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A yellow badge, also referred to as a Jewish badge, is a mandatory mark or a piece of cloth of specific geometric shape, worn on the outer garment in order to distinguish a person of certain religion or ethnicity in public. It is traditionally associated with the persecution of Jews. In some countries a badge was accompanied or replaced by identifying garb or hat. In the Middle Ages clothes worn by different groups of people were regulated by sumptuary law.

The color yellow had been maligned since feudal times. Horses that were yellowish were considered worthless throughout society (as seen in the obsolete phrase, to curry Fauvel, a conventional name of a yellow horse).

In the Dhimmi dress codes, forcing all Jews to wear a yellow badge, were sometimes — but not always — enforced, so that dhimmis would be visibly distinct from Muslims. The practice is not found in the Qur'an or hadith.

Timeline

717: Caliph Omar II orders both Jews and Christians to wear a distinguishing mark. Neck-Sealing in early Islam by Chase F. Robinson (Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, Volume 48, Number 3, 2005, pp. 401-441
807: Abbassid Caliph Harun al-Rashid orders Jews to wear yellow belt, blue for Christians.
853: Abbassid Caliph Al-Mutawakkil issues a yellow badge edict.
1005: Fatimid Caliph Al-Hakim orders Jews of Egypt and the Land of Israel to wear bells on their garments and "golden calf" (made of wood) around the neck. In 1301, they were obliged to wear yellow turbans.
1121: A letter from Baghdad describes decrees regulating Jewish clothes: "two yellow badges, one on the headgear and one on the neck. Furthermore, each Jew must hang round his neck a piece of lead with the word dhimmi on it. He also has to wear a belt round his waist. The women have to wear one red and one black shoe and have a small bell on their necks or shoes." Paul Johnson, A History of the Jews (1987), p.204
1215: Fourth Lateran Council headed by Pope Innocent III declares: "Jews and Saracens of both sexes in every Christian province and at all times shall be marked off in the eyes of the public from other peoples through the character of their dress." Fourth Lateran Council, Canon 68
1219: Pope Honorius III issues a dispensation to the Jews of Castile.
1222: Archbishop of Canterbury Stephen Langton orders English Jews to wear white band, later changed to yellow.
1228: James I orders Jews of Aragon to wear the badge.
1267: In a special session, the Vienna city council forces Jews to wear Pileum cornutum (a cone-shaped head dress, prevalent in many medieval illustrations of Jews). This distinctive dress is an addition to yellow badge Jews were already forced to wear.
1269: France June 19. St. Louis IX of France ordered all Jews found in public without a badge (AKA rouelle or roue) to be fined ten livres of silver.
1274: Edward I of England enforces the decree. The badge was a piece of yellow cloth in the shape of the Tablets of the Law which had to be worn above the heart by every Jew over the age of seven.
1294: Erfurt. The earliest mention of the badge in Germany.
1315–1326: Emir Ismael Abu-I-Walid forces the Jews of Granada to wear the yellow badge.
1321: Henry II of Castile forces the Jews to wear the yellow badge.
1415: Bull of the Avignon Pope Benedict XIII insists the Jews to wear a yellow and red badge, the men on their breast, the women on their forehead.
1434: Emperor Sigismund reintroduces the badge at Augsburg.
1528: The municipal board of Venice allows famous physician and professor Jacob Mantino ben Samuel to wear the regular black doctors' cap instead of Jewish yellow hat for two months (period extended later), upon the recommendation of the French and English ambassadors, the papal legate, and other dignitaries numbered among his patients.
1555: Pope Paul IV decrees, in his Cum nimis absurdum, that the Jews should wear yellow hats.
1566: King Sigismund II passes a law that required Lithuanian Jews to wear yellow hats and head coverings. The law was abolished twenty years later.
1933–1945: The Nazi regimes in the occupied countries of Europe force Jews to wear an identifying mark under the threat of death. There are no consistent requirements as to its color and shape: it varies from a white armband to a yellow Star of David badge.
1940: The Danes undertake heroic efforts to shelter their Jews and help them escape from the Nazis to neutral Sweden. A popular legend portrays king Christian X of Denmark wearing an armband as he makes his daily morning horseback ride through the streets of Copenhagen, followed by non-Jewish Danes responding to their king's example, thus preventing the Germans from identifying Jewish citizens and rendering the Nazi order ineffective. The Queen Margrethe II of Denmark described the legend: "It is a beautiful and symbolic story, but it is not true… To me, the truth is an even greater honor for our country than the myth."Anne Wolden-Ræthinge, Queen in Denmark

References

See also

External links

Jewish history | Anti-Semitism

Judenstern | Rouelle | הטלאי הצהוב | Jodenster

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Yellow badge".

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