Empires often ground their rising dominance in ideology, religion, or both. Thus the Spanish Empire of the sixteenth century conceived of itself as the ultimate bastion of Christianity; its destiny was to bring the word of Jesus to the world as well as to defend Europe against Protestants and other heretics from within and against Ottomans from outside its borders.Footnote 1 In theory, the Jews were not a concern because they had been expelled in 1492. However, the small Jewish community of Milan would prove to be a thorny challenge that forced King Philip II of Spain to balance a mighty religious ideology with compelling political and economic concerns.
Philip II became the Duke of Milan in 1544 but did not raise the specter of expulsion until 1566, decreed it only in 1590, and carried it out in 1597—a year before his death, at the end of a protracted power struggle between local Italian authorities and Spanish imperial powers. Although the king may have favored expulsion all along, it was a divisive issue: the two most important towns of the state, Pavia and Cremona, tirelessly pushed for the Jews to leave, whereas the Milanese senate and the Spanish governor protected the Jews. Moreover, everyone along the chain of command that extended from small town councils in the Italian countryside to the highest spheres of power in Madrid weighed in at some point during the process. Philip's need to adjudicate between competing claims among groups of elites both constrained and constituted what we call “Philip's” policy. The story of the Jews of Milan, therefore, provides an important perspective on the fluctuating boundaries of imperial powers in distant territories resistant to accepting them.
That Philip II found himself in a position to decide the Milanese Jews’ fate in the first place was a result of the tangled legacy of early modern state formation. A casualty of the Franco-German wars of the sixteenth century, the duchy of Milan became part of the Habsburg Empire of Charles V in 1535. When Philip II succeeded his father, Charles V, in 1556, the duchy was integrated into the Spanish Empire. A governor was appointed to represent the king, while Milan's interests were conveyed at the royal court in Madrid by the Council of Italy.Footnote 2 Thus Philip II of Spain, one of the most powerful rulers of his time and a fervent Catholic, accidentally became the lord of a small community of Jews and for the first time, perhaps, since 1492, an Iberian monarch needed to decide whether to devise a Spanish Jewish policy.
Historians investigating the 1597 expulsion have looked to Philip II himself for an explanation; in particular they have examined his own anti-Jewish feelings, his desire to appease local anti-Jewish sentiments, or both. For instance, in his biography of Philip II, Geoffrey Parker argued that “Philip had always been anti-Semitic… The king heartily approved of his father's action in expelling the Jews from Naples (in 1544) and desired to follow his example with the nine hundred or so Jews living in Lombardy.”Footnote 3 Taking a more balanced approach, Renata Segre and Shlomo Simonsohn argued that a combination of local animosity against the Jews in Italy and Philip's own anti-Judaism motivated the expulsion.Footnote 4 But these arguments do not provide a satisfying explanation for Philip's complex Jewish policies. After all, he accepted Jewish communities in Spanish North Africa and expelled Milan's Jews only at the very end of his long reign, after several decades during which he, along with Spanish and Italian officials and the Jews themselves, paid regular attention to the issue.Footnote 5
Indeed, the king's notes and letters show that the Jews of Milan commanded the Spanish monarch's attention to a surprising degree. He ruled an empire that extended from the Americas to the Philippines, but took the time to weigh in on the fate of a small, marginal population (census numbers reveal that in all of Milan's territory there were never more than a thousand Jews). Local issues were regularly discussed by the senators in Milan, but only the most important ones reached Philip II in Madrid. The situation of Milan's Jews, for reasons beyond the Jews’ control, raised fundamental questions about the hierarchy of principles that governed Spanish rule in conquered lands. Italians, in compliance with papal doctrine, generally tolerated Jews, whereas Spanish law mandated their expulsion; the empire's religious ideology collided with economic arguments in support of the Jews’ presence; and the king needed to decide when and how to intervene in far-flung power struggles. Furthermore, the status of the Jews in Europe was in flux at the time and debated in many a European capital. Based on the mercantilist argument that the Jews’ expertise in commerce and finance would benefit their economies, some countries that had previously expelled the Jews readmitted them. Jonathan Israel has noted the simultaneous re-entry of Jews into the Czech lands, Italy, Germany, France, and the Netherlands.Footnote 6 Despite its distinct features, the Spanish debate on Milan's Jews occurred during a time of broader discussions on the status of the Jews across Europe.
For older expulsions (including the one from Spain in 1492) historians have little direct documentation other than the edicts of expulsion themselves.Footnote 7 In Milan's case, however, everyone who had a stake in the fate of the Jews wrote to the king of Spain, demanding expulsion or arguing against it. Thirty years of discussion between Philip and his advisors in Spain and Italy left an extensive paper trail that sheds light on the motives and factors that spurred the expulsion. Archives in Italy and Spain contain much of this material, which includes reports to the king from the Milanese senate and governor, the king's replies (sometimes penned in his own hand), letters and memos from Italian and Spanish officials at all levels, and letters from leaders of Jewish communities.
In addition to the archival material, there are two Hebrew narrations of the events. Both are found in the same book: Sefer ‘emek ha-bakha (The Vale of Tears) by Joseph ha-Kohen, a historian and doctor of Sephardic origin living in the Republic of Genoa, whose parents had been expelled from Spain in 1492. Joseph ha-Kohen had close links to Milanese Jewry and knew its leadership personally. He concluded his chronicle, ‘Emek ha-bakha, in 1575, around the time he died, whereupon an anonymous author, who called himself the “Corrector,” took over and told the story of Milanese Jews up to their expulsion.Footnote 8 In contrast to Joseph ha-Kohen, the Corrector was an Ashkenazic Jew born in Lodi in the duchy of Milan, where he resided until the expulsion of 1597, whereupon he moved to Vercelli and finally Monferrato. Monferrato is also where Joseph ha-Kohen lived in 1575–6, the last year of his life. Based on biographical information provided by the Corrector, it appears that he revised the ‘Emek around 1600. But because the Corrector backtracked and started his narration in 1566, there are two Hebrew accounts in the chronicle that relate the early events that led to the expulsion.
The surviving material, thus, offers a multifaceted picture of the Jews’ expulsion from Milan that balances Philip II's personal influence and motivations against the impact of multilayered conflicts between and across Jewish and Christian societies in Italy and Spain. The king's administrative style was cryptic: he asked many questions and ordered newer and deeper investigation from an ever-growing group of advisors, but rarely divulged his own thinking. Philip II's empire was a typical example of what John Elliott has called “composite monarchies,” a patchwork of adjoined territories with their own traditions and ruling elites rather than a fully integrated empire.Footnote 9 As king, he governed it with the help of an enormous bureaucracy, superimposed on local administrations that predated Spanish rule.Footnote 10 Even though all Spanish officials eventually reported to the monarch, their individual power varied considerably—as did the degrees of cooperation or resistance of the territories’ ruling elites. Thus the government of the Spanish Empire was an “intricate quadrille”: the king needed great political know-how if he wanted to accomplish anything other than by brute force, and local aristocracies walked a fine line between maintaining their independence and cultivating good relations with their powerful, feared Spanish overlords.Footnote 11
Jewish Life in Spanish Milan
The duchy of Milan—the peninsula's largest inland state—was home to a predominantly Ashkenazic Jewish population.Footnote 12 Jews lived in towns and cities across the duchy, but did not receive permission to settle in the city of Milan itself. Although agriculture in the fertile Po Valley formed the base of Milan's economy, the Jews’ primary means of sustenance was moneylending. Nearly all of the Jews’ early residency permits (called condotte) were granted for the purpose of establishing banks; in 1533, Francesco Sforza invoked moneylending to justify the Jews’ presence in his duchy.Footnote 13 The major centers of Jewish life in Milan were Cremona, Pavia, Lodi, Alessandria, and Novara. Cremona counted approximately ten Jewish banks. In Pavia, a Jew named Jacob Levita had operated a large bank since 1527. In 1548, he successfully petitioned Charles V for exclusive lending privileges, but these were ignored by other Jews—so much so that by the late 1550s, the city counted at least seven Jewish banks. Lodi had four or five Jewish banks, while Alessandria and Novara were each dominated by one large Jewish family that ran a bank as its main business (one such family, the Sacerdotis of Alessandria, also traded in arms and grain).
Under Spanish authority, lending remained the mainstay of Milan's Jewish economy; in fact, the Spanish administration encouraged the Jews to engage in what Segre has called a “credit of sustenance” that was intended to give relief and breathing room to the poorest segments of the population.Footnote 14 After the start of the Dutch rebellion in the late 1560s, Jewish banks would also provide welcome relief to the stream of exhausted Spanish soldiers incessantly passing through the duchy.Footnote 15
The Duchy of Milan was not home to a unified Jewish community. No governing central body presided over its scattered groups. Cremona and Pavia had larger Jewish populations but most settlements were small, sometimes consisting of a family or two, or even a single Jew.Footnote 16 Only Cremona's community had a rabbi.Footnote 17 Inasmuch as the expulsion eventually united Milan's Jews, their common fate derived from external politics; they now lived on Philip II's lands and were subject to his laws and the control of his administrators.
Although Milan's Jewry was atypical and small, its encounter with Spain, the most powerful empire of its time, is a particularly compelling case through which to study Spanish imperial policies. In contrast to the Sephardic Jews who had flocked to the large port cities of Italy, often after fleeing the Iberian Peninsula and a life of hidden Judaism, the Jews of Milan were the only openly Jewish community living under Spanish rule in Europe. Numerous Jews lived in Spain's North African possessions, most notably in Oran, but to the extent that there were “Jews” in Spain's European (or, for that matter, American) dominions, they were conversos or crypto-Jews—Jewish converts to Christianity and their descendants, who allegedly continued to practice Judaism in secret.Footnote 18 Although the powerful apparatus of the Inquisition, which Philip supported, was in charge of dealing with the conversos, it had no jurisdiction over Milan's Jews, whose management fell to Spain's regular governmental administration.Footnote 19
Moreover, unlike Sephardic Jews in Ferrara, Venice, Ancona, and Tuscany, who had been invited to take up residence so that they could develop Mediterranean and long-distance trade, Milan's Ashkenazic Jews predated the Habsburg rule and did not play a significant role in Ottoman trade. Because Philip was openly at war with the Turks, Lombardy Jews’ lack of meaningful participation in Levantine trade may have worked in their favor. Still, while it is true that Mediterranean commerce represented one of the Jews’ principal economic activities at the time, the mercantilist logic was not limited to trade: it applied to all activities that benefited the economy of a region.Footnote 20 As small-town moneylenders and pawnshop owners, the Jews of Milan occupied a useful niche in the local economy—one that grew in importance as Spanish soldiers started borrowing from Jews to supplement an unreliable pay schedule.Footnote 21
Initially, Philip seemed rather indifferent to the presence of openly Jewish communities in his lands. Not only did he agree to let Jews live in Milan, in 1557 his governor even granted them a twelve-year condotta.Footnote 22 By contrast, the condotte of Philip's predecessors, Francesco Sforza and Charles V, had covered shorter terms of eight to ten years. Philip's condotta also reinstated the favorable conditions that the Jews had enjoyed since the time of Francesco Sforza II in the 1520s and 1530s, authorizing them to live in the duchy, practice their religion, enjoy communal autonomy, and engage in moneylending and trade, and freeing them from the obligation to wear a yellow badge or hat.Footnote 23 In 1565, however, the town of Pavia asked Philip to expel the Jews from the area, a request that launched a sequence of struggles and negotiations not only between Jews and Christians but also among segments of the Christian leadership—all of which culminated in the expulsion of 1597. Simonsohn, one of the few modern historians to have written about these events, described the decades that followed Pavia's request as hopeless ones for the Jews:
Almost the entire second half of the sixteenth century was taken up with the struggle over the expulsion of the Jews from the Duchy. On one side were the forces of the Church, aided by the mighty Cardinal Borromeo, those of King Philip of Spain and his governors, and some of the communes and towns in which Jews lived, spearheaded by Cremona and Pavia. On the other side were a few hundred Jews—men, women, and children—who somehow managed to resist for half a century the combined efforts of their enemies to expel them.Footnote 24
In fact, the Jews had both enemies and allies. Of the cities and towns under Milanese authority, Cremona and Pavia—with the largest Jewish populations in the duchy—were the strongest proponents of their expulsion. Cremona, a center of Hebrew printing, had been the scene of a large-scale Talmud burning in 1559 from which the Jewish community did not fully recover. In Pavia, home of one of the oldest universities in Europe, the Jews served, among others, a large and rambunctious student population with which they often clashed. In both towns, innumerable allegations against the Jews over the years combined grievances about excessive interest rates with contentions that the presence of Jews was immoral, a danger to Christian society, and displeasing to God.Footnote 25 Yet the Jews also had powerful protectors in the senate of Milan and the Spanish governor of the state.
And, as the ‘Emek ha-bakha reveals, the Jews themselves were not passive actors in their own expulsion drama. Joseph ha-Kohen's narrative begins with a grave accusation that puts Pavia's town council's request to expel the Jews in a wholly different light. The chronicle charges that a German Jew was responsible for setting in motion the events that would eventually lead to the expulsion.
King Philip II wrote to his governor in Milan in those days [1566] that he wished to send the Jews away from the entire territory of Milan. When the Jews heard this, they became very frightened. But all this was caused by the meanness of a German Jew, a wicked man from among those who played a great role in Pavia. His name was Yehuda ben Yaakov Morello. This man tried to expel the other Jews living in Pavia, and thus misfortune came about. All of this I have written down, not according to my judgment, but as it was testified to me by Hayim Cohen ben Samuel of Alessandria. However, the heads of the Jewish Community made presentations to the governor and the senators of Milan, and they were not expelled.Footnote 26
Modern historians have expressed skepticism about ‘Emek ha-bakha’s reliability as a historical source, yet it appears that in discussing events that occurred geographically close to them and during their lifetimes, both Joseph ha-Kohen and his Corrector were fairly well informed.Footnote 27 Much of what they wrote finds support in the archives.Footnote 28 Jacob Morello, also called Jacob Levita, was a wealthy Pavia banker with exclusive lending privileges that his coreligionists largely ignored. He probably hoped an expulsion would eliminate competition from other Jewish lenders, but his actions threated all Milanese Jews.Footnote 29 Joseph ha-Kohen's source, Haim ha-Cohen from Alessandria (or Vitale Sacerdoti, as he was known in Italian) was one of the most distinguished Jews in sixteenth-century Milan. A successful banker like Morello, Vitale Sacerdoti distinguished himself by his work on behalf of the Jewish community and through his special relationship with Philip II (for whom he conducted a series of secret missions in Europe and the Levant).Footnote 30 As one of the Jews who had appeared before the governor and the senate to plead against expulsion, he had first-hand access to information and was a trustworthy source. But unlike Morello, Vitale Sacerdoti and Joseph ha-Kohen were Sephardic Jews. Because internal rivalries regularly flared between the various Jewish groups that populated the peninsula, ha-Kohen's comment about Morello, an Ashkenazi, should be read with skepticism.Footnote 31 Moreover, even if ha-Kohen was right about Morello's actions, they did not, on their own, cause the expulsion. Above all, ha-Kohen's blaming of Morello is instructive for what it reveals about the Jews’ mindset. Although fully aware that the balance of power tilted against them, they did not see themselves as completely powerless and felt they had a measure of control over the events that affected them. Even after Philip promulgated and ordered the expulsion, they believed that it was possible to reverse that decision and worked hard, albeit ultimately in vain, to do so.
1565–90: Discussing the Expulsion
Over the course of thirty years, a three-step pattern emerged. In the early years, Philip did not seem to know what to do with the Jews, but after consulting with a battery of advisors who all emphasized the Jews’ quiet behavior and positive economic contributions, he decided to grant them the right to live in Milan. He then maintained that position for a while, followed by a late-life move toward expulsion.
In May 1565 Philip II informed Cardinal Cristoforo Madruzzo, his interim governor in Milan, that the town of Pavia had asked him to expel the Jews.Footnote 32 This statement launched a long discussion on the fate of Jews of Milan that stretched between and across Jewish and Christian societies in Italy and Spain. Curiously, the church, as an institution, assumed a rather contingent role in those discussions. Joseph ha-Kohen did not mention the church, but the Corrector added information on the anti-Jewish activities of popes Paul IV (r. 1555–1559), Pius IV (r. 1559–65), and Pius V (r. 1566–72), and of Archbishop Borromeo, the head of Milan's church from 1564 to 1584.Footnote 33 One of Paul IV's first acts as pope was to promulgate, in 1555, the bull “Cum Nimis Absurdum” that imposed ghettoization along with a series of severe social and economic restrictions on Jewish life—chiefly the obligation to wear a yellow sign (for men, a hat) and a prohibition on lending money.Footnote 34 He also launched the trial that led to the burning of twenty-one Marranos in Ancona in 1555.Footnote 35
Paul IV was also an enemy of Spain, which he tried to drive away from Naples with French help. Consequently, Philip put much effort into neutralizing papal power and influence in Italy.Footnote 36 Although these efforts may have partly shielded Milan's Jews from the worst papal anti-Jewish activities during those years, Philip's relationship with Rome constituted a delicate balancing act because he simultaneously claimed the mantle of Christianity's ultimate defender and actively tried to curtail Rome's power.Footnote 37
In 1564 Pope Pius V appointed his nephew, the fierce reformer Carlo Borromeo, as archbishop of Milan. Borromeo quickly rose to such a great position of influence in Milan that he earned the nickname “pope of Lombardy.”Footnote 38 Borromeo, no friend of the Jews, became focused on implementing the Counter-Reformation in Milan.Footnote 39 He did, on a few occasions, maintain that Jews had to be ostracized by a distinctive sign or ghettoized, and supported efforts to expel them; still, he stayed out of the debate on their expulsion. His correspondence reveals that he believed expulsion was impractical (Jews would merely move to neighboring towns, not leave the peninsula) and also the responsibility of secular powers (the church had neither the authority nor the capability to enact it).Footnote 40 Conversion was the responsibility of the church, as well as something in which Borromeo strongly believed. However, the results of his conversionary efforts were so poor that a year before his death, he concluded that they had been an exercise in futility, for even when Jews converted, they did it cynically in pursuit of material goals or fraud.Footnote 41 Despite Borromeo's power in the duchy, the expulsion would eventually be decided by secular forces: King Philip II, the towns of Cremona and Pavia, the governor, and the senate.Footnote 42
Pavia's 1565 letter demanding the expulsion did not mention Morello—the Jew Joseph ha-Kohen had faulted for the expulsion—but laid out a series of complaints against the Jews: they were growing in numbers, exposing Christian Pavians to their erroneous religion and vile customs, and victimizing citizens with their usurious lending practices.Footnote 43 The core concern of Philip's response seemed purely legalistic: he asked Cardinal Madruzzo in Milan not whether an expulsion was advisable, practical, or beneficial to Spanish interests, but whether it was legal to expel the Jews before the expiration of their condotta. The focus on the legality of the expulsion reveals the intricacies of the power dynamic at play. By asking whether a condotta that he himself had agreed to and signed needed to be upheld, Philip was emphasizing the strength and validity of his law even as he acknowledged the need to consult with local authorities. Philip's monarchy was absolute but not free of constraints, especially within conquered territories.Footnote 44 The governor transmitted the king's questions to the Milanese senate, which replied that it was illegal to expel the Jews before their condotta's expiration.Footnote 45
The Jews seemed safe, for the time being; nonetheless, the real possibility of expulsion transformed their situation. Even though condotte were temporary documents, the Jews of Milan had come to count on more or less automatic renewal of theirs in return for payment. Now Philip was signaling that this might no longer be the case—that the day their condotta expired, the Jews might not enjoy the law's protection but instead be at the mercy of their neighbors’ or the king's whims. As it turns out, the Jews’ condotta would be renewed a few more times, but always after a long fight that sometimes left the Jews without one for years on end. During these transitional periods the Jews found themselves outside of the law, a difficult and frightening place to be: the law guaranteed them a place as well as a legal status—albeit an inferior one—in Christian society. Some of these delays were intentional, but others resulted simply from the time that it took for communication to flow back and forth between Italy and Spain.
After examining the royal letter of 1566, the depositions of the Jews, the deposition of the town of Pavia, and the governor's report, the senators affirmed that it was illegal to expel the Jews before their condotta expired in 1569, but added that the king could prohibit usury and compel the Jews to wear the yellow hat.Footnote 46 Clearly the Jews had powerful enemies in the cities of Cremona and Pavia, and possibly in the king himself, but it appears they also had a supporter: the senate of Milan, which represented Milan's old noble class and was comprised mostly of legal experts.Footnote 47 Its status and power rested on its ability to maintain relevance despite Spanish rule from above and in the face of opposition from below, especially from Pavia, one of the towns that had most consistently resisted the senators' power. Whether the senate's stance against the expulsion arose out of friendship for the Jews or was part of its efforts to protect its own power from aggressive Spanish overlords and rebellious local towns is unclear. Indeed, although the senate rose to the Jews’ defense it professed no love for them and, shortly afterward, condemned Jewish moneylending in scathing terms: “It hardens the Jews’ blood and causes their creditors to be strangulated little by little.”Footnote 48
As soon as the senate upheld the condotta through 1569, the Jews wrote directly to Philip II. In their letter to the king, they argued that to prohibit moneylending and enforce the yellow hat were merely indirect methods of expulsion, and that forcing them out of the state would be disastrous for the poor and detrimental to all their debtors, among whom were gentlemen and Spanish soldiers.Footnote 49 To buttress their importance, the Jews claimed that Jewish merchants were useful to the state economy, employed poor citizens, and served the Spanish crown as spies against its enemies.Footnote 50 Furthermore, despite accusations to the contrary, the Jews lived modestly, in isolation, and avoided inappropriate relations (commertio) with Christians in obedience to their own law.Footnote 51 Last, the Jews again assured the king that wherever Jews lived, they had always been useful to society. For proof, they mentioned that all other Christian princes, including the popes, tolerated them.Footnote 52 At the end, they returned to the issue of moneylending, reaffirming its importance to the poor and, perhaps impudently considering the gravity of their situation, pointing out the king's own inconsistency: he allowed moneylending in Flanders at higher interest rates than in Milan.Footnote 53 It was a carefully crafted letter that made a strong case for renewing the condotta and advanced the argument that the Jews’ utility to the crown justified their continued presence in the state. That the Jews neither resorted to religious arguments nor appealed to Christian charity may have been a sign of the times. Western European countries had begun readmitting Jews based on mercantilist principles, hoping that their commercial expertise would benefit their countries’ economies.Footnote 54 The Jews of Milan wisely applied mercantilist thinking to their own circumstances by focusing on their usefulness to the empire as merchants, lenders to Spanish soldiers, and occasional spies against the Turks, and by avoiding controversial religious arguments.
Having read the Jews’ letter, Philip wrote to the governor on July 30, 1567, asking for his opinion on the Jews’ request. The governor transmitted the entire case to the senate, which rejected the expulsion. Not only did the senators strengthen their arguments in favor of keeping the Jews in the state, they also issued a scathing criticism of Spain's 1492 expulsion, terming it both inhumane and contrary to Christian piety: “And we have seen numerous evident examples [of expulsions], including the law that was proclaimed in Spain…. Nonetheless there is a different and more human opinion according to which Christian princes should not chase the Jews out of their lands but instead, in conformity with Christian piety, should tolerate their living with us.”Footnote 55
The senate's memorandum went unanswered for four years. In 1571, two years after the Jews’ condotta expired, the senate sent a new report to Madrid stating again that the Jews ought to be granted the right to live in Milan but that usury should be prohibited. The governor added that his secret council of six advisers agreed with the senate, but suggested adding another provision that prohibited Jews from employing Christians. The Council of Italy in Madrid concurred: “Since the Jews live quietly, as we understand that they have been doing in that State [Milan], there is no cause for expulsion, nor should they be expelled.” Philip ignored this growing consensus and asked yet again for additional inquiries: “The opinion of the governor is not included here. These [reports] are full of negotiations and promises, so it is imperative to understand this affair very well in order to solve it.”Footnote 56 Ostensibly Philip remained above the fray and focused on trying to figure out every stakeholder's position, so he could better adjudicate between them. Still, by rejecting his advisors’ recommendation and delaying resolution of the issue, he was signifying that he wanted to go a different route.
A reproduction of the report of October 1571 with Philip's loopy, barely legible handwriting on the bottom half of the page (España. Ministerio de Cultura. Archivio General de Simancas, Estado 1792 # 191)
In answer to Philip's latest queries, the secret council reminded him that they had discussed the issue twice already. They summarized for him the history of the Jews’ condotte since the 1530s and suggested that Philip should give Jews the right to live in Milan, but make this right contingent on their behavior rather than tying it to a pre-established date: “Thus when they [the Jews] don't live peacefully and quietly, it will be in His Majesty's hands to expel them.”Footnote 57 The councilors also reviewed the arguments that the Jews’ representatives in Madrid had made in favor of usury and against the Jewish badge, but reiterated their opposition to changing anything about these measures. That the Jews of Milan even had representatives in Madrid demonstrates how hard they were trying to influence the king.Footnote 58 But this latest report did not sway Philip, who wrote: “Although on this I now have the opinion of past governors, it would still be good to consult with the comendador mayor. And that he advise us on how they [the Jews] are governed in that state [Milan] and whether we ought to leave them there.”Footnote 59
The comendador mayor's reply arrived a year later, in July 1573. He had discussed the issues with the secret council and concluded that the Jews should not be expelled, but that they should be forced to wear the Jewish badge. With regard to usury, he reported a split in the council with three, including the governor, in favor of letting the Jews lend money and three strongly opposing it.Footnote 60 The comendador mayor, placing moral imperatives above economic ones, ruled that usury be outlawed. However, he also recommended that the condotta be renewed for an additional ten years. The king, taking stock of all the advice, agreed to extend the Jews’ condotta by four or five years on the condition that they wear the Jewish badge and stop lending money.Footnote 61
During these exchanges, the king, despite his active involvement in the negotiations, neither explicitly voiced his own opinion nor made disparaging statements about the Jews. His interventions were limited to asking questions and ordering further inquiries.Footnote 62 Yet, in agreeing to a four- or five-year extension, Philip was in fact registering a disagreement with his advisors. Now that everyone, including the comendador mayor, supported the Jews’ continued residence in Milan, the king decided not to oppose it—but his condotta barely granted the Jews half the term of residency that the comendador had recommended. Was he acknowledging that when faced with unanimity among his advisors, all he could do was reduce the length of the condotta? Or was he signaling to Pavia, Cremona, and those in Milan who demanded expulsion that he had heard their concerns and was proposing a middle ground between them and the senate: yes to a condotta, but only a considerably shortened one?
We cannot be certain of the answers to the above questions. For now, however, it appeared that those advocating for the Jews’ stay had succeeded in bringing the king to their side. In a span of six years, Philip went from inquiring about expelling the Jews and grappling with what status to grant them (if any) to reissuing their condotta three times: in 1577 for three years, in 1581 for four years, and in 1582 for five years.Footnote 63 With the 1577 renewal, Philip recognized the Jews’ good behavior: “They have lived in such a way that no blame can be imputed to them.”Footnote 64 In 1582 he agreed with the Jews that short-term condotte economically hurt them and, by extension, Milan, because condotte did not afford the Jews the security to engage in new or long-term commercial ventures.Footnote 65 Moreover, in contrast to what had become established Spanish policy since the reign of his great-grandparents Ferdinand and Isabella, Philip II concurred with his advisers in Spain and Italy that there was a place for the Jews in Christendom if they behaved appropriately, were clearly marked, and engaged in professional activities other than moneylending. In so doing, the king was ostensibly adopting longstanding papal policies on the Jews. However, since Philip had notoriously difficult relations with the papacy, he may have been more concerned about preserving Milan's status quo vis-à-vis the Jews than about aligning himself with Pope Gregory XIII.Footnote 66
Nonetheless, the ongoing uncertainty of the Jews’ situation went on full display just five years later. Their latest condotta had expired in 1587 and was not being renewed. According to the Corrector, the impetus for expulsion came from the citizens of Cremona and Pavia: “The people of Cremona and Pavia sent envoys to King Philip and asked him to expel the Jews who live in Milan.”Footnote 67 But in fact, the town of Cremona had begun demanding and gathering support for the Jews’ expulsion in August 1582—immediately after Philip had renewed the condotta. In a letter, the town's president alleged that the Jews lived in the best part of town, competed with Christian businesses, mixed with them socially, fornicated with Christian women, helped thieves hide their loot, melted down precious metals, and continued to lend money at interest despite the prohibition. They sent the same letter to Cardinal Borromeo, who promised his support before he learned that his confessor, Roberto Griffidio, believed that the true reason for the town's demand was outrage over the fact the Christian murderer of the Jew Viviano Levi had been put to death.Footnote 68 (The Corrector also attributed Cremona's request to expel the Jews to the fallout over Viviano Levi's murder.Footnote 69) Moreover, Borromeo had also heard that the Jews of Cremona and elsewhere in Milan had, themselves, asked the king to assign them to special neighborhoods; it had been his own opinion for a long time that this approach was preferable to expulsion.Footnote 70 Although Borromeo's actual support was to prove minor, the letters from the town of Cremona revealed that, perhaps because of the strength of the Jews’ supporters, the Cremonese did not believe at that stage that they could prompt the expulsion on their own but needed Borromeo's and even the pope's intervention. This was 1582. Over the next five years, the balance of power would shift.
On January 29, 1588, the final condotta having run out several months before, the governor wrote to the king with details of the Jews’ latest offer: a one-time gift of 8,000 escudos and an annual fee of 5,000 escudos, half for the right to live in the state and half for the right to maintain a residence in the city of Milan.Footnote 71 (The Jews could live anywhere in the state, but not in the city of Milan. To conduct their business they had obtained the right to maintain a shared residence in the city for short-term visits.Footnote 72) The governor then asked the king to accede to the Jews’ demand, arguing that any delay risked causing the Jews’ departure to neighboring principalities: “And because so much time has passed without His Majesty's will being known, the Pope and all the other princes are taking advantage [of this situation] to attract them [the Jews] in their dominions.”Footnote 73 Philip II responded five months later with a request for more information: “Before resolving this issue by accepting the said Jews’ offer, I ask you to inform me and explain your thoughts about this. Therefore I order and command that you consider all the warnings and understand what this is about and what should and can be done.”Footnote 74 A year later, the king requested a census and a detailed report on the Jews’ activities and their utility to the state: “I order and command that, fully informed, you [the governor] tell me how many Jews live in this state, what advantages would be secured by giving them the permission that they once more are asking for… and on the contrary what the disadvantages would be, along with your opinion, so that I can understand one and the other.”Footnote 75
It fell to the senate to take the census and draw up the report of the pros and cons of any Jewish presence in Milan. As the last representatives of the old Milanese nobility, and because they had protected the Jews since Philip's first effort at expulsion, the senators were now in a difficult situation. Not only was Spanish rule rendering their central position in Milan irrelevant, but in a blatant disregard for their authority, the cities and towns of the state were bypassing them by sending their demands and complaints directly to the king in Spain. Despite these challenges, or perhaps because of them, the senate would go on to deliver its strongest defense of the Jews yet. Rather than focusing on the Jews’ contribution to the economy of Milan, as they had done before, the senate took the king at his word and delivered a full-fledged analysis of the laws and principles—complete with references and footnotes—that gave Jews the right to live in Christian countries. Citing Roman and papal laws as well as recent pronouncements by cardinals and theologians, the senators tried to establish the legal and religious principle that Jews should not be expelled, and further, that they had to be tolerated in Christian lands.Footnote 76
Next, thirteen local officials, secular and religious, were called upon to testify that Milanese Jews led honest and respectful lives. Don Raphael Mandrich, said to be one of the most illustrious noblemen in the state, wrote in a sealed letter that the Jews lived simply, treated Christians with reverence and respect, and provided necessary services to soldiers. Both Francesco Prevedone, the criminal recorder of Lodi, and an unnamed episcopal vicar of Alessandria added that the Jews lived modest and blameless lives. Indeed, “in twenty-five years there hadn't been even one scandal concerning them.” The subconservator of Alessandria, also unnamed, weighed in by saying that the Jews displayed “courtesy towards Christians by allowing delayed repayments of debts, and occasionally even the remittance of interest and expenses,” while the criminal and civil recorder of Casalmaggiore noted that in his town, “Jews lent money for free.”Footnote 77 The senators concluded that “the Jews behave as prescribed by the laws and the canons.”Footnote 78
In the last section of its letter, the senate adduced a series of disparate arguments—a combination of old theological claims, a timeline of the Jews’ contribution to the Milanese economy, evidence of the Jews’ usefulness, and a harsh evaluation of Spain's Jewish monetary policy—to reinforce their opinion that the Jews should be allowed to live not only in their state but in all Christian dominions as well. Some Jews, the senators wrote, “have come to accept the true faith of Christ… This can only happen if they live among us.”Footnote 79 Echoing Augustine, they explained that the Jews represented the memory of Christ and prefigured the truth of Christianity.Footnote 80 Citing the testimonies of seven fiscal officials from around the state, they argued that the Jews were useful to the economy of Milan. They sold fruit, grain, wine, clothing, and furniture, and when their businesses went well, the region benefited from increased tax revenues. Thus, thanks to the Jews, the cities of Milan were wealthier and more populated.Footnote 81
Flinging aside a veil of hypocrisy, the senators added that the king, too, profited from Jewish businesses. For thirty years, Jews had been paying Philip II for the rights to lend money and not wear the Jewish badge, and had also lent significant amounts of money to the king—much of which Philip still needed to reimburse. Christians also lent money, the senators noted, but usually at higher interest rates and under worse conditions than the Jews did. While Christian lenders enriched themselves, “the Jews’ [fair lending practices] left them exceedingly poor and miserable, so much so that they do not have anything to live from.”Footnote 82 Moreover, the senators reminded the king, he had appointed two deserving men as conservatori to manage the Jewish community of Milan. Should the Jews be expelled, the king would have to find other means to reward these men. Finally, the senators disputed the claim that Jews had intercourse with Christians and dared the king to look through all the trial records of this state, for he would not find a single case.Footnote 83 Only after presenting this long and detailed set of arguments did the senators accede to the king's request to count the Jews of Milan. “And to obey His Majesty's command, this is the number of Jews living in the state of Milan: it is said that there are 889 in total, 456 in Cremona, 123 in Pavia, 130 in Lodi, 103 in Alessandria, 71 in Casalmaggiore, and 6 in Caravaggio. For these reasons, we conclude that they cannot be prohibited from living in Christian lands.”Footnote 84
Based on this report, the Council of Italy in Madrid advised the king to add ten years to the Jews’ condotta. The king replied, as usual, that he was consulting other advisors on this issue. But on December 31, 1590, without further explanation, he informed the governor that he had decided to expel the Jews.Footnote 85 In February 1591, the governor notified the representatives of the Jews, Rafaele Carmini and Clemente Pavia, that they needed to leave the state within six months of April 1 “with their home, family, and farm” (con sus casa, familia y hazienda). Those who converted sincerely could stay.Footnote 86
After years of relative toleration—during which, he admitted, the Jews had benefited the state—Philip now ignored the advice of his own governor, the Council of Italy, and economic trends in vogue elsewhere, and decided to expel the Jews. However, the Jews did not leave Milan on the prescribed date; in fact, it took Philip six additional years to execute the expulsion. Those extra years were marked by intense power struggles at every level of Spain's government in Italy and the king's increased involvement in Jewish Milanese affairs.
1591–1597: The Jews’ Departure Delayed
The efforts of a Jew, Simon Sacerdoti, and the governor of Milan, Don Ivan Fernandez de Velasco, were key in delaying the Jews’ departure. While Sacerdoti's motivations are obvious, it is harder to understand why the governor, a Spaniard appointed by Philip, resolved to help the Jews. Meanwhile, demands from the towns of Cremona and Pavia to expel the Jews grew ever louder and Philip's patience with both the Jews and the governor was evaporating. Throughout those years, Philip's health dramatically and visibly declined as well.
Soon after the promulgation of the expulsion decree, Simon Sacerdoti departed to Madrid. According to the Corrector of ‘Emek ha-bakha, Sacerdoti “succeeded in getting all the way into the palace where the king and his highest ministers were. He spoke in the name of the Jews and asked [the king] why he planned to deal in this way with his servants who had assisted him and his father in times of trial. He said that they were still ready today to help him with as much and more…But if the king had once decided to expel them, he would then demand, in the name of the Jews, that he first repay them what they could rightfully claim: for this is what justice demanded.”Footnote 87 In reporting the events in this way, the Corrector underscored the king's dependence on Jews.
The Council of Italy also reported that Simon Sacerdoti was in Madrid; their summary seems to corroborate the story recounted in ‘Emek ha-bakha. According to the council, Sacerdoti reminded them and the king about the many services he, Simon, and his father, Vitale, had accomplished for the crown in the past sixty years. The two had discovered French schemes (against Spain), other intelligence information, and spies in Alessandria, the castle of Savona, and Milan.Footnote 88 By order of the governor, they had traveled to the Levant, Germany, Provence, and other places for “secret affairs of great importance.”Footnote 89 The Jews had provided help with weapons, munitions, and money, even saving the county of Alessandria. Moreover, the crown still owed Sacerdoti's family a considerable amount of money. For all of these reasons, Simon asked that his family and the rest of the Jews be allowed to stay until all their debts had been repaid.Footnote 90 Using the debts a bargaining chip, Simon also offered to remit some if the Jews’ condotta were renewed for twelve years. Then, in a last-ditch effort to convince the king, he told the council that among his siblings, one brother and two sisters had converted, but the expulsion would force many Jews to Turkey or North Africa where conversion to Christianity could not happen. This prospect, he added, explained why the pope and other Italian princes did not expel the Jews.Footnote 91
Sacerdoti seems to have convinced the council. In the margins of his missive the council noted: “Really that which this Jew proposed merits particular consideration, for it is only justice to pay what we owe them, and that is what should be done.”Footnote 92 Although Philip did not rescind the expulsion, he agreed that the Jews should not be despoiled and ordered the governor to execute their expulsion “precisely one month after repayment of their debts.”Footnote 93
Simon stayed in Madrid for more than fifteen months, at tremendous personal cost, and ended up having to beg Philip for financial help.Footnote 94 Based on the memos he submitted to the court, he was working on two goals: securing a new condotta for the Jews and getting the king to pay his family's outstanding debts. He failed at the former, but succeeded at the latter. To change the king's mind about the expulsion he submitted another long memo that, although differently structured, was remarkably similar in content to the senate's report of 1589.Footnote 95 This similarity suggests that either Sacerdoti had access to senate documentation or had collaborated with the senators on its writing. As the senate had done, Simon began with a legal and theological argument: “[A]ll the laws—divine, human, civil, and canon—accept that Jews live and converse with Christians. Moreover many doctors, theologians, and learned people conclude that they [the Jews] are necessary and cannot be expelled without offending Christian charity and divine majesty… for they represent the passion of Christ.”Footnote 96 Next, Simon explained, as the senate had, that the Jews were more likely to convert to Christianity if they lived in Christian lands, but he took this argument to a personal level: “Simon Vidal has two Christian sisters and a Christian brother as well as nephews, nieces and cousins. Had they all been in Turkish or Moorish lands, they would not have converted.”Footnote 97 Like the senate, he critiqued Ferdinand and Isabella: “Her Majesty should not follow the example of the King Don Ferdinand, especially since many doctors came to the conclusion that it was not done well.”Footnote 98 In another paraphrase of the senate, he asserted that the Jews of Milan had lived quietly and without scandals for centuries and that no one had ever seen or heard anything negative about them. In the second and third sections of his memo, Simon focused on the Jews’ service to the king and the people of Milan. But whereas the senate had discussed Jews from across the state, he emphasized his own family's accomplishments and ended with the demand that the crown fully reimburse them.Footnote 99
Simon Sacerdoti's efforts were to no avail. The king's attention had already turned to implementing the expulsion. On December 12, 1592, he sent the governor, Don Ivan Fernandez de Velasco, a detailed summary of the Jews’ credit accompanied by a payment plan. In 1555 they had made a loan of 6,544 escudos to the crown. Until 1565, they had charged 5% interest and from 1565 to 1591, according to a new law governing rents, they had charged 8% on the principal and 5% on the interest, with the result that the crown now owed them 32,727 escudos and 108 soldi.Footnote 100 (Simonsohn wondered how the crown could balk at repaying what would have been a paltry sum, but as Philip's reign neared its end, the Spanish treasury was completely depleted.Footnote 101) Philip ordered the state of Milan to make these payments, entrusting the governor with the task of fairly apportioning them across the state and promising to reduce tolls and taxes for three years to ensure that Milan did not suffer from the Jews’ departure.Footnote 102 The town of Cremona, eager to see the Jews go, immediately informed the king that it would pay its share, but smaller towns recoiled at paying theirs: eighteen months later, the Jews were still in residence.Footnote 103
The king wrote an angry letter to Don Ivan, reminding him that he had ordered to expel the Jews three times already and that he expected this to be done promptly. The governor replied that he had not been able to execute the king's orders because, other than Cremona and Pavia, the cities of Milan were refusing to pay their shares.Footnote 104 Then, in 1595, the fiscal conservator of Milan found that the Jews actually owed the treasury 16,000 scudi, almost half of what the treasury owed them. The Jews quickly countered with their own, lower estimate of what they owed.Footnote 105 Settling these debts was a challenging task: based on extant documentation, series of loans were made by the Jews to different towns over many years and accrued interest at varying rates. Not only was it difficult to figure out exactly who owed what, perhaps this confusion was further complicated by the Jews themselves as a way of extending their stay in the state.
Meanwhile, a Milanese lawyer, Bartholomeo Carranza, was preparing a damning case against the Jews based on the testimony of one converted Jew.Footnote 106 In March 1594, he sent Philip a detailed memo in which he accused the Jews of being criminals and blasphemers: they used banned books in which they disparaged Christianity, built new synagogues, and lent money at interest despite the king's prohibition.Footnote 107 For the Corrector, Carranza was “a foe and an enemy, from the stock of Amalek” whose false accusations resulted from a failed blackmail attempt against the Jews.Footnote 108 But even though the Council of Italy dismissed Carranza's accusations as calumny, saying that “there are enough legitimate reasons to expel the Jews,” Philip decided to open an investigation into Carranza's allegations. In July 1594, the king asked the governor to appoint judges to look into the matter and reminded him that he must expel the Jews in any case and also ensure that those guilty of blasphemy be punished.Footnote 109 Then in September and again in December, King Philip wrote to express outrage that Don Ivan had not yet carried out the expulsion: “[I]t baffles me that this has not yet been done.”Footnote 110
This back-and-forth between Philip II and his governor continued through 1595 and 1596 as the king's health took a dramatic turn for the worse. In May 1595 he contracted a serious illness that convinced his doctors his death was at hand. He recovered, but, struck by terrible gout, spent the remaining three years of his life in a wheelchair.Footnote 111 Philip tried to keep up with the affairs of government despite his illness; perhaps the expulsion of the Jews of Milan, a small matter in the bigger scheme of things, continued to grasp his attention out of increased religious feelings toward the end of his life.Footnote 112
Philip's last decade in power was beset by difficulties: costly wars with England and the Netherlands (both ending in defeat), a series of famines and economic crises brought about by the unsustainable costs of colonialism, and a serious decline in his personal health. He wrote in 1587 (to his secretary, but as if to himself): “Do not allow yourself to be drawn into melancholy, which is a very bad thing, even though the times we live in bring it with them, and so does what is happening in the world. I cannot escape this state altogether, I am greatly grieved when I look at the present state of Christendom.”Footnote 113 It was during a period of heightened moral despair, declining physical health, and increased religiosity that Philip decided to complete the expulsion of the Jews from Milan.
By January 1596, Philip had grown so irritated and impatient that he started implying that the governor and other officials were engaged in intentional foot-dragging if not actual corruption. He wrote: “[T]his raises the suspicion that this [the delay] may stem from ministers who have a stake in this affair… and if this were true (which I cannot believe) it would deserve exemplary punishment.”Footnote 114 Clearly, Philip understood that the Jews had become a pawn in a political game that was threatening his power. By October 1596 he was making open threats: “If this [the expulsion] is not executed, I will have to send someone from here to do it.”Footnote 115
For his part, Don Ivan seems to have been purposefully delaying the expulsion, using the Jews’ debt as an excuse. In January 1597, Philip told his governor: “[T]his is a very flaky excuse. . . ” (a muy flaca escusa).Footnote 116 Certainly, figuring out each town's share of the debts was difficult but not insurmountable—at least the king seemed to think so—especially because the two largest cities, Pavia and Cremona, had already paid. In reality, despite Philip's heroic attempts to continue governing his empire through his last difficult years and despite his threats to Don Ivan, the king's powers were on the wane. Throughout the empire, many governors were trying to take advantage of this situation to increase their power—among them Don Ivan, the governor of Milan.Footnote 117 In addition, as we have seen in the run-up to the expulsion, the governor agreed with the Jews’ and the senate's argument that the Jews were a dynamic element in the state's economy. If the governor were to take over the reins in Milan and run it quasi-independently, it was in his interest to preserve the state's revenue, even if its source was Jewish.
When no progress had been made by April 1597, the king ordered an investigation. He suspected some of his ministers were delaying the expulsion because of conflicting interests and raised the pressure on Don Ivan by telling him to “find and punish those who are found guilty.”Footnote 118 In September, in response to the governor's letter complaining about the reluctance of the cities of the state to pay their portions of the debt owed to the Jews, Philip made clear that he was furious and that it was incumbent upon the governor to do whatever it took to make those payments, to the point of repaying the cities later if necessary. Unable to postpone the expulsion any longer, Don Ivan proceeded to carry out the decree but allowed four representatives of the Jews (Simon Sacerdoti, Clemente Pavia, Isach Suavi, and Conseglio Carmini) to remain in the duchy to collect outstanding debts. Philip's actions, however, took on an added layer of complexity when he allowed the Sacerdoti family to stay in Milan after the Jews' credit was settled. He did so in recognition of Simon's services to the crown, which had included supplying Spanish troops and spying against the Ottomans in the Mediterranean.Footnote 119 Simon, an astute and intriguing political operator, had failed to save Milan's Jewry, but did obtain a remarkable privilege for his own family—though one wonders how the Jews, who had chosen Sacerdoti as their spokesman, reacted to this. The Sacerdotis were to be the only Jewish family residing in the state of Milan for the next two hundred years. Perhaps dedication and utility to the crown mattered more than Jewishness after all.
The rest of the Jews were devastated, but even in this time of great despair they acknowledged the governor's help. In their eyes he did not act out of mere self-interest, but was truly supportive. One of the expellees, the Corrector of ‘Emek ha-bakha, movingly described the situation:
He [the governor] then called in the most respected men of the Jewish community and told them: “As you know, I have stood at your side with all my power so that you could remain in the land and pursue your business, but now I can no longer resist the king. Here in my hand is the fateful document, written personally in the king's own handwriting and sealed. Nothing can be done about it…The governor permitted all those whose wives were expectant to remain as long as they were ill…May God remember him [the governor] for his good, for surely he belonged to the pious among the gentiles who will have a share in the life beyond.Footnote 120
Philip II of Spain died exactly a year later.
Why the Expulsion? Reasons for a Change in Policy
The expulsion was a royal act—one that Philip II pushed hard to complete—but it was not inevitable. The evidence suggests that Philip's position favored expelling the Jews and the burden of proof usually rested on those who advocated for the Jews. Nevertheless, for almost three decades, the Jews and their supporters were able to convince the king that the Jews were “useful” and contributed to the economy of the state. Philip acknowledged as much when he extended the Jews’ condotta in 1582, agreeing that they needed stability for their business to thrive.Footnote 121 His stance appears to have been flexible; in the interest of the state, he was willing and able to overrule his initial preference for expulsion. Yet by 1591, his decision to expel the Jews became definite.
It is unclear what changed Philip II's mind. A broad study of his attitudes toward the Jews remains a desideratum and would help in resolving that question, but it is safe to say that overwhelming anti-Jewish or antisemitic feelings were not the whole story.Footnote 122 Philip certainly was not sympathetic to Jews, but in all those years of dealing with the Jews of Milan and writing about them, not once did he voice negative feelings toward or about them. Although he gave credence to Bartholomeo Carranza's damning accusations against the Jews and ordered severe punishments for the alleged perpetrators, he also agreed to renew the Jews’ condotta several times and at one point even explicitly acknowledged that they deserved this concession for living “quietly and peacefully” in Milan.Footnote 123 Henry Kamen, author of a biography of Philip II, further highlights the complexity of the king's attitude toward the Jews by juxtaposing the expulsion from Milan with the simultaneous relaxation of the treatment of conversos in Spain. For the first time, Philip agreed to appoint new Christians to clerical positions and set up a committee charged with critically reviewing the “purity of blood” rules that had posed both threat and barrier to Iberian “new Christians” for so long.Footnote 124
Philip probably did not subscribe to the idea that since the expulsion of 1492, ordered by Ferdinand and Isabella, his great-grandparents, it was somehow Spain's destiny and duty to expel the Jews from all its possessions.Footnote 125 He is said to have enthusiastically supported his father's decision to expel the Jews from Naples in 1544 and was a staunch supporter of the inquisitions in Spain and abroad (he ordered tribunals to be set up in Mexico and Peru). But he let Jews live in Milan for decades and continued to tolerate them in North Africa. Even though Spain often resorted to expulsions, the one from Milan was not simply the implementation of a longstanding Spanish policy.
Instead, it seems that the expulsion of the Jews from Milan followed not from personal feelings but from Philip's approach to governing and from multifaceted conflicts at all levels of the empire. Philip II was intent on developing Spain into an early modern state with a strong, centralized monarchy, a professional army, and a complex bureaucracy.Footnote 126 Yet, for all of Philip's centralizing efforts, the Spanish Empire remained a vast, diverse patchwork of provinces that maintained strong traditions and institutions, and contained local nobilities who were intent on protecting their perks and statuses. All of these factors limited royal power. Recently, some scholars have introduced the term “polycentric monarchy” to describe the organization of Spain's Empire.Footnote 127 Its difference from the older concept of “composite monarchy” is mostly one of perspective: rather than a major political center surrounded by more or less influential peripheral satellites, these scholars see a multiplicity of centers— each with their own histories, statuses, and power groups—in a dynamic and constantly renegotiated interaction.Footnote 128 Perhaps the idea of polycentric monarchy can shed light on the complicated relations between Milan and Madrid.
Milan was crucial to Spain's political aims because it established a Spanish foothold in northern Italy that functioned not only as an influential cultural center but also, in these times of almost constant war with France and the Low Countries, as a gateway to central and northern Europe.Footnote 129 These considerations highlight the necessity of firmly subduing Milan's administration to Madrid's authority. The governor was acting as the king's direct representative and Spanish officials had infiltrated much of the administration. Yet the senate, the traditional bastion of Milan's aristocracy, never counted more than three Spaniards out of fourteen senators, and outside of Milan, rule was still largely in Italian hands. The latter faction is precisely where opposition to the Jews coalesced. The state's larger towns, Cremona and Pavia, led the charge against the Jews and were also the most indebted to them. In asking for the Jews’ departure they were probably hoping for some debt relief, but they were also reacting against Spanish and Italian elites in the capital—mainly the senate and the governor—who had not only profited from Jewish businesses but had also been steadily concentrating Milanese power into their own hands. Milan's Jewish population was small, but it threatened the integrity of the state by pitting local Italian towns against central Milanese power and Spanish rule in Madrid.
Moreover, in an added twist, both the senate and the governor used the Jews to elevate their own standings. In 1570, the Marquis of Ayamonte, governor of Milan, wrote to Philip that “these Italians, although they are not Indians, have to be treated as such, so that they will understand that we are in charge of them and not they in charge of us.”Footnote 130 By the 1590s, in the presence of a weakened monarch, the situation had reversed: the governor and the Italian senate were allied against the king.Footnote 131 In standing together for the Jews, they defied Philip II and boldly asserted their power. Seen in that light, the expulsion of the Jews from Milan reveals both the extent and the limits of Philip II's rule. To preserve his power, he had to expel the Jews; the economic harm that might result from this policy paled in comparison to the danger of letting the Jews stay.
In his last letter to the governor, Philip asked how many Jews resided in the state. The answer was 889. The city of Milan was one of the largest in Europe, with more than a hundred thousand residents. Jews formed a miniscule percentage of the population of the entire state—a fact that Philip, given the amount of correspondence already expended on the Jews of Milan, may not have realized, although he probably knew that the expulsion of a much greater number of Jews from Spain in 1492 had not seriously affected the peninsula's economy.Footnote 132 Moreover, contrary to his medieval predecessors, Philip did not use expulsion as an opportunity to expropriate Jewish wealth. Of course, he may not have believed that such a small community possessed significant assets, but nonetheless he did everything in his power to ensure that the Jews left with all the money owed to them. Although the expulsion hearkened back to older models of thought, his insistence on repaying the state's debts reveals a shift in attitude toward public finances and economic concerns.
Both Sacerdoti's report written in Madrid and the senate's last memorandum discussed the Jews’ economic activities at length, with the senate giving an overview of its activity across the state and Sacerdoti focusing on his own affairs, especially his trading links with the Levant. These emphases suggest that Philip II was not insensitive to mercantilist considerations. However, the long route to expulsion taken by Philip also suggests that economic incentives alone were not enough to preserve and promote Jewish life; favorable political circumstances were also necessary. These circumstances were present in Spanish North Africa and European states (e.g., Italy, Germany, Czech lands, and France) that readmitted Jews during those years, but progressively diminished in Habsburg Milan during the last decades of the sixteenth century.
Examined in detail and in its larger historical context, the case of Milan illuminates the mechanisms of an expulsion and weaves together the dynamic elements—religious beliefs, economic arguments, and political struggles—that drove it. Some, such as old anti-Jewish ideas, religious arguments for and against them, and fear of economic competition, came from the past; others, such as an increased focus on the Jews’ utilitarian value, looked to the future. Which element would hold the most sway was anyone's guess, especially because King Philip II of Spain defied easy categorization. His Jewish policy in Italy was a blend of old and new, thoughtful and impulsive, collaborative and despotic, forceful and hesitant, rational and illogical. In their quest to maintain and possibly increase their power, all of the players—including the Jews—needed to position themselves in relation to each other as well as to the king. Alliances were formed and shifted; every exchange of letters and reports, whether for or against the expulsion, required participants to stake out positions in this larger political chess match. In the end, although it was out of step with the rest of Europe, expelling the Jews from Milan was not a regressive action. Instead, as the outcome of intense power struggles at so many levels, this expulsion was a reflection of the multitude of drives that shaped an early modern empire.
