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CHAPTER I THE BEGINNINGS OF MARRANISM THE beginnings of the Reconquest, or Reconquista, in Spain had involved obvious danger for the Jews. The rude Christian warriors could not easily distinguish between one sort of unbeliever and another; and the Jews, dressed in the same fashion as the Moslems, speaking their language, and belonging in essence to the same culture, inevitably shared their fate. When any place was captured, the synagogue, like the mosque, was piously burned, and the Jewish population put to the sword. From the tenth century, however, a different spirit began to show itself. The initial religious fanaticism commenced to wane. It was realized that the Jews constituted an important minority, whose support should be conciliated if the Christian position in the Peninsula were to be maintained. Moreover, it was clear that the Jews could be of great utility to the Court, whether as physicians, as financiers, as interpreters, or as diplomats. Accordingly, notwithstanding occasional legislative manifestations of religious bias, the favorable policy of the Moslem states with regard to the Jews was adopted in its entirety. With the reign of Alfonso X of Castile (1065–1109), and the capture of Toledo, in 1085, the Christian states became dominant in the Peninsula. Jewish life and Jewish scholarship continued to flourish under the Cross as they had done under the Crescent. 11
