Dying in the Law of Moses
Crypto-Jewish Martyrdom in the Iberian World
Publication Year: 2007
Miriam Bodian's study of crypto-Jewish martyrdom in Iberian lands depicts a new type of martyr that emerged in the late 16th century -- a defiant, educated judaizing martyr who engaged in disputes with inquisitors. By examining closely the Inquisition dossiers of four men who were tried in the Iberian peninsula or Spanish America and who developed judaizing theologies that drew from currents of Reformation thinking that emphasized the authority of Scripture and the religious autonomy of individual interpreters of Scripture, Miriam Bodian reveals unexpected connections between Reformation thought and historic crypto-Judaism. The complex personalities of the martyrs, acting in response to psychic and situational pressures, emerge vividly from this absorbing book.
Published by: Indiana University Press
Cover
Contents
List of Illustrations and Maps
Download PDF (140.2 KB)
pp. ix-
Preface
Download PDF (128.0 KB)
pp. xi-
This book explores the careers of a handful of men who were tried by the Spanish and Portuguese inquisitions, who became celebrated martyrs among some of their Jewish contemporaries. It will examine what drove them to choose a path of martyrdom, and how they both improvised and drew on established patterns as they asserted and reaffirmed their...
Acknowledgments
Download PDF (120.5 KB)
pp. xv-
To examine the sources that provided the raw material for this book, I have had recourse to a number of institutions, and invariably benefited from the expertise of their well-trained staffs: the Bodleian Library at Oxford University; the Archivo Hist�rico Nacional in Madrid; the Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid; the Instituto dos Arquivos Nacionais/Torre do Tombo...
List of Abbreviations
Download PDF (118.1 KB)
pp. xvii-
1. The Historical Setting
Download PDF (551.1 KB)
pp. 1-22
Famous acts of martyrdom involve conviction. But they also entail a power struggle. Martyrs ‘‘triumph’’ over their persecutors by refusing to renounce their beliefs under threat of death. Such acts diminish the persecutor and galvanize fellow victims of persecution. This, in essence, is the dynamic of martyrdom, stripped of all the particularities that give the martyr’s act...
2. The Dogmatista Crypto-Jewish Martyrs
Download PDF (690.1 KB)
pp. 23-46
The dogmatista martyrs who are the focus of this book emerged only in the late sixteenth century. For them, the Inquisition—whether Spanish or Portuguese— was a familiar and ubiquitous presence. Few of their contemporaries (if any) remembered a time when it was otherwise. In other ways, too, these men were conditioned by circumstances that were radically...
3. A Conquistador's Nephew in New Spain
Download PDF (1.3 MB)
pp. 47-78
Luis Rodríguez de Carvajal was born in 1566 in Benavente, a town in Castile near the Portuguese border.¹ Both of his parents were New Christians with some ancestral roots in Portugal. The family moved to Medina del Campo in 1577, where Carvajal’s father engaged in retail trade to support his growing family. Luis was the fifth of eight children at the time; a ninth would...
4. A Monk of Castanheira
Download PDF (1.1 MB)
pp. 79-116
Three years after Carvajal was burned at the stake, a young Capuchin monk in Portugal, Diogo d’Asumpção, was seized by the Inquisition.¹ This curious and tormented figure had little if any Jewish ancestry. He was born in the port town of Caminha, near the mouth of the Minho River in northern Portugal, where his father was a customs inspector.² Frei Diogo had fled...
5. A Converso Surgeon in the Viceroyalty of Peru
Download PDF (1.3 MB)
pp. 117-152
In 1639, more than a generation after Frei Diogo d’Asumpção’s death, the converso physician Francisco Maldonado de Silva was burned alive in Lima as an impenitent judaizer. During his twelve years in prison, he engaged in lengthy disputations with theologians summoned by the Inquisition. His dramatic career made a great impression on the ex-converso...
6. A Hebrew Scholar at the University of Salamanca
Download PDF (1.3 MB)
pp. 153-177
In 1644, a hidalgo named Lope de Vera y Alarc�n was burned alive in Valladolid for judaizing, and quickly joined the ranks of the celebrated martyrs. There is no evidence or reason to believe that he had any Jewish ancestry.� He was denounced and arrested in 1639, at the age of nineteen, while he was at the University of Salamanca, where he had competed...
7. Echoes in the Portuguese-Jewish Diaspora
Download PDF (1.2 MB)
pp. 178-196
The celebrated dogmatista martyrs’ resistance to the Church was shaped, in part, by an awareness of Christian religious dissent in early modern Europe. It drew strength from the insistence of Protestants that it was wrong to withhold knowledge of sacred texts in the name of ecclesiastical authority, and that indeed Scripture was the very font of religious...
Appendix A: Commemoration of Individual Martyrs in the Literature of the Portuguese-Jewish Diaspora, to 1683
Download PDF (122.6 KB)
pp. 197-198
Appendix B: Summary of Luis Carvajal’s Nine Reasons for Adhering to the Law of Moses, Audience of February 15, 1595, PLC, 235-238
Download PDF (120.8 KB)
pp. 199-200
Glossary
Download PDF (130.1 KB)
pp. 201-202
Notes
Download PDF (366.2 KB)
pp. 203-252
Bibliography
Download PDF (205.1 KB)
pp. 253-268
Index
Download PDF (151.4 KB)
pp. 269-278
E-ISBN-13: 9780253116918
E-ISBN-10: 0253116910
Print-ISBN-13: 9780253348616
Page Count: 304
Illustrations: 15 b&w photos, 4 figures
Publication Year: 2007
Series Title: The Modern Jewish Experience
