From the enchanted palace of the Alhambra there was suddenly issued by the "Catholic Sovereigns" a proclamation that, within four months, the Spanish Jews were to leave every portion of Castile, Aragon, Sicily and Sardinia under pain of death (March 31, 1492). They were at liberty to take their goods and chattels with them, but neither gold, silver, money, nor forbidden articles of export – only such things as it was permitted to export. This heartless cruelty Ferdinand and Isabella sought to vindicate before their own subjects and before foreign countries. The proclamation did not accuse the Jews of extravagant usury, of unduly enriching themselves, of sucking the marrow from the bones of the people, of insulting the host, or of crucifying Christian children – not one syllable was said of these things. But it set forth that the falling away of the new-Christians into "Jewish unbelief" was caused by their intercourse with Jews. The proclamation continued that long since it would have been proper to banish the Jews on account of their wily ways; but at first the sovereigns had tried clemency and mild means, banishing only the Jews of Andalusia, and punishing only the most guilty, in the hope that these steps would suffice. As, however, these had not prevented the Jews from continuing to pervert the new-Christians from the Catholic faith, nothing remained but for their majesties to exile those who had lured back to heresy the people who had indeed fallen away, but had repented and returned to holy Mother Church. Therefore had their majesties, in council with the princes of the church, grandees, and learned men, resolved to banish the Jews from their kingdom. No Christian, on pain of confiscation of his possessions, should, after the expiration of a certain term, give succor or shelter to Jews. The edict of Ferdinand and Isabella is good testimony for the Jews of Spain in those days, since no accusations could be brought against them but that they had remained faithful to their religion, and had sought to maintain their Marrano brethren in it. A legend relates that their majesties were embittered against the Jews, because the Infante had found the picture of a crucified Holy Child in an orange which a Jewish courtier had given him.
The long-dreaded blow had fallen. The Spanish Jews were to leave the country, round which the fibers of their hearts had grown, where lay the graves of their forefathers of at least fifteen hundred years, and towards whose greatness, wealth, and culture they had so largely contributed. The blow fell upon them like a thunderbolt. Abrabanel thought that he might be able to avert it by his influence. He presented himself before the king and queen, and offered enormous sums in the name of the Jews if the edict were removed. His Christian friends, eminent grandees, supported his efforts. Ferdinand, who took more interest in enriching his coffers than in the Catholic faith, was inclined to yield. Then the fanatical grand inquisitor, Torquemada, lifted up his voice. It is related that he took upon himself to rush into the presence of the king and queen, carrying the crucifix aloft, and uttering these winged words: "Judas Iscariot sold Christ for thirty pieces of silver; your highnesses are about to sell Him for 300,000 ducats. Here He is, take Him, and sell Him!" Then he left the hall. These words, or the influence of other ecclesiastics, had a strong effect upon Isabella. She resolved to abide by the edict, and, of bolder spirit than the king, contrived to keep alive his enmity against the Jews. Juan de Lucena, a member of the royal council of Aragon, as well as minister, was equally active in maintaining the edict. At the end of April heralds and trumpeters went through the whole country, proclaiming that the Jews were permitted to remain only till the end of July to set their affairs in order; whoever of them was found after that time on Spanish ground would suffer death.
Great as was the consternation of the Spanish Jews at having to tear themselves from the beloved land of their birth and the ashes of their forefathers, and go forth to an uncertain future in strange lands, among people whose speech they did not understand, who, perhaps, might be more unfriendly towards them than the Spanish Christians, they had to bestir themselves and make preparation for their exodus. At every step they realized that a yet more cruel fate awaited them. Had they been able, like the English Jews at the end of the thirteenth century, and the French a century later, to take their riches with them, they might have been able to provide some sort of miserable existence for themselves; but the Jewish capitalists were not permitted to take their money with them, they were compelled to accept bills of exchange for it. But Spain, on account of its dominant knightly and ecclesiastical element, had no places of exchange like those in Italy, where commercial notes were of value. Business on a large scale was in the hands, for the most part, of Jews and new-Christians, and the latter, from fear, had to keep away from their brethren in race. The Jews who owned land were forced to part with it at absurd prices, because no buyers applied, and they were obliged to beg the Christians for even the meanest thing in exchange. A contemporary, Andreas Bernaldez, pastor of Los Palacios, relates that the most magnificent houses and the most beautiful estates of the Jews were sold for a trifle. A house was bartered for an ass, and a vineyard for a piece of cloth or linen. Thus the riches of the Spanish Jews melted away, and could not help them in their day of need. In Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia, it was even worse with them. Torquemada, who on this occasion exceeded his former inhumanity, forbade the Christians to have any intercourse with them. In these provinces Ferdinand sequestrated their possessions, so that not only their debts, but also the claims which monasteries pretended to have upon them were paid. This fiendish plan he devised for the benefit of the church. The Jews would thereby be driven to despair, and turn to the cross for succor. Torquemada, therefore, imposed on the Dominicans the task of preaching Christianity everywhere, and of calling upon the Jews to receive baptism, and thus remain in the land. On the other side, the rabbis bade the people remain steadfast, accept their trials as tests of their firmness, and trust in God, who had been with them in so many days of trouble. The fiery eloquence of the rabbis was not necessary. Each one encouraged his neighbor to remain true and steadfast to the Jewish faith. "Let us be strong," so they said to each other, "for our religion, and for the Law of our fathers before our enemies and blasphemers. If they will let us live, we shall live; if they kill us, then shall we die. We will not desecrate the covenant of our God; our heart shall not fail us. We will go forth in the name of the Lord." If they had submitted to baptism, would they not have fallen into the power of the blood-stained Inquisition? The cross had lost its power of attraction even for lukewarm Jews, since they had seen upon what trivial pretexts members of their race were delivered over to the stake. One year before the proclamation of banishment was made, thirty-two new-Christians in Seville were bound living to the stake, sixteen were burned in effigy, and 625 sentenced to do penance. The Jews, moreover, were not ignorant of the false and deceitful ways in which Torquemada entrapped his victims. Many pseudo-Christians had fled from Seville, Cordova and Jaen, to Granada, where they had returned to the Jewish faith. After the conquest of the town, Torquemada proclaimed that if they came back to Mother Church, "whose arms are always open to embrace those who return to her with repentance and contrition," they would be treated with mildness, and in private, without onlookers, would receive absolution. A few allowed themselves to be charmed by this sweet voice, betook themselves to Toledo, and were pardoned – to a death of fire. Thus it came about that, in spite of the preaching of the Dominicans, and notwithstanding their indescribably terrible position, few Jews passed over to Christianity in the year of the expulsion from Spain. Among persons of note, only the rich tax-collector and chief rabbi, Abraham Senior, his son, and his son-in-law, Meïr, a rabbi, went over, with the two sons of the latter. It is said that they received baptism in desperation, because the queen, who did not want to lose her clever minister of finance, threatened heavier persecution of the departing Jews, if these did not submit. Great was the rejoicing at court over the baptism of Senior and his family. Their majesties themselves and the cardinal stood as sponsors. The newly-baptized all took the family name of Coronel, and their descendants filled some of the highest offices in the state.
Their common misfortune and suffering developed among the Spanish Jews in those last days before their exile deep brotherly affection and exalted sentiments, which, could they have lasted, would surely have borne good fruit. The rich, although their wealth had dwindled, divided it fraternally with the poor, allowing them to want for nothing, so that they should not fall into the hands of the church, and also paid the charges of their exodus. The aged rabbi, Isaac Aboab, the friend of Abrabanel, went with thirty Jews of rank to Portugal, to negotiate with King João II, for the settlement of the Jews in that country, or for their safe passage through it. They succeeded in making tolerably favorable conditions. The pain of leaving their passionately loved country could not be overcome. The nearer the day of departure came, the more were the hearts of the unhappy people wrung. The graves of their forefathers were dearer to them than all besides, and from these they found parting hardest. The Jews of the town of Vitoria gave to the community the Jewish cemetery and its appertaining grounds in perpetuity, on condition that it should never be encroached upon, nor planted over, and a deed to this effect was drawn up. The Jews of Segovia assembled three days before their exodus around the graves of their forefathers, mingling their tears with the dust, and melting the hearts of the Catholics with their grief. They tore up many of the tombstones to bear them away as memorial relics, or gave them to the Moors.
At last the day arrived on which the Spanish Jews had to take staff in hand. They had been accorded two days respite, that is, were allowed two days later than July 31st for setting forth. This date fell exactly upon the anniversary of the ninth of Ab, which was fraught with memories of the splendor of the old days, and had so often found the children of Israel wrapped in grief and misery. About 300,000 left the land which they so deeply loved, but which now became a hateful memory to them. They wandered partly northwards, to the neighboring kingdom of Navarre, partly southwards, with the idea of settling in Africa, Italy or Turkey. The majority, however, made for Portugal. In order to stifle sad thoughts and avoid the melancholy impression which might have moved some to waver and embrace the cross in order to remain in the land, some rabbis caused pipers and drummers to go before, making lively music, so that for a while the wanderers should forget their gnawing grief. Spain lost in them the twentieth part of her most industrious, painstaking, intelligent inhabitants, its middle class, which created trade, and maintained it in brisk circulation, like the blood of a living organism. For there were among the Spanish Jews not merely capitalists, merchants, farmers, physicians and men of learning, but also artisans, armor and metal workers of all kinds, at all events no idlers who slept away their time. With the discovery of America, the Jews might have lifted Spain to the rank of the wealthiest, the most prosperous and enduring of states, which by reason of its unity of government might certainly have competed with Italy. But Torquemada would not have it so; he preferred to train Spaniards for a blood-stained idolatry, under which, in the sunlight of the Lutheran Reformation, pious men were condemned to chains, dungeons, or the galleys, if they dared read the Bible. The departure of the Jews from Spain soon made itself felt in a very marked manner by the Christians. Talent, activity, and prosperous civilization passed with them from the country. The smaller towns, which had derived some vitality from the presence of the Jews, were quickly depopulated, sank into insignificance, lost their spirit of freedom and independence, and became tools for the increasing despotism of the Spanish kings and the imbecile superstition of the priests. The Spanish nobility soon complained that their towns and villages had fallen into insignificance, had become deserted, and they declared that, could they have foreseen the consequences, they would have opposed the royal commands. Dearth of physicians was sternly felt, too. The town of Vitoria and its neighborhood was compelled, through the withdrawal of the Jews, to secure a physician from a distance, and give him a high salary. In many places the people fell victims to quacks, boastful bunglers, or to the superstition of deceiving or self-deceived dealers in magic. In one word, Spain fell into a condition of barbarism through the banishment of the Jews, and all the wealth which the settlement of American colonies brought to the mother country only helped to render its inhabitants more idle, stupid, and servile. The name of the Jews died out of the country in which they had played so important a part, and the literature of which was so filled with Jewish elements that men of intelligence were constantly reminded of them. Schools, hospitals, and everything which the Jews could not or dared not take away with them, the king confiscated. He changed synagogues into churches, monasteries or schools, where the people were systematically kept ignorant, and trained for meanest servility. The beautiful synagogue of Toledo, which Don Pedro's Jewish statesman, Samuel Abulafia, had erected about a century and a half before, was transformed into a church (de neustra Señora de San Benito), and, with its Moorish architecture, its exquisite columns, and splendid proportions, is to this day a magnificent ornament to the city. In the other cities and towns of Spain, which live in the chronicles of Jewish history, in Seville, Granada, Cordova, in densely-populated Lucena, Saragossa and Barcelona, every trace was lost of the sons of Jacob, or of the Jewish nobility, as the proud Jews of Spain styled themselves. Jews, it is true, remained behind, Jews under the mask of Christianity, Jewish Christians, or new-Christians, who had afforded their departing brethren active help. Many of them had taken charge of their gold and silver, and kept it till they were able to send it on by the hands of trusted persons, or had given them bills of exchange on foreign places. These negotiations were often of no avail, for when the fanatical king and queen heard of them, they sent for the treasure left behind, or sought to prevent the payment of the checks.
Great as were the obstacles, the Marranos did not cool in their zeal for their exiled brethren. They pursued those guilty of inhuman brutality to the wanderers with bitter hatred, and delivered them over to the Inquisition – turning the tool against its makers. At the instigation of the Marranos, the brother of Don Juan de Lucena, the powerful minister of Ferdinand, was thrown into the prison of the Inquisition, kept there under a strong guard, and none of his relatives allowed to see him, the minister, whose position exempted him from the power of the Inquisition, having counseled the banishment of the Jews, and practically assisted in it, and his brother having relentlessly confiscated the property they had left behind. Torquemada complained that Don Juan was persecuted by the new-Christians on account of his faith. The Marranos, now more than ever on their guard, lest they give the slightest offense, had to cross themselves assiduously, count their beads, and mumble paternosters, while inwardly they were attached more than ever to Judaism. Frequently their feelings outran their will, they broke the bonds of silence, and this was productive of heavy consequences. Thus a Marrano in Seville, on seeing an effigy of Christ set up in church for adoration, cried out, "Woe to him who sees, and must believe such a thing!" Such expressions in unguarded moments naturally afforded the best opportunity for inquiry, imprisonment, the rack and autos-da-fé, not merely for the individual caught in the act, but for his relatives, friends, and everybody connected with him who had any property. It had, moreover, grown to be a necessity to the people, hardened by the frequent sight of the death agonies of sacrificial victims, to witness a solemn tragedy of human sacrifice now and again. It is, therefore, not astonishing, that under the first inquisitor-general, Thomas de Torquemada, in the course of fourteen years (1485–1498) at least two thousand Jews were burned as impenitent sinners. He was so hated that he lived in constant fear of death. Upon his table he kept the horn of a unicorn, to which the superstition of the time ascribed the power of nullifying the effect of poison. When Torquemada went out, he was attended by a body-guard (Familares) of fifty, and two hundred foot-soldiers, to protect him from assault. His successor, the second inquisitor-general, Deza, erected still more scaffolds; but it soon came to pass that the men of blood butchered each other. Deza before his death was accused of being secretly a Jew. When the persecutions against the remaining Moors and Moriscos, and against the followers of the German reformer Luther, were added to those of the Marranos, Spain, under the wrath of the Holy Inquisition, became literally a scene of human slaughter. With justice nearly all the European princes, and even the parliament of Paris, bitterly blamed the perverseness of Ferdinand and Isabella in having driven out so useful a class of citizens. The sultan Bajasid (Bajazet) exclaimed: "You call Ferdinand a wise king, he who has made his country poor and enriched ours!"
CHAPTER XII.
EXPULSION OF THE JEWS FROM NAVARRE AND PORTUGAL
The Exiles from Navarre – Migration to Naples – King Ferdinand I of Naples and Abrabanel – Leon Abrabanel – Misfortunes of the Jews in Fez, Genoa, Rome, and the Islands of Greece – The Sultan Bajazet – Moses Kapsali – Spanish Jews in Portugal – The Jewish Astronomers, Abraham Zacuto and José Vecinho – The Jewish Travelers, Abraham de Beya and Joseph Zapateiro – Outbreak of the Plague among the Spanish Jews in Portugal – Sufferings of the Portuguese Exiles – Judah Chayyat and his Fellow-Sufferers – Cruelty of João II – Kindly Treatment by Manoel changed into Cruelty on his Marriage – Forcible Baptism of Jewish Children – Levi ben Chabib and Isaac Caro – Pope Alexander VI – Manoel's Efforts on Behalf of the Portuguese Marranos – Death of Simon Maimi and Abraham Saba.
1492–1498 C.E
The Jews of northern Spain, in Catalonia and Aragon, who turned their steps to neighboring Navarre, with the idea of seeking shelter there, were comparatively fortunate. Here at least was a prospect of a livelihood, and a possibility of looking round for other places of refuge. The Inquisition had met with courageous resistance from the rulers and the people of Navarre. When some Marranos, concerned in the murder of Arbues, the inquisitor, fled to this kingdom, and the bloodthirsty heresy-mongers demanded that they be given up to the executioners, the town of Tudela declared that it would not suffer such unrighteous violence to people who had sought its protection, and closed the gates against their emissaries. In vain did king Ferdinand, who had an eye upon Navarre, threaten it with his anger. The citizens of Tudela remained firm. A Navarrese prince, Jacob of Navarre, suffered for the shelter he gave to a hunted Marrano. The inquisitors suddenly arrested, imprisoned and sentenced him, as an enemy of the Holy Office, to shameful exposure in a church, where his list of offenses was publicly read out, and absolution promised him only if he submitted to flagellation from priestly hands. Several other towns of Navarre gave protection to the fugitives, and about 12,00 °Castilian wanderers took up their quarters in Navarre. Count of Lerin probably received the greater number of these. But the Jews enjoyed only a few years of peace in Navarre; for upon the vehement urging of King Ferdinand, who followed the fugitives with bitterest enmity and persecution, the king of Navarre gave them the choice between wandering forth again and baptism. The greater number adopted Christianity, because there was only a short time for preparation, and no time for thinking. In the community of Tudela, so famous for steadfast piety, 180 families submitted to baptism.
Also those Castilian Jews were fortunate who, instead of indulging themselves in the vain hope that the edict would be recalled, did not stay until the last day, but made their way, before the end of the respite, to Italy, Africa, or Turkey. They did not lack the means of getting away. The Spanish Jews had such widespread repute, and their expulsion had made so much stir in Europe, that crowds of ships were ready in Spanish seaports to take up the wanderers and convey them to all parts, not only the ships of the country, but also Italian vessels from Genoa and Venice. The ship-owners saw a prospect of lucrative business. Many Jews from Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia desired to settle in Naples, and sent ambassadors to the king, Ferdinand I, to ask him to receive them. This prince was not merely free from prejudice against the Jews, but was kindly inclined towards them, out of compassion for their misfortunes, and he may have promised himself industrial and intellectual advantage from this immigration of the Spanish Jews. Whether it was calculation or generosity, it is enough that he bade them welcome, and made his realm free to them. Many thousands of them landed in the Bay of Naples (24th August, 1492), and were kindly received. The native Jewish community treated them with true brotherly generosity, defrayed the passage of the poor not able to pay, and provided for their immediate necessities.
Isaac Abrabanel, also, and his whole household, went to Naples. Here he lived at first as a private individual, and continued the work of writing a commentary upon the book of Kings, which had been interrupted by his state duties. When the king of Naples was informed of his presence in the city, he invited him to an interview, and intrusted him with a post, in all likelihood in the financial department. Probably he hoped to make use of Abrabanel's experience in the war with which he was threatened by the king of France. Whether from his own noble impulses, or from esteem for Abrabanel, the king of Naples showed the Jews a gentle humanity which startlingly contrasted with the cruelty of the Spanish king. The unhappy people had to struggle with many woes; when they thought themselves free of one, another yet more merciless fell upon them. A devastating pestilence, arising out of the sad condition to which they had been reduced, or from the overcrowding of the ships, followed in the track of the wanderers. They brought death with them. Scarcely six months had they been settled on Neapolitan soil when the pestilence carried numbers of them off, and King Ferdinand, who dreaded a rising of the populace against the Jews, hinted to them that they must bury their corpses by night, and in silence. When the pest could no longer be concealed, and every day increased in virulence, people and courtiers alike entreated him to drive them forth. But Ferdinand would not assent to this inhuman proceeding; he is said to have threatened to abdicate if the Jews were ill-treated. He had hospitals erected for them outside the town, sent physicians to their aid, and gave them means of support. For a whole year he strove, with unexampled nobility, to succor the unfortunate people, whom banishment and disease had transformed into living corpses. Those, also, who were fortunate enough to reach Pisa found a brotherly reception. The sons of Yechiel of Pisa fairly took up their abode on the quay, so as to be ready to receive the wanderers, provide for their wants, shelter them, or help them on their way to some other place. After Ferdinand's death, his son, Alfonso II, who little resembled him, retained the Jewish statesman, Abrabanel, in his service, and, after his resignation in favor of his son, took him with him to Sicily. Abrabanel to the last remained faithful to this prince in his misfortunes (January, 1494, to June, 1495).
After the conquest of Naples by the weak-headed knight-errant king of France, Charles VIII, the members of the Abrabanel family were torn apart and scattered. None of them, however, met with such signal misfortune as the eldest son, Judah Leon Medigo (born 1470, died 1530). He had been so well beloved at the Spanish court that they were loath to part with him, and would gladly have kept him there – of course, as a Christian. To attain this end, a command was issued that he be not permitted to leave Toledo, or that his one-year-old son be taken from him, baptized immediately, and that in this manner the father be chained to Spain. Judah Abrabanel, however, got wind of this plot against his liberty, sent his son, with his nurse, "like stolen goods," secretly to the Portuguese coast; but as he himself did not care to seek shelter in the country where his father had been threatened with death, he turned his face towards Naples. His suspicions of the king of Portugal were only too speedily justified. No sooner did João hear that a relative of Abrabanel was within his borders than he ordered the child to be kept as hostage, and not to be permitted to go forth with the other Jews. Little Isaac never saw his parents and grandparents again. He was baptized, and brought up as a Christian. The agony of the father at the living death of his lost child was boundless. It gave him no rest or peace to his latest hour, and it found vent in a lamentation sad in the extreme. Yet what was the grief for one child, compared with the woes which overtook the thousands of Jews hunted out of Spain?
Many of them found their way to the nearest African seaport towns, Oran, Algiers and Bugia. The inhabitants, who feared that their towns would be overcrowded from such a vast influx, shot at the Jews as they landed, and killed many of them. An eminent Jew at the court of Barbary, however, addressed the sultan in behalf of his unhappy brethren, and obtained leave for them to land. They were not allowed to enter the towns, probably because the pestilence had broken out among them, too. They could only build themselves wooden huts outside the walls. The children collected wood, and their elders nailed the boards together for temporary dwellings. But they did not long enjoy even this miserable shelter, as one day a fire broke out in one of the huts, and soon laid the whole camp in ashes.
Those who settled in Fez suffered a still more terrible lot. Here also the inhabitants would not admit them, fearing that such an influx of human beings would raise the price of the necessaries of life. They had to encamp in the fields, and live on roots and herbs like cattle. On the Sabbath they stripped the plants with their teeth, in order not to desecrate the holy day by gathering them. Starvation, pestilence, and the unfriendliness of the Mahometan people vied with each other in inflicting misery upon the Jews. In their awful despair, fathers were driven to sell their children as slaves to obtain bread. Mothers killed their little ones that they might not see them perish from the pangs of hunger. Avaricious captains took advantage of the distress of the parents to entice starving children on board their vessels with offers of bread, and, deaf to the cries and entreaties of the parents, carried them off to distant lands, where they sold them for a good price. Later, the ruler of Fez, probably at the representation of the original Jewish inhabitants, proclaimed that Jewish children who had been sold for bread, and other necessaries of life, should be set at liberty.
The descriptions by their contemporaries of the sufferings of the Jews make one's hair stand on end. They were dogged whithersoever they went. Those whom plague and starvation had spared, fell into the hands of brutalized men. The report got about that the Spanish Jews had swallowed the gold and silver which they had been forbidden to carry away, intending to use it later on. Cannibals, therefore, ripped open their bodies to seek for coin in their entrails. The Genoese ship-folk behaved most inhumanly to the wanderers who had trusted their lives to them. From avarice, or sheer delight in the death agonies of the Jews, they flung many of them into the sea. One captain offered insult to the beautiful daughter of a Jewish wanderer. Her name was Paloma (Dove), and to escape shame, the mother threw her and her other daughters and then herself into the waves. The wretched father composed a heartbreaking lamentation for his lost dear ones.
Those who reached the port of Genoa had to contend with new miseries. In this thriving town there was a law that Jews might not remain there for longer than three days. As the ships which were to convey the Jews thence required repairing, the authorities conceded the permission for them to remain, not in the town, but upon the Mole, until the vessels were ready for sea. Like ghosts, pale, shrunken, hollow-eyed, gaunt, they went on shore, and if they had not moved, impelled by instinct to get out of their floating prison, they might have been taken for so many corpses. The starving children went into the churches, and allowed themselves to be baptized for a morsel of bread; and Christians were merciless enough not merely to accept such sacrifices, but with the cross in one hand, and bread in the other, to go among the Jews and tempt them to become converted. Only a short time had been granted them on the Mole, but a great part of the winter passed before the repairs were completed. The longer they remained, the more their numbers diminished, through the passing over to Christianity of the younger members, and many fell victims to plagues of all kinds. Other Italian towns would not allow them to land even for a short time, partly because it was a year of famine, partly because the Jews brought the plague with them.