The twelfth Council of Toledo, in 681, repeats these merciless severities, which (it is no wonder to find) could not be carried into effect, except by direct State interference, and adds others of a like character. ‘The Jews,’ it is ordered, ‘are to offer themselves, their children, and their servants for baptism:’ they ‘shall not celebrate the Passover, or practise circumcision:’ they ‘shall not presume to observe the Sabbath or any Jewish festival:’ they ‘shall not dare to defend their religion to the disparagement of the Christian faith:’ and ‘they shall not read books abhorred by the Christian faith.’ The penalties for breach of these and the like statutes had hitherto been death. But the extreme severity of such a sentence, it is argued, had acted as a preventive to its being enforced. Therefore new orders were issued, by which the rigour of the punishments was abated. Henceforth, if a Jew profaned the name of Christ or of the Holy Trinity, or rejected the Sacraments, or kept the Jewish feasts, or worked on the Sunday, he was only to receive one hundred lashes on his naked body, and afterwards be put into chains and banished from the country, his whole property being confiscated to the State! If a man circumcised his child, he was to suffer mutilation, or if it were a woman who so offended, she was to lose her nose. If a Jew presumed to take a public office under a noble, he was to forfeit half his property, and suffer scourging; but if it was under an ecclesiastical superior that he undertook a situation of trust, he was to lose his whole estate, or be burned alive! The reader will surely call to mind Solomon’s saying, respecting the ‘tender mercies of the wicked,’ as he reads these ordinances.
But the avenger was at hand. For some years past the tide of Saracen conquest had been rolling along the northern coast of Africa, until it had reached the kingdom of Morocco; when it must turn southward into the barren wastes of the Sahara, or northwards, into the populous and fertile land of Spain. There could be little doubt which of the two they would prefer; and Wamba, one of the wisest and ablest of the Gothic sovereigns of Spain, in anticipation of such a catastrophe, collected a fleet, with which he encountered the Saracens, A.D. 675, and inflicted on them a disastrous defeat, which deferred the invasion of Spain for nearly forty years. But in the reign of Egica, and still more in that of his successor, Witiza, the imminent danger of the Spanish monarchy became so evident, and the fear that the Jews would co-operate in and accelerate the Mussulman invasion so alarming, that measures were taken to prevent it which indicate at once terror, haste, and self-reproach.
At first attempts were made to intimidate the Jews. Egica declared that he had learned, by their open avowal, that the Jews had plotted with enemies beyond the sea to effect the ruin of Christendom. Therefore, to counteract their efforts, all Jewish children upwards of seven years old were to be taken from their parents, the males married to Christian girls, and the girls to Christian men, and the children in all instances brought up in the Christian belief, so that in the next generation the Jews might cease altogether to exist as a separate people. This seems to have had no other effect than that of causing a general flight of Jews from Spain, the very thing of all others likely to bring about the mischief that was dreaded. Witiza endeavoured to repair the mistake. He issued a proclamation permitting all Jews to return to Spain, and enjoy there the full rights of freedom and citizenship. But the step was taken too late. If the Jews had concerted with Muza the invasion of Spain, as their enemies affirmed, their intrigues could not be annulled. In the year 711, two years after the accession of a new sovereign, Roderic,[82] to the throne, the Moors crossed into Spain; a decisive battle was fought on the banks of the Guadelete, in which the Moslems were victorious, and the Gothic kingdom of Spain ceased to exist.
Once more the miseries of fire and sword, which laid waste the whole of the Spanish peninsula, inflicted no suffering on the Jews residing within it. Whether any of the accusations with which the Christians have assailed them—of leaguing with the Moslem, furnishing them with secret information, opening the gates of beleaguered cities to them and the like—contain any admixture of truth, it would be difficult to say. In some instances the charges are manifestly false; in others the decision is very doubtful. But even allowing them to be true, it cannot be matter of wonder that men so persistently wronged and slandered should turn on their oppressors, when the opportunity was given them. The settlement of the Moors in Spain was followed by a long period of prosperity and peace, during which the Jews became famous throughout Europe for their wealth, their intelligence, and their learning. A famous Hebrew school was founded at Cordova, to which students from all parts of Europe are said to have resorted.
In France, during this century, something of the same spirit seems to have prevailed, by which the Catholic kings of Spain were actuated. Chilperic, as has been already recorded, towards the end of the previous century had insisted on the compulsory baptism of his Jewish subjects.
Early in the seventh century Clotaire II. issued a decree forbidding Jews to hold any military or civil office. Dagobert, who reigned from 628 to 638, enacted still more sternly, that the whole of his Jewish subjects should forswear their faith or depart from his dominions. It is said that he too acted under the influence of the Emperor Heraclius.[83] But of this there is no evidence, and it has been urged that the royal order, if issued, was but little observed, since the Jews, in the southern parts of his kingdom at least, continued to be a numerous and wealthy body throughout his reign. Wamba, the Gothic king of Languedoc, however, certainly took the step in question, and banished them from his kingdom.
FOOTNOTES:
[78] One would suspect the genuineness of this story, but that historians accept it apparently without doubt.
[79] The Jews took the opportunity of the popular outbreak against Martina and Heracleonas, to desecrate the church of St. Sophia with every kind of outrage, and apparently with impunity.
[80] Beyond doubt they were charged with having incited it.