Volume II Part 10 (1/2)

But to judge the matter rightly, we must take into view the actual position of the Jews at that time. Far from forming an integral part of the commonwealth, they were regarded as alien to it, as a mere excrescence, which, so far from contributing to the healthful action of the body politic, was nourished by its vicious humors, and might be lopped off at any time, when the health of the system demanded it. Far from being protected by the laws, the only aim of the laws, in reference to them, was to define more precisely their civil incapacities, and to draw the line of division more broadly between them and the Christians. Even this humiliation by no means satisfied the national prejudices, as is evinced by the great number of tumults and ma.s.sacres of which they were the victims. In these circ.u.mstances, it seemed to be no great a.s.sumption of authority, to p.r.o.nounce sentence of exile against those whom public opinion had so long proscribed as enemies to the state. It was only carrying into effect that opinion, expressed as it had been in a great variety of ways; and, as far as the rights of the nation were concerned, the banishment of a single Spaniard would have been held a grosser violation of them, than that of the whole race of Israelites.

It has been common with modern historians to detect a princ.i.p.al motive for the expulsion of the Jews, in the avarice of the government. It is only necessary, however, to transport ourselves back to those times, to find it in perfect accordance with their spirit, at least in Spain. It is indeed incredible, that persons possessing the political sagacity of Ferdinand and Isabella could indulge a temporary cupidity at the sacrifice of the most important and permanent interests, converting their wealthiest districts into a wilderness, and dispeopling them of a cla.s.s of citizens who contributed beyond all others, not only to the general resources, but the direct revenues of the crown; a measure so manifestly unsound, as to lead even a barbarian monarch of that day to exclaim, ”Do they call this Ferdinand a politic prince, who can thus impoverish his own kingdom and enrich ours!” [16] It would seem, indeed, when the measure had been determined on, that the Aragonese monarch was willing, by his expedient of sequestration, to control its operation in such a manner as to secure to his own subjects the full pecuniary benefit of it. [17] No imputation of this kind attaches to Castile. The clause of the ordinance, which might imply such a design, by interdicting the exportation of gold and silver, was only enforcing a law, which had been already twice enacted by cortes in the present reign, and which was deemed of such moment, that the offence was made capital. [18]

We need look no further for the principle of action, in this case, than the spirit of religious bigotry, which led to a similar expulsion of the Jews from England, France, and other parts of Europe, as well as from Portugal, under circ.u.mstances of peculiar atrocity, a few years later.

[19] Indeed, the spirit of persecution did not expire with the fifteenth century, but extended far into the more luminous periods of the seventeenth and eighteenth; and that, too, under a ruler of the enlarged capacity of Frederic the Great, whose intolerance could not plead in excuse the blindness of fanaticism. [20] How far the banishment of the Jews was conformable to the opinions of the most enlightened contemporaries, may be gathered from the encomiums lavished on its authors from more than one quarter. Spanish writers, without exception, celebrate it as a sublime sacrifice of all temporal interests to religious principle. The best instructed foreigners, in like manner, however they may condemn the details of its execution, or commiserate the sufferings of the Jews, commend the act, as evincing the most lively and laudable zeal for the true faith. [21]

It cannot be denied, that Spain at this period surpa.s.sed most of the nations of Christendom in religious enthusiasm, or, to speak more correctly, in bigotry. This is doubtless imputable to the long war with the Moslems, and its recent glorious issue, which swelled every heart with exultation, disposing it to consummate the triumphs of the Cross by purging the land from a heresy, which, strange as it may seem, was scarcely less detested than that of Mahomet. Both the sovereigns partook largely of these feelings. With regard to Isabella, moreover, it must be borne constantly in mind, as has been repeatedly remarked in the course of this History, that she had been used to surrender her own judgment, in matters of conscience, to those spiritual guardians, who were supposed in that age to be its rightful depositaries, and the only casuists who could safely determine the doubtful line of duty. Isabella's pious disposition, and her trembling solicitude to discharge her duty, at whatever cost of personal inclination, greatly enforced the precepts of education. In this way, her very virtues became the source of her errors. Unfortunately, she lived in an age and station, which attached to these errors the most momentous consequences. [22]--But we gladly turn from these dark prospects to a brighter page of her history.

FOOTNOTES

[1] It is a proof of the high consideration in which such Israelites as were willing to embrace Christianity were held, that three of that number, Alvarez, Avila, and Pulgar, were private secretaries of the queen. (Mem.

de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. Il.u.s.t. 18.)

An incidental expression of Martyr's, among many similar ones by contemporaries, affords the true key to the popular odium against the Jews. ”c.u.m namque viderent, Judaeorum tabido commercio, qui hac hora sunt in Hispania _innumeri Christianis ditiores_, plurimorum animos corrumpi ac seduci,” etc. Opus Epist., epist. 92.

[2] Paramo, De Origine Inquisitionis, p. 164.--Llorente, Hist. de l'Inquisition, tom. i. cap. 7, sec. 3.--Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist.

94.--Ferreras, Hist. d'Espagne, tom. viii. p. 128.

[3] Paramo, De Origine Inquisitionis, p. 163.

Salazar de Mendoza refers the sovereign's consent to the banishment of the Jews, in a great measure, to the urgent remonstrances of the cardinal of Spain. The bigotry of the biographer makes him claim the credit of every fanatical act for his ill.u.s.trious hero. See Cron. del Gran Cardenal, p.

250.

[4] Llorente, Hist. de l'Inquisition, tom. i. chap. 7, sect. 5.

Pulgar, in a letter to the cardinal of Spain, animadverting with much severity on the tenor of certain munic.i.p.al ordinances against the Jews in Guipuscoa and Toledo, in 1482, plainly intimates, that they were not at all to the taste of the queen. See Letras, (Amstelodami, 1670,) let. 31.

[5] Carbajal, a.n.a.les, MS., ano 1492.--Recep. de las Leyes, lib. 8, t.i.t. 2, ley 2.--Pragmaticas del Reyno, ed. 1520, fol. 3.

[6] The Curate of Los Palacios speaks of several Israelites worth one or two millions of maravedies, and another even as having ama.s.sed ten. He mentions one in particular, by the name of Abraham, as renting the _greater part of Castile_! It will hardly do to take the good Curate's statement _a la lettre_. See Reyes Catolicos, MS., cap. 112.

[7] Bernaldez, Reyes Catolicos, ubi supra.

[8] Bernaldez, Reyes Catolicos, MS., cap. 10.--Zurita, a.n.a.los, tom. v.

fol. 9.

Capmany notices the number of synagogues existing in Aragon, in 1428, as amounting to nineteen. In Galicia at the same time there were but three, and in Catalonia but one. See Mem. de Barcelona, tom. iv. Apend. num. 11.

[9] Bernaldez, Reyes Catolicos, MS., cap. 10, 113.--Ferreras, Hist.

d'Espagne, tom. viii. p. 131.

[10] Zurita, a.n.a.les, tom. v. fol. 9.--Ferreras, Hist. d'Espagne, tom.

viii. p. 133.--Bernaldez, Reyes Catolicos, ubi supra.--La Clede, Hist. de Portugal, tom. iv. p. 95.--Mariana, Hist. de Espana, tom. ii. p. 602.

[11] Ferreras, Hist. d'Espagne, tom. viii. p. 133.--Bernaldez, Reyes Catolicos, MS., cap. 113.

[12] Senarega, apud Muratori, Rerum Ital. Script., tom. xxiv. pp. 531, 532.