There is a strange story told of the Jews at the taking of Toledo by the Christians in 1085. They waited on Alfonso and assured him that they were part of the ten tribes whom Nebuchadnezzar transported into Spain, and not the descendants of those Jerusalem Jews who crucified Christ. Their ancestors, they said, were quite free from the guilt of this act, for when Caiaphas had written to the Toledan synagogue for their advice respecting the person who claimed to be the Messiah, the Toledan Jews returned for answer, that in their judgment the prophecies seemed to be fulfilled in Him, and therefore He ought not by any means to be put to death. This reply they produced in the original Hebrew.[1] It is needless to say that the whole thing was a fabrication. Gradually, as the Christians recovered their supremacy in Spain, the tide of prejudice set more and more strongly against the Jews. They were accused of "contempt for the Catholic worship, desecration of its symbols, sacrifice of Christian infants,"[2] and other enormities. Severe laws were passed against them, as in the old Gothic times, and their freedom was grievously curtailed in the matters of dress, residence, and profession. As a distinctive badge they had to wear yellow caps.[3] [1] Southey, "Roder.," i. p. 235, note. [2] Prescott, "Ferd. and Isab.," pp. 134, 135. [3] Al Makk., i. 116. At the end of the fourteenth century the people rose against them, and 15,000 Jews were massacred in different parts of Spain. Many were nominally converted, and 35,000 conversions were put to the credit of a single saint. These new Christians sometimes attained high ecclesiastical dignities, and intermarried with the noble families--the taint of which "mala sangre" came afterwards to be regarded with the greatest horror and aversion. It was against the converted Jews that the Inquisition was first established, and they chiefly suffered under it at first. In 1492, on the final extinction of the Arab dominion in Spain, a very large number of Jews were expelled from Castile,[1] the evil example being afterwards followed in other parts of Spain. The story of the treatment of Jews by Christians is indeed one of the darkest in the history of Christianity. [1] Variously estimated at 160,000 or 800,000. B. SPAIN AND THE PAPAL POWER.