EXPULSION OF THE JEWS FROM NAVARRE AND PORTUGAL.
The Exiles from Navarre--Migration to Naples--King Ferdinand
I of Naples and Abrabanel--Leon Abrabanel--Misfortunes of
the Jews in Fez, Genoa, Rome, and the Islands of Greece--The
Sultan Bajazet--Moses Kapsali--Spanish Jews in Portugal--The
Jewish Astronomers, Abraham Zacuto and José Vecinho--The Jewish
Travelers, Abraham de Beya and Joseph Zapateiro--Outbreak of
the Plague among the Spanish Jews in Portugal--Sufferings
of the Portuguese Exiles--Judah Chayyat and his
Fellow-Sufferers--Cruelty of João II--Kindly Treatment by
Manoel changed into Cruelty on his Marriage--Forcible Baptism
of Jewish Children--Levi ben Chabib and Isaac Caro--Pope
Alexander VI--Manoel's Efforts on Behalf of the Portuguese
Marranos--Death of Simon Maimi and Abraham Saba.
1492-1498 C.E.
The Jews of northern Spain, in Catalonia and Aragon, who turned
their steps to neighboring Navarre, with the idea of seeking shelter
there, were comparatively fortunate. Here at least was a prospect of
a livelihood, and a possibility of looking round for other places of
refuge. The Inquisition had met with courageous resistance from the
rulers and the people of Navarre. When some Marranos, concerned in
the murder of Arbues, the inquisitor, fled to this kingdom, and the
bloodthirsty heresy-mongers demanded that they be given up to the
executioners, the town of Tudela declared that it would not suffer
such unrighteous violence to people who had sought its protection, and
closed the gates against their emissaries. In vain did king Ferdinand,
who had an eye upon Navarre, threaten it with his anger. The citizens
of Tudela remained firm. A Navarrese prince, Jacob of Navarre, suffered
for the shelter he gave to a hunted Marrano. The inquisitors suddenly
arrested, imprisoned and sentenced him, as an enemy of the Holy
Office, to shameful exposure in a church, where his list of offenses
was publicly read out, and absolution promised him only if he submitted
to flagellation from priestly hands. Several other towns of Navarre
gave protection to the fugitives, and about 12,000 Castilian wanderers
took up their quarters in Navarre. Count of Lerin probably received
the greater number of these. But the Jews enjoyed only a few years
of peace in Navarre; for upon the vehement urging of King Ferdinand,
who followed the fugitives with bitterest enmity and persecution, the
king of Navarre gave them the choice between wandering forth again
and baptism. The greater number adopted Christianity, because there
was only a short time for preparation, and no time for thinking. In
the community of Tudela, so famous for steadfast piety, 180 families
submitted to baptism.
Also those Castilian Jews were fortunate who, instead of indulging
themselves in the vain hope that the edict would be recalled, did not
stay until the last day, but made their way, before the end of the
respite, to Italy, Africa, or Turkey. They did not lack the means of
getting away. The Spanish Jews had such widespread repute, and their
expulsion had made so much stir in Europe, that crowds of ships were
ready in Spanish seaports to take up the wanderers and convey them to
all parts, not only the ships of the country, but also Italian vessels
from Genoa and Venice. The ship-owners saw a prospect of lucrative
business. Many Jews from Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia desired to
settle in Naples, and sent ambassadors to the king, Ferdinand I,
to ask him to receive them. This prince was not merely free from
prejudice against the Jews, but was kindly inclined towards them, out
of compassion for their misfortunes, and he may have promised himself
industrial and intellectual advantage from this immigration of the
Spanish Jews. Whether it was calculation or generosity, it is enough
that he bade them welcome, and made his realm free to them. Many
thousands of them landed in the Bay of Naples (24th August, 1492), and
were kindly received. The native Jewish community treated them with
true brotherly generosity, defrayed the passage of the poor not able to
pay, and provided for their immediate necessities.
Isaac Abrabanel, also, and his whole household, went to Naples. Here
he lived at first as a private individual, and continued the work of
writing a commentary upon the book of Kings, which had been interrupted
by his state duties. When the king of Naples was informed of his
presence in the city, he invited him to an interview, and intrusted him
with a post, in all likelihood in the financial department. Probably
he hoped to make use of Abrabanel's experience in the war with which
he was threatened by the king of France. Whether from his own noble
impulses, or from esteem for Abrabanel, the king of Naples showed the
Jews a gentle humanity which startlingly contrasted with the cruelty of
the Spanish king. The unhappy people had to struggle with many woes;
when they thought themselves free of one, another yet more merciless
fell upon them. A devastating pestilence, arising out of the sad
condition to which they had been reduced, or from the overcrowding of
the ships, followed in the track of the wanderers. They brought death
with them. Scarcely six months had they been settled on Neapolitan soil
when the pestilence carried numbers of them off, and King Ferdinand,
who dreaded a rising of the populace against the Jews, hinted to
them that they must bury their corpses by night, and in silence.
When the pest could no longer be concealed, and every day increased
in virulence, people and courtiers alike entreated him to drive them
forth. But Ferdinand would not assent to this inhuman proceeding; he
is said to have threatened to abdicate if the Jews were ill-treated.
He had hospitals erected for them outside the town, sent physicians
to their aid, and gave them means of support. For a whole year he
strove, with unexampled nobility, to succor the unfortunate people,
whom banishment and disease had transformed into living corpses.
Those, also, who were fortunate enough to reach Pisa found a brotherly
reception. The sons of Yechiel of Pisa fairly took up their abode on
the quay, so as to be ready to receive the wanderers, provide for their
wants, shelter them, or help them on their way to some other place.
After Ferdinand's death, his son, Alfonso II, who little resembled
him, retained the Jewish statesman, Abrabanel, in his service, and,
after his resignation in favor of his son, took him with him to
Sicily. Abrabanel to the last remained faithful to this prince in his
misfortunes (January, 1494, to June, 1495).
After the conquest of Naples by the weak-headed knight-errant king
of France, Charles VIII, the members of the Abrabanel family were
torn apart and scattered. None of them, however, met with such signal
misfortune as the eldest son, Judah Leon Medigo (born 1470, died 1530).
He had been so well beloved at the Spanish court that they were loath
to part with him, and would gladly have kept him there--of course,
as a Christian. To attain this end, a command was issued that he be
not permitted to leave Toledo, or that his one-year-old son be taken
from him, baptized immediately, and that in this manner the father
be chained to Spain. Judah Abrabanel, however, got wind of this plot
against his liberty, sent his son, with his nurse, "like stolen goods,"
secretly to the Portuguese coast; but as he himself did not care to
seek shelter in the country where his father had been threatened with
death, he turned his face towards Naples. His suspicions of the king
of Portugal were only too speedily justified. No sooner did João hear
that a relative of Abrabanel was within his borders than he ordered the
child to be kept as hostage, and not to be permitted to go forth with
the other Jews. Little Isaac never saw his parents and grandparents
again. He was baptized, and brought up as a Christian. The agony of the
father at the living death of his lost child was boundless. It gave him
no rest or peace to his latest hour, and it found vent in a lamentation
sad in the extreme. Yet what was the grief for one child, compared with
the woes which overtook the thousands of Jews hunted out of Spain?
Many of them found their way to the nearest African seaport towns,
Oran, Algiers and Bugia. The inhabitants, who feared that their towns
would be overcrowded from such a vast influx, shot at the Jews as
they landed, and killed many of them. An eminent Jew at the court
of Barbary, however, addressed the sultan in behalf of his unhappy
brethren, and obtained leave for them to land. They were not allowed to
enter the towns, probably because the pestilence had broken out among
them, too. They could only build themselves wooden huts outside the
walls. The children collected wood, and their elders nailed the boards
together for temporary dwellings. But they did not long enjoy even this
miserable shelter, as one day a fire broke out in one of the huts, and
soon laid the whole camp in ashes.
Those who settled in Fez suffered a still more terrible lot. Here also
the inhabitants would not admit them, fearing that such an influx of
human beings would raise the price of the necessaries of life. They had
to encamp in the fields, and live on roots and herbs like cattle. On
the Sabbath they stripped the plants with their teeth, in order not to
desecrate the holy day by gathering them. Starvation, pestilence, and
the unfriendliness of the Mahometan people vied with each other in
inflicting misery upon the Jews. In their awful despair, fathers were
driven to sell their children as slaves to obtain bread. Mothers killed
their little ones that they might not see them perish from the pangs
of hunger. Avaricious captains took advantage of the distress of the
parents to entice starving children on board their vessels with offers
of bread, and, deaf to the cries and entreaties of the parents, carried
them off to distant lands, where they sold them for a good price.
Later, the ruler of Fez, probably at the representation of the original
Jewish inhabitants, proclaimed that Jewish children who had been sold
for bread, and other necessaries of life, should be set at liberty.
The descriptions by their contemporaries of the sufferings of the
Jews make one's hair stand on end. They were dogged whithersoever
they went. Those whom plague and starvation had spared, fell into the
hands of brutalized men. The report got about that the Spanish Jews
had swallowed the gold and silver which they had been forbidden to
carry away, intending to use it later on. Cannibals, therefore, ripped
open their bodies to seek for coin in their entrails. The Genoese
ship-folk behaved most inhumanly to the wanderers who had trusted their
lives to them. From avarice, or sheer delight in the death agonies of
the Jews, they flung many of them into the sea. One captain offered
insult to the beautiful daughter of a Jewish wanderer. Her name was
Paloma (Dove), and to escape shame, the mother threw her and her other
daughters and then herself into the waves. The wretched father composed
a heartbreaking lamentation for his lost dear ones.
Those who reached the port of Genoa had to contend with new miseries.
In this thriving town there was a law that Jews might not remain there
for longer than three days. As the ships which were to convey the Jews
thence required repairing, the authorities conceded the permission for
them to remain, not in the town, but upon the Mole, until the vessels
were ready for sea. Like ghosts, pale, shrunken, hollow-eyed, gaunt,
they went on shore, and if they had not moved, impelled by instinct to
get out of their floating prison, they might have been taken for so
many corpses. The starving children went into the churches, and allowed
themselves to be baptized for a morsel of bread; and Christians were
merciless enough not merely to accept such sacrifices, but with the
cross in one hand, and bread in the other, to go among the Jews and
tempt them to become converted. Only a short time had been granted them
on the Mole, but a great part of the winter passed before the repairs
were completed. The longer they remained, the more their numbers
diminished, through the passing over to Christianity of the younger
members, and many fell victims to plagues of all kinds. Other Italian
towns would not allow them to land even for a short time, partly
because it was a year of famine, partly because the Jews brought the
plague with them.
The survivors from Genoa who reached Rome underwent still more bitter
experiences; their own people leagued against them, refusing to
allow them to enter, from fear that the influx of new settlers would
damage their trade. They got together 1,000 ducats, to present to the
notorious monster, Pope Alexander VI, as a bribe to refuse to allow the
Jews to enter. This prince, himself unfeeling enough, was so enraged
at the heartlessness of these men against their own people, that he
ordered every Roman Jew out of the city. It cost the Roman congregation
2,000 ducats to obtain the revocation of this edict, and they had to
take in the refugees besides.
The Greek islands of Corfu, Candia, and others became filled with
Spanish Jews; some had dragged themselves thither, others had been
sold as slaves there. The majority of the Jewish communities had great
compassion for them, and strove to care for them, or at all events
to ransom them. They made great efforts to collect funds, and sold
the ornaments of the synagogues, so that their brethren might not
starve, or be subjected to slavery. Persians, who happened to be on
the island of Corfu, bought Spanish refugees, in order to obtain from
Jews of their own country a high ransom for them. Elkanah Kapsali,
a representative of the Candian community, was indefatigable in his
endeavors to collect money for the Spanish Jews. The most fortunate
were those who reached the shores of Turkey; for the Turkish Sultan,
Bajazet II, showed himself to be not only a most humane monarch, but
also the wisest and most far-seeing. He understood better than the
Christian princes what hidden riches the impoverished Spanish Jews
brought with them, not in their bowels, but in their brains, and he
wanted to turn these to use for the good of his country. Bajazet caused
a command to go forth through the European provinces of his dominions
that the harassed and hunted Jews should not be rejected, but should be
received in the kindest and most friendly manner. He threatened with
death anyone who should ill-treat or oppress them. The chief rabbi,
Moses Kapsali, was untiringly active in protecting the unfortunate
Jewish Spaniards who had come as beggars or slaves to Turkey. He
traveled about, and levied a tax from the rich native Jews "for the
liberation of the Spanish captives." He did not need to use much
pressure; for the Turkish Jews willingly contributed to the assistance
of the victims of Christian fanaticism. Thus thousands of Spanish Jews
settled in Turkey, and before a generation had passed they had taken
the lead among the Turkish Jews, and made Turkey a kind of Eastern
Spain.
At first the Spanish Jews who went to Portugal seemed to have some
chance of a happy lot. The venerable rabbi, Isaac Aboab, who had gone
with a deputation of thirty to seek permission from King João either to
settle in or pass through Portugal, succeeded in obtaining tolerably
fair terms. Many of the wanderers chose to remain in the neighboring
kingdom for a while, because they flattered themselves with the hope
that their indispensableness would make itself evident after their
departure, that the eyes of the now blinded king and queen of Spain
would be opened, and they would then receive the banished people with
open arms. At the worst, so thought the refugees, they would have
time in Portugal to look round, decide which way to go, and readily
find ships to convey them in safety to Africa or to Italy. When the
Spanish deputies placed the proposition before King João II to receive
the Jews permanently or temporarily in Portugal, the king consulted
his grandees at Cintra. In presenting the matter, he permitted it to
be seen that he himself was desirous of admitting the exiles for a
pecuniary consideration. Some of the advisers, either from pity for the
unhappy Jews, or from respect for the king, were in favor of granting
permission; others, and these the majority, either out of hatred for
the Jews, or a feeling of honor, were against it. The king, however,
overruled all objections, because he hoped to carry on the contemplated
war with Africa by means of the money acquired from the immigrants. It
was at first said that the Spanish refugees were to be permitted to
settle permanently in Portugal. This favor, however, the Portuguese
Jews themselves looked upon with suspicion, because the little state
would thus hold a disproportionate number of Jews, and the wanderers,
most of them penniless, would fall a heavy burden upon them, so
that the king, not of an amiable disposition, would end by becoming
hostile to all the Jews in Portugal. The chief men, therefore, of the
Jewish-Portuguese community met in debate, and many gave utterance to
the cruel view that they themselves would have to take steps to prevent
the reception of the Spanish exiles. A noble old man, Joseph, of the
family of Ibn-Yachya, spoke warmly for his unfortunate brethren; but
his voice was silenced. There was no more talk of their settling in
Portugal, but only of the permission to make a short stay, in order to
arrange for their journey. The conditions laid down for the Spanish
Jews were: Each one, rich or poor, with the exception of babes, was
to pay a stipulated sum (eight gold-cruzados, nearly one pound) in
four instalments; artisans, however, such as metal-workers and smiths,
who desired to settle in the country, only half of this amount. The
rest were permitted to stay only eight months, but the king undertook
to furnish ships at a reasonable rate for transporting them to other
lands. Those found in Portugal after the expiration of this period, or
not able to show a receipt for the stipulated payment, were condemned
to servitude. On the promulgation of these conditions, a large number
of Spanish Jews (estimated at 20,000 families, or 200,000 souls) passed
over the Portuguese borders. The king assigned to the wanderers certain
towns, where they had to pay a tax to the inhabitants. Oporto was
assigned to the families of the thirty deputies, and a synagogue was
built for them. Isaac Aboab, the renowned teacher of many disciples,
who later took positions as rabbis in Africa, Egypt and Palestine, died
peacefully in Oporto; his pupil, famous as a geographer and astronomer,
Abraham Zacuto, pronounced his funeral oration (end of 1492). Only a
few of his fellow-sufferers were destined to die a peaceful death.
The feverish eagerness for discovering unknown lands and entering
into trading relations with them, which had seized on Portugal, gave
practical value to two sciences which hitherto had been regarded as the
hobby or amusement of idlers and dilettanti--namely, astronomy and
mathematics, the favorite pursuits of cultured Jews of the Pyrenean
Peninsula. If India, the land of gold and spices, upon which the minds
of the Portuguese were set with burning desire, was to be discovered,
then coasting journeys, so slow and so dangerous, would have to be
given up, and voyages made thither upon the high seas. But the ships
ran the risk of losing their way on the trackless wastes of the ocean.
Venturesome mariners, therefore, sought astronomical tables to direct
their way by the courses of the sun and the stars. In this science
Spanish Jews had the mastery. A Chazan of Toledo, Isaac (Zag) Ibn-Said,
had published astronomical tables in the thirteenth century, known
under the name of Alfonsine Tables, which were used with only slight
alterations by the scientific men of Germany, France, England and
Italy. As João II of Portugal now wished to send ships to the Atlantic
for the discovery of India by way of the African sea-coast, he summoned
a sort of astronomical congress for the working out of practical
astronomical tables. At this congress, together with the famous
German astronomer, Martin Behaim, and the Christian physician of King
Rodrigo, there sat a Jew, the royal physician, Joseph (José) Vecinho,
or de Viseu. He used as a basis the perpetual astronomical calendar,
or Tables of the Seven Planets, which Abraham Zacuto, known later as
a chronicler, had drawn up for a bishop of Salamanca, to whom he had
dedicated it. Joseph Vecinho, together with Christian scientists, also
improved upon the instrument for the measurement of the altitude of
the stars, the nautical astrolabe, indispensable to mariners. By its
aid Vasco da Gama first found it possible to follow the seaway to the
Cape of Good Hope and India, and thus, perhaps, Columbus was enabled
to discover a new continent. The geographical knowledge and skill of
two Jews, Rabbi Abraham de Beya and Joseph Zapateiro de Lamego, were
also turned to account by King João II, who sent them to Asia to obtain
tidings of his emissaries to the mythical land of Prester John.
Although King João thus employed learned and skillful Jews for his own
ends, he had no liking for the Jewish race: he was indifferent, or
rather inimical, to them directly they came in the way of his bigotry.
In the year in which he dispatched Joseph Zapateiro and Abraham de
Beya to Asia, at the instigation of Pope Innocent VIII he appointed a
commission of the Inquisition for the Marranos who had fled from Spain
to Portugal, and, like Ferdinand and Isabella in Spain, delivered over
those who had Jewish leanings, either to death by fire or to endless
imprisonment. Some Marranos having taken ship to Africa, and there
openly adopted Judaism, he prohibited, under penalty of death and
confiscation, baptized Jews or new-Christians from leaving the country
by sea. On the breath of this heartless monarch hung the life or death
of hundreds of thousands of Jewish exiles.
Against those unfortunates in Portugal, not only evil-minded men,
but nature itself, fought. Soon after their arrival in Portugal, a
cruel pestilence began to rage among them, destroying thousands. The
Portuguese, who also suffered from the plague, believed that the
Jews had brought it into the country; and, indeed, all that they had
suffered, the oppressive heat at the time of their going forth, want,
misery, and all kinds of devastating diseases, may have developed
it. A considerable number of the Spanish refugees died of the plague
in Portugal. The population on this account murmured against the
king, complaining that the pestilence had followed in the track of
the accursed Jews, and established itself in the country. Don João,
therefore, had to insist more strenuously than he otherwise would have
done upon the condition that all who had settled in Portugal should
leave at the expiration of the eight months. At first he put ships at
their disposal, at moderate rates of transportation, according to his
agreement, and bade the captains treat their passengers with humanity,
and convey them whither they wished to go. But these men, inspired
by Jew hatred and avarice, once upon the seas, troubled themselves
but little about the king's orders, since they had no need to fear
complaints about their inhumanity. They demanded more money than had
originally been bargained for, and extorted it from the helpless
creatures. Or, they carried them about upon the waste of waters till
their stock of provisions was exhausted, and then demanded large sums
for a fresh supply of food, so that at last the unfortunates were
driven to give their clothes for bread, and were landed anywhere in a
nearly naked state. Women and young girls were insulted and violated in
the presence of their parents and relatives, and disgrace was brought
upon the name of Christian. Frequently these inhuman mariners landed
them in some desolate spot of the African coasts, and left them to
perish from hunger and despair, or to fall a prey to the Moors, who
took them prisoners.
The sufferings of the exiled Jews who left Portugal in ships are
related by an eye-witness, the Kabbalist, Judah ben Jacob Chayyat, of
a noble and wealthy family. The vessel on which he, his wife, and two
hundred and fifty other Jews, of both sexes and all ages, had embarked,
left the harbor of Lisbon in winter (beginning of 1493), and lingered
four months upon the waves, because no seaport would take them in for
fear of the plague. Provisions on board naturally ran short. The ship
was captured by Biscayan pirates, plundered and taken to the Spanish
port of Malaga. The Jews were not permitted to land, nor to set sail
again, nor were provisions given them. The priests and magistrates of
the town desired to incline them to the teaching of Christ by the pangs
of hunger. They succeeded in converting one hundred persons with gaunt
bodies and hollow eyes. The rest remained steadfast to their own faith,
and fifty of them, old men, youths, maidens, children, among them
Chayyat's wife, died of starvation. Then, at last, compassion awoke
in the hearts of the Malagese, and they gave them bread and water.
When, after two months, the remainder of them received permission to
sail to the coasts of Africa, they encountered bitter sufferings in
another form. On account of the plague they were not permitted to land
at any town, and had to depend upon the herbs of the field. Chayyat
himself was seized, and flung by a malicious Mahometan into a horrible
dungeon full of snakes and salamanders, in order to force him to adopt
Islamism; in case of refusal, he was threatened with death by stoning.
These continuous, grinding cruelties did not make him waver one instant
in his religious convictions. At last he was liberated by the Jews of
a little town, and carried to Fez. There so severe a famine raged that
Chayyat was compelled to turn a mill with his hands for a piece of
bread, not fit for a dog. At night he and his companions in misery who
had strayed to Fez slept upon the ash-heaps of the town.
Carefully as the Portuguese mariners strove to conceal their
barbarities to the Jews, their deeds soon came to light, and frightened
off those who remained behind from emigrating by sea. The poor
creatures, moreover, were unable to raise the necessary money for
their passage and provisions. They, therefore, put off going from day
to day, comforting themselves with the hope that the king would be
merciful, and allow them to remain in Portugal. Don João, however,
was not a monarch whose heart was warmed by kindness and compassion.
He maintained that more Jews had come into Portugal than had been
stipulated for, and insisted, therefore, that the agreement be strictly
carried out. Those who remained after the expiration of eight months
were made slaves, and sold or given to those of the Portuguese nobility
who cared to take their pick from them (1493).
King João went still further in his cruel dealings with the unhappy
Spanish Jews. The children of from three to ten years of age whose
parents had become slaves, he ordered to be transported by sea to the
newly-discovered San Thomas or Lost Islands (Ilhas perdidas), there to
be reared in the tenets of Christianity. The weeping of the mothers,
the sobbing of the children, the rage of the fathers, who tore their
hair in agony, did not move the heartless despot to recall his command.
Mothers entreated to be allowed to go with their children, threw
themselves at the king's feet as he came out of church, and implored
him to leave them at least the youngest. Don João had them dragged from
his path "like bitches who had their whelps torn from them." Is it to
be wondered at that mothers, with their children in their arms, sprang
into the sea to rest united in its depths? The Islands of San Thomas,
whither the little ones were taken, were full of lizards and venomous
snakes, and inhabited by criminals transported thither from Portugal.
Most of the children perished on the journey, or became the prey of
wild beasts. Among the survivors it happened that brothers and sisters,
in ignorance of their relationship, married each other. Perhaps the
king's barbarity to the Jews must be accounted for by the bitter gloom
which mastered him at the death of his only legitimate son.
After the death of João II, who sank in wretchedness into his grave
(end of October, 1495), he was succeeded by his cousin Manoel, a
great contrast in disposition to himself--an intelligent, amiable,
gentle-minded man, and a lover of learning. There seemed some prospect
of a better star's rising upon the remnant of the banished Jews in
Portugal. King Manoel, finding that the Jews had remained in his
kingdom beyond the allotted time only from fear of many forms of death
upon the ocean, gave all the slaves their freedom. The money which,
beside themselves with joy, they offered him for this, he refused. It
is true that his ulterior motive, as Bishop Osorius tells us, was to
win them over to Christianity by clemency. The Jewish mathematician
and astronomer, Abraham Zacuto, who had remained in Lisbon, having
come thither from northern Spain, where he had taught his favorite
science even to Christians, was made chief astrologer. Zacuto served
the king not merely in the latter capacity. Although a man of limited
understanding, unable to rise above the superstition of his day, he had
sound knowledge of astronomy, and published a work upon that science,
besides preparing his astronomical tables. He also invented a correct
metal instrument for measuring the altitude of the stars, to replace
the clumsy and inaccurate wooden one used hitherto by mariners.
Under King Manoel, in whose reign Portugal's domains were enlarged
by acquisitions in India and America, the Jews were able to breathe
awhile. It appears that soon after ascending the throne he issued a
command that the accusations against them for murdering children should
not be recognized by courts of justice, since they were malicious,
lying inventions. Nor would he allow the fanatical preaching friars to
utter denunciations against them.
Very short, however, was the gleam of happiness for the Jews under
Manoel: the somber bigotry of the Spanish court changed it into
terrible gloom. No sooner had the young king of Portugal mounted the
throne than their majesties of Spain began to entertain the idea of
marriage relations with him in order to turn an inimical neighbor
into a friend and ally. They proposed marriage with their younger
daughter, Joanna, who afterwards became notorious on account of her
jealous disposition and her madness. Manoel lent a willing ear to the
proposal of an alliance with the Spanish court, but preferred the elder
sister, Isabella II, who had been married to the Infante of Portugal,
and had soon after become a widow. Isabella had strong repugnance to a
second marriage; but her confessor knew how to overrule her objections,
and made her believe that if she consented she would have opportunity
to glorify the Christian faith. The Spanish court had marked with
chagrin and vexation that the Portuguese king had received the Jewish
and Mahometan refugees, and King Manoel's friendly treatment of them
was a thorn in their flesh. Ferdinand and Isabella thought that by
falling in with the Portuguese king's wishes, they would attain their
end. They, therefore, promised him the hand of their eldest daughter
upon condition that he join with Spain against Charles VII, and send
the Jews out of Portugal, both the native and the refugee Jews. The
conditions were very disagreeable to King Manoel, who was on good
terms with France, and reaped great advantage from the wealth, energy,
intelligence, and knowledge of the Jews.
He consulted with his lords and council upon this question, fraught
with such importance for the Jews. Opinions upon it were divided.
Manoel hesitated for some time, because his noble nature shrank from
such cruelty and faithlessness. The Infanta Isabella spoke the deciding
word. She entertained fanatical, almost personal hatred against the
Jews. She believed or was persuaded by the priests that the misfortunes
and unhappiness which had befallen King João in his last days were
occasioned by his having allowed Jews to enter his kingdom; and,
nourished as she had been at the breast of superstition, she was
afraid of ill-luck in her union with Manoel if Jews were permitted to
remain in Portugal. What dreary lovelessness in the heart of a young
woman! Irreconcilable strife of feelings and thoughts was thus raised
in the soul of King Manoel. Honor, the interest of the state, humanity,
forebade his proscribing and expelling the Jews; but the hand of the
Spanish Infanta, and the Spanish crown were to be secured only by the
misery of the Jews. Love turned the balance in favor of hate. When
the king was expecting his bride to cross the borders of his kingdom,
he received a letter from her saying that she would not set foot in
Portugal until the land was cleansed of the "curse-laden" Jews.
The marriage contract between Don Manoel and the Spanish Infanta,
Isabella, then, was sealed with the misery of the Jews. It was
signed on the 30th of November, 1496, and so early as the 24th of
the following month, the king caused an order to go forth that all
the Jews and Moors of his kingdom must receive baptism, or leave the
country within a given time, on pain of death. In order to relieve his
conscience, he showed clemency in carrying his edict into effect. He
lengthened the term of their stay until the October of the following
year, so that they had time for preparation. He further appointed three
ports, Lisbon, Oporto, and Setubal, for their free egress. That he
sought to allure the Jews to Christianity, by the prospect of honor
and advancement, was so entirely due to the distorted views of the
times, that he cannot be held responsible for it; as it was, only a few
submitted to baptism.
Precisely Manoel's clement behavior tended to the greater misery of the
Jews. Having ample time to prepare for their departure, and not being
forbidden to take gold and silver with them, they thought that there
was no need to hurry. Perhaps the king would change his mind. They
had friends at court who were agitating in their favor. Besides, the
winter months were not a good time to be upon the ocean. The majority,
therefore, waited until spring. In the meantime King Manoel certainly
did change his mind, but only to increase their fearful misery. He was
much vexed at finding that so few Jews had embraced Christianity. Very
unwillingly he saw them depart with their wealth and their possessions,
and sought ways and means to retain them, as Christians, of course, in
his own kingdom. The first step had cost him a struggle, the second was
easy.
He raised the question in council whether the Jews could be brought
to baptism by force. To the honor of the Portuguese clergy it must be
said that they expressed themselves as opposed to this. The bishop
of Algarve, Ferdinand Coutinho, cited ecclesiastical authorities and
papal bulls to the effect that Jews might not be compelled to adopt
Christianity, because a free, not a forced, confession was required.
Manoel, however, was so bent upon keeping the industrious Jews with
him, that he openly declared that he did not trouble himself about
laws and authorities, but would act upon his own judgment. From Evora
he issued (beginning of April, 1497) a secret command that all Jewish
children, boys and girls, up to the age of fourteen, should be taken
from their parents by force on Easter Sunday, and carried to the
church fonts to be baptized. He was advised by a reprobate convert,
Levi ben Shem Tob, to take this step. In spite of the secrecy of the
preparations, several Jews found it out, and were about to flee with
their children from the "stain of baptism." When Manoel heard it, he
ordered the forced baptism of children to be carried out at once.
Heartrending scenes ensued in the towns where Jews lived when the
sheriffs strove to carry away the children. Parents strained their dear
ones to their breasts, the children clung convulsively to them, and
they could be separated only by lashes and blows. In their despair over
the possibility of being thus for ever sundered, many of them strangled
the children in their embraces, or threw them into wells and rivers,
and then laid hands upon themselves. "I have seen," relates Bishop
Coutinho, "many dragged to the font by the hair, and the fathers clad
in mourning, with veiled heads and cries of agony, accompanying their
children to the altar, to protest against the inhuman baptism. I have
seen still more horrible, indescribable violence done them." In the
memory of his contemporaries lingered the frightful manner in which a
noble and cultured Jew, Isaac Ibn-Zachin, destroyed himself and his
children, to avoid their becoming a prey to Christianity. Christians
were moved to pity by the cries and tears of Jewish fathers, mothers
and children, and despite the king's commands not to assist the Jews,
they concealed many of the unfortunates in their houses, so that at
least for the moment they might be safe; but the stony hearts of King
Manoel and his young wife, the Spanish Isabella II, remained unmoved
by these sights of woe. The baptized children, who received Christian
names, were placed in various towns, and reared as Christians. Either
in obedience to a secret order, or from excessive zeal, the creatures
of the king not only seized children, but also youths and maidens up to
the age of twenty, for baptism.
Many Jews of Portugal probably embraced Christianity in order to remain
with their children; but this did not satisfy the king, who, not from
religious zeal, but from political motives, had hardened his heart.
All the Jews of Portugal, it mattered not whether with or without
conviction, were to become Christians and remain in the country. To
attain this end, he violated a solemn promise more flagrantly than his
predecessor. When the time of their departure came closer, he ordered
the Jews to embark from one seaport only, that of Lisbon, although,
at first, he had allowed them three places. Therefore, all who wished
to go, had to meet in Lisbon--20,000 souls, it is said, with burning
grief in their hearts, but prepared to suffer anything to remain true
to their convictions. The inhuman monarch allowed them lodgings in the
city, but he placed so many hindrances in the way of their embarkation,
that time passed by, and the day arrived when they were to forfeit
life, or at least liberty, if found upon Portuguese soil. He had all
who remained behind locked in an enclosed space (os Estaõs) like oxen
in stalls, and informed them that they were now his slaves, and that
he could do with them as he thought fit. He urged them voluntarily
to confess the Christian faith, in which case they should have honor
and riches; otherwise they would be forced to baptism without mercy.
When, notwithstanding this, many remained firm, he forbade bread or
water to be given them for three days, in order to render them more
pliable. This means did not succeed any better with the greater number
of them: they chose to faint with starvation rather than belong to a
religion which owned such followers as their persecutors. Upon this,
Manoel proceeded to extreme measures. By cords, by their hair and
beard, they were dragged from their pen to the churches. To escape this
some sprang from the windows, and their limbs were crushed. Others
broke loose and jumped into wells. Some killed themselves in the
churches. One father spread his _tallith_ over his sons, and killed
them and himself. Manoel's terrible treatment comes into more glaring
prominence when compared with his behavior to the Moors. They, too,
had to leave Portugal, but no hindrances were placed in their way,
because he feared that the Mahometan princes in Africa and Turkey
might retaliate upon the Christians living in their domains. The Jews
had no earthly protector, were weak and helpless, therefore, Manoel,
whom historians call the Great, permitted himself to perpetrate
such atrocities. In this fashion many native Portuguese and refugee
Spanish Jews were led to embrace Christianity, which they--as their
Christian contemporaries relate with shame--had openly scorned.
Some, at a later period, became distinguished Rabbinical authorities,
like Levi ben Chabib, afterwards rabbi in Jerusalem. Those who escaped
with their lives and their faith attributed it to the gracious and
wondrous interposition of God. Isaac ben Joseph Caro, who had come from
Toledo to Portugal, there lost his adult and his minor sons ("who were
beautiful as princes"), yet thanked his Creator for the mercy that in
spite of peril on the sea he reached Turkey. Abraham Zacuto, with his
son Samuel, also was in danger of death, although (or because) he was
King Manoel's favorite, astrologer and chronicler. Both, however, were
fortunate enough to pass through the bitter ordeal, and escape from
Portugal, but they were twice imprisoned. They finally settled in Tunis.
The stir which the enforced conversion of the Jews caused in Portugal
did not immediately subside. Those who had submitted to baptism through
fear of death, or out of love for their children, did not give up the
hope that by appealing to the papal court they might be able to return
to their own faith, seeing that, as all Europe knew, Pope Alexander VI
and his college of cardinals, as base as himself, would do anything for
money. A witticism was then going the rounds of every Christian country:
Vendit Alexander Claves, Altaria, Christum;
Emerat ista prius, vendere jure potest.
Rome was a market of shame--a hill of Astarte--a mart of
unwholesomeness--but there the innocent, also, could buy their
rights. The Portuguese new-Christians now sent a deputation of seven
of their companions in misery to Pope Alexander, and they did not
forget to take a purse of gold with them. The pope and the so-called
holy college showed themselves favorably inclined towards them,
especially Cardinal de Sancta Anastasia took them under his patronage.
The Spanish ambassador, Garcilaso, however, was instructed by their
Spanish majesties to oppose them. Despite his influence the affairs
of the Portuguese Jews must have taken a favorable turn, for King
Manoel decided to make concessions. He issued a mild decree (May 30th,
1497), in which he granted amnesty to all forcibly baptized Jews, and
a respite of twenty years, during which they were not to be brought
before the tribunal of the Inquisition for their adherence to Judaism.
It was said that it was necessary for them first to lay aside their
Jewish habits, and accustom themselves to the ways of the Catholic
faith, for which they needed time. Further, the decree ordered that,
on the expiration of this term, a regular examination should be made
of those accused of Judaizing practices, and if the case was decided
against them, their goods should not be confiscated, as in Spain, but
given over to their heirs. Finally, the decree ordained that those
baptized physicians and surgeons who did not understand Latin might
make use of Hebrew books of reference. Practically this allowed the
enforced Christians to live in secret, without fear of punishment,
as Jews, and to retain all their books. For, who, in Portugal, in
those days, could distinguish a book of medicine from any other work
in the Hebrew language? The students of the Talmud could thus follow
their favorite researches and studies under the mask of Catholicism.
This amnesty benefited the Portuguese Marranos, but not those who had
immigrated into Portugal, by a clause which Manoel had inserted out of
deference to the Spanish court, or, more particularly, to the Spanish
Infanta Isabella. For she insisted that the Marranos who had fled out
of Spain into Portugal should be delivered over to the Moloch of the
Inquisition. In the marriage contract between the king of Portugal
and the fanatical Isabella (August, 1497), it was expressly set down
that all persons of the Hebrew race coming under condemnation of the
Inquisition, who sought refuge in Portugal, must leave within a month's
time.
Thus many thousand Portuguese Jews became pseudo-Christians, but with
the firm resolve to seize the first opportunity to get away, so that in
a free country they might openly practice a religion only the dearer to
them for all they had suffered for it. Their souls, as the poet Samuel
Usque writes, had not been stained by the baptism imposed on them.
There were some Jews, however, who had refused baptism with all their
might. Among them was Simon Maimi, apparently the last chief rabbi
(Arrabi mor) in Portugal, a scrupulously pious man; also his wife, his
sons-in-law, and some others. They were closely imprisoned, because
they would not forswear Judaism, nor observe the rites of the church.
To bring them to conversion, Simon Maimi and his fellow sufferers,
official rabbis, were most inhumanly tortured. They were immured up
to the neck in their prison, and left for three days in this fearful
position. When they nevertheless remained firm, the walls were torn
down; three had died, among them Simon Maimi, whose conversion was
most important, because his example would have influenced the others.
Two Marranos imperiled their lives to secure the corpse of the pious
martyr, that they might inter it in the Jewish burial-ground, although
it was strictly forbidden to bury the Jewish victims of Christian
sacrifice otherwise than by the executioner's hands. A few Marranos
secretly attended their deeply-lamented saint to his last rest, and
celebrated a mourning service over his grave. Manoel permitted the few
remaining Jews to depart not long after, probably on the death of
Isabella, the instigator of all his barbarities to the Jews. She died
at the birth of the heir to the thrones of Portugal and Spain, August
24th, 1498, and the Infante died two years later. One of the remnant
dismissed was Abraham Saba, a preacher and Kabbalist author, whose two
children were baptized by force and taken from him. The companions of
Simon Maimi and his sons-in-law remained in prison a long time, were
afterwards sent to Arzilla, in Africa, there condemned to work at the
trenches on the Sabbath, and died at last a martyr's death.
Eighty years later, Manoel's great-grandson, the adventurous king,
Sebastian, led the flower of the Portuguese people to fresh conquests
in Africa. In a single battle the power of Portugal was broken, her
nobility slain, or cast into prison. The captives were carried to Fez,
and there, in the slave-market, offered for sale to the descendants of
the barbarously treated Portuguese Jews. The unhappy Portuguese nobles
and knights were, however, glad to be bought by Jews, as they well knew
the mild and humane nature of the followers of the "God of vengeance."