Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/385

THE INQUISITION. 241 race of Israel, which doubtless must be reckoned chapter the greatest miracle of all. ^^ ' The legislative enactments of this period, and still more under John the Second, during the first half of the fifteenth century, were uncommonly severe upon the Jews. While they were prohibit- ed from mingling freely with the Christians, and from exercising the professions for which they were best qualified, ^^ their residence was restrict- ed within certain prescribed limits of the cities which they inhabited ; and they were not only debarred from their usual luxury of ornament in dress, but were held up to public scorn, as it were, by some peculiar badge or emblem embroidered on their garments. '^ 16 According- to Mariana, the restoration of sight to the blind, feet to the lame, even life to the dead, were miracles of ordinary occurrence with St. Vincent. (Hist, de Espaua, tom. ii. pp. 229, 230.) The age of miracles had probably ceased by Isabella's time, or the Inquisition might have been spar- ed. Nic. Antonio in his notice of the life and labors of this Domini- can, (Bibliotheca Vetus, tom. ii. pp. 205, 207,) states that he preached his inspired sermons in his vernacular Valencian dialect to audiences of French, English, and Italians, indiscriminately, who all understood him perfectly well ; a circumstance," says Dr. Mc- Crie, in his valuable " History of the Progress and Suppression of the Reformation in Spain," (Edinburgh, 1829,) " which, if it prove any thing, proves that the hearers of St. Vincent possessed more miraculous powers than him- self, and that they should have VOL. I. 31 been canonized, rather than the preacher." p. 87, note. 1 They were interdicted from the callings of vintners, grocers, taverners, especially of apotheca- ries, and of physicians, and nur- ses. Ordenangas Reales, lib. 8, tit. 3, leyes II, 15, 18. 18 No law was more frequent- ly reiterated than that prohibiting the Jews from acting as stew- ards of the nobility, or farmers and collectors of the public rents. The repetition of this law shows to what extent that people had engrossed what little was known . of financial science in that day. For the multiplied enactments in Castile against them, see Ordenan- qas Reales, (lib. 8, tit. 3.) For the regulations respecting the Jews in Aragon, many of them oppres- sive, particularly at the commence- ment of the fifteenth century, see Fueros y Observancias del Reyno de Aragon, (Zaragoza, 1667,) tom. i. fol. 6. — Marca Hispanica, pp.