universities of Spain with their accumulated stores of wisdom. From
every country where the hand of persecution was raised against the Jew
refugees flocked by thousands into the Peninsula, until the Ommeyade
khalif included among his subjects a larger proportion of the people of
this race than any other sovereign of the age. The list of rabbis who
illuminated with their genius and learning the reign of the Cordovan
princes is both instructive and interesting, especially when we
consider the benighted condition of contemporaneous Europe. In France,
during the ninth century, a Christian bishop declared the rabbis
preached better than the priests.
The active minds of these gifted scholars enabled them to master at
the same time the most complicated problems of widely different
branches of scientific knowledge. The difficulty and novelty of the
subject were always the strongest incentives to their industry. The
study of jurisprudence enjoined by their law, as a religious duty,
was always entered upon in the beginning of their literary career,
no matter to what professions they were subsequently to be devoted.
Rabbi Hasdai-ben-Schaprut wrote a commentary on the botanical
treatise of Dioscorides, of which he had made an Arabic version;
Rabbi Judah, who lived under Abd-al-Rahman III., was renowned for
his acquaintance with both Hebrew and Arabic literature; Joseph
translated the Talmud for Hischem II.; Manasseh-ben-Baruch compiled
a critical lexicon, a colossal monument of patience and erudition.
To Isaac-ben-Chanan is ascribed the rendering into classic Hebrew
of the complete works of Aristotle. Isaac Alphes codified the laws
of the Talmud; Samuel-ben-Alarif, the minister of Habus, King of
Granada, renowned alike as statesman, astronomer, and poet, composed
a panegyric of his sovereign in seven languages. Moses-ben-Ezra
wrote poems which disclose instructive scenes of mediæval life and
manners; the grammatical works of Judas-ben-David were recognized as
authoritative wherever the Hebrew tongue was spoken; Isaac-ben-Baruch
was one of the most learned and accomplished mathematicians of his
time. In addition to these names, famous in the history of letters,
the Hebrew community of Spain included poets like Judas Levi, whose
works, translated into Arabic and Latin, obtained a wide and deserved
popularity; astronomers like Ben-Chia; geographers like Isaac Latef;
physicians like Charizi; travellers like Benjamin of Tudela, whose
writings may still be perused with pleasure and advantage; natural
philosophers like Solomon-ben-Gabirol, who had the rare faculty of
clothing scientific conceptions in poetical language; universal
geniuses like Moses-ben-Maimon and Ben-Ezra, whose talents illustrated
and embellished every subject within the realm of human knowledge. Not
less noted were the Jewish physicians, who did not, however, exist as a
distinctive profession, their commanding abilities being also displayed
in other departments of literature and science.
Most prominent among the names which immortalize the golden age of
Hebrew erudition is that of Moses-ben-Maimon, popularly known as
Maimonides. A native of Cordova, and sprung from a family which
had furnished many learned and distinguished members of the Jewish
hierarchy, he enjoyed from his earliest youth the unrivalled
educational advantages of the great Moslem capital. His mind was
formed and his tastes developed under the most able instructors of
the University of Cordova, and it has even been stated, upon disputed
authority, however, that he was the pupil and friend of the famous
philosopher Averroes. The profession of medicine which he adopted,
and in which he afterwards so greatly excelled, he regarded rather as
an instrument with which to observe the secret characteristics and
incentives of human nature than as a means of livelihood. At the age
of thirty, his reputation for prodigious erudition had spread far
beyond the limits of the Moslem empire of the West. The fanatical
policy of Abd-al-Mumen, founder of the Almohade dynasty, demanded the
conversion of the Jews; thousands, under the fear of death, renounced
their religion, and among them was Maimonides, whose resolution was not
proof against the prospective sufferings of martyrdom. Escaping soon
after to Egypt, where his renown had preceded his arrival, he became
the friend and adviser of the Sultan. It is said that whenever he
left his house he was compelled to pass through lines of people, some
of whom desired his opinion on metaphysical questions, and others,
who were afflicted with various ailments, that sought the aid of his
medical knowledge. Such was his devotion to his profession, that in
the care of his patients he deprived himself of sleep, and many times
fainted from sheer exhaustion. In the midst of his arduous duties
he found time for the composition of many voluminous treatises,--on
biblical and rabbinical literature; on the action of remedies; on
the duties and responsibilities of man as inculcated by the higher
philosophy. His principal work, More-Hanebushim, “The Guide of Lost
Spirits,” is one of the masterpieces of Hebrew literature. The
learning it displays, the profound knowledge of mankind it reveals,
the originality of its conceptions, the ingenuity and logical force of
the argument, the sublime moral maxims it inculcates, and the elegance
and beauty of the style, owing little to the native harshness of the
idiom in which it is written, stamp it as one of the most remarkable
productions of the human mind. The genius of this great writer regarded
as diversions undertakings which would have appeared formidable tasks
to men of inferior capacity. His medical works, fourteen in number,
and especially his learned commentary on Hippocrates, were long the
guide of the profession, and to this day many of his precepts for the
treatment of disease are employed by the intelligent practitioner. He
was one of the first to recognize that mental derangement is often the
result of physical indisposition. Maimonides was more familiar with the
doctrines of Christian theology than the majority of the prelates whose
duty it was to inculcate them. His understanding rejected with contempt
the alluring and prevalent delusions of the age, which too frequently
contaminated the wisdom of the scholar with the mummeries of the
impostor. His condemnation of judicial astrology, in which he exposed
by irrefutable arguments the absurdities and dangers of that puerile
but fascinating science, was adopted and promulgated as authoritative
by both Popes Sixtus V. and Urban VIII. While he criticised with
uncompromising severity the faults of his sect and the weakness and
inconsistency of many of its traditions, Maimonides never intentionally
swerved from the path of orthodox Judaism. His surroundings and
associations were, however, on the whole not favorable to the
maintenance of archaic theological systems. The intellectual society of
Cordova was deeply infected with infidelity. The instructors of youth,
the professors of the University, were disciples of Averroes. Religious
commentary had long been supplanted by philosophical skepticism. Even
the populace, always the last to abandon the obsolete opinions of
theological infancy, were imbued with the same iconoclastic ideas. The
sublime conceptions of India, the doctrine of Emanation and Absorption,
had been largely adopted by the educated communities of Moorish
Spain. The exposure of the Hebrew dogmas to the mocking and sarcastic
raillery of his learned companions produced no effect upon the faith
of Maimonides. His principles were too firmly grounded to be shaken
by the jeers of polished atheism. While his progressive ideas caused
him to be for a time regarded with suspicion by the stricter of the
Hebrews, they eventually contended with each other in paying tribute to
his lofty genius, and in their extravagant admiration styled him “The
Eagle of Jewish Literature,” “The Guide of the Rabbis,” “The Light of
the Occident.” The liberal character of his doctrines may be inferred
from the following passage taken from the preface to his works: “The
end of religion is to conduct us to perfection, and to teach us to act
and think in conformity with reason. In this consists the distinctive
attribute of human nature.”
Maimonides was one of the most eminent personages of his time. No
writer of his nationality ever attained to such an exalted rank, even
among those who dissented from his opinions. The kindness of his
disposition was not less remarkable than the extent of his intellectual
acquirements. Although a born polemic and controversialist, he never
voluntarily wounded the feelings of an adversary. The object of his
investigations was invariably the discovery of truth. His learning, his
critical acumen, his quickness of perception, his accuracy of judgment,
his talent for argument, were unrivalled. His system aimed at the
reconciliation of revealed maxims and scientific deductions; at the
co-ordination of Biblical and Talmudical ideas with the principles of
ancient wisdom and contemporaneous philosophy. Such a task was beyond
even his great abilities. The studies of the infidel schools of Spain
had, unconsciously to himself, affected his religious belief. The
instructions of Averroes were not conducive to the existence of rigid
Judaism. Maimonides was, in fact, a pantheist. Throughout his writings,
despite their mysticism, the doctrine of Emanation is everywhere
prominent. He refers to successive spheres born of Divine thought.
He considers the absorption of the souls of the good into the Divine
Essence. While admitting the indestructibility of force, he rejects
the idea of the eternity of matter. With him, as with the majority of
scholars who had been educated under Arabic auspices, the authority
of Aristotle was paramount. His works, while professedly written to
elucidate and confirm the Talmud, really undermined it. His Mischne
Thora and Commentary on the Mischna are prodigies of dialectical skill
and varied erudition. In the first of these, a religious code, ten
years of constant labor were expended.
The life of Maimonides was an eventful period in the history of his
race. Then it reached the highest point of intellectual distinction,
but among its sages none ranked with the distinguished rabbi. In
addition to his vast stores of universal knowledge, he had profited
by the practical benefits of travel. He had visited Fez, Montpellier,
Cairo, Bagdad, Jerusalem. He was the court physician of Saladin. He
refused a similar employment tendered by Richard I., King of England.
He was raised to the important office of Chief Rabbi of all the Hebrew
communities of Egypt. From the East and West, his countrymen sought his
opinion on abstruse questions of religion and philosophical doctrine,
and accepted his answers as infallible. His influence was by no means
confined to members of his own sect. His works, translated into Latin,
were diligently studied by Christian polemics, and furnished arguments
to successive generations of schoolmen. Diffused throughout the South
of France, their rationalist opinions played no small part in the
promotion of the Albigensian heresy.
But while the intellectual supremacy of Maimonides placed him far
in advance of his contemporaries, he was by no means the only
distinguished scholar of his epoch. Ben-Ezra, equally proficient
in the departments of medicine, literature, and astronomy, enjoyed
a reputation second only to that of the Greatest of the Hebrews.
His inquisitive mind, stimulated by years of assiduous application,
sought in the scenes of foreign lands the valuable experience and
intimate acquaintance with human life which are not to be obtained
by the perusal of books alone. The remarkable abilities of Ben-Ezra
were exercised alike in the solution of mathematical problems and in
the composition of sacred poems. In his knowledge of astronomy, he
surpassed the most accurate observers of an age especially devoted to
the cultivation of the grandest and most fascinating of sciences. In
his moments of mental relaxation he embodied in verse the rules of the
game of chess; and the preface to this poem, in which the reader is
warned against the evils of cards and dice, proves conclusively that
gaming implements supposed to have been invented hundreds of years
afterwards were familiar to the Spanish Jews and Moors in the early
part of the thirteenth century.
Not unworthy rivals of Ben-Ezra in the contest for literary precedence
were Nachmanides, who at the age of sixteen was the honored associate
of the most learned of the Jewish nation, and whose precocious
maturity acquired for him in early manhood the title of Abu-Harushma,
“The Father of Wisdom;” Joseph Hadain, whose charming verses were
the delight of the people of Cordova; Solomon-ben-Gabirol, and
Abraham-ben-David-Halevi, distinguished philosophers, in whose
writings were illustrated the principles of theological reform and
independent criticism demanded by the bold and progressive spirit
of the age. Among the Jews of Spain were also many original poets,
fabulists, and writers of romance. Such were the most eminent scholars
whose attainments reflected honor on the Hebrew name, under the
beneficent rule of the Moslem princes of the West, an era coincident
with the darkest period of European history. Besides these there were
others in every community, some of rabbinical rank, some of humble
station, with talents that elsewhere would have raised them far above
mediocrity, but who were obscured and overwhelmed in the dazzling
glare of literary excellence. The commercial prosperity of the Jews;
the universality of education, whose institutions afforded facilities
nowhere else attainable in the world; the naturally inquisitive bent of
the Hebrew mind, whose acuteness seemed capable of solving questions
when all others had failed, and whose versatility was equal to the
most varied and arduous undertakings; the superhuman industry which
shrank from no task, however difficult; the consideration with which
they were treated by sovereign and plebeian alike, gave full scope
to the capabilities of a race of men who never previously, even in
the days of Judea’s splendor, had been afforded such opportunities
for development. The generous emulation provoked by the intellectual
efforts of their Saracen rivals was exerted by the Jews in every
branch of learning and every department of scientific research.
Through the literary productions of these two nations alone was the
way of knowledge accessible. A thorough acquaintance with Arabic
and Hebrew was indispensable to the ambitious student. Latin, whose
corrupted idiom was the language of the Church, was the vehicle of
priestly intercourse, and the medium through which were transmitted
Papal decrees and ecclesiastical tradition. The ancient classics of
Greece and Rome were practically unknown outside the Peninsula; and
there is good reason to believe that a majority of the famous prelates
of the time were ignorant that they had ever existed. The accurate
retranslations of these works into Latin from the Arabic, into which
they had been originally transcribed, first revealed their merits to
Western Europe, and paved the way to the revival of learning. The
impulse imparted by this means to literary curiosity and investigation
found its culmination in the epoch which produced Aretino, Petrarch,
Boccaccio, and Dante. The Italian Renaissance, the dawn of modern
European intelligence and progress, received its inspiration from the
civilizing influences and cultivated tastes brought to extraordinary
perfection in the great cities of Southern Spain.
The dissolution of the Moslem empire, its subsequent division and
gradual conquest, naturally effected great changes in the political
relations and ultimate destiny of the Hebrew race. Under the petty
kings who administered with various fortune the shattered fragments
of the magnificent inheritance bequeathed by the Ommeyade khalifs,
the condition of the Jews changed with the caprices and the passions
of each new tyrannical potentate. For the most part, however, they
received indulgent and often flattering treatment. The Mohammedan
sovereigns recognized the value of such subjects; there were many
whose political sagacity was not obscured by prejudice, and who still
observed the tolerant precepts of Islam. At Granada the Jews had always
been popular; there is a tradition that the capital of the kingdom
was founded by them. In the fourteenth century, there were fifteen
thousand Hebrew families resident in that city. While the rest of
the Peninsula was convulsed with revolution and disorder, and their
kinsmen were being everywhere persecuted and robbed by Papal inquisitor
and Christian king, the Jews of Granada pursued their occupations
in peace, under the protection of the Zirite and Alhamar dynasties,
until the final success of the Spanish arms involved their nation in
irretrievable ruin.
The Jews were the principal medium through which Moorish civilization
was permanently impressed upon Europe. Their peculiar characteristics;
their vitality amidst the most dreadful misfortunes; the intimate
relationship maintained by their communities, where distance and
territorial isolation seemed matters of little importance, and their
wide distribution were most important factors in the maintenance
and dissemination of knowledge. The Jew travelled with safety
in lands where a price was set upon his head; outside of Moslem
jurisdiction, even among strangers unfamiliar with his story and his
creed, the Saracen was an outcast. The requirements of royal and
ecclesiastical incompetency contributed to the preservation of that
learning which ignorance and fear constantly incited to destroy.
As the Peninsula yielded by degrees to the steady encroachments of
Christian power, the superior abilities of the Jews proved a potent
safeguard against oppression. In spite of the furious protests of
fanatics, they exercised the most important public employments. Kings
of irreproachable orthodoxy habitually availed themselves of their
unrivalled medical attainments. The physicians of Alfonso X., Pedro
el Cruel, Henry III., Juan II. of Castile, of Jaime I. of Aragon, of
Duarte and Juan I. of Portugal, were all members of the detested sect.
Their tact and discernment caused their services to be enlisted in the
settlement of perplexing questions of diplomacy. The early times of
the Reconquest were far from exhibiting the vindictive and intolerant
spirit which marked its termination. The Hebrew colony at Toledo
numbered twelve thousand souls. Its academy stood first in rank among
similar institutions in Europe. A vast sum was annually paid by this
tributary population into the royal treasury of Castile.
The king, the noble, and the scholar treated the Jew with favor, often
with the highest consideration. The clergy and the mob were ever his
bitterest enemies. His extraordinary influence was daily manifested in
defiance of savage laws which public sentiment enacted and applauded,
but was unable to enforce. The hated sectary, proscribed by both the
ecclesiastical and civil powers, pursued his way, indifferent to the
edicts of either the altar or the throne. He dictated the policy of
the government. He made treaties with foreign nations. He flaunted his
wealth in the faces of the rabble. With strange inconsistency, members
of the priesthood sold him Christian serfs, whom their own decrees
declared it was illegal for him to own. They pledged with him the
consecrated vessels of their calling for money with which to indulge
in forbidden pleasures. His opulence was his most serious offence.
In the thirteenth century, one-third of the entire real-property of
Castile was in the possession or under the control of the Hebrews.
At the death of Pedro II. of Aragon, they had acquired possession of
all the demesnes of the crown, by the purchase of claims against the
state. At one time they owned nearly all the city of Paris. Their pomp
and insolence aroused the envy and hatred of the nobles, many of whom
were virtually their prisoners for default in the payment of debts.
During the reign of Pedro el Cruel, Joseph-ben-Ephraim, the royal
tax-gatherer, rode in a magnificent coach, guarded by a retinue of
fifty armed attendants. His clerks were the sons of Spanish grandees.
It was long a popular saying in Europe that “The Castilians had the
pride and the devotion, the Jews the talents and the money.”
The Spanish cavaliers who had experienced the prowess and courtesy of
their Moorish adversaries, as a rule, cherished no bitterness against
the Jews. Those who, in the course of events, were absorbed with the
territory of the growing kingdom, often elicited admiration and respect
by reason of their commanding talents and erudition. The political
administration of Castile and Leon, under Alfonso VIII., was committed
to a Jew; and his physician, who was of the same race and enjoyed the
royal confidence, was chosen by the nobles as an intermediary between
themselves and their sovereign in a transaction which required the
exercise of the greatest ability and discretion. A beautiful Jewess was
for many years the mistress of Alfonso IX., over whom her empire, while
unbounded, was never abused; until at last the clergy, scandalized
rather by the nationality of the favorite than by the gravity of the
sin, caused her to be sacrificed to public resentment. It requires
but a glance at the writings of the few mediæval reformers to infer
how much consistency there was in this simulated indignation. The
works of these alone are sufficient to establish the existence of
universal sacerdotal depravity among those censors of public morals
whose scruples were excited by the influence ascribed to the charms of
a lovely infidel. Under Alfonso el Sabio, the Jews received greater
consideration than under any other Christian monarch of Spain. The
famous Alphonsine Tables, drawn up under the direction of Hebrew
astronomers, were the most memorable scientific achievement of the
epoch. Their cost, which exceeded the enormous sum of four hundred
thousand ducats, is indicative not only of the interest of that prince
in undertakings whose importance was neither understood nor appreciated
elsewhere, but of the value attached to the services of great scholars,
whose knowledge had been imparted by a civilization which their royal
patron considered it his political and religious duty to eradicate.
The indulgent policy of Don Pedro el Cruel towards his Hebrew subjects
was one of the most remarkable peculiarities of his sanguinary
reign. His financiers and his confidential advisers were members of
that proscribed race. The treasurer of the monarchy, Samuel Levi,
whose position and favor enabled him to amass a princely fortune, is
remembered by Jewish tradition as one of the great benefactors of
humanity. The extraordinary power he wielded; the splendor of his
retinue; the sumptuous appointments of his palace; his patronage of
letters; the prodigal generosity he displayed in the relief of the
unfortunate and the deserving of every nationality, have exalted,
perhaps exaggerated, his merits in the memory of his countrymen. His
greatest claim to distinction, however, consists in the erection,
at his own expense, of a superb synagogue at Toledo. This edifice,
unique of its kind, was built by the most skilful Moorish artificers
of Granada, and its decorations suggested the most finished and
elegant models of Arab art. Its walls were embellished with miniature
horseshoe and stalactitic arches, whose openings were relieved by
polygonal ornaments and golden stars. Belts of foliage alternating with
appropriate inscriptions composed the frieze; and the ceiling, which
was of the incorruptible cedar of Lebanon, resembled, in the maze of
its geometrical designs, the artesonados of the Alhambra. In common
with the other principal synagogues of Toledo, the earth upon which
the pavement was laid was said to have been brought from Mount Sion, a
tradition which enhanced their sanctity in the eyes of the worshipper.
Many converted Hebrews, as the reward of their apostasy, were raised
to the most exalted civil and episcopal dignities; unusual literary
accomplishments in a Spanish prelate during the Middle Ages were almost
infallible indications that his information had been derived from
infidel sources; and Catholic piety recognized no more ardent defenders
of the dogmas of the Church than the converted Jews, Paul, Bishop of
Burgos and Grand Chancellor of Castile, and Alfonso de Spina, Rector of
the University of Salamanca. The celebrated Bible produced at Alcalá
de Henares through the munificence of Cardinal Ximenes, at a cost of
fifty thousand pieces of gold, and which required the unremitting labor
of fifteen years, was the work of apostate Jews. Three secretaries
of Queen Isabella were of the despised nationality. One of them, the
famous chronicler Pulgar, had held the same office of trust under King
Henry IV.
The intolerance of the Spanish clergy increased in an exact ratio with
the decadence of Moslem power. As ecclesiastical supremacy became
strong enough to control the policy of the throne, the privileges of
the Jews, already greatly curtailed, were almost entirely abolished.
As yet, however, the sovereign was unable to dispense either with
the taxes they paid, which were the most important part of the royal
revenues, or with the financial talents and sterling honesty which
insured their proper disbursement. It was not until the reign of
Ferdinand and Isabella that fanaticism was allowed to prevail over the
wise and prudential considerations of policy which, though frequently
interrupted by scenes of horror and carnage, had in practice ignored
for centuries the fulminations of ecclesiastical synods and councils.
As the rise of Hebrew greatness in the Peninsula dates from, and
is attributable to, the Moslem conquest, in like manner its decay
progressed with the declining fortunes of the Saracens, and its
destruction was coincident with the disappearance of their empire.
Scattered throughout Europe, the Jews alone preserved for future
generations the precious heritage of Arab science and culture; and
had they not proved capable of retaining and transmitting it, the
discoveries of Moorish genius, banished with those who made them, would
have been forever lost to posterity. The effects of civilization,
whose arts, distributed through the agency of the Hebrews, were
productive of such great results, were principally manifested, as
might readily be conjectured, in the countries contiguous to or most
intimately connected with the Peninsula. The tide of Hebrew emigration
and trade rolled steadily into France, Portugal, Italy. The states
of Provence and Languedoc, under the Gothic name of Septimania,
early overrun by the conquerors of Spain, were, long prior to that
time, subject to Hebrew influence. Attracted by the salubrious
climate and the excellent commercial facilities of the coast, the
Jews settled there in great numbers. The overthrow of the Mohammedan
power in that region was not followed by the immediate abolition of
the social and educational systems which it had inaugurated, and
whose perpetuation was insured by the most favorable climatic and
ethnological conditions. At Lyons, the Jews at one time were held in
such esteem that the market day was changed from Saturday to Sunday
in deference to their religious prejudices. In Provence, practically
free from the humiliating distinctions of caste, they enjoyed the
same privileges and were entitled to the same protection as other
citizens. At Béziers, Carcassonne, Avignon, Montpellier, and Narbonne
the Hebrew element predominated. It has already been stated that the
famous school of Montpellier owed its origin to the Arabs and the Jews.
The Moslem conquest vastly increased the Hebrew population, which had
already been numerous in Southern France for more than eight hundred
years. The mystery which in times of mediæval darkness enveloped
everything derived from Hebrew and Arabic sources, the peculiarities
of the written, the incomprehensibility of the spoken, idioms, in
which education was imparted, the methodical treatment of disease,
so thorough in application, so successful in results, pursued by its
graduates, and immeasurably superior in every respect to the mummeries
of priestly superstition, invested the University of Montpellier with
a reputation which, acquired at the expense of sacerdotal influence,
was attributed by the ignorant to the invocation of infernal spirits.
The infidel physicians of that institution were shunned by the devout
as sorcerers. The Church excommunicated all who had recourse to them.
Not only in that city, but through the greater part of Christendom, it
was considered far better to permit an invalid to perish than to secure
his recovery by the aid of practitioners whose methods were denounced
from every pulpit as diabolical and infamous. Christian women often
died in childbed rather than summon a Jewish midwife, whose profession
was exercised with signal ability, and whose education was little
less thorough and profound than that of the doctors of the medical
school. Such sacrifices were regarded as peculiarly meritorious, as
establishing beyond doubt the consistent piety of the victim. Under
existing circumstances, there was no relief for the priest-ridden
sufferer, for the practice of medicine was confined to the Jews. The
application of relics, even when strengthened by the most edifying
exhibition of faith, could hardly prevail against a fatal distemper.
On the one hand was the terrifying prospect of impending dissolution;
on the other, the assurance of divine displeasure and the certainty of
sacerdotal condemnation. In the midst of this general intolerance the
Lords of Montpellier stood firm. They were proud of their city,--proud
of its wealth, its enterprise, its intelligence, its reputation. They
thoroughly appreciated the conditions under which that reputation had
been created. Their Jewish subjects were the wealthiest, the most
learned, the most law-abiding of citizens. They had more than once
discharged with credit important public employments. They had their
exchange, their banks, their schools, their cemeteries, even their
own wells for purposes of ablution. They worshipped in a magnificent
synagogue, which in richness and beauty vied with the most splendid
mosques, and from whose ceiling of aromatic woods were suspended
hundreds of golden lamps. Not only had their hereditary commercial
instincts made Montpellier a great and prosperous emporium, but their
ingenuity was exhibited in the establishment of many important branches
of manufactures. The cloths exported by them were especially noted
for delicacy of finish and texture. In the goldsmiths’ shops was
produced elegant jewelry of classic design. Not a few of the sacred
vessels used for the celebration of the mass in the cathedrals of
Europe were fabricated by the Jewish artisans of Montpellier. Some of
the most lucrative departments of industry for which Mohammedan Spain
was famous were represented in that city, among them those of silk,
leather, and porcelain. The incorporation of the dominions of the Lords
of Montpellier into the French monarchy not only subjected the Jews
to the disabilities and persecutions elsewhere the heritage of their
race, but, as a necessary consequence, proved fatal to the prosperity
of that flourishing provincial capital. Royal and episcopal avarice
rioted in a new and productive field of legalized extortion. The Jews
were robbed and expelled, recalled under promises of immunity, and
plundered again and again. The feudal law of mortmain authorized the
confiscation of their property if they were converted; if they refused
this questionable privilege, official oppression at once reduced them
to beggary.
With the increase of Christian influence in Southern Europe their
condition grew more and more desperate. At Toledo, a riot having broken
out on account of the levy of an obnoxious tax, the public disorder was
made an excuse for the spoliation and massacre of the Jews. In many
districts in Europe people were prohibited from furnishing them with
the necessaries of life. At Aix, a Jew was flayed alive for alleged
blasphemy, and a column was erected to commemorate the pious deed.
The menacing eloquence of St. Vincent Ferrer is said to have driven
fifteen thousand Valencian Hebrews to the Catholic communion. The
cry raised against Jewish rapacity by dishonest or insolvent debtors
enured to their benefit in the proceeds resulting from pillage,
and by the forcible recovery of chattels deposited with brokers as
security. Public hatred was not confined to denunciation of their
financial methods; their learning and its depositories shared the
common obloquy. Hebrew manuscripts were destroyed whenever found. At
Salamanca alone, six thousand were consumed in a single bonfire. In
Paris, in one day, twenty-four cart-loads of literary treasures were
committed to the flames. Monkish intolerance raged everywhere against
these dangerous competitors for popular favor and pecuniary gain. This
prejudice extended to their language; its study was forbidden under
penalty of excommunication; and it was constantly proclaimed from the
pulpit that whoever acquired it became from that moment to all intents
and purposes a Jew. Gradually excluded from all mechanical trades and
liberal professions, the unhappy people were driven to the business
of brokerage. To this unpopular calling, whose commercial necessity
was as yet unrecognized by European ignorance, Hebrew enterprise was
ultimately, for the most part, restricted. The practice of usury,
reprobated by those whose improvidence or vices forced them to have
recourse to it for temporary relief, had existed in Europe long
before the stigma arising from its abuse attached to the Jewish name.
The Lombards and Florentines, whose unfeeling rapacity belied their
claim to humanity, were those who first rendered it odious; and the
Apostolic See repeatedly sold to commercial organizations the privilege
of financial oppression. The small amount of cash in circulation
authorized the imposition of enormous rates of interest. In Spain,
under Christian domination, the rate was limited to thirty-three and a
third per cent., and in other countries it was even more exorbitant,
but regulated, as such matters always are, by the natural laws of
supply and demand. The Italian brokers, who plied their calling in
France, not infrequently exacted one hundred and twenty per cent.
per annum. The edicts of kings and the anathemas of councils were
ineffectually directed against this evil, which threatened the
impoverishment of every necessitous person of credit, produced
unspeakable suffering, and seriously retarded the progress of national
prosperity. Those loudest in their denunciations were generally the
first to apply for pecuniary advances to the objects of their simulated
wrath. Catholic sovereigns secretly pledged the royal jewels with
Hebrew usurers; and it was the public boast of the latter that the
sacred vessels of cathedrals and religious houses were the greater part
of the time at their absolute or conditional disposal. The glaring
inconsistency which characterized every phase of Jewish persecution
was thus unusually conspicuous in the condemnation of their usurious
practices.
In Portugal, whose proximity to and original incorporation with the
Hispano-Arab empire had attracted a large Hebrew immigration, the
Jews, as elsewhere, availing themselves of the superior attainments
acquired under Moslem institutions, speedily grew rich and powerful.
There, also, in an ignorant society debased by the predominance of a
narrow and despotic ecclesiastical system, their toleration became for
a time a political necessity. Their services were so indispensable to
all orders of the state that the disabilities imposed upon them were
regarded as merely nominal, and the laws regulating their intercourse
with each other and with the Christians remained for the most part
inoperative.
In Italy, the hand of the Jew was visible in the energy and enterprise
of the maritime states of Venice, Genoa, Leghorn, and Naples. A less
intolerable existence was insured to him under the shadow of the Papal
throne. The exiles of Western Europe, expelled by the short-sighted
policy of irrational fanatics, were coldly welcomed on the banks of the
Po and the Tiber and on the sunny shores of the Adriatic. The industry
and culture inherited from the golden age of Moslem domination became
sources of wealth, mercantile importance, and literary distinction
to the Italians, whose reluctant hospitality was eventually repaid a
hundred-fold by the profit derived from the labors of these refugees
and the results of the emulation excited by their example. It was
thus that, after the lapse of five centuries and at a distance of
a thousand miles, the civilization of the Moslem empire in Spain
produced, through the agency of an alien and exiled race, the glorious
revival of arts and letters in Italy. That the Jews should be credited
with the dissemination of Arab science and literature is demonstrated
by the fact that in whatever country those of Spanish extraction, or
their descendants, established themselves, the people of that country
quickly experienced an intellectual impulse unknown to others not
exposed to similar associations. Modern civilization has ill-requited
the priceless benefits it has received from Jewish learning and Jewish
skill.
The tenacity of the mind of the Israelite was amazing. It never
relaxed its hold upon a valuable idea once within its grasp. Much
as it communicated, its secretive character induced it always to
suppress far more than it imparted, a habit which increased its
mysterious influence. It had the peculiar quality of immediately
quickening into life the more sluggish mental natures of all with whom
it was brought in contact. No disposition, however harsh or ascetic,
was proof against the exertion of its power. The Jewish colonies,
transplanted into the midst of an ignorant population, became at
once foci of learning. Bigotry itself regarded with awe and respect
the intellectual superiority which anticipated and checked hostile
measures directed against its continuance, and, without the employment
of force, nullified laws especially enacted for its repression. It
was not strange that prosperity maintained in the presence of such
obstacles should be attributed to diabolical interference. Into his
new home the Jew brought not only the energy and acuteness which were
the guaranty of his success, but the intelligent curiosity which was
the principal factor of his extraordinary mental development. Not a
few possessed extensive libraries, luxuries absolutely unknown in
many European countries where even writing materials did not exist,
or, if they did, were unavailable. The scattered books to be found in
churches and monasteries were palimpsests, ancient parchments from
which the productions of classic authors had been laboriously effaced
to make room for saintly homilies and patristic legends. Perfection in
calligraphy had kept pace with the other artistic achievements of the
Spanish Hebrews. Their Biblical manuscripts had a world-wide celebrity
for accuracy of text and beauty of ornamentation. Many were illuminated
with arabesques and floral designs executed in colors and embellished
with gold. So highly were these copies of the Scriptures valued that in
Spain one of but ordinary merit readily brought a hundred crowns.
The number of Hebrew writers who attained distinction in the Middle
Ages was enormous. The great catalogue of Bartholoccius, which
enumerates those of Spain, Italy, and France--countries particularly
subject, directly and individually, to Arab influence--fills four
volumes in folio and contains four thousand names. Among these, authors
of Spanish origin largely predominate. The activity of the Hebrew
intellect was not hampered by conventional restrictions of sex, nor
deterred by the difficulties or demands of any profession or calling.
Among that people, precautions arising from Oriental jealousy, which
had been observed from time immemorial, required the seclusion of
women; and this custom was naturally unfavorable to female education.
They were practically the slaves, first of their fathers, then of their
husbands. In public they always appeared veiled from head to foot. In
so little esteem were they ordinarily held, that it was not considered
necessary to instruct them even in the doctrines of religion. Whatever
talents, therefore, Jewish females possessed were, until the Saracen
domination in Europe, unknown and undeveloped.
The educational facilities afforded the Moorish women under the
beneficent sway of the Ommeyade khalifs, and the prominence attained
by many of them in the world of letters, did not fail to exercise its
influence upon the habits and the career of their Jewish sisters. This
fact is of the greatest importance, in view of the strict subordination
enforced upon Hebrew women in all periods of their history, a
regulation largely due to their naturally dependent condition and
their alleged intellectual inferiority. In the cultivated society
of Cordova, the stubborn tenacity of long-established prejudice
vanished before the enlightened and progressive spirit of the age.
Under such circumstances, even the severe authority of the rabbis
became, in a measure, relaxed; and while the names of no Jewish
women pre-eminently distinguished for learning have come down to
us, it is an unquestionable fact that they were allowed to enjoy,
to an extent hitherto unprecedented, the literary advantages whose
possession was generally admitted to constitute an exclusive privilege
of the masculine sex. As the policy and traditions of the Synagogue
discouraged such innovations, it is not strange that no record of their
results has been preserved. The exhaustive researches of Kayserling
have brought to light the name of a single Hebrew poetess, Xemosa, of
the era of the khalifate; but all particulars of time and locality, of
her literary career, and of the character of her works are missing.
The most remarkable peculiarity of the Hebrew character was its
versatility. In every pursuit in which his talents were employed the
Jew of Spanish origin rose to unrivalled distinction. The marvellous
erudition and diversified accomplishments of their scholars were not
inferior to those of the Moorish philosophers of Cordova in the most
glorious days of Moslem dominion. They became equally proficient in
many branches of abstruse science, any one of which was sufficient to
exhaust the mental resources of an ordinary student. Their eminence
in the practice of medicine gave rise to the popular belief that an
admixture of Jewish blood was absolutely essential to success in that
profession, an opinion not confined to the vulgar, but seriously
discussed by a learned Italian historian. The fact that the study of
astronomy should have been almost always combined with that of medicine
is one of the most singular incidents in the annals of literature.
It might be explained by a predilection for astrology, if Hebrew
intelligence had not long outgrown the belief in that delusion, so
prevalent in the infancy of knowledge. In familiarity with the visible
heavens, with the motions of the planets, and the relative position
of stars, in accuracy of mathematical calculation, in dexterous use
of the astrolabe and the armillary sphere, they surpassed all other
observers except the Arabs. So popular was this science among them
in Spain during the thirteenth century that the Jewish astronomers
of Toledo alone exceeded in numbers all the others of Christian
Europe combined. The invaluable services they rendered to learning
were not inferior to the ingenious methods by which they facilitated
international communication and promoted the convenience and security
of trade. When suddenly expelled from France by Philip Augustus,
they left with Christians in whom they could confide their personal
property, which, from its bulk or its value, they were unable to carry
with them. After their arrival in Italy, they drew through Lombard
merchants upon the custodians of their chattels, either for the goods
themselves or for the cash realized from their sale. In this way Europe
became indebted to the Jews for the general introduction of bills of
exchange, previously invented by their countrymen at Barcelona, which
from a benefit to mercantile transactions in the settlement of foreign
obligations have now grown to be a commercial necessity.
Popular prejudice against the Hebrew nationality was aggravated, not
only because of the eminent ability in matters of literature and
finance, implying superiority, which it displayed, but on account
of its control of the markets of the world and of its possession of
the greater part of the money in circulation west of the Bosphorus.
From the tenth century, when the Moorish ports of Southern Spain had
become the emporiums of the Mediterranean, to the sixteenth, when the
discovery of Columbus and the passage of the Cape of Good Hope had
opened a new field to the cupidity and ambition of Europe, the trade of
three great continents was subservient to the enterprise of the Jews.
The commercial heritage bequeathed to their allies by the Phœnicians
had endured through changes of empire, through the wrecks of successive
dynasties, through persecutions of incredible atrocity, for more than
twenty centuries.
The persistency which is a marked ethnological peculiarity of the Jews
is at once the cause and the effect of their claim to Divine favor.
The more intelligent of that people have never expected the appearance
of a personal Messiah. They regard the popular myth of his coming as
symbolizing the termination of national exile,--a mere allegorical
allusion to the eventual independence and tranquillity which hope,
deepening through ages into belief, assured them would one day be
the condition of their race. This conviction, founded rather in the
knowledge of its justice than in any well-defined prospect of its
realization, sustained them through a long series of grievous trials
and misfortunes. Accused of crimes such as the utmost ingenuity of
malice has never imputed to any other sect, they retaliated by acts of
self-sacrifice and generosity. In the midst of the futile solemnities
of the Church, the pomp of processions, the intonation of litanies, the
muttering of prayers, the smoking of censers, the exhibition of relics,
they administered the remedies of scientific medicine to the suffering
stricken with the pestilence. During the first visitation of the plague
at Venice, in addition to a liberal donation, they lent the government
a hundred thousand ducats for the relief of the poor. In time of
national peril, their loyalty never faltered, except when their spirit
had been exasperated by continued oppression. The funds they advanced
were employed to drive the Arabs out of Spain. Moorish domination,
established through their instrumentality, was thus indebted to their
contributions for its overthrow. The most exacting requirements of
retributive justice were certainly satisfied with the penalty exacted
by fate for this perfidious act of ingratitude.
Modern prejudice, like mediæval ignorance, is reluctant to confess
the obligations learning owes to Hebrew genius and industry. The Jews
were, in turn, the teachers, the pupils, and the coadjutors of the
Moors; the legatees and the distributors of the precious stores of Arab
wisdom. The rabbis, few of whom, it may be remarked, were not expert
workmen in the mechanical trades, a knowledge of which was enjoined by
their religion, spread the love of letters everywhere. All treatises
in Arabic, of practical or scientific value, were translated into
Hebrew. Their familiarity with every branch of classical literature is
apparent in their writings; even the Fables of Æsop were reproduced in
their language. Purity of diction and elegance of style were striking
characteristics of all the literary productions of the Spanish Jews.
The most eminent Christian prelates of Spain during the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries were apostate rabbis. The proficiency of their
medical practitioners has already been repeatedly alluded to. For years
after the banishment of the Jews from the Peninsula, entire districts
remained without the benefits of medical treatment. Such as were able
resorted to foreign countries at great expense and inconvenience; the
vast majority of invalids suffered without relief. The reputation of
the Hebrew was so great, even in the sixteenth century, that Francis
I. sent to the Emperor Charles V. for a Jewish physician; and one who
had been converted to Christianity having undertaken the journey to
Paris, the French king refused to receive him as soon as he learned
that he was an apostate. Hebrew erudition exercised no small influence
on both Moorish and Spanish literature. Many of the treatises of the
Jewish philosophers, written in Arabic, enjoyed a wide circulation
in the cultivated society of the khalifate and of the principalities
which succeeded it. The first biography of the Cid was written by
Ibn-Alfange, a Jew. The collection of tales entitled El Conde Lucanor,
by Don Juan Manuel, is borrowed from a composition of similar character
by Moses Sephardi, a Hebrew fabulist.
In the works of all the distinguished Jewish writers who had either
directly or remotely been subjected to the influence of the Moslem
academies of Spain, Aristotelian and Neo-Platonic opinions prevail.
Orthodox Judaism could not survive in the atmosphere of those infidel
institutions. The rabbis were, without exception, to a greater or less
degree, infected with pantheistic ideas. They were firm believers in
the heretical doctrine of Emanation and Absorption. In common with
their Arabic associates, who had long since repudiated the legends
of the Koran, they accepted in all its portentous significance the
aphorism, “Science is religion.”
Nothing is more remarkable in the history of the Jews of the Middle
Ages than their survival under persecution. The most awful calamities
failed to impair their organization or destroy their faith. They were
naturally a rebellious people. Their ancient history is a tale of
breaches of faith, treason, and sedition. They were enslaved in a body
by Egiza, King of the Visigoths, for a conspiracy which aimed at the
overthrow of the monarchy. The Crusaders, inflamed by the harangues of
the clergy, on their march to Palestine butchered them wherever found.
In France alone a hundred thousand were massacred by the truculent
soldiers of the Cross. The Almohade fanatics drove them out of Spain.
Philippe le Bel confiscated their property and expelled them from his
kingdom. Henry III., of England, sold all the Jews in his dominions
to his brother Richard for a large sum of money. The Emperor Louis
IV. pawned the Hebrew colony of the city of Spires, like so much
merchandise, to the Bishop as security for a debt. In Aragon, at the
close of the fifteenth century, fifty thousand were put to death and
double that number compelled to renounce their religion. The popes
alternately treated them with severity and indulgence, as the financial
condition of the Holy See was prosperous or necessitous. Thus, while
grievously oppressed in other countries of Europe, they often enjoyed
temporary immunity in Italy. Possessed of no civil rights, existing
only by sufferance, they were the prey of every one clothed for the
moment with power. Church and State, alike, regarded them as a most
valuable source of income. The money annually extorted from the Jewish
population of a kingdom was frequently far in excess of all other
revenues combined.
The Hebrew works of mediæval antiquity contain the germs of scientific
discoveries which modern pride is pleased to designate as of
comparatively recent origin. In the Zohar, a collection of treatises
belonging to the Kabbala, are embodied highly philosophic cosmological
ideas, and rational conceptions relating to the vital principle
of Nature, and the scientific treatment of disease, which were
subsequently applied to public instruction and practical use in the
famous schools of Salerno and Montpellier. The various physiognomical
changes wrought upon the lineaments of the human countenance by
the cultivation of benevolent instincts or the indulgence of evil
passions are there described with a faithfulness which points to an
extraordinary insight into the incentives and desires which control
the actions of men. In this remarkable compilation of Hebrew learning,
the doctrine of Pantheism, as suggested by the time-honored philosophy
of India, is set forth; the globular form of the earth, its diurnal
revolution on its axis, the varying phases of that planet, the
difference in the length of day and night at the equator and the poles,
and the scientific reasons for the existence of these phenomena, are
all described with an accuracy which is wonderful when the general
ignorance of the epoch during which these opinions, so far in advance
of the time, were promulgated, is remembered. In the thirteenth
century, Jedediah-ben-Abraham, of Béziers, advanced the hypothesis
that all objects impelled in opposite directions, and undisturbed by
other forces, move in straight lines,--the essential element of one
of the laws now universally recognized as governing the motions of
the heavenly bodies. Solomon-ben-Virga, a Spanish refugee, in his
historical treatise, Sebeth-Jehuda, published in the sixteenth century,
states that the earth, equally attracted by the surrounding stars,
remains suspended in the midst of space; an unmistakable conception
of the principle of gravity which antedates its republication in
Europe by more than a hundred years. The philosophical truths just
enumerated, which anticipate the important discoveries of Boerhaave,
Lavater, Galileo, Kepler, and Newton, afford a suggestive idea of the
attainments of the rabbis, the accuracy of their reasoning, and the
extent and profundity of their scientific knowledge.
While Jewish exiles were instrumental in awakening the spirit which
inspired the Renaissance, and the consequent intellectual regeneration
of Europe, their literature produced no inconsiderable effect upon the
fortunes of that other momentous revolution which changed its religious
aspect, the Protestant Reformation. The right of unrestricted perusal
and private interpretation of the Scriptures, which was the vital
principle of that movement, had always been enjoyed by the Hebrews.
Their commentaries on the Bible were surprisingly voluminous: whole
libraries were composed of them. The writings of the rabbis which
elucidated obscure passages of Holy Writ were composed in a spirit
of judicious toleration, entirely foreign to the policy dictated by
bigoted ecclesiasticism and Papal authority. To exercise private
judgment in religious matters was to invite the discipline of the
Inquisition. Not one priest in ten thousand understood a word of
Hebrew. Its study was prohibited to Catholics as conducive to heresy.
On the other hand, Luther, Calvin, Melanchthon, Zwinglius, Conrad, in
short, all the great Reformers, were thoroughly proficient in that
language. Rabbinical literature exerted a powerful influence on their
minds, inspired their efforts, provoked their rivalry, confirmed their
resolution. In this respect, as in numerous others, posterity owes
much to the despised Israelites of the mediæval era. A vast interval
of time divides the ages of Abd-al-Rahman I. and Luther; the cities
of Cordova and Worms are separated by many hundred leagues; but the
inherent ideas of personal liberty and private right recognized on
the banks of the Guadalquivir ultimately prevailed in the centre of
Germany, once the most unlettered of countries. Thus the inheritance
of barbarism, rendered possible by Roman decadence, transmitted by
Goth, Hun, and Vandal, and perpetuated for the material interests of
the Church, was supplanted by the labors and the example of rabbinical
industry and learning. The epoch of ignorance, during which men feared
to be enlightened by a people whose transcendent knowledge was believed
to be of infernal origin, was past; but their disabilities were never
entirely removed, and Jew-baiting is, unfortunately, still a popular
diversion in some of the countries of Europe.
The importance of the invention of printing was at once understood
and appreciated by the Jews. Ten years after it became known, their
presses in Italy produced typographical works of extraordinary
beauty and excellence. Their prominence in every movement directed
towards the weakening of superstition and the emancipation of the
human intellect did not prevent them from sustaining intimate and
confidential relations with the Holy See. The Papacy was, as a rule,
not unfavorably inclined towards them; it borrowed their money, and
availed itself of their talents in the conduct of public affairs.
Many Jews of Rome attained to great political distinction. Jehid was
the financial minister of Alexander III.; and the son of a wealthy
Hebrew merchant, named Pietro il Buono, is known to posterity as the
anti-pope Anacletus. Such were the Hebrews of the Middle Ages, whose
success in literature, art, science, commerce, politics, and diplomacy
is to be attributed to the impulse originally imparted to their genius,
and to the privileges enjoyed by their ancestors, under the generous
and tolerant policy of the Khalifs of Cordova.
The expulsion of the Spanish Jews is one of the saddest and most
deplorable tragedies in history. The royal edict which decided their
fate, and whose execution had been deferred until the Moorish wars
were ended, was published March 31, 1492. The charge brought against
them of having menaced the security of the State and the tranquillity
of the Church, by projected conspiracy, is too absurd to be seriously
considered. To strengthen these unfounded accusations, the threadbare
fables relating to the sacrifice of Christian infants at Easter, and
the repeated solicitation of Catholics to apostasy, were once more
utilized to inflame the passions of the fanatical multitude. Three
months only were allowed for the disposal of their property and the
completion of their preparations for departure; and, if that term were
exceeded, the proclamation made them liable to the seizure of their
chattels, and even to the penalty of death. They were prohibited from
removing from the kingdom money or vessels of gold or silver; and the
only objects specified in the royal ordinance which they were permitted
to retain were bills of exchange and portable effects which could
easily be transported. The Grand Inquisitor, Torquemada, revered in
the annals of the Church as one of her most famous champions, and the
confessor of Queen Isabella, to whose credit stand the tortures of a
hundred thousand heretics and the grief and misery of other unnumbered
multitudes, was the inspiring spirit of this atrocious crime against
humanity. His influence neutralized the supplications of an entire
people; the remonstrances of the few statesmen who, withstanding the
popular clamor, foresaw the certain decline of commercial prosperity
incident to the enforcement of this measure; the insidious and hitherto
omnipotent agency of vast sums of gold. Accounts differ materially as
to the number of Jews expelled from Spain; it was, however, not less
than four hundred thousand, and was probably near a million. Their
sufferings equalled, if they did not surpass, those of the Moriscoes,
afterwards condemned by a similar proscription. The air was filled
with their lamentations. Many remained for days in the cemeteries,
weeping over the graves of their ancestors. The majority who travelled
by land went on foot. With the exiles departed the greater portion of
the learning, the skill, the wealth, the industry, and the prosperity
of Spain. Their estates were confiscated by the crown. Rigid personal
search was made of every individual for concealed valuables, which
impelled many to swallow their gold. Brigands stripped them on the
highway. Sailors robbed them on the sea. Their wives were ravished,
their children despatched before their eyes. Many perished from want
of food. A pestilence decimated an entire company, and the survivors
were abandoned to die on a desert island, without water or shelter.
Great numbers were sold by their barbarous custodians to slave traders.
The inadvertent disclosure of wealth was fatal to its possessor;
he was at once thrown overboard, and his property became the spoil
of the murderer. Those who landed in Morocco were not permitted to
enter the cities, and a famine which at that time was desolating the
country made it impossible for such an increased population to obtain
subsistence. Encamped in the arid desert, they were compelled to have
recourse to unwholesome roots and herbs in a desperate effort to
sustain life. Thousands died of exposure. Many sold their children
to avoid starvation. A large proportion of these refugees landed in
Italy, where an enlightened public sentiment stood ready to profit
by the wealth and industry that the narrow spirit of Spanish bigotry
was so determined to throw away. Pope Alexander VI., the head of the
house of Borgia, notwithstanding that the prominent Israelites of
Rome offered him a thousand pieces of gold to exclude them, received
the heretics proscribed by the most Catholic sovereigns with the
utmost consideration and sympathy. The maritime states of the Adriatic
compelled their Hebrew citizens, who, fearing commercial rivalry, were
inclined to regard this influx of strangers with disfavor, to render
substantial assistance to their unfortunate brethren. In Holland,
also, the exiles were welcomed with a hospitality that in after years
the advantages derived from their establishment abundantly repaid.
The antipathy entertained by the Spanish populace towards the Jews,
diligently fostered by the infamous arts of the Inquisition, was far
from being dissipated by the banishment and extermination of the
victims of its malevolence; in default of the living, its vengeance
was wreaked upon the dead. Nearly a century after the expulsion, when
an avowed Israelite could not be found in the Spanish monarchy, the
Hebrew cemetery at Seville was invaded by a mob; the costly monuments
were battered into fragments; the graves opened and rifled, and the
mouldering bones found in them burned to ashes. A considerable booty
in gold and silver trinkets, jewels, precious stuffs, and illuminated
manuscripts rewarded this act of sacrilege, whose authors were neither
molested nor punished by the authorities.
Among the most eminent victims of Jewish persecution was the great
statesman and scholar, Abarbanel. No name in letters stood higher than
his. In turn, the favorite and absolute minister of the sovereigns
of Portugal, Spain, and Naples, he shared the fate of his countrymen,
and, deprived of his offices and home in each of these kingdoms, was
three times driven into exile. Such was the respect which his talents
inspired, that the princes who had been foremost in persecuting him
were glad to avail themselves of his experience in settlements of
important questions of diplomacy. His literary ability was so great
that his admirers have classed him with Maimonides. In philosophy he
was most liberal; in religion a polemic; in politics, strange to say,
a republican. In private or in public life no stain or dishonor ever
attached to his name.
The scenes witnessed during the expulsion of the Jews from Portugal
were even more shocking in their barbarity than those that
characterized their expatriation from any other country of Christian
Europe. Only two months were allowed them to settle their affairs; if
any remained beyond that time they were condemned to slavery. All males
under the age of fourteen were to be separated from their relatives,
that they might be brought into the pale of the Church, which aimed
at the annihilation of their race. The latter part of the inexorable
sentence was the first to be executed. The screaming boys were torn
from the arms of their parents, who were brutally clubbed until they
released their hold; many distracted mothers, unable to sustain the
loss of their children, committed suicide or killed their offspring;
of the latter some were cast into wells, others were strangled. Every
obstacle was thrown in the way of the departure of the Jews until
the limited time had expired, and then nearly the entire number was
enslaved. Apostasy was now the only remedy for their distressed
condition, and this many embraced. Their social status was thereby
immensely improved at the expense of their conscience. They contracted
distinguished alliances with their recent oppressors, and their
children were adopted into the families of the nobility.
The Spanish Jews, by reason of the peculiarities of their situation,
the hostility of their rulers,--which their pecuniary resources and
natural acuteness often baffled, yet never entirely overcame,--and
their successive domination by races of different origin, faith, and
language, were impressed with mental characteristics and peculiarities
not to be met with in their brethren of other countries. Their rigid
formalism was proverbial, and the Hebrew of Toledo observed more
conscientiously the precepts of the Pentateuch and the Talmud than the
Hebrew of Damascus or Jerusalem. But their traditional reserve did not
prevent them from soliciting proselytes; and it is stated that the
rabbis, ignoring the prohibitory injunctions of the national Code,
upon one occasion challenged the bishops to a debate, in presence
of the throne, upon the merits of their respective systems; an act
of audacity which does not seem to have excited even the surprise
of the prelates of that age. The Spanish grandee prides himself
upon his Gothic ancestry, the _sangre azul_, whose presence is
presumed to indicate conclusively that in the ascending line can be
found no progenitor of the despised Semitic race. The falsity of this
presumption was, however, established by the councils convoked by
royal authority at Burgos, Valladolid, and Madrid during the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, to settle the question of purity of blood.
According to the statutes adopted by these Informaciones de Nobleza, as
they were called, descent from a Jewish ancestor was solemnly declared
to be no blemish upon a noble escutcheon, a decision which affected not
a few of the oldest and haughtiest families of Castile and Aragon.
There are to-day few of the great houses of Portugal and Spain which
have not an admixture of Hebrew blood. Works have been published by
ecclesiastics tracing this contaminated lineage to its source, which
all the authority of a despotic government was not able to suppress.
It is said that the Portuguese King Joseph I. once ordered every male
of Jewish descent in his dominions to wear a yellow hat. The Marquis
of Pombal appeared with three; and on being asked by the King for what
use he intended them, he answered, “In obedience to the royal decree,
I have brought one for Your Majesty, one for the Grand Inquisitor, and
one for myself.” This anecdote, whose authenticity is well established,
shows the extent to which the blood of a once proscribed and persecuted
people, despite all attempts at its annihilation, had been infused into
the veins of the proudest and most exclusive aristocracy in Europe.