A History of the Marranos

Page 313

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CHAPTER XII SOME MARRANO WORTHIES IN no branch of history, perhaps, does the record of individuals possess quite such fascination or importance as is the case in connection with the Marranos. No degree of rationalization of their romantic record can diminish this. The underlying phenomenon is not by any means difficult to understand. The forced assimilation to the general population of a large body of Jews at the close of the middle ages allowed the natural talents of the latter to assert themselves and afforded opportunities for instantaneous advancement perhaps unexampled in any other period of history. Freed from the dead weight of the disabilities from which they had previously suffered, the neophytes rose irresistibly to the top, like a cork suddenly released below the surface of the water. The process was discernible from the very beginning. Already in the fifteenth century, the Marranos had begun to push their way forward, whether as poets, statesmen, Churchmen, explorers, or pioneers in any other branch of human endeavor. At a later period, in Portugal, the Jewish leaven was even more universal. Trade and commerce lay very largely in Marrano hands. Their blood permeated a large part even of the nobility. Natural aptitude was responsible for the fact that the most eminent physicians were of Jewish descent. The Marranos were important in literature, in science, in the universities, in the army, even in the Church. 296


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