Note 215 — Chapter XI · TOLEDO.

The capture of Granada, on Jan. 2nd, 1492, and the expulsion of the Jews at the end of July in the same year, were jointly recorded over the door “del Escribanos” at the west end of the cathedral; and at the same time so great was the zeal for the Christian faith that nothing else was tolerated anywhere in Spain, and least of all here under the eye of the Primate. Yet it is more than doubtful whether the country gained in any way—moral or material—by such a measure; it lost its most skilled workmen, its most skilled agriculturists; and the gloom-inspiring effect of the necessary Inquisition, seems permanently to have fixed itself on Spanish art and manners. 170,000 families of Jews, at the time of their expulsion, were compelled to leave the kingdom in four months, or be baptized.—Don J. A. de los Rios, Estudios s. l. Judios, p. 156.