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Chapter 35 EXCURSUS L U T H E R ' S A T T I T U D E TOWARD THE JEWS JEWS IN THE WEST AROUND 1500 Luther's statements concerning the Jews, often represented in placative and abbreviated form, can be evaluated in unbiased fashion only when we first take into account the Jewish situation in the West on the eve of the Reformation, and next, when we evaluate the context in which Luther made these statements. If these two factors are not observed, access is obstructed to historical understand­ ing as well as to a critique, with any basis, of Luther's position. The attempt at hastily uniting Luther's position with later developments leads inevitably to mis­ representation. Respecting the Jewish condition around 1500, one may say in general that in large sections of Europe Jews living then fared worse than in previous centuries. In addition, literary debate with the Jews was carried on more sharply and rigorously in this period than earlier. In the entire late Middle Ages, expulsion of Jews was common practice. Pogroms occurred continually, often for more or less empty reasons. As early as in 1290, King Edward I of England (1272-1307) ordered the Jews banished from his kingdom.When many of them immigrated to France, King Philip the Good (1285-1314) ordered their expulsion from his land.These measures not only affected Jews native to England but also those who had long been inhabitants of France. Anti-Jewish politics in France were so successful that none other than Erasmus could boast in 1517 that in contrast to odier European lands France was "free of Jews." France was the purest and most flourishing section of Christendom, since only France was free of infection by heretics, Bohemian schismatics, Jews, 336 EXCURSUS: LUTHER'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE JEWS 337 and half-Jewish Maranos.1 In 1492 the Jews were driven from Spain. Some of them settled in Portugal, but they were banished from there in 1497. On the eve of the Reformation, tiien, there was a sizable migration of the Jewish minority within many European countries, which naturally fed certain prejudices. In die late medieval period measures hostile to Jews in western Europe led to an aggravated anti-Jewish attitude in die German Empire. Here, at least, Jews had legal protec­ tion from die emperor and die territorial princes, who were of course well reim­ bursed dirough special taxes for guaranteeing diem privileges. In die German Empire, anti-Jewish measures in die late Middle Ages did not originate with die princes but entirely widi die people. Individual pogroms were a continual occurrence and often involved a great many murders. On die whole, diis real insecurity, despite a modicum of legal protection, lasted into die early period of die Reformation. During die plague in die middle of die fourteendi century, Jews who in many places were alleged to be responsible for it were murdered or forced to suicide.They were charged widi having created die plague by poisoning die wells. In die early sixteendi century diere were no longer any Jews in many German cities. Nonedieless, even around 1520, when die Reformation movement was reaching its zenidi, measures were taken in many places to banish die Jews. Events at Regensburg in 1519 are particularly well known. Here diere lived and worked die cadiedral preacher Baldiasar Hubmaier, at diat time still a Cadiolic prelate, but soon after a follower of Ludier, and after that again one of die noted Anabaptist dieologians.2 Hubmaier attacked die Jews chiefly for exacting interest and for usury. In fact, since odier vocations were closed to diem, some Jews did function as lenders and were dius in violation of die church's prohibition against usury. There was no difference between traditionalists and adherents of Luther in dieir hostility toward die Jews. Various measures against die Jews were accompanied by a varied polemic shared by leading dieologians of die late Middle Ages.3 Representatives of very dif­ ferent persuasions, not least among diem leading representatives of humanism, were participants in die dispute. It would be a major error to assume diat die humanists, pioneers of a more independent attitude of mind, were on principle and in particular tolerant toward Jews. Not die humanists but, as usual, conservative 1 Erasmus, Later to Richard Bartholinus (March 10, 1517), Opus Epistolarum des Erasmi Roterodami, vol. 2, ed. P. S. Allen (Oxford: Clarendon, 1910), Nr. S49, p. SOI, 9-14: "Christianus orbis aduersus Christianae ditionis purissimam...

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