Yellow ring
The yellow ring was a mandatory marking for Jews in the Middle Ages . Other names, depending on the design, are Judenring , Judenkreis , Gelber Fleck or Rouelle (French for "disc"). Since the 13th century, Jews in many countries and regions of Europe have had to wear a piece of cloth in a circle, ring or rectangle shape - usually at chest height - on their clothing.
This was part of a legislation by the ecclesiastical and secular rulers aimed at marginalizing and discriminating against Jews . The Judenring is considered to be the forerunner of the Jewish star from the time of National Socialism .
history
Similar dress codes for religious minorities had been common in Islam for dhimmis - “subjects under protection” - from the early 8th century . They affected Jews and Christians. This labeling requirement began in 717 with an order from Caliph Umar II. The type of label was initially not fixed and varied. In 807 caliph Hārūn ar-Raschīd ordered a yellow belt for Jews and a blue belt for Christians in Persia . In other Islamic countries it was necklaces and different colored shoes.
The oldest evidence of a special dress code for Jews in Europe can be found in Sicily . Just a few years after the Muslim conquest of the Mediterranean island began in 827, the new Muslim rulers issued corresponding ordinances, which at that time were also directed against the Christians.
In occidental color symbolism, the color yellow - in contrast to the very similar gold - had a predominantly negative connotation and stood for sins such as greed, envy, and arrogance. Yellowish horses were considered inferior by knights.
At the 4th Lateran Council , 1215 under Pope Innocent III. , a whole series of restrictive provisions, including special symbols to identify people of different faiths (Canon 68), was adopted.
"Jews and Saracens of both sexes in every Christian province and at all times should be distinguished from other peoples in the eyes of the public by the way they dress."
Thus, the already existing practice of marking certain outsiders (above all lepers) with clothing accessories was officially demanded everywhere for non-Christian religious minorities. The existing custom of discriminating clothing for social groups became mandatory for Jews and Muslims. How the required signs had to look should be regulated regionally, so that very different Jewish signs subsequently developed. In Germany it was initially the Jewish hat , a conical or hemispherical hat with a wide, flat brim and a knob on the top. This was a common costume for Jewish men from the 11th to the 15th centuries. Since the middle of the 15th century, a yellow or red ring or stain has mostly prevailed in Germany and the rest of Europe.
The ecclesiastical regulations needed the support of the respective secular rulers for their implementation, but the majority remained withheld for a long time. The church demands for labeling have been renewed again and again at numerous provincial synods . Only in the 15th century, when Western society increasingly saw itself as a primarily Christian society (in which people of different faiths were at best tolerated, but the majority were expelled), relevant regulations were increasingly issued by secular sources, so that the identification of Jews in Europe largely prevailed. However, it was still possible for the Jewish upper class to be freed from the obligation to wear the Jewish emblem by acquiring the appropriate privileges. In 1551 King Ferdinand I reaffirmed the requirement of the Jewish ring for the Austrian hereditary lands. In 1583, the imperial city of Speyer specified exact dimensions for it.
On pictorial representations of Jews, earlier sculptures such as the Judensau and wall paintings, later also pamphlets and illustrated block books, both the Jewish hat and the Jewish ring can be recognized from the early 13th to the 17th century. Written documents often report alleged crimes committed by Jews. The " Jewish costume " appears in many stage plays and comedies of the 16th century as a mockery and recognition sign.
Time table for dress codes
Islam
- 807: The Abbasid caliph Hārūn ar-Raschīd orders a yellow belt for Jews and a blue belt for Christians.
- 853: Caliph al-Mutawakkil of Persia issues a corresponding edict .
- 887: Jews and Christians are subjected to a special dress code in the Muslim conquered Sicily.
- 1005: Fatimid al-Hakim obliges Jews in Egypt and Palestine to wear bells on their belts and wooden "gold chains" around their necks.
- 1121: A letter from Baghdad describes the Jewish dress code there: “[…] two yellow belts, one around the head, the other around the neck. Furthermore, every Jew has to hang a piece of leather on his neck with the word dhimmi on it. He must also wear a belt around his waist. The women have to wear a red and a black shoe and a small bell on their necks or shoes. "
- 1301: In Islamic countries Jews have to wear yellow turbans .
- 1315–1326: Emir Ismael Abu-I-Walid forces the Jews of Granada to wear the yellow mark.
Christianity
- 12th century: The conical Jewish hat becomes common in Germany.
- 1215: The Fourth Lateran Council demands distinctive signs for Jews and Muslims.
- 1219: Pope Honorius III. issues a special dress code for the Jews of Castile .
- 1222: The Archbishop of Canterbury , Stephen Langton , orders that English Jews wear a white ribbon, later a yellow one.
- 1228: King James I orders the Jews of Aragon to wear the yellow belt.
- 1267: The Provincial Council of Vienna demands that Jews wear a specially shaped "horned" hat (pileum cornutum) .
- 1269: Louis IX. of France issues a dress code for Jews in his country with reference to the 4th Lateran Council. Jewish men had to wear a circular disc, the rouelle , on their chest, while Jewish women had to wear a special hood. The marking served the implementation of an edict of 1252, which expelled all Jews from France who were not baptized into Christians or who did not buy themselves out for a certain amount. Jews found publicly without their clothing tags were fined ten pieces of silver.
- 1274: Edward I of England tightened the decree. The yellow spot in the form of Moses' tablets of the law must be worn over the heart of every Jew from the age of seven.
- 1279: In the church council of Buda the wearing of the Jewish ring is prescribed. However, following the objection of the Hungarian king, this provision is not applied consistently.
- 1294: In Erfurt the yellow spot is mentioned for the first time in Germany.
- 1321: Henry II of Castile forces Jews to wear the yellow spot.
- 1415: The antipope Benedict XIII. imposes the Bull of Avignon . Jews must wear a yellow or red patch, men on their chests, women on their veils.
- 1434: Emperor Sigismund reintroduces the yellow spot in Augsburg at the request of the city and according to the corresponding demands of the Basel Council of the same year .
- 1528: The Senate of Venice allows the famous doctor Jakob Mantino ben Samuel to wear the regular doctoral hat instead of the yellow Jewish hat for two months. The deadline was later extended on the recommendation of the English and French ambassadors, as well as the papal legate and other prominent patients of the doctor.
- 1555: Pope Paul IV. Decreed that the Papal States blue-based Jews must wear hats (!).
- 1566: Pope Pius V confirms that Jews are required to be labeled with a yellow sign on their outer clothing. King Sigismund II August signs a law imposing yellow hats and headgear on the Jews of Lithuania . Twenty years later the law was repealed.
- 1775: Pope Pius VI. arranged in the decree for Jews (paragraphs 17 and 18) with respect to the adoption of 1566 Pope a specific and detailed dress code for Jews of the church state to. The edict was repealed in 1797 as a result of the French Revolution .
time of the nationalsocialism
Even the Nazi propaganda during the Weimar Republic , such as the smear newspaper Der Stürmer , resorted to stereotypes of Christian anti-Judaism to portray Jews externally as a repulsive alien race . In view of the persecution of Jews since 1933, Lion Feuchtwanger published a collection of newspaper reports on acts of violence against Jews in 1936 under the title The Yellow Spot .
During the Second World War , the Nazi authorities introduced compulsory identification for Jews in the occupied territories. First of all, regulations were enacted after the attack on Poland in occupied areas of Poland , since the beginning of the Russian campaign in conquered areas of the Soviet Union and from September 1, 1941 in the German Reich itself. These decrees only marked the end of numerous measures of exclusion and persecution against Jews and the start of their deportations to Eastern European ghettos and extermination camps . In most of the countries conquered by the German Reich , Jews had to wear such identification marks when threatened with the death penalty . In the Generalgouvernement these consisted of a white bracelet or a round piece of fabric with a blue contoured Star of David ; in other German-occupied areas and in the " Altreich " from the yellow Star of David made up of two overlapping triangles on a black background. This was a visible expression of the inhuman anti-Semitism and racism of the Nazi ideology , which prepared the “ final solution to the Jewish question ”.
See also
literature
- Wolfgang Osiander: Yellow spot, yellow ring, yellow star. Clothing regulations and marks for Jews from the Middle Ages to National Socialism. In: Learn history , ISSN 0933-3096 , issue 80, 2001, p. 26 f.
- Jens J. Scheiner : From the “Yellow Patch” to the “Jewish Star”? Genesis and application of Jewish badges in Islam and Christian Europe (841–1941). Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 3-631-52553-2 .
- Davide Abulafia: La comunità di Sicilia dagli arabi all'espulsione (1493), in: Storia d'Italia. Gli Ebrei in Italia, ed. By C. VIVANTI, Torino 1996 (Annali 11). Einaudi, Torino 1997, ISBN 978-88-06-13036-7 , pp. 45-62.