Switzerland, whither they came at a com paratively late period. commenced to persecute them about the middle of the thirteenth century. They were expelled from Bern (1288), Ziirich I 436 , Geneva f 1490 ) , Basel ( 1576 ) and Schaffhausen in the fifteenth century.
In Spain, as we have seen. the condition of the Jews was long favorable. During the whole of the brilliant period of Arab and :Nloorish rule in the Peninsula, they were almost on terms of equality with their Mohammedan masters. ri valed them in letters. and probably surpassed them in wealth. Nor was this state of things confined to those portions of Spain tinder the sovereignty of the Moors; the Christian monarchs of the north and interior gradually came to ap preciate the value of their services, and we find them for a time protected and encouraged by the rulers of Aragon and Castile. But the ex travadaaee and consequent poverty of the nobles, as well as the inereasiug power of the priesthood. ultimately brought about a disastrous change. Gradually the Jew.:: were deprived of the privi lege of living where they pleased; their rights were diminished, and their taxes augmented. In Seville, Cordova, Toledo, Valencia, Catalonia, and the island of Majorca outbursts of priestly and popular violence took place (1391-92) ; im mense were murdered, and wholesale theft was perpetrated by the religious rabble. Escape was possible only through flight to Africa. or by accepting baptism at the point of the sword. Many thousands became enforced con verts to Christianity, though many of these, known as .thg'vsrnos, secretly continued to profess the rites of the Jewish religion. In 1480 the Inquisition was introduced. Hundreds of Jews were burned at the stake. Sometimes the popes, and even the nobles, shuddered at the fiendish slat of the inquisitors, and tried to mitigate it but in vain. At. length the hour of final horror came. In 1492 Ferdinand and Isabella issued an «liet for the expulsion. within four months. of all who refused to become Christians, with the strict inhibition to take neither gold nor silver mit of the country.. The Jews offered an enormous sum for the re•oeation of the edict. and for a moment the sovereigns hesitated, till Torque mada. the Dominiesin inquisitor general, dUred to
compare his royal master and mistress to Judas. To the number of 300,000 (some even give the numbers at 650,000 or 800,000) they resolved to abandon the which a residence of seven centuries had made almost a second .Judea to them. Almost every land was shut against them. Some ventured into France; others into Italy, Turkey, and Morocco. in the last of which coun tries they suffered the most frightful privations. Of the 80,000 who obtained au entrance into Portugal on payment of eight gold pennies it head. but only for eight months to enable them to obtain means of departure to other countries, many lingered after the expiration of the ap pointed time, and the poorer were sold as slaves. In 1496 King Emmanuel commanded them to quit his territories, but he at. the same time issued a secret order that all Jewish children muter four teen years of age should he torn from their mothers, retained in Portugal, and brought up as Christians. Agony drove the .Jewish mothers into madness; they destroyed their children with their own hands, and threw them into wells and rivers, to prevent them from falling into the hands of their persecutors. The miseries of those who embraced Christianity, but who for the most par( secretly adhered to their old faith, were hardly less dreadful, and it was far on in the seventeenth century before persecution ceased. Suspected converts were burned as late as 1766 in Portugal, and 1821 in Smith America.
The wanderers appear to have met with better treatment in Italy and Turkey than elsewhere. During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries they are to be found—except at intervals of perseci• tion—in almost every city in Italy. chiefly en gaged in moneydending. Abrabanel, perhaps the most eminent Jewish scholar and divine of his day, rose to he confidential adviser to the King of Naples. In Turkey they were held in higher ikst illation than the conquered Greeks; the latWr were termed teshir (slaves), but the .Jews, amt saphir (visitors) ; they were allowed to reopen their school:. to establish synagogues, and to settle in all the commercial towns of the Levant.