134 EARLY MEDIEVAL SPAINthe amount formerly paid by the converts. So, for the first time, a
financial incentive to conversion was being offered, and one that cost
the royal treasury nothing.B]
The following year, 694, marked the most dramatic royal initiative
against the Jews since the attempt at forcible conversion carried out
by Sisebut. Apart from those living in the vulnerable frontier prov-
ince of Narbonnensis, who were temporarily exempted, the entire
Jewish population of the kingdom was reduced to slavery. This is the
startling implication of the Tome of Egica presented to XVII Toledo
in November 694 and the eighth canon of that council, issued in
response to it.B2 The language of both is somewhat elusive until the
practical injunctions are reached: the Jews are to be deprived of the
ownership of their own property, and they and their families are to
be reduced to servitude and given into the possession of whomsoever
the king chose, condemned never again to recover their free status.
Their Christian slaves are to be liberated and some of them may be
entrusted with the property of their former masters. If so, they would
be expected to continue the payment of the special taxes that had
been imposed on their previous owners. It is interesting that after two
centuries of reiterated legislation against Jews owning Christian slaves,
this decree still expected them to be existing and in significant num-
bers. This might warn us against assuming that these, and indeed any
of the laws, were necessarily enforced in full, or even in part. The
final part of Egica's decree concerned the children of the enslaved
Jews. They were to be taken from their parents once they had reached
the age of six, to be brought up as Christians. Whether they regained
their legal status of freedom is left unmentioned.
This notorious canon and its lengthy justification in the Tome really
offer little clear explanation of the causes of this unprecedented move.
There is much of the standard abuse of the Jews for their perfidy and
unfaithfulness, but the principal justification for this measure ap-
pears to lie in a very generalised accusation that the Jews inside the
Visigothic kingdom had been in league with those from without to
carry out some kind of concerted action to overthrow the Christian
population and to subvert their religion. This is linked to rumours,
described as coming from 'other parts of the world', of Jewish revolts
against their rulers and their violent suppression in consequence.
The bishops imply in their canon that they had only heard about this
alleged conspiracy during the course of the council, in other words
from the king himself. For the first time since the reign of Sisebut,