Note 119 — Chapter XIX · A.D. 1200-1300—continued. THE JEWS IN SPAIN.

He was pressed at the trial at Osuna to put the accused Jews to the torture, in order to extract evidence which would satisfactorily prove whether they had done the deed or not. Alphonso refused. He said that he had, two years before, allowed two Jews to be racked in order to discover whether they had stolen two golden goblets. Under the torture they confessed the theft, and were executed for it. Shortly afterwards the goblets were found in the possession of a servant. ‘Therefore,’ said the king, ‘I will have no more examinations by torture. It is evident that the confessions extracted by them are worth nothing.’ No conclusion could be more sound. But before another judge it would have been urged and believed that the Jews, or their ally Satan, had hidden the goblets in a servant’s chest, in order that a Christian might be unrighteously charged with the crime of a Jew.