History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume 1 of 3. From the Beginning until the Death of Alexander I (1825). Dubnow Simon
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 Europe – ideas 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 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 Jew-baiting?
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.55 The members of the Greek Orthodox 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 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 (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 and class 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 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 arendar56 in the village, who procured an income for the pan57 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 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 rôle 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 over the Jews – the authority of the wolves over the sheep – contrary to the fundamental Polish law, which places all litigation 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.58 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 dislodge their Jewish competitors from the city, did not stop at open violence. They demolished the synagogue, and sacked the Jewish residences in the houses owned by the Shlakhta (1592). In Kiev, where the Jews had been settled in the Old Russian period,59 the 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 trade-unions 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 139960 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 Tribunal,61 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 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 was carried out with special solemnity in Lublin. The body of the youngster, the involuntary
[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.]
[
[Literally,
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
See p. 55.
[Stephen Batory instituted two supreme courts for the realm: one for the Crown,