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CHAPTER III THE GENERAL CONVERSION IN PORTUGAL THE Jewish exiles who were driven out of Spain in 1492 were scattered to every corner of the Mediterranean world. Large numbers went overseas to Italy and to the Moslem countries, where they could count at least on tolerance. It was thus that the great communities of the old Turkish Empire, which even today still speak the Castilian of their fathers, were formed. But the largest single body unenterprisingly took the obvious course and crossed the frontier into Portugal. Jews had been settled here ever since the birth of the monarchy and generally had been well-treated. The wave of massacres of 1391 had not affected them; and, save for an isolated attack upon the community of Lisbon in 1449, the reaction which had prevailed in the rest of the Peninsula during the fifteenth century had left the country virtually untouched. It offered itself therefore as the natural place of refuge for the less adventurous. Neither the native Jews on the one hand nor the counselors of state on the other were anxious to receive the influx. However, the ruling monarch, João II, was more friendly; though he was plainly actuated by anticipation of profit rather than by a sense of humanity. Thirty important families, headed by Rabbi Isaac Aboab, the last Sage of Castile, were permitted to establish themselves at Oporto. Another six hundred wealthy householders, who could afford to pay a tax of one hundred cruzados apiece, were allowed to 54
