534 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
which appointed agents to carry its rules into effect and whose agency was to a certain extent subject to the assent of the bishops.
Engaged in the wars for the dispossession of the Pagan Moors, the Spanish kingdoms had shown little disposition to yield to the intrusion of Catharan and other heresy from the North. The menace to its orthodox repose came from the Jews, Jews who held firmly to their ancestral faith and Jews who had of their own impulse or through compulsion adopted the Christian rites. In no part of Europe was tlie nuinber of Jews so large and nowhere had they been more prosperous in trade and reached such positions of eminence as physicians and as counsellors at court. The Jewish literature of mediaeval Spain forms a distinct and notable chapter in Hebrew literary history. To rid the land of the Jews who persisted in their ancestral belief was not within the jurisdiction of the Churdi. That belonged to the state, and, according to the canon law, the Jew was not to be molested in the practice of his religion. But the moment Jews or Moors submitted to baptism they became amenable to ecclesiastical discipline. Converted Jews in Spain were called conversos, or maranos — the newly converted— and it was with them, in its first period, that the Spanish Inquisition had chiefly to do. After Luther's doctrines began to spread li addressed itself to the extirpation of Protestants, but, until the close of its history, in 1834, the Jewish Christians constituted most of its victims.
From an early time Spanish legislation was directed to the humiliation of the Jews and their segregation from the Christian population. The oecumenical Council of Vienne, 1312, denounced the liberality of the Spanish law which made a Jewish witness necessary to the conviction of a Jew. Spanish synods, as those of Valladolid and Tarragona, 1322, 1329, gave strong expression to the spirit of intolerance witli which the Spanish church regarded the Jewish people. The sacking and wholesale massacre of their communities, which lived apart in quarters of their own called Juderias, were matters of frequent occurrence, and their synagogues were often destroyed or turned into churches. It is estimated tha^- i" \^^\, •'^^iQ.ft^
§ 60. THE SPANISH INQUISITION. 535
J[&3£sjyere^ m urd.ered__iii Castile, and tkg. mania, spread to^
The explanation of this bitter feeling is to be sought in the haughty pride of the descendants of Abraham according to the flesh, their persistent observance of their traditions and the exorbitant rates of usury which they charged. Not content with the legal rate, which in Aragon was 20% and in Castile 33^%, they often compelled municipalities to pay even higher rates. The prejudice and fears of the Christian population charged them with sacrilege in the use of the wafer and the murder of baptized children, whose blood was used in preparations made for purposes of sorcery. Legislation was made more exacting. The old rules were enforced enjoining a distinctive dress and forbidding them to shave their beards or to have their hair cut round. All employment in Christian households, the practice of medicine and the occupation of agriculture were denied them. Scarcely any trade was left to their hand except the loaning of money, and that by canon law was illegal for Christians.
The joint reign of Ferdinand, 1452-1516, and .Isabella, 1451-1504, marked an epoch in the history of the Jews in Spain, both those who remained true to their ancestral faith and the large class which professed conversion to the Christian Church. 2
In conferring the title " Catholic " upon Ferdinand and Isabella, 1495, Alexander VI. gave as one of the reasons the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, 1492. _The institution oi the Spanish Inquisition, which began its work twelve years before,lvas'directed primarily against the cotivergos, people of
1 Lea, I. 100 sqq., 107 sq.
2 Ferdinand was associated with his father, John of Navarre, in the government of Aragon from the year 1469. The same year he was married to Isabella, sister of Henry IV,, king of Castile. At Henry's death, Isabella's title to the throne was disputed by Juana who claimed to be a daughter of Henry, but was popularly believed to be the child of Beltram de la Cueva and so called La Beltraneja. The civil war, which followed, was brought to a close in 1479 by Juana's retirement to a convent, and the undisputed recognition of Isabella. Ferdinand and Isabella's reign is regarded as the most glorious in Spanish annals. Ferdinand's grandson, through his daughter Juana, Charles V., succeeded to his dominions.