Jubilee, THE YEAR OF (Heb. yobel), a peculiar theocratic, and apparently theoretical much more than practical, institution among the Hebrews (Leviticus, xxv.), by which every fiftieth (not fortieth) year, the land that in the interval had passed out of the possession of those to whom it originally belonged was restored to them, and all who had been reduced to poverty, and obliged to hire themselves out as servants, were released from their bondage; while at the same time all debts were remitted (Jos. Ant. iii. 12). The jubilee forms, as it were, an exalted Sabbatical Year (q.v.), and the land was completely to be left to rest in the former as in the latter. The design of this institution was chiefly to prevent the growth of an oligarchy of land-owners, and the total impoverishment of some families. It was proclaimed at the end of the harvest-time, like the sabbatical year, on the day of atonement, by the 'yobel' (a kind of horn), hence probably also its name. There is no trace in the whole history of the Hebrews down to the Babylonian exile that the jubilee had ever been observed; after the return, however, it appears to have been rigorously kept, like the sabbatical year, for some time at least; but, from its general impracticability, it must soon have fallen into disuse. Dillmann maintains the 'year of liberty' of Ezek. xlv. 16-18 to be the year of jubilee, while Kuenen and Wellhausen make it the sabbatical year.
The Christian church adopted the term Jubilee from the Jewish, and the jubilee in two forms, the 'ordinary' and 'extraordinary,' is still an institution in the Roman Catholic Church, as a period of remission from the penal consequences of sin. The ordinary jubilee is that which is celebrated at stated intervals, the length of which has varied at different times. Its origin is traced to Pope Boniface VIII., who issued, for the year 1300, a bull granting a plenary indulgence to all pilgrim-visitors of Rome during that year, on condition of their penitently confessing their sins, and visiting the church of St Peter and St Paul, fifteen times if strangers, and thirty times if residents of the city. Innumerable troops of pilgrims from every part of the church flocked to Rome. As instituted by Boniface, the jubilee was to have been held every hundredth year. Clement VI., in a bull of 1343, abridged the time to fifty years. The number of pilgrims that year is said to have been no fewer than 1,000,000! The term of interval was still further abridged by Urban
VI., and again by Paul II., who in 1470 ordered that thenceforward each twenty-fifth year should be held as jubilee—an arrangement which has continued ever since to regulate the ordinary jubilee. Paul II. extended still more, in another way, the spiritual advantages of the jubilee, by dispensing with the personal pilgrimage to Rome, and granting the indulgence to all who should visit any church in their own country designated for the purpose, and should, if their means permitted, contribute a sum towards the expenses of the Holy Wars. The substitution by Leo X. of the fund for building St Peter's Church for that of the Holy War, and the abusive and scandalous proceedings of many of those appointed to preach the Indulgence (q.v.), were among the proximate causes of the Reformation. In later jubilee years the pilgrimages to Rome gradually diminished in frequency, the indulgence being, for the most part, obtained by the performance of the prescribed works at home; but the observance itself has been punctually maintained at each recurring period, with the single exception of the year 1800, in which, owing to the vacancy of the holy see, and the troubles of the times, it was not held.
The extraordinary jubilee is ordered by the pope out of the regular period, either on his accession, or on some occasion of public calamity, or in some critical condition of the fortunes of the church; one of the conditions for obtaining the indulgence in such cases being the recitation of certain stated prayers for the particular necessity in which the jubilee originated.
Jubilee is also used for the celebration of a fiftieth anniversary—as the jubilee of George III.'s accession (1809), and of Queen Victoria's (1887); and for festivals generally, as the 'Peace Jubilees' celebrated at Boston, United States, in 1869 and 1872.