Limits of Tolerance: Justice and Anti-Semitism in a Sixteenth-Century Dutch Town

Abstract

Their confrontation began in the early 1550s in Leiden, Holland and lasted for nearly 10 years. It ended with a sentence pronounced in March 1561 by the highest court of appeal of the as yet undivided Netherlands, the Great Council of Mechelen.1 Salomon versus Van Berendrecht actually began as Van Berendrecht versus Salomon: a relatively simple case in which the competence and qualifications of Andries Salomon,2 a converted Jew who practised as a doctor in Leiden, were called into question by the sheriff, Nicolaes or Claes van Berendrecht. The conflict escalated and turned into a complicated contest which jeopardized not only Salomon's position and livelihood, but also the personal and professional reputation of the sheriff himself. Judicial proceedings, which failed to resolve the conflict at a local level, generated new court cases. The struggle eventually threatened to impair relations between the municipal authorities of Leiden and the highest judicial authorities at a national level.