The Exclusion of Jews in the Norwegian Constitution of 1814

The Norwegian Constitution of May 1814 was regarded as the most liberal constitution of its time, yet it was also radically exclusive against Jews, Jesuits and monastic orders. None of these groups were allowed to enter the kingdom, and those who did, even accidentally, were subject to imprisonment and deportation. Why did the Norwegian Constituent Assembly introduce Europe’s most antisemitic clause to Europe’s most liberal constitution? The essays collected in this volume present new historical research on the exclusion of Jews in the Norwegian Constitution to an international public. They examine the intellectual origins of the anti-Jewish clause, explore the enforcement of the constitutional ban in vivid detail and place the Norwegian case into a broader transnational European context.