Parallel Histories: Muslims and Jews in Inquisitorial Spain

9. Creating Conversos, 1391–1492

69 chapter 9 CREATING CONVERSOS, 1391–1492 T he puzzle begins with names. The term present-day historians usually prefer for this group, conversos, actually appears only rarely in early modern documents. Other designations were used much more frequently. These ranged from “New Christians”—a label ex-Jews and their descendants shared with the moriscos—to the more colloquial tornadizos , which not only referred to those who “had turned” Christian but also to “those who having received the water of Baptism, then returned to their original vomit,” in the choice words of early modern Spain’s leading lexicographer .1 The most notorious usage, however, was marrano, an insulting term of uncertain origin. What all these contemporary definitions had in common was shared reference to Jews who had converted—or had been converted—to Christianity. The distinction was not insignificant, as the entire history of the conversos—once again, like that of the moriscos—rested on what was universally regarded as their questionable loyalty to a majority religion many had accepted against their will. The transformation of Spain’s Jews into Christians was a much more drawn-out affair than that of the moriscos, who lost their status as Muslims in a single generation spanning 1502 and 1526. In the case of Judaism one must look further back for the starting point, at least to 1391. In June of 70 Parallel Histories that year violent riots against Jews began in various Andalusian cities and soon spread to much of the rest of the peninsula. The outcome included the murder of thousands of men, women, and children, the destruction of various aljamas or Jewish quarters, and the forced conversion of countless numbers of survivors. The extent of the disaster is suggested in the note Reuven, the son of the famed Rabbi Nissim of Girona, wrote in the margins of his father’s Torah scroll: Wail, holy and glorious Torah, and put on black raiment, for the expounders of your lucid words perished in the flames. For three months the conflagration spread through the holy congregations of the exile of Israel in Sefarad [Spain]. The fate [of Sodom and Gomorrah] overtook the holy communities of Castile, Toledo, Seville, Mallorca, Cordoba, Valencia, Barcelona, Tàrrega , and Girona, and sixty neighbouring cities and villages. . . . The sword, slaughter, destruction, forced conversions, captivity and spoliation were the order of the day. Many were sold as slaves to the Ishmaelites; 140,000 were unable to resist those who so barbarously forced them and gave themselves up to impurity [i.e. converted].2 The pogroms seem to have been spontaneous, and they involved a wide cross-section of the Christian population. Especially visible participants were the urban lower classes and the clergy, although in a few cases churchmen stepped in to protect the Jews. On the whole, however, royal officials, aristocrats, and the ecclesiastical elites proved unable or unwilling to fulfill their traditional role of defenders of the Jewish minority. Exactly why this explosion occurred at this particular moment is still a matter of debate. There were ample precedents for violence against the Jews, even if nothing on this scale had taken place before. Worsening economic conditions generated social tensions, as did the irruption of plague beginning in the 1340s. It was also a period of major political instability— including weakened monarchical authority—throughout the peninsular kingdoms. In all these respects Spain’s experience differed little from that of the rest of Europe, which saw a precipitous decline in the safety and welfare of Jews during the later fourteenth century thanks above all to the recrudescence of specifically popular antisemitism. The Christian lower classes took advantage of a period of widespread disorder to punish the Jews for their traditional roles as governmental and seigneurial administrators and Creating Conversos, 1391–1492 71 tax collectors. Then as in other periods the easiest way to settle accounts with their Christian exploiters was to attack the non-Christian population which served the king, nobles, or higher clergy and depended on them for protection. The Jews—far more than the subject Muslims—found themselves in the middle of what was in large measure a class conflict transfigured into confessional terms. That the violence was so much more extensive in Iberia reflected Spain’s role as the principal locus of Judaism in western Europe. By the central centuries of the Middle Ages Spanish Jews had reached positions of political and intellectual authority unheard...