B. XVI. Jews dou-train of misfortunes, which attended them during the rebly perfe- mainder of this century. Happy were they that could fave cuted their lives at the expence of their religion and wealth; but A. C. thofe that refused to do fo were inhumanly butchered every1321. where, as we have seen in the last note. The peftilence, which spread itself from the fhepherds army to the neighbouring countries, proved alfo the fource of new difafters to the Jews, who were accused of having bribed the peasants of Mefura to poifon the waters of the river, and having furnished them with the poison; upon which vaft numbers were clapt in prison, and informations were lodged against them. They did indeed clear themselves of that imputation after along imprifonment; but the king, who had no mind to condemn the injustice which he had done to them in detaining fuch great numbers fo long a time in gaol, pretended that he had only done it with a view of converting them; and, upon their refufal of baptifm, caused 15000 to be burnt alive u. Alphonfo's edict against them, A. C. ALPHONSO XI. their friend and protector, who was wholly guided by one Joseph a Jew of Aftigi, then intendant of his finances, was nevertheless prevailed upon by his mutinous fubjects to issue out an edict against them, on account of an indignity, pretended to have been committed 1333. by a Jewish boy, to the facrament, as it was carried through the streets. And the complaints of the zealots against them were grown to fuch a height, that a council was called on that very night, to deliberate whether they thould be massacred or banished, and, the latter being preferred, they were ordered to depart the kingdom in three months. Happily for them, the prince royal obtained a revifing of the procefs; by which it was found that it was a young Christian, whose curiofity had brought him to the window to fee the proceffion, and " SOLOM BEN VIRG. p. 181, & feq. Vid. & BASNAG. 1. ix. c. 18. §. 8. and other parts of France; whilft (7) Vid. Bafnag, ub. fup. c. 18, & fej. ragon and France, with the nobi lity and choiceft of their troops, marched at length against them, and fo closely befet them, that one part of them perished by the fword, and the other by a peftilence which raged among them. Thus ended that dreadful inundation after having caufed a prodigious effufion of blood, and an infinite variety of other difafters (7). Salom. Ben Virg. p. 181, & feq. had had by chance overturned a pot of water upon the chalice ; Recalled. upon which the king recalled his edict (B), to the great mortification of the zealots, who gave out that the young Chriftian had been bribed to make that friendly depofition in favour of the Jews w. This did not hinder them however from carrying on their refentment against them in another town, where they maffacred fome of them under the fame. pretence; and might, in all likelihood, have gone a much greater length, had not the king caufed ten of the mutinous ringleaders to be hanged. THEY had fcarcely escaped this danger, before they found Jews maf themselves involved in a more dreadful one, from a fresh in-facred at furrection made against them at Toledo; in which they be- Toledo. haved in such a defperate manner, as can hardly be read without horror. R. Aber had fome time before fled thither Their de-. from his own native place of Nothemburgh, with eight fons,pair, one of whom, perceiving the zealots breaking into the houfe A. C. with an intent to maffacre them all, was feized with fuch fury 1349. and defpair, that he killed all his relations who had taken fhelter in his house, together with his own wife, and that of his SOLOM. BEN VIRG. p. 181, & feq. MARIANA. hift. Hisp. tom. ii. lib. 15. p. 38. (B) The king had, we are told, dreamed, that he faw fome wolves affembled to demand of a fhepherd to murder his flock, to make them reparation for the damages they had fuftained from it; and that the frighted fhepherd was just on the point of doing of it, but was happily diverted from it by a young lion; upon which the wolves came fome days after, deftroyed a number of his fheep, and fled. The dream seemed too fingular and uniform not to have some momentous meaning; and the interpretation, which a favourite of that prince gave him, was, that his mutinous fubjects would one day demand of him to banish the Jews out of his kingdom; but that his fon, brother Jaacob (C); and last of all dispatched himself, to prevent falling into the hands of thofe butchers. Alphonso XI. who was still alive, and a great friend to them, was forced to fuffer that fedition, which he found impoffible to fupprefs. His fon and fucceffor Peter, furnamed the Cruel, who mounted Fidelity to the throne on the next year, being fome time after killed, at king Peter. the taking of Toledo by his natural brother Henry de Triftemar, this last went and befieged Burgos, where the Jews had fortified themselves in their quarter, and refused to furrender to him; alleging, that Peter was their lawful king (not knowing of his death), and vowing, that they would fooner facrifice their lives than receive any other master than the true heir to the crown. This fingular instance of loyalty fo affected Henry, that he granted them much better terms when they came over to his fide *. Meir torACCORDINGLY Triftemar, being come to the crown, tured for made Don Meir his physician: but dying fome time after, poisoning not without fufpicion of having been poisoned, Meir was put the king to the torture, and confeffed that he had killed the king . But other Spanish authors, fuch as Gufman and Mariana, think that he was rather poifoned by a Moor, whom the king of Grenada had fent thither for that purpose. But as his death was occafioned by a weakness in his nerves, there is no great probability that he was poisoned, especially by his phyfician, to whom he had been fo good a friend, as well as to his nation. However, that did not hinder the Jews from being hated and infulted on that account. They complain accordingly, that, towards the latter end of the fourteenth century, the monks, from a principle of zeal, declared them x CARDOSO, Las Excellentias, p. 371. y Fortalit. Fid. z CARDOSO, ub. sup. p. 373. (C) This laft was not only a Arbab Thurim, or the four or- Some place this perfecution in the year 1340. but others,' more rightly, nine years after; feeing, according to Gantz and the Shalfheleth, Jaacob was still in Germany, an. 1340, and was then writing the book abovementioned; which is a kind of collection of civil and ecclefiaftical laws, out of the Gemarrak, and other Jervis writings. (9) Bartoloc, ubi fup. Wolf. ub. fup. N. 1023. p. 582: felves their irreconcileable enemies; and had obtained, by the queen's means, an edict for expelling them the kingdom; but that princefs, being told that it was not right to root up a vine that bare good fruit, fuffered herself to be bought off by a fum of 50,000 crowns. THEY fuffered much more under the reign of Henry III. of Perfecuted Caftile, when Martin, archdeacon of Aftigi, went preaching by Henry through the streets of Seville and Cordova, and fo exafperated III. the people, that they maffacred the Jews in both places. The A. C. fire fpread itself to Toledo, Valencia, and Barcelona, where 1394. they plundered fome, and murdered others; whilst the more artful ones changed their religion, to escape their violence. The great and populous fynagogues of Seville and Cordova became, in fome meafure, defert; the young king still purfuing them. Those that retired into Andalufia, and other provinces, were murdered by the inhabitants (D). His fon John proved no lefs cruel to them; infomuch that those who had concealed themselves under his father's reign, perished under his, being deprived even of the neceffaries of life, and obliged to wear a red mark of distinction, by which they were eafily known. Those of Arragon did not fare much better In Arrathan thefe of Caftile, that kingdom being torn by intestine gon. wars, which could not be maintained without heavy taxes; with which the Jews were not only the heaviest loaded, but exposed to continual vexations and profecutions, which reduced them to the lowest degree of mifery . All this did Learned not prevent their having feveral learned men during this century; the most eminent of whom the reader will find in the margin (E). But it is now time to fee how they fared in other parts of Europe during these two centuries. FRANCE a SOLOM. BEN VIRG. MARIANA. Bzov. & al. AN. ub. fup. tom. i. p. 134. (D) Solomon Ben Virga places this perfecution in the year of the world 5130, answering to that of Chrift 1390. Spondanus in 1391. and Mariana, an. 1392. But as Henry III. did not come to the crown till an. 1393, Bzovius hath rightly placed it in the year 1394 (10). (E) We may place at their (10) Bzov, Ann. fub an. 1394. b MARI head the famed Ifaac Sciprut, Bafnag, lib. ix, c. 18. §. 13. feen men. year 1239. They were then very numerous, and difperfed through that province, and every-where fuch great usurers, that the people were almost ruined by them; upon which the nobility and merchants joined in a complaint to the duke, who immediately fummoned all the ftates of that duchy; and in that assembly was paffed that law, the substance of which the reader will find in the margin, and which was prefaced, among other things, with these words; "At the requeft of the bishops, abbots, barons, and vassals of Brittany, all the Jews fhall be for ever banished from it (G).” THE famed council of Lions, which excommunicated the emperor, paffed a decree, enjoining, under pain of excommunication, all the Christian princes, who had any Jews in their dominions, to oblige them to refund to the crufaders all the usury they had got by lending to their fubjects, under penalty of being deprived of all the privileges of civil fociety. The Jews were likewise forbidden by it to demand any debts due from the crufaders till their return, or till an authentic certificate was Of Vien. received of their death. The council of Vienna, held in the na, A. C. fame century, found itself obliged likewife to defend the Christi1267. ans against the vexatious fuits, as well as extortions of the Jews. Council of Notwithstanding all which decrees and precautions, the Jews ftill found means to maintain themselves; infomuch that in fome provinces of France, particularly in Languedoc, they Conc. Lugd. can. xvii. tom. ii. p. 656. (G) It was farther enacted by it, ift. That all the debts due to the Jews fhould be difcharged; and that thofe who had received any pledges from them, fhould keep them. 2d, That all that fhould kill a Jew, fhould be deemed guiltlefs; and a prohibition was made to the judges to take cognizance of any fuch facts. 3d. That the king of France fhould be defired to do the fame in his dominions; that is, to banish them, to ftrip, them of their property, and to permit his fubjects to butcher them. 4th. The duke did then engage for himself, and his fuc ceffors, for the time present and to come, to maintain the fame law against them inviolate; in default of which the bishops were not only impowered to excommunicate him, but to confifcate all the lands he had in their refpective diocefes, without regard to any privileges then annexed, or hereafter to be annexed, to them. 5th. Laftly, he declared, that no vaffals of Britany should be admitted to pay homage, till they had fworn before two bifhops or barons to conform to this law, and not to fuffer any Jews to live in their territories (19). (19) D'Argentre, Hift. de Bretagn, lib. iv. c. 23. p. 207. Vid. & Bafnag. ub. fup. lib. ix. c. 20. §. 10. had |