Teacher’s Guide to AP European History DBQ
Anti-Semitism in the 15th through the 18th Centuries
This DBQ asks students to discuss attitudes about and the treatment of Jews in Europe during a period of three centuries. Students should assess differences in treatment between Eastern and Western Europe, and changes in attitudes and treatment over time.
The documents reflect the following beliefs, attitudes and actions towards Jews in Europe between the 15th and the 18th centuries:
Negative attitudes about Jews:
· Jews are accused of being Christ- killers/anti-Christian/deicides:
(d.3, d.8, d.9).
· Jews are accused of being economically exploitive/usurers:
(d.1, d.3, d.9).
· Jews are believed to be untrustworthy/ treacherous/murderers/child torturers: (d.3, d.5, d.9).
· Jews are alien/ ‘other’/to be shunned and avoided:
(d.1, d.2, d.3, d.4, d.7, d.9, d.10).
Positive attitudes about Jews:
· Jews are to be treated mercifully: (d.2, d.6, d.11).
· Jews are the same as any other human being and should be treated as such: (d.4, d.11, d.12).
Negative treatment of Jews:
· Jews are marked as different: (d.1, d.6).
· Jews are (or should be) expelled/excluded/confined to ghettos/separated: (d.2, d.3, d.7, d.10).
· Jews have (or should have) their religious, civil, legal, political, and economic rights curtailed and their movements restricted:
(d.2, d.3, d.6, d.7, d.10).
· Jews are (or should be) enslaved, killed, their property destroyed:
(d.2, d.3, d.5).
Positive treatment of Jews:
· Jews enjoy (or should enjoy) the same rights and protections as all other citizens :( d.4, d.6, d.11, d.12)
Students should recognize that over time, mainly as a result of the Enlightenment, attitudes towards and treatment of Jews improved and liberalized in Europe. Jews were no longer marked, Jews had fewer restrictions on their freedom of movement, (at least in Western Europe), and, although often decried as in d.9, their economic, social and political rights had increased.
Notes on Documents:
Document 1: It may surprise students to learn that Hitler was not original in requiring Jews to wear distinctive markings in public. Starting with a Papal decree in 1215 and lasting well into the 17th century in some places, Jews were marked out from the rest of the populace by round yellow badges on their outer clothing, seen in the picture on the left, and/or specially shaped hats, shown at right. Note, too, that the Jewish man on the left holds two attributes commonly associated with anti-Semitism- the money bag and bulbs of garlic.
Document 2: Since this document references an event well covered in AP European History- the expulsion/ forced conversion of the Jews by Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain in 1492 - it should be well understood by students. It is interesting because it offers some information that students will not know- that Jews who were forced out of Spain because they refused to convert were well treated in Italy, and that Jews who fled to Portugal were victimized. This document should be grouped with d.6, also commenting on the liberality of the Italians. Of course, POV will be important in this document, since the account is from an Italian Jew who may be giving an overly favorable view of his fellow countrymen.
Document 3: This document may be well known to many students as versions of it exist in many document sourcebooks. While the excerpt does not explain why Luther was such a virulent anti-Semite, students may bring in their outside knowledge that he was disgusted with Jews because they would not see the theological ‘correctness’ of acknowledging Jesus as the messiah. Note that Luther calls for a full scale pogrom against Jews including the age-old persecution of burning.
Document 4: Students may have difficulty figuring out how to interpret this document and working it into their essays. While historians are not in agreement about whether Shakespeare’s Shylock is an anti-Semitic portrayal, this excerpt, referring to Shylock’s determination to extract his ‘pound of flesh’ from his enemy, does seem to indicate that Shakespeare wanted to emphasize the common humanity of Jews. This document may be used by students in a grouping that includes d.2, d.6, d.11, and d.12, proving that some European Christians were not antisemites. It is interesting to note that during Shakespeare’s lifetime there were no openly observant Jews in England and thus his character Shylock can only have been drawn from stereotypical ideas about Jews and not from Shakespeare’s personal experience of coming into contact with Jews. Jews had been expelled from England in the 13th century and were not invited back until, as Lord Protector, Cromwell did so in the late 17th century.
Document 5: Most students will not be familiar with the ‘Lopez Plot’, but they may comment on the fact that Elizabeth had a (nominally) Jewish physician in a Europe where Jews were commonly isolated from the Christian community
(see d.7, d.10). This document supports the idea that Christians believed Jews were treacherous and untrustworthy, even if, perhaps especially if, they had converted and became Marranos. Note that because of the expulsion of Jews from England in the 13th century, Elizabeth’s physician would not have been able to live in England unless as a convert- a Marrano.
Document 6: The Medici name will be familiar to students and they may comment on the generosity and magnanimity of Cosimo II towards Jews linking this document to d.2. More sophisticated students will recognize, however, that implicit in this document is the fact that in the 1600’s in supposedly ‘liberal’ Italy, Jews were still routinely marked and their movements restricted, and that Cosimo’s liberality extended only to this single talented Jew and his traveling companion.
Document 7: These two documents refer to the physical exclusion of Jews from European town life- literally made outsiders by being confined to a certain street outside the protection of the city walls, and expelled when civil disturbance occurred. This was a routine occurrence for Jews throughout the Middle Ages and well into the 17th century. This particular expulsion occurred after riots that were led by a non-Jewish craftsman, Vincent Fettmilch, who was opposed to Jewish commercial connections to the wealthy merchants and wanted the Jews expelled from Frankfurt. After the arrest and execution of Fettmilch in 1616, the Jews of Frankfurt were brought back ceremoniously. The emperor's coat of arms was nailed to the entrance gate as a sign of protection, but the community was not allowed to expand again beyond 500 families.
Document 8: Most students will recognize the author of this document, and it is included to show how many famous figures in European history were notorious anti-Semites. It also succinctly addresses one of the major Christian accusations against Jews- that of Deicide.
Document 9: In this document students should recognize that blatant economic jealousy motivates the Catholic Church in its charge that Jews are the economic exploiters of Christians. What should also be noted is that at the height of the Enlightenment, the encyclical implicitly asserts that Jews are inferior, (‘Jews flaunt authority over Christians’, ‘Jews fearlessly keep Christians as their domestics’), and they are to be shunned (‘It is commonplace for Jews and Christians to intermingle’). What is implicitly clear from this document is that the lives of Jews had improved substantially by 1751: they were competing economically with Christians, had risen socially to the point that they could employ Christian servants or hold positions of high authority in Christian households, and wielded some political power as shown by their collection of public revenue. The charge that Jews are trying to take control over and destroy Christians is the precursor of Nazi propaganda to the same effect.
Document 10: This map shows the same phenomenon as d.7, but on a national scale- the confinement of Jews to a particular part of the country and their exclusion from the commercial, legal, political and civil life of the nation. This is ghettoization on a massive scale.
Document 11: This document, by a recognizable Enlightenment figure well associated with religious tolerance, supports the idea that the Enlightenment did bring positive changes for the Jews of Western Europe at least. It is a typically sharp witted, provocative pronouncement by Voltaire. It is interesting that in his metaphorical and rhetorical question, Voltaire hints at the common fate of the Jews since the Middle Ages: expulsion (‘torn up by the roots’), and destruction by fire (see d.3).
Document 12: This is the companion piece to the previous document, showing the French revolutionaries at the forefront of the emancipation of the Jews of Europe.
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