on the

Chriftians Jeverely retaliated.

incendiary, but all the Jews of that city, except fome few that retired into Bohemia (O), were put to deathP.

A NEW accufation was brought against them, which hath been already mentioned in fpeaking of thofe of France and Spain; viz. of poisoning the wells and fpring-heads of rivers: tho' upon no other foundation than that they efcaped from the common mortality which happened in moft parts of Europe. This caufed a fresh maffacre in moft provinces of Germany, the very year after that which had happened at Francfort. In fome places they were burnt alive, in others most cruelly butchered. Thofe of Mentz, however, refolved to ftand in their own defence, and having feized on about 200 unarmed Chriftians, maffacred them in a most barbarous manner; upon Revenge which the incenfed populace came in fhoals, and fell fo furiously upon them, that they murdered about 12,000 of them on that fingle occafion. After this, they fet fire to their houses, which spread and burnt with fuch vehemence, that the great bell, glafs and grate of the cathedral were melted down t.. Their rage spread itself all over Germany; the imperial cities demo, lished all their houses, and built castles and towers with the ma terials, and the populace was the more eager to pull them down, because they found money and other rich things among the rubbish. The then count Palatine, and his minifters, ftrove in vain to fupprefs their violence, and to give shelter to them they were oppofed by fome of the nobility, as well as by the common people, and accused of having been bribed by large fums to take their part. All the inhabitants of Ulms were burnt alive, with their wives, children, and effects; and in a word, the whole Jewish nation faw themselves without friends or place of retreat, the princes not daring to interpofe, in their favour, at fo critical a juncture. Lithuania was the only country where they enjoyed any tranquility; which was chiefly owing to a beautiful Jewefs, named Efther, with whom

PBASNAG. ub. fup. +NAUCLER. Chronol. gener. 45. p. 1009. ap. eund. 9 CRUS. Antiq. Suevor. lib. v. p. 253.

(O) And even thefe met but with a fhort refpite; the citizens of Prague, difpleafed to fee them celebrate their Paffover, chose that time to burn their fynagogue; and those that were then at their devotions in it, which they did without any oppofition, fo that not one of them

8

efcaped. This misfortune prov ed fo much the more grievous, as it was unexpected, as well as undeferved, and the Jews of Prague have preferved a regretful fense of it in a prayer which was compofed fome time after, in memory of that event.

Cafimir

Cafimir the Great was enamoured, and at whofe requeft he had granted them several confiderable privileges.

THOSE who had taken refuge in Bohemia, did not fare Massacred much better than those in Germany, as appears by what we in Bohefaid in the last note. Two years after which catastrophe, mia, A.C. Vincenfas, emperor, and king of Bohemia, defirous to ingrati- 1391. ate himself with his subjects, to whom his exceffive love of wine and women had rendered him odious, discharged all his nobility of the debts they owed to the Jews. The people thereupon looking upon them as difcarded from his protection, began to make a fad maffacre of them at Gotha, which became ftill more dreadful, as the peafants joined the populace in it. Thofe of Spire put them all to the fword, without regard to age or fex, fome few children excepted, which were fpared, and hurried away to the font to be baptifed (P). But as fuch violent perfecutions are not only odious, but feldom fail of unpeopling a country, they found it neceffary to put a ftop to this, by the punishment of fome of the ringleaders.

THEY were foon after accused afresh, of having poisoned the wells, fprings, &c. and punished for it by the most severe deaths, not only all over Germany, but in Italy, Provence, and other parts. The Jewish hiftorians, however, tell us, that the emperor being fully convinced of their innocence, represented again to his council, the impoffibility of poisoning fprings, which have a continual run of water; but that the people pretending to have feen them throw the poison into them, and muttering fome words all the time, made the emperor refolve to banish them, to the no fmall difappointment of the feditious zealots, who cried out, that no punishment was too severe for them. His edict came out according- Banished ly against them, either to flee or be baptifed; and the Jewish the empire, writers above-quoted, highly extol the perfeverance of A. C. thofe of their nation, who, notwithstanding the great mifery 1400.. which then reigned among them, not inferior in their account to that which followed the deftruction of Jerufalem, yet few, if any, were thereby driven to apoftatize, or, as they word it, to forfake the glory of their God. But for this we

CRUS. ibid. lib. vi. c. 3. Hift. Landgr. Tharing. c. 132. P. 948. PISTOR, Hift. Germ. tom. i. EN SYLV. Hift. Bohem. BASNAG. ub. fup, SOLOM. BEN VIRG. fub. A. 160. GANTZ TZEMACH, fub. eod. an. p. 146.

C. 3'.

P. 151.

(P) The pretence for this cruelty was, that they had infulted a priest, as he was carry

ing the viaticum to a fick per-
fon.

Z 4

have

Jews in the 15th

century banished

out of Spain.

have only their bare word, and with it we now close these two centuries and pafs on to the 15th.

In running thro' which, we shall not, as formerly, begin with the eastern Jews, for reafons which will more visibly appear in the fequel; but pafs now from Germany into Spain, where we fhall find them (after a long and peaceable abode there, during which their fynagogues and learned men flourished, and their nation was greatly multiplied) banished at length from that country, excepting those who preferred diffembling to a mortifying exile; which fatal revolution hath ever fince excited the complaints of the Jews, as well as the pity of the more moderate Chriftians for them; but as it did not take place till the clofe of this 15th century, and was ushered in by feveral confiderable events, it will be neceffary to give our readers an account of them before we pafs on to their final * expulfion. The first step towards it was promoted by the anti-pope Benedict XIII. who was then in Arragon, the only province left that owned his authority, and was trying to ingratiate himself with the rest of the Spanish nation by his zeal for the converfion of the Jews. He accordingly appointed A conferrence held a conference with them (Q) in which, as he defrayed all their charges, they treated him with unufual complaisance and the Chrif- refpect; tho' they expreffed themselves with fome bitterness

between

(Q)He was induced to it by one
Hieronymo de Santa Fé, who had
forfaken the fynagogue to turn
Chriftian, and was then his phy-
fician, and promifed that he
would convince all the Jews,
from exprefs paffages out of the
thalmud, that Jefus Chrift was
the Meffiah. Accordingly he
and one Bertrand, a native of
Valentia, another profelyte, and
then Benedict's almoner, toge.
ther with one Garcias Alvares
d'Alarcon, a man well verfed in
the Hebrew, challenged the
Jews to a difputation. All the
learned rabbies in Spain were
fummoned to it, and one Dom.
Vidal chofen to manage
it on
their fide. This laft muft not
be confounded with another of
that name, furnamed de Tolofa,

who flouri ed in Catalonia forty years before this conference.

As to the title of Dom, which is an abbreviation of Dominus, the Jewish rabbies had begun about this time to take it, in imitation of the Spanish doctors, among whom it was then a mark of high honour; but is fince become much cheaper, and commonly given to abbors, priors, and other heads of convents. The Jewish writers do indeed likewife give it to fome of their ancient rabbies; and Gedaliah calls one of his anceftors by it, whom he places in the 10th century; but it is plain, it did not come into ufe among them till after the end of the 14th (10).

(10) De boc, vid. Bafnag. lib. ix. e. 24. §. 3.

against his physician, who was the chief promoter as well as tians and conductor of it against them.

THE tenor and fuccefs of this conference is variously related by the Jewish and Christian hiftorians that have tranfmitted it to us, tho' they were both present and bore a fhare in it". Both fides pretend to have gained the victory, as is ufual in fuch cases (R). But as neither the arguments on one fide,

SOLOM. BEN VIRG, p. 227-246-264. " Shalfheleth Hakkabal. p. 113. HIERONYM. DE S. FE. Cont. Jud. lib. i. c. z. in Bibl. patr. tom. iv. pt. i. p. 750.

(R) The Jews pretend that they bribed feveral of the bifhops to perfuade Benedict to break off the conference as foon as poffible, being afraid left it should exafperate the Chriftians against them; but that the pontif infifted ftrenuously on Hieronymo's making good his promife against them. They add, that their rabbies came off with honour, and that the Jews were only ordered to refund fome part of their exorbitant ufuries on the Chriftians; which they, however, evaded; by applying to Martin of Florence, who was chofen pope after the depofition of Benedict, and refided fome time in that city, and revoked the edict of that anti-pope against them. We omit feveral blunders and anachronisms which thofe authors (11) have been guilty of, and content ourfelves with ftating the time and fact as they are related on both fides.

The Chriftians, on the other hand, pretend not only to have gained the victory, but likewise that, in that very year, Hieronymo de S. Fé prefented to Benedia writing, which exposed the

dangerous do&rines contained
in the thalmud, against the law,
against the Meffiah, and against
the Chriftians; and that rabbi
Afmuth prefented another foon
after to the cardinal de S. An-
gelo, in which he owned that
the paffages extracted out of
that book appeared fhocking
and erroneous to him; and that
it was true, indeed, they might
be capable of a better sense,
which yet he did not pretend to
know. For that reafon he de-
clares that he neither pretends
to defend or juftify them, and
difowns any anfwer he may
before have made ufe of to elude
them. This was likewise af
fented to, and figned by all
the rabbies there prefent, except
Jofeph Albo and Ferrarius (12).
This would be indeed a fignal
triumph against the Fetus, and
a fufficient, as well as folemn
condemnation of their thalmud,
by thofe who were the profeffed
defenders of it, if the MS. out
of which our author hath taken
it, could be depended upon.
But as neither Hieronymo de S.
Fé takes notice of any fuch re-
cantation in the book which
he wrote foon after against the

(11) Shalfheleth Hakkabalab, p. 113,& feq. Gantz Chron. p. 344. toloc, ub. fup.com.iii. p. 177:

(18) Barthalmud,

them,

A. C.

1413.

fide, nor the answers on the other, have any thing particular in them, we shall, for brevity fake, refer our readers for the further account of the whole, to the hiftorian often quoted by us, and only add, that tho' Benedict XIII. was present at fome of the feffions of it, yet he foon left his room to be filled by the general of the Dominicans, and that it was begun February 7, 1413, and lafted till May 10, 1414. On the 10th of November following, Hieronymo de Santa Fé presented that pontiff with his relation of it, which was confirmed on the 12th of December, and was afterwards published at Francfort, an. 1602, in the Bibliotheca patrum. With relation to the fruits of this conference, we are told that about 3000, or, according to others, 5000 Jews were converted upon the reading of Hieronymo's relation of it; for which he grew into fuch esteem, that Jofeph Albo, fearing left their fynagogues Benedict should be forfaken, compiled his Articles of faith, by which XIII's he endeavoured to confirm the wavering belief of the rest (S). bull, A.C. As for Benedict XIII. he published in the year following his 1415. conftitution against the thalmud, and the ufury of the Jews,

y See his bull in BARTOLOC.

BASNAG. lib. ix. c. 24. §. 4, & feq. * D'AqUIRA Bibl. Hifp. tom. ii. c. 1. ap. eund. ibid. ub. fup. tom. iii. p. 731-797.

thalmud, nor Afroch, who fent
an account of this conference
to Girona, it may be juftly called
in question. Especially, con-
fidering that all the rabbies af
fenting to it, except the two
above-named, the declaration
oughtrather to have been drawn
up by R Vidal, who was at the
head of the reft, than by Afmuth.
However that be, the former
wrote against the conference it-
felf, his Kadefb Kadofim, or
Holy of Holies; and R. Ifaac Na-
than, his censure of the Seducer;
tho' the latter did not appear in
public till after the death of
Hieronymo de S. Fé (13).

(S) Thefe he reduced to three,
viz. the existence of God, the
Jaw of Mofes, and the rewards
and punishments of belief and

(13) Hettinger, Bibl. Orient. Wolf Bibl. Hæbr. N. 453, & $62,

disbelief. Whether, therefore, he found his brethren too closely preffed on the article of the coming of the Meffiah, it is plain he ftruck it out of his confeffion, as not neceffary to falvation; and cenfures Mainonides, without naming of him, for having made the belief of his coming an effential article of the Jewish faith.

This work of his, publifhed at fuch a juncture, was held in fuch efteem, that the Poli Gedaliah hath written a comment upon it, which he intituled The Planted, or Complete Tree, and of which his notes are the roots, the Indexes to the places of fcripture, the branches; and the allegorical explanations, the leaves (14).

(14) Vid. Jucbafin. p. 134. Gantz, p. 147. Hong, ub、 fup. Bofrag, & al.

but