Conversos Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

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- Early Modern History, Early Modern Portuguese History, Inquisition, Early modern Spain
- by Moti Benmelech
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- Jewish Studies, Magic, Jewish History, Sebastianism

Despite their numerous similarities, Marranos in inquisitorial Spain and Recusants (and the so-called ‘Church Papists’), English Crypto-Catholics, in the wake of the English religious reforms, have rarely been studied concurrently. In this paper I will argue that secrecy was a central feature of the daily lives of both these minorities, and it helped them function as groups despite their internal diversity, experiencing a wide array of expressions of belonging. The elasticity of the groups’ religious practices clearly contributed to the rise of new forms of worship and to the creation of new ritual objects which could be validated by diasporic belief systems. As a consequence, beyond criticisms, these communities functioned as significant vectors of change in how their entire religious groups practiced their faiths. Ultimately, it appears that both Crypto-Jews and Crypto-Catholics existed as cohesive groups as much because their members shared religious practices as due to the diasporic culture of martyrdom.

- by natalia muchnik
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- Religion, Early Modern History, Inquisition, Jesuit history

This article focuses on the New Christian community that existed in Tavira, the major Algarvian city of the mid-sixteenth century. Its trade networks connected it to the French, English, and Flemish seaports, as well as to the Moroccan Sephardim. Knowledge about non-Catholic religions reached the Taviran New Christians from both ends of their trade route; and their beliefs and practices evidence a complex culture, including crypto-Jewish rituals, clandestine Bible readings, messianic expectations aroused by the Protestant Reformation, the infiltration of Moroccan Jewish traditions, and calls for Church reform among local Old Christians. Testimony from the Lisbon Inquisition, which destroyed this community in 1563-1567, is completed by the "Marrakesh Dialogues," a polemical Jewish work written in Spanish by Estêvão Dias, a Taviran exile in Antwerp. These new sources will help to place this local community in its larger European and African framework.

- by Carsten Wilke
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- Jewish-Christian Polemics, Portuguese Inquisition, Conversos, Tavira
- by Emanuele J Colombo
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- Renaissance History, Early Modern History, Jewish History, Early Modern Europe
- by Sara Nalle
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- History of Literacy, Early Modern Women, Conversos
- by Juan Antonio Barrio
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- Identidad, Conversos, Border, Urban society

Toledo Cathedral’s stone choir screen was carved by local artists in the late fourteenth century, during a period of heightened anti-Jewish rhetoric and widespread conversion. Its fifty-six large reliefs show stories from Genesis and Exodus, and stand out from contemporary choir screens and sculpted ensembles due to the inclusion of rarely-depicted apocryphal legends and the absence of New Testament stories. The extensive narratives of the Creation, the life of Cain, the death of Adam, the plagues in Egypt and the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt are particularly unusual. The presence of some of these stories can be explained within a specific local devotional and liturgical context, in which the screen served as a backdrop for processions, preaching and baptismal ceremonies. The unprecedented iconography of Cain biting Abel at the neck betrays an engagement with Hebrew scholarship, and should be understood in the light of patristic and polemical texts then found in the cathedral library. Recurrent themes include an emphasis on stories that were commonly considered to be types for the division of Jews and Christians. Reliefs showing the Israelites in the desert can be read as a critique of Jewish idolatry, whilst also articulating ideas about the proper veneration of images in the Christian church.

- by Tom Nickson
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- Iconography, Liturgy, Biblical Studies, Sculpture

Un ejemplo de emigrante converso a Indias: la vida del mercader Alonso de Paz

- by Rafael Caso Amador and +1
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- Historia de América, Conversos, Marranos, Historia Economica

Baiona se convirtió a lo largo de los siglos XVI y XVII en uno de los puertos comerciales más importantes del Noroeste peninsular. El tráfico mercantil en el Atlántico atrajo a familias judeoconversas a asentarse en la villa... more

- by Suso Vila
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- Siglo XVI, Conversos, Cristianos Nuevos, Baiona
- by Eddie Mauro
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- Genetics, Jewish Studies, Genealogy, Colombia

Desde finales de la Baja Edad Media se inicia en la localidad bajoextremeña de Fregenal de la Sierra un periodo de crecimiento que se prolonga hasta las últimas décadas del siglo XVI. En esa larga etapa destaca la presencia de un grupo de origen judeoconverso, cuyo sector más dinámico, enriquecido por la actividad artesanal y comercial basada en sectores destacados como el del cuero, inicia un proceso de ascenso social para incorporarse a los grupos locales de poder y en el que el mecenazgo artístico es un elemento que comienza a configurarse como factor importante para la obtención de prestigio social. En este contexto se explica la presencia de una notable actividad artística, que llega a crear un núcleo de carácter comarcal, con la presencia de artistas de varios sectores como la platería, la arquitectura, la pintura y la escultura. Dentro de esta última área, una de las obras más notables es el retablo de la iglesia parroquial de Santa Ana, para el que aquí se da a conocer su cronología, la década de los 70 de dicha
centuria, y su autor, el hasta ahora poco conocido entallador Antonio de Auñón.

- by juan fornieles
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- Historia Social, Historia del Arte, Conversos, Marranos

Recent research on the Jewish and Judaizing presence in Tui has modified the way of understanding landscape and social relations on the Minho border. The medieval Jewish commune in the episcopal city of Tui has been able to be defined thanks to these works but also the relations of dependence that were established with other communities and families settled in the region. From the sixteenth century the crypto jews will repeat the special relations in the border urban area: Tui, Monção, Valença, Salvaterra, Baiona or Caminha, will be the scene of the intense social and economic exchanges that captain families such as the Coronel, Sánches, Mendes, Saravia, Enríquez or Paz. The presence of these families in the inquisitorial "sambenitos" of the Cathedral of Tui are one of the best examples of their impact in the collective memory. This research aims to recover the Sephardic memory in the Miño border. Cultural, social and economic relations in a historically common territory are manifested through the processes of the Inquisition and other testimonies.

- by Suso Vila
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- TUI, Conversos, Cristianos Nuevos, Sambenitos

Abstract: This articles analyzes a treatise or letter by Juan de Vergara held at the Biblioteca Universitaria de Salamanca (Ms 455) that was copied from one of the volumes of the Burriel Collection (Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid). Juan de Vergara stands against the adoption of the
Statutes of Purity of Blood at the Toledo Cathedral and explains his opinion in ten articles.
Resumen: En el presente trabajo hemos estudiado un tratado, o carta, de Juan de Vergara que en principio se encontraba desaparecido y que hemos hallado en la Biblioteca Universitaria de la Universidad de Salamanca con signatura Ms 455, copiado a su vez en uno de los volúmenes de la colección Burriel de la Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid. Juan de Vergara se opone, en el susodicho documento, a la adopción del estatuto de limpieza de sangre en la catedral de Toledo, explicando
sus razones en diez puntos.
Keywords: Juan de Vergara, New Christians, Statute of Purity of Blood, Toledo Cathedral,
Martínez Silicio
Palabras clave: Juan de Vergara, cristianos nuevos, estatuto de limpieza de sangre, catedral de
Toledo, Martínez Silicio

- by Rica AMRAN
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- Conversos, New-Christians' History

La presente edición de la relación del Auto de la fe celebrado en Lima
a 23 de enero de 1639, que redactó el licenciado Fernando de Montesinos
para dar cuenta de uno de los procesos más cruentos que llevara a
cabo el Tribunal de la Inquisición en el virreinato del Perú, se realizó
como parte del Proyecto I+D+i «Intertextualidad y Crónica de Indias:
variedad discursiva de la escritura virreinal americana» (referenciado
como FFI2012-37235FILO) y ahora se benefi cia de la continuidad
del mismo dentro del Programa de I+D de Excelencia del Ministerio
de Economía y Competitividad, con título «En los bordes del archivo,
I: escrituras periféricas en los virreinatos de Indias» y referencia
FFI2015-63878-C2-1-P.

- by Roger L Martinez-Davila
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- Spain, Catholics, Jews, Conversos

Los conversos hispanos, en gran parte de origen lusitano en la España de los siglos XVI y XVII, carecen de apego al territorio. Tal es la imagen dominante en la sociedad hispana, marcada por los estatutos de limpieza de sangre y la actividad inquisitorial, y frecuentemente retomada por la historiografía. Por cierto, impulsada por sus actividades comerciales y favorecida por sus extensas redes familiares, su movilidad geográfica es intensa. Sin embargo, cabe destacarse que sus desplazamientos alternan con períodos de estabilidad y permiten la génesis de anclajes territoriales. Asi es como las prácticas judaizantes y la organisación de comunidades marranas, que funcionan a modo de las sociedades secretas de Simmel, dan lugar a nuevas formas territoriales, concretas como imaginarias que integran a los conversos en la diáspora sefardí. Por lo tanto, esta ponencia se propone examinar la territorialidad marrana a través de sus diversos anclajes y de sus ‘territorios circulatorios’ y del registro imaginario asi creado.

- by natalia muchnik
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- History, Early Modern History, Diasporas, Space and Place

El conquistador Hernando de Soto, converso por parte de madre, fue natural de Jerez de los Caballeros y así lo indicó el propio capitán en mayo de 1536. Este dato junto a las informaciones de los testigos, a su expediente de ingreso en la Orden de Santiago y a su propio testamento, no dejan lugar a dudas que fue Jerez la villa que lo vio nacer. Parte de su familia, sobre todo la paterna, vivirá en Jerez ocupando cargos concejiles y de allí extenderán el Méndez de Soto por diferentes poblaciones de la Baja Extremadura. En Jerez vivirá poco tiempo, porque sus primeros años, hasta que marcha a las Indias, discurrirán entre esta población y Badajoz, donde está asentada parte de su familia materna. A pesar de vivir en España apenas 20 años, ambas ciudades jugarán un papel fundamental en el devenir histórico del Adelantado. De ellas serán casi todos sus capitanes y sus hombres de confianza en la aventura americana y de ellas nunca se olvidará.

- by Juan Luis Fornieles and +1
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- Latin American Studies, American Studies, Latin American and Caribbean History, Conquista de América

Joseph ben Samuel Tsarfati, one of the great Jewish poets and scholars of the Italian Renaissance, first translated the Spanish work Celestina (1499) by Fernando de Rojas into Hebrew in 1507. At present, only Tsarfati‘s introductory poem to his translation remains. This study seeks to answer the questions: What may have been Tsarfati‘s motivation to translate Celestina into Hebrew so soon after its Spanish composition? How might a Jewish audience in Rojas‘s day have understood his work? In response to these questions, this study will primarily concern itself with the similarities between Rojas‘s and Tsarfati‘s historical situations and the literary interests that they expressed in their works, interests that could have drawn Tsarfati to translate Rojas‘s work. Close readings of sections of Celestina, as well as an overview of Tsarfati‘s two hundred and thirty-poem corpus and close readings of several of these poems, make up the most important part of this study‘s analysis.
Through this analysis, I argue that both Rojas and Tsarfati stood as transitional figures during a period of literary change, which allowed them to explore and exhibit similar themes and interests in their works. Their works thus served as a type of ―go-
between, moving their audiences from the attitudes and behaviors of one era into those of a new era. Additionally, and more importantly, both men found themselves at the nexus, or point of contact, between two cultures. Rojas – as a converso serving as a lawyer and leader of a Christian community – and Tsarfati – serving as a Jewish physician to the pope – were both in a position to feel the heavy pressures of the dominant culture and to communicate with their Jewish culture in ways that subverted that pressure and power. Both Rojas and Tsarfati were fascinated with the power of language to conceal and reveal meaning and to exert influence. As men of their time, both saw romantic love as having true, intrinsic value, but at the same time used it as a metaphor for the false hope offered by the dominant culture.

- by Shon Hopkin
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- Celestina, Conversos, Anusim, Tsarfati

During the inquisitorial trial that would lead to his execution as a Judaizer, Captain Manuel Fernandes Vila Real (1608–1652) detailed in a long hand-written petition the considerable services he had rendered toward Portugal’s independence as a member of its embassy in Paris during the years of 1641–1649. Vila Real ended his autobiography with the enumeration of his publications on political matters, mentioning an additional two dozen confidential memorandums that he had composed in France during his work at the embassy. The present article reports on the discovery of extensive fragments from these lost manuscripts in a miscellaneous collection of state papers kept by the Portuguese National Archives. Thirty unsigned drafts, totaling more than one hundred pages, can be attributed to Vila Real on the basis of their handwriting. These papers apparently belonged to the estate of Ambassador Dom Vasco Luís da Gama, Marquês de Niza (1612–1676), who used them in his official reports. Vila Real gave his superior, and thereby the Portuguese government, a detailed account and analysis of current European events, accounts of the Fronde uprising in Paris, and suggestions for improving Portugal’s war effort, trade laws, finance, and international image. Though few of these memorandums address the New Christian problem directly, the latter turns out to be inseparable from Vila Real’s diplomatic activity.
To receive a pdf copy of the article, write to: wilkec@ceu.edu

- by Carsten Wilke
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- Conversos, Portuguese Diplomacy

Entre los siglos XVI y XVII existió un mercado en torno a la fiscalización de las gracias pontificias con centro en la Curia Romana. El territorio andaluz fue muy activo en este espacio de negocios, que hizo posible el enriquecimiento a través de la participación en el mismo como intermediarios profesionales, buscadores de beneficios eclesiásticos o simples especuladores. Entre ellos, la presencia de españoles y portugueses de ascendencia judía es llamativa hoy para nosotros y era muy notable entonces para los coetáneos. Este artículo pretende analizar el papel jugado por el mercado curial en las posibilidades de integración y ascenso social de la minoría conversa por medio de una de sus facetas: la inversión patrimonial como base para el ennoblecimiento.

Converso and Morisco are the terms applied to those Jews and Muslims who converted to Christianity in large numbers and usually under duress in late Medieval Spain. The Converso and Morisco Studies series examines the implications of these mass conversions for the converts themselves, for their heirs (also referred to as Conversos and Moriscos) and for Medieval and Modern Spanish culture. As the essays in this collection attest, the study of the Converso and Morisco phenomena is not only important for those scholars focusing on Spanish society and culture, but for all academics interested in questions of identity, Otherness, nationalism, religious intolerance and the challenges of modernity. Readership All those interested in early modern socio-cultural history, the history and literature of Spain and Portugal, and the history of the Jews and Muslims in Spain and beyond.

- by Enrique Soria Mesa
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- Genealogy, Nobility, Political Elites, History of Elites

The conversion of thousands of Spanish Jews in the 14th and 15th centuries was a catastrophe for the Jewish community. The status of Conversos and how they were perceived by the Jewish community was dictated in part by Jewish attitudes towards apostasy. In Judaism, an apostate is defined as a Jew in rebellion against G-d , the Torah, and the faith of Israel. The rabbis of the Babylonian Talmud believed that apostasy could be limited to the intentional rejection of even a single commandment. There was a distinction, however, between individuals who apostatized with respect to circumcision, dietary laws or Shabbat observance, and those who participated in Avodah Zarah (e.g. offering libations to or worshiping of idols). Only the latter, as well as those who had abandoned the entire Torah, were regarded as complete apostates.

La comunidad judía tuvo su huella en la ciudad medieval de Tui. La documentación conservada junto a elementos patrimoniales indican una interesante dinámica social y económica en la frontera del Miño. El bautismo de buena parte de la comunidad a finales del siglo XV junto con la llegada de numerosas familias cristiano nuevas desde Portugal crearía unas relaciones y vínculos importantes desde Tui al resto del territorio episcopal. La acción inquisitorial contra estas familias entre los siglos XVI y XVII generaría múltiples historias y un extraordinario patrimonio: los sambenitos de la catedral de Tui.

- by Suso Vila
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- Judaism, TUI, Conversos, Fronteras
- by François Soyer
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- Jewish Studies, Early Modern History, History of Religion, Portuguese History

En el presente trabajo pretendemos analizar la figura y carrera de Gonzalo Núñez de Sepúlveda, un hombre de negocios luso que a lo largo de su vida, gracias a sus actividades comerciales y financieras así como por su red socioeconómica, experimentó un extraordinario ascenso social.
El estudio de este personaje se enmarca dentro de la penetración de los portugueses en las actividades económicas de la Monarquía Hispánica a raíz de la unión de las dos coronas, de la capacidad de adaptación de los mercaderes lusos ante los cambios que se produjeron desde finales del siglo XVI y de la incorporación a los grupos sociales privilegiados de algunos de ellos gracias a los servicios económicos prestados a Felipe IV.

Don Isaac Abravanel (1437–1508) was a prominent Jewish political figure of the early modern period in the Iberian and Italian peninsulas. His exegetical work is replete with political insights and discussions of political themes. Some of these passages—such as his commentary on 1 Samuel 8, on Jethro's advice, on Daniel's prophecies, on Solomon's wisdom, and on the tower of Babel—have achieved substantial recognition throughout the early modern and modern periods. As already noted and studied by scholars such as Benzion Netanyahu, Shaul Regev, and Ram Ben-Shalom, the figure and the problem of the converso are often addressed in Abravanel's works, especially after the 1492 expulsion. Yet the link between Abravanel's theological-political conceptions and his disseminated remarks and thoughts on converts has not been studied as such. In this article I will try to partially fill this lacuna by studying a few of Abravanel's important texts on Jewish converts and by highlighting their theological and political background and meaning. Far from denying the historical, biographical, and familial importance of the converso phenomenon for Don Isaac, I will demonstrate that its acute political significance in the fifteenth-century Iberian Peninsula was understood by him within a rich and complex economic, cosmological, and theological framework. Modern historiography has attempted to separate the political dimension of the converso phenomenon apparent in Abravanel's biblical and messianic commentaries from the theological hermeneutical framework in which it is expressed. I will try to demonstrate that such an endeavor is doomed to fail and misses the true nature of Abravanel's theological-political perception of the conversos.

- by Cedric Cohen-Skalli
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- Jewish Studies, Jewish History, Jewish Thought, Early Modern Italy

Para contar la historia de la fundación de Trinidad, Santa Bárbara y conocer los orígenes de sus fundadores, hay que remontarse a la historia de la conquista y colonización de Guatemala y Honduras, abarcaremos este tema en la primera... more

- by Roxana Portillo
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- Honduras, Conversos, Marranos, Hernán Cortés

"La diáspora sefardí a partir de 1492: exiliados, cristianos nuevos y judíos nuevos", en La influencia sefardí en los Estados Unidos, Madrid, Ministerio de Industria, Economía y Competitividad, 2017, pp. 11-34.
Panorámica sobre la formación de las comunidades sefardíes occidentales en los siglos XVI al XVIII. Se tratan los siguientes temas: la expulsión de los judíos en 1492, el efímero refugio en Portugal hasta la conversión forzada de 1496, la formación de comunidades de la "nación portuguesa" (compuestas por conversos judaizantes) en Italia, Amberes, Hamburgo, Dinamarca, Amsterdam, sur de Francia, Londres y la emigración hacia América.

- by Paloma Díaz-Mas
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- Jewish Studies, Jewish History, Amsterdam History, Sefardic studies

The Vaaz’s story: originally from a family of Jewish-Portuguese merchants to conversos and “di to- ga” noblemen in Apulia, where they would keep their titles until 1806, the year of the laws that abrogated feudalism. Founder of the “noble” branch is Miguel Vaaz, who, in the early 1600s, acquired the fiefs of Casamassima, San Donato, Mola, some feudal rights of Rutigliano and Sannicandro, and founded Casa Vaaz, which later became the city of Sammichele. This article presents a double set of documents relating to land holdings of the Apulian Vaaz. The sources are taken from the coupons of the Royal House of Sommaria (State Archives of Naples), and from protocols of some Apulian notaries (State Archives of Bari). This study proposes an interpretation of some hitherto unpublished documents, especially the opening of the will of one of the last counts of Mola di Bari, Don Simone Vaaz, solemnly described in an act of 1695 by the notary Giovanni Antonio Caro de Mola, through which one can rebuild the framework of the last generations of Vaaz feudal lords.

- by Mariapina Mascolo
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- Jewish Studies, Puglia, Conversos, Conversos in Iberia

La Edad del Genio. España e Italia en tiempos de Góngora, Pisa, 2014, pp. 415-433

- by Giuseppe Marcocci
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- Jewish History, Livorno, Conversos, Marranos
- by Gregory Kaplan
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- European History, European Studies, Jewish Studies, Spanish
- by Pablo Ortego Rico
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- Economic History, Late Middle Ages, Medieval History, Early Modern History
- by Ram Ben-Shalom
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- Jewish Studies, Medieval History, Medieval Studies, Jewish History

La conquista de las Indias fue un proceso llevado por un número indeterminado de hombres y mujeres de los que solo unos pocos lograron alcanzar la fama. La inmensa mayoría de sus protagonistas o bien cayeron en el olvido o lograron ocupar un lugar tan secundario que apenas conocemos algún hecho significativo.
Es el caso de Luis de Moscoso. Este zafrense, lejos de los tópicos sobre los conquistadores, era miembro de una destacada familia vinculada a la corte y a la poderosa Casa de Feria. Es conocido porque sustituyó a Hernando de Soto en la conquista de la Florida. Sin embargo, Moscoso cuando ocupó este cargo ya era un experimentado baquiano que había estado presente en las conquistas de centroamérica y el Perú. Es cierto que a todas ellas llegó tarde y es precisamente este hecho el que marcó su mala fortuna.

- by juan fornieles and +1
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- History, Latin American Studies, Social History, Historia de América

In his work on Iberian Jews—openly practicing ones and conversos, on and off the peninsula, before 1492 and 1497 and after—Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi made few explicit methodological statements. But from his earliest work, he made his historiosophical commitments clear and rarely wavered from them. Those commitments included basic trust in inquisitorial sources, the investigation of both marginal and normative Jewish practices, interest in the history of mentalities, and above all, a focus on the relationship between “immanent” and external causes in Jewish history. This article traces the influence of several mid-twentiethcentury historians on Yerushalmi’s work and examines his place in twentieth-century debates on conversos and the Inquisition; it also discusses his relationship to microhistory and the problem of historical distance and perspective. The article concludes by considering the apparent contradiction between Yerushalmi’s emphasis on the agency and subjectivity of Jews and his trust in the records of an institution that some have characterized as pervasively anti-Jewish.

Dada la repercusión política, socioeconómica y doctrinal que tuvo la revuelta iniciada en Toledo a inicios del año 1449, se trata de un acontecimiento histórico que ha
suscitado la atención de no pocos historiadores en distintas épocas. En este trabajo se repasa la historiografía sobre la rebelión desde sus orígenes, y se reflexiona sobre las líneas de análisis actuales, resultado de corrientes historiográficas en boga.

Resumen: A través de este trabajo intentaremos ofrecer algunas pinceladas sobre el controvertido
origen, las dificultades mantenidas con la Inquisición y la fulgurante promoción social llevada a cabo por los del Puerto. Una parentela radicada, a finales del siglo XV, en las inmediaciones del Adelantamiento de Cazorla con una marcada prosapia judeoconversa que acabará estableciéndose en el Altiplano granadino, logrando revertir rápidamente su dañada imagen pública y consolidarse como una de las familias más reputadas del concejo bastetano.