[Menydh]

Some jewels

One of the first laws which the Gothic kingdom in Spain established was a ban on all mixed marriages. Goths were only allowed to marry Goths, and punishment for violating this ban was burning at the stake.

This overtly racial law kept the intermixing of Goths with all others to an absolute minimum - and particularly with the growing Jewish population.

The separation was on religious grounds, not racial grounds. While the Goths were still Arianists, it was Catholicism that they despised most. Hence the enemity with the [Catholic] Franks too.

In any case, it was the Hispano-Roman senatorial aristocracy which refused to mix with the Goths. Although the Visigoths were largely romanicized when the arrived in Spain, they were still seen as a barbaric people by these Hispano-roman aristocrats.

Gothic Spain settled down into a period of relative peace and resultant prosperity, with the only discordant note being sounded by the large Jewish population.

Partly because of a fanatic Christianizing zeal (which was common to all early Christians), partly because of Jewish domination of the Spanish financial world, and partly because of the exclusivity and separation which the Jewish religion gave to the Jews, ill feeling between the Christian Goths and Jews in Spain reached a height which had not been seen since the time of the Roman Jewish war 550 years previously.

What a piece of nonesense for a white trash audience.

The arrival of the Goths supposed a breath of fresh air for the Jews, as it inaugurated a period of tolerance to the Jews. I have explained before the details that made Arianism more amicable to Judaism, while hostile to Catholicism.

The hostilities against the Jews do not resume until Rekhared abhors of Arianism and officially converts to Catholicism. In other words, the Goths join the anti-jewish sentiments of the Hispano-Roman people.