JEWISH MEE, IN THE MIDDLE AGES.*
Mn. ABEAM A.MS has found it impossible in his study of Jewish life to restrict himself to the Middle Ages proper, for the very good reason that the Jewish community is only now issuing from the mediwval conditions of life. As the Middle Ages were passing away, the life of the Ghetto began, and so. the Jews have preserved from mere physical constraint the national type to a degree which even their splendid conserva- tism and patriotism could scarcely have hoped to achieve. What this preservation of national ideals and customs has cost them, eight hundred years of English history alone is a sufficient witness, and if the Jews have suffered less from English State and social tyranny than from those of Con- tinental nations, this fact must be ascribed as much to the absolute necessity oUgoing to them for capital or money, as to a certain toleration which has never been quite absent from the English character.
The twelfth century has furnished some remarkable records of the position of Jews under the early Plantagenets, and indicates at once their isolation and their wealth. Their isolation was, it is true, only comparative, and their wealth only comparative ; still the latter was vastly disproportionate to that of the rest of the people. Aaron of Lincoln provided the money for the building of nine Cistercian monasteries, and boasted that he had built the Shrine of St. Albans. At Aaron's death the debts owing to him, which amounted to 220,000, be- came the King's, and a special department of the Exchequer, the " Scaccarium Aaronis," bad to be organised, with two treasurers and two clerks to cope with the work of collecting them. Thus the King was the sleeping partner, as has been aptly said, of all the usurers of the Kingdom. He had to forego the usury often, and often accepted a composition of the debt, but none the less be reaped profit, while he did not do the dirty work. The wealth of the Jewish community in the twelfth century is proved by the fact that in the year of Aaron's death (1187) the King took a tenth from the people, which produced E70,000, and a quarter from the Jews, which produced 260,000. It is not surprising, then, that the houses of the wealthy Jews were comfortable, richly furnished, and stored with plate. The first stone houses were built by Jews, of unpretending exterior probably, but carpeted, lighted with lamps, and hung with tapestries. They could display pledged plate and jewellery at the Passover, but did not use them. Paintings did not make their appearance till late, the Italian Jews being naturally the first to be affected by the Renaissance of Art. The principal outlets for Jewish display must have been hospitality and dress (till badges curtailed the • Jewish Life in the Mid4124 Ages. By Israel Abrahams, M.A. "The Jewish Library." London : Ils.cmBlaa and Co.
latter), and hospitality has ever been a virtue with the race, inculcated as it was by authority, and becoming after the Crusades a necessity. As Mr. Abrahams says," the Crusades mark the turning-point." For when whole communities were beggared, all sorts of travelling mendicants and students had to be entertained and distributed among the houses. The hospitably inclined householders took a pleasure in the exer- cise of such generosity, and though it became a burden, as it is now, the utmost efforts were made to save the poor way- farer any feeling of shame. Even in the grace after meals, the Psalmist's declaration, "I have been young and now am old ; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed beg- ging their bread," was said in a low voice, lest the words should reach the guest. The custom of leaving the door ajar for the poor on the eve of the Passover is now, we are told, a symbol only ; yet Jewish hospitality is not dead. The race has learnt by a long experience the value of consideration for each other's feelings, and the daily exercise of charity must have appeared but a small effort to them, compared to the sacrifice in times of exile and persecution. For wealthy families to devote a tithe to charity was a common occurrence. At the expulsion of the Spanish Jews in 1492, when Ferdinand and Isabella at one and the same time committed one of the greatest crimes of history, and ruined the Spanish Empire, wealthy Jews bought or provided for whole shiploads of exiles. We hear of the sons of Yechiel, a historical philanthropist, who took up their residence on the quay of Pisa, so as to lose no time in affording assistance. This comprehensive system of charity of course increased the very evil it was intended to mitigate, and it was found necessary in Italy to limit the number of persons that could be asked to such semi-religious festivals as weddings, births, betrothals, in fact all "commandment" meals, meals which had Biblical authority, and which a good Jew was bound to attend. At Forli in 1418 the Jewish authorities re- solved that no one might ask more than twenty men, ten women, five girls, and all the relatives, till the third generation,— a sufficiently generous allowance," adds our author. Similar -ordinances obtained at Metz. Possessed as they were of so much wealth, they could afford to keep a good as well as a bountiful table, with costly appointments. At Metz the size of wine-goblets might not exceed ten ounces. This law -was made as late as the seventeenth century, but many sumptuary laws had been enacted, Forti is an instance, at a rmuch earlier period, for members of the Jewish community had adopted a certain luxury and splendour in their homes, while the medimval lord was practically a barbarian in his ideas of comfort. A fifteenth century chronicler has given us a gorgeous description of the house of a Regensburg Jew, in which the peculiarly Oriental contrast between the exterior -and interior is very marked.
The most important feature of the life of the Jew was the Synagogue, for much of his social life was connected with the act of public worship, and the very freedom the worshippers „permitted themselves was a proof of the position it occupied in their lives. There they met after the sufferings, the insults, and the persecutions of daily life, heard the triumphs of the Past and listened to the Promise of the Law. So .coveted were those few rites allowed to be performed by laymen that in the Middle Ages they were put up to auction. Attendance at the Synagogue does not seem to have been compulsory, nor does the separation of the sexes in the synagogue, according to Mr. Abrahams, date from before the thirteenth century. The Jewish ritual did not begin to tyrannise over the members till after the Ghetto life began.
But in all ages the Rabbi wielded great power, and by means of a mass of rules and ordinances known as tekanoth, general and local, which ordered and arranged the morals and customs of every community, he and the chiefs of the congregation moulded the manner of their own community. We have put the Rabbi first, for, according to Mr. Abrahams, not only was his assent necessary to the promulgation of a tekanah, but he was often responsible himself for the ordi- nance itself. But the Rabbi was the intellectual head and -the leader of the community, and to their Rabbis the nation owe immeasurable obligations. In the terrible exodus from Spain the Rabbis encouraged the broken-hearted exiles with music, and again and again has their patriotism and devotion preserved such liberty as the race has had. In many instances and in many places they became practically agents of the State Government, and so united in their persons both the spiritual and temporal power. Judicial powers they exercised freely, and it is to the willingness of the Jew to enter into all the /Ides of life and his submis- sion to them, and to the unalterable determination of the
Rabbis to preserve the standard of morality, religion, anCi
obedience, that they have owed the immemorial type of Jewish life through the terrible Ghetto period. No greater testimony to the value of the Jewish ideal can be needed than that the Jewish character has emerged unsmirched from a compulsory confinement to the slums of three centuries. The Rabbi, we should say, was not limited to the number of guests he might entertain, and Isaiah Horwitz is said never to have had less than eighty persons at his table. The Rabbi had his pupils and his preaching, and he used these oppor- tunities for expounding the law, protecting the community, and building up a reputation. Education was a serious matter, and the Jewish youth was scarcely allowed to become backward ; least of all was he allowed to ignore his own classics. His physical education was neglected because he was forbidden to bear arms, and was not allowed to hunt, in England. In Spain the case was different. There the Jews, if they did not attain the splendour and grace of Moorish civilisation, produced poets and warriors, and made some figure in the pastimes of chivalry. Mr. Abrahams speaks of the physical deterioration caused by the Ghetto life, but it seems to us to have had as much effect on Jewish physique as a generation of such constraint might have produced. Yet the race has had ten generations of it, and the average Jew is mostly distinctly above the average in frame and muscular vigour. What, then, must be the constitutional vitality of the race !
In the Middle Ages the Jews preferred such skilled employ- ments as did not require much physical exertion, though, says Mr. Abrahams, it was from contempt of unskilled labour rather than inability. They were of course great travellers, and on several occasions rendered great services to the common weal, as the Spanish records show. The Spanish Royal lion-tamers were Jews; indeed, their constitutional courage has only needed arming. Being absolutely destitute of arms, they fell an easy prey to the riots of the twelfth century in England, just as the Armenians do to-day in Constantinople ; yet they lacked not the last dreadful resource of national pride and courage.
In England the Jewish community were early debarred agriculture, their natural pursuit, and one after another were driven from the handicrafts they had become so expert in. On the Continent they have retained their hold on the handicrafts to a great extent, through centuries of restriction
down to the present day. At one period, before the time of Innocent III., they occupied offices in the Papal household. A long list is given of the occupations of the Southern European Jew before the end of the fourteenth centary, supplied from the mass of valuable Spanish records. We must always remember that Jewish prosperity reached its zenith in Spain. Mr. Abrahams seems to have concentrated his details and facts too much; it is an almost impossible task to give a com- plete picture of medimval Jewish life in one volume. Each country necessitates a separate volume, because in no two countries was the position similar, so frequent were the vicissitudes of their lot. This complication is reflected in Jewish Life in the Middle Ages ; nevertheless the book is full of interesting matter, and we do get an idea of the charac- teristics of the Middle Age Jew and his indomitable courage, vigour, and faithful adherence to his religion and a code of morality which, while it permitted polygamy with restrictions in Oriental countries, has remained monogamous in Europe, and has stood in startling contrast to that of its neighbours.
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