From the tenth to the fourteenth century their literature was the first in Europe.

They were to be found in the courts of princes as physicians, or as treasurers managing the public finances.
The orthodox clergy in Navarre had excited popular prejudices against them.

To escape the persecutions that arose, many of them feigned to turn Christians, and of these many apostatized to their former faith.

The papal nuncio at the court of Castile raised a cry for the establishment of the Inquisition.

The poorer Jews were accused of sacrificing Christian children at the Passover, in mockery of the crucifixion; the richer were denounced as Averroists.