ourts, unless a Christian
vouched for their character. Some who still held out were even driven
into exile. But this punishment could not have been systematically
carried out, for the Saracen invasion found great numbers of Jews still
in Spain. As Dozy[2] well says of the persecutors--"On le voulut bien,
mais on ne le pouvait pas."

[1] Apud Florez, "Esp. Sagr.," vol. vi. p. 502, quoted by
Southey, Roderic, p. 255, n. "Sisebertus, qui in initio regni
Judaeos ad fidem Christianam permovens, aemulationem quidem
habuit, sed non secundum scientiam: potestate enim compulit,
quos provocare fidei ratione oportuit. Sed, sicut est scriptum,
sive per occasionem sive per veritatem Christus annunciatur, in
hoc gaudeo et gaudebo."

[2] "History of Mussulmans in Spain," vol. ii. p. 26.

Naturally enough, under these circumstances the Jews of Spain turned
their eyes to their co-religionists in Africa; but, the secret
negotiations between them being discovered, the persecution blazed out
afresh, and the Seventeenth Council of Toledo[1] decreed that relapsed
Jews should be sold as slaves; that their children should be forcibly
taken from them; and that they should not be allowed to marry among
themselves.[2]

[1] Canon 8, de damnatione Judaeorum.

[2] For the further history of the Jews in Spain, see Appendix
A.

These odious decrees against the Jews must be attributed to the dominant
influence of the clergy, who requited the help they thus received from
the secular arm by wielding the powers of anathema and excommunication
against the political enemies of the king.[1] Moreover the cordial
relations which subsisted between the Church and the State, animated as
they were by a strong spirit of independence, enabled the Spanish kings
to resist the dangerous encroachments of the Papal power, a subject
which has been more fully treated in an Appendix.[2]

[1] The councils are full of denunciations aimed at the rebels
against the king's authority. By the Fourth Council (633) the
deposed Swintila was excommunicated.

[2] Appendix B.

CHAPTER II.

THE SARACENS IN SPAIN.

The Gothic domination lasted 300 years, and in that comparatively short
period we are asked by some writers to believe that the invaders quite
lost their national characteristics, and became, like the Spaniards,
luxurious and effeminate.[1] Their haughty exclusiveness, and the fact
of their bein