Conversos, Inquisition, and the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain

Introduction

Introduction The history of the Jews of Spain is a long and colorful one. It is perhaps not generally realized that Jews lived in Spain longer than they have lived in any other country, including their homeland (ancient Israel). For well over a thousand years Jews played a major role in the cultural and socioeconomic evolution of the Iberian Peninsula, first under the Visigoths, then the Muslims , and finally in "reconquered" Christian Spain. More Jews lived in Spain than in all of the countries of medieval Europe combined. In marked contrast to those lands, however, Spain's Jews were not concentrated primarily in a few major towns and cities, but lived in every village and town throughout the land, sometimes in dense populations and sometimes as few as two or three families in a town. Culturally, of course, Jews achieved levels in Spain never before and never again attained. Here biblical commentary and the scientific study of the text were born; here, too, was the miraculous "renaissance" of the Hebrew language made possible by the creation of Hebrew grammar, which in turn gave birth to Hebrew secular poetry and literature on the Arabic model.1 Original Jewish contributions in the area of philosophy also came into being first in Muslim Spain, and continued in the later Christian period, with works in Arabic, Hebrew, Castilian and Catalan. Jews, indeed, apparently made the first contributions to written Spanish, certainly in the earliest biblical translations, and in other less complete forms. Except for a relatively brief period of persecution (although greatly exaggerated in most accounts) when the Almohads invaded in the twelfth century , Jews lived generally in quite harmonious relations with their Muslim and Christian neighbors. This cooperation in the cultural sphere may also be seen in the realms of science and medicine, where Jews soon played a major role. Virtually all of the most significant Jewish writers in the fields of astronomy, mathematics, geography, medicine, and other sciences in the medieval period were from Spain. Their importance was not merely as "transmitters" of Arabic knowledge , but also as original authors, for example of the majority of the scientific treatises of the so-called Alfonsine corpus (Alfonso X of Castile, who was merely the patron of these and other works ascribed to him).2 Jews were equally at home in the "secular" and "religious" spheres of study in Spain (a distinction most would not then have made), and it is important to realize that also the most renowned medieval Talmudic scholars , commentators, codifiers of law, etc., were Spanish Jews. zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedc xi Xll Introduction Precisely because of the harmonious relations and the general lack of discrimination, and certainly of persecution, it was also possible for Jews to attain positions of power and authority in the government at all levels, from tax officials and administrators of dukes and local overlords or ecclesiastical properties to the highest level of running the affairs of the kingdom. There was no distinction in this regard between the medieval kingdoms of CastileLeon and of Aragon-Catalonia. All of this remarkable history and culture came to an abrupt end in 1492 with the astonishing order expelling the Jews from all the (now united) Spanish kingdoms. How this could have taken place is a topic of complex dimensions, the full consideration of which would involve nothing less than the study of the entire history of the Jews in medieval Spain. Indeed, the time has not yet arrived when such a comprehensive history can be written; meanwhile, I have set for myself the task, on which I have been occupied now for many years, of eventually dealing with the topic of intergroup relations among Jews, Muslims, and Christians in Spain. Until that study is completed, the present book provides a partial exposition of certain aspects of that problem , namely the issues of conversion, the Inquisition, and the expulsion of the Jews in the latter part of the medieval period. The first topic to be considered is the nature of Jewish conversion to Christianity, beginning the fourteenth century. It will become apparent why, although there were certainly instances of conversion before that time, the role of the convert was entirely different then, and entirely different from what it had been in other lands. There still is enormous confusion, not only among laymen but also among scholars, about the conversos (Jewish converts ) of medieval Spain. According to the romantic myth of "cryptoJudaism ," it is apparently inconceivable that a Jew could willingly abandon his "faith" and...