Re:Knights and Jews in the Middle Ages

["Steinfeld" <steinfeld@mail.tqci.net>]

Poster: "Steinfeld" <steinfeld@mail.tqci.net>

Merry Rose at Cheapside
On Wed 11 Feb Lyanna addressed this topic in a fairly lengthy commentary.  
I shall not quote or sub-quote for expediency, but history does tell us
clearly that the treatment of the jewish populations during and before the
period left a great deal to be desired.  It was after all a Papal Legate
who uttered the importal word "kill them all, God will know his own" from
the hills overlooking Jerrusalem.  What insued as a result set new
milestones in barbarity as whole populations were wiped out, including the
jewish population who had gathered in the temple under the mistaken idea
that the crusaders could tell the difference between them and the islamic
defenders.

It was Phillip the Fair who practiced his supression of the Templars by
seizing the jewish wealth and expelling the populous in 1306.  The next
year he arrested the Templars using similar tactics.  

During the middle ages there are recorded laws that essentially allowed the
local populations to do nearly anything they wished since the jews were not
entitled to protection under law.  True, there were exceptions, true there
were instances where the jewish population was accorded, for a time, some
civility, but by in large, they were harrassed and expelled from nearly
every mideaval state.  

I would like to be able to site direct reference, but after one move too
many, my library is scrambled and I could not put my hands on the right
volume "An Atlas of Jewish History"  or something like it I found at
Pennsic last year.  I shall keep looking, but wanted to put my two pence
in.

I view the general treatment of the jews during the middle ages a little
like the Society views the plague, we accept that it happened, but try to
remember that we are trying to work towards the IDEALS of chivalry, if not
the actual reality that it manifested itself as.  

Another jewish meadievalist
Murighen

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