Don Amador de los Rios reproduces an ancient record for the year 1290, stating the amount of tribute payable by the various Jewish communities of Castile. Out of a total of 2,801,345 maravedis the Israelites of the city of Toledo contributed 216,500, and those in the entire archdiocese 1,062,902 maravedis. The pomp of Catholic public worship and the wealth of the clergy are partially accounted for by these figures. Up till then, always the most valuable (from a European point of view) and the most prosperous element of the population of Toledo, the Jews assumed yet greater prominence in the reign of Pedro I. That prince was declared by his numerous enemies to be the substituted child of a Jewess, and his Court was reviled as a Jewish Court. He showed favour to the race in many ways. His treasurer and confidential adviser was the famous Don Samuel Ha Levi. Whether or not the Jewish statesman’s administration was in the interests of Castile, it is too late in the day to say; but there can be no doubt that he was a loyal servant of his king and a devoted friend of his own people. He it was who caused to be erected Toledo’s other great synagogue, now called the Transito. He was a warm ally of the beautiful Maria de Padilla, Pedro’s gentle mistress, and for years, with consummate astuteness, defended himself against the insidious and violent attacks of his innumerable enemies. His enormous wealth--honestly or dishonestly acquired--brought about his downfall. In the very year (1360) the synagogue was completed, Samuel was seized at Seville, and, by order of the king, placed upon the rack. The haughty Hebrew is said to have died of sheer indignation. Pedro shed crocodile tears over his ill-starred Minister’s fate, and greedily confiscated his property. His fortune was found to consist of 70,000 doubloons, 4000 silver marks, twenty chests filled with treasure, and eighty Moorish slaves. The property of all Levi’s relatives was also forfeited to the Crown, and was valued at 300,000 doubloons. Pedro did not, however, withdraw his favour from the Jews as a race. It had been well for them if he had. Their loyalty to the Bluebeard King earned for them the detestation of the partisans of Enrique de Trastamara, and brought about, as we have seen, the massacre of 1355, in which 1200 Jews perished. The new king, Enrique, took advantage of a riot said to have been excited by the arrogance of the converted Jews in 1367, and in which 1600 houses were burnt to the ground, to impose a tribute of no less than twenty thousand gold doubloons on the afflicted people.