History of the Jews in Russia and Poland, Volume I (of 3)

. (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 par

of life. To eradicate Protestantism, to oppress the Greek Orthodox "peasant Church," and to reduce the J

storing 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 age. 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

o procured an income for the pan[57] from dairying, milling, distilling, liquor-selling 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

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.[58] But wher

wish 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 1399[60] had been accidentally discovered in the house of a Jew. The fictitious relic was transferred to the Church of the Carmelit

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 swamp in a near-by village. To force a confession from the accused the whole inquisitorial torture apparatus was set in motion, and execution by quartering

ow his ferociously anti-Jewish book entitled "Jewish Bestiality" (Okrucieństwo ?ydowskie), enumerating all ritual murder trials which

elivering to death good Catholics, and declared the pest, raging at that time, to be a token of the Divine displeasure at the pro

let 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 excesses the King ordered the confiscation of the book.

ly into the vitals of Poland that even a far more energetic king than Vladislav IV. would scarcely have been able to put an end to it. Instead of harmonizing the conflicting interests, the King sided now with one, now with another, party. In 1633 Vladislav IV. confirmed, at the Coronation Diet,[63] the basic privileges of the Jews, granting them full freedom in their export trade, fixing the limits of their judicial autonomy, and instru

on the Dnieper,[64] 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 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 the prices of necessaries, and the Shlakhta petitioned the King to repeal this prohibition for the city of Vilna. Vladislav com

lves by a public oath to a definite rate of profit, which was fixed at seven per cent in the case of the native Christian (incola), five per cent in the case of the foreigner (advena), and only three per cent in the case of the Jew (infidelis). It is obvious that,

n was cast upon the Jews, that they had tortured the child to death. The 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 blo

iction 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 incident to good account by placing the r

c 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

f 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.

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 for

TNO

number of Jews in Poland during that period (bet

is in the original, to designa

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

See p

ish form of the J

e p. 64

n the left bank of the Vistula. It is to be distinguishe

ese 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 c

at of the Primate;

of Mazovia into the Polish Empire, in 1526, Warsaw emerged from its obscurity and in the latter part of th

ersion, they forged the con

into an elective office, the favorite designation for the Polish Empire came to be Rzecz (pronounced Zhech) Pospolita, a literal

erred to in his e

iod. 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 S

iginally of a farm, subsequently of the tavern and, as is seen in the text, other sources of revenue on the estate. T

: the lord of the man

ich an influential Polish Jew by the name of Saul Wahl, a favorite of Prince Radziwill, wa

ed, through the union of Lithuania and Poland, a part of the Polish Empire until

See p

own, i. e. for Poland proper, and another for Lithuania. The former held its ses

tion of the book

there were held also Election Diets and Coronation Diets, in connection with the election and the

s to be distinguished from Moghilev on the Dniest