CHAPTER IX

THE EXPULSION OF THE JEWS AND MUDEJARES

The Inquisition, which made life impossible for Spanish heretics, had no direct power over unbaptized Jews, since it could not convict them of apostasy in connection with a faith they had never professed. Some of their race, indeed, were summoned before the Holy Office, accused of subverting Christian neighbours to Judaism; but their pronounced reluctance to share the privileges of their religion with Gentiles prevented any widespread application of this charge.

Nevertheless it was obvious that in a land where their converted brethren had been subject to torture, imprisonment, and death, they themselves could not long hope to escape the fury of popular fanaticism. Their wealth and their pride aroused envy and dislike so violent that their very qualities and virtues appeared to Spanish prejudice as though born of malignant design. The Curate of Los Palacios, enumerating the posts of responsibility and the openings in the skilled labour-market to which their talents and industry gave them access, declared that “they sought only comfortable berths, where they could gain much money with little toil”; as if the work of merchant, land-agent, weaver, tailor, or silversmith, demanded less capacity than tilling the soil or laying bricks.

Similarly, their unsurpassed knowledge of medicine and skill in surgery were proclaimed, about the middle of the fifteenth century, by a Franciscan friar of high reputation, to have been acquired solely from a desire to harm their Christian neighbours. It was a suggestion to which the close connection at that time between medicine, astrology, and the black arts, lent some colour.

In 1480, Ferdinand and Isabel forbade Christian patients to be attended by Jews; but it is significant that some years later the Spanish Dominicans petitioned for a dispensation from this decree, on the plea that doctors of their own creed were almost impossible to find. It was to a Jew also that John II. of Aragon, Ferdinand’s father, had turned for advice, when overcome by blindness in his old age; with the result that this physician successfully performed a double operation for cataract.

Of all the professions and employments, however, to which the unpopularity of the Jew may be traced, it was the office of money-lender that most earned for him the hatred and suspicion of his fellow citizens. The Church had from very early days condemned any lending of money at interest as a form of usury; but since it was impossible to carry on business or trade on a large scale without borrowed capital, Christian financiers as well as needy spendthrifts were driven to have recourse to a people, whose moral code permitted them to effect the loan at a profit.

“That cunning race,” says the Curate of Los Palacios, “who battened on usury exacted from the Christians, and of whom many, poor but a short time before, became speedily rich.” Scarcity of coinage, the lack of certain security for their bonds, and the secret favour they enjoyed with many of the Spanish sovereigns, who, besides borrowing from them, reaped a large revenue from the Jewish poll-tax, account for the high rate of interest that they usually charged. At the beginning of the fifteenth century this has been reckoned as from twenty per cent. in Castile to thirty per cent. in Aragon.

The enactment that Jewish doctors should not attend Christians is typical of the attitude of Ferdinand and Isabel towards this subject race. Toleration and protection on a limited basis were at first a matter of necessity, both on political and financial grounds; but the lines of separation and segregation were tightened, and the “Ghetto” of the Spanish Israelite became an unfortified camp, whose enemies only awaited a favourable opportunity to sound the attack that would leave it a ruin.

So long as the Moorish war lasted, Jewish taxes and Jewish financiers contributed too largely to the expenditure and organization of the various campaigns, for their supply and safety to be endangered; but the conquest of the Infidel rang the knell of the Hebrew unbeliever. The sovereigns’ hands were free; the Crescent lay trampled on the battlefields of Granada; and the sword that had been suspended for so many years over the Juderías at length fell.

Later history, weaving a popular tale round the crisis, informs us that two of the richest Jews, aware of the danger in store, tried to avert it by heavily bribing Ferdinand and Isabel. While the latter were considering their offer, Torquemada appeared suddenly in the royal presence. Holding up a crucifix, he exclaimed: “Lo! Here is the Crucified, Whom Judas sold for thirty pieces of silver. Will you sell Him again for thirty thousand?” Then, passionately declaring that he at any rate would have no part in the transaction, he threw down the crucifix and left the room.

The story is typical at least of the Inquisitor-General’s remorseless fanaticism; and the edict issued on March 30, 1492, expressed the triumph of his views. By it the Jews of Spain were allowed five months in which to choose between baptism and exile. In the latter case, they might sell their property or take with them to other lands as much of their goods as they could carry; but, since the export of gold and silver was strictly forbidden, this permission savoured more of mockery than of indulgence.

Perhaps it was believed that, faced by the terror of expulsion, the Jews would welcome baptism; but the men and women to whom the choice came were descendants of those who in a previous time of danger had remained staunch to their faith; while the sufferings of the New Christians at the hands of the Inquisition were hardly an incentive to conversion.

The majority, therefore, trusting vainly, as the Curate of Los Palacios points out with fanatical joy, that God would guide them through this new wilderness, accepted exile with all its unknown horrors. The shortness of the term of grace allotted to them, and the necessity of selling or losing their property made real bargaining impossible.

They went about seeking purchasers and found none who were anxious to buy; and they gave a house in exchange for an ass, and a vineyard for a length of cloth or linen, because they might not take gold nor silver.

Fearful lest their misery should soften popular hatred (and even Bernaldez admits that none saw them leave their homes without pity), Torquemada had forbidden the Christians to hold any intercourse with Jews after August 1, 1492, or to allow them food or shelter as they started on their exodus. He also took care that all the old calumnies of devilish rites and of insults to Christian relics and objects of veneration should be published abroad to impress the credulous. The theft of the consecrated wafer for use in a sacrilegious plot, the murder of a Christian child as a necessary portion of the Jewish rites, the revival of these and many other such tales helped to keep fanaticism at white heat.

In defiance of the law, many of the exiles hid money about their clothes and persons; but those, who were not discovered and despoiled before they left the country, spent most of it in attempts to buy the food and protection they could not obtain from friendliness and compassion. The rulers of the synagogues, who made arrangements for the future of the community, were forced also to accept asylums where they could at the owner’s price; and the weary masses, who crossed the Portuguese border, paid to its king a _cruzado_ a head, for permission to spend six months within his boundaries on their way to some permanent refuge. From there many of them crossed to the north coast of Africa to join those of their race, who had sailed direct from Spain to the kingdom of Fez; but so frightful were the sufferings they endured that numbers in despair returned home seeking baptism. Robbed and maltreated by the native guards, whom they had paid to protect them, their wives and daughters violated before their eyes, the unhappy exiles, in their feebleness and poverty, found no favour in the sight of the Moorish King and were driven from his capital.

A like inhumanity was shown to those who had made Navarre or Italy their destination; and thus by the sword, pestilence, slavery, or starvation, Christian vengeance on pride of race, wealth, and unbelief was exacted to the uttermost farthing. Here is the witness of a son of one of the exiles:

For some the Turks killed to take out the gold which they had swallowed to hide it; some of them the hunger and plague consumed, and some of them were cast naked by the captains on the isles of the sea; and some of them were sold for men-servants and maid-servants in Genoa and its villages, and some of them were cast into the sea.... For there were, among those who were cast into the isles of the sea upon Provence, a Jew and his old father fainting from hunger, begging bread, for there was no one to break unto him in a strange country. And the man went and sold his son for bread to restore the soul of the old man. And it came to pass, when he returned to his old father, that he found him fallen down dead, and he rent his clothes. And he returned unto the baker to take his son, and the baker would not give him back, and he cried out with a loud and bitter cry for his son, and there was none to deliver.[5]

Footnote 5:

Lea, _History of the Spanish Inquisition_, i., Ch. III.

The statistics of the expulsion have been variously estimated; but the latest and most trustworthy investigation reckons the number of those baptized at 50,000, and of those who emigrated or died at 185,000, though this may err on the side of exaggeration.

“Do you call this king a statesman, who impoverishes his land and enriches mine?” asked the Sultan of Turkey, who, alone of European sovereigns, held out a welcoming hand to the refugees.

It is probable Ferdinand and Isabel realized their political folly in driving from their shores that most valuable of all national wealth, talent, and industry. Fanaticism not policy had dictated their edict; and to their determination that one faith alone should be held within their dominions they were prepared to sacrifice even the economic welfare that they had next at heart.

It seemed at first as if the “Mudejares,” or subject Moors, would escape the general persecution. They had neither the strong racial characteristics of the Jew, nor, though industrious and able workers, the same capacity for fleecing their Christian neighbours; and thus their conquerors came to regard them with contemptuous toleration rather than antipathy. For eight years after the fall of Granada peace reigned in that city, in spite of the difficulties attending the terms of capitulation, to which Ferdinand and Isabel had been forced to agree in their eagerness for a speedy surrender.

Such a treaty [says Prescott] depending for its observance on the good faith and forbearance of the stronger party would not hold together a year in any country of Christendom even at the present day, before some flaw or pretext would be devised to evade it.

That it had been possible so long was chiefly due to the conciliatory policy adopted by the military governor, the Count of Tendilla, and by the Archbishop, Fra Fernando de Talavera. The latter had entered on his office in a spirit of humility that was to serve him far better than any self-assurance. Convinced of the inborn righteousness and appeal of the Christian Faith, he believed that it had only to be understood to be accepted; and, in order to bring himself mentally in touch with the “Alfaquis,” or Doctors of the Mahometan law, he proceeded to learn Arabic himself and to exhort his subordinate priests to do the same. By his orders an Arabic vocabulary and grammar were written, while the catechism and liturgy, with portions from the Gospels, were translated into the same language.

The Moors of Granada had been subject to tyranny all their days, whether under a Boabdil or an Abdallah “El Zagal,” and, though at first suspicious of their conquerors, they soon began to respond to the justice and sympathy that they encountered. Numbers, after discussions and talks with “El Santo Alfaki,” “The Holy Priest” as they called Fra Fernando, accepted baptism; while those who held to their old religion learned to revere and trust him. Granada was in fact adapting herself fast to the new conditions of life; and, when in 1499 Ferdinand and Isabel visited the city, they expressed their appreciation of the peace and order that they found there. So little wrath did they feel against the Mahometans that, when two years before King Emmanuel of Portugal had offered to his Moorish subjects a choice of baptism or expulsion, they had welcomed the exiles as a valuable addition to their population, taking them under their special protection.

Ximenes de Cisneros had accompanied the sovereigns to Granada; and by misfortune when they left he remained to assist his fellow-Archbishop in the task of conversion. Impatient of the slow process of religious absorption that he found in progress, he mistook the friendliness of the Mudejar for weakness and declared that only a little firmness was now needed to induce the whole population to accept Christianity. As a preliminary he summoned the leading “Alfaquis” to various conferences in which he harangued them on the truths of Catholicism, endeavouring to gain their agreement with his views, not only by eloquence but by liberal gifts of rich stuffs and clothing that he guessed would appeal to Oriental taste.

The result was so successful that Cisneros was confirmed in the conviction that he was indeed on the right track, and the humble Fra Fernando was deeply impressed. The majority of the “Alfaquis,” whether intimidated by a consciousness of approaching storms, or moved by the Primate’s arguments and gifts, accepted conversion, bringing with them to the font those who looked to them for spiritual guidance. On a single day three thousand candidates were said to have presented themselves for baptism, a number so great that the ordinary individual ablution proved impossible and the kneeling crowd had to be sprinkled with holy water from a brush.

The stricter Mahometans protested angrily that the Archbishop’s methods were a violation of the terms of surrender that had guaranteed them the free exercise of their religion without any undue influence; whereupon Cisneros, equally irritated at this opposition, seized and imprisoned its ringleader, a certain Zegri Azaator. Strict confinement in fetters, under the charge of a Castilian official called Leon, soon led the prisoner to repent of his temerity and to express a desire for baptism, with the rueful admission that if “this lion,” as he referred to his gaoler, were let loose in Granada few would be able to resist his arguments.

Such a remark could only add fuel to the Archbishop of Toledo’s already ardent belief in the efficacy of strong measures; and from this time the old toleration and confidence vanished for ever. The new spirit may be seen in Cisneros’s scornful criticism of Fra Fernando’s scheme for translating the scriptures completely into Arabic, as he had done with the liturgy and catechism. “Will you,” he asked, “cast pearls before swine? or can they in their ignorance fail to interpret the Word of God to their own destruction?”

Determined that at any rate the Moors should not continue their heretical studies, he began to make inquiries as to Arabic literature; and, as a result of this inquisition, instituted _autos-de-fé_ of illuminated manuscripts, priceless because they were often unique. Out of the many thousand treasures of eastern lore that perished in the flames, a few hundred treatises on medicine were alone saved to grace the shelves of the Toledan library at Alcalá de Henares.

It was a sight to make cultured Moors weep with rage, but Cisneros was soon no less unpopular with the poorer and more ignorant citizens. These numbered in their ranks a fair proportion of Christian renegades, men who for various causes had passed into the service of the Moors, and with their allegiance changed their faith. It had been necessary to insert special clauses for their protection in the terms of capitulation; for the Christians regarded them with special loathing, as guilty of treachery in its vilest form; and Cisneros, quibbling between the spirit and the letter of the law, now asserted that the treaty did not hold good where their children were concerned. As descendants of persons who had once been baptized, these should be baptized also, and for the same reason come under the jurisdiction of the Holy Office.

One day he sent two of his officials to arrest the daughter of a renegade who lived in the Albaycin, a quarter of the city whose turbulence we have already noticed. The girl, screaming as they dragged her from the house, that she would be compelled to become a Christian against her will, attracted a large crowd from the surrounding streets; and in the scuffle that followed one of the officials was killed by a heavy stone thrown from a window above, while the other barely escaped with his life.

Having thus drawn blood, the mob, in a dangerous mood, clamoured for the death of the unpopular Archbishop, and seizing arms rushed to the fortress of the Alcazaba where he resided. The Count of Tendilla, who was in the Alhambra, came to his assistance and managed to disperse the rioters; but the disaffection increased, and the situation grew every hour more strained.

At this crisis, Fra Fernando de Talavera, unarmed and accompanied solely by a cross-bearer, made his way where the throng of rioters was densest. The effect was magical; for, almost in a moment, the prevailing anger and suspicion vanished, and many of the ring-leaders crowding round the old Archbishop humbly knelt to kiss his robe. The Count of Tendilla, seeing a hope of reconciliation, came forward also with a few of his men-at-arms, and throwing his scarlet cap upon the ground in sign of peace, induced them, by the surrender of his wife and children as hostages for his good faith, to lay down their arms and return to their homes.

Accounts of the riot and its causes were hastily dispatched to the King and Queen at Seville; and, Cisneros’s particular messenger being delayed, their anger was at first directed against him; and Isabel wrote, demanding an explanation of his provocative action. In response Cisneros himself soon appeared at Court, and, undaunted by the failure of his last efforts or the coldness with which he was received, justified his conduct with much the same reasoning that Torquemada upheld the righteousness of the Inquisition. The people of Granada, he declared in conclusion, had forfeited the terms of capitulation by their outburst of rebellion; and he urged that the sovereigns should not let them go unpunished, and that they should push forward the Faith with unswerving devotion by every means in their power.

His arguments, with their obvious flaw that he himself by an evasion of the terms was mainly responsible for the rebellion in question, yet carried conviction in an atmosphere, whose natural intolerance of heretics and infidels had been considerably stimulated by the persecution of the last twenty years—for it is a commonplace that fanaticism breeds fanatics. The milder counsels of Fra Fernando de Talavera and the Count of Tendilla were rejected; and a certain patriotic sanction seemed given to the rigorous proceedings taken against the rioters, when threatening letters were received from the Sultan of Egypt, showing that the Mahometans of Granada had dared to appeal to him for assistance.

Cisneros’s triumphant return to the southern capital was marked by the baptism of from fifty to seventy thousand Moors within the city and its environs. Outward peace reigned; but trouble was brewing in the mountains of the Alpujarras to the south-east, where many of those who were determined not to accept conversion had taken refuge to plan and plot.

The sovereigns, alarmed at this news, dictated a letter of conciliation to their secretary, and sent it to the disaffected area:

“Be it known unto you [they said] that, a report having reached our ears that some declare it is our will that you should be compelled by force to embrace Christianity, and, since it never was, nor is it our will that any Moor should turn Christian under compulsion, we therefore assure and promise you, on our royal word, that we have not consented nor allowed this; and that we wish that the Moors, our vassals, should remain secure and meet with all justice as our vassals and servants.

Given in the City of Seville, in the twenty and sixth day of the month of January.... I the King. I the Queen.”

The matter of the writing was fair enough, but the Moors might be forgiven if they considered the royal word a somewhat dubious safeguard. Ferdinand, despite his pacific protestations, was collecting an army; and the rebels hastened to seize the nearest fortresses and to make raids in the Vega beyond.

The Count of Tendilla, and Gonsalvo de Cordova, who happened at this time to be in Granada, marched against them; and, although the enemy flooded the deep furrows of the ploughland across which the troops must ride until they floundered up to their horses’ girths, yet the Christians succeeded in storming the important stronghold of Guejar. The arrival of Ferdinand and his army led to the reduction of other fortresses, conquests stained by sanguinary deeds of vengeance, as when the Count of Lerin blew up with gunpowder a mosque, in which a number of Moors had taken refuge with their wives and children.

The rebels, realizing at length the futility of resistance, sued for peace; and by the mediation of Gonsalvo de Cordova conditions were arranged, and Ferdinand departed to Seville. He and the Queen were now convinced that Southern Spain would never be quiet or secure so long as its inhabitants remained Mahometans, and were thus more closely allied in sympathy with the tribes of Africa than with Castilians or Aragonese. They therefore sent Franciscan missionaries to Baeza, Guadix, Almeria, and the Alpujarras, arming them with the alternative weapons of concessions or threats; a provision so efficacious that by the close of the year the friars could boast of a wholesale conversion of their flock.

In the meantime the disaffection that had died down or been smothered in the south-east broke out with greater violence in Western Granada, where the Berber race that inhabited Ronda and its mountainous environs suddenly raised the standard of revolt.

Washington Irving, in his legend of _The Death of Don Alonso de Aguilar_, has left a graphic account of the punitive expedition commanded by that famous warrior. He took with him Don Pedro his son; and, as they rode out of Cordova in March, 1504, the people, punning on the family name so closely resembling the Spanish word for eagle, cried aloud: “Behold the eagle teaching her young to fly! Long live the valiant line of Aguilar!”

Many of the rebels, who knew his reputation, came and surrendered at his approach; while the rest, under the leadership of a certain El Feri Ben Estepar, retreated before him into the fastnesses of the Sierra Vermeja. The Christians pursued hot after them, and coming one evening upon a fortified camp, where the enemy had placed their women and children and stored their possessions, the vanguard recklessly rushed to the assault. The fierceness of their attack, backed up by the speedy reinforcement of Don Alonso and the rest of his army, carried the position in the teeth of far superior numbers; whereupon the besiegers, thinking their victory assured, began to plunder. They were soon punished for their lack of caution, since, through a spark falling on a keg of gunpowder, the whole scene was momentarily lit up, and showed the weakness of the scattered troops to the Moors, still hovering on the mountainside above. With a shout of triumph these returned to renew the combat, and descending from peak and ridge, drove their foes before them in hopeless confusion.

Don Alonso and some few hundred knights alone disdained to escape. “Never,” cried the leader, “did the banner of the House of Aguilar retreat one foot in the field of battle.” His young son was seriously wounded, but would have struggled on still had not his father ordered some of his men to carry him to a place of safety, saying: “Let us not put everything to venture upon one hazard.... Live to comfort and honour thy mother.” He himself remained fighting valiantly till wounded and already exhausted, he met in personal combat with El Feri Ben Estepar, and the latter’s dagger ended his life.

Thus fell Alonso de Aguilar, the mirror of Andalusian chivalry; one of the most powerful grandees of Spain, for person, blood, estate, and office. For forty years he had waged successful war upon the Moors; in childhood, by his household and retainers; in manhood, by the prowess of his arm and the wisdom and valour of his spirit; he had been general of armies, viceroy of Andalusia, and the author of glorious enterprises, in which kings were vanquished and mighty _alcaydes_ and warriors laid low.

[Illustration:

TOMB OF FRANCISCO RAMIREZ (“EL ARTILLERO”)

FROM “HISTORIA DE LA VILLA Y CORTE DE MADRID” BY AMADOR DE LOS RIOS ]

The anger and sorrow that swept through Spain at the news of this disaster can be imagined, the more that Don Alonso had found a fitting companion in death in Francisco Ramirez de Madrid, the famous artillery-captain of the Moorish war. As they saw these heroes, lying surrounded by the corpses of unknown Christian knights and soldiers, the very Moors were appalled at the extent of their own victory. What direful vengeance would be exacted for lives so precious? they asked one another; and all felt that only instant submission could save them from extermination.

Ferdinand was never the man to let passion obscure his ultimate object; and, in response to the rebels’ petition for mercy, he agreed to grant an amnesty; but he insisted that they and the rest of their race must choose between baptism and expulsion. In the latter case, he offered to provide ships to convey the exiles to the African coast, on the payment of ten doblas of gold per head,—a sum that, according to Bleda the chronicler, few of them could hope to raise. The majority therefore accepted baptism; and, with the conversion of the “Moriscos,” as these new Christians were called, the Mahometan Faith vanished from the soil of Granada.

One last crowning work was needed to complete the edifice of religious unity; and that was the conversion of the “Mudejares,” descendants of the Moorish villagers and artisans left on Spanish territory by the receding waves of Islam. In February, 1502, their knell was also struck; and a royal proclamation determined the baptism or exile of all males over fourteen years or of females over twelve; so many restrictions as to the wealth and destination of the exiles being imposed that the choice was virtually narrowed to acceptance of the other alternative. Plainly, the sovereigns did not intend to lose any more of their prosperous and hard-working subjects.

The proclamation, evaded and even rescinded in Aragon, held good in Castile; and Isabel, looking round on her dominions, could pride herself on having attained her spiritual ideal. The Catholic Faith, and that alone, was acknowledged in Castile.

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