recognising this, the citizens themselves instituted the famous Santa
Hermandad or Holy Brotherhood for the maintenance of public order and
suppression of brigandage. The organisation received the royal sanction,
and was endowed with many privileges. It supplied the place of a regular
police force for all Castile for at least three centuries, and readers
will remember the frequent references to it in the pages of “Don
Quixote.”
Toledo had not yet become a capital in the sense of being the permanent
residence of the sovereign. Saint Ferdinand and his immediate
predecessors and successors were essentially soldiers. Their Court was
the camp, and in the unremitting war of reconquest it was necessarily
transferred from place to place, from one confine of the ever-expanding
kingdom to the other. When at Toledo the king resided at the
Alcazar--which in Moorish days had been a fortress constructed of
_tapia_ (a species of concrete), and which was fortified with masonry by
Alfonso VI. The building was enlarged and embellished, and made more
suitable for a royal residence by Sancho el Bravo (1284-1295). But the
state of affairs in what may be termed the Epoch of the Reconquest
(1085-1252), was obviously not favourable to the development of the
building arts. Toledo possesses few memorials of these days, for such
edifices as may have been founded at or before that time have undergone
such transformations as to render them practically the products of later
ages. Such supplies and energies as were not absorbed by the
all-important business of war were naturally diverted to the building of
the cathedral, which was not, as we shall see, completed for another two
centuries.
Mediæval history concerns itself almost exclusively with kings and
princes, battles and treaties. Of the life of the people in Spain, as
elsewhere, we hear very little. From stray references in the records we
glean the information that the streets of Toledo were filthy and
unpaved, and frequently encumbered with the carcases of beasts. Over the
gates the heads of malefactors were ever rotting, poisoning the already
vitiated air. We have concise details, too, of no particular interest,
as to the municipal constitution of the city. Beyond this meagre
information, we know something of the history of Toledo only so far as
it was also the history of Spain.
Pedro I., the Cruel (1350-1368), had no liking for the gloomy, turbulent
town, and during his reign Seville might have been called the seat of
government. However much he may have endeared himself to the
Andalusians, the ferocious king was no favourite with the Toledans. When
the ill-used queen, Blanche of Bourbon, escaped from her prison in the
Alcazar and claimed the right of sanctuary in the cathedral, the city
rose in her behalf, and a thousand native blades sprung from their
scabbards to protect her. An alliance was concluded with Talavera and
Cuenca, and the gates opened to Don Enrique of Trastamara, the king’s
half-brother. It is said that Pedro’s faction held the bridge of San
Martin, expecting the rebel prince to enter that way, while his
supporters introduced his troops into the town by the opposite bridge of
Alcantara. The Trastamara partisans attacked the Jewish quarter, the
Israelites being especial favourites of Don Pedro, and a frightful
massacre ensued. Soon the king’s party gained the upper hand, and the
unfortunate Blanche was removed from the city, wherein she had found
such staunch friends, to the castle of Sigüenza.
This is not the first time we read of a massacre of Jews at Toledo. Yet
the town was for many centuries one of the strongholds of Jewry in
Europe, and a centre of Hebrew culture and activity. The story of the
Jews of Toledo is, in fact, one of the most interesting chapters in the
history of the city and of Spain.
Jews were settled in the Peninsula at a remote period. The author of
“The Moorish Empire in Europe” (S. P. Scott) thinks their arrival in
that country “antedated the Christian Era by at least a thousand years.”
As we know, legend actually ascribes the foundation of Toledo to the
race. This may, we think, be due to a confusion of the Israelites with
Phœnician settlers. At the time of Christ, the Jews of Spain were very
numerous and opulent. Another legend tells how their chief men addressed
a letter to the Sanhedrim at Jerusalem, protesting against the
Crucifixion. A document--altogether spurious, it need hardly be
said--has been produced in support of this story. After the destruction
of Jerusalem by Titus, there seems to have been a large influx of Hebrew
refugees into Spain. So long as the Visigoths remained Arians, they
remained tolerant; but Reccared, soon after his conversion to
Catholicism, levelled the severest enactments against the Israelites. He
set a bad precedent. With Sisebut began the long era of persecution. His
harsh edicts, forcing the Jews to choose between baptism and banishment,
are still to be found in the Fuero Juzgo. Swinthila, Kindila,
Recceswinth, Erwig, and Egica followed the same policy. Among the
tyrannical enactments of this time is the grotesque command that the
Jews of Toledo should eat pork! Under these circumstances it is not to
be wondered that the Spanish Jews beheld with dawning hope the
successful progress of the Mohammedans in Northern Africa. A secret
intelligence was established with these Semitic conquerors of a newer
faith, and thanks to the constant intercourse between the Jews of Africa
and those of Spain, Musa and Tarik were fully supplied with the most
minute particulars of the Visigothic State.
The period of the Khalifate was the Golden Age of Spanish Jewry. The
numbers of the race, depleted by persecution, were increased by the
advent of upwards of twelve thousand Yemenite Jews, invited by the
Moorish conquerors. Never since the days of Solomon had the Children of
Israel known such peace and prosperity. Possessed already of a
remarkably high degree of culture, they communicated their knowledge to
the Arabs, who showed themselves generous patrons and protectors. Nor
were the new rulers of Spain slow to perceive the advantages to be
derived from the subject race’s commercial enterprise and talent for
affairs. Though the versatility of the Jew at this time was one of his
most remarkable characteristics, it was above all as a physician that he
was esteemed by Muslims and Christians alike. In this capacity he became
the indispensable and most trusted companion of sovereigns and prelates,
and penetrated into the very arcana of power. From Court physician to
Minister the transition in those days of personal government was easy,
and we find Hasdai ben Isaac Ibn Shaprut occupying both positions under
Abd-ur-Rahman I.
As far as was consistent with their religious beliefs, the Jews of
Toledo assimilated themselves with the conquerors. The minutes of the
congregation were kept in Arabic down to the end of the thirteenth
century, and that language was sedulously cultivated and almost
exclusively employed by the brilliant succession of Jewish theologians
and humanists who made the city a centre of literary and scholastic
activity.
We have it on the authority of Mr. S. P. Scott that, under the Muslim
dominion, the Jews were allowed to elect a king, always a prince of the
House of Judah, “who, while not openly invested with the insignia of
royalty, received the homage and tribute of his subjects.” It is
illustrative of the respect of the race for learning that the erudite
Rabbi Moses, when recognised exposed as a slave at Cordoba, was
immediately elected to this dubious royalty.
The Jews of Toledo must have viewed with unpleasant apprehensions the
re-establishment of the Catholic monarchy. Yet at first it seemed they
had no cause for alarm. Alfonso VI., as we know, granted to them the
liberal privileges by which the Muslims also benefited. But in the
charter confirming the customs of the Mozarabes (1091) it was made plain
that no penalty would be exacted of a Christian for the murder of a Jew
or Muslim. The result might have been foreseen. Seventeen years after,
the people rose in savage fury, broke into the synagogues and butchered
the rabbis in their pulpits, burnt and pillaged every Jewish house, and
slaughtered the luckless objects of their animosity without mercy. But
it was the people, rather than the governing classes, who manifested
this violent racial prejudice. As in every other land, in spite of
persecution, the Chosen People grew in wealth and abated not their
industry and commercial activity. It was they who brought to the grim
Gothic city the choicest products of the East; they alone who could
combat the ravages of disease; they alone who could supply the needy
king and nobles with the coin for which in Italy men paid as much as one
hundred and twenty per cent. interest. Spain hated the Jew, but could
not as yet do without him.
The rule of Alfonso VI.’s successors could not have been excessively
harsh, for many Jewish families, hounded out of Southern Spain by an
unusual manifestation of Mohammedan bigotry, took refuge within the
walls of Toledo. Thanks to the influence of Fermosa, the Jewish mistress
of Alfonso VIII., many of her race exercised important functions at the
Court. But the fanatical temper of the populace attributed to the favour
shown these unbelievers the disaster of Alarcos, and the beautiful
favourite and her friends were murdered in the very presence of the
king.
“At the beginning of the thirteenth century,” says Mr. Joseph Jacobs,
B.A., in the “Jewish Encyclopædia,” “the Shushans, the Al-Fakhkhars, and
the Alnaquas, were among the chief Jewish families of Toledo, Samuel Ibn
Shushan being nasi [the chief of Sanhedrim] about 1204. His son built a
synagogue which attracted the attention of Abraham ben Nathan of Lunel,
who settled in Toledo before 1205. During the troubles brought upon
Castile by the men of ‘Ultrapuertos’ in 1211-12, Toledo suffered a riot;
and this appears to have brought the position of the Jews more closely
to the attention of the authorities. In 1219 the Jewish inhabitants
became more strictly subject to the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of
Toledo, who imposed upon every Jew over twenty years old an annual
poll-tax of one-sixth of a gold mark; and any dispute about age was to
be settled by a jury of six elders, who were probably supervised by the
nasi, at that time Solomon ben Joseph Ibn Shushan. In the same year
papal authority also interfered with the affairs of the Toledo Jews,
ordering them to pay tithes on houses bought by them from Christians,
‘as otherwise the Church would be a considerable loser.’”
A significant phrase! But not only houses and land all over the country
were mortgaged to the Jews, but also church plate and even the sacred
vessels. Jewish usurers were said to drink out of the chalices used for
the Precious Elements. The exasperation of the Christians was
disregarded by Alfonso X. the Learned, who entertained a profound
respect for the erudition and traditions of the Jews. A Hebrew, Don Zag
Ibn Said, directed the compilation of the famous Alfonsine Tables; and
under the patronage of the monarch, Toledo became famous for its
translations from the Arabic into Hebrew, Latin, and Spanish. The rabbis
distinguished themselves in medicine and astronomy. While doing his
utmost to draw the oppressed race within the fold of the Catholic
church, the Learned King granted permission to the Jews of Toledo to
erect that beautiful synagogue which, under the name of Santa Maria la
Blanca, ranks to-day among the national monuments of Spain.
“The Spanish Jews,” says Mr. Scott, “by reason of the peculiarities of
their situation, the hostility of their rulers--which their pecuniary
resources and natural acuteness often baffled, but never entirely
overcame--and their successive domination by races of different origin,
faith, and language, were impressed with mental peculiarities and
characteristics not to be met with in their brethren of other countries.
Their religious formalism was proverbial, and the Hebrew of Toledo
observed more conscientiously the precepts of the Pentateuch and Talmud
than the Hebrew of Damascus or Jerusalem.” Thus we find the Jews of
Toledo siding against the rationalising theories of the great
Maimonides, himself a native of Cordoba, and whose tomb is a conspicuous
landmark on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee.
Don Amador de los Rios reproduces an ancient record for the year 1290,
stating the amount of tribute payable by the various Jewish communities
of Castile. Out of a total of 2,801,345 maravedis the Israelites of the
city of Toledo contributed 216,500, and those in the entire archdiocese
1,062,902 maravedis. The pomp of Catholic public worship and the wealth
of the clergy are partially accounted for by these figures.
Up till then, always the most valuable (from a European point of view)
and the most prosperous element of the population of Toledo, the Jews
assumed yet greater prominence in the reign of Pedro I. That prince was
declared by his numerous enemies to be the substituted child of a
Jewess, and his Court was reviled as a Jewish Court. He showed favour to
the race in many ways. His treasurer and confidential adviser was the
famous Don Samuel Ha Levi. Whether or not the Jewish statesman’s
administration was in the interests of Castile, it is too late in the
day to say; but there can be no doubt that he was a loyal servant of his
king and a devoted friend of his own people. He it was who caused to be
erected Toledo’s other great synagogue, now called the Transito. He was
a warm ally of the beautiful Maria de Padilla, Pedro’s gentle mistress,
and for years, with consummate astuteness, defended himself against the
insidious and violent attacks of his innumerable enemies. His enormous
wealth--honestly or dishonestly acquired--brought about his downfall. In
the very year (1360) the synagogue was completed, Samuel was seized at
Seville, and, by order of the king, placed upon the rack. The haughty
Hebrew is said to have died of sheer indignation. Pedro shed crocodile
tears over his ill-starred Minister’s fate, and greedily confiscated his
property. His fortune was found to consist of 70,000 doubloons, 4000
silver marks, twenty chests filled with treasure, and eighty Moorish
slaves. The property of all Levi’s relatives was also forfeited to the
Crown, and was valued at 300,000 doubloons. Pedro did not, however,
withdraw his favour from the Jews as a race. It had been well for them
if he had. Their loyalty to the Bluebeard King earned for them the
detestation of the partisans of Enrique de Trastamara, and brought
about, as we have seen, the massacre of 1355, in which 1200 Jews
perished.
The new king, Enrique, took advantage of a riot said to have been
excited by the arrogance of the converted Jews in 1367, and in which
1600 houses were burnt to the ground, to impose a tribute of no less
than twenty thousand gold doubloons on the afflicted people.
It was possibly due to the presence of a large Israelite population that
Toledo, very much against its will, had been held for King Pedro in
1369. It was, in consequence, fiercely assailed by its own archbishop,
Don Gomez Manrique, while Pedro sent an army largely composed of
Saracens to its relief. The city was a prey to famine, internecine
warfare, pestilence, and to every description of calamity. The killing
of Pedro and the accession of Enrique were hailed as an ineffable boon
by the wretched citizens. But from that hour the position of the Jews
grew more and more pitiable. Their prosperity waned, and with it the
prosperity of the old city in which they had so long been unwelcome
guests.
Their final ruin as a community was effected mainly at the instance of
St. Vicente Ferrer, the Dominican. Visiting the city in 1391 he so
inflamed the devout populace with apostolic zeal that they burst into
the larger of the two Juderias or Ghettos, put practically the whole of
its inhabitants--including the venerable rabbis, Judah ben Asher and
Israel Alnaqua--to the sword, sacked the quarter from end to end, and
demolished most of the synagogues. The saintly Ferrer reappeared at
Toledo twenty years later, but there were nominally no Jews left to
massacre. The Hebrews that remained had been “converted.” The good friar
did what he could, and induced the Toledans to confiscate the synagogue
built in Alfonso X.’s reign and convert it into the Christian Church of
Santa Maria la Blanca. We suggest that it should have been renamed San
Vicente del Sangre.
The work of destruction was done thoroughly, and henceforward we hear
little in the story of Toledo of the Children of Israel. But their names
have not been altogether forgotten. Mr. Jacobs gives a long list of
members of that luckless congregation, famous for their learning and
science. He enumerates theologians, physicians, astronomers,
grammarians, satirists, poets and astrologers. Toledo, thanks to these
latter, achieved an unenviable reputation as a centre of the magic art.
Indeed, this was known at one time as the Arte Toledana. “It is said”
(we quote Mr. Jacobs) “that Michael Scott learned his magic from a
Toledo Jew named Andreas, who translated works on magic from the
Arabic.” The same writer elsewhere says: “The Spanish Jews differed but
little from the Christian population with regard to customs and
education. They were fond of luxury, and the women wore costly garments
with long trains, also valuable jewellery; this tended to increase the
hatred of the population towards them. They were quarrelsome and
inclined to robbery, and often attacked and insulted one another even in
their synagogues and prayer-houses, frequently inflicting wounds with
the rapier or sword they were accustomed to carry.” With royal
permission a Jew might have two wives.
Deprived of the more legitimate pastime of Jew-baiting, the Toledans
began to turn their swords against each other and their sovereign.
“Never,” remarks Gamero, “had the nobility shown itself so arrogant and
rebellious as during the reign of Juan II.” Envy of that great man and
powerful Minister, Don Alvaro de Luna, was mainly the cause of this. The
leading families took different sides, and the streets frequently were
slippery with the blood of the citizens. The Alcalde, Pero Lopez de
Ayala, declared against the great Constable and held the town as an
independent seigneurie against the king’s forces for five years. King
Juan had deserved better things of his lieges of Toledo, for in 1431 he
had entertained them on his return from his campaign in Andalusia with
festivities and pageants of the gayest character. The people took part
in bull fights and games in the Zocodover, while the knights and
_ricoshombres_ jousted and feasted in the Vega. The Alcazar re-echoed to
the music of lute and lyre, and the songs of the minstrels. But Toledo
was not to be subdued with kindness. The artisan class presently
revolted on the imposition of a new tax, the tumult being the occasion
of the saying, _Soplara il odrero, y alborozarse la Toledo_ (Let the
ironmonger blow and Toledo will rise). Next, the cruel and miserly
governor, Pedro Sarmiento, followed Ayala’s example, and demanded of the
king the dismissal of the noble Constable. The royal forces were set at
defiance, and a pitched battle was fought below the walls. The fortune
of the day remained with the rebels, and Sarmiento was able for a time
to dictate to his sovereign. He was at last crushed, but was able to
carry off an enormous amount of treasure loaded on two hundred mules.
These events had produced a permanent feud between the families of Ayala
and Silva, only terminated by the marriage of the heir and heiress of
the respective houses. Toledo, during the first three-quarters of the
fifteenth century, was a prey to incessant warfare. Sometimes the whole
town would be contending against external foes for or against the king,
sometimes it would be the nobles contending with the people, or the
church with the nobles. Toledo, as a whole, supported its archbishop,
Carrillo, when in 1465 he pronounced sentence of dethronement on Enrique
IV. Three years later that unlucky monarch managed, by winning over the
Ayalas to his side, to make his entry into the city. The proud chief of
the family was himself obliged to flee from the town in 1471. The king
was besieged in the Alcazar; the balance inclined sometimes to this
party, sometimes to that. The old animosities between the Ayalas and
the Silvas blazed up again from time to time; and under its weak
sovereign Toledo had its fill of fighting. But those brave days were
drawing to a close, and in 1474, came one before whom even Toledans had
to bend the knee and whom, recognising in her a stronger spirit, they
afterwards delighted to honour. The accession of Isabel the Catholic on
the death of Enrique IV., and to the exclusion of the rightful heiress,
Juana, calumniously nicknamed La Beltraneja, marks the beginning of a
new era in the history of Spain, and therefore of Toledo.
BUILDINGS OF THE CASTILIAN PERIOD
The earliest specimens of post-Moorish architecture in Toledo partake
more or less of the character of fortifications. For many years, as we
have seen, after the Reconquest the Christians’ hold upon the city was
precarious, and the first efforts of the Castilian kings was naturally
towards strengthening its defences. The history of the walls of Toledo
is obscure and confused; but it seems certain that a wall has always
extended within historic times across the northern side of the loop
formed by the river. The Conqueror Alfonso VI. strengthened and added to
this defence by the erection of the newer or outer wall, inclosing the
suburb or Arrabal del Antequeruela. He also appears to have restored the
inner or Moorish wall, and has left traces on the magnificent Puerta del
Sol, a Moorish work which must have been quite new in his day. Indeed,
it may possibly have been built by Moorish masons after the Reconquest.
It is a noble and impressive portal to the grand old city, and most
powerfully impresses the beholder. Quadrado will have it that so
dignified a monument can have been the work only of a ruling race, in
the days of its liberty and glory; it could not have been the mere
afterglow of the ascendency and taste of a nation now subjugated. We
may, however, be permitted to doubt whether the political decadence of a
people becomes _instantly_ manifested in its artistic life. The gateway
forms a high tower with two flanking turrets, one square and abutting on
the wall, the other rounded and finishing off the _enceinte_. The portal
is composed of a succession of four arches, all being of the horseshoe
shape, though the outer arches are more pointed than the inner ones.
Above the outermost arch is a double row of arcades of brickwork, the
arches intersecting. Over the second arch is a circular medallion in
relief, representing the Virgin offering the chasuble to St. Ildefonsus.
Another relief in marble is supposed to represent the summary punishment
of Fernan Gonzalez by St. Ferdinand, for the seduction of two young
women. The battlements are of a type common enough in Spanish Christian
architecture, but which Mr. Street thinks was derived originally from
the Moors. Another writer, Mr. O’Shea, remarks: “This gate with its warm
orange tints, that contrast so admirably with the lapis-lazuli azure of
the cloudless sky, its battlement fringing the top, and opening vistas
of most novel aspect, is a treasure for an artist.” The exceeding
quaintness and majesty of this gateway have moved many writers to
express themselves almost too rapturously. Toledo’s other gates--the
Puerta Nueva de Visagra and the Puerta del Cambrón--date from a much
later period.