An incidental expression of Martyr's, among many similar ones by contemporaries, affords the true key to the popular odium against the Jews. "Cum namque viderent, Judaeorum tabido commercio, qui hac horâ sunt in Hispaniâ innumeri Christianis ditiores, plurimorum animos corrumpi ac seduci," etc. Opus Epist., epist. 92.
[2] Paramo, De Origine Inquisitionis, p. 164.—Llorente, Hist. de l'Inquisition, tom. i. cap. 7, sec. 3.—Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 94.—Ferreras, Hist. d'Espagne, tom. viii. p. 128.
[3] Paramo, De Origine Inquisitionis, p. 163.
Salazar de Mendoza refers the sovereign's consent to the banishment of the Jews, in a great measure, to the urgent remonstrances of the cardinal of Spain. The bigotry of the biographer makes him claim the credit of every fanatical act for his illustrious hero. See Crón. del Gran Cardenal, p. 250.
[4] Llorente, Hist. de l'Inquisition, tom. i. chap. 7, sect. 5.
Pulgar, in a letter to the cardinal of Spain, animadverting with much severity on the tenor of certain municipal ordinances against the Jews in Guipuscoa and Toledo, in 1482, plainly intimates, that they were not at all to the taste of the queen. See Letras, (Amstelodami, 1670,) let. 31.
[5] Carbajal, Anales, MS., año 1492.—Recep. de las Leyes, lib. 8, tit. 2, ley 2.—Pragmáticas del Reyno, ed. 1520, fol. 3.
[6] The Curate of Los Palacios speaks of several Israelites worth one or two millions of maravedies, and another even as having amassed ten. He mentions one in particular, by the name of Abraham, as renting the greater part of Castile! It will hardly do to take the good Curate's statement à la lettre. See Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 112.
[7] Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, ubi supra.
[8] Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 10.—Zurita, Analos, tom. v. fol. 9.