We must see Santa Maria la
Blanca, - it was a beautiful thing; so was the Transito.
Did we see those
men and women grubbing in the hillside? They were digging bones to sell
at the station. Where did the bones come from? Quien sabe? Those
dust-heaps have been there since King Wamba. Come, we must go and see
the Churches of Mary before it grew dark. And the zealous old creature
marched away with us to the synagogue built by Samuel Ben Levi,
treasurer to that crowned panther, Peter the Cruel. This able financier
built this fine temple to the God of his fathers out of his own purse.
He was murdered for his money by his ungrateful lord, and his synagogue
stolen by the Church. It now belongs to the order of Cala-trava.
But the other and older synagogue, now called Santa Maria la Blanca, is
much more interesting. It stands in the same quarter, the suburb
formerly occupied by the industrious and thriving Hebrews of the Middle
Ages until the stupid zeal of the Catholic kings drove them out of
Spain. The synagogue was built in the ninth century under the
enlightened domination of the Moors. At the slaughter of the Jews in
1405 it became a church. It has passed through varying fortunes since
then, having been hospital, hermitage, stable, and warehouse; but it is
now under the care of the provincial committee of art, and is somewhat
decently restored.
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