THE SPANISH JEWS
711–1492
Influence of the Semitic Race on Civilization--Enterprise of
the Ancient Jews--Their Eminent Talents--Their Power during
the Middle Ages--Their Universal Proscription--Their Condition
under the Moors of Spain--Their Extraordinary Attainments--Their
Devotion to Letters--Their Academies--Rabbis as Ambassadors
of the Khalifs--Learned Men--Poets, Physicians, Statesmen,
Philosophers--Maimonides: His Genius and His Works--His
Character--Preponderating Influence of the Spanish Jews
in Government and Society--Their Necessity to the Ruling
Classes--They are driven to Usury--Their Prosperity--They are
favored by Alfonso X. and Pedro el Cruel--Their Proficiency in
Medicine--Obligations of Mediæval and Modern Science to the
Jews--Their Wonderful Survival under Oppression--Their Exile
from the Peninsula--Their Sufferings--The Taint of Hebrew Blood
in the Aristocracy of Spain and Portugal.
The preponderance of Semitic influence is one of the most remarkable
phenomena in the annals of human civilization. The progress of
those nations, which in ancient times attained the highest rank of
intellectual culture, is directly traceable to that influence. The
success of the Semitic element in modifying the character of every
people with which it had been brought in intimate contact, either
by conquest or through commercial intercourse, is one of the most
striking and instructive incidents of history. From the days when
the Phœnicians controlled the trade of antiquity, profiting by their
thorough knowledge of humanity, whose avarice they stimulated by the
introduction of unknown luxuries, and whose fears they excited by
the invention of portentous fables; through the Middle Ages, whose
tyrants and inquisitors plundered and oppressed the Hebrew bankers
and merchants of Europe, down to our time, when the Jew is not only
the possessor of a large proportion of the wealth of the globe, but
also a dominating force in the business community of every city and
village of the Old and New Worlds, the enterprising genius of the
Semitic race has been paramount in its control over the minds and the
fortunes of men. And not merely in a mercantile but in a religious
point of view is this influence manifest. The Scriptures and the Koran
monopolize the pious reverence of the civilized world. The successors
of Mohammed in Hindustan alone changed the faith of forty-one million
souls. The most important dogmas of the Church, the leading maxims
of kingly government, are of Semitic origin; the majority of the
popular legends and tales which compose the folk-lore of France,
Germany, Scandinavia, and Britain are indigenous to the Valley of
the Nile or the plains of Arabia. Asiatic ideas, which dominated the
comparatively insignificant geographical area of the continent of
Europe whose appreciation of the advantages of literary and scientific
investigation made it so conspicuous amidst mediæval ignorance, have
maintained their power unshaken through many centuries. To the impulse
thus imparted to letters, modern society owes a debt which it long
repudiated, and which it is even now loath to acknowledge. Among those
races which have exercised the greatest influence on human destiny
that of the Hebrews is pre-eminently distinguished. From the earliest
times of which history makes mention, the Jews have occupied an exalted
place among civilized nations. They were among the first of traders,
merchants, navigators. Neighbors of the Phœnicians, they imbibed
the commercial spirit of that adventurous people, accompanied their
expeditions, participated in their enterprises, shared their profits,
and with them overcame the obstacles which invested the navigation
of unknown and mysterious seas. They were not slow to recognize the
immense commercial advantages to be obtained from the development of
the boundless resources of the Spanish Peninsula, whence the Tyrian and
Sidonian mariners brought such quantities of silver that their vessels
could scarcely transport it, notwithstanding that the anchors, the most
common utensils, and even the ballast, were composed of that precious
metal.
The accounts of the reign of Solomon afford abundant evidence of the
wealth and prosperity of the Hebrews. Their abilities and services were
highly appreciated by the most enlightened governments of antiquity.
They were invited by the Ptolemies to establish colonies on the
banks of the Nile. They were often intrusted by the Roman emperors
with the collection and disbursement of the imperial revenues. The
Emperor Hadrian declared that during his travels in Egypt he had
never met a Jew of that country who was not an expert mathematician.
In the far Orient, where their ancestors had once been detained in
ignominious captivity, they rose to be the confidential friends of
powerful monarchs. They were known and welcomed in every seaport of
the Mediterranean, and their thirst for gain even induced them to
boldly encounter the perils of the barbarous countries of Europe.
In all their social and political relations, they maintained their
reputation for that mental superiority which is still one of the
marked characteristics of the Hebrew race. All of the knowledge
extant among contemporaneous nations--the secret lore of the
Egyptians, imparted in mysterious temples under the shadow of the
Pyramids; the hoary traditions of the Magi; the rich inheritance of
classic antiquity; the argumentative skill acquired in the Museum
of Alexandria and the philosophical schools of Athens--was the
patrimony of the Jew. His curiosity was awakened by travel and by
contact with a hundred different peoples included within the sphere
of his commercial activity; his genius was developed and matured by
studious industry; and the affluence resulting from his shrewdness
enabled him to profit to the utmost by his unrivalled opportunities.
No fact is better established than that the intellectual improvement
of a nation, its progress in the arts, its scientific acquirements,
its literary culture, have a direct and absolute dependence upon its
material prosperity and the independent pecuniary circumstances of
its scholars and learned men. While poverty is often an incentive to
that perseverance which insures success, it is a condition which only
affects individual and not national development. Without leisure,
there can be no studies; without studies, no advance. Another
factor of paramount importance in the evolution and maintenance of
civilization, and one to which the Hebrew was deeply indebted, was
the wide and varied experience derived from cosmopolitan habits and
associations. This intercourse was facilitated by the easy and rapid
means of international communication at the disposal of the Jewish
trader. The Mediterranean, which washed the shores of three great
continents, presented no obstacles to the enterprise of the Phœnicians,
whose intimate connections with the Jews gave the latter advantages
enjoyed by no other people; and the fabled monsters invented by those
astute navigators to damp the ardor of other maritime adventurers,
and which survive in the traditions of classic mythology, possessed
no terrors for the allies and friends of the Tyrian merchants and
sailors. No area of equal extent in the world offered so diversified
and instructive a spectacle of human life and manners as the winding
coast of that great inland sea. With its cities and its kingdoms,
founded under different political conditions, living under different
systems, governed by different laws, frequent and prolonged visits
had early made the Jew familiar. To the audacious navigator who had
sailed over the mysterious Ocean, far beyond the Pillars of Hercules,
the coasting of the Mediterranean was a trifle. In subsequent times
the military highways of the Roman Empire--whose construction, the
first work after the invasion of a country destined to subjection,
indicated the fate of its people, and insured their obedience with
far more certainty than the fortified camps of the legions--afforded
the Hebrew merchant easy access to the utmost limits of the vast
region subject to imperial authority. But it was not only in lands
generally accessible to commercial enterprise that the mercantile and
intellectual activity of the Jew was displayed. With the periodical
caravans he traversed the Arabian Peninsula, and braving the perils
of the Desert--the stifling heat, the sand-storms, the robbers who
thrived amidst its desolation--collected and distributed the precious
commodities of Yemen. He penetrated to the centre of Ethiopia; his
costume and his wares were known to the inhabitants of every city on
the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. The coast of Britain was visited
by Jews long before the invasion of Cæsar. The restless, adventurous
spirit, so universal that it became a national characteristic
fostered through untold generations, and the extensive and profound
acquaintance with the motives and the affairs of humanity which
resulted from its exercise, is the principal secret of the prodigious
and phenomenal development of the Hebrew mind. Other considerations
of no less importance contributed largely to this result. In the
estimation of those who strictly observed the precepts of the law,
and to whom were committed the instruction of youth and the guidance
of the community, idleness was considered one of the most despicable
of vices. “Whoever,” say the learned rabbis, “does not teach his son
some trade, rears him for a life of brigandage;” and the sedulous
inculcation of this principle led to its universal adoption and
practice, until its effects are to-day discernible in the habits of
every individual of Hebrew extraction. In ancient times there was no
industrial occupation whose requirements were unfamiliar to the Jewish
artisan, no profession in which the scholars of that nation did not
excel. The talents of the latter were often unprofitably employed
in commentaries on the Talmud and whimsical interpretations of the
Scriptures, whose texts were at times distorted to support some absurd
and extravagant conception which the fruitless ingenuity of the doctors
of the law, devoted to metaphysical subtleties, had invented. The
Talmud was regarded with even greater reverence than the Pentateuch.
Its diligent perusal was required as a duty; children were familiar
with its maxims long before their minds were sufficiently developed
to thoroughly comprehend them; and the mastery of this voluminous and
incongruous compilation was regarded as the rarest and most desirable
of mental accomplishments. From the study of this work was derived
the partiality for mysticism, magic, and oneiromancy, topics which
formed so large a proportion of ancient Hebrew literature, and which
frequently dissipated the efforts of genius which might have been
exercised in more practical and advantageous employments. In the
Talmud, however, are also to be found the germs of medical science in
which, from the remotest antiquity, the Jews were distinguished, and
whose pursuit, thus sanctioned by an authority regarded as divine,
became the favorite pursuit of that extraordinary people. Some of its
ideas and principles had been learned from the Magi of Persia; others
were borrowed from the Egyptian priesthood. The more numerous, and
by far the most valuable, precepts of that science, however, were a
portion of the inheritance transmitted by the noble school of the
Ptolemies. With all were mingled not a few puerile superstitions
which exalted the virtues of charms and amulets. The Bible gives many
instances of diseases and their treatment, which in that age was the
peculiar province of the Levites. The talents of the Hebrew thus early
directed to medicine and botany arrived eventually at an extraordinary
degree of development; and his adaptive ingenuity was revealed in the
discovery and application of many indispensable drugs of the Materia
Medica, and in the intelligent use of the instruments and caustics of
the surgeon. In ancient Chaldea and Babylonia there were no physicians.
The priesthood, as in the Middle Ages, enjoyed a monopoly of learning,
which, so far as the practice of medicine was concerned, rested upon
no more substantial foundation than the imposture of the charlatan.
The cure of disease was effected by the exorcism of evil spirits; and
such is the tenacity of venerable ideas and the lamentable credulity
of the human mind that, through the influence of a certain class
whose pecuniary interests are directly involved, this superstitious
belief, with others equally absurd, still prevails among the members
of educated communities even in our enlightened age. The difference
between the fetichism of the African savage, the mediæval relic-cure,
and the so-called Christian Science of modern days is one of degree
and not of kind. In the infancy of civilization every malady was
attributed to demoniacal possession. The Jews were the first to detect
the true nature of disease and to realize the necessity for the
employment of physical remedies, where heretofore, through the medium
of spells and incantations, the aid of the supernatural alone had been
invoked. By the adoption and application of rational principles, they
revolutionized the theory and practice of medicine. Their attempts to
thus partially emancipate the human mind from the degrading thraldom of
superstition brought upon them the anathemas of the priesthood wherever
these innovations were attempted. The wonder-workers of Pagan temples
and the monkish custodians of Christian shrines saw with dismay their
incomes decreasing as a consequence of the successful ministrations
of the Hebrew practitioner. It was not without reason that the latter
became an object of clerical animadversion, for the offerings annually
bestowed by grateful credulity upon the custodians of some apocryphal
relic of imaginary virtues not infrequently exceeded in value the
revenues of a city. Much of the prejudice everywhere existing against
the Jewish name is thus attributable to sacerdotal malevolence,
originally excited by interference with material interests. But even
in an age of ignorance homage was paid, however reluctantly, to the
ascendency of intellectual power; and the Jews flourished in countries
where the laws did not tolerate their presence and sovereigns were
pledged by their coronation oaths to their destruction. Political
necessity proved stronger than popular odium; and the strange anomaly
of a proscribed race, whose existence was condemned by the civil and
ecclesiastical codes alike, flourishing in the midst of implacable
enemies was exhibited in every country of mediæval Europe. This
peculiar condition was due to the dominating force of intellect alone.
It is true that toleration was frequently purchased with gold; but the
Jews were the sole depositaries of real knowledge, and without their
wise and practical counsels the wheels of government could not be kept
in motion. This indispensable necessity of maintaining in positions
of honor and power a class whose nominal disabilities degraded them
below the legal status of cattle was a result of the illiterate and
priest-ridden state of the Dark Ages.
The cause of the universal prejudice existing against the Jews from
time immemorial has been the subject of much speculation, but has
never been definitely ascertained. That prejudice long antedates
the Christian era. They were banished by the Egyptians, enslaved by
the Persians, despised by the Greeks, persecuted by the Romans. So
little were they esteemed by the latter, that during the wars with
Hadrian four Jews were bartered for a modius of barley. A well-founded
tradition, repeated time and again by classic historians, declared
that they were expelled from Egypt for fear that the plague might be
communicated by the loathsome diseases with which they were afflicted.
In that country, as elsewhere subsequently, they were isolated from all
other members of the community. Moses is designated by ancient writers
as the “Chief of the Lepers.” It is well known that leprosy was first
introduced into Italy by the soldiers of Pompey, who contracted it in
Palestine. This awful malady was not only indigenous to the latter
country, but was generally considered a morbid physiological condition
peculiar to the Hebrew people, with whom, in fact, it was chronic and
hereditary, and among whom it assumed its most malignant and appalling
form.
The national customs of the Jews were regarded with peculiar abhorrence
by the polished nations of antiquity. They practised human sacrifices.
Tacitus says that they rendered distinguished homage to the ass, an
animal sacred to the Phœnician goddess Astarte. A golden head of that
animal was worshipped in their temples. The Bible repeatedly mentions
the fact that they were debased and incorrigible idolaters. In Pagan
Arabia they conformed to the religious customs of the country, shaved
their heads, venerated the images of the Kaaba, and made the circuit
of that shrine upon their knees. The idea of the Resurrection, which,
with that of the Trinity, formed no part of the primitive belief of any
Semitic race, but is a purely Aryan conception, they learned during
the latter part of the Babylonian captivity. Its adoption was far from
unanimous, however, for it was always repudiated by the Sadducees,
reputed the most orthodox and precisian sect of the Hebrew nation.
They sold their children into slavery. Their personal habits were
indescribably filthy. It was believed by the African Christians that a
peculiarly offensive odor, an evidence of Divine wrath provoked by the
tragedy of the crucifixion, and which could only be removed by baptism,
emanated from them. Hatred of everything non-Jewish was a ruling
principle of their nature and conduct, and every country in which they
were domiciled they betrayed, in turn, to the invader.
The moral and physical condition--that of a race of pariahs infected
with foul distempers--which characterized them in ancient times
presents a singular contrast to that under which they actually
existed subsequently, and under which they exist to-day. They were
not affected by the great epidemics which swept with devastating
force over Europe during the Middle Ages, although they were as fully
exposed to contagion as any of the nations which were decimated by
them. Their immunity to many of the most serious ailments which afflict
mankind is demonstrated by every table of medical statistics. Their
longevity, unquestionably due to a strong constitution, is proverbial.
Their average annual death-rate, in both Europe and America, is less
than one-half that of persons of other nationalities subjected to the
influence of similar conditions of climate, food, and occupation. Their
freedom from criminality and pauperism is one of their most remarkable
characteristics. Every lawyer knows how rarely a Jew is seen in courts
of justice, either as a litigant, a malefactor, or a witness.
The propagation and improvement of a people under circumstances which
indicated their speedy and inevitable extinction is one of the most
curious problems in the annals of ethnology. Not only is it anomalous,
but it is absolutely inexplicable under any scientific and logical
hypothesis which can now be advanced. It would ordinarily be conceded
that a race affected with congenital leprosy, whose habits were
uncleanly, and whose members constantly intermarried, must certainly
perish in a few generations. It would also not be denied that such a
race would be especially liable to visitations by epidemics, and that
its reduced capacity for resistance would induce an extraordinary
fatality. Not so, however, with the Jews. They grew stronger by
intermarriage. They threw off the disease which had once made them
odious in the sight of men. The plague and the typhus which desolated
the homes of their neighbors passed them by. They not only survived,
but throve under persecution which would have exterminated any other
branch of the human family. Their tenacity of life, the persistence of
their institutions, the boundless power they wield in the commercial
world, their versatility of character, their success in the most
difficult undertakings, their national and religious organization
maintained in the face of appalling obstacles, tend to confirm the
ancient tradition that they are the Chosen People of God.
The Hebrew, whatever his capacity or experience, was in the eye of
the law immeasurably inferior to the most humble and ignorant of
those who ruled him. He paid higher taxes than any one else. His
testimony was not competent in a court of justice. He was excluded
from the enjoyment of office. If, having become an apostate through
force or policy, he addressed a word to one who was loyal to the
faith and traditions of his people, even though of his own blood, he
was condemned to slavery. He was not permitted to abstain from food
which his ordinances declared unclean. The practice of the rite of
circumcision, a rite pronounced by the rabbi more meritorious than
all others, and enjoined by the Talmud, brought with it confiscation
and death. The ancient national records--the books of the Law, the
chronicles of bygone dynasties, the treatises of Hebrew physicians
already prominent in the world of science--were diligently sought for
and destroyed. Every effort was made to separate wives from their
husbands and slaves from their masters, by the edict that the ceremony
of baptism, when solicited by consort or bondsman, produced, according
to circumstances, _ipso facto_, divorce or emancipation. All
Jews were enrolled upon the public registers, and at stated times
were mustered by the bishop. They were also required to report to the
magistrate at every town they visited, to be examined as to their
business and destination. The Seventeenth Council of Toledo, by a
sweeping decree, seized the property of all the Jews in the kingdom
and sentenced its owners, without exception, to absolute servitude.
They were accused of practices alike revolting to humanity and
subversive of morals,--of poisoning the sacramental elements, of the
torture of children, of crimes against nature, of cannibalism. The
ecclesiastical denunciations of offences concerning religion, such as
the blasphemy of images and relics, the ridicule of orthodox tenets,
the promulgation of the doctrines of the Talmud, and the soliciting
of proselytes, were not less violent than those which reprobated the
greatest enormities of which human frailty is susceptible. Every
rank of society vied with the others in manifestations of hostility
towards the despised race. The monarch, upon frivolous pretexts,
confiscated their property and abandoned them to the violence of
the populace. In the eyes of the ferocious noble, who scarcely
acknowledged the superior dignity of his king, they were sources of
wealth to be utilized as occasion or inclination demanded; and the
levy of an excessive contribution was regarded as an act of especial
leniency, when the last ducat might have been exacted with impunity.
The Church never failed to pour out upon these victims of prejudice
the full measure of ecclesiastical oppression and hatred, and no deed
was more meritorious than the persecution of a Jew. But it was with
the lower orders that the unfortunate Children of Israel fared the
worst. Their wealth aroused the basest passions of the ignorant and
fanatical rabble. To the malice incited by poverty and envy was added
the animosity engendered by religious prejudice, which found expression
in every kind of maltreatment and outrage. Although necessary to the
state and indispensable to its political and financial prosperity,
the Jew was precluded from claiming the protection of the very laws
he assisted to administer. Deprived of this unquestionable right, he
was unfitted by his constitution, his habits, and his traditions for
armed resistance. Centuries of oppression had taught him to rely on
pacific rather than on violent measures for the discomfiture of his
enemies. None understood more thoroughly than he the secret springs
of action which control the movements of mankind; and with its worst
and most degrading characteristics, his experience, reaching through
many troubled generations, had rendered him especially familiar. His
practical and thorough acquaintance with every foible of human nature
thus made him equal to the exigencies of every occasion. He dispensed
his gold with unstinted liberality. Powerful nobles, everywhere, were
in his pay. Ecclesiastics of eminent talents and reputed sanctity
were not ashamed to accept his gifts, and, in return, to secretly and
effectually protect his person and his interests. No efforts were
spared to impress the sovereign with the extent of his attainments
and the value of his services. The people, despite their prejudices,
looked with awe and respect upon the members of a race who had visited
lands whose very names were unknown to them, who conversed fluently in
strange and guttural tongues, and who spread before their wondering and
delighted eyes precious articles of merchandise of whose existence they
had hitherto remained in ignorance.
Under such circumstances, however disadvantageous, the Jews, scattered
throughout the countries of Europe, maintained from century to
century the integrity of their social and religious organization.
Their isolation was in many respects productive of personal safety
and financial benefit. Exempted by their civil disabilities from
exposure to the dangers of revolution, they escaped the penalties of
unsuccessful treason and profited by the necessities of every faction.
They alone of all classes flourished amidst the perils of internal
disorder. By the liberal and judicious employment of money, they
secured the favor of the party for the moment in power. Meanwhile
the commerce of every country was almost exclusively under their
control. No competition, of any importance, interposed to diminish
their enormous profits. There was not a city, scarcely a hamlet,
where the Hebrew was not sure of sympathy and assistance from his
countrymen. With them his goods were secure. They afforded him valuable
information. Their experience enabled him to obtain the highest
prices for his wares, and the secret intelligence at their disposal
gave him timely warning of the presence of danger and facilitated his
escape. His cosmopolitan habits prevented national affiliations, and
permitted him to immediately change his residence whenever it was
required by personal considerations or commercial interests. He bought
amber on the Baltic. He sold slaves in Constantinople. He exchanged
the commodities of Spain for the furs of Russia and the pearls and
incense of Yemen. In France he found a profitable market for jewels,
spices, and cochineal. His intimate and extensive relations with the
great emporiums of the Orient were one of the most important factors
of his success. In that quarter of the world, enjoying the protection
and confidence of the rulers of Persia, Babylonia, Syria, and Egypt,
were to be found the most powerful and wealthy communities of the
Hebrew nation. The omnipresent Jew had established a chain of trading
stations across every continent, and even far beyond the most distant
limits of civilization. This immense advantage was his alone; no
competitor possessed, or could ever hope to obtain, such extraordinary
mercantile facilities. From the depths of the mysterious East came
the rare products which commanded fabulous prices in the European
capitals,--costly tissues, gems, dyes, aromatics, porcelain,--articles
which often brought far more than their weight in gold. The monopoly
enjoyed by the shrewd importers enabled them to receive for their
commodities sums which far exceeded their intrinsic value, and placed
them beyond the reach of any excepting the most opulent.
But the enterprise of the Jew was not confined to the importation and
distribution of luxuries. He furnished society with every species
of merchandise, from the crown of the monarch to the sandals of the
beggar. The law forbade him to be seated by an ecclesiastic without
the latter’s invitation, but the bishop was compelled to purchase of
him the sacerdotal vestments in which his race was anathematized; and
the sacred furniture of the altar, including even the crucifix, the
significant emblem of the Passion, was sold to the cathedral chapter
by the descendants of those who had enacted the tragedy of Golgotha,
and had trafficked in the body and blood of our Saviour. The Jews of
Provence paid their tribute to the Church in wax, and provided the
tapers used in the ceremonies of great religious festivals. The vessels
destined for the celebration of the mass were frequently disposed of
to Jewish merchants by dishonest custodians; and this sacrilegious
trade became at one time so notorious and shameless in France as to
call forth the indignant denunciation of the Holy See. The pawning
of objects consecrated to Christian worship for loans ostensibly
contracted for the benefit of the Church was one of the most flagrant
abuses of ecclesiastical authority in mediæval times. These pledges,
often forfeited, became the property of the lender, and the clergy were
constantly subjected to the scandal arising from their exposure for
sale in the shops and public markets. It was no unusual circumstance
in those days for the greater part of the sacred plate of an entire
diocese to be temporarily in the hands of Jewish usurers. It was,
moreover, a matter of common notoriety that the families of wealthy
Jewish brokers daily drank from golden chalices in which once had been
offered the holy sacramental wine of the mass.
The confidence reposed by all classes in the Hebrews, despite the
universal and ineradicable prejudice entertained against their
nationality, affords undeniable proof of their integrity. Their
financial capacity and experience procured for them the office of
receiver of royal taxes in countries where public sentiment was
absolutely opposed to their toleration. Their fitness for this
important and responsible post was emphasized not only by their
abilities, but by the fact that their prosperous circumstances were,
in a measure, a guaranty of their honesty, their wealth removing the
principal incentive to peculation. The most bigoted Christians eagerly
sought their services in the management of property and the settlement
of estates; and to their sagacity and wisdom was frequently committed
the solution of the difficult problems relating to the methods of
taxation and enforced contribution adopted by both the Crown and the
Church. During the Middle Ages, every court in Europe patronized
the Hebrew physician. His practice, while by no means free from the
prevailing charlatanism of the time, embodied many principles of the
healing art still recognized as sound, and represented all that was
then known of medical science.
In literary culture, as in commercial ability and scientific
acquirements, the mediæval Jew of Christian Europe had no rivals. It
was an extraordinary circumstance when a sovereign could even read, in
an age when one of the greatest princes in Europe was invested with
the title of Beauclerc because he could write his own name legibly,
a remarkable distinction in an era of almost universal ignorance.
Such accomplishments, when they did exist in any community, were
almost entirely confined to the clerical profession, and, even among
its members, were far from being generally diffused. The officiating
priest had, ordinarily, sufficient education to enable him to stumble
through the pages of his missal. In the monastic establishments, where
the opportunity afforded by solitude and leisure permitted, and even
encouraged, the cultivation of letters, the talents of able men were
too often wasted in frivolous and unprofitable pursuits. While such
unpromising conditions prevailed among the higher classes, the state
of the populace was incredibly degraded. The latter naturally looked
to its spiritual advisers for instruction and guidance, and the evil
influence of the Church was everywhere significantly disclosed by the
crowds of stupid and fanatical devotees who listened with awe and
rapture to the incoherent harangues of monkish zealots, or, bowed upon
their faces, grovelled in the mire before the idolatrous shrine of some
spurious saint.
In the midst of the darkness which obscured the face of the mediæval
world, Hebrew learning emitted a small but brilliant ray of light.
Priestly tyranny and popular odium prevented the regeneration of the
masses, which, under different auspices, might readily have been
accomplished. The erudition of the early rabbis, remarkable even at
the present time, was, in the age in which they flourished, absolutely
phenomenal. Their superior intelligence and extensive acquirements
caused them to be universally branded as wizards and enchanters. Men
shunned all intercourse with them, and even feared to encounter them
upon the highways. No greater tribute could be paid to their knowledge
and ability than the ecclesiastical decrees launched against the
Jews at the very time when their talents were employed in directing
the financial affairs of the Church. In spite of his indispensable
usefulness to government and society, the proscribed Hebrew was always
under the ban of the law and lived in a state of constant apprehension.
Princes claimed and exercised the privilege of absolute ownership
of all the Jews and their property in their dominions. Even such an
enlightened sovereign as the Emperor Frederick II. published a sweeping
edict reducing the Jews of his realms to servitude, and declaring
their wealth forfeited to the state. In England, near the end of the
thirteenth century, every Jew in the kingdom was arrested and held in
durance until a ransom of twelve thousand pounds had been extorted.
Three years afterwards all their property was taken, and they were
expelled from the country. The bishop often received, as a token of
royal esteem, the present of the Jews of his diocese. This singular
prerogative, which was neither based upon prescriptive custom, former
enslavement, nor any claim excepting that of force, was first exerted
in France; and the enormous profits resulting from its application led
to its general adoption by all the Christian sovereigns of Europe. The
Jew, by the stringent restrictions of savage laws, was degraded below
the level of humanity. The owner of a beast was entitled to fixed
legal compensation for its death, but no penalty was enacted and no
damages could be claimed for the murder of a Jew. If maltreated, no
evidence could be received against his assailant. The Jews of Toulouse,
who, tradition declared, had surrendered the city to the Moors, were
condemned each year on that anniversary to furnish one of their number
to receive a box on the ear at the cathedral door. One of the oldest
and most respectable of the community was always selected; the blow was
usually given with a mailed hand, and the victim not infrequently died
from the effects of it. During Passion Week, the active persecution
of the accursed sect was considered so meritorious as to be almost
equivalent to the performance of a religious duty. At that time no
Hebrew could appear in the street without endangering his life. On
Good Friday, in the year 1016, an earthquake destroyed many of the
houses in Rome. Pope Benedict VIII., having learned that at the time
of its occurrence the Jews were worshipping in their synagogue, and
attributing the catastrophe to their influence, caused a great number
to be massacred. At all times they were exposed to the contumely of
adults and the petty persecutions of children. The isolated quarter in
every community, to which their residence was restricted, and separated
from the dwellings of orthodox Christians to prevent contamination,
is to-day, in nearly all the cities of Europe, still known by its once
distinctive name; although, in most instances, its Jewish population
has disappeared. It was also a common pastime of the mob to stone the
houses of the Jews, and, as the latter were not permitted to defend
themselves, all large towns resounded with tumult and disorder during
the celebration of the most sacred festival of Christendom. Upon every
occasion, these unfortunates were pursued and baited like wild animals;
always with the tacit connivance, often with the open encouragement,
of the authorities. Their intimate relations with the countries of the
East offered substantial grounds for the belief that they introduced
leprosy into France, Spain, and England,--a disease whose general
dissemination has ordinarily been credited to the Crusades, but whose
existence in France as early as the sixth century must be attributed
to some anterior agency. The undoubted Oriental origin of this malady
pointed strongly to the itinerant Jewish merchants as responsible for
its appearance in Western Europe; while its loathsome and incurable
character tended to increase the popular odium with which those
suspected of infecting a portion of the human race hitherto exempt from
this affliction were universally regarded.
Every precaution which could have a tendency to maintain the social
and domestic ostracism that popular intolerance had placed upon the
Jew was enforced by civil and ecclesiastical authority. He could not
legally marry a Christian, inherit real property, hold slaves. In royal
donations, where, without warrant of right or pretence of ancient
custom, he was deprived of his liberty and his possessions, his person
was thereafter attached to the glebe. He was forbidden the exercise
of many of the most profitable mechanical arts in which he excelled.
Christians could not eat or drink with him, visit his house, listen
to his conversation, or learn his language. The priesthood considered
the integrity of the doctrines which were at once the foundation and
the instruments of their power as of far greater importance than the
material comfort and intellectual improvement of their parishioners.
They were quick to recognize the peril with which ecclesiastical
institutions would be threatened if exposed to the logic and sarcasm
of Hebrew criticism. The necessities of society could not, as yet,
permit the extermination of the Jews, but their practical isolation was
imperatively demanded by considerations of prudence, and by the just
apprehension that the toleration of social intimacy would eventually
result in the emancipation of the masses from ignorance, and the
consequent disintegration of the Church. The Dominican and Franciscan
Orders were the sworn enemies of the Jew from the very day of their
organization. The Inquisition was introduced into Spain for the express
purpose of plundering the rich Jews of Aragon. The efforts of the
Papacy were assisted by the policy of the more bigoted of the rabbis,
who saw, with no less apprehension than their Christian oppressors,
the diffusion of liberal ideas which threatened their own authority
and importance. Under such discouraging conditions had the Jews
maintained their national existence, the purity of their religion, the
perpetuation of their customs, the permanence of their laws amidst the
anarchy, corruption, and intolerance of mediæval Europe.
The origin of this strange people is absolutely unknown. Their roving
propensity probably dates from the very foundation of the race, as
the words Hebrew and pilgrim are derived from the same root. No
question, however, can exist concerning their Semitic affiliations.
Their geographical distribution was extensive in very early times. The
most ancient collection of myths extant describes their migrations.
They were numerous in China during the third century before Christ.
Profoundly superstitious, implicit believers in omens, idolaters while
professing monotheism, the facile dupes of wizards and magicians, the
simplest phenomena of nature were always, in their eyes, invested with
a mysterious or an astrological significance. Even their division into
tribes has been traced by Dozy to a cabalistic association with the
twelve signs of the zodiac.
The Israelites are first noticed in history as a horde of vagabond
herdsmen in Mesopotamia. Oppressed by powerful neighbors, repeatedly
enslaved, and reduced to those depths of moral degradation incident
only to long-continued servitude, they still succeeded in preserving
inviolate the principles of their religious and social organization.
They were almost universally considered as outcasts, with whom it
was contamination to associate. But in all their adversity their
peculiar theocratic belief confirmed their resolution and sustained
their hopes. They were the Chosen People of God. His Spirit was ever
with them, speaking through the voices of their teachers, directing
the councils of their rulers, illuminating the Holy of Holies of the
Tabernacle, hovering about the Ark with its golden cherubim. They
had the Divine assurance that one day their troubles would end, that
the scattered members of their race would be again united, that they
would inherit the kingdoms and possess the riches of the earth. Their
arrogant exclusiveness was unconsciously, but none the less diligently,
fostered by the prejudices and regulations of the countries within
whose borders they fixed their residence. In each city they were
confined to a certain quarter, within whose precincts Christian men
were little disposed, and Christian women absolutely forbidden, to
enter. The use of a distinctive costume, popularly regarded as a badge
of ignominy, was imposed upon them. They were not allowed to marry
outside their sect. The minute and innumerable restrictions of Hindu
caste were not more rigid or vexatious than those ordinances which
regulated the intercourse of Jew and Christian during the Middle Ages.
The enforcement of these social distinctions, as well as the inexorable
requirements of the laws, increased the isolation of the Jews in
every community. In this manner their unity was preserved, and the
extraordinary vitality which characterized their existence in all its
phases was promoted.
In no part of Europe had their influence exhibited such constant,
marked, and permanent effects as in the Spanish Peninsula. On its
coast, with which their ancestors had long been familiar, and where
archæological research has placed the Tarshish of Holy Writ, the
establishment of the Hebrew is of such high antiquity that history
has failed to record it; and it may not unreasonably be assumed that
it antedated the Christian era by at least a thousand years. The
turbulent and perfidious character of the Hebrew sectaries caused
them to be regarded with apprehension by the Romans. In the time
of Hadrian, their old and powerful families were distributed, as a
measure of public safety, among the most widely separated provinces
of the empire. The fact is well ascertained that the Spanish Jews
were rich and numerous in the fifth century, and then practically
controlled the commerce and the financial resources of the country.
Even at that early period they were renowned for their intellectual
accomplishments, their extensive literature, their dexterity in the
mechanical employments, the assiduity with which they pursued the most
abstruse branches of science, and their proficiency in those practical
arts which tend to the amelioration of the condition of the human race
and the prolongation of the term of human life. As has been mentioned
in a previous chapter, although occasionally pursued by royal avarice
and clerical animosity, the Jews did not experience in Spain the full
effects of that hatred which seemed to be their unhappy birthright
until the accession of Reccared, the first orthodox sovereign of the
Visigothic dynasty. From the latter part of the sixth century, the
malice accumulated in the church and the cloister through ages of
alternate restraint and forbearance was unmercifully wreaked upon them.
The Visigothic Code is largely taken up with the statement of their
disabilities, the denunciation of their customs, the enumeration of
their offences, and the description of the penalties to be inflicted by
the avenging magistrate. The paternal character of the ecclesiastical
legislation, then and long afterwards in the ascendant in the Councils,
scrutinized with jealous vigilance not only the public actions of
the offensive sectaries, but invaded with brutal violence the sacred
privacy of domestic life. The celebration of all national religious
festivals was prohibited. A Jew could not be a witness against a
Christian; intermarriage of the two races was declared null and void,
and all issue of such unions were subject to seizure by the clergy,
to be reared and educated in monastic institutions; circumcision was
declared illegal; and the grotesque cruelty of the law which enforced
the use of pork as food violated without cause or excuse a rational
prejudice of the Jew, established by Divine command and confirmed by
the unbroken practice of countless generations of his kinsmen. The
observance of these savage and unreasonable regulations was enforced
by penalties of corresponding severity. The culprit was usually burned
alive; in cases where it seemed that leniency might be properly
exercised, he was stoned to death. The constant and systematic evasion
of these laws, which even priestly malevolence hesitated to enforce,
was the consequence of their extreme rigor. Many circumstances then,
as subsequently, intervened to mitigate the condition of the Jews; the
necessities of the state, the jealousy of the nobles, the venal and
corrupt disposition of the clergy, who were often the first to violate
the ordinances which they themselves had been instrumental in having
enacted, were all enlisted, from time to time, in securing for the
objects of popular hatred a temporary and precarious indulgence.
Under the Visigothic domination, as a rule, the policy of the
government was decidedly hostile. The opulent were, as is usual in
such cases, considered the most guilty; and thousands were seized,
despoiled, and murdered on no other provocation than the evidences
of prosperity and the imprudent and ostentatious exhibition of their
wealth. In the Council, which chose the sovereign, ecclesiasticism
always preponderated; and through its influence a clause was early
inserted in the coronation oath which bound the king to suffer no other
religion but the Roman Catholic in his dominions. Powerful protectors,
whose services were purchased by the lavish distribution of bribes,
averted the storm for the time; but about the beginning of the seventh
century public opinion declined to be longer conciliated, and a
frightful persecution was begun. An immense number, amounting, it is
said, to ninety thousand, apostatized and publicly received the rite
of baptism. Multitudes, who preferred banishment to renunciation of
their faith, fled to France, Italy, and other countries. Such extreme
measures drove the suffering Israelites to resistance, but their
hereditary cowardice and their total want of organization rendered
their exertions hopeless, and produced no result but an aggravation of
their misfortunes.
While these events were transpiring in the Visigothic kingdom,
Mohammedan conquest had spread from Central Arabia to the western
extremity of the African continent. Before its irresistible force,
the activity of the Berber savage and the discipline of the Roman
veteran had alike been humbled in the dust. The dangerous proximity
of the Moslem outposts at the south had more than once aroused the
apprehensions of the proud and luxurious sovereigns of Spain. But
their efforts had been directed rather to the indulgence of their
passions and the extirpation of heresy than to the fortification of
the frontiers of the kingdom against the ambition of an unknown and
underrated foe. The Jews, however, fully realized the gravity of the
situation, and were only too willing to promote the designs of an enemy
whose success, they were convinced, would enure to their own advantage
and security. Numerous considerations of profound significance impelled
them to this course. They themselves and the Arabs were derived from
a common origin. Both sprang from the same branch of the great human
family. Many of their customs were identical; their traditions denote
a similar source; their languages vary but little in construction and
pronunciation, and have been so slightly modified by the vicissitudes
of centuries that the Hebrew rabbi and the Bedouin sheik of to-day
can readily communicate with each other by means of their respective
idioms. Both nations had for centuries been accustomed to a pastoral
life on the vast plains of Asia, where the illimitable monotony of the
landscape, the unbroken stillness of immense solitudes, the magnificent
spectacle of the unclouded heavens glowing with the most gorgeous
constellations of the firmament, have always impressed upon the nations
subject to these potent and omnipresent influences the conviction of
the unity of God. The caravans that issued from the Desert exchanged
the precious commodities of that region for the wares manufactured and
imported by the Hebrews of Alexandria, Damascus, and Antioch. Although
in the early ages of Islam the Jews were often harshly treated, the
Arabs were quick to perceive the advantages to be obtained from their
commercial experience and literary knowledge. As Hebrew enterprise was
instrumental in opening to the world the lucrative and important trade
of the Arabian Peninsula, so Hebrew genius disclosed to the descendants
of Ishmael the capacity of their own tongue, which until then had found
no permanent mode of expression. The first book which appeared in
the Arabic language was written by Javaich, a Syrian Jew. It was the
translation of a medical work by a famous practitioner of Alexandria,
and the practical character of the subject not only indicates the
serious nature of early Hebrew research, but also becomes a matter of
curious significance when the subsequent interest and proficiency of
Arab scholars in everything concerning the scientific acquirements of
that profession are considered.
The impulse thus early exerted by Jewish culture upon the Arab
intellect was eventually productive of the most extraordinary
results. The scholars soon surpassed their instructors in the extent
and profundity of their knowledge. The Arab mind assimilated, with
wonderful ease and insatiable avidity, the useful and valuable
information afforded it, while its critical faculty enabled it to
reject what it intuitively perceived to be spurious. In all the
countries subject to the Khalifates of Mecca and Damascus, the Hebrew
opened to the Moslem conqueror the avenues of literature and science.
He was treated by the Mohammedan princes with far more consideration
and justice than he had ever experienced under Pagan or Christian
domination. His synagogues were erected in the shadow of Moslem
minarets. His academies became famous as centres of learning. The works
of Grecian philosophers, the fragmentary treasures of Alexandrian
erudition, were, through his efforts, made familiar to the studious
of the great Mohammedan capitals. In the distribution of literary
patronage the Jews were the most distinguished recipients of royal
munificence. In proportion to the eminence they attained in the
province of letters, their political power and financial prosperity
increased. They enjoyed the familiar confidence of the monarch, when
his favorite councillors dared not venture without a summons into his
presence. They amassed great fortunes in the various branches of trade
and industry. Their mercantile occupations brought them frequently in
contact with their fellow-sectaries, who, in other parts of the world,
maintained under the weighty sceptre of cruel and bigoted sovereigns an
existence fraught with danger and hardship.
These facts were well known to the Spanish Jews who had, amidst the
multiplied catastrophes afflicting their race, survived the effects
of Visigothic tyranny. Notwithstanding the successive persecutions
of which they had been the object, they were still numerous in the
Peninsula. The phenomenal vitality of a people which, from time
immemorial, has preserved its integrity under the most adverse
conditions, enabled it to defy the malice of courts and the edicts
of councils whose office and pastime was the pitiless extirpation
of heresy. The Jews flourished in defiance of bloodthirsty laws.
In many ways they evaded the effects of proscription. Thousands
apostatized. Multitudes secretly purchased immunity by means of the
arts of corruption. Of those who had gone into exile, the majority
quickly returned and took up their residence in other provinces, where,
unknown to the populace, and often with the venal connivance of civil
officials and prelates, they were permitted to pursue their avocations
in comparative security. The Israelitish element was so preponderant
in Toledo, Lucena, and Granada, at the time of the Moorish invasion,
that they were known as Jewish cities. This large population formed
a separate state, an _imperium in imperio_, whose members,
exasperated by the memory of intolerable suffering and sustained by
the hope of retribution, were ready to embrace the first opportunity
to avenge the oppression of centuries. Thus the fatal policy of the
Visigoths--weak, violent, and corrupt--had introduced an organized,
powerful, unscrupulous, and vindictive enemy into every province and
city of their tottering empire. With their African brethren the Jews
of Spain maintained an intimate and frequent correspondence. Numbers
of the latter had sought a refuge beyond the sea, as their descendants
did, under similar circumstances, seven centuries afterwards. The
settlements of the Mauritanian coast swarmed with indigenous or exiled
Hebrews, attracted thither by the superior facilities they offered
to commercial pursuits. All of these shrewd and intelligent traders
were perfectly familiar with the condition of the Visigothic monarchy;
with its apparent splendor and actual decay; with the political
and social disorganization pervading every department of the state
and every rank of society; with the tyranny of the King; with the
universal disaffection of the nobles; with the grasping avarice of
the clergy, whose exactions spared neither the plenty of the rich nor
the starving wretchedness of the poor; with the weakness of the army,
whose soldiers, subsisting by pillage, had neither weapons to arm
nor officers to command them; with the abject misery of the people,
who, protected by none and plundered by all, insecure in the pursuit
of every employment, a constant prey to licensed brigandage, with no
recollection of the past but the bitter reminiscence of unprovoked and
repeated injury, with no hope of the future save in the intervention of
a more powerful, perhaps a more ruthless, oppressor, were certain of
tranquillity only in the silence and oblivion of the grave.
The advent of Moslem supremacy, which promised a new and splendid
career to the down-trodden race, was welcomed by the Jews of Africa
with all the enthusiasm of an impulsive and excitable people.
Al-Maghreb had scarcely been conquered before the Moslem generals
were more conversant with the details of Visigothic weakness and
demoralization than the councillors of Roderick himself. The minute and
secret ramifications of Jewish society united in a common cause the
widely distributed communities of Africa and Spain; the intelligence
and resolution of the conspirators, whose hostility was increased
by the bitterness of sectarian hatred, rendered their enterprise
and activity the more dangerous; and a propitious opportunity alone
was awaited to pour upon the fertile and defenceless plains of the
Peninsula the resistless torrent of Moslem invasion. That opportunity
soon arrived. The fortress of Ceuta, lost by treason, fell into
the hands of the Arabs; the Visigothic power, crushed in one great
battle, succumbed to the superior valor of an enterprising enemy;
and within the short period of fourteen months the sceptre of empire
passed from the feeble hands of a barbarian dynasty to the control
of a foreign race, whose mental capacity and intellectual ambition,
as yet untried, were subsequently found to be equal to the most
exacting demands of a refined and highly developed civilization. In
these events, whose consequences produced such radical modifications
in the religious, political, and domestic conditions of European
society, Hebrew energy and craft were eminently conspicuous. One of
the principal divisions of Tarik’s army was commanded by a Jew. During
the invasion, Jewish guides conducted the Moslem squadrons along the
highways of an unknown country, furnished information of the enemy’s
movements, disclosed the whereabouts of military supplies and hidden
wealth. When the slender numbers of the Arab forces would not admit
of their diminution for garrison duty, the Jews volunteered their
services to defend the conquered cities and faithfully discharged the
important trust. The obligations thus incurred by the Moorish invaders
to their allies were of the most important character. The latter
not only facilitated an enterprise whose difficulty, without their
co-operation, would have been enormously increased, if not actually
rendered impracticable, but, the country once subdued, they directed
the attention of the Arabs to elegant pursuits, of whose nature and
value they had hitherto remained in ignorance. Moslem civilization in
Europe owed an incalculable debt of gratitude to the Jews. They were
its real founders. They inculcated a taste for letters. They promoted
the investigations of science, the development of industry and the
arts. Their refined tastes and intellectual employments aroused a
noble emulation in the minds of their pupils and imitators, which, in
turn, reacted upon their own talents and aspirations. Hebrew genius
and ambition were no longer hampered by the malicious interference
of royal councils and ecclesiastical synods. The Jewish merchant and
the Jewish banker pursued their way to opulence and distinction,
unmolested by the extortionate demands of corrupt officials and
tyrannical farmers of the revenue. Their scholars were not insensible
to the advantages to be derived from the study of ancient learning, and
the Greek and Latin classics were thoroughly familiar to the Spanish
Jew, whose commentaries upon them were of considerable extent and of
unquestionable authority.
Under a government favorable to their existence and prosperity,
their numbers rapidly increased. The depopulation resulting from the
conquest of an already impoverished and exhausted territory required
an extraordinary and immediate remedy. Publication was everywhere
made throughout the Orient inviting the settlement of immigrants in
Spain. Lands and houses were promised to all who were willing to change
their domiciles for new homes in the distant and recently founded
Mohammedan empire. In the multitude that responded were, it is said,
fifty thousand Hebrew families, amounting to not less than a quarter
of a million individuals. These, with their fellow-sectaries already
established in the Peninsula, composed a most important element of its
population. Highly favorable social and domestic conditions, among
which must be considered the prevalent institution of polygamy, caused
in after years a prodigious multiplication of the race. The colonists
brought with them the devotion to learning which they had imbibed in
the presence of the great memorials of ancient civilization on the
banks of the Nile and the Euphrates, and many volumes of native and
foreign lore which were destined to form the nucleus of the magnificent
libraries of Moorish Spain. History has repeatedly mentioned the
tireless assiduity with which the Jews, secure and tranquil under
the tolerant administration of the khalifs, devoted themselves to
the cultivation of letters. Their diligence was only exceeded by
the marvellous proficiency they attained in every branch of useful
knowledge. They mastered with ease the most abstruse and perplexing
mathematical problems. The rabbis were great linguists; there were few
of them not thoroughly conversant with the numerous idioms of Europe
and Asia. Medicine and astronomy, their favorite pursuits, under their
direction soon acquired an unprecedented, almost a magical,
development.
The tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries represent the epoch of
the greatest fame and influence of the Spanish Jews. This period,
coincident with the highest power and civilization of the Hispano-Arab
empire, had, however, been preceded by two centuries of uninterrupted
progress. The enlightened policy of the Western khalifs, from the
accession of the Ommeyade dynasty, attracted to their capital the
learned of every country and of every profession. Of these strangers,
the Hebrews constituted the largest proportion of any one race,
excepting the Arabs. The schools and academies they founded vied
in educational opportunities and literary culture with the Moslem
institutions of similar character whose reputation was unrivalled in
the world. The interpretations of the Scriptures and the Talmud, as
promulgated by the synagogues of Toledo and Cordova, were acknowledged
everywhere as of the highest and most binding authority. A constant
and profitable intercourse was maintained with their kinsmen of the
Orient, which promoted an interchange of ideas, and was consequently of
incalculable advantage to the mental development of both divisions of
the race. The intellectual supremacy of the Spanish Jew was, however,
rarely disputed. The opportunities he enjoyed in the society of the
most splendid of mediæval capitals; the vast stores of information at
his disposal; the great libraries collected by the khalifs to which
he had access; the permanent distinction which awaited successful
competition in the public contests for literary precedence; the favor
of the sovereign, often himself a scholar of great erudition and varied
accomplishments, always a liberal patron of science and the arts;
the applause of the multitude; the substantial pecuniary benefits
which promised a life of ease and opulence to all whose abilities
were sufficiently eminent to merit public recognition and recompense;
with these manifold privileges and incentives it is not singular that
Hebrew genius obtained and preserved an exalted rank in the literary
society of the age. Encouraged by the influence which they wielded,
and presuming upon the favor of a liberal and indulgent sovereign,
the Jews of the Moorish empire formed an organization modelled after
the institutions of their ancestors which could scarcely have been
tolerated under a severe and jealous despotism. They elected as their
king a prince of the house of Judah, who, while not openly invested
with the insignia of royalty, received the homage and the tribute of
his subjects. Under this potentate judges and priests were chosen, who
exercised the functions performed centuries before in the days of the
independence and renown of the Hebrew nation. The Moors countenanced,
and even approved of, the establishment of this anomalous system.
Its officials, despite their grandiloquent titles, were strictly
subordinated to the authority of the khalifate. They were suffered,
however, to administer the affairs of those who acknowledged their
jurisdiction; their decisions in theological matters limited to their
faith were unquestioned; and they were intrusted with the collection of
taxes, whose amount and apportionment had been previously determined by
the regular officers of the imperial treasury.
The eminently practical character of the Jewish mind did not
confine itself to speculations upon the traditions of the Talmud or
disquisitions concerning abstruse points of philosophy. The Hebrew
sages embraced with the greatest ardor the fascinating pursuits of
mechanical invention and scientific discovery. In medicine and surgery
they particularly excelled. They wrote treatises on the application
of hydraulics and the comparative merits of various systems of
irrigation. They thoroughly understood the principles of horticulture.
The excellence of the manufactures for which the Khalifate of Cordova
was famous was, to a considerable extent, indebted to Jewish talents
and industry. In many instances the nationality of Hebrew scholars
was obscured through the similarity of their names and occupations to
those of their distinguished associates in the great Moslem centres
of learning. Many Jewish doctors received Arab appellations and wrote
almost exclusively in the Arabic language. Among these was Ibn-Zohr,
who, for these reasons, has been generally considered a Mohammedan, but
whose parentage, religion, associations, and education were entirely
Hebrew.
The tenth century witnessed the culmination of Jewish greatness
in Europe. In its rapid advancement, it had kept pace with the
ever-progressive march of Moslem power and culture. Wherever the
Saracens established themselves, the Jewish population increased.
The harmonious co-operation of the two races--one of which, while
nominally tributary to and dependent upon the other, was in
reality upon a footing of friendly intimacy with its acknowledged
superior--proved of immense advantage to both, in the promotion of
every measure which could enure to the substantial benefit of humanity.
In the consideration which they enjoyed, and in the prosperity and
distinction which were the reward of intelligent and useful effort,
the Jews lost the memory of the calamities which had been their lot
for so many centuries. In common with all peoples who have attained
the highest civilization, they abandoned themselves to luxury. The
men were clothed in the richest of silken fabrics. The jewels of the
women equalled in brilliancy and value the choicest treasures of
the imperial harems. The great Hebrew functionaries of state, who
possessed the confidence of the sovereign, appeared in public, guarded
by retinues of armed and magnificently attired eunuchs. Their mansions
exhibited all the luxurious appointments of the fastidious sybarite.
The Rabbi Hasdai-ben-Schaprut was one of the principal ministers
of Abd-al-Rahman III. Al-Hakem II. enlisted the services of Jewish
ambassadors in important embassies. Hischem II. ordered a translation
of the Talmud to be made into Arabic, and caused its literature to be
introduced as a branch of study in the Moslem colleges. The educated
Moors treated with the greatest honor and respect the princes and
officials of the hierarchy chosen by the assemblies of the Synagogue.
The beginning of the tenth century witnessed the destruction of the
renowned academies of Persia, whose members, by the promulgation of
liberal doctrines, had rendered themselves obnoxious to Oriental
despotism. Their societies dissolved, these learned men were forced to
seek security in exile. Some of the most famous, including the Rabbi
Moses, of the Academy of Pumbedita, were taken by African corsairs and
exposed for sale in the slave-market of Cordova. Such was the eminent
reputation of this doctor, that, as soon as his identity was disclosed,
he was unanimously elected prince of the Hispano-Hebrew nation.