[17] They were interdicted from the callings of vintners, grocers, taverners, especially of apothecaries, and of physicians, and nurses. Ordenanças Reales, lib. 8, tit. 3, leyes 11, 15, 18.
[18] No law was more frequently reiterated than that prohibiting the Jews from acting as stewards of the nobility, or farmers and collectors of the public rents. The repetition of this law shows to what extent that people had engrossed what little was known of financial science in that day. For the multiplied enactments in Castile against them, see Ordenanças Reales, (lib. 8, tit. 3.) For the regulations respecting the Jews in Aragon, many of them oppressive, particularly at the commencement of the fifteenth century, see Fueros y Observancias del Reyno de Aragon, (Zaragoza, 1667,) tom. i. fol. 6.—Marca Hispanica, pp. 1416, 1433.—Zurita, Anales, tom. iii. lib. 12, cap. 45.
[19] Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 43.—Llorente, Hist. de l'Inquisition, préf. p. 26.—A manuscript entitled Tizon de España, (Brand of Spain,) tracing up many a noble pedigree to a Jewish or Mahometan root, obtained a circulation, to the great scandal of the country, which the efforts of the government, combined with those of the Inquisition, have not been wholly able to suppress. Copies of it, however, are now rarely to be met with. (Doblado, Letters from Spain, (London, 1822,) let. 2.) Clemencin notices two works with this title, one as ancient as Ferdinand and Isabella's time, and both written by bishops. Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. p. 125.
[20] Mariana, Hist. de España, tom. ii. p. 479.—Pulgar, Reyes Católicos, part. 2, cap. 77.
[21] Reyes Católicos, MS., cap, 43. Vol. I.21.
[22] Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, ubi supra.—Pulgar, Reyes Católicos, part. 2, cap. 77.—Zuñiga, Annales de Sevilla, p. 386.—Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. p. 44.—Llorente, tom. i. pp. 143, 145.
Some writers are inclined to view the Spanish Inquisition, in its origin, as little else than a political engine. Guizot remarks of the tribunal, in one of his lectures, "Elle contenait en germe ce qu'elle est devenue; mais elle ne l'était pas en commençant: elle fut d'abord plus politique que religieuse, et destinée à maintenir l'ordre plutôt qu'à défendre la foi." (Cours d'Histoire Moderne, (Paris, 1828-30,) tom. v. lec. 11.) This statement is inaccurate in reference to Castile, where the facts do not warrant us in imputing any other motive for its adoption than religious zeal. The general character of Ferdinand, as well as the circumstances under which it was introduced into Aragon, may justify the inference of a more worldly policy in its establishment there.
[23] Essai sur les Moeurs et l'Esprit des Nations, chap. 176.
[24] Sigüenza, Historia de la Orden de San Gerónimo, apud Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. Ilust. 13.—This anecdote is more characteristic of the order than the individual. Oviedo has given a brief notice of this prelate, whose virtues raised him from the humblest condition to the highest posts in the church, and gained him, to quote that writer's words, the appellation of "El sancto, ó el buen arzobispo en toda España." Quincuagenas, MS., dial. de Talavera.
[25] Zurita, Anales, tom. iv. fol. 323.