Accounts from Christian Europe
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1391 (Los Palacios) Seville, Iberia: Andres Bernaldez: “The Mosaic heresy had its start in the year of Our Lord 1390, at the beginning of the reign of King Henry III of Castile, when the plundering of the Jewish Quarter occurred as a result of the preaching of Friar Vincent Ferrer… Friar Vincent Ferrer could convert only a few Jews, and the people spitefully put the Jews in Castile to the sword and killed many, this occurred all over Castile in a single day, Tuesday.”(The Spanish Inquisition, Homza, 1-2)
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1484 Tarazona, Iberia: Letter from the king establishing the inquisition in the Kingdom of Aragon: “Inasmuch as the Holy Father has been informed that there are many people in our kingdoms who have forgotten the proper health of their souls and follow Jewish … rituals and other actions deviating from the faith our Holy Father has ordered, with our consent and volition, that an inquisition be carried out in all kingdoms to correct and regulate those who have committed the crime of heretical depravity.” (The Spanish Inquisition, Homza, 10)
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1492 Iberia: Official Decree of Spanish Inquisition: “to depart and never return… all Jews and Jewesses of whatever age they may be who live, reside, and exist in our said kingdoms and lordships, as much as those who are natives as those who are not… along with their sons and daughters, menservants and maidservants, Jewish familiars, those who are great as well as the lesser folk.” (After Expulsion, Ray, 12)
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1492 Iberia: Andres Bernaldez “ and in everything, they had miserable misfortunes. Indeed, the christians took their many estates, rich houses and landed properties for a small amount of money … They exchanged a house for an ass, and a vineyard for a small piece of cloth or linen, because they could not take out either gold or silver.” (The Sephardic Jews of Spain and Portugal, Sloan, 14)
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1495 Italian Jew, Iberia: “The King gave them three months’ time in which to leave. It was announced in public in every city on the first of may… About their number there is no agreement, but after many inquiries, I found that the most generally accepted estimate is 50,000 families, or, as others say, 53,000… Part of the exiled Spaniards went over sea to Turkey. Some of them were thrown into the sea and drowned, but those who arrived there the King of Turkey received kindly, as they were artisans. He lent them money and settled many of them on an island, and gave them fields and estates.” (Marcus, The Jew in the Medieval World, 54)
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1506, Lisbon Geronymo Osorio: “About the same time there happened a great tumult at Lisbon, raised by the fury and madness of the rabble, in this almost all the Jews, who, as we before observed, had been converted to Christianity, were cruelly massacred… The mob too apt of their own accord to be outrageous, by this mean became the more transported with fury. Two other monks, at the same time holding forth a crucifix, loudly excited the people to slaughter, at every other word calling out: “Heresy, heresy! Avenge the heresy, and extinguish the wicked race.” (Marcus, 56-57)