Jewish Life in the Middle Ages

CHAPTER IV. INSTITUTION OF THE GHETTO

CHAPTER IV INSTITUTION OF THE GHETTO LONG before residence within a restricted quarter or ghetto! was compulsory, the Jews almost everywhere had concentrated in separate parts of the towns in which they lived.2 Though the era of the ghetto proper begins with the sixteenth century. numerous records are extant of the seclusion of Jews in special quarters several centuries earlier.s The vO/lI1ztary congregation of Jews in certain parts of the towns, due to the needs of the communal or· ganization, was very common by the thirteenth century. 1 The word glutto is most probably derived, as Dr. Berliner maintains (Rom, ji.(2) p. 26), from the Italian gdo or iron-{oulldry, in the neighbourhood of which the first ghetto in Italy (in Venice) was constituted in 1516. The word ghetttml occurs in a document dated 1306 (Rieger, p. 291). Indeed , Dr. Berliner's may now ~ regarded as the accepted theory. Anyhow , all other suggestions are too fallciful to deserve even a mention. 'There were many exceptions, of course, e.g. Lincoln in 1290. From the records published in the Jeiuish Quarterly Reviw, viii. p. 360, it is clear that was no Jewish quarter then. On the other hand, the •Jews' Street' in London is mentioned as early as 1115 (Jacobs, Ani,'evill Eltgland, 13). 3 Compulsory ghettos seem to have been in vogue in Sicily as early as the fourteenth, and in parts of Germany even in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In Angers in the fourteenth century there was a Jttiverie (Brunschvicg, Juifs d'Auge-rs, p. IS)' But until after the foundation of the Roman ghetto in 1555. little rigour was sho,,>n in preventing the residence of Jews without the Jewish quarter. On the other hanft, there were no ghettos in Coblen% and Trier as late as the seventeenth century (Je'",ish QUtwler!y Kevi~u, iii. 310). In Halle there was a Jut/m"or! before the ghetto period (Auerbach, Cesdlichte der isr. Cuuemile Ifillberstadt, p. IS). 62: Tlte Prague 'Jztdmstadt' In Cologne there was a Jews' quarter at that period; though in that city, as well as in most where voluntary Jewish existed, Jews also resided outside the Jewish But the distinction one ~Lcbieves is not as the distinction that is thrust on one. Nowhere is this more strikingly seen than in the case of Prague. There the Jews who lived outside the Judt!1tstadt, determined in 1473 to voluntarily throw in their lot with their brethren in the town. Now, Prague came in for its own sorry share of persecution and massacre, but on the whole the inhabitants of the Prague had a freer and fresher life than was possible in other compulsory ghettos. The J udenstadt, at the close of the sixteenth century, had its Jewisb town-hall, and - privilege most of an -a small bell summoned the members to deliberations within its walls. A further distinction of the Jews was the to bear a flag. This was conferred on them in 1357 for their patriotic and the flag is still in the Perhaps, however, some facts connected with the Roman ghetto and the Spanish juderias will make the difference clearer between a voluntary and a compulsory of inhabitants in one particLllar of a town. In 1555, when Paul IV established the ill-omened ghetto in Rome, there were very few Jewish families resident anywhere else than in the serraglio ddli lubro' or scptltS Ilebra£o[s,3 as the Jewish quarter on the left bank of the Tiber was I See r>as 7utiensdlninbuch tier r"UNZ/J! 3" Kiiln. PI'. 23, if!. There was a 7e;os' Street" ')"'1 ,:"'t~:"'i :)1:1." but Je\VS ah~,,) liVt;tl ill the :'\ 1:-'1 ,.,,~ (p. 4 I) - i.e. ill the Christian Cj":Hters. Philipson, Old "';uries, p 106. 8 Cf. RieRer, .Ilftiell in Nom. ii. p. 290. The bc~t au.:ut.llll uf the RUllla;; gbcttu i:$ llcrHncr's ji. pp, 26,27).. Institlltion of tke Gltetto called. But though few Jews dwelt elsewhere, many of the noblest Christians resided in the very heart of the Jewish quarter. Stately palaces and churches stood in the near neighbourhood of the synagogue, and the Roman Christians held free and friendly intercourse with their Jewish fellow-inhabitants. When, however, the ghetto was formally constituted, churches and palaces were gradually removed or divided from the contamination of the neighbouring...