Conversos, Inquisition, and the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain by Norman Roth (review)

BOOK REVIEWS97 discredit his most famous pupU,their common enemy,Cardinal Bessarion. Monfasani 's interpretation takes note of, but does not explain, the considerable body of evidence showing Pletho to have been an (admittedly eccentric) supporter of Greek Orthodoxy against the Latin Church. Yet the evidence for Pletho's paganism , taken at face value, is certainly strong, and Monfasani's reading ofit may weU be the correct one; the attractive hypothesis that Pletho practiced an "eschatological paganism" solves a number of problems. But Monfasani stiU needs to make better sense of Pletho's numerous defenses of "the faith that we hold." James Hansons Harvard University Conversos, Inquisition, and the Expulsion oftheJewsfrom Spain. By Norman Roth. (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press. 1995. Pp. xvi, 429. $50.00.) There are many books on the conversion of Iberian Jews to Christianity, the estabUshment ofthe Spanish Inquisition, and the Expulsion of 1492. Most scholars ,whetherJewish or Christian, have emphasized the forced nature ofthe conversions , and, as a result ofthis, the existence of a large number ofonly nominal Christians, many ofthem secretly attached toJudaism and therefore persecuted by the Inquisition down to the eighteenth century. WhUe, in his Marranos (1966), Benzion Netanyahu argued that over some decades most conversos became sincere Christians, he accepted the forced nature of the original conversions . In contrast, Professor Roth argues that almost aU the conversions were free and that, from the beginning, the great majority of the conversos were sincere Christians. Roth cites many Spanish and Hebrew sources. In a short review it is impossible to discuss in detaU how he uses them. There are three main problems with the book: its claims to originaUty, its selective use of evidence, and, most important , its adamant insistence on positions adopted apriori. Roth claims (pp. xii f.) that his book is the first detaüed examination of the role of the conversos in Spanish society and the first to connect the fifteenthcentury Inquisition with its predecessor, founded two hundred years earUer. Given previous scholarship, it is hard to take these claims seriously. To estabUsh them, Roth is obUged to attack his predecessors (see below). Two examples of the selective use ofevidence may suffice. Roth accepts (pp. 68 f.) part ofa statement of ca. 1490 on the "good Christians" converted eighty years earUer, whUe rejecting the reference in the same source to contemporary conversions, impelled by fear. On page 162 (n. 17), citing a text which refers to persons converted by force, he inserts the word "few" in his source. Roth starts from the unproven assumption that the conversions were free. Discussing the reasons for the conversions ofmanyJews in 1391 and later, Roth 98BOOK REVIEWS states (p. 8) that in Spain "none or almost none ofthe conversions had anything to do with duress or persecution." On page 32 we are told that in 1391 , "given the forceful reaction of the Kings there was clearly no reason for 'fear.'" These points are repeated many times (cf. pp. 34, 115, 217, etc.; a weakness of the book is an excessive tendency to repetition). They are hardly supported by the evidence, only a fraction of which is cited here. (To save space, I refer to my book, The Spanish Kingdoms, II, 139-141.) If, in 1391, Jews "freely chose [Roth's emphasis] to become Christians" (p. 44), one may ask why they did not do so earUer? The answer is obvious; before 1391 they were not in deadly fear ofmassacre by Christian mobs. The "inescapable question which so far not one single scholar has attempted to address: ifJews were being 'coerced' into converting in Spain, why did they not simply leave the country" (pp. 43 f.), is one which could only have occurred to someone Uving in the twentieth century. In the 1390's "simply leaving the country"meant abandoning one's roots and one's local community. Writing at the time, the Spanish Rabbi Simon b. Zemah Duran recognized the real problems that confronted formerJews who wished to leave Spain (Netanyahu, pp. 32-34). Roth's basic misconception of the nature of the original "conversions" as being "free" inevitably leads him to beUeve that virtually aU conversos and their descendants were sincere Christians...