212 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



over, in order to be converted in the last days. Such a remnant of the 

 Jews, it was thought, would be preserved, if not in Europe, at all 

 events in Asia. 



The succeeding Popes held firmly to the principles and demands of 

 Innocent III. If the Jews built a new synagogue, it must be torn 

 down ; the only thing allowed was to repair the old ones. No Jew 

 could witness against a Christian ; the bishops were to insist, even 

 with the use of force, upon their wearing of the distinctive badges, the 

 hat or the yellow cloth. This law respecting badges was particularly 

 hard and cruel ; for, in the frequent uprisings and tumults in the cit- 

 ies, the Jews fell so much the easier into the hands of the infuriated 

 mob, which in this way recognized them at a glance ; and in traveling 

 they became the prey, without hope of rescue, of the robber-knights 

 and highwaymen, who naturally looked upon every Jew as an outlaw. 

 In Spain, permission was therefore given them to wear every kind of 

 clothing in traveling, but the permission was soon taken back. 



Especially did Eugene IV,' who annulled the humane concessions 

 made by Martin V, add to the sharpness of the ecclesiastical legisla- 

 tion, already pitiless enough, and the question was perforce raised 

 how, if all this was fully carried out, could these men maintain their 

 piteous existence at all. 



Whatever ground the Popes had left untouched, was covered by 

 the councils of the different countries ; they forbade, for example, 

 that a Christian should let or sell a house to a Jew, or buy wine of 

 him. In addition to all this, came the oft-renewed orders to burn all 

 copies of the Talmud and its commentaries i. e., by far the largest 

 part of the Jewish literature on account of the passages hostile to 

 Christianity that were said to be found therein. And then came 

 again tortures, persecutions, and imprisonments in abundance. It 

 seemed as if the mighty of the earth had only stones instead of bread 

 for the afflicted people, and were disposed to give no answer to their 

 entreaties and inquiries, other than that which the ancestors of the 

 Jews once gave to the tyrant Herod, viz., when he asked what, then, 

 he snould do for them, they replied, to hang himself. 



The new theory of the slavery of the Jews was now adopted and 

 elaborated by the theologians and canonical writers. Thomas of 

 Aquinas, whose views pass as unimpeachable in the whole Church, de- 

 cided that the princes could dispose of the property of these men, who 

 were condemned to perpetual bondage, just as they would of their own 

 goods. A long series of writers on the canon law built upon the same 

 foundation the assertion that princes and lords could forcibly dispos- 

 sess the Jews of their sons and daughters, and cause them to be bap- 

 tized. That a baptized child of a Jew should not be allowed to re- 

 main with its father was universally taught, and still is a demand of 

 the Church. The princes, in the mean time, had greedily adopted the 

 papal doctrine of the divinely ordained slavery of the Jews, and the 



