With such an example the condition of the Jews grew more serious. As for the Spaniards, they bettered the instruction, as was sufficiently proved by their expulsion-edict of March, 1492—an edict forbidding unbaptized Jews to be found within the limits of Spain at the end of four months; an edict allowing them in that time to sell their property, but forbidding them at the end of that time "to carry away with them any gold, silver, or money whatsoever;" "an edict," says the Catholic historian, Lafuente, "that condemned to expatriation, to misery, to despair, and to death, many thousands of families born and bred in Spain."
In almost every mediæval town there was a Jewish district, in which, says M. Depping, their historian, "Jews like troops of lepers were thrust away and huddled together into the most uncomfortable and most unhealthy quarters of the city, as miserable as it was disgusting;" or, as Paul Lacroix describes it, "a large enclosure of wretched houses, irregularly built, divided by small streets with no attempt at uniformity. The principal thoroughfare is lined with stalls, in which are sold not only old clothes, furniture, and utensils, but also new and glittering articles." Within their prescribed limits, all their necessities were supplied, and a dirt-begrimed prison-like synagogue usually occupied the center. But even in these wretched places they were often subjected to cruelties the most severe and sickening. Terrible as were the indignities heaped upon this unfortunate people it must not be supposed that they were wholly unprovoked, or that all the forbearance was on the part of the sufferers. Opinions on these questions are widely divergent, and I refer to them here only to show more clearly the condition of Europe at the time of which I write.
THE CHARGE OF CRUELTY.
The Spaniards of the sixteenth century have been called a cruel people; and so they were. Yet they were no more cruel than other nations of their day, and no more cruel relatively, according to the progress of humanity, than are we to-day. Time evolves in many respects a more refined civilization, but the nature of man changes not. Individuals may be less beastly; society may be regulated more by law and less by passion; between nations in their wars and diplomacy there may be less systematic torture, less unblushing chicanery; but the world has yet to find a weightier right than might. I fail to discover in America, by Catholic Spaniards or heathen savages, deeds more atrocious than some committed in India and China within the century by Protestant England, the world's model of piety and propriety; and yet the treatment of Indians in North America by the people of Great Britain has been far more just and humane than their treatment by the people of the United States.
Before such a charge as that of excessive cruelty can be made good against a people, there are several things to be considered. And first the motive. The surgeon who amputates a limb to save a life is not called cruel. Now the Spaniards were the spiritual surgeons of their day. Nine tenths of all their cruelties were committed under the conviction that what they did was in the line of duty, and that to refrain from so doing would have been no kindness. Though with the experience of the past and by the clearer light of the nineteenth century we conclude that these convictions were false, and though we contemplate them with horror and condemn the acts which resulted from them as barbarous, yet it is almost superfluous to say that with their teachings and surroundings we should have been the same. The inherent qualities of human nature seem to be changed but little if at all by the cultivation and development of mind. Secondly, the quality of cruelty is not pronounced, but relative. There are cruelties of the heart, of the sensibilities, no less cruel than bodily tortures. The age of savagism is always cruel. Cruelty springs from ignorance rather than from instinct. Childlike and thoughtless things, things tender by instinct, are cruel from disingenuous perversity. A clouded, unreasoning, unreasonable mind, even when hiding beneath it a tender heart, begets cruelty; while a sterner disposition, if accompanied by a clear, truth-loving intellect, delights in no injustice—and cruelty is always unjust. This is why, if it be true as has been charged, that notwithstanding boys are more cruel than girls, women are more cruel than men. Children, women, and savages are cruel from thoughtlessness; though the cruel boy may be very tender of his puppy, the cruel woman of her child, the cruel savage of his horse. Even the moralities and intellectual refinements of that day were not free from what would seem to us studied and unnecessary cruelty. I will cite a few instances of European cruelty, not confined to Spaniards, which will show not only that Spain was not more cruel than other nations, but that the savages of America were not more cruel than the Europeans of their day. Both tortured to the uttermost where they hated, even as men do now; the chief difference was, the Europeans, being the stronger, could torture the harder. Civilization changes, not the quantity of cruelty, but the quality only.
THE BARBARISMS OF EUROPE.
"Cæsar Borgia," writes Sebastiano de Branca in his diary, about the year 1500, "Cæsar Borgia was the cruelest man of any age." To serve his purposes he did not hesitate to use poison and perjury. He was treacherous, incestuous, murderous, even keeping a private executioner, Michilotto, to do his bidding. Louis XI. of France, and other princes, kept a court assassin. The fifteenth century was lurid with atrocities. Rodrigo Lenzuoli, the father, Lucretia, the daughter, and Cæsar, the son, comprised the Borgia trio, distinguished no less for their intellect, beauty, wealth, and bravery, than for their craft, lust, treachery, and cruelty. Says Lecky: "Philip II. and Isabella the Catholic inflicted more suffering in obedience to their consciences than Nero or Domitian in obedience to their lusts."
In 1415 John Huss was burned for his religion, and in 1431 Joan of Arc for her patriotism. In like manner perished thousands of others. Mahomet II., disputing with the Venetian artist Gentile Bellini as to the length of John the Baptist's neck after decollation, called a slave, and striking off his head with one blow of his cimeter, exclaimed: "There! did not I say yours is too long?"
Princes made bloodshed a pastime. Edward IV. put to death a tradesman for perpetrating a pun; caused a gentleman to be executed for speaking against a favorite; and condemned his own brother to death in a fit of petulance. In an interview between this same Edward of England and the king of France, the monarchs were brought together in huge iron cages, each distrustful of the other. Louis XII. confined Ludovico Sforza, duke of Milan, in an iron cage for ten years, and until his death. This was a punishment common at that time in Italy and Spain. Pedro el Cruel is charged by Hallam with having murdered his wife and mother, most of his brothers and sisters, many of the Castilian nobility, and multitudes of the commonalty.
The church tolerated the persecution of its enemies, believing it was for the glory of God. Nor was this idea confined to Spain or to the fifteenth century, for we find in England and even in America that persecutions for conscience' sake, with all the cruelties that refined civilization could devise existed at the opening of the present century; nor indeed is the world yet completely emancipated from this thraldom.