The spirit thus evoked was allayed for a time—probably because Henry not only lent it no help, but was in his heart favourably inclined to the Jews. A deputation, composed of converts to Christianity and those who still professed their ancient faith, residing in Valladolid, waited on him, to ask his protection against the oppression and injustice of the partisans of his sister Donna Isabella, and were kindly received. Though no satisfaction was given them for the wrongs they had undergone, injustice for the future was restrained. When at a Cortes, held in 1469, a petition was presented to him, praying him to forbid the Jews thenceforward to farm or collect tithes, he paid no heed to it. But the spirit of persecution was checked for a time only. In 1473 it broke out again, and deluged all Andalusia with blood. A new feature was now manifested, likely to produce the gravest consequences. The storm of persecution had hitherto fallen on those only who persisted in refusing to adopt the Christian faith. But persons were now included in it who had lately become converts to the Church, and who were known by the title of the ‘New Christians.’ Their fidelity to their new belief was greatly suspected; and, it cannot be denied, with a good deal of reason. And, besides, these New Christians were, after all, guilty of that gravest of all Jewish offences—acquiring wealth at the expense of the old Christians. The mobs in the Andalusian cities attacked old and new Jews alike. In Jaen, the constable of the town, Franza by name, who interfered to protect them, was assassinated while hearing mass in the cathedral itself, and the pillage and murder went on unchecked. The example was soon followed in Castile. In Segovia, in 1474, Don Juan de Pachecho, wishing to provoke a rising for the execution of a political intrigue, thought the most likely mode of succeeding was by exciting an armed attack on the converted Jews, it being easy then to divert the rabble to his purpose. The insurrection was put down by the royal forces, but not before great numbers of the Jews had been slain.

Henry died in the same year, 1474, and was succeeded by his sister Isabella. Her title to the crown was doubtful, as there was a daughter of Henry’s second queen, named Juana, who, if legitimate, was the rightful heir. But the whole nation seemed to have concurred in rejecting Juana’s claim; and, though her cause was taken up by the King of Portugal, to whom she had given her hand, his complete defeat at Toro extinguished her hopes for ever. Five years afterwards Ferdinand succeeded to the crown of Aragon, and his union with Isabella may be said to have created anew the long extinct monarchy of Spain.

In the following year a Cortes was held at Toledo, and many laws were enacted for the government of the now united kingdoms. Among these was an ordinance, that not only should the Jews be compelled to reside within the bounds of their own Jewry or ghetto, but also that any Jew who should presume to live elsewhere should forfeit all his property, and his person be at the disposal of the king. In other respects the regulations passed were neither oppressive nor unreasonable. Within the bounds of their ghetto, all privileges which of late years they had been permitted to enjoy were allowed them. But shortly after Ferdinand’s accession to the united throne of Castile and Aragon, he introduced into his dominions a new engine for the oppression of the Jews, the infamous Inquisition, the working of which produced more momentous and terrible consequences than he himself, in all likelihood, foresaw; which culminated, indeed, not only in the misery and ruin of the Jews, but in the decay and degradation of Spain herself.

This was the era of the famous Isaac Abarbanel, the favourite minister of Alphonso V., of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, and of Ferdinand, King of Naples. He was distinguished, not only as a statesman, but as an author. He wrote valuable commentaries on the Pentateuch and the Prophets, as well as many other works. Jacob Mantenu also, physician to Paul III., and the Latin translator of Maimonides, belongs to this century.

FOOTNOTES:

[151] A similar state of things exists in South Russia to-day.

[152] Hearing, it may be, of this, Ferrer besought permission of the King of Portugal to enter his dominions, as the messenger of Heaven. The king replied, he was welcome to come, but he must first prove his mission by putting on a crown of red-hot iron! Ferrer declined to avail himself of this offer!

CHAPTER XXVII.
A.D. 1400-1500.
THE JEWS IN SPAIN—continued.

The Inquisition, introduced into Spain by Ferdinand, with the consent of Isabella,[153] was not a new institution. It had been established in France early in the thirteenth century, the object then being to compel the return of the Albigenses to the orthodox faith. It had worked terrible woe to that unhappy people; but two hundred and fifty years afterwards the heresy had so nearly died out, that the Inquisition would have died along with it, if it had not been that the outcry respecting the New Christians, as they were called—that is the recent converts to Christianity—once more set the hateful machinery in operation. The height to which the persecution of the Jews had risen in the fifteenth century had left them no alternative but apostasy or death. It is no wonder that large numbers of the Jews preferred the former. It is said that no less than thirty-five thousand persons had been induced to accept baptism by the preaching of Vincent Ferrer alone. For a time the clergy felt overwhelmed with joy at this signal triumph; but after a while grave suspicions of the sincerity of these new converts began to be felt. Outwardly, no doubt, they conformed to the requirements of the Church; but it was suspected that they still continued to observe in secret the Jewish ritual.

Three inquisitors were appointed, Torquemada, Juglar, and D’Avila; and their first act was to put forth an edict, in which they declared it to be the duty of all faithful Christians, without paying any regard to rank or condition, to accuse to the tribunal any whom they knew to be open professors but secret enemies of Christ. Any who did not do so became themselves amenable to the law for their criminal silence. To facilitate such accusations, a manifesto was issued, in which various proofs were mentioned by which a ‘secret Jew’ might be detected. We learn from it that a man might be accounted as a concealed Jew if, among many similar evidences, he—