Anti-Jewish Motifs in the poetry of blessed Władysław of Gielniów (c. 1440-1505) (original) (raw)

As Majer Balaban wrote, “the period of Wladyslaw Jagiello’s reign was not the happiest for the Jews in Cracow and for the Polish Jews in general.” In Western Europe, the persecution of Jews intensified in the second half of the fifteenth century and the news of it, together with the hostile attitudes, were increasingly pervading Poland, which had hitherto been relatively tolerant to the Jews. The impact of western atrocities and the anti-Jewish writings of Christian authors led also in Poland to accusations against the Jews for desecrating the host (Poznan, 1399), so the kings started to refuse or to take back privileges. Accusations of host desecration were a common pretext for massacres and expulsions throughout the Middle Ages. Jewish bankers and usurers had been earning their living that way almost from the eleventh century onwards. It is known that there were twenty Jews lending at interest in Cracow in the fourteenth century, and later this number grew. Not only townsmen and n...