the establishment of the Inquisition, introduced a spirit of intolerance
which led to the expulsion of the Jews and Moors. The consequences of
this blow were momentous; it may be said to inaugurate the ghetto
period. In Spain Jewish life had participated in the general life, but
the expulsion--while it dispersed the Spanish Jews in Poland, Turkey,
Italy and France, and thus in the end contributed to the Jewish
emancipation at the French Revolution--for the time drove the Jews
within their own confines and barred them from the outside world.[65]
46. _In France, Germany, England, Italy._--In the meantime Jewish life
had been elsewhere subjected to other influences which produced a result
at once narrower and deeper. Under Charlemagne, the Jews, who had begun
to settle in Gaul in the time of Caesar, were more than tolerated. They
were allowed to hold land and were encouraged to become--what their
ubiquity qualified them to be--the merchant princes of Europe. The reign
of Louis the Pious (814-840) was, as Graetz puts it, "a golden era for
the Jews of his kingdom, such as they had never enjoyed, and were
destined never again to enjoy in Europe"--prior, that is, to the age of
Mendelssohn. In Germany at the same period the feudal system debarred
the Jews from holding land, and though there was as yet no material
persecution they suffered moral injury by being driven exclusively into
finance and trade. Nor was there any widening of the general horizon
such as was witnessed in Spain. The Jewries of France and Germany were
thus thrown upon their own cultural resources. They rose to the
occasion. In Mainz there settled in the 10th century Gershom, the "light
of the exile," who, about 1000, published his ordinance forbidding
polygamy in Jewish law as it had long been forbidden in Jewish practice.
This ordinance may be regarded as the beginning of the Synodal
government of Judaism, which was a marked feature of medieval life in
the synagogues of northern and central Europe from the 12th century.
Soon after Gershom's death, Rashi (1040-1106) founded at Troyes a new
school of learning. If Maimonides represented Judaism on its rational
side, Rashi was the expression of its traditions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account