Chapter One. The Historical Context Of Purity-Of-Blood Discrimination (1391–1547) (original) (raw)
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Chapter Four. Jesuit Opposition To The Purity-Of-Blood Discrimination (1576–1608)
2010
enforced), driven by historical episodes of social and religious intolerance, that ultimately led to the integration of descendants. In agreement with the historical record, analysis of haplotype sharing and diversity within specifi c haplogroups suggests that the Sephardic Jewish component is more ancient" (p. 725). Th ese scientifi c results should not be surprising to the reader of this book. It has testifi ed to the signifi cant presence of a minority of Jewish people on the Iberian Peninsula and Balearic Islands before 711 CE (estimated in the article at 100,000, which constituted about 1.25% of the projected Iberian population of 7-8 million) and to the creation of a no less considerable new social group of their descendants (conversos), especially aft er the massive conversions of 1391, which did not diminish the presence of Jews themselves (who are estimated in the article at 400,000 by the time of the 1492 Expulsion). When Ignatius of Loyola and many of the fi rst Jesuits were born between the end of the fi ft eenth century and the beginning of the sixteenth, approximately 240,000 Jews decided to stay in Iberia (and therefore convert to Christianity). If we add the latter number to the number of conversos who multiplied in the one hundred years between 1391 and 1492, it is not unexpected to fi nd that the converso
Chapter Three. Discrimination Against Jesuits Of Jewish Lineage (1573–93)
2010
Th is chapter examines their pro-converso writings within their historical context. García Girón de Alarcón is virtually unknown, yet his memorial from 1597 is the most comprehensive critique of the Jesuit purityof-blood discrimination. Th is is why we shall dedicate to him and his text much space in this chapter. Juan de Mariana, a member of the memorialistas movement, authored a work entitled De rege et regis institutione, in which he expressed his views on the discrimination against the conversos. It was Antonio Possevino who explicitly mentioned Mariana's Jewish ancestry. 2 Diego de Guzmán-whom 1 Harald E. Braun, in his recent Juan de Mariana and Early Modern Spanish Political Th ought (Ashgate: Aldershot, 2007), p. 93, incorrectly stated that General Congregation 6 (1608) revoked the 1593 decree. Juan de Mariana and his friend Pedro de Ribadeneyra did contribute, through their writings, to the defense of the conversos' status, as we shall see below, but their success was only partial, for General Congregation 6 just limited the genealogical inquiry. Th e 1593 decree was revoked only in 1946. 2 See Possevino's "Memorial," ARSI, Congr. 20b, f. 208 v ; see also Mariana's, "De rege et regis institutione," in Juan de Mariana, Obras (Madrid: Biblioteca de This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the cc-by-nc License. This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the cc-by-nc License.
Inquisition and Purity of Blood in Portugal during the Seventeenth Century
Religions 14: 1338, 2023
The aim of this paper is to analyse the role played by the Portuguese Holy Office in the process of social discrimination against New Christians, that is, those who were considered to be descendant of Jews converted to Christianity in the late fifteenth century. This article focuses specifically on the different and changing attitudes of the Inquisitors General to the issue of purity of blood during the seventeenth century. In the course of that century, some people considered to be New Christians (with fama or nota) managed to join the Portuguese Holy Office. Nevertheless, this was not due to the fact that Inquisitors General and members of the General Council rejected discrimination using theoretical, religious and moral arguments, but to the impossibility of achieving undoubtful knowledge about the origins of those seeking to join the Inquisition. At the same time, once racial discrimination became institutionalised within the Inquisition during the final third of the sixteenth century, the Inquisitors General became less concerned about the allegations of impure blood made about some of its ministers, so long as it could be demonstrated that they were good Christians and of use to the institution, or else capable of contributing to the specific personal interests of the tribunal’s rector. Nevertheless, not all supposed or real conversos succeeded in joining the Holy Office, as evidenced by cases of self-exclusion and the numerous proofs of “purity of blood” that were not approved. To address these questions, we turn to the proofs of “purity of blood” carried out by the Portuguese Inquisition, as well as to correspondence and documents from other institutions of the Portuguese and Spanish monarchies.
(Foreign) Bodies. Stigmatizing New Christians in Early Modern Spain (Open Access)
2020
To identify, to prevent and, if necessary, to fight mechanisms of social exclusion, discrimination and persecution, we need to understand them. Considering the currently omnipresent discussion in the media about the asylum and refugee policy, unfortunately to ask for mechanisms of social exclusion becomes of particular relevance. For a better understanding how social exclusion functions through stigmatization, a closer look at the Iberian Peninsula in the early modern period is illuminative. The ideology of purity-of-blood (“limpieza de sangre”) divided society into two different clas-ses: Old Christians and New Christians. New Christians, i.e. Conversos (converted Jews) and Moriscos (converted Muslims) but also their offspring, were thought to be inferior Christians and always tending towards apostasy, which means in this case the abandonment of the Catholic faith. Due to the purity-of-blood statutes New Christians were barred from obtaining exalted positions and dignities. At the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th century an increased interest in bodily markers to proof the presumed inferiority of the New Christians can be observed. The publication aims at analyzing apologetic texts claiming the adherence to the purity-of-blood statutes on the one hand and medical treatises on the other. This way, reciprocal influences between the ideology of purity-of-blood and contemporary medical theory can be uncovered. For this purpose three presumed bodily markers ascribed to the New Christians will be dis-cussed in detail: 1) The mother’s milk of new Christian women: The apologists of the statutes argued that women of Converso or Morisco descent should be prevented from wet-nursing old Christian babies. The new Christian mother’s milk was considered a considerable threat for the child’s character and a source of contamination with heretical ideas. 2) Converso male menstruation: Relying on the topos of Jewish male menstruation Converso men were accused to suffer monthly blood flow, sometimes also described as rectal bleedings. Therefore hemorrhoids could be interpreted as divine sign of apostasy. 3) New Christian stench: New Chris-tians were thought to exhale a bad smell. This stench was ascribed to their bodies and often considered a natural attribute of divine punishment. The topos of the foetor judaicus (the Jew-ish stench) served as background for this kind of reasoning. Consequently, body odor could be defined as a hint of a simulated conversion. In a nutshell, the debate about purity-of-blood in early modern Spain offers a fruitful basis to analyze in depth social exclusion through stigmatization. Therefore, it provides one stone in a mosaic which can and shall contribute to a better understanding of classical archetypes of discrimination.
Social Sciences, 2021
This is a study of the trajectory of a Jewish converso who had a brilliant career at the University of Mexico in the 16th century: he received degrees from the faculties of arts, theology and law and was a professor for more than 28 years. He gained prestige and earned the respect of his fellow citizens, participated in monarchical politics and was an active member of his society, becoming the elected bishop of Guatemala. However, when he tried to become a judge of the Inquisition, a thorough investigation revealed his Jewish ancestry back in the Iberian Peninsula, causing his career to come to a halt. Further inquiry revealed that his grandmother had been burned by the Inquisition and accused of being a Judaizer around 1481; his nephews and nieces managed, in 1625, to obtain a letter from the Inquisition vouching for the “cleanliness of blood” of the family. Furthermore, the nephews founded an entailed estate in Oaxaca and forbade the heir of the entail to marry into the Jewish com...
Journal of Jesuit Studies
In 1632, the Jesuit Father Fernando de Valdés (1584–1642) completed his Memorial para quitar o limitar Estatutos de limpieza. In this treatise, Valdés sought to abolish the statutes of purity of blood and reassess the longstanding division between New and Old Christians. Additionally, the Memorial offers a novel portrait of Castilian conversos. According to Valdés, New Christians were singled out for discrimination, despite their evident virtues as sincere Catholics and faithful subjects. He did not seek to break the existing social order, but rather to offer a profound critique of the Old Christian hegemony. Ultimately, Valdés proposed an essentially utopian model of society built on personal merits and behavior, rather than blood-based and inherited privileges. This article seeks to study this Memorial in the context of the debate about the statutes of purity of blood and as an important element of that debate within the Society of Jesus.
From the late fourteenth century onwards the Christian kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula began to disseminate a series of images that were absolutely unique in Europe. We are referring to works related to an issue specific to these territories: the polemic regarding conversos (converts to Christianity) of Jewish descent. After the pogroms of 1391 that ravaged a substantial part of the Jewish quarters of the Iberian Peninsula many Jews were forced to embrace Christianity, while preaching campaigns and segregation measures were implemented to force those who had remained faithful to the Law of Moses to convert. Far from putting an end to the tension, the process of mass conversion sparked fears and misgivings among many Old Christians, who soon developed a deep-seated resentment towards New Christians and their descendants. This animosity grew over the years and eventually led to the establishment of the Inquisition (1478), an institution founded to persecute any converts suspected of Judaising – of being considered heretics – for any reason the inquisitors fancied. Racial prejudice soon took root as the basis for this conviction: the idea that all converts of Jewish ancestry were corrupt because their blood was impure, tainted.