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1240 to 1541 | |||||||||
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– subject to continuing refinement – |
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| 1241 | In Western Germany – About three-quarters of the 200 Jewish residents of Frankfurt are massacred and the others forced to flee. (They return to the city around 1270 AD/CE under protection of Emperor FREDERICK II, disturbed by his loss of tax revenue). |
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| See – Talmud | 1242 | June: LOUIS IX of France orders the Talmud to be burnt for its blasphemies against Christ and its legitimising of dishonesty by Jews against Christians. |
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| 1243 | Crusader re-conquest of Jerusalem. |
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| 1244 | Jerusalem sacked by Khwarezmian Tartars. |
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| 1247 | Jerusalem conquered by Mameluks of Egypt. Franciscans spread a 'blood libel' that causes a massacre of Jews in Valreas. Pope INNOCENT IV denies the charge of child murder against the Jews and threatens with excommunication any Christians who oppress Jews. |
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1248 | September: Jews 'admit' under torture at the Castle of Chillon on Lake Geneva that the plague, Black Death, is being spread by Jews poisoning water supplies. September 26: Pope CLEMENT 6th issues a bull contradicting the allegation, blaming Satan, and asserting that Jews suffered as much as any from the plague, but it does not stop the panic and the massacre of Jews. |
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| 1255 | In England – The murder of a nine-year-old boy (Hugh of Lincoln), found stuffed into a well, causes a massacre of Jews. A local wealthy Jew, Koppin, and eight fellow Jews are formally executed on no firm evidence. |
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King HENRY III's exactions from Jews become so intolerable that they beg to be allowed to leave his realm. The king refuses and farms them out to his brother RICHARD, Earl of Cornwall, to extort them further. |
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| 1261 | In Constantinople – Byzantine Emperor JOHN IV is blinded. |
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| 1264 | A new wave of Jewish persecution sweeps Britain. English Jewry is near ruin. |
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| 1265 | January 21: In England – SIMON de MONTFORD calls together the country's first parliament. |
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| 1267 | In Palestine: Mamluk sultan BAYBARS prohibits all non-Muslims from worshipping at the tombs of the patriarchs in Hebron. (see June 1967). NACHMANIDES tries to persuade the Jews who had abandoned Jerusalem as a consequence of the Mongol invasion to return and reconstitute the Jewish community in the city. (See 1334 AD/CE). |
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| 1269 | In France – King LOUIS IX ('Saint Louis') decrees that Jews must wear a rouelle, a piece of fabric, on their clothing as identification. |
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| 1275 | In England – King EDWARD I makes usury illegal and opens artisan trades to Jews in the 'Statute of the Jews', arousing furious opposition from London tradesmen. He orders that all Jews over the age of seven must wear a yellow patch on their clothing. |
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| 1276 | Jews are expelled from upper Bavaria. |
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| 1277 | CHARLES I (of Anjou), Angevin king of Naples and Sicily, inherits the kingdom of Jerusalem. |
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| 1278 | Groups of Jews are arrested throughout England, their property confiscated and 300 are reported hanged. |
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| A Jubilee Year | 1288 | Franciscans and Dominicans unite in Troyes, France, to provoke a massacre of local Jews. |
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| 1289 | King EDWARD I of England confiscates the property of his Gascony Jews to fund the ransom for his cousin CHARLES of Salerno, and then expels them. |
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| 1290 |
EDWARD I finally expels all Jews from Britain (according to Schaff c.16,000; Johnson 2,500), confiscates their assets, but protects them from plunder. |
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| 1291 | A Muslim army from Egypt conquers the (European Crusader) town of Acre in Palestine. |
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| 1295 |
In Germany – The first Jews settle in the fishing village of Berlin. (expelled in 1571).
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| 1300 | In France – JACOB BEN MACHIR (a Jew) becomes dean of the Montpellier medical school. |
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| 1306 | In France – King PHILIP IV ('the Fair') unfairly orders the expulsion of Jews. |
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| 1307 | In France – PHILIP IV orders the arrest of all the Knights Templar on a charge of heresy. |
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| 1312 | The ecumenical church Council of Vienne denounces the liberality of the Spanish law that required a Jewish witness to the conviction of a Jew. |
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| 1315-17 | In Britain, torrential rain and floods cause a general famine. Thousands of peasants die of starvation. Great land-owner's are economically crippled partly from lack of bridging finance due to the absence of Jewish money lenders. |
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| 1322 | The Spanish Synod of Valladolid demands intolerance toward the Jewish people. |
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| 1329 | The Spanish Synod of Tarragona demands intolerance toward the Jewish people. |
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| 1334 | In Jerusalem – ISAAC BEN JOSEPH BEN CHELO, an Aragonese settler, reports that the Jewish community is 'quite numerous', composed of Jews from many lands, but principally from France. |
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| 1335 | The Synod of Salamanca forbids the employment of Jewish doctors alleging their intention to exterminate Christians. |
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| A Jubilee Year | c.1337 | See Leviticus 25. |
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| 1347 | The Plague spreads to Sicily, Reggio, Sardinia, Corsica, Genoa, Marseilles, Leghorn (Livorno), Dubrovnik. |
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| 1348 | In Palestine – A Bedouin attack drives all the inhabitants of Jerusalem out of the city. August: An epidemic of pneumonia and bubonic plague (Black Death) sweeps England and Wales until the end of 1349, and Scotland in1350. |
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| 1348-49 | Anti-Jewish riots in Poland. About 300 Jewish communities in Alsace and in Rhineland, in Thuringia, Bavaria and Austria are destroyed on accusation in southern France that Jewish poisoning of wells had caused the plague. |
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| 1349 | The Black Death in Europe continues to make the Jews a scapegoat. In Strassburg – The entire Jewish population of 2,000 is seized, and those who refuse baptism are burnt to death in their own cemetery and their goods confiscated. In Frankfurt – The whole Jewish community is massacred, many Jews choosing to burn down their own homes while inside rather than face death at the hands of the angry mob. |
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| 1351-53 | In Palestine – Jerusalem is badly struck by bubonic plague (Black Death). |
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| 1353 | In Britain – The Statute of Praemunire places restraints on papal intervention in England. |
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| 1354 | December: In Catalonia and Valencia – Jewish leaders appeal to the King of Aragon and to the Pope to help improve relations between Jews and Christians. |
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| 1358 | In France – The peasants revolt (The Jacquerie). | |||||||||
| 1360 | In Frankfurt, Germany – Jews are invited back to the city but are strictly regulated. | |||||||||
| 1361-62 | A second wave of pneumonia and bubonic plague sweeps Britain. |
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| 1369 | A third wave of pneumonia and bubonic plague sweep Britain. These last two waves of disease reduce the population by about one third. |
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| 1374 | In Constantinople – Byzantine Emperor ANDRONICUS IV is blinded.
In Constantinople – Byzantine Emperor JOHN VII is blinded. |
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| 1381 | In Britain – The peasants revolt in England under WAT TYLER. |
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| A Jubilee Year | c.1386 | See Leviticus 25. |
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| Persecutions begin in Spain | 1391 | In Spain – Anti-Jewish riots and massacres, particularly Seville. An estimated 50,000 Jews are murdered in Castile, and the mania spreads to Aragon. Wearing distinctive clothing by Jews is enforced, shaving of beards and cutting their hair round is forbidden, as well as employment in non-Jewish households, the practice of medicine and agriculture.
November 11: In Jerusalem – A group of Franciscans (Roman Catholics) seek martyrdom by insulting MUHAMMAD, before the Muslim leader, as –
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| Jewish expulsions begin | 1394 | In France – King CHARLES IV orders all Jews out of his kingdom. The beginning of Jewish emigration to territories under Ottoman occupation. |
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| c.1400 | Solar radiation begins to drop, leading to the Little Ice Age. (It continues until about ~1900). |
See: World Weather | ||||||||
| 1402 | St Brice Eve: In England – King Aethelred orders the genocide of all the Danish Vikings of Yorkshire. |
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| 1407 | Anti-Jewish riots in Poland. |
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| 1413-14 | In Tortosa, Spain – Jewish-Christian debates are used by the authorities to humiliate Judaism. |
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| 1415 | JAN HUS, Czech Christian Reformer is tricked by a promise of safe conduct by his Roman Catholic adversaries and burned at the stake as a heretic, triggering a Czech national revolt against the Catholic Church and its German supporters. |
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| 1419 | Pope MARTIN IV issues a bull asserting that he is following his predecessors in commanding that Jews be not interrupted in their synagogue worship, compelled to accept baptism, or persecuted for financial transactions with Christians. (He issues a similar bull in 1429). |
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| 1421 | Jews expelled from Vienna and Linz. Crusade against the Hussites. |
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| 1424 | Jews expelled from Cologne. |
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| 1426-1450 | Expelled from the Rhineland and Bavaria, the Jews migrate to Ottoman lands. | |||||||||
| 1430 | In Florence, Italy – Jewish money-lenders charge a 20% rate of interest. |
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| 1432 | Jews are expelled from Saxony. | |||||||||
| A Jubilee Year | 1435 | Spires and Zurich expel Jews. | ||||||||
| 1438 | Jews are expelled from Mainz. | |||||||||
| 1439 | Jews are expelled from Augsburg. July 16: In England – King HENRY VI bans kissing to prevent the spread of disease. |
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| 1442 | Jews are expelled from Bavaria. | |||||||||
| 1451 | In Spain – Friar ALFONSO DE ESPINA alleges in his Fortalicium fidei ('Fortification of the Faith') that children are murdered by Jews and thus stirs up further persecutions. |
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| 1453 | Constantinople/Byzantium, capital of the Byzantine Empire, falls to the Turks. Many Jews believe their Messiah will now come because anti-Semitic Byzantium has now fallen, including Jewish communities of western and southern Anatolia, of the Black Sea, of Macedonia, Thracia, and Bulgaria to the new capital of the empire. |
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| 1454 | Jews are expelled from the crown cities of Moravia. |
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| 1462 | In Frankfurt, Germany – The 110 Jews of the city are forced to lived in a ghetto (Juddengasse). (They number 3,000 in the ghetto by 1610). |
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| 1469 | In Spain – Queen ISABELLA of Castile marries King FERDINAND of Aragon, inaugurating under their rule a terrible persecution of Jews and ex-Jews, burning alive many thousands, forcing others to flee. |
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| 1478 | November 1: Pope SIXTUS IV issues a bull authorizing the establishment of the Inquisition in Castile to exterminate 'heretics' (which includes secret Jews). |
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| 1480 | In Spain – The Inquisition begins it's work in Seville giving 'heretics' 40 days to confess and be pardoned. Those who confess are pardoned on condition of a vow to expose others (see 1481, 1486). |
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| 1481 | February 6: In Spain – The first auto de fe ('act of faith') is held in Seville in which six men and women are publicly burned to death after a sermon by Friar HOJEDA. A disastrous plague breaks out in the city. The Inquisition's court moves to Aracena where it has 23 men and women burned to death. |
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| 1483 | February 13: Pope SIXTUS IV writes to ISABELLA assuring the queen that the inquisition's work lies close to his heart. The inquisition's tribunal is raised by King FERDINAND to a department of state. |
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| A Jubilee Year | c.1484 | See Leviticus 25. |
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| 1485 | The Spanish Inquisition in Ciudad Real burns 52 'heretics' in two years. FERDINAND and ISABELLA build a lavish palace from the confiscated wealth of conversos (secret Jews).
As an example of the Inquisition's sentence in this year is that passed on MENCIA ALFONSO:
Those "secular officials" that dare resist the Catholic Church's Inquisition are subject to excommunication.
Jews are expelled from Perugia, Italy. |
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| 1486 | In Italy – Jews are expelled from Vicenza. In Spain – In Toledo the first auto de fe is held in which 750 penitents (including many secret Jews) are marched to the cathedral bareheaded with candles and informed that 20% of their property is confiscated and that they are disqualified from public office. |
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| 1488 | Jews are expelled from Parma, Italy. In Florence, Jewish money-lenders charge a 32½% rate of interest. |
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| 1489 | In Italy – Jews are expelled from Milan and Lucca. | |||||||||
| 1490 | In Spain – At Seville the Inquisition burns a large number of Hebrew Bibles, and in Salamanca 6,000 copies of the Hebrew Scriptures are burnt. In Switzerland – Geneva expels its Jews. |
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| 1491 | November 4: The Spanish Inquisition's burning of 'heretics' reaches 298 persons (including a large number of secret Jews), with 79 condemned to life-long imprisonment. |
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| 1492 | March 31: All Jews unwilling to convert by July 31 are expelled from Spain, fuelled by the rumour that Jews had crucified the child of La Guardia. The senior rabbi of Spain and many thousands convert to Catholicism. c.100,000 Jews cross into Portugal at the invitation of King MANUEL, c.50,000 Jews cross to Muslim areas of North Africa and Turkey for safety (see 1495), some end up in Palestine and later develop into a significant Sephardic community.. In Rome – RODRIGO BORGIA becomes Pope ALEXANDER VI. |
Alhambra Decree | ||||||||
| 1494 | Jews expelled from Florence and all Tuscany. Anti-Jewish riots in Poland. |
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| 1495 | ||||||||||
| 1497 | Jews are expelled from Portugal, triggering a mass migration of Jews to the refuge of the Ottoman Empire. |
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| 1498 | In France – All Jews in Marseille, Narbonne and Lunel are expelled. In Florence, Italy – Christian preacher, SAVONAROLA, is burned at the stake. |
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| 1500 | Jews regard Poland as the safest country in Europe. It begins to become the Ashkenazi heartland. In Spain, the entire conversos population (secret Jews) in Guadalupe is expelled by order of the inquisitor-general Deza. |
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| 1502 | In Spain: No books may be printed without approval of a bishop or specified royal judges. |
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| 1503 | Galley labour is approved by Pope ALEXANDER VI as punishment for "heresy". |
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| 1506 | Jews expelled from Portugal. |
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| 1508 | December 10: France, Aragon, and the Holy Roman Empire form the League of Cambrai, ostensibly against the Turks. |
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| 1514 | MARTIN LUTHER writes to GEORG BURKHARDT (George Spalatin) –
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| 1515-16 | Venice initiates a policy of segregating Jews in an island ghetto, all other Italian cities soon segregate Jews also. |
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| 1516 | December 1: Jerusalem surrenders to Ottoman Sultan SELIM I. |
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| 1517 | In Germany – MARTIN LUTHER begins to publicly question papal abuses. Egypt is conquered by the Turks. |
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| 1519 | In Germany – MARTIN LUTHER challenges the doctrine Servitus Judaeorum ("Servitude of the Jews"), established in Corpus Juris Civilis by Emperor Justinian I in 529.
LUTHER writes –
February 21: In Regensburg – Expulsion of Jews. |
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| 1521 | MARTIN LUTHER is excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church. |
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1523 | In Jerusalem – DAVID REUVENI arrives after the city's surrender to the Ottoman empire (known for its friendliness to Jews), announcing himself as Israel's end time Messiah, and initiates a change in the prayer place for Jewish pilgrims from the Mount of Olives and gates of Temple Mount (the Haram) to the Western (Wailing) Wall. (see 1541). Ottoman emperor SULEIMAN orders the Cenacle Church (above the so-called tomb of David) closed and made into a mosque as a result of complaints about the behaviour of Christian Franks at the venue. In Germany – MARTIN LUTHER publishes a tract 'Dass Jesus Christua ein geborener Jude sei' ('That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew') pleading for tolerance and rejecting the accusations of ritual murder and desecration of the Mass against Jews. |
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| 1524 | TRISTAN DE LEON, in a memorial address to CHARLES V, asserts that FERDINAND and ISABELLA had received 10 million ducats from the confiscated property of 'heretics' (principally Jewish conversos). |
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| 1528 | MARTIN LUTHER reports a nearly fatal bout of diarrhoea brought on by his consumption of Kosher food. In a letter to MELANCTHON, LUTHER suggests that the Jewish community had attempted to poison him. LUTHER further suggests that Kosher foods, which he believed to be disagreeable with the constitution of Gentiles, were eaten by the Jews (who, presumably, would not experience adverse effects from their consumption) as a show of superiority over the Gentiles and as a means of separating themselves from the mainstream German culture. He suggests that Kosher foods be banned from Christian nations. |
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| 1529 | In Italy – Jewish SOLOMON MOLCHO (שלמה מולכו; born Diogo Pires) declares himself to be Israel's Messiah. |
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| 1531 | In Germany – MARTIN LUTHER, who had believed in 'freedom of conscience' at the time of his protest against Papal Rome, now denies this to those who differ with himself, agreeing that 'anabaptist' and other Protestant extremists –
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| 1532 | In Italy – Emperor CHARLES V offers imprisoned SOLOMON MOLCHO a pardon if he return to the Catholic religion of his upbringing. He chooses instead to be a martyr and is burnt at the stake in Mantua (5th Tevet 5293 in the Hebrew calendar). |
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| A Jubilee Year | c.1533 | See Leviticus 25. | ||||||||
| 1536 | August: In Germany – MARTIN LUTHER refuses to arrange an audience for Rabbi JOSEL of ROSHEIM with LUTHER's prince Elector of Saxony JOHN FREDERICK, who had issued a mandate which prohibited Jews from inhabiting, engaging in business in, or passing through his realm.
JOSEL of ROSHEIM writes in his memoirs –
October 6: In the Netherlands – Through Henry (Harry) Philips of Dorset instructed by Sir Thomas Moore of King Henry VIII's England, WILLIAM TYNDALE (Guillem Tindal), the first translator of the New Testament into English, is now burnt alive at the stake in the town square between church and castle of Vilvoorde, in the presence of the Commission of three canons from Louvain University (Tapper, Latomus, Doye). His ashes are poured into the river Zenne. |
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| 1538 | JACOB BERAB re-institutes the ordination of rabbis to form the nucleus of a revived Sanhedrin. Lack of rabbinic support causes its failure. December 17: Pope PAUL III excommunicates King HENRY VIII for declaring himself head of the English Church. |
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| 1541 | In Italy – Jews are expelled from Naples. Popes PAUL 3rd and JULIUS 3rd encourage the settlement of displaced Jews and protect them from the Inquisition. In Palestine – Sultan SULEIMAN the Magnificent completes the defensive walls of Jerusalem, with 34 towers and 7 gates; its first proper fortification in 300 years, and issues an official edict giving Jews a place of prayer (nine feet wide) at the Western Wall. (see 1523). Jews even hold government positions. In Jerusalem, Eastern Orthodox (Greek) Patriarch GERMANUS institutes the Hellenic Confederacy of the Holy Sepulcher as official guardians of the Christian holy places, while the Franciscans (Roman Catholic) form a national community to guard the same holy places on behalf of Latin Christianity. |
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Copyright © Lloyd Thomas 1997-2011. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. Feel free to copy, as long as this copyright notice is included. |
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