Under Leo’s successors, though the Jews continued to be excluded from public offices, they were allowed full freedom in the exercise of their religion and the pursuit of commerce. Basil, however, in the middle of the ninth century, renewed the endeavours of the Church to convert the infidels, and under his auspices public disputations were held between Christian and Hebrew theologians; the persuasive eloquence of the former being strengthened by promises of political preferment to converts. Many Jews hastened to profit by this opening to power. ♦886♦ But on the Emperor’s death they exhibited an equal alacrity in returning to the old faith. ♦900♦ Whereupon Leo the Philosopher ordered that backsliders should be put to death as traitors to the Church. This severity, however, was relaxed under his unphilosophical successors. Benjamin of Tudela, that invaluable guide to the mediaeval Jewry, who visited Constantinople about the middle of the twelfth century,[37] describes the condition of his co-religionists as follows: “They are forbidden to go out on horseback, except Solomon of Egypt, who is the King’s physician, and through whom the Jews find great alleviation in the persecution. For the persecution in which they live is heavy.... The Christians hate the Jews, be they good or bad, and lay upon them a heavy yoke. They beat them in the streets and hold them in a state of cruel slavery. But the Jews are rich and kind, loving mercy and religion, and they endure patiently the persecution. The quarter in which they live separately is called Pera.”[38] Briefly, the history of Israel in the Eastern Empire is a story of ecclesiastical persecution tempered at times by imperial protection, until the Turkish conquest deprived the Christians of the means of oppression. Somewhat better conditions prevailed in the West.