by Becky Taylor
when credible proof exists that they are scouts, traitors, spies and explore Christian countries for the benefit of the Turks and of other enemies of Christendom [it is] strictly forbidden to allow them to travel in or through their states to traffick, to give them safe conducts, escorts or passports.48
Similarly, the first general law to be passed against Gypsies in the German territories was in 1498 on the grounds that they had ‘betrayed Christian countries to the heathen’, that is, the Tartars and Turks who were raiding countries not far from Germany’s eastern frontier. Given the fact that Gypsies often presented themselves as having arrived from the Ottoman territories it was by no means an outlandish suspicion that they were spies, even if there was no proof.49
Lest we are tempted to see the processes of state formation and the increasing control of its populations as primarily affecting north-western Europe and the emerging Protestant states, a closer look at Spain shows how a similar process was under way there. In fact, the history of early modern Spain’s treatment of its minority population groups has been described as a ‘chronicle of an obsession’, as the most varied and multicultural society in western Europe, produced by the long Muslim and Jewish presence on the peninsula, became obsessed with purity and pureza de sangre (purity of blood). Tied with a broader political aim to unite the different kingdoms of Spain under one crown, efforts to remove religious, linguistic and moral difference were central to the reigns of Ferdinand and Isabella in the last part of the fifteenth century as well as their successors in the sixteenth.50
While superficially the story of Castile and Spain in the sixteenth century was one of success and imperial expansion, in fact a reliance on the wealth of its New World acquisitions and the drain on its coffers from a number of sources, including of course the war in the Netherlands, meant that its internal economy was weak. To this was added the crippling effects of famine and plague in the late sixteenth century that is estimated to have killed 600,000 of the Castilian population. This was an unpropitious set of circumstances, but when combined with a policy of taxing those least able to pay and the spectacularly inefficient administration of Philip III and his chief minister Lerma, the results were little short of disastrous. The decline of Spanish power is well documented elsewhere; what concerns us here is how this fed into the treatment of Spain’s minority populations: the Jews, Moriscos and Gypsies.51 The expulsion of Jews in 1492, the forced conversion of Muslims in Granada, and the subsequent revolt and repressions of 1499–1501 and the expulsion of Muslims who refused to convert that followed was in fact only the beginning of over a century of attempts to enforce homogeneity on the new Spain. The fact that these actions resulted in the creation of a huge population of conversos and Moriscos who were suspected of secretly continuing to practise their faith under the cover of Christianity created a society suspicious of difference and anxious to impose certainty. We can understand the activities of the Inquisition in this light, as well as the final expulsion of Moriscos from the Iberian peninsula between 1609 and 1614.
Within this toxic climate issues of culture and control became central to public policy, with Spain experiencing what has been described as ‘the exhilaration and anxiety’ of an elite attempting to impose order on a rapidly changing and diverse society. In part this was about trying to consolidate an empire that expanded rapidly over the sixteenth century, both within the Iberian peninsula and across the Atlantic, as well as being an attempt to insulate Spain against the intellectual trends of northern Europe.52 Through the efforts of the Counter-Reformation, most commonly manifested through the Council of Trent and the Inquisition, a particular form of Catholicism became dominant, one that emphasized obedience to authority and religious and cultural conformity. Central to the Catholic Church’s revived mission was the definition and maintenance of the moral boundaries of society, both for God and the monarchy. The world view it developed revolved around the strongly held belief that Christian society had been divinely ordained into a well-ordered hierarchy. However this was defined, it excluded Gypsies on both theological and functional grounds. Not only did Gypsies not fit this hierarchical model, but legends surrounding their provenance only served to reinforce their alienation from Christianity. By this time a popular legend had emerged from the stories of penance, linking Gypsies’ perpetual nomadism to their refusal to have granted Christ shelter. On top of this were widely held beliefs that Gypsies did not marry in churches or 6baptize their children, and it is important to understand just how profound a challenge this was to the Church’s moral and social authority. Given the fact that the Church was the fundamental pillar of royal absolutism, and one of its key roles was to teach moral obedience to the Crown, the persistant unorthodoxy of Gypsies did not simply have theological implications, but was seen as actively undermining the power of the state.53
The first orders against Gypsies were passed in Spain in 1499, and were a reflection of both wider European concerns over this minority and their specific position within Spain. As with similar legislation across Europe it combined threats of expulsion with exhortations to assimilate, while accusing the ‘Egyptians’ of begging, theft, deceit and sorcery. This first proclamation gave ‘Egypcianos’ 60 days either to settle and adopt a recognized trade or to find a master to serve, and any found wandering after this date were to be treated as vagabonds and punished accordingly. All these ordinances contained a range of punishments: for a first offence, 100 lashes and banishment for life; for a second, notching of the ears and 60 days in chains followed by banishment; finally, those caught wandering for a third time were to become the property for life of those into whose hands they happened to fall. Subsequent edicts of 1525, 1528 and 1539 reiterated the original legislation, with the latter also adding that any male Gypsy aged between twenty and 50 who was without a trade or a master was to be sent to the galleys for six years, while women were to be flogged.54 This reflected both a preoccupation with the manpower shortages affecting Spain’s Mediterranean galley squadrons, and the fact that not only had the previous edicts failed to make much impact, but that Gypsies were seen to have been joined by large numbers of foreigners and other, home-grown vagabonds.55
Contemporary commentators also made explicit connections between Gypsies and Moriscos, particularly in the crisis years around the end of the sixteenth century. Writing in 1619, Sancho de Moncada observed that they were ‘much more useless than the moriscos, since these latter were at least of some service to the Republic and the Royal revenues’. Others believed that they were actively a threat, not least because they were seen as potential spies, while Cristóbal Pérez de Herrera, Royal Physician to Spain’s galleys who was preoccupied with the political and demographic implications of Spain’s relatively low ‘Old Christian’ birth rate, feared that:
within twenty or thirty years, the greater part of this realm (apart from some people of quality and wealth) will be made up of beggars and Gascons, many of whom are moriscos and Gypsies, because they are growing and multiplying rapidly, while we are diminishing in numbers very quickly because of wars and the religious orders.56
Herrera was one of many who believed that Gypsies should be expelled alongside the Moriscos, something that was considered but initially rejected in favour of a requirement for them to engage in ‘recognized trades’. Essentially this should be viewed as shorthand for working on the land, agriculture having been struggling as a result of losing its Morisco labour force. However, in June 1619, in response to a petition passed by a two-thirds majority of the Cortes of Madrid the year before, Philip III ordered the expulsion within six months of all Gypsies found wandering in Spain, forbidding them to return on pain of death. Those remaining were required to settle in towns of more than 1,000 households (in order that they could not form a dominant part of the population) and prohibited their distinctive dress and language. The edict even banned the name ‘Gypsy’, on the grounds that ‘that they are not so by birth’ and so ‘this name and manner of life may be for evermo
re confounded and forgotten’. Essentially then the choice for Spain’s Gypsies was between exile and forced assimilation into a society, simultaneously assigning them pariah status while demanding they abandon their cultural identity.57
It is worth here emphasizing how even within a climate of tightening repression across Europe, there were important national differences. So, France for example, presents something of an exception in this period. While injunctions against ‘Egyptians’ had been passed by Francis I in 1539 these were rather vague and set out neither when they should leave France nor the punishment for failure to comply.58 More details were forthcoming in a 1561 edict, which ordered the expulsion of all Gypsies within two months under penalty of being sent to the galleys and corporal punishment. If any returned after the two months they were to have their hair shaved off, with men being sentenced to three years in the galleys. And yet there is no sign that these measures were enacted, and in fact throughout the sixteenth century leaders, still calling themselves ‘count’ or increasingly ‘captain’, presented passports and letters of safe conduct and were only rarely inconvenienced by the authorities.59 So, in 1597 when the Estates of Languedoc ordered local authorities to ban Gypsies from towns and villages and to no longer issue them with the passports that were required for internal journeys, it seems they were completely ignored.60
The internal chaos within France as a result of the wars of religion and subsequent civil unrest meant that across the second half of the sixteenth century and into the seventeenth often heavily armed groups of Gypsies were a regular feature on the roads of France: a certain Jean-Charles was recorded at Loches in 1565 at the head of a company of around 60 people. These bands also often participated in different campaigns of these wars, with, for example, the Duke of Guise, governor of Provence, commissioning ‘Captain La Gallere, Egyptian, to gather other Egyptian captains and soldiers who were in the area, in order to send them to Languedoc in the service of the King’.61 As we shall see for the seventeenth century, as states rarely held a monopoly of power within their borders, what was possible very often differed sharply from what a monarchy might have thought desirable. Consequently, although theoretically marginalized and vulnerable, evidence shows how Gypsies could make use of gaps in power to establish themselves as a significant presence on France’s roads and as an active part of the civil war.
If Gypsies were increasingly being expelled and vilified within western Europe, seen as outsiders, vagrants and a threat to public order, was this also the case on the other side of the Continent? The early years of Ottoman rule in the Balkans suggested that Gypsies might face an accepted, if lowly, position in society, and something very different from their place in the rest of Europe. However, as the Gypsy population of the Balkans became more established, so too did Ottoman rule and the cultures and local societies that developed in tandem with it, and consequently regional differences became more entrenched. So in Bosnia, for example, the sixteenth century saw the further extension of the sancak system, which was formalized so that each group was made of 50 individuals with a designated leader, who had considerable autonomy, although inevitably this was tied to providing group labour in the mines in lieu of taxes to the state:
No one was to interfere in his affairs or limit him in any way. If anyone should break the law, they should be detained and, provided that guarantees are given by the community, and by its leader, there should be an oral hearing. It has been decided that [the Gypsies] should work in the pits near Kamengrad and should be provided with means for their existence.62
There is also ongoing evidence of Muslim Gypsies engagement in the military, both on the front line and as auxiliary personnel. In common with western Europe, by the mid-sixteenth century there is some evidence of the Ottoman administration making attempts to settle nomadic Gypsies in its territories, as in this regulation from 1551:
Groups of Gypsies ride fine horses. They do not stay in the same place but move from town to town, from place to place. They plunder and steal, thus troubling the population and causing unrest . . . they have to renounce their nomadic way of life, to settle down and to take up farming. The Gypsies must from now on be forced to sell their horses, and if anyone objects they must be punished with a prison sentence.63
As in the rest of Europe, this should be seen more in the vein of a complaint about Gypsies getting above their station than an actual policy that was implemented: a similar regulation was passed in 1574 that also banned the use of horses by Gypsy acrobats in Istanbul. There is no particular evidence that the authorities made any systematic or concerted efforts to settle Gypsies, and paying their taxes was broadly seen as sufficient in the eyes of the state. State intervention may have contributed to the emerging pattern of seasonal nomadism common in the Balkans – of travel during the summer and spending the winter in one place – that grew up in response to the Ottoman insistence of inclusion in tax registers. Here though we need to acknowledge that in other parts of Europe where Gypsies did not face such administrative constraints they also often chose to settle for the winter. Consequently it seems likely both that seasonal nomadism was a preferred option and that it fitted within the regulatory framework in which they found themselves.
In the vassal states of Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania feudal slavery continued to predominate, and in fact saw the further erosion of personal rights for Gypsies. Rather than their transferral between nobles or monasteries simply being a matter of changing the master to whom tribute was owed, by the sixteenth century Gypsies had unambiguously become slaves absolutely at the disposal of their masters: they and their children were chattels who could be sold, exchanged or given away. It is from 1480 that we have the first documented open sale of Gypsies. In this year Voivode Stefan the Great of Moldavia bought three families of Gypsies from Petru Braescul of Dragoiu (in Wallachia) for 50 Tartar zloty. From this time onwards it became gradually more common for Gypsy slaves to be sold in open markets, rather than in private transfers between nobles or religious houses. In 1533 a visiting Fugger merchant, Hans Dernschwamm, noted that he saw a group of Gypsies in chains in a slave market. These were nomadic Gypsies who had failed to pay their annual poll tax and were being sold as a consequence.64
The worsening position of Gypsies was reinforced in law, so that any non-Gypsy who married or made a Gypsy woman pregnant also became enslaved.65 And yet records show that the niche Gypsies occupied within these feudal societies was often that of the skilled artisan. As well as living in villages and alongside farming land, the men also worked as barbers, tailors, bakers, masons and servants, while women were employed in fishing, housework, linen bleaching and also as seamstresses and embroiderers.66 As they would often have occupied key roles in local and manorial communities it is unlikely that they would have been treated in the same way as, for example, the field slaves of plantation regions of the New World. Something of the value Gypsies had to nobles and to the local economy is revealed in a decree from 1560 issued to the rulers of the Danube region. This related to the nomadic Gypsies who paid their taxes to the princes of Moldavia, but were currently being abducted, possibly by border guards and taken out of the region:
certain classes of Gypsies . . . have been abducted by surprise are then sent to the banks of the Danube where they are put up for sale . . . know that the trafficking of tribute-paying Gypsies (who pay their poll tax) out of Wallachia is not permitted. If you learn, therefore, that these Gypsies after being taken were transported to your town to be sold there, you must prohibit it. You will permit absolutely nobody to be subject to this kind of treatment. If there are recalcitrants, you must give me the names and descriptions. This question demands that it is treated with importance.67
I think we can safely assume that the voivode was not motivated by concern for the well-being of the abducted Gypsies, but rather his loss of revenue. This document also points to the importance of borders: Gypsies were not simply abducted across the borders, there is evidence that over the centuries m
any escaped either north into the mountains, or indeed formed something of a counter migration, moving south into the Ottoman territories proper, where they could leave behind their slave status.
SO, AT THIS STAGE IN GYPSY HISTORY, what can we see? We know that Gypsies initially used letters of safe conduct and the identity of pilgrims in order to ease their passage in Europe, and that to begin with this was a relatively successful strategy. We have seen how, with the changing social, economic, religious and state context of the times, this approach became less successful, and that vagabonds and the poor increasingly became targets for legislation which distinguished between insiders and outsiders, and between the deserving and the undeserving poor. At the same time minority groups, the Jews right across Europe, those of a different Christian denomination and the Moriscos in Spain, all became the focus for measures of marginalization, expulsion or repression. If we need to understand the treatment of Gypsies in the light of how other marginalized groups were viewed at the same time, we also need to acknowledge how concerns over Gypsies were at the confluence of multiple anxieties faced by early modern Europe. It is no surprise then that Gypsies, the archetypical outsider – foreign, rootless, with no clear religious affiliation and carrying with them the taint of spying, criminality and sorcery – consistently faced the extremes of legislation both across time and across the Continent. That their experiences within the Ottoman Empire were so divergent suggests that it was not something inherent in ‘Gypsyness’, but rather the ways in which Europe dealt with difference that prompted the responses found across western Europe.