Reformation

Martin Luther

The Counter Reformation

The Establishment of Ghettos

The Reformation during the sixteenth century refers to the movement in Western Christianity to purge the Church of abuses that developed during the Middle Ages. The Reformation sought to restore the doctrines and practices of the Church to conform with the Bible and New Testament of early Christianity. The movement led to a split between the Roman Catholic Church opposed to the reforms of the sixteenth century and the Reformers that came to be known as Protestants. Protestantism took many forms: Anglicans in Great Britain, Huguenots in France, Lutherans in Germany and Calvinists in Switzerland.

See also Reformation Europe for original writings by Protestants and Reformers.

Image: Kissing the Feet of the Pope, Reformation illustration used by Martin Luther.

Martin Luther

In 1517, Martin Luther attacked the Church for calling for a Reformation that would restore Christianity to its purist form. Luther’s act led to a schism in Christianity with the followers of Luther separating from Christians who continued to follow the Pope and the Papal States. At first, Luther thought Jews would convert to Lutheranism, but by 1543 he realized this would not happen and unleashed harsh vituperations against Jews.

There has been a great deal of research on the transformation of Luther’s attitude toward the Jews. Part of the reason for the dramatic changes lies in his disappointment that Jews failed to convert to Lutheranism. It is also important to consider that in the 1520’s and 1530’s Luther witnessed peasant rebellions and realized that the power of secular authorities was the only way to suppress the violence and chaos. Hence, Luther’s idealism of 1517 was tempered by the political realities of the sixteenth century. Moreover, as Luther grew older, he became increasingly obsessed with the notion that the Devil threatened him constantly. His association of Jews with the Devil heightened his anti-Jewish attitudes.

Painting: Martin Luther.

Image: Martin Luther's triumph over the monk's devil. From Mattheus Gnidius' "Dialogi", a Reform pamphlet against the Papists, Murner and Weddel, Germany, 1521.

Image: Title page of the most virulent of Martin Luther's antisemitic pamphlets, "On The Jews and Their Lies."

. . .In truth, the Jews, being foreigners, should possess nothing, and what they do possess should be ours. For they do not work, and we do not give them presents. Nonetheless, they keep our money and our goods and have become our masters in our own country and in their Dispersion. When a thief steals ten guldens, he is hanged; but when a Jew steals ten barrels of gold through his usury, he is prouder than the Lord himself! He boasts of it and strengthens his faith and his hatred of us, and thinks: ‘See how the Lord does not abandon His people in the Dispersion. We do not work, we are idle, and we pass the time pleasantly; the cursed goyim must work for us, and we have their money: thus we are their lords and they our servants!’

To this day we still do not know what devil brought them into our country; surely we did not go to seek them out in Jerusalem!

No one wants them. The countryside and the roads are open to them; they may return to their country when they wish; we shall gladly give them presents to get rid of them, for they are a heavy burden on us, a scourge, a pestilence and misfortune for our country. This is proved by the fact they they have often been expelled by force: from France (which they call Tsarpath), where they had a downy nest; recently from Spain, (which they call Sepharad), their chosen roost; and even this year from Bohemia, where, in Prague, they had another cherished nest; finally, in my own lifetime, from Ratisbon [Regensburg], Madgeburg, and from many other places. . . .

Image: Jews being burned in 1493.

. . .In the first place, their synagogues should be burned down and what does not burn must be covered with mud. This must be done for the honor of God and Christianity, so that God may see that we are Christians and we have not simply tolerated or approved that His Son and His Christians have been subjected to lies, curses, and slander.

In the second place, their houses should be pulled down and destroyed. They must be housed in stables like gypsies, so that they realize they are not masters in our country, as they proudly say, but unfortunate prisoners, so they will complain to God continuously.

Third, their books should be taken from them. Fourth, rabbis should be forbidden to give any more lessons on pain of death. Fifth, they should not be allowed to move around freely. Let them stay home. Sixth, they should no longer be allowed to charge interest. The money that is taken from them should be spent to help Jews who agree to be baptized. Seventh, they should be put to work.

Painting: Book burning by the Catholic Church was common. The painting on the left depicts Saint Dominic conducting a book burning in 1207, in Albi, France, when the Saint proves to the heretics that their books containing heretic ideas do not pass the trial by fire while the Catholic books fly up from the bonfire undamaged. St. Dominic and the Albigenses, was created by Pedro Berruguete in 1480 and is now owned by the Prado Museum in Madrid.

Image: Late fifteenth century image from Frankfurt-Main accusing Jews of engaging in ritual murder, bestality and associating with the Devil.

When Judas hanged himself and his bowels gushed forth, and, as happens in such cases, his bladder also burst, the Jews were ready to catch the Judas-water and the other precious things, and then they gorged and swilled on the merd among themselves, and were thereby endowed with such a keenness of sight that they can perceive glosses in the Scriptures such as neither Matthew nor Isaiah himself . . .would be able to detect; or perhaps they looked into the loin of their God “Shed,” and found these things written in that smokehole. . . .

The Devil has eased himself and emptied his belly again—that is a real halidom for Jews and would-be Jews, to kiss, batten on, swill and adore; and then the Devil in his turn also devours and swills what these good pupils spue and eject from above and below. . . .

The Devil, with his angelic snout, devours what exudes from the oral and anal apertures of the Jews; this is indeed his favorite dish, on which he battens like a sow behind the hedge. . .

Malcolm Hay, Europe and the Jews, p. 168.

Painting: John Calvin.

The Catholic Church struck back at the Reformation with the Counter Reformation. The Church denounced all forms of heresy—Protestantism and Judaism. As part of the effort to reassert the supremacy of the Church, Jews in the Papal States were compelled to convert to Christianity or go into restricted areas known as ghettos.

Painting: Christ Cleansing the Temple, El Greco. 1570. Wood, 25 3/4 x 32 3/4". National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Map: Map of the Religious Division of Europe in the Late 16th Century (Modern History Sourcebook).

The Establishment of Ghettos

A ghetto is a part of a city that is set apart. In the ancient world, Jews often lived voluntarily in their own segregated sections. By the Middle Ages, cities were designating areas for Jews to live apart from the rest of the community. By the end of the thirteenth century, cities—such as Frankfurt, Speyer, Worms, Regensburg and Nurnberg—were setting aside areas for Jews. By the fourteenth century cities in Poland restricted Jews to their own sections, and in 1516 Venice required Jews to settle in their own district.

However, it was during the Counter Reformation of the sixteenth century that the segregation of Jews became oppressive. Pope Paul IV issued a bull on July 12, 1555 setting forth requirements for Jews in their district of Rome. Gates of the area were bolted between sunrise and sunset. Jews were required to build the walls and gates of the ghetto, and Jewish families lived in crammed, unsanitary conditions that bred disease. Other Italian cities—Florence, Mantua, Padua—followed the Roman example, establishing crowded, unhealthy ghetto areas for their Jewish population.

Photo: In 1516 the Venetian government established Italy's first ghetto packing in about 700 people on one of Venice's 117 small islands. View photos of Venetian Ghetto.

Map: Areas of expulsion and resettlement. Courtesy of A Teachers Guide to the Holocaust.

The historian, Robert Melson, aptly sums up the situation for European Jews from the period of the Crusades into the nineteenth century. Many of the regulations that Melson mentions were tightened and increased during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as the Counter Reformation sought to strengthen the arm of Catholicism and the Papacy in Europe.

Image: Pope Paul IV.

Following the crusades the Church formulated a set of canonical statutes that in effect forcefully segregated and further degraded Jews. In the past, Jews had lived in their own compact neighborhoods both for reasons of religion and ethnic solidarity. The notion that Jews had to live segregated lives—usually in the most decrepit areas of the towns—and were prohibited from living among Christians first appeared in the Third Lateran Council (1179). Measures were passed in the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) and further elaborated in the Council of Basel (1434) that required the Jews to wear distinctive clothes, a conical hat, a “Jew badge,” and a yellow circle symbolic of their betraying Christ for gold.

In 1555 Pope Paul IV, in his bull Cum nimis absurdum, put into effect statutes segregating the Jews and compelled them to live in their own ghetto (a term borrowed from Venetian practice) on the left bank of the Tiber. The practice spread, and throughout many parts of Europe Jews came to be immured behind ghetto walls—a condition that they endured until the nineteenth century and that was renewed by the Nazis. . . .Powerless, segregated, circumscribed to despised occupations, stigmatized and demonized, the Western European Jew had become a pariah in practice as well as in theory.

Robert Melson, Revolution and Genocide, pp. 83-4.

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