A. c. 1505.] SUFFERINGS IN PORtugal.

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Christians. The secret transpired, and, lest they should conceal their children, it was instantly put in execution. Great God of Mercy, this was in the name of Christianity! Frantic mothers threw their children into the wells and rivers, they destroyed them with their own hands; but, though stifled in the heart of the monarch, the voice of Nature still spoke in that of the people, however bigoted. They assisted the Jews to conceal their children. By a new act of perfidy, Emmanuel suddenly revoked the order for their embarkation at two of the ports which had been named. Many were thrown back upon Lisbon, and the delay made them liable to the law. The more steadfast in their faith were shipped off as slaves, but the spirits of many were broken: on condition that they might receive back their children, and that government would not scrutinize their conduct too closely for twenty years, they submitted to baptism. Yet most of these were reserved, if possible, for a more dreadful fate. About ten years after, some of them were detected celebrating the Passover; this inflamed the popular resentment against them. In this state of the public mind, it happened that a monk was displaying a crucifix to the eyes of the wondering people, through a narrow aperture in which a light streamed-the light, he declared, of the manifest Deity. While the devout multitude were listening in blind devotion, one man alone was seen to smile; he had, in fact, discovered a lamp behind the mysterious crucifix. In a rash moment, he dropped the incautious expression, that if God would manifest himself by water (the year had been unusually dry and sultry) rather than by fire, it would be for the public advantage. The scandalized multitude recognised in the infidel speaker a new Christian. They rushed upon him, dragged him by the hair into the market-place, and there murdered him. His brother stood wailing over the body-he instantly shared his fate. From

every quarter the Dominicans rushed forth with crucifixes in their hands, crying out, “Revenge, revenge! down with the heretics; root them out; exterminate them." A Jewish authority asserts, that they offered to every one who should murder a Jew, that his sufferings in purgatory should be limited to a hundred days. The houses of the converts were assailed; men, women, and children involved in a promiscuous massacre-even those who fled into the churches, embraced the sacred relics, or clung to the crucifixes, were dragged forth and burned. The king was absent: on his return he put on great indignation. The ringleaders of the riot were punished; and the new Christians, who escaped, became for the future more cautious. Yet in the peninsula, Judaism still lurked in the depth of many hearts, inaccessible even to the searching scrutiny of the Inquisition. Secret Jews are said to have obtained the highest offices of the state, and even of the Church; to have worn the cowl of the monk, and even to have sat on the tribunal of the Inquisition. The celebrated Jewish physician, Orobio, stated that he had personal knowledge of many of his brethren who thus eluded the keen eye of the blood-hounds of the Holy Office. How deep a wound was inflicted on the national prosperity by this act of "the most Christian sovereign" cannot easily be calculated; but it may be reckoned among the most effective causes of the decline of Spanish greatness.

( 301 )

BOOK XXVII.

FALSE MESSIAHS.

Jews in Turkey-In Italy-Invention of Printing-ReformationLuther-Holland-Negotiation with Cromwell-Messiahs-Sabba

thai Sevi-Frank.

PROSCRIBED in So many kingdoms of Europe, the Jews again found shelter under the protection of the crescent. In the north of Africa, the communities which had long existed were considerably increased. Jews of each sect, Karaites as well as Talmudists, are found in every part of this region; in many countries they derive, as might naturally be supposed, a tinge from the manners of the people with whom they dwell; and among these hordes of fierce pirates and savage Moors, their character and habits are impregnated with the ferocity of the region. In Egypt their race has never been exterminated; they once suffered a persecution under Hakim, (A. C. 1020,) which might remind them of the terrors of former days, but they seem afterward to have dwelt in peace: Maimonides was the physician of Saladin. But the Ottoman empire, particularly its European dominions, was the great final retreat of those who fled from Spain. 50,000 are estimated to have been admitted into that country, where the haughty Turk condescends to look down on them with far less contempt than on the trampled Greeks. The Greeks are Yeshir, slaves, they hold their lives, on sufferance; the Jews, Monsaphir or visiters. They settled in Constantinople and in the commercial towns of the Levant, particularly Salonichi. Here the Rabbinical dominion was re-established in all its authority; schools were opened; the Semicha, or ordination, VOL. III.-C c

was re-enacted; and R. Berab entertained some hopes of re-establishing the Patriarchate of Tiberias. The Osmanlis beheld with stately indifference this busy people, on one hand, organizing their dispersed communities, strengthening their spiritual government, and labouring in the pursuit of that vain knowledge, which, being beyond the circle of the Koran, is abomination and folly to the true believer, even establishing that mysterious engine, the printing press; on the other, appropriating to themselves, with diligent industry and successful enterprise, the whole trade of the Levant. Their success in this important branch of commerce reacted upon the wealth and prosperity of their correspondents, their brethren in Italy. As early as 1400, the jealous republic of Venice had permitted a bank to be opened in their city by two Jews. In almost every town in Italy they pursued their steady course of traffic. They were established in Verona, Genoa, Pisa, Parma, Mantua, Pavia, Padua, Sienna, Bassano, Faenza, Florence, Cremona, Aquila, Ancona, Leghorn,* besides their head-quarters at Rome. Their chief trade, however, was money-lending; in which, at least with the lower classes, they seem to have held a successful contest against their old rivals, the Lombard bankers. An amiable enthusiast, Bernardino of Feltre, moved to see the whole people groaning under their extortions, endeavoured to preach a crusade, not against their religion, but against their usury; though the effect was, in many places, to raise the populace against the Jews. He attempted to enforce the doctrines of his sermons by active measures of benevolence-the establishment of banks on a more moderate rate of interest for the accommodation of the poor, called Mounts of Piety-Monti di Pietà. He met with great success in many towns; in Mantua, Monselice, Montefiore, Rimini,

* At a later period (under the Medici) it became a proverb in Leghorn, that a man might as well strike the grand duke as a Jew.

A. c.1442-1540.] CONDUCT OF THE POPES.

303

and Brescia: in Padua he forced the Jews to close their banks, from whence they had drawn an enormous profit. But the people were either so deeply implicated with their usurious masters, so much the slaves of habit, or so much repressed by the honest shame of poverty, as to prefer secret though more disadvantageous dealings with the Jews, to the publicity required in these new banks. The scheme languished, and in many places speedily expired.

The conduct of the Popes varied, as bigotry, policy, or humanity predominated in the character of the pontiff. In 1442, Eugenius the Fourth de

prived them of one of their most valuable privileges, and endeavoured to interrupt their amicable relations with the Christians; they were prohibited from eating and drinking together: Jews were excluded from almost every profession, were forced to wear a badge, to pay tithes; and Christians were forbidden to bequeath legacies to Jews. The succeeding Popes were more wise or more humane. In Naples, the celebrated Abarbanel became the confidential adviser of Ferdinand the Bastard and Alphonso the Second; they experienced a reverse, and were expelled from that city by Charles the Fifth. The stern and haughty Pope, Paul the Fourth, renewed the hostile edicts; he endeavoured to embarrass their traffic, by regulations which prohibited them from disposing of their pledges under eighteen months; deprived them of the trade in corn and in every other necessary of life, but left them the privilege of dealing in old clothes. Paul first shut them up in their Ghetto, a confined quarter of the city, out of which they were prohibited from appearing after sunset. Pius the Fourth relaxed the severity of his predecessor. He enlarged the Ghetto, and removed the restrictions on their commerce. Pius the Fifth expelled them from every city in the papal territory, except Rome and Ancona; he endured them in those cities with the avowed