There are two things that make this a difficult question to answer.
The first is that the exact imperial policy tended to change depending
on who the emperor was, and the second is that from the vantage point of
the twenty-first century medieval attitudes toward Judaism- even the
most “enlightened”- can look pretty barbaric.
Generally speaking,
however, we can say that Jews were more accepted in the Byzantine Empire
than in the West. There were the occasional hostilities, but no
systematic persecutions or mass expulsions like those common in Western
Europe at the time.
Theodosius I officially recognized Judaism as a lawful religion, but
forbade intermarriage with Christians and barred Jews from the civil
service and the military. Theodosius II extended the ban to all public
offices both civilian and military- with the notable exception of the
office of decurion (tax collectors). Jews who circumcised
non-Jews were exiled, and conversion to Judaism was technically illegal
(although apostate Jews were allowed to leave Christianity for their
former faith). They were also allowed to own Christian slaves- and pass
them to their children- but not to purchase new ones. Justinian
(trying to eradicate all religious divisions- including heretics,
pagans, and Jews) banned the construction of any new synagogues and
ordered all existing ones to be converted to churches. These draconian
measures, however, had little real effect. There is only one recorded
instance of this (sort of) happening – in North Africa a synagogue on
the Berber frontier was converted to a barracks for military reasons-
and archaeological evidence suggests that these official decrees had
little sway over synagogue building in Palestine.
This gap between instructions coming out of Constantinople and
follow-through in the territories was probably true through most of
imperial history. The fact that Justinian felt the need to specifically
forbid Jews from holding public office- a law which had already been on
the books for over two centuries- suggests that the imperial edicts
were either unenforced or unenforceable.
This kind of de jure restriction and de facto
toleration didn’t inspire much loyalty from Byzantine Jews. In 556
there were riots in Caesarea serious enough to kill the governor, in 608
the Patriarch of Antioch was seized and dragged through the streets by
the local Jewish population, and in 614 the Jews of Jerusalem sided with
the invading Persians and participated in the wholesale slaughter of
their Christian neighbors. When a Jewish leader was asked why he had
participated he responded with the answer: ‘because these Christians are
the enemies of my faith’. Clearly the ill-will cut both ways.
Despite these occasional outbursts on both sides, the centuries after
Justinian were characterized by marked toleration- probably because the
empire was fighting for its life. In the six hundred years between the
reigns of Justin II (565) and Alexius IV Angelus (1204) there were only
four exceptions. Heraclius ordered the forced baptism of all Jews in
the empire, as did Leo III, Basil I, and John Tzimiskes. Together they
made up about 50 years of official “persecution” although by all
accounts there was virtually no attempt to actually enforce it other
than a few symbolic acts.
In fact, Jewish ancestry doesn’t seem to have been particularly troublesome for a man on the rise. One 9th
century Byzantine Emperor (Michael II) had Jewish grandparents and grew
up in a mixed household that retained many Jewish customs. Though
called the “Amorian” (ie from the city of Amorium) he was the probable
ancestor of the Leo the Wise and was therefore the true founder of the
Macedonian Dynasty- the most brilliant family that the empire ever
produced.
The CardoPart of the Old City's Jewish Quarter, the Cardo is the reconstructed main street of Byzantine Jerusalem from the 6th century. source |
By 1176, the rabbi and traveler Benjamin of Tudela reported that
there were about 2,500 Jews living in Constantinople, most involved in
manufacturing silk or other mercantile activities. They were restricted
to the Pera quarter of the city, but were generally treated with
respect. Quite a few of them were wealthy and one even served as the
current emperor’s personal physician.
The fourth Crusade was a catastrophe for Jews and Orthodox alike, but
the Byzantine reconquest of the city in 1261 was a particular boon to
the Jewish community. The emperors Michael VIII and his son Andronicus
II were even condemned by the Patriarch of Alexandria for their
“excessive toleration of the Jews”- probably because they didn’t enforce
ghettoization and allowed Jews to live among Christians. By the 14th
century the empire was in an advanced state of decay and forced to give
foreigners- particularly Venetians- special privileges. Many of the
remaining Jews in Constantinople purchased Venetian citizenship and
benefited from a more favorable tax structure and greater trading
rights. Ironically enough for an empire that had at one time attempted
to convert its Jewish population, by 1453 the Jews in Constantinople
probably had a broader set of rights than their Christian neighbors.
Of course that was only by virtue of their Venetian citizenship, but
as any of their ancestors could have pointed out, much better to have
rights for the wrong reasons than to have no rights at all.
Ok and you are welcome too.
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