1. Put on clean clothes, or had a clean table-cloth on the Saturday, or dispensed with a fire on the Friday night.
2. If he washed the blood from meat, or examined the knife before slaying an animal.
3. If, on the Day of Atonement, he asked forgiveness of those whom he had offended, or put his hands on his children’s heads to bless them, without making the sign of the cross.
4. If he gave his children Jewish names.[154]
5. If he ate the same meat as Jews, or sat down to table with them. If, when dying, he turned his face to the wall, or let any one else turn it. If he washed a corpse with warm water. If he spoke approvingly of the dead (such person being a Jew), or made lamentation for him, or caused a body to be buried in virgin soil, etc.
If it were not that these enactments were followed up by the most barbarous and insatiable cruelties, it would be difficult to read this extraordinary catalogue of offences without a smile. But all disposition to mirth vanishes when we remember what ensued. Great numbers of arrests, we are told, were made—the practice of keeping the accuser’s name a profound secret rendering it easy to indulge malevolence without the risk of exposure. The accused, not being told the exact nature or details of the charges against them, were unable to disprove them; and, not being confronted with the witnesses, could not expose their falsehood. Both witnesses and accused, again, were frequently put to the severest tortures, under the pressure of which they made confessions which they were not allowed to retract. In short, it was wholly impossible for any one to escape condemnation when it was the wish or the interest of the inquisitors to condemn him; and it is no wonder that the list of their victims should have extended to a length so fearful.
Fearful indeed it is to read. During the eighteen years of Torquemada’s inquisitorship, more than ten thousand persons were burned alive; more than six thousand corpses, of persons found guilty after their deaths, were dragged from their graves and fastened to the stakes, along with the living victims; while nearly one hundred thousand were stripped of all their possessions, and sentenced to life-long imprisonment.[155]
All classes of men were shocked and alarmed at these dreadful scenes. The Cortes appealed to the Pope, who made a feeble attempt to interfere, but soon desisted; while, in Saragossa, a conspiracy was organized, and Arbues d’Avila, one of the three inquisitors, was assassinated in the cathedral. But this did not benefit the unhappy Jews. Whether guilty or not of the act, all men considered them so, and left them to what they regarded as the just penalty of their crime.
Thus far the persecution had been directed entirely to the conversos, or New Christians. Such of the Jews as had refused to abandon their faith had been left uninjured; nor is it unlikely that they considered this as being the just reward of their constancy. But their turn was now to come. Ferdinand and Isabella, who had at last succeeded in reducing the whole of Spain to their sovereignty, resolved that thenceforth none should breathe the air of that land who denied the Christian faith. In 1492 they issued the memorable decree, commanding all Jews to renounce their creed or depart from Spain. It was dated March 30th, and allowed them four months in which to prepare for their departure. Any Jews who presumed to linger in the country after the expiration of that date, or to return to it at any future time, were to be liable to the penalty of death, and the forfeiture of all their goods. Any persons who publicly or privately sheltered or protected any of the proscribed race, after the 31st of July, were to be punished by the confiscation of their entire property.
The blow fell like a thunderbolt on the unhappy people. It has been several times remarked that, considering the irreconcilable enmity entertained towards them, and the incessant wrongs they underwent, it could have been no great privation to be exiled from lands which contained none but bitter and merciless enemies. But they do not understand human nature who would so argue. Man is like a creeping plant, which puts out its tendrils to clasp the objects nearest to it; and, though these may be rough bark or barren rock, it cannot be torn away from them without resistance and pain. And if this was applicable to the Jews in all countries, it was especially true as regarded Spain. There, for centuries, they had dwelt, peaceful, prosperous, and happy. While their brethren in other lands underwent cruel insult and wrong, they had been protected against violence by wise and just rulers. Only recently had the hand of violence been raised against them; and they might surely hope that it might be withdrawn ere long, when calmer reason again bore sway.