In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

≤≥ THE DOGMATISTA CRYPTOJEWISH MARTYRS 2 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 di√erent from those confronting the generation of the Expulsion and the forced conversion in Portugal. They had never lived in—or even in the vicinity of—a Jewish community. Their grandparents ’ gravestones were located on monastery grounds or in church chapels. In their environment, Latin was the language of learning. Personal salvation was a foundational concept in their religious consciousness, as critical in their cryptoJudaism as it was in their parish priest’s Catholicism. They had no idea how one worshipped in a synagogue or conducted a Passover seder. In short, they lacked any organic connection to contemporary Jewish life. Their careers were clustered chronologically in the period between ∞∑πΩ and ∞∏∏∑. This clustering may be explained in di√erent ways, but it was not mere accident.∞ Nor was it because there had been no crypto-Jews who had chosen to die as martyrs before this time. Converso deaths of a heroic type had occurred, as we have seen, even before the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition, and surely occurred afterward as well, both in Spain and Portugal. But earlier conditions did not lend themselves to the kind of prolonged, staged ‘‘combat’’ between inquisitors and prisoner that mark the careers of the celebrated martyrs. This was due partly to the fact that in the early period of inquisitorial activity in Spain, trials and autosda -fé were often hasty a√airs.≤ The leisurely pace of the trials we will be examining —their records often cover hundreds of folio pages—became possible only at a stage at which the volume of cases had dropped o√ sharply. But this is not an adequate explanation. The Portuguese Inquisition, in contrast to that of Spain, appears to have maintained a relatively unflagging pace of prosecutions; indeed, there is evidence of acceleration in the seventeenth century.≥ Other factors were clearly involved. Unfortunately, we have only the sketchiest notion of how crypto-Jewish life in Portugal evolved over time. We can, however, identify some of the major factors ≤∂ DYING IN THE LAW OF MOSES and developments that facilitated the appearance of the type of judaizer we will be examining. First, there was the sheer passage of time and, with it, the accumulation of experience. In the decades before the Portuguese Inquisition was established, judaizing conversos in Portugal were able to develop a more-or-less stable, ‘‘networked ,’’ and rooted crypto-Jewish existence, one that was capable of withstanding periodic assaults. As with all groups who endure systematic repression, the cryptoJews in Portugal became experts in the mode of operation of the regime that victimized them. They built up a stockpile of wisdom, sharing tips, lore, and information in a way that allowed them to anticipate the Inquisition’s steps. They were also aided incalculably by the fact that after the early reign of terror in the ∞∑∂≠s, the Portuguese Inquisition, like the Spanish, became a fairly predictable bureaucracy, with elaborate regulations that were usually observed to the letter. (The Portuguese Inquisition operated according to the same methods and procedures as the Spanish, which drew heavily from regulations established by the medieval Inquisition.) Certainly by the ∞∑π≠s, an intelligent, adult crypto-Jew whose trial had advanced to a certain point could have few illusions about his or her prospects. Let me give a few examples. A converso who had been tried and reconciled in the past, and who had been arrested again and found guilty of judaizing, would be burned at the stake as a relapso whether or not he or she repented. A converso who denied all guilt, but who the Inquisition was convinced had judaized, would in all likelihood be burned at the stake as a negativo. A converso who had no prior record and who confessed fully to judaizing, providing details and names of accomplices while expressing profuse repentance, could expect to be reconciled (received back in the Church)—though he or she would also be sentenced to wearing the sambenito for a period, serving a brief prison sentence,∂ and su√ering the confiscation of property. Once these realities were clear, it was possible to view martyrdom as a ‘‘best’’ option—that...

Share