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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 1270AD 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 legitimizing of
dishonesty by Jews against Christians. |
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| 1243 | Crusader re-conquest of Jerusalem. | |||
| 1244 | Jerusalem sacked by Khwarezmian Tartars. | |||
| 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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| The Jewish Scapegoat | 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 formaly 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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| 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). |
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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. |
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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. | |||
| 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 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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| 1300 | 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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| A Jubilee Year | c.1337 | See Leviticus 25. | ||
| 1335 | The Synod of Salamanca forbids the employment of
Jewish doctors alleging their intention to exterminate Christians. |
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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 scape-goat. 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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| 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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| 1381 | In Britain - The peasants revolt in England
under WAT TYLER. |
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| A Jubilee Year | c.1386 | See Levitcus 25. | ||
| Persecutions begin in Spain | 1391 | Anti-Jewish riots and massacres in Spain, 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. | ||
| c.1400 | Solar radiation begins to drop, leading to the Little
Ice Age. (It continues until about ~1900). |
See: World Weather | ||
| 1407 | Anti-Jewish riots in Poland. | |||
| 1413-14 | Jewish-Christian debates at Tortosa, Spain, 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. |
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| 1421 | Jews expelled from Vienna and Linz. | |||
| 1424 | Jews expelled from Cologne. | |||
| 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 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. | |||
| 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 | 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 | The Inquisition begins
it's work in Seville giving 'heretics' 40 days to confess and be pardoned.
Those who confessed were pardoned on condition of a vow to expose others
(see 1481, 1486). |
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| 1481 | February 6: 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. | ||
| 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: "As a limb of the devil, she shall be taken to the place of burning so that by the secular officials of this town justice may be executed upon her according to the custom of these kingdoms." Those "secular officials" that dared resist the Catholic Church's Inquisition were subject to excommunication. Jews are expelled from Perugia, Italy. |
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| 1486 | Jews expelled from Vicenza, Italy. 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 | Jews are expelled from Milan and Lucca, Italy. | |||
| 1490 | At Seville, Spain, the
Inquisition burns a large number of Hebrew Bibles, and in Salamanca 6
000 copies of the Hebrew Scriptures are burnt. Geneva, Switzerland, 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). 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. | |||
| 1508 | December 10: France, Aragon, and the Holy
Roman Empire form the League of Cambrai, ostensibly against the Turks. |
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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. | |||
| 1517 | In Germany - MARTIN LUTHER begins to publicly
question papal abuses. Egypt is conquered by the Turks. |
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| 1521 | MARTIN LUTHER is excommunicated. | |||
| Fake Messiah arrives | 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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| 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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| A Jubilee Year | c.1533 | See Leviticus 25. | ||
| 1536 | In England: WILLIAM TYNDALE, translator of
the New Testament into English, is burned at the stake for heresy. |
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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 | Jews expelled from Naples. Popes PAUL 3rd and JULIUS
3rd encourage the settlement of displaced Jews and protect them from the
Inquisition. 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 Sepulchre 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. |