• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1285 0

1460s was inflamed by sermons, and by influential polemical publications such as the Fortress of Faith (Fortalitium fidei contra Christianos hostes) by Alonso de Espina. The Holy Inquisition, established in Castile in 1478, led the charge. Albert Sicroff, the principal scholar of the early history of limpieza de sangre, makes the point that Muslims were not the main target or the subject of these restrictions.48 However, the language used almost always embraced both “Jews and Moors,” as in the case of Toledo in 1449. In the fifteenth century, the limpieza de sangre laws were constructed to constrain the converted Jews. But after 1500, and especially after their revolt in the Alpujarras in 1568, the (forcibly) converted Muslims, or Moriscos, were increasingly seen as the more dangerous of the enemies within the lands of Spain. There was a deep ambiguity in the laws of purity of blood. In Christian belief, baptism purged all sins, and sincere repentance meant that nothing remained from the former life. Yet could baptism and repentance obliterate the popular perception of Jewish guilt for the death of Jesus Christ? For theologians knowledgeable in the biblical sources, conversion indeed wiped clean the past through the sacrificial blood of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ.49 But this was too intricate an idea to resonate with the unlearned. Thus, the complex messages of Espina and his fellow polemicists were simply received as a call to protect Christian society from its assailants, the Jews and the Muslims.

The number of Moors (Mudéjares) exceeded the number of Jews in Christian Spain, yet paradoxically it was the Jews and Jewish converts to Christianity who throughout the fifteenth century, and afterward, were the primary target of the purity legislation, and later, of the Holy Inquisition. This is explained by the fact that the two communities were very different in their distribution and function. The bulk of the Muslims labored on the land, while the Jews were concentrated in the towns, where tensions, especially over trade and business, could easily spill into violence. They also performed roles, such as tax gathering, that roused hostility.50

Moreover, although Islam was the menacing external enemy, the relationships between Judaism and Christianity (born out of Judaism) had become a ritualized antagonism. The ritual could all too often become reality. In many places, the Holy Week celebrations required the portrayal of the Jews in an enactment of the crucifixion. This was frequently a time of heightened feelings that might be carried into symbolic attacks on Jewish houses and synagogues. Whether these emblematic acts of hatred triggered real violence is not clear, but there were numerous assaults, often accompanied by gratuitous acts of savagery, on Jews in Castile. The attacks in 1391 were the most notorious, but these assaults recurred on many occasions during the fifteenth century: in Toledo in 1449 and 1467, in Vallodolid in 1470, and in Cordoba in 1473. None of these was officially sanctioned, but from the 1480s official policy toward non-Christians, both Jews and Mudejars, began to harden. Ancient edicts concerning dress, restrictions on trade, and living apart from Christians were enforced. Isolated ghettos and morerias were constructed outside towns or by blocking off streets and filling in doors and windows.

It is not surprising that most scholars have focused on the Christian obsession with newly converted Jews. These false converts were said to make constant attempts to undermine the Christian kingdoms. Crudely forged texts were produced, like the concoction in 1492 of the letter of Yusef, chief of the Jews of Constantinople, who was supposed to have laid out a plan of infiltration and subversion of Christian Spain. Its content strongly suggested the main elements of Christian paranoia. Asked by the Jews of Spain how they could resist the king of Spain, who was forcing them to convert or even killing them, Yusef is supposed to have replied:

Where you say that the King of Spain would convert you to Christianity,