THE SEVENTH-CENTURY KINGDOM 135then, we seem to be dealing with an unequivocal royal initiative that
was not the result of ecclesiastical pressure. This is clear, too, from
the nature of the penalty involved, which, except in the case of the
children, has little to do with the hoped-for conversion of the Jews.
In fact; the effect of this law must have been to transfer the persons
and properties of the Jews into the hands of the royal fisc. They
became possessions of the king, who could dispose of them and their
goods at will. The opportunities that this presented for the exercise
of royal patronage and the refurbishing of the royal finances must
have been considerable, all the more so as the king ensured that the
former Jewish properties would continue to be subject to special taxa-
tion even under new Christian owners. It is difficult when contem-
plating the enormous enhancement of the fisc that the acquisition of
such considerable resources in lands, goods and slaves must have
provided, and given the evidence of the instability of Egica's regime
at the time with the consequent need to buy or reinforce support, to
resist the conclusion that the whole operation was more concerned
with the restoration of the financial position of the monarchy than
with any material or spiritual threat to the kingdom that the Jews
were held to pose.
As this is the last glimpse that we catch of the Spanish Jews under
Visigothic rule, only seventeen years before the Arab invasion, this
decree of Egica casts a lurid glow over the declining years of the
kingdom. However, it is possible that the laws of 694 were never
enforced or only partially so, as was clearly the case with many of
their predecessors. The Jews may, by timely submissions or payments,
have alleviated the full rigour of it, or Egica's successors may have
abandoned it. On the other hand, the Jewish population may have
remained disposable royal property until the fall of the kingdom.
This, then, is the history of the Jews in Visigothic Spain as exposed
in the acts of the councils and in the royal laws. The impression thus
formed is one of severity, even of savagery and of a persecution of a
religion that at times becomes one of a race. However, the frequent
repetition of injunctions and the warnings against compromise and
prevarication, and the threats issued against those who fail to imple-
ment the laws, suggest that in practice the enforcement of these
decrees was quite another matter from their promulgation. It seems
clear, too, that it was the Church that was most active in the process of
law-making, and that the kings were not always willing to co-operate:
with the exception of Sisebut, the two kings most responsible for