Jewish Persecution in Europe

An Overview of Anti-Semitism From the Crusades to the Early Modern

Jan 17, 2009

The persecution of the Jews in Europe is a long history of bitterness and hatred among Catholics and Protestants, culminating in the 20th Century Holocaust.

Long before the Jewish quarter in Venice gave rise to the term “ghetto,” Jews had been persecuted throughout Europe. Forced to live in separate communities and shunned by Christians, Jewish populations managed to survive, often through forced migrations. The order to wear a distinctive badge on their clothing identifying them as Jews goes back to a decree issued by Pope Innocent III at the Fourth Lateran Council. [1] The Holocaust of the twentieth century was the culmination of hundreds of years of Anti-Semitism.

The Jews in the Medieval Period

Although protected by the Church as a visible reminder of Old Testament prophetic truth attesting to Jesus as the Messiah, Jews in Europe lived as a struggling remnant, always aware that their Christian neighbors could, on a whim, turn against them. Some historians emphasize religious differences while others point to economic considerations: Jews were permitted to lend money in a society wherein the Church banned usury. As Tierney and Painter suggest, however, “…the two motivations [for Christian hatred]…came together in an ugly mixture of resentment, hate, and bigotry.” [2]

Heiko Oberman, writing about the roots of Anti-Semitism in 16th Century Europe, agrees that the economic reasons are simply not enough to explain anti-Jewish feeling. [3] Oberman writes that hatred of the Jews “was an inherited assumption.” The late 11th Century Crusader Movement begun by Pope Urban II is often considered the “watershed” period of growing and virulent persecution.

Steven Runciman, [4] in his classic study of the Crusades, relates numerous cases of massacres associated with the first Crusade as well as the concurrent march by a peasant army under Peter the Hermit. Runciman questions the French massacre at Rouen while Tierney and Painter conclude that it occurred. Despite such differences of interpretation, Jews throughout Europe, particularly along the paths of crusading warriors, suffered greatly.

During the 14th Century, as Bubonic Plague began to ravage Europe, Jews were often blamed. Searching for answers to the spread of the terrible disease, it became easy to scapegoat the Jews, alleging that they had poisoned the wells. In 1475 the infamous “Blood Libel” case in Trent, which accused Jews of murdering a Christian child, sparked outrage and persecutions. By 1492, Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain expelled all Jews from their domains (France had already done so in 1306 and England in 1290).

Beyond the Medieval World

Neither the Renaissance nor the Reformation eased attitudes toward Jews. The Humanist writer Erasmus referred to Judaism as the “most pernicious plague and bitterest foe of the teachings of Jesus Christ…” [5] Whatever Erasmus meant in terms of deeper philosophic considerations, everyday thinkers, shallow as they may be, would have cause to direct such sentiments in a social context.

Martin Luther also expressed strong considerations regarding the Jews, particularly during his final years. Until his death, Luther implored the Jews to convert, seeing such action as part of fulfilled prophecy relative to the end of times and the coming of Christ. As Oberman has pointed out in a variety of articles and books, Luther was never motivated by hatred but by the sincere desire to see the Jews recognize Christ as Messiah.

Jews requesting the right to make port in New Amsterdam colony in the 17th Century were refused by Governor Peter Stuyvesant. Having fled Brazil, these Jews eventually found refuge in Providence, Rhode Island. Constant threats and persecutions continued in Europe in the next two hundred years, whether in France at the end of the 19th Century or the Russian pogroms under autocratic Tsars.

Not until the official formation of an independent Jewish state in 1948 would Jews worldwide have a distinct place to call “home,” the ancestral lands of the seed of Abraham.

Sources:

[1] Brian Tierney and Sidney Painter, Western Europe in the Middle Ages 300-1475 5th Ed. (McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1992) p.373-374.

[3] Heiko A, Oberman, The Roots of Anti-Semitismin the Age of Renaissance and Reformation (Fortress Press, 1984)

[4] Steven Runciman, A History of the Crusades Vol. I. (London: The Folio Society, 1994) p. 111ff.

See Also: R. Po-chia Hsia, Trent 1475: Stories of a Ritual Murder Trial (Yale University Press, 1996)

The copyright of the article Jewish Persecution in Europe in W European History is owned by Michael Streich. Permission to republish Jewish Persecution in Europe in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.