Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/382

238 THE INQUISITION. PART golden age of modern Jewish literature, which, '. — under the Spanish caliphs, experienced a protection so benign, although occasionally chequered by the caprices of despotism, that it was enabled to attain higher beauty and a more perfect developement in the tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centu ries, than it has reached in any other part of Chris tendom." Under the Xhc aucicut Castilians of the same period, very Castiliaiis. ■^ ' •' different from their Gothic ancestors, seem to have conceded to the Israelites somewhat of the feelings of respect, which were extorted from them by the superior civilization of the Spanish Arabs. We find eminent Jews residing in the courts of the Christian princes, directing their studies, attending them as physicians, or more frequently administer- ing their finances. For this last vocation they seem to have had a natural aptitude ; and, indeed, the correspondence which they maintained with the different countries of Europe by means of their own countrymen, who acted as the brokers of al- most every p'eople among whom they were scattered during the middle ages, afforded them peculiar fa- cilities both in politics and commerce. We meet •with a freedom and vivacity, which fore did for the Arabic literature may be thought to savour more of of Spain, by givinjj notices of such the modern troubadour, than of the works as have survived the ravages ancient Hebrew minstrel. Castro of time and superstition. The first has collected, under Siglo XV., volume of his Biblioteca Espafiola a few gleanings of such, as by contains an analysis accompanied their incorporation into a Christian with extracts from more than seven Cancionero, escaped the fury of hundred different works, with bio- the Inquisition. liibliotcca Espa- graphical sketches of their authors; ilola, toni. i. pp. 205-3(54. tiic whole bearing most honorable •I Castro lias done for the He- testimony to the talent and various brew, what Casiri a few years be- erudition of the Spanish Jews.