The punishment was death, and a disgraceful one at that.

             Still, reading on makes it plain that the Spanish were trying to avoid having to impose this sanction by restricting Jews to their homes on that day. This early form of 'house arrest," without a trial, is certainly one way to ensure that Jewish society was held in lower regard than Christian society. .

             Further, of course, because the code seems to have two levels of sanction-really horrid and highly inconvenient-it was open to manipulation by "influential personages with a vindictive agenda" (Loomie 1999 356), making it impossible for Jews to live in the same legal environment as Christians, always fearing ex officio mistreatment. It would be logical, too, for Jews to tread gingerly lest they arouse vindictive feelings in anyone, and to suffer other minor injustices in order to avoid serious ones.

             Loomie agrees with Kamen that the Inquisition was, in many cases, a completely Castilian enterprise, resented, in fact, by clerics and secular leaders both in Catalonia and Valencia. In fact, Loomie and Kamen propose that the Inquisition, as it has been handed down through popular thought and in popular 'research" and textbooks, was not nearly as draconian as has been supposed. They contend that it has gotten bad press because of the Reformation in the north, in an effort for those reformers to shift attention away from their own excesses (Loomie 1999 356). As an example of justice, Kamen/Loomie also believe the Seven Point Code is not so bad, at least "alongside of contemporary oppressive northern European systems of justice . Even a notorious auto-da-fe occurred far less often and ended up finally as an occasional festivity" (Loomie 1999 356).

             The Seven Point Code contained relatively enlightened attitudes toward sacred Jewish buildings. It noted that, although no new synagogues could be constructed "except by our order," those that had existed and were torn down (or one might assume, burned down or razed by other catastrophic event) could be rebuilt at the same spot, although they could not be enlarged or raised to a greater height, or painted.