Religion and Ethnicity Among “Men of the Nation”: Toward a Realistic Interpretation

The notion that early modern “Men of the Nation,” also known as (Judeo-) Conversos and New Christians, were in essence suffering Jews who yearned to “return” to Judaism, and that they did so naturally whenever circumstances allowed it, has dominated scholarly treatments of that group. This article proposes an alternative approach to the interpretation of Conversos’ social and religious identity-formation. Based in part on the work of Carlo Ginzburg, the work first proposes ways of reading inquisitorial evidence of New Christians’ self-perceptions that avoid an all-too-common, naïve positivism. Second, the work explores ethnicity and religion as categories of analysis in light of anthropological insights in order to render a complex picture of the role of these two factors as intertwined yet sometimes dissonant elements in the historical construction of Jewish, Sephardi, and New Christian identities.