Between Christian and Jew: Conversion and Inquisition in the Crown of Aragon, 1250-1391

1.Defending the Faith: Medieval Inquisitors and the Prosecution of Jews and Converts

C h a p t e r 1 Defending the Faith: Medieval Inquisitors and the Prosecution of Jews and Converts Perfidious Jews try, whenever and wherever they can, secretly to pervert Christians and bring them to the Jewish perfidy, especially those [Christians] who previously were Jews but converted and received baptism and the faith of Christ. —Bernard Gui, c. 13231 Pope Gregory IX surely never dreamed, when he appointed the first inquisitors in 1231, that medieval inquisitions would become a nexus of conflict between Christians and Jews. As the head of an increasingly self-conscious and assertive church, Gregory’s immediate aim was the eradication of Christian heresy. The pope assigned members of the newly founded Franciscan and Dominican orders to this task and, in conjunction with local bishops, these friars set about using Roman inquisitorial procedure to lead “the writhing serpent” of heresy out from “the bosom of the sinner.”2 Whether by converting hearts or destroying bodies, inquisitors were determined to stamp out heresy. To this end, they initiated proceedings at will. In order to encourage witnesses to speak freely, inquisitors withheld from the accused the names of those who testified against them, as well as the specific crimes with which they were charged. They resorted to coercive measures, such as imprisonment and torture, when confession, “the queen of proofs,” was not forthcoming, and they assigned penances—such as arduous pilgrimages and the wearing of symbols representing particular crimes—to facilitate and publicize heretics’ return to the church and the saving power of her sacraments . When, however, a heretic was found to be impenitent or a repeat Defending the Faith 17 offender, he or she was understood deliberately to have rejected God’s favor and the opportunity for atonement that inquisitors sought to mediate. In such cases, inquisitors, who as clerics were not permitted to shed blood, turned individuals over to secular officials to burn at the stake. Inquisitors’ jurisdiction reached even into the grave. When inquisitors determined that a heretic had died impenitent, they exhumed and burned his or her corpse.3 The origins of inquisitorial activity in the Crown of Aragon can be traced to the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, when kings Alfons I, Pere I, and Jaume I launched campaigns against Christian heretics who had fled to the Crown of Aragon to escape persecution in Provence and Languedoc during the Albigensian Crusade (c. 1208–29). Ramon de Penyafort, who served as confessor to King Jaume I, chaplain to Pope Alexander IV, and Dominican master general from 1238 to 1240, was instrumental in putting Dominican inquisitors to work in the Crown by 1237. Penyafort is credited with compiling an inquisitorial manual in 1241 or 1242 and, in 1242, he and the reforming archbishop Pere de Albalate helped to produce guidelines for inquisitorial protocol at the provincial council at Tarragona.4 By the time of Pere’s case in 1341, inquisitors in the Crown of Aragon possessed a wide range of experience. They had investigated Cathars, Waldenses, Templars, Beguins, and Spiritual Franciscans, as well as the works of the philosopher and alchemist Arnau de Vilanova. In addition, they had come to form part of an intricate network of operations. An inquisitor based in Barcelona appointed local commissaries to conduct investigations. Proceedings required the presence of additional men of good standing, as well as the help of notaries and scribes and the advice of lawyers and theologians. Royal officials helped inquisitors detain, torture, and execute alleged heretics and, beginning in the reign of Jaume II, kings agreed to pay inquisitors an annual salary of one hundred lliures.5 Bishops, who shared with inquisitors the duty of ridding Christendom of heresy, also collaborated with inquisitors. Thus, in Pere’s case, for example, fra Sancho de Torralba worked closely with Bernardo Duque, and fra Bernat de Puigcercós requested the permission of the bishop of Tarazona, Bertran de Cormidela, to have the defendants tortured and to sentence them. In the pages that follow, we shall explore a remarkable feature of inquisitorial activity in the medieval Crown of Aragon, namely, the prosecution of Jewish converts, whose numbers were few, and professing Jews who, as nonChristians , did not fall squarely within inquisitors’ jurisdiction. After examining the extent and impact of this work and considering some of the theoretical 18 Before the Tribunal and practical challenges it involved, I shall argue that inquisitors prosecuted Jews primarily in order to...