s way to Rome,[2] he apostatised to Judaism,[3] and opened a
negotiation with the Jews in France to sell his companions as slaves,
stipulating only to keep his own grandson. The next year he let his hair
and beard grow, and went to Spain, where he married a Jewess, compelling
his grandson at the same time to apostatise. In 845 or 847 his attitude
became so hostile to the Christians in Spain, that the latter wrote to
Charles, praying him to demand Eleazar as his subject, which however
does not seem to have been done. There seems good reason to believe that
Eleazar stirred up the Moslems against the Christians, and the deaths of
Prefectus and John may have been due to him.[4] After this we hear no
more of Eleazar; but the position of the Jews with regard to the Arabs
seems to have been for long after this of a most privileged character.
Consequently the Jews in Spain had such an opportunity to develop their
natural gifts as they have never had since the capture of Jerusalem by
Nebuchadnezzar; and they shewed themselves no whit behind the Arabs, if
indeed they did not outstrip them, in keeping alive the flame of
learning in the dark ages.[5] In science generally, and especially in
the art of medicine they had few rivals, and in learning and
civilisation they were, no less than the Arabs, far ahead of the
Christians.[6]

[1] "Ann. Bertin.," 839.

[2] Orationis gratia, "Ann. Bert," 1.1.

[3] Florez, xi. p. 20 ff.

[4] The "Ann. Bert." say that he induced Abdurrahman II. to
give his Christian subjects the choice between Islam, Judaism,
or death. See Rohrbacher, xii. 4.

[5] Prescott, "Ferd. and Isab." p. 153.

[6] _Ibid._, p. 134.

The good understanding between the Jews and the Arabs with the gradual
process of time gave place to an ill-concealed hostility, and at the
beginning of the twelfth century there seems even to have been a project
formed for forcing the Jews to become Moslems on the ground of a promise
made by their forefathers to Mohammed that, if in five centuries their
Messiah had not appeared, they would be converted to Mohammedanism.[1]
Perhaps this was only a pretext on the part of the Moslems for extorting
money; at all events the Jews only succeeded in evading the alternative
by paying a large sum of money. Even in the early years of the conquest
they were subject to the rapacity of their rulers, for when, on the
rumour of the Messiah having appeared in Syria, many of