Not long after, at Prague, an internal feud between rival factions of the Jewish community led to the interference of the authorities, and the Emperor ordered that the Jews should every Sunday morning submit to sermons preached for their conversion. Absentees were fined a thaler a head, and a higher sum on repetition of the offence. Inattention and slumber during the performance were also visited with a fine. However, the Jews had not suffered through so many centuries without learning how to dull the edge of persecution. Corrupt courtiers defeated the devout Emperor’s policy, and the Jews were allowed to remain in spiritual darkness and in peace. ♦1648♦ Despite this cruel treatment, the Jews of Prague fought valiantly in defence of the city against the Swedes, and in recognition of their loyalty and gallantry received from the Emperor, Ferdinand III., an imperial standard which can still be seen in the old synagogue of the town. In the meantime the Jesuits continued their restless, though noiseless, campaign. Even the one traditional refuge of Israel in Europe was poisoned by their preaching. In Poland the Jews had for centuries prospered and enjoyed a kind of autonomy. The Kings protected them, and the nobility, thriftless and extravagant itself, found the sober, industrious, and keen-witted Jews invaluable as bailiffs and financial advisers. Beneath the wing of princes and nobles the Jews acquired great influence. It was to this influence precisely that the Jesuits attributed the rise of heresy in that country, and it was this influence that they now decided to use as a means to their undoing. The rivers of bitterness that flowed from the Stygian fountain of Jesuitism found the field ready to be fertilised. The German traders and artisans, settled in various parts of Poland, had already encountered in the Jews formidable rivals. Commercial envy was invigorated by the pious prejudices which these immigrants had imported, along with their guilds, from the Fatherland; and these feelings often induced them to make common cause with the clergy. ♦1496–1505♦ Under the joint pressure of the two classes, Casimir the Great’s successors had deprived the Jews of their privileges and confined them to special quarters, or even expelled them from certain towns. A period of toleration came with Sigismund I. ♦1507–1548♦ This sovereign’s good-will towards the Jews was aided by the Polish nobles, who, hating the Germans bitterly, were glad to support their rivals--an inclination which they had ample means of gratifying, as the execution of the anti-Jewish laws was largely in their own hands. Thanks to the friendship of the nobility Poland continued to offer an asylum to the persecuted children of Israel. ♦1575–1586♦