feize on all the estates and effects which thofe infatuated people had left behind them; those that did not perish by the way, returned to their habitations, where they were at leisure to bewail their folly and lofs'. Here alfo, in the reign of Abdal-Rahman or Abderama, who had been acknowledged Khalif the weft, and built a famed mofque at Cordoua, flourished R. Judah, the famed R. Judah, a man of great learning, who published a learned a philofophical treatise, to fhew why the fea did not overflow Jew, the land, which was highly applauded by the learned. He A.C.763. likewife tranflated feveral books out of Arabic into Hebrew, to Lan and compiled a dictionary in the former: all which fhews not only that the sciences flourished there among the Jews, but likewise that the first Khalifs favoured them more than they did the Christians, whom they obliged to build the stately mofque above-mentioned, with the materials they had taken from them m Invite the LANGUEDOC being at this time (as well as great Arabs in part of Spain) in the hands of the Vifigoth, was much infefted with the incurfions of the Arabs, who are faid to have guedoc. been in league with, if not invited thither by, the Jews, and to have engaged themselves, by their help, to maffacre all the Chriftians. They are likewife accused to have invited the Saracens out of Spain, to free them from the tyranny which they fuffered under the bishop of Tholofa, who coming accordingly, took Narbonne and Tholofa in their way, and penetrated as far as Lyons, putting all to fire and sword, as they went, except the Jews who had affifted them in it. Charle magne having afterwards defeated the Saracens, and retaken Tholofa, refolved to punish the treacherous Jews with the ut most severity, who had been the authors of fo much bloodfhed; but being at length foftened by their groans and cries, commuted their punishment, and only executed the heads of Their pu them, and condemned the rest of those that dwelt in that city, nishment. to receive a box on the ear, three times a year, at the gates of one of the churches, which fhould be named by the bishop, and to pay a perpetual fine of thirteen pounds weight of wax. The greatest part of this accufation, and of the facts alleged to fupport it, hath been refuted by a late historian ": and indeed the mild behaviour of the emperor towards the Jews, fhews nothing less than his fuppofing them the betrayers of 1 MARCA Hift. de Bearn. lib. ii. c. z. m Id. ibid. p. 138, & feq. BASNAG, ub. fup. 1. ix. c. 3. § 8, & feq. that that city, or the authors of the Saracens incurfion (X): but as; the farther difcuffion of these points would not only carry us too far, but be a mere repetition of the hiftory of those. monarchs, we shall refer our readers for a further account of it to the hiftory of those times, in the fecond and third volumes, as well as to the author there quoted. THEY were still more favoured under Lewis, firnamed the Their creDebonair, whofe chief physician was a Jew, named Sede dit under cias, whom fome hiftorians have represented as one of the Lewis the greatest magicians in the world, but who was in fuch high Debonair, credit with that prince, that all the courtiers were glad to gain A.C.815. his and his countrymen's friendship, with the nobleft prefents. They had the liberty of building of new fynagogues, and ob-; tained fuch fingular privileges, as could not fail of infpiring them with uncommon infolence, as well as of raifing jealoufy in the Christians, as it accordingly happened, more particularly in the diocese of Lions P; where Agobard bishop of it, Disturbed did not content himself with forbidding them to buy any by the biChristian slaves, and the keeping of their Sabbath, but forbad shop of Lilikewife, under fome frivolous pretences, the Chriftians to ons, buy any wine, or to deal with them during the time of Lent. The Jews made no difficulty to complain of the bishop's edicts to the emperor, who fent three commiffaries to Lions to en-. quire into the truth of it, upon which they were immediately reftored to their ancient privileges, to the no fmall mortification of the bishop, who, tho' otherwise a moderate man, and averfe to perfecution, could hardly be perfuaded of the reality of the emperor's orders, tho' figned with his own feal. This made him invent fome new accufations against them, andg and to fend him fresh remonftrances against them, figned by: two other bishops. Evrard, the chief commiffary, remained firm to the Jewish intereft, and all the allegations against them were rejected at court, as false and groundless, as indeed they deserved, being moftly fuch; and fome of them fo ridicu O DANDEN de fufpect. de Hærefi. TRITHEM Chron. Hirfaugienf. P. Vid. AGOBARD. de Infolent. Judeor. (X) The Jews in his reign, boafted that they had been fuffered to buy fome of the richest veffels of the church, and other coftly utenfils belonging to the churches, abbies, &c. which the luxury and avarice of the bishops and abbots had induced them to fell. Charlemagne beMou. HIST. VOL. XIII. ing informed of it, forbad in-. R lous His un lous as to caft no small reflection on the blind zeal of thofe prelates. The reader may fee them in the authors quoted in the margin 9. AGOBARD, feeing all his pious endeavours thus timely zeal fruftrated, refolved to take a journey to court, in order to fuppreffed. follicit that prince more effectually against the Jews; but he -i Under failed of fuccefs, being only admitted to an audience of leave, wherein he was permitted to go back as he came, without any farther fatisfaction, as he himself complains, fo that he was even afraid of baptifing the heathen flaves that belonged to the Jews, for fear of exafperating the court against him, tho' he offered to pay them the full price for them'. But as he did not dare venture upon this last, without the emperor's leave, he fent to beg his confent to it. What answer he had we cannot learn; but if one may guess by the dreadful curses he pronounces against the Jewish nation, in his letter to the great and learned Nebudius, bishop of Narbonne, one may conclude that it was not fuch as he liked; and the spleen which he vents in that uncharitable epiftle, was the lefs excufable, because it not only made the Jews the more flourishing and infolent, but was like to have caused a general defection; infomuch that people not only profeffed openly that they were to be respected as the pofterity of Abraham and the prophets, but began to conform to the Jewish rites in many inftances (Y), that were quite fcandalous, and a reproach to Christianity. THEIR cafe was not quite fo agreeable to them under Charles Charles, firnamed the Bald, when Remifius the bishop of that the Bald, diocefe caufed fome of his clergy to preach every Saturday in their fynagogues; by which fo great a number of their children were like to have been converted, that they were forced to fend them away to Vienne in Dauphine, to Macon and Arles in Provence, and other places, where they were more numerous. Of this the bifhop fent a complaint to court, and begged of that prince to fend orders to the bishop of Arles, &c. to follow 9 AGOBARD.ub. fup. & Epift. BERNARD & EVERARD de Judaic. Superftition. AGOBARD Confult. ad proceres de Baptifm. Judaic. vid. & BASNAG. ub. fup. §14, & feq. (Y) Thus we are told that the fermons preached in their fome of them began to celebrate own churches; and that a deathe Sabbath, inftead of the con named Putho, or Paudo, beLord's-day; that many of them longing to the court, had rechofe to go and hear the few-nounced the church, and gone if rabbies declaim in their fy- over to the fynagogue. nagogues, rather than to hear his method; and reprefented to him, that the converfion of thofe children was a greater act of charity, than the faving them out of the lion's mouth. It is likely he confented to his request, for numbers of Jewish children were baptized, all by their own free choice, and the emperor was foon after poifoned by Sedecias, his Jewish physician, lately mentioned, who is fuppofed to have been hired to that vile deed by thofe of his own nation $. These are likewife accufed to accused of have had a great hand in the troubles that happened under affifting this reign, by the incurfion of the Normans into feveral pro- the Nor vinces, particularly that of Aquitain, where they were very mans, numerous; and tho' it is likely the French authors have charged them with more crimes than they were guilty of, and other fuch as the betraying the cities of Bourdeaux, Perigues, &c. treasons. which thofe barbarians plundered and burnt, whilst the Jews are faid to have been exempted from the common calamity yet there is no doubt to be made, that they resented the lofs of fo many of their children, tho' no violence was used in converting them (Z), and that they would willingly have joined with any other nation, by whom they hoped to be freed from fuch a fenfible hardship. Efpecially if we add to it, that they were ftill liable to the ignominious fentence paffed against them by Charlemagne, of being buffetted three times a year at the church door, which was not indeed executed on all the Tholofan Jews, but was in time confined to their fyndic or head magistrate, who received that punishment in the name of the reft. To this we may add, that tho' their credit was ever so high at court, during the life of the treacherous Sedecias, yet they were liable to many insults Flor. Colle&t. de Baptif. Hæbr. DACHERY Specileg. vet. Script. tom. xii. p. 52. Du MOULIN Hift. Normand. p. 38. incert. Auct. de geft. Normand. ap. DU CHENE, P. 2. (Z) Florus, a deacon of the church of Lions in this reign, tells us, that the bishop abovenamed contented himself with fending for those young Jews, and afking them whether any of them were willing to become Chriftians; upon which fix of them begged on their knees to be baptifed, whofe example was followed by feven and forty more. And that prelate pro tefts to the emperor, that he (38) Flor. Colle, de Baptift. Hæbr. ap. Dacher. fele&t. tom. xii. turies. and affronts from the populace in cities at a distance from it. Thus, for inftance, thofe of Beziers in Languedoc, were yearly wont to be driven about with vollies of ftones, from PalmSunday to the Tuesday in Eafter-week ", which indignity they at length redeemed by a tribute which they paid to the bishop of the place. State of the IT is now time to close the ninth century, and to pass on Jews dur- to the tenth and eleventh, which we fhall be forced to join, ing the to avoid breaking off the thread of the facts which happened 10th and in the middle interval between them. We begin, as ufual, 11th cen- with those of the east, who were, during that time, if we may believe their hiftorians, in a moft flourishing condition; especially with respect to learning, which began now to revive among them, and the vast number of their doctors, that then flourished, whilft almost the rest of the world, efpecially the Chriftian countries, were buried in darkness and ignorance; infomuch that the Jewish academies, not being capable of containing the overgrown multitude of their scholars, they were Learning obliged to build a new one (A). They even add, that they never begins to had, in any age, before or fince, fo many and fuch excellent flourish. doctors as now. It proved, however, but a fhort-lived glory, partly thro' the broils that were bred between the chiefs of the captivity and their profeffors and doctors; but more especially by the zeal of the cruizaders, who made it an uncommon piece of merit to maffacre all the Jews, before they went upon the conqueft of the Holy-land; all which, joined together, caused the total downfal of their academies, and the utter expulfion of the nation from those eastern countries, and obliged them to take refuge in Spain and France, and other parts of Europe, of all which we shall now give an account in as few words as the fubject will admit of. Their aca demies DAVID, the then chief of the captivity, and a man of a haughty ambitious spirit, had raised the prerogative of that "CATEL Hift. Languedoc, lib. iii. (A) The reader may recollect that we clofed the ninth century with an account of the feuds that reigned between the heads of thofe academies, which had quite ftopped the progrefs of learning amongst them. What caufed the revival of it at the beginning of this, was the example of the Arabs, among whom it began to flourish about this time. And tho' it chiefly confifted in the ftudy of phyfic, dialectics, aftronomy, and aftrology, yet it fo far inspired the Jews, with fuch a fresh relish to them that they immediately ap plied themselves to the fame ftudy, and fet their academies again in a flourishing condition. dignity |