title: Jeet (1996 film)

text: Karan goes to Tulsi (Tabu), who works as a prostitute (and is in love with Karan). There, it is shown that he is unable to forget Kajal, or more specifically, her eyes. Karan starts stalking Kajal, and she starts getting creeped out. One day, as Kajal is leaving the temple, he corners her. Kajal feels disgraced and lashes out at him, criticizing his behavior, and saying that he feels simply lust for her. Karan feels disgusted by this and leaves.


title: Jeet (1996 film)

text: Karan is then shown to have a soft side when he saves a child - named Timepass - from being mistreated by customers at a bar. Being reminded of himself (in that Timepass is revealed to be an orphan and has no other choice than to work), Karan decides to take the kid in.


title: Jeet (1996 film)

text: The next time we see Kajal, she and some other women are on a bus. They get harassed, and Karan steps in to save them. Kajal, after seeing his courage and helpful nature, starts to fall for Karan. She befriends Timepass, from whom she gets to know more about Karan. She approaches him with the help of Timepass, and starts to meet him regularly. She realizes that he's had a tough life and had gone down the wrong path. With encouragement from Kajal, Karan leaves his criminal life behind to be with Kajal. When he tells Tulsi about him and Kajal, she is heartbroken but decides to remain his friend.


title: Jeet (1996 film)

text: Raju (Salman Khan) is then introduced as the son of Sidhant's childhood friend Ramakant Sahaye (Dalip Tahil). He is portrayed as a happy-go-lucky, with a flirtatious nature. It's revealed that Ramakant and Sidhant had had a pact, wherein Kajal and Raju would get married. Kajal finds out about this through her father. She promptly confesses her love for Karan and refuses to marry Raju. Sidhant suffers from a major heart attack when he learns this. To reiterate, Kajal is righteous. She considers marrying Raju her duty toward her father and agrees to marry Raju. Karan finds out goes to Kajal's house to beg for her love, but Kajal rejects him and asks him to forget her.


title: Jeet (1996 film)

text: Kajal marries Raju (it is important to note that Karan doesn't know that Kajal is married to Raju; he just knows that she's married to "someone"). Karan fails to prevent the marriage and returns to a criminal lifestyle.


title: Jeet (1996 film)

text: With time, Kajal falls in love with Raju as well. They return to India after the honeymoon, where Kajal finds out that she's pregnant after fainting when she overhears Raju and his father's argument about their illegal affairs. She, however, is unhappy that their child will grow up in a criminal environment. Raju admits that he did not know about his father's deeds, and he and Kajal decide to leave Ramakant's house to provide their child with a safe environment to grow up in.


title: Jeet (1996 film)

text: Gajraj then worries that Raju might become a danger to his business, and orders Karan to kill Raju. Karan travels to Raju's house to kill him. There he comes across Kajal and learns the truth, deciding to protect Raju at all costs for Kajal's sake.


title: Jeet (1996 film)

text: One fateful day, Raju is attacked by some hitmen and is rescued by Karan, who takes Raju home. Raju wakes up from his unconscious state in the nick of time to overhear Kajal apologizing to Karan for how she treated him. Raju is understanding of their situation and respects Kajal's past love for Karan. He also praises Kajal's fulfillment of her 'dharma' towards him. He promises Karan that if their child turns out to be a boy, they'll name him after Karan.


title: Jeet (1996 film)

text: We enter the climax of the movie when Raju, Kajal and Karan are attacked by Gajraj's goons when Kajal suffers from labour pains. Karan, noticing this, takes Raju and Kajal to Tulsi's brothel, asking Tulsi's help in delivering the child safely. The goons (with Gajraj in tow) chase them all the way to the brothel, forcing Karan and Raju to indulge in a fight with them. Towards the end of the fight, Gajaraj is just about to shoot Raju when Karan steps in and takes the shots himself. Timepass (who was also there, by the way) then gives Karan a gun, and he shoots Gajraj with it, killing him. Karan dies at the exact moment that Kajal delivers her baby. The film ends with Raju holding their son, whom Kajal calls out to with the name 'Karan'.


title: Jeet (1996 film)

text: The film score was composed by soundtrack is composed by Koti, while the songs featured in the film were composed by Nadeem-Shravan. Singers Kumar Sanu, Alka Yagnik, Udit Narayan, Kavita Krishnamurthy, Vinod Rathod, Sonu Nigam and Sadhna Sargam lent their voices. The whole soundtrack became very popular, especially "Yaara O Yaara" and "Tu Dharti Pe Chahe". It is worth mentioning here that the song "Dil Ka Kya Karen Saheb" was hugely inspired from, though not officially mentioned, Ustaad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's "Maikadah Vol. 15" track "Dil pe zakham khate hain".


title: Jeet (1996 film)

text: Made on a budget of 5.90 crore, "Jeet" earned a net collection of 16.13 crore. The worldwide gross of the film was 29 crore. It was declared a "Super Hit" and became the 4th highest grossing Bollywood film of 1996.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: Charles Albert (; 2 October 1798 – 28 July 1849) was the King of Sardinia from 27 April 1831 until 23 March 1849. His name is bound up with the first Italian constitution, the Albertine Statute, and with the First Italian War of Independence (1848–1849).


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: During the Napoleonic period, he resided in France, where he received a liberal education. As Prince of Carignano in 1821, he granted and then withdrew his support for a rebellion which sought to force Victor Emmanuel I to institute a constitutional monarchy. He became a conservative and participated in the legitimist expedition against the Spanish liberals in 1823.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: He became king of Sardinia in 1831 on the death of his distant cousin Charles Felix, who had no heir. As king, after an initial conservative period during which he supported various European legitimist movements, he adopted the idea of a federal Italy, led by the Pope and freed from the House of Habsburg in 1848. In the same year he granted the Albertine Statute, the first Italian constitution, which remained in force until 1947.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: Charles Albert led his forces against the Imperial Austrian army in the First Italian War of Independence (1848–1849), but was abandoned by Pope Pius IX and Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies and was defeated in 1849 at the Battle of Novara, after which he abdicated in favour of his son, Victor Emmanuel II. Charles Albert died in exile a few months later in the Portuguese city of Porto.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: The attempt to free northern Italy from Austria represents the first attempt of the House of Savoy to alter the equilibrium established in the Italian peninsula after the Congress of Vienna. These efforts were continued successfully by his son Victor Emmanuel II, who became the first king of a unified Italy in 1861.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: Charles Albert received a number of nicknames, including "the Italian Hamlet" (given to him by Giosuè Carducci on account of his gloomy, hesitant and enigmatic character) and "the Hesitant King" ("Re Tentenna") because he hesitated for a long time between the establishment of a constitutional monarchy and the reinforcement of absolute rule.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: He was born at the Palazzo Carignano in Turin on 2 October 1798, to Charles Emmanuel, Prince of Carignano and Maria Cristina of Saxony. His father was the great-great-great-grandson of Thomas Francis, Prince of Carignano, youngest legitimate son of Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy, and founder of the Carignano line of the House of Savoy. Since he did not belong to the main line of the House of Savoy his chances at birth of succeeding to the kingdom were slim. Although the reigning king, Charles Emmanuel IV, had no children, at his death the throne would pass to his brother Victor Emmanuel and then to the latter's son Charles Emmanuel. After that in the line of succession there were two further brothers of Charles Emmanuel IV: Maurizio Giuseppe and Charles Felix. But in 1799, two of these heirs died: the young Charles Emmanuel (aged only three years) and Maurizio Giuseppe (from malaria in Sardinia).


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: Charles Albert's father, Charles Emmanuel of Carignano, had studied in France and had been an officer in the French army. Sympathetic to liberalism, he travelled to Turin in 1796, in the wake of the French invasion of 1796 and King Charles Emmanuel IV's flight into exile. There Charles Emmanuel of Carignano and his wife joined the French cause. Despite this, the pair were sent to Paris, where they were placed under surveillance and forced to live in poor conditions in a house in the suburbs. These were the circumstances in which their children, Charles Albert and his sister Maria Elisabeth (born 13 April 1800), grew up.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: On 16 August 1800, Charles Emmanuel of Carignano died suddenly. It was up to Charles Albert's mother to deal with the French, who had no intention of recognising her rights, titles or property. She nonetheless refused to send her son to the Savoy family in Sardinia for a conservative education. In 1808, Maria Christina married for a second time, to Giuseppe Massimiliano Thibaut di Montléart, whose relationship with Charles Albert was poor.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: When he was twelve years old, Charles Albert and his mother were finally granted an audience with Napoleon, who granted the boy the title of count and an annual pension. Since it was no longer appropriate for him to be educated at home, Charles Albert was sent to the Collège Stanislas in Paris in 1812. He remained at the school for two years, but did not attend regularly; instead, he attended only to sit exams, apparently with success. In the meantime, Albertina had moved to Geneva, where Charles Albert joined her from March 1812 to December 1813, and she was married to the Protestant Pastor, Jean-Pierre Etienne Vaucher (1763–1841), a follower of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: After Napoleon's defeat at the Battle of Leipzig in October 1813, the family left Geneva, fearing the arrival of Austrian forces and returned to France. At the beginning of 1814, Charles Albert enrolled in the military school in Bourges, hoping to become an officer in the French army. He was sixteen years old. Napoleon named him a lieutenant of dragoons in 1814.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: After Napoleon was defeated for good, the new king Louis XVIII celebrated the restoration of the Bourbon dynasty in Paris on 16 May 1814. Among those present at the festivities were Princess Maria Christina di Carignano and her children Charles Albert and Elisabetta. Despite their past, the family was treated well, although Charles Albert had to renounce the title of Count of the Empire, which had been conferred upon him at the military school in Bourges and the annuity which Napoleon had granted him.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: The re-establishment of peace in Europe meant that Charles Albert could return to Turin, and he was advised to do so by his tutor, count Alessandro Di Saluzzo di Menusiglio, and by Albertina. He left Paris (and his step-father) and arrived in Turin on 24 May. There he was welcomed affectionately by King Victor Emmanuel I (Charles Emmanuel IV had abdicated in 1802) and his wife Queen Maria Theresa, by birth a Habsburg archduchess. His property and lands were restored to him and he was granted the Palazzo Carignano as a residence. Given the dynastic situation (neither Victor Emmanuel nor his brother Charles Felix had male children) Charles Albert was now the heir presumptive.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: Thus he was assigned a mentor to counter the liberal ideas that he had learnt in France. The first of these was Count Filippo Grimaldi del Poggetto, and after he had failed, the dragoon, Policarpo Cacherano d'Osasco. Although he was better equipped for the task, he was not able to influence the mindset of Charles Albert, who began to suffer from anxiety at this time.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: The court decided that marriage would provide the prince with internal equilibrium. The chosen bride, accepted by Charles Albert, was the sixteen-year-old daughter of Ferdinand III of Tuscany, Archduchess Maria Theresa, a relative of Queen Maria Theresa. Charles Albert traveled to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and then to Rome on 18 March 1817 and, after a 6-month engagement, married Maria Theresa on 30 September in Florence Cathedral.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: The wedding was followed by a ball organised by the Sardinian embassy in Florence. After that, on 6 October, the couple departed for Piedmont. On 11 October, they reached Castello del Valentino and from there they made their formal entrance into Turin.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: The young Maria Theresa was very shy and religious - quite different from Charles Albert's temperament. The couple resided in the Palazzo Carignano, to which Charles Albert began to invite young intellectuals with whom he shared liberal ideas. The most intimate of these friends were Santorre di Rossi de Pomarolo, Roberto d'Azeglio, Giacinto Collegno, Cesare Balbo, Guglielmo Moffa di Lisio Gribaldi and Carlo Emanuele Asinari di San Marzano.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: In these years, Charles Albert also suffered from a deep religious crisis. This led to a friendship with the French diplomat Jean Louis de Douhet d'Auzers and a visit by the prince to Rome in 1817 to visit the former king Charles Emmanuel IV, who had retired to a monastery. In the years following his marriage, however, Charles Albert had extramarital affairs with several women, including Marie Caroline de Bourbon, widow of the Duke of Berry.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: Maria Theresa had two miscarriages – the second in 1819 as a result of a carriage accident – but gave birth to a son on 14 March 1820, Victor Emmanuel, the future King of Italy.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: After the 1820 uprising in Cadiz, King Ferdinand VII of Spain was forced to grant the Spanish Constitution of 1812. Hope of obtaining similar constitutions arose in many European states. Insurrections broke out in Naples and Palermo. On 6 March 1821, Santorre di Rossi de Pomarolo, Giacinto Provana di Collegno, Carlo di San Marzano and Guglielmo Moffa di Lisio (all military officers, officials, or sons of ministers) and Roberto d'Azeglio met with Charles Albert. The young liberals were ready to act and had identified the prince as a new type of man for the House of Savoy - one ready to break with the absolutist past.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: The conspirators had no desire to abolish the House of Savoy, but claimed, on the contrary, that they hoped to force it to grant reforms which would grant it the gratitude of the people. During the months of preparation, Charles Albert had assured them of his support and on 6 March he confirmed this, declaring that he supported armed action. They were to raise troops, surround King Victor Emmanuel I's residence at Moncalieri and demand that he grant a constitution and declare war on Austria. Charles Albert was to play the role of mediator between the conspirators and the king.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: But on the morning of the next day, 7 March, Charles Albert had second thoughts and informed the conspirators of this. Indeed, he summoned the Minister of War, Alessandro Di Saluzzo di Menusiglio and told him that he had discovered a revolutionary plot. There was an attempt to halt the conspiracy, which nevertheless continued to grow bolder on the next day, with another visit by di Rossi and di Marzano. Yet, they grew uncertain and gave orders to cancel the insurrection, which was due to break out on 10 March. The same day, Charles Albert, full of regret, raced to Moncalieri, where he revealed everything to Victor Emmanuel I and begged for a pardon. The situation had reached a tipping point. In the night, the garrison of Alessandria, commanded by one of the conspirators (Guglielmo Ansaldi), rose up and took control of the city. At this point, the revolutionaries decided to act, despite the abandonment of the prince.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: On 11 March 1821, Victor Emmanuel I called a meeting of the council of the Crown, in which Charles Albert also participated. Along with the majority of those who were present, Charles Albert declared his willingness to grant the constitution. Rumours spread however that armed intervention to restore order in Italy by a joint Austrian and Russian force were imminent. The king decided to wait, therefore, but the next day, the Citadel of Turin fell into the hands of the rebels. Victor Emmanuel I then asked Charles Albert and Cesare Balbo to negotiate with the Carbonari, but the latter refused any contact with the two. That evening, as the armed uprising spread, the king abdicated in favour of his brother Charles Felix. Since the latter was in Modena at the time, Charles Albert was appointed regent.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: Only 23 years of age, Charles Albert found himself in charge of resolving a serious political crisis which he himself had been responsible for provoking. The old ministers abandoned him and he was forced to nominate a new government: the lawyer Ferdinando dal Pozzo as Minister of the Interior, the general Emanuele Pes di Villamarina as Minister of War, and Lodovico Sauli d'Igliano as Minister of Foreign Affairs. He tried to negotiate with the rebels, with no results. Terrified, he claimed that it was impossible to take any decisions without the agreement of the new king and therefore sent Charles Felix a letter with an account of the events that had taken place and a request for instructions. But he was also afraid that he would become the object of popular anger if he continued to delay and so, on 13 March 1821, Charles Albert published a proclamation conceding the Spanish Constitution, with the reservation that this grant was pending the approval of the king.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: On 14 March, the regent decided to form a Junta which would be able to act as guardians of the parliament. The head was Canon Pier Bernardo Marentini, a Jansenist, who was Vicar-General of the Archdiocese of Turin and had been chosen as Bishop of Piacenza in 1813 but denied the role by the Pope. Charles Albert replaced the minister of war he had appointed the previous day with Santorre di Rossi, the leader of the armed uprising. On 15 March, in the presence of the Junta, Charles Albert swore to observe the Spanish Constitution, which had been amended with a few clauses requested by Victor Emmanuel I's queen, Maria Theresa.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: Meanwhile, the representatives of liberals of Lombardy had arrived: Giorgio Pallavicino Trivulzio, Gaetano Castiglia, and Giuseppe Arconati Visconti. They asked Charles Albert to declare war on Austria in order to free Milan, but the prince refused. Instead, he accepted the advice of Cesare Balbo, who reported the discipline of the armed forces, stopped excesses and firmly established the troops loyal to the king. Charles Felix himself, however, had responded very badly to the news of his brother's abdication, which he considered an "abominable act of violence" and, from Modena, he sent an order to Charles Albert, ordering him to come to Novara, and declaring any actions taken in the name of the king after the abdication of his brother, including the concession of the Spanish Constitution, to be null and void.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: At midnight on 21 March 1821, Charles Albert secretly departed from the Palazzo Carignano. His departure was not discovered by the revolutionaries until the next day. From Rondissone, on 23 March he made for San Germano, from which he intended to travel to Novara, which remained loyal to the king. At Novara he remained for six days before a dispatch arrived from Charles Felix on the 29th, ordering him to depart immediately for Tuscany.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: On the afternoon of 2 April 1821, the prince arrived in Florence. His wife and son, who had been in France, followed on the 13th. The Prince's father-in-law, Grand Duke Ferdinand III granted them the Palazzo Pitti as a residence. In May, Charles Felix, who had successfully secured Austrian assistance to restore order, met with Victor Emmanuel I at Lucca. The two discussed Charles Albert's conduct for a long time and, although the new queen Maria Christina spoke in his defense, they decided that he was responsible for the conspiracy.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: As a result of this decision and the circumstances, Charles Albert decided to disavow his liberal ideas - especially as Charles Felix had entertained the idea of eliminating him from the line of succession and passing the crown straight to his son Victor Emmanuel. Charles Felix asked the opinion of Metternich on this, who was unexpectedly opposed to the idea.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: On 16 September 1822, the infant Victor Emmanuel barely escaped from a fire in his cot, exposing the tenuous nature of the line of succession, which was taken out of danger by the birth of a second son, Ferdinand, on 15 November. In Florence, Charles Albert cultivated various cultural interests. He became a collector of old books, but was also interested in contemporary authors, acquiring the poetry of Alphonse de Lamartine and the conservative Joseph de Maistre.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: At the beginning of 1823, Duke Louis Antoine, Duke of Angoulême assumed command of the French expeditionary force which the European powers had entrusted with the task of suppressing the liberal revolution there and restoring King Ferdinand VII to the Spanish throne, after he had been captured by Spanish revolutionaries in Cadiz. Charles Albert wished to demonstrate his penitence and therefore asked to be part of the contingent. He wrote to Charles Felix on this subject for the first time on 20 February 1823, but only received permission to depart on 26 April.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: On 2 May, Charles Albert embarked on the Sardinian frigate "Commercio" at Livorno, which arrived in Marseilles on 7 May. The next day, Charles Albert set out, arriving in Boceguillas on the 18th. By the time he arrived there, he had been assigned to the division of the French General Étienne de Bordesoulle. on the 24th, he arrived at Madrid, where he remained until 2 June, and then he set out for the south. At a clash with the enemy during the crossing of the Sierra Morena, he demonstrated courage and the French made him a member of the Legion of Honour. He proceeded to Córdoba, Utrera, Jerez de los Caballeros and El Puerto de Santa María, where he waited for the order to attack the fortress of Cadiz, the Trocadero, which was the last remaining refuge of the Spanish constitutional government.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: At the end of August 1823, with the French fleet aiding from the sea, the troops launched an assault on the Trocadero. Charles Albert fought at the head of the troops crossing the canal - the sole point of entry to the fortress. He plunged into the water holding the flag of the 6th regiment of the royal guards, forded the canal and leapt into the enemy trenches. He sought to prevent the enemy prisoners being killed, and the French soldiers gave him the epaulettes of an officer killed in the assault, so that he might be distinguished from a regular grenadier.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: He remained at his post until nightfall and the next day he was among the first to break into Trocadero. King Ferdinand VII and queen Maria Josepha, his cousin, were freed and embraced him in joy at seeing him. On 2 September there was a grand military parade, after which the Duc d'Angoulême decorated Charles Albert with the Cross of the Order of Saint Louis.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: With the dissolution of the expeditionary force, Charles Albert travelled from Seville to Paris, arriving on 3 December 1823. In the French capital he participated in balls, receptions, and parties, and developed a close relationship with Marie Caroline, widow of the Duc de Berry. On 15 December, King Louis XVIII held a grand reception for the victors of Trocadero, at which Charles Albert was among the guests of honour.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: King Charles Felix of Sardinia decided that, as a result of his success, it was time for Charles Albert to return to Turin. The prince was required, however, to swear "to respect and religiously maintain all the fundamental laws of the monarchy when I ascend to power, which have led to fortune and glory over the centuries." On 29 January 1824, Charles Albert received permission to depart for Turin. At a final meeting with Louis XVIII, he received some advice on rulership and was enrolled in the Order of the Holy Spirit, the most prestigious chivalrous order of the French monarchy.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: On 2 February, Charles Albert departed and on the 6th he reached Mont Cenis, where he received orders to enter Turin by night, in order to avoid protests. Charles Albert did so, probably on the 23rd.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: Once he had returned to Turin, Charles Albert resided mainly at Racconigi Castle, where he began preparations for reigning. He began to study a subject whichreceived little attention at court – the economy – and in 1829 he received permission to visit Sardinia. As a result of this visit, he gained an accurate understanding of conditions on the island. He was a prolific writer. In 1827, along with his wife, he wrote 38 fairy tales for their children in French, the language which the family used at home, entitled "Contes moraux" ("Moral Tales"). The next year, he tried his hand at comedy and after that he occupied himself with literary criticism and history. He would publish three works: "Notes on the Waldensians", "Records of Andalusia" and "Voyage to Sardinia". Charles Albert regretted all of these and subsequently ordered them to be withdrawn from circulation. He also wrote a great volume of letters and literary exercises.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: Despite the conservative attitudes of the period, Charles Albert also supported literati who held liberal ideas, such as Carlo Giuseppe Guglielmo Botta, whose books were banned in Piedmont. He owned the works of Adam Smith and the "Collection of Classic Italian Writers on Political Economy", edited by Pietro Custodi, a supporter of Napoleon.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: In 1830, Charles Felix became very ill. He summoned Charles Albert to his sick-bed on 24 April 1831. The entire government was present in the room as the king said to the ministers, "Behold my heir and successor, I am sure that he will act for the good of his subjects."


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: Charles Felix died on 27 April at 2:45 pm. Charles Albert closed the corpse's eyes and kissed its hand and then assumed the throne. He received the dignitaries of court and brought his sons into the Royal Palace. At 5:00 pm, the troops in rendered their oaths to the new king at the direction of Governor Ignazio Thaon di Revel, who published the proclamation relating to this. Thus the throne passed to the House of Carignano and the direct line of Savoy came to an end.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: Thus Charles Albert came to the throne aged 33. His health was poor; he suffered from a liver disease. His faith added to his suffering; he wore a cilice and slept alone on an iron bed, waking at 5:00 am every morning and celebrating two masses per day. He worked from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm everyday without interruption. He ate little and suffered from frequent religious crises, but never renounced extramarital affairs even so. The most significant of these was his relationship with Maria Antonietta di Robilant (1804–1882), daughter of Friedrich Truchsess zu Waldburg (1776–1844), the Prussian ambassador to Turin and wife of Maurizio di Robilant (1798–1862).


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: The new king was affected by the July Revolution, which had deposed Charles X of France and led to the accession of Louis Philippe, an ex-revolutionary, and as a result, he decided to make an alliance with the Austrian Empire. The treaty, signed on 23 July 1831 and ratified in 1836, entrusted the defence of the Kingdom of Sardinia to Austria. However, in the event of war, the commander of the joint forces was to be Charles Albert. He wrote to the Austrian ambassador, Ludwig Senfft von Pilsach (1774–1853), "... the most beautiful day of my life will be the day on which there is war with France and I have the good fortune to serve in the Austrian army."


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: In accordance with this legitimist position, Charles Albert lent support to his close friend Marie-Caroline de Bourbon-Sicile, duchesse de Berry in December 1823 when she sought to place her son, Henri, on the French throne. She was the widow of the Duc de Berry, second son of Charles X, whose eldest son, Louis Antoine had renounced the throne. Henri's claim to the throne had been denied by the king.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: Despite the advice of the French ambassador to exercise prudence, in 1832, Charles Albert loaned Marie-Caroline a million francs and placed a steamer at her disposal for transporting legitimist volunteers to France. The plot was discovered and failed; the steamer was stopped at Marseilles and the volunteers were defeated at Vendée in a few hours. Marie-Caroline fled, but was soon arrested in Nantes and imprisoned in the Citadel of Blaye, near Bordeaux.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: Charles Albert displayed similar conservativism in internal politics. When the minister of war, Matteo Agnès Des Geneys (1763–1831) died, he replaced him with Carlo San Martino d'Aglie, who was not very popular at the time. He retained Vittorio Amedeo Sallier della Torre as Minister of Foreign Affairs until 1835, when he replaced him with the extremely conservative Clemente Solaro. These appointments were made with the intent of restoring a ministerial oligarchy. In 1831 he appointed Gaudenzio Maria Caccia, Count of Romentino (1765–1834) as minister of Finance, Giuseppe Barbaroux as Minister of Justice, and the reformer, Antonio Tonduti, Count of Escarèna (1771–1856), as minister of the Interior. On 5 April 1832, d'Aglie was replaced as Minister of War by Emanuele Pes di Villamarina.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: In June 1831, Giuseppe Mazzini, who was in exile in Marseilles, addressed a letter to Charles Albert as "an Italian," in which he encouraged him to focus on the unification of Italy, in vain. For the moment, the new King of Sardinia cleaved to almost the same ideas as his predecessors.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: Notwithstanding this conservatism, Charles Albert established a Council of State of 14 members who were to investigate the laws and made some moves to modernise the country. He abrogated the special exemptions on import duty for members of the royal family and royal officials, abolished torture, prohibited the mutilation of the corpses of executed criminals and the confiscation of the property of criminals. He also gave notable attention to culture. In 1832, he established the "Pinacoteca Regia e della Galleria Reale" in the Palazzo Madama (now the Turin City Museum of Ancient Art) and the library of the Palazzo Reale, he built several monuments and palaces, refounded the Academy of Art as the Accademia Albertina in 1833 and established the "Royal Foundation for the Study of the History of the Fatherland", which would become the model for all the similar foundations for historical studies established in the nineteenth century, in the same year.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: Charles Albert accompanied these measures with an economic policy of liberalisation of commerce. In 1834, the tax on grain was reduced and the next year, the export of raw silk was made legal. Duties on the import of raw materials (coal, metals, textiles) were subsequently reduced and the acquisition of industrial machinery from abroad was supported. Despite having impinged on some minor sources of state income, the balance of the kingdom was positive from 1835, and it was possible to entertain ambitions for the improvement of agriculture, roads, railroads, and ports.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: Charles Albert also reformed the army, reformed the law codes, instituted a Court of cassation, and eliminated feudalism in Sardinia, in 1838. He enabled the opening of institutes of credit, he reformed the public agencies and the state, and reduced the control of the religious hierarchy somewhat. The royal court, however, was full of clerics - at least fifty of them - and the court was sumptuous for such a small kingdom. There were a great number of cooks, butlers, waiters, carpenters, squires, stallers, pages, footmen, masters of ceremonies, etc.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: After the death of king Ferdinand VII of Spain, the nation was divided into two factions: the anti-liberal reactionaries who supported the legitimist aspirations of Don Carlos and the constitutionalists who defended Maria Christina's regency on behalf of Isabella II. The Holy Alliance of Russia, Austria, and Prussia supported Don Carlos; Great Britain, France and Portugal supported the constitutionalists. Charles Albert sides with the former group, but in the Carlist War of 1833–1840, the constitutionalists prevailed.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: Similarly, in the Portuguese Liberal Wars (1828–1834), which followed the death of John VI, Charles Albert sided with the absolutists under Dom Miguel, who spent time in Piedmont. In this case, too, the liberals, led by Dom Miguel's brother Dom Pedro, enjoyed the support of Great Britain and Louis-Philippe's France and were ultimately successful.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: At the time of Charles Albert's ascent to the throne in 1831, there were riots in Rome, the carbonari revolt of Ciro Menotti in Modena, and an insurrection in Bologna and Parma which led to the flight of Francis IV and Marie Louise. But Austria was able to restore order and Charles Albert decided that his alliance with the Habsburgs was essential.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: The Kingdom of Sardinia was also troubled by the plots of revolutionaries in these years, and even by an attempted invasion. In April 1833 in Genoa, two low-ranking officers were arrested for a scuffle and it was discovered that they belonged to Giuseppe Mazzini's Young Italy. They supplied various names and investigations were expanded to other garrisons. Charles Albert, who considered Mazzini's association the "most terrible and bloody," ordered the investigation to continue until it got to the bottom of the matter, acting in accordance with the law, but with utmost severity.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: In the end, twelve people were executed by firing squad and two committed suicide in gaol. Twenty-one were condemned to death but could not be executed because they had escaped or, like Mazzini, had been abroad the whole time. Charles Albert granted no pardons, and the ambassadors of France and Britain in Turin protested at court about the severity of the punishment and the lack of any mercy. The King of Sardinia showed his gratitude to the investigators by granting honours to those who had played a leading role in the repression.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: Since the insurrections had failed, Mazzini began to plan a military expedition. In 1834, he attempted to organise a force in Switzerland, which would attack Savoy (then part of the Kingdom of Sardinia) and the population would simultaneously rise against the king. But information about this plan was leaked and Charles Albert arranged an ambush. However, the invasion, undertaken on 2 February 1834, failed completely. This was partly due to disorganisation, partially to Swiss efforts to prevent Mazzini's expedition. Only a few conspirators attacked a barracks in Les Échelles. Two of them were captured and executed by firing squad. Carabiniere Giovanni Battista Scapaccino was killed in the process, and to honour him Charles Albert instituted the first gold medal for Italian history. Meanwhile, Giuseppe Garibaldi, who was preparing to lead a rising in the city, received a report that it was all over and fled. He was condemned to death "in absentia".


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: In these circumstances, Charles Albert realised the necessity of granting reforms to make the kingdom more modern and to satisfy the needs of the populace. Immediately on ascending to the throne he had named a commission which had been tasked with creating new civil, criminal, commercial and procedural laws.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: This process of reform took a very long time, but eventually, on 20 June 1837, the new civil code, partially inspired by the Napoleonic Code, was promulgated. The king also participated in the drafting of the new criminal code, which was published on 26 October 1839. During the process, Charles Albert insisted on the concept of corrective justice, limiting the death penalty as much as possible. Nevertheless, he ordained very severe penalties for those guilty of sacrilege or suicide (whose last wills and testaments had no legal power). In 1842, finally, the commercial code and the code of criminal procedure, with innovative guarantees of the rights of the accused, were promulgated.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: In 1840 the Oriental Crisis, which placed Louis Philippe's France in conflict with the other European great powers, inspired Charles Albert to begin thinking about a programme of territorial expansion in the Po valley. In the same year, a commercial crisis erupted between Turin and Vienna, regarding an old treaty in which the Kingdom of Sardinia undertook not to provide salt to Switzerland. Following the breach of this treaty, Austria increased the customs duty on Piedmontese wine entering Lombardy-Veneto by 100%. Charles Albert's response was to threaten to build a railroad from Genoa to Lake Maggiore, in order to capture the German commerce which sustained the Austrian port of Trieste for the Ligurian ports.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: These were still only minor disputes and diplomatic relations between the two states continued to be generally good, culminating in the magnificent wedding of Charles Albert's eldest son, Victor Emmanuel and Adelaide of Austria, daughter of Ranier Joseph of Habsburg-Lorraine, who was the Austrian Viceroy in Lombardy-Veneto and Charles Albert's brother-in-law, since he had married his sister Elisabeth in 1820. Victor Emmanuel and Adelaide were thus first cousins.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: In 1845, revolutionary movements erupted in Rimini and in the Papal States. To Massimo d'Azeglio, who had gone to report on the events, Charles Albert said, "that on the day of conflict with Austria, he would throw himself in with his sons, with his army, with all his substance, to fight for the independence of Italy."


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: Understandably, on 8 June 1846, on the orders of Chancellor Metternich, the Austrian ambassador to Turin, Karl Ferdinand von Buol, asked Charles Albert to clarify his position - was he with Austria or with the revolutionaries? The King of Sardinia hesitated. In the meanwhile, on 16 June, Pope Pius IX had been elected as Pope. His first order of business was to grant an amnesty to those condemned of political crimes. The new pope then protested against Austria for having occupied Ferrara, in the Holy See, without its consent. Charles Albert, who saw in Pius IX a way of reconciling his loyalty with his old liberal ideas, wrote to him offering his support.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: In the same way, in September 1847, Cesare Trabucco, Charles Albert's secretary, was authorised to write a letter on 2 September, in which the king expressed his hope that God would grant him the power to undertake a war of independence in which he would take command of the army and the Guelph cause. These declarations made Charles Albert far more popular. However, he continued to break up anti-Austrian demonstrations because the court and government remained divided. De La Tour, Foreign Minister Solaro della Margarita, and Archbishop Luigi Fransoni considered the anti-Austrian policy exceptionally dangerous, but it was supported by Minister of War Emanuele Pes di Villamarina, Cesare Alfieri di Sostegno, Cesare Balbo, Massimo and Roberto d'Azeglio, and the young Count Cavour.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: Meanwhile, the demands of the people became pressing and were not always accepted. In this period, for example, Charles Albert did not accept a Genoese delegation which called for the expulsion of the Jesuits from the Kingdom, whom he had already banned from political writings. He did, however, implement the so-called Perfect Fusion of the Savoyard state on 29 November 1847, which extended the reforms carried out on the mainland to the island of Sardinia.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: At the beginning of 1848, news arrived that following the outbreak of the Spring of Nations, Ferdinand II had granted a constitution in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. In Turin there were acclamations for the King of Naples and the Pope, while Charles Albert remained bound by the oath he had sworn to Charles Felix to respect religiously all the fundamental laws of the monarchy, and to retain absolutist rule.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: On 7 January 1848, at the hotel "Europa" in Turin, there was a meeting of the city's journalists at which Cavour, director of the "Risorgimento", proposed to request a constitution from the king. The majority of the ministers were also in favour of the concession of a constitution, and of ensuring that one was not imposed by the people. Charles Albert was not sure what to do, unwilling to make the wrong decision and considered abdicating as Victor Emmanuel I had in similar circumstances. He sent for his son to prepare him for the succession, but his son managed to convince him to retain his position.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: On 7 February, an extraordinary Council of State was convented. Seven ministers, the holders of the order of the Annunciation, and other high dignitaries were present. All of them spoke and the discussion went on for many hours. Charles Albert, pale, listened in silence. De La Tour, Carlo Giuseppe Beraudo di Pralormo, and Luigi Provana di Collegno were opposed to the constitution. During the lunch break, Charles Albert received a delegation from the capital, which asked for the constitution for the good of the people and in order to safeguard order.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: It was now necessary to make a decision and, at last, Giacinto Borelli, Minister of the Interior, was appointed to draft the Constitution immediately. The document was approved and was named the "Statute." Charles Albert had stated that he would not approve the document if it did not clearly state the pre-eminent position of the Catholic religion and the honour of the monarchy. Since he had received these things, he approved it. The meeting was dissolved at dawn.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: Around 3:30 in the afternoon on 8 February, a royal edict was published in the streets of Turin, which laid out the 14 articles which formed the basis of the Statute for a system of representative government. By 6:00 pm, the city was entirely lit up and massive demonstrations in favour of Charles Albert were held.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: The edict specified that the Catholic faith was the sole state religion, that executive power belonged to the king, as did command of the armed forces. Legislative power was vested in two chambers, one of which would be elected. The free press and individual liberty were guaranteed. The full version of the Statute, with all its articles, was finally agreed on 4 March 1848 and approved the same day by Charles Albert. The announcement of the Statute was met with great enthusiasm throughout Piedmont. The first constitutional government, presided over by Cesare Balbo, was sworn in on 16 March 1848, two days before the beginning of the Five Days of Milan.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: Elected in 1846, the new pope Pius IX had caught the imagination of the liberals of Italy when he began to dismantle the archaic Vatican institutions: granting a free press, instituting the civic guard in place of foreign mercenaries, and creating a council of ministers. On 12 January 1848, there was a revolt in Palermo and King Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies was forced to concede a constitution, but all Europe was further convulsed when, in February 1848, there was a Revolution in France, King Louis Philippe was deposed, and a Republic was established. The revolution spread to Milan on 18 March, then to Venice, and finally to Vienna, where riots forced Metternich to flee and the abdication of Emperor Ferdinand I.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: In Milan, it was expected that Charles Albert would take the opportunity to declare war on Austria. A clear message from Turin was delivered the Milanese liberal, Francesco Arese Lucini on 19/20 March:


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: Although the Kingdom's resources were small, the Piedmontese army began to mobilise. The majority of the troops were deployed on the western border, since the eastern border was safeguarded by the treaty of alliance with Austria. But Charles Albert realised that this was a unique opportunity to expand his holdings into Lombardy. Thus he told the Milanese that he would intervene on their behalf if they agreed to join the Kingdom of Sardinia.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: On 23 March 1848, the Piedmontese embassy to Milan returned to Turin with news that the Austrians had been forced to evacuate the city and that a provisional government headed by Gabrio Casati had been established, which asked Charles Albert to become an ally. Clearly not very enthusiastic about the idea of annexation, the Milanese asked the king to keep his troops outside the city and to adopt the tricolor of the Cisalpine Republic as his flag.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: Although he had received no guarantee that the Milanese would agree to annexation, Charles Albert accepted the conditions of the Milanese and asked only that the flag of the house of Savoy be placed in the middle of the tricolor (This would henceforth be the flag of the Kingdom of Sardinia and then the Kingdom of Italy until the fall of the monarchy in 1946). He was about to enter into a war with a major power, whose troops in Italy were commanded by one of the greatest living generals, Joseph Radetzky von Radetz. His reactionary past forgotten, the king appeared on the balcony of the royal palace, flanked by the Milanese representatives, waving the tricolor, while the people applauded and shouted, "Long live Italy! Long live Charles Albert. Within a year his reign would be over.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: On 23 March 1848, the proclamation of Charles Albert to the people of Lombardy and Veneto was published, in which he assured them that the Piedmontese troops, "... go now to offer, in the final trials, that help which a brother expects from a brother, a friend from a friend. We will comply with your just requests, trusting in the aid of God, who is clearly with us, of God, who has given Italy Pius IX, of God, whose miraculous prompting places Italy in the position to act for itself." Thus, the war began.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: The federalist Carlo Cattaneo was not impressed, "Now that the enemy is in flight, the king wants to come with the whole army. He should have sent us anything - even a single cart of powder - three days ago. There was heard, in Piedmont, for five days, the thundering of the guns which consumed us: The king knew and did not move."


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: Charles Albert left Turin on the evening of 26 March 1848 for Alessandria, in order to take command of the army and then advanced to Voghera. He was preoccupied with the delay of the provisional government of Milan's acceptance of annexation by the Kingdom of Sardinia. The Austrians however had regrouped on the River Mincio, at one corner of the Quadrilatero. On 29 March, the king entered Pavia in triumph, where he was met by some envoys of the Milanese government. On 2 April, Charles Albert was in Cremona, on 5 April at Bozzolo, on 6 April at Asola, on 8 April at Castiglione delle Stiviere, and on 11 April at Volta Mantovana, only four kilometres from the Mincio. After nearly two weeks, he had made it to the front.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: At the opening of hostilities, on 8 and 9 April, Italian sharpshooters had achieved success in the first battle of the campaign at the Battle of Goito. After crossing the Mincio with his army, Charles Albert achieved another victory on 30 April at Pastrengo, where he saw the front lines. The units under his command attacked some Austrians who had been dispersed by a charge of the carabinieri on horseback. On 2 May, in the midst of this triumphant atmosphere, news arrived that Pius IX had withdrawn his military and political support for the Italian cause.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: Nevertheless, the Papal soldiers in the army did not withdraw, choosing to remain to fight as volunteers, but Charles Albert had lost the moral justification for his mission. His dream of becoming the sword of the papacy and king of an Italy united under the Pope, as Vincenzo Gioberti had proposed, was thwarted. Yet the king was undiscouraged and continued to advance towards Verona, where a harsh and indecisive battle was fought with the Austrians at Santa Lucia on 6 May.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: Two further events followed in the next few days. On 21 May, the contingent of 14,000 men from the Neapolitan army which were "en route" to fight against the Austrians, were ordered by Ferdinand II to return home in light of Pius IX's decision. Then on 25 May, the Austrian reinforcements which had been travelling through Veneto, joined Radetzky's troops at Verona. Charles Albert was ambitious but had only modest strategic abilities and he could not realistically continue the war alone. The Battle of Goito and the surrender of Peschiera on 30 May were his last successes. The Austrians conquered Vicenza on 10 June, dispersing the Papal volunteers and finally obtained a decisive victory over the Piedmontese in the Battle of Custoza, which lasted from the 22 to 27 July.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: In the meantime, on 8 June, the Milanese and Lombards had voted with an overwhelming majority to join the Kingdom of Sardinia, as had the citizens of the Duchy of Parma on 2 May. But for Charles Albert, things were going sour: the soldiers were angry about the recent defeat and were hungry and exhausted. A council of war suggested seeking a truce.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: On the evening of 27 July 1848, the Austrians agreed to grant a truce if the Piedmontese withdrew to the west bank of the Adda (a little more than 20 km east of Milan), surrendered all the fortresses, including Peschiera and yielded the Duchies of Parma and Modena, whose rulers had been forced into exile. Charles Albert, who disagreed with his son Victor Emmanuel on the conduct of the war, exclaimed "I would rather die!" and prepared to make a stand at the Oglio (about 25 km further east than requested by Radetzky).


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: Although the Austrian proposal had been rejected, his troops ended up having to withdraw to the Adda anyway, because the Oglio was judged to be an inadequate defensive line. At the Adda, some manoeuvres taken by a general on his own initiative left a division isolated and made it necessary to withdraw again, in order to retreat inside the walls of Milan. Charles Albert went to the Palazzo Greppi, ignoring the Milanese desire to resist, he negotiated the surrender of the city to the Austrians in exchange for permitting the safe withdrawal of the army to Piedmont.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: The day after, the Milanese learnt of the agreement and revealed their fury. The crowd protested in front of the Palazzo Greppi and when the King came out on the balcony, they fired their rifles at him. According to the noblewoman Cristina Trivulzio di Belgiojoso, who participated actively in the riots in Milan:


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: On 8 August, general Carlo Canera di Salasco returned to Milan and negotiated an armistice with the Austrians, known as the Armistice of Salasco, which was signed on 9 August. Charles Albert ratified the armistice despite some opposition, including from Gioberti, who remained confident of aid from France. The king said that the former French foreign minister, Alphonse de Lamartine, had declared that the French would only give such aid to Republicans.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: The king was not proud of the campaign and, once he had written a record of the first campaign, Charles Albert decided to break the armistice. On 1 March, at the inauguration of the legislature, he spoke clearly about war and Chamber responded positively. For the imminent resumption of hostilities, the king was convinced to renounce effective command of the army, which he continued to hold formally. Rather than appointing a Piedmontese general, he selected the Polish general Wojciech Chrzanowski as commander of the army. On 8 March, the council of war in Turin decided that the armistice would be broken on the 12th. According to the terms of the armistice, hostilities would then begin eight days later on 20 March.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: The war did indeed resume on that day. On 22 March, Charles Albert arrived at Novara and a day later, Radetzy attacked the city from the south with superior numbers, near the village of Bicocca. Chrzanowski made some significant tactical errors and despite the bravery of the Piedmontese and Charles Albert himself, who fought along with his son Ferdinand in the front lines, the Battle of Novara proved a disastrous defeat.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: Returning to the Palazzo Bellini in Novara, the king declared, "Bicocca was lost and retaken three or four times, before our troops were forced to yield... the Major General [Chrzanowski] employed all his strength, my sons did everything they could, the Duke of Genoa [Ferdinand] lost two horses from under himself. Now we have withdrawn within the city, on its walls, with the enemy below, with an exhausted army - further resistance is impossible. It is necessary to request an armistice."


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: Austria's conditions were very harsh: occupation of the Lomellina and the fortress of Alessandria, as well as the surrender of all the Lombards who had fought against Austria. Charles Albert asked the generals if it was possible for a final push to open a path to Alessandria. They said it was not: the army was in pieces, discipline had crumbled, many soldiers fighting in the campaign were despoiling the houses in the countryside and they feared an attack on the king himself.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: At 9:30 pm on the same day, Charles Albert summoned his sons, Chrzanowski, generals Alessandro Ferrero La Marmora, Carlo Emanuele La Marmora, Giovanni Durando, Luigi Fecia di Cossato (who had negotiated the armistice) and minister Carlo Cadorna. He confessed that he had no choice but to abdicate. They tried to dissuade him, but, in the hope that Victor Emmanuel could get better terms, he ended the discussion, "My decision is the fruit of mature reflexion. From this moment, I am no longer the king; the king is Victor, my son."


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: Charles Albert's eldest son became king of Sardinia as Victor Emmanuel II and agreed to an armistice with Radetzky on 24 March 1849 at Vignale, effectively obtaining more favourable terms than previously offered. The Austrians were to occupy Lomellina for a while and only half of the fort of Alessandria, with "permission" rather than "by right".


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: Charles Albert, however, had left Palazzo Bellini in Novara a few minutes after midnight on 23 March. His carriage travelled to Orfengo (on the road halfway between Novara and Vercelli), probably without any specific destination in mind, but after a little while he was stopped at an Austrian roadblock. Charles Albert identified himself as the Count of Barge (a title which he actually possessed) and a colonel of the Piedmontese army. General Georg Thurn Valsassina (1788-1866) interrogated him and it is not clear whether he recognised him or not. Having been confirmed as the Count of Barge by a captured sharpshooter (when asked "can you confirm that this is the Count of Barge?" the soldier responded, "He is the Count of Barge."), Charles Albert was allowed to pass and continued his journey to the southwest.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: The former king continued via Moncalvo, Nizza Monferrato, Acqui, Savona, Ventimiglia and Monaco, which he reached on 26 March. At Nice in France, he dispatched instructions to organise his family affairs, without adding any information for his wife. On 1 April he was at Bayonne, near the Atlantic coast, and on 3 April he received a message from Turin in order to get him to legally confirm his abdication.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: Charles Albert continued through Torquemada, Valladolid, León, and A Coruña, which he reached on 10 April, and which was the end of the carriage road. On horseback, suffering from illness, he reached Lugo on 15 April and entered Portuguese territory at Caminha. From there he went to Viana do Castelo, Póvoa de Varzim and, finally, on 19 April, at noon, he arrived in Oporto. From there he may have planned to travel to America, but he was forced to stop because he had become ill with a liver complaint.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: Once his arrival in Oporto became known, Charles Albert was hosted at the "Hotel do Peixe", where he remained for two weeks, as his condition worsened. Then he accepted a new residence from a private individual on the "rua de Entre Quintas", with a view of the ocean. On 3 May, he hosted Giacinto Provana di Collegno and Luigi Cibrario, who brought him greetings from the Piedmontese government. To them he said:


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: During this time, Charles Albert suffered from progressive decay, coughing and abscesses. He had two heart attacks, but the doctors considered the condition of his liver the most serious issue, for which the former king abstained from eating very much and fasted on Wednesdays. He read the letters and newspapers which arrived from Italy. He wrote occasionally to his wife, but regularly and with feeling to the Countess of Robilant. He forbade his mother, wife, and children from visiting.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: In the month after his arrival, his health had deteriorated irreparably. From 3 July, he was assisted by the doctor Alessandro Riberi, whom Victor Emmanuel had sent from Turin. He was no longer able to get out of bed and coughing fits were ever more frequent. He passed the night of 27 July in great difficulty. On the morning of 28 July, he seemed better, but then deteriorated as a result of a third heart attack. The Portuguese priest don Antonio Peixoto, who had assisted him spiritually, met with him and administered extreme unction. Charles Albert whispered in Latin, "In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum" (Into your hands, God, I entrust my spirit). He fell asleep with the crucifix on his chest and died at 3:30 in the afternoon, a little over 51 years old.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: His body was embalmed and displayed in the Cathedral of Oporto. On 3 September, the ships, "Mozambano" and "Goito" arrived under the command of his cousin Eugene Emmanuel. On 19 September the corpse was brought on board the "Monzambano", which departed for Genoa that evening. It arrived on 4 October. The funeral took place in Turin Cathedral on 13 October, with Alexis Billiet, Archbishop of Chambéry, presiding along with five Piedmontese bishops, and was well-attended by the people. The day after, the body was solemnly interred in the crypt of the Basilica of Superga, where it still lies.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: Among the indigenous princes, the number one enemy of Italian freedom was and is Charles Albert. Italians should bear in mind and repeat every hour the old saying: "God watch over my friends, so that I can watch over my enemies". From Ferdinand of the House of Bourbon, there is nothing to fear; he has for a long time been discredited. Charles Albert, on the other hand, calls himself pompously the "liberator of Italy" while on the very people he is supposed to be liberating he imposes as a condition the yoke of his rule.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: A strange pathetic being, at odds with himself and his time; compounded of monkish asceticism and soldierly courage; autocratic, but irresolute; holding his honor dearer than his life, yet pursued through life by accusations of dishonor: such was Charles Albert, to whom when he had passed beyond the reach of their praises or their blame, his countrymen gave the epithet 'magnanimous'.


title: Charles Albert of Sardinia

text: In 1817, Charles Albert married his second cousin once removed, Maria Theresa of Austria, the youngest daughter of Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Princess Luisa of Naples and Sicily. The couple had the following children:


title: Zero-hour contract

text: A zero-hour contract is a type of employment contract between an employer and an employee whereby the employer is not obliged to provide any minimum number of working hours to the employee. The term 'zero-hour contract' is primarily used in the United Kingdom.


title: Zero-hour contract

text: In 2015, employers in the UK were prohibited from offering zero-hour contracts that prevented employees from also working for a different employer at the same time. In September 2017, the UK Office for National Statistics estimated that there are over 900,000 workers on zero-hours contracts, 2.9% of the employed workforce.


title: Zero-hour contract

text: In the UK, zero-hour contracts are controversial. Trade unions, other worker bodies and newspapers have described them as an exploitation of labour. Employers using zero-hours contracts include Sports Direct, McDonald's and Boots.


title: Zero-hour contract

text: A 'zero-hour contract' is a type of contract between an employer and a worker according to which the employer is not obliged to provide any minimum working hours and the worker is not obliged to accept any work offered. The term 'zero-hour contract' is primarily used in the United Kingdom.


title: Zero-hour contract

text: The employee may sign an agreement to be available for work as and when required, so that no particular number of hours or times of work are specified.


title: Zero-hour contract

text: Under UK law a distinction is drawn between a mere "worker" and an "employee", an employee having more legal rights than a worker. Whether a person working under a zero-hour contract is an employee or a worker can be uncertain; however, even in cases where the plain text of the zero-hour contract designates the person as a "worker" courts have inferred an employment relationship based on the mutuality of obligation between employer and employee.


title: Zero-hour contract

text: Zero-hours contracts provide basic social security benefits including maternity/paternity pay, holiday, and health insurance. A zero-hour contract may differ from casual work.


title: Zero-hour contract

text: In the United Kingdom, under the National Minimum Wage Act 1998, workers operating under a zero-hour contract on stand-by time, on-call time, and downtime must be paid the national minimum wage for hours worked. Prior to the introduction of the Working Time Regulations 1998 and the National Minimum Wage Regulations 1999 zero-hour contracts were sometimes used to "clock-off" staff during quiet periods while retaining them on site so they could be returned to paid work should the need arise. The National Minimum Wage Regulations require that employers pay the national minimum wage for the time workers are required to be at the workplace even if there is no "work" to do. In the past, some employees working on a zero-hour contract have been told that they are required to obtain permission of their employer before accepting other work but this practice has now been banned under UK legislation enacted in May 2015.


title: Zero-hour contract

text: In Autoclenz Ltd v Belcher, the UK Supreme Court delivered a judgment on workers employed under a zero-hour contract. Lord Clarke held, at paragraph 35, that in employment relations which are characterised by inequality of bargaining power, the written terms of a contract may not in truth represent what was the contract in law.


title: Zero-hour contract

text: In March 2015, the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015 received royal assent. On a date to be appointed, s. 153 of the Act will amend the Employment Rights Act 1996, so that exclusivity terms in zero-hours contracts will no longer be enforceable, and regulations may specify other circumstances under which employers may not restrict what other work zero-hours workers can do.


title: Zero-hour contract

text: As of September 2017, the Office for National Statistics estimated that there are over 900,000 workers on zero-hours contracts (2.9% of the employed workforce), up from 747,000 the previous year, with over 1.8 million such contracts (as some people may have more than one contract), with a further 1.3 million where no hours were worked. Some commentators have observed that the number of such contracts may be under-reported, as many people may be confusing them with casual employment, and may not be reporting them as temporary. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), based on a poll of 1,000 workers, reported in August 2013 that as many as 1 million workers in the United Kingdom, 3–4% of the workforce, work under the terms of a zero-hour contract. Based on a survey of 5,000 of its members, Unite, Britain's largest labour union, estimates that as many as 5.5 million workers are subject to zero-hour contracts, 22% of those employed privately. The survey, conducted by Mass 1, showed that zero-hour contracts were more prevalent in northwest England, among young workers, and in agricultural work. Often workers said that holiday pay was illegally denied, and in most cases sick pay as well. The National Farmers Union, which represents farmers, supports zero-hour contracts as offering needed flexibility for tasks such as harvesting.


title: Zero-hour contract

text: According to the CIPD research, about 38% of those employed under zero-hours contracts considered themselves to be employed full-time, working 30 hours or more a week. While 66% of those on zero-hours contracts were happy with the hours they worked, 16% felt they did not have an opportunity to work enough hours. About 17% of private employers used zero-hours contracts while they were used by 34% of non-profits organisations and 24% of public employers. Zero-hours contracts were frequently used in hotels, catering and leisure (48%), education (35%) and healthcare (27%).


title: Zero-hour contract

text: For domiciliary care workers the incidence was reported to be as high as 55.7% of all workers during the period 200812.


title: Zero-hour contract

text: The Workplace Employment Relations Survey conducted by the government of the UK in 2004 and 2011 shows that the proportion of workplaces that have some employees on zero-hours contracts has increased from 4% in 2004 to 8% in 2011. The survey found that larger companies are more likely to use zero-hours contracts. 23% of workplaces that have 100 or more employees used zero-hours contracts in 2011, compared to 11% of those with 50–99 employees and 6% of those with fewer than 50 employees.


title: Zero-hour contract

text: In the UK, zero-hour contracts are controversial. British business leaders have supported them, stating that they provide a flexible labour market. It is argued they may suit some people such as retirees and students who want occasional earnings and are able to be entirely flexible about when they work. It has been reported that 60% of people on zero-hour contracts are happy with the hours they work. Trade union groups and others have raised concerns about exploitation and the use of such contracts by management as a tool to reward or reprimand employees for any reason, meaningful or trivial. They also raise concerns about how workers can adequately assert their employment rights or maintain decent employment relations. A Channel 4 documentary broadcast on 1 August 2013 claimed that Amazon used "controversial" zero-hour contracts as a tool to reprimand staff.


title: Zero-hour contract

text: Workers subject to zero-hour contracts are vulnerable to exploitation as they may be denied work at any time for any reason, including declining to respond to a demand to work. A refusal to work in any one instance for any reason can result in a prolonged period of lack of work. Due to the uncertainty of the workers' schedules, zero-hour contracts present problems for workers with children due to the difficulty of arranging child care. The rapidly growing use of zero-hour contracts was the subject of a series of articles in late July 2013 by "The Guardian" and as of 2013 was of concern to Parliament. Vince Cable, business secretary of the government, is considering closer regulation of the contracts but has ruled out a ban. Labour MPs Alison McGovern and Andy Sawford have campaigned to ban or better regulate the practice.


title: Zero-hour contract

text: In 2016, several UK chains that had been using zero-hour contracts announced that they would phase them out during 2017. These included Sports Direct and two cinema chains, Curzon and Everyman. However, Cineworld, another leading cinema chain that also owns Picturehouse, has come under scrutiny for continuing to use the contract format, with the Ritzy living wage protests at London's Ritzy Cinema especially prominent.


title: Zero-hour contract

text: In 2020, a campaign called Zero Hours Justice was set up. Led by Ian Hodson, president of the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union and backed by Julian Richer, it was launched with the aim of ending zero hours contracts.


title: Zero-hour contract

text: The Institute of Directors, a chartered organisation of British business leaders, has defended the contracts as providing a flexible labour market, citing the lack of flexibility in Italy and Spain. Jacob Rees-Mogg MP has also argued that they benefit employees, including students, by providing flexibility, and could provide a route into more permanent employment.


title: Zero-hour contract

text: Casual labour contracts in Canada can have "no guaranteed minimum hours," place "no obligation on the employer to provide work", and pay can be "pro rated in line with hours worked."


title: Zero-hour contract

text: In 2015 in New Zealand, the television show "Campbell Live" revealed that large corporate hospitality companies such as Burger King and McDonald's, KFC, Starbucks, Pizza Hut, Carl's Jr. (all under Restaurant Brands), Sky City and Hoyts, all use zero-hour contracts to reduce costs. On 9 April, Restaurant Brands agreed to do away with zero-hours contracts.


title: Zero-hour contract

text: A bill outlawing zero-hour contracts in New Zealand was unanimously passed on 10 March 2016 and went into effect on 1 April.


title: History of the Jews in Spain

text: While the history of the Jews in the current-day Spanish territory stretches back to Biblical times according to legendary Jewish tradition, the settlement of organised Jewish communities in the Iberian Peninsula possibly traces back to the times after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. The earliest archaeological evidence of Hebrew presence in Iberia consists of a 2nd-century gravestone found in Mérida. From the late-6th century onward, following the Visigothic monarchs' conversion from Arianism to the Nicene creed, conditions for Jews in Iberia considerably worsened.


title: History of the Jews in Spain

text: Following the Islamic conquest of the Iberian Peninsula in the early 8th century, Jews lived under the "Dhimmi" system and progressively arabised. Jews of Al-Andalus stood out particularly during the 10th and 11th centuries, in the caliphal and first taifa periods. Scientific and philological study of the Hebrew Bible began, and secular poetry was written in Hebrew for the first time. Following the Almoravid and Almohad invasions, many Jews fled to northern Africa and the Christian Iberian kingdoms. Targets of antisemitic mob violence, Jews living in the Christian kingdoms faced persecutions throughout the 14th century, leading to the 1391 pogroms, which landed a blow to the Jewish presence in the Iberian Peninsula. As a result of the Alhambra Decree of 1492, the remaining practising Jews in Castile and Aragon were forced to convert to Catholicism (thus becoming 'New Christians' who faced discrimination under the "limpieza de sangre" system) whereas those who continued to practise Judaism () were expelled, creating diaspora communities in Europe, north Africa and western Asia (Sephardi Jews). Tracing back to the legal basis of a 1924 decree, there have been initiatives to favour the return of Sephardi Jews to Spain by facilitating Spanish citizenship on the basis of demonstrated ancestry.


title: History of the Jews in Spain

text: Some associate the country of Tarshish, as mentioned in the books of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, I Kings, Jonah and Romans, with a locale in southern Spain. In generally describing Tyre's empire from west to east, Tarshish is listed first (Ezekiel 27.12–14), and in Jonah 1.3 it is the place to which Jonah sought to flee from the Lord; evidently it represents the westernmost place to which one could sail.


title: History of the Jews in Spain

text: The link between Jews and Tarshish is clear. One might speculate that commerce conducted by Jewish emissaries, merchants, craftsmen, or other tradesmen among the Semitic Tyrean Phoenicians might have brought them to Tarshish. Although the notion of Tarshish as Spain is merely based on suggestive material, it leaves open the possibility of a very early Jewish presence in the Iberian peninsula.


title: History of the Jews in Spain

text: More substantial evidence of Jews in Spain comes from the Roman era. Although the spread of the Jews into Europe is most commonly associated with the diaspora that ensued from the Roman conquest of Judea, emigration from Eretz Yisrael into the greater Roman Mediterranean area predated the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans under Titus. In his "Facta et dicta memorabilia", Valerius Maximus makes reference to Jews and Chaldaeans being expelled from Rome in 139 BCE for their "corrupting" influences. According to Josephus, King Agrippa I attempted to discourage the Jews of Jerusalem from rebelling against Roman authority by reference to Jews throughout the Roman Empire and elsewhere; Agrippa warned that


title: History of the Jews in Spain

text: The Spanish rabbi and scholar, Abraham ibn Daud, wrote in "anno" 1161: “A tradition exists with the [Jewish] community of Granada that they are from the inhabitants of Jerusalem, of the descendants of Judah and Benjamin, rather than from the villages, the towns in the outlying districts [of Palestine].” Elsewhere, he writes about his maternal grandfather's family and how they came to Spain: "When Titus prevailed over Jerusalem, his officer who was appointed over Hispania appeased him, requesting that he send to him captives made-up of the nobles of Jerusalem, and so he sent a few of them to him, and there were amongst them those who made curtains and who were knowledgeable in the work of silk, and [one] whose name was Baruch, and they remained in Mérida." Here, Rabbi Abraham ben David refers to the second influx of Jews into Spain, shortly after the destruction of Israel's Second Temple.


title: History of the Jews in Spain

text: While the medieval lexicographer, David ben Abraham Al-Fāsī, identifies Ṣarfat with the city of Ṣarfend (Judeo-Arabic:y צרפנדה), the word Sepharad (Heb. ספרד) in the same verse has been translated by the 1st century rabbinic scholar, Jonathan ben Uzziel, as "Aspamia". Based on a later teaching in the compendium of Jewish oral laws compiled by Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi in 189 CE, known as the Mishnah, "Aspamia" is associated with a very faraway place, generally thought of as Hispania, or Spain. In "circa" 960 CE, Ḥisdai ibn Šaprūṭ, minister of trade in the court of the caliph in Córdoba, wrote to Joseph the king of Khazaria, saying: “The name of our land in which we dwell is called in the sacred tongue, "Sepharad", but in the language of the Arabs, the indwellers of the lands, "Alandalus" [Andalusia], the name of the capital of the kingdom, Córdoba.”


title: History of the Jews in Spain

text: According to Rabbi David Kimchi (1160–1235), in his commentary on Obadiah 1:20, Ṣarfat and Sepharad, both, refer to the Jewish captivity (Heb. "galut") expelled during the war with Titus and who went as far as the countries "Alemania" (Germany), "Escalona", France and Spain. The names Ṣarfat and Sepharad are explicitly mentioned by him as being France and Spain, respectively. Some scholars think that, in the case of the place-name, Ṣarfat (lit. Ṣarfend) – which, as noted, was applied to the Jewish diaspora in France, the association with France was made only exegetically because of its similarity in spelling with the name פרנצא (France), by a reversal of its letters.


title: History of the Jews in Spain

text: The Spanish Jew Moses de León (ca. 1250 – 1305), mentioned a tradition concerning the first Jewish exiles, saying that the vast majority of the first exiles driven away from the land of Israel during the Babylonian captivity refused to return, for they had seen that the Second Temple would be destroyed like the first. Yet another teaching, passed down later, by Moshe ben Machir in the 16th century, explicitly stated that Jews had lived in Spain since the destruction of the First Temple:


title: History of the Jews in Spain

text: Don Isaac Abrabanel, a prominent Jewish figure in Spain in the 15th century and one of the king's trusted courtiers who witnessed the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492, informs his readers that the first Jews to reach Spain were brought by ship to Spain by a certain Phiros, a confederate of the king of Babylon in laying siege to Jerusalem. This man was a Greek by birth, but had been given a kingdom in Spain. He became related by marriage to a certain Espan, the nephew of King Heracles, who also ruled over a kingdom in Spain. This Heracles later renounced his throne because of his preference for his native country in Greece, leaving his kingdom to his nephew, Espan, from whom the country's name España (Spain) derives. The Jewish exiles transported there by the said Phiros were descended by lineage from Judah, Benjamin, Shimon and Levi, and were, according to Abrabanel, settled in two districts in southern Spain: one, Andalusia, in the city of Lucena – a city so-called by the Jewish exiles that had come there; the second, in the country around "Ṭulayṭulah" (Toledo).


title: History of the Jews in Spain

text: Abrabanel says that the name "Ṭulayṭulah" was given to the city by its first Jewish inhabitants, and surmises that the name may have meant טלטול (= wandering), on account of their wandering from Jerusalem. He says, furthermore, that the original name of the city was Pirisvalle, so named by its early pagan inhabitants. He also wrote that he found written in the ancient annals of Spanish history collected by the kings of Spain that the 50,000 Jewish households then residing in the cities throughout Spain were the descendants of men and women who were sent to Spain by the Roman Emperor and who had formerly been subjected to him, and whom Titus had originally exiled from places in or around Jerusalem. The two Jewish exiles joined together and became one.


title: History of the Jews in Spain

text: Hispania came under Roman control with the fall of Carthage after the Second Punic War (218–202 BCE). Exactly how soon after this time Jews made their way onto the scene is a matter of speculation. It is within the realm of possibility that they went there under the Romans as free men to take advantage of its rich resources and build enterprises there. These early arrivals would have been joined by those who had been enslaved by the Romans under Vespasian and Titus, and dispersed to the extreme west during the period of the Jewish-Roman War, and especially after the defeat of Judea in 70. The Jewish historian, Josephus, confirms that as early as 90 CE there was already a Jewish "diaspora" in Europe, made-up of the two tribes, Judah and Benjamin. Thus, he writes in his "Antiquities":


title: History of the Jews in Spain

text: One questionable estimate places the number carried off to Spain at 80,000. Subsequent immigrations came into the area along both the northern African and southern European sides of the Mediterranean.


title: History of the Jews in Spain

text: Among the earliest records which may refer specifically to Jews in Spain during the Roman period is Paul's "Letter to the Romans". Many have taken Paul's intention to go to Spain to minister the gospel to indicate the presence of Jewish communities there, as well as Herod's banishment to Spain by Caesar in 39 (Flavius Josephus, "The Wars of the Jews", 2.9.6). So too, the Mishna implied that there was a Jewish community in Spain, and that there was communication with the Jewish community in Israel.


title: History of the Jews in Spain

text: From a slightly later period, "Midrash Rabbah" (Leviticus Rabba § 29.2), and "Pesikta de-Rav Kahana" ("Rosh Hashanna"), both, make mention of the Jewish diaspora in Spain (Hispania) and their eventual return. Among these early references are several decrees of the Council of Elvira, convened in the early fourth century, which address proper Christian behaviour with regard to the Jews of Spain, notably forbidding marriage between Jews and Christians.


title: History of the Jews in Spain

text: Of material evidence of early Iberian Jewry, representing a particularly early presence is a signet ring found at Cadiz, dating from the 8th–7th century BCE The inscription on the ring, generally accepted as Phoenician, has been interpreted by a few scholars to be "paleo-Hebraic" Among the early Spanish items of more reliably Jewish origins is an amphora which is at least as old as the 1st century. Although this vessel is not from the Spanish mainland (it was recovered from Ibiza, in the Balearic Islands), the imprint upon it of two Hebrew characters attests to Jewish contact, either direct or indirect, with the area at this time. Two trilingual Jewish inscriptions from Tarragona and Tortosa have been variously dated from the 2nd century BCE to the 6th century. (Bowers, p. 396.) There is also the tombstone inscription from Adra (formerly Abdera) of a Jewish girl named Salomonula, which dates to the early 3rd century.


title: History of the Jews in Spain

text: Thus, while there are limited material and literary indications for Jewish contact with Spain from a very early period, more definitive and substantial data begins with the third century. Data from this period suggest a well-established community, whose foundations must have been laid sometime earlier. It is likely that these communities originated several generations earlier in the aftermath of the conquest of Judea, and possible that they originated much earlier. There may have been close contact between the Jewish community of Babylon and Spain, as the Talmud documents that Yitzhak the Exilarch, son of the sister of Rav Beivai travelled from "Cordoba to Hispania".


title: History of the Jews in Spain

text: As citizens of the Roman Empire, the Jews of Spain engaged in a variety of occupations, including agriculture. Until the adoption of Christianity, Jews had close relations with non-Jewish populations, and played an active role in the social and economic life of the province. The edicts of the Synod of Elvira, although early examples of priesthood-inspired anti-Semitism, provide evidence of Jews who were integrated enough into the greater community to cause alarm among some: of the council's 80 canonic decisions, all those that pertained to Jews served to maintain a separation between the two communities. It seems that by this time the presence of Jews was of greater concern to Catholic authorities than the presence of pagans; Canon 16, which prohibited marriage with Jews, was worded more strongly than canon 15, which prohibited marriage with pagans. Canon 78 threatens those who commit adultery with Jews with ostracism. Canon 48 forbade Jews from blessing Christian crops, and Canon 50 forbade sharing meals with Jews; repeating the command to Hebrew the Bible indicated respect to Gentile.


title: History of the Jews in Spain

text: Barbarian invasions brought most of the Iberian Peninsula under Visigothic rule by the early 5th century. Other than in their contempt for Catholics, who reminded them of the Romans, the Visigoths did not generally take much of an interest in the religious creeds within their kingdom. It wasn't until 506, when Alaric II (484–507) published his "Breviarium Alaricianum" (wherein he adopted the laws of the ousted Romans), that a Visigothic king concerned himself with the Jews.


title: History of the Jews in Spain

text: The tides turned even more dramatically following the conversion of the Visigothic royal family under Recared from Arianism to Catholicism in 587. In their desire to consolidate the realm under the new religion, the Visigoths adopted an aggressive policy concerning the Jews. As the king and the church acted in a single interest, the situation for the Jews deteriorated. Recared approved the Third Council of Toledo's move in 589 to forcibly baptize the children of mixed marriages between Jews and Christians. Toledo III also forbade Jews from holding public office, from having intercourse with Christian women, and from performing circumcisions on slaves or Christians. Still, Recared was not entirely successful in his campaigns: not all Visigoth Arians had converted to Catholicism; the unconverted were true allies of the Jews, oppressed like themselves, and Jews received some protection from Arian bishops and the independent Visigothic nobility.


title: History of the Jews in Spain

text: While the policies of subsequent Kings Liuva II (601–604), Witteric (603–610), and Gundemar (610–612) are unknown to us, Sisebut (612–620) embarked on Recared's course with renewed vigour. Soon after upholding the edict of compulsory baptism for children of mixed marriages, Sisebut instituted what was to become a recurring phenomenon in Spanish official policy, the first edicts expelling Jews from Spain. Following his 613 decree that Jews must either convert or be expelled, some fled to Gaul or North Africa, while as many as 90,000 converted. Many of these "conversos", like those of later periods, maintained their Jewish identities in secret. During the more tolerant reign of Suintila (621–631), most of the "conversos" returned to Judaism, and a number of the exiles returned to Spain.


title: History of the Jews in Spain

text: In 633, the Fourth Council of Toledo, while taking a stance in opposition to compulsory baptism, convened to address the problem of crypto-Judaism. It was decided that, if a professed Christian was determined to be a practising Jew, his or her children were to be taken away to be raised in monasteries or trusted Christian households. The council further directed that all who had reverted to Judaism during the reign of Swintila had to return to Christianity. The trend toward intolerance continued with the ascent of Chintila (636–639). He directed the Sixth Council of Toledo to order that only Catholics could remain in the kingdom, and taking an unusual step further, Chintila excommunicated "in advance" any of his successors who did not act in accordance with his anti-Jewish edicts. Again, many converted while others chose exile.


title: History of the Jews in Spain

text: And yet the "problem" continued. The Eighth Council of Toledo in 653 again tackled the issue of Jews within the realm. Further measures at this time included the forbidding of all Jewish rites (including circumcision and the observation of the Shabbat), and all converted Jews had to promise to put to death, either by burning or by stoning, any of their brethren known to have relapsed to Judaism. The council was aware that prior efforts had been frustrated by lack of compliance among authorities on the local level: therefore, anyone — including nobles and clergy — found to have aided Jews in the practice of Judaism was to be punished by seizure of one quarter of their property and excommunication.


title: History of the Jews in Spain

text: These efforts again proved unsuccessful. The Jewish population remained sufficiently sizable as to prompt Wamba (672–680) to issue limited expulsion orders against them, and the reign of Erwig (680–687) also seemed vexed by the issue. The Twelfth Council of Toledo again called for forced baptism, and, for those who disobeyed, seizure of property, corporal punishment, exile, and slavery. Jewish children over seven years of age were taken from their parents and similarly dealt with in 694. Erwig also took measures to ensure that Catholic sympathisers would not be inclined to aid Jews in their efforts to subvert the council's rulings. Heavy fines awaited any nobles who acted in favour of the Jews, and members of the clergy who were remiss in enforcement were subject to a number of punishments.


title: History of the Jews in Spain

text: Egica (687–702), recognising the wrongness of forced baptism, relaxed the pressure on the "conversos", but kept it up on practising Jews. Economic hardships included increased taxes and the forced sale, at a fixed price, of all property ever acquired from Christians. This effectively ended all agricultural activity for the Jews of Spain. Furthermore, Jews were not to engage in commerce with the Christians of the kingdom nor conduct business with Christians overseas. Egica's measures were upheld by the Sixteenth Council of Toledo in 693.


title: History of the Jews in Spain

text: In 694, at the Council of Toledo, Jews were condemned to slavery by the Visigoths because of a plot to revolt against them encouraged by the Eastern Roman Empire and Romans still residing in Spain.


title: History of the Jews in Spain

text: Under the Catholic Visigoths persecutions increased. The degree of complicity which the Jews had in the Islamic invasion in 711 is uncertain. Yet, openly treated as enemies in the country in which they had resided for generations, it would be no surprise for them to have appealed to the Moors to the south, quite tolerant in comparison to the Visigoths, for aid. In any case, in 694 they were accused of conspiring with Muslims across the Mediterranean. Declared traitors, Jews, including baptised Jews, found their property confiscated and themselves enslaved. This decree exempted only the converts who dwelt in the mountain passes of Septimania, who were necessary for the kingdom's protection.


title: History of the Jews in Spain

text: The Eastern Roman Empire sent its navy on numerous occasions at the end of the 7th and beginning of the 8th centuries to try to instill uprisings in the Jewish and Christian Roman populations in Spain and Gaul against their Visigoth and Frankish rulers, which was also aimed at halting the expansion of Muslim Arabs in the Roman world.


title: History of the Jews in Spain

text: The Jews of Spain were utterly embittered and alienated by Catholic rule at the time of the Muslim invasion. The Moors were perceived as a liberating force and welcomed by Jews eager to help them to administer the country. In many conquered towns the Muslims left the garrison in the hands of the Jews before proceeding further north. Thus was initiated the period that became known as the "Golden Age" for Spanish Jews.


title: History of the Jews in Spain

text: With the victory of Tariq ibn Ziyad in 711, the lives of the Sephardim changed dramatically. For the most part, the invasion of the Moors was welcomed by the Jews of Iberia.


title: History of the Jews in Spain

text: Both Muslim and Catholic sources tell us that Jews provided valuable aid to the invaders. Once captured, the defence of Córdoba was left in the hands of Jews, and Granada, Málaga, Seville, and Toledo were left to a mixed army of Jews and Moors. The Chronicle of Lucas de Tuy records that when the Catholics left Toledo on Sunday before Easter to go to the Church of Saint Leocadia to listen to the divine sermon, the Jews acted treacherously and informed the Saracens. Then they closed the gates of the city before the Catholics and opened them for the Moors, although, in contradiction to de Tuy's account, Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada's "De rebus Hispaniae" maintains that Toledo was "almost completely empty of its inhabitants", not because of Jewish treachery, but because "many had fled to Amiara, others to Asturias and some to the mountains", following which the city was fortified by a militia of Arabs and Jews (3.24). Although in the cases of some towns, the behaviour of the Jews may have been conducive to Muslim success, such was of limited impact overall.


title: History of the Jews in Spain

text: In spite of the restrictions placed upon the Jews as dhimmis, life under Muslim rule was one of great opportunity in comparison to that under prior Catholic Visigoths, as testified by the influx of Jews from abroad. To Jews throughout the Catholic and Muslim worlds, Iberia was seen as a land of relative tolerance and opportunity. Following initial Arab-Berber victories, and especially with the establishment of Umayyad dynasty rule by Abd al-Rahman I in 755, the native Jewish community was joined by Jews from the rest of Europe, as well as from Arab territories from Morocco to Mesopotamia (the latter region known as Babylonia in Jewish sources). Thus the Sephardim found themselves enriched culturally, intellectually, and religiously by the commingling of diverse Jewish traditions. Contacts with Middle Eastern communities were strengthened and it was during this time that the influence of the Babylonian academies of Sura and Pumbedita was at its greatest. As a result, until the mid-10th century, much of Sephardic scholarship focused on Halakha.


title: History of the Jews in Spain

text: Although not as influential, traditions of the Levant, known as Palestine, were also introduced, in an increased interest in Hebrew language and biblical studies.


title: History of the Jews in Spain

text: Arabic culture, of course, also made a lasting impact on Sephardic cultural development. General reevaluation of scripture was prompted by Muslim anti-Jewish polemics and the spread of rationalism, as well as the anti-Rabbanite polemics of Karaite Judaism.


title: History of the Jews in Spain

text: In adopting Arabic, as had the Babylonian geonim, the heads of the Talmudic Academies in Babylonia, not only were the cultural and intellectual achievements of Arabic culture opened up to the educated Jew, but much of the scientific and philosophical speculation of Greek culture, which had been best preserved by Arab scholars, were as well. The meticulous regard which the Arabs had for grammar and style also had the effect of stimulating an interest among Jews in philological matters in general. Arabic came to be the main language of Sephardic science, philosophy, and everyday business. From the second half of the 9th century, most Jewish prose, including many non-halakhic religious works, were in Arabic. The thorough adoption of Arabic greatly facilitated the assimilation of Jews into Arabic culture.


title: History of the Jews in Spain

text: Although initially the often bloody disputes among Muslim factions generally kept Jews out of the political sphere, the first approximately two centuries which preceded the "Golden Age" were marked by increased activity by Jews in a variety of professions, including medicine, commerce, finance, and agriculture.


title: History of the Jews in Spain

text: By the ninth century, some members of the Sephardic community felt confident enough to take part in proselytizing amongst previously Jewish "Catholics". Most famous were the heated correspondences sent between Bodo the Frank, a former deacon who had converted to Judaism in 838, and the converso Bishop of Córdoba, Álvaro of Córdoba. Each man, using such epithets as "wretched compiler", tried to convince the other to return to his former religion, to no avail.


title: History of the Jews in Spain

text: The first period of exceptional prosperity took place under the reign of Abd ar-Rahman III (882–955), the first Caliph of Córdoba (from 929 onward). The inauguration of the Golden Age is closely identified with the career of his Jewish councillor, Hasdai ibn Shaprut (882–942). Originally a court physician, Shaprut's official duties went on to include the supervision of customs and foreign trade. It was in his capacity as dignitary that he corresponded with the kingdom of the Khazars, who had converted to Judaism in the 8th century.