132 EARLY MEDIEVAL SPAINprohibited, the performance of Jewish marriage ceremonies was for-
bidden, as was the rite of circumcision, and the Jews were commanded
to abandon their dietary laws. As well as these proscriptions of many
of the essential practices of Judaism, all Jews now lost the right of
initiating legal action against Christians or to give evidence against
them. The acts of IV Toledo thus extended to all Jews those legal
restrictions previously only imposed on those of them who had con-
verted to Christianity and then lapsed.^77 At this same time another
significant development occurred, and this is the first official suspi-
cion of the reliability of Jewish converts to Christianity. IX Toledo of
654 decreed that baptised Jews must spend both Christian feast days
and also those that they would previously have observed under Jewish
law in the presence of their local bishop, who could thus ensure their
participation in the one and their avoidance of the other.7S These
developments, the proscription of Jewish religious practices and the
increasing use of royal law and the supervision of converted Jews, set
the tone for the second half of the seventh century.
Reccesuinth's successor Wamba (672-680) added nothing to this
growing body of royal legislation concerning the Jews, and indeed he
may have relaxed the enforcement of it. For when Ervig (680-687)
came to reissue Reccesuinth's law code soon after his accession, he
included a whole new title to Book Twelve of laws relating to the
Judaism.^79 Some of this was merely a restatement of the earlier laws
of Reccesuinth, but in his own new laws he went much further. As
well as the Passover, already banned, the observance of the Sabbath
and the celebration of all other Jewish rites were forbidden. On the
other hand the Jews were required not to work on Sundays and
Christian feast days. They were commanded not to read books of
scriptures not accepted by the Christians. They were not permitted to
defend their own faith in argument, let alone to dare to traduce
Christianity. Jews who were travelling were ordered to report to the
bishops in the towns which they visited, so that they could be ob-
served, and all Jews were required to deposit written confessions of
their errors and agreements not to revert to them with their local
bishop, who was to keep them in the archives of his church. In order
that no Jew could claim to be ignorant of these new laws, a copy of
the book containing them, probably just title three of Book Twelve of
the code, was to be given to each of them by the bishop or local
priest, which they were then required to keep permanently on their
persons. Also these laws were to be read out to them publicly in