cil of Toledo. tion of goods. He threatens with the penalty of excommunication any bishop, priest or monk who should help or defend a Jew. A later, but untrustworthy, writer asserts that as a result of Sisebut's persecutions Protest by 90,000 Jews were baptized.1 A protest against the Bishop Isidore. king's action was raised by Isidore, bishop of Seville, who declared that the policy of forcing Jews to become Christians was not according to knowledge. At the 4th Coun- fourth Council of Toledo (633), which was largely influenced by Isidore, a decree relating to the conversion of Jews was passed which is the most liberal that can be found in Spanish history. The Council decreed that "men ought not to be compelled to believe, because God will have mercy on those on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth. As man fell by his own free will in listening to the wiles of the serpent, so man can only be converted by his free acceptance of the Christian faith."3 In contravention, however, of the spirit of this decree, the Council directed that all Jews who had received baptism under compulsion must continue to be Christians, and passed a series of enactments placing Jews under cruel disabilities. In 637 King Chintila passed a law that none but Catholics should reside in his kingdom. In 638 6th Coun- the sixth Council of Toledo decreed that no one henceforth should be elected as king who did not take an oath 638. that he would never permit Judaism, or heresy, to In 654 King Recceswinth com King Chintila, 637. cil of Toledo, King Rec- exist in the kingdom. ceswinth, 654. 1 See Milman, Hist of the J. iii. 104 n. 2 "Judæos ad fidem Christianam permovens æmulationem quidem habuit, sed non secundum scientiam. Potestate enim compulit quos pro vocare fidei ratione opportuit." Isidore, vii. 126; Migne, P. L. lxxxiii. col. 1075. 3 Canon lviii.; see Mansi, Conc. x. 633. * Canon iii.; see Mansi, Conc. xii. 102. pelled the Jews who had become nominal Christians the Jews should be sold as slaves and that their goods Toledo, 66 1 Canon viii. treat "golden age" of in Spain. ministering the finances of Christian and Mohammedan kingdoms, and travelling as ambassadors between mighty sovereigns." 1 This prosperity lasted without interruption in Spain till the middle of the eleventh century, when a Jew named Hallevi in the kingdom of Granada attempted Massacre to convert some Moslems to Judaism. As a result Moslems. the stern orthodoxy of Islam took fire, the rash teachers were hanged, the race persecuted, and 1500 families, of whom it was said that he who had not heard of their splendour, their glory and their prosperity had heard nothing, sank into disgrace and destitution.” 2 Later on when the Moors were conquered by the Christians the Jews were for a time unmolested. It is significant to note that during the period of advancing education and culture, when the persecution of the Jews by Christians ceased, the conversions of Jews to ChristiMassacre anity tended to increase.3 In 1296 the passions of the by Christians at populace were aroused against them, and the streets Toledo, of Toledo ran with Jewish blood, while their 1296. were pillaged or destroyed. synagogues 4 Alfonso the Wise of Seville (1252-84) treated the Jews with kindness and gave them some Mohammedan mosques to use as synagogues. James of Arragon gave Preaching permission to a monk named Paul to preach Christiin Jewish anity in all the Jewish synagogues, and to receive his travelling expenses out of the tribute paid by the Jews to the Church. Needless to relate his preaching was not followed by conversions to his faith. According synagogues. 1 Milman, Hist. of the J. iii. 117. 66 2 Milman, Hist. of the J. iii. 173. den Juden den Übertritt zur Kirche." The magnificent synagogue at Cordova became the church of St. Benet. popula Spain. massacres. to Jost, the Jewish historian, the Jewish population Jewish in Spain at the end of the thirteenth century numbered tion in half a million. They must therefore have constituted a considerable proportion of the entire population. In 1391 the Christians of Seville, stirred up by the fanatical preaching of Martinez archdeacon of Ecija, attacked and massacred 4000 Jews, including men, women and children. Similar massacres were perpetrated in the A series of following year in Cordova, Valencia, Toledo and Burgos, when the Jewish inhabitants of these towns suffered "plunder, rape, massacre and conflagration." Many Jews at this time submitted to baptism in order to save their lives or those of their families. At Barcelona, during the celebration of the Feast of St. Dominic, the populace attacked and endeavoured to exterminate the whole Jewish population, and all who would not submit to baptism were murdered. "Amid the shrieks of their more faithful dying brethren many abjured their faith . and embraced that of Christ thus preached to them by the Mohammedan argument of the sword." Which," asks Milman, were the least Christian, those who enforced, or those who embraced the faith?" 1 This last rising was condemned and to some extent punished by John I the king of Arragon. It is stated that about 200,000 Jews in all accepted baptism in Spain at this time as an alternative to a violent death. Amidst these ghastly massacres one voice at least was raised pleading for the employment of more Christlike means in order to secure the conversion of the Jews. A Dominican monk, Vincent The preaching Ferrer, afterwards canonized as a saint, went from of Vincent 66 1 Hist. of the J. iii. 288. 66 Ferrer. disputa tion. place to place followed by a train of bare-headed penitents, who bewailed their sins and scourged themselves till the ground was reddened with their blood. His miracles and preaching are said by the later monkish historians to have resulted in the conversion of 35,000 Jews. He was present at, though he disapproved of, the massacre of Jews which took place at Valencia in 1391. In 1413, in the presence of the A public anti-pope Benedict XIII, a public disputation took place between the Jews and Christians in Tortosa, at which both sides claimed to have prevailed in argument. Soon afterwards Benedict issued a Bull ordering the destruction of all copies of the Talmud and prohibiting Jews from following any occupation which would bring them into contact with Christians. King John II in 1443 issued a decree with the object of protecting the Jews from the violence of the clergy. In 1460 Bishop Don Juan Arias d'Avila caused sixteen Jews to be burned or hanged, and massacres of Jews soon afterwards occurred throughout Andalusia and Castile. In 1487 Pope Nicholas IV protested against the compulsory baptism and ill-treatment of the Jews in Spain, but his Establish- protest failed to produce any lasting results. In 1480 the Inqui- the Inquisition was first established in Seville, and the Inquisitors immediately began to inquire into the beliefs of the Jews who had recently been converted to the Christian faith, but who were suspected of retaining an attachment to some of their former beliefs or practices. Large numbers of these were put to death, after suffering extremity of torture, both in Seville and throughout Spain. In 1492 Ferdinand and Isabella ment of sition, 1480. 1 During the régime of Torquemada the Inquisitor-General of Castile and Arragon, which lasted twenty years, 10,220 persons, most of whom were |