Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/383

THE INQUISITION. 239 with Jewish scholars and statesmen attached to the chapter >5 courts of Alfonso the Tenth, Alfonso the Eleventh, Peter the Cruel, Henry the Second, and other princes. Their astronomical science recommended them in a special manner to Alfonso the Wise, who employed them in the construction of his celebrated Tables. James the First of Aragon condescended to receive instruction from them in ethics ; and, in the fifteenth century, we notice John the Second, of Castile, employing a Jewish secretary in the compilation of a national Cancionero. ^^ But all this royal patronage proved incompetent ^fftf^ "g™ to protect the Jews, when their flourishing fortunes had risen to a sufficient height to excite popular envy, augmented, as it w^as, by that profuse osten- tation of equipage and apparel, for which this singular people, notwithstanding their avarice, have usually shown a predilection. ■'^ Stories were cir- culated of their contempt for the Catholic worship, their desecration of its most holy symbols, and of their crucifixion, or other sacrifice, of Christian 12 Basnage, History of the Jews, his portraits of Rebecca and Isaac book 7, chap. 5, 15, 16. — Castro, in Ivanhoe, in which he seems to Biblioteca Espaiiola, torn. i. pp. have contrasted the lights and 116, 265, 267. — Mariana, Hist, shadows of the Jewish character, de Espaiia, torn. i. p. 906 ; — torn. The humiliating state of the Jews, ii. pp. 63, 147, 459. — Samuel however, exhibited in this ro- Levi, treasurer of Peter the Cru- mance, affords no analogy to their el, who was sacrificed to the cu- social condition in Spain ; as is pidity of his master, is reported evinced not merely by their wealth, by Mariana to have left behind which was also conspicuous in the him the incredible sum of 400,000 English Jews, but by the high ducats to swell the royal coffers, degree of civilization, and even Tom. ii. p. 82. political consequence, which, not- 13 Sir Walter Scott, with his withstanding the occasional ebul- usual discernment, has availed litions of popular prejudice, they himself of these opposite traits in were permitted to reach there.