PAGE ERRATA. 2, note 1, for Española read de España. 6, substitute figure 4 for the asterisk. 8, note 10, for 30 read 15 8, note 16, the words after España should be in brackets. last line, dele Book. 19, note 27, 28, note 38, 29, line 10, last line, for 1 read 2. for burying read buying. 31, note 42, line 1, for Pandilla read Padilla. 39, line 14, dele but. 49, the last sentence of note 52 should be in brackets. 59, note 9, the words after 1677 should be in brackets. 70, note 24, last line, after paragraph insert except that of 1335: see following note. 73, ninth line of the note, for slain read mortally wounded. 80. last line of the text, dele 22. 80, the last sentence of note 23, including the word Translator, should be in rectangular brackets. 100, note 61, line 3, dele from 120, line 9, for Aragon read Arragon. 140, note 43, line 2, for his holiness read His Holiness. 172, line 8, for porutray read pourtray. 207, line 11, for however read how 221, 8th line of the text and 2nd line of note 20, for Teixera read Teixeira. 224, line 11, dele 27. 255, line 16, for affrontery read effrontery. SUMMARY OF BOOK THE FIRST. INTRODUCTION.-Settlement of the Jews in Spain in Nebuchadnezzar's time, fabulous.-Apocryphal character of the letter said to have been sent to Jerusalem by the synagogue of Toledo, to protest against the execution of Jesus Christ.-Idle tales which grew out of this fiction.-Real settlement of the Jews in the Spanish peninsula.-Resolution against them by the fathers of the council of Elliberis.-Arrival of the Goths in Spain.-Liberty the Jews enjoyed there as long as the former continued to be Arians.-Recaredo is converted to Catholicism.-Decree of the third council of Toledo against the Jews.-Persecution of them in the days of king Sisebuto.-Decrees of the councils of Toledo in the reigns of Chintila, Recesvinto, and Ejica.-Protection said to have been afforded to the Jews by king Witiza, fabulous.— The Jews of Spain concert a plan with their brethren of Africa for the invasion and reduction of the peninsula by the Arabs.-Arrival of the latter and battle of the Guadalete, in which the flower of the Gothic nobility is cut off.-The Jews assist the Arabs in their enterprises; garrison the principal cities which were conquered by the latter; regain their liberty. BOOK THE FIRST. I AM about to treat of the chequered and almostalways-tragic fortunes of the Jews in Spain: a history replete, not with glorious conquests, signal feats of valor and lofty aims, but with calamities, conflicts, persecutions, riots, robberies, conflagrations, banish B ments, deaths by fire on public scaffolds, losses of caste,' imprisonments, degradations, and other extremely rigorous punishments. Herein I shall demonstrate the unreasonableness of those writers who corrupted the truth, and described, and still describe, the ancient Spanish Jews as men utterly given up to usury and accustomed to hide in the bowels of the earth the fruit of their labours, their commerce, and their acquisitions; whereas it is to them that Spain owes the great advancement she made in medicine, philosophy, mathematics, and navigation. They were in the habit of being consulted by kings on the most critical affairs of state, and it was by the aid of their counsels and hard cash that the most difficult, the grandest, and the most hazardous enterprises were undertaken. I shall also point out the great error as well as 66 1 Literally, infamies of lineages. Persons descended, or supposed to be descended, from those who have in them any mixture of Jewish or Moorish blood, or descended, or supposed to be descended, from ancestors convicted by the tribunal of the Inquisition are, to this day, more or less looked down upon in Spain; but this illiberal prejudice is gradually wearing away. Pedro Salazar de Mendoza, in his Monarquía Española (lib. III. cap. 1), speaking of the council of the Inquisition (of which he was a member), and the persons connected with that tribunal, says: they are all, from the Inquisitor General down to the porters and servants who attend and wait upon them, old Christians, pure and in no wise descended from Jews, Moors, or persons who have had penance imposed upon them by the same holy office." The original words are, Son todos desde el Inquisidor General hasta los porteros y familiares que les sirven y acompañan, Cristianos viejos, limpios, sin raza ni descendencia de Judíos, Moros 6 penitenciados por el mismo Santo Oficio.”—Translator. 66 1.] THE JEWS IN SPAIN. injustice which the Catholic Sovereigns committed, when they ordered the Jews to be banished from the realms of Spain, and shall support my opinion by showing the extreme impolicy of a measure which must, necessarily, be attended with such fatal results, and exhibit the utter fruitlessness and futility of persecutions, punishments, and other severities for religion's sake for monarchs may, indeed, by the arm of the law, coërce the bodies of their subjects, but they will find it an easier task to check the winds and turn back the courses of rivers, than to subdue the minds of men. I write this history dispassionately and impartially-passion and partiality belong not to me. I neither am a Jew, nor a descendant from Judaizers. My sole aim is to stand up for the truth—a rule by which every historian ought to be guided: and the truth cannot be endangered by my pen, as I am not in the habit of viewing things with prejudiced eyes: this is a practice quite inconsistent with my notions. Some writers have mentioned the prosperity and adversity of the Spanish Jews, and there has been no want of great geniuses who have treated of the times of the expulsion of the latter; but, owing to their fear of the Catholic sovereigns, while these were living, and after their deaths, to their own hatred of every thing that concerned the Jewish nation-a hatred 2 This expression is emphatically applied by Spaniards to Ferdinand and Isabella: in the original it is Reyes Católicos, i. e. Catholic kings, but as it means a King and Queen, I thought it would be better to render it as I have done.-Translator. P 2 imbibed at their mothers' breasts-hardly any of them have cut out their stories according to the measure of truth. Hence it was that men of high birth, and reputation for prudence, of singular virtue, and eminence in science, allowed themselves to be borne down the stream of a thousand follies and extravagances, arrived at a pitch of extreme blindness, and did irreparable damage to history and literature: from which it is evident that neither studies, nor brilliancy of talent, nor science suffice to create wisdom in man, but only serve to ransom his spirit from the dungeon in which it has been imprisoned from his childhood, purified from the corruption and poison of vulgar doctrines which it has imbibed, through the ignorance of his parents and teachers. The information we have respecting the settlement of the Jews in Spain is infected with many great errors, since persons of great learning and historical credit have relied on fables told by the low and ignorant populace, and on documents forged, either from interested motives or from a vain desire to have both the documents and the lies contained in them believed. It is related by some writers that Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, after he had levelled proud Jerusalem's walls, and carried the Israelitish people into captivity, followed up his victorious enterprises with the destruction of Tyre and Egypt, and the towns situated on the African shores. After he had taken vengeance on the Phenicians, and had exacted satis |