All this sunshine was already overshadowed by the clouds which herald the storm. In the year of the Black Death the charge of well-poisoning stirred up the mob of Barcelona against the Jews, twenty of whom were slain and their houses sacked, a wholesale massacre being averted only by the intervention of the higher classes. A few days later a similar outbreak at Cervera resulted in the murder of eighteen Jews and the flight of the rest. Destruction threatened all the Jewish communities of Northern Spain, and their members, panic-stricken, betook themselves to prayer, fasting, and other precautions of a more practical character against the impending attack, which, however, was prevented by the nobility and by a Papal Bull, in which Clement VI.--who, though no saint, was an accomplished gentleman and a broad-minded prince--exposed the absurdity of the poison charge, and prohibited the Christians from assaulting the Jews on pain of excommunication. During the long civil war in Castile between Don Pedro and his brother Don Henry, the heirs of Alfonso XI., the Jews had the misfortune to back the losing side. They sustained heavy losses in many a battle and siege, and suffered terribly at the hands of friend and foe alike. The great community of Toledo was decimated out of all recognition. Throughout Castile congregations once flourishing were reduced to penury, and many of their members in sheer despair embraced Christianity. The Jews of Burgos, even after Don Pedro’s death, remained stubbornly loyal to his memory, and when all Spain had recognised Don Henry’s rule they alone had the courage to defy him--a constancy which moved the usurper’s admiration, and secured to the besieged terms of submission honourable to both sides alike. Peace was restored, but it brought small comfort to Israel. Don Henry had always pretended that one of the causes of his enmity to his brother was the latter’s partiality for the Jews. The vanquished enemy’s favourites would now have been made to suffer the extreme rigour of Henry’s vengeance but for the financial straits in which the victor found himself. Instead of annihilating, Don Henry preferred to exploit the Jews. But the King’s forbearance roused the indignation of his followers, who felt despoiled of the fruits of their victory. In 1371 the Cortes assembled at Toro rebuked the King for employing the enemies of the faith at Court, and for allowing them to farm the revenues of the Crown. The representatives of the nation insisted that the Jews should be excluded from State offices, confined within special quarters, compelled to wear the badge, and forbidden to display their riches in their apparel or equipages, or to bear Christian names. The King, while dismissing most of these demands, thought it wise to concede the last three, and he also decreed some measures intended to restrain the rapacity of Jewish money-lenders. The clergy also, who had sanctioned Don Henry’s usurpation of the throne, claimed a reward