The Purpose of the Inquisition and the Unconverted Jews
The Inquisition's purpose was to frighten all Christians, old and new, and force them at least to observe the outward forms of religion, in the hope that heresy would die in the bud and the second or third generation of baptized Jews would give up the faith of their ancestors. There was no intention of letting baptized Jews leave Spain; when they decided to emigrate, Ferdinand and the Inquisition stopped them. But what of the unbaptized Jews?
About 235,000 of them (the book's figure) remained in Christian Spain. If they were allowed to practice and preach their religion, how could national unity be achieved? Torquemada thought it impossible and advised that all be either baptized by force or driven out of Spain. Ferdinand hesitated. He knew the economic value of Jewish talent in commerce and finance. But he had been told that the Jews reproached the converts and wished to bring them back to Judaism, even if secretly.
Accusations
His personal physician, Ribas Altas, a baptized Jew, was accused of wearing a golden ball on a chain around his neck that held an image of himself insulting the crucified Christ. The charge was incredible, yet the poor physician was burned (1488). Forged letters were produced in which a Jewish leader at Constantinople advised the chief of Spain's Jews to steal from Christians and poison them as far as they could. A convert was arrested on the charge that a consecrated wafer had been found in his pack; he was tortured until he signed a confession claiming that six converts and six Jews had killed a Christian child to use its heart in a magic rite that would bring death to all Christians and the destruction of Christianity. The confessions of the tortured men contradicted one another, and no missing child was found anywhere. Even so four Jews were put to death, two of them after savage mutilation.
These and similar charges may have influenced Ferdinand; in any case, they prepared public opinion for the expulsion of the unbaptized Jews. When Granada surrendered (November 1491, as the book dates it), and the fruits of the Moors' industry and commerce passed to Christian Spain, the share of the unconverted Jews in the nation's economic progress seemed small. Meanwhile popular fanaticism, whipped up by the burnings and the friars' sermons, had risen to such a pitch that peace and security were impossible unless the government either protected the Jews or drove them out of Spain.
The Edict of March 1492
On March 30, 1492, one of the most eventful years in Spanish history, Ferdinand and Isabella issued the decree of expulsion (the book's date). All unbaptized Jews, young and old, rich and poor, had to leave Spain by July 31 and never return; the penalty for returning was death. In this short time the Jews had to dispose of their property at whatever price it would fetch. They could take only movable goods and bills of exchange, not currency, whether gold or silver.
Abraham Seneor and Isaac Abravanel offered Ferdinand and Isabella a large sum to withdraw the decree, but the sovereigns refused. The crown charged the Jews with nothing but trying to seduce and bring the converts back to their former faith. A supplementary decree provided that all taxes owed on property and transactions up to the end of the year be collected. Debts owed to them by Christians or Moors were payable only on their due dates, and the exiles could collect through an agent, if they could find one, or sell the notes at a discount to Christians willing to buy.
In this forced haste the Jews' property fell into Christian hands for trifles. A house was sold for a mule, and a vineyard for a piece of cloth. Some Jews, in despair, burned their houses (perhaps to collect insurance) and others turned them over to the towns. Synagogues were taken by Christians and, with slight alterations, made into churches. Jewish cemeteries were turned into pastures. Within a few months most of the great wealth Spanish Jews had amassed over centuries was wasted. About fifty thousand Jews accepted Christianity and were allowed to stay (the book's figure).
The Road of Exile
More than a hundred thousand left Spain on a long and sorrowful journey (the book's estimate). Before leaving, all sons and daughters over twelve were married to one another. The young helped the old and the rich took the hands of the poor. Their long journey was made on horseback and mule, in carts, or on foot. At stopping places, kindly Christians, lay and clerical, urged them to accept baptism. But the rabbis refused and assured their followers that God, opening a path through the sea, would lead them to the Promised Land as he had led their fathers.
The emigrants who gathered at Cádiz looked at the sea with immense hope that the water would part and let them walk across to Africa without wetting their robes. When reality destroyed that sweet dream, they paid exorbitant sums for passage by ship. A storm scattered their twenty-five ships and drove fifteen back to the Spanish coast, and many of the disappointed passengers there accepted baptism, finding the dizziness and dread of the sea worse. Fifty Jews whose ship was wrecked near Seville were captured, held for two years, and then sold into slavery. Thousands more crossed from Gibraltar, Málaga, Valencia or Barcelona and found that in all of Christendom only Italy received them with kindness.
Portugal's Welcome and Betrayal
The most natural destination for the emigrants was Portugal. Many Jews already lived there, some of whom had risen to financial and political posts under friendly Portuguese kings. But John II was alarmed by the number of Jews who came from Spain, about eighty thousand (the book's figure). He gave them eight months to stay on condition that they then leave Portugal. Plague broke out among them and spread to the Christians, who demanded immediate expulsion. John eased their departure by providing cheap ships, but those who entrusted themselves to them were abused and robbed; many were set down on desolate shores to starve or fall into slavery among the Moors.
One ship carrying two hundred and fifty Jews, because plague still raged among its passengers, was refused anchorage in every port and wandered the seas for four months. Pirates from the Bay of Biscay seized another ship, plundered the passengers and then took the ship to Málaga, where Christian priests and magistrates offered the Jews a choice between accepting Christianity and starving. After fifty died, local authorities gave them food and water and ordered them to sail to Africa. When the eight months ended, John II sold into slavery those Jewish emigrants who still remained in Portugal. Children under five were separated from their parents and sent to the island of São Tomé to be raised as Christians. Since no plea could stop the officials from carrying out the order, some mothers chose death for themselves and their children rather than endure the separation.
John's successor Manuel gave the Jews a breath of relief: he freed those whom John had enslaved and forbade preachers to stir up the people against them; he ordered the courts to refuse cases claiming Jews had murdered Christian children, since such cases were only tales of malice. But Manuel fell in love with Isabella, daughter and heir of Ferdinand and Isabella, and dreamed of uniting the two kingdoms under one roof. Ferdinand and Isabella agreed to the marriage on condition that Manuel drive all unbaptized Jews, native and immigrant, out of Portugal.
Manuel, who liked to add honor to honor, agreed, and ordered that all Jews and Moors in his realm either become Christians or leave Portugal (1496). Seeing that few accepted baptism, and not wishing to break the fabric of trade and industry that Jewish talent had woven, he ordered all Jewish children under fifteen taken from their parents and baptized by force. Catholic clergy objected, to no effect, and the order was carried out. One bishop wrote that he had seen children dragged to the baptismal font by force. Some Jews, in protest, took their own lives and their children's. Manuel was angered, postponed their departure, and then ordered all to be forcibly baptized, men and women alike dragged to the churches.
The Portuguese converts sent a petition to Pope Alexander VI asking his intercession. We do not know his answer, but it was probably favorable to the Jews, since Manuel afterward (May 1497) gave all those forcibly baptized twenty years in which they could not be tried for following the Jewish religion. But the Portuguese regarded Jewish economic competition, baptized or not, with disgust. When a Jew in Lisbon doubted a miracle that Christians claimed had occurred in a church, the crowd tore him apart (1506); for three days the massacre of Jews went on, and two thousand were killed (the book's figure). High Catholic clergy condemned the riot as shameful and sentenced two Dominican friars who had incited the mob to death. Apart from this episode there was almost a generation of relative peace.
The Moors of Spain
The long exodus of the Jews ended, but the expected religious unity was not achieved: the Moors remained. Although Granada had been conquered, its Muslim inhabitants' freedom of worship had been guaranteed. The archbishop appointed to govern Granada, Hernando de Talavera, observed this guarantee carefully and hoped to bring the people to Christianity by kindness and justice. Ximenes opposed such a policy, urged the queen that keeping faith with infidels was not necessary, and persuaded her to issue a decree forcing the Moors to accept Christianity or leave Spain (1499).
Ximenes himself went to Granada, overrode Talavera, closed the mosques, burned all the Arabic books and writings he could find, and supervised the forced baptism of non-Christians. As soon as the Moors were out of the priests' sight, they wiped the holy water from their children's faces. Revolts broke out in the city and province and were crushed. By a decree of February 12, 1502, all Muslims in Castile and León were given until April 30 to choose between Christianity and exile. The Moors protested that their ancestors, when they ruled most of Spain, had granted religious freedom to all Christians under their rule without exception. These protests had no effect on Ferdinand and Isabella.
Boys under fourteen and girls under twelve could not leave Spain with their parents, and feudal lords were allowed to keep their Moorish slaves provided they were chained. Thousands of Moors left Spain, and the rest, more philosophical than the Jews, accepted baptism and, as Moriscos, took the place of the baptized Jews in suffering the Inquisition's penalties for relapse. During the sixteenth century three million outwardly Christianized Muslims left Spain (the book's figure, which is far above modern estimates).
Judgments and Costs
Cardinal Richelieu called the decree of 1502 "the most barbarous decree in history," but Friar Bleda called it "the most outstanding event in Spain since the apostles," adding that "religious unity has now been secured, and the dawn of a blessed and happy age is near." By driving out Jewish and Muslim merchants, craftsmen, scholars, physicians and learned men, Spain lost an incalculable treasure; and the nations that received them gained greatly, economically and intellectually. The Spanish people, who from then on knew only one religion, submitted wholly to the clergy and lost the right to think outside the framework of religious tradition. For good or ill, Spain remained in medieval conditions, while Europe, through economic, intellectual and religious revolutions and the invention of printing, hurried toward modernity.