHAPTER XV.
A.D. 1100-1200.
THE CRUSADES.—JEWS IN FRANCE, SPAIN, GERMANY, AND HUNGARY.
‘Death to the infidel. It is the will of God!’ Such was the cry that rang through Europe—‘Death to the Moslem, whose unhallowed shrine overshadows the holy place, in which the Saviour Himself has worshipped, whose blasphemies awake the same echoes which His Divine preaching once called forth!’ Yes. But were these the only shrines where false worship was offered? were they in Jerusalem the only ones who blasphemed the Lord? If the slaughter of the unbelieving Turk was acceptable to the Most High, why not that of the unbelieving Jew? It was strange that this peril should not have been dreaded by the Jews dwelling in the lands which the mania called forth by Peter the Hermit overspread. But it does not seem to have done so; they made no attempt to escape from the approaching danger. They even continued the ordinary course of their business, making the same enormous gains out of the Crusaders’ necessities, which they had done out of every other political movement for generations past. The great baron, who had vowed to lead his hundreds, or it might be his thousands, of armed followers to the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre, mortgaged his lands, or his jewels, or perhaps sold them outright, to the Jews, on such terms as we can hardly believe that the one could have asked or the other agreed to. Poorer men parted with their all on the like terms. But that there were some shrewd men left among the Christians, who were not carried away by the tide of popular excitement, the whole wealth of the community would have passed into the hands of the Jews. It is needless to add that the bitter feelings towards this isolated race—who were for ever battening on the wants and sufferings of others—were greatly aggravated by these proceedings, and it was not long before this burst out into a flame.
All over Northern France and Germany, the Jews seem to have been numerous at this time; but in what is now Rhenish Prussia, and along the banks of the Moselle, they were to be found in the greatest abundance. It was near the city of Treves that the first vast multitude of undisciplined fanatics assembled, under the leadership of Walther von Habenicht and Peter the Hermit. As they set forth, under the guidance of a goat and a goose, to find their way to the Holy Land, a cry was suddenly raised, doubtless by some enemy of the Jews, that while they were marching to destroy the enemies of the Lord Jesus in Palestine, they were leaving unassailed at home those who were not only His enemies, but His murderers—the Jews! The cry was instantly caught up, the frantic crowd rushed into Treves, and began a general pillage of the Jews’ houses, and a massacre of their occupants. Taken by surprise, the authorities offered no interference; indeed, no interference they could have offered would have been of the slightest avail. The unhappy Jews, equally unprepared, could neither resist nor escape. Scenes too shocking for description ensued. Women tied heavy weights round their necks, and threw themselves into the rivers to avoid the last dishonour. Men slew their own children, to save them from the tortures to which they would be subjected; their own lives they yielded up in despairing silence. Some fled to the citadel, hoping to be protected against the violence of their assailants; but the Bishop of Treves received them with threats and reproaches, refusing to interfere in their behalf, unless they would accept baptism. The same scenes took place in Cologne, Worms, Spires, and Mayence. Everywhere the only hope of escape from torture and death was baptism; except, indeed, where a heavy bribe had been paid for episcopal protection, or where, as at Spires, the Jews armed themselves and sold their lives dearly. The tide of murder rolled on, sweeping the shores of the Maine and the Danube, the same scenes being everywhere repeated. In Bavaria, it is said that as many as 12,000 Jews were slaughtered. The Emperor Henry IV. seems to have been the only potentate whom these atrocities struck with horror. He issued a decree, repairing, so far as was possible, the wrongs that had been done, and forbidding them for the future. But, for the most part, the historians of those times relate the horrors that took place with a sangfroid which speaks volumes as to the light in which they were regarded by those who witnessed them.