Chapter Three. Discrimination Against Jesuits Of Jewish Lineage (1573–93) (original) (raw)

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 Th e 1593 decree was revoked only in 1946. 2 See Possevino's "Memorial," ARSI, Congr. 20b, f. 208 v ; see also Mariana's, "De rege et regis institutione," in Juan de Mariana, Obras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.