The Cossack persecution of the Jews, in a sense, remodeled Judaism. It became Polonized, so to speak. The Polish-Rabbinical method of study had long dominated the Talmudical schools of Germany and Italy through the abundant literature by Polish authors. Now, through the fugitives, most of whom were Talmudical scholars, it became authoritative. Rabbinical appointments were mostly conferred on Polish Talmudists, as in Moravia, Amsterdam, Fürth, Frankfort, and Metz. On account of their superiority in their department, these Polish Talmudists were as proud as the Spanish and Portuguese fugitives had been, and looked down with contempt on the rabbis who spoke German, Portuguese, and Italian. Far from giving up their own method in a foreign country, they demanded that all the world should be regulated by them, and they gained their point. People joked about the "Polacks," but nevertheless became subordinate to them. Whoever wished to acquire thorough Talmudic and Rabbinical knowledge was obliged to sit at the feet of Polish rabbis; every father of a family who wished to educate his children in the Talmud sought a Polish rabbi for them. These Polish rabbis gradually forced their sophistical piety upon the German, and partly on the Portuguese, and Italian, communities. Through their influence, scientific knowledge and the study of the Bible declined still more than previously. In the century of Descartes and Spinoza, when the three Christian nations, the French, English, and Dutch, gave the death-blow to the Middle Ages, Jewish-Polish emigrants, baited by Chmielnicki's bands, brought a new middle age over European Judaism, which maintained itself in full vigor for more than a century, to some extent lasting to our time. CHAPTER II. SETTLEMENT OF THE JEWS IN ENGLAND AND MANASSEH BEN ISRAEL. Obstacles to the Resettlement of Jews in England--Manasseh ben Israel--His Character and Attainments--Christian Students of Jewish Literature: Scaliger, the Buxtorfs, Selden, and Vossius --Women devote themselves to Hebrew--The Fifth-Monarchy Men: Expectation of the Millennium--Enthusiastic Friends of the Jews--The Puritans--Cromwell and Holmes--Nicholas' Protection of the Jews--"The Hope of Israel"--Fresh Victims of the Inquisition--Manasseh ben Israel's Negotiations with the English Parliament--He journeys to London, and is graciously received by Cromwell--A Council sits at Whitehall to decide the Question of the Re-admission of the Jews--Prynne's anti-Jewish Work--Controversial Pamphlets--Manasseh's "Vindication"-- The Re-admission of the Jews connived at. 1655-1657 C. E.