Medieval Discrimination And Ill Treatment Of Jews

Essay, Research Paper

Medieval Discrimination and Ill Treatment of Jews

In the later part of the thirteenth century, a stable northern European society began to deteriorate due to widespread inflation and famine. As disease rapidly spread throughout Europe, pessimism and paranoia spread quickly among the people. Starved and fearful people began to look for a cause for all of the tragedies unfolding around them. Many Christians turned their anger towards the Jews. The Jewish people that were living in northern Europe took the brunt of the anger of the Christian society and were soon abused by them as a result. Their resentment and anger was also partly caused by the Jew s refusal over the past few centuries to convert to Christianity and abandon Judaism. The Jews had been treated unfairly for centuries because of their refusal to convert, but as new problems struck Europe the Christians resorted to heavy taxing, beating, and even killing of the Jews. The Christians justified these torturous acts because they believed that the Jews were poisoning Christian water supplies.

Jews from England, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, and Bohemia were given an ultimatum: conversion or expulsion. The Christian church firmly believed that it was the duty of true believers to save people of differing faiths from hell by having then convert to Christianity. This was the reason for their continual attempts to convert the Jews to their own faith. When Jews from France refused in 1306 to convert to Christianity, they were expelled from the country. This happened in many countries because the Jews refused to abandon their own faith in Judaism. Overall, the Jews suffered numerous injustices by the Christians because the Christians blamed them for the problems in Europe and believed that their own faith was superior to Judaism.