AD 1500 to 1700

It happened one day that Sabbatai Zevi returned from Egypt with his wife. As he entered Gaza, the prophet Nathan cried out with a loud voice: “This is the saviour of Israel, the messiah of the God of Jacob! Apart from him, Israel has no redeemer whatever! Every prophecy of every prophet was spoken about him!”

Sabbatai Zevi heard about this while he was in Gaza, and he sent for [Nathan]. A great fear then fell upon Nathan, and he came trembling and shuddering, his body bowed low. And he fell on the ground before him.

"Bushell's Case," also known as "The Quakers' Great Case," which involved William Penn and William Mead in 1670. William Penn, a prominent Quaker, and William Mead were arrested for preaching in the street near Gracechurch Street in London. The case is significant for its role in the development of the jury's independence.

During the trial, the jury, led by Edward Bushell, found Penn and Mead not guilty despite the judge's instructions to convict them. The judge, however, was dissatisfied with the jury's decision and imprisoned them for their refusal to change their verdict. This led to a series of legal battles that ultimately reinforced the idea that juries should be free from coercion and have the authority to reach their own decisions.

This case contributed to the principle of jury nullification, emphasizing the jury's right to deliver a verdict based on their conscience and not merely on the judge's instructions. It became an important precedent in the protection of the independence of juries in legal proceedings.

https://thetorah.com/allegorizers-of-torah-and-the-story-of-their-prosec...

Allegorizers of Torah and the Story of their Prosecution in Languedoc (1305)

The Jewish Allegorists:
Rashba’s Curse

In a public letter to Abba Mari of Montpellier (more about him later), the great Catalonian sage, Rashba (Solomon ben Aderet, 1235-1310; Barcelona, Catalonia), had this to say in 1304 about Jews in Languedoc who were reading Scripture through philosophic allegory:

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19553/19553-h/19553-h.htm

THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN KABBALISM By Gershom Scholem

https://www.amazon.com/Grand-Grimoire-Red-Dragon/dp/1506186017

By the late 1500s, there were at least 13 established lodges across Scotland, from Edinburgh to Perth. But it wasn’t until the turn of the 16th Century that those medieval guilds gained an institutional structure – the point which many consider to be the birth of modern Freemasonry.

The oldest minutes in the world, which date to January 1599, is from Lodge Aitchison’s Haven in East Lothian, Scotland, which closed in 1852. Just six months later, in July 1599, the lodge of Mary’s Chapel in Edinburgh started to keep minutes, too. As far as we can tell, there are no administrative records from England dating from this time.

In 1644, Menasseh met Antonio de Montezinos, a Portuguese traveler and Marrano Sephardic Jew who had been in the New World. Montezinos convinced him of his conclusion that the South America Andes' Indians were the descendants of the lost ten tribes of Israel. This purported discovery gave a new impulse to Menasseh's Messianic hopes, as the settlement of Jews throughout the world was supposed to be a sign that the Messiah would come. Filled with this idea, he turned his attention to England, whence the Jews had been expelled since 1290. He worked to get them permission to settle there again and thus hasten the Messiah's coming.

For the next sixteen months, the Messianic movement headed by Sabbatai and his “prophet” Nathan swept the Jewish Diaspora like a brushfire. From London to Poland, from Hamburg to Yemen, Jews believed in perfect faith that Sabbatai Zevi was the promised Redeemer, about to lead them back to the Holy Land and rebuild the Temple.