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1 zyxwvutsrqp Marranos and Conversos The first specific mention of the termzyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIH "Marrano" is found in the records of the Cortes (parliament) of Soria, convened by Juan I of Castile in 1380. The significance of the text, reflecting already the ecclesiastical objection to discrimination against conversos which was to cause a major conflict in the fifteenth century, is such that it is best to translate the text in its entirety: An offense and great harm and insult to the holy Catholic faith is that Jews or Muslims, recognizing that they live in mortal sin and [then] receiving the sacrament of baptism, should be insulted by Jews or by Christians or others because they convert to the holy faith. And Jews or infidel Muslims excuse themselves because of these injuries from not becoming Christians, even though they know our faith to be holy and true. Therefore we order and command that no one shall call any convert Marrano, Tornadizo [renegade], nor any other injurious term. Anyone who, on the contrary, does this shall pay 300 mrs. each time he so calls him, or says this about a person to insult him; and if he has no property with which to pay, he shall spend fifteen days in prison.1 As a precedent for this, we may note that already the Fuero (local law) of Brihuega, ca. 1239—42, punished with a fine of 2 mrs. anyone who called a Christian "tornadizo" In 1242, Jaime I of Aragon-Catalonia enacted a similar law, imposing unspecified "penalties" on anyone who called a converted Jew or Muslim "tornadiqo" and we find the same thing in the Fuero real and the Siete Partidas of Jaime's son-in-law Alfonso X of Castile.2 We must state emphatically that we have absolutely no clear idea as to what the term "Marrano" means in Spanish, or, indeed, if it is a Spanish word at all. Numerous guesses have been made as to the meaning, and it has become more or less popularly understood that the word means "pig." However, there is no evidence whatever to support this. As I have suggested elsewhere, it is possible that the term is related to the Aramic expression maran atha, "Our Lord has come" (1 Cor. 16.22). This zyxwvutsrqp 3 4 zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Marranos and Conversos phrase is itself the subject of some debate in contemporary New Testament scholarship, and the consensus is to divide it aszyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUT maran tha, possibly an imperative: Lord, come!" However, both the Vulgate (medieval Latin translation ) and the medieval Spanish translations of the New Testament understood it as I have here explained.3 This possibility is not some farfetched fancy, as are the other suggested etymologies, but rather is expressly said to be the origin of the term in an anonymous reply rebuking Fernando de Pulgar 's extremely important letter in defense of the conversos (to which we shall return).4 Yet another, perhaps more remote, possibility is that "Marrano" is derived from the Arabic marana, "to be flexible, pliant" (n. marana, "pliancy"). Whatever the origin of the word, the essentially insulting and derogatory meaning was clearly understood, and is eloquently expressed by the earlysixteenth -century writer Antonio de Guevara: To call a dog a Moor, or a Jew an infidel [these are] words of great temerity and even little Christianity [but] calling a converted Moor a dog or [converted] Jew a Marrano is to call him a perjurer, false, heretic.5 Terms which appear in Jewish legal sources, however, have a very precise meaning which it is essential to understand in order to comprehend the change in attitude which took place in Spain with regard to Jewish conversion to another religion. The first of these is the term min, usually translated as "heretic." Whatever the possibility, indeed, probability, that this term was applied also to Christians in the Talmudic period, medieval Jewish authorities generally agreed that it applied only to Jewish heretics or sectaries like the Qaraites. Menahem ha-Meiri, an important fourteenth-century scholar of Provence who spent some time elsewhere in Spain as well and was familiar with the general situation, already maintained that an "apostate to idolatry ," i.e., a convert to Christianity, is to be considered a min: everyone who goes out of the general category of the Jewish law and enters into that of another law is considered by us as a member of that [other] law in everything except for divorce and marriage.6 That is, marriage contracted...

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