His tolerant treatment of them, however, was subjected to a severe trial. A Franciscan friar, one Corneglio of Montalcino, had become a convert to Judaism, and forthwith was possessed with a spirit of proselytism, which drove him openly to preach the falsehood of Christianity in the very streets of Rome! He was seized, and inquiry made as to the cause of his apostasy. Fortunately for the Jews, this was alleged to be the study of the Talmud, not the personal influence of any Jew. Of the Talmud, accordingly, the penalty was exacted. It was ordered to be publicly burned in Rome and other Italian cities. The Jews, who had lived in terror of a furious popular outbreak or a stern papal decree, were allowed to escape scot free—an act of mercy which is gratefully recorded by one of their Rabbins. But it was different when Paul IV. succeeded to the pontificate, a man of arrogant and impetuous character, who carried intolerance, it might be said, to the highest pitch of which it is capable.[166] He was as stern in his demeanour to the Jews as he was to the Reformers. He renewed all the hostile edicts that had been in force against them in the time of his predecessors. He prohibited them from holding real property, and compelled them to sell what they were possessed of within six months,—of course at a ruinous loss. He debarred them from trading in corn, or any of the necessaries of life, though he allowed them the privilege of dealing in old clothes, with which traffic they have been so generally associated in the popular fancy. He ordered all their synagogues but one to be destroyed. He was the first to shut them up in the Ghetto, where, for centuries afterwards, they were forced to live. He obliged them again to wear a distinctive dress—the men yellow hats, the women yellow hoods—to abstain from work on the Sunday, to keep from all intercourse with Christians, and especially from attending them as physicians, and to pay a tax for the instruction in the Christian faith of any Jews who were inclined to embrace it. His rule, however, only lasted for four years, and Pius IV., who succeeded him in 1559, somewhat, though not very greatly, relaxed the sternness of his predecessor’s policy. He maintained the enforced residence within the Ghetto, but he enlarged and improved it, and forbade the exorbitant rents which the owners of houses had hitherto exacted. He removed several restrictions on their trade, and permitted them to hold real property up to the value of 1500 ducats. He allowed friendly intercourse between them and their Christian fellow-subjects, and, though he would not dispense with the cap, which was one of their distinguishing badges, he changed its colour from yellow to the less remarkable one of black.