his career of intolerance* against the Jews; and Alexander IV. endeavoured, though without effect, to render them a like protection in Naples.† John XXII. fell in for a while with the spirit of the age, and banished them from the Papal States, at the instigation, it is said, of a sister, who, being however more rapacious than fanatical, received an hundred thousand florins from them, and induced him to revoke

* About 2500 are said to have been put to death before the Pope interfered, because they would not abjure their religion. (Basnage, v. 1810.) Well did King St. Louis deserve the panegyric pronounced upon him from the pulpit in Paris by the famous Boucher, and published by command of the Cardinal Legate, in his sermons upon the simulated conversion of Henri IV. After relating what had been the conduct of King St. Louis to the Count of Thoulouse, he proceeds thus: “Et que direz vous, Messieurs, qui nous alleguez S. Loys, le juge des heretiques, le censeur des heretiques, le correcteur des heretiques, l'ennemy des heretiques, le persecuteur des heretiques, l'execrateur des heretiques, le dompteur des heretiques, la congnée des heretiques, le fleau des heretiques, le maillet des heretiques, le foudre des heretiques, la gresle et tempeste des heretiques, le contrepoison des heretiques, l'humiliateur des heretiques, le rangeur, le chappitreur, le raba-joye et chastieur, bref l'ange exterminateur des heretiques, et de tous fauteurs d'heretiques, de croyans et receleurs d'heretiques: qui alleguez dy-je, en faveur d'un heretique, et heretique des le ventre, et d'un centre plus que heretique, et d'un relaps heretique, et d'un chef des heretiques?"-p. 525.

the unwise edict. They had a friend also in Clement VI.: that Pontiff, fiercely as he pursued the remnant of the Albigenses, interposed in behalf of the Jews, when they were persecuted on the absurd charge of poisoning the waters,* and gave them an asylum in his dominions. Martin V. published so equitable and tolerant a bull in their favour, that it was annulled by his successor,† upon a pretext that the Jews abused the liberty allowed them. Nicolas V. remonstrated against the measures which were pursued in Spain for converting them by force; and Alexander VI. not only gave them an asylum when they fled from that country, but compelled the Roman Jews to assist their brethren with the means of establishing themselves in his states:.. it is the white speck in his character. And when it is added that Innocent XI. in the latter part of the 17th century, interfered with the Venetians in behalf of some oppressed Jews, the account in favour of the Popes will be closed.

The set off, Sir, is a heavy one; and I must remind you that the kindness, such as it was,

* Un. Hist. v. 565. Basnage, 2018.

+ Lenfant, C. de Basle, i. 223.

Ib. 2020. Univ. Hist. 577.

§ Ib. 600.

which in these instances was shown to the Jews, belongs to the Popes as individuals, whereas the evil of which we have now to speak, was inflicted upon them in the spirit and by the authority of the Romish Church. I find Pope Leo condemning the compulsory conversion of this most injured people by King Sisebut, (one of those national crimes by which the Wisi-Goths deserved and brought on the destruction of their kingdom;) but I find him also decreeing that the miserable converts should be made to continue in the profession of a faith which it was impossible that they could believe when such just cause had been given them for hating it. I find I find Pope Gelasius excommunicating † those who appointed a Jew to any office of authority, and pronouncing it to be sacrilege. I find provincial decrees of the most intolerant, dissocializing, and inhuman character, incor

*Dec. P. i. Dist. 45. ff. 48.

† Dec. Par. ii. caus. xvii. q. iv. ff. 268.

I am sorry to find Stephen Langton forbidding them to build Synagogues, and publishing an injunction "that no Christian should presume to have any communication with or sell them any provision, under pain of excommunication! The Bishops of Lincoln and Norwich pursued the same course. But these pious intentions were quickly defeated by the King, who dissolved their injunctions by a precept directed to the Mayor of Canterbury, the Sheriff of Lincoln, the Mayor and

porated in the Decretals as laws of the Romish Church for example, that if a Christian woman should have intermarried with a Jew, she must be separated from him, unless he would renounce his religion and submit to be baptized :* that no one should eat with Jews, lodge with them, use the same bath with them, call them in in sickness, nor take medicine from their hands, on pain of deprivation for a clerk, and excommunication for a layman:† that converted Jews should not be permitted to hold any intercourse with those who continued unconverted; and that their children should be taken from them, and be bred up in monasteries, or in religious families, lest they should imbibe their ancestral faith. There is a question whether this law relates to the children of Jews, or of new converts in either case the inhumanity is the same, and in this place it weighs only as a grain of sand among the mountainous crimes of the Romish Church against this persecuted people.

Provost of Oxford, and the Bailiffs of Norwich, commanding all men to sell them victuals and other necessaries, under pain of imprisonment, any spiritual inhibition notwithstanding."-Tovey's Anglia Judaica, p. 82.

*Dec. P. ii. c. xxviii. q. i. ff. 348. † Dec. P. ii. c. xxviii. q. i. ff. 349. Ib.

They were persecuted by that miscreant Pope John XXIII., who, having broken every command in the Decalogue, and committed every crime in the Newgate Kalendar, seems to have thought that persecution was a species of Romish charity which might serve to cover the multitude of his sins:..he stirred up the Castillians, who required little instigation, against their Jewish countrymen; and practising in this instance as he preached, pursued the system which he recommended in the countries where he was acknowledged. On this occasion sixteen thousand Spanish Jews professed Christianity to save themselves from death, or utter ruin; very many suffered martyrdom at the stake, and very many were massacred* in endeavouring to escape from the curse of persecution which had now established itself in that country like an endemic and perennial plague. It even appears as if the very desire of converting them proceeded less from erroneous zeal, than from a spirit of deadly hatred: for upon the pretext of removing any suspicion that their conversion was simulated for the sake of preserving their property, there was a papal constitution † which required them to give up the whole of it before

*M. Un. Hist. v. 592.

Lenfant, C. de Pise. ii. 47.