To this era also belongs the renowned Solomon Gabriol, poet and philosopher, author of ‘The Fountain of Life.’ He was born at Malaga, 1021, and died A.D. 1070. FOOTNOTES: [100] It was this Alphonso who wrote the singular letter to Yusef, king of the Almoravides, inviting him to fight a pitched battle on the ensuing Monday, ‘because,’ he said, ‘Friday would not suit the Mahometans in his army, or Saturday the Jews, or Sunday the Christians.’ [101] There appears, indeed, to have been at that time an amount of toleration which may well surprise us. One Mossey, a Jew of Wallingford, was wont, we are told, openly to ridicule the miracles of St. Frideswide. He would crook his fingers as if they were paralysed, and presently straighten them, or limp like a cripple, and then suddenly leap or dance, crying out ‘A miracle!’ This was a calm on the edge of a storm such as has rarely been seen!—‘Rise, Fall, and Future Restoration of Jews,’ ch. iii. [102] It is plainly intimated by Bernard of Clairvaulx that there were Christians (he probably meant Lombard merchants) who exacted more excessive usury than the Jews themselves. CHAPTER XV. A.D. 1100-1200. THE CRUSADES.—JEWS IN FRANCE, SPAIN, GERMANY, AND HUNGARY. ‘Death to the infidel. It is the will of God!’ Such was the cry that rang through Europe—‘Death to the Moslem, whose unhallowed shrine overshadows the holy place, in which the Saviour Himself has worshipped, whose blasphemies awake the same echoes which His Divine preaching once called forth!’ Yes. But were these the only shrines where false worship was offered? were they in Jerusalem the only ones who blasphemed the Lord? If the slaughter of the unbelieving Turk was acceptable to the Most High, why not that of the unbelieving Jew? It was strange that this peril should not have been dreaded by the Jews dwelling in the lands which the mania called forth by Peter the Hermit overspread. But it does not seem to have done so; they made no attempt to escape from the approaching danger. They even continued the ordinary course of their business, making the same enormous gains out of the Crusaders’ necessities, which they had done out of every other political movement for generations past. The great baron, who had vowed to lead his hundreds, or it might be his thousands, of armed followers to the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre, mortgaged his lands, or his jewels, or perhaps sold them outright, to the Jews, on such terms as we can hardly believe that the one could have asked or the other agreed to. Poorer men parted with their all on the like terms. But that there were some shrewd men left among the Christians, who were not carried away by the tide of popular excitement, the whole wealth of the community would have passed into the hands of the Jews. It is needless to add that the bitter feelings towards this isolated race—who were for ever battening on the wants and sufferings