The life of Maimonides was an eventful period in the history of his race. Then it reached the highest point of intellectual distinction, but among its sages none ranked with the distinguished rabbi. In addition to his vast stores of universal knowledge, he had profited by the practical benefits of travel. He had visited Fez, Montpellier, Cairo, Bagdad, Jerusalem. He was the court physician of Saladin. He refused a similar employment tendered by Richard I., King of England. He was raised to the important office of Chief Rabbi of all the Hebrew communities of Egypt. From the East and West, his countrymen sought his opinion on abstruse questions of religion and philosophical doctrine, and accepted his answers as infallible. His influence was by no means confined to members of his own sect. His works, translated into Latin, were diligently studied by Christian polemics, and furnished arguments to successive generations of schoolmen. Diffused throughout the South of France, their rationalist opinions played no small part in the promotion of the Albigensian heresy.

But while the intellectual supremacy of Maimonides placed him far in advance of his contemporaries, he was by no means the only distinguished scholar of his epoch. Ben-Ezra, equally proficient in the departments of medicine, literature, and astronomy, enjoyed a reputation second only to that of the Greatest of the Hebrews. His inquisitive mind, stimulated by years of assiduous application, sought in the scenes of foreign lands the valuable experience and intimate acquaintance with human life which are not to be obtained by the perusal of books alone. The remarkable abilities of Ben-Ezra were exercised alike in the solution of mathematical problems and in the composition of sacred poems. In his knowledge of astronomy, he surpassed the most accurate observers of an age especially devoted to the cultivation of the grandest and most fascinating of sciences. In his moments of mental relaxation he embodied in verse the rules of the game of chess; and the preface to this poem, in which the reader is warned against the evils of cards and dice, proves conclusively that gaming implements supposed to have been invented hundreds of years afterwards were familiar to the Spanish Jews and Moors in the early part of the thirteenth century.

Not unworthy rivals of Ben-Ezra in the contest for literary precedence were Nachmanides, who at the age of sixteen was the honored associate of the most learned of the Jewish nation, and whose precocious maturity acquired for him in early manhood the title of Abu-Harushma, “The Father of Wisdom;” Joseph Hadain, whose charming verses were the delight of the people of Cordova; Solomon-ben-Gabirol, and Abraham-ben-David-Halevi, distinguished philosophers, in whose writings were illustrated the principles of theological reform and independent criticism demanded by the bold and progressive spirit of the age. Among the Jews of Spain were also many original poets, fabulists, and writers of romance. Such were the most eminent scholars whose attainments reflected honor on the Hebrew name, under the beneficent rule of the Moslem princes of the West, an era coincident with the darkest period of European history. Besides these there were others in every community, some of rabbinical rank, some of humble station, with talents that elsewhere would have raised them far above mediocrity, but who were obscured and overwhelmed in the dazzling glare of literary excellence. The commercial prosperity of the Jews; the universality of education, whose institutions afforded facilities nowhere else attainable in the world; the naturally inquisitive bent of the Hebrew mind, whose acuteness seemed capable of solving questions when all others had failed, and whose versatility was equal to the most varied and arduous undertakings; the superhuman industry which shrank from no task, however difficult; the consideration with which they were treated by sovereign and plebeian alike, gave full scope to the capabilities of a race of men who never previously, even in the days of Judea’s splendor, had been afforded such opportunities for development. The generous emulation provoked by the intellectual efforts of their Saracen rivals was exerted by the Jews in every branch of learning and every department of scientific research. Through the literary productions of these two nations alone was the way of knowledge accessible. A thorough acquaintance with Arabic and Hebrew was indispensable to the ambitious student. Latin, whose corrupted idiom was the language of the Church, was the vehicle of priestly intercourse, and the medium through which were transmitted Papal decrees and ecclesiastical tradition. The ancient classics of Greece and Rome were practically unknown outside the Peninsula; and there is good reason to believe that a majority of the famous prelates of the time were ignorant that they had ever existed. The accurate retranslations of these works into Latin from the Arabic, into which they had been originally transcribed, first revealed their merits to Western Europe, and paved the way to the revival of learning. The impulse imparted by this means to literary curiosity and investigation found its culmination in the epoch which produced Aretino, Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Dante. The Italian Renaissance, the dawn of modern European intelligence and progress, received its inspiration from the civilizing influences and cultivated tastes brought to extraordinary perfection in the great cities of Southern Spain.

The dissolution of the Moslem empire, its subsequent division and gradual conquest, naturally effected great changes in the political relations and ultimate destiny of the Hebrew race. Under the petty kings who administered with various fortune the shattered fragments of the magnificent inheritance bequeathed by the Ommeyade khalifs, the condition of the Jews changed with the caprices and the passions of each new tyrannical potentate. For the most part, however, they received indulgent and often flattering treatment. The Mohammedan sovereigns recognized the value of such subjects; there were many whose political sagacity was not obscured by prejudice, and who still observed the tolerant precepts of Islam. At Granada the Jews had always been popular; there is a tradition that the capital of the kingdom was founded by them. In the fourteenth century, there were fifteen thousand Hebrew families resident in that city. While the rest of the Peninsula was convulsed with revolution and disorder, and their kinsmen were being everywhere persecuted and robbed by Papal inquisitor and Christian king, the Jews of Granada pursued their occupations in peace, under the protection of the Zirite and Alhamar dynasties, until the final success of the Spanish arms involved their nation in irretrievable ruin.

The Jews were the principal medium through which Moorish civilization was permanently impressed upon Europe. Their peculiar characteristics; their vitality amidst the most dreadful misfortunes; the intimate relationship maintained by their communities, where distance and territorial isolation seemed matters of little importance, and their wide distribution were most important factors in the maintenance and dissemination of knowledge. The Jew travelled with safety in lands where a price was set upon his head; outside of Moslem jurisdiction, even among strangers unfamiliar with his story and his creed, the Saracen was an outcast. The requirements of royal and ecclesiastical incompetency contributed to the preservation of that learning which ignorance and fear constantly incited to destroy. As the Peninsula yielded by degrees to the steady encroachments of Christian power, the superior abilities of the Jews proved a potent safeguard against oppression. In spite of the furious protests of fanatics, they exercised the most important public employments. Kings of irreproachable orthodoxy habitually availed themselves of their unrivalled medical attainments. The physicians of Alfonso X., Pedro el Cruel, Henry III., Juan II. of Castile, of Jaime I. of Aragon, of Duarte and Juan I. of Portugal, were all members of the detested sect. Their tact and discernment caused their services to be enlisted in the settlement of perplexing questions of diplomacy. The early times of the Reconquest were far from exhibiting the vindictive and intolerant spirit which marked its termination. The Hebrew colony at Toledo numbered twelve thousand souls. Its academy stood first in rank among similar institutions in Europe. A vast sum was annually paid by this tributary population into the royal treasury of Castile.

The king, the noble, and the scholar treated the Jew with favor, often with the highest consideration. The clergy and the mob were ever his bitterest enemies. His extraordinary influence was daily manifested in defiance of savage laws which public sentiment enacted and applauded, but was unable to enforce. The hated sectary, proscribed by both the ecclesiastical and civil powers, pursued his way, indifferent to the edicts of either the altar or the throne. He dictated the policy of the government. He made treaties with foreign nations. He flaunted his wealth in the faces of the rabble. With strange inconsistency, members of the priesthood sold him Christian serfs, whom their own decrees declared it was illegal for him to own. They pledged with him the consecrated vessels of their calling for money with which to indulge in forbidden pleasures. His opulence was his most serious offence. In the thirteenth century, one-third of the entire real-property of Castile was in the possession or under the control of the Hebrews. At the death of Pedro II. of Aragon, they had acquired possession of all the demesnes of the crown, by the purchase of claims against the state. At one time they owned nearly all the city of Paris. Their pomp and insolence aroused the envy and hatred of the nobles, many of whom were virtually their prisoners for default in the payment of debts. During the reign of Pedro el Cruel, Joseph-ben-Ephraim, the royal tax-gatherer, rode in a magnificent coach, guarded by a retinue of fifty armed attendants. His clerks were the sons of Spanish grandees. It was long a popular saying in Europe that “The Castilians had the pride and the devotion, the Jews the talents and the money.”

The Spanish cavaliers who had experienced the prowess and courtesy of their Moorish adversaries, as a rule, cherished no bitterness against the Jews. Those who, in the course of events, were absorbed with the territory of the growing kingdom, often elicited admiration and respect by reason of their commanding talents and erudition. The political administration of Castile and Leon, under Alfonso VIII., was committed to a Jew; and his physician, who was of the same race and enjoyed the royal confidence, was chosen by the nobles as an intermediary between themselves and their sovereign in a transaction which required the exercise of the greatest ability and discretion. A beautiful Jewess was for many years the mistress of Alfonso IX., over whom her empire, while unbounded, was never abused; until at last the clergy, scandalized rather by the nationality of the favorite than by the gravity of the sin, caused her to be sacrificed to public resentment. It requires but a glance at the writings of the few mediæval reformers to infer how much consistency there was in this simulated indignation. The works of these alone are sufficient to establish the existence of universal sacerdotal depravity among those censors of public morals whose scruples were excited by the influence ascribed to the charms of a lovely infidel. Under Alfonso el Sabio, the Jews received greater consideration than under any other Christian monarch of Spain. The famous Alphonsine Tables, drawn up under the direction of Hebrew astronomers, were the most memorable scientific achievement of the epoch. Their cost, which exceeded the enormous sum of four hundred thousand ducats, is indicative not only of the interest of that prince in undertakings whose importance was neither understood nor appreciated elsewhere, but of the value attached to the services of great scholars, whose knowledge had been imparted by a civilization which their royal patron considered it his political and religious duty to eradicate.

The indulgent policy of Don Pedro el Cruel towards his Hebrew subjects was one of the most remarkable peculiarities of his sanguinary reign. His financiers and his confidential advisers were members of that proscribed race. The treasurer of the monarchy, Samuel Levi, whose position and favor enabled him to amass a princely fortune, is remembered by Jewish tradition as one of the great benefactors of humanity. The extraordinary power he wielded; the splendor of his retinue; the sumptuous appointments of his palace; his patronage of letters; the prodigal generosity he displayed in the relief of the unfortunate and the deserving of every nationality, have exalted, perhaps exaggerated, his merits in the memory of his countrymen. His greatest claim to distinction, however, consists in the erection, at his own expense, of a superb synagogue at Toledo. This edifice, unique of its kind, was built by the most skilful Moorish artificers of Granada, and its decorations suggested the most finished and elegant models of Arab art. Its walls were embellished with miniature horseshoe and stalactitic arches, whose openings were relieved by polygonal ornaments and golden stars. Belts of foliage alternating with appropriate inscriptions composed the frieze; and the ceiling, which was of the incorruptible cedar of Lebanon, resembled, in the maze of its geometrical designs, the artesonados of the Alhambra. In common with the other principal synagogues of Toledo, the earth upon which the pavement was laid was said to have been brought from Mount Sion, a tradition which enhanced their sanctity in the eyes of the worshipper.

Many converted Hebrews, as the reward of their apostasy, were raised to the most exalted civil and episcopal dignities; unusual literary accomplishments in a Spanish prelate during the Middle Ages were almost infallible indications that his information had been derived from infidel sources; and Catholic piety recognized no more ardent defenders of the dogmas of the Church than the converted Jews, Paul, Bishop of Burgos and Grand Chancellor of Castile, and Alfonso de Spina, Rector of the University of Salamanca. The celebrated Bible produced at Alcalá de Henares through the munificence of Cardinal Ximenes, at a cost of fifty thousand pieces of gold, and which required the unremitting labor of fifteen years, was the work of apostate Jews. Three secretaries of Queen Isabella were of the despised nationality. One of them, the famous chronicler Pulgar, had held the same office of trust under King Henry IV.

The intolerance of the Spanish clergy increased in an exact ratio with the decadence of Moslem power. As ecclesiastical supremacy became strong enough to control the policy of the throne, the privileges of the Jews, already greatly curtailed, were almost entirely abolished. As yet, however, the sovereign was unable to dispense either with the taxes they paid, which were the most important part of the royal revenues, or with the financial talents and sterling honesty which insured their proper disbursement. It was not until the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella that fanaticism was allowed to prevail over the wise and prudential considerations of policy which, though frequently interrupted by scenes of horror and carnage, had in practice ignored for centuries the fulminations of ecclesiastical synods and councils. As the rise of Hebrew greatness in the Peninsula dates from, and is attributable to, the Moslem conquest, in like manner its decay progressed with the declining fortunes of the Saracens, and its destruction was coincident with the disappearance of their empire.

Scattered throughout Europe, the Jews alone preserved for future generations the precious heritage of Arab science and culture; and had they not proved capable of retaining and transmitting it, the discoveries of Moorish genius, banished with those who made them, would have been forever lost to posterity. The effects of civilization, whose arts, distributed through the agency of the Hebrews, were productive of such great results, were principally manifested, as might readily be conjectured, in the countries contiguous to or most intimately connected with the Peninsula. The tide of Hebrew emigration and trade rolled steadily into France, Portugal, Italy. The states of Provence and Languedoc, under the Gothic name of Septimania, early overrun by the conquerors of Spain, were, long prior to that time, subject to Hebrew influence. Attracted by the salubrious climate and the excellent commercial facilities of the coast, the Jews settled there in great numbers. The overthrow of the Mohammedan power in that region was not followed by the immediate abolition of the social and educational systems which it had inaugurated, and whose perpetuation was insured by the most favorable climatic and ethnological conditions. At Lyons, the Jews at one time were held in such esteem that the market day was changed from Saturday to Sunday in deference to their religious prejudices. In Provence, practically free from the humiliating distinctions of caste, they enjoyed the same privileges and were entitled to the same protection as other citizens. At Béziers, Carcassonne, Avignon, Montpellier, and Narbonne the Hebrew element predominated. It has already been stated that the famous school of Montpellier owed its origin to the Arabs and the Jews. The Moslem conquest vastly increased the Hebrew population, which had already been numerous in Southern France for more than eight hundred years. The mystery which in times of mediæval darkness enveloped everything derived from Hebrew and Arabic sources, the peculiarities of the written, the incomprehensibility of the spoken, idioms, in which education was imparted, the methodical treatment of disease, so thorough in application, so successful in results, pursued by its graduates, and immeasurably superior in every respect to the mummeries of priestly superstition, invested the University of Montpellier with a reputation which, acquired at the expense of sacerdotal influence, was attributed by the ignorant to the invocation of infernal spirits. The infidel physicians of that institution were shunned by the devout as sorcerers. The Church excommunicated all who had recourse to them. Not only in that city, but through the greater part of Christendom, it was considered far better to permit an invalid to perish than to secure his recovery by the aid of practitioners whose methods were denounced from every pulpit as diabolical and infamous. Christian women often died in childbed rather than summon a Jewish midwife, whose profession was exercised with signal ability, and whose education was little less thorough and profound than that of the doctors of the medical school. Such sacrifices were regarded as peculiarly meritorious, as establishing beyond doubt the consistent piety of the victim. Under existing circumstances, there was no relief for the priest-ridden sufferer, for the practice of medicine was confined to the Jews. The application of relics, even when strengthened by the most edifying exhibition of faith, could hardly prevail against a fatal distemper. On the one hand was the terrifying prospect of impending dissolution; on the other, the assurance of divine displeasure and the certainty of sacerdotal condemnation. In the midst of this general intolerance the Lords of Montpellier stood firm. They were proud of their city,—proud of its wealth, its enterprise, its intelligence, its reputation. They thoroughly appreciated the conditions under which that reputation had been created. Their Jewish subjects were the wealthiest, the most learned, the most law-abiding of citizens. They had more than once discharged with credit important public employments. They had their exchange, their banks, their schools, their cemeteries, even their own wells for purposes of ablution. They worshipped in a magnificent synagogue, which in richness and beauty vied with the most splendid mosques, and from whose ceiling of aromatic woods were suspended hundreds of golden lamps. Not only had their hereditary commercial instincts made Montpellier a great and prosperous emporium, but their ingenuity was exhibited in the establishment of many important branches of manufactures. The cloths exported by them were especially noted for delicacy of finish and texture. In the goldsmiths’ shops was produced elegant jewelry of classic design. Not a few of the sacred vessels used for the celebration of the mass in the cathedrals of Europe were fabricated by the Jewish artisans of Montpellier. Some of the most lucrative departments of industry for which Mohammedan Spain was famous were represented in that city, among them those of silk, leather, and porcelain. The incorporation of the dominions of the Lords of Montpellier into the French monarchy not only subjected the Jews to the disabilities and persecutions elsewhere the heritage of their race, but, as a necessary consequence, proved fatal to the prosperity of that flourishing provincial capital. Royal and episcopal avarice rioted in a new and productive field of legalized extortion. The Jews were robbed and expelled, recalled under promises of immunity, and plundered again and again. The feudal law of mortmain authorized the confiscation of their property if they were converted; if they refused this questionable privilege, official oppression at once reduced them to beggary.

With the increase of Christian influence in Southern Europe their condition grew more and more desperate. At Toledo, a riot having broken out on account of the levy of an obnoxious tax, the public disorder was made an excuse for the spoliation and massacre of the Jews. In many districts in Europe people were prohibited from furnishing them with the necessaries of life. At Aix, a Jew was flayed alive for alleged blasphemy, and a column was erected to commemorate the pious deed. The menacing eloquence of St. Vincent Ferrer is said to have driven fifteen thousand Valencian Hebrews to the Catholic communion. The cry raised against Jewish rapacity by dishonest or insolvent debtors enured to their benefit in the proceeds resulting from pillage, and by the forcible recovery of chattels deposited with brokers as security. Public hatred was not confined to denunciation of their financial methods; their learning and its depositories shared the common obloquy. Hebrew manuscripts were destroyed whenever found. At Salamanca alone, six thousand were consumed in a single bonfire. In Paris, in one day, twenty-four cart-loads of literary treasures were committed to the flames. Monkish intolerance raged everywhere against these dangerous competitors for popular favor and pecuniary gain. This prejudice extended to their language; its study was forbidden under penalty of excommunication; and it was constantly proclaimed from the pulpit that whoever acquired it became from that moment to all intents and purposes a Jew. Gradually excluded from all mechanical trades and liberal professions, the unhappy people were driven to the business of brokerage. To this unpopular calling, whose commercial necessity was as yet unrecognized by European ignorance, Hebrew enterprise was ultimately, for the most part, restricted. The practice of usury, reprobated by those whose improvidence or vices forced them to have recourse to it for temporary relief, had existed in Europe long before the stigma arising from its abuse attached to the Jewish name. The Lombards and Florentines, whose unfeeling rapacity belied their claim to humanity, were those who first rendered it odious; and the Apostolic See repeatedly sold to commercial organizations the privilege of financial oppression. The small amount of cash in circulation authorized the imposition of enormous rates of interest. In Spain, under Christian domination, the rate was limited to thirty-three and a third per cent., and in other countries it was even more exorbitant, but regulated, as such matters always are, by the natural laws of supply and demand. The Italian brokers, who plied their calling in France, not infrequently exacted one hundred and twenty per cent. per annum. The edicts of kings and the anathemas of councils were ineffectually directed against this evil, which threatened the impoverishment of every necessitous person of credit, produced unspeakable suffering, and seriously retarded the progress of national prosperity. Those loudest in their denunciations were generally the first to apply for pecuniary advances to the objects of their simulated wrath. Catholic sovereigns secretly pledged the royal jewels with Hebrew usurers; and it was the public boast of the latter that the sacred vessels of cathedrals and religious houses were the greater part of the time at their absolute or conditional disposal. The glaring inconsistency which characterized every phase of Jewish persecution was thus unusually conspicuous in the condemnation of their usurious practices.

In Portugal, whose proximity to and original incorporation with the Hispano-Arab empire had attracted a large Hebrew immigration, the Jews, as elsewhere, availing themselves of the superior attainments acquired under Moslem institutions, speedily grew rich and powerful. There, also, in an ignorant society debased by the predominance of a narrow and despotic ecclesiastical system, their toleration became for a time a political necessity. Their services were so indispensable to all orders of the state that the disabilities imposed upon them were regarded as merely nominal, and the laws regulating their intercourse with each other and with the Christians remained for the most part inoperative.

In Italy, the hand of the Jew was visible in the energy and enterprise of the maritime states of Venice, Genoa, Leghorn, and Naples. A less intolerable existence was insured to him under the shadow of the Papal throne. The exiles of Western Europe, expelled by the short-sighted policy of irrational fanatics, were coldly welcomed on the banks of the Po and the Tiber and on the sunny shores of the Adriatic. The industry and culture inherited from the golden age of Moslem domination became sources of wealth, mercantile importance, and literary distinction to the Italians, whose reluctant hospitality was eventually repaid a hundred-fold by the profit derived from the labors of these refugees and the results of the emulation excited by their example. It was thus that, after the lapse of five centuries and at a distance of a thousand miles, the civilization of the Moslem empire in Spain produced, through the agency of an alien and exiled race, the glorious revival of arts and letters in Italy. That the Jews should be credited with the dissemination of Arab science and literature is demonstrated by the fact that in whatever country those of Spanish extraction, or their descendants, established themselves, the people of that country quickly experienced an intellectual impulse unknown to others not exposed to similar associations. Modern civilization has ill-requited the priceless benefits it has received from Jewish learning and Jewish skill.

The tenacity of the mind of the Israelite was amazing. It never relaxed its hold upon a valuable idea once within its grasp. Much as it communicated, its secretive character induced it always to suppress far more than it imparted, a habit which increased its mysterious influence. It had the peculiar quality of immediately quickening into life the more sluggish mental natures of all with whom it was brought in contact. No disposition, however harsh or ascetic, was proof against the exertion of its power. The Jewish colonies, transplanted into the midst of an ignorant population, became at once foci of learning. Bigotry itself regarded with awe and respect the intellectual superiority which anticipated and checked hostile measures directed against its continuance, and, without the employment of force, nullified laws especially enacted for its repression. It was not strange that prosperity maintained in the presence of such obstacles should be attributed to diabolical interference. Into his new home the Jew brought not only the energy and acuteness which were the guaranty of his success, but the intelligent curiosity which was the principal factor of his extraordinary mental development. Not a few possessed extensive libraries, luxuries absolutely unknown in many European countries where even writing materials did not exist, or, if they did, were unavailable. The scattered books to be found in churches and monasteries were palimpsests, ancient parchments from which the productions of classic authors had been laboriously effaced to make room for saintly homilies and patristic legends. Perfection in calligraphy had kept pace with the other artistic achievements of the Spanish Hebrews. Their Biblical manuscripts had a world-wide celebrity for accuracy of text and beauty of ornamentation. Many were illuminated with arabesques and floral designs executed in colors and embellished with gold. So highly were these copies of the Scriptures valued that in Spain one of but ordinary merit readily brought a hundred crowns.

The number of Hebrew writers who attained distinction in the Middle Ages was enormous. The great catalogue of Bartholoccius, which enumerates those of Spain, Italy, and France—countries particularly subject, directly and individually, to Arab influence—fills four volumes in folio and contains four thousand names. Among these, authors of Spanish origin largely predominate. The activity of the Hebrew intellect was not hampered by conventional restrictions of sex, nor deterred by the difficulties or demands of any profession or calling. Among that people, precautions arising from Oriental jealousy, which had been observed from time immemorial, required the seclusion of women; and this custom was naturally unfavorable to female education. They were practically the slaves, first of their fathers, then of their husbands. In public they always appeared veiled from head to foot. In so little esteem were they ordinarily held, that it was not considered necessary to instruct them even in the doctrines of religion. Whatever talents, therefore, Jewish females possessed were, until the Saracen domination in Europe, unknown and undeveloped.

The educational facilities afforded the Moorish women under the beneficent sway of the Ommeyade khalifs, and the prominence attained by many of them in the world of letters, did not fail to exercise its influence upon the habits and the career of their Jewish sisters. This fact is of the greatest importance, in view of the strict subordination enforced upon Hebrew women in all periods of their history, a regulation largely due to their naturally dependent condition and their alleged intellectual inferiority. In the cultivated society of Cordova, the stubborn tenacity of long-established prejudice vanished before the enlightened and progressive spirit of the age. Under such circumstances, even the severe authority of the rabbis became, in a measure, relaxed; and while the names of no Jewish women pre-eminently distinguished for learning have come down to us, it is an unquestionable fact that they were allowed to enjoy, to an extent hitherto unprecedented, the literary advantages whose possession was generally admitted to constitute an exclusive privilege of the masculine sex. As the policy and traditions of the Synagogue discouraged such innovations, it is not strange that no record of their results has been preserved. The exhaustive researches of Kayserling have brought to light the name of a single Hebrew poetess, Xemosa, of the era of the khalifate; but all particulars of time and locality, of her literary career, and of the character of her works are missing.

The most remarkable peculiarity of the Hebrew character was its versatility. In every pursuit in which his talents were employed the Jew of Spanish origin rose to unrivalled distinction. The marvellous erudition and diversified accomplishments of their scholars were not inferior to those of the Moorish philosophers of Cordova in the most glorious days of Moslem dominion. They became equally proficient in many branches of abstruse science, any one of which was sufficient to exhaust the mental resources of an ordinary student. Their eminence in the practice of medicine gave rise to the popular belief that an admixture of Jewish blood was absolutely essential to success in that profession, an opinion not confined to the vulgar, but seriously discussed by a learned Italian historian. The fact that the study of astronomy should have been almost always combined with that of medicine is one of the most singular incidents in the annals of literature. It might be explained by a predilection for astrology, if Hebrew intelligence had not long outgrown the belief in that delusion, so prevalent in the infancy of knowledge. In familiarity with the visible heavens, with the motions of the planets, and the relative position of stars, in accuracy of mathematical calculation, in dexterous use of the astrolabe and the armillary sphere, they surpassed all other observers except the Arabs. So popular was this science among them in Spain during the thirteenth century that the Jewish astronomers of Toledo alone exceeded in numbers all the others of Christian Europe combined. The invaluable services they rendered to learning were not inferior to the ingenious methods by which they facilitated international communication and promoted the convenience and security of trade. When suddenly expelled from France by Philip Augustus, they left with Christians in whom they could confide their personal property, which, from its bulk or its value, they were unable to carry with them. After their arrival in Italy, they drew through Lombard merchants upon the custodians of their chattels, either for the goods themselves or for the cash realized from their sale. In this way Europe became indebted to the Jews for the general introduction of bills of exchange, previously invented by their countrymen at Barcelona, which from a benefit to mercantile transactions in the settlement of foreign obligations have now grown to be a commercial necessity.

Popular prejudice against the Hebrew nationality was aggravated, not only because of the eminent ability in matters of literature and finance, implying superiority, which it displayed, but on account of its control of the markets of the world and of its possession of the greater part of the money in circulation west of the Bosphorus. From the tenth century, when the Moorish ports of Southern Spain had become the emporiums of the Mediterranean, to the sixteenth, when the discovery of Columbus and the passage of the Cape of Good Hope had opened a new field to the cupidity and ambition of Europe, the trade of three great continents was subservient to the enterprise of the Jews. The commercial heritage bequeathed to their allies by the Phœnicians had endured through changes of empire, through the wrecks of successive dynasties, through persecutions of incredible atrocity, for more than twenty centuries.

The persistency which is a marked ethnological peculiarity of the Jews is at once the cause and the effect of their claim to Divine favor. The more intelligent of that people have never expected the appearance of a personal Messiah. They regard the popular myth of his coming as symbolizing the termination of national exile,—a mere allegorical allusion to the eventual independence and tranquillity which hope, deepening through ages into belief, assured them would one day be the condition of their race. This conviction, founded rather in the knowledge of its justice than in any well-defined prospect of its realization, sustained them through a long series of grievous trials and misfortunes. Accused of crimes such as the utmost ingenuity of malice has never imputed to any other sect, they retaliated by acts of self-sacrifice and generosity. In the midst of the futile solemnities of the Church, the pomp of processions, the intonation of litanies, the muttering of prayers, the smoking of censers, the exhibition of relics, they administered the remedies of scientific medicine to the suffering stricken with the pestilence. During the first visitation of the plague at Venice, in addition to a liberal donation, they lent the government a hundred thousand ducats for the relief of the poor. In time of national peril, their loyalty never faltered, except when their spirit had been exasperated by continued oppression. The funds they advanced were employed to drive the Arabs out of Spain. Moorish domination, established through their instrumentality, was thus indebted to their contributions for its overthrow. The most exacting requirements of retributive justice were certainly satisfied with the penalty exacted by fate for this perfidious act of ingratitude.

Modern prejudice, like mediæval ignorance, is reluctant to confess the obligations learning owes to Hebrew genius and industry. The Jews were, in turn, the teachers, the pupils, and the coadjutors of the Moors; the legatees and the distributors of the precious stores of Arab wisdom. The rabbis, few of whom, it may be remarked, were not expert workmen in the mechanical trades, a knowledge of which was enjoined by their religion, spread the love of letters everywhere. All treatises in Arabic, of practical or scientific value, were translated into Hebrew. Their familiarity with every branch of classical literature is apparent in their writings; even the Fables of Æsop were reproduced in their language. Purity of diction and elegance of style were striking characteristics of all the literary productions of the Spanish Jews. The most eminent Christian prelates of Spain during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were apostate rabbis. The proficiency of their medical practitioners has already been repeatedly alluded to. For years after the banishment of the Jews from the Peninsula, entire districts remained without the benefits of medical treatment. Such as were able resorted to foreign countries at great expense and inconvenience; the vast majority of invalids suffered without relief. The reputation of the Hebrew was so great, even in the sixteenth century, that Francis I. sent to the Emperor Charles V. for a Jewish physician; and one who had been converted to Christianity having undertaken the journey to Paris, the French king refused to receive him as soon as he learned that he was an apostate. Hebrew erudition exercised no small influence on both Moorish and Spanish literature. Many of the treatises of the Jewish philosophers, written in Arabic, enjoyed a wide circulation in the cultivated society of the khalifate and of the principalities which succeeded it. The first biography of the Cid was written by Ibn-Alfange, a Jew. The collection of tales entitled El Conde Lucanor, by Don Juan Manuel, is borrowed from a composition of similar character by Moses Sephardi, a Hebrew fabulist.

In the works of all the distinguished Jewish writers who had either directly or remotely been subjected to the influence of the Moslem academies of Spain, Aristotelian and Neo-Platonic opinions prevail. Orthodox Judaism could not survive in the atmosphere of those infidel institutions. The rabbis were, without exception, to a greater or less degree, infected with pantheistic ideas. They were firm believers in the heretical doctrine of Emanation and Absorption. In common with their Arabic associates, who had long since repudiated the legends of the Koran, they accepted in all its portentous significance the aphorism, “Science is religion.”

Nothing is more remarkable in the history of the Jews of the Middle Ages than their survival under persecution. The most awful calamities failed to impair their organization or destroy their faith. They were naturally a rebellious people. Their ancient history is a tale of breaches of faith, treason, and sedition. They were enslaved in a body by Egiza, King of the Visigoths, for a conspiracy which aimed at the overthrow of the monarchy. The Crusaders, inflamed by the harangues of the clergy, on their march to Palestine butchered them wherever found. In France alone a hundred thousand were massacred by the truculent soldiers of the Cross. The Almohade fanatics drove them out of Spain. Philippe le Bel confiscated their property and expelled them from his kingdom. Henry III., of England, sold all the Jews in his dominions to his brother Richard for a large sum of money. The Emperor Louis IV. pawned the Hebrew colony of the city of Spires, like so much merchandise, to the Bishop as security for a debt. In Aragon, at the close of the fifteenth century, fifty thousand were put to death and double that number compelled to renounce their religion. The popes alternately treated them with severity and indulgence, as the financial condition of the Holy See was prosperous or necessitous. Thus, while grievously oppressed in other countries of Europe, they often enjoyed temporary immunity in Italy. Possessed of no civil rights, existing only by sufferance, they were the prey of every one clothed for the moment with power. Church and State, alike, regarded them as a most valuable source of income. The money annually extorted from the Jewish population of a kingdom was frequently far in excess of all other revenues combined.

The Hebrew works of mediæval antiquity contain the germs of scientific discoveries which modern pride is pleased to designate as of comparatively recent origin. In the Zohar, a collection of treatises belonging to the Kabbala, are embodied highly philosophic cosmological ideas, and rational conceptions relating to the vital principle of Nature, and the scientific treatment of disease, which were subsequently applied to public instruction and practical use in the famous schools of Salerno and Montpellier. The various physiognomical changes wrought upon the lineaments of the human countenance by the cultivation of benevolent instincts or the indulgence of evil passions are there described with a faithfulness which points to an extraordinary insight into the incentives and desires which control the actions of men. In this remarkable compilation of Hebrew learning, the doctrine of Pantheism, as suggested by the time-honored philosophy of India, is set forth; the globular form of the earth, its diurnal revolution on its axis, the varying phases of that planet, the difference in the length of day and night at the equator and the poles, and the scientific reasons for the existence of these phenomena, are all described with an accuracy which is wonderful when the general ignorance of the epoch during which these opinions, so far in advance of the time, were promulgated, is remembered. In the thirteenth century, Jedediah-ben-Abraham, of Béziers, advanced the hypothesis that all objects impelled in opposite directions, and undisturbed by other forces, move in straight lines,—the essential element of one of the laws now universally recognized as governing the motions of the heavenly bodies. Solomon-ben-Virga, a Spanish refugee, in his historical treatise, Sebeth-Jehuda, published in the sixteenth century, states that the earth, equally attracted by the surrounding stars, remains suspended in the midst of space; an unmistakable conception of the principle of gravity which antedates its republication in Europe by more than a hundred years. The philosophical truths just enumerated, which anticipate the important discoveries of Boerhaave, Lavater, Galileo, Kepler, and Newton, afford a suggestive idea of the attainments of the rabbis, the accuracy of their reasoning, and the extent and profundity of their scientific knowledge.

While Jewish exiles were instrumental in awakening the spirit which inspired the Renaissance, and the consequent intellectual regeneration of Europe, their literature produced no inconsiderable effect upon the fortunes of that other momentous revolution which changed its religious aspect, the Protestant Reformation. The right of unrestricted perusal and private interpretation of the Scriptures, which was the vital principle of that movement, had always been enjoyed by the Hebrews. Their commentaries on the Bible were surprisingly voluminous: whole libraries were composed of them. The writings of the rabbis which elucidated obscure passages of Holy Writ were composed in a spirit of judicious toleration, entirely foreign to the policy dictated by bigoted ecclesiasticism and Papal authority. To exercise private judgment in religious matters was to invite the discipline of the Inquisition. Not one priest in ten thousand understood a word of Hebrew. Its study was prohibited to Catholics as conducive to heresy. On the other hand, Luther, Calvin, Melanchthon, Zwinglius, Conrad, in short, all the great Reformers, were thoroughly proficient in that language. Rabbinical literature exerted a powerful influence on their minds, inspired their efforts, provoked their rivalry, confirmed their resolution. In this respect, as in numerous others, posterity owes much to the despised Israelites of the mediæval era. A vast interval of time divides the ages of Abd-al-Rahman I. and Luther; the cities of Cordova and Worms are separated by many hundred leagues; but the inherent ideas of personal liberty and private right recognized on the banks of the Guadalquivir ultimately prevailed in the centre of Germany, once the most unlettered of countries. Thus the inheritance of barbarism, rendered possible by Roman decadence, transmitted by Goth, Hun, and Vandal, and perpetuated for the material interests of the Church, was supplanted by the labors and the example of rabbinical industry and learning. The epoch of ignorance, during which men feared to be enlightened by a people whose transcendent knowledge was believed to be of infernal origin, was past; but their disabilities were never entirely removed, and Jew-baiting is, unfortunately, still a popular diversion in some of the countries of Europe.

The importance of the invention of printing was at once understood and appreciated by the Jews. Ten years after it became known, their presses in Italy produced typographical works of extraordinary beauty and excellence. Their prominence in every movement directed towards the weakening of superstition and the emancipation of the human intellect did not prevent them from sustaining intimate and confidential relations with the Holy See. The Papacy was, as a rule, not unfavorably inclined towards them; it borrowed their money, and availed itself of their talents in the conduct of public affairs. Many Jews of Rome attained to great political distinction. Jehid was the financial minister of Alexander III.; and the son of a wealthy Hebrew merchant, named Pietro il Buono, is known to posterity as the anti-pope Anacletus. Such were the Hebrews of the Middle Ages, whose success in literature, art, science, commerce, politics, and diplomacy is to be attributed to the impulse originally imparted to their genius, and to the privileges enjoyed by their ancestors, under the generous and tolerant policy of the Khalifs of Cordova.

The expulsion of the Spanish Jews is one of the saddest and most deplorable tragedies in history. The royal edict which decided their fate, and whose execution had been deferred until the Moorish wars were ended, was published March 31, 1492. The charge brought against them of having menaced the security of the State and the tranquillity of the Church, by projected conspiracy, is too absurd to be seriously considered. To strengthen these unfounded accusations, the threadbare fables relating to the sacrifice of Christian infants at Easter, and the repeated solicitation of Catholics to apostasy, were once more utilized to inflame the passions of the fanatical multitude. Three months only were allowed for the disposal of their property and the completion of their preparations for departure; and, if that term were exceeded, the proclamation made them liable to the seizure of their chattels, and even to the penalty of death. They were prohibited from removing from the kingdom money or vessels of gold or silver; and the only objects specified in the royal ordinance which they were permitted to retain were bills of exchange and portable effects which could easily be transported. The Grand Inquisitor, Torquemada, revered in the annals of the Church as one of her most famous champions, and the confessor of Queen Isabella, to whose credit stand the tortures of a hundred thousand heretics and the grief and misery of other unnumbered multitudes, was the inspiring spirit of this atrocious crime against humanity. His influence neutralized the supplications of an entire people; the remonstrances of the few statesmen who, withstanding the popular clamor, foresaw the certain decline of commercial prosperity incident to the enforcement of this measure; the insidious and hitherto omnipotent agency of vast sums of gold. Accounts differ materially as to the number of Jews expelled from Spain; it was, however, not less than four hundred thousand, and was probably near a million. Their sufferings equalled, if they did not surpass, those of the Moriscoes, afterwards condemned by a similar proscription. The air was filled with their lamentations. Many remained for days in the cemeteries, weeping over the graves of their ancestors. The majority who travelled by land went on foot. With the exiles departed the greater portion of the learning, the skill, the wealth, the industry, and the prosperity of Spain. Their estates were confiscated by the crown. Rigid personal search was made of every individual for concealed valuables, which impelled many to swallow their gold. Brigands stripped them on the highway. Sailors robbed them on the sea. Their wives were ravished, their children despatched before their eyes. Many perished from want of food. A pestilence decimated an entire company, and the survivors were abandoned to die on a desert island, without water or shelter. Great numbers were sold by their barbarous custodians to slave traders. The inadvertent disclosure of wealth was fatal to its possessor; he was at once thrown overboard, and his property became the spoil of the murderer. Those who landed in Morocco were not permitted to enter the cities, and a famine which at that time was desolating the country made it impossible for such an increased population to obtain subsistence. Encamped in the arid desert, they were compelled to have recourse to unwholesome roots and herbs in a desperate effort to sustain life. Thousands died of exposure. Many sold their children to avoid starvation. A large proportion of these refugees landed in Italy, where an enlightened public sentiment stood ready to profit by the wealth and industry that the narrow spirit of Spanish bigotry was so determined to throw away. Pope Alexander VI., the head of the house of Borgia, notwithstanding that the prominent Israelites of Rome offered him a thousand pieces of gold to exclude them, received the heretics proscribed by the most Catholic sovereigns with the utmost consideration and sympathy. The maritime states of the Adriatic compelled their Hebrew citizens, who, fearing commercial rivalry, were inclined to regard this influx of strangers with disfavor, to render substantial assistance to their unfortunate brethren. In Holland, also, the exiles were welcomed with a hospitality that in after years the advantages derived from their establishment abundantly repaid. The antipathy entertained by the Spanish populace towards the Jews, diligently fostered by the infamous arts of the Inquisition, was far from being dissipated by the banishment and extermination of the victims of its malevolence; in default of the living, its vengeance was wreaked upon the dead. Nearly a century after the expulsion, when an avowed Israelite could not be found in the Spanish monarchy, the Hebrew cemetery at Seville was invaded by a mob; the costly monuments were battered into fragments; the graves opened and rifled, and the mouldering bones found in them burned to ashes. A considerable booty in gold and silver trinkets, jewels, precious stuffs, and illuminated manuscripts rewarded this act of sacrilege, whose authors were neither molested nor punished by the authorities.

Among the most eminent victims of Jewish persecution was the great statesman and scholar, Abarbanel. No name in letters stood higher than his. In turn, the favorite and absolute minister of the sovereigns of Portugal, Spain, and Naples, he shared the fate of his countrymen, and, deprived of his offices and home in each of these kingdoms, was three times driven into exile. Such was the respect which his talents inspired, that the princes who had been foremost in persecuting him were glad to avail themselves of his experience in settlements of important questions of diplomacy. His literary ability was so great that his admirers have classed him with Maimonides. In philosophy he was most liberal; in religion a polemic; in politics, strange to say, a republican. In private or in public life no stain or dishonor ever attached to his name.

The scenes witnessed during the expulsion of the Jews from Portugal were even more shocking in their barbarity than those that characterized their expatriation from any other country of Christian Europe. Only two months were allowed them to settle their affairs; if any remained beyond that time they were condemned to slavery. All males under the age of fourteen were to be separated from their relatives, that they might be brought into the pale of the Church, which aimed at the annihilation of their race. The latter part of the inexorable sentence was the first to be executed. The screaming boys were torn from the arms of their parents, who were brutally clubbed until they released their hold; many distracted mothers, unable to sustain the loss of their children, committed suicide or killed their offspring; of the latter some were cast into wells, others were strangled. Every obstacle was thrown in the way of the departure of the Jews until the limited time had expired, and then nearly the entire number was enslaved. Apostasy was now the only remedy for their distressed condition, and this many embraced. Their social status was thereby immensely improved at the expense of their conscience. They contracted distinguished alliances with their recent oppressors, and their children were adopted into the families of the nobility.

The Spanish Jews, by reason of the peculiarities of their situation, the hostility of their rulers,—which their pecuniary resources and natural acuteness often baffled, yet never entirely overcame,—and their successive domination by races of different origin, faith, and language, were impressed with mental characteristics and peculiarities not to be met with in their brethren of other countries. Their rigid formalism was proverbial, and the Hebrew of Toledo observed more conscientiously the precepts of the Pentateuch and the Talmud than the Hebrew of Damascus or Jerusalem. But their traditional reserve did not prevent them from soliciting proselytes; and it is stated that the rabbis, ignoring the prohibitory injunctions of the national Code, upon one occasion challenged the bishops to a debate, in presence of the throne, upon the merits of their respective systems; an act of audacity which does not seem to have excited even the surprise of the prelates of that age. The Spanish grandee prides himself upon his Gothic ancestry, the sangre azul, whose presence is presumed to indicate conclusively that in the ascending line can be found no progenitor of the despised Semitic race. The falsity of this presumption was, however, established by the councils convoked by royal authority at Burgos, Valladolid, and Madrid during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, to settle the question of purity of blood. According to the statutes adopted by these Informaciones de Nobleza, as they were called, descent from a Jewish ancestor was solemnly declared to be no blemish upon a noble escutcheon, a decision which affected not a few of the oldest and haughtiest families of Castile and Aragon.

There are to-day few of the great houses of Portugal and Spain which have not an admixture of Hebrew blood. Works have been published by ecclesiastics tracing this contaminated lineage to its source, which all the authority of a despotic government was not able to suppress. It is said that the Portuguese King Joseph I. once ordered every male of Jewish descent in his dominions to wear a yellow hat. The Marquis of Pombal appeared with three; and on being asked by the King for what use he intended them, he answered, “In obedience to the royal decree, I have brought one for Your Majesty, one for the Grand Inquisitor, and one for myself.” This anecdote, whose authenticity is well established, shows the extent to which the blood of a once proscribed and persecuted people, despite all attempts at its annihilation, had been infused into the veins of the proudest and most exclusive aristocracy in Europe.