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HISTORY OF THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND

CHAPTER III: THE AUTONOMOUS CENTER IN POLAND AT ITS ZENITH (1501-1648)

1. SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS

In the same age in which the Jewish refugees from Spain
and Portugal lfere wending their steps towards the Turkish
East, bands of Jewish emigrants, fleeing from the stuffy ghettos
of Germany and Austria, could be seen wandering towards
the Slavonian East, towards Poland and Lithuania, where,
during the period of the Reformation, a large autonomous
Diaspora center sprang into life. The transmigration of Jewish
centers, which is so prominent a feature of the sixteenth
century, found its expression in two parallel movements: the
demolished or impoverished centers of Western Europe were
transplanted to the countries of Eastern Europe on the one
hand, and to the lands of contiguous Western Asia on the
other. Yet the destinies of the two Eastern centers-Turkey
and Poland-were not identical. The Sephardim of Turkey
were approaching the end of their brilliant historic career, and
were gradually lapsing into Asiatic stupor, while the Ashkenazim
of Poland, with a supply of fresh strength and the
promise of an original culture, were starting out on their broad
historic development. The mission of the Sephardim was a
memory of the past; that of the Ashkenazim was a hope for
the future. After medieval Babylonia and Spain, no country
presented so intense a concentration of Jewish energyand so
vast a field for the development of a Jewish autonomous life
as Poland in the sixteenth and the following centuries:
1According to approximate computations, the number of Jews
in Poland during that period (between 1501 and 1648) grew from
50,000 to 500,000.
THE CENTER IN POLAND AT ITS ZENITH 67
The uninterrupted colonization of Slavonian lands by J ewish
emigrants from Germany, which had been going on during
the Middle Ages, prepared the soil for the historic process which
converted Poland from a colony into a center of Judaism. The
large Jewish population settled in the towns and villages of
Poland and Lithuania formed, not a downtrodden caste, nor a
homogeneous economic class, as in Germany, but an important
social entity, unfolding its energy in many departments of
social-economic life. It was not tied down to two exclusive
occupations, money-lending and petty trade, but it participated
in all branches of industrial endeavor, in production and manufacture,
not excluding. rural avocations, such as land tenure
and farming. The men of wealth among the Jews farmed
the tolls (transit and customs duties) and the excise (state
taxes collected on wine 1 and other articles of consumption),
and frequently attained to prominence as the financial agents of
the kings. When, at a later date, the Jews were hampered in
the business of tax-farming, their capital found a new outlet in
the lease of crown and Shlakhta estates, with the right of
" propination,'" or liquor traffic, attached to it, as well as in
working the salt mines, in timbering forests, and opening up
the other resources of the soil. The big merchants were busy
exporting agrarian products from Poland into Austria, Mol-
[1 " Wine" is used Jiere, as it is In the orlglnal, to designate alcoholic
drinks in general.]
["" Proplnation," in Polish, propinacja (pronounced propt.
natzya), from Latin and Greek pl'Opino, "to drink one's health,"
signifies in Polish law the right of distilling and selling spirituous
liquors. This right was granted to the noble landowners by King
John Albrecht in 1496, and became one of their most important
sources of revenue. After the partition of Poland this right was
confirmed for the former Polish territories by the Russian Government.
The right of ..,roplnation, exercised mostly by Jews on behalf
of the nobles, proved a decisive factor In the economic and partly
in the social life of Russo-Polish Jewry.]
68 THE JEWS IN RuSStA AND POLAND
davo-Wallachia, and Turkey. The lower classes engaged in
retail trade, handicrafts, farming, vegetable-growing,gardening,
and, in some places, particularly in Lithuania, even in
corn-growing.
The econqmicactivity of the Jews, entwined with the materiallife
of the country by numerous threads, was bound to
produce a similar variety of form also in their legal condition.
Considering the peculiar caste structure of the Polish state and
the relative political freedom enjoyed in that semi-constitutional
country by the "governing classes" -the landed
nobility, the clergy, and partly the burghers-the legal position
of the Jews was of necessity determined by the conflict of
political and class interests. Bridled by an oligarchic constitution,
the royal power was bound to clash with the vast
privileges of the landed magnates, the big Shlakhta. The
latter, in turn, on the one hand fought the claims of the petty
rural Shlakhta, and on the other resisted the advance of the
Christian urban estates, the business men, and craftsmen, who
were a powerful factor, owing to their municipal autonomy
and their well-organizedguilds. The fight was carried on in
the Diets, municipalities, and law courts. Within this canfiict
of economic interests the clergy. of the dominant Catholic
Church pursued its own line of attack. Having been weakened
during the Reformation, it now renewed its strength in
consequenceof the Catholic reaction and the arduous endeavors
of the Jesuits.
These estates differed in their relation to the Jews, each in
accordance with its own interests. Medievalideas had already
taken such deep root in the Polish people that, despite the
constitutional character of the country, a humane and lawful
attitude towards the Jews was out of the question. They
THE CENTER IN POLAND AT ITS ZENITH 69
were appraised according to the advantages they could bestow
upon this or that class, and since in many cases what was advantageous
to one class was disadvantageous to another, a conflict
of interests was unavoidable, with the result that the Jews
were the objects of protection on the one side and the targets
of persecution on the other.
The Jews of Poland were favored by two powers within the
state, by royalty and in part by the big Shlakhta. They were
opposed by two others, the alergy and the burghers. Aside
from the interests of the exchequer, which was swelled by
regular and irregular imposts upon the Jews, the kings derived
personal benefits from their commercial activities. They
valued the financial services of the Jewish tax-farmers, who
paid large sums in advance for the lease of customs duties
and state revenues or for the tenure of the royal domains.
These contractors and -tenants became, as a rule, financial
agents of the kings, owing to their ability to advance large
sums of money, and were incidentally in a position to exert
their influence upon the court in the interest of their coreligionists.
The high nobility in turn appreciated the usefulness
of the Jewish farmers and tenants to their estates, which they
themselves, with their aristocratic indifference and indolence,
knew only how to mismanage. The protection which this class
accorded the Jews, principally at the Diets controlled by them,
was in exact proportion to the services rendered by the-Jews as
middlemen between them and the peasants. The magnates
accordingly were entirely indifierent to the welfare of the
rest of Jewry, the toiling masses of the Jewish population.
Uncompromising hostility to the Jews marked the attitude
of the urban estates, the merchants and artisans of the burgher
class, with a considerable sprinkling of German settlers, whose
70 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND
influence was clearly noticeable. These organized tradesmen
and handicraftsmen looked upon the Jews as their direct com·
petitors. The magistracies, acting as the organs of municipal
self-government, placed severe restrictions upon the Jews in
the acquisition of real estate and in the pursuit of business and.
handicrafts, while the trade-unions occasionally set the riotous
mobs at their heels. Still more resolute was the agitation of the
Catholic clergy, which frequently succeeded in influencmg
legislation in the spirit of ecclesiastic intolerance.
The interaction of all these forces shaped the legal and social
status of the Polish-Lithuanian Jews in the course of the sixteenth
and in the beginning of the seventeenth century, at a
time when Poland was passing through the zenith of her political
prosperity. The vacillations and upheavals in the position
of the Jews were conditioned by the shifting of forces in the
direction of the one or the other above-mentioned factors in the
course of history.

2. THE LIBERAL REGIME OF SIGISMUND I

The opening years of the sixteenth century found the Jews
fully restored to the rights ofwhich their enemies had attempted
to rob them at the end of the preceding century. Alexander
Yaghello, the very same Lithuanian Grand Duke who, from
some obscure motive, had banished the Jews from his dominions
in 1495: found it necessary to call them back as soon as he
ascended the throne of Poland, after the demise of his brother.
In 1503, "having consulted the lords of the realm," King
Alexander announced his decision to the effect that the Jews
exiled from Grodno and other cities of Lithuania should be
1See p. 65.
THE CENTER IN POLAND AT ITS ZENITH 71
allowed to return and settle "near the castles and in the
localities in which they had lived formerly," and should be
given back the houses, synagogues, cemeteries, farms, and
fields, which had previously been in their possession. The
reasons for this change of front may easily be traced to the
vast economicimportance of the Jews of the Polish Kingdom,
which had shortly before, in 1501, entered into a closer union
with Lithuania, and to the invaluable services of the Jewish
tax-farmers, on whom the royal budget to a large extent
depended.
Oneof these" royal financiers" wasthe wealthyYosko: who
farmed the customs and tolls in nearly half of Poland. To
stimulate the endeavors of his financier, King Alexander
exempted Yosko and his employeesfrom the authority of the
local administration, placing him, after the manner of court
dignitaries, under the jurisdiction of the royal court. But,
taken as a whole, the King was even now far from friendly to
the Jews. In 1505 he permitted the inclusion of the ancient
charter of Boleslav of Kalish, the magna charta of Jewish
liberties, in the code of organic Polish laws, which was then
being edited by the chancellor John Laski. But he was careful
to point out that he did not thereby intend to ratify Boleslav's
charter anew, but allowed its reproduction" for the purpose
of safeguarding [the Christian population] against the J QWS "
(ad cautelam defensionis contra Judaeos).
Alexander's successor,Sigismund I. Yaghello (1506-1548),
King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, favored a more
liberal policy towards his Jewish subjects. Though a staunch
Catholic, Sigismund was free from the spirit of anti-Jewish
clericalism,and he endeavored to the best of his ability to live
[' Popular Polish form of the Jewish name Joseph.]
72 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND
up to the principle proclaimed by him, that "equal justice
should be meted out to the rich and mighty lords and to the
meanest pauper." This lofty principle, so little compatible
with the policy of class discrimination, could, however inadequately,
be applied only there where the power of royalty was
not handicapped by the mighty Shlakhta and the other estates.
The only part of the Polish Empire where such a condition still
existed in the time of Sigismund 1. was Lithuania, the patrimony
of the Yaghellos. There the royal, or rather the grand
ducal, authority was more extensive and its form of manifestation
more patriarchal than in the provinces of the Crown, or
Poland proper. By intrusting a large part of the public tax
contracts and land leases to the Jewish capitalists, the King
could feel easy in his mind as to the integrity of his budget.
The general contractor of the customs and other state revenues
in Lithuania, Michael Yosefovich (son of Joseph), a Jew from
Brest-Litovsk, exercised occasionally also the functions of
grand ducal treasurer, being commissioned to payout of the
collected imposts the salaries of the local officialsas well as the
debts of his royal master.
Prompted by the desire of rewarding the services of his
financier and at the same time putting the communal affairs
of his Jewish subjects in better order, Sigismund appointed
Michael Yosefovich to serve as the elder, or, to use the official
term, the" senior," of all Lithuanian Jews (1514). The
" senior" was invested with far-reaching powers: he had the
right of conferring directly with the king in all important
Jewish affairs, dispensing justice to his coreligionists in accordance
with their own laws, and collecting from them the taxes
imposed by the state. He was to be assisted by a rabbi OJ;
"doctor," an expert in Jewish law. Whether the Lithuanian
THE CENTER IN POLAND AT ITS ZENITH . 73
Jews acknowledged Michael Yosefovich as their supreme authority
is open to doubt. The wealthy contractor, whom the
will of the King had placed at the head of the Jews, could not
in point of fact preside over their autonomous organization and
their judiciary and rabbinate, since what was required was not
officials, but men with special knowledge and training. All
Michael could do was to act as the official go-between, representing
the Jewish communities before the King and defending
their rights and privileges as well as their commercial and
fiscal interests. In any event Michael was more useful to his
coreligionists than his brother Abraham Yosefovich, who, likewise
a tax-farmer, sacrificed his Judaism for the sake of a
successful career. King Alexander conferred upon Abraham
the rank of Starosta of Smolensk, while Sigismund raised him
to the exalted position of Chancellor of the Lithuanian Exchequer.
Abraham and his offspring were soon lost in the ranks of
the higher Polish nobility.
In agricultural Lithuania with its patriarchal conditions
of life the antagonism between the classes was in its infancy,
and as a result the right of the Jews to freedom of transit and
occupation was but rarely contested. They lived in the towns
and villages, and were not yet so sharply marked off, in
language and mode of life, from the Christian population as
they became afterwards. The Jewish communities of Brest,
Grodno, Pinsk, and Troki, the last consisting principally of
Karaites, who had a municipality of their own, were important
Jewish centers in the Duchy, and enjoyed considerable autonomy.
The rabbi of Brest, Mendel Frank, received from the
King extensive administrative and judicial powers, including
the right of imposing the herem and other penalties upon the
recalcitrant members of the community (1531).
74 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND
In the large cities of Poland proper the position of the Jews
was not nearly so favorable. Here commerciallifc had attained
a higher stage of development than in Lithuania, and in
many lines of business the Jews cOplpeted'with the Christians.
Taking advantage of the autonomy granted to the
estates in the shape of the Magdeburg Law, the Christian
business men and handicraftsmen, represented by their magif:-
tracies and trade-unions, were constantly endeavoring to restrict
their rivals in their commercial pursuits. This was
particularly the case in Posen, Cracow,and Lemberg, the leading
centers respectively of the three provincesof Great Poland,
Little Poland, and Red Russia (Galicia). In Posen the Jews
werehampered bythe burgomaster and the aldermen in carrying
on their business or in displaying their goods in stores outside
the Jewish quarter. When the Jews protested to the King,
he warned the authorities of Posen not to subject their rivals
to any hardships or to violate their privileges (1517). The
Christian merchants retorted that the Jews occupied the best
shops, not only in the center of the town, but also on the
market-place, where formerly only" prominent Christian merchants,
both native and foreign [Germanl had been doing
business," and wher13,in view of the concentration of large
masses of Christians, the presence of Jews might lead to
" great temptations," and even to seduction from the path of
the "true faith." Th~ reference to religion, used as a cloak
for commercial greed, did not fail to impress the devout
Sigismund, and he forbade the Jews to keep stores on the
market-place (1520). The professors of Christian love in
Posen similarly forbade their Jewish fellow-citizens to buy
foodstuffs and other articles in the market until the Christian
residents had completed their purchases. A little later the
THE CENTER IN POLAND AT ITS ZENITH 75
King, in consequence of the influx of Jews into Posen, gave
orders that no new Jewish settlers be admitted into the city, and
that no houses owned by Ohristians be sold to them, without the
permission of the Kahal elders. The Jews were to be restricted
to definite quarters and to be denied the right of building their
houses among those belonging to Ohristians (1523).
The same' was the case in Lemberg. Yielding to the complaints
of the magistracy about the competition of the Jews, the
King restricted their freedom of commerce in several particulars,
barring them from selling cloth in the whole of [Red]
Russia and Podolia, except at the fairs, and limiting their sale
of horned cattle to two thousand head per year (1515). The
Piotrkov Diet of 1521 passed a law confining the trade of the
Lemberg Jews to four articles, wax, furs, cloth, and horned
cattle. These restrictions were the result of the widespread
agitation which the pious Ohristian merchants had been conducting
against their business rivals of other faiths. The
magistracies of the three cities of Posen, Lemberg, and Oracow,
attempted to form a coalition for the purpose of carrying on a
joint economic fight against Jewry. In Oracow and its suburb
Kazimiezh 1 the Jews had to endure even harsher restrictions
in business than in the other two metropolitan centers of
Poland.
Oompetition in business occasionally resulted in physical
violence and street riots. Anti-Jewish attacks were taking
place in Posen and in Brest-Kuyavsk: and outbreaks were
anticipated in Oracow. Representatives of the last Jewish
community made their apprehensions known to the King.
£' See p. 64, n. 1.]
["I. e. Brest of Kuyavia, a former Polish province on the left
bank of the Vistula. It is to be distinguished from the well-known
Brest-Litovsk, Brest of Lithuania.]
76 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND
Sigismund issued a decree in 1530 denouncing in vehement
terms the insolence of the riotel's, who were hoping for immunity,
and rigorously forbidding all acts of violence, under
penalty of death and confiscation of property. To allay the
fears of the Jews he ordered the burghers of Cracow to deposit
the sum of ten thousand gulden with the exchequer as security
for the maintenance of peace and safety in the city. The
burgomasters, aldermen, and trade-unions were warned by the
King that in all their differences with Jews "they should
proceed in a legal manner, and not by violence, by resorting
to force of arms and inciting disorders."
The King was powerless, however, to shield the Jews against
other unpleasant manifestations of the Polish class regime,
such as the extortions of the officials. The highest dignitaries
of the court no less than the local administration were ever
ready to fish in the troubled waters of the conflict of classes.
The second wife of Sigismund, Queen Bona Sforza, an avaricious
Italian princess, sold the officesof the state to the highest
bidder, while the courtiers and voyevodas were just as venal
on their own behalf. The queen's favorite, Peter Kmita,
Voyevoda of Cracow and Marshal of the Crown, managed to
accept bribes simultaneously from the Jewish and the Christian
merchants, who lodged complaints against each other, by
promising both sides to defend their interests before the Diet
or the King.
During the fourth decade of the sixteenth century the
Jewish question became the object of violent disputes at the
Polish Diets, the deputies of several regions having received
I anti-Jewish instructions: Now the controlling factor in the
[1 The parliamentary order of Poland was somewhat complicated.
Each region or 1Joyevodstvo (see above; p. 46, n. 1), of which there
were about sixty in Poland, had its own local assembly, or se;mik
THE CENTER IN POLAND AT tTS ZENITH 77
Polish Diets was the Shlakhta, whose attitude towards the·
Jews was not uniform. The big Shlakhta, the magnates, the
owners of huge estates and whole towns, were favorably disposedtowards
the Jews who lived in their domains, and added
to their wealth as farmers and tax-payers. But the petty
Shlakhta, the struggling squires, who were looking for places
in the civil and state service, arrayed themselves on the
side of the burgher class, which had always been hostile to the
Jews. This petty Shlakhta bitterly resented the fact that the
royal revenues had been turned over to Jewish contractors,
who, as collectors of customs and taxes, attained to official
dignity, and gradually forced their way into the ranks of the
nobility. The income from the collection of the revenues and
the influence connected with it this Shlakhta regarded as
its inalienable prerogative. 'l'he clergy again saw in this
enhancement of Jewish influence a serious menace to the
Catholic faith, while the urban estates had a vital interest
in limiting the commercial rights of the Jews.
At the Piotrkov Diet of 1538 the anti-Jewish agitation was
carried on with considerable success. It resulted in the adoption
of a statute, or a "constitution," containing a separate
Jewish section, in which the old canonical laws cropped out:
We hereby prescribe and decree-it is stated in that section-
,that from now on and for all future time all those who manage
(pronounced saymik), i. e. little Diet, or Dietine. Deputies of these
Dietines met at the respective sejms (pronounced saym) , or Diets,
of one of the three large provinces of Poland: Great Poland, Little
Poland, and Red Russia. The national sejm, representing the
whole of Poland, came into being towards the end of the fifteenth
century. Beginning with 1573 it met regularly every two years
for six weeks in Warsaw or in Grodno. Before the convocation
of this national all-Polish Parliament, all local Dietines assembled
.on one and the same day to give instructions to the deputies elected
to it.]
~8 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND
our revenues must unconditionally be members of the landed
nobility, and persons professing the Christian faith. . .. We ordain
for inviolable observance that no Jews shall be intrusted [in
the capacity of contractors] with the collection of revenues of any
kind. For it is unworthy and contrary to divine right that persons
of this description should be admitted to any kind of honors or
to the discharge of public functions among Christian people.
It is further decreed that the Jews have no right of unrestricted
commerce,and can do no business in any locality,
except with ,the special permission of the king or by agreement
with the magistracies; in the villages they are forbidden
to trade altogether. Pawnbroking and money-lending on the
part of Jews are hedged about by a series of oppressive regulations.
The capstone of the Piotrkov " constitution" is the
following clause:
Whereas the Jews, disregarding the ancient regulations, have
thrown off the marks by which they were distinguishable from
the Christians, and have arrogated to themselves a form of dress
which closely resembles that of the Christians, so that it is impossible
to recognize them, be it resolved for permanent observance:
that the Jews of our realm, all and sundry, in whatever
place they happen to be found, shall wear special marks, to wit, a
barret, or hat, or some other headgear of yellow cloth. Exception
is to be made in favor of travelers, who, while on the road, shall
be permitted to discard or conceal marks of this kind.
'l'he fine for violating this regulation is fixed at one gulden.
The only articles of the "constitution" of 1538 which
had serious consequences for the Jews of the Crown-the
Jews of Lithuania were not affected by these regulationswere
those barring them from tax-farming and subjecting
them to commercial restrictions. The canonical law concerning
a distinctive headgear was more in the nature of a demonstration
than a serious legal enactment, since compliancewith
THE CENTER IN POLAND AT ITS ZENITH 79
it, owing to the high state of culture among the Polish Jews
and their important role in the economic life of the country,
was a matter of impossibility. Behind this regulation lurks
the hand of the Catholic clergy, which was alarmed at that
time by the initial successes of the Reformation in Poland,
and was in fear that the influence of Judaism might enhance
the progress of the heresy. The excited imagination of the
clerical fanatics perceived signs of a " Jewish propaganda" in
the rationalistic doctrine of" Anti-Trinitarianism," which was
then making "its appearance, denying the dogma of the Holy
Trinity. The specter of a rising sect of " Judaizers" haunted
the guardians of the Church. One occurrence in particular
engendered tremendous excitement among the inhabitants of
Cracow. A Catholic woman of that city, Catherine Zaleshovska
by name, the wife of an alderman, and four score years of
age, was convicted of denying the fundamental dogmas of
Christianity and adhering secretly to Jewish doctrines. The
Bishop of Cracow, Peter Gamrat, having made futile endeavors
to bring Catherine back into the fold of the Church, condemned
her to death. The unfortunate woman was burned at the stake
on the market-place of Cracow in 1539.
The following description of this event was penned by an
eye-witness, the Polish writer Lucas Gurnitzki:
The priest Gamrat, Bishop of Cracow, assembled all canons
and collegiates in order to examine her [Catherine Zaleshovska,
who had been accused of ••Judaizing "] as to her prinCiples of
faith. When, in accordance with our creed, she was asked whether
she believed in Almighty God, the Creator of heaven and earth,
she replied: ••I believe in God, who created all that we see and
do not see, who cannot be comprehended by the human reason,
who poureth forth His bounty over man and over all things in the
universe." ••Do you believe in His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ,
6
80 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND
who was conceived by the Holy Ghost?" she was asked. She
answered: ••The Lord God has neither wife nor son, nor does
He need them. For sons are needed by those who die, but God
Is eternal, and since He was not born, it is impossible that He
should die. It is we whom· He considers His sons, and His sons
are those who walk in His paths." Here the collegiates shouted:
••Thou utterest e~il, thou miserable one! Bethink thyself! Surely
there are prophecies that the Lord would send His Son into the
world to be crucified for our sins, in order that we, having been disobedient
from the days of our ancestor Adam, may be reconciled
to God the Father? " A great deal more was said by the learned
men to the apostate woman, but the more they spoke, the more
stubborn was she in her contention that God was not and could
not be born as a human being. When it was found impossible to
detach her from her Jewish beliefs, it was decided to convict her
of blasphemy. She was taken to the city jail, and a few days later
she was burned. She went to her death without the slightest fear.
The well-known contemporary chronicler Bielski expresses
himself similarly: "She went to her death as if it were a
wedding."
During the same time there were rumors afloat to the effect
that in various places in Poland, particularly in the province
of Cracow, many Christians were embracing Judaism, and,
after undergoing circumcision, were fleeing for greater safety
to Lithuania, where they were sheltered by the local Jews.
When the rumor reached the King, he dispatched two commissioners
to Lithuania to direct a strict investigation. The
officers of the King proceeded with excessive ardor; they
raided Jewish homes, and stopped travelers on the road, making
arrests and holding cross-examinations. The inquiry
failed to reveal the presence of Judaizing sectarians in Lithuania,
though it ca.usedthe Jews considerable trouble and alarm
(1539).
THE CENTER IN POLAND AT ITS ZENITH 81
Scarcely had this investigation been closed when the Lithuanian
Jews were faced by another charge. Many of them were
said to be on the point of leaving the country, and, acting with
the knowledge and co-operation of the Sultan, intended to
emigrate to Turkey, accompanied by the Christians who had
been converted to Judaism. It was even rumored that the
Jews had already succeeded in dispatching a party of circumcised
Christian children and adults across the Moldavian frontier.
The King gave orders for a new investigation, which
was marked, like the preceding one, by acts of lawlessness and
violence. The Jews were in fear that the King might lend an
ear to these accusations and withdraw his protection from
them. Accordingly Jews of Brest, Grodno, and other Lithuanian
cities, hastened to send a deputation to King Sigismund,
which solemnly assured him that all the rumors and
accusations concerning them were mere slander, that the
Lithuanian Jews were faithfully devoted to their country,
that they had no intention to emigrate to Turkey, and, finally,
that they had never tried to convert Christians to their faith.
At the same time they made complaints about the insults and
brutalities which had been inflicted upon them, pointing to
the detrimental effect of the investigation on the trade of the
country. The assertions of the deputation were borne out
by the official inquiry, and Sigismund, returning his favor
to the Jews, cleared them of all suspicion, and promised henceforward
not to trouble them on wholesale charges unsupported
by evidence. This pledge was embodied in a special charter,
a sort of habeas corpus, granted by the King to the Jews of
Lithuania in 1540.
All this, however, did not discourage the Catholic clergy,
who, under the leadership of Bishop Gamrat, continued their
82 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND
agitation against the hated Jews. They incited public opinion
against them by means of slanderous books, written in medieval
style (De slupendis erronbus Judaeorum) 1541; De sanctis
inlerfeetis a Judaeis) 1543). The Church Synod of 1542
assembled in Piotrkov issued the following" constitution" :
The Synod, taking into consideration the many dangers that
confront the Christians and the Church from the large number of
Jews who, haTing been driven from the neighboring countries,
have been admitted into Poland, and unscrupulously combine holi·
ness with ungodliness, has passed the following resolution: Lest
the great concentration of Jews in the country lead, as must be
apprehended, to even worse consequences, his Majesty the King be
petitioned as follows: 1. That in the diocese of Gnesen and particularly
in the city of Cracow 1 the number of Jews be reduced to a
fixed norm, such as the district set aside for them can accommodate.
2. That in all other places where the Jews did not reside in
former times they be denied the right of settlement, and be for·
bidden to buy houses from Christians, those already bought to be
returned to their former owners. 3. That the new synagogues, even
those erected by them in the city of Cracow, be ordered tq be
demolished. 4. Whereas the Church suffers the Jews for the sole
purpose of recalling to our minds the tortures of our Saviour,
their number shall in no circumstances increase. Moreover, according
to the regulations of the holy canons, they shall be permitted
only to repair their old synagogues but not erect new ones.
This is followed by seven more clauses containing various
restrictions. The Jews are forbidden to keep Christian servants
in their houses, particularly nursery-maids, to act as stewards
of estates belonging to nobles (" lest those who ought to be
the slaves of Christians should thereby acquire dominion and
jurisdiction over them "), to work and to trade on Catholic
holidays, and to offer their goods publicly for sale even on week-
£' Gnesen as seat of the Primate; Cracow as capital.]
THE CENTER IN POLAND AT ITS ZENITH 83
days. It goes without saying that the rule prescribing a distinguishing
Jewish dress is not neglected.
This whole anti-Jewish fabric of laws, which the members of
the Synod decided to submit to the King, failed to receive
legal sanction. Still the Catholic clergy was for a long time
guided by it in its policy towards the Jews, a policy, needless
to say, of intolerance and gross prejudices. These restrictions
were the pia desideria of priests and monkeosome of which were
realized during the subsequent Catholic reaction.

3. LIBERALISM .AND REACTION IN THE REIGNS OF SIGISMUND AUGUSTUS AND STEPHEN BATORY

Sigismund I.'s successor, the cultured and to some extent
liberal-minded Sigismund II. Augustus (1548-1572), followed
in his relations with the Jews the same principles of toleration
and non-interference by which he was generally guided in his
attitude towards the non-Christian and non-Catholic citizens
of Poland. In the first year of his reign Sigismund II., complying
with the request of the Jews of Great Poland, ratified,
at the general Polish Diet held at Piotrkov, the old liberal
statute of Casimir IV. In the preamble of this enactment the
King declares that he confirms the rights and privileges of the
Jews on the same grounds as the special privileges of the other
estates, in other words, by virtue of his oath to uphold the
constitution. Sigismund Augustus considerably amplified
and solidified the self-government of the Jewish communities.
He bestowed large administrative and judicial powers upon the
rabbis and Kahal elders, sanctioning the application of "Jewish
law" (i. e. of Biblical and Talmudical law) in civil
and partly even criminal cases between Jews (1551). In the
general voyevoda courts, in which cases between Jews and
801 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND
Christians were tried, the presence of Jewish "seniors," i. e.
of duly elected Kahal elders, was required (1556). This lia·
bility of the Jews to the royal or voyevodacourts had long
constituted one of their important privileges, since it exempted
them from the municipal, or magistrates' courts, which were
just as hostile to them as the magistracies themselves.
This prerogative-the guarantee of greater impartiality on
the part of the royal court-was limited to the Jews residing
in the royal cities and villages, and did not extend to those
living on the estates of the nobles or in the townships owned
by them. Sigismurid 1. had decreed that "the nobles having
Jews in their towns and villages may enjoy all the
advantages to be derived from them, but must also try their
cases. For we [the King], not deriving any ad.vantagesfrom
such Jews, are not obliged to secure justice for them" (1539).
Sigismund Augustus now enacted similarly that the Jews
living on hereditary Shlakhta estates should be liable to the
jurisdiction of the "hereditary owner," not to that of the
royal representatives, the voyevodaand sub-voyevoda. As for
the other royal privileges, they were extended to the Jews of
this category only on condition of their paying the special
Jewish head-tax to the King (1549). The split between
royalty and Shlakhta, which became conspicuousin the reign
of Sigismund Augustus, had already begun to undermine the
system of royal patronage, more and more weakened as time
went on.
The relations between the Jews and the" third estate," the
burghers, did not improve in the reign of Sigismund Augustus,
but they assumed a more definite shape. The two competing
agencies, the magistracies and the Kahals, regulated their
mutual relations by means of compacts and agreements. In
THE CENTER IN POLAND AT ITS ZENITH 85
some cities, such as Cracow and Posen, these compacts were
designed to safeguard the boundaries of the ghetto, outside
of which the Jews had no right to live; in Posen the Jews were
even forbidden to increase the number of Jewish houses over
and above a fixed norm (49), with the result that they were
obliged to build tall houses, with several stories. In other
cities, among which was included the city of Warsaw,' the
magistracies managed to obtain the so-called privilege de non
tolerandis Judaeis, i. e. the right of either not admitting the
Jews to settle anew, and confining those already settled to
special sections of the city, away from the principal streets, or
keeping the Jews away from the city altogether, allowing
only the merchants to come on business and stay there for a
few days. However, in the majority of Polish cities the protection
of the King secured for the Jews equal rights with the
other townspeople. For, as one of the royal edicts puts it, " inasmuch
as the Jews carryall burdens in the same way as the
burghers, their positions must be alike in everything, except
in religion and jurisdiction." In some places the King even
went so far as to forbid the holding of the weekly market-day
on Saturday, to safeguard the commercial interests of the
Jews, who refused to do business on their day of rest.
With all the estates of Poland the Jews managed reasonably
to agree save only with the Catholic clergy. This implacable
foe of Judaism doubled his efforts as soon as the signal from
Rome was given to start a reaction against the growing heresy
of Protestantism and to combat all other forms of non-Catholic
P Warsaw was originally the capital of the independent PrincIpality
of Mazovia. After the incorporation of Mazovia Into the
Polish Empire, In 1526, Warsaw emerged from its obscurity and
in the latter part of the sixteenth century became the capital of
united Poland and Lithuania, taking the place of Cracow and
Vllna.]
86 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND
·belief. 'fhe policy of Paul IV., the inquisitor on the throne
of St. Peter, found an echo in Poland. The Papal Nuncio
Lippomano, having arrived from Rome, conceived the idea of
firing the religious zeal of the Catholics by one of those bloody
spectacles which the inquisitorial Church was wont to arrange
occasionally ad maio rem Dei gloriam. A rumor was set afloat
that a poor woman in Sokhachev, Dorothy Lazhentzka by
name, had sold to the Jews of the town the holy wafer received
by her during communion, and that the wafer was
stabbed by the "infidels" until it began to bleed. By order
of the Bishop of Khelm three Jews who were charged with
this sacrilege and their accomplice Dorothy Lazhentzka were
thrown into prison, put on the rack, and finally sentenced to
death. On learning of these happenings, the King sent orders
to the Starosta of Sokhachev to stop the execution of the
death sentence, but the clergy hastened to carry out the
verdict: and the alleged blasphemers were burned at the stake
(1556). Before their death the martyred Jews made the following
declaration:
We have never stabbed the host, because we do not believe that
the host is the Divine body (nos enim nequaquam credimus
hostiae inesse Dei corpus). knowing that God has no body nor
blood. We believe, as did our forefathers, that the Messiah is
not God. but His messenger. We also know from experience that
there can be no blood in flour.
These protestations of a monotheistic faith were silenced
by the executioner, who stopped" the mouths of the criminals
with burning torches."
Sigismund Augustus was shocked by these revolting proceedings,
which had been engineered by the Nuncio Lippomano. He
1According to another version, they forged the contents of the
royal warrant.
THE CENTER IN POLAND AT ITS ZENITH 87
was quick to grasp that at the bottom of the absurd rumor
concerning the "wowlded" host lay a "pious fraud," the
desire to demonstrate the truth of the Eucharist dogma in its
Catholic formulation (the bread of communion as the actual
body of Christ), which was rejected by the Calvinists and the
extreme wing of the Reformation. "I am shocked by this
hideous villainy," the King exclaimedin a fit of religious skepticism,
"nor am I sufficientlydevoid of common sense to believe
that there could be any blood in the host." Lippomano's
conduct aroused in particular the indignation of the Polish
Protestants, whoon dogmatic grounds could not give credence
to the medieval fable concerning miracle-working hosts.
All this did not prevent the enemies of the Jews from exploiting
the Sokhachevcase in the interest of an anti-Jewish
agitation. It was in all likelihood due to this agitation that
the anti-Jewish" constitution" adopted by the Diet of 1538
was, at the insistence of numerous deputies, confirmed by the
Diets of 1562 and 1565.
The articles of this anti-Semitic " constitution" were also
embodiedin the" Lithuanian Statute" promulgated in 1566.
This "statute" interdicts the Jews from wearing the same
style of clothes as the Christians and altogether from dressing
smartly, from owning serfs or keeping domesticsof the Christian
faith, and from holding office among Christians, the
last two restrictions being extended to the Tatars and other
" infidels." The medieval libels found a favorable soil even
in Lithuania. In 1564 a Jew was executed in Bielsk, on the
charge of having killed a Christian girl, though the unfortunate
victim loudly proclaimed his innocence from the steps
of the scaffold. Nor were attempts wanting to manufacture
similar trials in other Lithuanian localities. To put an end to
88 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND
the agitation fostered by fanatics and obscurantists, the King
issued two decrees, in 1564 and 1566, in which the local
authorities were strictly enjoined not to institute proceedings
against Jews on the charge of ritual murder or desecration of
hosts. Sigismund Augustus declares that experience and papal
pronouncements had proved the groundlessness of such
charges; that, in accordance with ancient Jewish privileges,
all such charges must be substa:'ltiated by the testimony of
four Christian and three Jewish witnesses, and that, finally,
the jurisdiction in all such cases belongs to the King himself
and his Council at the General Diet.
Soon afterwards, in 1569, the agreement known as the
"Union of Lublin" was concluded between Lithuania and the
Crown, or Poland proper, providing for closer administrative
and legislative co-operation between the two countries. This
resulted in the co-ordination of the constitutional legislation
for both parts of the "Republic "" which, in turn, affected
injuriously the status of the Jews of Lithuania. The latter
country was gradually drawn into the general current of
Polish politics, and hence drifted away from the patriarchal
order of things, which had built up the prosperity of the J eWfl
in the days of Vitovt.
Sigismund Augustus died in 1572, three years after the COllclusion
of the Union of Lublin. The Jews had good reason
to mourn the loss of this King, who had been their principal
protector. His death marks the extinction of the Yaghello
(1 With the gradual weakening of the royal power, which, after
the extinction of the Yaghel10 dynasty, in 1572, was transformed
into an elective office, the favorite designation for the Polish Empire
came to be Rzecz (pronounced Zhech) Pospolita, a literal rendering
of the Latin Res Publica. The term comprises Poland as
well as Lithuania, which, in 1589, had been united in one Empire.]
THE CENTER IN POLAND AT ITS ZENITH 89
dynasty, and a new chapter begins in the history of Poland,
" the elective period," when the kings are chosen by vote. After
a protracted interregnum, the Shlakhta elected the French
prince Henry of Valois (1574), one of the instigators of the
Massacre of St. Bartholomew. This election greatly alarmed
the Jews and the liberal-minded Poles, who anticipated a recrudescence
of clericalism; but their fears were soon allayed.
After a few months' stay in Poland, Henry fled to his native
land to accept the French crown, on the death of his brother
Charles IX. The throne of Poland fell, by popular vote,
to Stephen Batory (1576-1586), the valorous and enlightened
Hungarian duke: His brief reign, which marks the end of
the" golden age" of Polish history, was signalized by several
acts of justice in relation to the Jews. In 1576 Stephen
Batory issued two edicts, strictly forbidding the impeachment
of Jews on the charge of ritual murder or sacrilege, in view of
the recognized falsity of these accusations' and the popular
disturbances accompanying them.
Stephen Batory even went one step further in pursuing the
principle, that the Jews, because of their usefulness to the
country on account of their commercial activity, had a claim to
the same treatment as the corresponding Christian estates. In
ratifying the old charters, he added a number of privileges,
bearing in particular on the freedom of commerce. The King
directed the voyevodas to protect the legitimate interests of the
Jews against the encroachments of the magistracies and tradeunions,
who hampered them in every possible manner in their
pursuit of trades and handicrafts.
Stephen Batory intervened on behalf of the Jews of Posen,
who had long been oppressed by a hostile magistracy. Setting
'They are referred to in his edicts as cal'Umniae.
;'
90 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND
aside the draconian regulations of the city fathers, the commercial
rivals of the Jews, he permitted the latter to hire business
premises in all parts of the city and ply their trade even on the
days of the Christian festivals. Anticipating the possibility
of retaliatory measures on the part of the townspeople, the
King impressed upon the magistracy the duty of safeguarding
the inviolability of life and property in the .city, at the risk of
incurring the severest penalties in the case of neglect (1577).
All these warnings, however, were powerless to avert a catastrophe.
Three months after the promulgation of the royal
edict the Jewish quarter in Posen was attacked hy the mob,
which looted Jewish property and killed a number of Jews.
Ostensibly the riot was started because of the refusal of the
Jews to allow one of their coreligionists, who was on the point
of accepting baptism, to meet his wife. In reality this was
nothing but a pretext. The attack had been prepared by the
Christian merchants, who could not reconcile themselves to
the extension of the commercial rights of their competitors.
Batory imposed a heavy fine on the Posen magistracy for
having failed to stop the disorders. Only when the members
of the magistracy declared under oath that they had been
entirely ignorant of the plot was the fine revoked.
As far as the Jews are concerned, Stephen Batory remained
loyal to the traditions of a more liberal age, at a time when
the Polish populace was already inoculated with the ideas of
the "Catholic reaction" imported from Western Europeideas
which in other respects the King himself was unable to
resist. It was during his reign that the Jesuits, Peter Skarga
and others, made their appearance as an active, organized
body. Batory extended his patronage to them, and intrusted
them with the management of the academy established by him
THE CENTER IN POLAND AT ITS ZENITH 91
at Vilna. Was it possible for the King to foresee all the evil,
darkness, and intolerance which these Jesuit schools would
spread all over Poland? Could it have occurred to him that in
these seats of learning, which soon monopolized the education
of the ruling as well as the middle classes, one of the chief
subjects of instruction would be a systematic course in Jewbaiting?

4. SHLAKHTA AND ROYALTY IN THE REIGNS OF SIGISMUND III AND VLADISLAV IV

The results of the upheaval which accompanied the extinction
of the Yaghello dynasty assumed definite shape under the
first two kings of the Swedish Vasa dynasty, Sigismund III.
(1588-1632) and Vladislav IV. (1632-1648). The elective
character of royalty made the latter dependent on the Shlakhta,
which practically ruled the country, subordinating parliamentary
legislation to the aristocratic and agricultural interests
of their estate, and almost monopolizing the posts of voyevodas,
starostas, and other important officials. At the same time the
activity of the Jesuits strengthened the influence of clericalism
in all departments of life. To eradicate Protestantism, to
oppress the Greek Orthodox " peasant Church," and to reduce
the Jews to the level of an ostracized caste of outlaws-such
was the program of the Catholic reaction in Poland.
To attain these ends draconian measures were adopted against
the Evangelists and Arians! The members of the Greek Ortho-
[' The Arian heresy, as modified and preached by Faustus Socinus
(1539-1604). an Italian who settled in Poland, became a powerful
factor in the Polish intellectual life of that period. Because of its
liberal tendency, this doctrine appealed in particular to the educated
classes, and its adherents, called Socinians, were largely
recruited from the ranks of the Shlakhta. Under Sigismund III. a
strong reaction set in, culminating in the law passed by the Diet of
1658, according to which all ••Arians" were to leave the country
within two years.]
92 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND
.dox Church were forced against their will into a union with the
Catholics, and the rights of the" dissidents," or non-conformists,
were constantly curtailed. The Jesuits, who managed to
obtain control over the education of the growing generation,
inoculated the Polish people with the virus of clericalism.
The less the zealots of the Church had reason to expect the
conversion of the Jews, the more did they despise and humiliate
them. And if they did not altogether succeed in restoring
the medieval order of things, it was no doubt due to the
fact that the structure of the Polish state, with its irrepressible
conflict of class interests, did not allow any kind of
system to take firm root. "Poland subsists on disorders,"
was the boast of the political leaders of the a~e. The" golden
liberty" of the Shlakhta degenerated more and more. It
became a weapon in the hands of the higher classes to oppress
the middle and the lower classes. It led to anarchy, it undermined
the authority of the Diet, in which a single member
could impose his veto on the decision of the whole assembly
(the so-called liberum veto), and resulted in endless dissensions
between the estates. On the other hand, one must not forget
that, while this division of power was disastrous for Poland,
the absolute concentration of power after the pattern of
Western Europe, in the circumstances then prevailing, might
have proved even more disastrous. Under a system of monarchic
absolutism, Poland might have become, during the
period of the Catholic reaction, another Spain of Philip II.
Disorder a.::J.dclass strife saved the Polish people from the
" order" of the Inquisition and the consistency of autocratic
hangmen.
The championship of Jewish interests passed by degrees from
the hands of royalty into those of the wealthy parliamentary
THE CENTER IN POLAND AT ITS ZENITH 93
Shlakhta. Though more and more permeated by clerical tendencies,
the fruit of Jesuit schooling, the nobility in most cases
held its protecting hand over the Jews, to whom it was tied by
the community of economIC interests. The Jewish tax-collector
in the towns and townlets, which were privately owned by the
nobles, the Jewish arendar 1 in the village, who procured an
income for the pan' from dairying, milling, distilling, liquorselling
and other enterprises-they were indispensable to
the easy-going magnate, who was wont to let his estates take
care of themselves, and while away his time in the capital, at
the court, in merry amusements, or at the tumultuous sessions
of the national and provincial assemblies, where politics
were looked upon as a form of entertainment rather than a
serious pursuit. This Polish aristocracy put a check on the
anti-Semitic endeavors of the clergy, and confined the oppression
of the Jews within certain limits. Even the devout Sigismund
III., who was subject to Jesuit influence, continued
the traditional role of Jewish protector. In 1588, shortly
after his accession to the throne, he confirmed, at the request of
the Jews, their right of trading in the cities, though not
without certain restrictions which the demands of the Christian
merchants had forced upon him.
Nevertheless the economic struggle in the cities continues
with ever-increasing fury, manifesting itself more and more
in the shape of malign religious fanaticism. In many cities
the municipalities arrogate to themselves judicial authority
[' Arendar, also arendator, from medieval Latin arrendare, •. to
rent," signifies in Polish and Russian a lessee, originally of a farm,
subsequently of the tavern and, as is seen in the text, other
sources of revenue on the estate. These arendars being mostly
Jews, the name, abbreviated in Yiddish to randar, came prac'
tically to mean" village Jew."]
[" Literally, lord: the lord of the manor, noble landowner.]
94 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND
over the Jews-the authority of the wolvesover the sheepcontrary
to the fundamental Polish law, whichplaces alllitigation
between Jews and Christians under the jurisdiction of
the royal officials,the voyevodas and starostas. The king,
appealed to by the injured, has frequent occasion to remind
the magistracies that the Jews are not to be judged by the
Magdeburg Law, but by common Polish law, in addition to
their own rabbinical courts for internal disputes. A pronouncement
of this nature was issued, among others, by King
Sigismund III., when the Jews of Brest appealed to him
against the local municipality (1592). Their appeal was supported
by the head of the Jewish community, Saul Yudich
(son of Judah), contractor of customs and other state revenues
in Lithuania, who wielded considerable influence at
the Polish court. He bore the title of " servant of the king,"
and was frequently in a position to render important services
to his coreligionists.' But where the Jewish masses were not
fortunate enough to possess such powerful advocates in the
persons of the big tax-farmers and "servants of the king,"
their legitimate interests were frequently trampled upon. The
burghers of Vilna, in their desire to dislodgetheir Jewish competitors
from the city, did not stop at open violence. They
demolished the synagogue, and sacked the Jewish residences
in the housesownedby the Shlakhta (1592). In Kiev, where
the Jews had been settled in the Old Russian period: the
1 There is reason to believe that he is the hero of the legendary
story according to which an influential Polish Jew. by the name
of Saul Wahl, a favorite of Prince Radziwill, was, during an
interregnum, proclaimed Polish king by the Shlakhta, and reigned
for one night.
[" See pp. 29 et seq. Kiev was captured by the Lithuanians in
1320, and remained, through the union of Lithuania and Poland,
a part of the Polish Empire until 1654, when, together with the
province of Little Russia, it was ceded to Muscovy.]
THE CENTER IN POLAND AT ITS ZENITH 95
burghers were endeavoring to secure from the King the privilege
de non tolerandis Judaeis (1619).
The hostility of the burgher class, which was made up of
Germans to a considerable extent, manifested itself with particular
intensity in the old hotbed of anti-Semitism, in Posen.
Attacks on the Jewish quarter on the part of the street mob and
" lawful" persecutions on the part of the magistracy and tradeunions
were a regular feature in the life of that city. In the
case of several trades, as, for instance, in the needle trade, the
Jewish artisans were restricted to Jewish customers. In 1618
a painter employed to paint the walls of the Posen town hall
drew all kinds of figures which were extremely offensive to the
Jews, and subjected them to the ridicule of an idle street mob.
Two years later the local clergy spread the rumor, that the
table on which the famous three hosts had been pierced by the
Jews in 13991 had been accidentally discovered in the house of
a Jew. The fictitious relic was transferred to the Church of
the Carmelites in a solemn procession, headed by the Bishop
and the whole local priesthood. This demonstration helped to
inflame the populace against the Jews. The crowd, fed on
such spectacles, lost the last sparks of humanity. The scholars
of the Jesuit colleges frequently invaded the Jewish quarter,
making sport of the Jews and committing all kinds of excesses,
in strange contradiction to the precept of the Gospels,
to love their enemies, which they were taught in their schools.
Based on malicious fabrications, ritual murder trials become
endemic during this period, and assume an ominous, inquisitorial
character. Cases of this nature are given great prominence,
and are tried by the highest Polish law court, the Crown
1See p. 55.
7
96 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND
Tribunal,' without any of the safeguards of impartiality which
had been provided for such cases by the ancient charters of the
Polish kings, and had been more recently reaffirmed by Stephen
Batory. In 1598 the Tribunal of Lublin sentenced three
Jews to death on the charge of having slain a Christian boy,
whose body had been found in a sWflmpin a near-by village. To
force a confession from the accused the whole inquisitorial torture
apparatus was set in motion, and execution by quartering
was carried out with special solemnity in Lublin. The body
of the youngster, the involuntary cause of the death of innocent
victims, was transferred by the Jesuits to one of the local
churches, where it became the object of superstitious veneration.
Trials of this kind, with an occasional change of scene, were
enacted in many other localities of Poland and Lithuania.
Simultaneously a literary agitation against the Jews was set
on foot by the clerical party. Father Moyetzki published in
1598 in Cracow his ferociously anti-Jewish book entitled
"Jewish Bestiality" (Okrucienstwo Zydowskie), enumerating
all ritual murder trials which had ever taken place in Europe
and particularly in Poland, and adding others which were
invented for this purpose by the author:
A Polish physician, named Shleshkovski, accused the Jewish
physicians, his professional rivals, of sy.stematically Ipoisoning
and delivering to death good Catholics, and declared the pest,
raging at that time, to be a token of the Divine displeasure
at the protection granted to the Jews in Poland (Jasny dow6il
o doktorach zydowskich," A Clear Argument Concerning Jewish
Physicians," 1623).
[' Stephen Batory instituted two supreme courts for the realm:
one for the Crown, i. e. for Poland proper, and another for
Lithuania. The former held its sessions in Lublin for Little Poland
and in Piotrkov for Great Poland (see p. 164).]
•A IeCOndedition of the book appeared in 1636.
THE CENTER IN POLAND AT ITS ZENITH 97
But the palm undoubtedly belongs to Sebastian Michinski,
of Cracow, the frenzied author of the" Mirror of the Polish
Crown" (Zwierciadio korony PolskiejJ 1618). As a docile
pupil of the Jesuits, Michinski collected everything that superstition
and malice had ever invented against the Jews. He
charged the Jews with every mortal sin-with political treachery,
robbery, swindling, witchcraft, murder, sacrilege. In this
scurrilous pamphlet he calls upon the deputies of the Polish
Diet to deal with the Jews as they had been dealt with in Spain,
France, England, and other countries-to expel them. In
particular, the book is full of libels against the rich Jews of
Cracow, with the result that the sentiment against the Jewish
population of that city rapidly drifted towards a riot. To forestall
the possibility of excessesthe King ordered the confiscation
of the book. '1.'heincendiary attacks of Michinski also led to
stormy debates at the Diet of 1618. While some deputies eulogized
him as a champion of truth, others denounced him as a
demagogue and a menace to the public welfare. The Diet
showed enough common sense to refuse to follow the lead
of a writer crazed with Jew-hatred; yet the opinions voiced
by him gradually took hold of the Polish people, and prepared
the soil for sinister conflicts.
Sigismund IlL's successor, Vladislav IV., was not so zealous
in his Catholicism and in his devotion to the, Jesuits as his
father. He exhibited a certain amount of tolerance towards
the professors of other creeds, endeavored to uphold the ancient
Jewish privileges, and made it, in general, his business to
reconcile the warring estates with one another. However, the
strife between the religious and social groups had already eaten
so deeply into the vitals of Poland that even a far more energetic
king than Vladislav IV. would scarcely have been able to
98 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND
put an end to it. Instead of harmonizing the conflicting
interests, the King sided now with one, nowwith another, party.
In 1633 Vladislav IV. confirmed, at the Coronation Diet: the
basic privileges of the Jews, granting them full freedom in their
export trade, fixing the limits of their judicial autonomy, and
instructing the municipalities to take measures for shielding
them against popular outbreaks. But at the same time he
forbade the Jewish communities to erect new synagogues or
establish new cemeteries, without obtaining in each case a royal
license. This restriction, by the way, may be considered
a privilege, inasmuch as an attempt had been made by Sigismund
III. to make the right of erecting synagogues dependent
on the consent of the clergy.
Though on the whole desirous of respecting the rights of
the Jews, nevertheless, in individual cases, the King acted
favorably on the petitions of various cities to restrict these
rights, and occasionally revoked his own orders. Thus in June,
1642, he permitted the Jews of Cracow to engage freely in
export trade, but two months later he withdrew his permission,
the Christian merchants of Cracow having complained to him
about the effectivenessof Jewish competition. Complying with
the application of the burghers of Moghilev on the Dnieper:
he confirmed, in 1633, his father's orders concerning the transfer
of the Jews from the center of the city to its outskirts, and
subsequently, in 1646, sanctioned the decision of the magistracy
[1 In addition to the regular Diets, which assembled every two
years (see above, p. 76, n. 1), there were held also Election Diets
and Coronation Diets, in connection with the election and the
coronation of the new king. The former met on a field near Warsaw;
the latter were held in Cracow.]
[' Moghilev on the Dnieper, in White Russia, Is to be distinguished
from Moghllev on the Dniester, a town in the present
Government of Podolia.]
THE CENTER IN POLAND AT ITS ZENITH 99
prohibiting the letting of houses to them in a Christian neighborhood.
The law forbidding Jews to engage in petty trade
on the market-place effected in some cities a substantial rise
in thc prices of necessaries, and the Shlakhta petitioned the
King to repeal this prohibition for the city of Vilna. Vladislav
complied with the petition, but, to please the Vilna municipality,
he imposed at the same time a number of severe
restrictions' on the local Jews, making them liable to the
municipal courts in monetary litigation with Christians, confining
their area of residence to the boundaries of the " Jewish
street," and barring them from plying those trades which were
pursued by the Christian trade-unions (1633). The same
policy was responsible for the anti-Jewish riots which took
place about the same time in Vilna, Brest, and other cities.
Nothing did more to accentuate these conflicts than the preposterous
economic policy of the Polish Government. The
Warsaw Diet of 1643, in endeavoring to determine the prices
of various articles of merchandise, passed a law compelling all
merchants to limit themselves by a public oath to a definite
rate of profit, which was fixed at seven per cent in the case of the
native Christian (incoZa), five per cent in the case of the
foreigner (advena), and only three per cent in the case of the
Jew (infideZis). It is obvious that, being under the compulsion
of selling his goods at a cheaper price, the Jew on the \ one hand was forced to lower the quality of his merchandise,
and on the other hand was bound to undermine Christian
trade, and thereby draw upon himself the wrath of his competitors.
As for the Polish clergy, true to its old policy it fostered
in its flock the vulgar religious prejudices against the Jews.
This applies, in particular, to the Jesuits, though, to a lesser
1M THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND
degree, it holds good also in the case of the other Catholic
orders of Poland. A frequent contrivance to raille the prestige
of the Church was to engineer impressive demonstrations. In
the spring of 1636, when a Christian child happened to disappear
in Lublin, suspicion was cast upon the Jews, that they
had tortured the child to death. 'I'he Crown Tribunal, which
tried the case, and failed to find any evidence, acquitted the
innocent Jews. Thereupon the local clergy, dissatisfied with
the judgment of the court, manufactured a new case, this
time with the necessary" evidence." A Carmelite monk by
the name of Peter asserted that the Jews, having lured him
into a house, told a German surgeon to bleed him, and that his
blood was squeezed out and poured into a vessel, while the Jews
murmured mysterious incantations over it. The Tribunal gave
credit to this hideous charge, and, after going through the
regular legal proceedings, including the medieval "crossexaminations"
and the rack, sentenced one Jew named Mark
(Mordecai) to death. The Carmelite monks hastened to advertise
the case for the purpose of planting the terrible prejudice
more firmly in the hearts of the people.
Another trial of a similar nature took place in 1639. Two
elders of the J ewishcommunity of Lenchitza were sentenced to
,lcath by the Crown Tribunal on the charge of having murdered
a Christian boy from a neighboring village. Neither the protestation
of the Starosta of Lenchitza, that the case did not
come within the jurisdiction of his court, nor the fact that the
accused, though put upon the rack, refused to make a confession,
were·able to avert the death sentence. The bodies of the
executed Jews were cut into pieces and hung on poles at the
cross-roads. The Bernardine monks of Lenchitza turned the
THE CENTER IN POLAND AT ITS ZENITH 101
inci,l .Llt to good account by placing the remains of the suprvsedly
martyred boy in their church and putting up a picture
representing all the details of the murder. The superstitious
Catholic masses flocked to the church to worship at the shrine
of the juvenile saint, swelling the revenues of the Bernar~ine
Ichurch-which was exactly what the devout monks were after.
While the Church was engineering the ritual murder trials
. for the sake of " business," the municipal agencies, representing
the Christian merchant cla~s, acted similarly for the purpose
of ridding themselves of the Jews and getting trade under
their absolute control. This policy is luridly illustrated by a
tragic occurrence, which, in the years 1635 to 1637, stirred the
city of Cracow to its depths. A Pole by the name of Peter
Yurkevich was convicted of having stolen some church
vessels. At the cross-examination, having been put upon the
rack, he testified that a Jewish tailor, named Jacob Gzheslik,
had persuaded him to steal a host. Since the Jew had disappeared
and could nowhere be found, Yurkevich was the only
one to bear the death penalty. But before the execution, in
making his confession to the priest, he stated-and he repeated
the statement afterwards before an official committee of investigation-
the following facts:
I have stolen no sacraments from any church, and have never
made my God an object of barter. I merely stole a few silver and
other church dishes. My former depositions were made at the
advice of the gentlemen of the magistracy. The first time I was
conducted Into the court room Judge Belza spoke to me as follows:
••Depose that you have stolen the sacraments and sold them to the
Jews. You will suffer no harm from it, while we shall have a
weapon wherewith to expel the Jews from Cracow." I had hoped
that this deposition would obtain freedom for me, and I did as I
had been told.
102 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND
But Yurkevich's statement had no effect. He was convicted
on the strength of his original affidavit, though it had
been squeezed out of him by trickery and torture, and he
was burned at the stake. As for the Jews of Cracow, they had
to bear the penalty in the shape of a riot, the mob attacking
the Jewish ghetto and seizing forty Jews, who were carried off
to be thrown into the river. Seven men were drowned, while
the others saved themselves by promising to embrace Christianity
(May, 1637).

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