Through the disasters that resulted from the Black Death, the memories of old times had become so obliterated that the Rhenish rabbis found themselves compelled, in consequence of differences of opinion on points of marriage law, to convene a synod, exclusively for the purpose of restoring old regulations. At the meeting at Mayence (15th Ab-5th August, 1381) a few of the rabbis, together with some of the communal leaders, renewed the old decisions of Speyer, Worms and Mayence (Tekanoth Shum); as, for instance, that the childless widow should be released, without extortion or delay, from the obligation of marrying her brother-in-law, and should receive a definite portion of the property left by her husband. Among the rabbis who took part in this synod there is not one name of note. CHAPTER V. THE AGE OF CHASDAÏ CRESCAS AND ISAAC BEN SHESHET. The Jews of Spain after the Civil War--Joseph Pichon and Samuel Abrabanel--The Apostates: John of Valladolid--Menachem ben Zerach, Chasdaï Crescas, and Isaac ben Sheshet--Chayim Gallipapa and his Innovations--Prevôt Aubriot and the Jews of Paris--The French Rabbinate--Revival of Jewish Influence in Spain--The Jews of Portugal--The Jewish Statesmen, David and Judah Negro--Rabbis and Clergy--Persecutions in Germany and Spain--The First Germs of the Inquisition--Second Expulsion of the Jews from France--The Convert, Pessach-Peter--Lipmann of Mühlhausen. 1369-1380 C.E. The heart of the Jewish race had become not less crippled and sickly than its members. In Spain disintegrating forces were at work on the firm nucleus of Judaism, which had so long defied the corroding influences of ecclesiastical and civil animosity. The prince, whom the Jews at the dictates of their loyalty had so sturdily resisted, against whom they had even taken up arms; the bastard, Don Henry de Trastamara; the rebel who had brought civil war upon his native land, and flooded it with a marauding soldiery; the fratricide, who had burst the bonds alike of nature and law, had, after the victory of Montiel, seized the scepter with his blood-stained hands, and placed the stolen crown of Castile on his guilty head. Of the large Jewish population, a considerable proportion had, during the protracted and embittered civil war, met death on the field of battle, in the beleaguered towns, and, armed and unarmed alike, at the swords of the mercenaries of the "white company."