It happened, however, that Barroso died shortly thereafter, before the trial could take place; and Martinez contrived to get himself elected by the Chapter to the position of one of the provisors of the diocese pending the appointment of a successor to Barroso. Thus he resumed his power and the faculty to preach; and he used it so ruthlessly that in December of 1390 several synagogues in Seville were laid in ruins by the mob acting in obedience to his incitement. The Jews appealed to the King for protection, and the authorities, now thoroughly roused, ordered that Martinez be deposed from his office and forbidden to preach, and that the demolished synagogues be rebuilt by the Chapter which had made itself responsible by electing him. But Martinez, ever defiant, disregarded both King and Chapter. He pursued his bloodthirsty mission, stirring up a populace that was but too ready to perceive--through his arguments--a way to perform an act that must be pleasing to God whilst enriching itself at the same time. What populace could have been proof against such reasoning? Finally, in the summer of 1391, the whole country was ablaze with fanatical persecution. The fierce flames broke out first in Seville, under the assiduous fanning of the deposed archdeacon. Three years before, in view of the harm that it was urged the Jews were doing to religion by their free intermingling with Christians, King John I had ordered them to live apart in districts appointed for them, which came to be known as Juderias (Jewries or ghettos). It was commanded that the Christians should not enter these, and that for purposes of trade the Jews should come to the public markets and there erect tents, but they must own no house or domicile beyond the precincts of the Juderias, and they must withdraw to these at nightfall. Into the Juderia of Seville the mob now penetrated, wrought by Martinez to a pitch of frenzy almost equal to his own. They went armed, and they put the place to sack and slaughter, butchering its every tenant without discrimination or pity for age or sex. The number of the slain has been estimated at some four thousand, men, women, and children.[45] From Seville the conflagration spread to the other cities of Spain, and what had happened there happened in Burgos, Valencia, Toledo, and Cordova, and further in Aragon, Cataluna, and Navarre, whilst the streets of Barcelona are said to have run with the blood of immolated Jews. Into the Jewry of every town went the infuriated mob to force Christ--as these Christians understood Him--upon the inhabitants; to offer the terror-stricken Jews the choice between steel and water--death and baptism. So mighty and violent was the outbreak that the authorities were powerless to quell it, and where they attempted to do so with any degree of determination they were themselves caught in the fury of the populace. Nor did the slaughter cease until the Christians were glutted, and some fifty thousand Jews had perished.