History of the Jews in Russia and Poland Volume I Part 3

It may be mentioned in this connection that from about the same time dates the origin of the Jewish community of Lvov (Lemberg),[31] the capital of Red Russia, or Galicia, which had been added to his dominions by Casimir the Great.[32] In 1356 Casimir, in granting the Magdeburg Law to the city of Lemberg, bestowed upon the local Jews the right "of being judged according to their own laws," _i. e._ autonomy in their communal affairs, a privilege accorded at the same time to the Ruthenians, Armenians, and Tatars.

Casimir the Great's att.i.tude towards the Jews was thus a part of his general policy with reference to foreign settlers, whom he believed to be useful for the development of the country. This, however, did not prevent certain evil-minded persons, both then and in later ages, from seeing in these acts of rational statesmanship the manifestation of the King's personal predilections and attachments. Rumor had it that Casimir was favorably disposed towards the Jews because of his infatuation with the beautiful Jewess Estherka. This Jewish belle, the daughter of a tailor, is supposed to have captured the heart of the King so completely that in 1356 he abandoned a former favorite for her sake. Estherka lived in the royal palace of Lobzovo, near Cracow. She bore the King two daughters, who were brought up by their mother in the Jewish religion, and two sons, who were educated as Christians, and who subsequently became the progenitors of several n.o.ble families. Estherka was killed during the persecution to which the Jews were subjected by Casimir's successor, Louis of Hungary. The whole romantic episode presents a mixture of fact and fiction in which it is difficult to make out the truth.

Similarly blurred reports have come down to us concerning the persecutions by the new ruler, Louis of Hungary (1370-1382). During the reign of this King, when, as the Polish historians put it, justice had vanished, the law kept silent, and the people complained bitterly about the despotism of the judges and officials, an attempt was made to rob the Jews of the protection of the law. Nursed as he was in the Catholic traditions of Western Europe, Louis persecuted the Jews from religious motives, threatening with expulsion those among them who had refused to embrace the Christian faith. Fortunately for the Jews his reign in Poland was too ephemeral and unpopular to undo the work of his famous predecessor, the last king of the Piast dynasty. Only at a later date, during the protracted reign of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Yagh.e.l.lo, who acquired the Polish crown by marrying, in 1386, Louis' daughter Yadviga, did the Church obtain power over the affairs of the state, gradually undermining the civil status of the Jews of Poland.

4. POLISH JEWRY DURING THE REIGN OF YAGh.e.l.lO

With the outgoing fourteenth century, Poland was drawn more and more into the whirlpool of European politics. Catholicism served as the connecting link between this Slav country and Western Europe. Hence the influence of the West manifested itself primarily in the enhancement of ecclesiastic authority, which, being cosmopolitan in character, endeavored to obliterate all national and cultural distinctions. The Polish king Vladislav Yagh.e.l.lo (1386-1434), having been converted from paganism to Catholicism, and having forced his Lithuanian subjects to follow his example, adhered to the new faith with the ardor of a convert, and frequently yielded to the influence of the clergy. It was during his reign that the Jews of Poland suffered their first religious persecution in that country.

The Jews of Posen were charged with having bribed a poor Christian woman into stealing from the local Dominican church three hosts, which supposedly were stabbed and thrown into a pit. From the pierced hosts, so the superst.i.tious rumor had it, blood spurted forth, in confirmation of the Eucharist dogma. Nor was this the only miracle which popular imagination ascribed to the three bits of holy bread. The Archbishop of Posen, having learned of the alleged blasphemy, inst.i.tuted proceedings against the Jews. The Rabbi of Posen, thirteen elders of the Jewish community, and the woman charged with the theft of the holy wafers, became the victims of popular superst.i.tion; after prolonged tortures they were all tied to pillars, and roasted alive on a slow fire (1399).

Moreover, the Jews of Posen were punished by the imposition of an "eternal" fine, which they had to pay annually in favor of the Dominican church. This fine was rigorously exacted down to the eighteenth century, as long as the legend of the three hosts lingered in the memory of pious Catholics.

As in the West, religious motives in such cases merely served as a disguise to cover up motives of an economic nature--envy on the part of the Christian city-dwellers of the prosperity of the Jews, who had managed to obtain a foothold in certain branches of commerce, and eagerness to dispose in one way or another of inconvenient rivals.

Similar motives, coupled with religious intolerance, were responsible for the anti-Jewish riots in Cracow in 1407. In that ancient capital of Poland the Jews had increased in numbers in the beginning of the fourteenth century, and, by their commercial enterprise, had attained to prosperity. The Cracow burghers were jealous of them, and the clergy found it improper that the doomed sons of the Synagogue should live so tranquilly under the shelter of the benevolent Church. A silent but stubborn agitation was carried on against the Jews, their enemies merely waiting for a convenient opportunity to square accounts with them.

On one occasion, on the third day of Easter, the priest Budek, who had gained the reputation of an implacable Jew-baiter, delivered a sermon in the Church of St. Barbara. As he was about to leave the pulpit, he suddenly announced to the worshipers that he had found a notice on the pulpit to this effect: "The Jews living in Cracow killed a Christian boy last night, and made sport over his blood; moreover, they threw stones at a priest who was going to visit a sick man, and was carrying a crucifix in his hands." No sooner had these words been uttered than the people rushed into the Jewish street, and began to loot the houses of "Christ's enemies." The royal authorities hastened to the rescue of the Jews, and by armed force put an end to the riots. But several hours later, when the bells of the town hall began to ring, summoning the members of the magistracy to a meeting, for the purpose of punishing the instigators of the disorders, some one in the crowd shouted that the magistracy was inviting the Christians to another attack upon the Jews.

Thereupon the rabble came running from all parts of the city and began to slay and plunder the Jews, setting fire to their houses. Some Jews sought refuge in the Tower of St. Anne, but the mob set fire to the tower, and the unfortunate Jews had to surrender. A number of them, to save their lives, adopted Christianity, while the children of the slain were all baptized. Many Christians, according to the testimony of the Polish historian Dlugosh[33], grew rich on the money plundered from the Jews.

One cannot fail to perceive in all these catastrophes the influence of neighboring Germany[34]. It was from Germany that the clerical reaction which followed upon the struggle of the Church with the reformatory Huss movement penetrated to Poland. The Synod of Constance, which condemned Huss, was attended by the Archbishop of Gnesen, Nicholas Tromba, who appeared at the head of a Polish delegation. On his return, this leading dignitary of the Polish Church presided over the proceedings of the Synod of Kalish (1420), which had also been convened in connection with the Huss movement.

At the suggestion of this Archbishop, the Council of Kalish solemnly ratified all the anti-Jewish enactments which had been pa.s.sed by the Councils of Breslau and Buda (Ofen),[35] but had seldom been carried out in practice. These laws, as will be remembered, forbade all intercourse between Jew and Christian, and ordered the Jews to live in separate quarters, to wear a distinctive mark on the upper garment, and so forth.

At the same time the Jews were required to pay a tax in favor of the churches of those diocesan districts "where they now live, and where by right Christians ought to live," this tax to correspond to "the losses inflicted by them upon the Christians." These injunctions were issued as special instructions to the members of the clergy in all the dioceses.

The ecclesiastic tendencies gradually forced their way into secular legislation. The fanatics of the Church exerted their influence not only on the King but also on the landed n.o.bility, the _Shlakhta_,[36] which at that time began to take a more active interest in the affairs of the state. At the convention of the Shlakhta in Varta[37] (1423) King Vladislav Yagh.e.l.lo sanctioned a law forbidding the Jews to lend money against written securities, only loans against pledges being permitted.

The ecclesiastic origin of this enactment is betrayed in the ugly manner in which the law is justified in the preamble: "Whereas Jewish cunning is always directed against the Christians and aims rather at the property of the Christian than at his creed or person...."

5. THE JEWS OF LITHUANIA DURING THE REIGN OF VITOVT

An entirely different picture is presented at that time by Lithuania, which, in spite of its dynastic alliance with Poland, retained complete autonomy of administration. The patriarchal order of things, which was nearing its end in Poland, was still firmly intrenched in the Duchy of Lithuania, but recently emerged from the stage of primitive paganism.

Medieval culture had not yet taken hold of the inhabitants of the wooded banks of the Niemen, and the Jews were able to settle there without having to face violence and persecution.

It is difficult to determine the exact date of the first Jewish settlements in Lithuania. So much is certain, however, that by the end of the fourteenth century a number of important communities were in existence, such as those of Brest, Grodno, Troki, Lutzk, and Vladimir, the last two in Volhynia, which, prior to the Polish-Lithuanian Union of 1579, formed part of the Duchy. The first one to legalize the existence of these communities was the Lithuanian Grand Duke Vitovt, who ruled over Lithuania from 1388 to 1430, partly as an independent sovereign, partly in the name of his cousin, the Polish King Yagh.e.l.lo. In 1388 the Jews of Brest and other Lithuanian communities obtained from Vitovt a charter similar in content to the statutes of Boleslav of Kalish and Casimir the Great, and in 1389 even more extensive privileges were bestowed by him on the Jews of Grodno.

In these enactments the Lithuanian ruler exhibits, like Casimir, an enlightened solicitude for a peaceful relationship between Jews and Christians and for the inner welfare of the Jewish communities. Under the laws enacted by Vitovt the Jews of Lithuania formed a cla.s.s of free citizens, standing under the immediate protection of the Grand Duke and his local administration. They lived in independent communities, enjoying autonomy in their internal affairs as far as religion and property are concerned, while in criminal affairs they were liable to the court of the local starosta[38] or sub-starosta, and, in particularly important cases, to the court of the Grand Duke himself.

The law guaranteed to the Jews inviolability of person and property, liberty of religion, the right of free transit, the free pursuit of commerce and trade, on equal terms with the Christians. The Lithuanian Jews carried on business on the market-places or in shops, they plied all kinds of trades, and occasionally engaged in agriculture. Men of wealth lent money on interest, leased from the Grand Duke the customs duties, the revenues on spirits, and other taxes. They held estates either in their own right or in the form of land leases. The taxes which they paid into the exchequer were adapted to the character of their occupations, and on the whole were not burdensome. Aside from the Rabbanite Jews there existed in Lithuania Karaites, who had immigrated from the Crimea, and had established themselves in the regions of Troki and Lutzk.

Accordingly the position of the Jews was more favorable in Lithuania than in Poland. Jewish immigrants, on their way from Germany to Poland, frequently went as far as Lithuania and settled there permanently.

Lithuania formed the extreme boundary in the eastward movement of the Jews, Russia and Muscovy being almost entirely closed to them.

6. THE CONFLICT BETWEEN ROYALTY AND CLERGY UNDER CASIMIR IV. AND HIS SONS

The conflict of tendencies in the Polish legislation concerning the Jews manifested itself with particular violence in the reign of Casimir IV., the third king of the Yagh.e.l.lo dynasty. The att.i.tude of Casimir IV.

(1447-1492), who was imbued with the ideas of the humanistic movement then in vogue, was at first that of a wise ruler, the guardian of the common interests of his subjects. As Grand Duke of Lithuania he had followed the liberal Jewish policies of his predecessor Vitovt. He protected the personal and communal rights of both the Rabbanite and Karaite Jews--to the latter he granted, in 1441, the Magdeburg Law--and he frequently availed himself of the services of enterprising Jewish financiers and tax-farmers to increase the revenues of the state.

Having accepted the Polish crown, Casimir was resolved to rule independently and to disregard the designs of the all-powerful clergy.

Shortly after his coronation, in August, 1447, while the King was on a visit to Posen, the city was devastated by a terrible fire. During the conflagration the ancient original of the charter which Casimir the Great had bestowed upon the Jews was lost. A Jewish delegation from the communities of Posen, Kalish, and other cities pet.i.tioned the King to restore and ratify the old Jewish privileges, on the basis of copies of the charter which had been spared. Casimir readily granted the request of the deputies. "We desire"--he announces in his new charter--"that the Jews, whom we wish to protect in our own interest as well as in the interest of the royal exchequer, should feel comforted in our beneficent reign." Corroborating as it did all the rights and privileges previously conferred upon the Jews--liberty of residence and commerce, communal and judicial autonomy, inviolability of life and liberty, protection against groundless charges and attacks--the charter of Casimir IV. was a direct protest against the canonical laws only recently reissued for Poland by the Council of Kalish, and for the whole Catholic world by the great Council at Basle. In opposition to the main trend of the Council resolutions, the royal charter permitted the Jews to a.s.sociate with Christians, and exempted them from the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastic law courts (1453).

The King's liberalism aroused the resentment of the Catholic clergy. The leader of the clerical party was the energetic Archbishop of Cracow, Cardinal Zbignyev Oleshnitzki, who openly headed the forces arrayed in opposition to the King. He denounced Casimir bitterly for granting protection to the Jews, "to the injury and insult of the holy faith."

Do not imagine--Oleshnitzki writes to the King in May, 1454--that in matters touching the Christian religion you are at liberty to pa.s.s any law you please. No one is great and strong enough to put down all opposition to himself when the interests of the faith are at stake. I therefore beg and implore your Royal Majesty to revoke the aforementioned privileges and liberties. Prove that you are a Catholic sovereign, and remove all occasion for disgracing your name and for worse offenses that are likely to follow.

In his letter Oleshnitzki refers to the well-known agitator and Jew-baiter, the Papal Legate Capistrano, who had come to Poland from Germany in the fall of 1453. With this "scourge of the Jews" as his ally Oleshnitzki started a campaign against Jews and heretics (or Hussites).

On his arrival in Cracow Capistrano delivered on the market-place incendiary speeches against the Jews, and demanded of the King persistently to revoke the "G.o.dless" Jewish privileges, threatening him, in case of disobedience, with the tortures of h.e.l.l and terrible misfortunes for the country.

At first the King refused to yield, but the march of events favored the anti-Jewish forces. Poland was at war with the Teutonic Order.[39] The first defeat sustained by the Polish troops in this war (September, 1454) gave the clergy an opportunity of proclaiming that the Lord was chastising the country for the King's disregard of Church interests and for his protection of the Jews. At last the King was forced to listen to the demands of the united clergy and n.o.bility. In November, 1454, the Statute of Nyeshava[40] was promulgated, and by one of its clauses all former Jewish privileges were rescinded as "being equally opposed to Divine right and earthly laws." The reasons for the enactment, which were evidently dictated by Oleshnitzki, were formulated as follows: "For it is not meet that infidels should enjoy greater advantages than the worshipers of our Lord Christ, and slaves should have no right to occupy a better position than sons." The Varta Statutes of 1423 and the former canonical laws were declared in force again. Clericalism had scored a triumph.

This anti-Jewish tendency communicated itself to the people at large. In several towns the Jews were attacked. In 1463 detachments of Polish volunteers who were preparing for a crusade against the Turks pa.s.sed through Lemberg and Cracow on their way to Hungary. The disorderly crowd, consisting of monks, students, peasants, and impoverished n.o.blemen, threw itself on the Jews of Cracow on the third day of Easter, looted their houses, and killed about thirty people. When Casimir IV.

learned what had happened, he imposed a fine on the magistracy for having failed to forestall the riots. Similar disorders were taking place about the same time in Lemberg, Posen, and other cities.

As far as Casimir IV. was concerned, the clerical policy, artificially foisted upon him, did not alter his personal readiness to shield the Jews. But under his sons, the Polish King John Albrecht and the Lithuanian Grand Duke Alexander Yagh.e.l.lo, the anti-Jewish policy gained the upper hand. The former ratified, at the Piotrkov Diet of 1496, the Nyeshava Statute with its anti-Jewish restrictions. John Albrecht is also credited with the establishment of the first ghetto in Poland. In 1494 a large part of the Polish capital of Cracow was destroyed by fire, and the mob, taking advantage of the prevailing panic, plundered the property of the Jews. As a result, the Jews, who at that time were scattered over various parts of the city, were ordered by the King to move to Kazimiezh,[41] a suburb of Cracow, and to live there apart from the Christians. Kazimiezh became, in consequence, a wholly Jewish town, leading throughout the centuries a life of its own, and connected with the outside world by mere threads of economic relationship.

While the throne of Poland was occupied by John Albrecht, his brother Alexander ruled over Lithuania as grand duke. At first Alexander's att.i.tude towards the Jews was rather favorable. In 1492 he complied with the pet.i.tion of the Karaites of Troki, and confirmed the charter of Casimir IV., bestowing upon them the Magdeburg Law, and even supplementing it by a few additional privileges. Various items of public revenue, especially the customs duties, were as theretofore let to the Jews. Alexander also paid the Jewish capitalists part of the money advanced by them to his father. In 1495, however, the Grand Duke suddenly issued a decree ordering the expulsion of all the Jews from Lithuania. It is not known whether this cruel action was due to the influence of the anti-Jewish clerical party, and was stimulated by the news of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, or whether it was prompted by the financial dependence of the ruler on his Jewish creditors, or by the general desire to enrich himself at the expense of the exiles. As a matter of fact Alexander confiscated the immovable property of the expelled Jews in the districts of Grodno, Brest, Lutzk, and Troki, and a large part thereof was distributed by him among the local Christian residents. The banished Jews emigrated partly to the Crimea (Kaffa), but the majority settled, with the permission of King John Albrecht, in the neighboring Polish cities. However, when a few years later, after the death of his brother, Alexander accepted, in addition, the crown of Poland (1501), he allowed the Jews to return to Lithuania and settle in their former places of residence. On this occasion they received back, though not in all cases, the houses, estates, synagogues, and cemeteries previously owned by them (1503).

By the beginning of the fourteenth century Polish Jewry had become a big economic and social factor with which the state was bound to reckon. It was now destined to become also an independent spiritual ent.i.ty, having stood for four hundred years under the tutelage of the Jewish center in Germany. The further development of this new factor forms one of the most prominent features of the next period.

FOOTNOTES:

[20] It need scarcely be pointed out that, in speaking of the Jewish immigration into Poland, we have in mind the _predominating_ element, which came from the West. It is quite possible that there was an admixture of settlers from the Khazar kingdom, from the Crimea, and from the Orient in general, who were afterwards merged with the western element.

[21] The word signifies "the powder merchant"--five hundred years before the invention of powder!

[22] [The most important of these were: Great Poland, in the northwest, with the leading cities of Posen and Kalish; Little Poland, in the southwest, with Cracow and Lublin; and Red Russia, in the south, on which see p. 53, n. 2. In 1319 Great Poland and Little Poland were united by Vladislav Lokietek (see p. 50), who a.s.sumed the royal t.i.tle.

His son Casimir the Great annexed Red Russia. Thenceforward Great Poland, Little Poland, and Red Russia formed part of the Polish Kingdom, with Cracow as capital, though they were administered as separate Provinces. On the Princ.i.p.ality of Mazovia, see p. 85, n. 1.]

[23] Some coins bear the inscription ???? ??? ??????, "Meshko (= Mechislav) Krol Polski," "Meshko, king of Poland," or ???? ????, "Benediction [on] Meshko." Other coins give the names of the Jewish minters, such as Abraham, son of Isaac Nagid, Joseph Kalish, etc.

[24] [_Das Magdeburger Recht_, a collection of laws based on the famous _Sachsenspiegel_, which was composed early in the thirteenth century in Saxony. Owing to the fame of the court of aldermen (_Schoppenstuhl_) at Magdeburg, the Magdeburg Law was adopted in many parts of Germany, Bohemia, Hungary, and particularly of Poland. One of its main provisions was the administrative and judicial independence of the munic.i.p.alities.]

[25] [They were organized in mercantile guilds and trade-unions and formed the estate of burghers, called in Polish _mieszczanie_--p.r.o.nounced _myeshchanye_--and in Latin _oppidani_, "town-dwellers," thus standing midway between the n.o.bility, or _Shlakhta_ (see p. 58, n. 1), and the serfs, or _khlops_.]

[26] [The word, spelled in Polish _wojewoda_, signifies, like the corresponding German _Herzog_, military commander. The voyevoda was originally the leader of the army in war and the representative of the king in times of peace. After the unification of Poland, in 1319, the voyevodas became the administrators of the various Polish provinces (or _voyevodstvos_) on behalf of the king. Later on their duties were encroached upon by the starostas (see below, p. 60, n. 1). With the growth of the influence of the n.o.bility, which resented the authority of the royal officials, their functions were limited to the calling of the militia in the case of war and the exercise of jurisdiction over the Jews of their province. They were members of the Royal Council, and as such wielded considerable influence. Their Latin t.i.tle was _palatinus_.]

[27] [_Judex Judaeorum._ He was a Christian official, generally of n.o.ble rank. See p. 52.]

[28] [In Polish, Wladyslaw. The name is also found in the forms Wladislaus and Ladislaus.]

[29] [_I. e._ "Span-long," so called because of his diminutive stature.]

[30] A privilege denied to them by the canons of the Church.

[31] [Lvov, written in Polish Lwow, is used by the Poles and Russians; Lemberg is used by the Germans.]

[32] [Before Casimir the Great Red Russia formed an independent Princ.i.p.ality (see p. 42, n. 1). The ident.i.ty of Red Russia with Galicia has been a.s.sumed in the text for the sake of convenience. In reality Red Russia corresponds to present-day _Eastern_ Galicia, in which the predominating population is Little Russian or Ruthenian, while _Western_ Galicia, with Cracow, formed part of Little Poland. In addition Red Russia included a part of the present Russian Government of Podolia.]

[33] Jan Dlugosz, called in Latin Johannes Longinus [author of _Historia Polonica_. He died in 1480].