Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini

by Rafael Sabatini

  Another story that was circulated alleged that in Valencia there had also been an attempt by a number of Jews to crucify a Christian boy. This is recorded in that scurrilous, infamous publication, “Centinela contra Judios,” by Frey Francisco de Torrejoncillo. We have already referred to it more than once. It was first printed in 1676, and is the book of a friar of the Order of St. Francis, a disgraceful work which proves its author to have been as barefaced as he was barefooted. It is a collection of stupid lies and forgeries, and, it is scarcely an exaggeration to add, obscenities; it may be another instance of those frauds termed pious, but it is scarcely to the credit of a Church exercising, by means of the “Index Expurgatorius,” a censorship of the press — to have permitted the circulation of a work of this order from the pen of a churchman.

  This, however, is by the way.

  The story here to be recorded is taken, Torrejoncillo tells us, from the “Sermon de la Cruz” by Frey Felipe de Salazar.* On a Good Friday evening a youth who was in a street of Valencia observed several men entering a house. Considering this to be strange — although no suspicious circumstance is mentioned — he approached the door and listened. He heard them say, “There seems to be some one at the door.” Fearing that a brawl might be the result if he were discovered there when they opened, he drew his sword and fled. (How the drawing of his sword was calculated to assist his flight the author does not think it worth while to inform us.) As he was running he came upon a patrol, which seized him, demanding to know whither he was hurrying in this fashion with a naked sword in his hand. He related what he had witnessed, whereupon the officer, not only for the purpose of testing the truth of the story but also that he might ascertain to what end so many men should be assembling, went to the house and knocked.

  [* See “Centinela,” .]

  The door was opened by a Jew, who began to make obvious excuses to him. Suddenly the officer heard a child’s voice within the house, crying, “These men want to crucify me.”

  The Jews were taken, the house demolished, and on the site of it was built the Church of Santa Cruz.

  In this collection of lies and forgeries are included the “letter of Christ to Abgarus,” another letter of Pontius Pilate to Tiberius dilating upon the miracles of the Saviour, and a letter from the Jews of Constantinople to those of Toledo, which played an important part in this anti-semitic campaign.

  It was the Cardinal-Archbishop Juan Martinez Siliceo who was alleged to have discovered this letter in Toledo. We are to suppose that he also found in Toledo the letter to the Jews of Constantinople to which this is a reply, for the chroniclers are able to supply us with the texts of both,* a circumstance which no one at the time appears to have considered strange.

  [* See Llorente, “Anales,” vol. i. , and “Centinela,” .]

  The letter to Constantinople ran as follows:

  “THE JEWS OF SPAIN to THE JEWS OF CONSTANTINOPLE

  “Honoured Jews, health and grace. — Know that the King of Spain compels us to become Christians, deprives us of property and of life, destroys our synagogues and otherwise oppresses us, so that we are uncertain what to do.

  “By the Law of Moses we beseech you to assemble, and to send us with all speed the declaration made in your assembly.

  “CHAMARRO, Prince of the Jews of Spain.”

  To this the answer received from Constantinople was in the following terms:

  “THE JEWS OF CONSTANTINOPLE to THE JEWS OF SPAIN

  “Beloved Brethren in Moses, — We have your letter in which you tell us of the travail and suffering you are enduring there...The opinion of the Rabbis is that’ since the King of Spain attempts to make you Christians, you should become Christians; since he deprives you of your goods and property, you should make your children merchants, that they may deprive the Christians of theirs; since you say that they deprive you of your lives, make your sons apothecaries and physicians to deprive the Christians of theirs; since they destroy your synagogues, make your sons clerics that they may destroy the Christian temples; since you say that you suffer other wrongs, make your sons enter public offices that thus they may render the Christians subject to them.

  “Do not depart from these orders, and you will see that from oppressed you will come to be held of great account.

  “HUSÉE, Prince of the Jews of Constantinople.”

  The matter of these letters — so very obviously forged — was freely circulated. Being accepted, public indignation was suddenly increased by fear. Imaginations were stimulated, and stories based upon these injunctions of Prince Husee became current, nothing being ever too flagrant for popular consumption. It was related that a Jewish physician in Toledo carried poison in one of his finger-nails, and that with this he touched the tongues of the patients he visited, thus killing them. Of another physician it was reported that be deliberately poisoned the woundg he was desired to heal.* And that there were many other such stories current is beyond all doubt.

  [* See “Centinela,” .]

  What use, if any, Torquemada made of those forged letters and the stories that were their offspring, we do not know. But it would be strange if the circulation and acceptance of such matters displeased him, since they were plainly calculated to forward his aims and compel the Sovereigns to lend an ear to his insistent denunciations of the Jews.

  Incessantly he preached the need for religious unity in a united Spain. Indeed, Spain, he urged, never could be united, never could deserve the blessing of Heaven, until all men in that land were the children of God, true believers In the Holy Roman Catholic Apostolic Faith. God had greatly favoured Ferdinand and Isabella, the friar continued. He had collected the various elements of the peninsula Into one mighty kIngdom,which Hehad subjected to their sceptre. Let them fuse those elements into a solid whole, rejecting all those who resist this fusion — and this for the honour and glory of God and of their own kingdom.

  Before this terrific gospel of Religious Unity nothing could stand. Humanitarian considerations, principles of equity, indebtedness and gratitude are mere trifles to be swept away by that hurricane ot religious argument.

  The Sovereigns found themselves face to face with an issue of such a magnitude that no temporal considerations could be allowed to weigh. And to the pressure of Torquemada’s fierce arguments was added now the pressure of public opinion, cunningly excited by his lieutenants. To the voice of God from the lips of the Grand Inquisitor was added now the vox populi — the voice of God from the lips of the people.

  And so clamorous was this popular voice, so insistent were the accusations which it levelled against the Israelites, of ritual Infamies and of seducing back to the Law of Moses their apostate brethren, that the Jews were warned of the storm that was about to break over their luckless heads.

  Torquemada’s demand was that they must receive baptism or go.

  The Sovereigns hesitated still. In Isabella perhaps the voice of humanity was too strong to be entirely stifled by the dictates of bigotry.

  But Torquemada’s strength of purpose was the greater and more irresistible by virtue of its purity and singleness of aim. Obviously he was no selfseeker. Obviously he had no worldly ends to serve. What he demanded, he demanded in the name of the religion which he served — solely for the greater honour and glory of his God; and to sovereigns of the temper of Ferdinand and Isabella demands so inspired are not easily resisted.

  And although it was clear that he sought no worldly advantage for himself, he did not scruple to use the prospect of the Sovereigns’ worldly advantage as a weapon to combat their reluctance; he did not hesitate to dangle before their eyes temporal advantages that must result from the banishment of the Israelites. To arguments upon religious grounds he added arguments of worldly expediency, arguments which cannot have failed of effect upon the acquisitive nature of the King.

  Never, urged the Grand Inquisitor, would Spain know tranquillity whilst she harboured Jews. They were predatory; they were untrustworthy; their sole objective was the sati
sfaction of their pecuniary interest — the only interest they knew; and their acquisitiveness would always dispose them to serve any enemy of the crown so that it should profit them to do so.*

  [* Llorente, “Anales,” vol. i. .]

  But Torquemada was not the only advocate before the royal court. The Jews were there, too, pleading on their own behalf, with an eloquence that seemed for a moment on the point of prevailing — for the seductive chink of gold was persuasively intermingled with their protestations.

  They urged their past services to the crown, and promised even greater services in the future; they swore that henceforth they would be more observant of the harsh laws formulated by Alfonso XI — that they would keep to their ghettos as prescribed, withdrawing to them at nightfall, and abstaining rigorously from all such intercourse with Christians as was by law forbidden. Last and most eloquent argument of all, they offered through Abraham Seneor and Isaac Abarbanel — the two Jews who had undertaken and so admirably effected the equipment of the Castilian army for the campaign against Granada — that in addition to giving this undertaking they would subscribe 30,000 ducats towards the expenses of the war against the Moslem.

  Ferdinand’s hesitation was increased by this offer. Ever in need of money as the Sovereigns were, the consideration of this gold not only tempted them, but it would undoubtedly have conquered them had not Torquemada been at hand. But for his violent intervention it is more than probable that the cruel edict of banishment would never have been promulgated.

  The Dominican, learning what was afoot, thrust himself into their Highnesses’ presence to denounce their hesitation, and to put upon it the name which in his opinion it deserved.

  It is not difficult to picture him in that supreme moment. It is one of those rare occasions on which this being whom we have compared to a Deus ex machina, a cold stern spirit ruling and guiding the terrible organization of the Inquisition which he has himself established, steps forth in the flesh, a living, throbbing man.

  You behold him pale, a little breathless in the excitement and anger by which he is possessed. His deep-set eyes glow sombrely with the fever ot fanatical zeal and indignation. He draws his lean old frame erect. In his shrivelled, sinewy old hands he flaunts aloft a crucifix.

  It is an intense moment. Everything contributes to it: the long-drawn duel between religion and humanity, between clericalism and Christianity, of which this is at last the climax; and nothing so much as the figure offered by the Jews. This thirty thousand is unfortunately reminiscent. It permits the Prior of Holy Cross to draw a very daring parallel.

  “Judas,” he cries, “once sold the Son of God for thirty pieces. Your Highnesses think to sell Him again for thirty thousand. Here you have Him. Sell Him, then, but acquit me of all share in the transaction.”

  And, crashing the crucifix upon the table before their startled Highnesses, he abruptly leaves the chamber.*

  [* Paramo, “De Origine,” ; Llorente,” Historia Critica,” ii. .]

  Thus Torquemada conquered.

  The edict of expulsion was signed at Granada on March 31 of that year 1492 — that glorious year in which Spain finally completed the erection of her monarchy upon the ruins of the old Visigothic kingdom, and in which the navigator Columbus laid a new world at the foot of the throne of the Catholic Sovereigns.*

  [* The edict is quoted in full in Appendix IV. of Amador de los Rios’ “Historia de los Judios.”]

  CHAPTER XXVI. THE EXODUS FROM SPAIN

  It was solemnly declared in the edict of expulsion that this decree was promulgated solely in obedience to the pressing need to cut off at the roots, once for all time, the evils arising out ot the intercourse between Christians and Jews, since all other efforts hitherto undertaken with the same intent had proved fruitless.*

  [* See the text of the edict in Rios’ “Historia de los Judios,” Appendix IV.]

  By this edict all Jews of any age and either sex who should refuse to receive baptism must quit Spain within three months, and never return, under pain of death and the confiscation of their property.

  The cruelty of this expatriation calls for little exposition. Spain was the motherland of these Jews. For centuries it had been the home of their ancestors, and they held it in the affection implanted in the heart of each of us for the country which is his own. They must depart out of it, into exile in some foreign land, and the only terms upon which they could obtain immunity from that harsh decree was by the sacrifice of something dearer still, something as dear to them as honour itself. They must be false to the faith of their fathers and forswear the God of Israel.

  That was the choice forced upon the Children of Judah — the choice which the arrogant Christian Church had been forcing upon all men from the moment that she had found herself mistress of the power to do so.

  It was decreed that after the expiry of the three months allowed them in which to settle their affairs and be gone no Christian would be suffered to befriend or assist them, to give them food or shelter, under pain of being called to account as an abettor of heretics.

  Until their departure the persons and property of the exiled were nominally under the protection of the Sovereigns. They were permitted to dispose of what property they possessed, and to take the proceeds with them in bills of exchange* or in merchandise, but not in gold, which it was forbidden to carry out of the country.

  [* Amador de los Rios (iii. ) very reasonably questions their being permitted to take money in bills of exchange, although the statement is contained in Bernaldez’ “Chronicle,” and is mentioned by other contemporaries.]

  Little greater would have been the injury done them if their property had been confiscated outright. For being compelled to dispose of it at such short notice, and the buyers knowing that it must be sold, and eager to take advantage of these forced sales, what chance had the Jews of realizing anything that should approach its value? How could they avoid the pitiless Christian exploitation of their miserable position?

  “The Christians obtained,” says Bernaldez, “much property and many very rich houses and estates for little money; the Jews went about offering these, and could not find any buyers, so that they were forced to barter here a house for an ass, there a vineyard for a piece of cloth.”*

  [* “Historia,” tom. i. cap. cx.]

  From just this passage in the chronicle of an author whose detestation of the Jews we have earlier considered may be conceived how terrible was their distress, and how mercilessly was advantage taken of it by the Christians.

  Amador de los Rios adds that entire ghettos entered into the sacrifice, and that, the Jews being utterly unable to dispose of such communal property, they were forced to make gifts of it to the municipalities that had shown them so little pity.*

  [* “Historia de los Judios,” vol. iii. .]

  Torquemada in his great zeal for the Faith was not content to leave matters there. His chief aim, after all, was not the expulsion of the Jews, but their conversion and the effacement of their creed. As a means to that end was it that he had wrung the edict of banishment from the Sovereigns.

  SANBENITO OF IMPENITENT

  From Limborch’s “Historia Inquisitionis.”

  Upon this campaign of conversion he now sent forth his army of Dominicans. He published an edict, with the royal sanction, in which he exhorted the Israehtes to receive baptism, laying stress upon the fact that those who should do so before the expiry of the three months appointed for their emigration would be entitled to remain.

  In every city, in every village, in every hamlet, in churches, in market-places, and at street-corners his black-and-white Dominicans sought by exhortation and argument to induce the Jews to receive the waters of baptism, thereby securing their well-being and prosperity in this world and their eternal salvation in the next. The preachers penetrated to the very synagogues in their zeal, and exerted themselves even in the Jewish temples, by the promises they held out of temporal advantage, to lead the Jews into the fold of Christianity. No
place was sacred from the friars-preachers. In Segovia, when the hour of departure approached, the Jews spent three days in their cemetery weeping over the graves of their dead, which they were abandoning. And there were zealous Dominicans who intruded upon that sorrow, and seized Ihe opportunity to preach conversion to that piteous assembly.*

  [* Colmenares, “Hist. Segovia,” cap. xxxv. § ix.]

  But the response to all these sermons was only slight. If Torquemada’s friars were preaching Christianity on the one hand, and attempting by argument and bribery to induce the Hebrews to embrace it, the Rabbis, on the other, were no less energetic in their efforts to encourage the Israelites to stand firm in their fidelity to their God, to resist the temptations of corruption, and to remember that even as God had delivered them out of Egypt and led them into the Land of Plenty, so in leading them out of Spain would He see that His children did not suffer loss of honour or of worldly goods.

  Whether the Israelites believed or not, the great body of them remained staunch, and sooner than accept ease and advancement at the price of baptism, they firmly envisaged exile and the loss of their property, which the royal decree inspired by Torquemada rendered inevitable.

  Bernaldez tells us that, notwithstanding the law against taking gold out of Spain, many of the exiles did take it in large quantities concealed about them — which is extremely probable. Not quite so probable is the common rumour which he reports, that they reduced many gold ducats to pellets with their teeth, and then swallowed them upon arriving at seaports or other places where they were to be searched, thus carrying the gold away in their stomachs. The women in particular, he says, were great offenders in this respect, and — again reporting the voice of common rumour — he informs us that some women contrived to swallow as many as thirty ducats each.*

  [* “ Historia,” tom. i. cap. cx.]