Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/163

139 EXPULSION OF THE JEWS. 139 of the holy persons in whom she most confided, chapter Isabella, at length, silenced her own scruples, and L_ consented to the fatal measure of proscription. The edict for the expulsion of the Jews was Edict of ex- ^ _ pulsion. signed by the Spanish sovereigns at Granada, March 30th, 1492. The preamble alleges, in vin- dication of the measure, the danger of allowing further intercourse between the Jews and their Christian subjects, in consequence of the incorri- gible obstinacy, with which the former persisted in their attempts to make converts of the latter to their own faith, and to instruct them in their heret- ical rites, in open defiance of every legal prohibi- tion and penalty. When a college or corporation of any kind, — the instrument goes on to state, — is convicted of any great or detestable crime, it is right that it should be disfranchised, the less suffer- ing with the greater, the innocent with the guilty. If this be the case in temporal concerns, it is much more so in those, which affect the eternal welfare of the soul. It finally decrees, that all unbaptized Jews, of whatever sex, age, or condition, should depart from the realm by the end of July next ensuing ; prohibiting them from revisiting it, on any pretext whatever, under penalty of death and con- fiscation of property. It was, moreover, interdict- ed to every subject, to harbour, succour, or minister to the necessities of any Jew, after the expiration of the term limited for his departure. The persons and property of the Jews, in the mean time, were taken under the royal protection. They were al- lowed to dispose of their effects of every kind on