History of the Inquisition of Spain. Henry Charles Lea

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СКАЧАТЬ of the mass begin, and all who endeavor to prevent it are to be excommunicated. The habit of nocturnal devotional vigils in churches is also said, probably with truth, to be the source of much evil, and all who bring Moors and Jews to take part with their voices and instruments are to be expelled. To preserve the faithful from pollution by Moorish and Jewish superstitions, they are commanded no more to frequent the weddings and funerals of the infidels. The absurd and irrational abuse whereby Jews and Moors are placed in office over Christians is to be extirpated, and all prelates shall punish it with excommunication. As the malice of Moors and Jews leads them craftily to put Christians to death, under pretext of curing them by medicine and surgery and, as the canons forbid Christians from employing them as physicians, and as these canons are not observed in consequence of the negligence of the prelates, the latter are ordered to enforce them strictly with the free use of excommunication.[219]

      INFLUENCE OF THE CHURCH

      These last two clauses point to matters which had long been special grievances of the faithful and which demand a moment’s attention. The superior administrative abilities of the Jews caused them to be constantly sought for executive positions, to the scandal of all good Christians. We have seen that under the Goths it was an abuse calling for constant animadversion. It was one of the leading complaints of Innocent III against Raymond VI of Toulouse, which he expiated so cruelly in the Albigensian crusades, and one of the decrees of the Lateran council was directed against its continuance.[220] In Spain the sovereigns could not do without them, and we shall have occasion to see that it became one of the main causes of popular dislike of the unfortunate race, for the Christian found it hard to bear with equanimity the domination of the Jew, especially in his ordinary character of almojarife, or tax-collector. As early as 1118, Alfonso VIII, in the fuero granted to Toledo, promised that no Jew or recent convert should be placed over the Christians; Alfonso X made the same concession in the fuero of Alicante, in 1252, except that he reserved the office of almojarife, and in the Partidas he endeavored to make the rule general.[221] The same necessity made itself felt with regard to the function of the physician, for which, during the dark ages, the learning of Jew and Saracen rendered them almost exclusively fitted. Zedechias, the Jewish physician of the Emperor Charles the Bald, was renowned, and tradition handed down his name as that of a skilful magician.[222] Prince and prelate alike sought comfort in their curative ministrations, and, as the Church looked askance on the practice of medicine and surgery by ecclesiastics, unless it were through prayer and exorcism, they had the field almost to themselves. This had always been regarded with disfavor by the Church. As early as 706 the council of Constantinople had ordered the faithful not to take medicine from a Jew, and this command had been incorporated in the canon law.[223] Another rule, adopted from the Lateran council of 1216, was that the first duty of a physician was to care for the soul of the patient rather than for his body, and to see that he was provided with a confessor—a duty which the infidel could scarce be expected to recognize.[224] It is therefore easy to understand why the general abhorrence of the Church for Moor and Jew should be sharpened with peculiar acerbity in regard to their functions as physicians; why the council of Valladolid should endeavor to alarm the people with the assertion that they utilized the position to slay the faithful, and the council of Salamanca, in 1335, should renew the sentence of excommunication on all who should employ them in sickness.[225] Nominally the Church carried its point, and in the prescriptive laws of 1412 there was embodied a provision imposing a fine of three hundred maravedís on any Moor or Jew who should visit a Christian in sickness or administer medicine to him,[226] but the prohibition was impossible of enforcement. About 1462, the Franciscan, Alonso de Espina, bitterly complains that there is not a noble or a prelate but keeps a Jewish devil as a physician, although the zeal of the Jews in studying medicine is simply to obtain an opportunity of exercising their malignity upon Christians; for one whom they cure they slay fifty, and when they are gathered together they boast as to which has caused the most deaths, for their law commands them to spoil and slay the faithful.[227] It was but a few years after this that Abiatar Aben Crescas, chief physician of Juan II of Aragon, the father of Ferdinand, vindicated Jewish science by successfully relieving his royal patient of a double cataract and restoring his sight. On September 11, 1469, pronouncing the aspect of the stars to be favorable, he operated on the right eye; the king, delighted with his recovered vision, ordered him to proceed with the left, but Abiatar refused, alleging that the stars had become unfavorable, and it was not until October 12 that he consented to complete the cure.[228] The friars themselves believed as little as royalty in the stories which they invented to frighten the people and create abhorrence of Jewish physicians. In spite of the fact that Ferdinand and Isabella, in the Ordenanzas of 1480, repeated the prohibition of their attending Christians, the Dominicans, in 1489, obtained from Innocent IV permission to employ them, notwithstanding all ecclesiastical censures, the reason alleged being that in Spain there were few others.[229]

      REPRESSIVE LEGISLATION

      The prescriptive spirit which dominated the councils of Zamora and Valladolid was not allowed to die out. That of Tarragona, in 1329, expressed its horror at the friendly companionship with which Christians were in the habit of attending the marriages, funerals and circumcisions of Jews and Moors and even of entering into the bonds of compaternity with the parents at the latter ceremony, all of which it strictly forbade for the future.[230] A few years later, in 1337, Arnaldo, Archbishop of Tarragona, addressed to Benedict XII a letter which is a significant expression of the objects and methods of the Church. In spite, he says, of the vow taken by Jaime I when about to conquer Valencia, that he would not permit any Moors to remain there, the Christians, led by blind cupidity, allow them to occupy the land, believing that thus they derive larger revenues—which is an error, as the Abbot of Poblet has recently demonstrated by expelling the Mudéjares from the possessions of the abbey. There are said to be forty or fifty thousand Moorish fighting men in Valencia, which is a source of the greatest danger, especially now when the Emperor of Morocco is preparing to aid the King of Granada. Besides, many enormous crimes are committed by Christians, in consequence of their damnable familiarity and intercourse with the Moors, who blaspheme the name of Christ and exalt that of Mahomet. “I have heard,” he pursues, “the late Bishop of Valencia declare, in a public sermon, that in that province the mosques are more numerous than the churches and that half, or more than half, the people are ignorant of the Lord’s prayer and speak only Moorish. I therefore pray your clemency to provide an appropriate remedy, which would seem impossible unless the Moors are wholly expelled and unless the King of Aragon lends his aid and favor. The nobles would be more readily brought to assent to this if they were allowed to seize and sell the persons and property of the Mudéjares as public enemies and infidels, and the money thus obtained would be of no small service in defending the kingdom.” The Christian prelate, not content with directly asking the pope to adopt this inhuman proposition, sent a copy of his letter to Jean de Comminges, Cardinal of Porto, and begged him to urge the matter with Benedict, and in a second letter to the cardinal he explained that it would be necessary for the pope to order the king to expel the Moors; that he would willingly obey as to the crown lands, but that a papal command was indispensable as to the lands of others. It was only, he added, the avarice of the Christians which kept the Moors there.[231] We shall see how, two hundred and seventy years later, an Archbishop of Valencia aided in bringing about the final catastrophe, by a still greater display of saintly zeal, backed by precisely the same arguments.

      This constant pressure on the part of their spiritual guides began to make an impression on the ruling classes, and repressive legislation becomes frequent in the Córtes. In those of Soria, in 1380, the obnoxious prayer against Christians was ordered to be removed from Jewish prayer-books and its recitation was forbidden under heavy penalties, while the rabbis were deprived of jurisdiction in criminal cases between their people. In those of Valladolid, in 1385, Christians were forbidden to live among Jews, Jews were prohibited to serve as tax-collectors, their judges were inhibited to act in civil cases between them and Christians and numerous regulations were adopted to restrain their oppression of debtors.[232] In 1387, at the Córtes of Briviesca, Juan I enacted that no Christian should keep in his house a Jew or Moor, except as a slave, nor converse with one beyond what the law allowed, under the heavy penalty of 6000 maravedís, and no Jew or Moor should keep Christians in his house under pain of confiscation of all property and СКАЧАТЬ