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.
