After the Christian conquest, their success drew down upon them the envy and hatred of their less flourishing fellow subjects, who resented also that profuse ostentation of apparel and equipage to which the Jewish character has always inclined. Their widespread practice of usury was a still more fruitful cause for detestation. Often large sums were loaned, for which exorbitant rates of interest were charged, owing to the scarcity of specie and the great risk of loss inherent to the business. As much as twenty, thirty-three, and even forty per cent. per annum was exacted and paid. The general animosity was such that a fanatical populace, smarting under a sense of wrong, and urged on by a no less fanatical clergy broke out at times into violence, and fiercely attacked the Jews in the principal cities. The _Juderías_, or Jewish quarters, were sacked, the houses robbed of their valuable contents, precious collections, jewels and furniture were scattered abroad, and the wretched proprietors were massacred wholesale, irrespective of sex and age. According to the historian, Mariana, fifty thousand Jews were sacrificed to the popular fury in one year, 1391, alone. This was the turning point in Spanish history. Fanaticism once aroused, did not die until all Jews were driven out of Spain. It brought into being another class also, the _Conversos_, or "New Christians," _i. e._ Jews who accepted Christian baptism, though generally without any spiritual change. At heart and in habits they remained Jews. The law was invoked, too, to aggravate their condition. Legislative enactments of a cruel and oppressive kind were passed. Jews were forbidden to mix freely with Christians, their residence restricted to certain limited quarters, they were subject to irksome, sumptuary regulations, debarred from all display in dress, forbidden to carry valuable ornaments or wear expensive clothes, and they were held up to public scorn by being compelled to appear in a distinctive, unbecoming garb, the badge or emblem of their social inferiority. They were also interdicted from following certain professions and callings. They might not study or practise medicine, might not be apothecaries, nurses, vintners, grocers or tavern keepers, were forbidden to act as stewards to the nobility or as farmers or collectors of the public revenues, although judging from repeated re-enactments, these laws were evidently not strictly enforced, and often in some districts were not enforced at all.