"The precepts for your conduct issued by my highly venerated predecessor, out of his zeal for religion, have (as we are told) served some who coveted your goods as a pretext for false accusations against you, and have been interpreted contrary to the intention of my predecessor, thus causing you to be vexed and disquieted. Therefore, we decree, in consideration that Holy Mother Church grants and concedes much to Jews in order that the remnant of them may be saved, and in accordance with the example of our predecessors," etc.
All that the new pope conceded, however, was that Jews of the Roman dominions beyond the city be allowed to doff their distinguishing mark, the yellow cap, acquire land to the value of 1,500 ducats, trade in other things besides old clothes, and hold intercourse with Christians, but not to keep Christian servants. This was about all that one of the best popes granted, or dared grant. More important to the Jews of Rome was the point that the accusations of transgressing the harsh laws of Paul IV were not heard, as well as the charge of misdemeanor against those who had not given up their copies of the Talmud. The Italian Jews also made an effort to obtain from the pope the remission of the interdict against the Talmud. But this question was in the hands of the cardinals and bishops sitting in the council of Trent, and to carry out their object the Italian communities chose two deputies (October, 1563). As the council only approved the list of forbidden books previously made out in the papal office, the opinion of the pope and those who surrounded him served as a guide in the treatment of Jewish writings. The decision of this point was left to the pope, who afterwards issued a bull to the effect that the Talmud was indeed accursed—like all humanistic literature, including Reuchlin's "Augenspiegel and Kabbalistic writings"—but that it would be allowed to appear if the name Talmud were omitted, and if before its publication the passages inimical to Christianity were excised, that is to say, if it were submitted to censorship (March 24th, 1564). Strange, indeed, that the pope should have allowed the thing, and forbidden its name! He was afraid of public opinion, which would have considered the contradiction too great between one pope, who had sought out and burnt the Talmud, and the next, who was allowing it to go untouched. At all events, there was now a prospect that this written memorial, so indispensable to all Jews, would once more be permitted to see the light, although in a maimed condition. The printing of the Talmud was in fact undertaken a few years later at Basle.
But even this slight concession was withdrawn from the Jews of the Papal States when Pius IV was succeeded by a pope who held gloomy, monkish, intolerant institutions in higher esteem than human happiness and human life, and who carried the ecclesiastical aims of Caraffa and his colleagues to their extreme consequence. Pius V (1566–1572) outdid his pattern, Paul IV, in love of persecution and cruelty. This pope hated Jews no less than he hated Swiss Calvinists and French Huguenots. They soon felt the severity of the new ecclesiasticism. Three months after his enthronement (April 19th, 1566), Pius V confirmed in every respect the restrictions which Paul IV had imposed on Jews; he even increased their severity, and disregarded the ameliorations of his predecessor as if they had never been granted. The former regulations, then, were enforced: exclusion from intercourse with Christians, prohibition to own lands, or to carry on any business except the trade in old clothes, compulsion to wear the distinctive Jew badge, and the refusal to permit more than one synagogue. But these edicts were not issued against the Jews in the Papal States only; they extended throughout the whole Catholic world. For at that day, in a period of spiteful reaction against Protestantism, the decrees of the pope made a far different impression from what they had produced previously, and found willing executors. Thus days of sorrow were again beginning for the Jews of Catholic countries.
Once more Joseph Cohen had to enter trials in his "Annals of Persecution," once more to collect the tears of his people in his "Vale of Weeping" (Emek ha-Bacha). The ecclesiastical tyrant, Pius V, often gave the opportunity. Under the pretext that the Jews of the Papal States had infringed his canonical laws, he caused a number of them to be thrown into prison, and their books to be collected and burnt. The prosperous community of Bologna was visited with especial severity, the blow being aimed at their property. In order to have a legal reason for robbery, confusing questions upon Christianity were put at a formal hearing before the tribunal of the Inquisition; for example, whether the Jews regarded Catholics as idolaters; whether the forms of imprecation against the Minæans, and the "Kingdom of Sin" in the prayers referred to Christians and the papacy, and especially whether the story, in a work but little read, about a "Bastard, the Son of an Outcast," was intended to refer to Jesus.
A baptized Jew, named Alexander, had drawn up the points of accusation, and the prisoners were questioned upon them, under application of torture. Some of them succumbed to the pain, and confessed everything that the bloody tribunal asked them. Only the rabbi of Bologna, Ishmael Chanina, had the courage to declare even under torture, that if he should confess anything during the unconsciousness which might ensue from his sufferings, such confession would be null and void. As others, however, had confessed to slanders uttered by Jews against Christians, the papal curia had an excuse for its robberies. The rich and the upper classes were forbidden under the severest penalties to leave the town. But this foolish prohibition awakened in the minds of the Jews of Bologna the idea of leaving the place entirely and forever. By bribing the gatekeeper, they succeeded in escaping, with their wives and children, from the net spread for them, and fled to Ferrara. Pope Pius V was so incensed against the Jews for this act, that he informed the college of cardinals that all Jews were to be expelled from the Papal States. In vain some of the church dignitaries protested, showing how the Jews had been protected by the chair of St. Peter from time immemorial, that it had indeed pledged itself to shield the remainder of the Jews, in the hope that they might be saved. In vain did the commercial world of Ancona entreat the pope not to ruin by his own deed the commercial prosperity of the Papal States; his hatred of Jews stifled the voice of common sense, of justice, and of interest. The bull was issued (February 26th, 1569), that all Jews in the Papal States, except those of Rome and Ancona, should depart within three months; those who remained were to be reduced to slavery, and undergo even severer punishment.
There were at that time about 1,000 Jewish families and 72 synagogues in the Papal States, excluding Rome, Ancona, and Bologna. In spite of the misery which threatened them, almost all included in this decree decided upon emigration, and only very few became Christians. The exiles also suffered loss of property, because they had not time to sell their estates, and collect the debts owing to them. The historian Gedalya Ibn-Yachya alone lost over 10,000 ducats by his debtors in Ravenna. The exiles dispersed, and sought protection in the neighboring little states of Pesaro, Urbino, Ferrara, Mantua, and Milan. The Jews of Avignon and Venaissin, the only communities remaining on French territory since the expulsion of the Jews from France two hundred years previously, were also ordered to leave. The reactionary princes of the church had long cast malicious glances upon them, for they had been particularly favored by the officials of the Papal States under the humanistic popes, Leo X, Clement VII, and especially Paul III. The curia received its only income from this district through their commerce. The Jews of Avignon, Carpentras, and other towns, owned great wealth and property of all kinds, and held lands.
Most of the Jews of the Italian and French ecclesiastical territories, like all expelled from Christian countries, went to Turkey, and there met with the kindest reception, if they were able to get so far without being attacked and maltreated by the robber-knights of the Order of Malta. It seemed almost as if there were to be an end of Jews in Christian Europe. Hatred, persecution, and banishment reigned everywhere. In Catholic dominions the fanaticism of the papacy prevailed, and in Protestant countries the narrowness of Lutheranism, sunk from its former height to the level of a child's quarrel.
Both seemed to desire the enforcement of the oft expressed thought of the arch-enemies of the Jews, that Jews have no right to dwell in the West.