But in less than a century after the death of Alfonso X. the tide of fortune had turned. Their riches increased overmuch in a disturbed and impoverished commonwealth, and public indignation began to be displayed, rather at their un-Christian opulence than at their Jewish faith. Inquisition was made rather into their strongboxes than into their theology; and it was their debtors and their rivals, rather than any religious purists, who, toward the end of the fourteenth century, and more especially in Aragon, stirred up those popular risings against their race that led to the massacres and the wholesale conversions of 1391. The first attack that was made upon the persons and property of the Jews was in 1388, and it was no doubt provoked by the preaching of the fanatic archdeacon Hernando Martinez at Seville. But it was in nowise religious in its character, and was aimed chiefly at the acquisition and destruction of the property of the rich and prosperous Hebrews. The outbreaks which took place almost simultaneously in all parts of Spain were disapproved both by kings and councils. Special judges were sent to the disturbed cities, and a considerable amount of real protection was extended to the plundered people. No one said a word about conversion; or at least the conversion was that of ancient Pistol, the conversion of the property of the Jews into the possession of the Christians. When the Jewish quarter of Barcelona was sacked by the populace, and an immense number of Hebrews were despoiled and massacred throughout the country, John of Aragon, indolent though he was, used his utmost endeavors to check the slaughter. He punished the aggressors, and he even caused a restitution of goods to be made to such of the victims as survived. The preaching of St. Vincent Ferrer, during the early part of the fifteenth century, was addressed largely to the Jews in Spain, but little or no religious persecution seems to have been directed against them in consequence of his harangues. On the contrary, we read of friendly conferences or public disputations between Jewish and Christian doctors in Aragon, where the Inquisition was, at least, nominally established. Such conferences could hardly be expected to convince or convert the advocates of either faith, but they tell at least of an amount of toleration on the part of the Christian authorities of the day that was certainly not to be found in Spain at the close of the century; and there is no doubt that they were followed by a very large number of conversions of the more malleable members of the Hebrew community. But it is a far cry from St. Vincent Ferrer to the uncanonized Tomas de Torquemada.