A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 1Lea, Henry Charles
History
A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 1
Lea, Henry Charles
Inquisition -- Spain
A wise policy would have dictated the mingling of the races as much as
possible, so as to encourage unification and facilitate the efforts at
conversion which were never lost to sight. The _converso_ or baptized
Moor or Jew was the special favorite of the legislator. The Moorish law
which disinherited an apostate was set aside and he was assured of his
share in the paternal estate; the popular tendency to stigmatize him as
a _tornadizo_ or _renegat_ was severely repressed. The Church insisted
that a Moorish captive who sincerely sought baptism should be set free.
Dominicans and Franciscans were empowered to enter all places where Jews
and Moors dwelt, to assemble them to listen to sermons, while the royal
officials were directed to compel the attendance of those who would not
come voluntarily.[191] It is easy now to see that this policy, which
resulted in winning over multitudes to the faith, would have been vastly
more fruitful if the races had been compelled to associate together, and
infinite subsequent misery and misfortune would have been averted, but
this was a stretch of tolerant humanity virtually impossible at the
time. The Church, as will be seen, exerted every effort to keep them
apart, on the humiliating pretext that she would lose more souls than
she would gain, and there was, moreover, sufficient mutual distrust to
render separation desired on both sides. At a very early period of the
Reconquest the policy was adopted of assigning a special quarter of a
captured town to the Moors, and thus the habit was established of
providing a Morería in the larger cities, to which the Mudéjares were
confined. The process is well illustrated by what occurred at Murcia,
when, in 1266, it was definitely reconquered for Alfonso X by Jaime I of
Aragon. He gave half the houses to Aragonese and Catalans and restricted
the Moors to the quarter of the Arrijaca. Alfonso confirmed the
arrangement, dislodging the Christians from among the Moors and building
a wall between them. His decree on the subject recites that this was
done at the prayer of the Moors, who were despoiled and ill-treated by
the Christians, and who desired the protection of a wall, to the
construction of which he devoted one-half of the revenues levied for the
repair of the city walls. It was the same with the Jews, who were not to
dwell among the Christians, but to have their Judería set apart for them
near the Orihuela gate.[192] Besides this segregation from the
Christians in the cities there were smaller towns in which the
population was purely Moorish, where Christians were not allowed to
dwell. That this was regarded as a privilege we can readily imagine, and
it is shown by the confirmation, in 1255, by Alfonso X of an agreement
with the Mudéjares of Moron under which they are to sell their
properties to Christians and remove to Silebar, where they are to build
a castle and houses, to be free of all taxes for three years, their law
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