Don Pedro still counted many adherents in the country. Most of the Jewish communities remained true to him, and Jews served in his army, and fought against the usurper for the king, who to the last treated them with special favor. Even when in despair he was obliged to call to his assistance the Mahometan king of Granada, he impressed upon that monarch the duty of protecting the Jews. Notwithstanding this, the Jews endured indescribable sufferings at the hands of both friend and foe. Don Pedro being entirely dependent on the auxiliaries of the Black Prince and on those of the Mahometan king, his wishes with respect to the Jews were not regarded. The community of Villadiego, celebrated for its benevolence and the promotion of learning, was utterly destroyed by the English. The same evil fortune befell Aguilar and other communities. The inhabitants of Valladolid, who paid allegiance to Don Henry, plundered the Jews, demolished their eight synagogues, despoiled them of their treasures, and tore up the sacred writings. A period of shocking degeneracy followed. Wherever Don Henry came, he laid the Jews under heavy contributions, precipitating them into poverty, and leaving them nothing but their lives. The Mahometan king, Don Pedro's ally, carried three hundred Jewish families as prisoners from Jaen to Granada. Still worse was the treatment of the violent Du Guesclin. A prey to French Jew-hatred, he could not look upon Jews as his equals in party strife and war, but only as slaves who had dared draw the sword against their masters. The misery was so great at this time that many Jews became converts to Christianity.
The community of Toledo suffered most severely. In emulation of Don Pedro's Christian adherents, they made the greatest sacrifices for the defense of the town, and endured a long and frightful siege. The famine during the investment was so great that the unfortunates consumed, not only the parchment of the Law, but even the flesh of their own children. Through hunger and war the greater portion of the Toledo community perished—according to some 8,000 persons, according to others more than 10,000. At last, at Montiel, Don Henry defeated his brother, who had been abandoned by all his partisans (14th March, 1369). Don Pedro's end was tragic. When the brothers met, Henry is said to have hurled these insulting words in his face: "Where is the Jew, the son of a harlot, who calls himself king of Castile?" They then closed in a struggle. Don Pedro was overcome, and beheaded by his brother's general, Du Guesclin. Pope Urban V could not contain his delight on hearing the news of Don Pedro's death. "The church must rejoice," he wrote, "at the death of such a tyrant, a rebel against the church, and a favorer of the Jews and Saracens. The righteous exult in retribution." The humiliation and abasement of the Spanish Jews, which the papacy had so long failed to accomplish, was obtained unexpectedly by the civil war in Castile. At Montiel they suffered a defeat pregnant with consequences fatal to their future.
Had a traveler, like Benjamin of Tudela, journeyed through Europe in the latter half of the fourteenth century, with the object of visiting, enumerating, and describing the various Jewish communities, he would have had a dismal picture to give us. From the Pillars of Hercules and the Atlantic Ocean to the banks of the Oder or the Vistula, he would have found in many districts no Jews at all, and elsewhere only very small, poverty-stricken, wretched communities, still bleeding from the wounds inflicted by the plague-maddened populace. According to human calculation, the destruction of the Jews in western and central Europe was imminent. Those who had survived the pitiless massacre, or been spared a desperate suicide, had lost courage. Communal ties were for the most part rent asunder. The recollection of the scenes of horror through which they had passed long agitated the small number of surviving Jews, and left them no hope of better times. Lord Byron's elegiac lines—
"The wild dove hath her nest, the fox his cave,
Mankind their country—Israel but the grave,"
are applicable to the whole of the mediæval history of the Jews, but to no period more than to this. Western and central Europe had become for the descendants of the patriarchs and the prophets one vast grave, which insatiably demanded new victims.
It is remarkable that the Jews had become indispensable to the Christian population, in spite of the venomous hatred with which the latter regarded them. Not only princes, but cities, and even the clergy, had a mania for "possessing Jews." A few years after the terrible frenzy which followed the Black Death, German citizens and their magistrates hastened to re-admit the Jews; they soon forgot their vow, that for a hundred or two hundred years no Jew should dwell within their walls. The bishop of Augsburg applied to Emperor Charles IV for the privilege "to receive and harbor Jews." The electors, ecclesiastical as well as secular, were bent upon curtailing the exclusive right of the German emperor to possess serfs of the chamber (servi cameræ), and upon acquiring the same right for themselves. Gerlach, archbishop of Mayence, especially exerted himself to wrest this privilege from Emperor Charles IV, his success being to no small extent due to the desire of the emperor to retain his popularity amongst the electors. At an imperial Diet held at Nuremberg in November, 1355, where a kind of German constitution, known as the "Golden Bull," was promulgated, the emperor conferred on the electors, in addition to the right of discovery of metal and salt mines, the privilege to hold Jews; that is to say, he yielded to them this source of revenue in addition to such sources as deposits of metal and salt. But it was only to the electors that the emperor conceded this right; he retained his rights over the "servi cameræ" living under the rule of the minor princes and in cities. The archiepiscopal elector of Mayence lost no time in utilizing the new privilege, and immediately employed a Jew to obtain others for him. Thus the Jews were at once repelled and attracted, shunned and courted, outlawed and flattered. They were well aware that it was not for their own sake that they were tolerated, but solely on account of the advantages they afforded the authorities and the population. How, then, could they be expected not to devote themselves to money-making, the sole means by which they were enabled to drag out a miserable existence?
In France, as in Germany, financial considerations induced the rulers to consent to the re-admission of the Jews. The embarrassments resulting from frequent wars with England, particularly felt after the captivity of King John (September, 1356), threatened to reduce this chivalrous land to the condition of a province of the English crown. Money especially was wanting. Even to ransom the imprisoned king the assembled States-General did not vote supplies, or they burdened their grant with heavy conditions. The third estate rose in rebellion, and encouraged the peasants to throw off the yoke of the nobles. Anarchy reigned throughout the country. At this juncture the Jews, with their financial skill, appeared to the dauphin Charles, who acted as regent during the captivity of the king, as providential deliverers of the state. A clever Jew, Manessier (Manecier) de Vesoul, actively negotiated the return of the Jews to France, whence they had been so frequently banished. The dauphin-regent had granted permission to a few Jews to return, but if the impoverished state or court was to reap any real benefit from such return, it was necessary that it should take place on a large scale. Hence, the plan which Manessier submitted to the prince was approved in every detail, and the return of the Jews for twenty years was authorized under the most favorable conditions. Neither the Jews nor their representative, Manessier, cared to take advantage of so important an offer without the consent of the imprisoned king. The plan was accordingly submitted to him for confirmation. At the instance of Manessier de Vesoul, the Jews at the same time laid before the king a memorial setting forth that they had been unjustly expelled from France, and that they could not forget the land of their birth. The imprisoned monarch then issued a decree (March, 1360), by which, with the consent of the higher and lower clergy, the higher and lower nobility, and the third estate, permission was granted to all Jews to enter France and reside there for twenty years. They were allowed to take up their abode in any part of the country, in large and small towns, villages and hamlets, and to possess, not only houses, but also lands.
The head of every Jewish family was, however, compelled, on entering the country, to pay a sum of fourteen florins (florins de Florence) for himself, and one florin for each child or other member of his family; besides this, he became liable to an annual Jew tax of seven florins, and one for each individual of his household. On the other hand, the emigrants were to enjoy extensive privileges. They were not amenable to the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts or officials, but had a special justiciary in the person of Count d'Etampes, a prince of the blood royal, who acted as their protector (gardien, conservateur), and whose duty it was to appoint investigating judges and commissioners, and to safeguard the interests of the community when endangered. Cases of misdemeanor and crime amongst themselves were to be tried by two rabbis and four assessors. From the decisions of this tribunal there was no appeal. The property of the convicted Jewish criminal, however, became forfeited to the king, to whom, in addition, the rabbis had to pay the sum of one hundred florins. For past misdemeanors and crimes the king granted them a complete amnesty. They were protected against the violence of the nobles and the petty annoyances of the clergy. They could not be forced to attend Christian services or discourses. Their furniture, cattle, and stores of grain and wine, as well as their sacred books, not merely the Bible, but copies of the Talmud also, were to be guaranteed against confiscation, so that the public burning of the Talmud at Paris could not be repeated. The amplest protection was given their trade. They were allowed to charge 80 per cent interest (4 deniers on the livre) on loans, and to take pledges, their rights upon which were safeguarded by a fence of laws. Manessier de Vesoul himself, the active and zealous negotiator of these privileges, was appointed to a high position at court. He became receiver general (procureur or receveur-general), and in this capacity was responsible for the punctual payment of the Jew taxes, his commission being nearly 14 per cent. The result of the granting of these privileges was that the Jews entered France in large numbers, even foreigners being permitted to settle there, or take up a more or less protracted residence.
The extensive privileges granted to the Jews excited envy. The Christian physicians, exposed to the competition of Jewish doctors, complained that the latter had not passed a public examination, and denounced them as charlatans. The judges and officials, without power over the Jews and having no opportunity for extorting money from them, complained that they abused their privileges. The clergy, indignant at the favored position of the Jews, but having no real grievance, complained that they no longer wore the prescribed badge. The feeble king allowed an order to be extorted from him, to some extent in contradiction of his own decree, by which only such Jews were to be permitted to practice medicine as had passed an examination, and all Jews, not excepting those even who enjoyed especial privileges (Manessier and his family), were to wear a red and white wheel-shaped badge (rouelle) of the size of the royal seal. Finally the Jews were re-committed to the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts, and the earlier arrangements annulled.
As soon as the politic dauphin ascended the throne, under the title of Charles V, and adopted a strict system of government, to deliver himself from dependence on the States-General (May, 1364), he proceeded to assure himself of the sources of revenue possessed by the Jews. He restored the privileges partly abolished by his father, lengthened the period of residence by six years, and secretly granted permission to Hebrew money dealers to exceed the charge of 80 per cent on loans. At the instance of Manessier de Vesoul, always zealous in the interests of his co-religionists, the Jews were again withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the ordinary tribunals, and committed to the care of their official protector, Count d'Etampes. The clergy, whose hatred of the Jews bordered on inhumanity, were rendered powerless. In the south of France, the heads of the church had threatened with excommunication any Christians who should trade with Jews, or provide them with fire, water, bread, or wine, and by this means, had so stirred up the fanaticism of the people, that the lives and property of the Jews were imperiled. To counteract this, the governor of Languedoc issued, in the name of the king, an ordinance informing the officials, both lay and ecclesiastical, that all who exhibited hostility toward the Jews would be unsparingly punished in person and substance.