Manners, Customs, and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Part 28

From various reliable sources we learn that there was a place in the Grand Chatelet, called the _Chausse d'Hypocras_, in which the prisoners had their feet continually in water, and where they could neither stand up nor lie down; and a cell, called _Fin d'aise_, which was a horrible receptacle of filth, vermin, and reptiles; as to the _Fosse_, no staircase being attached to it, the prisoners were lowered down into it by means of a rope and pulley.

By the law of 1425, the gaoler was not permitted to put more than _two or three_ persons in the same bed. He was bound to give "bread and water" to the poor prisoners who had no means of subsistence; and, lastly, he was enjoined "to keep the large stone basin, which was on the pavement, full of water, so that prisoners might get it whenever they wished." In order to defray his expenses, he levied on the prisoners various charges for attendance and for bedding, and he was authorised to detain in prison any person who failed to pay him. The power of compelling payment of these charges continued even after a judge's order for the release of a prisoner had been issued.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 354.--The Bastille.--From an ancient Engraving of the Topography of Paris, in the Collection of Engravings of the National Library.]

The subterranean cells of the Bastille (Fig. 354) did not differ much from those of the Chatelet. There were several, the bottoms of which were formed like a sugar-loaf upside down, thus neither allowing the prisoner to stand up, nor even to adopt a tolerable position sitting or lying down.

It was in these that King Louis XI., who seemed to have a partiality for filthy dungeons, placed the two young sons of the Duke de Nemours (beheaded in 1477), ordering, besides, that they should be taken out twice a week and beaten with birch rods, and, as a supreme measure of atrocity, he had one of their teeth extracted every three months. It was Louis XI., too, who, in 1476, ordered the famous _iron cage_, to be erected in one of the towers of the Bastille, in which Guillaume, Bishop of Verdun, was incarcerated for fourteen years.

The Chateau de Loches also possessed one of these cages, which received the name of _Cage de Balue_, because the Cardinal Jean de la Balue was imprisoned in it. Philippe de Commines, in his "Memoires," declares that he himself had a taste of it for eight months. Before the invention of cages, Louis XI. ordered very heavy chains to be made, which were fastened to the feet of the prisoners, and attached to large iron b.a.l.l.s, called, according to Commines, the King's little daughters (_les fillettes du roy_).

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 355.--Movable Iron Cage.--Fac-simile of a Woodcut in the "Cosmographie Universelle" of Munster, in folio, Basle, 1552.]

The prison known by the name of The Leads of Venice is of so notorious a character that its mere mention is sufficient, without its being necessary for us to describe it. To the subject of voluntary seclusions, to which certain pious persons submitted themselves as acts of extreme religious devotion, it will only be necessary to allude here, and to remark that there are examples of this confinement having been ordered by legal authority. In 1485, Renee de Vermandois, the widow of a squire, had been condemned to be burnt for adultery and for murdering her husband; but, on letters of remission from the King, Parliament commuted the sentence p.r.o.nounced by the Provost of Paris, and ordered that Renee de Vermandois should be "shut up within the walls of the cemetery of the Saints-Innocents, in a small house, built at her expense, that she might therein do penance and end her days." In conformity with this sentence, the culprit having been conducted with much pomp to the cell which had been prepared for her, the door was locked by means of two keys, one of which remained in the hands of the churchwarden (_marguillier_) of the Church of the Innocents, and the other was deposited at the office of the Parliament. The prisoner received her food from public charity, and it is said that she became an object of veneration and respect by the whole town.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 356.--Cat-o'-nine-tails.--Fac-simile of a Woodcut in the "Cosmographie Universelle" of Munster.]

Jews.

Dispersion of the Jews.--Jewish Quarters in the Mediaeval Towns.--The _Ghetto_ of Rome.--Ancient Prague.--The _Giudecca_ of Venice.--Condition of the Jews.--Animosity of the People against them--Severity and vexatious Treatment of the Sovereigns.--The Jews of Lincoln.--The Jews of Blois.--Mission of the _Pastoureaux_.--Extermination of the Jews.--The Price at which the Jews purchased Indulgences.--Marks set upon them.--Wealth, Knowledge, Industry, and Financial Apt.i.tude of the Jews.--Regulations respecting Usury as practised by the Jews.--Attachment of the Jews to their Religion.

A painful and gloomy history commences for the Jewish race from the day when the Romans seized upon Jerusalem and expelled its unfortunate inhabitants, a race so essentially h.o.m.ogeneous, strong, patient, and religious, and dating its origin from the remotest period of the patriarchal ages. The Jews, proud of the t.i.tle of "the People of G.o.d,"

were scattered, proscribed, and received universal reprobation (Fig. 357), notwithstanding that their annals, collected under divine inspiration by Moses and the sacred writers, had furnished a glorious prologue to the annals of all modern nations, and had given to the world the holy and divine history of Christ, who, by establis.h.i.+ng the Gospel, was to become the regenerator of the whole human family.

Their Temple is destroyed, and the crowd which had once pressed beneath its portico as the flock of the living G.o.d has become a miserable tribe, restless and unquiet in the present, but full of hope as regards the future. The Jewish _nation_ exists nowhere, nevertheless, the Jewish _people_ are to be found everywhere. They are wanderers upon the face of the earth, continually pursued, threatened, and persecuted. It would seem as if the existence of the offspring of Israel is perpetuated simply to present to Christian eyes a clear and awful warning of the Divine vengeance, a special, and at the same time an overwhelming example of the vicissitudes which G.o.d alone can determine in the life of a people.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 357.--Expulsion of the Jews in the Reign of the Emperor Hadrian (A.D. 135): "How Heraclius turned the Jews out of Jerusalem."--Fac-simile of a Miniature in the "Histoire des Empereurs,"

Ma.n.u.script of the Fifteenth Century, in the Library of the a.r.s.enal, Paris.]

M. Depping, an historian of this race so long accursed, after having been for centuries blessed and favoured by G.o.d, says, "A Jewish community in an European town during the Middle Ages resembled a colony on an island or on a distant coast. Isolated from the rest of the population, it generally occupied a district or street which was separated from the town or borough. The Jews, like a troop of lepers, were thrust away and huddled together into the most uncomfortable and most unhealthy quarter of the city, as miserable as it vas disgusting. There, in ill-constructed houses, this poor and numerous population was ama.s.sed; in some cases high walls enclosed the small and dark narrow streets of the quarter occupied by this branded race, which prevented its extension, though, at the same time, it often protected the inhabitants from the fury of the populace."

In order to form a just appreciation of what the Jewish quarters were like in the mediaeval towns, one must visit the _Ghetto_ of Rome or ancient Prague. The latter place especially has, in all respects, preserved its antique appearance. We must picture to ourselves a large enclosure of wretched houses, irregularly built, divided by small streets with no attempt at uniformity. The princ.i.p.al thoroughfare is lined with stalls, in which are sold not only old clothes, furniture, and utensils, but also new and glittering articles. The inhabitants of this enclosure can, without crossing its limits, procure everything necessary to material life. This quarter contains the old synagogue, a square building begrimed with the dirt of ages, and so covered with dirt and moss that the stone of which it is built is scarcely visible. The building, which is as mournful as a prison, has only narrow loopholes by way of windows, and a door so low that one must stoop to enter it. A dark pa.s.sage leads to the interior, into which air and light can scarcely penetrate. A few lamps contend with the darkness, and lighted fires serve to modify a little the icy temperature of this cellar. Here and there pillars seem to support a roof which is too high and too darkened for the eye of the visitor to distinguish. On the sides are dark and damp recesses, where women a.s.sist at the celebration of wors.h.i.+p, which is always carried on, according to ancient custom, with much wailing and strange gestures of the body. The book of the law which is in use is no less venerable than the edifice in which it is contained. It appears that this synagogue has never undergone the slightest repairs or changes for many centuries. The successive generations who have prayed in this ancient temple rest under thousands of sepulchral stones, in a cemetery which is of the same date as the synagogue, and is about a league in circ.u.mference.

Paris has never possessed, properly speaking, a regular _Jewish quarter_; it is true that the Israelites settled down in the neighbourhood of the markets, and in certain narrow streets, which at some period or other took the name of _Juiverie_ or _Vieille Juiverie (Old Jewry_); but they were never distinct from the rest of the population; they only had a separate cemetery, at the bottom or rather on the slope of the hill of Sainte-Genevieve. On the other hand, most of the towns of France and of Europe had their _Jewry_. In certain countries, the colonies of Jews enjoyed a share of immunities and protections, thus rendering their life a little less precarious, and their occupations of a rather more settled character.

In Spain and in Portugal, the Jews, in consequence of their having been on several occasions useful to the kings of those two countries, were allowed to carry on their trade, and to engage in money speculations, outside their own quarters; a few were elevated to positions of responsibility, and some were even tolerated at court.

In the southern towns of France, which they enriched by commerce and taxes, and where they formed considerable communities, the Jews enjoyed the protection of the n.o.bles. We find them in Languedoc and Provence buying and selling property like Christians, a privilege which was not permitted to them elsewhere: this is proved by charters of contracts made during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, which bear the signature of certain Jews in Hebrew characters. On Papal lands, at Avignon, at Carpentras, and at Cavaillon, they had _bailes_, or consuls of their nation. The Jews of Rousillon during the Spanish rule (fifteenth century) were governed by two syndics and a scribe, elected by the community. The latter levied the taxes due to the King of Aragon. In Burgundy they cultivated the vines, which was rather singular, for the Jews generally preferred towns where they could form groups more compact, and more capable of mutual a.s.sistance. The name of _Sabath_, given to a vineyard in the neighbourhood of Macon, still points out the position of their synagogue. The hamlet of _Mouys_, a dependency of the communes of Prissey, owes its name to a rich Israelite, Moses, who had received that land as an indemnity for money lent to the Count Gerfroy de Macon, which the latter had been unable to repay. In Vienna, where the Israelites had a special quarter, still called _the Jews'_

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 358.--Jews taking the Blood from Christian Children, for their Mystic Rites.--From a Pen-and-ink Drawing, illuminated, in the Book of the Cabala of Abraham the Jew (Library of the a.r.s.enal, Paris).]

_Square_, a special judge named by the duke was set over them. Exempted from the city rates, they paid a special poil tax, and they contributed, but on the same footing as Christian va.s.sals, to extraordinary rates, war taxes, and travelling expenses of the n.o.bles, &c. This community even became so rich that it eventually held mortgages on the greater part of the houses of the town.

In Venice also, the Jews had their quarter--the _Giudecca_--which is still one of the darkest in the town; but they did not much care about such trifling inconveniences, as the republic allowed them to bank, that is, to lend money at interest; and although they were driven out on several occasions, they always found means to return and recommence their operations. When they were authorised to establish themselves in the towns of the Adriatic, their presence did not fail to annoy the Christian merchants, whose rivals they were; but neither in Venice nor in the Italian republics had they to fear court intrigues, nor the hatred of corporations of trades, which were so powerful in France and in Germany.

It was in the north of Europe that the animosity against the Jews was greatest. The Christian population continually threatened the Jewish quarters, which public opinion pointed to as haunts and sinks of iniquity.

The Jews were believed to be much more amenable to the doctrines of the Talmud than to the laws of Moses. However secret they may have kept their learning, a portion of its tenets transpired, which was supposed to inculcate the right to pillage and murder Christians; and it is to the vague knowledge of these odious prescriptions of the Talmud that we must attribute the readiness with which the most atrocious accusations against the Jews were always welcomed.

Besides this, the public mind in those days of bigotry was naturally filled with a deep antipathy against the Jewish deicides. When monks and priests came annually in Holy week to relate from the pulpit to their hearers the revolting details of the Pa.s.sion, resentment was kindled in the hearts of the Christians against the descendants of the judges and executioners of the Saviour. And when, on going out of the churches, excited by the sermons they had just heard, the faithful saw in pictures, in the cemeteries, and elsewhere, representations of the mystery of the death of our Saviour, in which the Jews played so odious a part, there was scarcely a spectator who did not feel an increased hatred against the condemned race. Hence it was that in many towns, even when the authorities did not compel them to do so, the Israelites found it prudent to shut themselves up in their own quarter, and even in their own houses, during the whole of Pa.s.sion week; for, in consequence of the public feeling roused during those days of mourning and penance, a false rumour was quite sufficient to give the people a pretext for offering violence to the Jews.

In fact, from the earliest days of Christianity, a certain number of accusations were always being made, sometimes in one country, sometimes in another, against the Israelites, which always ended in bringing down the same misfortunes on their heads. The most common, and most easily credited report, was that which attributed to them the murder of some Christian child, said to be sacrificed in Pa.s.sion week in token of their hatred of Christ; and in the event of this terrible accusation being once uttered, and maintained by popular opinion, it never failed to spread with remarkable swiftness. In such cases, popular fury, not being on all occasions satisfied with the tardiness of judicial forms, vented itself upon the first Jews who had the misfortune to fall into the hands of their enemies. As soon as the disturbance was heard the Jewish quarter was closed; fathers and mothers barricaded themselves in with their children, concealed whatever riches they possessed, and listened tremblingly to the clamour of the mult.i.tude which was about to besiege them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 359.--Secret Meeting of the Jews at the Rabbi's House.--Fac-simile of a Miniature of the "Pelerinage de la Vie Humaine,"

Ma.n.u.script of the Fourteenth Century, in the National Library of Paris.]

In 1255, in Lincoln, the report was suddenly spread that a child of the name of Hughes had been enticed into the Jewish quarter, and there scourged, crucified, and pierced with lances, in the presence of all the Israelites of the district, who were convoked and a.s.sembled to take part in this horrible barbarity. The King and Queen of England, on their return from a journey to Scotland, arrived in Lincoln at the very time when the inhabitants were so much agitated by this mysterious announcement. The people called for vengeance. An order was issued to the bailiffs and officers of the King to deliver the murderer into the hands of justice, and the quarter in which the Jews had shut themselves up, so as to avoid the public animosity, was immediately invaded by armed men. The rabbi, in whose house the child was supposed to have been tortured, was seized, and at once condemned to be tied to the tail of a horse, and dragged through the streets of the town. After this, his mangled body, which was only half dead, was hung (Fig. 359). Many of the Jews ran away and hid themselves in all parts of the kingdom, and those who had the misfortune to be caught were thrown into chains and led to London. Orders were given in the provinces to imprison all the Israelites who were accused or even suspected of having taken any part, whether actively or indirectly, in the murder of the Lincoln child; and suspicion made rapid strides in those days. In a short s.p.a.ce of time, eighteen Israelites in London shared the fate of the rabbi of their community in Lincoln. Some Dominican monks, who were charitable and courageous enough to interfere in favour of the wretched prisoners, brought down odium on their own heads, and were accused of having allowed themselves to be corrupted by the money of the Jews. Seventy-one prisoners were retained in the dungeons of London, and seemed inevitably fated to die, when the king's brother, Richard, came to their aid, by a.s.serting his right over all the Jews of the kingdom--a right which the King had pledged to him for a loan of 5,000 silver marks.

The unfortunate prisoners were therefore saved, thanks to Richard's desire to protect his securities. History does not tell what their liberty cost them; but we must hope that a sense of justice alone guided the English prince, and that the Jews found other means besides money by which to show their grat.i.tude.

There is scarcely a country in Europe which cannot recount similar tales.

In 1171, we find the murder of a child at Orleans, or Blois, causing capital punishment to be inflicted on several Jews. Imputations of this horrible character were continually renewed during the Middle Ages, and were of very ancient origin; for we hear of them in the times of Honorius and Theodosius the younger; we find them reproduced with equal vehemence in 1475 at Trent, where a furious mob was excited against the Jews, who were accused of having destroyed a child twenty-nine months old named Simon. The tale of the martyrdom of this child was circulated widely, and woodcut representations of it were freely distributed, which necessarily increased, especially in Germany, the horror which was aroused in the minds of Christians against the accursed nation (Fig. 361).

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 360.--The Infant Richard crucified by the Jews, at Pontoise.--Fac-simile of a Woodcut, with Figures by Wohlgemuth, in the "Liber Chronicarum Mundi:" large folio, Nuremberg, 1493.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 361.--Martyrdom of Simon at Trent.--Fac-simile, reduced, of a Woodcut of Wohlgemuth, in the "Liber Chronicarum Mundi:"

large folio, Nuremberg, 1493.]

The Jews gave cause for other accusations calculated to keep up this hatred; such as the desecration of the consecrated host, the mutilation of the crucifix. Tradition informs us of a miracle which took place in Paris in 1290, in the Rue des Jardins, when a Jew dared to mutilate and boil a consecrated host. This miracle was commemorated by the erection of a chapel on the spot, which was afterwards replaced by the church and convent of the Billettes. In 1370, the people of Brussels were startled in consequence of the statements of a Jewess, who accused her co-religionists of having made her carry a pyx full of stolen hosts to the Jews of Cologne, for the purpose of submitting them to the most horrible profanations. The woman added, that the Jews having pierced these hosts with sticks and knives, such a quant.i.ty of blood poured from them that the culprits were struck with terror, and concealed themselves in their quarter. The Jews were all imprisoned, tortured, and burnt alive (Fig.

362). In order to perpetuate the memory of the miracle of the bleeding hosts, an annual procession took place, which was the origin of the great kermesse, or annual fair.

In the event of any unforeseen misfortune, or any great catastrophe occurring amongst Christians, the odium was frequently cast on the Jews.

If the Crusaders met with reverses in Asia, fanatics formed themselves into bands, who, under the name of _Pastoureaux_, spread over the country, killing and robbing not only the Jews, but many Christians also. In the event of any general sickness, and especially during the prevalence of epidemics, the Jews were accused of having poisoned the water of fountains and pits, and the people ma.s.sacred them in consequence. Thousands perished in this way when the black plague made ravages in Europe in the fourteenth century. The sovereigns, who were tardy in suppressing these sanguinary proceedings, never thought of indemnifying the Jewish families which so unjustly suffered.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 362.--The Jews of Cologne burnt alive.--From a Woodcut in the "Liber Chronicarum Mundi:" large folio, Nuremberg, 1493.]

In fact, it was then most religiously believed that, by despising and holding the Jewish nation under the yoke, banished as it was from Judaea for the murder of Jesus Christ, the will of the Almighty was being carried out, so much so that the greater number of kings and princes looked upon themselves as absolute masters over the Jews who lived under their protection. All feudal lords spoke with scorn of _their Jews_; they allowed them to establish themselves on their lands, but on the condition that as they became the subjects and property of their lord, the latter should draw his best income from them.

We have shown by an instance borrowed from the history of England that the Jews were often mortgaged by the kings like land. This was not all, for the Jews who inhabited Great Britain during the reign of Henry III., in the middle of the thirteenth century, were not only obliged to acknowledge, by voluntarily contributing large sums of money, the service the King's brother had rendered them in clearing them from the imputation of having had any partic.i.p.ation in the murder of the child Richard, but the loan on mortgage, for which they were the material and pa.s.sive security, became the cause of odious extortions from them. The King had pledged them to the Earl of Cornwall for 5,000 marks, but they themselves had to repay the royal loan by means of enormous taxes. When they had succeeded in cancelling the King's debt to his brother, that necessitous monarch again mortgaged them, but on this occasion to his son Edward. Soon after, the son having rebelled against his father, the latter took back his Jews, and having a.s.sembled six elders from each of their communities, he told them that he required 20,000 silver marks, and ordered them to pay him that sum at two stated periods. The payments were rigorously exacted; those who were behind-hand were imprisoned, and the debtor who was in arrear for the second payment was sued for the whole sum. On the King's death his successor continued the same system of tyranny against the Jews.

In 1279 they were charged with having issued counterfeit coin, and on this vague or imaginary accusation two hundred and eighty men and women were put to death in London alone. In the counties there were also numerous executions, and many innocent persons were thrown into dungeons; and, at last, in 1290 King Edward, who wished to enrich himself by taking possession of their properties, banished the Jews from his kingdom. A short time before this, the English people had offered to pay an annual fine to the King on condition of his expelling the Jews from the country; but the Jews outbid them, and thus obtained the repeal of the edict of banishment. However, on this last occasion there was no mercy shown, and the Jews, sixteen thousand in number, were expelled from England, and the King seized upon their goods.

At the same period Philippe le Bel of France gave the example of this system of persecuting the Jews, but, instead of confiscating all their goods, he was satisfied with taking one-fifth; his subjects, therefore, almost accused him of generosity.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 363.--Jewish Conspiracy in France.--From a Miniature in the "Pelerinage de la Vie Humaine" (Imperial Library, Paris).]

The Jews often took the precaution of purchasing certain rights and franchises from their sovereign or from the feudal lord under whose sway they lived; but generally these were one-sided bargains, for not being protected by common rights, and only forming a very small part of the population, they could nowhere depend upon promises or privileges which had been made to them, even though they had purchased them with their own money.

To the uncertainty and annoyance of a life which was continually being threatened, was added a number of vexatious and personal insults, even in ordinary times, and when they enjoyed a kind of normal tolerance. They were almost everywhere obliged to wear a visible mark on their dress, such as a patch of gaudy colour attached to the shoulder or chest, in order to prevent their being mistaken for Christians. By this or some other means they were continually subject to insults from the people, and only succeeded in ridding themselves of it by paying the most enormous fines. Nothing was spared to humiliate and insult them. At Toulouse they were forced to send a representative to the cathedral on every Good Friday, that he might there publicly receive a box on the ears. At Beziers, during Pa.s.sion week, the mob a.s.sumed the right of attacking the Jews' houses with stones. The Jews bought off this right in 1160 by paying a certain sum to the Vicomte de Beziers, and by promising an annual poll-tax to him and to his successors. A Jew, pa.s.sing on the road of Etampes, beneath the tower of Montlhery, had to pay an obole; if he had in his possession a Hebrew book, he paid four deniers; and, if he carried his lamp with him, two oboles. At Chateauneuf-sur-Loire a Jew on pa.s.sing had to pay twelve deniers and a Jewess six. It has been said that there were various ancient rates levied upon Jews, in which they were treated like cattle, but this requires authentication. During the Carnival in Rome they were forced to run in the lists, amidst the jeers of the populace. This public outrage was stopped at a subsequent period by a tax of 300 ecus, which a deputation from the Ghetto presented on their knees to the magistrates of the city, at the same time thanking them for their protection.

When Pope Martin IV. arrived at the Council of Constance, in 1417, the Jewish community, which was as numerous as it was powerful in that old city, came in great state to present him with the book of the law (Fig.

364). The holy father received the Jews kindly, and prayed G.o.d to open their eyes and bring them back into the bosom of his church. We know, too, how charitable the popes were to the Jews.

In the face of the distressing position they occupied, it may be asked what powerful motive induced the Jews to live amongst nations who almost invariably treated them as enemies, and to remain at the mercy of sovereigns whose sole object was to oppress, plunder, and subject them to all kinds of vexations? To understand this it is sufficient to remember that, in their peculiar aptness for earning and h.o.a.rding money, they found, or at least hoped to find, a means of compensation whereby they might be led to forget the servitude to which they were subjected.

There existed amongst them, and especially in the southern countries, some very learned men, who devoted themselves princ.i.p.ally to medicine; and in order to avoid having to struggle against insuperable prejudice, they were careful to disguise their nationality and religion in the exercise of that art.