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Gypsies seem to have arrived in the Middle East about 1000 AD, some going on into North Africa and others on into Europe. They were an intelligent people, used to living on their wits, who found it easy to impress the uneducated locals by giving themselves unwarranted titles and assuming the importance to go with them. Hence they arrived in Europe as Lords, Dukes, Counts and Earls of Little Egypt, demanding and receiving help and support from those in authority.
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Similar groups arrived in most of the countries of Central and Western Europe throughout the 1400's. They are recorded in Italy, France, Germany and Hungary. They roamed far and wide, living the nomadic life, with the men carrying on their trades as horse dealers, musicians amd workers of metal, while the women continued to tell fortunes and to relieve the unwary of their property. They were feared by many, and this built up into movements by governments against them.
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A group of four hundred arrived in Germany, at Luneberg, in 1417. Their leaders, the 'Dukes' Andrew and Michael, along with sundry 'Counts' gave, by their dress, the impression of wealth and respectability. While they were well dressed, their followers were anything but. The 'nobles' stayed in the local hostelry, whilst the others camped wherever they could find shelter. As pilgrims, they were protected by a letter from the Emperor Sigismund. Sigismund,
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They received a letter of protection allowing them free and unhindered access to all Christian countries. They lived off the generosity of the locals, and when insufficient was forthcoming, helped themselves. The ladies soon gained a reputation as fortune-tellers, but as many of their 'clients' were relieved of their purses at the same time, they also gained the not unfounded reputation of being thieves and pickpockets.
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Countries issued edicts against them, the first being Spain in about 1490, but this just drove them underground. Spain tried, over the next three hundred years, to prohibit their dress, language and customs and so force assimilation and an end to their wanderings. Country after country passed laws to reject and expel them, sometimes to colonies overseas.
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England expelled gypsies in 1530
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In 1539, France issued a nationwide expulsion order.
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In parts of Central Europe they were forced into bondage, and in Romania made to live as chattel slaves - a situation which did not change until they gained their freedom in 1856. In many cases, their answer was to move elsewhere until such times as a law was made expelling them.
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The Gypsies of Europe were registered, sterilized, ghettoized, and then deported to concentration and death camps by the Nazis. Approximately 250,000 to 500,000 Gypsies were murdered during the Holocaust - an event they call the Porajmos (the "Devouring").
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Estimates of the total population of ethnic Gypsies in the United States range from fewer than 100,000 to one million. Gypsies' patterns of kinship structures, traveling, and economics characterize them as an ancient people who have adapted well to modern society.
