THE JEWS OF SPAIN AND PORTUGAL AND THE INQUISITION BY FREDERIC DAVID MOCATTA LONDON LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 1877 All rights reserved PREFACE. THE following little sketch was originally composed as a lecture to some Jewish working-men at the East end of London. The subject is, to me, naturally an interesting one no less from a national than from a family point of view; I hope the Essay may also prove of some general interest. The position of the Jews in Spain and Portugal during a great part of the middle ages forms an exceptionally bright spot in their dark and chequered history, and developed some striking intellectual and moral features in an age when a great part of what now constitutes Civilisation was wrapped in mental darkness. The favoured position of the Jews in the Peninsula induced a vast Hebrew population to settle there; and although it became evident, after a time, that their prosperity, attracting, as it did, the jealousy of the bulk of people, would lead to their ultimate ruin, |