Jews in the Middle Ages
Jewish money-lenders in medieval France
The Middle Ages in Europe were a difficult time for the Jews. Many Jews lived in Western Europe between about 1000 and 1500 AD, but all the rulers were Christians, and almost all the people who had any power were Christians. Jews were thought of as being different, strange, and possibly sympathizing with the Islamic arch-enemies of the Christians, so possibly traitors too. In many places, Jews were forbidden to own land, and so they could not be farmers (or not very successful farmers). Jews also often had to live in special Jewish sections of towns, called ghettos (GET-toes).
Knights killing Jews at the time of the First Crusade (1000's AD)
Because Christian laws said that Christian people could
not lend money out at interest,
and yet most kings and queens
need to borrow money, the Jews
played a big role in the medieval economy as moneylenders. But lending
money to kings is risky. Sometimes the king paid the money back, and
the Jews made some money. Other times the king found it easier to just
throw the Jews out of his kingdom, or to make a new law saying that
Christians didn't have to pay Jews back the money they had borrowed.
King Edward I of
England, for instance, solved some of his money problems by throwing
all the Jews out of England in 1290 - and they were not allowed back for more
than 300 years. Some of them moved to the Netherlands. Other English Jews tried to move to France, but King Philippe threw them out of France in 1291.
In other parts of Europe, though, some kings welcomed the Jews. Many Jews moved to Poland from England, France, and Germany after the First Crusade, when many Crusaders killed Jews at home as well as Muslims in Jerusalem. After the Mongol invasions in the 1200's, the Polish kings encouraged thousands of German Jews to move to Poland, bringing money and education to rebuild their ruined country. The Polish kings gave these Jews special privileges to encourage them to move to Poland. Then when the Black Death came to Europe in the 1300's, many Christians in Germany blamed the disease on the Jews, and again they were killing Jews, so many more Jews chose to move to Poland for safety.
In 1492, when the Christian king and queen Ferdinand and Isabella finally finished reconquering Spain from its Muslim rulers, one of the first things they did was to force all of the Jews in Spain to leave. Some of these Jews moved to the Netherlands, but most of them sailed to North Africa, to the Hafsids there, or across the Mediterranean to the Ottoman Empire, which welcomed the Jews enthusiastically.
Jews in the Islamic Empire
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