ABSTRACT
During the medieval period Ashkenazic Jewry in Poland was increased by migration from the Crimea, the Russian steppes, the Middle East and Spain. By the beginning of the fifteenth century the Polish Jewish community numbered 10,000–15,000 Jews, and in the next century the population grew to over 150,000. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Polish nobility, who owned large tracts of land in the Ukraine, employed Jews on their estates; there they collected taxes, fees, tolls and produce from the serfs. In the medieval period Spain and Provence played leading roles in the development of Jewish philosophy and mysticism. Yet by the fourteenth century these communities had lost their influence as a result of increased persecution, and many Jews were attracted to northern Italian states to act as moneylenders for the middle classes. In Germany the growth of Protestantism frequently led to adverse conditions for the Jewish population.
