Source Description
On December 9, 1603, the
Hamburg
Parliament lodged a complaint with the
Executive Council, that
among the Portuguese in the
Hansa city Jews were
also to be found. The burgesses, to be sure, acknowledged in their complaint the
economic utility of the Portuguese merchants for the
city, but
nonetheless demanded the expulsion of all Portuguese who gave out that they were
Christians but who secretly practiced the Jewish religion. In its rejection of Jews
in the Hansa city,
the Parliament was supported
by the orthodox Lutheran clergy. The
Executive Council, on the
contrary, pursued the goal of strengthening the lucrative trade with the
Iberian Peninsula.
To this end, the Council
wanted to profit from Portuguese contacts--independent of whether they were Catholic
or Jewish. The situation of the Portuguese Jews changed several times during the
17th century and in this regard
was dependent on which side was able to get its way in the current dispute. The
complaint from the year 1603 is the first official mention
of a Jewish presence in the minutes of the
Hamburg
authorities. It is preserved in the minutes of the caucus
between the Parliament and
the Executive Council,
which today is held in the
Hamburg
State Archive.
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Recommended Citation
The Complaint of the Hamburg Parliament concerning Portuguese Jews of December 9, 1603, in: Acta Conventuum Senatus et Civium from Dezember 8/9, 1603 [S. 21-22] (translated by Richard S. Levy), edited in: Key Documents of German-Jewish History,
<https://dx.doi.org/10.23691/jgo:source-201.en.v1> [December 04, 2024].