Marginal Voices

The Medieval and Early

Modern Iberian World
(Formerly Medieval Iberian Peninsula)

Editors
Larry J. Simon, Western Michigan University
Gerard Wiegers, University of Amsterdam
Arie Schippers, University of Amsterdam
Donna M. Rogers, Dalhousie University
Isidro J. Rivera, University of Kansas

VOLUME 46

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.nl/memi

Marginal Voices

Edited by

Amy Aronson-Friedman
Gregory B. Kaplan

LEIDEN • BOSTON
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2012
Cover illustration: Converso Contadino a Montebenedetto, Acrylic on board, cm 50 x 70, by Maria
Giulia Alemanno (2010) ©Maria Giulia Alemanno.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Marginal voices : studies in converso literature of medieval and golden age Spain / edited by Amy
Aronson-Friedman, Gregory B. Kaplan.
p. cm. -- (The medieval and early modern Iberian world; v. 46)
Includes index.
ISBN 978-90-04-21440-8 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Spanish literature--To 1500--History and
criticism. 2. Spanish literature--Jewish Christian authors--History and criticism. 3. Christian
converts from Judaism--Spain--History. 4. Spain--Intellectual life--711-1516. I. Aronson-Friedman,
Amy. II. Kaplan, Gregory B., 1966-

PQ6060.M34 2012
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2011042779

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 CONTENTS

List of Contributors������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������vii

Editors’ Introduction to Marginal Voices: Studies in Converso

Literature of Medieval and Golden Age Spain������������������������������������������������ 1
Amy I. Aronson-Friedman and Gregory B. Kaplan

The Inception of Limpieza de Sangre (Purity of Blood)

and its Impact in Medieval and Golden Age Spain�����������������������������������19
 Gregory B. Kaplan

Inquisition and the Creation of the Other������������������������������������������������������� 43

 Ana Benito

Conflicted Identity and Colonial Adaptation in Petrus Alfonsi’s

Dialogus contra judaeos and Disciplina clericalis��������������������������������������69
 David A. Wacks

Convivencia and Conversion in Gonzalo de Berceo’s

“El judïezno”���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������91
 Patricia Timmons

Against the Pagans: Alonso de Cartagena, Francisco de

Vitoria, and Converso Political Theology�����������������������������������������������������117
 Bruce Rosenstock

Pragmatism, Patience and the Passion: The Converso Element

in the Summa de paciencia (1493) and the Thesoro de la
passion (1494)����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 141
 Laura Delbrugge

Text and Context: A Judeo-Spanish Version of the Danza

de la muerte�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 161
 Michelle Hamilton

The Converso and the Spanish Picaresque Novel�����������������������������������������183

 Deborah Skolnik Rosenberg
vi contents

Cervantes, Don Quijote, and the Hebrew Scriptures:

The Case of the Jacob and Joseph Stories������������������������������������������������� 207
 Kevin S. Larsen

Anti-Semitic Discourse or the Voice of a Disguised Converso

in a Seventeenth-Century Spanish Treatise��������������������������������������������� 233
 Luis G. Bejarano

Index������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������249
 LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Amy Aronson-Friedman received her Ph.D. in Hispanic Linguistics and

Medieval Peninsular Literature from Temple University in 2000. She is
Associate Professor of Spanish and Linguistics at Valdosta State University,
Valdosta, Georgia, where she also directs the Peru summer study abroad
program. Her research focuses on the conversos of Medieval Spain,
and she has published numerous articles on this topic in both national
and international journals.

Ana Benito is Associate Professor of Spanish at Indiana-Purdue Univer­

sity in Fort Wayne (IPFW). She received her Ph.D. from Indiana University,
Bloomington, Indiana in 2004. She has published a critical edition of La
Celestina and several articles on the topic of The Other in medieval litera-
ture. She specializes in cultural identity in medieval Iberia with a special
emphasis on Muslim and Christian women as portrayed by Christian
authors.

Luis G. Bejarano is Professor of Spanish and Foreign Language Education

at Valdosta State University, Valdosta, Georgia. He received his master’s
degree from the University of Georgia and his doctorate in Hispanic
Studies from the University of Oklahoma. He published a book on com-
parative Latin American and French literatures in 1999, and subsequently
several articles on twentieth-century Latin American literature and the
Spanish Golden Age. Besides his scholastic interests in literature and cul-
tural studies, he has published and co-authored comparative projects on
Second Language Education in the United States and Spain.

Laura Delbrugge received her Ph.D. in 1996 in Medieval Spanish Liter­

ature and Historical Linguistics from Pennsylvania State University. She is
currently Professor of Spanish at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania
in the Department of Foreign Languages. She has published extensively
on the converso Andrés de Li, including three critical editions: A Scholarly
Edition of Andrés de Li’s Thesoro de la passion (1494), Medieval and Early
Modern Iberian World Series (Brill, 2011); A Critical Edition of Andrés de
Li’s Summa de paciencia (1505) (Mellen Press, 2003); and the Reportorio
de los tiempos, (Tamesis Press, 1999), as well as many articles and confer-
ence presentations. She currently lives in Indiana, Pennsylvania with her
husband and children.
viii list of contributors

Michelle Hamilton is Associate Professor of Spanish & Portuguese at

the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities and author of Representing
Others in Medieval Iberian Literature (Palgrave, 2007). Her areas of spe-
cialty include the Arabic, Hebrew, and Romance literatures and cultures
of medieval Iberia. Her current project deals with the intellectual history
of Iberian Jews in the fifteenth century.

Gregory B. Kaplan received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania

in 1994 and is Professor of Spanish in the Department of Modern Foreign
Languages at the University of Tennessee. His research focuses on the lit-
erature of the Spanish Middle Ages as well as the history and evolution of
the Spanish language. He has authored several books, including The
Evolution of Converso Literature: The Writings of the Converted Jews of
Medieval Spain (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002) and Val­
derredible, Cantabria (España): La cuna de la lengua española (Santander:
Gobierno de Cantabria, 2009). He is the editor of Sixteenth-Century
Spanish Writers (Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 318) and the transla-
tor of thirteen short stories by the contemporary Spanish writer Juan José
Millás (“Personality Disorders” and Other Stories [New York: MLA, 2007]).
He has also published articles in a number of journals including Bulletin of
Spanish Studies, La corónica, Foreign Language Annals, and Revista de
Estudios Hispánicos.

Kevin S. Larsen received his Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Literatures

from Harvard University in 1983, with a thesis on Gabriel Miró and literary
naturalism (directed by Francisco Márquez Villanueva). Since 1998, he
has served as Professor of Spanish and Religious Studies at the University
of Wyoming. He also serves as Chairman of the Department of Modern
and Classical Languages of this same institution. He has written or edited
six books (focusing on Miró, Galdós, Cervantes, and Pedro Antonio de
Alarcón), as well as some eighty articles and book chapters, treating top-
ics ranging from the Iberian Middle Ages to the mid-twentieth century,
and published in diverse professional journals, Festschriften, and other
collections. Since 2008, he has served as president of the Instituto Ometeca,
dedicated since its beginnings in 1987 to the study of the interface between
the sciences and the humanities, principally in the Hispanic tradition.

Bruce Rosenstock is Associate Professor of Religion at the University

of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In addition to his monograph on con-
verso religiosity (New Men: Conversos, Christian Theology, and Society in
 list of contributorsix

Fifteenth-Century Castile, Papers of the Seminar in Medieval Hispanic

Literature, 2002), he is the author of Philosophy and Jewish Question:
Mendelssohn, Rosenzweig, and Beyond (Fordham, 2010). Together with
Samuel Armistead, he is Principal Investigator for the NSF digital library
project, Folk Literature of the Sephardic Jews, hosted at the University of
Illinois.

Deborah Skolnik Rosenberg, Ph.D., teaches in the Department of

Spanish and Portuguese at Northwestern University. Her research inter-
ests include the picaresque novel, national identity formation, and mar-
ginalized authors of early modern Spain.

Patricia Timmons is Instructional Assistant Professor of Spanish at

Texas A&M University. She earned her Ph.D. in 2004 from the University
of Texas at Austin. She specializes in medieval Spanish literature. Her dis-
sertation is Law, Sex, and Anti-Semitism in Gonzalo de Berceo’s Milagros de
Nuestra Señora. She is co-author with Robert Boenig of the forthcoming
book Gonzalo de Berceo and the Latin Miracles of the Virgin, a translation
and study of the Latin sources of Berceo’s Milagros.

David A. Wacks received his Ph.D. from the University of California-

Berkeley in 2003, and is Associate Professor of Spanish in the Department
of Romance Languages at the University of Oregon. His research interests
include Medieval Iberian literature and Sephardic Jewish culture. He is
author of Framing Iberia: Frametales and Maqamat in Medieval Spain
(Brill, 2007) and co-editor (with Michelle Hamilton and Sarah Portnoy) of
Wine, Women and Song: Hebrew and Arabic Literature in Medieval Iberia
(Juan de la Cuesta Hispanic Monographs, 2004). He has published articles
in a number of journals including Journal of Arabic Literature, Bulletin of
Spanish Studies, Diacritics, Sefarad, and eHumanista.
 EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION TO MARGINAL VOICES: STUDIES IN
CONVERSO LITERATURE OF MEDIEVAL AND GOLDEN AGE SPAIN

Amy I. Aronson-Friedman and Gregory B. Kaplan

Some of the earliest Jews to settle the Iberian Peninsula were among the
refugees scattered by the ancient Diaspora throughout the Roman Empire
after the fall of the second temple of Jerusalem in 70 CE. From that time
through the fifteenth century, Jews lived as an ethnic and religious minor-
ity under Roman, Visigothic, Muslim, and Christian rulers. During a good
part of the Middle Ages, the Peninsula was home to large communities of
Jews, Muslims, and Christians, and at times a form of coexistence, or con-
vivencia, characterized the relationship among these religious groups.
The important role of convivencia in weaving the fabric of medieval
Spanish society was established by Américo Castro, who found at the core
of this coexistence a tolerant attitude, first demonstrated by Iberian
Muslims toward Christians and Jews prior to the arrival from Africa of
fundamentalist sects, the Almoravids and Almohads, during the eleventh
and twelfth centuries, and then during the thirteenth and fourteenth cen-
turies by Christian rulers toward their Jewish and Muslim subjects1.
According to Castro, the impact of this tolerance on the evolution of
Iberian culture was profound. Castro asserts that “the doctrine of toler-
ance reflected the high favor enjoyed by the Jews with the great lords until
the Jews were expelled in 1492,” an attitude that resonates, in his opinion,
in texts such as Ramon Llull’s Libro del gentil y los tres sabios, in which “a
Christian, a Moor, and a Jew talk amiably.”2 Castro’s glorified vision of con-
vivencia, while supported by scholars such as Norman Roth, has been
questioned on a number of occasions.3 His view has garnered criticism
including the outright rejection of it espoused by Claudio Sánchez-
Albornoz, and, more recently, David Nirenberg’s synthesized approach,
which “questions the very existence of an age of peaceful and idyllic con-
vivencia” and advocates that “violence was a central and systemic aspect

1
 See Americo Castro, The Structure of Spanish History, trans. Edmund L. King
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1954), 221–29, for Castro’s depiction of convivencia
2
 Castro, 224–25.
3
 See, for example, Norman Roth, Jews, Visigoths, and Muslims in Medieval Spain:
Cooperation and Conflict (Leiden: Brill, 1994).
2 amy i. aronson-friedman and gregory b. kaplan

of the coexistence of majority and minorities in medieval Spain, and … [it

is possible] that coexistence was in part predicated on such violence.”4
Of course, convivencia cannot be understood as a monolithic concept
and relationships among sectors of the Christian, Jewish and Muslim
populations were undoubtedly influenced by military conflicts and
political changes, especially during the centuries when Christians recon-
quered Muslim controlled territories. Moreover, Spanish literary works of
the thirteenth century such as Gonzalo de Berceo’s Milagros de Nuestra
Señora, which is the focus of Patricia Timmons’ essay in the present col-
lection, indicate the existence among the Christian population of a latent
anti-Semitism. In this volume, the terms “anti-Jewish” and “anti-­Semitism”
will be employed to refer to medieval and early modern hostility toward
Jews. While this hostility is similar to the type expressed in contemporary
texts from other regions of Europe, it is nonetheless unique in Spain
due to its large population of Jews, who became victims to outbreaks of
violence such as those discussed by Nirenberg. In spite of tensions
between religious groups, it is impossible to deny that some form
of convivencia was created after the establishment of Muslim rule on
the Peninsula, which marked a contrast with the restrictive climate cre-
ated by Visigothic rulers and initiated a period of social harmony that left
its legacy in a culture that would continue to flourish throughout the
Christian Reconquest.
While generalizations such as Roth’s claim that the entire Spanish
Middle Ages “was a golden age for the Jews” are not tenable characteriza-
tions of convivencia, at the most basic level the concept should be under-
stood to evoke the fact that a flourishing Jewish culture was extinguished
in late-medieval Spain by increased intolerance and persecution.5 Periods
of civil war and subsequent economic implications traumatized Jewish
communities of Spain, and in the late 1370s the Dominican Archdeacon of
Ecija, Fernando Martínez, began to deliver inflammatory anti-Jewish ser-
mons. Stirred by the preaching, mobs plundered and burned the Jewish
community of Seville in 1391. From Seville, the destruction spread rapidly
to other towns in Valencia, Andalusia, Aragon, Catalonia, and the Balearic

4
 Claudio Sánchez-Albornoz, España, engima histórico, 4 vols. (Barcelona: Edhasa,
1991); and David Nirenberg, Communities of Violence (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1996), 9.
5
 Norman Roth, “The Jews in Spain at the Time of Maimonides,” Moses Maimonides and
His Times, ed. Eric L. Ormsby (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press,
1989), 1–20 (1).
 editors’ introduction to marginal voices3

Islands. Several decades after the anti-Jewish riots incited by Martínez, in

1412, a propaganda campaign organized by another Dominican preacher,
Vicente Ferrer, induced another wave of Jews to convert to Christianity
from 1412 to 1416. Disputations on the merits of Christianity versus Judaism
also had a profound effect on the conversion of Jews to Christianity dur-
ing the early 1400s. The conversions of the late fourteenth and early fif-
teenth centuries marked a dramatic break from the tradition of convivencia
and served as a decisive turning point in the history of Peninsular Jewry.
In the wake of these tragic episodes, the Jewish population of Spain
was greatly reduced as many converted to Christianity. While the per-
centage of Jews who became Christians out of a sincere desire to practice
their new religion is impossible to know, it is likely that many, if not most,
chose baptism as a means of saving their lives and their property. Others
may have seen conversion as not only offering protection but as an oppor-
tunity for integration into Christian society without the legal restrictions
that had been imposed on Jews. The precise number of baptisms is
also difficult to ascertain, and estimates range from tens to hundreds of
thousands.6 Of course, conversions of Jews to Christianity had occurred
earlier in the Middle Ages as revealed in this collection of essays by David
A. Wacks, who identifies a converso motif in Petrus Alfonsi’s Disciplina
clericalis, and Timmons, who explores the theme of conversion in Berceo’s
Milagros. However, conversions prior to the 1390s had been sporadic, and
the assimilation into the general Christian population of a large number
of converts was an unknown phenomenon. The number of Jews who con-
verted during the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries was
unprecedented and over a relatively short period of time communities of
Christian neophytes replaced many of Spain’s centers of Judaism. The fact
that these conversions were essentially forced, and that a large number, if
not the overwhelming majority, were poorly educated in Christian doc-
trine, encouraged the development over the following decades of a socio-
religious hierarchy, according to which Old Christians (those of non-Jewish
lineage) considered all conversos (or New Christians) as inferior.
Resentment of the social advancement and financial prosperity
enjoyed by some conversos and the perception that conversos, as agents of

6
 Estimates of the number of Jews who converted are offered by Antonio Domínguez
Ortiz, Los judeoconversos en la España moderna (Madrid: Mapfre, 1992), 43; Benzion
Netanyahu, The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth Century Spain (New York: Random
House, 1995), 1095–1102; and Norman Roth, Conversos, Inquisition, and the Expulsion of the
Jews from Spain (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995), 332.
4 amy i. aronson-friedman and gregory b. kaplan

the monarchy, were responsible for economic crises, also contributed to

the establishment of a division between Old and New Christians. It should
be noted that most conversos were not prosperous individuals and per-
tained to the working classes. David M. Gitlitz explains that the “majority
were minor businessmen, merchants, and artisans, the makers and sellers
of small goods.”7 While prominent conversos of the period have received
critical attention, studies that focus on lesser-known individuals provide
new avenues by which to consider the evolution of the social climate in
late medieval Spain. Laura Delbrugge’s essay in this volume on the con-
verso Andres de Li supports the theory that many conversos were highly
motivated, savvy self-promoters who were able to take advantage of
opportunities in order to secure their personal and financial well being.
Delbrugge also demonstrates how Li identified himself as a converso who
rejected his Jewish heritage. Such rejection was in opposition, however,
to the nature of anti-converso discrimination, which indelibly enlisted as
inferior those with Jewish ancestries.
It is logical to consider that the severe economic crises that plagued
Spain for much of the fifteenth century fueled the escalation of anti-
converso sentiment.8 Although Old and New Christians as well as Jews
were affected by these crises, the prosperity of some conversos, in particu-
lar those with highly visible social profiles (royal officials, for example),
would have fomented animosity among an Old Christian population that
had a long-standing tradition of enlisting the Jews as scapegoats. Indeed,
the violence that culminated in the mass conversions of 1391 were precipi-
tated by a period of high inflation and, during the fifteenth century, peri-
ods of economic hardship would inspire the Old Christian populace
to inflict the same type of hostility on conversos during riots that com-
menced with an insurrection in Toledo in 1449, an event considered in
this volume by Gregory B. Kaplan for its significance in the dissemina­
tion  of anti-converso sentiment.
The economic situation in Spain was only a component of the anti-
converso animus, which also sprung from a public perception that

7
 David M. Gitlitz, Secrecy and Deceit: The Religion of the Crypto-Jews (Philadelphia:
Jewish Publication Society, 1996), 73–76. Gitlitz offers a synopsis of the differing theories
and reaches reasonable conclusions with regard to the Jewish population of late medieval
Spain, the number of Jews who converted, and the number of conversos who were tried by
the Inquisition.
8
 Angus Mackay, Spain in the Middle Ages: From Frontier to Empire, 1000–1500 (New
York: St. Martin, 1977), 165–87. Mackay provides a comprehensive overview of these
crises.
 editors’ introduction to marginal voices5

conversos were nominal Christians who were actually crypto-Jews (that is,
who practiced Jewish rituals in secret). Fifteenth-century crypto-Judaism
survived in part due to the fact that a sizeable Jewish community contin-
ued to exist until the Jews were officially expelled in 1492. Interaction
between crypto-Jews and Jews would have naturally occurred (for exam-
ple, Jewish butchers would have been a source for kosher meat), and this
situation undoubtedly reinforced a growing belief that all conversos were
heretics. With regard to the extension of the practice of crypto-Judaism, a
controversy among modern historians developed concerning the religious
sincerity of the New Christians. These historians have essentially fallen
into two camps. One group has consistently insisted on the essential
Jewishness of the conversos while the other maintains that the majority of
conversos at the time of the establishment of the Inquisition in 1480 were
not genuinely Jews but had become practicing Christians.
Proponents of the first theory, including Yitzhak Baer, Haim Beinart,
and Juan Blázquez Miguel, assert that of the thousands of Jews forced
by persecution and massacre to accept baptism, few embraced Cathol­
icism sincerely.9 For these historians, conversos and Jews were essentially
one people bound together by ties of religion and culture and, as such,
most conversos were crypto-Jews. The primary evidence used to call into
doubt the Christianity of the conversos is the documentation of the
Spanish Inquisition, which presents testimony concerning the alleged
heretical acts of thousands of converts. Such documentation can be stud-
ied, as Ana Benito explains in her contribution to this volume, in order to
reveal the manner by which the Inquisition—which was not abolished
until the nineteenth century—crystallized the marginalization of the
conversos.
At the same time, the procedures of the Holy Office, which allowed
accusers to remain anonymous, accepted damaging testimony from
witnesses of questionable character, presumed as guilty all those who
had been accused, and often based accusations on minor practices
that may have been followed out of habit rather than crypto-Judaism,
must be taken into consideration for having contributed to forced

9
 Yitzhak Baer, A History of the Jews in Christian Spain, intro. Benjamin R. Gampel, 2
vols., 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1992), 2: 246, 278, 424; Haim
Beinart, Conversos on Trial: The Inquisition in Ciudad Real (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1981), 242;
Haim Beinart, The Expulsion of the Jews from Spain, trans. Jeffrey M. Green (Oxford:
Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2002), 2, 19; and Juan Blázquez Miguel, Toledot:
Historia del Toledo judío (Toledo: Arcano, 1989), 145.
6 amy i. aronson-friedman and gregory b. kaplan

confessions of heresy. The nature of such confessions makes it difficult to

estimate the extent to which crypto-Judaism was practiced, although sig-
nificant circumstantial evidence, including the reemergence of Jewish
communities descended from Spanish and Portuguese conversos in places
(such as Amsterdam) where New Christians emigrated in order to escape
persecution, and the persistence of crypto-Judaism into modern times in
remote locations such as Belmonte, Portugal, indicates that the phenom-
enon was communal and widespread.10
Those scholars who believe that most conversos attempted to be sin-
cere Christians include Norman Cantor, Jane Gerber, and Benzion
Netanyahu.11 One argument that has been used to support this theory is
grounded in Jewish opinion of the fifteenth century (the responsa of rab-
binic authorities), according to which conversos were practicing Christians
who had completely abandoned Judaism. While the debate among schol-
ars over the extension of crypto-Judaism may never be fully resolved, the
most accurate conclusion may be that the spirituality of conversos
spanned a broad spectrum from sincere Christians to sincere crypto-Jews,
a range taken into account by converso typologies offered by scholars such
as José Faur and Gitlitz.12
Regardless of whether or not they actually were crypto-Jews, and
regardless of their social or economic standing, the nature of anti-
converso persecution in Spain ensured that all conversos were potential
targets of discrimination and the object of an animus that was an exten-
sion of anti-Jewish sentiment. The widespread view that conversos and
their descendents remained crypto-Jews after conversion contributed to
the popularization of the belief that the pure blood of Old Christians, and
in a broader context the faith that defined the spiritual and political iden-
tity of early modern Spain, was being defiled. The fact that many Spanish
noble families had Jewish ancestries did not help to contain anti-converso
sentiment and instead reinforced the general mistrust of New Christians.
In the Instrucción del Relator, a work published in 1449, Fernán Díaz de

10
 See Miriam Bodian, Hebrews of the Portuguese Nation: Conversos and Community in
Early Modern Amsterdam (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997) on the Jewish com-
munity of seventeenth-century Amsterdam, and see Gregory B. Kaplan, “A Paradox in the
Making: Reflections on the Jews of Belmonte, Portugal,” Journal of Unconventional History
9.2 (1998): 23–39, on the twentieth-century Jewish community of Belmonte, Portugal.
11
 Norman F. Cantor, The Sacred Chain: The History of the Jews (New York: Harper
Collins, 1994), 188–89; and Jane S. Gerber, The Jews of Spain: A History of the Sephardic
Experience (New York: Free Press, 1992), 121; Netanyahu, 207–13.
12
 José Faur, In the Shadow of History: Jews and Conversos at the Dawn of Modernity
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), 41–52; and Gitlitz, 84–90.
 editors’ introduction to marginal voices7

Toledo (who was himself a converso) declares that conversos had inter-
married into all levels of Spanish society: “hay muchos Linages en Castilla,
fijos, e Nietos e Vis-nietos de el linage de Israel, ansi legos, como Clerigos,
ansi de el linage de Nobles, como de caballeros, e Ciudadanos” (“There are
many lineages in Castile, sons and grandsons and great grandsons of the
line of Israel, including laymen and clerics, and nobles as well as gentle-
men and commoners”).13 In spite of this intermarriage, conversos main-
tained the stigma of a Jewish lineage generations after conversion as Díaz
de Toledo reveals: “a los quales yo no see como los pueden llamar conversos,
que son hijos e nietos de Christianos, e nacieron en la Christiandad, e no
saben cosa alguna de eudaysmo, nin de el rito de el” (“I do not know how
they can be called conversos, they are sons and grandsons of Christians
and were born Christian and they do not know anything about Judaism
nor of its rites and rituals”).14
During the first half of the fifteenth century, some conversos were able
to secure positions in the government and others, such as Alonso de
Cartagena, the subject of Bruce Rosenstock’s essay, rose to high positions
in the Church. There is evidence that the success of such conversos caused
some initial resentment among Old Christians during the early 1400s.15
After the event that triggered the legalization of this attitude, the afore-
mentioned Toledan insurrection of 1449, conversos were targeted in
purity-of-blood statutes that, as Kaplan explains in his essay, impeded the
social mobility of conversos through the Golden Age. Although conversos
were by definition Christians, and therefore equal to other Christians
according to Church doctrine, the stigma of possessing Jewish blood
would be carried for centuries by descendents of both sincere and insin-
cere conversos.
Anti-converso violence was frequent in many Spanish towns during the
reign of King Enrique IV of Castile (1454–74), and intensified anti-Jewish
and anti-converso rhetoric laid the groundwork for royally sanctioned

13
 Fernán Díaz de Toledo, Instrucción del Relator para el Obispo de Cuenca, a favor de la
nación hebrea, in Alonso de Cartagena Defensorium unitatis christianae, ed. P. Manuel
Alonso (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1943), 343–56 (354).
14
 Díaz de Toledo, 348.
15
 Netanyahu, 207–08. Netanyahu describes anti-converso discrimination during the
early fifteenth century among the working classes, and Francisco Márquez Villanueva
(“The Converso Problem: An Assessment,” trans. M. P. Hornik, Collected Studies in Honour
of Américo Castro’s 80th Year, ed. M. P. Hornik [Oxford: Lincombe Lodge, 1965], 317–33
[318]) and Francisca Vendrell Gallosta (“La posición del poeta Juan de Dueñas respecto a
los judíos españoles de su época,” Sefarad 18 [1958]: 108–13) discuss animosity toward con-
versos in the government.
8 amy i. aronson-friedman and gregory b. kaplan

forms of persecution. In 1460, the king’s own confessor, the Franciscan

friar Alonso de Espina, used his position to stir up hatred against Jews and
conversos and launched a broad attack upon them in his Fortalitium fidei
contra judaeos.16 In this work, Espina offers a solution to resolve Spain’s
religious strife: the establishment of an inquisition to extinguish the her-
esy of the conversos and the expulsion of Spain’s remaining Jews. The plan
set forth by Espina was adopted several decades later. In 1480, a Spanish
Inquisition began to operate under the auspices of King Ferdinand (1478–
1516) and Queen Isabel (1474–1504) and, in 1492, the Catholic monarchs
signed the Edict of Expulsion of the Jews from Spain. For Ferdinand and
Isabel, the expulsion of Spain’s remaining Jews, which would create a
physical and spiritual distance between them and conversos, was the only
way for the latter to become true Christians. In the late 1490s, King Manuel
of Portugal, in order to strengthen his alliance with the Catholic mon-
archs, mandated the expulsion (before mandating the conversion) of his
Jewish subjects, including those who had fled from Spain in order to
escape persecution, and a Portuguese Inquisition was established during
the sixteenth century.
One of the most controversial issues in the field of medieval and Golden
Age Spanish literature is the extent to which the turbulent history of the
conversos forged an identifiable mode of expression in literary works by
New Christians (and, by extension, in works that depict conversos), a
polemic that is summarized by John Edwards:
If any general tendencies can be discerned in recent studies of the literary
output of late medieval Spanish conversos, they are that a distinctive mental
outlook existed among new converts from Judaism to Christianity, and their
immediate descendants, which arose out of the disorientation supposedly
caused by the transfer from a minority to the majority community; and that
those who made this transition brought to Christian beliefs and practice at
least some of the insights and experiences of the Judaism in which they had
been brought up. The question here is, more specifically, whether such a
converso mentality can be discerned.17
In pointing out that scholars consider a “distinctive mental outlook” of
conversos to derive from “some of the insights and experiences of the
Judaism in which they had been brought up,” Edwards echoes a line of

 Alonso de Espina, Fortalitium fidei contra Judaeos (Lyon, 1511).

16

 John Edwards, “Conversos, Judaism, and the Language of the Monarchy in Fifteenth
17

Century Castile.” Circa 1492: Proceedings of the Jerusalem Colloquium: Litterae Judaeorum
in Terra Hispanica. Ed. Isaac Benabu. (Jerusalem: Hebrew University of Jerusalem and
Misgav Yerushalayim, 1992), 207.
 editors’ introduction to marginal voices9

thought developed by Colbert R. Nepaulsingh, who conflates converso

texts with crypto-Jewish texts. The tendency to see manifestations of
Jewish concepts in converso texts informs the work of other scholars
such as Castro and Faur.18 Efforts to interpret converso texts in this light
have been criticized by Roth, who dissociates converso and Jewish
ideologies:
There is little point in searching for any Jewish influences in the writings of
conversos. Conversos were not Jews, not even crypto-Jews, but Christians.
The intellectuals among them expressed themselves either in the most
pious of theological and devotional literature or in the humanistic style of
the age; in a manner no different from, and learned from, that of Old
Christian models. The converso writers of the fifteenth century retained a
strong religious feeling and absolutely orthodox Christian views.19
Roth goes on to deny the existence of any type of converso voice: “Claims
to detect a converso mentality in the literature of the period smacks of
romanticism and is largely nonsense.”20 While Roth is correct in his asser-
tion that converso texts should not be read from an essentialist perspec-
tive as Jewish texts, and in his implication that there is no universal
converso mentality, from its outset anti-converso discrimination derived
from an association between conversos and Jews, and conversos did not
need to be crypto-Jews as a precondition for responding to this type of
discrimination in their works. By extension, it would be foolish to con-
clude that some vestiges of a heritage that formed part of the Spanish cul-
tural landscape for many centuries do not surface in converso works.21
Indeed, Jewish themes do appear in converso works as an expression of
converso identity as Delbrugge and Michelle Hamilton demonstrate in
their contributions to this volume.

18
 Castro, 567–68; Faur, 2.
19
 Roth, Conversos, 187.
20
 Roth, Conversos, 158
21
 See the following articles by Amy I. Aronson-Friedman: “Identifying the Converso
Voice in Lazarillo de Tormes” in Approaches to Teaching Lazarillo de Tormes and the
Picaresue Tradition, ed. Anne J. Cruz, Modern Language Association (Fall 2008), 36–42;
“Identifying the Converso Voice of Juan Alvarez Gato” in Recuperando Sefarad: Cuarderno
internacional de estudios humanísticos y literatura (The International Journal of Humanistic
Studies and Literature) ed. Mary E. Baldridge, University of Puerto Rico-Humacao, 10 (Fall
2008), 24–32; “A Catalan Contribution to the Converso Controversy.” Mediterranean
Studies 14 (2005): 27–43; “Identifying the Converso Voice in Fernando de Rojas’ La
Celestina.” Mediterranean Studies 13 (2004): 77–105; and “A Plea for Convivencia: Rabbi
Santob de Carrión and his Proverbios morales.” The Utah Foreign Language Review 13
(2004): 1–11, for more on this topic.
10 amy i. aronson-friedman and gregory b. kaplan

In 1996, La corónica published a group of essays that advanced the field

by distancing interpretations of texts from a monolithic view of conversos.
The appearance of these essays also underscored the need for an expan-
sion of the canon of converso texts with an eye toward centering studies of
these works on features that might reveal how individual conversos
responded to a social predicament shared by all conversos, including
crypto-Jews and sincere Christians, those personally affected by persecu-
tion and those whose family members were affected, and those who were
simply aware of the Inquisition and purity-of-blood statutes and the pre-
occupation with pure lineage that permeated Spanish society. The first
word in the title of the present volume, “marginal,” captures the essence
of the figures on which the essays focus as they further define and expand
the canon. While there is no collective or uniform converso mode of
expression, the social milieu in which conversos wrote, and in which the
image of the inferior converso was perpetuated in popular literature, as
Deborah Skolnik Rosenberg explains in her essay, was characterized for
centuries by intolerance, persecution and suspicion. Whether or not they
considered themselves to be inferior Christians, and regardless of the
prominence they achieved, during this period conversos wrote from the
perspective of the socio-religious outsider at an historical juncture when
nationhood and religion were inseparable in Europe. As Rosenstock
makes evident, at times the works produced by these marginal Christians
participated in intellectual polemics, and became converso voices that
shaped contemporary dialogues on political theology. At the other end of
the spectrum, the extent to which the atmosphere of suspicion could cre-
ate an intellectual impact is explored in Kevin S. Larsen’s essay, in which
he asserts that Miguel de Cervantes wrote in fear of purity-of-blood stat-
ues and the Inquisition.
In The Evolution of Converso Literature, a book by one of the contribu-
tors to the critical discussion in La corónica, Kaplan asserts that converso
texts “do not reveal the existence of individual crypto-Jews or sincere
Christians” but that they can convey “how any converso could be treated  as
a second-class Christian regardless of his or her religious sincerity.”22 The
aforementioned events that marked the development of society in which
conversos were relegated to a secondary status serve as the background
against which the essays in this volume are considered. The contributions

22
 Gregory B. Kaplan, The Evolution of Converso Literature: The Writings of the Converted
Jews of Medieval Spain (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002), 38–39.
 editors’ introduction to marginal voices11

by Delbrugge, Hamilton, and Luis G. Bejarano attempt to uncover

and examine social conflicts that resonate in the discourse of con-
verso texts. These texts demonstrate that conversos were aware of their
progressive social marginalization, and Marginal Voices: Studies in
Converso Literature of Medieval and Golden Age Spain reveals that this
awareness was expressed in a variety of contexts and from distinct
perspectives.
The essays in this collection are organized into clusters based on
thematic content and historical timeframes. The first cluster includes
essays that provide an historical overview of the conversos and examine
the evolution of anti-converso persecution. The second cluster includes
two essays on texts produced prior to 1391, which treat the themes of con-
vivencia and converso identity, and the third cluster deals with converso
themes from the century after the mass conversions of 1391. The final clus-
ter concerns themes related to the conversos in texts from the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, during Spain’s cultural Golden Age.

The Individual Essays

Kaplan opens the volume with an exploration of the origins and evolu-
tion  of limpieza de sangre (purity of blood). Kaplan identifies parallels
and differences between anti-converso discrimination prior to the fif-
teenth century and the development of this phenomenon after the
Toledan insurrection of 1449, which culminated in the promulgation
of the first purity-of-blood statute. During the following two centuries,
purity-of-blood statutes were adopted by a variety of civil and ecclesi­
astical organizations, a trend that, as Kaplan explains, is grounded in
the spread of an anti-converso animus among the Old Christian commu-
nity. Although the statutes were not always enforced, and there were
means by which conversos could bypass them, their existence the stigma
placed on conversos. Kaplan analyzes the Spanish preoccupation with
purity of blood in a variety of documents, including statutes, treatises
written in favor of the statutes and against them, and literary and histori-
cal texts. These documents testify to the trajectory of anti-converso dis-
crimination,  which gained a legal dimension in the wake of a popular
insurrection and extended through the higher strata of Spanish Golden
Age society.
In the following essay, Benito examines the concept of converso
identity. Benito argues that relationships in medieval Spain between
12 amy i. aronson-friedman and gregory b. kaplan

Christians, Jews, and Muslims can be characterized as a systematic

pursuit of the differentiation between Christians, as the dominant group,
and Jews and Muslims, as the dominated groups. This process of removal
from the center to the margins was achieved through judicial apparatus,
everyday life, literary texts, and the creation of special institutions like the
Inquisition. According to Benito, a goal of the Church was to define
Muslims and Jews (and later conversos) as Others, and Benito underscores
the role of the Spanish Inquisition in creating this identity. Benito high-
lights the cases of several conversos and moriscos accused by the
Inquisition, whose testimonies were presented in front of tribunals in
Cuenca and Toledo during the sixteenth century. Benito’s study of the
declarations of conversos and moriscos reveals that inquisitorial interro-
gations, which were dedicated to creating a cultural identity for ­defendants
that was different from the Christian one, contributed to the formation of
Otherness.
The second cluster of essays opens with Wacks’ study of Moshe Sefardi,
a prominent physician, scholar, and rabbi in the Muslim-ruled city of
Huesca during the late eleventh century. Sefardi was highly educated in
Arabic science and letters as well as in his own Jewish tradition. Some
years after Alfonso I of Aragon conquered Huesca in 1098, the middle-
aged Sefardi served the Christian king as royal physician, and soon con-
verted to Catholicism under the sponsorship of the king himself, taking
the name Petrus Alfonsi. He then embarked on an international career as
a Christian theologian, polemicist, and scholar, spreading Andalusi learn-
ing throughout Christian Europe. Alfonsi’s prestigious Andalusi educa-
tion and political contacts earned him entrance into the highest levels of
Christian society. He authored several treatises on such topics as astrol-
ogy and mathematics, and also a religious polemic in which he used
Averroist rationalism to undermine the authority of Jewish and Islamic
religious texts. The one text of Alfonsi that has attracted the most atten-
tion among literary scholars is his Disciplina clericalis, a collection of
exemplary tales and gnomic lore culled from Arabic and Hebrew sources.
Wacks argues that the Disciplina clericalis, while framed as a work of
Christian morality, is essentially a Latin adaptation of adab literature, a
courtly genre considered essential to the education of the upper classes in
medieval Islam. As such, it is emblematic of the transcultural process of
Reconquest-era Christian Iberia in which Christians—and often conver-
sos—systematically fought to eradicate Islamic and Jewish political
power while preserving the intellectual legacies of those same traditions.
The converso is crucial in this process; his role is that of intermediary, one
 editors’ introduction to marginal voices13

who transforms himself so that his host culture might in turn be

transformed.
Timmons’ study deals with “El judïezno,” one of the episodes included
in Gonzalo de Berceo’s thirteenth-century collection of Marian miracles,
Los milagros de Nuestra Señora. In “El judïezno,” a Jewish boy who has
converted to Christianity receives the Virgin Mary’s protection from the
fire into which his anguished father has cast him. A gathered crowd wit-
nesses the child’s salvation, recognizes the Virgin’s miracle, and subse-
quently kills the father by throwing him into the same fire. Timmons
analyzes the manner by which Berceo’s version of this miracle amplifies
the anti-Jewish sentiments of his Latin source and skews the Latin narra-
tive away from an impression of harmonious convivencia toward a more
segregated atmosphere. These divergences correspond to the situation of
many Spanish Jews who in the thirteenth century faced increasing anti-
Jewish sentiment even as their culture flourished. Although many critics
have assumed that the crowd that punishes the Jewish father is Christian,
Timmons demonstrates that in Berceo’s version of the miracle this
assumption does not appear explicit. According to Timmons, Berceo pre-
fers to imply that a mixed crowd—Jewish and Christian—participates in
both recognition of the Virgin’s miracle and punishment of the father.
The topics of convivencia and conversion in Berceo’s “El judïezno” are
addressed, with the synthetic dynamic of the miracle reflecting a thir-
teenth-century Christian version of the symbolic significance of the con-
verso and an image of a homogenous community under one Church and
one law.
In the essay that opens the third cluster, Rosenstock considers two con-
verso voices that articulate political theologies opposed to the spiritual
identity of the rising Spanish nation-state in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries. These are the voices of Alonso de Cartagena, the bishop of
Burgos and the foremost intellectual leader at the royal court, and
Francisco de Vitoria, the most influential neo-Scholastic theologian of his
time. As Rosenstock demonstrates, each thinker resisted the identifica-
tion of the nation as the bearer of a messianically-charged political mis-
sion, and each thinker stood opposed to the politics of the demonization
of the enemy that was closely related to the messianic political theology
of Spain’s spiritual identity. In addition to studying the political theolo-
gies of Cartagena and Vitoria, Rosenstock situates the positions they take
in relation to the renewal of political theology as a field of urgent contes-
tation in Weimar Germany. This wider historical and intellectual context
allows the converso voices of Cartagena and Vitoria to be understood
14 amy i. aronson-friedman and gregory b. kaplan

within the framework of one of Europe’s most pressing issues, namely,

how to articulate its identity as the center of Christendom in relation to
the realties of the modern nation-state, imperialism, and war.
Delbrugge’s contribution represents a departure from research that
centers on the appropriateness of classifying converso authors as a homog-
enous entity with common concerns. Previous investigations into con-
verso textual voices have focused on works of fiction and have not fully
considered non-fiction pieces such as Christian devotionals. In an attempt
to bridge this gap, Delbrugge investigates two late fifteenth-century works
by the Zaragozan converso Andrés de Li, the Summa de paciencia and the
Tesoro de la passion, for evidence of a converso voice. Delbrugge explains
the manner by which Li demonstrates an awareness of his converso status
in his works while simultaneously distancing himself from his Jewish her-
itage, most notably in his use of anti-Jewish rhetoric in the Tesoro de la
passion. Delbrugge’s essay also explores other motivations behind Li’s
works that were not driven by social or religious concerns but rather by
issues of marketability and a desire for commercial success. Delbrugge’s
analysis lends support to the critical perspective that asserts that the con-
verso experience was not homogeneous and that the converso voice is
unique to each converso-authored text, as such reflecting individual life
experiences.
Hamilton’s essay concludes this cluster. Her essay concerns a series of
diverse texts that were copied in Hebrew characters by a Jew or converso
during the fifteenth century, whereupon they were bound together into a
manuscript that found its way to Italy. Among the texts is a version of the
Spanish Danza de la muerte. The existence of this version of the Danza de
la muerte in aljamiado (Spanish written in Arabic or Hebrew characters),
forces us to question what meaning this work (long thought to be Christian
in nature) had for conversos and Jews living in fourteenth and fifteenth-
century Iberia. This aljamiado version of the Danza de la muerte offers a
glimpse of what conversos and Jews were reading and discussing, and pos-
sibly how they were adapting foreign material to suit their needs, that is,
by creating hybrid texts. Hamilton compares this aljamiado version to the
Spanish version of the Danza de la muerte, focusing on important textual
differences that mark the former as a converso or Jewish text. Hamilton
suggests that, because of the theme of the Danza de la muerte, it may have
had a performative function not only in converso or Jewish funerals, but
also in the celebration of the Jewish holidays of Yom Kippur and Rosh
ha-Shanah, both of which are associated with individual transgression
 editors’ introduction to marginal voices15

and repentance and, especially in the Diaspora, with the sins and forgive-
ness of the community.
The final cluster of essays opens with Skolnik Rosenberg’s study of the
converso protagonists that appear in several picaresque novels composed
around the beginning of the seventeenth century, at the height of the
genre’s popularity in Spain. Although over a hundred years had passed
since the last Jews either converted or left Spain in 1492, the presence of
their Catholic descendants in picaresque novels testifies to the relevance
of socio-cultural questions surrounding the early modern place of the
conversos in Spanish society. Skolnik Rosenberg analyzes the representa-
tion of the converso in three picaresque novels, Guzmán de Alfarache, La
pícara Justina, and La vida del Buscón llamado don Pablos, and argues that
La pícara Justina and El Buscón respond to the depiction of the converso in
Guzmán de Alfarache, in which Mateo Alemán represents New Christians
in terms of the difficult path they face toward religious salvation. In La
pícara Justina, Francisco López de Úbeda scoffs at the rigid basis of the
Aleman’s definition of a converso by presenting a picaresque heroine not
limited by those who may perceive her through the parameters set by her
Jewish origins. Instead, La pícara Justina shows that conversos could
assimilate into early modern Spanish society if they managed to avoid the
dangers of appearing too different from Old Christians. On the other
hand, Francisco de Quevedo’s El Buscón promotes the racialized view of
conversos found in Guzmán de Alfarache while attempting to disrupt its
redemptive message. Quevedo condemns his converso protagonist to
moral and spiritual depravity because of a Jewish background that
restricts him to dead-end societal roles. Skolnik Rosenberg addresses the
development of the picaresque genre as a fertile basis for explorations of
converso representation and establishes that the portrayal of the converso
protagonists in the three novels she considers articulates issues central
to social assimilation and religious salvation at the historical moment
during which the genre flourished.
Larsen analyzes Miguel de Cervantes’ masterpiece, Don Quijote de la
Mancha, whose protagonist has often been considered the archetype of
Hispanic Christianity. While Larsen does not deny that Cervantes’ text
exemplifies Christian concepts, he takes into account a school of thought
suggesting that the work may have been influenced by the fact that
Cervantes was from a converso background. Cervantes lived at a time
when purity-of-blood statutes were in effect and the Inquisition was
directing its efforts against conversos. While composing Don Quijote in
16 amy i. aronson-friedman and gregory b. kaplan

this social milieu, Cervantes played a dangerous game, incorporating

material from the Hebrew Scripture into his composition, a tactic that
could send the incautious or the unlucky to the dungeons of the Inquisition
for indeterminate sentences without a trial or even an accusation. Larsen
encounters this material in Cervantes’ use of several biblical episodes,
including the stories of Jacob, Joseph, Judah, and Tamar. As Larsen eluci-
dates, in spite of the risks involved Cervantes based parts of Don Quijote
on these Old Testament stories, as such providing a commentary on con-
temporary Spanish society’s treatment of the conversos.
In his essay that concludes the final cluster, Bejarano touches on points
raised in the introduction as he discusses a treatise composed by Juan de
Quiñones, a converso officer of the court of King don Felipe IV, who dedi-
cated his book to the Inquisitor General of Spain and Commissary General
of the Holy Crusade don Fray Antonio de Sotomayor. Quiñones’ treatise
attacks and degrades the stereotypical Jew who, possessing a large nose,
tail, horns and body odor, cannot be trusted. As Quiñones sets out to
please his reader (the Inquisitor) and support the Spanish Crown’s inquis-
itorial crusade against heretics and infidels, he slanders converts by
manipulating historical and religious evidence, which he then expounds
upon in a propagandistic discourse that centers on limpieza de sangre. As
in the case of converso writers before him, Quiñones’ inflammatory rheto-
ric provides him with the proverbial “cloak” behind which he tries to hide
his own tenuous Jewish lineage. Bejarano’s essay expands upon themes
presented in the first cluster of this volume. In his essay he reveals evi-
dence of the literary expression of the obsession with cleanliness of blood,
a topic raised by Kaplan in his contribution, and the procedures of the
Inquisition, the subject of Benito’s essay. Quiñones’ treatise provides
insight into how the concept of limpieza de sangre was firmly engrained in
the mindset of Golden Age society and how systemic persecution by the
Inquisition magnified the perception of conversos as inferior Christians.

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 THE INCEPTION OF LIMPIEZA DE SANGRE (PURITY OF BLOOD)
AND ITS IMPACT IN MEDIEVAL AND GOLDEN AGE SPAIN

Gregory B. Kaplan

In 1449, the outbreak of a violent insurrection in Toledo served as an

outlet for popular sentiment by initiating a change in the nature of anti-
converso discrimination. Whereas during the first half of the fifteenth
century such discrimination was unsystematic, after the revolt of 1449
conversos were repeatedly targeted because of a public perception that
they were crypto-Jews, that is, nominal Christians who practiced Judaism
secretly. The stigma attached to conversos was communicated through
the promulgation of estatutos de limpieza de sangre (purity-of-blood stat-
utes), which excluded conversos from a variety of organizations to which
only Old Christians, those with a non-Jewish ancestry, were afforded
access. Although these statutes were not always enforced, their existence
for centuries was fueled by the fact that conversos continued to be per-
ceived as suspect Christians. The spread of this discriminatory attitude in
late medieval and Golden Age Spain, as I will explain in the present study,
is most accurately understood as a phenomenon that evolved from the
ground up. From its early stages in the fifteenth century as an expression
of popular anti-converso animosity, the preoccupation with sangre
impura (impure blood) extended through the higher spheres of Spanish
society, in which advancement and prestige were determined by the abil-
ity to prove pure lineage and maintain the outward appearance of an Old
Christian.
According to Américo Castro, the concern in Spain with purity of blood
traces its origins to the Jews, as illustrated, for example, by a responsa
composed around 1300 that permitted two brothers, David and Azriel, to
marry into “las más honradas familias de Israel, dado que no ha habido
en su ascendencia mezcla de sangre impura en los costados paterno,
materno o colateral” (emphasis by Castro), (“the most honored families in
Israel; for there had been no admixture of impure blood in the paternal or
maternal antecedents and their collateral relatives”).1 This theory has

1
 Américo Castro, La realidad histórica de España 2nd ed. (México, D. F.: Porrúa, 1962),
51. The translation is by Edmund L. King (The Structure of Spanish History, by Américo
Castro [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1954], 526).
20 gregory b. kaplan

been challenged by scholars, most convincingly by Benzion Netanyahu,

who points out a number of inconsistencies in Castro’s understanding of
Jewish traditions and his interpretations of medieval texts.2 Moreover,
while Castro considers the aforementioned responsa to be “el más antiguo
texto de una prueba de limpieza de sangre en España” (“the earliest text of
a proof of purity of blood in Spain”) and a precursor to the institutionali-
zation of purity of blood centuries later, there is no evidence that it repre-
sents a widespread tendency, and it instead appears to concern the social
status of a particular family.3 In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,
the military confraternities of Alcaraz, Baeza, Jaén, and Ubeda required
those who were admitted to be of pure Christian blood, although, as
Antonio Domínguez Ortiz explains, this should be understood as “un
medio, para una minoría noble y guerrera, de conservar su individualidad”
(“a means, for a small group of noble warriors, to preserve their individu-
ality”).4 The responsa mentioned by Castro and the regulations of the mili-
tary confraternities are similar insofar as they depict discrimination in a
limited scope, that is, in terms of a single family or particular groups of
nobles. The notion of purity of blood that would be defined in the social
climate of fifteenth-century Spain differed by implicating conversos col-
lectively on the grounds that anyone who possessed a Jewish lineage was
a heretical Christian.
At the same time, the fifteenth-century conception of purity of blood
does find antecedents in the character of Visigothic discrimination in
Spain directed against converts from Judaism to Christianity, which was
also based on the perception that many converts had relapsed into
Judaism. This perception was in large part based on the fact that conver-
sions were mandated, whether by force or peaceful means, which
undoubt­edly produced neophytes who were reluctant to be educated in
Christian doctrine.5 Moreover, contact between converted Jews and their

2
 Benzion Netanyahu, Toward the Inquisition: Essays on Jewish and Converso History in
Late Medieval Spain (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997), 1–42.
3
 Castro, La realidad, 51. The translation is by King (527). Albert A. Sicroff, Los estatutos
de limpieza de sangre, trans. Mauro Armiño (Madrid: Taurus, 1985), 116, note 98. Sicroff
asserts that, rather than referring to purity of blood, this responsa “se trata más bien del
honor de una familia, reivindicado por la decisión de un tribunal rabínico” (“actually deals
with the honor of one family, which was vindicated by the decision of a rabbinic tribu-
nal”). Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are my own.
4
 Antonio Domínguez Ortiz, Los judeoconversos en España y América (Madrid: Istmo,
1971), 81.
5
 Benzion Netanyahu, The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth Century Spain (New
York: Random House, 1995), 35, and note 27; and James Parkes, The Conflict of the Church
 the inception of limpieza de sangre21

former coreligionists inevitably occurred, and contemporary canonical

and civil legislation reveals that this fomented a good deal of suspicion.
Such an attitude surfaces in canons promulgated during the seventh
century. For example, Canon LXII of the IV Council of Toledo, which took
place in 633, restricts contact between Jews and converts due to a fear
that the latter might be convinced to relapse:
Si muchas veces la compañía de los malos corrompe también a los buenos, con
cuánta mayor razón corromperá a aquellos que son inclinados a los vicios. Por
tanto, en adelante no habrá nada común entre los judíos convertidos a la fe
cristiana y aquellos otros que todavía perseveran en los viejos ritos, para que
no sean acaso pervertidos con el trato de ellos. Y por lo tanto, cualquiera de
aquellos que han sido bautizados, si en adelante no evitare el trato con los
infieles, el tal será entregado a los cristianos, y los infieles públicamente
azotados.6
Since good people are often corrupted by contact with those who are bad, it
stands to reason that those who are inclined to be bad are more likely to be
corrupted by such contact. Therefore, from this point onward there will
be no contact between Jews converted to Christianity and those who are
still practicing Judaism in order to ensure that the former are not cor­
rupted  because of such contact. Therefore, any one of those [Jews] who has
been baptized and who does not avoid contact with the [Jewish] infidels,
will be handed over to the Christians, and the infidels [will be] publicly
flogged.
Unlike the aforementioned responsa and regulations of several military
confraternities, this canon does not specify either individuals or specific
sectors of the nobility. In a manner that anticipates the purity-of-blood
statutes issued eight centuries later, it is directed to all converted Jews,
who are prohibited from contact with Jews on the grounds that such con-
tact produces heretical Christians.
While Visigothic legislation cannot be said to be the direct source
of purity-of-blood statutes, another precursor is found in Canon XVII
of the IX Council of Toledo (held in 655), according to which all

and the Synagogue (London: Soncino, 1934), 355–56. See Netanyahu and Parkes for infor-
mation concerning an order for the forced conversion of Jews issued by King Sisebut
(r. 612–20) in 616. With regard to the consequences of Sisebut’s order, Parkes declares that
the “difficulties which future law-makers encountered with lapsed Christians [indicate]
that a very large number accepted nominal conversion and remained Jews at heart” (356).
See Parkes (356) for details on the more peaceful attitude toward conversion espoused by
the IV Council of Toledo.
6
 José Vives, ed., Concilios visigóticos e hispano-romanos (Madrid: Consejo Superior de
Investigaciones Científicas, 1963), 212.
22 gregory b. kaplan

c­ onverted Jews are ordered to spend both Jewish and Christian holidays

in public:
Los judíos bautizados, en cualquier lugar que se hallen el resto del año, sin
embargo, en las fiestas principales consagradas en el nuevo testamento, y en
aquellos días que en otro tiempo tenían como solemnes por determinación de
la ley antigua, mandamos que los celebren en las ciudades con públicas reun-
iones, en unión de los sumos sacerdotes de Dios, para que el obispo conozca su
modo de proceder y su fe …. El violador de esta ley, según lo permita su edad,
será castigado con azotes, o con abstinencia.7
Baptized Jews, regardless of where they are during the rest of the year, must
be in cities to observe publicly and in the presence of [Catholic] priests, the
principal festivals consecrated in the New Testament, [and must also be
present] on those days on which they had previously celebrated [Jewish]
festivals so that bishops know what they do and what they believe ….
Whoever breaks this law will be punished, according to their age, by flog-
ging or by fasting.
The fact that Canon XVII refers to converted Jews as “judíos bautizados”
(“baptized Jews”) is noteworthy insofar as it reveals the existence of a
social distinction between Christians by birth and those who became
Christians after conversion. Because they were once Jews, and apparently
regardless of whether or not they were sincere Christians, converts are
all classified as suspect Christians. Although separated by many centu-
ries  from the social landscape of late medieval and Golden Age Spain,
within which popular sentiment is documented as fomenting a trend
that would reach higher levels, the anti-converso animus displayed in
both Canon XVII and the aforementioned Canon LXII foreshadows the
type of discrimination that would occur by attaching a stigma to being
a convert.
The general mistrust of converted Jews evident in the requirement that
bishops scrutinize their religious practices during Christian and Jewish
holidays is made as well in contemporary royal legislation. Baptized Jews
are thus prohibited from testifying against Christians in legislation issued
by King Recceswinth (r. 653–72) and are only permitted to keep their
slaves upon proving their own sincerity as Christians according to a law
enacted by King Erwig (r. 680–87). During the reign of Erwig’s successor,
Egica (r. 687–701), a decree was issued that restricted commerce to sin-
cere Christians and that permitted “any Gentile to impugn the sincerity of

7
 Vives, 305.
 the inception of limpieza de sangre23

the conversion of a Jew.”8 Moreover, Canon LXV of the IV Council of

Toledo prohibits “judíos y aquellos que desciendan de ellos” (“Jews and
those who descend from them”) from occupying public office “porque con
esta ocasión cometen injusticias con los cristianos” (“because upon per-
forming such service they treat Christians unjustly”).9 These examples
suggest that, in spite of the fact that the monarchy and the Church pressed
for the conversion of the Jews, both institutions viewed converts as hereti-
cal Christians.
Six centuries later, after Christian rule was reestablished over much of
the Iberian Peninsula, the issue of conversion surfaces in Las Siete Partidas,
a legal code composed under the auspices of King Alfonso X of Castile
(r. 1252–84).10 Unlike royal decrees of the Visigothic period, Alfonso’s legal
code parallels Church doctrine by advocating the peaceful conversion of
the Jews, which is evident in the sixth law of “Título XXIV”:
Fuerça nin premia non deuen fazer en ninguna manera a ningund judio por
que se torne cristiano, mas con buenos exiemplos e con los dichos de las Santas
Escripturas e con falagos los deuen los cristianos conuertir a la fee de Nuestro
Sennor Jhesu Christo, ca Nuestro Sennor Dios non quiere nin ama seruicio quel
sea fecho por premia.11
Neither force nor compulsion in any form may be used to induce a Jew to
become a Christian; rather, Christians must convert Jews to the faith of Our
Lord Jesus Christ by means of good deeds, the words of Scripture, and gentle
persuasion, for Our Lord God neither desires nor loves forced service.12
Several works found in the Cantigas de Santa María (cantigas 4, 25, 85, 89,
and 107) also suggest that Alfonso’s decrees are truly representative
of a change from Visigothic royal policy.13 Even though Alfonso was prob-
ably not the author of these poems, which recount tales that “voice the

 8
 Parkes, 367. See Parkes (345–70) for an overview of the situation for Jews and con-
verts in Visigothic Spain.
 9
 Vives, 213.
10
 John Esten Keller, Alfonso X, el Sabio (New York: Twayne, 1967), 117–18. The precise
role of Alfonso X in the composition of Las Siete Partidas has been debated by scholars.
According to Keller, “[t]hat he wrote the entire corpus of these laws is doubtful. The simi-
larity of style and diction can probably be ascribed to the fact that Alfonso actually read,
corrected, emended, in short, completely edited every work he sponsored.”
11
 Dwayne E. Carpenter, Alfonso X and the Jews: An Edition of and Commentary on Siete
Partidas 7.24 “De los judíos” (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), 33.
12
 The translation is by Carpenter (33).
13
 Walter Mettmann, ed. and intro., Alfonso X, el Sabio: Cantigas de Santa María, 3 vols.
(Madrid: Castalia, 1986), 1:17–20. According to Mettmann, none of the cantigas in question
was actually composed by Alfonso, who only wrote around ten of the 427 poems in the
corpus of Marian poetry known as the Cantigas de Santa María.
24 gregory b. kaplan

promise of a brighter future for Jews who accept Christianity,” their inclu-
sion within a corpus of poetry that was, like Las Siete Partidas, composed
under his auspices, speaks to a tolerant attitude by the monarchy toward
converts.14 In spite of Alfonso’s efforts to convert his Jewish subjects by
nonviolent means, few actually became Christians until forced to do so
during the 1390s and the early 1400s.
Two centuries after Las Siete Partidas was composed, public sentiment
against converts of Jewish extraction became the driving force behind the
inception of legalized discrimination that would ultimately be practiced
among the higher orders of society. The evolution of this trend was set in
motion by the unprecedented number of conversions that occurred in the
wake of a series of popular anti-Jewish riots in 1391.15 The most enduring
impact of the introduction of thousands of neophytes into Christian soci-
ety was the eventual creation of a permanent distinction between New
Christians (conversos) and Old Christians, a division that gained a legal
status in purity-of-blood statutes.
During the early years of the fifteenth century, the issue of purity of
blood did not constitute an obstacle that prevented conversos from
achieving advancement at the royal court, in public service, or in the
Church hierarchy, and an increased “demand for technicians in economic
and bureaucratic activity” created opportunities for conversos to serve in
the government (as royal secretaries, municipal officials, tax collectors,
etc.).16 By the 1420s, the presence of a number of conversos in public ser-
vice had begun to inspire antipathy among Old Christians, which was
directed toward conversos who held posts at the court of King Juan II of
Castile (r. 1406–54).17 Kenneth Scholberg and Francisca Vendrell Gallostra
have identified this animus in poems composed by two Old Christians,

14
 Gregory B. Kaplan, The Evolution of Converso Literature: The Writings of the Converted
Jews of Medieval Spain (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002), 14.
15
 For a review of the events of 1391, see Netanyahu, The Origins, 148–67. While the pre-
cise number of Jews who converted is unknown, Netanyahu believes that the number was
as high as 400,000, and that there were over 600,000 conversos by around 1480, (Benzion
Netanyahu, The Marranos of Spain: From the Late Fourteenth to the Early Sixteenth Century
[New York: American Academy for Jewish Research, 1966], 235–45), although other schol-
ars believe this estimate to be inflated, and David Gitlitz’s view that there were some
225,000 conversos by the late fifteenth century is generally more accepted (David Gitlitz,
Secrecy and Deceit: The Lives of Crypto-Jews [Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society,
1996], 74).
16
 Francisco Márquez Villanueva, “The Converso Problem: An Assessment,” trans. M. P.
Hornik, Collected Studies in Honour of Américo Castro’s 80th Year, ed. M. P. Hornik (Oxford:
Lincombe Lodge, 1965), 317–33 (318).
17
 Márquez Villanueva, 318.
 the inception of limpieza de sangre25

Juan de Dueñas and Suero de Ribera, in which they express resentment

over the success of conversos at court.18
While there was no systematized discrimination against conversos in
the early 1400s, the poems by Dueñas and Ribera reveal that conversos
were viewed with disdain, which was undoubtedly an outgrowth of the
perception that they could achieve social advancement in spite of being
suspect Christians. This perception was shaped by the forced nature of
the mass conversions of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries,
which produced neophytes who had little time to become educated in
Christian doctrine. According to Netanyahu, the majority of these con-
verts were “extremely reluctant to stop performing all the Commandments,
and even more so to take part in Christian rites and ceremonies.”19
Moreover, as Gitlitz asserts, “[t]he conversos tended to remain in the same
sorts of economic activities as they had been engaged in formerly as
Jews.”20 Of course, it must be noted that the collective religious sincerity of
conversos during the early fifteenth century is impossible to determine
with certainty, and any attempt at drawing monolithic conclusions is
purely speculative. In addition, prior to the collection of evidence by the
Spanish Inquisition, whose tribunals began to operate during the 1480s,
information concerning individual cases of religious sincerity is virtually
unavailable.21 At the same time, as scholars such as Gitlitz have shown,
crypto-Judaism, although by nature clandestine, is a phenomenon whose
authenticity can be documented. Regardless of the extent to which
crypto-Judaism was actually practiced, its persistence caused suspicion to
be cast on all conversos.
The concept of purity of blood that evolved in the 1400s, as Sicroff
explains, “nació en España de la exasperación de los cristianos viejos al
descubrir la presencia del ‘enemigo tradicional,’ el judío, en el seno de la
Iglesia y de la sociedad cristiana” (“was born in Spain from the exaspera-
tion of Old Christians upon discovering the presence of their ‘tradi­
tional  enemy,’ the Jew, at the pinnacle of the Church and Christian

18
 Kenneth R. Scholberg, Sátira e invectiva en la España medieval (Madrid: Gredos, 1971),
348–49; and Francisca Vendrell Gallostra, “La posición del poeta Juan de Dueñas respecto
a los judíos españoles de su época,” Sefarad 18 (1958), 108–13.
19
 Netanyahu, The Origins, 207.
20
 Gitlitz, 13.
21
 Edward Peters, Inquisition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 92. With
regard to the procedures of the Inquisition, Peters writes: “The secrecy of testimony
against others raised profound question as to the reliability of witnesses and about the
quality of testimony from witnesses who would not ordinarily be accepted because of dis-
qualifying characteristics, including those considered infamous.”
26 gregory b. kaplan

society”).22 The sentiment described by Sicroff sprang from social and

religious tensions and was not grounded in modern conceptions of racial
discrimination.23 At its core, conversos were the objects of persecution
because Old Christians saw them as crypto-Jews, a conviction that was
reinforced by the fact that conversos, like Jews during previous times,
often appeared as agents of political and economic oppression. Purity of
blood became an accepted convention for articulating a distinction
between Old and New Christians, according to which conversos were
“guilty by association,” that is, their blood was unclean because they were
essentially considered to be indistinguishable from Jews.
This motivation became clearly evident in 1449 in the wake of the
Toledan insurrection, although the principal factors that contributed to
the inception of the event were political and economic. In 1448, King
Juan II, fearing attacks by neighboring monarchs, ordered the citizens of
Toledo to pay a royal tax in order to secure the borders of his realm. In
spite of the contention by the city council of Toledo that the tax violated
municipal privileges, Álvaro de Luna, the royal constable, ordered Alonso
Cota, the municipal treasurer and a converso, to collect the tax. Eloy
Benito Ruano, who bases his observations on contemporary chronicles,
recounts that Cota “procedió con demasiada diligencia. Tanta, que como
quedase todavía algún dinero por recoger, después que hubieron pagado lo
suyo quienes podían, ordenó exigir el resto, a razón de dos doblas, a la gente
más baja del común.” (“proceeded with excessive diligence. His diligence
was such that, after everyone had paid what they could and there was still
some money to collect, Cota ordered that the remainder be exacted from
individuals of lesser means than usual, who were required to pay two dob-
las each”).24 Cota’s diligence, coupled with the fact that he was working as
an agent of Álvaro de Luna, a known ally of the conversos, fueled the
flames of existent anti-converso animosity, which became the thrust of
the insurrection.25 Although there had been previous attempts during the

22
 Sicroff, 116, note 98.
23
 David Nirenberg, “Was There Race Before Modernity? The Example of ‘Jewish’ Blood
in Late Medieval Spain,” The Origins of Racism in the West, ed. Miriam Eliav-Feldon,
Benjamin Isaac, and Joseph Ziegler (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009, 232–64
[260]). In this context, I disagree with Nirenberg’s assertion that late medieval anti-Jewish
discrimination was informed by modern scientific notions.
24
 Eloy Benito Ruano, Toledo en el siglo XV (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones
Científicas, 1961), 35.
25
 Netanyahu writes that Álvaro de Luna displayed a “positive attitude” (The Origins,
237) toward Jews and conversos, both of whom he supported in the royal administration
(including as tax collectors), a policy that contradicted “the force of public opinion” (The
Origins, 237).
 the inception of limpieza de sangre27

fifteenth century at placing restrictions on conversos, such as the regula-

tion formulated around 1416 by Diego de Anaya, the bishop of Cuenca,
which prohibited any descendants of Jews from entering the College of
San Bartolomé at the University de Salamanca, these were sporadic cases
of discrimination and, while indicative of a growing tension between Old
and New Christians, do not reveal an organized popular movement to
impede conversos from social advancement on the pretext that they were
suspect Christians.26
The anti-converso sentiment that had been gaining momentum since
the early decades of the fifteenth century was crystallized during the
Toledan insurrection of 1449, when conversos came to be targeted by
Old Christians because they were collectively perceived as judaizers. The
insurrection began during the last days of January when Pero Sarmiento,
the king’s chief butler and the governor of the alcazar of Toledo, led
a band of rebels that took control of the city and prevented royal troops
from entering. Several months later, as the king prepared to besiege
Toledo, the rebels issued a soplicación (petition), in which they exp­
ressed  their resentment toward the conversos and Álvaro de Luna, in
part because he named conversos to occupy important administrative
posts:
por quanto es notorio que el dicho don Aluaro de Luna, vuestro condesta-
ble,  públicamente a defendido … a los conuersos de linaje de los judíos …
los quales por la mayor parte son fallados ser ynfieles e erejes, e han
judaizado  e  judaizan, e han guardado e guardan los más dellos los ritos
e cirimonias de los judíos, apostatando la crisma e vautizo que rreçeui-
eron, demostrando con las obras e palabras que los resçeuieron con cuero e
non con el coraçón ni en la voluntad, a fin que so color e nonbre de cris-
tianos,  prebaricando … las ánimas e cuerpos e faziendas de los cristianos
viejos ….27
in as much as it is known that said don Álvaro de Luna, your constable, has
publicly defended … the conversos of Jewish lineage … most of whom have
been found to be infidels and heretics, and [who] have judaized and [con-
tinue to] judaize, and [who] have observed and [continue to] observe
Jewish rites and ceremonies, thus apostatizing the chrism and baptism they
received, [and] demonstrating by these acts and words that they received
them superficially and not willingly or with their hearts, so that they could
be nominal Christians, [thus] perverting … the souls, bodies and property of
Old Christians ….

 See Netanyahu, The Origins, 272–75, for more on Anaya’s regulation.

26

 Quoted in Benito Ruano, Toledo, 187–88. The entire petition is included in Benito
27

Ruano (Toledo, 186–90).

28 gregory b. kaplan

Netanyahu asserts that the manner by which this petition identifies con-
versos as judaizers, as such creating a distinction between them and Old
Christians, constitutes “the first public expression of the anti-Marrano
sentiment which … was rife in Spain but hitherto had been formally
suppressed.”28
Whereas the petition submitted to the king underscores Álvaro de
Luna’s favoritism toward conversos in his oppressive administration, with
the king’s dismissal of both the former and the latter being demanded by
the rebels, the parameters of systematized anti-converso discrimination
were further delineated in the Sentencia-Estatuto, the first purity-of-blood
statute, which was composed by the same band of Old Christians (led by
Pero Sarmiento) that had initiated the insurrection in Toledo. The
Sentencia-Estatuto focuses on conversos in the municipal government of
Toledo, whose removal from office is called for because they are seen as
relapsed Jews:
Nos los dichos Pedro Sarmiento, Repostero mayor de nuestro señor el rey …
y alcalde mayor de las alzadas de la muy noble y muy leal cibdad de Toledo
e los alcaldes, alguaciles, caballeros, escuderos e vecinos, común y pueblo de la
dicha cibdad de Toledo, de suso nombrados, pronunciamos e declaramos que
por quanto es notorio por derecho así canónico como civil, que los conversos
del linage de los judíos, por ser sospechosos en la fe de nuestro Señor e Salvador
Jesuchristo, en la qual frecuentemente bomitan de ligero judaizando, no
pueden haber oficios ni beneficios públicos ni privados tales por donde puedan
facer injurias, agravios e malos tratamientos a los christianos viejos lindos, ni
pueden valer por testigos contra ellos ….29
We, Pedro Sarmiento, head repostero of our lord the king … and head mayor
of the very noble and loyal city of Toledo, along with the mayors, constables,
knights, squires, citizens and common people of the said city of Toledo, pro-
claim and declare that, in as much as it is well known through civil and
canon law that conversos of Jewish lineage, being suspect in the faith of our
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, frequently belittle it by judaizing, they shall
not be allowed to hold office or benefices public or private through which
they might cause harm, aggravation, or bad treatment to good old Christians,
nor shall they be able to act as witnesses against them ….30
The Sentencia-Estatuto continues with an enumeration of the acts that
enlist conversos as heretics:

28
 Netanyahu, The Origins, 365.
29
 Quoted in Benito Ruano, Toledo, 192–193.
30
 Translation by Kenneth Baxter Wolf, Texts in Translation. http://sites.google.com/
site/canilup/home (accessed February 9, 2011).
 the inception of limpieza de sangre29

guardando los ritos e ceremonias de la ley vieja, e diciendo e afirmando ser

nuestro Salvador e Redemptor Jesuchristo un hombre de su linaje colgado,
en que los christianos adoran por Dios, y otrosí afirmando y diciendo que
hay Dios y Diosa en el cielo; e otrosí en el Jueves Santo mientras se consagra
en la Santa Iglesia de Toledo el santíssimo óleo y chrisma, e se pone el Cuerpo
de nuestro Redemptor en el Monumento, los dichos conversos degüellan
corderos, e los comen e facen otros géneros de olocaustos e sacrificios
judaizando ….31
they keep the rites and ceremonies of the old law; that they say and affirm
that our Savior and Redeemer Jesus Christ was man of their lineage who was
killed and whom the Christians worship as God; that they say that there is
both a god and a goddess in heaven; and in as much as, on holy Thursday—
while the holy oil and chrism is being consecrated in the church of Toledo
and the body of our Redeemer is being placed on the altar—the said conver-
sos slaughter lambs and eat them and make other kinds of holocausts and
sacrifices, thus judaizing ….32
At this point in the Sentencia-Estatuto it is revealed that Sarmiento and
his band base their claim that the conversos of Toledo are relapsed Jews
on an investigation (“pesquisa”) conducted by ecclesiastical authorities in
Toledo. In reality, there is no record that any such investigation took
place, which is significant insofar as it reveals an essential component of
purity-of-blood statutes, that is, that they typically contain sweeping
accusations and subsequent restrictions grounded in a popular percep-
tion that conversos were judaizers rather than in any concrete evidence.33
Regardless of whether a formal investigation actually exposed the reli-
gious insincerity of Toledan conversos, it is likely that some of the mistrust
that was cast on conversos was due to the fact that a number of them
(including Alonso Cota in his role as tax collector), whether sincere
Christians or crypto-Jews, were associated with Judaism as a result of
undertaking traditionally Jewish activities. In a related context, the gen-
eral mistrust of conversos was probably an outgrowth of their supposed
participation in a political conspiracy, namely their collaboration with
Álvaro de Luna, whose administration was seen by a sector of the public
as a threat to the monarchy. Dayle Seidenspinner-Nuñez identifies the
popular origins for “the forging of the myth of a conversion conspiracy”

 Quoted in Benito Ruano, Toledo, 193.

31

 Translation by Wolf.
32
33
 With regard to this alleged investigation, Netanyahu observes that “the text of the
proceedings of the Toledan Inquiry is not extant” (The Origins, 371). Similarly, Sicroff
writes: “No existe hoy ningún documento de ese género que nosotros conozcamos” (54, note
36) (“as far as we know, there does not currently exist any document of that type”).
30 gregory b. kaplan

(51) in the petition and the Sentencia-Estatuto issued by the Old Christians
of Toledo, for whom “the equivalence between converso conspiracies of
the present and Jewish conspiracies of the past illustrates their shared
religious position as enemies of Christianity and is determined by their
common racial origin” (52).34
The Sentencia-Estatuto was the first of many such decrees that barred
conversos from a variety of organizations. In the decades after the Toledan
insurrection of 1449, purity-of-blood statutes were issued in several cities,
including Bilbao (1463) and Ciudad Real (1468). In 1474, the conversos of
Córdoba fell victim to an outbreak of violence that led to the issuance of a
statute that barred all conversos from public service. Moreover, in the
early 1480s conversos were forbidden from entering the military orders of
Alcántara and Calatrava, and from living in the region of Guipúzcoa or
joining the stonemason’s guild in Toledo. During the same decade, the
Jeronimites (1486) and the Dominicans (1489) became the first religious
orders to issue purity-of-blood statutes. Spanish institutions of higher
learning also adopted statutes. The aforementioned College of San
Bartolomé at the University of Salamanca, where Diego de Anaya had
attempted to exclude conversos during the early decades of the fifteenth
century, formally implemented one in the early 1480s. In Valladolid, the
College of Santa Cruz issued a purity-of-blood statute upon its foundation
in 1488 and another one was decreed by the College of San Antonio in
Sigüenza in 1497.
The promulgation of purity-of-blood statutes continued during the six-
teenth century. Organizations that adopted such statutes include the
cathedral chapters of Badajoz (1511), Sevilla (1515), and Córdoba (1530), the
College of San Ildefonso in Valladolid (1519), the Franciscan order (1525),
the University of Sevilla (1537), and the military order of Santiago (1555).
The cathedral chapter of Toledo, after a prolonged debate, adopted a stat-
ute in 1547, according to which membership was denied to anyone who
did not present “prueba, y testimonio de limpieza” (“proof and testimony of
purity”).35 These decrees, like those of the fifteenth century, cast a blanket
suspicion on conversos, an attitude depicted in harsh terms in the statute
issued by the cathedral chapter of Córdoba, which refers to “los muchos

34
 Dayle Seidenspinner-Nuñez, “Prelude to the Inquisition: The Discourse of
Persecution, the Toledan Rebellion of 1449, and the Contest for Orthodoxy”, Strategies of
Medieval Communal Identity: Judaism, Christianity and Islam, ed. Wout J. Van Bekkum and
Paul M. Cobb (Paris: Peeters, 2004), 47–74 (51–52).
35
 Quoted in Sicroff, 129.
 the inception of limpieza de sangre31

daños y infamia que esta Yglesia y Ciudad auía recibido en tiempos passa-
dos, por auer auido Beneficiados en esta Yglesia que descendiessen de gen-
eración de conuersos y Iudíos.” (“the many injuries and infamies that this
Church and city have incurred during past times due to the fact that there
have been patrons of this Church who have descended from conversos
and Jews”).36 Further on in this statute, another sweeping accusation is
made against conversos, who are labeled a “generación zizañadora amiga
de … disensiones … y que dondequiera que está esta generación ay poca
paz.” (“generation of troublemakers that is inclined toward dissention …
and there is little peace wherever these people are”).37 Toward the end of
the 1500s, purity-of-blood statutes were issued by additional organiza-
tions including the city council of Toledo (1566), the Spanish Inquisition
(1572), and the Jesuit order (1593), although the latter was effectively
annulled in 1608 when admission to the order was granted to conversos
whose ancestors had converted at least five generations earlier.
The polemic over the legitimacy of purity-of-blood statutes began soon
after the promulgation of the Sentencia-Estatuto in 1449 and involved Old
and New Christians. In reaction to the Sentencia-Estatuto, Alonso de
Cartagena, a converso and the bishop of Burgos, composed Defensorium
unitatis christianae, which provides a theological argument in support of
Christian unity.38 Contemporary to Cartagena’s Defensorium, another con-
verso, Fernán Díaz de Toledo, who served as a royal secretary, wrote the
Instrucción del Relator para el obispo de Cuenca, a favor de la nación hebrea,
which also challenges the dichotomy between Old and New Christians
established by the Sentencia-Estatuto.39 Lope de Barrientos, the Old
Christian bishop of Cuenca to whom Díaz de Toledo dedicated his
Instrucción, contributed to the polemic with a treatise, Contra algunos

36
 Quoted in Sicroff, 120, note 113.
 Quoted in Sicroff, 121, note 113.
37
38
 Alonso de Cartagena, Defensorium unitatis christianae, ed. and intro. P. Manuel
Alonso (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1943), 7–320. Although
the date listed on the Defensorium is 1450, the editor of the work, P. Manuel Alonso,
believes that it was written during the summer of 1449 (Cartagena, 38). For discussions
related to the theme of Christian unity in the Defensorium, see Kaplan, 59–60, and Bruce
Rosenstock, New Men: Conversos, Christian Theology, and Society in Fifteenth-Century
Castile (London: Department of Hispanic Studies, Queen Mary and Westfield College,
2002), 22–33.
39
 Fernán Díaz de Toledo, Instrucción del Relator para el obispo de Cuenca, a favor de la
nación hebrea, in Defensorium unitatis christianae, by Alonso de Cartagena, ed. and intro.
P. Manuel Alonso (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1943), 343–56.
Benito Ruano believes that Díaz de Toledo’s treatise was written in October of 1449 (Los
orígenes, 55).
32 gregory b. kaplan

zizañadores de la nación de los conuertidos del pueblo de Israel, in which he

also writes in defense of the conversos and against the Sentencia-Estatuto.40
In September of 1449, Pope Nicholas V issued a bull that condemned the
division created in the Sentencia-Estatuto between Old and New Christians
and the restriction that barred conversos from holding public office.41
On the opposing side, several months after the promulgation of the
Sentencia-Estatuto, Marcos García de Mora, an Old Christian bachelor-
of-law and an advisor to Sarmiento, composed a treatise (the Memorial)
that justifies the first purity-of-blood statute.42 In his treatise García de
Mora repeats the tone of the accusations made in the Sentencia-Estatuto
by collectively classifying the conversos of Toledo as “incrédulos e dudosos
en la fée” “Unbelievers and suspect Christians.”43 García de Mora also per-
petuates the claims made in the Sentencia-Estatuto by referring to “todos
los confesos de la dicha ciudad” (“all the conversos of this city”)44 in a
manner that collectively enlists them as heretics: “Otrosí fue e es notorio
que fueron fallados ser heréticos, infieles e blasfemos, negando ser Dios
Nuestro Saluador Jesuchristo … e fueron fallados judaiçar e guardar todas
las ceremonias judaicas” (“In as much as it was and is known that they
[conversos] have been found to be heretics, denying Jesus to be our God
and Savior … and they have been found to Judaize and observe all Jewish
ceremonies”).45 According to García de Mora, conversos are by nature her-
etics, and, as in the Sentencia-Estatuto, they are thus deemed as unfit for
public service.46
The polemic over purity-of-blood statutes, as well as over the number
of generations removed from conversion during which descendents of
conversos should be treated as inferior Christians, continued through the
sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. For example, in reaction to the
statute issued by the cathedral chapter of Toledo in 1547, clerics outside of

40
 Lope de Barrientos, Contra algunos zizañadores de la nación de los conuertidos del
pueblo de Israel. Vida y obras de Fr. Lope de Barrientos, ed. and intro. Fr. Luis G. A. Getino
(Salamanca: Calatrava, 1927), 181–204; and Lope de Barrientos and Fernán Pérez de
Guzmán, Refundición de la Crónica de Halconero, ed. and intro. Juan de Mata Carriazo
(Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1946), cxxxix). Mata Carriazo asserts that Contra algunos zizaña-
dores was composed in 1451.
41
 This papal bull is included in Benito Ruano, Toledo, 198–201.
42
 The Memorial is included in Benito Ruano, Los orígenes del problema converso
(Barcelona: Ediciones El Albir, 1976), 103–32.
43
 Quoted in Benito Ruano, Los orígenes, 103.
44
 Quoted in Benito Ruano, Los orígenes, 112.
45
 Quoted in Benito Ruano, Los orígenes, 113.
46
 Quoted in Benito Ruano, Los orígenes, 115.
 the inception of limpieza de sangre33

Spain (including the Pope), wrote against the exclusion of conversos,

while Spanish intellectuals defended the statute until the first decade of
the 1600s.47 Toward the end of the 1500s, a movement in favor of reforming
the statutes garnered support among renowned religious figures, such as
Juan de Mariana and Agustín Salucio, as well as high-ranking civil offi-
cials. In a decree issued in 1623, King Felipe IV (r. 1621–65) recognized the
need for such a reform by ordering that anonymous testimony against
conversos no longer be accepted, that compilations of genealogies known
as “libros verdes” be destroyed, and that those who had been judged to
possess pure blood (as well as their direct descendents) be granted immu-
nity from further investigations.48 Investigations into purity of blood con-
tinued to occur in spite of Felipe’s decree, although only a small number
of statutes remained in effect by the eighteenth century. The statutes
were not officially proscribed until 1865, when a law was enacted that
“abolish[ed] proofs of purity for marriages and for certain government
posts.”49
Although purity-of-blood statutes were issued by some of the most
prestigious organizations to which Christians could aspire, scholars have
not argued that this trend paralleled growing support for them among
the highest-ranking authorities. Sicroff claims that the ratification of the
purity-of-blood statute of the cathedral chapter of Toledo by Pope Paul IV
in 1555, which inspired the same decision to be made by King Felipe II
(r. 1556–98) the following year, signified the king’s awareness that “la pre-
ocupación creciente, en España, de la limpieza de sangre … iba a continuar
desarrollándose con o sin su aprobación.” (“the growing concern in Spain
with purity of blood … was going to continue with or without his sup-
port”).50 Kamen, who argues that the promulgation of purity-of-blood
statutes, rather than constituting a national trend, was “very strictly con-
fined to a few institutions in a limited number of regions,” points out that
a number of organizations, such as the cathedral chapters of Sevilla,
Sigüenza, and Toledo, the Dominican and Franciscan orders, the city
council of Toledo, and the military orders of Calatrava and Alcántara
failed regularly to enforce their statutes.51 In this light it should be noted

 Sicroff, 175–76, 191–94.

47

 For a discussion of the decree of 1623, see Sicroff, 253–57.

48
49
 Henry Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1998), 254.
50
 Sicroff, 172.
51
 Kamen, 235. On the enforcement of the statutes mentioned, see Kamen, 234–35, 240.
34 gregory b. kaplan

that the enforcement of statutes could become less effective over time, as
in the case of the Sentencia-Estatuto, which was reaffirmed in 1467 (after
an outbreak of anti-converso violence) because several conversos had
managed to secure public office. Moreover, it is known that conversos
could bypass purity-of-blood statutes through bribery, falsification of doc-
uments in order to prove pure Christian lineage, or intervention on their
behalf by high-ranking officials. One such converso was Pedro Ossorio de
Velasco, who traced his lineage to two important conversos of the early
fifteenth century, Pablo de Santa María and his son, Alonso de Cartagena,
who each became the bishop of Burgos. Because of the renown of his
ancestors, Velasco and his descendents were granted immunity from per-
secution in 1604 by King Felipe III (r. 1598–1621), who decreed that mem-
bers of his family be afforded “todas las honras, officios, beneficios y
encomiendas que se admitían los que se llaman cavalleros hijos Dalgo,
christianos viejos, limpios de toda raza.” (“all the honors, offices, benefits
and commissions permitted to those who are called noble gentlemen, Old
Christians [and] racially pure”).52
After the Toledan insurrection of 1449, the concept of purity of blood
underwent an evolution whereby it extended well beyond the scope out-
lined in the Sentencia-Estatuto. This evolution can be understood to par-
allel the development of the character of Spanish Renaissance society,
which placed a strong emphasis on pure lineage. There is a good deal of
evidence to support the conclusion that the increased attention paid to
purity of blood after 1449 reflects the diffusion among the Spanish Old
Christian community of a genuine animosity toward conversos. In other
words, conversos became the targets of purity-of-blood statutes not as
part of a campaign by Church and political authorities to restrict their
influence but because Old Christians on all levels of society viewed con-
versos as a threat to the integrity of the Catholic faith that defined the
national identity of Spain. The desire to preserve this identity and the
attributes it afforded—most notably honor, which could only be pos-
sessed by those of pure lineage—explains how cathedral chapters could
issue purity-of-blood statutes even though they expressly contradicted
Church doctrine, which makes no distinction between Christians by birth
and those who convert to Christianity.53 The same desire may be said to
have inspired city councils to adopt statutes even though, as Kamen

52
 Quoted in Sicroff, 218, note 3.
53
 See Sicroff, 57–58, for a review of the New Testament sources, papal decrees, and civil
legislation in favor of the equality of converted Christians and Christians by birth.
 the inception of limpieza de sangre35

observes, they “were never part of the public law of Spain and never fea-
tured in any body of public law.”54 The adoption of statutes at the munici-
pal level thus reveals the spread of a popular animus, and with respect to
the intensity of this animus it should be underscored that the statute
adopted in Toledo in 1449 and reaffirmed in 1467, as well as the one issued
in Córdoba in 1474, were preceded by outbreaks of violence committed by
the Old Christian populace.
Evidence in favor of this conclusion is found in the statutes themselves
and the treatises composed in order to defend them, which disseminate
the basic tenet of purity of blood, that is, the popular perception that con-
versos were by nature heretics and as such to be marginalized from Old
Christian society. The statutes repeatedly affirm this concept by depicting
conversos as if they were Jews, or in more precise terms as if they had
skirted efforts to convert them by continuing to practice Judaism.
Although not one of the polemical treatises, an additional work that
should be mentioned in this context is Fortalitium fidei contra Judaeos,
written around 1460 by Alonso de Espina, who may or may not have been
a converso and who served as the royal confessor to King Enrique IV of
Castile (r. 1454–74).55 Espina’s Fortalitium, which played a significant role
in “hastening the development of organized persecution [of Jews and con-
versos] in Spain,”56 labels conversos as “judíos ocultos” (“hidden Jews”)57
thus perpetuating the popular perception that all conversos were practic-
ing Judaism in secret.58 The influence of this perception on discrimination
at the highest levels of society is revealed in the manner by which some
statutes were enforced. For example, shortly after the cathedral chapter
of Toledo adopted a statute in 1547, a converso, Fernando Jiménez, who
had been designated by the Pope to be a canon of the Toledo cathedral,
was denied the post after it was confirmed that Jiménez’s father had been

54
 Kamen, 239.
 Alonso de Espina, Fortalitium fidei contra Judaeos. Lyon, 1511. While Castro (Américo
55

Castro, España en su historia: Cristianos, moros y judíos. 3rd ed. [Barcelona: Ediciones
Crítica, 1984], 526) and José Amador de los Ríos (José Amador de los Ríos, Historia social,
política y religiosa de los judíos de España y Portugal [Madrid: Aguilar, 1960], 679) believe
that Espina was a converso, Netanyahu (Benzion Netanyahu, “Alonso de Espina: Was he a
New Christian?,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 43 [1976]:
107–65) argues that he was an Old Christian.
56
 Henry C. Lea, A History of the Inquisition in Spain, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan,
1906–07), 1: 148–49.
57
 Quoted in Amador de los Ríos, 630.
58
 For more on Espina’s treatise, which remains unedited, see Amador de los Ríos, 627–
30, and Netanyahu, The Origins, 726–43.
36 gregory b. kaplan

punished by the Inquisition for crypto-Judaism. Sicroff concludes that the

prosecution of the case against Jiménez by Juan Martínez Silíceo, the
archbishop of the Toledo cathedral, which not only prevented Jiménez
from becoming a canon but also included a general proscription against
permitting conversos to serve in the Toledo cathedral, should be under-
stood as evidence that the perception that conversos were judaizers had
become widespread.59
The extent to which the preoccupation with purity of blood permeated
Spanish society is suggested by a variety of sources from the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. In La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes, an anonymous
picaresque novel published in 1554, the dialog between Lázaro and his
third master, an escudero (squire), demonstrates the contemporary
importance of appearing to be an Old Christian.60 As I will point out
below, this attitude was especially prevalent among members of the
nobility (the escudero is from the lower nobility), who had particular rea-
son to fear being perceived as crypto-Jews. Though destitute, the escudero
refuses to work, and instead relies on Lázaro for sustenance. However, the
concern of the escudero for his honor never wanes, and his comment to
Lázaro that the latter should not reveal that they live together (“y sola-
mente te encomiendo, no sepan que vives conmigo, por lo que toca a mi
honra”) (“in order that my honour will not be diminished, I must request
you to allow no one to know that you stay with me”) depicts his concep-
tion of honor as a façade, as being based solely on how he is perceived by
others.61
In a society in which proving pure Christian lineage was a means of
attaining a status that was associated with honor (such as membership in
a military order), the escudero’s comment depicts the high value placed
on distancing oneself from conversos—and from activities traditionally
associated with conversos such as that the commercial ventures that
the escudero eschews—through Old Christian conduct. The escudero
thus relates to Lázaro that he is not willing to devote his efforts making
improvements to his properties so they might produce revenue (“un solar

59
 Sicroff, 131–32.
60
 See Deborah Skolnik Rosenberg’s essay in this collection for a discussion of the rep-
resentation of the converso in other picaresque novels.
61
 Joseph V. Ricapito, ed. La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes y de sus fortunas y adversidades,
11th ed. (Madrid: Cátedra, 1983), 162. The English translation is by Mack Hendricks
Singleton (Lazarillo de Tormes. Masterpieces of the Spanish Golden Age, ed. Ángel Flores
[New York: Rinehart, 1957]. 62).
 the inception of limpieza de sangre37

de casas que, a estar ellas en pie y bien labradas … valdrían más de dos
cientas veces mil maravedís … un palomar que a no estar derribado como
está, daría cada año más de doscientos palominos”) (“a little cluster of
houses … which, if they were in good repair and had not fallen down,
would fetch me more than two hundred thousand maravedís … a pigeon
house, which, if it were not in such a dilapidated condition, would net
me over two hundred birds yearly”) insofar as this would be detrimen-
tal  to his honor (“dejé [todo] por lo que tocaba a mi honra”).62 On other
occasions, the escudero reinforces this notion in his use of the term
limpieza, which he employs upon inquiring if Lázaro’s hands are clean
enough to touch his cape (“quita de sobre sí su capa, y preguntando si tenía
las manos limpias las sacudimos y doblamos”) (“he took off his cloak, and,
asking whether I had clean hands, he allowed me to help him shake it out
and fold it”),63 and when he asks about the provenance of some pieces of
bread Lázaro possesses (“¿Si es amasado de manos limpias?”) (“Was it
kneaded by clean hands?”).64 The irony of the term limpieza in these
passages (insofar as the preoccupation of the escudero with his cape
and the provenance of the bread is of little importance given his impover-
ished state) again reveals the importance of maintaining a conduct that
exuded an outward appearance of pure lineage.
A comic vision of the same theme is provided by Miguel de Cervantes
in “Retablo de las maravillas” (published in 1615), in which only those of
pure lineage (and those of legitimate birth) can see the wonders per-
formed by Chanfalla:
que ninguno puede ver las cosas que … se muestran, que tenga alguna raza de
confeso, o no sea habido y procreado de sus padres de legítimo matrimonio;
y el que fuere contagiado destas dos tan usadas enfermedades, despídase de
ver las cosas, jamás vistas ni oídas, de mi retablo.65
that no one can see the things that appear … if he have in his ancestry a
trace of Jewish blood, or if he be not begotten and procreated in lawful mat-
rimony; and he who is touched with these two prevalent contagions, let him
give up all hope of ever seeing the marvels, never before seen or heard, of
my pageant.66

 Ricapito, 174. The translation is by Singleton, 70.

62

 Ricapito, 152. The translation is by Singleton, 55.

63
64
 Ricapito, 154. The translation is by Singleton, 57.
65
 Miguel de Cervantes, “Retablo de las maravillas,” Entremeses, ed. Nicholas Spadaccini,
6th ed. (Madrid: Cátedra, 1988), 215–36 (220).
66
 The translation is by S. Griswold Morley (The Interludes of Cervantes [New York:
Greenwood, 1948], 145, 147).
38 gregory b. kaplan

Sicroff, who asserts that Cervantes “se atreve a burlarse de la hipocresía de

los cristianos viejos,” (“dares to poke fun at the hypocrisy of the Old
Christians”) comments on Juan Ruiz de Alarcón’s treatment of a similar
notion in La verdad sospechosa, published in 1634.67 With respect to the
depiction sin this play of Jacinta’s refusal to marry Juan until he is permit-
ted to enter the military order of Calatrava,68 Sicroff writes:
¿Qué relación puede haber entre el matrimonio y la obtención de un hábito
militar? ¿No se trata ahí de un caso, muy evidente para los espectadores de la
comedia, de una joven que no quiere arriesgar el casamiento con un hombre al
que se habría negado un hábito, porque esa negativa pondría en duda su limp-
ieza de sangre y haría pesar sobre el joven matrimonio y sus hijos futuros la
carga de ser conocidos como cristianos nuevos? 69
What relationship could there be between matrimony and entrance into a
military order? Doesn’t this episode deal with a case, which would have
been very evident to those who watched the play, of a young woman who
doesn’t want to risk a marriage to a man to whom entrance has been denied
because this denial would cast doubt on his purity of blood and would place
the burden of being known as New Christians on the married couple and
any children they might have?
Although the works mentioned above are fictional, it is interesting to
speculate on whether the concern for purity of blood among characters
that represent different levels of society is indicative of the actual exten-
sion of the phenomenon, which appears also to be confirmed by contem-
porary non-literary texts.
In an anonymous document from the seventeenth century, the author
confirms that the preoccupation with purity of blood depicted in La vida
de Lazarillo de Tormes, Retablo de las maravillas, and La verdad sospe-
chosa reflects common social practices:
Los antiguos xptianos todos están empleados en como deshacer a los moder-
nos con oprovios y afrentas inavilitándolos con todo su posible para todos los
oficios de honrra y los más nuevos en la Christiandad esforcarse a no sufrir
semejantes desprecios.70

67
 Sicroff, 344.
68
 Juan Ruiz de Alarcón, La verdad sospechosa, ed. Alva V. Ebersole (Madrid: Cátedra,
1976), 75.
69
 Sicroff, 345.
70
 Quoted in Antonio Domínguez Ortiz, Los conversos de origen judío después de la
expulsión (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1955), 242. The docu-
ment, ms. 271 (fol. 15–37) of the Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid, appears with the following
rubric in Los conversos de origen judío: “Discurso sobre la disensión que ay entre los cris-
tianos viejos y xptianos nuevos” (242) (“Discourse on the feud between Old Christians and
New Christians”).
 the inception of limpieza de sangre39

The Old Christians are all working diligently on using ignominies and
insults to make New Christians ineligible for any social honors and the most
recent converts to Christianity and trying not to suffer that fate.
In another document, written around 1623, Enrique Pimentel, the bishop
of Cuenca, argues against the continued existence of purity-of-blood stat-
utes due to rampant corruption. According to Pimentel, the process of
proving pure lineage existed only “para hazer escripturas falsas y buscar
falsos testigos y dar ocasion a mil perjurios” (“to make false documents and
look for false witnesses and provide a thousand opportunities for pur-
gery”).71 The literary and historical works heretofore mentioned provide
evidence as to the proliferation of the anti-converso animus among Old
Christians in the centuries following the Toledan insurrection of 1449.
Moreover, these texts suggest that the social preoccupation with purity of
blood was shared by a broad spectrum of the Old Christian community.
The process of restricting the social mobility of conversos during the
late Middle Ages and the Renaissance was set in motion at the local level,
whereupon it grew as an extension of a popular preoccupation with
sangre impura, which is perhaps more aptly described as a preoccupation
with the ability to prove Old Christian lineage both legally and through
appropriate conduct. In sixteenth and seventeenth-century Spain, con-
versos who were generations removed from their Jewish ancestors (many
of whom had converted well over a century earlier), and who could often
trace their lineages to Old Christians and Jews, lived in a climate in which
social acceptance was defined by one’s ability to demonstrate a religious
purity that was often impossible to determine with certainty. In reality, it
had been difficult to distinguish those who possessed a Jewish lineage
from those who did not since the fifteenth century, when it was already
known that many upper and middle-class families in Spain—those from
which a good part of the nobility descended—were of a mixed heritage.72
During the sixteenth century, the dissemination of two documents that
alleged that most of the nobility descended from families that had inter-
married, the Libro verde de Aragón and El tizón de la nobleza de España,
reinforced the suspicion with which conversos were viewed.73 The wide-
spread public perception that conversos were only nominal Christians
likely encouraged nobles to distance themselves from any association

 Quoted in Domínguez Ortiz, Los conversos de origen judío, 245.

71
72
 Díaz de Toledo reveals this fact in his Instrucción del Relator, 351–55.
73
 Juan de Anchías, Libro verde de Aragón, intro. Monique Combescure Thiry (Zaragoza:
Certeza, 2003); and Francisco de Mendoza y Bobadilla, El tizón de la nobleza de España,
intro. and notes Armando Mauricio Escobar Olmedo (Mexico, D. F.: Hispanista, 1999).
40 gregory b. kaplan

with them. In this climate, it would be difficult to overstate the value

placed on appearing to be an Old Christian lest one become marginalized
by a society that placed a stigma on those of impure lineage and bestowed
prestige on those who could prove their purity. It was perhaps the associa-
tion of proof of purity with the acquisition of social prestige, and by exten-
sion the attribute of honor, that lent importance to appearing to possess
an Old Christian lineage. Due to the general mistrust of conversos, as
well as to arbitrariness and corruption in the application of statutes, the
attribution of purity of blood depended as much on whether an individ-
ual actually possessed it as on that individual’s ability to act as an Old
Christian. This superficial conception of purity of blood, which gained
momentum as a result of a popular movement in mid-fifteenth century
Spain that invoked lineage in order to cast a general suspicion on conver-
sos, was the foundation of what became an obsession that extended
upwards through society if we are to believe that the depiction of purity of
blood in historical and literary texts is a reflection of contemporary mores.

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 INQUISITION AND THE CREATION OF THE OTHER

Ana Benito

Before the expulsion of the Jews in 1492 and the moriscos in 1609, Iberia
gave shelter to three different religions and cultures—the Christians, the
Muslims, and the Jews. The level of coexistence among them was not, by
any means, free of tensions, but the three were still sharing the same ter-
ritory and a legal code designed to regulate the interaction among them.
The presence of the non-Christian cultures in the Peninsula was not, by
the fifteenth century, a short-term phenomenon. The Muslims’ entrance
into Spain is very well documented as happening in 711, and lasted for
almost 800 years. The arrival of Jewish communities in Spanish lands is
much more difficult to date, given the absence of an initial war as in the
case of the Muslims. Yitzhak Baer points out that in the tenth century the
Jews thought that their people had arrived to Spain during the Roman
period, and that the arrival took place after the exile ordained by the
emperor Titus of Judea.1 Their lengthy stay among the peninsular inhabit-
ants went through periods of tolerance and others of open hostility in
which massive killings of Jews and other atrocities were perpetrated.
Teófilo F. Ruiz gathers documentary evidence of commercial activities
among the three cultures, particularly the continuous use of Christian
policies for buying Jewish and mudejar lands.2 This practice had as its
agenda the territorial dispossession of the non-Christian cultures, espe-
cially during the fourteenth century.
As long as the issue of the final control of the Peninsula was in ques-
tion, the Christian ruling classes tended to deal benevolently with their
Jewish and Moorish subjects as useful cultural and financial vassals and,
at the same time, as potential enemies. However, once the balance of
power shifted in the early thirteenth century to Christian kingdoms, the
former situation of tolerance was gradually replaced by a nationalism that
adopted religious exclusivity as one of its main characteristics.

1
 Yitzhak Baer, Historia de los judíos en la España cristiana (Barcelona: Altalena, 1981),
15–16.
2
 Teófilo F. Ruiz, “Trading with the ‘Other’: Economic Exchanges between Muslims,
Jews, and Christians in Late Medieval Northern Castile”, eds. Roger Collins and Anthony
Goodman, Medieval Spain (New York: Palgrave McMillan, 2002), 63–78.
44 ana benito

The pressure applied to the Jews during the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries culminated with the decree of forced conversion or the alterna-
tive of expulsion, during Fernando and Isabella’s reign. The same fate was
experienced by the Muslims who remained in the Peninsula after the con-
quest of the kingdom of Granada in 1492. The choices of Spanish Muslims
were conversion or exile after the nonstop legal pressure of the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries. The relationships between Christians and the
other two peninsular cultures in Castile before the expulsion of both can
be characterized as a process that systematically pursued differentiation
between the Christians, as the dominant group, and the Jews and Muslims,
as the dominated groups. This process of marginalization was achieved
through judicial apparatus, everyday life, literary texts, and the creation of
special institutions like the Inquisition. The ultimate goal of Castilian cul-
ture was to attain the self-internalization of the individuals as Others, as
the marked and different element. Thus, the Christian culture marginal-
ized, step by step, the two non-Christian ones long before the final exile
orders.
Muslims and Jews had Spain as their land for practically 800 years—in
the Muslims’ case—and a much longer period for the Jewish settlements.
Iberia was the country of all, their homeland. Americo Castro in Cervantes
y los casticismos españoles pointed out that the inhabitants of the
Peninsula were not totally aware of belonging to three different cultures
(Christian, Muslim, and Jewish) until as late as the sixteenth century.3 He
also argued that Jews considered themselves to be just as Spanish as their
Christian neighbors. Other authors, like Stephen Gilman, establish that
the identity of the converso—either from Jewish or Muslim origin—is not
based on either a racial origin or a cultural inheritance, but rather on a
certain amount of self-awareness of the individual with respect to the
society.4 In order to call oneself a Jew or a Muslim, the person must con-
sider himself or herself a Jew or a Muslim. Nor should we dismiss, as John
Edwards points out, the conversos’ and moriscos’ relationship to the rest of

3
 Américo Castro, Cervantes y los casticismos españoles (Madrid: Alfaguara, 1996), 10.
4
 Stephen Gilman, “Introduction”, Celestina, ed. Dorothy Severin, (Madrid: Alianza
Editorial, 1998), 23. See also Gilman in “A Generation of Conversos” (Romance Philology, 33
(1979), 87–101, and The Spain of Fernando de Rojas (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1972). Central to the thesis of all three texts by Gilman is the idea of a documented first
generation of conversos judged by the Holy office characterized by a feeling of incompre-
hension of what was happening to them. In many cases, they thought of themselves as
Castilians and Aragonese first, and as Jews second.
 inquisition and the creation of the other45

the society they lived in.5 After the establishment of the Inquisition in
1480, public pressure shaped private behavior for, as Gilman has shown,
“to be a converso is not just a way of being to oneself; it is more impor-
tantly a way of being with others.”6
What the Christian religious and cultural exclusionary practices
brought up was more than a legal mechanism. It also uncovered the
rethinking of an identity of those who decided not to flee, the ones belong-
ing to cultural communities that had claimed Iberia as their land for many
generations. These New Christians, recently converted, had to adopt a
new identity (forced or chosen) and find their role in a solely Christian
society. But the question is, what identity were they supposed to adopt
without erasing their own cultural features? For Yirmiyahu Yovel, an inte-
gral and unique identity never existed among the conversos; rather dual-
ity was the most notable feature for the majority of marranos.7 To begin
with, just as Yovel notices, the conversos, especially in the first genera-
tions, left the Jewish faith but never completely entered into Christianity.
Neither the Jews nor the Christians accepted them as members totally
integrated in their community and of the same belief (2). The same can be
said about moriscos, who were constantly under suspicion of revelry and
heresy by Christian society. Nevertheless, they were not embraced by
Muslims from other territories. Conversos are people trapped between
two religious orthodoxies, between two identities. They were dual human
beings treated as Other by both cultures. We cannot, therefore, talk of an
integral and univocal identity for the conversos—marranos and moriscos,
because it is necessary to take into account an endless number of condi-
tioning characteristics.
In general, we can say that the first converso generation would have
had a closer affinity to the beliefs and rituals of the old religion than the
later generations.8 We also need to take under consideration the social

 John Edwards, “Letters on ‘Inflecting the Converso Voice’” (162), La corónica: A Journal
5

of Medieval Spanish Language and Literature 25.2 (Spring 1997), 159–94.

6
 Gilman, The Spain of Fernando de Rojas, 19.
7
 Yirmiyahu Yovel, “The New Otherness: Marrano Dualities in the First Generation.”
The 1999 Swig Lecture, The Swig Judaic Studies Program at the University of San Francisco,
(San Francisco, CA, 1999), 1–2.
8
 David Gitlitz, Secrecy and Deceit: the Religion of the Crypto-Jews (Philadelphia: Jewish
Publication Society, 1996), 36–46. See also his classification in “Letters on ‘Inflecting the
Converso Voice’” La corónica 25.2 (1997): 164–65. Gitlitz considers six different periods in
the conversion of the former Jewish population: (1) The century and a half in which social
pressure led to the mass conversions of 1391; (2) the following century in which
46 ana benito

stratum and the level of education of a converso individual. We should

assume that, in some cases, the followers of a religion do not understand
the dogmas that they were taught to believe, and that they follow these
practices as part of the traditions of their community without necessarily
having a very clear notion of their significance. The level of education also
determines the means of access to the doctrine, either orally for the illiter-
ates or in writing for the most educated. This implies that the level of edu-
cation has important connections with the adherence to cultural and
religious practices. The latter point is especially relevant for a vast major-
ity of Castilian moriscos who could not read Arabic and who had a very
limited access to the Koran and other religious texts. Another factor that
can account for variation is the degree of indoctrination of the converso in
the new Christian religion. If it is sometimes hard for a person to adhere
to dogmas that one’s culture has believed and passed on to its children for
generations, we can only imagine what it must have been like for a con-
verso to change—practically overnight—their beliefs and convictions
about life, death, the way to save one’s soul and all kinds of daily rites.
Among the voices opposing the measures imposed by the Inquisition,
critics complained of the harsh penalties imposed on those who had
never been properly Christianized. Conversos still practicing in one way
or another their former religions were not wholly to blame if they had
never been catechized after their baptism. No doubt, as Angus MacKay
points out, “a large number of conversos, and later moriscos, can only have
had the haziest of notions about the doctrines of the religion to which
they had now, in theory, converted.”9 The gender of the New Christian is
an important element and must be taken into consideration as well. It has
been documented that in both faiths, conversas from Jewish and Muslim
origins played a central role in the preservation and transmission of their
own culture within the immediate family. Women were in charge of edu-
cating the children and the member of the family who, due to the social

convivencia was falling apart. In this period, conversos still had strong connections with
the Jewish community; (3) the decade and a half between the founding of the Inquisition
and the Expulsion from Spain in which Spain promoted measures to separate Jews from
conversos and crypto-Judaism began to emerge as a separate culture; (4) the forty years
that marked the passing of the Expulsion generation, the last with personal knowledge of
openly Jewish culture; (5) the middle years of the sixteenth century, a period in which
crypto-Judaism was taking its definite shape and sources reveal a wide range of practices;
and (6) the century following the 1580 Spanish annexation of Portugal, which saw the
spread and then the eradication of Portuguese Judaizers.
9
 Angus MacKay, “The Hispanic-Converso Predicament” in Transactions of the Royal
Historical Society, Fifth Series, 35 (London, 1985), 159–79.
 inquisition and the creation of the other47

role determined for them in patriarchal cultures, spent more time in the
house.10 Neither must we forget the degree of religiosity of the converted
person and the level of acceptance of the new religion. Although conver-
sion could have been sincere in many cases, it is more likely that the ulti-
mate goal of many conversions was the achievement of social integration
rather than the detailed teaching of religious beliefs.11 Yovel also mentions
cases in which converted people mixed the two religions in a natural way
because they found a common basis for both—monotheistic faiths with
common prophets and religious figures. He also directs our attention to
the existence of conversos even more fervently anti-Jewish than the Old
Christians. Among these avid defenders of their new faith, we can find
those who clamored for and later applauded the creation of institutions
like the Inquisition (9). Finally, we should include those conversos who
accepted their entrance in an active manner, that is, trying to find a less
conventional and deeper experience of religion. This new religious wave
seems to have been quite prolific among the later generations, with pro-
found connections with Erasmus’ Humanism and the spirit of the reform-
istas in the sixteenth century.
As we can see, variety, ambivalence, and diversity are among the main
features of the converted Christians. This would require examining each
case individually so we can determine the circumstances, the degree, and
the sincerity of conversion for each individual. But all this diversity was
ultimately reconstructed by the Christian powers into a single, general-
ized difference: that of the suspicion of not being a proper Christian. In
many cases, the accusations were accurate. Among the thousands of Jews
forced by persecution and massacre to accept baptism during the four-
teenth century, some became sincere Catholics, others remained as
judaizers. Kamen states that most continued to practice the Jewish rites
both secretly and openly.12 On the other hand, historical data mentioned

10
 See the observations of Reneé Levine Melammed in Heretics or Daughters of Israel?
The Crypto-Jewish Women of Castile (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); also Mercedes
García Arenal in Inquisición y moriscos. Los procesos del tribunal de Cuenca (Madrid: Siglo
XXI Editores, 1983).
11
 Several authors object to this point. For many converted people, publicly renouncing
their former religious beliefs and embracing the Christian ones could have been a way to
obtain social acceptance, but in other cases, it did not always happen this way. Especially
in the moriscos’ case, who showed a more tenacious tendency to keep their cultural differ-
ences and resisted assimilation more strongly than the converso Jews (García Arenal, 93).
See also Antonio Domínguez Ortiz and Bernard Vincent, Historia de los moriscos: Vida y
tragedia de una minoría (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1985).
12
 Henry Kamen, Inquisition and Society in Spain in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth
Centuries (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985), 26.
48 ana benito

by Gitlitz in a more reasoned and detailed approach to the problem of

crypto-Jews, makes Kamen’s statement highly questionable. After the
conversions of 1391, it would be logical to expect that forced converts
would continue to identify themselves as Jews and to maintain Jewish
practices, while the willing converts would try to assimilate as quickly as
possible. Gitlitz finds that in reality things were not that simple. Many
families included members of different religions and tended to form a sin-
gle extended community. Similarly, conversos usually remained in the
same sorts of economic activities as they had been engaged in formerly as
Jews and in contact with the Jewish community (17). Once again, it is clear
that generalizations about conversos are fruitless since, as many historical
data prove, there was no such thing as a unique identity among them.
Nevertheless, by the end of the century, Church authorities were
alarmed by what they considered the large numbers of false Christians,
especially in Toledo, Extremadura, Andalucía, and Murcia, according to a
document written in 1488.13 The particular socio-religious situation of the
conversos had become, at this point, the converso problem.
Ferdinand and Isabella were inclined to protect the Jewish communi-
ties in their territories—as they did with the moriscos—against Christian
excesses, especially in financial and commercial issues that could affect
the royal income and control. At the same time, they had to face an
increasingly popular anti-Semitic sentiment and pressures from mem-
bers of the Church advising them of the necessity of segregating or remov-
ing the Jews.14 The establishment of the Spanish Inquisition in Castile
responded to the general feeling of a social crisis, and, according to
Kamen, it was viewed by Spaniards as a temporary measure that could
put an end to the tendency of false Christianity among the conversos (47).
The Inquisition was inspired and supported by a decisively Old Christian
ideology and men whose perspective reflected the mentality of the major-
ity of Spaniards. Nevertheless, it was not an institution without dissenters.
Naturally, many of its detractors were conversos themselves, but debate
raged within both the Church and court regarding the establishment of
an inquisition in Castile (nobility, in general, opposed it while letrados

13
 See Nicolás López Martínez, Los judaizantes castellanos y la Inquisición en tiempo de
Isabel la Católica, appendix IV (Burgos: Aldecoa, 1954), 391–404.
14
 Kamen supports the idea that Ferdinand was more involved in the creation and
maintenance of the Inquisition than Queen Isabella. The king had experience with the
Inquisition in his kingdom of Aragon, before the establishment of the Castilian tribunal.
However, the final decision of expulsion seems to have been firmly supported by both
monarchs. (14)
 inquisition and the creation of the other49

tended to favor it). The majority of Spaniards agreed that heresy should
be repressed, but some voices objected to the abuses of Tribunal powers.
Inquisitorial actions in moral matters were considered outside of its juris-
diction, especially when they affected non-conversos. Objections were
also heard against the application of excessive punishments by and cor-
ruptive practices among the inquisitors and their subordinate officials.
Despite the complaints, by the mid-sixteenth century, the tribunal was
practically invulnerable, in part because of the implicit support of the Old
Christian majority, in part, also, because of the firm and continuous sup-
port of the crown (59).
Since its appearance in Castile in 1478, and even earlier in Europe, the
Inquisition (theoretically) devoted all its efforts to cleanse Christianity of
any trace of heresy.15 In practice, it also pursued political, social, and eco-
nomic goals in the name of religion.
In its zeal to eradicate heresy, the Inquisition tended to blur differences
and degrees in Christian religious practices. In the case of conversos, it
speedily and efficiently identified a vast range of Jewish cultural actions
which the authorities regarded as heretical. Soon general suspicion fell on
all conversos, and inquisitors began to treat them all as judaizers.16 The
same treatment was applicable to moriscos. In doing so, it imposed the
reified identity that the Castilian Christian fundamentalism imputed to
all those suspected of false conversion. The Spanish Inquisition, with its 15
tribunals, took up this mission and carried it out to devastating effect.17

15
 Stephen Haliczer, Inquisition and Society in the Kingdom of Valencia, 1478–1834,
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 9. The activities of the Inquisition in
Europe can be traced back to the thirteenth century. The papal Inquisition seems to be
active in Spain by 1232 while the Dominican order was becoming more noticeably close to
the papal efforts to eliminate heresy. The Crown of Aragon appears to have had a much
stronger medieval Inquisition than Castile and Portugal perhaps due to the geographical
and cultural affinities between Aragon and the areas of France affected by the Albigensian
heresy at this time.
16
 I have chosen the terms judaizer and not crypto-Jew, as other researchers do, because
in many cases it was extremely hard to determine if a converso was a real practitioner of
the Law of Moses or, on the contrary, a person from Jewish background practicing mere
cultural Jewish customs. At the same time, this is the term used by the inquisitors when
they refer to those converted to Christianity but still practicing Jewish customs.
17
 Cecil Roth, A History of the Marranos (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of
America, 1959). Roth, whose study was first published in 1932, considers the culminating
period of the Spanish Inquisition as occurring between the reigns of Philip III and Philip
IV (1556–1665). In this period, the Inquisition had 15 active tribunals in Barcelona, Córdoba,
Cuenca, Granada, Logroño, Llerena, Madrid, Murcia, Santiago, Sevilla, Toledo, Valencia,
Valladolid, Zaragoza, and Palma de Mallorca (84). More recent works on the matter, like
the one by Haliczer, note that the heyday of Inquisitional prosecution of conversos was the
period 1480–1530.
50 ana benito

The tribunals of the Holy Office worked as an administrative machine

loaded with legal criteria. It used both canon law and secular law in the
trials under its jurisdiction. The inquisitor did not dispense justice based
only on the doctrine of the Church or his own religious convictions. The
inquisitorial judge had a legal code especially created as a global guide for
his job, with comprehensive and detailed references to each and every
part of the inquisitorial process. The author of this text, Directorium
inquisitorum, or Manual del Inquisidor, was Nicolau Eimeric, a Catalan
Dominican who himself held the position of General Inquisitor of
Cataluña, Aragón, Valencia and Mallorca. His manual for inquisitors was
written about 1376 and was used until the new edition appeared in 1578,
written by Francisco Peña.18 The Manual was the required (and most
basic) reference for any inquisitor until the extinction of the Spanish
Inquisition in the nineteenth century. This comprehensive encyclopedia
of the inquisitorial performance covers topics such as: information about
who may be considered a heretic; all kinds of possible heresy; how to
identify heretics, and how to interrogate them. The text also deals in
detail with a great variety of topics related to the inquisitor and his job. It
tells what one needs in his character to be an inquisitor, discusses his
authority and all the procedures concerning the trial, and even the strate-
gies that he needs to use to wheedle the truth out of the interrogated per-
son. It also deals with the role of the lawyers and the classification of and
procedure to follow with the witnesses. The Manual also indicates the
layout an inquisitorial prison must take, when and how torture could be
inflicted, and all the possible sentences that the inquisitor could use with
those guilty of their charges. The Manual defines and explains all possible
kinds of heresies known up to its publication, including the ones that con-
cern the New Christians.
On the matter of conversion, it establishes that a converso must be
charged with heresy when he is a judaizer, that is, “he who observes the
ceremonies, the solemnities and the holy days of the Jews; if that person
behaves, in short, like a Jew” (85). Something similar is said about those
conversos/moriscos who, “after converting themselves to Christianity,
return to Islam, and of the Sarracens who, in one way or another, had
favored or helped in these steps” (88). The Manual considers that this case
“is identical by all means to the Jews and those who return to Judaism

18
 Nicolau Eimeric and Francisco Peña, El manual de los inquisidores, ed. Luis de Sala-
Molins (Barcelona: Muchnik Editores, 1983). The translations from the original in Spanish
into English are mine.
 inquisition and the creation of the other51

examined in the previous question: the seriousness of the crime is the

same, and so is the sentence” (88). As we can see, the Inquisition did not
consider as heretics only those who did not believe or did not seem to
believe in the dogmas of the Catholic Church, but also any person who
practiced cultural uses different from those Castilians known as Old
Christians. As a result of this definition, things such as different clothes,
different uses in personal hygiene, differences in diet (concerning both
the food used and the procedure of cooking it as well), different ways of
seating, and any other kind of cultural practice different from the ones
used by Castilian Christians were considered heretical. Thus, “mundane
activities carried a ceremonial or ritual significance indicating religious
deviance or conformity.”19
From the beginning, cultural customs different from the Castilian
norm were viewed with suspicion by the Inquisition, even though prior to
its functioning these cultural practices might have been considered to be
merely different by the majority of Castilians. Gretchen Starr-LeBeau con-
firms this phenomenon in at least one part of Spain with her research
about the inquisitorial trials in the city of Guadalupe, in Extremadura
(southwestern Spain).20 In the period between the fifteenth century and
the early sixteenth the conversos of that city lived among the Christians
sharing friendship with them and selling merchandise to the many pil-
grims who visited the town. Among the conversos, there were those deeply
integrated into the Christian society. Others became rich working as
administrators for the Jeronymite friars living in the town and even sup-
porting them in their attempt to control the city. There were also those
who actively pursued the recovery of their ancestors’ religion by practic-
ing it and visiting other Jewish marketers and the synagogue in the nearby
city of Trujillo. Variation was the general tendency among the conversos
of this community who, “with their divergent practices, beliefs, employ-
ment, and economic status, did not apparently see themselves as a singu-
lar, coherent community within the larger community of Guadalupenses”
(259). However, the arrival of the Inquisition and the establishment of
one of its tribunals in 1484, as well as the persecution of at least 226 con-
versos, completely transformed the perception that Old and New
Christians had about themselves and each other.

 MacKay, 170.
19

 Gretchen D. Starr-LeBeau, In the Shadow of the Virgin: Inquisitors, Friars, and

20

Conversos in Guadalupe, Spain (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2003).

52 ana benito

Since the appearance of the Inquisition in Guadalupe, the categorizing

model imposed in its first trials became the model applied by the citi-
zenry of Guadalupe to classify and identify their neighbors as potential
heretics. Clearly, the motivations of the witnesses or denouncers could
have been honest, but many had little or nothing to do with religious
beliefs and rather were closer to personal conflicts, rivalry, resentment,
and commercial competition between an Old Christian and a New one.
Among the cases studied by Starr-LeBeau, we find stories of antagonism
between neighbors or competitors in the same kind of business, such as
the accusations against Manuel González, the owner of an inn in
Guadalupe. One of the main witnesses for the prosecution was an Old
Christian, owner of another inn not far away from that of González (173).
Many trials also used as witnesses the servants of a converso family. Renée
Levine Melammed explores the case of María López, a converso woman
from Cogolludo (Guadalajara), accused as judaizer and sentenced to
death in the same year that her husband, Pedro de Villareal, and her
daughter, Isabel, received the same sentence.21 Among the witnesses pre-
sented by the prosecutor, two of them, Mayor and Madalena, were Old
Christian women who had been employees of María López and her hus-
band. Both women testified that María would neither eat, nor cook, any
pork meat, and that she used olive oil instead of lard to prepare her family
meals. Madalena also swore that both of her employers would abstain
from eating other foods such as rabbit, hare, eel, octopus, spotted dogfish,
and other fish without scales “because the Jews do not eat them” (56).
Juan Ropero, a blacksmith living in the same town, certifies that he saw
María taking the fat off a leg of meat and removing the sciatic nerve from
that leg as well, actions associated with koshering meat. In her declara-
tion to the Inquisition, María denied all the charges one by one, and she
tried to justify her food habits by calling them just hygienic or necessary
for the care of her health. She claimed that the ingestion of the fat from
the meat harmed her stomach.
The Holy Office considered suspicious any dietary custom differing
from the norm of the Old Christians, but it condemned more seriously
this judaizing practice when it was performed by conversos of the second
and subsequent generations. The Manual says that “it would be a very
serious suspicion when the children or the descendants of a converso kept

 Renée Levine Melammed, “María López. A Convicted Judaizer from Castile” in

21

Women in the Inquisition, ed. Mary E. Giles (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
1999), 53–72.
 inquisition and the creation of the other53

abstaining from certain foods: why would they not eat them if it wasn’t for
respect and reverence towards that satanic Jew sect?”22 Although the
judaizing allegations against María may have been true, we need to
explore the social surroundings of the defendant and her accusers. María
López seems to have been a very active woman. She took care of her own
duties and gave her daughter Isabel a hand with hers as well; she also
managed the family store and was involved in several commercial activi-
ties in her husband’s charge. Her dynamic lifestyle required the hiring of
servants and helpers who would perform many chores. However, it looks
like María was nothing but unpopular among her servants. In her testi-
mony, she declared that she had fired a significant amount of them, which
could lead us to suspect their motives for testifying against her.
After having the charges read to them, defendants were entitled to pre-
sent the tachas, that is, a list of people who might have motivations for
testifying outside of the religious arena. If the allegations of the defendant
against a witness in the tachas were proven, the inquisitor had to declare
that person a non-valid witness. The tachas in María López’s trial included
the names of more than one hundred people, and almost half of these
were the names of servants and employees. A number of them had been
accused (by Maria herself) of stealing personal belongings, fruit, and food
from her properties. It is not strange, then, that on numerous occasions
the servants used as witnesses accused her of beating them, since this was
a common custom between employers and servants of the day. Especially
serious is the case of one of her mistreated servants, a young girl who was
left crippled for life after María’s beating.23 Despite her cruelty, the rules in
the Manual specifically caution the inquisitor against the overuse of serv-
ants’ testimonies: “The servant’s testimony will be used with circumspec-
tion, because they are usually extremely malevolent against their masters.
On the other hand, it is licit to torture a servant who is reluctant to testify
against his master.”24
The other half of the tachas on her list were people who had unpleas-
ant business dealings with her husband, or who were evicted from rental
houses belonging to the husband for nonpayment of the rent. The list
even includes neighbors unhappy with the converso family due to minor
disagreements. The impression that one has while reading María’s trial
documents is that a fair amount of Cogolludo residents kept unpaid debts

22
 Eimeric, 161.
23
 Melammed identifies this servant as Alonso Escudero’s daughter. (66)
24
 Eimeric, 251.
54 ana benito

with the López-Villareal couple. In the end, the extensive list of possible
enemies provided in the tachas proved to be completely useless. The nine
members of the Inquisition tribunal gave more weight to the fact than in
two years of imprisonment María never confessed her judaizing practices,
insisted on her innocence, and insisted that she was a good Christian. The
tribunal decided to confiscate all her properties and torture her, hoping
for a confession to the charges of which she was accused. She was tortured
naked and upside down, with executioners pouring water in her mouth
and making her feel as if she were dying from suffocation. When her limbs
were about to be distended under the pressure of the ropes and the
tourniquets, she only had strength to beg the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ
for their protection.25 Contrary to the Inquisition’s expectations, María
never admitted her guilt. She was sentenced to be burned at the stake on
Nov. 13, 1518, in the auto de fe that took place that day in Toledo.
The Castilian Inquisition officials rarely showed any mercy towards the
conversos under suspicion of judaizing, unless they confessed all of their
misdeeds comprehensively from the beginning, but even an initial admit-
tance of guilt didn’t usually help the majority of the accused. Before the
inquisitors started their work in a given place, they always announced a
period of grace, tiempo de gracia, during which all conversos were exhorted
to confess their judaizing sins and receive forgiveness presenting a docu-
ment called a statement of reconciliation. After about 1500, edicts of grace
were usually replaced with “edicts of faith,” which omitted the period of
grace and instead invited denunciation of those suspected of heresy.26
The statements of reconciliation were, for the most part, formulaic decla-
rations in which New Christians revealed all they felt they could disclose
with impunity, even if they considered themselves innocent of the accu-
sations. However, all knew that declaring oneself non-guilty a priori could
only lead to a deeper scrutiny of their cases by the Holy Office. In such
documents, the conversos had to very cautiously balance their admittance
of guilt and innocence. The reconciliation’s rhetoric was, very often, care-
fully designed by a notary who helped the New Christians in such a proce-
dure: it opened with a formulaic paragraph of repentance, followed by a
list of several faults committed against the Catholic faith, very often
organized in a chronological or biographical way. It usually ended with a
petition for forgiveness for all the other faults that the penitent might

25
 “O vea santa Marya de Monserrate valme señor Ihesu Christo que buena cristiana a
seydo. O señora vea Santa Marya porque consentio tal cosa” (Melammed, 314–15).
26
 Kamen, 162.
 inquisition and the creation of the other55

have forgotten to mention. Thus, from the beginning of the process, an

Inquisitorial officer could be in charge of re-creating, through the official
discourse of the Inquisition, the identity of the defendant. The use of for-
mulaic repetitions, the mention of more or less the same faults in all cases,
and admitting to a vague and generic participation in judaizing practices
all help to support this idea of reconstruction.
Under the Holy Office’s criteria, it was equally suspicious to declare
one’s self completely innocent or only vaguely guilty. Those reconciled—
hoping for the forgiveness of the Church and reentry into Christian soci-
ety—were often taken in procession to the local church, barefooted and
holding a candle, and they were subjected there to some kind of punish-
ment ceremony.27 However, it is obvious that the actions of the Holy
Office were based on the assumption of guilt rather than innocence,
because the vast majority of those reconciled were later put on trial and
sentenced.28 In fact, the reconciliations provided the inquisitor with the
first proof used against the converso, since everything declared there was
compared to all the witnesses’ accusations and whatever the accused
declared under torture, if torture was necessary. Frequently, the defend-
ant was accused of having presented a false confession and of having con-
verted to Christianity falsely, a conversion that was considered by the
inquisitors fingida y simulada. Moreover, the reconciliations were also
used as a source to get the names of more suspicious conversos. In some
instances, the reports about other additional judaizing conversos were
spontaneous, while in other cases they were obtained through coercion
procedures such as torture or, more often, the threat of torture. It is not
strange, then, that under pressure by the officers of the Holy Office, many
conversos included in their reconciliations the names of family members
or acquaintances as judaizers. In this fashion, in the trial against Alonso
the teacher, a resident of Guadalupe, the notary adds in one of the mar-
gins of the reconciliation document that Alonso also incriminates his
mother, Marina Alonso, for forcing him to fast on certain days of the year.

27
 Germán Rubío, Historia de nuestra señora de Guadalupe (Barcelona: Industrias gráfi-
cas Thomas, 1926), 115.
28
 Starr-LeBeau points out that no more than 25 conversos escaped trials out of 226
reconciliations; 77 were considered guilty and burned at the stake; 45 were declared guilty
in absentia, because they were dead or not present, and they were burned in effigy; 17 were
considered guilty of serious charges and sentenced to life in prison; 38 were declared par-
tially guilty and sent to exile. Similar statistics leading to the same conclusions can be seen
in the studies of the tribunal of Valencia by Haliczer and the tribunal of Ciudad Real by
Beinart (Haim Beinart, Conversos on Trial: The Inquisition in Ciudad Real [Jerusalem:
Magnes Press, 1981]).
56 ana benito

Since the note is not part of the main text that Alonso provided, but is
included in the margin, we can suppose that some kind of method of coer-
cion was used to persuade Alonso to talk about his mother after he pre-
sented the document.29
Not all of the accused conversos used notaries, and those who wrote
their own reconciliations found their own defensive strategies. For exam-
ple, the defendants started to hold responsible for their judaizing prac-
tices their deceased family members or other conversos who no longer
lived in the city. They accused them of teaching or inducing them to fol-
low the Law of Moses. For instance, a big group of those brought to trial in
Guadalupe incriminate Martín Bachiller Narices, who had left town sev-
eral years before, and who his family believed to be dead (182). The inquis-
itorial coercion even allowed children to report their parents or siblings
and accuse them of forcing the children to practice non-Christian rites. As
a consequence of this method of incrimination, the younger children
denounced their parents and were separated from them for good. Then,
the Inquisition put the children under the care of families of Old Christians
who could raise them in the only true religion in Castile: Christianity.
The Inquisition tribunals carried out the trial-like judicial ceremonies
with a high degree of ritualism. In theory, each tribunal had to have a
promotor fiscal, who played the role of the prosecutor, and a series of cali-
ficadores, who determined in each case if the evidence against a person
was strong enough to initiate an accusation. Once the procedure was ini-
tiated, the defendant was entitled to the services of an advocate and a
solicitor. By the mid-sixteenth century, the solicitor or abogado de los pri-
sioneros, was recognized as an official of the Inquisition, dependent upon
and working with the inquisitors.30 While prosecution witnesses could
speak freely, since the defendant was not informed of their names, defense
witnesses needed to proceed with caution so their defense of another did
not turn back against themselves, and they were only allowed to answer
the exact questions about the charges presented by the promotor. The
strategic disadvantages of the defense were obvious and, in fact, the
preeminence of the prosecutorial discourse dominated from the begin-
ning to the end of the trial. The Manual explicitly declares that “the role of
the prosecutor is to put pressure on the defendant so he confesses and
repents himself and to request a sentence for the crime committed.”31

29
 Starr-Le Beau mentions this case (154).
30
 Kamen, 179.
31
 Eimeric, 8.
 inquisition and the creation of the other57

We can clearly see the imbalance between a prosecutor—who por-

trayed the identity of the accused as a false converso, a follower of another
religion—and the defense’s remote possibility of deconstructing this cul-
tural construction. The defense’s chance for success was minimal.
Theoretically, every accusation had to be confirmed by at least two wit-
nesses, but the prosecutor was often given the opportunity to prove it
with just one. Haliczer points out that confession could serve in some
instances as the second witness; this included forced confessions under
torture if subsequently ratified by the defendant (68). The judges were
responsible for being present and listening to the arguments of the pros-
ecution and the defense, the witnesses’ statements, and the sentencing. In
practice, the judges gathered together only for the initial accusation and
final sentencing, leaving the management of each trial to a single judge,
who had total authority to decide the fate of the defendant.
The highly bureaucratic structure that marked the functioning of the
Inquisition reveals sometimes its fallibility. The trial documents, which
were the Inquisition’s discourse of cultural construction of converso iden-
tity, often became the only valid reference in a case. Witness testimony is
richly recorded in Inquisitional proceedings, but its accuracy can be ques-
tioned. It was not uncommon that the validity of what was written pre-
vailed over reality to the point that deceased people were called to testify,
as happened in the case of Rodrigo Alonso, who was required to testify
along with Juan de la Barrera, his long-dead father.32 This proves that the
work of the inquisitors was in some cases based on documents rather
than on the personal knowledge of its lawyers, prosecutors and clerks, or
through a direct hearing of the witnesses.
As Gitlitz notes, “the Inquisition officials interpreted what they saw
and heard against a template of preconceptions about crypto-Judaism,
acquired both from their formal education and popular mythology
and codified in the Edicts of Grace and their own manuals of interroga-
tion.” (76–80). They were less likely to write down objective observations
than to record statements that corroborated their preconceptions. It is in
this way that the Inquisition contributed to construct, through ambigu-
ous data and fortuities, a monolithic identity for those whose behavior
did not conform to the Catholic Church norm. The zeal of the inquisitors
in re-reading the variety or vagueness of many facts meant that in
the processes everything must point in just one direction—either to the

 Starr-LeBeau, 155
32
58 ana benito

absolute innocence or the absolute guilt of the defendant. However,

the cases of presumption of innocence because the evidence was not
strong enough were very scarce. Among the 226 people put on trial in
Guadalupe, only two people were compurgated, that is, released with­
out  charges.33 If discrepancies between the prosecutor’s witnesses and
those of the defense existed concerning the evidence, the inquisitor must
find a way for the trial to go in just one direction. The same rule was
applied when the defendant’s confession signed during the tiempo de gra-
cia and the witnesses’ declarations presented different versions of the
facts.
The Manual is thoroughly explicit about the procedure that the inquis-
itor had to follow during the interrogations. One of the most recom-
mended strategies is to hide information from the defendant and to
proceed with craftiness because “artifice is the inquisitor’s best weapon.”34
The inquisitor is admonished not to tell the defendant the charges against
him so that the inquisitor can instill fear in the accused, so that he will
confess all his faults. Moreover, the Manual very seriously prevents the
inquisitor from revealing his game for “to suggest to the defendant what
are the charges against him so he can avoid the tricks35 of the interroga-
tion is, for inquisitorial purposes, a very serious crime” (144). The most
revealing section of the Manual about interrogation strategies is entitled
“Ten tricks of the inquisitor to break those of the heretics.” The first three
tricks deal with demanding detailed explanations of all terms used to pre-
vent misleading statements, persuading the defendant of the good nature
of the inquisitor through the words of a third person and the face-to-face
encounter between the witnesses and the accused. The fourth trick can
be considered as a strategy that involves lies, because it is advised that if
the defendant insists in denying his guilt, the inquisitor must take the
defendant’s file in his hands, look at it, and then he must lie by hinting at
information that is not there, without the accused heretic being able to
see that the inquisitor is not aware of the facts. The inquisitor must say
the following:

33
 Starr-LeBeau, 167. One of the trials was against Mari Gutiérrez, who, while fasting as
penitence for the recovery of her son’s health, decided to abstain not only from pork, but
from any food other than bread and water. The other case is Alonso Andrés Trujillano,
who was released, although with some charges, because the prosecutor could not find
enough evidence to prove his guilt.
34
 Eimeric, 147.
35
 The Manual uses the Spanish word “trampas” for tricks. Perhaps the English word
“traps” gives a more accurate translation of the original Spanish word.
 inquisition and the creation of the other59

“It seems obvious to me that you are lying and that I am right! Tell the truth
about your case!” (The trick is to make him believe that his file refutes his
allegations and that he really is guilty of heresy). Or he can also say: “How
can you deny it, isn’t it clear enough?” And he will read the paper, changing
the words that in his opinion need to be changed. Then he will say: “I am the
one telling the truth, so confess because, as you can see, I know everything!”
(153).
Besides intimidation, there were other interrogation techniques to be
used with a defendant who insists on his innocence. The Manual also
recommends confusing the accused with a series of interrogations with
constantly changing questions. The purpose of this strategy is to obtain
contradictory answers so the inquisitor can admonish the defendant for
giving opposite responses and to warn him to tell the truth, adding that
“if he does not agree about that, he will be tortured” (154). The eighth trick
is to promise forgiveness to the accused if he confesses without mention-
ing the kind of forgiveness intended. The Manual adds later: “he will be
granted the favor of the sacrament of Penitence” (155) rather than free-
dom without charges. In the Manual, Eimeric justifies this, adding that
“everything done to convert heretics is a favor, and penances are favor
and remedy” (155). Finally, one other strategy detailed in the text involves
the use of a convicted friend or acquaintance of the defendant who will
spend the night in prison with him and while both of them are having
long conversations, the convict will ask the accused to tell him the truth.
With the only purpose of recording the conversation, the Manual requires
that several witnesses along with the inquisitorial notary hide in a nearby
place, protected by darkness, so the conversation can be used as evidence
in the trial. Eimeric wonders, at the end of this section, if it is right to use
deceit in order to get evidence, and he justifies himself with the following
argument:
Cunning whose only purpose is to deceive is prohibited and has no place in
the practice of law; but the lie through a judicial procedure on behalf of the
law, the common wealth and the reason is absolutely praiseworthy. Even
more justified is the one done to detect heresy, eradicate vice and convert
the sinners. (156)
The last two quotes of the Manual mentioned here clearly show that the
Inquisition searched for the self-internalization of a pre-determined iden-
tity in the accused and that the means used to achieve this goal could
cross modern boundaries of legality.
In search of the unequivocal and ultimate truth, the accused were,
at times, threatened with torture, and at other times were subjected to
60 ana benito

torture without preamble.36 The Manual presents somehow contradictory

opinions about torture. It recommends its unlimited use in some sections
of the text: “Although burning an innocent is lamentable, I praise the
practice of torturing the accused” (8). But Eimeric’s work also prevents
the inquisitor from using torture when the crime is obvious and, instead,
he states that torture must be used when the offense is concealed, and he
sets seven points for its application. The first point recommends torture
for the accused clients who hesitate in their answers and/or insistently
deny the accusations. The rest deals with the cases in which the accused
has been slandered, or in which the accusations have been spread by a
public rumor (242). Later, the Manual discusses the case of somebody
accused by just one reliable witness. For that case, the following is
recommended:
One accused that has against him just one witness—an adult, respectable,
and trustworthy person—will not be convicted but rather tortured and if he
does not confess anything after being sufficiently tortured, he will be
absolved. (255)
In the eyes of the inquisitors, someone who resisted torture might have
been touched by God’s favor and proved his or her innocence. For a mod-
ern reader, though, the consequences of the Inquisitorial policy implies
that innocence is a matter of physical and psychological strength—if the
body and mind of the tortured person are able to resist the torture, inno-
cence is proven, otherwise the accused must be considered guilty.37 We
must assume the existence of numerous cases in which this correlation
between strong physical constitution or a firm and determined mind and
the final establishment of the truth never occurred to the defendant.
On the contrary, for those accused who were not strong enough to with-
stand the combination of physical torture and strategic questions, the

36
 Roth, 108–20. Roth gives a detailed description of every torture method used by the
Inquisition. Similar descriptions are provided by Kamen, 187–88, and Juan Eslava Galán,
Historias de la Inquisición (Barcelona: Planeta, 1992), 79–86. Edward Peters, Torture
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996), 64. As Peters points out, the
Inquisition did not use torture more often or more intensely than secular tribunals. Since
secular courts had one power that church courts were denied, the power to shed blood,
the Church consistently turned to lay defenders, rulers, and courts in cases where clerical
personnel were canonically prohibited from acting.
37
 The Manual also shows that torture was not considered an infallible method to find
the truth. Eimeric mentions cases in which men declared crimes that they have not com-
mitted and others of brave and physically strong men who endure the cruelest torments.
There is no mention in the Manual about whether the inquisitor should consider this
endurance of torture a sign from God of his innocence.
 inquisition and the creation of the other61

session became an attempt to declare whatever answer the inquisitor

wished to hear in order to finish the torture. The declaration of Elvira del
Campo attained under torture exemplifies this.38 Elvira was tortured in
Toledo during the process against her from 1567 to 1569. She was accused
of avoiding pork and of wearing clean clothes on Saturdays (to celebrate
the Jewish Sabbath). Elvira admits the facts, but she denies that she did it
with a heretical intention. She was not trying to practice any rite of
another religion, she declares. When she was threatened with torture, she
fell on her knees begging the compassion of the tribunal and asking what
she must say to be released. During the first torture with water, she insists
on her innocence, claiming that she did nothing and that she had nothing
to say. She later suffered new torture with ropes, and then said that
she has told the truth, and she adds later: “I have done all they say” (111).
When the court requires her to tell in detail what she has done, she asks
the inquisitorial officers to loosen the ropes and declares “tell me what I
have to say: I do not know what I have done … I did not eat pork, for it
made me sick” (111). But the Inquisition seemed unsatisfied with her
answers, since the torture session went on. Elvira kept talking and giving
the answers that she assumed were the ones expected by the Inquisition:
“I don’t know, I did not eat it because I did not wish to” … “I did not eat it,
I don’t know why” (112). Finally, she is tortured on the rack, and she is
required to confess any act against the Holy Catholic faith. There she
adds: “I did everything that is said of me, I did what the witness said” (113).
She is asked to tell in detail what the witness has said about her, and she
argues that she doesn’t remember, then she begs to God “Lord, you know
the truth” (113). Asked again of the reasons of her avoidance of pork meat,
she says “I did it to observe the Law.” When she is asked “what Law?” she
answers “The Law that the witness says”… “If I knew what to say, I would
say it” (115). Elvira was tortured one more time, four days later. During this
torture session, her answers were even more vague and incongruent but,
finally, after asking for the sacrament of Penitence because she felt she
was dying, she confessed to the charges of judaizing of which she had
been accused, she showed remorse and asked for clemency.
Elvira’s declaration shows the discursive strategy of the inquisitor: he
guides the questions and the answers of the accused until he hears the
words that allow projecting a subversive cultural identity onto the
accused. Barbara Chester notes that the final goal of torture is not to

38
 Case studied by Roth, 110–16. See also a very similar case against Rodrigo Méndez
Silva in 1659 presented by Eslava Galán in Historias de la Inquisición, 81–84.
62 ana benito

obtain the truth, but rather, “to destroy people’s capacity for self-defense,
identity, and control over their own lives, so they are released, broken,
into a community as a warning to others.”39 Elvira and all those conversos
broken by interrogation and torture were a very serious warning to every
Castilian about having a dual identity or living between two cultural
boundaries.
At the same time, when questioning about matters of the Catholic
faith, the inquisitorial interrogations must be understood as a process of
regulation and normalization through examination. This is a process that
reveals as its ultimate goal an imposition of hierarchical awareness. The
observations of Michel Foucault in Discipline and Punish40 mention
important similarities with the Inquisition’s procedures:
The examination combines the techniques of an observing hierarchy and
those of a normalizing judgment. It is a normalizing gaze, a surveillance that
makes it possible to qualify, to classify and to punish…. That is why, in all
the mechanisms of discipline, the examination is highly ritualized. In it are
combined the ceremony of power and the form of the experiment, the
deployment of force and the establishment of truth…. It manifests the sub-
jection of those who are perceived as objects and the objectification of
those who are subjected. (184)
On the other hand, Elvira’s words also reflect a common allegation among
accused conversos: that their cultural practices do not carry a deliberate
intention of either acting against the Catholic faith or of following the
Jewish one. Rather, they must be understood as a cultural tradition inher-
ited from grandparents and parents that, in many cases, were still prac-
ticed in the privacy of homes as a family ceremony more than a religious
rite. Among the conversos from Guadalupe, we find the case of Manuel
González, who is asked in the interrogation who circumcised him when
he was a child. Manuel argues that he thinks he was born that way. The
declaration document presents later developments of the case reporting
a conversation in prison between Manuel and his father Fernando
González, who was also accused of judaizing practices. Manuel asks his
father whether he knew if he was circumcised, and his father answers that
he is, and that his grandfather is the one who did it.41 Manuel’s case proves

39
 Barbara Chester, “Women and Political Torture: Work with Refugee Survivors in
Exile” in Women and Therapy, 13.3 (1992), 209–20.
40
 Michel Foucalt, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. (New York: Vintage
Books, 1995).
41
 Starr-LeBeau, 191.
 inquisition and the creation of the other63

that, in some instances, not even the accused himself was aware of the
difference in the everyday habits of his life, or had not been aware of it
until the inquisitor forced him to internalize the difference. In the same
tone, Alonso the teacher declares in his interrogation that he had fasted in
the way of the Jews, not the Christian way. When the interrogator inquires
about the reason for that, Alonso says that his mother made him do it,
that he had done it all his life, and that he had finally told a priest in a
confession. Of course, there is always a possibility that Alonso was using
his mother as an excuse for his judaizing behavior. It is also possible that
Alonso told his confessor only after the Inquisition published a list of all
the judaizing acts considered to be opposed to Christian practices.
However, it is very likely that these family practices characterized many
second-generation conversos. Alonso may be a representative of a dual or
bicultural identity: he practiced Jewish customs within the privacy of his
family. Later in life, he became aware of the incompatibility of those prac-
tices with the Church’s dogmas, which lead him to confess and to ask for
entrance into the Catholic norm. In the auto de fe of 1680, celebrating the
arrival of María Luisa de Orleans, future wife of the Spanish king Charles
II, a woman who was about to be burned at the stake addressed the queen
with these words: “Noble Lady, cannot your royal presence save me from
this? I suckled my religion with my mother’s milk. Why should I die
because of it?”42
The same argument of ignorance about cultural differences or religious
meaning of cultural practices is used by moriscos in inquisitorial pro-
cesses. Mercedes García Arenal’s work on the trials of Cuenca shows
abundant examples of New Christians who practiced cultural habits
learned from parents and other relatives.43 Several moriscos questioned
about the motives that prevent them from eating pork answer: “because
the Moors don’t do it,” or “because his ancestors didn’t eat it.” (69). Juan
Corazón, a morisco from Deza testifies that “he has never eaten bacon nor
he has drunken wine, and that the cause for that is because he was raised
that way and not because he was practicing any ceremony or following
any religious rule” (136).
Despite the many similarities between conversos charged as judaizers
and moriscos following Muslim practices, an attentive reading of Inqui-
sition processes against the latter exposes relevant differences as well.

 Eslava Galán, 88.

42

 Mercedes García Arenal, Inquisición y moriscos. Los procesos del Tribunal de Cuenca,
43

(Madrid: Siglo XXI Editores, 1983).

64 ana benito

The most noticeable one refers to the geographic origin of the morisco.
The Cuenca documents show that many moriscos in Castile were deeply
integrated among Old Christians, while some kept some Muslim customs
almost completely dispossessed of their religious meanings. Only through
contact with other, more Islamized moriscos from Aragón, Valencia, and
Granada after 1570, did the Castilian moriscos resume the Muslim cultural
uses (79). After the Alpujarras conflict—a morisco rebellion in Granada
from 1568 to 1570—about 50,000 people were forcibly relocated to Castile,
and this changed the cultural adherence of many moriscos.44 These
Andalusian moriscos ended up indoctrinating the Castilian ones about
cultural practices previously forgotten by their Castilian brethren. In gen-
eral, the most noticeable morisco feature was ignorance of the Arabic lan-
guage. No doubt, this must have been a serious obstacle to achieving a
deep and clear knowledge of Muslim religious practices and, more impor-
tantly, of their meaning. In the trial against Francisco Espinosa, the
accused argues that he only knew a few Arabic words “El handurila dela
bradamin hurrazmin herrazmin” and that he was not aware of their mean-
ing. Similarly, Beatriz de Padilla testifies that she prays saying “bizmiley
arageme noragin angua quevar”, words that she does not understand (53,
124). This limited knowledge of Arabic must have been such an impedi-
ment, that a book written in Spanish against the Islamic faith called
Sermones de Antialcorán that detailed many Muslim principles to later
refute them, was banned by the Inquisition because the moriscos used it
as a guide for Muslim practices. Gitlitz points out that, similarly, the
absence of copies of sacred books and written guidance for the conversos
after the expulsion made many of them use the Inquisition lists of hereti-
cal practices as their reference.45 Ironically, these Inquisition documents
were used by crypto-Jews to engage in Jewish practices and therefore to
perpetuate judaizing.
However, as García Arenal points out, it is clear that the morisco con-
versos showed a more noticeable willingness than the Jewish conversos in
identifying themselves as a group of resistance. Contrary to marranos,
who in most cases tried to detach their cultural uses from a religious
meaning, the moriscos show sometimes the opposite tendency. In the
trial of Ana Padilla, she praises herself of being morisca although she
declares that she “did not perform Moorish ceremonies because she did

44
 This is the estimate offered by Domínguez Ortiz and Bernard Vincent. The exiled
moriscos were relocated in Castile, Western Andalucía and Extremadura (35).
45
 Gitlitz, Secrecy, 40.
 inquisition and the creation of the other65

not know them, but she had the intention of doing them if she knew
them.” Similarly, a morisco from Huete testifies in his trial that, in spite of
being a baptized Christian “he was a Moor because he was always in their
company, and that he went against the Christian faith and that his heart
was Moorish … and that he didn’t know a thing about Muhammad but he
wanted to believe in him” (86). We cannot forget that the morisco conflict
created, after the Alpujarras rebellion, a series of bitter consequences
between Christians and moriscos. The categorization of the moriscos as
visible enemies of Spain was much more intense and widespread than the
animosity against converted Jews. Many of the reasons alleged by the
Christian discourse for the moriscos’ expulsion had to do with them being
categorized as absolutely incapable of assimilation. As such, for their
divergent character and for proclaiming themselves a group of opposi-
tion, they received the scrutinizing attention of the Inquisition.
Despite the general tendency of morisco self-identification as Muslims,
in some cases they denied adherence to the Islamic faith, and we can
again perceive the cultural duality of the accused. The biculturalism was
willful in some cases, rather than an accident due to circumstances out-
side one’s control. This is the case of Diego Díaz, a morisco from Calatrava
who was one of many exiled from Spain in 1609. Diego started his pilgrim-
age after his exile in Bayonne (France). He traveled to Algeria, where he
could not accept the Turks’ customs. Diego thought that those people did
everything backwards and had scandalous habits. He also said that he
kept living as a Christian in secret. Later he fled to Spain so he could live
in the same way his morisco ancestors had lived for generations, for he “is
one of the old moriscos who had lived in Castille for more than 300 years
serving the kings of that kingdom” (141).
As we have seen, generalizations are dangerous when talking about
marranos and moriscos. Factors such as the place of origin, the date of the
arrest, the level of education, and the cultural background in every case
need to be taken into account. Ambiguity, duality, and uncertain circum-
stances surround many of the inquisitorial processes against conversos.
The Holy Office, nevertheless, took as the core of its work the imposition
of a heretical intention to any of the cultural practices that diverged from
Christian customs and everyday uses. Inquisition trials reflect Christian
prejudices made manifest in an attempt to force the defendants to inter-
nalize their Otherness via rhetorical discourse. The interrogated people
showed in their declarations a somewhat consistent defensive strategy:
they define practices and cultural uses considered “Jew-like” or “Muslim-
like” by the Inquisition, as mere family traditions learned from relatives.
66 ana benito

The absence of self-awareness of cultural identity could be, at times, a

conscious strategy used by the defendant, but at other times, it shows
a genuine ignorance of cultural difference or non-Christian customs. For
the defendants, these practices often had lost the cultural or religious
meaning they held for previous generations. It is only when the inquisitor
frames this practice as one belonging to a different culture that the
defendant is made aware of his cultural Otherness. Thus, the Inquisition
is the institution in charge of creating or re-creating an Other for Christian
culture. Through the interrogatory process, the inquisitors contribute to
creation of Otherness, and, through the application of the verdicts, the
Christian power shows its ultimate goal of extermination of multicultur-
alism in Spain, because as the Manual de los Inquisidores proclaims:
We need to do everything that is necessary so the defendant cannot be
declared innocent. … The ultimate goal of the trial and of the death sen-
tence is not to save the defendant’s soul, but to maintain the people’s gen-
eral well-being and to terrorize them at the same time. (8)
Interrogations and torture were methods used by the Inquisition to con-
struct the Other behind closed doors, with a restricted access to the pro-
cess, but other ceremonies were specifically designed with the general
Christian community in mind. No doubt, the autos de fe confirmed this
Inquisitorial intention. The sanbenito was a penitential garment that the
condemned were forced to wear as a mark of infamy for a period from a
few months to life. All those condemned by the inquisitors were divided
into groups according to their crimes, and had to go on procession through
the streets of a city on every day of an auto de fe, so they could be seen by
the general population. The length of an auto could well take one entire
day without interruption, with the celebration of a long mass, the reading
of the accusations and sentence of every single case, the opportunity of
repenting to those who had not done that before that day, and the final
burning of those unrepentant and relapsed heretics. Certainly, the auto
was a public spectacle that affirmed the boundaries between heresy and
faith and shored up the faith of the Christian community by identifying,
purging, and punishing transgressing Others.

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1981.
Castro, Américo. Cervantes y los casticismos españoles. Madrid: Alfaguara, 1996.
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Chester, Barbara. “Women and Political Torture: Work with Refugee Survivors in Exile” in
Women and Therapy 13.3., 1992: 209–20.
Domínguez Ortiz, Antonio, and Bernard Vincent. Historia de los moriscos: Vida y tragedia
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 CONFLICTED IDENTITY AND COLONIAL ADAPTATION IN PETRUS
ALFONSI’S DIALOGUS CONTRA JUDAEOS AND DISCIPLINA CLERICALIS

David A. Wacks

The Jew who becomes a Christian does not completely break with the world
of his past. He finds a new perspective, one which is cursed and abhorred by
his people, but which unquestionably derives from his past.
—Albert Memmi1

Converso studies have tended to focus on the fifteenth and sixteenth

centuries,2 for that is the period most heavily documented and during
which lived the greatest numbers of (first-generation) conversos. Also, the
pace and intensity of conversion activity picked up considerably after the
pogroms of 1391, again during the Disputation of Tortosa in 1412–1413, and
once again just prior to the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492.
However, the converso story begins long before 1391, and high-profile con-
verso polemicists and thinkers such as Pablo Cristiani (d. 1274), Alfonso de
Valladolid (c. 1270–1340), Pablo de Santa María (c. 1350–1435), have a pre-
decessor in Petrus Alfonsi, who died over two full centuries before 1391.
Petrus Alfonsi is a forerunner of the conversos of late medieval and early
modern Spain, and his experience as a converso is clearly reflected in his
writings, the personal record of a man born into Andalusī Jewish society
and reborn into Christian Aragon.
Although he wrote treatises on several subjects spanning from short
narrative to astronomy, Petrus Alfonsi is best remembered for two works,
one a religious polemic entitled Dialogus contra judaeos (hereinafter
referred to as Dialogus), the other a collection of exempla and gnomic lore
known as the Disciplina clericalis (hereinafter referred to as Disciplina).
Formally the Dialogus is an anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim polemic; but it is
also a dramatization of the identity crisis Petrus Alfonsi experienced as a
new convert to Christianity. In it, he matches wits with his past, Jewish
self. By contrast, the Disciplina, as an essentially secular text (although the
title bills it as a textbook for priests), is an effective and less problematic

1
 Albert Memmi, Portrait of a Jew, trans. Judy Hyun (New York: Orion Press, 1962), 74.
2
 All dates given refer to the Common Era (C. E.).
70 david a. wacks

transculturation of Arabic adab literature in the colonial setting of the

(Re)conquest. Together, these works tell the story of the author’s journey
from the bicultural world of the Andalusī Jewish intellectual, to the con-
quest of his homeland and his conversion to Christianity, and into his sec-
ond career as ambassador of Andalusī learning to Christian Europe.
Although he produced numerous works in Latin on a wide range of
subjects both scientific and religious,3 this essay will focus on the two for
which he is best known, the Disciplina clericalis, and the Dialogus contra
judaeos. The former is a collection of fables and tales drawn from Arabic
and Hebrew sources that was widely copied, and today exists in 76 manu-
scripts.4 It introduced European audiences to new stories and to new
ways of telling them, and by virtue of its international popularity, exer-
cised significant influence on the development of early European vernac-
ular prose fiction.5 The Dialogus is a religious polemical dialogue in which
Petrus Alfonsi, arguing with Moshé Sefardí, his own former, Jewish self,
strives to prove the truth of Christianity logically, using the Hebrew Bible
and Talmud as authoritative sources. While there is a good deal of schol-
arship on the Disciplina and the Dialogus regarding its textual tradition
and its impact on later European authors, there is no study that considers
Petrus Alfonsi’s experience as a converso as primary in understanding
both of these texts.6

Biography

The historical circumstances in which Petrus Alfonsi converted to

Christianity were essentially colonial: his homeland was conquered by a
people who imposed a new political order, new institutions, and a new
official language, Latin. These changes put the following challenge to a
Jewish intellectual such as Moshé Sefardí: “these are the new rules—you

3
 See Charles Burnett, “The Works of Petrus Alfonsi: Questions of Authenticity,”
Medium Ævum 66, no. 1 (1997), 42–79; and Charles Homer Haskins, Studies in the History of
Medieval Science (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1927), 113.
4
 John Tolan, Petrus Alfonsi and His Medieval Readers (Gainesville: University Press of
Florida, 1993), 199–204.
5
 See Tolan, Petrus, 132–58; and Petrus Alfonsi, Disciplina clericalis, ed. and trans. Ángel
González Palencia (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1948),
xxiv-xxxiii.
6
 See Petrus Alfonsi, The Disciplina Clericalis of Petrus Alfonsi, ed. Eberhard Hermes,
trans. P. R. Quarrie (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), 90–9. Hermes discusses
the tradition of Jewish self-criticism, but does not address the converso.
 conflicted identity and colonial adaptation71

don’t have to agree with them, but you do have to play by them.” Petrus
Alfonsi writes his rational, yet highly personal response to this challenge
into the Dialogus and the Disciplina, and both are significant in under-
standing key elements of his experience qua converso.
Born Moshé Sefardí in the last quarter of the eleventh century, Petrus
Alfonsi lived in the majority Muslim, bilingual (Romance/Colloquial
Arabic) city of Wāšqa (Huesca) in Aragon. As a Jew living in al-Andalus,
he would have received his secular education in Arabic, and his religious
instruction in Hebrew.7 In his lifetime he was to live through Aragon’s
political and cultural transition from Islam to Christianity, and his life
experience is emblematic of the cultural change and synthesis that char-
acterized (Re)conquest-era Spain. He appears to have been a leader of the
Jewish community of Wāšqa, and as such received a double education in
classical Arabic literature, philosophy and the sciences, as well as in
Hebrew and the Jewish rabbinic and literary tradition.8 In all respects he
was typical of the Jewish intellectuals of his time, even down to his occu-
pation–that of physician. He grew up in a society where the dominant
religion was Islam, the official language of government and education was
Classical Arabic, and the colloquial tongue either Andalusī Arabic or
Romance. He is the product of the sunset of the great flowering of Andalusī
Jewish intellectual culture during the 12th century, one of the last of what
Ross Brann has described as the “courtier-rabbis,”
a most improbable breed of literati and an even more unlikely brand of cler-
ics. On the one hand, they were deeply attached to Jewish tradition and
meticulous in their observance of Jewish law; on the other, they were aficio-
nados of Arabic paideia (cultural education) in Hebrew dress.9
In this description, Brann captures the essence of the Andalusī Jewish
intellect, that ability to move between faith and science, Hebrew and
Arabic, divine and temporal. Moshé Sefardí (but not Petrus Alfonsi, as we

7
 See Ross Brann, “The Arabized Jews,” in The Literature of Al-Andalus, eds. María Rosa
Menocal, Raymond P. Scheindlin, and Michael Sells (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2000), 435–54, for an excellent overview of Jewish intellectual life in al-Andalus. See
Joaquín Lomba Fuentes, “El marco cultural de Pedro Alfonso,” in Estudios sobre Pedro
Alfonso de Huesca, ed. María Jesús Lacarra (Huesca: Instituto de Estudios Altoaragoneses,
1996), 147–75, on the cultural scene of medieval Aragon in particular.
8
 On the life of Petrus Alfonsi, see Tolan, Petrus, 9–11; and María Lourdes Alvárez,
“Petrus Alfonsi,” in The Literature of al-Andalus, ed. María Rosa Menocal, Raymond
P. Scheindlin, and Michael Sells (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 282–4.
9
 Ross Brann, The Compunctious Poet: Cultural Ambiguity and Hebrew Poetry in Medieval
Spain (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1991), 9.
72 david a. wacks

shall see) was thus able to move back and forth between two cultures,
Islamic and Jewish. This Andalusī Jewish biculturality is key in under-
standing the work of Petrus Alfonsi. Gustavo Pérez Firmat, writing of
Cuban-Americans, describes this condition as follows:
biculturation designates not only contact of cultures; in addition, it
describes a situation where the two cultures achieve a balance that makes it
difficult to determine which is the dominant and which is the subordinate
culture. [It] … implies an equilibrium, however tense or precarious, between
the two contributing cultures. [Cuban-Americans’] hyphen is a seesaw: it
tilts first one way, then the other.10
What most distinguishes Petrus Alfonsi from his Jewish contemporaries is
his conversion to Christianity, which gained him entrée into the highest
levels of Christian society, and enabled him to refashion himself into an
intellectual who participated fully in the culture of the majority (as he
once was in al-Andalus). This change came at a cost: while the bicultural
courtier-rabbis of al-Andalus were able to move back and forth between
Muslim and Jewish cultures while still maintaining their distinct Jewish
identity, the conversos inhabited a space between their Jewish and
Christian identities. There is no place for Jews in Christianity, and this
rejection is internalized by Petrus Alfonsi, who struggles with the memory
of his Andalusī Jewish self. From the fifteenth century forward, it is well
documented that even when conversos were accepted as Christians, they
remained marked by difference. Based on his own writings, this seems to
have been true of Petrus Alfonsi as well.11 In his case, this difference pro-
pelled him to great success as a courtier and an intellectual, but the iden-
tity crisis he suffered as a converso left its mark on his writings. This crisis
begins with his conversion, but no personal crisis exists outside a social
vacuum. In reading the Dialogus and the Disciplina as a record of Petrus
Alfonsi’s conflicted identity, we must situate the man in his times.
In the battle of Alcoraz (1096), the armies of Sancho Ramírez of Aragon
(r. 1094–1101) overcame the forces of al-Musta‘īn just outside of Huesca.12

10
 Gustavo Pérez Firmat, Life on the Hyphen: the Cuban-American Way (Austin: Univer­
sity of Texas Press, 1994), 6.
11
 See Petrus Alfonsi, The Scholar’s Guide, trans. Joseph R. Jones and John E. Keller
(Toronto: The Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1969), 19. See Henry Kamen, The
Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 230–54,
on racialism during inquisitorial Spain.
12
 Encyclopedia of Islam CD-ROM Edition, (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2004), “Hūdids” (referred to
as EI hereafter); and Ramón Menéndez Pidal, La España del Cid, 2 vols. (Madrid: Editorial
Plutarco, 1929), 2: 562–4.
 conflicted identity and colonial adaptation73

At this time, Moshé was nearing middle age, and had lived nearly half of
his life as a Jew. He fared quite well in the transition to Christian sover-
eignty under Pedro I (1101–1104). His medical expertise and prestigious
Andalusī education afforded him access to the highest levels of society,
and in a short time he was appointed royal physician at the court of the
new king, Alfonso I of Aragon (r. 1104–1134). Despite his position at court,
Moshé Sefardí was still a member of a religious minority in a society
where this posed an insurmountable obstacle to full participation in Latin
intellectual life. Jews under Christian rule did not enjoy the rights equiva-
lent to those guaranteed to them by dhimmī status under Islam.13 Worse
yet, Catholic doctrine had long held Judaism in open contempt, and any
privileges granted to Jewish subjects depended on the whims of the mon-
arch in question.14 Moshé Sefardí belonged to a class of Andalusī Jews
accustomed to full participation in the intellectual life of the dominant
Arabic culture. He must have anticipated that this participation would be
curtailed in a Latin environment, and that the intellectual biculturality
enjoyed by the courtier-rabbis would not survive the transition to
Christian government. Andalusī Jews were educated in Arabic, but the
Jews of Christian Spain—with very few exceptions—did not learn Latin,
and in their secular literary practice they gradually abandoned Arabic in
favor of Hebrew.15 Accordingly, one may well speculate that Petrus Alfonsi
converted in order to enjoy full participation in the intellectual life of
Christian Europe, but we can never know for a certainty. Whatever his
reasons, he converted to Christianity in 1106, taking the names of Saint
Peter and of his godfather, none other than King Alfonso I of Aragon

13
 See EI, “Ahl al-kitāb”; Yohanan Friedmann, Tolerance and Coercion in Islam: Interfaith
Relations in the Muslim Tradition (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 54–86;
and Bernard Lewis, The Jews of Islam (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 3–66.
14
 Renée Levine Melammed, A Question of Identity: Iberian Conversos in Historical
Perspective (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 4. On Jews’ dependence on the
crown, we read in the Fuero de Teruel (ca. 1176) that the Jews of that community “siervos
son del sennor Rey et sienpre a la real bolsa son contados” (“are servants of the Lord King
and are always counted among the royal assets.”) See Max Gorosch, ed., El Fuero de Teruel
(Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksells, 1950), 320.
15
 Eliyahu Ashtor, The Jews of Moslem Spain, trans. Aaron Klein and Jenny Machlowitz
Klein, 3 vols. (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1973), 3: 167–240, and
Yitzhak Baer, A History of the Jews in Christian Spain, trans. Louis Schoffman, 2 vols.
(Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1978), 1: 39–77. See Ashtor and Baer on the
Jewish communities of Northern Spain in transition to Christian rule. See Consuelo López-
Morillas, “Language,” in The Literature of Al-Andalus, ed. María Rosa Menocal, Raymond P.
Scheindlin, and Michael Sells (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 41–6, on the
transition from Arabic to Hebrew.
74 david a. wacks

(r. 1104–1134).16 The Christian Petrus Alfonsi wasted no time in capitalizing

on his new social status. He obtained a respectable command of Latin17
and wrote treatises on various topics in the sciences, most of which have
been regarded as mediocre by Andalusī standards, but were nonetheless
groundbreaking in Latin.18 Petrus Alfonsi made available for the first time
a wide variety of writings in mathematics, astronomy, and—most impor-
tantly for us—the short narrative tradition of the East. The Disciplina in
particular was very successful, and sent ripples into medieval European
narrative.
The role of Jews and conversos as cultural intermediaries is familiar to
students of medieval and early modern Spanish literature. Petrus Alfonsi
is a unique case among Spanish Jews and conversos whose literary output
bridged Islamic, Jewish, and Christian literary culture. He precedes, but
shares the historical stage, with two groups in particular: the Jewish trans-
lators of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and the conversos of the fif-
teenth and sixteenth. The first group of translators worked alongside their
Christian colleagues under the auspices of Archbishop Raimundo of
Tole­do (late twelfth century), who directed the translation of texts from
Arabic into Latin, and Alfonso X the Learned (late thirteenth century),
whose project produced texts in Castilian.19 These men were learned in
Hebrew and Arabic scientific and literary tradition, and would have been
fluent speakers of Iberian romance languages. As translators, they helped
connect Latin readers with Arabic and Hebrew texts, but did not author
original works in Latin. Therefore, their individual literary voices did not
reach Christian audiences, and consequently little is known about their
lives and characters; they remain shadowy figures, relegated to foot-
notes.20 Their work crossed cultural boundaries that they personally did
not. To wit, while the Castilian translation of the Arabic Kalīla wa-Dimna

16
 Petrus Alfonsi, Diálogo contra los judíos, ed. Klaus-Peter Mieth, trans. Esperanza
Ducay (Huesca: Instituto de Estudios Altoaragoneses, 1996), 6.
17
 Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo, Orígenes de la novela (Madrid: Editorial Nacional, 1943),
1: 62. Menéndez Pelayo dissents, claiming that Petrus Alfonsi’s Latin was “semitic.”
18
 On Petrus Alfonsi’s transmission of Arabic learning to Christian Europe, see Tolan,
Petrus, 42–72. On its relative mediocrity, see Alvárez, 286–7.
19
 Angel González Palencia, El Arzobispo Don Raimundo de Toledo (Barcelona: Editorial
Labor, 1942); Gonzalo Menéndez Pidal, “Como trabajaron las escuelas alfonsíes,” Nueva
Revista de Filología Hispánica 5, no. 4 (1951), 363–80; José S. Gil, La escuela de traductores de
Toledo y los colaboradores judíos (Toledo: Diputación Provincial de Toledo, 1985); David
Romano Ventura, La ciencia hispanojudía (Madrid: Mapfre, 1992); and Angel Sáenz-
Badillos, “Participación de judíos en las traducciones de Toledo,” in La escuela de traductores
de Toledo (Toledo: Diputación Provincial de Toledo, 1996), 65–70.
20
 González Palencia, 121–2 and 65–6.
 conflicted identity and colonial adaptation75

was widely read and eventually appeared in print in Latin and Castilian,
its anonymous translator did not accompany his work into the literary
limelight.
Petrus Alfonsi, however, did cross these boundaries, and this crossing
enabled him to make his voice heard in the Christian society that had sud-
denly and forcibly become his home in his middle age. If Moshé Sefardí
found himself thrust into this new Christian world, Petrus Alfonsi made
the decision to enter it of his own volition. Therefore, while by upbringing
and education Petrus Alfonsi had a great deal in common with the trans-
lators who would later work for Archbishop Raimundo and Alfonso X, the
fact of his conversion to Christianity makes his experience more relevant
to studies of later conversos, and adds a psychosocial dimension to his
work that is absent in that of his former fellow Jews who did not convert.
The converso is very much present in his text.
However, if Petrus Alfonsi is a converso, he is a converso of a different
color. Dayle Seidenspinner-Núñez’s warning against essentializing the
converso experience bears repeating here: “The real challenge for converso
studies is to explore the full complexity and range of the converso pres-
ence in late medieval and early modern Spain, not to reduce or essential-
ize it for ideological purposes.”21 The circumstances of his conversion set
him apart from Spanish Jews who apostasized in the wake of the pogroms
of 1391, the Disputation of Tortosa (1412–1413), and the Expulsion (1492).22
Petrus Alfonsi predates both of these groups by nearly three hundred
years, and lived under quite different circumstances. He lived and died
before the rise of the mendicant orders, to whose mission the conver-
sion of Jews and Muslims was core.23 His community, while facing a new

21
 Dayle Seidenspinner-Núñez, “Inflecting the Converso Voice: A Commentary on
Recent Theories,” La corónica 25.1 (1996): 7.
22
 Jeremy Cohen, “The Mentality of the Medieval Jewish Apostate: Peter Alfonsi,
Hermann of Cologne, and Pablo Christiani” in Jewish Apostasy in the Modern World, ed.
Todd M. Endelman (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1987), 20–47. See Cohen on the condi-
tions of Petrus Alfonsi’s apostasy. David M. Gitlitz, Secrecy and Deceit: The Religion of the
Crypto-Jews, Jewish Latin America (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2002),
3–34. See Gitlitz for an overview of conversions and conversos in late medieval Spain. On
the period between 1391 and 1414, see José Amador de los Ríos, Historia social, política y
religiosa de los judíos de España y Portugal, 2 vols. (Buenos Aires: Editorial Bajel, 1943),
599–667, and Baer, 95–243. On the events surrounding the expulsion of 1492, see Amador
de los Ríos, 160–91, and Baer, 424–43.
23
 Jeremy Cohen, The Friars and the Jews: The Evolution of Medieval Anti-Judaism
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982), 33–50; and David Berger, “Mission to the Jews and
Jewish-Christian Contacts in the Polemical Literature of the High Middle Ages,” American
Historical Review 91, no. 3 (1986), 576–91. See Cohen and Berger on the proselytic activity
of the mendicant orders among the Jews.
76 david a. wacks

socio-political order under Christian rule, did not face the immedi-
ate  threat of sectarian violence experienced by the Jews at the turn of
the fifteenth century, nor the systematic Inquisitorial persecutions at the
turn of the sixteenth. We must consider that the personal and historical
realities that led him to conversion were different, and this difference is
present in his work, most notably in his relationship to his Andalusī
Jewish past.

The Dialogus contra judaeos

The Dialogus is an anti-Jewish polemic in which Petrus Alfonsi attempts

to prove the truth of Christianity and the errors of Judaism (and Islam)
through logic.24 It is part of a healthy tradition of polemical texts in Latin
which dates to early medieval Christianity.25 The Dialogus stands apart
from later polemics such as Ramon Martí’s Pugio fidei (“Dagger of Faith”),
Peter the Venerable’s Adversus judaeos, and Saint Thomas Aquinas’
Summa contra gentiles in that Petrus confines himself to a strictly rational
argument against the tenets of the Jewish religion, avoiding ad hominem
attacks against the personal characteristics or behaviors of the Jews them-
selves.26 Barbara Hurwitz credits this even-handedness to Petrus Alfonsi’s
origins in the Jewish community,27 and the matter deserves a bit more
nuancing. Manuel da Costa Fontes has demonstrated that Jewish lineage
was a point of pride for many converso authors of the fifteenth and six-
teenth centuries, and for this reason, the promulgation of the Estatutos
de limpieza de sangre was “particularly vexing.”28 Petrus Alfonsi does not

24
 The Dialogus exists in 79 manuscripts (including fragments and translations). See
Tolan, Petrus, 182–98. On the Dialogus, see John Tolan, “Pedro Alfonso, precursor de la lit-
eratura apologética,” in Diálogo contra los judíos, ed. María Jesús Lacarra (Huesca: Instituto
de Estudios Altoaragoneses, 1996), ix-lvii; John Tolan, “Los Diálogos contra los judíos,”
in Estudios sobre Pedro Alfonso de Huesca, ed. María Jesús Lacarra (Huesca: Instituto
de Estudios Altoaragoneses, 1996), 181–234; and Alvárez, “Petrus Alfonsi,” 284–6.
25
 See, for example, A. Lukyn Williams, Adversus Judaeos; A Bird’s-eye View of Christian
Apologiae Until the Renaissance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1935); and
Gilbert Dahan, The Christian Polemic Against the Jews in the Middle Ages, trans. Jody
Gladding (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1998).
26
 Barbara Hurwitz, “Ambivalence in Medieval Religious Polemic: The Influence of
Multiculturalism on the Dialogus of Petrus Alphonsi,” in Languages of Power in Islamic
Spain, ed. Ross Brann (Bethesda: CDL Press, 1997), 169.
27
 Hurwitz, 169.
28
 Manuel da Costa Fontes, The Art of Subversion in Inquisitorial Spain: Rojas and
Delicado (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2005), 79. Costa Fontes gives several
examples of converso pride in Jewish lineage in p. 81–3.
 conflicted identity and colonial adaptation77

openly boast of or embrace his Jewish heritage; rather, he expresses his

attachment to his Jewish cultural identity in subtler ways, perhaps sub-
consciously. In the Dialogus, the interior struggle between these two iden-
tities is played out by his two selves in dialogue, in what is arguably the
first work of psychological drama in Western literature. In the introduc-
tion, Petrus Alfonsi explains how Moshé Sefardí sought him out upon
receiving word of the apostasy/conversion of his alter ego:
A ternera igitur pueritiae aetate quidam michi perfectissimus adheresat
amicus nomine Moyses, qui a primaeva aetate meus consocius fuerat et con-
discipulus. Ad hunc cum pervenisset sermo, quod ego paterna lege relicta,
Christianam delegissem fidem, relicto suae stationis loco, ad me festinus per-
venit, in ipso adventu quendam vultum ferens hominis indignantis et increp-
ans salutavit me more non amici, sed quasi alieni …29
Thus, since a tender age, a fast friend by the name of Moses was by my side;
since my earliest years, he had been my companion and classmate. When
word had reached him that I had abandoned our paternal law and chosen
the Christian faith, he left his usual place, quickly came to me, his face that
of an indignant man, and began by greeting me not in the manner of a
friend, but as if I were a stranger …
Christian doctrine regarding conversion to Christ frames the experience
as the resolution of a conflict, of a completion or a union of a “divided
self.” In the Catechism it is described metaphorically in terms of the return
of the Prodigal Son.30 However, Petrus Alfonsi’s experience suggests the
opposite, that his conversion gave rise to an internal separation between
his Andalusī Jewish and Aragonese Christian identities so profound
that it motivated him to publicly rationalize this conversion in writing,
perhaps more for personal therapeutic benefit than for the edification of
his readers.
Petrus Alfonsi clearly states that he writes the Dialogus in order to jus-
tify his conversion. He argues that he was motivated not by material or
political gain (as one might well suspect of a court physician whose pros-
pects were ultimately limited by virtue of his being a Jew), but by the
undeniable truth of Christian revelation and inconsistency and falsity of
Jewish law:

29
 Alfonsi, Diálogo, 8. English translations from the Dialogus are mine, with reference to
the Spanish of Esperanza Ducay.
30
 Luke 15: 11–24. See Catechism of the Catholic Church (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice
Vaticana, 1994), 361, § 1493; Deal W. Hudson, “A Catholic View of Conversion,” in Handbook
of Religious Conversion, ed. H. Newton Malony and Samuel Southard (Birmingham:
Religious Education Press, 1992), 108–22.
78 david a. wacks

Cumque notum esset Iudeis, qui me antea noverant, et probaverant peritum in

libris prophetarum et dictis doctarum, partem etiam, licet non magnam,
habere omnium libreralium artium, quod legem et fidem accepissem
Christianorum et unus essem eorum, quidam eorum arbitrati sunt me hoc non
fecisse, nisi quia adeo amnem abieceram verecundiam, quod et deum et legem
contempscram. Alii vero proterea me fecisse dicebant, quod non, ut decuerat,
prophetarum et legis verba intellexissem. Alii autem vanae gloriae imputa-
bant et me hoc fecisse calumpniabantur ob honorem seculi, eo quod
Christianorum gentem ceteris omnibus superesse conspicerem.
Hunc igitur libellum composui, ut omnes et meam cognoscant intentionem
et audiant rationem, in quo omnium aliarum gentium credulitatis destruc-
tionem proposui, post hec Christianum legem omnibus prestantiorem esse
conclusi. Ad ultimum etiam omnes cuiuslibet Christiane legis adversarii obiec-
tiones posui positasque pro meo sapere cum ratione et auctoritate destruxi.
Librum autem totum distinxi per dialogum, ut lectoris animus promptior fiat
ad intelligendum. In tutandis etiam Christianorum rationibus nomen, quod
modo Christianus habeo, posui, in rationibus vero adversarii confutandis
nomen, quod ante baptismum habueram, id est Moysen.31
And, as it was known by the Jews who knew me previously and who regarded
me as an expert in the books of the Prophets and sayings of the doctors, and
in part, albeit not large, of the liberal arts, that I had accepted the law and
faith of the Christians and that I had become one of them, some of them
thought that I had only done so because at that point I had shed all modesty,
for I hated God and his law. Others said that no, I had done it because I had
not understood well the words of the Prophets and the law. Still others
attributed it to vainglory, and insulting me by [implying my] worldliness,
said that I had seen that the Christian people were surpassing all the
others.
Therefore, I composed this book, so that all might know my intentions and
hear my reasoning, in which all I proposed the destruction of the belief of all
other peoples, that they might quickly conclude that the Christian law is
superior to all others. Finally, I also expound all of the objections of any
adversary of Christian law, and once expounded, I refuted them according
to my knowledge, with reasoning and authorities.
Critics are in disagreement as to the specific motives of Petrus Alfonsi’s
conversion, and although we may speculate as to its sincerity, his
very thorough rationalist assessment of both faiths confirms that it
was a deliberate, well thought out act.32 Despite his protestations, and

31
 Alfonsi, Diálogo, 6–7.
32
 See Cohen, “Mentality,” 27–8; David Romano, “Mošé Sefardí (= Pedro Alfonso) y la
ciencia de origen árabe,” in Estudios sobre Pedro Alfonso de Huesca, ed. María Jesús Lacarra
 conflicted identity and colonial adaptation79

­ articularly in light of the fact that the King himself was his godfather, one
p
cannot help thinking that contemporary politics played an important
part in bringing Moshé to the baptismal font.
Petrus Alfonsi’s decision to write his polemic in dialogue is what makes
it possible for him to project his inner conflict onto the page. However, the
dialogue genre is hardly an innovation on the part of Petrus Alfonsi. It was
widely cultivated in Arabic poetry and especially in Arabic philosophical
texts by both Jews and Muslims.33 In Christian literature, it would become
increasingly popular in both Latin and the Romance vernaculars during
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.34 However, the dialogue between
self and self is unique to Petrus Alfonsi’s Dialogus, which begs the ques-
tion: why did Petrus Alfonsi cast himself as his own interlocutor, and what
does this auto-dialogic format mean in the context of his conflicted iden-
tity as a converso? Why put his identity crisis on display? One possible
answer is that in making his inner dialogue public he sought to satisfy
those skeptics (whom he mentions in the prologue) of the sincerity of his
conversion. Perhaps he felt that his Jewish self would gracefully retire into
obscurity after being defeated publicly in a fair fight, just as an imaginary
friend might disappear after being convinced he or she was not real.
We have a clue to this mystery in the decidedly anti-climactic conclu-
sion of the Dialogus. Where one might logically expect Petrus Alfonsi’s
superior logic to result in Moshé’s conversion, the text ends instead in a
very polite draw, in which Moshé concedes that Petrus’ reasoning is supe-
rior, but not enough so to bring the Jew into the fold:
M. — Multum certe suae tibi deus dedit sapientiae et te magna ilustravit
ratione, quem vincere nequeo, immo tu obiectiones meas confutasti ratione.

(Huesca: Instituto de Estudios Altoaragoneses, 1996), xv; and Tolan, Petrus, 13, on the ques-
tion of Petrus Alfonsi’s motives for converting.
33
 See Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, ed. Julie Scott Meisami and Paul Starkey, 2 vols.
(London: Routledge, 1998), 191, and Julie Scott Meisami, Structure and Meaning in Medieval
Arabic and Persian Poetry: Orient Pearls (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), 139 and 211–3,
on the dialogue in Arabic poetry. See EI, “Ibn Burd.” on its cultivation in eleventh-century
al-Andalus. See Haggai Ben-Shammai, “Kalām in medieval Jewish philosophy,” in History
of Jewish Philosophy, ed. Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman (London: Routledge, 1997),
122, on its use in works of kalām (rationalist philosophy), especially in the eleventh and
twelfth century.
34
 See Jeremy Robbins, “Renaissance and Baroque: continuity and transformation
in early modern Spain,” in The Cambridge History of Spanish Literature, ed. David T. Gies
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 139–41, on the dialogue in Spanish
humanism. See David Marsh, The Quattrocento Dialogue: Classical Tradition and Humanist
Innovation (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980) on the dialogue in Renaissance
Italy.
80 david a. wacks

P. — Hoc procul dubio donum est Spiritus Sancti, quem in baptismo recipi-
mus, qui et corda nostra illuminat, ne falsum quid credere presumamus.
Quod si tu, quod credimus, ipse etiam crederes et baptizari te feceres, eandem
Spiritus Sancti illustrationem haberes, ut, quae vera sunt, cognosceres et, quae
falsa, respueres. Nunc autem quoniam super te pietatem habeo, dei misericor-
diam imploro, ut Spiritus sui plenitudine te illustret et finem meliorem quam
principium tibi prestet. Amen.35
M. — It is certain that God gave you much wisdom and granted you great
reasoning, things which I cannot defeat; yet on the contrary, it is you who
refuted my objections with your syllogisms.
P. — Without doubt this is a gift from the Holy Spirit, that we receive in
baptism and that illuminates our hearts so that we believe nothing false.
And if you also believed that which we believe and were baptized, you too
would have that same illumination from the Holy Spirit, that you might
know truth and reject falsehood. And now, given that I feel pity for you,
I implore God’s mercy that he illuminate you with the fullness of his Spirit
and that he grant you a better end than a beginning. Amen.
Moshé concludes that Petrus is the better debater, but that human reason
does not equal divine revelation. That is, Petrus may be able to argue
adeptly for the superiority of Christianity, but the fact of his powers
of reasoning being God-given does not make his arguments true. This
argument is typical of the doctrine of free will (ikhtiyār) espoused by
such rationalist Andalusī philosophers as Maimonides and Ibn Rushd
(Averroes).36 They believed reason to be God’s gift to humanity, but that
humans are ultimately responsible for practicing it responsibly.37 Here,
the author’s ambivalence comes to the fore: Petrus claims superior logic,
and Moshé concedes, yet remains intransigent on the question of Chris­
tian revelation. This means that Petrus Alfonsi either regarded the Jews as
impossibly stiff-necked, even in the face of his implacable logic, or that
perhaps on some level, he himself doubted the effectiveness of rationalist
argumentation in preaching to the unconverted. In either case, the con-
clusion of the Dialogus tells us that rationalist philosophy, the intellectual

35
 Alfonsi, Diálogo, 193.
36
 See Harry Austryn Wolfson, The Philosophy of the Kalam (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1976) and Harry Austryn Wolfson, Repercussions of the Kalam in Jewish
Philosophy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979) on rationalist philosophy (kalām).
See W. Montgomery Watt, Free Will and Predestination in Early Islam (London: Luzac,
1948); Encyclopedia Judaica CD-ROM Edition (Version 1.0), ed. Geoffrey Wigoder (Jerusalem:
Keter; Judaica Multimedia, 1997), “Free Will”; and EI, “Ikhtiyār.” on the doctrine of ikhtiyār,
or free will (a better translation is, perhaps, “freedom of decision.”)
37
 See EI, “Ikhtiyār.”
 conflicted identity and colonial adaptation81

medium of Andalusī Jewish biculturality, cannot bridge Judaism and

Christianity. While Moshé Sefardí was able to see-saw back and forth
between Judaism and Islam, Petrus Alfonsi cannot do the same between
Judaism and Christianity. Thus the discussion ends, leaving Petrus at the
top of the see-saw, with no way to come down.

The Disciplina clericalis

If the Dialogus is the story of an identity crisis, the Disciplina is its more
felicitous, less problematic literary outcome. Andalusī Jewish biculturality
depended on the Islamic doctrine of tolerance that was absent in
Christianity. As we have seen in the Dialogus, it is difficult to write on reli-
gious heterodoxy in such an environment, but more secular material pre-
sents no such problem. Everybody loves practical philosophy, especially
when delivered in amusing anecdotes and fables. This collection of stories
and gnomic lore, with its combination of elements from Chris­tian and
Andalusī tradition, is Petrus Alfonsi’s productive response to the chal-
lenge of being a converso intellectual in a colonial environment. The por-
trait of Petrus Alfonsi in the Dialogus is that of a man unable to satisfactorily
reconcile his past and present selves. However, this same author who
seems incapable of integrating his divided self in the context of religious
discourse proves much more so in reconciling the literary cultures of his
past and his present. In the Disciplina we see a Petrus Alfonsi who recalls
the courtier-rabbis of al-Andalus, who move between secular and reli-
gious, Arabic and Latin, Andalusī and Spanish. This transculturation of
Andalusī adab is Petrus Alfonsi’s literary answer to the demise of Jewish
biculturality under Christian rule. As it turns out, there is a way down from
the up end of the see-saw—in the secular field. Petrus Alfonsi’s secular
solution to the end of Andalusī biculturality is transculturation, a strategy
for negotiating literary expression in a colonial life between two cultures.
Transculturation is a term coined by the Cuban anthropologist
Fernando Ortiz in his landmark study, Contrapunteo cubano del tabaco y
el azúcar. His thesis is that the culture of a colonized people does not dis-
appear upon their adoption of a colonial culture, but rather engages the
colonial culture in a process of transculturation that results in a unique
new culture that bears elements of both but that is entirely its own.38

38
 Fernando Ortiz, Contrapunteo cubano del tabaco y el azúcar, ed. Enrico Mario Santí
(Madrid: Cátedra: Música Mundana Maqueda, 2002).
82 david a. wacks

In the 1970s and 1980s, the Latin American literary critic Angel Rama
used the term to demonstrate how South American authors consciously
introduced elements of indigenous culture into their work in order to
resist urban and Europeanizing literary values. He described the colonial
author as a “genial tejedor” (“talented weaver”) who picks and chooses
from among the repertoire of conquered and conqueror, selects and
adapts, and so produces a new, unique literature neither indigenous nor
colonial.39 More recently, Mary Louise Pratt has written of transcultura-
tion in the context of colonial and postcolonial travel narrative in her
book, Imperial Eyes. For Pratt, the term transculturation describes “how
subordinated or marginal groups select and invent from materials trans-
mitted to them by a dominant or metropolitan culture.”40
There are, granted, some crucial differences between twentieth cen-
tury Latin America and twelfth century Aragon, hinging on questions of
political power and cultural prestige. First, the Andalusī culture that
Petrus Alfonsi represented to the dominant colonial power of Christian
Aragon was quite prestigious by Western European standards. Though
Islam and Judaism were abhorred by Spanish Christians, the science and
philosophy of Andalusī Muslims and Jews were highly prized. By contrast,
many Spanish conquistadores considered the indigenous Americans to be
subhuman and barely capable of reason. This inversion notwithstand-
ing,  the power dynamic between conquered Andalusī and conquering
Spanish Christian is colonial, and Petrus Alfonsi works both the prestige
of Andalusī learning and the power of Christian rule to his advantage.
Therefore, while the mechanism of transculturation as described by Ortiz
and Rama is similar in the Disciplina, the terms of engagement are some-
what different.
Although the Disciplina clericalis may have been completely novel to
Latin audiences in terms of its narrative structure and its use of sources
drawn entirely from the Arabic and Hebrew tradition, Petrus Alfonsi
was simply introducting into Latin literature a well-established genre of
courtly literature from Arabic tradition: adab.41 The Arabic word adab

39
 Angel Rama, Transculturación narrativa en América Latina (Mexico City: Siglo
Veintiuno, 1982), 19.
40
 Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (London:
Routledge, 1992), 6.
41
 See S. A. Bonebakker, “Adab and the Concept of Belles-Lettres,” in ‘Abbasid Belles-
Lettres, ed. Julia Ashtiany, et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 16–30,
on adab literature.
 conflicted identity and colonial adaptation83

boasts a broad semantic field of meanings and usages that includes

“proper conduct” or “manners” as well as “education” or “literature.”42
In the early period of Islam, through roughly the eighth century, an adīb,
or cultured man, was one who had mastered the poetic and anecdotal
traditions of the pre-Islamic jāhilīyya age.43 During the cultural flower-
ing  of the ‘Abbāsid period (eighth-ninth century) it came to mean one
who was versed not only in Arabic poetics but also in the wisdom litera-
ture and brief narrative absorbed from Indian and Persian traditions,
as well as the practical philosophy of the Greeks.44 By the beginning of
the ninth century, adab also came to signify such social graces as the
ability to entertain others with verse, amusing anecdotes, and of course,
tales and fables.45 At times, what made these anecdotes and tales amus-
ing  was their claim to didactic authority. That is, many of the stories
that were counted as adab literature were not intended as serious moral
lessons, but as ironically didactic bits of entertaining narrative.46 It is
also important to remember that the narrative genres that eventually
came to be recognized as adab were introduced as part of the adaptation
of Persian material into Arabic literature that characterized the Abbasid
period.47
Eventually, there appeared compilations of adab literature, miscella-
nies and anthologies that served as handbooks for courtiers aspiring to
eloquence and witty discourse of the type that facilitate one’s career. It
was the tenth century Andalusī author Ibn ‘Abd al-Rabbih who first con-
sciously referred to his own writing as adab.48 In his al-‘Iqd al-farīd, or
“Unique necklace” he writes the following:
I have composed this book and selected its gems from the best gems of
adāb; it is the result of the compilers of clarity, and was the gem of gems
and the pith of piths; surely within it is compiled the choicest of selec-
tions,  the best of anthologies, a mantle upon the breast of every book; it
has no equal among the captured aromas of the sayings of the learned,
and the achievements of the sages and the literati (udabā’). And the selec-
tion of wise sayings is more difficult than their composition, for they

42
 Bonebakker, 25.
 See EI, “Djāhilīyya.”
43
44
 EI, “Adab.”
45
 Bonebakker, 23.
46
 Alfonsi, Scholar’s, 20.
47
 See Rina Drory, Models and Contacts: Arabic Literature and its Impact on Medieval
Jewish Culture (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 37–47, on the legitimation of fiction in Classical Arabic
literature.
48
 Bonebakker, 28.
84 david a. wacks

have said: “man’s freedom of decision (ikhtiyār) is the ambassador of his

intelligence.”49
In his introduction to the Disciplina, Petrus Alfonsi echoes Ibn ‘Abd
al-Rabbihi’s description of the author of adab as a compiler and antholo-
gizer, listing the various sources upon which he draws:
libellum compegi partim ex proverbiis philosophorum et suis castigationibus,
partim ex proverbiis et castigationibus Arabicis et fabulis et versibus, partim
ex animalium et volucrum similitudinibus.50
I have put together this book, partly from the sayings of wise men and their
advice, partly from Arab proverbs, counsels, fables, and poems, and partly
from bird and animal similes.51
As an Andalusī intellectual, Petrus Alonsi would have been well-versed in
adab and in all likelihood would have known Ibn ‘Abd al-Rabbih’s work.
However, compiling a work of adab in al-Andalus, where it was
part of an established tradition, is one thing; introducing such a book
in Christian literary culture is another. Petrus Alfonsi did not write the
Disciplina in a political vacuum; his motives for conversion were most
likely political (at least in part). His ability to thrive during a time of colo-
nial conquest and social upheaval is part of his genius, is borne out in the
pages of the Disciplina. The (re)conquest of al-Andalus was most certainly
a colonial project, motivated primarily by material concerns but justified
by the idea that the Christians of Castile-León and Aragon had a historic
right to the whole of the Iberian peninsula by virtue of their “Visigothic”
lineage.52 In this spirit, the Disciplina is a transculturation of the purely
secular adab literature of the colonized Andalusīs in a lightly Christianized,
Latin format. It is an excellent example of the transculturation of Andalusī
learning into Christian society.

49
 Ibn ‘Umar Ahmad ibn Muhammad Ibn ‘Abd al-Rabbihi, al-‘Iqd al-farīd, ed. Ahmad
Amīn, Ahmad Al-Zayn, and Ibrāhīm al-Ibyārī, 7 vols. (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-‘Arabī, 1982),
1: 2, translation mine.
50
 Alfonsi, Disciplina, 2.
51
 Alfonsi, The Disciplina, 104.
52
 José Antonio Maravall, “La idea de la Reconquista en España durante la Edad Media,”
Arbor 101, no. XXVII (1954): 269–87; Peter Linehan, History and the Historians of Medieval
Spain (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 95–127; and Joseph F. O’Callaghan, A History of
Medieval Spain (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983), 4–7. See Robert Ignatius Burns,
Islam Under the Crusaders, Colonial Survival in the Thirteenth-century Kingdom of Valencia
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973) and Elena Lourie, Crusade and Colonisation:
Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Medieval Aragon (Aldershot, Hampshire, UK: Variorum,
1990) on colonialism in medieval Iberia. Repobladores (“re-settlers”) are described quite
 conflicted identity and colonial adaptation85

Confident that his store of Andalusī knowledge is in high demand, and

writing in Latin as a Christian of very high standing, the “genial tejedor”
Petrus Alfonsi is at liberty to pick and choose his materials. His effort to
frame his work in terms of Christian morality is decidedly pro forma, and
mostly passive. His work contains no material of specifically Christian
provenance, and does not illustrate Christian doctrine nor recount mira-
cles of Saints. The only specific references to Christianity are found in the
prologue, in which he clearly states that his intent is not necessarily to
promote Christian doctrine, but rather to introduce readers to those ele-
ments of Andalusī adab that do not contradict or offend the Christian
faith.53 Of the thirty-odd stories in the collection, there are only three that
deal with moral issues, and even these fit equally well within the frame-
work of Islam, Judaism, or Hinduism.54 Petrus Alfonsi, therefore, was a
medieval version of Rama’s “genial tejedor,” who picks and chooses from
his warehouse of Andalusī learning, fitting it into his understanding of a
suitable Christian framework. In doing so, he demonstrates the rational
selectivity that for Ibn ‘Abd al-Rabbihi is the essence of adab, and for
Rama is characteristic of transculturation in narrative fiction.
This disclaimer having been made, he repeatedly emphasizes the
Arabic (and not Muslim) authenticity of his material, separating it
from the context of Islamic and Jewish al-Andalus in which he learned it.
As an Arabized Jew living in an Islamic society, this distinction would
have been second nature for Moshé Sefardí, and serves Petrus Alfonsi
well. Conscious of the prestige accorded to Arabic in twelfth century
Aragon, Petrus Alfonsi deliberately calls attention to the fact that
he wrote the work in a language other than Latin (we can only assume it
to be Arabic), and subsequently translated it.55 He wants his audience
to know that his work is not merely a Latin composition of remembrances
from an Andalusī education, but an original anthology of “authentic”
Arabic lore. To this end, he puts many of the wise sayings and exempla in
the mouths of known figures from Arabic lore such as Idriss and Luqmān.56
Other times he attributes material to anonymous Arabs, either poets

plainly as “colonists” in Angus MacKay, Spain in the Middle Ages: From Frontier to Empire,
1000–1500 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1977), 36.
53
 See Petrus Alfonsi, Disciplina clericalis, ed. Alfons Hilka and Werner Söderhjelm,
vol. 28, Acta Societatis Scientiarum Fennicæ (Helsinki: 1911), 2. For English translation,
see Petrus Alfonsi, Scholar’s, 34.
54
 Alfonsi, Scholar’s, 20.
55
 See Alfonsi, Disciplina, 2; for English translation, see Alfonsi, The Disciplina, 104.
56
 Alfonsi, Disciplina, 2 and 3; The Disciplina, 104–05.
86 david a. wacks

or fathers instructing their sons.57 Some of the exempla are set in the
Arab world,58 including Spain.59 By contrast, the only place in the Latin
world he mentions by name is Rome.60 By any reckoning, the Disciplina is
intended to be representative of Andalusī learning, and not as a work of
Christian literature per se.
Petrus Alfonsi’s transculturation of adab is not limited to sources or to
introduction of narrative material previously unknown to Latin audi-
ences. Eberhard Hermes has noted that the Disciplina presents a social
world not typically portrayed in medieval Christian literature, a world
of cities, merchants, and artisans in which there is but a single mention of
a knight.61 Petrus Alfonsi recontextualizes this cosmopolitan world of
commerce and practical strategies for material success, weaving its warp
into Christian woof of Latin didactic literature, thus living up to Rama’s
ideal of the “genial tejedor” (“good-natured weaver”) of Andalusī adab on
a Latin frame.
Students of late medieval and early modern conversos can learn a great
deal from the life and work of Petrus Alfonsi, particularly in thinking of
his writing as a reaction to the colonial times in which he lived. In his
Dialogus we see the result of the breakdown of Jewish Andalusī bicultur-
ality following the conquest of Aragon by the Christians, and the resulting
torment of the converso of convenience who is forever torn between
Jewish and Christian identity.62 Such conflict, while personally painful,
can be quite productive culturally. The Disciplina is the literary product of
a converso who bridged the Andalusī and Spanish intellectual worlds, and
who chose to make lemonade with the lemons that fell from the sky above
newly Christian Aragon. While the Dialogus ends in a standstill, with
Petrus unable to convince Moshé to let go of their common past, the
Disciplina is more successful in reconciling Moshé and Petrus. His experi-
ence shows us that in reconciling conflicted identity and negotiating
difference, storytelling may succeed where rational debate does not.

57
 Alfonsi, Disciplina, 2, 3, 7, 9, 26, 31, 33, and 39; The Disciplina, 104, 06, 12, 13, 16, 35,
42–43, and 44.
58
 Alfonsi, Disciplina, 4 and 27; The Disciplina, 107 and 36.
59
 Alfonsi, Disciplina, 20; The Disciplina, 128.
60
 Alfonsi, Disciplina, 17; The Disciplina, 124.
61
 Hermes also notes that the topoi of courtly love, chivalry, and Marian worship are all
conspicuously absent in the Disciplina. See Alfonsi, The Disciplina, 6.
62
 Critics have debated the question of converso angst for some time. For a summary
of the debate, see Amy Aronson-Friedman, “Identifying the Converso Voice” (Doctoral
Dissertation, Temple University, 2000), 13–20.
 conflicted identity and colonial adaptation87

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 CONVIVENCIA AND CONVERSION IN GONZALO
DE BERCEO’S “EL JUDÏEZNO”

Patricia Timmons

The story of “El judïezno,” or “The Little Jewish Boy,” held wide currency
in the East and the West before the end of the eleventh century and
appears in the Latin miracle collections of Copenhagen, the Liber de
Miraculis, and the Miracula Sanctae Virginis Mariae.1 The vernacular
collections, modeled on the Latin versions, flourished in the thirteenth
century.2 Gonzalo de Berceo’s Milagros de Nuestra Señora (Miracles of Our
Lady) (1246), which includes the miracle tale of “El judïezno,”3 represents
the first collection in Castilian of the miracle tales of the Virgin.4 An alle-
gorical Introduction precedes the twenty-five poeticized miracles that
comprise Berceo’s collection. The source for Berceo’s Introduction remains
a mystery, assuming it is not original to Berceo himself. Michael Gerli
finds that Berceo’s Introduction, as allegory, tells the story of humankind’s
Fall and Redemption “[p]or medio de imágenes que evocan el Paraíso
del Génesis, y a través de alusiones a las profecías del Antiguo Testamento
que anunciaban a la Virgen María” (“by means of images that evoke
the Paradise of Genesis, and through allusions to the prophecies of the
Old Testament that heralded the Virgin Mary”).5 The image of the peregri-
natio vitae “que informa toda la Introducción de la obra es la tipología más

1
 Joël Saugnieux, Berceo y las culturas del siglo XIII (Logroño: Servicio de Cultura de la
Excma. Diputación Provincial, 1982), 84.
2
 Richard Terry Mount and Annette Grant Cash, translation, study, and edition,
Miracles of Our Lady (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1997), 9. Berceo’s century is
known as the “Century of Mary” because devotion to her, which became “universal in the
West by the eighth century,” reached its fullest flowering in the thirteenth century.
3
 Miracle XVI, Los Milagros de Nuestra Señora (1246). I use Brian Dutton’s edition,
Obras Completas II, 2nd ed. (London: Tamesis, 1980). Dutton’s commentaries on the Latin
versions refer to MS Thott 128 (Library of Copenhagen). All verses quoted from the
Milagros and all Latin citations are from Dutton’s edition unless otherwise noted.
4
 In addition to Berceo’s Milagros, two other well-known thirteenth century collections
in Romance languages include the Cantigas de Santa María, of Alfonso X (The Wise), and
the Miracles de Nostre Dame, of Gautier de Coincy; both contain the miracle tale of the
little Jewish boy.
5
 E. Michael Gerli, “La tipología bíblica y la introducción a los Milagros de Nuestra
Señora.” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 62 (1985), 13. All translations of critical references
are mine.
92 patricia timmons

reconocible del texto y se deriva directamente de la Biblia” (“that informs

the whole Introduction of the work is the most recognizable typology
of the text”).6 This pilgrimage is that of “el hombre caído que anda en busca
de la gracia perdida” (“the fallen man who travels in search of the lost
grace”), and Berceo himself alludes to his own pilgrimage.7 The funda-
mental metaphor of the Virgin Mary as a “perpetually green meadow
where the pilgrim can rest and enjoy spiritual delights” mirrors the locus
amoenus motif of the Middle Ages.8 This meadow, however, “es mucho
más … que la evocación de un simple locus amoenus: representa el retorno
del narrador ejemplar, el everyman y yo poético, al Paraíso perdido … por
medio de su devoción mariana” (“is much more than the evocation of a
simple locus amoenus: it represents the return of the exemplary narrator,
‘everyman’ and poetic ‘I’, to the lost Paradise … by way of his Marian devo-
tion”).9 By viewing Berceo’s Introduction in light of the story of “Fall and
Redemption,” we can visualize it as a narrative frame in which the mira-
cles that follow “reflejan metonímicamente el mismo concepto en su plano
individual. Estos últimos narran no el drama de la Caída y Salvación del
hombre arquetípico, sino el de los hombres, nuestros vecinos y nuestros
contemporáneos” (“metonymically reflect the same concept on an indi-
vidual plane. They narrate the drama of the Fall and Redemption not
of an archetypical man, but of [individual] men, our neighbors and our
contemporaries”).10 Berceo’s illustration of the “Fall and Redemption”
paradigm by means of Old Testament events and figures that prophesy
Mary, firmly establishes the Christian doctrine of prefiguration in which
Mary (and Christ) appear as the fulfillment of what Marina Warner
describes as “one unbroken chain of prophecy.”11
In Western Christiandom, the story of the little Jewish boy is the most
widely distributed miracle of the Virgin, with 33 versions in the Classic
and Romance languages.12 Berceo himself vouches for French and German
renditions:

  6
 Gerli, 9.
  7
 Gerli, 9.
  8
 Mount, 7.
  9
 Gerli, 9.
10
 Gerli, 13.
11
 Marina Warner, Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary (Knopf:
New York, 1976), 62.
12
 Luís Miguel Vicente García, “El milagro XVI de los Milagros de Nuestra Señora y la
versión latina: transformación de algunos temas.” Mester 17 (1988): 21. MS locations,
Poncelet reference, keywords, and a list of the miracle collections can be viewed at
The Oxford Cantigas de Santa Maria Database, http://csm.mml.ox.ac.uk/index.php?p
= poemdata_view&rec=4 (accessed November 24, 2010).
 convivencia and conversion93

Enna villa de Borges una cibdat estranna,

Cuntió en essi tiempo una buena hazanna;
Sonada es en Francia, sí faz en Alemanna,
Bien es de los miraclos semejant e calanna.
(352)13
In the city of Bourges, a foreign city,
in another time there occurred a fine deed;
it is told in France and also in Germany,
indeed it is similar and equal to the other miracles.14
The miracle is about a little Jewish boy who has converted to Christianity
and receives the Virgin Mary’s protection from the fire into which his
enraged father has cast him. A gathered crowd witnesses the child’s salva-
tion, recognizes the Virgin’s miracle, and subsequently kills the father by
throwing him into the same fire. Berceo’s version of this miracle amplifies
the anti-Semitic sentiments of his Latin source, and alters the impression
of harmonious convivencia in the Latin narrative by emphasizing the sep-
arateness of the Jewish and Christian communities. These divergences
indeed correspond to the situation of many Spanish Jews who in the thir-
teenth century found themselves increasingly surrounded by anti-Jewish
sentiments, even as their culture flourished. With this historical context
in mind, many critics have assumed that, as in the Latin versions of the
tale, the crowd that punishes the Jewish father is Christian.15 In Berceo’s
version of the miracle, however, this assumption does not appear explicit.
In fact, it would seem that Berceo prefers to imply that a mixed crowd—
Jewish and Christian—participates in both recognition of the Virgin’s
miracle and punishment of the father. The topics of convivencia and con-
version in Berceo’s “El judïezno” appear represented as themes of both
opposition and unity. Rather than elucidating a converso voice per se, the
synthetic dynamic of the miracle presents to us a thirteenth-century
Christian vision of the symbolic significance of the converso. This vision
derives from the conversos’ action—i.e., that of the Jews in the miracle
who implicitly convert to Christianity. The act of recognition and punish-
ment in unity and accord with the Christians serves to affirm a defini-
tion of the “Christian community” as the one that recognizes Mary and

 Verses are referenced parenthetically by quatrain number and line letter.

13
14
 All English translations of Berceo’s Milagros are from Mount and Cash’s Miracles of
Our Lady.
15
 I reference two sources where this observation is made: Marta Ana Diz, Historias de
certidumbre: los ‘Milagros’ de Berceo (Newark, DE: Juan de la Cuesta, 1995), 134–40; and
Vicente García, 25–6.
94 patricia timmons

dispenses (her) justice. Of additional symbolic import particularly perti-

nent to thirteenth-century Spain is the role of the converso as an agent of
doctrinal harmony. The conversos’ recognition of the Virgin assures the
legitimacy of the Christian doctrine of prefiguration in which Mary (and
Christ) appear as the fulfillment of Old Testament (i.e., Jewish) prophecy.
Why Berceo represented convivencia and conversion as themes of both
opposition and unity is, in brief, the subject of this essay. Here is a sum-
mary of his version of the miracle.
A school overseen by the clergy in the French town of Bourges provides
the setting for the Jewish child’s contact with the Christians. The little
Jewish boy is drawn to the Christian school because he wants to play with
the children there. The Christian children receive him well. On Easter
Sunday he accompanies his friends to mass and, along with them, par-
takes of the Eucharist. While he receives communion, he lifts his gaze and
sees over the altar the beautiful figure of the Virgin with the baby Jesus in
her arms. Although he does not understand that this is the Virgin Mary, he
perceives that she gives communion to everyone, and he falls in love with
her beauty:
Vío qe esta duenna qe posada estava,
a grandes e a chicos ella los comulgava;
pagóse d’ella mucho, quanto más la catava
de la su fermosura más se enamorava.
(358)
He saw that this Lady Who was seated
gave Communion to large and small;
he was very pleased with Her, the more he looked at Her
the more he fell in love with Her beauty.
The child, happy and satisfied, leaves the church and arrives late to his
home. There he encounters his father, who is angered by his tardiness. He
tells his father the truth about where he has been and what he has done
with his Christian friends: “con ellos odí missa ricamientre cantada,/ e com-
ulgué con ellos de la ostia sagrada” (“with them I heard Mass splendidly
sung,/ and with them I partook of the Sacred Host”) (360cd). His news
distresses and pains his father: “Pesóli esto mucho al malaventurado,/ como
si lo toviesse muerto o degollado” (“This grieved the ill-fated man very
much,/ as if the boy were dead or had had his throat cut”) (361ab). Wrath
overtakes the father to such an extent that he appears demon-possessed.
He makes a raging fire in the oven of the house and throws the child into
it. The mother “[m]etió … vozes e grandes carpellidas,/ tenié con sus oncejas
 convivencia and conversion95

las massiellas rompidas” (“The mother shouted and clawed herself in

despair,/ she tore her cheeks with her nails”) (364ab), and many people
arrive to see what is the matter. Thus they all witness a great miracle of “el
Rey omnipotent” (“the Almighty King”) (365d): the salvation of the child
who, protected by the Virgin Mary, and because “pusiera en elli Dios la su
bendición” (“God had bestowed His blessing on him”) (367d), remains
unscathed by the fire. The Jewish and Christian witnesses clamor to ask
him how he was able to conquer the flames. He answers,
la duenna que estava enna siella orada
con su fijo en brazos sobre’l altar posada,
éssa me defendié qe non sintía nada.
(369b-d)
The Lady Who was in the golden chair,
with Her Son in Her arms, sitting on the altar.
She defended me and I felt nothing.
The witnesses recognize that the Virgin Mary has appeared to the child
and protected him. They all celebrate and sing praises, and “metieron est
miraclo entre la otra gesta” (“they placed this miracle among the other
deeds”) (370d). Then they grab the father, tie his hands and throw him
into the same fire into which he had thrown his son. The flames quickly
consume his body and soon nothing is left of him but coals and ashes.
Rather than prayers for his soul, the crowd hurls curses and insults. The
story of the miracle concludes with four quatrains in which we receive
assurance that the Virgin bestows glory upon those who serve her and
punishes those who do not, that she will not hold past sins against those
who turn to her, and finally, that we had best guard against offending her.
As many critics of Berceo have noted, his version of “El judïezno” tends
to amplify the anti-Semitic sentiments of the Latin sources for this mira-
cle. One such observation claims, for example, that Berceo skews the Latin
narrative away from an impression of harmonious convivencia among
Christians and Jews, and toward a more segregated atmosphere: “no le
interesa a Berceo dar una imagen de convivencia estrecha entre cristianos y
judíos” (“it does not interest Berceo to give an image of intimate living
together among Christians and Jews”).16 The descriptions of the story’s
opening scene help illustrate the differences between the Latin and
Berceo’s version that create these contrasting impressions of convivencia.

 Vicente García, 26.

16
96 patricia timmons

The Latin text begins with a brief and concise contextualization of the
story in space and time, and then proceeds to state simply that a Jewish
boy who goes to school with Christian children accompanies them to
church on Easter, approaches the altar and receives communion from the
unknowing cleric (who presumably is unaware of the fact that the child is
Jewish):
Die igitur sollempnitatis Pasche cum christiani pueri in quandam eclesiam
accederent ad participandum sacrum corpus Domini, quidam puer de gente
hebreorum qui cum eis litteris instruebatur inter illos ad altare accessit et cor-
pus dominicum ignorante presbytero cum eis percepit.
For on the day of the celebration of Easter, when Christian boys in a certain
church gathered to partake of the sacred Body of the Lord, a certain boy
from the race of the Hebrews who was being instructed in his letters with
them approached that altar with them and, with the priest not knowing it,
communed with them.17
As we can see, the Latin version alludes to the common instruction of
Christian and Hebrew children. Berceo embellishes considerably this part
of the story. His description of the school provides more details than in
the Latin:
Tenié essa villa, ca era menester,
un clérigo escuela de cantar e leer;
tenié muchos crïados a letras aprender,
fijos de bonos omnes que qerién más valer.
(354)
In that city, since it was necessary,
a cleric had a school of singing and reading:
he had many pupils learning letters,
sons of good men who wanted to rise in esteem.
Berceo amplifies the setting of the school not only by making it explicitly
of the clergy, but also by placing importance on education and social
mobility: “fijos de bonos omnes que qerién más valer.”18 Further augmenting

17
 All English translations of the Latin MS Thott 128 are by Robert Boenig, whose trans-
lation and study of the manuscript are forthcoming. MS Thott 128 is translated into
Spanish by Avelina Carrera de la Red and Fátima Carrera de la Red, translation, study, and
edition, Miracula Beate Marie Virginis, Ms. Thott 128 de Copenhague—una fuente paralela
a ‘Los Milagros de Nuestra Señora’ de Gonzalo de Berceo (Logroño: Instituto de Estudios
Riojanos, 2000).
18
 Derek W. Lomax, “The Lateran Reforms and Spanish Literature.” Iberoromania
4 (1969): 302. The emphasis here on education reflects the spirit of the Church reforms
initiated by the Fourth Lateran Council. In the fifty years following 1215, in Castile and
 convivencia and conversion97

the opening lines of the Latin versions, he goes on to create the impres-
sion of separate Jewish and Christian worlds through the longing of the
Jewish child who is accepted by the Christian children:
Venié un judïezno, natural del logar,
por savor de los ninnos, por con ellos jogar;
acogiénlo los otros, no li fazién pesar,
avién con elli todos savor de deportar.
(355)
A little Jewish boy, native of the town, came
for the pleasure of playing with the children;
the others welcomed him, they caused him no grief;
they all took delight in playing with him.
Berceo then invents the Jewish child’s grand desire for communion: “priso
l al judïezno de comulgar grand gana” (“a great desire to commune seized
the little Jewish boy”) (356c).
In these added details of yearning, Berceo has achieved the attribution
of psychological motive on the part of the child—his wish to play with the
children drives him to the school and his great desire for communion pre-
cedes the act of receiving the corpus domini.19 Here also, Berceo’s suppres-
sion of the “ignorante presbytero” of the Latin version allows for clear
emphasis on the Jewish child’s spontaneous desire for communion. An
audience may ponder “cuanto se quiera el beneficio de la escuela en
general” (“as much as they want to the benefit of the school in general)”,
conserving at the same time “la motivación libre del niño, no influida por
la escuela, ni asistiendo cotidianamente a ella” (“the free motivation of
the child, who is not influenced by the school nor attending it daily”).20
The child’s spontaneous desire adds both ingenuousness and volition
to his character, making the act of receiving Holy Communion, and
thus converting to Christianity, appear natural and sincere. In the
amplification of the opening scene of the miracle, Berceo separates the
Christian and Jewish worlds, while in the Latin we see both worlds
coexisting in the school attended by Christian as well as Jewish children.
In “El judïezno” we have a Christian school and Christian customs—a

elsewhere, “[e]-piscopal and archidiaconal visitations of parishes, the institution of vicar-

ages, the administration of the sacraments, the building-up of schools and universities and
the spread of the new religious Orders all took place …”
19
 Bernard Givocate, “Notas sobre el estilo y la originalidad de Gonzalo de Berceo.”
Bulletin Hispanique 62 (1960): 7.
20
 Vicente García, 22.
98 patricia timmons

Christian world—which a little Jewish boy has joined because of his inno-
cent desire to do so.
The representation of convivencia that Berceo makes in his version of
this miracle, however, coincides historically with the circumstances of
the Jews in Spain during the thirteenth century. The term convivencia
does not necessarily convey something other than what Berceo depicts.
The Spanish Jews of Berceo’s day had their own courts of law and autono-
mous jurisdiction within the aljama, or Jewish community. This suggests
that the separateness of Christian and Jewish relations was not an innova-
tive concept promulgated by Berceo, despite the fact that there exists evi-
dence that these relationships may also have been marked by some
degree of fluidity. When reflecting upon thirteenth-century convivencia,
for example, we must consider the following caveat:
When we employ the term convivencia … we are not attempting to conjure
up an image of total harmony, of a cosmopolitan setting wherein all faith-
communities joyfully infused each other with their particular strengths.
Rather we are evoking images of a pluralistic society where communities
often lived in the same neighborhoods, engaged in business with each
other, and affected and infected each other with their ideas. At the same
time, these groups mistrusted each other and were often jealous of each
other’s successes, and the ever-present competition among them occasion-
ally turned to hatred.21
While by the thirteenth century Jewish culture had begun to flourish in
the Christian territories of Spain, around the same time the anti-Jewish
prejudice of European civilization began to intensify in the Iberian
Christian kingdoms.22
As their culture flourished, the Spanish Jews found themselves increas-
ingly surrounded by anti-Jewish sentiments. A famous event illustrative
of this paradox occurred no more than a decade after Berceo’s death and
involved James I, Conqueror of Aragon. This king, who “employed Jews in
the highest administrative posts within his realm,” was also responsible
for convoking the first high profile disputation between a Christian and a

21
 Benjamin R. Gampel, “Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Medieval Iberia: Convivencia
through the Eyes of Sephardic Jews,” in Convivencia: Jews, Muslims and Christians in
Medieval Spain, ed. Vivian B. Mann, Thomas F. Glick, and Jerrilynn D. Dodds (New York:
George Braziller in association with the Jewish Museum, 1992), 11.
22
 Gampel, 22. Edward I ordered the expulsion of the Jews from England in 1290. In
France, unofficial expulsions of Jews began as early as 1198, but they were expelled by royal
command in 1394. The Jews were banished from Germany in the late fourteenth and early
fifteenth centuries, and from Spain and Portugal in the late fifteenth century.
 convivencia and conversion99

Jew.23 In 1263, James I ordered the well-known and highly respected

Rabbi Moses ben Nahman (Nahmanides) to Barcelona to appear in a reli-
gious disputation with Paulus Christiani, a Jew who had converted to
Christi­anity. Real (as opposed to literary and hypothetical) disputations
between Jews and Christians developed in southern France as part of the
innovative approaches “designed by the newly fashioned Christian men-
dicant orders among whose goals was the conversion of Jews to the
Christian faith” and the eradication of heresies.24 The Christian disputant
would attempt to convince the Jewish disputant of the truth of Christianity
by means of scripture not only from the Old Testament, but also from the
Talmud. One of the earliest disputations had occurred in Paris in 1240, but
the 1263 debate in Barcelona was much more sensational, due, particu-
larly, to the fame of the Rabbi Nahmanides. Perhaps inevitably, Paulus
Christiani was deemed the winner of the disputation and immediately
thereafter, “Aragonese Jews were compelled to attend Christian sermons
in their synagogues, where local preachers” sought to persuade them to
convert to Christianity, citing scripture from the Old Testament and the
Talmud itself.25 A Jew’s conversion to Christianity based on this technique
of persuasion would naturally represent an affirmation of the Christian
interpretation of the Old Testament.
Berceo, by creating the impression of separate worlds between
Christians and Jews as the scene for the Jewish child’s conversion to
Christianity, has rendered a subjectively accurate representation of
thirteenth-century convivencia. This is not to say that he might have
thought his Latin source was unrealistic, but simply that he interpreted
and amplified his version according to his own reality. From a dramatic
standpoint, by stressing the separateness of the children, the ingenuous-
ness of the little Jewish boy receives the spotlight, making his conversion
seem right and natural. Certainly the reinforced impression of the sepa-
rateness of the religions serves to heighten the dramatic tension sur-
rounding the conversion itself. The intense implications of the Jewish
child’s conversion find confirmation in the reaction of his father, who,
bedeviled with grief, throws his own child into the fires of the oven.

23
 Gampel, 22. Many scholars have studied the transcripts of this debate. Jeremy Cohen,
The Friars and the Jews: The Evolution of Medieval Anti-Judaism, (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1982). Cohen provides a concise summary of the debate and its consequences for
both Christian and Jewish scholars of religion. See esp. pages 108–28.
24
 Gampel, 22. The mendicant or preaching orders of the Dominicans and the
Franciscans were established by Honorius III in 1216 and 1223, respectively.
25
 Gampel, 20.
100 patricia timmons

Undoubtedly, this tale of the little Jewish boy whose father throws him
into the fire captivated Berceo’s thirteenth-century audience; the “belief
that the Jews were prone to child murder was prevalent from the twelfth
century onwards ….”26 A popular anti-Jewish stereotype in Berceo’s day
attributed to the Jews the Satanic practice of ritual murder of Christian
children. Long before Christians accused Jews of this practice, they often
ascribed it to heretics. The first recorded case in which Jews were accused
of the ritual murder of a Christian child was that of William of Norwich in
1144.27 The story of “El judïezno” alludes to other anti-Jewish stereo-
types besides the primary one of child murder. These allusions are con-
tained in the epithets ascribed to the father in his rage and grief: “diablado”
(“bedeviled”), “malaventurado” (“ill-fated one”), “can traidor” ­(“treacherous
dog”), “falso descreído” (“false disbeliever”), “falso desleal” (“false disloyal
one”). Berceo amplifies considerably the Latin versions with the insertion
of these epithets, which embed stereotypes that go beyond the labels
themselves.28 All except perhaps “malaventurado” relate directly to anti-
Jewish ideas: that Jews are in league with the devil, that they do not believe
that Christ is the messiah (i.e., blindness, willful disbelief, denial), that
they are traitors, disloyal, and false (i.e., Judas and the “Jews killed Christ”
accusation). Despite these anti-Jewish amplifications, however, the rele-
vance of the Jewish father’s reaction seems to connect more directly to
the conversion of his son, thus highlighting the stereotypes of the Jews as
devil-possessed killers of Christian children. In “El judïezno” these stereo-
types overlap the story, which itself relates the drama of conversion and
the separation of family. Assuredly, the narrative contains the motifs
of the anti-Jewish stereotypes, which Berceo includes in order to demonize
the Jewish father. Berceo does more, however, than simply exploit these
anti-Jewish stereotypes for the sake of a confrontation between Good and
Evil, where “evil” is synonymous with “Jewish.”29 Within the greater
scheme of Good vs. Evil, Berceo specifically demonizes the father for his
opposition to the child’s conversion to Christianity.

26
 Helen Boreland, “Typology in Berceo’s Milagros: the Judïenzo and the Abadesa pre-
ñada.” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 55 (1983): 16–17.
27
 Andrew McCall, The Medieval Underworld (London: A. M. Heath and Co., Ltd., 1979),
272–75. See McCall for an historical account of the case of William of Norwich.
28
 Many of these observations draw on Dutton’s comparative study of the Latin MS
Thott 128 and Berceo’s text. See esp. Dutton, p. 130.
29
 The representation of the Jew as the personification of Evil was a frequent stereotype
employed in medieval literary themes of “Good vs. Evil.”
 convivencia and conversion101

Although the fate of the Jewish boy’s father is certainly death, the
narrative suggests that the reason for his execution is the crime against
his son:
dio con él en el fuego bravament encendido:
¡mal venga a tal padre qe tal faze a fijo!
Prisieron al judío, al falsso desleal,
Al qe a su fijuelo fiziera tan grand mal,
(363cd, 371ab)
He threw him in the raging fire.
May ill come to such a father who does such to his son!
They seized the Jew, the false disloyal one,
the one who had done such great wrong to his little son;
Here, the father’s crime, specific and concrete, does not possess the more
abstract character of a ritual murder consecrated to Satan, in spite of the
fact that because of his anger the father appears possessed by demons.
The little Jewish boy, albeit converted to Christianity, does not match the
stereotypical profile of a Christian child abducted by Jews for the pur-
poses of evil ritual sacrifice. He is obviously a victim of his own father’s
grief, rage, and derangement, of an unimaginable and heinous crime,
which highlights the enormous family consequences for the Jewish child
that converts to Christianity. Within the frame of the narrative, the stere-
otypical anti-Jewish epithets—traitor, disloyal, false—tend to take on a
more personal tone, which supplants their relevancy to Jews in general
and refers instead to the actions of the father against the son. This speci-
ficity draws attention toward the theme of conversion and resultant fam-
ily rupture. This is not to say that the stereotypes carried no anti-Jewish
overtones for Berceo’s audiences.30 It is, however, significant that the
semantics are ambiguous in that they also can refer specifically to the
father’s individual actions against his son (“¡mal venga a tal padre que tal
faze a fijo!” (“May ill come to such a father who does such to his son!”)
(363d); “al qe a su fijuelo fiziera tan grand mal” (“the one who had done
such great wrong to his little son”) (371b)).

30
 David Nirenberg, Communities of Violence: Persecution of Minorities in the Middle
Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), 202. To be sure, ritual violence against
Jews during Holy Week (“El judïezno” takes place on Easter Sunday) occurred regularly
from at least as early as 1018 “throughout most of the Mediterranean basin … from the
Iberian Peninsula through southern France and into Italy.”
102 patricia timmons

The father, fortunately, did not actually kill his son. He would have, but
luckily God blessed the child and sent the Virgin to protect him. In the
scene of the father’s punishment, the Latin story describes him as the
one (“qui in fornace miserat eum, …”) “who had thrown him [his son] into
the furnace.” Berceo has maintained the gist of the Latin versions in that
the monstrous attempt against the son clearly indicts the father. Because
Berceo has focused so much more attention than the Latin story on the
dynamics of the father’s rage, however, I think that this violence also sig-
nifies anguish on the part of the father, which highlights further the theme
of conversion and family rupture. In these verses where Berceo has ampli-
fied or emphasized the anti-Semitic elements relating to the father upon
his child’s arrival home from the church, we also find the amplified
description of the father’s emotions and reactions:
menazólo el padre porqe avié tardado,
qe mereciente era de seer fostigado.
“Padre—dixo el ninno— non vos negaré nada,
ca con los christianiellos sovi grand madurgada;
con ellos odí missa ricamientre cantada,
e comulgué con ellos de la ostia sagrada.”
Pesóli esto mucho al malaventurado,
como si lo toviesse muerto o degollado;
non sabié con grand ira qué fer el dïablado,
fazié figuras malas como demonïado.
Avié dentro en casa esti can traïdor
un forno grand e fiero qe fazié grand pavor;
fízolo encender el locco peccador,
de guisa qe echava sovejo grand calor.
Priso esti ninnuelo el falso descreído,
asín como estava, calzado e vestido,
dio con él en el fuego bravament encendido:
(359c-363a-c)
because he was late his father threatened him
saying he deserved to be whipped.
“Father,” said the boy, “I will not deny anything,
for I was with the little Christians early this morning,
with them I heard Mass splendidly sung,
and with them I partook of the Sacred Host.”
This grieved the ill-fated man very much,
as if the boy were dead or had had his throat cut;
the bedeviled man in his great wrath did not know what to do;
so he made evil faces like someone demon-possessed.
 convivencia and conversion103

This treacherous dog had inside his house

a large, fierce oven that instilled great terror;
the mad sinner had it fired up
so that it gave off an excessive great heat.
The false disbeliever took this little child,
just as he was, shod and clothed,
he threw him in the raging fire.
Berceo makes the father’s character seem much more severe in compari-
son with the Latin story:
Reversus igitur ad paternam domum puer predictus cum interrogaretur a
patre unde venisset, respondit se cum sociis pueris ad eclesiam isse et eis com-
munionem percipientibus similiter communicasse. Hoc audiens pater gravi
iracundia accensus corripiens puerum cum furore conspexit haut longe for-
nacem ardentem currensque iactavit puerum in illam.
When he therefore returned to his father’s house, the foresaid boy, when he
was questioned by his father about where he had come from, responded
that with his friends he had gone to the church and had also taken com-
munion with those receiving communion. Hearing this, his father was
ignited with grave anger and, snatching up the boy with rage, caught sight
of a roaring furnace not far off. And rushing there he threw the boy into it.
In Berceo, the scene protracts the deranged mental processes of a father
who becomes crazed enough to throw his own son into a fire, while in the
Latin, as Dutton has observed in great detail, the father is less violent and
calculated:
[The father] only wants to know where his son has been, a natural question,
while Berceo creates threats of lashes …. Verse 361 greatly amplifies the
words “Hoc audiens pater gravi iracundia accensus … cum furore … .”
(“Hearing this, his father was ignited with grave anger … with rage …”). In
the Latin his ire makes him throw the child into an oven already lit that he
sees in that moment: “corripiens puerum cum furore conspexit haut longe
fornacem ardentem …” (“snatching up the boy with rage, [he] caught sight of
a roaring furnace not far off”). Berceo attributes to the father a cold sadism:
instead of a spasm of ire, we have a “desgraciado” [“miserable, unfortunate
one”] that coldly lights the oven in order for it to burn with great heat
(362d). Only then does he throw his son into the flames (363), that he
derives from the Latin “currensque iactavit puerum in illam.” (“and rushing
there he threw the boy into it”). These changes most likely derive from the
anti-Semitic prejudice of the medieval clergy …31

31
 Dutton, 130. Translation of Dutton’s Spanish is mine. The translations in parentheses
of the Latin examples Dutton cites are by Robert Boenig. Here is the text as it appears in
Dutton:
104 patricia timmons

In a state of rage, the father of the Latin version spontaneously throws

his son into the oven where a fire already burns. A chilling note of
premeditation in Berceo’s version is created by having the father first pre-
pare the oven fire so that it would burn hotly, and then throw his son into
the flames. He clearly has lost possession of his fatherly instincts that
surely would have overruled the impulse to burn his own little son by the
time the fire became sufficiently hot to do so. Of course, the notion that
the child is already dead to the father due to his conversion to Christianity
appears as a diabolical one, and no doubt Berceo was aware of this asso-
ciation. Berceo obviously has taken advantage of the anti-Jewish topoi of
the Jews as child killers and demon-possessed in order to heighten the
drama of his story. By drawing out the father’s rage and oven preparation,
Berceo decidedly adds suspense and sensationalism to the scene. He also
provides dramatic balance to the story in that the intensity of the
crime must be commensurate with the punishment; i.e., the father must
eventually burn for his crime at the hands of a mob. The father’s rage is
undeniably motivated by religious concerns, but the drama with which
Berceo portrays these concerns focuses less on the father’s hatred of
Christians in general than on the anguish of “losing” his own son to
Christianity. The conversion has sparked a family crisis. Berceo’s expan-
sion of the Latin version by elaborating on the nature of the father’s anger
in quatrain 361 draws attention to the father’s psychological state. Upon
hearing that his son has taken Holy Com­munion with the Christians, the
father is deeply grieved (361a). He feels as if he has encountered his son
dead, or not merely dead, but with his throat cut (361b). Then his grief
turns into a crazed rage, as though he were demon-possessed (361cd).
Many critics have not failed to note the resonance here with the theme of
separation of family described in Matthew 19:29. I would also note the
separation of family theme as it relates more specifically to conversions in

ya que en el latín sólo quiere saber dónde ha estado su hijo, pregunta natural,
mientras Berceo crea amenazas de azotes…. La copla 361 amplía mucho las palabras
‘Hoc audiens pater gravi iracundia accensus … cum furore ….’ En 362, como en 359cd,
Berceo quiere hacer aún peor el carácter del padre judío. En el latín su ira le hace echar
al niño en un horno ya encendido que ve en ese momento: ‘corripiens puerum cum
furore conspexit haut longe fornacem ardentem …’ Berceo atribuye al padre un sad-
ismo frío: en vez de un espasmo de ira, tenemos a un desgraciado que enciende fría-
mente el horno (362c) para que arda con mucho calor (362d). Sólo entonces echa a su
hijo en las llamas (363), que deriva del latín ‘currensque iactavit puerum in illam.’ A lo
mejor estos cambios derivan del prejuicio antisemítico del clero medieval …
 convivencia and conversion105

Matthew 10: 34–7.32 The theme of violent family upheavals in the face of
Jewish conversions to Christianity, however, may well have resonated
with Berceo’s audiences for causes less abstract than Bible verses.
One of the reasons the story of the Jewish father killing his own son
received such popular impetus may have had to do with reports of how
“during the pogroms Jews often preferred self-inflicted death to forced
baptism or death at the hands of the Christians. It is not difficult to see
how an action which was at the time recognized as a sacrifice in the name
of religion, might have led to a popular conception of Jews as child-
killers.”33 In the Spain of Berceo’s time forced mass conversions had not
yet swept the peninsula, but certainly the precedents for intensive con-
version campaigns were already in place. The Fourth Lateran Council rec-
ommended that “conversional sermons should be preached to the Jews”
by the emergent preaching orders, the Franciscans, or Friars Minor, in
particular.34 With relation to popular conceptions of Jews, we find that in
the autonomous courts of Jewish law, sentences of harsh punishment for
offenses of dishonor against the Jewish community had become preva-
lent. In Spain, “the Jewish community in the Middle Ages, and before and
after as well, was very anxious about its authority over its members.”
It was also “anxious lest its jurisdiction be undermined and was there-
fore much troubled when Jews sought redress of grievances or adjudica-
tion of conflicts at the ‘courts of the Gentiles’.”35 Hence we find it surprising
to note that
the Jewish courts in Sepharad arrogated powers to themselves that quite
outstripped their authority as delineated by Jewish law … issuing sentences

32
 Bible verses quoted from Harper’s Study Bible, The Holy Bible, Revised Standard
Version, Introductions, references, and edition by Harold Lindsell (Grand Rapids:
Zondervan 1965; first edition by Harper and Row, 1964). Matt. 19:29: “And every one who
has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s
sake, will receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life.” Matt. 10: 34–7: “34. Do not think
that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35.
For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a
daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; 36. and a man’s foes will be those of his own
household. 37. He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he
who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; …”
33
 Boreland, 17. Medieval poetry of Jewish martyrdom preserves accounts of how many
Jews preferred to take their own lives and those of their children rather than have their
fates decided by a violent Christian mob. See Susan L. Einbinder, Beautiful Death. Jewish
Poetry and Martyrdom in Medieval France (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University
Press, 2002).
34
 McCall, 278.
35
 Gampel, 23.
106 patricia timmons

of corporal punishment such as maiming and cutting off body parts and
even ordering particular offenders to be put to death … The bet din (court of
Jewish law) would not execute the sentence itself but rather would remand
the guilty party to the local government that, for a fee, would carry out the
wishes of the Jewish court. These harsh and extralegal punishments were
usually meted out to those accused of slandering the Jewish community.36
Since these punishments were remanded to local governments for
execution, their harshness must have become well known to the general
public—that is, to those who would have witnessed public punishments.
Thus the story of the little Jewish boy’s conversion echoed elements of
real life dramas about the Jews that must have loomed large in the minds
of a Christian audience: rumors of self-inflicted death as a preference to
forced baptism, Church-sanctioned sermonic campaigns to convert the
Jews, and sentences of corporal punishment meted out to Jews by their
own courts for offenses of perceived dishonor to the Jewish community.
In this context, the boy’s conversion and the violent grief-turned-to-rage
of the father may well have contained engaging and newsworthy refer-
ents for Berceo’s audiences. Berceo suggests that the father deserves pun-
ishment because of the bad thing he did to his son, and not simply because
he is Jewish. Berceo’s portrait of the father’s violence focuses on the psy-
chological aspects of his crime, thus allowing the family drama surround-
ing the child’s conversion to hold center stage. It also paves the way for
the broad implications of the father’s punishment, which, as we shall see,
could pertain to non-Jews as well.
Many critics consider the punishment of the Jewish father an act of
Christian justice.37 In one such interpretation, for example, the father
serves as a convenient scapegoat in that he attracts the generalized anger
of the Christian community toward the “Jews as killers of Christ.” The
Christians seize the opportunity to displace their anger onto the father,
thereby dissipating their violence against just him and averting an all-out
pogrom.38 It is noteworthy that the interpretation of the father’s death as

36
 Gampel, 24.
37
 Please see note #15.
38
 Diz, 137. Diz’s interpretation draws on René Girard’s theoretical studies of the
scapegoat and the sacrificial victim. See René Girard, Violence and the Sacred (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979), and The Scapegoat (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1986), esp. ch. 3. While the thrust of “El judïezno” is ultimately the theme
of conversion, Berceo’s audiences no doubt would have perceived a connection between
the violent actions against the Jewish father and the fact that they occurred on Easter
Sunday, and indeed this connection contains resonances of Diz’s interpretation. David
Nirenberg, in his analysis of the longstanding (at least since 1018) ritual of Holy Week
 convivencia and conversion107

a sacrificial rectification of the crucifixion of Christ hinges on the assump-

tion that the community of avengers is exclusively Christian.39
I see this miracle in a different light, and suggest that the father’s death
represents the unity of Christians and Jews. It is true that in the Latin ver-
sion it remains unambiguous that just the Christians punish the father,
and, in fact, only the Christians recognize the Virgin: “Tunc christiani intel-
ligentes sanctam Dei genitricem eius esse protectricem, iudeum patrem
pueri, qui in fornace miserat eum, in eandem fornacem immiserunt” (“Then
the Christians knew that the holy Mother of God had been his protector,
and they threw the boy’s Jewish father, who had thrown him into the fur-
nace, into that same furnace”). In Berceo’s version, however, the assump-
tion that only Christians kill the father is not explicit. In fact, it would
seem that Berceo prefers to imply that a mixed crowd participates in both
the recognition of the Virgin’s miracle and in the punishment of the
father. Here is a brief review of these scenes in Berceo’s story:
Preguntáronli todos, judíos e christianos
cómo podió venzer fuegos tan sobranzanos
quando él non mandava los piedes ni las manos
quí lo cabtenié entro, fiziésselos certanos.
(368)
Everyone asked him, Jews and Christians,
how he was able to conquer such mighty flames
when he did not control his feet or his hands.
Who protected him inside there? Make them certain.

violence by Christians, particularly clerics, against Jews stresses “a range of multiple mean-
ings inherent in the violence, some of which we might call stabilizing” in that the “ritual-
ization of sacrificial violence … contributed to conditions that made possible the
continued existence of Jews in a Christian Society” (227–78). In other words, Christian
hostilities against the Jews ideally became expressed and dissipated without exceeding
the boundaries beyond which serious injuries and damages might be inflicted. In the four-
teenth century, escalation to the level of riots and even massacres appears to have been
the exception to this ritual violence that, while generally providing stability to the unsta-
ble convivencia between Jews and Christians, nonetheless contained the seeds of cata-
clysm. For more elucidation on the nature and tone of the tradition of Holy Week violence
in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, see Nirenberg, 218–30.
39
 Indeed Diz makes this assumption quite explicit, as we can see in these examples: “la
comunidad cristiana quema al padre …” (“the Christian community burns the father”)
(134); “el pueblo cristiano prende al judío y lo echa al fuego …” (“the Christian people catch
the Jew and throw him into the fire”) (137); “[l]a “buena hazanna” anunciada por Berceo es
una hazaña doble: es la hazaña de la Virgen que salva al niño y también la de la comunidad
cristiana que mata al padre” (“the ‘good deed’ announced by Berceo is a double deed: it is
the good deed of the Virgin that saves the boy, and also of the Christian community that
kills the father”) (140).
108 patricia timmons

Upon hearing the child’s explanation of how the beautiful lady defended
him (369),40
Entendieron qe era sancta María ésta,
que lo defendió ella de tan fiera tempesta;
cantaron grandes laudes, fizieron rica festa,
metieron est miraclo entre la otra gesta.
Prisieron al judío, al falsso desleal,
al que a su fijuelo fiziera tan grand mal,
legáronli las manos con un fuerte dogal,
dieron con elli entro en el fuego cabdal.
(370–371)
They understood that this was Saint Mary,
that She defended him from such a fierce storm;
they sang great lauds, they had a lavish celebration,
they placed this miracle among the other deeds.
They seized the Jew, the false disloyal one,
the one who had done such great wrong to his little son;
they tied his hands with a strong rope
and they cast him into the great fire.
As we can see, once the mixed crowd of Jews and Christians is established,
the third person plural verb form continues throughout the story in the
actions of recognition and celebration of the Virgin Mary’s miracle, and of
collective punishment of the father.
The consensus and unity of Jews and Christians is a compelling event.
The Jewish witnesses’ identification of the Virgin Mary from the child’s
description serves to bolster her renown and validate the miracle, as if to
say that even the Jews acknowledge the (Jewish) mother of Christ. This
recognition might even imply that they convert at this moment. They
definitely are not pummeled to death by the Christians, like the Jews of
Toledo in another one of the Milagros, and they do not appear threatened
by a Christian mob. In the Latin story, however, the Jews do not become
“convinced” enough to convert until they witness the Jewish father’s rapid

 la duenna que estava enna siella orada

40

con su fijo en brazos sobre’l altar posada,

éssa me defendié qe non sintía nada.
(369b-d)
“The Lady Who was in the golden chair,
with Her Son in Her arms, sitting on the altar.
She defended me and I felt nothing.”
 convivencia and conversion109

combustion in the flames: “Qui statim ab igne cruciatus inmomento exus-

tus est totus. Quod videntes tam iudei quam christiani Dominum et sanctam
eius genitricem collaudaverunt et ex illa die in Dei fide ferventes permase-
runt” (“At once in a moment he was tormented by the fire and totally
burned up. Thus the Jews, seeing this, joined in praising the Lord of the
Christians and his holy Mother and from that day on remained fervently
in the faith of God”). In the Latin version, the little Jewish boy’s escape
from the flames fails to convince the Jews to convert; after all, the Old
Testament certainly provides a precedent for the salvation of Jews from
the fires of unjust punishment, as when God protects Shadrach, Meshach,
and Abednego. The specter of a group of Christians throwing the Jewish
father into the fire, however, appears to hold more persuasive reasons to
convert. It is noteworthy, therefore, that in Berceo’s tale, the Jewish crowd
is moved instead by Mary’s mercy. Thus, in Berceo’s version of this mira-
cle, the recognition of the Virgin Mary by Jews and Christians alike fuses
them and they act as one to celebrate the miracle and punish the father.
As in the Latin account, in Berceo’s version of the story the fire quickly
consumes the father’s body: “Quanto cantarié omne poccos de pipïones,/ en
tanto fo tornado cenisa e carbones” (“In the same time it would take for
someone to count a few pennies,/ he was turned into ashes and embers”)
(372ab). The crowd, comprised of both Jewish and Christian participants,
says neither psalms nor prayers for the father’s soul, but rather hurls
curses and insults. Instead of reciting the Pater Noster, they say “Qual fizo,
atal prenda” (373b), “la más cumplida expresión de un acto de justicia pop-
ular” (“the most complete expression of an action of popular justice)”:41
non dizién por su alma salmos nin oraciones,
mas dizién denosteos e grandes maldiziones.
Diziénli mal oficio, faciénli mal’ ofrenda,
dizién por “Pater noster”, “Qual fizo, atal prenda.”
De la comunicanda Domni Dios nos defenda,
pora’l dïablo sea tan maleíta renda.
(372c-373)
they did not say psalms or prayers for his soul,
rather they hurled insults and great curses.
They gave him dreadful rites; they made for him a vile offering:
instead of the Pater Noster, they said “As he did so may he receive.”

 Diz, 130.
41
110 patricia timmons

From this comunicanda God defend us,

and let such terrible payment be with the devil.
This concept of qual fizo atal prenda (“as he did so may he receive”) cor-
responds to both secular and ecclesiastical authorities. As a common
legal term it pertains to the pronouncement of a sentence and therefore
carries a semantic load of legality in terms of popular justice, emphasizing
the pena de talión, which, in this case, is upheld or exercised by the com-
munity.42 In contrast to the mercy Mary bestows upon those loyal to her,
qual fizo atal prenda recalls the Old Testament law of “an eye for an eye
and a tooth for a tooth,” which reminds us of the larger theme of the “New
Dispensation of grace and mercy,” or “el dictamen revocado” (“the revoked
dictum”), promised by the New Testament, which closes the Old Law and
opens the New.43 In “El judïezno,” we find the fusion of secular and sacred
law in the sanction of collective action. This collective action fuses Jews
and Christians rather than separating them, as they unite through the col-
lective justice of the pena de talión. Collective justice in terms of the old
covenant of “an eye for an eye” draws sanction from secular customs and
serves to reinforce a fusion of secular and Church law, which canon law
exemplifies.
Old Testament stories, such as Cain and Abel, Abraham and Isaac,
Daniel and the lions, the three Jewish boys in the fire, etc., suggest them-
selves as typological precedents for this miracle.44 Compared with Old
Testament reminiscences suggested by the miracle story, Berceo “under-
lines quite sharply the contrast between the Jewish religion and Christi­
anity, and between the Old Dispensation and the New.”45 The trial by
ordeal, whose most common manifestation in European history involved
fire, water, or battle, is a test of faith dating back to Jewish tradition and
the Old Testament stories of vindicated faith in God such as the ones
mentioned above. The ancient practice was Christianized in Europe by
the tenth century but was outlawed definitively by the Fourth Lateran

42
 The pena de talión, or penalty of revenge, was often prescribed for cases of injury,
effrontery, or insulted honor. It is similar in connotation to “double damages.” For a com-
prehensive discussion of medieval Spanish law and the pena de talión see Rafael Serra
Ruiz, Honor, honra e injuria en el Derecho medieval español (Murcia: Sucesores de Nogués,
1969).
43
 Boreland, 21; and Diz, 55–6.
44
 Boreland, 19. The fact that this miracle parallels Abraham and Isaac in some ways is
striking. Both sons are saved in the end. Of course, one big difference is that God tells
Abraham to sacrifice Isaac as a test of Abraham’s fear of God. See Genesis 22:1–19.
45
 Boreland, 21.
 convivencia and conversion111

Council. In spite of having been banned in 1215, the practice implicitly

conveyed legality so that at the end of the miracle the vindication of the
Christian order over the Judaic carries the weight of the Law.46 Thus in “El
judïezno,” the Christian faith becomes upheld in the miracle of the little
boy’s escape from harm, while the ordeal of fire, which proves fatal to the
boy’s father, implies the inferiority of the Jewish faith.47 Undoubtedly this
miracle holds typological resonances of the Old Testament vindication of
faith stories, and we can perceive that these themes structure an argu-
ment of religious opposition, i.e., superiority vs. inferiority. Certainly
Berceo cannot be accused of ambivalence with regard to asserting the
superiority of the Christian faith; however, in this miracle Berceo inci-
sively draws on the collective aspect of qual fizo atal prenda to paint us a
picture of Jews and Christians become one in Mary. Ultimately, then, the
collective punishment of the father carries the weight of the Law not only
because of its associations with ordeals, but also—and more impor-
tantly—because it fuses the secular pena de talión with the authority of
the Old Testament on the side of Mary, and by extension, of course, on the
side of Christianity. The fusion of Jews and Christians serves as a meta-
phor representing a resolution to the tension inherent in Christianity’s
New Testament as el dictamen revocado, with its roots of legitimacy in the
Jewish Old Testament.
While the Jewish father perishes by both popular justice and “by the
Old-Testament law of ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,’” Berceo is
quick to remind his audience that “the Virgin has never reacted in this
way towards those who love her and ask for her mercy”:48
Los que tuerto li tienen o qe la desirvieron,
d’ella mercet ganaron si bien gela pidieron;
nunca repoyó ella a los qe la quisieron,
ni lis dio en refierta el mal qe li fizieron.
(376)
Those who offend Her or who disserve Her
won mercy if indeed they asked Her for it;
never did She refuse those who loved Her,
nor did She throw in their faces the evil they had done.
In the conclusion of the miracle, however, we are confronted by a
coercive tone underlying the “grace” of Mary. Although we are assured

46
 Diz, 140.
47
 Diz, 118–28.
48
 Boreland, 21.
112 patricia timmons

that the Virgin bestows glory upon those who serve her, the punishment
that befalls the Jewish father actually expands to encompass anyone, not
just Jews, who do not serve Mary:
Tal es sancta María que es de gracia plena,
por servicio da Gloria, por deservicio pena;
a los bonos da trigo, a los malos avena,
los unos van en Gloria, los otros en cadena.
Qui servicio li faze es de buena ventura,
qui l fizo deservicio nació en ora dura,
los unos ganan gracia e los otros rencura,
a bonos e a malos so fecho los mestura.
(374–375)
Such is Holy Mary who is full of grace,
for service She gives Glory, for disservice punishment;
to the good She gives wheat, to the evil oats,
the good go to Glory, the others go in chains.
Whoever renders Her service is fortunate,
whoever rendered disservice was born in a harsh hour,
the ones gain grace, and the others rancor;
the good and the evil are revealed by their deeds.
The essentially retributive nature of Marian justice “alcanza acaso su más
clara y económica formulación en la conocida metáfora ‘a los bonos da
trigo, a los malos avena’” (“possibly reaches its clearest and most concise
formulation in the well-known metaphor ‘to the good she gives wheat, to
the evil oats’”).49 This justice of retribution recalls not only the miracle of
the child’s salvation, but also the account of the Jewish father’s horrible
death at the hands of the crowd. With this in mind, “el castigo del padre,
aunque materialmente llevado a cabo por agentes humanos, queda vincu-
lado a María” (“the punishment of the father, although brought about by
human agency, remains linked to Mary”).50 In the context of these verses
in which service to Mary provides protection from the wrath she directs
toward those who do not serve her, the idea expressed in 375d—that the
good and the evil are revealed by their deeds—conveys the impression
that “evil” may be defined simply as disobedience or disservice to Mary.
The implications of this notion not only confirm that the fate of the Jewish
father had more to do with his misguided deed against his son than with

49
 Diz, 129.
50
 Diz, 129.
 convivencia and conversion113

his being Jewish, but also suggest that his subsequent failure to recognize
the Virgin actually sealed his fate. We find in the very next quatrain
(376, quoted previously) what is essentially an invitation for conversions
(i.e., “Those who offend Her or who disserve Her/ won mercy if indeed
they asked Her for it;/ never did She refuse those who loved Her,/ nor did
She throw in their faces the evil they had done”). The invitation to
convert, i.e., to love and serve Mary, as well as the threat of retribution
for disservice to her, are not, as far as I can ascertain, restricted only to
Jews. The clear message seems to be that even the Jewish father, “el dïab-
lado,” could have spared himself the fate of the oven had he, along with
the other Jews, immediately recognized the mercy of Mary in the miracle
of his son’s safe delivery from the flames and forthwith converted to
Christianity.
While Berceo attributes retributive powers to the Virgin Mary, he takes
pains to credit the miracle to God. Mary protects the boy, but God does a
great miracle because he puts a blessing on the child:
el ninnuelo del fuego estorció bien e gent,
fizo un grand miraclo el Rey omnipotent.
Non priso nulla tacha, nulla tribulación,
ca pusiera en elli Dios la su bendición.
(365cd, 367cd)
the little boy escaped from the fire alive and well;
the Almighty King wrought a great miracle!
he received no marks and no afflictions
for God had bestowed His blessing on him.
In the Latin version, we find no mention of any intervention from God;
the Virgin alone saves the child. In Berceo, the child suffers the severe
reproach of his earthly father, but receives the blessing of his heavenly
father through the sheltering arms of Mary, who protects him as would
his own mother:
Yazié en paz el ninno en media la fornaz,
en brazos de su madre non yazrié más en paz,
non preciava el fuego más qe a un rapaz,
ca l fazié la Gloriosa companna e solaz.
(366)
The child lay in peace in the middle of the furnace,
he could not have lain more peacefully in his mother’s arms;
he feared the fire no more than he would a young boy
for the Glorious One was giving him company and comfort.
114 patricia timmons

Berceo’s allusions to the Virgin’s maternal love (366b) are not present in
the Latin version. Thus, although the child’s conversion has rent his fam-
ily asunder, in Berceo’s version of the miracle he acquires “a Dios y a la
Virgen respectivamente, actuando en conjunto como la nueva Familia del
niño” (“God and the Virgin respectively, acting in conjunction as the new
Family of the boy”).51 Surely the idea of this celestial family can provide
solace and comfort to those who, upon converting to Christianity, might
find themselves in conflict between family and Church.
The little Jewish boy, however, acquires much more than divine par-
ents; he also gains the support of his community. Those who understand
and who praise the Virgin Mary are not only the Christians, but the Jews
also. They all act together as one community, or family, united by their
mutual recognition of Mary. Together they celebrate the miracle and pun-
ish the father. Popular justice seals the fate of the Jew who lives by the old
covenant of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” This new commu-
nity of Mary, more than the “celestial parents” per se, replaces the original
Jewish family of the beginning of the story. Rather than the family law of
the father we have the law of the new family of Mary. In Berceo’s “El
judïezno,” the family violence caused by the conversion of the little boy
finds resolution in the concept of Jews and Christians fusing together in
collective recognition of the Virgin and in a cause for justice. Ultimately,
the fate of the father represents that of anyone, not just Jews, who fails to
serve the Virgin, and, by extension, the Church.
By uniting Jews and Christians in the action of executing the father,
Berceo averts a story exclusively about Christian triumph. “El judïezno”
addresses a sequence of conversion, separation, and unity, ending with
coercive exhortations to honor Mary and an invitation to convert. While
anti-Jewish stereotypes are undeniably present in the story, and indeed
Berceo has embellished them in comparison to the Latin version, they are
not exploited for the sake of a confrontation between Good and Evil,
where “evil” is synonymous with “Jewish”; instead, the miracle invites
conversion. It is here, in the invitation to convert to Christianity by ren-
dering service to La Gloriosa, that we find the thrust of the miracle’s dia-
lectic, which begins and ends on the same note: conversion.
Retrospectively considering the fate of the father, the promise of mercy
and forgiveness in quatrains 374–376 offers a dramatic contrast, if not a
blatantly propagandistic incentive to convert. The theme of conversion,
highlighted and represented in the various contexts of the miracle—the

51
 Vicente García, 24.
 convivencia and conversion115

conversion of the child through Holy Communion; the implicit conver-

sion of the Jewish witnesses, or at the least a miraculous moment of
consensus between Jews and Christians; the closing exhortation to honor
Mary—is not merely a theme of simple opposition between Christian
triumph and Jewish defeat. Let us remember that there existed historical
impetus for the conversion theme in the first place. The religious reforms
and conversion campaigns initiated by the establishment of the mendi-
cant orders and proclaimed by the Fourth Lateran Council resulted from
the Church’s alarm at the ever increasing number of heretical sects, as
well as, significantly, at the influence and social stature of the Jews who,
like the Rabbi Nahmanides, for example, had superior instruction in their
religion than the major part of the Christian clergy.52 The Church’s chal-
lenge was to establish its supremacy by asserting the legitimacy of its
orthodoxy, hence the conversion campaigns. As a conversion tool, the
citation of scriptures from the Talmud in the debate between Paulus
Christiani and Nahmanides, as well as in the sermons imposed in the
synagogues, indicates a battle for interpretive hegemony rather than cen-
sorship. The point of the fusion of the Jews and the Christians through
their mutual recognition of the Virgin Mary is not the religious defeat of
the Jews. On the contrary, the recognition by Jews of the Virgin bolsters
Christianity’s doctrinal claims.
The cathartic unity of Christians and Jews appears like a fantasy of
validation that works on two levels, law and theology. This unity joins the
secular and the sacred by means of collective justice and the pena de
talión on the one hand, and on the other, the retributive justice of the Old
Testament on the side of Christianity. The inassimilable tension between
the Old and New Testaments dissolves in a purifying harmony of mutual
verification. Jews and Christians coalesce to become a new family of Mary,
thus fulfilling a fantasy of the obliteration of differences in the unity of
community. Vicente García suggests that in this miracle of Berceo we
see the standardization of religion as a propagandistic motive: Berceo
“nos trasmite una sociedad cristiana en depuración de elementos extraños a
su cultura. Esta depuración se realiza por absorción …”53 (“transmits to us a
Christian society in the process of purging foreign elements from its
culture. This purging is realized by means of absorption”). In “El judïezno”
we are left with an image of a homogenous community under one Church
and one Law.

 McCall, 278.
52

 Vicente García, 26.

53
116 patricia timmons

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 AGAINST THE PAGANS: ALONSO DE CARTAGENA, FRANCISCO DE
VITORIA, AND CONVERSO POLITICAL THEOLOGY

Bruce Rosenstock

Introduction: Political Theology in Spain

This essay focuses on the political theology of two major converso theolo-
gians, Alonso de Cartagena (1385?–1456), Bishop of Burgos, and Francisco
de Vitoria (1492?–1546), perhaps the most significant Neoscholastic
teacher of the era.1 Political theology deals with the relationship between,
in Augustine’s terminology, the civitas dei and the civitas terrena, the
“pagan city,” in the saeculum. Political theology addresses the question:
Can the end of the saeculum be hastened by the force of arms employed
by the civitas terrena? Can war serve to bring the Kingdom of God to
earth?2 Cartagena and Vitoria are the two foremost voices standing in
opposition to the regnant political theology of Spain, a political theology
that, in a telling phrase, Suárez Fernández has called “máximo religioso.”
Cartagena and Vitoria forge their political theology out of their profound
conviction that the demonization of Jewish blood is a symptom of the
resurgence of paganism within the Church.
Suárez Fernández defined the new monarchic ideology of máximo
religioso emerging with the first Trastámaran rulers as “la identificación

1
 See Luciano Serrano, Los conversos D. Pablo de Santa María y D. Alonso de Cartagena,
obispos de Burgos, gobernantes, diplomáticos y escritores (Madrid: Instituto Arias Montano,
Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1942), 119–260 and Francisco Cantera
Burgos, Álvar García de Santa Maria: historia de la judería de Burgos y de sus conversos más
egregios (Madrid: Instituto Arias Montano, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones
Científicas, 1952), 416–64, for biographic information concerning Cartagena. See Anthony
Pagden and Jeremy Lawrance, eds., Political Writings: Francisco de Vitoria (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1991), xiii-xiv, for a brief description of what little biographic
information we have on Vitoria. It is likely but not known with certainty that he is of con-
verso descent.
2
 J. A. Fernández-Santamaria, The State, War, and Peace: Spanish Political Thought in
the Renaissance, 1516–1559 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977). Fernández-
Santamaria offers the best introduction to the theme of political theology in Spain during
the sixteenth century. Dayle Seidenspinner-Núñez, “Conversion and Subversion: Converso
Texts in Fifteenth-Century Spain,” in Christians, Muslims, and Jews in Medieval and Early
Modern Spain, ed. Mark D. Meyerson and Edward D. English (Notre Dame: University of
Notre Dame Press, 1999), 241–61. Seidenspinner-Núñez first broaches the subject of con-
verso political theology.
118 bruce rosenstock

entre rey, reino, territorio y communidad.” This fusion of sovereign and

people was mediated by religion: “Fuera de la comunidad no hay soberano,
pero fuera del cristianismo no hay comunidad. Esto es el ‘máximo’ religi-
oso….”3 Another scholar, Henri Mechoulan, in a discussion of Fadrique
Furió Ceriol’s “radically different” conception of history, describes the
prevailing ideology of sixteenth-century Spain as one that “sees in history
the unfolding of the divine will and assigns to Spain the premier role
in God’s plan.”4 In a rather telling phrase, the Catholic theologian Jacques
Maritain has written that Inquisitorial Spain was the “victim of two
vampire-ideas.” The first “vampire-idea” was “that the unity of the nation
or of the temporal city must be, with regard to the relations of each man
with God as also his fidelity to the political order, an absolute unity, all the
members of the body politic comprising from this point of view but a sin-
gle man, loyal subject of the sovereign; and that consequently this unity in
the temporal domain presupposes and requires unity of religious faith.”
The second idea was “that in the service of the spiritual the temporal
means of force, of physical constraint, of threat, and of intimidation are
normally to be employed and are necessary in themselves.”5 Once bitten
by these “vampire-ideas,” Spain sought to immunize itself against the “for-
eign body” of the Jew, only to fall prey to an ever-escalating attack of what
might be called a society-wide autoimmune disease.
Both Cartagena and Vitoria reject the identification of any human
group (Jew or Indian) as the embodiment of the Antichrist, the politico-
theological Enemy par excellence. In taking this position they inaugurate
a tradition of political theology that refuses the demonization of the Other
in the name of a messianically-charged national politics. This refusal is, in
the case of the converso theologians Cartagena and Vitoria, made in the
name of the ideal unity of all humankind within the “mystical body” of
Christ, an ideal achievement of divine caritas that cannot, by its very
nature, be accomplished by a “holy war” and that therefore can only be
corrupted when temporal power seeks to impose it by force of arms.

3
 Luis Suárez Fernández, Judíos españoles en la edad media (Madrid: Ediciones Rialp,
S.A., 1980), 261.
4
 Henri Mechoulan, Raison et alterité chez Fadrique Furió Ceriol: Philosophie politique
espagnol du XVIe siècle: Introduction, édition, traduction du Concejo y Consejeros del
Principe (Paris: Mouton, 1973), 45. Translations from this and all other works are mine
throughout this essay, unless otherwise noted.
5
 Jacques Maritain, On the Church of Christ: The Person of the Church and Her Personnel,
trans. Joseph W. Evans (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1973).
 against the pagans119

Cartagena and Vitoria Against the (New) Pagans

Both Cartagena and Vitoria remained fully within orthodox Catholicism,

but they articulated positions within it that stood opposed to the ever-
intensifying drive to link the nation’s identity with Christian salvation his-
tory, identifying Spain as the “chosen people” with a divinely appointed
mission, and the Spanish king as a messianic figure leading a battle against
the forces of the Antichrist. Let us begin with an examination of Alonso de
Cartagena’s political theory expressed in his Defensorium unitatis
christianae.
Alonso de Cartagena, bishop of Burgos, was fully engaged in the theo-
logico-political question confronting Castile in the middle of the fifteenth
century. In Defensorium unitatis christianae, Cartagena offers his lengthy
and at times impassioned defense of the conversos who had come under
attack in Toledo in 1449 during the rebellion of the city against Juan II. Not
only had many conversos, the natural allies of the king, been subjected
to extra-legal trials for judaizing, but all conversos fell under the discrimi-
natory edicts of the first limpieza de sangre statutes in Spain, the Sentencia-
Estatuto of Pedro Sarmiento.6 Cartagena, himself a converso and a leader
of the letrado court officials around Juan II, no doubt felt himself
compelled to attack the anti-converso party in Toledo. But his opposition
to the Toledo rebels goes much further than personal and political
allegiances.
Cartagena understood that the Toledo rebellion expressed a rising ide-
ology of blood lineage as determinative of Christian identity. This ideo­
logy was not only a means of attacking the numerous and powerful
conversos in the emerging centralized state under the Trastámaran mon-
archy, but was also a means of recuperating the declining significance of
aristocratic lineage as a legitimating source of prestige and power in the
emerging meritocracy of letrado court officials. The middle and lower

6
 See Albert A. Sicroff, Los estatutos de limpieza de sangre: controversias entre los siglos
XV y XVII, trans. Mauro Armiño (Madrid: Taurus, 1979): 51–6, for a brief discussion of the
Toledo rebellion and Pedro Sarmiento. See also Eloy Benito Ruano, Los orígenes del prob-
lema converso (Barcelona: Ediciones El Albir, 1976); Eloy Benito Ruano, Toledo en el siglo
XV; vida política (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Escuela de
Estudios Medievales, 1961); Benzion Netanyahu, The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth
Century Spain (New York: Random House, 1995); and Dayle Seidenspinner-Núñez,
“Prelude to the Inquisition: Strategies of Orthodoxy in the Toledan Rebellion of 1449,”
Strategies of Communal Identity in the Middle Ages: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, ed.
Wout Van Bekkum and Paul M. Cobb (Paris: Peeters, 2005); 27–74.
120 bruce rosenstock

nobiliar orders found common cause with the populace by offering them
a basis for “blood pride” that mimicked the aristocrat’s pride of ancestry.
To be sure, the popular blood pride had nothing to do with familial
descent from conquering Goths, but by sharing the negative trait of not
having Jewish ancestry both nobles and commoners could join together in
a unity of blood that transcended class difference. Around this unity of
non-Jewish blood, a powerful political alliance in Toledo was created, one
that threatened both the unity of Castile and the unity of Church.
Specifying the magnitude of the crime of the Toledo rebels by means of
the seven “circumstances” that aggravate any offense according to the
Decretum Gratiani—“cause, perpetrator, place, time, quality, quantity,
and event”—Cartagena describes the first two circumstances, cause and
person, of the rebellion in the following terms:
If we consider cause, what else could it have been if not the temerity of
resisting the power of the monarchy, the hatred of one’s neighbors, avarice
towards their goods, and the lust for domination (dominandi libido) com-
bined with an incredible longing to be free from any rightful superior? As
Samuel says, “Obedience is better than offerings and insubordination is a
form of witchcraft” [1 Samuel 15:22–23]. And another prophet rebukes cer-
tain people when he speaks for God saying, “You broke my yoke and said
you would not serve” [Jeremiah 2:20]. Therefore, one breaks the divine yoke
when one tries to rebel against those who hold the scepter from God, as
Peter (Cartagena misidentifies the author) says, “whoever resists the power,
resists the ordinance of God” [Paul, Romans 13:2]. As regards the circum-
stance of perpetrator, we have a heavily armed populace, relying upon out-
side help, raging against the municipal government of leading citizens,
including even noblemen, usurping shamelessly their jurisdiction and
authority to judge. They turned most of these men into exiles from their
own city so that, with the populace against them, they could not enter their
own homes. In considering these perpetrators, we should not mitigate the
crime; rather, their low status only increases the enormity of what they did.7
Cartagena uses both Old Testament and New Testament prooftexts to
demonstrate that the rebellion against the power of the king is also an

7
 Alonso de Cartagena, Defensorium unitatis christianae: tratado en favor de los judíos
conversos, ed. Manuel Alonso, Publicaciones de la Escuela de Estudios Hebraicos, B2
(Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 1943) Particula Tertia, Capitulum
Tertium, 275–76. In future references to the Defensorium, I will identify the passage quoted
by Particula (with a Roman numeral), Theorem (with an arabic numeral; this subdivision,
however, is used only within Particula Secunda), and Capitulum (arabic numeral). After
identifying the quotation by its place in the text of the Defensorium, I will also provide a
page reference to the 1943 Manuel Alonso edition. Translations throughout are mine.
 against the pagans121

affront against the “divine yoke” that this power represents. Cartagena,
like Francisco de Vitoria after him, believes that the ruler’s authority is
derived from God, although this is not because the ruler is specially graced
by God. The authority of the office, not the charismatic distinction of the
person, is what God establishes: “potestas regum ac principum huius seculi
ab ipsa eterna et divina potestate dependent,” (“the power of kings and
princes in this age is dependent upon the eternal and divine power”)
declares Cartagena (Defensorium III.4, 278).
Francisco de Vitoria and the Salamanca school as a whole after him will
stress the foundation of government within both natural and divine law,
arguing vehemently against the Lutheran “heresy” that sees the “godly
prince” as the one chosen by God in a particular commonwealth to rule
over the naturally corrupted subjects who could never attain to a just civil
order without God’s intervening grace. Cartagena, of course, did not have
the Lutheran “heresy” in mind when he attacked the Toledo rebels, but he
certainly branded them as heretics. In fact, the heresy he sees them as
embodying is not terribly different from that which Vitoria will attack.
Cartagena dubs the heresy of the Toledo rebels “paganizing,” a charge
that throws back upon them the reverse of the heresy that these rebels
charge against the conversos, namely, judaizing: “just as those who under-
take to perform the rites of the Jews after they have received the Christian
faith are said to be judaizing, so these men, having been washed in baptis-
mal waters and made into a single people along with the others, attempt
to revivify a division in the people. They are said to be paganizing because
they are trying to split apart Christian unity and divide one group from
another just as in the time when paganism was in the ascendancy” (III.
Prologus, 270). The Toledo rebels reject the power of baptism to trans­
cend all ethnic divisions. They therefore deny the power of Christ to bring
a “new man” to life, one who is fashioned in the image of Adam before the
Fall from Grace. It is not only that the rebels are denying the conversos a
place in the communion of Christians, they are in effect replacing the
unity of the Church in Christ with an ethnic Church unified by the blood
of the pre-baptismal “old man,” a blood that the rebels allege runs pure in
their ethnos alone.8

8
 Cartagena takes a swipe at the pretension of such a community of blood lineage to be
in some way more noble than a community that mixes Jewish and non-Jewish blood. He
says that he will not call this heresy “gentilizando” because that term may suggest a “form
of nobility or an expression of elegance” (“ad quamdam speciem nobilitatis sev munditie
expressionem adducit.” (III. Prologus; 270.)
122 bruce rosenstock

The Toledo rebels, Cartagena thus explains, are “revivifying” not a “new
Adam,” but the pre-Christian man, the pagan man. An ethnic Church is
not a Christian church at all, therefore. It is nothing more than the return
to paganism under cover of Christianity, a sort of “crypto-paganism,” tan-
tamount to idolatry.
Just how seriously Cartagena intends the accusation of “paganizing” is
clear from his lengthy comparison of the action of the rebels to the great
sin of Jeroboam, the first king of Northern Israel who led the ten tribes in
rebellion against the authority of Rehoboam in Jerusalem. The action of
Jeroboam was at first purely political, and was even legitimized by a
prophet of God. However, Jeroboam quickly turned his rebellion into an
act of apostasy. Jeroboam turned his subjects away from worshipping God
in Jerusalem. He set up idols of golden calves and declared, “These are
your gods, O Israel, who led you out of the land of Egypt.” Rebellion in the
political sphere is, Cartagena concludes, followed naturally by rebellion
against God, the sin of pride; and those who begin as rebels against God,
end as disloyal to their ruler: “Whoever violates the faith due to God, is
also moving to violate the fidelity that is fitting towards the terrestrial
prince, and he who does not obey a human prince slowly advances to
insulting the divine majesty, as the prophet says, ‘pride always rises up
before me’” [possibly 2 Kings 19:28]” (Defensorium III.4, 279). The Toledo
rebels are like Jeroboam and the Northern tribes, “dividing the house of
Israel, so that what was once united is divided in two, and in the end they
committed the heresy of idolatry when they worshipped the golden calves
that Jeroboam built.” (Defensorium III.4, 281.)
Comparing the Toledo rebels to the rebellious Northern tribes,
Cartagena quotes at length from Augustine’s discussion of the sin of
Jeroboam. Augustine typologically interprets the irrevocable punish-
ment—exile, dispersion, and ultimate disappearance—of the Northern
Kingdom because of their idolatry as a figure for the dispossession of car-
nal Israel by spiritual Israel, the faithful in Christ. By comparing the
Toledan rebels to the Northern tribes, Cartagena is, first of all, identifying
their schismatic heresy of paganizing with the sin of idolatry, and, second,
he is saying that they are the ones who are truly figured in this Old
Testament history. The Jews are not irrevocably cut off from the covenant
in favor of the gentiles. Quite the contrary, the gentiles who exclude the
Jews from the covenant are guilty of a crime so great that they cannot
expect any mercy from God, or from the king once the rebellion has been
put down. So categorical and harsh does this judgment seem in the light
of the comparison of the rebels with Jeroboam that Cartagena will take
 against the pagans123

pains in the concluding chapters of this part of the Defensorium to excul-

pate the majority of the citizens of Toledo from the capital punishment
that he believes the leaders deserve.
We have seen that Cartagena identifies the schismatic heresy of pagan-
izing with rebellion against both God and King, the lawful representative
of God in the secular sphere. The rebellion has its root in the “dominandi
libido” of the paganizers, a lust for dominion that transgresses both human
and divine justice. This lust for dominion arrogates to itself a power that
seeks to usurp not only secular rule, but divine rule. It is tantamount to
idolatry, placing the creature in the place of the Creator. This lust for
dominion does not reveal itself in direct hostility against the Church, but
it hides under the cover of prosecuting the enemies of the Church. It
claims to be fulfilling the highest mission of the Church Militant, whereas
it really serves the interest of the Church’s enemy, the pagan violence that
Christ came to defeat through love. The task of the Church Militant is to
bring about the unity of humankind in Christ, and the only enemy is the
one who promulgates a doctrine that one people is chosen to dominate
all others. Such a doctrine is that of the paganizers in Toledo who commit
spiritual homicide when they declare that another people, the Jews who
have converted, were never truly “reborn from the baptismal womb.” The
paganizers’ pretension to an ethnic chosenness and dominion scorns the
very principle of the Church—the universality of the offer of salvation—
and it overturns the lawful order of the State.
The recrudescence of paganism within both the Church and the State
threatens to obliterate the distinction between Church and State and to
reduce both to a mere assemblage of humans without any true unity,
whether it be the unity provided by the “mystical body” of the Church or
of the State. Cartagena asserts that every organized and hierarchically
structured institution is a mystical body, that is, a combination of matter
and form (Defensorium III.12, 305). Cartagena uses the Aristotelian doc-
trine of the four causes to explain the difference between a mere “multi-
tudo hominum” and a “civitas.” Only a civitas directs all the actions of its
members towards a final end, namely, “bene vivendum,” (“living well”), or
“practica felicitas” (“practical felicity”). Only within a civitas is there an
orderly arrangement of rulers and ruled in accordance with legal princi-
ples. A civitas, Cartagena insists, is not reducible to the totality of its
inhabitants. The “matter” of the civitas changes constantly, but so long as
the form remains the same, the civitas is said to persist.
The heresy of paganism asserts that membership within the Church is
limited to a certain blood lineage, that which allegedly is pure only within
124 bruce rosenstock

the ethnic majority constituting the State. The Church does not therefore
lift the individual beyond the status he already has by virtue of his natural
birth; the sacrament of baptism only confirms what the mere fact of birth
to native residents of the land entitles one to. Before the coming of Christ,
the only unity to which humans could aspire was that of the civitas. As
Aristotle taught, humans realize their potentiality as humans only within
the city. In Israel, before Christ, the kingdom of David and his heirs
achieved a higher unity than the natural political unity of the city. The
kingdom of David was governed by God-given laws and was directed
towards a higher goal than “practical felicity.” Failing to obey the laws and
remain faithful to God, Israel was punished with the loss of its kingdom.
However, Christ restored this kingdom, but now it is eternal and open to
all humans, not just the Jews. Cartagena claims that the Church is able to
offer humans a goal higher than practical felicity, namely, “beatitudo eter-
nal” (“eternal beatitude”) (Defensorium III.12, 306). The Church Militant
seeks to draw within its orbit all human cities, wherever they may be and
under whatever higher prince or king they may stand. The city that has
become part of this eternal and spiritual kingdom is called a “christiana
republica” (Defensorium III.12, 306). What the paganizers did in Toledo, as
long as they were in ascendancy there, was to destroy both the unity of
the city as a polity seeking practical felicity and the unity of the city as a
Christian republic seeking eternal beatitude.
The paganizers, Cartagena declares, have reduced their city to a “turba,”
a mere mob. They have destroyed its unity and transformed it into its
mere materiality. This is not only due to the fact that the Toledo rebels
usurped the lawful authority of the city’s leadership. The heresy that they
promulgated, paganizing, has neither the goal of directing the city toward
practical felicity nor does it have the goal of eternal beatitude in its sights.
Reducing the city to an assemblage of people with an allegedly pure and
common blood, this recrudescent paganism is driven by the mere domi-
nandi libido. No political virtue can be found in this paganism, as was pos-
sible in pre-Christian paganism. It is only inspired by “the incredible
longing to be free from any rightful superior.” This paganism, with its
“omnes virtutes offendit” (“entire lack of virtue”), is the “turpis” (“ugly”),
“deformis” (“deformed”), and “maculate” (“stained”) inversion of God’s
kingdom (Defensorium III.2, 273).
We should remember that when Cartagena speaks of the Toledo rebels
as “paganizers” he wants to identify them not with pre-Christian Greeks
or Romans, but with those who, after hearing the evangel, turned against
its preachers and refused to accept Christ as the risen King of Kings.
 against the pagans125

Their refusal to accept Christ and the proclamation of the spiritual

Kingdom of God was the result of their mistaken belief that to confess
faith in Christ as King was tantamount to losing their own temporal
power. The pagans that Cartagena has in mind interpreted the proclama-
tion of the Kingdom of God as an act of war. Their error was not very dif-
ferent from that of the Jews, according to Cartagena, whose understanding
of the Kingdom of God was of a literal, terrestrial kingdom. Where the
Jews were compelled to acknowledge the loss of their terrestrial kingdom
in order to enter the spiritual Kingdom of Christ, the pagans who heard
the evangel were under no such compulsion. The Roman Empire did not
have to come to an end with Constantine’s conversion. But neither did
the Roman Empire continue afterwards as the militant Kingdom of God
on earth, although this may have been the claim made on its behalf by
Eusebius (270–340 CE), Bishop of Caesarea, in his Oration in Praise of
Constantine. To maintain Eusebius’s identification of Empire and Church
Militant would be to allow paganism to define the terms of the contest
between the evangel of Christ and terrestrial power, as Augustine knew
perfectly well. Augustine wrote his magisterial City of God Against the
Pagans in order to defend the separation of the divine and terrestrial cit-
ies, against Eusebius’s conflation of the two.9 It is this resurgent triumphal
Eusebianism that Cartagena is warning against in the opening of the third
Particula of Defensorium when he writes that
As the order of my argument demands, most glorious king, … I should now
finish, as if from kneaded dough, what I have promised, namely, the “hearth
cakes” (“subcinericos panes”), prepared for Elijah before he went to Horeb;
(see below) that, whenever a devout catholic consumes them, he becomes a
special and zealous defender of the faith and most ardent persecutor of
those who strive to cause an error to spring up against the faith. Such was
the zeal of Elijah when “strengthened by that food he arrived at the moun-
tain of God, Horeb” (1Kings 19:8). That mountain signifies the most constant
strength and most lofty height of the Catholic faith. And “the mountain of
God is a fat (“pinguis”) mountain” (Ps. 68:15). No one ought to suppose that
this refers to “coagulated mountains” (“montes coagulatos”); the mountain
of faith is a single and indivisible mountain, not coagulated mountains. This
is what the prophet means when he says, “the mountain of God shall be a
peak above all mountains, and elevated above all hills” (Isaiah 2:2), because
the mountain of the catholic faith is elevated over the mountains of the

9
 See Theodor E. Mommsen, “St. Augustine and the Christian Idea of Progress: The
Background of the City of God,” Journal of the History of Ideas 12.3 (1951): 346–74, for the
classic statement on Augustine’s anti-paganism.
126 bruce rosenstock

written law (the Old Testament) and of the greatest gentile power (“poten-
tissime gentilitatis”) equally. The mountain has conjoined everything
beneath itself with an indivisible bond, so that other peaks that do not yield
to being so conjoined, will dry up like the unhappy mountains of Gilboa “far
from dew or rain” (2 Sam. 21).10 In these mountains it seems that the “mighty
ones of Israel” are being attacked. There are men who, like the Philistines,
now assault the catholic and faithful Israelites. They show themselves to
have remained until this moment pagans and, by their paganizing, they
wage war in the mountains of Gilboa against the army of the faithful.
This passage is remarkable in many respects, not the least for its rejection
of any identification of a “gentile” peak with the lofty mountain of the
Catholic faith and of the assembled unity of the faithful who dwell “con-
joined” beneath that single mountain. The paganizers are those who are
attacking the converted Israelites as once before the Philistines had
attacked the ancient Israelites. The war that the paganizers wage against
the Church and the conversos, those who dwell within the unifying con-
junction of the “mountain of God,” is an age-old war, the war of “bellicose
gentility” against the evangel of peace.11 But the attack against the “most
elevated peak” of the Catholic faith is not made, as it once was, by gentiles
that stand outside the Catholic faith, but by gentiles who wish to reduce
the Catholic faith to a lower peak, that of the ethnically homogeneous
nation.
Cartagena’s opposition to the paganizers is based on his understanding
of what constitutes the unity of a Christian republic, namely a hierarchi-
cal structure that situates the polity of the republic beneath the spiritual
head of the Church, Christ. Cartagena is clear that the temporal polity is
a single, unified commonwealth (civitas), and that the Church is a dis­
tinct unity, overarching the multiple commonwealths that together con-
stitute Christendom. Both the civitas and the Church are “mystical bodies,”
unities of form and matter. As I have said, the heresy of paganizing
destroys the distinction between temporal polity and Church by reducing
both to “matter” without “form.” The only unity provided by the sem-
blance of a Christian republic that the paganizers would create is that of

10
 The verse that Cartagena is referring to is from David’s lament over the fallen Saul
and Jonathan, slain by the Philistines.
11
 See Bruce Rosenstock, New Men: Conversos, Christian Theology, and Society in
Fifteenth-Century Castile, Papers of the Medieval Hispanic Research Seminar (London:
Department of Hispanic Studies, Queen Mary, University of London, 2002), 42–56, for a
discussion of Cartagena’s treatment of the theme of bellicose gentility and the gendered
language it is associated with.
 against the pagans127

the homogeneity of the matter making up the turba of the populace. The
only “form” that this turba possesses is that of the dominandi libido,
the drive to dominion. The façade under which this paganizing pseudo-
civitas hides its monstrous reality is that of Church Militant.
The Toledo paganizers are rebels against the unity of Christian repub-
lic that has at its head the King of Castile, Juan II. But, some twenty or so
years after the death of Cartagena in 1456, the heresy of the Toledo rebels
will come to be adopted as the ideology of the State under the Catholic
monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella. It may seem strange to call the royalist
ideology that will be used to legitimate the Christianization of the New
World, a “paganizing” ideology, but its lineage in the Toledo rebellion
more than justifies this description. When Ferdinand and Isabella estab-
lished their ecclesiastical Inquisition, a power specially granted to them
in a bull of Pope Sixtus IV in November of 1478, it was directed toward the
discovery and extirpation of allegedly judaizing conversos. Although con-
versos were not at that time placed under discriminatory bans as in
Toledo, limpieza de sangre statutes would gradually be adopted in the
ensuing years, first in the Order of St. Jerome, then in the Dominican and
Franciscan orders, and finally, by the middle of the sixteenth century,
such statutes would become universal throughout Spain.12 Although
judaizing and, in the sixteenth century, the “heresy of Luther” were objects
of Inquisitorial prosecution, there is no mention of “paganizing” in the
sense that Cartagena proposed in his Defensorium. The fact is that what
Cartagena described as “paganizando” had become official policy of the
inquisitorial state. That is, the “máximo religioso” that Suárez Fernández
speaks about is no different from the paganization of the state.
The ideology of máximo religioso, thus, descends from the paganizing
impulse to close the gap between Church and State, between the City of
God and the terrestrial city: one people, one Church, one ruler. The ten-
sion between the Church’s equalizing and unifying offer of universal sal-
vation and the State’s “lust to dominate” is settled in favor of the latter,
under the pretense of the promoting Church unity. After 1492, the State
will arrogate to itself a messianic mission to bring Christianity to the New
World and, at the same time, to subjugate the inhabitants of the New
World, if not as slaves then as encomienda serfs with no claim to legiti-
mate standing in the terrestrial-divine City of Imperial Spain. The voices

12
 See Juan Ignacio Pulido Serrano, Los conversos en España y Portugal (Madrid: Arco
Libros, 2003), 49–54, for a concise statement of this development.
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that speak out against the paganization of both Church and State, and
Francisco de Vitoria’s various relectiones on the “Indian question” reflect
this anti-paganizing spirit in a particularly forceful way, never, to my
knowledge, accuse their opponents of a heresy as Cartagena had in the
Defensorium, but it is clear that they are the spiritual heirs of Cartagena
nevertheless.
Francisco de Vitoria articulates with great clarity Cartagena’s vision of
the true Christian republic, and he offers a trenchant critique of those
who would efface the difference between the temporal city and the
Church. The challenge that Vitoria faces does not come solely from those
who espouse the doctrine of máximo religioso and who would use this
doctrine to defend the legitimacy of the wars of conquest that Spain was
waging in the New World. Vitoria also confronts the Lutheran political
theology that obliterates the difference between temporal polity and
Church, firstly by its insistence that the only legitimate political ruler is
one who is graced by God and, secondly, by its identification of all
Christians as priests. Before turning to Vitoria’s critique of Catholics
within Spain who defended the máximo religioso of a messianic Spanish
empire, I will first deal briefly with Vitoria’s direct assault against the
Lutherans.
I have already explained how both Cartagena and Vitoria share a con-
cept of the “mystical body” of the city as defined by natural, divine, and
positive law and how the ruler is not legitimated by his charismatic cho-
senness but by his occupying an office that derives its authority from
divine law. This concept of the formal unity of the “mystical body” under
law is what Vitoria uses to challenge the Lutheran doctrine of the legiti-
mate ruler as graced by God. Vitoria addresses the other target in his
attack on Luther, the doctrine that “all Christians are rightfully priests,
and that there exist no ecclesiastical orders in the Church” in his relectio,
De potestate ecclesiastica relectio secunda.13 The defense Vitoria offers of
the traditional Catholic teaching that distinguishes priests from laity rests
precisely on the notion that Cartagena stressed, namely, that of the “mys-
tical body” as a unity of diverse, hierarchically structured parts. Vitoria
writes:

13
 Teofilo Urdanoz, O.P., ed., Obras de Francisco de Vitoria: relecciones teológicas
(Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1960), 353–409; English translation in Anthony
Pagden and Jeremy Lawrance, eds., Political Writings: Francisco de Vitoria (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1991), 111–51. All quotations are from this English translation
(hereafter Political Writings) unless otherwise noted.
 against the pagans129

First, Paul says in Rom. 12: 4–6 that the whole Church is a sort of mystical
body, composed of various organs and limbs: “for as we have many mem-
bers in one body, and all members have not the same office, so we, being
many, are one body in Christ ….” (Political Writings, 127.)
Further along in his defense he quotes from Revelation, “And I John saw
the holy city coming down from God out of heaven” (21:2), and he
continues:
[B]ut how can the Church be a city, if it has no magistrates or governors nor
any hierarchy of citizens, but equality—or rather, a confused mob [“confu-
sio potius et turba”] of men each acting at the beck of his own whim and
pleasure? As Cicero says, any multitude of men gathered together anyhow
in the same place does not make a civil community (civitas). (Political
Writings, 128.)
Vitoria appeals to Cicero’s definition of the civitas, just as Cartagena does
(Defensorium III.11, 303). Vitoria’s opposition to the Lutheran doctrine
that the Church is the undifferentiated congregatio fidelium rests upon
the same foundation as Cartagena’s opposition to the paganizers in
Toledo. Both men believe that the heresy confronting them reduces the
Church to a formless mob. The paganizers’ claim that Christians are uni-
fied through blood—a purely material homogeneity—can be seen as just
one end of a single heretical spectrum. At the other end is the Lutheran
heresy that unifies Christians in virtue of a spiritual homogeneity of grace.
Despite the obvious differences between blood and grace, to rest Christian
identity upon either of these invisible marks of chosenness destroys the
possibility of maintaining the ideal of Christian unity within the visible,
mystical body of Christ that both Cartagena and Vitoria consider to be the
defining essence of the Church. Both Cartagena and Vitoria view the
Church as the institutional framework within which alone the prophetic
promise of universal peace can be achieved. The Church, according to
their political theology, must never tolerate any division within human-
ity, whether material (blood) or spiritual (grace). While there will be
many individuals who die without accepting the offer of salvation held
out by the Church, the Church must consider every individual to be, until
his or her death, capable of being transformed by the sacrament of bap-
tism. Blood and grace replace the catholicity of baptism with a renewal of
the doctrine of exclusivity of the chosen people that, according the
Cartagena and Vitoria, Christ came to overcome.
Besides the “heresy of Luther,” the other target of Vitoria’s critique in
his politico-theological relectiones is the messianic pretension of Spain to
carry forward into the New World the allegedly temporal rule of Christ’s
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vicar, the Pope, over all humankind. The claim that the Pope could grant
Spain rights of conquest in the New World was used to justify the danger-
ous identification of Church and nation in sixteenth-century Spain, the
ideology of máximo religioso. The clarification of the proper relations
between temporal and spiritual powers and between the “mystical bod-
ies” that serve temporal and spiritual goals—the State and the Church—
is the topic addressed in Vitoria’s relectiones On Civil Power (De Potestate
Civili), On the Power of the Church I and II (De Potestate Ecclesiae Relectio
Prior et Secunda), and On the American Indians (De Indis). Space does not
permit a thorough analysis of this entire corpus. I will focus on what fol-
lows on the relectio De Indis (1539) where Vitoria places his theories within
the pressing question of the rights of the “barbarians” of the New World.
The position of the Indian, as Vitoria clearly recognized, was compara-
ble to that of the Jew, and in many ways was superior to that of the Jew. In
discussing the rights of the Indian in relation to the politico-theological
rights of the Respublica Christiana, Vitoria has his eye also on Spain’s solu-
tion of the “Jewish Question,” the conversion of the Jews under threat of
expulsion. Mass conversion under duress had led, in the case of the Jews,
to a nation divided against itself both politically and theologically. In the
case of Indians, Vitoria feared that mass conversion after brutal subjuga-
tion would deliver a fatal blow to whatever semblance of unity Spain con-
tinued to have as a Respublica Christiana. Christianity would become a
mere façade, a pretense, used either to legitimize unjust domination or
to provide a protective cover for a people’s covert survival. Vitoria wrote
very little about the forced conversion of the Jews, but the politico-
theological problems which it raised were of central concern to him.14
The Spanish conquest of the New World, Vitoria asserts again and
again, can only be justified by the divine right of Christian evangelization
so long as the means used to subdue the enemy do not place “obstructions
in the way of the Gospel.” “If such is the result,” he warns, “this method of
evangelization must be abandoned and some other sought” (Vitoria,
Political Writings, 286). Furthermore, the mere evangelizing of the
Christian faith in the New World does not obligate the Indians to accept

14
 For Vitoria’s views on the “Jewish Question” (and on the forced conversion of the
Moslems), see Vitoria’s “Lecture on the Evangelization of Unbelievers,” in Political
Writings, 339–51. Pagden and Lawrance point out that the lectures of which this was a part
were delivered in the two years preceding Vitoria’s lectures on the Indians, and that
“Vitoria was led to consider the topic (of the Indians) as much by the problem of the
moriscos and conversos … as by the American conquests” (339).
 against the pagans131

the faith, and their rejection of the faith is no legitimate ground for com-
pelling them to accept Christianity. If the evangelization is conducted
“with provable and rational arguments and accompanied by manners
both decent and observant of the law of nature, … and if this is done not
once or in a perfunctory way, but diligently and observantly, then the bar-
barians are obliged to accept the faith of Christ under pain of mortal sin”
(Vitoria, Political Writings, 271). The “pain of mortal sin” is quite different
from the pain of death, and Vitoria does not allow the Spaniards to forci-
bly convert recalcitrant Indians, or to dispossess them of their land and
wealth as punishment for their continued infidelity. The punishment will
be from God’s hand, and not from human hands. Vitoria goes on to com-
pare the Indians’ freedom to reject Christianity without human punish-
ment with the case of the Jews who likewise should be free to choose
damnation and live without any humanly imposed consequences:
There is no doubt that … threats and terror should not be used to bring the
Jews to the faith. And St. Gregory the Great expressly says the same in
the canon Qui sincera: “those who sincerely desire to lead those outside the
Christian religion to perfect faith should be careful to use blandishments,
not cruelty” (Decretum D.45.3). Those who act otherwise and decide to tear
them from their accustomed religious observances and rites under this pre-
text are serving their own ends, not God’s. The proposition is also proved by
the use and custom of the Church, since no Christian emperor, with the
benefit of the advice of the most holy and wise popes, has ever declared war
on unbelievers simply because they refused to accept the Christian religion.
Besides, war is no argument for the truth of the Christian faith. Hence the
barbarians cannot be moved by war to believe, but only to pretend that they
believe and accept the Christian faith; and this is monstrous and sacreli-
gious. (Vitoria, Political Writings, 272.)
In this quotation we find Vitoria directly opposing the political theology
of the triumphalist Spanish state. There cannot be a war on unbelievers
conducted for the goal of either bringing them within the Church or pun-
ishing them for their refusal to join it. There is no theological war that
Christian Europe or any Christian nation can legitimately wage, and the
war against the Indians in order to provide free access to Christian mis-
sionaries is not in Vitoria’s mind a holy war against the unbelievers.
Vitoria explicitly denies that “the Lord has by his special judgment
damned all these barbarians to perdition for the abominations, and deliv-
ered them into the hands of the Spaniards as he once delivered the
Canaanites into the hands of the Jews” (Vitoria, Political Writings, 276).
Not only is there no miracle to support such a prophetic declaration,
but even if there were prophetic warrant, it would not mean that the
132 bruce rosenstock

Spaniards were justified in their conquest. Using a biblical prooftext that

Cartagena had also used, Vitoria reminds his listeners that God had com-
manded a prophet to tell Jeroboam to rebel against the Davidic king in
Judea, but this did not justify Jeroboam’s actions.
Vitoria goes on to argue that the gravity of the sin of unbelief does not
make the infidels less beloved of God than the believers: “And if only the
sins of some Christians were less grave, apart from the one sin of unbelief,
than those of these barbarians!” (Vitoria, Political Writings, 277). Vitoria
identifies the claim that Spain possesses a prophetic warrant to be the
instrument of God’s punishment of the infidels of the New World with the
dangerous doctrine of Luther that places “the revelations of the spirit”
above the institutional authority of the Church. Nothing could be clearer
than Vitoria’s rejection of Christian triumphalism that gives the terrestrial
city the task of waging war for the Church Militant against the unbelievers
of the world.

Inward Piety: Cartagena’s Oracional

I would like to end this essay by returning to Cartagena. An examination

of Cartagena’s treatment of prayer and inward spirituality in his work
Oracional,15 will, I believe, reveal a very close connection between
Cartagena’s political theology and his views on the inward nature of
prayer. This collocation of themes in Cartagena will hopefully shed light
on the later developments of inner spirituality in the next century, and
also to show how the attack on the “paganization” of the Church was tied
to efforts at the reform of its entire theology of why the Christian can
stand in an unmediated relation with God. Finally, it may shed light on
one of the possible sources of Vitoria’s liberal attitude toward the spiritual
condition of the “barbarians” in the New World.
Although there are some telling points of resemblance between
Cartagena’s Oracional and, for example, Fray Luis de Granada’s Libro de
oración y meditación, the emphasis on the interiority of prayer and its
unmediated relation to God in Cartagena lacks the Christocentric focus
that Granada has. Cartagena, unlike Granada, is interested in the relation-
ship between the infinite and omnipotent Creator and the human being.

15
 Silvia González-Quevedo Alonso, ed., El oracional de Alonso de Cartagena (Valencia:
Albatros Hispanofila, 1983).
 against the pagans133

So little Christocentric is Cartagena’s work that he can write, in the con-

clusion to a chapter devoted to the absolute difference between the cor-
poral and the spiritual, “de lo temporal a lo eterno non ay medida alguna”
(Cap. XLII, 170) (“between the temporal and the eternal there is no media-
tion”), a statement that, however it may reflect Cartagena’s assimilation
of Platonic and Aristotelian metaphysics, certainly rings strange in a work
devoted to prayer by a Christian theologian.
In the Oracional we do not find an y reference to the major theme of
the Defensorium, namely, the unity of humankind within the mystical
body of Christ and the universal efficacy of the sacrament of baptism.
Judging from the emphasis upon the sacramental power of baptism that
we find in Defensorium, we might imagine that Cartagena would insist
upon the primacy of formal rites within Christian religiosity. But in the
Oracional we find rather the opposite position. Cartagena is interested in
his Oracional in the individual’s relationship with God, in the unmediated
relationship between “lo temporal” and “lo eternal.” This interest takes
him beyond the question of institutional forms of worship, and even
beyond creedal doctrine. Cartagena calls the external forms of worship
adoraçion (adoration) and the interior acts of worship devoçion (devo-
tion) and oraçion (prayer). Neither adoraçion nor oraçion is linked to con-
fessing Christ as one’s savior, but rather each relates the individual to God
as the eternal and infinite creator of all things. In the last chapter of
Oracional we find the clearest expression of Cartagena’s belief that every
human can offer both adoraçion and oraçion to God. Speaking about sac-
rifice as one of the external acts of adoraçion that “non se deven fazer en
poco nin en mucho salvo a solo Dios,” (“must not be performed, whether in
matters large or small, except towards God alone”) Cartagena explains
that everyone understands this and is capable of offering proper sacrifice
to God:
Ca el sacrifiçio es naturalmente sufiçiente en los coraçaones humanos de se
fazer a Dios. E asy yerran en creer alguna cosa ser Dios e non los es commo los
que adoravan al sol e este es grand error de ydolatria. Pero nunca tiene el error
a tanto que sy sabe que non es Dios le faga sacrifiçio. E de Cessar e de Alixandre
se lee que ellos sacrificavan a aquellos que pensavan ser sus dioses. Mas nunca
en tanta sobervia subieron que quisiessen que otros sacrificassen a ellos.
Porque el sacrifiçio es cosa espiritualmente devida a la soberana divinidat, e
non debe partiçipar en ella pura criatura alguna. E todos los omnes esto con-
osçen aunque despues en la manera de conosçer la divinidat aya diversos
errores, commo sy dixiesemos que todos en Castilla conosçen que deven obe-
desçer e servir al Rey. Pero alguno prodria non le conosçer en persona e pensar
que Pero Ferrandes or Martin Peres era Rey e fazerle reverençia rreal. E este tal
134 bruce rosenstock

non yerra en non rreconosçer la soberanalidiat la corona rreal generalmente

tomada, mas yerra en non fazer su diligençia por saberl qual es la persona
que aquella corona real tiene e por esto meresçe grand pena. E asy todos los
omnes conosçen que a Dios se deve las soberana reverençia. Pero algunos
non fazen diligençia por saber quien es esta essençia eterna infynida e
onipotente que es Dios e que son las cosas que çerca desto creer sse deven.
(Cap. LV, 201.)
Sacrifice is naturally fitted within the human heart to be made towards God.
Thus people can fall into error when they believe some object is God, not
unlike those who direct their adoration toward the sun, and this is the great
error of idolatry. But people are never drawn into error to such an extent
that, if they know that the thing is not God, they would still sacrifice to it. It
is said of Caesar and of Alexander that they sacrificed to those being whom
they believed to be their gods. But they never succumbed to such a degree
of arrogance as to desire that other people should offer sacrifice to them.
This arises from the fact that sacrifice is something that is spiritually owed
to the supreme divinity and no mere creature is entitled to share in it. And
all human beings know this, although in their manner of cognizing the
divinity there may be diverse errors, exactly as when we say that everyone
in Castile knows that they ought to obey and serve the King. But someone
might not recognize him in person and might think that Pero Ferrandez or
Martin Peres was the King and offer him royal reverence. Such a person
would not err in not recognizing the royal majesty of the Crown taken in its
generality, but he would err in not exercising proper diligence in order to
learn which person holds that royal Crown, and this error makes him
deserving of punishment. And it is in this way that all people know that the
highest reverence is due to God. But some people do not show enough dili-
gence to learn who is that eternal, infinite, and omnipotent being that is
God about whom these things ought to be believed.
In this passage Cartagena declares quite clearly that “todos los omnes” (“all
human beings”) are naturally capable of understanding that it is only God
to whom sacrifice is due, never a “pura criatura” (“mere creature”). Many
humans err in their identification of God with, perhaps, the sun or some
other finite being to whom they falsely attribute an “essençia eterna infy-
nida e onipotente” (“eternal, infinite, and omnipotent being”). For making
such a mistake, they are liable before God. Capable of the intellectual
“diligençia” (“diligence”) that would enable them to identify God as
beyond all created forms, they fail to exercise such diligence and fall into
error.
This account of the origin of idolatry as an avoidable and corrigible
intellectual error takes Cartagena very close to what might be called an
acknowledgment of “natural religion,” and perhaps in order to make sure
that he is not taken to be denying the necessity of faith as transmitted by
 against the pagans135

the Church, Cartagena continues, explaining that those who make the
error of misidentifying God “nunca la fee resçibieron” (“never receive the
faith”):
E estos tales son infieles sy nunca la fee resçibieron e [si] la ovieron resçibido e
la dexaron son llamados ereticos. (Cap. LV, 201.)
Such people are infidels if they have never received the Faith, and if they
have received it and then abandoned it, they are called heretics.
But having declared that “la fee” (“the faith”) is necessary in order to know
God properly, Cartagena asserts that every individual can gain it through
the unmediated supplication of God. Apparently the natural apprehen-
sion of the existence of an infinite, eternal, and omnipotent being sup-
plies a sufficient basis for humbly petitioning God to “illumine” him and
allow him to receive the faith.
Ca firmmente tened [Cartagena addresses his work to a certain Ferrand
Peres who had written him and asked him about the nature and power of
prayer] tal esperança en la piedat e misercordia de Dios que qualquier gente e
persona que sesasse ser informado de la verdat de la fee e syn porfya o obsin-
taçion con grand humildat, devoçion e instançia supplicasse a Dios que le
alunbrase en ello que Dios diria tal via commo fuessen illuminados. (Cap. LV,
201–2.)
You must hold firm to such hope in the piety and compassion of God that
whatever people or whichever person may seek to be informed of the truth
of the Faith, and without deceit or stubbornness, and in deep humility,
devotion, and consistency, would supplicate God to illumine him within,
you must hold firm to the hope that that God would find a way so that they
would be illumined.
I am not claiming that Cartagena is advancing a thoroughly naturalized
form of religiosity that bypasses the institutional forms of the Church.
What I am pointing to is a certain tension that runs throughout the
Oracional, a tension between the possibility of an unmediated relation-
ship between God and any human who humbly petitions the deity for
illumination and a relation between God and human mediated by the
Church.
The tension between an unmediated and a Church-mediated relation-
ship between the human and God is due to the fact that Cartagena is try-
ing to reconcile an all-embracing, universal conception of God as Creator
of a single humanity in Adam with the particular faith which the “holy
Church teaches and commands us to believe” (Cap. I, 55) and which is the
only means by which a fallen humanity may return to its original unity.
136 bruce rosenstock

We see this tension in the opening of the Oracional. In Cap. II Cartagena

explains that “non solamente pertenesçe a la fee creer seer Dios e las cosas
que a El pertenesçen, mas ha lo de creer porque es revelado por Dios e por los
sus santos [prophetas] e apostoles” (“it not only is part of the Faith to
believe in God and in the properties that belong to Him, but also to believe
that the Faith has been revealed by God and by his prophets and apos-
tles.”) However, in Cap. V Cartagena admits that there is a wide variety
among believers in the strength of their faith, but that “non cuyde alguno
que entre los fieles aunque todos tengan fee que todos la teinen egual” (62)
(“among the faithful although all have faith, not all have it equally”). The
particular tenets of the faith are, of course, better known by “los eclesiasti-
cos que deven curar de saber lo mas que pudieren de lo tocante a la santa
fee” (62–3) (“the ecclesiastics who have the responsibility of knowing as
much as they can about the Sacred Faith”). Cartagena finds the common
basis of fervent faith among “todos asi eclesiasticos como seglares e omnes
e mugeres e personas de qualquier condiçion e estado que sean” (“everyone,
ecclesiastics and lay people alike, everyone, including women and per-
sons of whatever condition or rank they happen to be”) is the “arredrarse
de pecar” (“fear of sin”). Once again, Cartagena is pulled between a narrow
and orthodox definition of faith and a far more inclusive understanding of
it, one that allows for its widest possible expression.
Despite the tension between a capacious and a narrow understanding
of faith, Cartagena is clear that faith is the least of the three theological
“virtues”: faith must lead to hope and finally to love (caridad), “la qual es
postrimero e soberano bien que por la humana criatura alcançar se puede e
la que ayunta a omne con Dios de unidat non partible” (Cap. V, 63) (“which
is the final and highest good that the human creature is able to attain and
that joins each person to God with an inseparable unity”). With the theo-
logical “virtue” of love (caridad), the human creature is lifted beyond all
temporal and carnal particularity and restored to an “unidat non partible”
(“inseparable unity”) with God. By means of love, the individual goes
beyond the externalities of religion and reaches their spiritual source:
Ca [a] la caridat pertenesçe que omne se llegue a Dios por unidad de spiritu
mas que se dé a las obras del cultu divinal. E esto pertenesçe immediademente
a la religion e por medio della a la caridad que es prinçipio commo fuente de la
religion. (Cap. XXI, 109.)
For it is the part of love that everyone can come close to God through a unity
of spirit greater than that which is granted to the operations of the divine
service. Coming close to God is the most pressing concern of religion and,
therefore, of love, which is the principle and, as it were, source, of religion ….
 against the pagans137

There are two interior performances that lead the individual to union
with God through love: devoçion (devotion), the act of the will of one who
offers himself in service to God, and oraçion (prayer), the “escudo interior
con el qual el coraçon humano levanta quanto puede su entendimiento a
pensar e considerar e contenplar en Dios e su voluntad es desear allegarse a
El” (Cap. XXIV, 116) (“the interior speech with which the human heart lifts
up its thoughts to the extent of its ability to contemplate and meditate
and reflect upon God and its intention is to desire to please Him”). Prayer
combines contemplation of God with the desire to attain unity with God,
as far as is possible for a human. It does not have a fixed form, although
Cartagena does devote two chapters to the Pater noster as an exemplary
expression of prayer, and neither does prayer have a fixed time or place
for its performance (Cap. XXV, 118–9).
There are certainly passages in Cartagena’s Oracional that have the
mystical overtones of some of the texts that in the next century will stress
the interiority of religious faith and its goal in the loving union with God.
But Cartagena is careful to insist that the highest of the theological
virtues, prayer, should never be separated entirely from the traditional
moral and intellectual virtues. I believe that Cartagena’s discussion of
prayer is not so much intended to counter an emphasis on outward,
formal rituals as to offer as broadly inclusive and capacious a picture of
the human’s relation with God as he possibly can, without altogether
departing from Catholic orthodoxy. I would place Cartagena’s concern
to explicate the potentiality of all humanity to reach God within the
same context as informs his Defensorium. In the face of a rising “pagan­
ization” of the Church and the nation and a concomitant demonization of
the Jew as the incorrigible politico-theological Enemy, Cartagena offers a
theology of unity and caridad. His voice testifies to the dangers
confronting Jews and all others who are judged to stand in the way of a
nation that seeks to harness human means to the attainment of divine
ends. His protest against the confusion of human and divine orders, like
that of Vitoria in the following century, is an expression of one who recog-
nizes the dangers of a messianic faith in one people as the bearer of
redemption.

Conclusion

I have tried to show that Alonso de Cartagena and Francisco de Vitoria

stand opposed to the political theology of what Suárez Fernández has
138 bruce rosenstock

called máximo religioso, the ideology that begins with the Toledan rebels’
attempt to purify their city of “impure blood” and that leads to the attempt
to make Spain the instrument for bringing the end of the saeculum. This
ideology is underwritten by a political theology that would fuse people,
Church, and ruler into a single homogeneous body with a messianic des-
tiny to rid the world of the forces of the Antichrist. In attacking this efface-
ment of the difference between temporal and spiritual spheres, Cartagena
and Vitoria both rely, as I have argued, upon the notion of the civitas and
the ecclesia as distinct “mystical bodies.” The terrestrial city has as its final
aim the temporal welfare of its citizens; the Church is directed to the sal-
vation and beatitude of all humanity. According to Cartagena, the Toledo
rebels, those who attacked the conversos with what he thought were base-
less trials for judaizing and then established discriminatory purity of
blood statutes, were themselves guilty of the heresy of “paganizing.” They
seek to deny the universal efficacy of the sacrament of baptism and reduce
salvation to a purely material factor, blood purity. Their heresy would
obliterate the difference between civitas and ecclesia, reducing both to a
formless mob (turba) driven by no other motive than dominandi libido,
despite their claim to seek only the furtherance of the goals of the Church
Militant in its battle against the allegedly incorrigible animosity of the
Jew.
I have argued that in the following century, Francisco de Vitoria inher-
its Cartagena’s mantle as the foremost theologian opposing the paganiza-
tion of the Church. Vitoria engages two opponents: first, those who
espouse the “heresy of Luther,” the reappearance of the ideas of Wycliffe
and Huss that political rulers are legitimate only if they are graced by God;
and, second, those who confuse and conflate the temporal and spiritual
orders under the banner of a Christian mission to defeat by force of arms
the forces of the Devil in the New World. Like Cartagena, Vitoria argues
against identifying any single group of humans as the chosen vehicle of
furthering salvation history, and he is equally opposed to identifying any
single group of humans as outside the bounds of salvation history.
Cartagena and Vitoria stand at the cusp of a modernity whose most
pressing problem is how to resolve the opposing claims of Church and
State, divine redemption and human rights. These converso theologians
are two of the most powerful voices within the Christian tradition raised
against the triumphalist attempt to harness worldly power in the service
of “hastening the Kingdom of God.” Their voices are as important today as
they were in their own day.
 against the pagans139

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——. El oracional de Alonso de Cartagena. Edited by Silvia González-Quevedo Alonso.
Valencia: Albatros Hispanofila, 1983.
Fernández-Santamaria, J. A. The State, War, and Peace: Spanish Political Thought in the
Renaissance, 1516–1559. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977.
Maritain, Jacques. On the Church of Christ: The Person of the Church and Her Personnel.
Translated by Joseph W. Evans. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1973.
Mechoulan, Henri. Raison et alterité chez Fadrique Furió Ceriol: Philosophie politique espag-
nol du XVIe siècle: Introduction, édition, traduction du Concejo y Consejeros del Principe.
Paris: Mouton, 1973.
Mommsen, Theodor E. “St. Augustine and the Christian Idea of Progress: The Background
of the City of God.” Journal of the History of Ideas 12.3 (1951): 346–74.
Netanyahu, Benzion. The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth Century Spain. New York:
Random House, 1995.
Pulido Serrano, Juan Ignacio. Los conversos en España y Portugal. Madrid: Arco Libros,
2003.
Rosenstock, Bruce. New Men: Conversos, Christian Theology, and Society in Fifteenth-
Century Castile, Papers of the Medieval Hispanic Research Seminar. London:
Department of Hispanic Studies, Queen Mary, University of London, 2002.
Seidenspinner-Núñez, Dayle. “Conversion and Subversion: Converso Texts in Fifteenth-
Century Spain.” In Christians, Muslims, and Jews in Medieval and Early Modern Spain.
Meyerson, edited by Mark D. Meyerson and Edward D. English, 241–61. Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1999.
——. “Prelude to the Inquisition: Strategies of Orthodoxy in the Toledan Rebellion of
1449.” In Strategies of Medieval Communal Identity in the Middle Ages: Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam, edited by Wout Van Bekkum and Paul M. Cobb, 27–74. (Paris:
Peeters, 2005.
Serrano, Luciano. Los conversos D. Pablo de Santa María y D. Alonso de Cartagena, obispos
de Burgos, gobernantes, diplomáticos y escritores. Madrid: Instituto Arias Montano,
Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1942.
Sicroff, Albert A. Los estatutos de limpieza de sangre: controversias entre los siglos XV y XVII.
Translated by Mauro Armiño. Madrid: Taurus, 1979.
Suárez Fernández, Luis. Judíos españoles en la edad media. Madrid: Ediciones Rialp, S.A.,
1980.
Vitoria, Francisco de. Obras de Francisco de Vitoria: relecciones teologicas. Edited by Teofilo
Urdanoz, O.P. Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1960.
——. Political Writings: Francisco de Vitoria. Edited by Anthony Pagden and Jeremy
Lawrance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
 PRAGMATISM, PATIENCE AND THE PASSION: THE CONVERSO
ELEMENT IN THE SUMMA DE PACIENCIA (1493) AND THE THESORO
DE LA PASSION (1494)

Laura Delbrugge

Much of the recent research on the conversos of the Iberian Peninsula in

the fifteenth century has centered on the appropriateness of classifying
converso authors as a homogenous entity with common concerns, writing
with one purpose, and having confronted analogous cultural experiences.
Such a uniform interpretation of the converso experience has led some
critics to posit the existence of converso texts, that is, works that “depict
an awareness of the progressive marginalization of the conversos.”1 This
theoretical common vision has been labeled the “converso voice.” To date,
most investigations into the existence of the “converso voice” have been
conducted on works of fiction, and have generally not considered either
works of non-fiction or Christian devotionals.2 It is the purpose of this
essay to investigate two major works by the Zaragozan converso Andrés
de Li, the Summa de paciencia (1493) and the Thesoro de la passion (1494),
for any evidence of a “converso voice.” It will be shown that Li does dem-
onstrate an awareness of his converso identity in his works, and also that
he purposefully distanced himself from his Jewish heritage, most notably
in his use of anti-Semitic rhetoric in the Thesoro de la passion. This inves-
tigation supports more recent critical approaches that see the converso
experience as heterogeneous rather than homogenous, and “converso
voices” as unique to each converso-authored text rather than as uniform
expressions of a collective cultural experience. Finally this essay will
explore other motivations behind Li’s works that were not driven by
social or religious concerns but rather by considerations of marketability
and the desire for commercial success.

1
 Gregory B. Kaplan, The Evolution of Converso Literature: The Writings of the Converted
Jews of Medieval Spain (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002), 4.
2
 The reader is referred to the essay by Rosenstock in the current collection as an excep-
tion to this general statement.
142 laura delbrugge

Conversos: One Voice or Many?

The critical supposition of a homogenous converso cultural experience

was inspired to a large degree by Américo Castro’s 1948 España en su his-
toria (reprinted later as La realidad histórica de España). In this work,
Castro portrayed converso writers and conversos in general as more or less
analogous in their reactions and responses to cultural pressures. Castro’s
work was extremely well-known, and helped to create a polarization of
the scholarly community. In fact,
Castro’s attempt to present the converso and the converso writer in particu-
lar as a member of a rejected, ostracized caste, forced into a marginal soci-
etal role, who thus reacted in characteristic ways to his situation through
the cultivation of intellect and irony, has produced a group of staunch
defenders and an equally militant group of critics.3
Scholars like Norman Roth, Benzion Netanyahu, and Ellis Rivkin also
have seen the converso experience as homogenous, and in fact believed
most conversos to be crypto-Jews.4 Inherent in this critical stance was the
assumption that converso writers always included two levels of textual
reading in their works: a superficial meaning meant for Christian readers,
and a coded, surreptitious message intended for Jews. Writing in this dual
mode was thought to protect the writer from persecution by the
Inquisition, and was also seen as indicative of a homogenous collective
converso cultural identity.
Recent developments in converso studies, however, have moved away
from the assumption of a constant converso cultural experience. Some
scholars, among them Dayle Seidenspinner-Núñez and David Gitlitz,
have argued for a more expansive reading of converso-authored works,
and of the converso experience in general, in order to redefine the “con-
verso voice.”5 One of the most significant expressions of this critical
reframing appeared in the fall 1996 issue of La corónica (25.1), as well as in

3
 Ralph DiFranco, “Hispanic Biographical Criticism: The Converso Question,” The
Michigan Academician 12 (1979): 87.
4
 Dayle Seidenspinner-Núñez, “Inflecting the Converso Voice: A Commentary on
Recent Theories,” La corónica 25.1 (1996): 7.
5
 See Linda Martz’s article, “Relations between Conversos and Old Christians in Early
Modern Toledo: Some Different Perspectives,” in Christians, Muslims, and Jews in Medieval
and Early Modern Spain: Interaction and Cultural Change, ed. Mark D. Meyerson and
Edward D. English (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2000), 220–40.
 pragmatism, patience and the passion143

a series of response letters in the following volume (25.2).6 In the intro-

duction to the 1996 cluster, Hutcheson summarized the crux of the issue.
The questions that ultimately fall in line with the debate between essential-
ists and constructionists [are] to what extent was converso identity innate,
and to what extent was it formed by reaction to an increasing hostile status
quo? Is there an identifiable “voice” (or series of “voices”) that marks the
work of converso authors? If so, is that voice an expression of authentic
experience or is it a matter of cultural production … or performance … ?
The essays that followed Hutcheson’s introduction explored what it
meant to be a converso writer, and suggested that just as each converso
author had a unique life experience, each writer’s “converso voice” there-
fore actually fell somewhere on a spectrum of converso identity. Instead of
pointing to a uniform converso experience, the existence of these unique
authorial “voices” meant that converso cultural identity was a much more
complex issue than earlier critical theory had suggested. In her essay
“Inflecting the Converso Voice: A Commentary on Recent Theories,” Dayle
Seidenspinner-Núñez contended that “the real challenge for converso
studies is to explore the full complexity and range of the converso pres-
ence in late medieval and early modern Spain, not to reduce or essential-
ize it for ideological purposes;”7 she also cautioned that “as long as we type
conversos as crypto-Jews, their history will predictably be subsumed
under Jewish history and the specificity of their experience as a minority
will remain unplumbed, its breadth and diversity unrecognized.”8
Seidenspinner-Núñez also refuted the belief that a large number of coded
crypto-Jewish texts circulated throughout the peninsula in the fifteenth
century, citing the steady decline in both the size and productivity of the
Iberian Jewish population after the 1391 riots and subsequent mass
conversions.
In addition to Seidenspinner-Núñez, other scholars have attempted to
classify the possible spectrum of individual converso cultural experiences
and the consequent diverse conceptualizations of self found within the
converso population. Also in the La corónica 1996 volume, David Gitlitz

6
 Gregory S. Hutcheson, “Inflecting the Converso Voice” La corónica 25:1 (1996): 3–5 and
‘Cracks in the Labyrinth: Juan de Mena, Converso Experience, and the Rise of the Spanish
Nation.’ La corónica 25.1 (1996): 37–52.
7
 Seidenspinner-Núñez, 7.
8
 Seidenspinner-Núñez, 9.
144 laura delbrugge

posited that “there are several fundamentally different ways of conceiving

of converso identity.”9 He proposed three categories for the classification
of conversos, the first of which involves how conversos saw their own faith.
These self-identifications could range from feeling completely Jewish to
believing oneself to be essentially Christian. There was a wide variety of
potential converso experiences in terms of intensity of outward religious
expressions, including those conversos who became zealots, persecuting
Jews, and investigating other conversos. Gitlitz’s second category was a
consideration of the historical and geographical context of individual
conversos, as social restrictions and experiences varied widely between
regions and from year to year. The third classification categorized conver-
sos according to the definitions used to describe religious identity, espe-
cially in terms of who was doing the describing, be they Christian, Jewish,
or converso.
Seidenspinner-Núñez and Gitlitz are only two examples of scholars
who have argued for a more expansive view of the collective converso
experience, and for a redefinition of the “converso voice.” That is, just as
no two converso authors had identical life experiences, no two “converso
voices” conveyed the same message; for this reason converso-authored
texts can be expected to reveal varying degrees of converso self-awareness
on the part of each author. One converso writer who did demonstrate an
awareness of his converso identity in his literary works is the subject of the
present essay, Andrés de Li. Two of Li’s texts, the Summa de paciencia and
the Thesoro de la passion, not only reveal that Li was cognizant of being a
converso, but also demonstrate his overwhelming desire to distance him-
self from this identity, for Li saw himself as a true Christian in spite of
prevalent late medieval Iberian social assumptions to the contrary.

Andrés de Li: Converso Author

Andrés de Li, “hijo, y ciudadano de Zaragoza,” (“son and citizen of

Zaragoza”) pursued his literary career during the last decade of the fif-
teenth century.10 While his exact birth date is unknown, Li is believed to

 9
 David Gitlitz, “Forum Letter,” La corónica 25.2 (1997): 164. Gitlitz’s article in La
corónica summarized the argument developed in his book Secrecy and Deceit: The Religion
of the Crypto-Jews (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996).
10
 Félix Latassa y Ortín, Biblioteca antigua de escritores aragoneses desde la venida de
Christo hasta el año 1500 (Zaragoza: Medardo Heras, 1796), 384.
 pragmatism, patience and the passion145

have died around 1521.11 Li is mentioned in numerous documents and pub-

lic records, and was a prominent figure in Zaragozan commercial ven-
tures in the late fifteenth century. Li enjoyed a particularly productive
business relationship with the famed German printer Pablo Hurus; the
first documented interaction between Hurus and Li appeared in contracts
for a 1478 printing of seventy-nine Bibles in Castilian, for which Li arranged
financial backing. In fact, Li used his connections within the Zaragozan
business community to secure financial support for the Hurus atelier
throughout the last two decades of the fifteenth century. In addition to
this fiduciary role, Andrés de Li also became an author with the Hurus
imprenta. In 1490, Andrés de Li was investigated by the Inquisition for
reasons unknown, although Li’s role in the 1478 Bible project may have
been a factor. Whatever the cause, in two of Li’s works, the Summa de
paciencia and the Thesoro de la passion, there is evidence that Li’s vulner-
able social status as a converso was never far from his mind.
The Li/Hurus collaboration was very prolific, producing three major
works in as many years: the Reportorio de los tiempos in 1492, the Summa
de paciencia in 1493, and the Thesoro de la passion in 1494. The duo’s first
production, the Reportorio de los tiempos, was a best-selling almanac,
appearing in over ninety editions in various languages.12 It was Li’s best-
known work, and incorporated verbatim a series of lunar charts by the
Catalan Bernat de Granollachs, the Lunari, which was first published in
Catalan in 1485.13 This text does not show evidence of any concern on Li’s
part about his converso status, and as such does not factor into the present
analysis. His motivations for the creation of this volume appear to have
been completely commercial.14 There is, however, more evidence that Li
was mindful of his converso identity in his second work, the Summa de
paciencia. The Summa de paciencia was first printed by Hurus in Zaragoza

11
 Chiyo Ishikawa, The Retablo de Isabel la Católica by Juan de Flandes and Michel Sittow
(Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers, 2004), 31.
12
 Reportorio de los tiempos. Zaragoza: Pablo Hurus, 13-VIII-1492. 60 ff. Paper. URL:
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Philobiblon/BETA/2991.html; Haebler #200 (3); ICE #861;
Delbrugge [A]. Present location unknown.
13
 For all editions of the Lunari, as well as a biography of Bernat de Granollachs, the
reader is referred to the facsimile edition of the 1485 Catalan Lunari by Josep Chàbas and
Antoni Roca, El Lunari de Bernat de Granollachs (Barcelona: Fundació Salvador Vives i
Casajuana, 1985). The 1485 princeps is designated #1 in their edition.
14
 All other issues surrounding the genesis, marketability, and textual history of the
Reportorio de los tiempos have been discussed extensively in Delbrugge’s 1999 Tamesis edi-
tion, to which the reader is referred.
146 laura delbrugge

on May 20, 1493.15 Another version was produced in 1505, most likely by
Jorge Coci.16 The Summa was dedicated to Princess Isabel of Portugal, eld-
est daughter of the Catholic monarchs. It was a devotional on the Christian
virtue of patience, and as such was the perfect text for the Princess, who
had recently lost her husband in an accident after only six months of mar-
riage.17 The Summa de paciencia was part of the larger genre of religious
self-improvement texts, and is one of the earliest Castilian patience
works.18
Andrés de Li was not only concerned, however, with Christian virtues
but also with the dangers and dilemmas he faced as a Spanish converso.
The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in Spain were characterized by an
intensifying anti-converso bias. While many conversos held positions of
influence in the court of Juan II (1406–1454), this relationship deteriorated
with the ascension of his son, Enrique IV (1454–1474). During the fifteenth
century, conversos were sometimes the subject of violent attacks through-
out the peninsula, and their activities were regulated by the limpieza de
sangre statutes. Whereas the ascension to the throne of Isabel and
Ferdinand was initially seen by some conversos as a cause for rejoicing,
the establishment of the Inquisition in 1478 dashed hopes for royal pro-
tection. In fact, Kaplan cites that
The advent of the Holy Office affirmed that popular anti-converso senti­
ment  had gained royal support and that all conversos would continue to
live in fear of both physical and legal persecution. Although the institu­
tion was brought into existence in order to seek out and punish true here-
tics, the prevalence of anti-converso sentiment and the existence of
purity-of-blood statutes helped to create an atmosphere in which all conver-
sos were at risk.19
In addition, Kaplan asserts that “… anti-converso persecution by the
Inquisition was most severe during the 1480s and 1490s. It was when the

15
 URL: http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Philobiblon/BETA/2247.html, Sánchez #38. There
is an incomplete version of the princeps in the Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid, #I. 1467
(accessed December 11, 2010).
16
 Found in F. J. Norton, A Descriptive Catalogue of Printing in Spain and Portugal, 1501–
1520 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978); 13. Ximénez de Embún cites Jorge
Coci (“Cocci”) as taking over the Hurus imprenta in 1500, and continuing as its director
until 1547.
17
 Laura Delbrugge, ed. A Critical Edition of Andrés de Li’s Summa de Paciencia, 1505
(Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2003).
18
 Another early patience work in Castilian was the Arboleda de los enfermos by Teresa
de Cartagena, also, like Li, a converso.
19
 Kaplan, 28.
 pragmatism, patience and the passion147

Inquisition was in its infancy, until the outset of reform, that the alienated
converso condition was most severely experienced.”20
As Andrés de Li was investigated by the Inquisition in 1490, he was well
aware of the marginalizing effects of Spain’s social divisions. A careful
reading of Li’s Summa reveals that he seemed to have understood his ten-
uous social position. In the conclusion to the Summa, Li addressed the
Princess Isabel and acknowledged that his work would be received with
criticism.
Cierto soy peligrara aqueste mi pequeño trabajo en tan desenfrenados tiem-
pos, y a malaves podra desuiar los maliciosos bocados de los pocoñosos & inui-
dos, los quales como Seneca escriue ladran y muerden mas por costumbre que
por verdad ni razon.21
I am certain that my small work will be dangerous in these wild times, and
that little can be done to avoid the wicked bites of the small-minded and
envious, who, as Seneca writes, are like dogs that bark more out of habit
than for truth or reason.
The “tan desenfrenados tiempos” (“wild times”) are likely references to the
complex social structure of late fifteenth-century Spain, in which the
niche occupied by conversos was constantly changing. Li appears to have
been cognizant that some readers would see his choice of topics self-
serving, i.e. that he may have chosen to write a Christian devotional solely
to distance himself from the taint of the Inquisitorial investigation in par-
ticular, and from his status as a converso in general. Li’s trepidation may
have been the motivation behind his dedication of the Summa to Princess
Isabel, as Li exhorted her to lend her support to the work in order to
silence some of the “malas lenguas” (“negative voices”) that constantly
spoke against him. By penning the Summa, Li established himself as an
adept writer of serious religious texts, possibly a deliberate choice to sepa-
rate himself from the social stigma of being a converso.
In 1494 Li and Hurus produced their third collaboration, the Thesoro de
la passion, this time dedicating their work to the Catholic monarchs
themselves. As with the Reportorio de los tiempos and the Summa de
paciencia, Hurus was responsible for the Thesoro’s original concept. Li
summarized the dynamic process behind the creation of the work.
Occurrio me aquello que muchas vezes hauia oydo a Pablo Hurus, aleman de
Constancia, emprentador famosissimo en aquesta vuestra fidelissima y muy

 Kaplan, 31.
20

 Delbrugge, 144.
21
148 laura delbrugge

noble ciudad, el qual dezia estaua marauillado como a sus manos houiessen
llegado libros et obras sin cuento para imprimir, y jamas en romançe hauia
visto, que nadi se houiesse acordado de pregonar el sagrado misterio dela pas-
sion del redemptor glorioso, la qual era fundamento del edificio de nuestra fe
sancta catholica, exortando me por los merescimentos de aquella, me dispus-
iesse yo a trabajo tan piadoso y tan meritorio. E quantoquiere, muy altos
principes y muy poderosos que yo tuuiesse, como reza el mesmo Jeronimo, por
cosa muy ardua satifazer a sus ruegos.22
It so happened that many times I had heard Pablo Hurus, a German from
Constance, and a very famous printer in your supremely loyal and noble
city, marvel that while he had held countless works destined for printing in
his hands, he had not seen a work, in particular not in the vernacular, that
related the sacred mystery of our glorious Redeemer’s Passion, which is the
foundation of our sacred Catholic faith. And because of the merits of such a
project, I set to work on such a meritorious and pious work. And for this
reason, oh exalted and powerful princes, that I had, as Jerome prayed, the
difficult task of satisfying these demands.
The tone of the Thesoro, as in the Summa de paciencia, is rather personal;
throughout the work Li addressed his royal audience directly.
¿A quien pues mas dignamente se puede et deue endreçar el thesoro et recu-
erdo de aqueste tan diuino y sclarescido misterio, muy altos et poderosos
principes, señores et reyes, saluo a vuestras altezas? Donde todos los smaltes et
joyas de nuestra fe hallamos engastonadas, y a quien tan conoscidamente
encomendo Dios mesmo la vengança de sus enemigos, et con piensa acordada
les ha hecho por obra et por sperança señores del mundo.23
To what persons more dignified, therefore, could or should one address the
treasury and memory of that most divine and sacred mystery, most high and
powerful princes, lords and kings, except to your majesties? In whom we
find all the ornaments and jewels of our faith ensconced, and to whom so
knowingly did God himself entrust the vengeance on his enemies, and with
such careful thought he has made you by deed and in hope the lords of the
earth.
Both the Summa de paciencia and the Thesoro de la passion were reprinted;
in fact, a highly-illustrated edition of the Thesoro was produced by the
prolific Cromberger taller in 1517. Registries of Queen Isabel’s personal
library show that she owned a copy of both the Thesoro and the Summa.24

22
 Li, Andrés de, Thesoro de la passion, fol. 2r. All references from the Thesoro de la pas-
sion are taken from the Zaragoza: Hurus 1494 princeps edition.
23
 Li, fol. 2v.
24
 Elisa Ruiz García, Los libros de Isabel la Católica: Arqueología de un patrimonio escrito
(Salamanca: Instituto de historia del libro y de la lectura, 2004), 463–64. Ruiz’s inventory
 pragmatism, patience and the passion149

There is further evidence of Li’s social awareness in the prologue to the

Thesoro de la passion: “Et conosciesse por mayor el trabajo delo que mis
fuerzas podia sufrir, acorde de aceptar sus ruegos teniendo por mejor
esperar los baybenes y peligros delos parleros”25 (“And knowing that the
work was greater than my strength, I decided to accept his request, real-
izing that I could likely expect the jabs and dangers of those who would
speak against it”). In the work’s conclusion, Li noted that the writing of
the Thesoro afforded him a special opportunity.
Recelando muy altos et muy poderosos principes, Señores y reyes, conla codi-
cia de hauer enseñado, por tan llano estillo et deuoto, los altos misterios de la
passion sacratissima de nuestro redemptor et maestro, hauer ministrado
alguna ocasion de reprehender a los necios o maliciosos, los quales inconsider-
adamente quiça me querran morder, por hauer me enla obra presente en algo
seruido delos ajenos studios, ignorando ser el fruto del continuuo leer, seguir lo
muy aprouado.26
I suspect, exalted and most powerful princes, lords and monarchs, that by
daring to have shown the greatest mysteries of the sacred Passion of our
Redeemer and teacher in such a simple and devout style, I have provided an
opportunity to reprimand those foolish and malicious [people] who, incon-
siderately, likely want to tear me down for having somewhat formed this
present work from outside treatises, ignoring that it is [rather] the fruit of
continuous reading, which makes it most acceptable.
In this case, Li was responding to potential criticism that he had borrowed
too frequently from Classical and Biblical authorities when writing the
Thesoro. While this concern is not overtly indicative of a self-awareness of
his converso status, Li’s statement does reveal a fear that others may not
see him as an expert on Christian doctrine in his own right, but rather that
he needed to borrow information from earlier authors.
Throughout both the Summa and the Thesoro, Li aligned himself with
those conversos who wanted nothing to do with Judaism, and who instead
saw themselves as true Christians. José Faur’s description of a fervent con-
verso seems to aptly describe Li: “one who wanted to assimilate into the
Christian body and lose all contacts with Judaism … [in order] to avoid

lists the Thesoro de la passion as D1 38, and the two editions of the Summa de pacienca as
D1 94 and D2 92. Information also found in F. J. Sánchez Cantón, Libros, tapices y cuadros
que coleccionó Isabel la Católica (Madrid: Instituto Diego Velázquez, 1950), 62. Sánchez
Cantón lists the Summa as no. 171.
25
 Li, fol. 2v.
26
 Li, fol. 116r.
150 laura delbrugge

the massacres and persecutions of Christianity.”27 In the aforementioned

Gitlitz schemata, Li would fall within the category of those converts who
thought of themselves principally as Christians.28 Also, it must be remem-
bered that Li’s Thesoro was one of the earliest Passion texts in Castilian.
Li’s choice of topic, in addition to being extremely marketable, was also so
deeply Christian in nature that it could not help but solidify Li’s status as
a true convert. Having only recently been investigated by the Inquisition,
Li would have been eager to distance himself from the stigma of being a
converso, and the successful production of a Passion text could help him
do just that.

Passion Texts in the Middle Ages

Passion texts were extremely popular in the Middle Ages, with many
becoming bestsellers.29 A common element in Passion works was the
depiction of the Jews as responsible for the death of Christ, with graphic
images of his suffering and humiliation at Jewish hands an integral com-
ponent of the story. As anti-Semitism was such an expected part of the
Passion narrative, how did Li, a converso, depict the Jews in his own
Thesoro de la passion? Did he continue the increasingly anti-Semitic
movement found in preceding texts or would his treatment of the Jews be
softened in some way? What would his “converso voice” say about the
Jews? If the converso Li included anti-Semitic elements in his Passion
story, it could be surmised that he did not consider himself to be different
from the Passion authors that had come before him, assimilating the ten-
ets of Christianity as expressed in the Passion narratives so completely
that he would not question the culpability of the Jews.
Thomas H. Bestul, in his Texts of the Passion: Latin Devotional Literature
and Medieval Society, notes that the anti-Semitism found in many Passion
narratives has often been ignored by modern scholars. He stresses the
need for a careful examination of the roles of Jews in Passion narratives.

27
 José Faur, In the Shadow of History: Jews and Conversos at the Dawn of Modernity
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), 45.
28
 Gitlitz, “Forum Letter,” 164.
29
 Constance Wilkins, “En memoria de tu encarnaçión e pasión: The Representations of
Mary and Christ in the Prayerbook by Sor Constanza de Castilla,” La corónica 31.2 (2003):
217.
 pragmatism, patience and the passion151

The treatment of the Jews in the Passion narratives is much more than inci-
dentally interesting; rather it is crucially important in comprehending the
purposes these texts served in medieval culture and society … the formation
of attitudes that led to growing hostility toward Jews in the later Middle
Ages was not merely reflected in, but actively supported by, the way Jews
were treated in the narratives on the Passion of Christ.30
The role played by the Jews in the Passion changed dramatically in the
twelfth century. In the Gospels, the Jews are depicted as having merely
participated in the Passion events, but by the Middle Ages, a much more
negative image of culpability had developed.31 The first Passion text in
which the role of the Jews was singled out was Ekbert of Schönau’s
Stimulus amins. The Stimulus amins emphasized the role of the Jews in
Christ’s death, as well as Ekbert’s disgust at the “horror of contamination
by physical contact with a despised class, an increasing anxiety that was
soon to be expressed in rigorous series of prohibitions and regulations
about close social contact, even bodily contact, with Jews.”32 Ekbert’s dis-
gust was especially palpable in his discussion of Judas’ kiss of betrayal.
The medieval mouth-to-mouth kiss represented mutual fidelity, the equal
and reciprocal relationship between a vassal and a lord. As such, Ekbert
perceived Judas’ kiss to be the ultimate offense as it expressed “not only
close physical contact of Jew and Christian but the psychologically and
politically unacceptable idea that Jews could be on any kind of equal
social footing with Christians.”33 Ekbert also described the torments Jesus
suffered at the hands of the Jews, including the defilement of his face with
their spittle, which came from “polluted lips.”34
Traces of Ekbert’s text can be seen in the works of the next influential
Passion author, Bonaventure. Writing in the thirteenth century,
Bonaventure’s two Passion texts, the Vitis mystica and the Lignum vitae,
exhibited further developments of anti-Semitic attitudes, which no doubt
reflected and even contributed to the contemporary legal separations of

30
 Thomas H. Bestul, Texts of the Passion: Latin Devotional Literature and Medieval
Society (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996), 69.
31
 The reader is also referred to David Nirenberg’s work Communities of Violence:
Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996).
Nirenberg documents numerous occasions of anti-Semitic violence during Easter, includ-
ing incidents throughout the Kingdom of Aragon.
32
 Bestul, 85.
33
 Bestul, 86.
34
 Ekbert in Bestul, 87.
152 laura delbrugge

Jews and Christians. Bonaventure was the leader of the Franciscans, an

order whose main concern was the elimination of both heresy and the
Jewish presence from Christian society.35 In the Vitis mystica, Jews were
denied human status, called “dogs,” their deeds within the Passion story
emphasized and magnified. Bonaventure’s intent was to create pity for
Christ’s suffering, but the empathy was gained at the expense of the Jews,
as the Christian reactions that resulted from such negative portrayals may
have resulted in additional anti-Jewish violence. Ekbert’s influence was
also clearly present in Bonaventure’s Lignum vitae. Bonaventure included
Ekbert’s depiction of Judas’ kiss, and emphasized the Jews’ role in Christ’s
physical suffering while minimizing Pilate’s responsibility. In all of
Bonaventure’s writings, there was a continued increase in the perceived
threat of Jews as a source of social contamination. This fear was also seen
in other thirteenth-century Passion texts, including John Pecham’s
Philomena, published around 1279, which included a new emphasis on
the characteristic of treachery, and in Jacobus de Voragine’s Legenda
aurea, from 1270, in which the Jews’ act of spitting on Christ received spe-
cial attention.
The spring of 1348 saw the arrival of the plague in Europe, with death
rates in some countries exceeding 60 percent; during this time suspicion
and fear were often manifested against the Jews and other minorities.
One can imagine a variety of roles for minorities. They might have no role at
all. Or, like Christians, their individual sins might have angered God.
Perhaps their mere existence was the sin that angered God. Finally, they
might (and this is the role stressed by all historians) be cast in the role of
poisoners, as the direct source of the plague.36
To stave off the impending disaster, massacres of Jews took place across
Europe on the assumption that the plague was caused by Jewish sin. Many
protested the logic of such accusations as a large number of Jews suc-
cumbed to the sickness as well, but in general these protests were ignored
and Jews were massacred by the thousands across Europe.37 The plague
arrived in Spain in 1348, and by its end the region’s population had fallen
from 7,470,000 to 4,000,000.38 As in the rest of Europe, there were attacks

35
 Bestul, 92. The reader is also referred to Jeremy Cohen’s article, “The Jews as the
Killers of Christ in the Latin Tradition, from Augustine to the Friars,” in Traditio: Studies in
Ancient and Medieval History, Thought, and Religion, 39 (1983), for an in-depth discussion
of Franciscan anti-Semitism.
36
 Nirenberg, 236.
37
 Nirenberg, 233.
38
 Nirenberg, 235.
 pragmatism, patience and the passion153

against the Jews, all of them in Catalonian towns, including Barcelona,

Cervera, Lleida, Tàrrega, and Girona: “for the first time in the Crown of
Aragon, we can recognize the full brutal power of a fear of pollution cen-
tered on the Jews.”39
It was during the plague years that Ludolphus of Saxony, a German
monk, wrote his influential Passion text, the Vita Christi (1347–1348). In
this work, Ludolphus included the anti-Semitic traditions of Ekbert and
Bonaventure and added some innovations of his own.40 He used a tech-
nique of inversion, depicting the Jews as attacking and defiling Christ as a
villain. Ludolphus was particularly effusive when he described Christ
being spat upon, describing the spittle as not mere saliva, but a “foul
excretion” or “pestilence.”41 Bestul has noted a strong connection “between
the spittle of the Jews in the Passion story and contemporary Christian
fears of poisoning by Jews.”42 This association took on a grim intensity in
plague-ridden, fourteenth-century Europe. The Passion texts were par-
ticularly effective vehicles of anti-Semitic rhetoric, as the perceived culpa-
bility of the Jews for the death of Christ was transmuted into responsibility
for the plague. The past sins of the Jews became the justification for vio-
lence against them in the present, and the presence of anti-Semitism
became an expected component of subsequent Passion texts, including
Li’s Thesoro de la passion.

Li’s Thesoro de la passion: Full Circle

Throughout Europe, the fourteenth century saw changes in weather pat-

terns that led to food shortages, economic difficulties, and the arrival of
the plague. Jews were often blamed for these troubles, suffering persecu-
tion and violence as the frustration and resentment of Christians
increased.
Both religious and class antagonisms were converging against the Jews; the
outbreaks of violence these antagonisms occasioned were sometimes spon-
taneous and sometimes orchestrated. The lower classes—heavily taxed,
frequently in debt, tending to identify the Jews with the forces they felt were
oppressing them—could be set off by the slightest spark. Meanwhile those
with influence and power increasingly used the negative feelings against

39
 Nirenberg, 240.
40
 Bestul, 106.
41
 Bestul, 108.
42
 Bestul, 109.
154 laura delbrugge

the Jews as a tool to consolidate or extend their power and preserve their
privileged status.43
Anti-Jewish policies and events in other countries, particularly France,
often spread to Aragon and Castile. One such event was the Shepherd’s
Crusade of 1320 in which 10,000 peasants, shepherds, merchants, and
minor nobles marched to Paris, demanding that the King lead them in a
crusade; when the King refused, the group marched southward, attacking
royal palaces, clerics, Jews, and lepers.44 In 1321, the French King impris-
oned dozens of lepers and Jews on suspicion that they had poisoned
wells with leprosy; some of the accused crossed the border into Aragon.45
James II closed the borders, issuing orders to detain all those suspected of
spreading leprosy, including Jews. The association of lepers, poisoned
wells, and Jews was a dangerous precedent for future scapegoating. Then,
in June of 1391, the Archdeacon Ferran Martínez led his disciples in an
uprising against the Jews of Seville. Rioters stormed into the Jewish quar-
ter of the city in a frenzy of rape, murder, and looting. To be sure, more
than religious fanaticism inspired the rioters: “there is no question that
economic antagonism between the nascent Christian burgher class and
the well-established Jewish community was one element that motivated
the mobs.”46 From June through August, riots spread through Andalusia,
Burgos, Ciudad Real, Toledo, Valencia, Barcelona, and the Balearic Islands.
Thousands of Jews either died or converted to Christianity, both immedi-
ately after the riots and for the next twenty years.
In 1419, Juan II ascended to the throne of Castile. A weak king, Juan gave
much of his power to his advisor, Alvaro de Luna. A papal decree in 1434
allowed for the punishment of false conversos, and was seen by the
Christian masses as legitimization to question a converso’s faith; in 1449,
anti-converso resentment erupted in rioting in Toledo. Laws prohibited
conversos from holding public offices, and “for the first time in Spanish
history, blood and race were the issue, not faith.”47 Essentially, conversos

43
 Gitlitz, Secrecy, 6.
44
 Nirenberg, 233–236. By June 29, the majority of the group had been dispersed, but
some had escaped into Aragon. In July, a band of these so-called pastoureaux massacred
337 Jews in the Aragonese village of Montclus, the only known instance of Jewish deaths in
the peninsula during the uprisings. The subsequent investigations of the Montclus atroci-
ties had as an unexpected result an increased resentment toward the Jews of Aragon.
45
 Nirenberg, 92.
46
 Gitlitz, Secrecy, 7.
47
 Erna Paris, The End of Days: A Story of Tolerance, Tyranny, and the Expulsion of the
Jews from Spain (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1995), 126.
 pragmatism, patience and the passion155

were reclassified as Jews, and anti-Jewish prohibitions were repurposed

as estatutos de limpieza de sangre (Blood Purity Statutes). Attacks on con-
versos and Jews continued throughout the fifteenth century and in 1478
Isabel I petitioned that the Inquisition be brought to Spain in order to
identify false converts; in 1492, all Jews were forced to either convert or
leave the country.
It was in this atmosphere of fear and suspicion that the converso Li
wrote his Thesoro de la passion. As a writer of a Passion text Li was faced
with a choice: continue the anti-Semitic traditions of earlier Passion texts
or soften his stance toward the Jews because of his converso status. Li
chose the former, that is, he continued to include the anti-Semitic con-
tent that had been developed in earlier Passion works and in some cases
went beyond his sources in both content and attitude. For example, with
reference to Judas’ kiss, Li marveled that angry angels didn’t descend from
Heaven “para vedar tan ponzonoso ayuntamiento de boca tan hedionda
como la de Judas”48 (“to stop such a venomous joining with a mouth as
repulsive as that of Judas”). Li cited the Jews as driven by a “furor ciego”
(“blind fury”), referring to them as “infieles damnados” (“damned infi-
dels”). Li’s condemnation of the Jews’ treatment of Christ was unsympa-
thetic and unyielding: “O damnados et malignos judios, endurescidos en las
tiniebras et ceguedad del pecado, maldicion sea a vosotros para siempre
jamas”49 (“Oh damned and evil Jews, hardened in the shadows and blind-
ness of sin, a curse upon you all forever more”).
The Thesoro showed further development of the images of the Jews
spitting on Christ. Li uses the term “pestilence,” an obvious borrowing of
the terminology seen in Ludolphus’ Vita Christi.
Et con atreuimiento pestilente et mortifero escupieron aquel diuino y luzido
rostro, espejo de los angeles sanctos et de la incomprehensible diuinidad … ca
era antigo costumbre enel judaysmo quando tenian alguno por vil et despecto
de escopirle por menosprecio enel rostro, et algunas vezes tan horriblemente et
sin intermission le scopian, que acahescia ahogar el assi escopido et
menospreciado.50
And with pestilent and lethal audacity they spat on that divine and splen­
did  face, mirror of the angels, of incomprehensible divinity … because it
was an ancient custom of the Jews, that when someone was considered
vile and contemptuous, they would spit on him scornfully in the face, and

48
 Li, fol. 45r.
49
 Li, fol. 64v.
50
 Li, 61r.
156 laura delbrugge

sometimes they spat so horribly and unceasingly, that they almost drowned
the person who was so spat upon and reviled.
In this excerpt, one can also see generalizations being applied to the Jews,
most notably the assertion that spitting on faces to indicate disdain was a
long-standing Jewish custom, that were also found in Ludolphus’ works.
In addition, in a subsequent passage Li warns, “Deuemos porende nosotros
con estudiosa diligencia guardar que no escupamos con los judios el sac-
ratissimo rostro del saluador”51 (“Therefore we must carefully guard against
spitting along with the Jews on the Savior’s most holy face”). By including
himself in the Christian “we,” Li further distances himself from his Jewish
heritage. There are many overt citations of Ludolphus, including Li’s dec-
laration that “podemos dezir que escupen y maltratan el preclarissimo ros-
tro de nuestro redemptor et maestro aquellos como escriue Ludolfo que
menosprecian sus superiores,”52 (“We can say that those who spit on and
mistreat the supremely beautiful face of our Redeemer and Savior, as
written by Ludolphus, are those who do not respect their prelates or supe-
riors”), which replicated Ludolphus’ technique of inversion discussed
earlier.
Li’s Thesoro de la passion was an obvious link in the chain of Passion
texts that included anti-Semitic content. However, it must be noted that
Li was a product of his era. As a converso he was in an especially precari-
ous position, a fact he would have been well aware of having just survived
an Inquisitorial tribunal four years earlier. In short, Li’s treatment of the
Jews in the Thesoro is exactly what would have been expected of a
Castilian Passion text. To deviate from the norm would have called atten-
tion to Li’s faith, something he most certainly wished to avoid. In fact, as
a self-professed fervent Christian, circumventing the accepted standard
likely never even occurred to Li. In addition, in both the Summa de pacien-
cia and the Thesoro de la passion, Li acknowledged that others might
question the authenticity of his religious convictions as well as the appro-
priateness of his authorship of Christian devotionals. He rejected these
detractors, citing the extensive display of Christian doctrine evident in
the Summa and Thesoro as testimony to the authenticity of his faith. Li
acknowledged his critics, but dedicated his works to the royal family any-
way, which was not only typical medieval marketing strategy but also an
affirmation of Li’s self-perception as a true Christian, one whose religious
views were sincere enough to be appreciated by the royal family itself.

 Li, fol. 61v.

51

 Li, fol. 61v.

52
 pragmatism, patience and the passion157

In fact, the dedication of Li’s Thesoro to the most Christian of rulers would
generate interest in the text as well as lend it an authority that could be
transferred to its author and to the veracity of his faith.
In terms of a possible encoded converso message present in Li’s works,
there is no evidence that such a dual interpretation was ever intended by
Li. In choosing to write Christian devotionals, Li actively rejected the
validity of Jewish beliefs, and wished to be seen as a true Christian.
He showed this in his choice of topics and his writing style. In both the
Summa de paciencia and the Thesoro de la passion, Li demonstrated a
remarkable knowledge of Biblical and Classical sources, indicating that
he was not a recent convert to the Christian faith, but rather a well-versed
scholar who had invested years in religious study, and who may have
been at least a second-generation converso. Thus, in Li’s case, his authorial
“converso voice” spoke literal volumes about the veracity of his faith and
his rejection of a converso-self-identity, external social perceptions
notwithstanding.

Money as Motivator: The Hurus/Li Collaboration

This essay has been mainly concerned with an analysis of the social and
personal motivations behind Andrés de Li’s two religious works, the
Summa de paciencia and the Thesoro de la passion. Nevertheless, it is also
necessary to consider a more secular impetus for the creation of these
volumes: profit. The enormous success of the first Hurus/Li collaboration,
the Reportorio de los tiempos, undoubtedly motivated Hurus to pursue
other projects with Li. Consequently, the duo next produced a religious
devotional, the Summa de paciencia. Devotionals were very popular in the
late fifteenth century. Sara Nalle verifies this particular interest, noting
Whinnom’s description of what constituted a best-seller.
His study implied the market influence of a reader not interested primarily
in high culture but rather concerned first about the welfare of his or her
immortal soul. In keeping with the age, this reader hoped to learn by exam-
ple and imitation, snapping up anything about the human condition as por-
trayed in the lives of saints and explained in the mirrors of Christian life.
Most importantly, this reader could come from any social class, since preoc-
cupation with one’s salvation was a universal concern.53

53
 Sara T. Nalle, “Literacy and Culture in Early Modern Castile,” Past and Present, 125
(1989): 81. See also Keith Whinnom’s article “The Problem of the ‘Best-Seller’ in Spanish
Golden Age Literature,” in Medieval and Renaissance Spanish Literature: Selected Essays by
158 laura delbrugge

With regard to the third Li/Hurus volume, the Thesoro de la passion, what
could be more popular with a Christian book-buying public than an
account of the death of Christ? In addition, all three of Li’s works were
illustrated, which also added to their marketability.
For a work to be financially successful in the late medieval period, it
had to have both a buying public and a source of funding. This support
often came from the king or queen. Isabel was a frequent supporter of the
fledgling Spanish printing industry, and the location of the Hurus press in
the Aragonese capital meant frequent commerce with the royal court. In
addition to religious and literary works, the Hurus imprenta was responsi-
ble for treatises on the history of Aragón, including the Fueros de Aragón
in 1476 and the Crónica de Aragón in 1499. In the prologue to the Thesoro,
Li noted that he intentionally wrote the work in Castilian for those read-
ers who were not well-versed in Latin, with the hope that it would reach
those who usually read “cosas transitorias & vanas”54 (“vain and fleeting
things”). These readers would not only enjoy the details of the Passion
story, but also would then use their free time more wisely: “No solo conu-
ertiran el ocio en vtilidad, mas a vn aprouecharan a muchos otros en doct-
rina y enxemplos”55 (“not only would they convert sloth into productivity,
but they would also be able to take advantage of many other doctrines
and examples”). Undoubtedly, the production of the Thesoro in Castilian
was stimulated by more commercial factors as well, as the absence of
such a devotional work in the vernacular created a demand that Hurus
was surely eager to meet. There was an enormous appetite for religious
texts, especially those intended for personal study, and Li’s Thesoro, writ-
ten in Castilian, would have been perfectly positioned for commercial
success in the competitive early incunable market.
Li appears to have been a realist who acknowledged the complicated
social situation in which he lived, and who used it to his advantage. Li’s
social awareness can be seen in the Summa de paciencia and, in particu-
lar, in the Thesoro de la passion, in which Li chose to continue the anti-
Semitic rhetoric found in earlier Passion texts, because to do otherwise
not only would have hurt book sales, but also could have brought Li fur-
ther examination by the Inquisition. Li chose to align himself firmly with

Keith Whinnom. Ed. Alan Deyermond, W. F. Hunter, and Joseph T. Snow (Exeter: University
of Exeter Press, 1994), 159–75.
54
 Li, fol. 2v.
55
 Li, fol. 2v.
 pragmatism, patience and the passion159

Christian beliefs, giving no indication of any pro-Jewish sentiment. Thus,

driven by both business acumen as well as an acute sense of his social
identity, Li chose to present himself as a true Christian, one whose world-
view was complete with the requisite anti-Semitic attitudes. In addition,
Li’s choice of religious topics, given the demand for such texts in the late
fifteenth century, demonstrated an astute understanding of the early
book market. In fact, Li explicitly stated his motivation for writing the
Thesoro, that is, that Pablo Hurus had seen a market for a Passion text in
Castilian. Li also dedicated his works to various members of the royal fam-
ily, a savvy marketing strategy that not only lent veracity to the content of
the works but to the faith of its author. Li and his texts offer fascinating
insights into the complex milieu that was Spain in the late fifteenth cen-
tury, especially in terms of the link between social issues and business
choices. The writing of devotional works served a dual purpose for Li: they
cast him as a true Christian and they would sell well.
In summary, then, there is indeed a “converso voice” in both the Summa
de paciencia and the Thesoro de la passion in that Andrés de Li acknowl-
edged possible detractors to his work by referencing the perilous times in
which he lived. Nevertheless, he chose to place himself firmly among true
Christians, distancing himself as far as possible from his Jewish origins.
Li selected Christian themes, the virtue of patience and the Passion of
Christ, and incorporated anti-Semitic rhetoric into his Passion narrative.
He protected his interests and his assets, not to mention his own well-
being. Assimilation, apparently, was what Li’s “converso voice” expressed,
and if it helped to sell a book, so much the better.

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 TEXT AND CONTEXT: A JUDEO-SPANISH VERSION OF THE DANZA
DE LA MUERTE

Michelle Hamilton

Before leaving Spain in the fifteenth century, a Jew, converso, or Crypto-

Jew copied down in Hebrew characters a series of diverse texts that were
then bound together into a manuscript that found its way to Italy. Among
the texts is a version of the Spanish Dance of Death. This manuscript
(Parma 2666) found in the Palatina Library in Parma Italy, dates from the
mid-fifteenth century.1 This manuscript miscellany contains several texts
including a copy of Alfonso de la Torre’s Visión Deleytable and the Prover­
bios de Seneca. While the vast majority of surviving aljamiado manuscripts
are texts written in Arabic, a few, like this one, have survived in Hebrew
aljamía.2 While most of these manuscripts are of a legal or religious
nature—being law codes, community tax tables, sales receipts, or per-
sonal notes—only a handful contain copies of literary works. One is this
aljamiado Danza, and another a Hebrew aljamiado version of the Prover­
bios morales of the thirteenth-century author, Shem Tob de Carrión.3
While the Proverbios morales, which was declared a lectura reprobada
by the Inquisition, have long been considered within the purview of the

1
 I have prepared a transliteration and transcription of the manuscript, Parma 2666
(with María Morrás). Forthcoming. For a description of the manuscript see Malachi Beit-
Arié, Hebrew Manuscripts in the Biblioteca Palatina in Parma, ed. Benjamin Richler
(Jerusalem: Jewish National and University Library, 2001), 370–71.
2
 In designating this witness as a Hebrew aljamiado manuscript, I follow the usage of
Yom Tov Assis, José Ramón Magdalena Nom de Deu, and Coloma Lleal, Judeolenguas mar­
ginales en Sefarad antes de 1492, (Barcelona: Universidad de Barcelona, 1992); Paloma
Díaz-Mas, Carlos Mota, “Introducción”, Proverbios morales, Shem Tob de Carrión, (Madrid:
Cátedra, 1998), 11–115; and Pascual Pascual Recuero, “El aljamiado en la literatura sefardí y
su transcripción,” Miscelánea de estudios dedicados al profesor Antonio Marín Ocete
(Granada: Universidad de Granada, 1974), 851–76, all of whom also refer to works com-
posed in Romance but recorded using Hebrew characters.
3
 The few remaining medieval works recorded in Hebrew aljamiado also include the
Coplas de Yoçef, edited and studied most recently by Luis Girón Negrón and Laura
Minervini, Las coplas de Yosef: Entre la biblia y el midrash en la poesía judeoespañola
(Madrid: Gredos, 2006). Other studies include those of Ignacio González Llubera, Coplas
de Yoçef: A Medieval Spanish Poem in Hebrew Characters, (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer­
sity Press, 1935); Iacob M. Hassán, “Coplas sefardíes de Las hazañas de José: Ediciones cier-
tas e inciertas”, Sefarad 46 (1986): 235–52, and “Introducción”, Coplas sefardíes: Primera
antología, ed. Elena Romero (Córdoba: Ediciones el Almendro, 1988), 9–25.
162 michelle hamilton

so-called “converso question,” the existence of this Hebrew aljamiado ver-

sion of the Danza de la muerte suggests that it too, like the Proverbios
morales and the Coplas de Yoçef—both of which were recorded together
in the aljamiado MS C—also circulated as edifying reading among Jews,
Crypto-Jews, and New Christians at different stages of the religious spec-
trum.4 Like the Coplas de Yoçef and the Proverbios morales this aljamiado
version of the Danza is unique and important in helping us reconstruct
the cultural context of the conversos. The existence of this aljamiado ver-
sion of the Dance of Death forces us to question what meaning this text
(long thought to be Christian in nature) had for conversos and Jews living
in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Iberia—the only people who would
have been able to decipher this Romance work written in Hebrew charac-
ters. The Parma Danza offers us a glimpse of what conversos or Jews still
living in Iberia were reading, transmitting, and discussing—and possibly
how they were adapting foreign material to suit their needs, i.e. creating
hybrid texts to meet their complex needs as Spaniards, whatever their
confessional identity. In this study I compare this aljamiado version of the
Danza to the only other existing Spanish manuscript version, focusing on
important textual differences that mark this as a converso or Jewish one.
I also suggest that, like the Proverbios morales, because of the Danza’s
theme, it may have had a performative function not only in converso or
Jewish funerals, but also in the celebration of the Jewish holidays of Yom
Kippur and Rosh ha-Shanah—both associated with individual transgres-
sion and repentance, and, especially in the Diaspora, with the sins and
forgiveness of the community.5

4
 Díaz-Mas and Mota address, in the context of the Proverbios, how moral didactic
readings could function in many different ways according to their audience, whether Jew,
Crypto-Jew or devout New Christian (20–23). One example given is that of Genesis. While
for Christian readers this text would not be problematic, for a Crypto-Jew it represented a
way to revitalize their connection with the law of Moses (21). Díaz Más and Mota further
give the example of one Ferrán Verde, a New Christian brought before the Inquisition.
Verde admitted to reading not only parts of the Old Testament, but also Shem Tob’s
Proverbios morales. While the Inquisitors felt these readings pointed to Jewish beliefs and
a Jewish background, Verde claimed his intentions had nothing to do with Judaism, but
simply read these texts, “por mi salvación y por me apartar de vicios,” (“for my salvation and
to keep me from vice”) (21), an assertion that his extensive reading of the New Testament,
various saints’ lives, and Diego de San Pedro would seem to support. The Proverbios
morales were not read exclusively by Jews, but also valued by Christian readers such as the
Marqués de Santillana and Don Pedro, el Condestable de Portugal. For a description of MS
C of the Proverbios morales, see pages 11–13.
5
 Morris Jastrow Jr. and Max Margolis, “Day of Atonement”, The Jewish Encyclopedia, ed.
Cyrus Adler and Isidore Singer, et al., 12 vols., New York (1903–06): 284–89 (288).
 text and context163

This aljamiado version of the Danza is the only existing manuscript

edition besides the version preserved in Latin characters in a single man-
uscript in the library of the Escorial monastery (b.IV. 21 folios 109r-129r).6
Both versions—the Escorial and this aljamiado one—are anonymous
and have a preponderance of Aragonese-Catalán linguistic traits. Various
critics have hypothesized about the possible author(s), place(s) of origin
and date of composition of the Escorial version. Those dating it to the
fourteenth century include José Amador de los Ríos, G. Ticknor and
Tomás A. Sánchez; those who are more specific, dating the Danza to 1400
give or take a few years include Infantes, Saugnieux, J. M. Solá Solé,
Florence Whyte, A. Valbuena Prat, and A. González Palencia. Margherita
Morreale dates the Danza to the fifteenth century.7 The watermarks from
the aljamiado version that I have identified based on comparable water-
marks in Charles Möise Briquet and Oriol Valls i Subirá, however, give us
a range of dates from the mid-fifteenth century, which we can use as the
period during which the work was recorded in Hebrew characters. The
watermarks also show that the paper originates in the Crown of Aragón.8
While both versions of the Danza reveal ties to Aragón, this aljamiado
version, which is in the library of Solomon ben Crispin in Italy by the
seventeenth century, has significant thematic and linguistic differences
from the canonical Spanish text of the Danza as found in the Escorial
manuscript.9 One of these differences, several of which are addressed
below, includes the length of the text, with the aljamiado version consist-
ing of some 53 coplas, while the Escorial version includes 79. Among those

6
 See Víctor Infantes, Las danzas de la muerte. Génesis y desarrollo de un género medie­
val (siglos XIII-XVII), Acta Almanticensia Estudios Filológicos 267, (Salamanca: Ediciones
Universidad, 1997), 241–46, for information on the now lost single print witness from 1520,
printed in Sevilla by Juan Varela. See also Geraldine McKendrick, “The Dança de la muerte
of 1520 and Social Unrest in Seville,” Journal of Hispanic Philology 3 (1979): 239–59.
7
 This section on critical opinions regarding the dating of the Spanish manuscript is a
distillation of Saugnieux (46–47) and Infantes (226–39).
8
 I was able to do a codicological study of the manuscript in situ in July, 2002, thanks to
the support of the Gaspar de Portolá Catalonian Studies Program, University of California,
Berkeley. The watermarks place the work in the region of Provence (part of the Crown of
Aragón in the fifteenth century) in the cities of Perpignan and Toulouse. Comparable
watermarks can be found in Oriol Valls i Subirà, Paper and Watermarks in Catalonia, ed.
and trans. J. S. G. Simmons and B. J. van Ginneken-van de Kasteele, Collection of Works and
Documents Illustrating the History of Paper 12, (Amsterdam: Paper Publications Society,
1970), plates 180 and 233; and Charles Moïse Briquet, Les filigranes. Dictionnaire historique
des marques du papier dès leur apparition vers 1282 jusqu’en 1600, (New York: Garland
Publishing, 1966), numbers 2064, 9083.
9
 Solomon ben Crispin’s name is recorded on folio 1r, where the name Abraham
Graziano is also recorded.
164 michelle hamilton

coplas of the aljamiado version, all of which are included, albeit in a

different order, in the Escorial manuscript, there are many variant read-
ings that suggest the Escorial and the aljamiado versions, while possibly
sharing a now lost archetype, derive from different copies of that lost
original.10

The Danza de la muerte in the European Tradition

The Spanish Danza general de la muerte is part of a broader tradition of

pan-European Dances of Death, almost all of which seemingly appear
as if part of a universal weitgeist in the late fourteenth-early fifteenth
century, concurrent with the Black Death and subsequent social crisis.
Víctor Infante’s, Las danzas de la muerte. Génesis y desarrollo de un
género medieval, is perhaps the most comprehensive recent study on this
theme.11 There are several vernacular Dances, including the Spanish, the
German Lübeck, the Danish, the Italian, the French Dance published by
Guyot Marchand in several editions in the 1480s, and a Catalan Dance
from 1497.12
Central to the study of the medieval European Dances has been the
search for a common archetype. One aspect of the critical debate con-
cerning the archetype has been the very nature of the supposed “original”
Dance—did it arise from the plastic arts, from Latin poetry, from moralis-
tic drama, or from some other genre? Different critics and theories posit

10
 An example of the different ordering of the coplas includes the fact that copla 79 of
the Escorial version is copla 6 in the aljamiado version. One of the numerous variant read-
ings includes “pues que ya el frayre vos a denuçiado” (“Now that the friar has admonished
you”) of copla 9 in the aljamiado version, but “Pues ya que el fraire vos ha pedricado” (“Now,
that the friar has delivered his sermon”) (copla 8, v. 61) in the Escorial text. This compari-
son is based on my examination of the Escorial version in situ in July, 2008 and on Francisco
A. Icaza and José Amador de los Ríos, ed., La Danza de la muerte: textos de El Escorial, siglo
XV, y de Sevilla, Juan Varela de Salamanca, 1520, (Madrid: El Arbol, 1981). A detailed study
of such differences will be included in the forthcoming edition of the text. For differences
between the Escorial and the 1520 printed text, see Icaza and Amador de los Ríos. What
the differences between all three extant copies of the Danza points to is the fact that, while
all three may have their origin in a shared archetype, they were copied from different vari-
ant copies.
11
 Infantes, Las danzas de la muerte. However, Infantes does not include this version of
the Danza in his study.
12
 See Infantes, 154–80, for an overview of the European Dances. See Joél Saugnieux, Les
danses macabres de France et d’Espagne et leurs prolongements litèraires (Lyon: E. Vitte,
1972), 19–25, 54–56, for a detailed discussion of both the Catalán Dance and Guyot
Marchand’s versions.
 text and context165

different origins for these various Dances. The idea that the Dances have
their origins in images in the plastic arts is supported by Lübeck’s now lost
painting in Germany from 1463, as well as the mural of Klinghental cre-
ated in 1274, which was destroyed by the fifteenth century.13 Perhaps the
work most often cited as a source for the Dances according to the plastic
arts theory is that of the Cemetery Relief from Saints Innocents in Paris,
dated to 1424, which is accompanied by a verse commentary.14
Yet other critics find antecedents for the Dances in Latin, French, and
German verse. As Saugnieux points out, Boethius cites Horaces’ verses on
Death in the Consolation of Philosophy.15 The Vado mori, an anonymous
poem from the fourteenth century, is cited by the critic W. Fehse in sup-
port of a Latinate origin of the Dance. Stammler thinks the vernacular
Dances derive from the Latin via the German tradition.16 Early French
poets who address the theme of death include the twelfth-century poets
Hélinant and Thibaut de Marly, the thirteenth-century Robert Le Clerc,
and the fourteenth-century poets Jean Le Févre and Eustache Deschamps.17
In these early Latin and French poems the general theme is that no one
escapes from death, and no one knows when it will arrive. While Death
does appear personified in some of these works, none is the developed
parade of important political and ecclesiastical figures we find in the
Spanish Danza, nor is the image of the dance itself present. Also, unlike
the Northern European dances, in which Death’s victims take up instru-
ments and join Death’s song, in the Spanish Danza only one musical
instrument is represented—Death’s horn. The Spanish critic J. M. Solá
Solé posits a morisco origin for the Dance given the Catalán-Aragonese
influence evident in the Spanish text (i.e. evidence that it is from the
region of the Peninsula where moriscos were most numerous), as well as
the fact that the personification of the abstract Death found in the Spanish
Dance is unique and seems to reflect the Arab concept of the Angel of
Death common in Arabic literature.18 However, the Angel of Death is not

13
 See E. H. Langlois, Essai historiques, philosophique et pittoresque sur les Danses des
Morts, 2 vols., (Rouen: A. Lebrument, 1852), I: 194, II: 138 as cited in Infantes, 36–37.
14
 Saugnieux, 17.
15
 Saugnieux, 27.
16
 See Infantes, 33–50, and Saugnieux, 45–52 for a detailed discussion of the various
critical opinions regarding the origins of the Dance (complete with stemma), including
those of Fehse and Stammler.
17
 Saugnieux, 28–29.
18
 J. M. Solá Solé, “En torno a la Dança general de la muerte”, Hispanic Review 36.4,
(1968): 303–27 (327). Also see Saugnieux, 50.
166 michelle hamilton

exclusive to the Muslim works, and is also common in the Jewish tradi-
tion, sometimes as a figure in Rabbinic sermons.19
The theory that places the most importance on the representational or
theatrical aspect of the Dances is that which posits the origin of the
Dances in the Christian sermon or morality plays. V. Wackernagel is one
of the first to propose that the Dance is a type of para-theatre or mimed
sermon designed to illustrate scenes or speeches from the text being
preached.20 Such a performance apparently did occur in the year 1453 at
the Church of St. John in Besançon, taking place after the mass.21 While
clearly the aljamiado version of the Danza, written as it is in Hebrew,
could not have been used in the Christian liturgy, it may have had a
similar function in the Jewish liturgy. Wackernagel’s idea that the Dance
had an original performative and ceremonial function does support the
possibility that it came to have such a role in the Iberian Jewish
community.
The Spanish Danza, in both the Escorial and the aljamiado versions, is,
like the other European Dances, anonymous. While there is no reference
to an author in the text, because the Escorial version is included in a man-
uscript that also contains the Proverbios morales of Shem Tob, it was sug-
gested that he could be the author.22 On the basis of the text, Solá Solé
surmised to the contrary that the author was neither a morisco nor a Jew,
but an anti-Semitic Christian familiar with both the Hispano-Muslim and

19
 Such is the case, for example, in a sermon recorded in the Midrash by Rabbi Tanchum
of Nawe. In support of the lesson, the subject of which is the status of the dead and how to
confront Death, Rabbi Tanchum offers the example of David, whom the Angel of Death
was having problems taking, because, apparently, David was so studious that Torah would
not cease to flow from his mouth—here Torah seemingly acts as a talisman against Death.
In order to complete his mission, the Angel of Death hides in a nearby tree and makes
some noise so that David comes out to see what is the cause. As he leaves the house he falls
to his death. Here we have an example of the Angel of Death used in a Jewish sermon to
illustrate lessons on death. See Joseph Heinemann, “On Life and Death: Anatomy of a
Rabbinic Sermon”, Studies in Hebrew Narrative Art Throughout the Ages, 27, Scripta
Hierosolymitana, (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1978), 52–65.
20
 See V. Wackernagel, “Der Todtentanz” Zeitschrift für Deutsches Altertum und
Deutsches Literatur 9 (1853): 302–65 (308) cited in Infantes, 37.
21
 See W. Creizenach, Geschichte des neueren Dramas, 5 vols., (Halle: M. Niemeyer,
1893–1916), I: 461. Cited in Infantes, 37.
22
 This is the opinion of Tomás Antonio Sánchez, Colección de poesías castellanas ante­
riores al siglo XV, (Madrid: M. Rivadeneyra, 1779), 180–89, who felt that Shem Tob must
have converted to Christianity and then composed the other didactic, moralizing works
recorded in MS E (the same MS in which the Danza general is found). Amador de los Ríos,
Estudios históricos, politicos y literarios sobre los judíos de España (Madrid: M. Diaz, 1848),
325–26, agrees.
 text and context167

Judeo-Spanish milieus of the North Eastern part of the Peninsula.23

The identity of the original author, however, remains unknown. As the
existence of the aljamiado version suggests, the Danza, in the way it treats
universals such as sin and death, had broad appeal and was a text that
resonated with Spaniards of different faiths. This aspect of the text—
its emphasis on types and universals and its lack of specific, particular
information—makes attempts at ascribing authorship based on textual
characteristics dubious at best.
The Hebrew aljamiado manuscript does, however, provide us with
important clues regarding who and where the Danza was read. The man-
uscript’s watermarks and other texts place this text in the Culture of the
Crown of Aragon and the Hebrew characters in which the text was
recorded indicates that it pertains to the Judeo-Spanish literary tradition
of the fifteenth century. What the manuscript does not provide us with,
however, is a definitive answer to how this text was read. What meaning
did this contemplation on society, sin, and the nature of death have for its
reader(s)? Was it read by an individual, or, as has been postulated for the
Danza in the Christian tradition, was it used in a sermon or play—even
perhaps a funerary performance? In the subsequent part of this study
I suggest that, because of its subject matter, this text had a role in the Yom
Kippur and Rosh ha-Shanah rituals and possibly the funerary rites of its
Jewish readers.

Variations in the Spanish Danzas

The Danza general treats the same themes that are the basis of Yom
Kippur and Rosh ha-Shanah, namely atonement, sin, and repentance. The
Danza is recorded as a poem in which Death speaks with a series of vic-
tims from all social levels and stages of life. The Escorial text is over 600
verses long (632), in contrast to the shorter aljamiado version that has
only 324. The Escorial Danza is prefaced by a brief paragraph in prose
explaining that this is a Dance of Death in which Death personified warns
everyone, great or small, to listen to the preacher’s sermons, for all will
come under his power. The victims that Death calls to its mortal dance
alternate between civil and religious figures, such as the emperor, the
king, the duke, the pope, the cardinal, and the archbishop. Of the 33

23
 J. M. Solá Solé, “El Rabí y el Alfaquí en la Dança general de la muerte,” Romance
Philology 18 (1965), 272–83.
168 michelle hamilton

victims in the Escorial version, 22 are the same as in the French Dance.24
The Escorial version reflects the reality of mudéjar society with the inclu-
sion of a rabbi and a Muslim cleric, or alfaquí, among the victims.25 An
important difference between the aljamiado version and the Escorial
Danza is that the aljamiado includes neither the rabbi nor the alfaquí—it
has only 28 of the 33 victims found in the Escorial Danza.26 The only reli-
gious figures that appear are Christian: the pope, the cardinal, the patri-
arch, the archbishop, the abbot, etc.27 The fact that the rabbi is not
included may suggest that the Sephardic author or redactor did not wish
to include his own religious authority in this list of corrupt leaders, or,

24
 Saugnieux, 42.
25
 Solá Solé devotes “El Rabí y el Alfaquí en la Dança general de la muerte” to this ques-
tion. In the Escorial version, the episode with the rabbi, which comes right before that of
the alfaquí, includes in the dialogue the Hebrew name for God and mention of the Talmud:
“Dize el rabí: Oh Helohym e Dios de Abaraham, / Que prometiste la redençión: / Non sé qué
me faga con tan gran afán, / Mándanme que dançe, non entiendo el son. / Non ha homne en
el mundo de cuantos í son / Que pueda fuir de su mandamiento; / Valedme, dayanes, que mi
entendimiento / Se pierde del todo con gran afliçión. / Dize la Muerte: Don rabí barbudo, que
siempre estudiastes / En el Talmud e en los sus doctores, / E de la verdad jamás non curastes, /
Por lo cual habredes penas y dolores: / Llegadvos acá con los dançadores / E diredes por
canto vuestra berahá; / Darvos han posada con rabí Açá. / Venid alfaquí, dexad los sabores.”
(“The rabbi says: ‘Oh, Elohim, God of Abraham, / who promised redemption, I don’t
understand what you are doing to me with such zeal, / They tell me to dance, but I don’t
recognize the tune. / There is no man alive / who can flee from escape this command. /
Help me, dayanes [Jewish community leaders], for I am losing my understanding—how
awful!’ Death says: ‘Sir Rabbi, Big Beard, you who always studied the Talmud and the com-
mentators, but cared not for the Truth! For that you will have aches and pains. Come join
the dancers and you can sing your Berachah; You can join Rabbi Aça in his resting place.
Come alfaquí, leave those tasty bits.’”) (verses 568–83). References to the Escorial version
of the Danza are to Julio Rodríguez Puértolas’ edition (“Dança general de la muerte”,
Poesía crítica y satírica del siglo XV [Madrid: Castalia, 1989], 39–70).
26
 Besides the rabbi and alfaquí, the Parma version also does not include the recabda­
dor (vv. 521–28), subdiácano (vv. 537–44), or santero (vv. 601–08). The lines attributed to
the diácano in the Escorial version (vv. 505–12) are attributed to the sacristán in the Parma
version (folio 206r line 10). Sola-Solé believes that the rabí Açá alluded to in verse 582 in
the Escorial version is rabbi Yishaq ben Sheshet Perfet, an important exegete and polemi-
cist who lived in Zaragoza between 1372 and 1385, and in Valencia between 1385 and 1391,
and who emigrated to Argel after the pogroms of 1391 (he dies there in 1408). As Rodríguez
Puértolas points out (40), the author of the Spanish Danza seems to believe that Ben
Sheshet is already dead, possibly having perished in the pogroms of 1391.
27
 Death’s victims appear in the following order in the aljamiado version: las donzellas
(young women), padre santo (Holy Father), el enperador (Emperor), el cardinal ­(cardinal),
el rey (king), el patriarka (patriarch), el duque (duke), el arçebispe (archbishop), el conde
estable (constable), don obispo (Sir Bishop), el cavallero (knight), el abad (abbot), el escu­
dero (squire), el deán (dean), el mercader (merchant), arçediyano (archdeacon), jurista
(lawyer), calónigo (canon), fisigo (doctor), el vicariyo (vicar), el labrador (worker),
el monje negro (black monk), usurero (usurer), el frayre (friar), el portero (chamberlain),
el ermitaño (hermit), el contador (accountant), el sacristán (sacristan).
 text and context169

alternatively, that this Hebrew aljamiado manuscript is witness to a more

primitive version of the Danza in which no rabbi or alfaquí was included.
The same possibilities exist for copla 12 in which the pope (“padre santo”)
calls out when Death comes to take him. In the Escorial version the pope
beseeches both Jesus and Mary, “valme, Jesuscristo, e la Virgen María!”
(v. 96), whereas in the aljamiado version the pope prays to God who gov-
erns the world, “valgame Dios el que el mundo guia” (folio 200r line 22).28
This difference in the pope’s cry may indicate that the Escorial version
reflects a later modification that lends the pope a more authentic Christian
voice, or that the author/copyist of the Hebrew aljamiado version has
modified the pope’s speech to better reflect the ways in which he or his
public would beseech God.
Another conspicuous difference between the aljamiado and Escorial
versions is the reference to the English Benedictine Bede, known as the
Venerable. Sola-Solé believes that the allusion to Bede in the Escorial ver-
sion (v. 428) is proof that the author of the work was a Benedictine monk.
The aljamiado, text, however, lacks this tie to the Benedictine order, just
as it lacks the reference to Rabbi Ben Sheshet (v. 583), another important
allusion that has been used to date the Escorial Danza. One further differ-
ence between the Escorial and aljamiado versions is the absence in the
aljamiado version of a reference to pork that we find in the Escorial ver-
sion. When the villano responds to Death’s call, in the Escorial version
(under the name of labrador) he says:
Ca yo como tocino e a veces oveja,
E es mi ofiçio, trabajo e afán
Arando las tierras para sembrar pan;
Por ende, non curo de oír tu conseja. (vv. 393–400)
For I eat pork and sometimes lamb.
And it is my task, my job and my duty to
plow the earth and plant the wheat.
And so, I do not wish to hear your advice. (my translation)
While in the aljamiado version he says:
que yo como cabron e a veces obelya
e (^nunca la mano quito dela relya)
e en ningun son yo no tengo orelya
e es mi ofiçio travalyo e afan

28
 Citations from the Hebrew aljamiado version are to the Parma 2666 manuscript.
Transcriptions are my own.
170 michelle hamilton

arando las tierras por semrar el pan

por ende non curo de la tu conselyo (folio 204v lines 6–10)
For I eat goat meat and sometimes lamb,
and (^I never take my hand from the plow)
and I have ears for no song,
for it is my task, my job and my duty to
plow the earth and plant the wheat.
And so, I do not wish to hear your advice. (my translation)
We find significant differences between the two versions, including the
addition of the line “e en ningun son yo no tengo orelya” and the substitu-
tion of cabrón for tocino in the Spanish. Here we have either a redactor/
copyist removing even a passing reference to pork from the text, or we
have a Sephardic author composing a work in which he would naturally
not refer to the custom of eating pork—the reference in the Escorial ver-
sion could be, like the references to Bede and Rabbi Ben Sheshet, later
additions to the text made by subsequent copyists.

The Danza de la muerte in the converso context

In addition to textual evidence that lends support to the idea that

the copyist and/or author of the Danza may have been a converso or Jew,
we find support for this idea in the formal aspects of the text. The Danza
in all known witnesses is written in octavas de arte mayor, a form popular
in cancionero poetry among such figures as Juan del Encina, Pedro López
de Ayala, and the converso poet Juan de Mena. The realm of cancionero
po­etry itself was the domain of many well-known converso poets—includ-
ing Álvarez Gato, Rodrigo Cota, Juan Poeta, and Antón Montoro—and
was one of the mediums for converso expression as Gregory Kaplan
has shown.29
Ascribing a converso voice to poetry written by converso poets and
recorded in cancioneros is problematized by the fact that often these texts

29
 Gregory B. Kaplan, The Evolution of Converso Literature: The Writings of the Converted
Jews of Medieval Spain, (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002). Kaplan addresses in
detail the poetry of Álvarez Gato (68–70), Juan Poeta (40–57), Antón Montoro (42–43,
76–79, 84–85), and Rodrigo Cota (70–73, 90–105). The Danza’s aljamiado brother, the Pro­
verbios morales, seems to have been part of more than one cancionero collection. According
to Díaz-Mas and Mota (13–17), MS N most likely formed part of the Cancionero de Barrantes
and is cited in the sixteenth-century Cancionero de Gallardo. The Marqués de Santillana
refers to it as an excellent example of fifteenth-century poetry in his letter to Don Pedro of
Portugal, proving that it was part of the regular reading of the cancionero crowd.
 text and context171

use the same formal and thematic conventions used by Christian poets.
The same is true of the Danza general de la muerte, which, because of its
extensive use of ecclesiastical figures, and, in the Escorial version, men-
tion of Christ (v. 474) as well as the inclusion of a preface in which the
reader-audience is warned to listen to preachers (pedricadores), is almost
universally considered a Christian text. The fact that it exists in a Hebrew
aljamiado version that must have been written by and/or intended for an
audience that had a Jewish heritage, however, raises many questions
about how this text fit into the culture of the Jews and New Christians of
Iberia. Having these two versions of the same text—the Escorial version
recorded in Latin characters and the aljamiado version in Hebrew—offers
a unique opportunity (and one not possible with cancionero poetry com-
posed by conversos and available only in the Romance alphabet, for exam-
ple) to explore what exactly constitutes a “converso voice.” Kaplan defines
such a voice as one that justifies “equality of social status by advocating
the abolition of the divisions between Old and New Christians.”30 The sub-
ject matter of the Danza seems perfectly suited to such a justification. As
mentioned, in the Hebrew aljamiado version the figure of the alfaquí and
rabbi are absent. The way both are presented in the Escorial version,
though, hardly implies they are targeted simply for being Jew or Muslim.
On the contrary, both are represented as being less than sincere in their
devotion, just as their Christian counterparts are. The presence of these
two figures in the Escorial version, however, allows for these Others—
Muslims and Jews—to serve as a counterpoint to the ecclesiastical figures
also targeted by Death. Whether the author or copyist of the aljamiado
version purposely removed these figures or whether he composed a work
in which they simply did not figure originally, the effect of their absence
focuses on the sins of fifteenth-century Spanish Christians alone. Many
of the professions and, by the fifteenth century, even some ecclesiastical
positions represented in the Danza are those dominated by conversos (for
example, usurero, físico, mercadero, contador). The Danza underscores
the fact that the Old Christians—the highest members of the Catholic
Church (pope, patriarch, cardinal) and the aristocracy (king, duke, knight,
squire)—will be treated the same as these New Christians in death.
Even in the dialogues with the stereotypically Old Christians, there is no
discussion of lineage or inheritance. The emphasis is on works, which is

30
 Gregory B. Kaplan, “Toward the Establishment of a Christian Identity: The Conversos
and Early Christian Humanists”, La corónica 25.1 (1996): 53–68 (54).
172 michelle hamilton

precisely what we would expect from a converso text. The emphasis on

works, and the dismissal of inherited wealth and position is evident from
the beginning of the Danza, for the preacher says in his prefatory verses
“Señores onrados, façed buenas obras. Non vos fieçedes en altos / estados,
car non vos varlán filigrines ni doblas. A la muerte tiene sus / (los) laços
parados” (folio 199v lines 8–10).31 One possibility is that the didactic Danza
used by Christian preachers was particularly appealing to the converso or
Jewish author/copyist of the Hebrew aljamiado Danza, precisely because
it offers a world in which works are privileged over lineage. The differ-
ences we find between the two versions, including the choice of Hebrew
script, the inclusion/exclusion of the rabbi, alfaquí, Bede and pork, and
forms of alluding to God, all of which are discussed above, offer us con-
crete examples of how this converso or Crypto-Jew either modified the
content of a pre-existing text to better reflect his needs, or who composed
or transmitted an original work that reflects the patterns of speech and
thought unique to the converso or Crypto-Jew, or in other words, it reflects
a “converso voice.”
The absence of the rabbi and alfaquí as well as the reference to eating
pork effectively removes any other religion besides Christianity from the
Hebrew aljamiado version of the Danza. The fact that this version lacks
these allusions may reflect the conscious effort of a converso to produce a
work emphasizing the importance of our works over inherited birthright;
it also removes any overt indications that might mark the content of the
text as Jewish.32 Such a text could be easily adapted to suit the needs of a
Crypto-Jew living in fifteenth-century Spain with little access to other
openly Jewish communities. In addition to emphasizing the importance
of man’s works in life, it also underscores repentance and sin. The preacher

31
 Escorial version: “Señores, puñad en fazer buenas obras, / non vos fiedes en altos esta­
dos, / que non vos valdrán tesoros nin doblas / a la muerte que tiene sus lazos parados”
(“Gentlemen, dedicate yourselves to doing good works. / Don’t put your hopes in social
climbing / for neither treasure nor riches will save you / from Death with its snares on the
ready.”) (vv. 41–44).
32
 Most Jews or first generation conversos, even if their first (and only) language were a
Romance dialect, were very likely to use the Hebrew alphabet for written texts—such had
been the case for centuries. Even before the dominance of Romance, Maimonides, for
example, who composed almost all of his works in Arabic, wrote that Arabic in Hebrew
characters. On Judeo-Arabic, see Joshua Blau, The Emergence and Linguistic Background of
Judaeo-Arabic; a Study of the Origins of Middle Arabic, (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1965). Because of the social conditions in fifteenth-century Spain (pogroms, Inquisition,
and, ultimately, Expulsion) much less Jewish literature in Romance has survived, but this
version of the Danza, like the Coplas de Yoçef and the Proverbios morales, points to the
possibility of a larger, lost corpus.
 text and context173

tells us in the opening verse, “Dezid vuestras culpas contad los pecados / en
cuanto podredes con satisfaçión si aver queredes conplido perdón de /aquel
perdona los yeros pasados” (folio 199r lines 10–12).33 Each of Death’s vic-
tims repents of the time they squandered sinning instead of dedicating it
to the service of the Lord. This sentiment, emphatically repeated in each
of Death’s encounters, is particularly close to that at the heart of the
Jewish holidays, Yom Kippur and Rosh-ha-Shanah.34 Given the similari-
ties in subject matter and the fact that the text is recorded in Hebrew
characters raises the possibility that the Danza was used in a para-liturgi-
cal context during Yom Kippur and/or Rosh ha-Shanah.
In fact, Paloma Díaz-Más proposes just such a para-liturgical use for the
Proverbios of Shem Tov. Like the Danza de la muerte, the Proverbios are
also preserved in both a Romance version (in fact, both texts are in the
same Escorial manuscript) and in aljamiado versions in Hebrew charac-
ters. Just as theatrical performances of and/or dramatic and edifying texts
in the vernacular such as the Coplas de Yoçef, or the Book of Esther, accom-
panied the celebration of Purim, Díaz-Más and Mota suggests that the
moral content of the Proverbios lent itself well to certain of the common-
places found in the penitential poetry read for edification during the
yamim nora’im, the Days of Fear beginning with Rosh ha-Shanah and end-
ing with Yom Kippur.35 The forty verses she cites from Shem Tob that reflect
the same themes found in the penitential poetry during the Days of Fear
deal with man’s sin and folly and his need to focus on God’s judgment, not
the vanities of this world. These themes constitute the moral tenor of the
entire Danza, so it seems particularly suited for use in a similar context.

The Danza as Para-liturgical Text

In addition to the similarities in moral tone—the same similarities Díaz-

Mas uses to support her hypothesis that the Proverbios were used in a

33
 The Escorial version varies only slightly: “Gemid vuestras culpas, dezid los pecados / en
quanto podades con satisfaçión, / si queredes haver complido perdón / de aquel que perdona
los yerros pasados” (“Gladly bewail your guilt and declare your sins / as soon as you can / if
you hope for forgiveness from He who pardons past mistakes.”) (vv. 45–48).
34
 David de Sola Pool, ed. and intro., Prayers for the New Year: According to the Custom
of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews, New York Union of Sephardic Congregations,
Philadelphia (1937), viii, defines Rosh ha-Shanah as the “day of remembrance and reckon-
ing for the harvest of man’s deeds, on which judgment is sealed nine days later on the Day
of Atonement (Yom Kippur).”
35
 Díaz-Mas and Mota, 24–25.
174 michelle hamilton

para-liturgical context—in the case of the Spanish Danza (in both the
Escorial and aljamiado versions), we find two specific images that corre-
spond to elements of the Rosh ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur liturgy, the
Mahzor.36 These are the image of the horn blown to announce repentance
and the image of the Book of Names in which God inscribes every mortal’s
name and fate. In both versions of the Danza, Death tells his victims that
their destiny will be determined according to what is written in the “Book
of Life.” This corresponds to one of the premises of Yom Kippur: that God
records our names in books, which will then be used to decide our eternal
destiny.37 These books of life or damnation that determine our eternal fate
tie into the concept of repentance and atonement at the heart of Yom
Kippur. There is an allusion to the Lord’s book in the penitential selihot
prayers, “whose purpose is to attune the spirit for New Year’s day, the day
of God’s tribunal for remembrance and judgment of man’s works on
earth.”38 In the Sephardic Mahzor, there is a reference to death as the act
of being blotted out of the Lord’s book: “Our God, God of our fathers,
when Thy hand takes hold of justice, make not an end of us. In punish-
ment’s hour, blot not our name from Thy book. When Thou comest to
searching correction, let Thy mercy prevail over justice.”39 The image of
the Book compares to that of the Danza in the copla in which Death tells
the monk, the only character who does not fear Death, that if his name is
recorded in the Book of Life he has nothing to fear: “si la regla santa del
monje / vendito guardastes del todo sin otro deseo sin dubda tened que soes /
escribto enel libro de vidas segum que yo creo” (folio 204v lines 22–24).40

36
 Medieval Sephardic prayerbooks, such as that described by Maimonides in Mishneh
Torah, included prayers and material for the entire year and included excerpts from the
Midrash and commentary (like Rabbi Tahum’s sermon discussed above), as well as prayers
and selihot, penitential prayers for the fifteen nights leading up to Rosh ha-Shanah and
Yom Kippur. An important medieval Mahzor is the Mahzor Vitry, which contains allusions
to the Talmud and sayings of the geonim, as well as “hosh’anot” and “zemirot” (songs,
hymns) for various occasions and a parody for Purim. The Mahzor Vitry became the basis
of the Ashkenazic minhag in 1208. See Judah David Eisenstein, “Prayer-books”, The Jewish
Encyclopedia, 171–72. In the Sephardic Yom Kippur liturgy, a work dealing with the prob-
lem of sin by the Iberian Jew, Ibn Gabirol, was included at the end of the evening service.
See Morris Jastrow Jr. and Max Margolis, “Day of Atonement”, The Jewish Encyclopedia, 288.
37
 The Book of Life is mentioned in Exodus 32:32 and Psalms 69:29. For information see
Kaufmann Kohler and Max Margolis, “Book of Life,” The Jewish Encyclopedia, 312–13.
38
 Sola Pool, vii.
39
 Mahzor Selihoth ‘Prayers of Penitence’ in Sola Pool, 24.
40
 “Si la regla santa del monje bendito / guardastes del todo sin otro deseo, / sin dubda
tened que soes escrito / en libro de vida, según que yo creo” (“If you fulfilled your vows as a
blessed monk / without having any other desires, / I believe that without a doubt your
name will be found in the Book of Life.”) (vv. 417–20 Escorial version).
 text and context175

Another parallel between the liturgy of the High Holidays and both
versions of the Danza is the haunting sound of death’s horn. In Jewish
tradition the ram’s horn or shofar is blown to announce both holidays,
and in the Escorial and Judeo-Spanish Dance the preacher tells us at
the very beginning to open our ears and hear the sad song of Death’s
charambela, an instrument similar to a trumpet or clarinet.41 The term,
charamela, comes into usage in the sixteenth century referring to the
shawn—a primitive reed instrument of very little diversity and range.42
But the term is also used in Portuguese to refer to a type of simple
trumpet—the charambela real.
The preacher-narrator opens both versions of the Danza by informing
his audience that Death has already begun to order his frightful dance
from which none will escape. He tells us to open our ears, for now we’ll
hear a sad song from Death’s charambela: “abrid las orejas que çedo oire­
des de su charamela un triste cantar” (folio 199v line 16).43 The imagery
repeated in the subsequent dialogues further supports the idea that
Death’s instrument is the shofar, which is similarly associated with
repentance and the end of life. One of Death’s victims, the constable,
describes Death as a musician of evil visage in the Escorial version:
“el tañedor trae feo visaje” (v. 204).44 Later the image of the playing of
the charambela is used metonymically to represent the Dance when
Death tells the Archdean to come to the sound of the playing: “E vos,
arçediano, venid al tañer” (folio 203v line 1; Escorial v. 312). To the knight

 Francis L. Cohen, Abraham de Harkavy, and Judah David Eisenstein, “Shofar”, The
41

Jewish Encyclopedia, 301–06 (301). The Shofar is the “ancient ritual horn of Israel, repre-
senting, next to the ‘Ugab or reeds, the oldest surviving form of wind-instrument … It is
mentioned frequently in the Bible, from Exodus to Zechariah, and throughout the Talmud
and later Hebrew literature. It was the voice of a shofar, ‘exceeding loud’, issuing from the
thick cloud on Sinai that made all in the camp tremble (Ex. xix. 16, xx. 18); and for this
reason, while other musical instruments were in each age constructed according to the
most advanced contemporary practise … the shofar has never varied in structure from its
prehistoric simplicity and crudity.” Francis L. Cohen, “Ne’ilah”, The Jewish Encyclopedia,
215–22 (222). In the Sephardic services of Yom Kippur, during the closing Kaddish the sho-
far was used as part of a call and response exchange between officiant and congregation in
which the Shema’ and response are uttered seven times, each “immediately followed by a
single complete series of the Shofar calls, instead of the weirdly solitary call which is heard
in the northern ritual.”
42
 See “charamela,” The New Michaelis Illustrated Dictionary, vol. 2. (São Paulo: Edicoes
Melhoramentes, 1984), c1958. See also Albert Rice, The Baroque Clarinet, (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1992).
43
 The Escorial version reads: “abrid las orejas, que agora oiredes / de su charambela un
triste cantar” (“Listen, for now you will hear from its horn a sad song”) (vv. 55–56).
44
 In the Hebrew aljamiado version Death is a dancer (dançador) (folio 202r line 4).
176 michelle hamilton

Death says, “Hear my song and its horrible sound” “sabed mi cançion
por qué / modo trona,” (folio 202v lines 4–5), underscoring the relation-
ship between the sound Death makes with his charambela and the struc-
turing and movement of the Dance itself.45 Perhaps the most convincing
example in the Danza is found in the exchange with the subdiácono.
Death tells the Deacon, “You are frightened to hear my horn” “vos esquiv­
ades oír mi bozina.” (v. 516 Escorial; Parma 2666 folio 206r line 18).46
Here Death calls its instrument a bozina, “horn,” and uses it to create a
haunting song.
Death’s instrument and the song he creates with it recalls the sound of
the shofar in the Rosh ha-Shanah service: “the call of the Shofar adds its
clamant appeal to that of the human voice. The stern and weird tones of
this instrument of primitive simplicity are a summons to judgment.”47
Among the several functions of the shofar in the Rosh ha-Shanah liturgy
is the inspiration of a feeling of fear and uneasiness designed to make the
believer humble before God. Another purpose for the shofar’s call is to
remind the believer of the day of final judgment.48 Maimonides summa-
rizes the message of the Shofar as the following:
Even though the sounding of the shofar on New Year is a statute of the
Torah, it nevertheless carries a message, instructing sinners to arouse,
become aware of their actions, and repent, for anyone who has forgotten
the truth and engaged in useless activities to give up such activities, and for
everyone to give up their bad ways and return to the good. Therefore, one
has to see oneself throughout the year as having an equal number of merits
and sins, which is the same outlook that the whole world should have. If one
committed a sin, one is damaging and corrupting both oneself and the
whole world. When one achieves a merit one brings salvation to oneself and
to the whole world!49

45
 “oíd mi cançión por qué modo cantona” (“Hear my song and in how it is played”)
(Escorial v. 244).
46
 Ramón Menéndez Pidal, ed., Alfonso el Sabio: Primera crónica general, 2nd ed.
(Madrid: Gredos, 1955), cápitulo 619, II:354. The term bozina is used in the Primera crónica
general in the legend of Bernardo el Carpio, where it refers to a horn. In this legend
Charlemagne sounds his horn bozina just after the death of Roland—suggesting an asso-
ciation between the bozina and the olifant.
47
 Sola Pool, x.
48
 See Shmuel Yosef Agnon, Days of Awe. (New York: Schocken Books, 1948), 71–72, for
a list of the different functions of the shofar as described by the tenth-century sage, Saadia
Gaon.
49
 Mishneh Torah Hilkhot Teshuvah Book 1, Chapter III, Halacha 4, available in the
translation of Immanuel M. O’Levy, “The Laws and Basic Principles of the Torah,” Mishneh
Torah, Maimonides, book 1, Internet History Sourcebooks. Paul Halsall, Fordham
 text and context177

Maimonides’ advice recalls Death’s words to the canónigo, whom he

advises to return to God in penitence, for surely he will be judged: “darvos
e un consello que vos / será sano. tornad vos a Dios. Façed penitençia que
contra vos es dada / sentençia” (folio 204r lines 6–8).50 Both as a reminder
to be humble before God and of the Final Judgment, the use of the shofar
on Rosh ha-Shanah has a symbolic performative aspect that parallels the
use of the charambela/bozina in the Spanish Danza.
In the Middle Ages use of the shofar was not restricted to the High
Holidays. As early as 400 CE the shofar was sounded to announce a death,
and during the Middle Ages it was blown at fasts, excommunications
and funerals, further underscoring its performative use in ritual settings,
and suggesting another possible context for the performance of the Danza
general.51 While the Jewish funeral today is characterized by silence, in the
Middle Ages there is evidence that families of the deceased contracted
professionals such as mourners and musicians as part of the funerary rit-
ual.52 One could imagine that in the context of medieval Spain, in a cli-
mate of worsening Christian-Jewish relations, contracting a musician or
troop to perform a Dance of Death—a text accepted in Christian circles
as well—would be a discreet way to honor a dead one without revealing a
Jewish identity. In fact, it was custom for a Jewish funerary procession,
complete with flute players and professional poets commissioned to write
eulogies, to pause
in a public area and/or in a designated area outside the cemetery for eulo-
gizing the dead…. Rabbinic texts preserve only fragments, but suggest that
the community gathered to participate in this procession and echoed back
the eulogy, at least when they agreed with what was being said. The entire
community was expected to join in this procession, for the mitzvah of
accompanying the dead to the grave supercedes all other mitzvot, including
Torah study.53

University. 1993. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/rambam-yesodei-hatorah.txt.

Also Isadore Twersky, The Code of Maimonides, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982)
and, for a version available in pre-expulsion Spain, see S. Z. Havlin, ed. and intro., Mishne
Torah of Maimondes, (Jerusalem: Makor, 1975).
50
 Das vos he un consejo que vos será sano: / tornadvos a Dios e fazed penitençia, / ca sobre
vos çierto es dada sentençia” (“I shall give you some good advice: / Turn to God and do peni-
tence, / for you will surely be judged.”) (Escorial vv. 357–59).
51
 Albert L. Lewis, “Shofar,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. 14. ed. Cecil Roth (Jerusalem:
Keter Publishing House, 1972), 1442–47 (1445).
52
 Ruth Langer, “Jewish Funerals: A Ritual Description”, Proceedings of the Annual
Meeting of the North American Academy of Liturgy (2001): 108–22 (113–14).
53
 Langer, 110–11.
178 michelle hamilton

Such a community procession, in fact, seems the ideal context for a work
such as the Danza de la muerte—and one can imagine the shofar player
assuming the role of Death.
Further support for such a performance context can be found in the
term Danse macabre, which may have its origin in “a ritual performed by
Jewish burial guilds in medieval France.”54 There are accounts of panto-
mimes in which gravediggers wore skeleton costumes and depicted
“Death leading all humankind in a dance to the grave.” By the fifteenth
century we know that Parisians “could attend a Dance of Death play that
was performed on Sunday afternoons in the Cemetery of the Innocents.”55
We have no reference, however, to the performance of the Spanish Danza.
The fact that it survives in this manuscript in Hebrew characters, how-
ever, attests to its existence among the conversos or Jews of Spain. Thanks
to Yom Tov Assis’s study of Aragonese Jewry we do know that burial guilds
became very powerful among Aragonese Jews of the fourteenth century,
and that, in addition to paying for funerals for the poor, they also hired
teachers, set up schools, and functioned as study or reading groups for
their members.56 Given that this text is of Aragonese-Catalán origin, it is
completely possible it was used by just such a guild, possibly before and
after the pogroms of 1391.
The similarities between the themes of the Danza and the Mahzor as
well as medieval Jewish funerary performances suggest the Judeo-Spanish
Danza could have been used as a type of para-liturgical text during the
High Holidays or during funerals, used by either Crypto-Jews or conversos.
Clearly the suggestion that the allusions to the Book of Life and to Death’s
horn made the Danza particularly suitable for use as a para-liturgical the-
atrical morality play in the Rosh ha-Shanah liturgy or during funeral rites
only makes sense in the context of pre-Expulsion Spain, where Jews lived
according to a whole spectrum of religious beliefs—from earnest new
converts to Christianity, Crypto-Jews, and Jews who had never converted,
but who found themselves living in a cultural milieu more and more
divorced from thriving Jewish communities. It was in such a context that
a Jew, converso or Crypto-Jew decided to record the Danza in Hebrew

54
 Alma Espinosa, “Music and the Danse macabre: A Survey.” The Symbolism of
Vanitas in the Arts, Literature, and Music. ed. Liana DeGirolami Cheney (Lewiston,
NY: Edwin Mellon Press, 1989), 15.
55
 Espinosa, 16.
56
 Yom Tov Assis, The Golden Age of Aragonese Jewry: Community and Society in the
Crown of Aragon, 1213–1327, (Portland, OR: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 1997),
249–51.
 text and context179

characters. In such a context we can imagine this person using a text

whose central theme is that of judgment and repentance, albeit that of
the Christian clergy, as a performative aid during either a funeral or the
Jewish holidays whose central themes were also those of sin and atone-
ment. The fact that an aljamiado version of the Danza exists at all is
further evidence of the cultural exchange, assimilation, and adaptation
that took place over several centuries in medieval Iberia between various
linguistic, ethnic, and religious groups.

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 THE CONVERSO AND THE SPANISH PICARESQUE NOVEL

Deborah Skolnik Rosenberg

The Spanish picaresque novel begins to flourish a little more than a cen-
tury after the last Jews either converted or left Spain in the wake of the
1492 Edict of Expulsion. Following the publication of Lazarillo de Tormes
in 1554, subsequent picaresque works do not appear until the late 1500s.
The success of the Guzmán de Alfarache (Part I: 1559, Part II: 1604), which
had twenty-six editions of its first part in the five years after publication,
led to around twenty picaresque works over the next few decades. The
picaresque took many forms during this period, including “traditional”
pícaros in the vein of Guzmán, female pícaras such as Justina of the Libro
del entretenimiento de la pícara Justina (1605) and Elena of La ingeniosa
Elena, hija de la Celestina (1614), or the pious hero of La vida del escudero
Marcos de Obregón (1618).1
The same years of the picaresque trajectory marked the culmination of
centuries of radical change for conversos, those descendants of Jews who
had converted to Catholicism in previous generations.2 No individuals
openly practiced Judaism in Spain any longer, and the conversos formed a
group that had relinquished their ancestral religion at various historical
moments of tragedy. Many Jewish families had decided to convert during
a marked rise in violence against them in the latter half of the fourteenth
century. Christians blamed Jews for the Black Death that plagued the
Iberian peninsula in the 1300s and accused them of murdering Christian
children to use their blood in ritualistic ceremonies. The Seville riots in
the summer of 1391, when around four thousand Jews were murdered, led
to further violence throughout Andalusia, Castile, and Aragon. Many of

1
 La ingeniosa Elena was published in a shorter version in 1612.
2
 Scholars from different disciplines employ various terms to refer to the converts from
Judaism to Christianity and their descendants; I have chosen “converso” because it is the
most common and neutral term used by literary scholars today. Some other terms trans-
mit derogatory connotations that I do not wish to perpetuate, such as the probable refer-
ence to swine in the term “marrano.” Judaic scholars often use “anusim,” a Hebrew word
meaning “coerced ones,” yet this term is not generally used by scholars of Spanish litera-
ture. Although many converts from Islam and their descendants also inhabited early mod-
ern Spain, historical and scholarly usage differentiates the term for converts from Judaism
as “conversos” and the term for converts from Islam as “moriscos.”
184 deborah skolnik rosenberg

the Jews who escaped harm chose conversion to avoid more problems,
while ecclesiastic campaigns in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth
centuries caused other Jews to convert to Catholicism.
Jews and conversos weathered additional bouts of violence in the fif-
teenth century, both from continued anti-Semitic riots against Jews—as
in the Toledo uprisings of 1449—or the punishment and execution of con-
versos charged with Judaizing by the Inquisition after its establishment in
Spain in 1478. Those Jews who had not yet converted encountered increas-
ing societal obstacles to their coexistence with Christians, as laws com-
pelling Jews to live in separate quarters were enforced in the late 1400s.
The Edict of Expulsion signed by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella on
March 31, 1492, attempted to eradicate Jewish practice completely in the
pursuit of religious cohesion and economic profit after the Reconquest. It
decreed that all Jews must either convert or leave Castile and Aragon
within four months. Estimates of the numbers of Jews and conversos in
Spain on the eve of the Expulsion vary widely. Historians approximate
that the converso population already numbered around 225,000 to 600,000
before 1492. They estimate that from 40,000 to more than 1,000,000 non-
converted Jews chose to leave Spain after the Edict, mostly for Portugal or
Northern Africa, and they place the numbers of converts in 1492 anywhere
from 20,000 to 240,000. In any case, even using the most conservative fig-
ures we can conjecture that at least about a quarter million converts from
Judaism to Catholicism lived in Spain at the beginning of the sixteenth
century among a general population that totaled seven to nine million.3
By the time that the picaresque novel became popular, then, conversos
had lived for more than one hundred years without any Jewish neighbors.
Many converso families had assimilated into mainstream Spanish society,
achieving important posts in the government and Church or titles of
nobility, despite laws that discouraged these positions of power. Most
conversos in the late 1500s practiced Catholicism with no vestigial ties to

3
 See David M. Gitlitz, Secrecy and Deceit: The Religion of the Crypto-Jews (Philadelphia:
Jewish Publications Society, 1996), 73–80 for an overview of scholarly estimates on the
converso and Jewish populations in Spain at the time of the Expulsion. Gitlitz believes that
the most reliable numbers culled from the historical scholarship are: 225,000 conversos in
pre-1492 Spain; 100,000–160,000 Jews expelled in 1492; and 25,000–50,000 Jews converted
in 1492. See also Haim Beinart, The Expulsion of the Jews from Spain (Oxford: Littman
Library of Jewish Civilization, 2002), 284–90 for analysis of contemporary historical
accounts of the number of Jews expelled, and Appendix B, “Jewish and Converso Population
in Fifteenth-Century Spain” in Norman Roth, Converso, Inquisition, and the Expulsion of
the Jews from Spain (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995), 328–32.
 the converso and the spanish picaresque novel185

the Jewish practices of their ancestors, due to assimilative processes over

the generations and the successful persecutions of the Inquisition. Some
of these New Christians were devout Catholics with a sincere belief in the
superiority of their chosen religion over their ancestral one, while others
performed the rites of Christianity as a practical way to stay in Spain.
Certain converso families, in lesser numbers, still chose only to marry into
similarly converted families and pass on some crypto-Judaic customs to
their children.4 In 1580, an influx of Judaizing conversos from Portugal
joined the Spanish converso population, but the Inquisition quickly pur-
sued and eradicated this perceived religious threat.
Despite their attempts to assimilate, however, a vaguely anti-Semitic
and suspicious view of the converso persisted throughout the centuries
following the Expulsion. The continuing distrust of Old Christians toward
former Jews, fueled by the anger of both nobility and peasants at the rapid
ascension of many New Christians to positions of power, placed the con-
versos of the late 1500s and early 1600s in an ambiguous group loosely
defined by both religious and racialized parameters.5 The constant vigi-
lance of the Inquisition over possible crypto-Jewish practice in the first
decades after the Expulsion augmented the perception that conversos
were not true Christians. Furthermore, early modern Spanish culture
appropriated medieval stereotypes about Jews into their ideas of the con-
verso, continuing racialized notions of negative inbred traits that carried
across generations.6 Legal sanctions against conversos, such as the stat-
utes of limpieza de sangre, or purity-of-blood laws, which certain Church,
government, military, and academic organizations passed in the fifteenth

4
 Crypto-Jewish conversos in the generations after the Expulsion relied on oral tradi-
tion, the Old Testament component of the Christian Bible, and the Inquisition’s outline of
Jewish customs in its Edicts of Grace to help them to continue the practice of a version of
Judaism (Gitlitz, 39–40).
5
 Etienne Balibar and Immanual Wallerstein, Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities,
trans. Chris Turner (London: Verso, 1991). Balibar explains that racial difference existed in
early modern Spain as a way to delineate the invisible “other,” the Jew remaining in the
converso that caused anxiety among Old Christians. Scientific classifications of race did
not begin until the eighteenth century. The early modern Spaniard, Graizbord clarifies,
believed that Jews passed inbred traits down through the generations but did not define
casta (caste or stock), generación (origin), or linaje (lineage) according to the same
boundaries as later scientific racial classifications. David L. Graizbord, Souls in Dispute:
Converso Identities in Iberia and the Jewish Diaspora. 1580–1700 (Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), 117.
6
 Julio Caro Baroja, Judíos en la España moderna y contemporánea (Madrid: Istmo, 1986)
I: 91–107. Caro Baroja describes the physical and personality traits attributed to Jews in
medieval and early modern Spain.
186 deborah skolnik rosenberg

century to exclude conversos from their ranks, garnered force in the six-
teenth century and offered institutionalized parameters to the popular
drive to differentiate conversos from the rest of society on the basis of
their inheritance of a shared Jewish bloodline.7 Some conversos worked
around obstacles to their assimilative goals by concocting successfully
fake family trees that cleansed their lineage of the “stain” of a racialized
Jewish past, or by paying off officials involved in investigating their famil-
ial origins.8
Conversos at the dawn of the seventeenth century, thus, formed a het-
erogeneous group with no definitive characteristics other than the similar
Jewish pasts of their ancestors and the subjection to continued measures
against them by a society aiming to differentiate them as a blend of racial-
ized and religious outcast. The resistance to converso assimilation in early
modern Spain points to the anxiety produced by a group that was differ-
ent from other Spaniards—able to blend into society and succeed in it on
some levels, yet marked by an ambiguous “otherness” that made Old
Christians uncomfortable. Conversos with assimilative goals could only
find a partial acceptance from their society, which continued to throw a
hazy net of difference over New Christians.
The presence of converso protagonists in several picaresque novels at
the beginning of the seventeenth century testifies to the relevance of
issues centered around inherited “Jewish” traits, societal assimilation, and
the religious salvation of New Christians at the cultural moment in which
this genre thrived. Many of the novels of the picaresque genre use the
portrayal of the pícaro to attempt a resolution for the ambiguous “other-
ness” posed by the converso in early modern Spanish society, working
through social tensions in the literary space of their texts. In doing so,
these works also contribute to the formation of an emerging national
identity, by either using their fiction to expel Jewish descendants from the

7
 Henry Kamen, “Limpieza and the Ghost of Américo Castro: Racism as a Tool of
Literary Analysis,” Hispanic Review 64.1 (1996), 19–29. Kamen attempts to diminish the
importance of the limpieza de sangre statutes, arguing that many authorities opposed
them and that literary scholars today overemphasize their breadth. While I do not dispute
his historical research, I argue that the increasing application of the statutes in the six-
teenth century underscores the institutional propagation of a racialized view of the con-
verso that already existed on the popular level.
8
 Irving A. Leonard, Baroque Times in Old Mexico (Ann Arbor, MI: University of
Michigan Press, 1959), 54–59. The successful move of the converso Mateo Alemán, the
author of Guzmán de Alfarache, to Mexico City in 1608 was probably due to bribery of a
government official who decided on visas to New Spain. Members of converso families
could not typically travel to New Spain.
 the converso and the spanish picaresque novel187

role of Spaniard or alternately staking out a space for their inclusion. This
essay will take a specific look at three picaresque novels written around
the same time that participate together in this defining task: Guzmán de
Alfarache (published I: 1599, II: 1604), La pícara Justina (published 1605),
and La vida del Buscón llamado don Pablos (written 1603–1608, published
1626).9 The Pícara Justina and Buscón respond strongly to the definition
of the converso put forth in the Guzmán de Alfarache, where Mateo
Alemán represents New Christians in terms of the difficult path they face
toward a religious salvation that is still attainable if they work extra hard.
While Justina scoffs at the rigid religious basis of Alemán’s converso defini-
tion, the Buscón seeks to equate the converso with negative personality
characteristics associated with Jews at the same time that it disrupts the
redemptive drive of the Guzmán. In this essay, I will concentrate on out-
lining the representation of the converso in the Guzmán and the precise
textual responses that the subsequent novels make to this work, showing
how these picaresque novels enter into a literary polemic about the racial-
ized and religious boundaries for converso difference in early modern
Spain.10
The two parts of Guzmán de Alfarache inscribe a mix of wariness and
hope about the possibility for conversos to achieve Christian redemption.
Biblical and literary metaphors surrounding the converso protagonist in
both parts send the message that, although negative characteristics
passed down from Jewish ancestors will continually thwart salvation, God
will always be ready for a true, interior conversion to a Christian way of
life when these converts are ready. In Part I, the metaphor of the converso
as a monster predominates alongside distorted references to the hope of
salvation offered by the paschal holidays of Passover and Easter, thereby
placing Jewish and Christian examples of redemption on display.
Part I sets up the exploration of the converso definition in its first pages
through the representation of Guzmán’s father as a New Christian. The
opening chapter of the novel reveals just how much the narrator knows
about his familial background. The father came from levantiscos (people

 9
 Mateo Alemán, Guzmán de Alfarache I. Ed. José María Micó (Madrid: Cátedra, 1987);
Mateo Alemán, Guzmán de Alfarache II. Ed. José María Micó (Madrid: Cátedra,
1994); Francisco López de Úbeda, La pícara Justina. Ed. Antonio Rey Hazas. 2 vols. (Madrid:
Nacional, 1977); and Francisco de Quevedo, El Buscón. Ed. Domingo Ynduráin.
(Madrid: Cátedra, 1989). All references to these novels will appear henceforth as Guzmán
I, Guzmán II, Pícara Justina, or Buscón respectively.
10
 Textual evidence verifies that both the author of the Pícara Justina and of the Buscón
had read at least the first part of the Guzmán, including overt references to the work and
its themes.
188 deborah skolnik rosenberg

from the East) who resided in Genoa, Italy (Guzmán I, 130). These clues,
along with his penchant for effeminate hairstyles and face powder, mark
Guzmán’s father as a converso according to the negative stereotypes of the
time.11 Alemán reinforces the stereotypical converso label by referring to
the father’s false attitude toward religion. He practiced the visible rites of
Catholicism, like attending Mass and taking communion, to such a degree
that people took his zealousness as a sign of fake piety; his devoted pose
during Mass, with a hat perched over his raised hands and covering his
face, struck others as an attempt to ignore the service: “Arguyéronle
maldicientes que estaba de aquella manera rezando para no oír, y el som-
brero alto para no ver” (“Those with evil tongues said that he was sitting in
that way in order to not hear, with the hat high like that in order not
to see”) (Guzmán I, 132). Guzmán’s father also showed little devotion to
Christianity. He easily converted from Christianity to Islam as a captive in
Algiers, and then back again when it suited him to return to Spain. These
multiple conversions highlight the father’s practical but spiritually void
approach to religion.
Next to this clear demarcation of an unspiritual father with little reli-
gious conviction, the beginning of the Guzmán’s first part functions as an
introduction to the complex life of the converso on two contiguous levels:
the confusion of the older Guzmán about his heritage as he begins his
autobiography, followed by the difficult experiences of the young Guzmán
as he leaves home. The opening chapter of the novel emphasizes the mali-
cious individuals who gossip about his father, along with the defensive
reaction of the narrator to their accusations. From the beginning, when
he explains why he will start out the autobiography with such detail on
his father, Guzmán constantly refers to the negative, opinionated whis-
perings of other people and his need to set the record straight. The gossips
talk so much about his father that what they say no longer resembles fact:
Tal sucedió a mi padre que, respeto de la verdad, ya no se dice cosa que lo sea.
De tres han hecho trece y los trece, trecientos …. Son lenguas engañosas y fal-
sas que, como saetas agudas y brasas encendidas, les han querido herir las
honras y abrasar las famas, de que a ellos y a mí resultan cada día nobles
afrentas. (Guzmán I, 129–30)
So much happened in regards to my father that, in terms of the truth, no one
says anything anymore that is truthful. They’ve turned three into thirteen

11
 See Edward Glaser, “Two Anti-Semitic Word Plays in the Guzmán de Alfarache,”
Modern Language Notes (1954): 343–48, for sources contemporary to the Guzmán that link
effeminate traits to conversos.
 the converso and the spanish picaresque novel189

and from that, three hundred …. They all have false and misleading tongues
that, like poisoned arrows and burning coals, have tried to injure our honor
and burn our reputation, because of which we suffer singular indignities
every day.
Yet in outlining and trying to defend the main accusations against him—
he was a moneylender, a religious hypocrite, a criminal who stole people’s
estates but escaped justice, and possibly a sodomite—Guzmán reveals
clear doubt about his father’s innocence on each of these points. Even
while pointing out that his father’s career, relaying money for business
transactions, was not technically illegal, he condemns the many immoral
and criminal moneylending tactics practiced by most in the field. If
Guzmán expresses exasperation that others call his father a religious hyp-
ocrite because he zealously practiced Catholicism, he also acknowledges
that they have just cause for not believing him, since he did convert to and
from Islam for personal benefit. As to the charges of stealing from other
people’s estates, Guzmán maintains that every merchant does it, while at
the same time commenting that God will judge those who commit such
evil acts and that he won’t communicate his true feelings on a matter that
does not favor his father.12 If there was ample evidence against the father
at trial, well, it’s not his fault if those arguing and deciding the case were
on his father’s side. Guzmán, however, has little to argue in defense of the
effeminate traits attributed to his father. He writes that he can only com-
ment on the man he knew, a blond man with natural curls. If others are
right and his father used makeup, curled his hair, and did other similar
things characteristic of sodomites, he’ll agree to vilify him and be his
enemy henceforth.13

12
 “Por no ser contra mi padre, quisiera callar lo que siento; aunque si he de seguir al
Filósofo, mi amigo es Platón y mucho más la verdad, conformándome con ella” (“In order not
to speak badly against my father, I’ll need to keep quiet about what I feel; although follow-
ing the Philosopher, my friend is Plato and my even closer friend is truth, and remaining
truthful”) (Guzmán I, 134).
13
 “Pero si es verdad, como dices, que se valía de untos y artificios de sebillos, que los dientes
y manos, que tanto le loaban, era a poder de polvillos, hieles, jabonetes y otras porquerías,
confesaréte cuanto dél dijeres y seré su capital enemigo y de todos los que de cosa semejante
tratan; pues demás que son actos de afeminados maricas, dan ocasión para que dellos mur-
muren y se sospeche toda vileza …” (“But if it true, as you say, that he used unctions and fat
to style his hair, and that his teeth and hands, which were much admired, were so nice to
look at because of the powders, lotions, soaps, and other nonsense that he used on them,
I will agree with you about whatever you say about him and I will be his main enemy and
the enemy of those who also do such things; since also they are actions of effeminate
homosexuals, and elicit the gossip about them and also they’re suspected of all matter of
vile acts …” ) (Guzmán I, 140).
190 deborah skolnik rosenberg

The supposed defense of the father, then, reveals the anxiety and
confusion felt by the son about his paternal origins. Guzmán contradicts
himself continuously: attacking the gossips, then agreeing with them;
defending his father’s actions, then condemning them. He resides both
inside and out of the point of view of these malicious “others,” not sure if
he belongs on the side of his father or outside opinion. As he begins his
autobiography, the narrator reveals the dilemma of the converso who
must find peace with his Jewish past while accepting a Christian present
life.
The first chapter of the Guzmán ends with a description of the Monster
of Ravenna, a grotesque baby born in 1512 with a mixture of human and
animal traits. Placed at a liminal point of the novel, after the introduction
to a converso father and his conflicted son, Alemán intends us to read the
monster as a metaphor for the converso. Guzmán sketches the monster
directly after the passive-aggressive defense of his father: “Pero si en lo
malo hay descargo, cuando en alguna parte hubiera sido mi padre culpado,
quiero decirte una curiosidad, por ser este su lugar, y todo sucedió casi en un
tiempo. A ti servirá de aviso y a mí de consuelo, como mal de muchos” (“But
if there is some defense for evil, I want to tell you about a curious event
because this is the right place, and all of this happened at around
the same time. It will serve as a warning for you and as a consolation for
me, as my father’s disgrace was just one bad event among many around
then”) (Guzmán I, 141). Alemán constructs a clear parallel here between
Guzmán’s father and the monster, between the warnings embodied in the
monster and the lessons embedded in the novel. The monster comes to
represent both the confusion faced by the converso as he confronts soci-
ety as well as society’s contradictory views of him, which will be depicted
in the ensuing chapters of the novel.
From the late Middle Ages to the early modern period, disfigured
babies in Italy and Germany were read as signs of religious and political
portent.14 Pamphlets and other written works appeared following the
birth of a particular monster, attempting to interpret the meaning behind
the malformations. Soon after the Ravenna monster’s birth in March
1512, for example, descriptions traveled first to Rome, from where
broadsheets  and drawings quickly circulated throughout Europe.15

14
 See Ottavia Niccoli, Prophecy and People in Renaissance Italy. trans. Lydia G.
Cochrane, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990) for details on the history and
depiction of monsters in Renaissance Europe.
15
 Niccoli, 35–37. Niccoli provides excerpts of the initial written description of the mon-
ster, the offspring of a nun and a friar with a horn on its head and a devil’s hoof on one leg.
 the converso and the spanish picaresque novel191

Initially, interpreters prognosticated that the monster foretold the Papal

victory over France in their conflicts determining the rule of the city; fol-
lowing the sacking of Ravenna by the French in April 1512, they decided
that the signs had predicted the Papal defeat.
Several iconographic versions of the monster circulated, but Alemán’s
description seems to stem from those similar to Dame World, a German
symbol for the seven capital sins (Niccoli, 42–43). Alemán probably read
about this version of the monster in the 1586 translation of a French work
by Pierre Boaystuau, Histoires prodigieuses. The monster’s body in the
Guzmán is human from the waist up, except for a horn on the forehead
and bat’s wings instead of arms. Both a Pythagorean “Y” and a cross appear
on its chest. It is a hermaphrodite, and has a single leg with a talon for a
foot and an eye on the knee. According to Alemán, the experts read the
future of Italy through the monster: that a hope for good, as symbolized by
the Pythagorean “Y” and the cross, exists underneath the evil rampant in
Italy, which the monster manifests in its various grotesque characteris-
tics. If we extend these interpretations to Guzmán’s father and the con-
verso in general, as Alemán has invited us to do through the close
placement of the father/converso and monster images in the text, then the
paradoxical bind faced by the converso becomes apparent. The converso
remains both Jewish and Christian at once, with the evil-“Jewish” qualities
battling the good-“Christian” ones for dominance. While he may want to
align himself with those traits that make him Christian, the converso can-
not entirely avoid the inherited monstrosity that keeps him a Jew, accord-
ing to the symbolism of the text—whether by his own ambivalence or the
attitude of others. In the same way, Old Christians regard the converso as
a monster, a deformation of themselves who exhibits Christian qualities
but retains the stereotypically negative ties to a Jewish lineage.
The monster metaphor is a particularly apt image for depicting the con-
verso because it reflects contemporary societal representations of and
beliefs about Jews, highlighting that part of the New Christian that society
couldn’t forget. The meaning behind the negative signs on the Monster of
Ravenna’s body—pride, ambition, inconstancy, avarice, vanity, and
sodomy—correspond to stereotypical personality traits attributed to the
Jew in early modern Spain.16 The contemporary reader, then, may have
noticed the relevance of the metaphor more easily than we do today.

16
 See Miguel Herrero García, Ideas de los españoles del siglo XVI (Madrid: Voluntad,
1928), 617–55, for descriptions of Jews that include many of these traits in texts contempo-
rary to the Guzmán.
192 deborah skolnik rosenberg

Medieval superstition, moreover, had led to the common belief that

Jewish characteristics appeared as indelible bodily marks and deformi-
ties, such as horns, a tail, or open wounds, so that the image of a monster-
converso stamped with his inerasable Jewish past does not stray so far
from what many people considered fact. To wit, a German illustration
from 1574 shows the birth of two pigs to a Jewish woman, forming a strik-
ing parallel to the deformed monster born in Ravenna.17
Through the metaphor, the text communicates some of the possible
avenues that Old and New Christians may take in learning to live with
each other. The presence of the virtuous signs on the monster’s chest spell
the hope for the converso’s Christian redemption in an otherwise evil
being. Conversos must strive to downplay their sinful, “Jewish” side, which
they can never erase, while turning toward their new religion for salvation
on the chance that, “reprimiendo las torpes carnalidades, abrazasen en su
pecho la virtud, les daría Dios paz y ablandaría su ira” (“repressing the base
carnal pleasures, hugging virtue to their breast, God would give them
peace and temper his anger”) (Guzmán I, 142). Old Christians, moreover,
should recognize that conversos may sincerely practice Catholicism
despite their Jewish background. All Christians may sin because they are
human, but the text reminds its readers that they can achieve redemption
by repentance. As Guzmán narrates after describing the monster:
Ves aquí, en caso negado, que, cuando todo corra turbio, iba mi padre con el
hilo de la gente y no fue solo el que pecó. Harto más digno de culpa serías tú,
si pecases, por la mejor escuela que has tenido. Ténganos Dios en su mano
para no caer en otras semejantes miserias, que todos somos hombres.
(Guzmán I, 142)
Remember that, in his defense, in the shady atmosphere in which he lived,
my father did the same bad things everyone else was doing and he was not
the only sinner. You would be just as much to blame, were you to sin in such
a way, if you and he had learned in the same moral school. May God have us
in his hands so that we do not fall to such degradation, as all of us are
sinners.
Both Old and New Christians embody evil and good at the same time, like
the monster but also like any human. The conversos are no different than

17
 See Joshua Trachtenberg, The Devil and the Jews: The Medieval Conception of the Jew
and its Relation to Modern Anti-Semitism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1943), 52–53,
for details and the illustration. Trachtenberg provides numerous examples of the bodily
marks that indicated “Jewishness” in medieval Europe (44–52), and Caro Baroja, 91–107,
discusses psychological and physical characteristics attributed to the Jew.
 the converso and the spanish picaresque novel193

anyone else, the text communicates, and so should not be maligned sim-
ply for the confluence of their Jewish past with a Christian present.
The monster metaphor, thus, provides us with a key to interpreting the
confrontations between Guzmán and the world. The pícaro must contin-
ually struggle with his two disparate sides as he makes personal choices
and encounters others in his journey. If he falls prey to those parts of him
that are still “Jewish,” he will transform into the deviant monster, a trans-
gressor against God’s laws. But if he can overcome the pull of those traits
portrayed as Semitic, and allow the part of him saved by Jesus to domi-
nate, the text promises that he may indeed find redemption and accept-
ance from God. In this way, I propose a reading of the Guzmán de Alfarache
that adds another category of “perversions” to those discussed by Harry
Vélez-Quiñones, who shows that monstrous images in various Hispanic
texts serve to communicate the anxiety produced by individuals who
stray from socio-cultural norms.18 The “perverse” delineates a part of cul-
ture that is both necessary in order to define difference, and dangerous,
since excessive difference threatens the social order, and the image of the
monster fulfills a similar function in regard to conversos, who balance on
the center and margin of culture by living along the Christian-Jewish axis
of their signifiers. They are at the same time a part of society and danger-
ous to it, a potential monster waiting to pounce.
The image of the converso as a monster encompasses the novel’s first
part, as Guzmán travels from Spain to Italy in search of his supposedly
illustrious relatives with “clean” blood. The protagonist leaves home on
the brink of adolescence in order to make his way alone in the world. At
twelve years old, Guzmán feels obligated to strike out on his own because
his father’s death has impoverished the family. But other motivations pro-
pel the departure. “Alentábame mucho el deseo de ver mundo, ir a reconocer
en Italia a mi noble parentela,” (“I was inspired by the desire to travel the
world, and to go to Italy to reacquaint myself with my noble family,”)
recounts the older Guzmán, who narrates his fictive autobiography some
thirty years later while imprisoned in the galleys (Guzmán I, 163). Aside
from the youthful itch for adventure, Guzmán seeks to find his father’s
relatives in Italy so that he can discover and connect with an illustrious
familial background that disproves personal suspicion of a Jewish past.
Instead, however, the pícaro’s journey to his relatives becomes a search

18
 Harry Vélez-Quiñones, Monstrous Displays: Representation and Perversion in Spanish
Literature (New Orleans: University Press of the South, 1999).
194 deborah skolnik rosenberg

for self, a search with goals that shift as Guzmán learns more about the
world and how others will treat him in it.
As the first part of the novel progresses, disrupted references to the
redemptive symbolism contained in the Passover and Easter holidays, in
addition to their Biblical counterparts in the Exodus and Passion, show
that Guzmán will not find any religious salvation in his journeys. Although
the examples are too numerous to recount in this essay, some explana-
tion will reveal the prevalence of this theme in the novel’s first part. For
instance, the protagonist’s first meals away from home—which take
place during the general time of Passover and Easter—include paschal
images that point to the path of redemption available to the converso
pícaro, while their impurity signals the obstacles that lie ahead in the
struggle for his soul.19 Thus, in one of the first meals Guzmán receives
scrambled eggs that contain the bones of half-hatched chickens, thereby
communicating the paschal symbol of renewal through the eggs next to
the anti-Semitic, mongrel image of the converso as an only partially
formed Christian. Alemán intentionally evokes associations to the Jewish
and Christian symbols of rebirth by serving the eggs just as Guzmán
embarks on his new life, while he warns that this birth will not be a spir-
itual success for now by tainting the omelet.20
The pícaro does not have more luck in the subsequent meal. He and the
mule driver with whom he travels stop at another inn for the evening,
where the innkeeper serves them several dishes of what he tells them is
veal. Guzmán does not notice anything amiss that night. But he tastes
something odd the next morning when given leftovers for breakfast, and
a visit to the barn confirms his suspicions: the innkeeper has served them
a mule offspring of a mare and a donkey. Here, Guzmán has ingested a

19
 Guzmán mentions that he couldn’t eat meat the previous day because it was during
Lent (164).
20
 An alternate perspective to the pessimism symbolized by the tainted food arises
from a sermon on forgiveness and the futility of vengeance, which follows soon after the
meal. Guzmán meets two clergymen who have hired the mule driver with whom the
pícaro travels, and he tells them his story. The older clergyman’s sermon instructs him in
how to deal with other Christians who mistreat him because he is converso (Guzmán I,
180). The tale of “Ozmín and Daraja,” told by the younger clergyman, also sends a message
to the New Christian boy. In this tale, the appearance of Old Christianity leads to accept-
ance at the highest levels of Spanish society. According to the tale’s message, Guzmán
should try to assimilate as much as possible into Spanish society if he expects acceptance
from it. As Book II shows, Guzmán seeks to fulfill the advice of the young clergymen from
the tale while ignoring the sermon’s redemptive message. See my dissertation, Family Ties:
The Converso in the Spanish Picaresque Novel (Ann Arbor, MI: ProQuest, 2004), 35–39, for
a close reading of the sermon and the interpolated tale.
 the converso and the spanish picaresque novel195

symbolic representation of the “mixed-breed” status he represents as a

converso. New Christians resemble such hybrid animals because their lin-
eage is also unclear; like the mule meat, they may be able to pass them-
selves off as Old Christians at first glance, but the text warns that
underneath they will always carry their Jewish ancestry.21
Soon after Guzmán arrives in Italy toward the end of Part I, he gives up
the struggle between his metaphorically-charged “Christian” and “Jewish”
traits, permitting the “Jewish”-monstrous side of his nature to overpower
any of the redemptive goodness that the text links to Christianity. This
change occurs following an unwelcome reception from the Genoese rela-
tives. He encounters a man in Genoa who claims to know of his relatives.
The man, really his uncle, takes Guzmán to his home and offers him lodg-
ing for the night, and the boy thinks that he has finally found a path to his
“clean” family tree. But in the middle of the night, a group of creatures
that Guzmán takes to be demons invades the room and tosses him in a
blanket. After they leave, the boy notices that he has defecated on the
blanket, and he flees as soon as possible the next morning. From this
point on, the rest of the first novel catalogs Guzmán’s downward spiral
into degeneracy. The boy becomes a full-fledged pícaro as part of a gang of
ruffians, then a stealing page to a cardinal, and finally a joker and go-
between to the ambassador to France. Although he meets with many
opportunities to turn his life around, especially from the forgiving cardi-
nal, he rejects them all and prefers to cheat, steal, and gamble.
Part II of the novel, published five years later, continues the same
uncomfortable mix of anti-Semitic renderings of the converso as a lost
soul with Judeo-Christian imagery promoting the ever-present hope of
redemption. In this part, the text implements a comparison between
Guzmán and the Biblical Jonah in several key moments of the novel to
mark the spiritual evolution of the converso protagonist. The Book of
Jonah has the central theme of the possibility of repentance for all people,
whether Jewish, like Jonah, or non-Jewish, like the Ninevites. Yet time and
again in the novel’s second part, Guzmán invokes and then squanders the
example of Jonah, continuing his corrupt ways in Italy and back in Spain
as the novels draws to a conclusion.
The whale of the Jonah story presents a particularly appropriate meta-
phor for converso identity, complementing the metaphor of the monster
from Part I with a monstrously large ocean creature that swallows up man

21
 See Skolnik Rosenberg, 33–4, for an explanation of the paschal symbolism of the
mule meat.
196 deborah skolnik rosenberg

and fish alike.22 Conversos, whatever their relationship to Christianity,

hide a part of themselves from the outside world. They may hang onto the
clandestine practice of Jewish rituals, whether because they do not accept
their new faith with sincerity or because of abiding family traditions. Even
if they do believe in Christianity, New Christians always retain a part of
themselves that remains different, a Jewish inheritance of alienation
propagated by the prejudice waged upon conversos in early modern Spain.
The whale of the Biblical story traps a Jewish man inside, just as all conver-
sos hid a Jewish background within. Guzmán finds himself returned time
and again to his birthright in the whale references of Part II, the messy
reality of living as a converso.
As with the paschal references of Part I, the many reminders of the
Jonah story are too prevalent in the second part to list in detail in this
essay. However, two significant references will illustrate the important
messages about converso salvation conveyed by the text. The storm that
Guzmán encounters aboard the ship back to Spain, after his experiences
in Italy have not countered the emotional wounds suffered from the ini-
tial rejection by the Genoese relatives, sets up a clear parallel to the Jonah
metaphor, through which the text forecasts the continuing avoidance of
salvation by the converso pícaro. In the Book of Jonah, the prophet finds
himself in the storm aboard a ship when he turns too easily to anger and
to questioning God’s decisions. Guzmán’s sins cast another net, encom-
passing recurrent theft and an incessant drive toward vengeance, but
like Jonah he finds himself in a storm that seeks to shock him into self-
examination and repentance. Yet instead of repenting, he remains obsti-
nate in the refusal to change his ways. The departure of Guzmán’s ship
from Italy begins with calm weather, but just after they sight Spain dark
clouds, the northeast wind, and heavy rainfall signal that a terrible storm
is brewing. Soon the danger to the ship rivals that of Jonah and his ship-
mates, as those aboard the vessel begin to pray in any way that may help
earn some respite: “¿Qué pudiera yo aquí decir de lo que vi en este tiempo?
¿Qué oyeron mis oídos, que no sé si se podría decir con la lengua o ser creído
de los estraños? ¡Cuántos votos hacían! ¡A qué varias advocaciones llama-
ban! Cada uno a la mayor devoción de su tierra”) (“What can I say here
about what I saw then? About what I heard, which I don’t think I can
say nor would be believed by others? How many prayers were said!

22
 The Hebrew words used in the Book of Jonah mean “large fish” rather than “whale.”
I use the term “whale” in part because of the common cultural reference to Jonah and the
whale, and especially because Alemán also uses the term in this context.
 the converso and the spanish picaresque novel197

How many religious dedications were invoked! Everyone prayed accord-

ing to the style of his homeland”) (Guzmán II, 307). In this way, the occu-
pants of Guzmán’s ship resemble the occupants of the ship to Tarshish,
who try to pray to the deities that may have caused their storm: “Then the
mariners were afraid, and cried every man unto his god …” (Jon. 1.5).23
Both Guzmán and Jonah spend much of the storm below deck, waiting to
find out whether they will survive.
The similarities between the two storms end here, because the protag-
onist of the Guzmán does not subsequently offer his sacrifice to the water
for others or publicly acknowledge his role in the tempest in any way. He
keeps opinions about his own blame to himself, only admitting fault when
recounting the episode in the narrative:
Verdaderamente no se puede negar que de dos peligros de muerte se teme
mucho más el más cercano, porque del otro nos parece que podíamos escapar;
empero en mí esta vez no temí tanto aquesta tormenta ni sentí el peligro,
respeto del temor de arribar: no por el mar, mas por la infamia. Harto decía yo
entre mí, cuando pasaban estas cosas, que por mí solo padecían los más, que
yo era el Jonás de aquella tormenta. (Guzmán II, 307)
Truly you can not dispute that between two dangers of death you’re going to
be afraid of the one that is closer, because it always seems possible to escape
from the other one. But to me this time I wasn’t so much afraid of that storm
nor did I feel the danger, in terms of falling overboard: not into the sea,
I mean, but more so I was afraid of falling into infamy. I told myself over and
over, when these events were going on, that the others were going to die
because of me, as I was the Jonah of that storm.
He had no fear of falling into the sea, Guzmán explains. What scared him
a bit during the storm was the reckoning he may have to make to God one
day for his past iniquities, but not enough to result in any reformation of
his lifestyle when he reaches dry land. The protagonist continues to fol-
low his wickedly converso ways throughout much of the rest of the novel
instead of repenting like the example of his Biblical counterpart.
Although Guzmán relinquishes all chances at salvation so far, his ille-
gal activities back home lead to imprisonment in the galleys for life, then
to a confession there and the narrative promise of a newly Christian
future. The imprisonment of the protagonist in the galleys and his conse-
quent conversion there at the conclusion of Part II mirror the “Psalm of

23
 Santa Biblia/Holy Bible, Spanish Version of Casiodoro de Reina (1569) and Revision of
Cipriano de Valera (1602), 1960 Edition, English Authorized King James Version (Nashville:
Holman, 1988).
198 deborah skolnik rosenberg

Thanksgiving” sung by Jonah in the belly of the whale, suggesting com-

parisons between the salvation of the Biblical figure and that of the pica-
resque hero. Alemán, as we shall see, offers up the hope of Christian
salvation for conversos through the comparison to Jonah in the whale at
this point in the novel. He illustrates how much hard work is involved by
the stark contrasts to the prophet’s confession, and then returns to the
Biblical example again at the end of the novel to provide encouragement
and instruction to New Christians about reaching their religious goals.
The circumstances of the pícaro’s repentance bear some metaphor­
ical  similarity to the whale’s belly, thus setting up the comparison
between the conversions. Like Jonah, Guzmán finds himself condemned
because of past sins to spend his life traveling the ocean stuck inside of
his “whale,” the ship where he will serve penance as a galley prisoner.
His experiences there cause him to turn to God for forgiveness after he
tattles on the other prisoners aboard ship, leading to their torture by the
ship’s warden. Observing the lengths that he will go to escape corporeal
discomfort, Guzmán begins to question his eternal fate and the perma-
nent discomforts that may await him:
Ya estás arriba y para dar un salto en lo profundo de los infiernos o para con
facilidad, alzando el brazo, alcanzar el cielo. Ya ves la solicitud que tienes en
servir a tu señor, por temor de los azotes, que dados hoy, no se sienten a dos
días…. Pues bien sabes tú, que no lo ignoras, pues tan bien lo estudiaste, cuánto
menos te pide Dios y cuánto más tiene que darte y cuánto mejor amigo es.
(Guzmán II, 505)
Here you are at this point, able to jump into the depths of Hell or just as eas-
ily, with a helping hand, reach Heaven. You’ve already seen how hard you’re
working at serving the ship’s captain, for fear of the whippings, which are so
harsh that given today, you won’t have any feeling for two days…. You know
full well, and don’t you forget it, because you’ve spent so much time study-
ing it, how much less God asks of you and how much more he has to give
you and how much more of a good friend he is.
Guzmán decides to serve God instead of the warden, and resolves to lead
a more virtuous life made up of confession and good deeds. Jonah and
Guzmán use the space of their imprisonment to question past missteps
and plan a future along the straight and narrow. Furthermore, in addition
to the circumstances of their confessions, some phrases from Guzmán’s
conversion resemble the Biblical version. Guzmán initiates his confession
by admonishing himself for the prior sensuality that led him to this
imprisonment at sea, comparing the height of his present miseries to a
mountain peak (Guzmán II, 505). Jonah also describes his punishment as
 the converso and the spanish picaresque novel199

a mountainous terrain, which lies beneath the sea in his poem: “I went
down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was closed
about me forever …” (Jon. 2.6). Both make reference to the heretics
who follow other idols and indulge their own pleasures rather than seek
God’s mercy.24
By the similarities between their conversions, the text advocates
the potential for forgiveness from God for those conversos who seek a sin-
cere repentance. New Christians may have let their “Jewish” qualities get
the better of their lives so far, wallowing in sin that they have inherited
from their ancestors. Perhaps they have made corrupt choices and
indulged in any number of stereotypically “Jewish” desecrations, or per-
haps they have secretly continued to follow Jewish rites despite outward
manifestations of Christianity. The Jonah comparison illustrates Alemán’s
message that it is never too late to turn away from a Jewish heritage and
embrace the Christian side of their souls. Conversos can confess, repent,
and change their lives for the better, the novel communicates, like Jonah
and like Guzmán.
The author of the Guzmán, nonetheless, manifests some anxieties
about the New Christian ability to pull off a sincere reformation and erase
a “Jewish” nature in the many contrasts between the two confessions.
Despite the similar locations and common turns of phrase, the two con-
fessions do not share much in style or substance. Where Jonah crafts a
poetic Psalm that speaks frankly to his deserved punishment from God,
Guzmán composes an awkward list of questions, incomplete sentences,
and imperatives that refers only obliquely and indirectly to his past
sins. Where Jonah voices his entire confession to God, Guzmán reasons
with himself over what he should do for most of his confession, with just
one mention of thanksgiving offered to God.25 Where Jonah asks forgive-
ness with poetic humility, Guzmán sees divine grace as an exercise in

24
 “They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy” (Jon. 2.8). In the novel,
the narrator follows up the confession with supporting commentary, including this
phrase similar to the preceding Biblical quote: “No creas que deja de darte gustos y hacien-
das por ser escaso, corto ni avariento. Porque, si quieres ver lo que aqueso vale, pon los ojos en
quien lo tiene, los moros, los infieles, los herejes. Mas a sus amigos y a sus escogidos, con
pobreza, trabajos y persecuciones los banquetea” (“Don’t believe that God stops giving you
pleasures and possessions because he doesn’t have it, or is cheap or greedy. Because, if you
want to see what these riches are worth, take a look at who has them—Moors, infidels,
heretics. But God provides his feast to those that suffer poverty, trials, and persecutions”)
(Guzmán II, 507).
25
 “Di gracias al Señor y supliquéle que me tuviese de su mano” (“I gave thanks to God and
I begged him to take me by the hand”) (Guzmán II, 506).
200 deborah skolnik rosenberg

accounting—perform enough virtuous acts and he’ll be out of the red for
eternity.26 Guzmán does not project the sincerity or humility in his con-
version narrative that we find in the Book of Jonah confession.
The Jonah metaphor functions in the conversion scene to provide a
glimpse of possible change for the converso while emphasizing his persis-
tently “Jewish” malfeasance. The qualities that make Guzmán’s conver-
sion less genuine than that of Jonah, thus, follow some general traits
stereotypically ascribed to Jews, especially the overwhelming economic
thought process of the pícaro even in a repentant mode. Yet another allu-
sion to the Book of Jonah at the very end of the conversion chapter offers
more assurance about the future salvation of the converso who turns sin-
cerely to Christianity. Whereas the first part of the picaresque novel left
its protagonist in a shallow and corrupt life, with no resuscitation of the
hopeless paschal and monstrous metaphors that pervade the text, the
final Jonah reference of Part II conveys that the pícaro can evolve toward
a more virtuous way of life that includes a complete conversion. In this
final reference, the narrator recalls that after confessing he did falter and
commit sins again, although never to the same degree as before. In the
last paragraph of the chapter, he asserts that he really did mean what he
said during the conversion, he was just such a great sinner that a lot of
work needed to be done before he could be saved: “Verdaderamente,
cuando el discurso pasado hice, lo hice muy de corazón y, aunque no digno
de poder merecer por ello algún premio, como tan grande pecador, aun
aquella migaja de aquel cornadillo al mismo punto tuve la paga” (“Truly,
when I made that last confession, I did it from the heart and, although
I am not worthy of receiving any prize for it because I am a great sinner,
even from that small effort there was a reward”) (Guzmán II, 507). Not
only did he fall back on bad habits post-conversion, he clarifies, but his
bad luck continued: “Sacóme de aquel regalo, comenzóme a dar toques y
aldabadas, perdiendo aquella sombra de yedra: secóseme, nacióle un gus-
ano en la raíz, con que hube de quedar a la fuerza de sol, padeciendo nuevas

26
 By avoiding his past iniquities and pursuing the path of goodness, for example,
Guzmán tells himself: “Con eso puedes comprar la gracia, que, si antes no tenía precio, pues
los méritos de los santos todos no acaudalaron con qué poderla comprar, hasta juntarlos con
los de Cristo …. Que, dándoselo a él, juntará tu caudal con el suyo, y haciéndolo de infinito
precio gozarás de vida eterna” (“With this you can buy salvation, so that, if it didn’t have a
price before, even on the merits of all the saints there wouldn’t be enough to buy it, until
they joined their merits with those of Christ …. So that, uniting yourself with him, Jesus
would also join your fortune with his, and thus transforming this treasure into one that is
invaluable you will enjoy eternal life”) (Guzmán II, 505–06, emphasis mine).
 the converso and the spanish picaresque novel201

calamidades y trabajos por donde no pensé, sin culpa ni rastro della”

(“I took myself away from that heavenly prize, I started to find trials and
hard knocks, losing the shade the ivy bush. It dried up, and a worm grew
in that bush, because of which I was exposed to the sun’s heat, suffering
more calamities and hard work that I could imagine, without any blame
nor even a hint of it”) (Guzmán II, 507). Guzmán refers here to the way
that his shipmates subsequently framed him for stealing some gold deco-
rations on a hat, leading to his abuse by the warden and other overseers.
The evocation of the events in Chapter Four of the Book of Jonah provides
additional meaning to the text. In the Biblical story, God causes a plant
to grow in order to provide shade to Jonah. God then has a worm eat
the plant, which dies. Jonah is angry for losing his shelter from the sun.
He complains to God, who rebukes him for caring more about the plant’s
fate than that of the Ninevites. God’s lesson to Jonah under the withered
gourd attempts to teach that all human beings falter and suffer along the
path to redemption. Salvation, the text shows, is not an all-or-nothing
proposition.
If a message of the Book of Jonah is that God is always forgiving, a paral-
lel lesson is that people are not always ready to be forgiven by God. They
may try to ignore God’s presence as long as possible until some sort of
“storm” forces them into recognition of their sins or even repent and then
fall into their old patterns. Jonah faces up to his earlier willfulness against
God during the storm, asking the mariners to throw him overboard and
then seeking forgiveness from God in the fish’s belly. Yet later, he returns
to the same errors that landed him in trouble in the first place. Before
repentance he tries to avoid visiting the Ninevites, and again when he
observes that they have repented Jonah expresses anger at God for mak-
ing him travel there. The Book of Jonah does not end with another repent-
ance by its protagonist; instead, it teaches the lesson with the withered
gourd to emphasize ongoing divine mercy and Jonah’s continuing cranki-
ness. The Biblical text conveys that God will always be available to Jonah,
but also that Jonah may find himself returning to his vices time and again,
as all humans do.
From this perspective, the lack of sincerity noted by many scholars in
Guzmán’s confession does not present problems to interpreting the
Guzmán de Alfarache as a work that seeks to reinforce the tenets adopted
at the Council of Trent. Critics who dismiss a genuine confession by
Guzmán in the galleys tend to argue that the novel undermines Christian
values. Benito Brancaforte and M. N. Norval, thus, explain that the false
confession supports a consistent textual message about the protagonist’s
202 deborah skolnik rosenberg

un-Christian drive toward vengeance rather than redemption.27 Judith

Whitenack asserts that the pseudo-autobiography of the pícaro’s life,
including the parodic mode of the false confession, confirms that the pro-
tagonist has not changed at all in the journey from childhood to adult-
hood, nor will he ever change: “The final ‘conversion’ is no more convincing
than Guzmán’s other supposed projects for reform, and in effect he has
done nothing thereby but leave open another portillo through which the
careful reader may enter to criticize him.”28 On the other hand, scholars
who present the work as a defense of Trent usually apply the repentant
conversion of the protagonist as their principal proof. Enrique Moreno
Báez, Alexander A. Parker, and others claim that the novel, by portraying
the ability of even a sinner like Guzmán to experience spiritual renewal
through conversion at the conclusion, promotes the universality of grace
for all human beings.29
In my opinion, both sides of the scholarly debate are compatible if we
pay close attention to the lessons of the Book of Jonah that the author
works into the text. The novel transmits an orthodox message along with
a confession that is not wholly repentant—in fact, the lack of total sincer-
ity in the confession forms part of the post-Tridentine value system com-
municated by the work. Guzmán may believe little of the conversion
itself, and he may have a long way to go before he achieves salvation. He
may also continue to search for shelter from life’s troubles in all the wrong
places, looking to other people instead of God for protection just as Jonah
turns to an ephemeral gourd. The example of Jonah’s gourd sends the
message that Guzmán is a human being, equal to all others in God’s view,
and that he has the free will to choose virtuous acts at any time. The con-
version aboard the ship—whether based on some scant and misplaced
religious conviction or a false concoction aimed at manipulating his
self-portrait—forms a step along the way to a religious awakening that
may not become complete until later in life. Although Guzmán may find
himself falling into vice over and over again, the text utilizes the Biblical

27
 Benito Brancaforte, Guzmán de Alfarache: ¿Conversión o proceso de degradación?
(Madison: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, 1980); and M. N. Norval, “Original Sin
and the ‘Conversion’ in the Guzmán de Alfarache,” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 51 (1974):
346–64.
28
 Judith Whitenack, The Impenitent Confession of Guzmán de Alfarache (Madison:
Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, 1985), 114–15.
29
 Enrique Moreno Báez, Lección y sentido del Guzmán de Alfarache (Madrid: Consejo
Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1948); and A. A. Parker, Literature and the
Delinquent: The Picaresque Novel in Spain and Europe 1599–1753 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 1967).
 the converso and the spanish picaresque novel203

tree to show that God will always be ready for his sincere and complete
conversion at any point. In the same way, the novel sends the message
that conversos may not follow the Christian religion with total sincerity,
but they can make the choice to become true Christians as soon as they
decide to stop using the excuse of their Jewish backgrounds as a protec-
tive tree that keeps them from what Alemán considers religious truth.
Parts I and II form a novel that implies the possibility of Guzmán’s future
salvation along Tridentine values and encourages religious piety for all
conversos.
Two picaresque novels that appear following the publication of
Guzmán de Alfarache display the varied literary responses to the converso
definition presented in the text. La pícara Justina may seem at first glance
to agree with the Guzmán’s definition of the converso, since both novels
contain New Christian protagonists whose conversion has not led
them to the redemption available to everyone under Tridentine reaffir-
mations of universal grace. But instead of supporting the religious mes-
sage in Alemán’s work, La pícara Justina utilizes its portrayal of the
converso to add another barb to the mockery of the overall piousness of
that novel. The author, Francisco López de Úbeda, pokes fun at the anx-
ious and obsessive drive of Guzmán to free himself of his unclean ancestry
by creating a New Christian protagonist not limited by the religious
parameters that society tries to peg on her. The text, in fact, endeavors to
show that stereotypical definitions for the converso will not confine its
protagonist or her goals. Through its female protagonist, La pícara Justina
communicates the conviction that conversos can rise above rigid ways
of viewing them in order to assimilate and succeed in early modern
Spanish society.
The general introduction to the novel, subtitled “La melindrosa escrib-
ana,” emphasizes the importance that the text will place on the winnow-
ing out of static converso definitions through the playful interaction
between literal ink stains and the figurative blood stains of Justina’s
Jewish past, evoking the useful elusiveness of representational models
and the power of elective self-representation.30 The rest of the novel then
pokes holes in contemporary ways of defining the converso while it pro-
vides practical instruction on methods for assimilation, as Justina under-
takes several travels from home that lead up to a useful combination of

30
 Jocular allusions in her exhaustive familial description verify that several paternal
relatives were conversos. On her mother’s side, the text refers clearly to Jewish ancestors
who decided to convert at the time of the Inquisition (Justina, 176–78).
204 deborah skolnik rosenberg

immorally acquired riches and an advantageous marriage to a probable

Old Christian who can further her assimilative goals. It shows that racial-
ized, religious, or cultural parameters hold no limiting authority in com-
parison to the strength of assertive self-representation. López de Úbeda
employs his protagonist to prove that consistent vigilance over the per-
ceptions of a converso past along with the accompanying applications of
money, brains, and intermarriage can allow New Christians who come
from a Jewish background to accede to any position they desire. The
author transforms his novel into a statement of faith in the assimilative
abilities of conversos, debunking and snubbing the compromised attitude
of New Christians like Mateo Alemán who believe in the narrow defini-
tions imposed upon them by the rest of society.
The Buscón, on the other hand, follows much of the blend of racialized
stereotype and religious metaphor of the Guzmán de Alfarache with a
sharp-edged divergence; instead of any hope of salvation for the converso,
this novel argues forcefully against the inclusion of the converso in a world
where redemption is possible. The portrayal of the converso Pablos forms
a basis for the representation of conversos in the novel that limits them to
two principal positions in society: martyrs to mistreatment from others or
aggressors of violence, selfishness, and avarice. Throughout the novel,
Francisco de Quevedo utilizes imagery from the Passion of Jesus as related
in the New Testament to sketch the dual representation of conversos as
either martyrs or aggressors, painting them alternately as Jesus-like sacri-
ficial symbols or morally corrupt individuals similar to those that enabled
the Crucifixion.31
The text chronicles the struggle of Pablos to break free of the sacrificial
martyr’s role to which society subjects him because of his unclean familial
origins.32 However, as Pablos progressively rejects all attachments to his
parents in order to escape the role of scapegoat, he also undergoes a moral
collapse pursuant to his increasingly violent and decrepit lifestyle that
leads to the failure of his goals. Instead of learning a life of virtue on the
road to being a true gentleman, as he dreams when a boy, he ends the
novel a criminal and self-proclaimed loser. The boy may escape the role of

31
 The novel compares the converso, especially, to Pontius Pilate and Judas Iscariot. The
references to the Passion in the novel, especially the rey de gallos episode, have been stud-
ied extensively by critics, including Edmond Cros, Ameríco Castro, Agustín Redondo, and
Carroll B. Johnson. See also Rosenberg, Family Ties, 102–14.
32
 Pablos’ mother is reputed about the family’s hometown of Segovia to be a New
Christian, and her intricate string of hyperbolically Christian names only confirms the
town rumors (Buscón, 83).
 the converso and the spanish picaresque novel205

scapegoat as he learns about the world, yet the only other avenues avail-
able to him encompass depravity. By confining Pablos and other conver-
sos of El Buscón to the narrow symbolic roles of either scapegoat or
aggressor in the Passion, the author can manipulate the world of words to
contain those individuals in his contemporary society that many found so
dangerous and threatening to the social order.
The picaresque adventures of Guzmán, Justina, and Pablos, then, reveal
varied responses to the task of defining converso difference in early mod-
ern Spain, relying on themes centered on the religious and racialized
boundaries of this definition. In the Guzmán, the converso definition
becomes an exploration of identity and its monstrous borders. In the
Pícara Justina, the definition promotes social mobility, and the Buscón
shades its definition with suffering, greed, and violence. The backgrounds
of the authors, moreover, do not influence the portrayal of the conversos
in any significant way. Mateo Alemán and Francisco López de Úbeda
came from converso families, while Francisco de Quevedo was an Old
Christian with a famously anti-Semitic bias. Yet Alemán and Quevedo
share more of a similar view of the converso than the two New Christian
authors do.
The texts appear at a liminal moment for the New Christian descend-
ants of the Spanish Jews, when a societal resistance to their assimilation
and an emerging national identity created a call for identification, a ques-
tion of how to delineate the “otherness” of the converso. In responding to
this question, the depiction of conversos in the texts reveals opinions
about a group that are as varied as the nature of the group itself, with
issues of the racialized and religious ties among New Christians at the
forefront. The Guzmán, Pícara Justina, and Buscón inscribe the literary
landscape of the picaresque with the cultural crisis formed by the conver-
sos who populated early modern Spain.

Bibliography

Alemán, Mateo. Guzmán de Alfarache I. Edited by José María Micó. Madrid: Cátedra, 1987.
——. Guzmán de Alfarache II. Edited by José María Micó. Madrid: Cátedra, 1994.
Balibar, Etienne, and Immanual Wallerstein. Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities.
Translated by Chris Turner. London: Verso, 1991.
Beinart, Haim. The Expulsion of the Jews from Spain. Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish
Civilization, 2002.
Brancaforte, Benito. Guzmán de Alfarache: ¿Conversión o proceso de degradación? Madison:
Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, 1980.
Caro Baroja, Julio. Judíos en la España moderna y contemporánea. 3 vols. Madrid: Istmo,
1986.
206 deborah skolnik rosenberg

Castro, Américo, ed. El Buscón. By Francisco de Quevedo. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1960.

Cros, Edmond. Introduction. Historia de la vida del Buscón: Ejemplo de vagamundos y
espejo de tacaños. By Francisco de Quevedo. Madrid: Taurus, 1988.
Gitlitz, David M. Secrecy and Deceit: The Religion of the Crypto-Jews. Philadelphia: Jewish
Publication Society, 1996.
Glaser, Edward. “Two Anti-Semitic Word Plays in the Guzmán de Alfarache.” Modern
Language Notes (1954): 343–48.
Graizboard, David L. Souls in Dispute: Converso Identities in Iberia and the Jewish Diaspora,
1580–1700. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004.
Herrero García, Miguel. Ideas de los españoles del siglo XVI. Madrid: Voluntad, 1928.
Johnson, Carroll B. “El Buscón: D. Pablos, D. Diego y D. Francisco.” Hispanófila 51 (1974)
1–26.
Kamen, Henry. “Limpieza and the Ghost of Américo Castro: Racism as a Tool of Literary
Analysis.” Hispanic Review 64.1 (1996): 19–29.
Leonard, Irving A. Baroque Times in Old Mexico. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press,
1959.
López de Úbeda, Francisco. La pícara Justina. Edited by Antonio Rey Hazas. 2 vols. Madrid:
Nacional, 1977.
Moreno Báez, Enrique. Lección y sentido del Guzmán de Alfarache. Madrid: Consejo
Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1948.
Niccoli, Ottavia. Prophecy and People in Renaissance Italy. Translated by Lydia G. Cochrane.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990.
Norval, M. N. “Original Sin and the ‘Conversion’ in the Guzmán de Alfarache.” Bulletin of
Hispanic Studies 51 (1974): 346–64.
Parker, A. A. Literature and the Delinquent: The Picaresque Novel in Spain and Europe,
1599–1753. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1967.
Quevedo, Francisco de. El Buscón. Edited by Domingo Ynduráin. Madrid: Cátedra, 1989.
Rosenberg, Deborah Skolnik. Family Ties: The Converso in the Spanish Picaresque Novel.
Ann Arbor, MI: ProQuest, 2004.
Roth, Norman. Converso, Inquisition, and the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain. Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1995.
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Cipriano de Valera (1602), 1960 edition. English Authorized King James Version.
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Trachtenberg, Joshua. The Devil and the Jews: The Medieval Conception of the Jew and its
Relation to Modern Anti-Semitism. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1943.
Vélez-Quiñones, Harry. Monstrous Displays: Representation and Perversion in Spanish
Literature. New Orleans: University Press of the South, 1999.
Whitenack, Judith. The Impenitent Confession of Guzmán de Alfarache. Madison: Hispanic
Seminary of Medieval Studies, 1985.
 CERVANTES, DON QUIJOTE, AND THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES:
THE CASE OF THE JACOB AND JOSEPH STORIES

Kevin S. Larsen

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547–1616) had led a colorful life long

before he became the author of El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la
Mancha (1605, 1615).1 In the wake of his exploits in the preservation and
propagation of the Holy Faith and the Spanish Empire, Cervantes and his
novel have become for succeeding generations archetypes of Catholic
Spain. I mean to say nothing here to diminish his stature as a practicing,
and probably a believing, Christian. Nonetheless, that Cervantes’ and his
protagonist’s Old Christian pedigrees might well be “stained” with Semitic
ancestry and/or afición (fondness) remains a vexed question, with some
writers suggesting their New Christianity, while others argue that the
knight errant and his creator could never have been of less than com-
pletely castizo (racially pure) origin.2

A much-abbreviated version of this essay was presented at the Fourteenth Congress of

the World Union of Jewish Studies, held at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in July and
August of 2005.
1
 Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha. Obras
completas, ed. Florencio Sevilla (Madrid: Castalia, 1999). All references to this novel will be
noted parenthetically in the text of the essay according to the Castalia edition.
2
 Various writers, including Américo Castro and Marcel Bataillon, down to those of
the immediate present, have asserted that this novelist errant of Iberian Catholicism
was probably, like so many of the rest of his countrymen and generational counterparts,
of mixed ethnic origins. Nonetheless, numerous other writers of stature vociferously
deny these same contentions. Some time ago, I was at a scholarly gathering in honor of
Professor Francisco Márquez Villanueva, in which the multiple ethnicity of Iberian
culture in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Era was reaffirmed at every turn. I am
personally convinced of what we were saying at that conference was true, that Spain,
Portugal, and the rest of the Iberian world have been partakers, essentially from the very
beginnings of their history, of these same blessings of mixed ancestry and multiple ethnic-
ity. Granted, much of the “evidence” cited for the Cervantes’ converso background remains
circumstantial, invoking across the generations responses to the contrary, spanning the
gamut from the closely reasoned to the rabidly unreasonable. Among others, Francisco
Márquez Villanueva, Cervantes en letra viva (Madrid: Reverso, 2005), 151–33; Ellen Lokos,
“The Poetics of Identity and the Enigma of Cervantes’s Genealogy.” Cervantes and His
Postmodern Constituencies (New York: Garland, 1999), 116–33; and Alberto Sánchez,
“Revisión del cautiverio cervantino en Argel.” Cervantes 17 (1997): 7–24, offer critical syn-
opses of this controversy. See also Krzysztof Sliwa’s Documentos cervantinos (New York:
Peter Lang, 2000), as well as his Vida de Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra and Árbol gene-
alógico de Miguel de Cervantes, both published by Reichenberger in 2005.
208 kevin s. larsen

The polemic begun in Toledo in 1449, with the promulgation of the

Estatutos de limpieza de sangre (Statutes for Purity of Blood), would con-
tinue for centuries throughout the Iberian world, long after Alonso
Quijano el Bueno’s recovery of “sanity” and summary decease. Debate at
the highest ecclesiastical levels would confirm that Christian baptism
could not expunge the tacha (fault) of Semitic origins. Though not to
exculpate any group from such racism, it could be noted that there has
also existed for many generations among Israel a parallel notion, that
once a Jew, always a Jew. By way of summation of such Lamarckian logic,
in whatever group that might practice it, I recall consulting Francisco
Márquez Villanueva concerning this current project: for a variety of rea-
sons, he termed it peligroso (dangerous).3 Though tempers may flare, the
fires of the auto de fe do not. Critical “heresy” is not nearly as “dangerous”
today as it would have been in early modern Spain, and, in fact, grows
more and more acceptable in our contemporary milieu.
Simply put, Cervantes would not be cowed by threats, implicit or
explicit. Rather than allowing himself to be staked by the past, his pro-
tagonist would reinvent himself in a modality of his own choosing. Don
Quijote follows the lead of his creator, who would not be bound by blood
or background, opting in favor of liberty, while (re)creating himself anew.
Such nonconformity could have cost Cervantes dearly, just as it does his
title character, at almost every turn of his campaigns. For both novelist
and protagonist, nobility of blood (or any lack thereof) does not obviate
or otherwise overshadow an individual’s noble actions, should he/she
choose to strike off on his/her own as did don Quijote, and ahead of him,
Cervantes. Such freedom does not come without cost, though Cervantes
seems to indicate that it is worth whatever price.4
By no means am I asserting Don Quijote as some sort of crypto-Judaic or
obvious “converso text.”5 Nor is it that Cervantes and/or his protagonist

3
 I recall discussing with Professor Thomas F. Glick what he termed Américo Castro’s
“Lamarckism,” at the initiatory meeting of the Society for Literature and Science in
Worcester, MA (October, 1987).
4
 A classic study of this theme is Luis Rosales’ two-volume Cervantes y la libertad
(Madrid: Valera, 1960). See also: Pedro Rueda Contreras, Los valores religioso-filosóficos de
El Quijote (Valladolid: Miraflores, 1959), 83–92; María Caterina Ruta, “Sistema compositivo
y mensaje en la novela del Capitán cautivo (Quijote, 1, 39–42),” Crítica semiológica de textos
literarios hispánicos (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1986), 189–
97; and Alicia Parodi, “El episodio del cautivo, poética del Quijote: verosímiles transgredi-
dos y diálogo para la construcción de una alegoría.” Actas del Segundo Coloquio
Internacional de la Asociación de Cervantistas (Barcelona: Anthropos, 1991), 433–41.
5
 David M. Gitlitz, Secrecy and Deceit: The Religion of the Crypto-Jews (Philadelphia:
Jewish Publication Society, 1996). There are many volumes concerning the religious
 cervantes, don quijote, and the hebrew scriptures209

figure as “Judaizers” of any sort. Cervantes was consummately clever, not

to mention covert, in his composition, and so far as we know never ran
afoul of the Holy Office, at least not during his lifetime.6 Nonetheless, he
would flaunt inquisitorial conventions and constraints throughout Don
Quijote, frequently incorporating aspects of the Hebrew Scripture into his
narrative. It has been argued that both Testaments of the Bible constitute
the most important referent in Spanish literature, from the Middle Ages,
into the Renaissance, and beyond.7 In Cervantes’ case, various writers
have noted the importance of the Scripture in his composition.8 Such vul-
garización (popularization) condemned on more than one occasion by
the Holy Office9, when coupled with any insinuation of mixed ethnic
background, could prove disastrous. Consider the relatively contempo-
rary instance of Fray Luis de León (1528–1591), the brilliant professor of
theology at Salamanca, who happened to be of converso ancestry.
Imprisoned by the Inquisition for more than four years for, among other
“crimes,” his insistent use of Hebrew and the Hebrew Bible in his studies,
Fray Luis was a faithful Christian, albeit a trenchant opponent in theologi-
cal disputations.
Likewise Cervantes, whose artistic vision was simply too expansive, too
inclusive, to be contained, constrained, or even comprehended within

practices of the so-called Crypto-Jews or Judaizers, of which Gitlitz’ Secrecy and Deceit is
one of the very best. See also Colbert I. Nepaulsingh, Apples of Gold in Filigrees of Silver
(New York: Holmes and Meier, 1995), x, concerning “converso texts,” which he character-
izes as “texts written in such a way that Christians would understand them one way, while
Jews would read the same words and understand them in a totally different, sometimes
opposite, way.”
6
 Américo Castro, Hacia Cervantes (Madrid: Taurus, 1967), 213–21. See also Alejandro
Ramirez, “Cervantes y la Inquisición”, Armas y Letras 2: 23–33; Ludovik Osterc, El pensami-
ento social y político del “Quijote” (Madrid: Ediciones De Andrea, 1963), 31–45; Francisco
Olmos García, Cervantes en su época (Madrid: Ricardo Aguilera, 1970), 79–130; and
A. Márquez, “La Inquisición y Cervantes.” Anthropos 98–99 (1989): 56–58.
7
 Celso Bañeza Román, La influencia de la Biblia en la literatura medieval española
(Bilbao: Ediciones Cervantes, 1995), 11.
8
 Among others on the topic of Cervantes and Scripture, see: Alberto González
Caballero, “Influencia de la Biblia en el Quijote.” Cultura Bíblica 39:283 (1984–86): 21–67;
Juan Antonio Monroy, La Biblia en el Quijote (Madrid: Editorial V. Suárez, 1963); Armando
Cotarelo Vallador, Cervantes lector (Madrid: Instituto de España, 1940), 21–22; and Juergen
Hahn, “El capitán cautivo: The Soldier’s Truth and Literary Precept in Don Quijote, Part I.”
Journal of Hispanic Philology 3 (1979): 269–303 (290–91). Additionally, Chris Sliwa has
authored an electronic communication, “La rectitud de Cervantes y el conocimiento de la
Biblia” which appeared in Coloquio de Cervantes on 24 July 2005 (CERVANTES-L@lists
.ou.edu).
9
 Antonio Márquez, Literatura e Inquisición en España, 1479–1834 (Madrid: Taurus,
1980), 145–50; and Virgilio Pinto Crespo, Inquisición y control ideológico en la España del
siglo XVI (Madrid: Taurus, 1983), 261–83.
210 kevin s. larsen

Inquisitorial constructs. He thus insisted on transgressing such artificial

horizons at every opportunity, adroitly incorporating fragments, as well
as entire narratives, from the Old Testament, into his own stories. Cer­
vantes knew full well the risks he was running. There is here an element
of in-your-face bravado, of catch-me-if-you-can and look-how-smart-I-
am, to which males of our species are sometimes prone. Testosterone,
combined with talent, can drive a person to fearful lengths. Though his
native expansiveness could have become terribly expensive, Cervantes
insisted on doing what he wanted to do, on drawing on whatever sources
he chose. Granted, censors and their ilk are not generally known for their
perspicacity, but the author of Don Quijote was undeniably lucky, not to
mention smart.
During the remainder of this article, I mean to examine a particular
instance in the Quijote story where Cervantes’ incorporation of material
from the Hebrew Scriptures seems to be most evident. The novelist
employs what Susan Sontag has called in another context “conventions of
concealment.”10 Yet a reader encounters ample evidence that Cervantes’
sources are simply hiding in plain sight, just as many converso families
would do for generations. There are in Don Quijote, then, parallels to parts
of the Pentateuch, including cryptic—and sometimes not-so-cryptic—
references to the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as well as to the
matriarchs, the women with whom they associated. In this mode, one
may read the story of the captive Captain and the Moorish maiden,
Zoraida, as intercalated in chapters 38–42 of the 1605 Quijote. This willful
young woman helps a Christian prisoner, Ruy Pérez de Viedma, and his
companions escape incarceration in Islamic Algeria, hoping to go with
them to Spain, so she can worship the Christian God, and especially so she
can establish closer ties to the Virgin Mary. This narrative may draw on
and even incorporate, at least in broad outlines, though frequently in con-
siderable detail, the stories of Jacob, from his young manhood, his flight to
and from Aram, his “tricky” travels and travails, his domestic dysfunc-
tions, and his final migration down into Egypt at the invitation of Joseph,
the favored son who was lost and then found. The leap between
one Semitic group and another may come more into focus in terms of
what Juan Goytisolo terms (as demonstrated by Márquez Villanueva)
the “alianza táctica entre moriscos y judeo-conversos” (“tactical alliance
between the moriscos and the converts from Judaism.”) In this vein, the

 Susan Sontag, Illness as Metaphor (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1978), 7.
10
 cervantes, don quijote, and the hebrew scriptures211

presence of Moors or their descendants could certainly figure as a type,

almost a trope, for the Hebrew conversos.11
Similarly, Cervantes may tap into the stories of this same Joseph, along
with those of his father and siblings, his captors and his servants, in
Palestine, as in Egypt. The separation of the brothers, with one passing
into exile and captivity among strangers in a strange land, who will turn
his troubles and temptations into triumph, finally reuniting with his
estranged family, recalls how closely Cervantes would read the Genesis
account into his own text. More than a mere gloss, we might even venture
to call the tale of the captive Captain a midrash (study). Numerous
Christian (or at least non-Jewish) writers, from John Milton to Borges,
have constructed their midrashic variations on Biblical passages.12 To say
that Cervantes writes in a “Jewish” mode in Don Quijote does not necessar-
ily mean he was judaizing. The novelist was sufficiently secure—perhaps
too secure for his own safety—in himself and his abilities to omit a priori
any element from his artistic répertoire.
Along with the scriptural account, for his composition of this tale
within a tale, Cervantes may have availed himself of an extensive
extra-Biblical tradition: from romances of classical Persian literature such
as Jami’s Yusuf and Zulaikha to “ancient Jewish novels” such as The
Marriage and Conversion of Asenath; from folkloric fragments and figures
to the hosts of haggadoth (Biblical legends) to the Holy Qur’an; from
Josephus to Philo; from the Pseudepigrapha and the Targumim (Aramaic
paraphrases of Hebrew scripture) to medieval Spanish works such as the
Coplas de Joçef (Couplets of Joseph) and the Poema de Yusuf (Poem of
Joseph).13 This array of possible sources would only serve to enrich
Cervantes’ tale, bringing his version into greater relief, though I suspect
that the actual Genesis narrative, as recorded in the Bible itself, consti-
tutes the primary locus of his attention. Though Cervantes might consult
an array of sources, his own ethnicity would have less impact than would
his individual quest for excellence. Genealogy, whether of life or of litera-
ture, cannot figure as any sort of predictor: textual ontogeny might appear
to recapitulate authorial phylogeny, though ultimately the road before

11
 Juan Goytisolo, “Presentación,” in El problema morisco (Desde otras laderas) (Madrid:
Libertarias, 1991), 11–17; also, Nepaulsingh, 83–101.
12
 Geoffrey H. Hartman and Sanford Budick, eds., Midrash and Literature (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1986).
13
 James L. Kugel, The Bible As It Was (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997), 199–
284; also Luis M. Girón-Negrón and Laura Minervini, eds. Las coplas de Yosef: Entre la biblia
y el midrash en la poesía judeoespañola. (Madrid: Gredos, 2006).
212 kevin s. larsen

Cervantes and his characters would remain as expansive as the Castilian

horizon.
Though themes from Scripture may resonate throughout Cervantes’
tale within a tale, such echoes do not necessarily occur without signifi-
cant distortion, though they remain recognizable. To that effect, ironic
twists and turns of plot, together with issues of birthright and of inherit-
ance, as well as of filial, paternal, and fraternal relationships gone awry,
though sometimes repaired, suggest the equally ironic narrative cycles of
Jacob and Joseph.14 The captive Captain’s father resembles Jacob in cer-
tain particulars, in that he was “liberal” to the point (and beyond) of indul-
gence, not only with his sons, but, apparently, with all he met. Jacob’s
fault, if fault it was, was also indulgence of his sons and wives. Many of the
difficulties he and they face arise as a result of his failure to discipline or
even to admonish until “too late.” His lackadaisical non-response to his
daughter’s being “defiled” by a “foreigner” may leave his (overly) zealous
sons, Levi and Simeon, no choice but the violent remedy of their father’s
omission (Gn. 34).15
The overt favoritism that alienated the sons of the less-favored wife
and concubines in the Genesis story may not resound quite as loudly in
the Quijote, though a subtext of filial resentment, mollified perhaps by
time, distance, and especially experience, still echoes throughout. The
Spanish patriarch divides his hacienda (property) among his sons, keep-
ing a share for himself. He seems to try to be fair to all three, though
throughout the tale there are relatively remote rumblings of fraternal jeal-
ousy, focusing on the question of who might be loved more, as well as
of filial rivalry, an Oedipal sort of controversy between father and sons.16

14
 Donald B. Redford, A Study of the Biblical Story of Joseph (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1970),
72–76.
15
 In The Fate of Shechem, Julian Pitt-Rivers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1977) studies how the sexual politics elaborated in this story constitute a cycle that contin-
ues to repeat itself, with variations, throughout the Mediterranean world, from ancient
times down to recent years. See also Esther Fuchs, “The Literary Characterization of
Mothers and Sexual Politics in the Hebrew Bible,” Feminist Perspectives on Biblical
Scholarship (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1985), 117–36. Biblical references are noted paren-
thetically in the text, according to the translation done originally by Casiodoro de Reina in
1569, revised by Cipriano de Valera in 1602, with other revisions in 1862, 1909, and 1960,
published by Sociedades Bíblicas en América Latina.
16
 Maxime Chevalier, “El Cautivo entre cuento y novela.” Nueva Revista de Filología
Hispánica 32 (1983): 403–11; John J. Allen, “Autobiografía y ficción: el relato del capitán
cautivo (Don Quijote I, 39–41).” Anales Cervantinos 15 (1976): 150–51; and Alfred Rodríguez
and Milagro Larson, “El relato-marco del ‘Cuento del cautivo’: función narrativa y estética.”
Anales Cervantinos 23 (1985): 1–5.
 cervantes, don quijote, and the hebrew scriptures213

The Captain is the eldest of the siblings, though despite his valor, his
birthright has seemingly come to naught.17 He resembles not only Jacob
and Joseph, but also Esau and the offspring of Leah and the concubines.
But the Spaniard also marks in himself the final reconciliation to Jacob of
Joseph, who would have been the first-born, had Rachel not been sup-
planted by her sister.
On the other hand, the favoritism Zoraida’s father, Agi Morato, shows
his beloved daughter will recoil back upon him, even as Jacob’s did on
him. As she spirits herself and the other captives off, this Moorish maiden
vociferates her love for her father. Nonetheless, she is quite willing to
deceive him at every turn and finally to break his heart, depriving him of
her affection and society, just as Joseph’s brothers did to their father when
they sold the youth into exile. Moreover, Zoraida’s flight from her father’s
sway resembles in some particulars Jacob’s exodus from Aram. Laban,
Rachel and Leah’s father, accuses his son-in-law in this language: “¿Qué
has hecho, que me engañaste, y has traído a mis hijas como prisioneras de
guerra?” (“What have you done, as you deceived me, and you’ve carried
away my daughters as prisoners of war”) (Gn. 31:26). In like manner,
Cervantes surely intuits how Agi Morato must have felt about what he
thinks is the theft of Zoraida, and then, even more painfully, comes to
realize is her voluntary flight with a foreigner.
In accord with a typically folkloric format, the Captain earlier on aban-
dons home and family in order to strike out on his own, seeking his for-
tune in the wide world. Though he and his siblings may leave the nest,
they cannot entirely escape it, as issues of their linaje (lineage) remain in
play down to the novelistic present. It is also possible that Cervantes’ and
his protagonist’s discomfort with contemporary genealogical constructs,
on a general, as well as on a much more personal plane, is reflected into
the situation Ruy recounts. Despite valiant service to King and Church,
the Captain remains a destitute wanderer, while his younger brothers’
prosperity is evident. Any such systematic unweaving of individuals or
groups from the social tapestry, frequently for reasons beyond their scope,
would effect similar disruption, as they become strangers in their own
land. In this regard, the case of the formerly-captive Captain may parallel
that of the exiled judeoconversos, not to mention that of the morisco
Ricote, as he returns incognito to the land of his birth (pt. 2, ch. 54).

17
 Paul Julian Smith, “‘The Captive’s Tale’: Race, Text, Gender” in Quixotic Desire (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1993), 228–29.
214 kevin s. larsen

The internal dynamic of Jacob’s family as he was growing up was no

less unstable. Though the rabbis would go to great lengths to explain away
his actions and reputation, the future “Israel” became known as a “trick-
ster” almost from his birth.18 This second-born twin bartered the birth-
right from his sibling, then secured confirmation of that same blessing
from his father, Isaac, with the connivance of his mother, Rebecca. After
fleeing from his brother’s wrath, Jacob would find himself deceived on
several occasions by his father-in-law, Laban, his purportedly avuncular
protector. Though Jacob would eventually have the last word, this legacy
of insecurity would carry over into the family unit of which he (nomi-
nally) stood at the head. In his own right, the Captain’s characterization of
his own “linaje, con quien fue más agradecida y liberal la naturaleza que la
fortuna,” (“lineage, with which nature was more gracious and liberal than
was fortune”) (pt. 1, ch. 39; 274) sounds a note of resentment that will peri-
odically reverberate throughout his narrative. Like Jacob, his birthright is
denied him, and he must leave home, taking enormous risks, to make his
way in the world. Furthermore, his father’s squandering of the family
“hacienda” could recall Laban’s attempts to cheat Jacob, initially denying
him the bride for whom he had labored so long, and later threatening to
repossess all his flocks and family.
The Captain’s birth “en un lugar de las Montañas de León” (“in a village
in the mountains of Leon”) (pt. 1, ch. 39; 274) may be, as E. Michael Gerli
writes, “a paradigmatic narrative of an Old Christian … [e]voking his
ancient family roots in the remote, racially pure mountains of the Gothic
kingdom of León.”19 Nonetheless, Cervantes ironizes this narrative, also
invoking the narrator’s account in chapter one of don Quijote’s “birth” in
just such a Neverneverland, where lineage and blood are less at issue than
are deeds of valor. In turn, Redford notes the “timelessness and placeless-
ness” of the Joseph story20 which harbingers facets of Cervantes’ novel.
A reader anticipates early on that Jacob’s flight from home will rebound,
as he returns with his own wives, children, and flocks, though he is keenly
insecure in such intereses creados (vested interests). This same unease
obtains in his struggle with the angel—matched only in intensity by his

18
 Sisan Niditch, A Prelude to Biblical Folklore: Underdogs and Tricksters (Urbana:
University of Illinois Press, 2000), 70–125.
19
 E. Michael Gerli, “Rewriting Myth and History” Refiguring Authority (Lexington:
University of Kentucky Press, 1995), 48; also Carroll B. Johnson, Cervantes and the Material
World (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000), 72–73.
20
 Redford, 67.
 cervantes, don quijote, and the hebrew scriptures215

wrestle within himself—at the ford at Jabbok the night before he crosses
over to meet Esau.
The supernatural being bestows on his mortal adversary the “blessing”
of a new name, “Israel,” recalling the identity changes that Alonso Quijano
el Bueno/don Quijote de la Mancha/el Caballero de la Triste Figura
(Knight of the Woeful Countenance), el Caballero de los Leones (Knight
of the Lions), etc., the Captain, Zoraida (who becomes María), the rene-
gado (renegade) who travels with them, and others undergo periodically.
As these characters are “reborn,” they become “fathers” to themselves.
Curiously, don Quijote’s own father is never mentioned, augmenting the
Oedipal tension of his tales. In turn, Jacob would assume his mantle as
patriarch, sire of all Israel. Similarly, Joseph would become father to his
sons born in Egypt, as well as to Pharaoh himself (Gn. 45:8), to his broth-
ers and their families, and even to his own elderly father. Reflecting such
patterns of paternity, the Captain will replace Zoraida’s father, figuring as
much as a father-figure as a lover, to the young woman. In this role, Ruy
also harkens back to Joseph, renowned in all generations for his chastity
and forbearance.21
Another reading of this novella in a scriptural mode posits parallels to
the parable of the prodigal son.22 More to the present point is Gerli’s read-
ing of how Pérez de Viedma recapitulates the story of another Joseph,
Mary’s husband and protector, as part of a larger pattern of what he terms
“the remarkable blurring of the boundaries between the sacred and the
secular” occurring in the “the Captive’s tale”.23 It could also be argued
that Cervantes reverses the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt, avoiding
Herod’s murderous rampage on the innocents, as they flee out of Africa to
a new Promised Land which, hopefully, will offer them safe harbor. The
evangelist records that King Herod had all the male children under two
years of age killed in Bethlehem and environs, evoking a midrash on, if not
actually fulfilling, the Scriptural passage:
Voz fue oída en Ramá,
Grande lamentación, lloro y gemido;

21
 James L. Kugel, The Bible As It Was (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997), 256–
62 and In Potiphar’s House (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994), 13–124.
22
 R. M. Flores, “‘El curioso impertinente’ y ‘El capitán cautivo,’ novelas ni sueltas ni
pegadizas.” Cervantes 20:1 (2000): 79–98 (91–92).
23
 Gerli, 41–46. Among those commenting on this issue, see: Johnson, 86–87; George
Camamis, Estudios sobre el cautiverio en el siglo de oro (Madrid: Gredos, 1977), 74–76; and
María Caterina Ruta, “Zoraida: los signos del silencio de un personaje cervantino,” Anales
Cervantinos 21 (1983): 119–33 (130–31).
216 kevin s. larsen

Raquel que llora a sus hijos,

Y no quiso ser consolada, porque perecieron (Mt. 2:18).
A voice was heard in Rama,
great lamentation, weeping and wailing;
Rachel who weeps for her children,
and she wouldn’t be comforted, because they’d perished
This reference constitutes a proof-text, as extracted from Jeremiah 31:15,
depicting the descendents of Benjamin as they go into Babylonian exile.
Such lamentation would echo across the generations: into the desper-
ate sadness of the Sephardim and moriscos exiled from home forever, who
weep for their patria natural (native country) (pt. 2, ch. 54; 459); to the
lingering loneliness of the conversos, exiles in their own land who have
abandoned one faith, only to be refused by the other; all encapsulated
into the weeping and wailing of Zoraida’s father when he realizes his
beloved child—“la mayor y la mejor parte de mi alma,” (“the greatest and
best part of my soul”) he calls her (pt. 1; ch. 41; 284)—has betrayed both
father and fatherland. At first, he curses her, though soon he beseeches
her to return to him and all will be forgiven. His enmity and anguish con-
jure up those of Esau, when he grasps the enormity of his own loss and of
his relatives’ duplicity. They also may put a reader in mind of Jacob’s grief
and rage when he learns that Joseph is lost. Such maledictions also sug-
gest the cycles of benedictions and curses that are pronounced upon and/
or by Isaac, Jacob, his twelve sons, and Joseph’s two offspring. The rela-
tionship of the recipient of a blessing to that blessing (not to mention to
the giver of the blessing) is frequently tenuous, as at times paternal (be it
terrestrial or celestial) favor may constitute more of a curse than not. Like
Jacob at Jabbok, in order to receive largesse, one must on occasion recog-
nize that a “benefactor” also may present an adversarial aspect.24 Whether
as a result of divine displeasure, by the behavior of the blessed, or because
of fickle fate, such a condition of bipolarity or ambivalence often obtains.
The case of the Captain offers graphic evidence of how the first-born can
be so slighted.25

24
 Ronald S. Hendel, The Epic of the Patriarch (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987), 103–9.
25
 See Roger Syrén’s book, The Foresaken First-Born (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic
Press, 1993) concerning this motif as it repeats, though with variations on the theme,
throughout Genesis and beyond. See also Redford, 88–89, on the folkloric dimensions of
this same theme. See also Johnson, 72–91. Johnson’s commentary on the socio-economics
of the “feudoagrarian patriarchy” under which the Pérez de Viedma family lives, as well as
the father’s “radical departure” from this “norm,” as he apparently denies Ruy his “birth-
right,” is particularly enlightening.
 cervantes, don quijote, and the hebrew scriptures217

Jacob’s flight from and finally into his true self reverberates in the
migrations of his favorite son, Joseph, led captive down into Egypt, where
he will realize his destiny, becoming second only to Pharaoh himself.
The younger man’s ostensible misfortune, revealing itself finally as the
best of luck, much akin to that of his father, is legendary in the Hebrew
tradition.26 In turn, Joseph’s cycle of fortune harbingers that of Ruy Pérez
de Viedma, whose run of extraordinary luck begins from his days in his
father’s house. In the Captain’s case events parallel those in Joseph’s life:
from his rise to his current rank, “a cuyo honroso cargo,” (“to which honor-
able station”) he suggests, “me subió mi buena suerte, más que mis merec-
imientos” (“my good luck, rather than my merits, elevated me”) (pt. 1,
ch. 39; 275); through the extraordinary coincidence, brought about
because of his undeniable valor, that the great Christian victory at Lepanto
leaves him “triste entre tantos alegres, y el cautivo entre tantos libres” (“sad
among so many happy ones, and the captive among so many free ones”)
(pt. 1, ch. 39; 275); to his being led captive into North Africa by Arabic peo-
ples, just as Joseph was traded into Egypt by Ishmaelites, traditionally,
ancestors of the Arabs; to the chance, against what have to be incredible
odds, of his finding favor with a Moorish girl who selects him alone for her
bounty. They make their escape, suffering reverses along the way, though
fate or Providence finally favors them; in accord with another folkloric
formula, they arrive at the same inn where Ruy’s brother, about to depart
to serve as a judge in the Indies, takes lodging.27 The luck that first seems
ill returns for good, as with Jacob and Joseph.
Once he is sure that this particular oidor is really Juan Pérez de Viedma,
the Captain proceeds “no de improviso, sino por rodeos,” (“not by improvi-
sation, but in a roundabout manner”) (pt. 1, ch. 39; 275); first to test and
then to reveal their erstwhile relationship. Like Joseph in Egypt, who tries
his brothers, not revealing who he is until he knows who they are, Ruy
maintains his secret until determining his sibling’s feelings. He wishes
to ascertain whether Juan will be arrogante (arrogant) or desconocido
(distant) or, instead, will receive him “con buenas entrañas” (“wholeheart-
edly.”) The priest in the company at the inn concocts a story—again by

26
 On this and related issues, see: Charles T. Fritsch, “God Was With Him,” Interpretation
9 (1955): 21–34; Claus Westermann, Joseph: Eleven Studies on Genesis, Omar Kaste, trans.
(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), 21–60; Kugel, In Potiphar’s House, 13–93; and Robert
Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (New York: Basic Books, 1981), 107–13.
27
 Rodríguez and Larson 1–5; also, Georges Güntert, “En manos de Dios y del renegado:
Ambivalencia ideológica en la Historia del cautivo (Don Quijote I, 39–41).” Insula 538
(Oct. 1991): 19–20.
218 kevin s. larsen

fiction the truth emerges!—whereby the judge inadvertently discloses his

genuine love for his “absent” brother. Even the phraseology that the judge
uses, “Vive aún mi padre, muriendo con el deseo de saber de su hijo mayor,
y pide a Dios con continuas oraciones no cierre la muerte sus ojos hasta que
él vea con vida a los de su hijo” (“My father is yet alive, dying to know con-
cerning his eldest son, and he prays to God continually that death not
close his eyes until he sees alive those of his son.”) (pt. 1, ch. 42; 289),
recalls, first, Joseph’s query, “¿vive aún mi padre?” (“is my father yet alive?”)
and then Jacob’s reaction to the news for which he had been praying for
so many years, “Basta; José mi hijo vive todavía; iré, y le veré antes que yo
muera” (“It is enough; Joseph, my son, is still alive, and I will see him
before I die”) (Gn. 45:3, 26–28).28
Having glimpsed his brothers’ true character, then at last revealing his
own, Joseph makes clear that he bears them no malice. In fact, he is con-
vinced that “Dios me envió delante de vosotros, para preservaros posteridad
sobre la tierra, y para daros vida por medio de gran liberación” (“God sent
me before you, to preserve your posterity upon the earth, to give you life
by means of a great deliverance.”) (Gn. 45:7). As Alter writes, Joseph,
because of what he learns, as well as what he teaches, becomes “an agent
of divine destiny”29 as does Zoraida for the captives, and the Captain for
the Moorish young woman. Which stance also calls to mind the “morality”
of what Zoraida and the Captain do with regard to her father: it may be
that her abandonment of her home and parent, particularly her decep-
tion of him, can be justified, or at least understood, in view of her rescue
of the captives, as well as her own flight and refuge in Christian territory.
Joseph’s brothers’ behavior may seem cruel, yet finally it brings about a
higher purpose, as also Zoraida’s actions will result in a “greater good.”
Some writers look askance at her treatment of her father, though if viewed

28
 Westermann, 93–99; also Alicia Parodi, “Nueva relación de la historia del capitán
cautivo, la hermosa Zoraida y el hermano oidor en la primera parte del Quijote.” Tercer
Congreso Argentino de Hispanistas. España en América y América en España (Buenos Aires:
Instituto de Filología y Literaturas Hispánicas “Dr. Amado Alonso”, 1992), 765–76. Parodi
suggests that “las marcas no pertenecen al Antiguo Testamento, sino al Nuevo, y tienen un
carácter definidamente crístico y mariológico.” (“the signs don’t belong to the Old
Testament, but rather to the New, and have a definite Christological and Mariological
character”). Elsewhere, this same author suggests parallels between the Captain and his
brother, the oidor, and God the Father and Christ. George Camamis, “El hondo simbolismo
de ‘La hija de Agi Morato.’” Cuadernos Hispánoamericanos 319 (Jan. 1977): 71–102 (80–92).
Camamis argues vociferously concerning Zoraida as a Christ-figure.
29
 Alter, 140–59.
 cervantes, don quijote, and the hebrew scriptures219

over against the Genesis stories, for all her conniving and callousness, she
may appear in a somewhat different light.30
In Zoraida, Cervantes also introduces the theme of the “foreign” bride,
the “dark woman.”31 In much of the tradition associated with this figure,
this temptress ensnares hapless victims, leading them down to destruc-
tion. A case in point is Potiphar’s wife, the Egyptian woman who attempts
to lure young Joseph to her bed. Though he rejects her adulterous
advances, less-resolute individuals might fall prey to her wiles. In Zoraida,
Cervantes’ irony once more asserts itself, reversing this destructive
valence. The Moorish maid will ensnare the captive Captain and his com-
panions, though ostensibly only for their benefit, leading them toward
liberty and light: flight from a woman becomes flight with a woman.
Indeed, she comes to be the mother-figure that she and the Captain—and
to some extent, Joseph—do not seem to have had in their own lives.32
A parallel scenario of exogamy emerges in the tales of Jacob and Joseph,
both of whom take “foreign” brides, though Leah and Rachel, the former
man’s wives, are actually of his maternal lineage, while Rebecca is also a
kinswoman of Isaac. In his own right, Joseph will take a wife in Egypt,
Asenath, who will bear him sons in that foreign land. For all the good this
latter woman effects, she still constitutes a counterpoint to the other
Egyptian “dark” woman, Potiphar’s wife.
In tales such as these, Cervantes would find ample material for his
meditations on the nature of conversion. Like Zoraida, the women of the

30
 Included among those commenting on Zoraida’s “deceitful” treatment of those
around her are: Francisco Márquez Villanueva, Personajes y temas del Quijote (Madrid:
Taurus, 1975), 92–146; Azorín, Con permiso de los cervantistas (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva,
1948), 39–40; Leo Spitzer, “Linguistic Perspectivism in the Don Quijote.” Representative
Essays (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988), 225–74 (255–64); Jaime Oliver Asín,
“La hija de Agi Morato en la obra de Cervantes.” Boletín de la Real Academía Española 27
(1948): 245–339; Emilio González López, “Cervantes, maestro de la novela histórica con-
temporánea: la Historia del cautivo,” Homenaje a Casalduero (Madrid: Gredos, 1972),
179–87 (183–86); Gustavo Illades, El discurso crítico de Cervantes en El cautivo (Mexico
City: UNAM, 1990), 51–84; Camamis “El hondo simbolismo” 71–102; Ruta, “Sistema” 191–95,
“Zoraida” 119–33; Gerli, 40–60 (47–8); Ciriaco Morón Arroyo, “La historia del cautivo y el
sentido del Quijote.” Iberoromania 18 (1983): 91–105; Alison Weber, “Padres e hijas: una
lectura intertextual de La historia del cautivo,” Actas del Segundo Coloquio Internacional de
la Asociación de Cervantistas (Barcelona: Anthropos, 1991), 425–31; and Güntert, 19–20.
31
 See Ean Begg, The Cult of the Black Virgin, 2nd ed. (London: Penguin, 1996); James G.
Williams, Women Recounted, (Sheffield: The Almond Press, 1982), 88–94, on this image
and its multiple significances; and Livia Bitton-Jackson, Madonna or Courtesan? The Jewish
Woman in Christian Culture (New York: Seabury Press, 1982) who focuses on the particu-
larly Semitic valence of the “dark woman” in Christian culture.
32
 Smith, 228–30.
220 kevin s. larsen

patriarchs adopt (and adapt to) their husbands’ religious beliefs, though
molding these men’s faith and practices according to their own. Johnson
goes so far as to assert that Cervantes’ novella exemplifies “the primacy
and power of woman over man.”33 Along these same lines, the mandrakes
that the young Reuben discovers in a field, which Leah barters to the as-
yet infertile Rachel for a conjugal visit from Jacob, illustrate the degree
which the women’s belief systems impact on their spouse, who is clay in
their hands (Gn. 30:14–17). The wives bear other aspects of the “old” reli-
gious tradition into the new, as when Rachel steals her father’s clay idols
as they abandon Aram (Gn. 31:19, 32–35). In Zoraida, Cervantes recapitu-
lates such women who convert, but still bring elements of the old tradi-
tions with them. The novelist creates an indirect, though pointedly ironic,
critique of the inquisitorial mentality, showing that there is no such thing
as an absolute convert, one without any vestige of the “abandoned” ways.
I suspect that Cervantes also integrates into the tale of the captive
Captain facets of the story of Judah and Tamar, as recounted in chapter 38
of Genesis, the inclusion of which within the Joseph tale exegetes have
often questioned.34 The novelist affirms the relevance of such intercala-
tion, whether within the book of Genesis or within his own book. Tamar
plays the role of the “foreign” woman who happens to be domestic: a
Canaanite and the wife of Judah’s eldest son, she secures compliance
with the levirate by any means at her disposal: she achieves her
immediate ends and even a “higher purpose,” while Judah is forced to
acknowledge that, despite her having “fornicado … más justa es ella que yo”
(“fornicated … she is more righteous than I”) (Gn. 38:24–26). As Phyllis A.
Bird aptly puts it, a “harlot” becomes nothing short of a “heroine.”35 By her
acumen, be it spiritual, carnal, or some combination of both, Tamar
insinuates—or intercalates—herself into the lineage of the future King
David and, ultimately, of Jesus of Nazareth.
In Zoraida, Cervantes may also offer a commentary on the sad situation
of Dinah, Jacob’s only daughter, herself a “foreign” girl who goes out visit-
ing “a ver a las hijas del país” (“to see the daughters of the country”)
(Gn. 34:1). So doing, she becomes a victim of male aggression on a variety
of levels. Were Zoraida to select her “rescuer” unwisely, despite the curses
she invokes on the Captain, should he not measure up, the mora could

33
 Johnson, 86–87.
34
 Alter, 3–10; also Redford, 16–18.
35
 Phyllis A. Bird, Missing Persons and Mistaken Identities (Minneapolis: Fortress Press,
1997), 202–08.
 cervantes, don quijote, and the hebrew scriptures221

easily end up as did Dinah, who is kidnapped and “raped” by Shechem,

son of Hamor, the ruler of the region. Against all odds, the prince decides
he loves the Hebrew girl and wants her as his wife. Though “el más distin-
guido de toda la casa de su padre” (“the most distinguished of all the house
of his father”) (Gn. 34:19), he comes to an equally bad end, as Dinah’s sib-
lings speak “con palabras engañosas” (“with deceitful words”) to Shechem
and his father (Gn. 34:13). Accepting the brothers’ words as true, the men
of Shechem allow themselves to be symbolically emasculated and then
are summarily killed. In turn, Pérez de Viedma could easily have perished
as a result of his liaison with Zoraida, having agreed to legitimize her
(their) “irregular” circumstances.
Zoraida also recalls the avenging siblings as she deceives her father,
while “kidnapping” her kidnapper. Moreover, she in effect allows herself
to be amancillad[a] (defiled) (the language Dinah’s brothers use)
(Gn. 34:5, 13, 27), though only in order to become “clean,” a New Christian
in a new land. In like manner, Jacob seems to accept Dinah’s “defilement,”
perhaps because she is just a daughter, but also so that his family can
co-exist with the Canaanites. The wanderer seems ready to settle down,
ostensibly believing the Canaanites’ words that his family and they
can intermarry and become “un pueblo” (Gn. 34:16). His sons, recalling
religious zealots of whatever persuasion, will have none of it: with inquisi-
torial fervor, they are intent on purification, which scarcely conceals a
desire for vengeance and destruction.36 Their intolerance will breed
intolerance, since they have, Jacob says, made him “abominable a los
moradores de esta tierra” (“vile to the inhabitants of this land”) (Gn. 34:30).
This precarious condition may well suggest the equally tenuous situation
of the (formerly) Hebrew minority in Iberia, where the cycle of malodor-
ous intolerance is perpetuated ad infinitum. Like their father, Israel,
the perpetual outsider, the Sephardim might hope to settle down, but
cannot. Whether in Algiers or in Spain, as in Shechem of old, the risk of
religious and ethnic violence remains real. Once Zoraida and the Captain
make their flight from North Africa, the escapees are accosted by pirates,
who allow them to live and even to retain some means, though only
after otherwise plundering them. Once on Spanish soil, the pilgrims

36
 Those commenting on the significance of Dinah’s situation include: Nahum M.
Sarna, “The Ravishing of Dinah: A Commentary on Genesis, Chapter 34”, Studies in Jewish
Education and Judaica in Honor of Louis Neuman (New York: KTAV, 1984), 143–56; and
Kugel, The Bible As It Was, 233–44. A fictional variation on this theme is Anita Diamant’s
The Red Tent (New York: Picador USA, 1997).
222 kevin s. larsen

are set upon by “la caballería de la costa” (“coastal cavalry patrol”) (pt. 1,
ch. 41; 287). Not unlike what occurs in ancient Canaan, where unbridled,
even genocidal chauvinism, saddled with suspicion and fear, runs
rampant.
Another salient figure in Cervantes’ novella, one whose activities reflect
on these same questions of conversion is the renegade. A Christian
captive initially unable to resist the allure of Islam, at considerable risk
to himself, this latter man renders the escapees invaluable service. While
the “soldado español, llamado tal de Saavedra,” (“Spanish soldier, a certain
Saavedra”) a valiant captive mentioned in the narrative (pt. 1, ch. 40; 278)
may be an autobiographical projection of Cervantes himself, the renegado
may also stand as something of an authorial self-portrait. In this figure
emerges additional commentary on the dynamics of conversion, to the
point where, as Illades suggests, the renegado may be an “imagen inver-
tida del converso” (“the inverted image of the convert”).37 In turn, Joseph
shows himself to be something of a renegado, in that he accommodates
himself to the land and people of his exile, becoming very much the
Egyptian: his posterity will include Ephraim and Manasseh,38 his sons by
Asenath, not to mention Pharaoh himself and all the other Egyptians that

37
 Illades, 36–47 (2–23). With regard to Cervantes’ autobiographical projection into
his fiction, as well as his ongoing fascination with Islamic culture, see: Emilio Sola and
José F. de la Peña, Cervantes y la Berbería, 2nd ed. (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura
Económica, 1996); María Antonia Garcés, Cervantes in Algiers. A Captive’s Tale (Nashville:
Vanderbilt University Press, 2002); Daniel Eisenberg, “¿Por qué volvió Cervantes de Argel?”
Ingeniosa invención (Newark, DE: Juan de la Cuesta, 1999), 241–53; González López,
179–87; Allen, 149–55; and Camamis, “El hondo simbolismo,” 76–77. Concerning the
renegados in Cervantes’ works, specifically, though not exclusively in the novella of
the captive Captain, as well as in the larger historical context, see: Bartolomé Bennassar
and Lucile Bennassar, Los cristianos de Alá: La fascinante aventura de los renegados, José
Luis Gil Aristu, trans. (Madrid: NEREA, 1989); Smith, 227–35 (230–35); Gerli, 49; Willard
King, “Cervantes, el cautiverio y los renegados.” Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica 40:
279–91; Parodi, “El episodio,” 434–36; Camamis, “El hondo simbolismo,” 93–94; and
Güntert, 20.
38
 The names of these two male offspring may be significant with regard to the Captain’s
narrative:
Y llamó José el nombre del primogénito, Manasés; porque dijo: Dios me hizo olvidar
todo mi trabajo, y toda la casa de mi padre.
Y llamó el nombre del segundo, Efraín; porque dijo: Dios me hizo fructificar en la
tierra de mi aflicción (Gn. 41:51–52).
And Joseph called the name of the firstborn, Manasseh; because he said: God has
made me forget all my travail, and all the house of my father.
And he called the name of the second, Ephraim; because he said: God made me
fruitful in the land of my affliction.
 cervantes, don quijote, and the hebrew scriptures223

he saves from famine. Nonetheless, Joseph does not leave off being a
Hebrew, becoming a father-figure and a provider to Jacob, his brothers,
and all their families. Indeed, Joseph may presage in himself the condi-
tions in which the conversos found themselves. They are as Spanish as any
of their Gentile neighbors, yet do not leave off being Jews. In turn, Jacob’s
experience harbingers the predicament of the marranos (Jewish con-
verts), especially in his struggle with the angel and with(in) himself at
Jabbok. His struggles to (re)establish and maintain his identity parallel
those of his Sephardic posterity.
Another theme that reverberates from the Scripture throughout
Cervantes’ novella is captivity. Jacob figures as a captive of his birth and
of the birthright that he buys from his brother and then has con-
firmed through his mother’s and his own duplicity. Later, he languishes
in thrall to his father-in-law, who makes him work for fourteen years for
the hand of Rachel, after deceiving him into marrying her sister, Leah.
This same sort of bondage reverberates into the lives of Jacob’s sons,
who are each captive of their particular lineage and strained family cir-
cumstances. As will be their descendants, which is confirmed in the
patriarchal blessing their father pronounces on each man and his poster-
ity (Gn. 49). This mix also includes Joseph, who is trapped by his father’s
favor, which, combined with his own youthful vanity, plunges him into
the pit, while his siblings decide how to dispose of him. In Egypt, the
youth serves as a slave—though also as a master—in Potiphar’s house,
until running afoul of his lordship’s lecherous lady, whose lies land him in
lock-up.
In turn, the captive Captain passes from master to master, languishing
finally in the Algerian baño (prison), where Zoraida enters his life. Their
flight together not only recapitulates Jacob’s flight from Aram, but also
Joseph’s ascension out of prison and servitude. Refusing to be weighted
down by accident of birth or by ensuing circumstances, father and
son will repair their tattered fortunes, (re)making themselves anew.
The efforts of Jacob and Joseph also foreshadow Israel’s exodus out of
bondage in Egypt, only to wander in the wilderness for many years, though
finally to cross over into the Promised Land, (re)fashioning itself accord-
ing to what is at once a new and an old model. These examples, reiterated
in the Captain who would not remain captive, provoke in the reader ques-
tions regarding the role of heredity in destiny. In turn, Laban and Potiphar
prefigure Pérez de Viedma’s captors and masters, from Uchalí to Azán
Agá to Arnaúte Mamí to Agi Morato and everyone else along the way.
224 kevin s. larsen

But neither the Captain nor his patriarchal predecessors will brook such
servitude for long.39
Another significant subtext of the Genesis tales is how nature may or
may not have erred, with the first-born somehow undeserving of the
blessings that rightfully would otherwise be his. Esau may be the elder
brother, though his having taken Canaanite wives, not to mention his bar-
tering of the birthright for a mess of pottage, demonstrate his unworthi-
ness of his rank. Rebecca and her son take it upon themselves, she perhaps
more than he, to right the “wrong” of what is little more than an accident
of mortality. In turn, because of his dalliance with his father’s concubine,
Reuben loses his right as first-born. Joseph, the son of the second wife who
should have been first, will eventually replace his siblings, not only in
his father’s favor, which never wavered, but in his relative stature as
their savior.40 His dreams of prominence are fulfilled, in spite of nature’s
“errors,” confirming, as well, a central theme in Don Quijote: deeds of valor
and virtue take precedence over chances of blood and birth. To confirm
this, the Scripture recounts that Jacob goes so far as to offer a blessing to
Pharaoh, who is certainly not Hebrew (Gn. 47:7–10).41 Those who do well,
whatever their lineage, merit such grace. Even Joseph will have his come-
uppance, as when his father blesses his two grandsons, Manasseh and
Ephraim. Jacob insists on placing his right hand on the head of the latter
child, who was second-born, recognizing that actual performance in mor-
tal existence trumps the order in which one enters that state. Accidents of
birth may occur, but who one becomes in life figures far more as a func-
tion of what one does, than of one’s ancestors.
Cervantes’ novella is not just about males and masculine lineage, since
Zoraida plays multiple roles therein: the stratagem that she employs
replays some of those perpetrated by various patriarchs and matriarchs,
as elaborated in the latter chapters of Genesis.42 She figures as a “trickster”
character, fooling her father down to the very end as to her feelings for
the Captain, for “Lela Marién,” and even for him. Zoraida and the captive

39
 On the representation of captivity and captives, see: Ellen G. Friedman, Spanish
Captives in North Africa in the Early Modern Age (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,
1983); Camamis, “El hondo simbolismo,” 72–76; Illades, 108–19; Angela Monleón, ed., La
huella del cautiverio en el pensamiento y en la obra de Miguel de Cervantes (Madrid:
Fundación Cultural Banesto, 1994); King, 279–91; and Sánchez, 7–24.
40
 Redford, 96–7.
41
 Westermann, 101–6.
42
 Nelly Furman, “His Story Versus Her Story: Male Genealogy and Female Strategy in
the Jacob Cycle.” Feminist Perspectives on Biblical Scholarship (Chico, CA: Scholars Press,
1985), 107–16.
 cervantes, don quijote, and the hebrew scriptures225

converse about their plans while Agi Morato listens, though he never
grasps their words’ double entente (double meaning). Shortly thereafter,
the young woman is surprised by her father with her hand and arm on the
Captain’s neck, though “advertida y discreta,” (“clever and discrete”) she
avers her having fainted and that Pérez de Viedma chastely supports her
lest she collapse to the ground (pt. 1, ch. 41; 282–83).43 Clever and calculat-
ing in the extreme, Zoraida recalls, among others, Rebecca, who by sub-
terfuge engineers Jacob’s receipt of blind Isaac’s blessing.44 She also calls
to mind Rachel, who spirits away her father’s household deities, his tera-
phim. Laban pursues his daughters and son-in-law, who rashly vows that
whoever may be found with the idols must die. Rachel sits on a bundle
containing the statuary, concealing them from her father who is reluctant
to search her, as she confesses her ritual uncleanness (Gn. 31:35).
Zoraida also harkens back to the arch “trickster,” Jacob, who hood-
winks his sibling, though paying a high emotional cost even after their
reconciliation. The Moorish girl, whose condition as a conversa Morón
Arroyo describes in detail,45 must wrestle with her own angels—or
devils—as do the Captain, the renegade, and others in their company.
Like Jacob, she does not emerge unscathed, though she is perhaps better
for her ordeal. Paralleling the patriarch, she has a new name against which
to shape her new identity in the foreign land, once imagined only in her
dreams. As Jacob fords the river to arrive at the Promised Land, so the
Moorish maiden must cross water to reach spiritual and temporal safety:
not only does she pass over the Mediterranean, but also she must receive
baptism. Moreover, Zoraida’s quick-wittedness also recalls Jacob as he
outfoxes his father-in-law, perhaps because of divine favor, as seems to be
made manifest in the successful exodus she and the other escapees make.
Moreover, the monument of stones Laban and his son-in-law erect, which
Jacob terms Galeed, commemorating their accord (Gn. 31:44–55), is
recalled in the Cava Rumía, described in the Quijote as “una cala, que se
hace al lado de un pequeño promontorio o cabo” (“a cove, which lies to one
side of a small promontory or cape.”) This is reputed to be the final resting
place of “La mala mujer cristiana … por quien se perdió España” (“the
wicked Christian woman … on whose account Spain was lost”) (pt. 1,
ch. 41; 285). Like Rachel, Rebecca, and Zoraida, this woman, now on

43
 Morón Arroyo, 98–99.
44
 Hendel, 83–86.
45
 Morón Arroyo, 95–105.
226 kevin s. larsen

foreign soil, utilizes whatever advantage nature has granted her—includ-

ing her sexuality—to survive and even prosper in a masculine world.
Likewise, the subtle fox, Zoraida, also suggests Joseph, who inherits both
parents’ predilection for subterfuge, as is evidenced in the ruses he perpe-
trates on his siblings, including the concealment/discovery of the pay-
ment money for the grain, the divining cup, and his own identity.46
Astride the themes of deceit and duplicity in both Genesis and the
Quijote, runs a unifying thread of significant dreams and the interpreta-
tion thereof. Dreams of one stripe or another rival and can even supplant
“reality” in both texts. As he fled from Palestine toward his uncle’s domain
in Aram, Jacob dreamed of the ladder with the ascending and descending
angels. The wrestle with the being at the river also evinces an aura of rev-
erie. Even his father-in-law is warned in a dream to do the fleeing com-
pany no harm. But it is Jacob’s favorite son, Joseph, who would become to
his brothers el soñador (the dreamer), as they conspire to do away with
him and thereby see “qué será de sus sueños” (“what will become of his
dreams”) (Gn. 37:19–20).47 With not a little pretentiousness, the youth has
insisted on recounting his portentous visions of the night to his family.
Later on, those around him in Egypt learn what will become of dreams in
his hands, as they bring him their oneiric predicaments, which the young
man converts into predictions, pronouncements, and even preachments.
Pharaoh’s baker and butler, and finally Pharaoh himself, discover that, as
Joseph tells his brothers before they know who he is: “¿No sabéis que un
hombre como yo sabe adivinar?” (“Don’t you know that a man such as
I knows how to divine?”) (Gn. 44:15). Finally, as these dreams and day-
dreams come to resolution, Jacob, traveling down into Egypt to join
Joseph, has another vision of the night: God reassures the aged patriarch,

46
 Feminist Bible criticism has produced numerous excellent investigations of clever
women and their triumphs in a world of masculine power: Ann W. Enger’s “Old Testament
Women as Tricksters,” Mappings of the Biblical Terrain (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University
Press, 1990), 143–57; J. Cheryl Exum and Johanna W. H. Bos’ Reasoning with the Foxes:
Female Wit in a World of Male Power (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988); Ilana Pardes’
Countertraditions in the Bible (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992); J. Cheryl
Exum’s Fragmented Women (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1993); and
Danna Nolan Fewell and David M. Gunn’s Gender, Power, and Promise (Nashville:
Abingdon Press, 1993). Empowerment via feminine intelligence may also obtain in the
case of otherwise unempowered males, who are effectively “feminized” by their relative
weakness. They all must use their wits to survive and prosper in a world of men initially
more powerful than they. With regard to Cervantes’ novella, Gerli concludes that “the tale
embodies a disavowal of a central patriarchal myth and replaces it with one of symbolic
recovery through maternal love, fellowship, and domesticity” (55).
47
 Redford, 68–71.
 cervantes, don quijote, and the hebrew scriptures227

promising deliverance and prosperity to Israel after the exile-to-come

(Gn. 46:3–4).
Zoraida hopes for such temporal and spiritual salvation for herself and
her “deliverer”: on one occasion she narrates to the Captain about the
Christian esclava (slave) who was her nurse. Before her death, this woman
taught her impressionable young charge at least the rudiments of
Christian doctrine and practice. In this same regard, Zoraida asserts:
“yo sé que no fue al fuego, sino con Alá, porque después la vi dos veces, y me
dijo que me fuese a tierra de cristianos a ver a Lela Marién, que me quería
mucho.” (“I know that she didn’t go to the fire, but with Allah, because
afterwards I saw her twice, and she told me to go to the land of the
Christians, to see Lela Marien, who loved me a great deal.”) Striving to
obey her vision, she tells the Captain: “muchos cristianos he visto … y nin-
guno me ha parecido caballero, sino tú” (“I’ve seen many Christians … and
none has seemed to me a gentleman, but you”) (pt. 1, ch. 40; 279). Her
choice of him remains as intuitive as have been her dreams. Indeed, her
selection of the Captain and financing of their flight confirm and continue
her dreaming. As will be her dreamed-of new life in a strange land with a
man she can only have glimpsed in visions of the night.48 Acting in the
role of author, and even of literary critic, Zoraida must pursue the narra-
tion and interpretation of her dreams, realizing them, that is, making
them come to pass by whatever means are at her disposal. Her fantasy
and reality blend into each other, as fiction and fulfillment become one.
Likewise, don Quijote only a few chapters earlier in the novel wanders
through a dreamscape of his own creation, lopping off the heads of wine-
skins, while refashioning whatever he encounters according to his
(k)nightly fancy. Indeed, a reader might ask, what could be the difference
between such somnambulant episodes, and so many others throughout
the novel: the windmills of the mind turn, whether by day or by night. The
case could even be made that the entire novel is an extended dream-
sequence, acted out in the penumbra between life and literature, between
waking and sleeping.49

48
 William B. García, “Algo más sobre el episodio del cautivo.” Anales Cervantinos 15
(1976): 1–4, 189–90.
49
 Redford emphasizes the “literary” quality of the Joseph cycle (66–105). García asserts
parallels between the Captain and don Quijote, pointing out the oneiric aspects of the
Novel of the Captive Captain, as well as of the Quijote overall (1–4). In turn, Morón Arroyo
describes the “atmósfera sobrenatural” of Zoraida’s conversion (91); also, Ruta, “Zoraida,”
(132–33). Concerning his own role, as well as that of others, Alter writes: “in framing
my argument, I have been guided by an assumption no longer altogether fashionable,
228 kevin s. larsen

Even into the final chapters of his own life, Cervantes would further
elaborate on the narrative cycle of Jacob and Joseph, writing and rewrit-
ing these tales of loss and renewal, of dysfunctional families, of vice tem-
porarily ascendant and virtue finally rewarded. In the first book of Los
trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda (The Labors of Persiles and Sigismunda),
published posthumously in 1617, “la lasciva Rosamunda” (“the lascivious
Rosamunda”) attempts to seduce Antonio, the handsome hunter, who
she characterizes as an “inesperto mozo,” (“naïve young man”) recalling
how Joseph must have appeared to the wife of Potiphar. The youth, recall-
ing Joseph’s condition and response, rebuffs her: “¡Detente … oh bárbara
egipcia, ni incites la castidad y limpieza deste que no es tu esclavo! (“Stop …
oh barbarous Egyptian, don’t try the chastity and purity of he who is not
your slave!”) Reversing the roles in the denunciation that the Hebrew
servant suffered, he threatens: “¡Desvíate de mí y no me sigas, que castigaré
tu atrevimiento y publicaré tu locura!” (“Depart from me and don’t follow
me, as I’ll punish your forwardness and I’ll broadcast your madness”)
(ch. 19; 718–19). Near the conclusion of this same novel, Cervantes also
compares the protagonist, Persiles, to Joseph, whereas the courtesan,
Hipólita, who denounces him when he refuses her unchaste advances,
becomes “la nueva egipcia” (“the new Egyptian woman”) (bk. 4, ch. 7; 813).
Persiles also recalls the captive Captain: their vigorous virtue even in cap-
tivity, together with their travels and travails, resonate across the years
and the miles.50
Other writers would continue along this same track, intuiting more
than just the outlines of Cervantes’ recreation of the Joseph narrative.
Take for instance Henry Fielding’s novel, Joseph Andrews (1742), expressly
“Written in Imitation of the Manner of Cervantes, Author of Don Quixote.”51
Even the title of “this true history” (ch. 16; 290), as true as any of Cervantes’
tales, figures as a revisitation, if not an actual refundición (refounding), of
the Spaniard’s own quixotic versions of the Joseph narrative. Fielding’s
new-old Joseph acquires added significance in light of this character’s
multiple developments in Don Quijote, while Cervantes’ purposes may
clarify somewhat in view of the English novelist’s apparent apprehension

and which to some may even seem quixotic—namely that criticism can provide useful
tools, that principles uncovered in the scrutiny of a selection of representative text may be
profitably followed through a broad spectrum of other texts” (178). Alter’s assumption is
also the hope of this present writer.
50
 Hahn, 302–03. Hahn (citing Forcione, Avalle-Arce, and others) goes so far as to sug-
gest “the Cautivo episode’s resemblance to a ‘Christian romance’” and that this novella
could otherwise “be fittingly located into the Persiles”; also, Morón Arroyo, 105.
51
 Henry Fielding, Joseph Andrews (New York: Harper and Row, 1966), title page.
 cervantes, don quijote, and the hebrew scriptures229

of his designs. But those intentions, much like Cervantes’ ethnic and aes-
thetic antecedents, must remain hazy, at least around the borders. The
Spanish novelist “ironically reminds the mindful reader of Christianity’s
deep Semitic roots,”52 and quite possibly, of his own. Reworking into his
own texts the stories from the first book of the Hebrew Scripture, he indi-
cates at least a genesis of his art, if not of his actual lineage. Such inclusion
of founders’ narratives ultimately indicates the breadth of his literary
vision, rather than the focus of his religious biases. His versions of the
Jacob and Joseph stories possibly trace some of the contours of Cervantes’
mind, not only is he unwilling to be denied access to these narratives, but
he refuses to reconstitute (or regurgitate) them into his own writings just
as he has first found them. Aspects of this refundición may occur in order
to throw the Holy Office off his trail. According to a more inclusive per-
spective, however, Cervantes’ recasting of persons and stories from the
Scripture into an array of characters and situations in his own texts argues
for the open-endedness of life, as well as literature. In other words, a man
or woman is free to write his or her own narrative, utilizing a unique voice
or variety of voices.

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Cervantes and His Postmodern Constituencies, 116–33. New York: Garland, 1999.
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——. El problema morisco (Desde otras laderas). Madrid: Libertarias, 1991.
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Cervantes. Madrid: Fundación Cultural Banesto, 1994.
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 ANTI-SEMITIC DISCOURSE OR THE VOICE OF A DISGUISED
CONVERSO IN A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY SPANISH TREATISE

Luis G. Bejarano

The inquisitorial proceedings and legal instruments of ethnic cleans-

ing through Autos de Fe continued well into seventeenth-century Spain,
reviving lurid anti-Semitic medieval myths.1 Despite massive conversions
to Christianity, the suspicion that conversos would still practice Jewish
rites concerned the Spanish State and the Inquisition.2 Thus, official
persecutions during this time uniquely compiled anti-Semitic rhetoric
bonding Jews to conversos, easily targeting them as the “Other.” Benzion
Netanyahu states that: “What is implied here is the unbreakable bond
between the conversos and the Jews, the bond of ethnic origin, by virtue
of which any of the former must be regarded as ‘one of them,’ i.e., the
Jews.”3 Concepts such as “otherness”, “collectivism” and “Christian iden-
tity” serve to better explain the complex tradition of anti-Semitism, and

1
 Benzion Netanyahu, Toward the Inquisition. Essays on Jewish and Converso History in
Late Medieval Spain (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997), 1–42. Netanyahu questions
Américo Castro’s arguments which state that the very reason of the “blood cleansing” and
the most important justification for the establishment of the Inquisition in Spain resides
in the ancient Jewish law. All this leads Castro to propose the term “closed caste” when
characterizing its condition as a society, although for Netanyahu these are only Christian
prejudices. See a complete discussion in the chapter, “The Racial Attack on the Conversos.”
2
 Netanyahu, 198. Netanyahu concludes that the Inquisition was created in Castile to
defame, degrade, segregate, and ruin the conversos socially and economically, removing
them from Spanish life. “The Inquisition was, in fact, the best means that could be
employed for this purpose. Since allegedly it was designed to extirpate a heresy, who could
dare oppose it?”
3
 Netanyahu, 72. Netanyahu elaborates on a case about the racial issue beyond the eth-
nic factor in Spain. Yosef Yerushalmi, From Spanish Court to Italian Ghetto. Isaac Cardoso:
A Study in Seventeenth-Century Marranism and Jewish Apologetics (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1971), 14. Yerushalmi agrees that the decisive preponderance of blood
over faith is a factor against the conversos. Kevin MacDonald, Separation And Its
Discontents: Toward an Evolutionary Theory of Anti-Semitism (Westport: Praeger, 1998),
127. MacDonald assigns a collectivist quality to the Jewish people and as such finds their
worst enemy in those who reflect a similar consciousness of cultural identity or national-
ism. His argument is partly supported by the theory that Jewish persecution has always
occurred in various ways depending upon mediating relations of sharing or competing,
both in the Middle East and in the West. The concern of the Inquisition with the issue of
“blood cleansing” reflects the continued practice of endogamy among a large number of
New Christians.
234 luis g. bejarano

consequentially help to understand the reasoning behind the proceed-

ings of “blood cleansing” in Spain.4
Some official documents and even literary works written during the
ruling of the Spanish Inquisition are not only decisive historical proof of
the persecution against conversos, but also of the suspicion about the
Jewish origin of those who accused with such hatred.5 Spanish Golden
Age writers such as Góngora, Quevedo, Lope de Vega, and even Cervantes
carefully evaded suspicion about their own origin by satirizing Jewish ste-
reotypes with dark humor as they tried to elude Inquisition censorship or
even persecution.6
This study deals with the discursive value of a rare, never printed, anti-
Semitic treatise within its historical and political context of seventeenth-
century Spain. This particular manuscript was underscored by Jewish
physician Isaac Cardoso as he refutes calumnies against Spanish and
Portuguese conversos.7 By making reference to a personal anecdote and to
the rather explicit anti-Semitic tone of the manuscript, Cardoso sparked
suspicion about the real origin of the author.8 This then is the case of

4
 Spanish scholar Sánchez-Albornoz opposes Christian individualism to Jewish collec-
tivism and the mundane interests of Judaism to the Christian emphasis on the afterlife, as
part of his theory to explain the harm done by the Jews to the Spanish culture. See the
vehement criticism to the historic judgments of Sánchez-Albornoz made by Benzion
Netanyahu, 126–55.
5
 Probably the most renowned case of hatred against people of his own lineage is that
of Tomás de Torquemada, (1420–1498) a Dominican friar, first Grand Inquisitor of Spain
for fifteen years until his death, and supporter of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in
1492. The implacable Inquisitor General presided over numerous Autos de fe condemning
Judaizers; paradoxically, it became known that Jewish blood ran in his family since
Torquemada’s grandmother was a conversa.
6
 Note here Francisco de Quevedo’s famous satirical poem, perhaps characterizing Luis
de Góngora as a Jew that begins “There was a man stuck to a nose.” Other examples of such
characterizations abound through these writers works not only in poetry but also in
drama and prose. Curiously enough some poems of Quevedo and Lope de Vega are
included in Juan de Quiñones’ published treatise “El monte Vesuvio”, Madrid, 1632.
7
 Isaac Cardoso (1603–1683), earlier Fernando Cardoso, was also a poet, grew up in
Castile and became part of the court of Philip IV until the decline of the Count-Duke de
Olivares around 1640. Living in Italy as a Jew, then-named Isaac Cardoso wrote numerous
works to defend Jews against accusations based on false scientific arguments that demised
their human nature. Cardoso refutes the calumnies brought against them; that they smell
badly, have corrupted Scripture, blaspheme holy images and the host, kill Christian chil-
dren and use the blood for ritual purposes. See Bodily Extremities: Preoccupations with the
Human Body in Early European Culture, ed. Florike Egmond and Robert Zwijnenberg
(Burlington: Ashgate Publishing, 2003), 187. Probably Cardoso’s most important work,
written in the Italian ghetto where he lived for the rest of his life, was Las excelencias de los
Hebreos (Amsterdam: David Castro Tartas, 1679), a pious reflection about the Jewish
Diaspora and himself.
8
 Cardoso, 345–49.
 anti-semitic discourse235

author Juan de Quiñones,9 an officer of the court of King Phillip IV, who
dedicated this treatise to the illustrious don Fray Antonio de Sotomayor,
confessor of his Majesty, Inquisitor General of Spain, and Commissary
General of the Holy Crusade.10 Quiñones’ manuscript deals with a rare
combination of anti-Semitic folkloric mythology and Biblical references,
uniquely coined in the seventeenth century around the highly sensitive
theme of the purity of blood. However, the author’s true interest is far
from being purely historically or religiously accurate, and his intentions
suggest that there is a personal concern about his own ancestry hidden
behind his anti-Semitism.
Quiñones introduces his treatise with an account of the Auto de Fe,
amidst a tide of anti-Portuguese sentiment that took place in Madrid in
1632, in which numerous conversos, heretics, sacrilegious, and wizards
suspected of practicing rites against the Holy Church declared their faith
before an Inquisition council. The punishment received by roughly forty
offenders, assessed according to the severity of their faults, ranked from
several months in jail to being burned at the stake, once they refused con-
version to Christianity.11 Quiñones begins by bringing back the myth of
tailed Jews in the case of converso Francisco de Andrada, (condemned to
life in prison without parole) to whom he accused of menstruating like
women do.12 After profusely greeting inquisitor don Fray Antonio de
Sotomayor, Quiñones writes:

 9
 Juan de Quiñones joined the Spanish bureaucracy in 1614 and in 1625 was named
deputy of the court in Madrid, which allowed him to closely collaborate with the Spanish
Inquisition. He was also known as a writer of other treaties with a clear political rhetoric.
He wrote not only against the Jews (1632), such as Al Illustrisisimo y Reverendisimo Friar
Antonio de Sotomayor, addressed to the Inquisitor, but against the gypsies in Discurso
Contra los Gitanos (1631), dedicated to King Phillip IV. Other known works are titled
Tratado de los Langostas … (1620), and Tratado de las Falsedades … (1640), that includes
the confession of Miguel de Molina, Discourso de la Campana de Villilla … (1625), dedicated
to the Grand Chancellor, and the titled El Monte de Vesuvio, dedicated to King Phillip IV
(1632).
10
 Position he had from 1631 until 1643 when he was replaced by the hard line Inquisitor
Diego de Arce Reinoso until 1665 (Yerushalmi, 177). See the biography and personal cor-
respondence with the King (between 1643 and 1644) made by José Espinosa on the life and
work of Fray Antonio de Sotomayor (José Espinosa, Fray Antonio de Sotomayor y su corre-
spondencia con Felipe IV [Vigo: M. Roel, 1944]). Note that only in the letter XXXVI,
Sotomayor makes reference to the blood cleansing proceedings, in this case questioning it
before naming the Inquisition deputy in Seville. “… and I am busy verifying information
about his blood, that is as good as it has never been known …” (103).
11
 Yerushalmi, 105–20. Also, see John Elliot, The Count-Duke of Olivares: The Statesman
in an Age of Decline (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), 449.
12
 There could have been many reasons to explain the spreading of the tailed-Jew myth
and their menstruation, being an exaggeration based on the appearance of hemorrhoids.
236 luis g. bejarano

Cuando con Majestuoso aparato grandeza, Solemnidad y autoridad gravísima

se celebró en esta corte el Auto de la Fe en quatro dias de julio de 1632 años
entre otros reos que salieron en el fue Francisco de Andrada de quien se dixo
que padecia todos los meses el fluxo de Sangre que naturaleza dio a las
mujeres, que llaman menstruo ….13
When with majestic greatness, solemnity, and utmost authority this court
held a trial of faith on July fourth 1632, and among others accused in this
trial was Francisco de Andrada, of whom it was said that suffered every
month the same flux of blood that nature gave to women, and that it is
called menstruation ….
This initial paragraph sets the shocking and lurid tone of his entire trea-
tise and Andrada becomes the archetype of the degraded European medi-
eval Jew. By making reference to this particular loss of manhood, Quiñones
introduces a supportive argument to the main purpose of his treatise by
alleging that the punishment for having killed Christ was the symbolic
castration of the male Jews. This mythical allusion to blood seems to be
based on distorted historical and biblical references used to accuse the
Jews, even if they seem unbelievable or rarely seen or read.14 In the next
paragraph Quiñones expresses that, given his authority, he can make
these accusations to satisfy those who don’t believe in such phenomena,
nevertheless, he states that his writing may also entertain Sotomayor dur-
ing the holidays.
Algunos dudarán si era cierto, o por parecerles cosa rara y vista pocas veces, o
por no haberlo leído y alcanzado a saber, y para satisfacerlos y sepan lo que ay
escrito en esto, me ha parecido discurrir brevemente y dezir lo que he notado

The tail or rabo in Spanish could have been a degeneration of the word “rabbi”, or it could
have referred to the tail-like braids worn by the orthodox Jews. The menstruation phe-
nomenon can be viewed either as an attempt to remove Jewish manhood making them as
vulnerable as their women, or as a symbolic cultural and social castration. See Yerushalmi,
127–28. The feature of the tail might have been a physical metaphor for the Jewish nation,
seen as the lowliest and last in God’s eyes, like the tail. See Pierre Savy, “Les juifs on une
queue”, Revue des Études Juives, Peeters 166, 2007: 175–208.
13
 Folium 73. The upcoming quotes from the manuscript are indicated with the folium
number next to the text. The quoted paragraphs and extracts are in keeping with the origi-
nal Castilian, even if grammatical and spelling inconsistencies may be noticed. The copy
of the manuscript that Yerushalmi studied proceeds from the National Library of Lisbon,
Portugal, under manuscript 868, folios 73–89 (Collecção Moreira, II). Another copy of the
manuscript is at the National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, Maryland.
14
 Although still controversial, the mythical blood flow even due to hemorrhoids could
have been a wrong interpretation of the New Testament, Matthew 27.25, in which the
Jewish people demanded Christ’s blood as Pilate washed his hand’: “I am innocent of the
blood of this just man, you will see” and the people’s answer: “His blood be on us and on
our children.”
 anti-semitic discourse237

en esta materia, aunque lo sea yo de curiosidad: pues si bien es cosa que pudi-
era escusar dezirla entiendo que servir en alguna occasión este papel, y la daré
en estos días feriados, para que se entretenga uno rato en leerle V.S. illustri-
sima …. (73)
Some would doubt that it was true, or would have thought it was strange
and rarely seen, or for not having read or known about it, and to please
them and let them know what is written in it, I have briefly discussed and
said what I have noticed about the subject, even out of curiosity. Although
it is something I could have avoided saying, it may serve you at some occa-
sion, and I will give it to you on these holidays so it may entertain you, your
Illustriousness ….
Quiñones’ persuasive rhetoric, though disguised as crude satire, intends
to imprint in the readers distorted historical and even clinical facts, which
he knows are hard to believe.15 Also, the caricatured propaganda of the
text would not only entertain the Inquisitor but would prompt him to act
more aggressively against Portuguese Judaizers in particular.16 Further­
more, in the second folio of his treatise Quiñones brings up a religious
issue tied to the curse placed on the Jews for having sacrificed Christ, a
well-known myth to explain the origins of anti-Semitism. Quiñones con-
tinues with a litany of adjectives against a hated Jewish nation calling it
rebel, tyrant, cruel, infamous, stubborn, wanderer, etc.17 These characteri-
zations added to the alleged deicide imputed to the Jews for profaning the
Holy Ghost, representing the body of Christ on Good Friday. The crucifix-
ion is then associated with the stigma carried by the sinners, and in the
subsequent paragraph the author emphasizes that the descendants of

15
 The Aristotelic vision divides rhetoric in means of persuasion at an artistic level com-
ing from the author, and a non-artistic level coming from the external evidence or proof.
See the study of ancient traditions by James Murphy, Rhetoric in the Middle Ages. A History
of Rhetorical Theory from Saint Augustine to Renaissance (Berkeley: California University
Press. 1974), 3–42.
16
 No particular reference to Phillip the IV’s reaction to Quiñones’ treatise is explained
in studies made on the King’s correspondence. He allowed this manuscript to circulate in
Spain in 1632, although it was not published in print like some of the author’s other trea-
tises. Garth Jowett and Victoria O’Donnell, Propaganda and Persuasion (Newbury Park:
SAGE, 1992), 26. According to Jowett and O’Donnell, “More commonly, however, the prop-
agandist exploits an audience’s beliefs or values or group norms in such a way as to fan the
fires of prejudice or self-interest. When the audience goes along with such practices,
mutual reciprocity occurs because both parties have needs fulfilled.” See also the Reformist
caricature illustrations in Jowett and O’Donnell, 51–52.
17
 This litany of adjectives seems to have an antecedent in the Augustinian lexicon
of Tractatus adversus Iudaeos in which the major accusation is for being the killers of
Christ. See Jesús Álvarez, “El antisemitismo de san Agustín”, Augustinus 26, Madrid (July
1981), 15.
238 luis g. bejarano

those who made Christ suffer would show physical signs for committing
such a sin.
por ponerlo en una cruz es que todos los meses muchos dellos padecen fluxo de
sangre por las partes posteriores en señal perpetua de ignominia y oprobio.
Parece alude a esto la que se dize en el Deuteronomio: que el Señor los herira
con la llaga de Egipto y en la parte del cuerpo por donde salen los excrementos,
y que en ellos y en sus descendientes quedarán señales y prodigios para siem-
pre. Bien sé que este lugar se entiende por una de las plagas que envió Dios a
Egipto, y los Doctores lo explican así …. (74)
… for having put him on a cross they will suffer every month a flux of blood
from the posterior as a perpetual sign of ignominy and shame. It seems to be
alluded to in what is said in Deuteronomy: that the Lord would hurt them
with the wound of Egypt and in the part of the body where they expel their
excrements, and that in them and their descendants the marks of this phe-
nomenon would remain forever. I well know that this place is understood to
be one of the plagues that God sent to Egypt, and that doctors explain it this
way …
Quiñones then proceeds to mention the alleged diagnosis made by physi-
cians about these signs appearing in many Jews, although this clinical
explanation differs from his initial assumption about women-like Jewish
male menstruation. The author tries to find a pathological reason for such
phenomenon by stating that these wounds are also known as vesicles or
hemorrhoid blisters, a clinical condition not exclusive to any ethnic
group.18 The support for these assumptions, as the author explains, comes
from the Holy Scriptures, such as the case of David in an unnumbered
psalm which describes how he injured his enemies in the buttocks to
curse them with perpetual ignominy. This biblical passage is comple-
mented by another in which God himself punishes his enemies: “No
ignoro que este lugar se entiende de los felysteos, quando los hirió el Señor en
las partes posteriores, dándoles oprobio …” (“I do not ignore that this
place is mentioned in reference to the Philistines, when God wounded
them in the posterior, giving them opprobrium”). (74)19 This appears com-
plemented in short by a reference to a sermon given by St. Augustine

18
 Generation and Degeneration: Tropes of Reproduction in Literature and History from
Antiquity to Early Modern Europe, ed. Valeria Finuci and Kevin Bownlee (Durham: Duke
University Press, 2001), 122–24. The parallel between menstruation and hemorrhoids was
common place in the Galenist tradition.
19
 Cardoso counterattacks the anti-Semitic hatred by saying that the scriptures of
Deuteronomy and the Psalms were misinterpreted (Deuteronomy 28:13, 27, 43, 44 and
Psalms 78:66) “which threaten that if the Jews disobey the Lord they shall be “as the tail”
and that they shall be plagued in the posterior parts.” Yerushalmi, 435.
 anti-semitic discourse239

confirming that the curse on the parents runs in the blood of their
descendants, consolidating themselves as an impious generation with an
inexpiable sin. Nevertheless, he mentions that there is a possible cure for
this horrendous ancestral curse.20 This reference concludes with a warn-
ing to the Jewish caste that “… hasta tanto que arrepentida se reconozca
rea y culpada de la sangre de Cristo, sane ….” (75) (“… until they completely
repent, recognizing that they have been captive and blamed for Christ’s
blood, they cannot heal …”). To support the words of the Saint, Quiñones
refers to eminent and highly respectable authors such as Hugo Cardenal,
Jacobo de Valencia, Fray Alonso de Espina,21 Vicente Costa Mattos22 and
his translator Fray Diego Gavilán, Gerónimo de Huerta, and others, fol-
lowed by the names of doctors such as Gordonio, Pascalio, and Sánchez
de Valdés. However, there was a discrepancy between these doctors when
it came to the causes of such flux of blood in Jewish males. For some it was
just another case of hemorrhoids caused by bad eating habits like ingest-
ing unsalted foods, but for others it was more serious than just a digestive
issue. According to Quiñones, one doctor states that the Jews suffered
these conditions due to three main reasons:
La una por que comunmente son gente ociosa, y asi se juntan superfluidades
melancolicas. La otra, porque siempre estan llenos de temor y fatiga, y por eso
se multiplica la sangre melancolica, pues según Hipocrates el temor y la pusi-
lanimidad si duran mucho tiempo engendran humor melancolico. La tercera,
porque procede de castigo divino. Marcelo Donato referiendo a otros dizen que
ay algunos hombres a quien todos los meses viene fluxo de almorranas, como
a las mujeres del menstruo …
One, because they are usually idle people, and for that reason superfluous
melancholies emerge. The other, because they are full of fear and fatigue,
and that is why their melancholic blood multiplies, and according to

20
 Saint Augustine’s anti-Semitism is still debatable depending on the perspective and
historical context adopted by the researcher. Some critics and historians support the theo-
logical base and his love for Israel and the Old Testament to justify the vocabulary and
anti-Semitic references in some of his writings. According to this, his mission is rather
apostolical and his attitude towards the Jews is not of hatred or ethnic intolerance. Jesús
Álvarez, 5–16.
21
 A Franciscan sympathizer of the Inquisition and author of Fortalitium Fidei, an
openly anti-Semitic work according to which the conversos continued being Jews. See the
chapter that Netanyahu dedicates to Alonso de Espina to conclude that he was indeed an
“Old Christian” (43–75).
22
 Portuguese writer Vicente Costa Mattos was known to be one of the most incisive
prosecutors of the conversos, and also wrote anti-Semitic treaties such as Breve discurso
contra a heretica do iudaismo published in Lisbon in 1623. Diego Gavilán Vela translated
this work to Spanish in 1631.
240 luis g. bejarano

Hippocrates if fear and laziness last too long they are going to engender
melancholic mood. The third is because of the divine punishment.
Marcelo Donato makes reference to others who say that there are some
men who suffer a flux of blood from hemorrhoids, similar to women’s
menstruation … (75–76)
These morbid explanations continue intensifying as the treatise
progresses, although later on the blood factor will suggest purification.
The controversy and the contradictions by the quoted authorities accom-
pany Quiñones’ text as he scratches the Jewish wound to exhaust an
explanation to the stigmatic curse and potential cure. Making reference
to San Vicente Ferrer,23 the author points out another example of the
anti-Semitic conspiracy by saying that as one of God’s signs, those males
descending from Jews are born with their right hand attached to their
face with blood. Another sign becomes visible during Good Friday, and
according to another source, both male and female Jews who descend
from those who suffered the flux of blood will appear pale, yellow or dis-
colored (75). In the following lines the author includes the Jewish side of
the story by saying that due to their shame they were interested in finding
a cure to their ignominy. The remedy appears to be announced by the
prophetic voice of a converso who states that such a curse did not have a
cure unless Christian blood was consumed by the sufferers.24 A sharing
system is then discussed by Quiñones, in which once some blood was
obtained in one town it could be shared with other towns so all Jews could
be cured (76–77).
From this point on the author refers to the controversial legend of
some Christian children ritually sacrificed for their blood to be drunk and
thus to remove and cure the Jewish stigma. Some of these cases were
already cited in the law of Código de Partidas (Code of Partidas) promul-
gated by King Alfonso X in 1255, in which the Jews were accused of sacri-
ficing Christian children during Good Friday as part of a purification
ritual. The author then makes reference to cases of mysteriously missing
and sacrificed children in Austria and Germany at the turn of the twelfth

23
 Margherita Morreale, “Sobre San Vicente Ferrer y Pedro Cátedra, sermón, sociedad y
literatura en la edad media. San Vicente Ferrer en Castilla.” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 73,
3, Liverpool (July, 1996): 323–32. Friar Vicente Ferrer was also known as one of the most
influential Iberian anti-Semites. His socio-political and religious interest was evident in
his sermons of Castile in 1411.
24
 In a version of the legend of the “Errant Jew”, after sacrificing Christ the Jews suffered
from hemorrhoids, which can only be cured with potions containing Christian blood. The
myth of the blood might have been based on the Jewish taboo about consuming blood,
and that of the drinking of Christian children’s blood was probably based on a misinter-
pretation of the Eucharist by New Christians.
 anti-semitic discourse241

century, which caused revenge and massacres against Jews. In Spain the
well-known case of the boy of La Guardia was taken to hearing trials in
1489, and for many this was another factor contributing to the expulsion
of the Jews in 1492. This case was also immortalized in Lope de Vega’s
celebrated play “The innocent boy of La Guardia.” Quiñones warns though
that the mystery of the Holy Communion and the purification of the
Christian blood were misunderstood by many impious Jews, since it was
all about the mystery of the Catholic Eucharist. Thus, the transubstantia-
tion of the Eucharist (by turning the Host into the body of Christ and the
red wine into his blood) could have been translated as an abominable
cannibalism, another reason to fuel rejection of any Jewish remnant in
Spain after the expulsion.25 In his essay José M. Perceval emphasizes the
traditional popular mythology mixed with Christian intolerance to frame
the relationship between Jewish rituals and the profaning of Catholic
sacred symbolism.26 According to one myth there is a direct connection
between the sacrificed boy on Good Friday and the Holy Host stolen by
conversos to cast spells that would save them from the Inquisition.
Perceval explains the myth this way:
In the first case, the boy is abducted to be sanctified, before drinking his
blood in a satanic ritual, which is the inverted mirror of the Christian com-
munion, and in the second, the Holy Host spills its content of blood to con-
vince the unfaithful of this mystery. The Jews are responsible in most of the
cases, buying the Holy Hosts from sextons or women … or demanding them
as payment on the interest of usury loans ….
Another case that Quiñones refers to in his treatise was relayed by
Fray Alonso de Espina during his visit to Valladolid, confirming the
rumor regarding sacrificed innocent children as it was told to Espina
by a newly converted Jew. This is just another example in addition to
the already infamous cases of the boy from Zaragoza, San Dominguito
de Val, crucified in 1250, and to the dramatic myth of a crime with no
name or dead body occurring in 1452. This is a portion of Quiñones’
gruesome description of the crucifixion of the unnamed Valladolid
Christian child, as he assures that the case is kept safe in the local convent
of friars:

25
 According to the Christian theology adopted by St. Thomas Aquinas, the “accidents”
of the bread and wine do not change, but their essences change from bread and wine to
the Body and Blood of Christ.
26
 José María Perceval, “Un crimen sin cadáver: el Santo Niño de La Guardia,” Historia
16, Año XVI, 202 (Feb, 1993): 56–57.
242 luis g. bejarano

Cerraron las puertas, y con gran secreto y recato juraron que no revelarian
aunque les quitasen la vida lo que se havia de hazer y trayendo un niño cris-
tiano quasi de dos años… .y con unas agujas largas de hierro le atravesó el
cuerpo por diferentes partes hacia el corazon …. Arrojaron el cuerpo en una
hedionda letrina y trayendo mançanas, peras, nuezes, y avellanas, las hisieron
muchos pedacos como para ensalada, y las echaron en el vaso, donde estava
la sangre inocente y de aquella confeccion horrible comieron todos los judios
que alli estavan …. (77)
They closed the doors and with great secrecy they swore they would not
reveal what was being done even if they had to lose their lives, and bringing
a two year old Christian boy, … and with long iron needles he [one of the
Jews] stabbed his [the boy’s] body in different parts towards the heart, …
They threw the body into a pestilent latrine and bringing apples, pears, nuts
and hazelnuts, they cut them in many pieces like for a salad, they put them
in the vase where the innocent blood was and out of this horrible mixture
all the Jews that were there ate ….
A similar case followed that of Valladolid, but this time in Zamora
by 1454, and another in Sepúlveda in 1468, and finally the infamous
case of La Guardia in 1489. These stories suggest a fine line that sepa-
rates history from myth in the context of the times, in which the Jewish
scapegoat served as a reassuring component of Spanish Christian
identity.
Quiñones adds another Jewish stigma known in anti-Semitic literature
as Foetor Judaicus or the Jewish bad odor. Some of the alleged witnesses of
this condition have been mentioned before and in this paragraph of the
text they verify that Christian blood becomes the only cure for this Jewish
curse.27 Nevertheless, this bad odor condition was not exclusive to the
Jews since Quiñones attributes it also to the Saracens, who in a similar
ritual to Christian baptism, got cured by bathing in the same fountain
where Virgin Mary had bathed Jesus. Quiñones, contradicting himself
again, explains the importance of this pathological condition as being
innate to the impious Jews:
Desta hidiondes de los judios trataron muchos autores, Malvanda D. Lorenzo
Ramirez de Prado, Radero Valle de Moura, Vicente Costa Matos y su traduci-
dor Fray Diego Gavillan, Marco Timpio y Geronimo de Huerta … y dizen
muchos de los autores referidos, que si se convierten a la fe y reciben el sagrado
baptismo se libran deste mal olor …. (79)

27
 Yerushalmi, 433–37. Besides those quoted before, other authors also studied the anti-
Semitic theme. They were, among others, Venantius Fortunatus, Jacob Gretse, and Simón
Majalus.
 anti-semitic discourse243

Many authors make reference to this pestilent odor of the Jews, Malvanda
D. Lorenzo Ramirez de Prado, Radero Valle de Moura, Vicente Costa Matos
and his translator Fray Diego Gavillan, Marco Timpio and Geronimo de
Huerta … and many referred authors state that if they convert to the Faith
and receive the Holy Baptism they free themselves of this odor ….
Among other extraordinary events related in Quiñones’ discourse is the
story of the King of Armenia’s daughter, who gave birth to a “monstrous
thing” who, after being baptized, turned into a beautiful child. As was
expected, those who witnessed the miracle converted to the Catholic
faith. This phenomenon appears to be supported by the testimony of a
group of prominent authors; however, Quiñones observes that although
many converted, other Jews did not believe in such miracles.
conversoieronse muchos gentiles a la fe y los judíos que se hallaron presentes
al milagro quedaron protervos en su perfidia, como siempre lo acostumbran,
aunque mas milagros vean que la imagen de Cristo hable con ellos y derrame
sangre en su presencia … (80)
Many gentiles converted to the faith and many Jews that were present at the
miracle remained evil in their perfidy, as they were always accustomed,
even if they would witness more miracles like seeing the image of Christ
speaking to them and bleeding in their presence …
Quiñones supports this passage by admitting the intersection of the
divine will, which in supreme justice has exposed Jewish parents’ sin by
showing physical signs of shame so they would always be condemned.
Other Jews could not even raise their heads to see the sky, were hunch-
backs, and taken for working animals because they allegedly hung the
cross on Christ’s back. Quiñones then quotes a prophet king saying:
“Oscurescanseles los ojos, que no vean, y anden agoviadas las espaldas.”
(“May your eyes become blind, may you not be able to see, and may your
backs become overworked.”) (81)
By resorting to physical characterizations to complete a perfect carica-
ture, Quiñones’ dehumanizes Jews and supports the myth by which they
exhibited animal features, such as the big nose, hunchbacks, and the
before-mentioned case of a tail. Nevertheless, the author warns that he
does not have enough support to validate such a statement: “Esto no lo
afirmo, porque no he hallado autor, que lo diga.” (“I do not state this
because I have not found an author who says it.”) (81) But, curiously
enough, not long after, he refers to all those witnesses who had given tes-
timony of such marvels. The author also resorts to medieval legends such
as those of Marco Polo about fantastic lands in Asia and the New World,
which fueled some medieval European myths. According to Quiñones,
244 luis g. bejarano

natives of Java also have a dog-like tail, a physical stigma also present in
the Americas in the Indians of Southern Chile. (81) He also refers to those
of the Jewish race in Peru who are born with a big brown coin on their
backs. (84) These miserable creatures then should live with the burden of
their abominable sin just like the Jews. These geographically remote cases
seem to support Quiñones’ premise that one recognizes the severity of the
sin by how terrible the physical stigma appears to be.28
Quiñones later underscores another Bible-based case to illustrate his
defamatory discourse against those who received supernatural punish-
ment for their sins. This is the case of Lot’s wife who, according to the
Bible, turned into a pillar of salt because of her disobedience. According
to Tertuliano, the pillar is not only ageless, but also regenerates itself and
menstruates like the Jews to whom Quiñones refers. (82) This case is
brought up in the treatise as an example of divine perpetual punishment
in which a marvelous metamorphosis occurs, but this time a human is
being turned into an inanimate salted and cursed pillar. This is then, in
the author’s view, a perfect example of the kinds of curses that would fall
onto those who had sinned against God’s law. Here Quiñones wants to
emphasize the everlasting condition of these curses supported by judg-
ments made by authors he considers respectable.
Once again a case of the flux of blood supports his central motive,
although this time it has been attributed to a case of divine disobe­
dience.  Quoting Hellenic philosophers such as Josefo Flavio, Quiñones
observes:
Y dize Josefo que hasta en su tiempo durava y permanecia, y que el la vio …
Tertuliano afirma que se conservava hasta su edad, y el florecio en tiempos del
Emperador Severo por los años 203, y que si los peregrinos la ivan aver y quita-
van della algun pedaco luego se llenava como antes estava la parte donde se
quitó, y dize una cosa rara, que todos los meses vertia sangre como las mujeres
acostumbran …. (81–82)
And Josefo says that even during his time it lasted and remained and that he
saw it … Tertuliano affirms that the pillar remained intact during his time,
and he lived in the times of Emperor Severo in the year 203, and if the pil-
grims came to see it and took a piece of it, later it would regenerate itself as
it was before, and he says something strange, that every month the pillar
bled like women do ….

28
 Note that the author not only displays a radical anti-Semitism, but also a racist atti-
tude that extends to other ethnic and minority groups of Spain in those times. Quiñones
then uses biological support to slander other human societies such as American Indians,
Africans, Asians, and Spanish Gypsies.
 anti-semitic discourse245

The author himself assumes the first person to intervene in the discus-
sion: “Yo digo que el alma siendo como es inmortal no se convirtió en sal ….”
(“I say that the soul, being immortal, did not become salt ….”) (83)
However, he immediately warns that he referred to the case of the pillar
of salt, not to discuss her soul, but to illustrate his main theme of blood.
Quiñones closes the paragraph saying that Our Lord wants these marks to
remain in perpetual memory to punish sins and those who scoff at his
commands. (83)
The Jewish practice of circumcision is used by the author not only as a
physical mark but also to engage the blood factor again, since in medieval
anti-Semitic fables the circumcision would not heal until it was washed in
Christian blood.29 Once again by using the first person the author exer-
cises his authority as an officer when reporting that he arrested three men
in his court because they had been circumcised, and he remanded them
to the Inquisition to be tried. (88) By the same token, Quiñones considers
it urgent to send to the Inquisition all those Jewish descendants, includ-
ing conversos, who would not eat bacon. However, the author does not
use the word converso but descendiente (descendant), since he suspected
that they never really converted to Christianity and continued posing a
threat to the Holy Church. Quiñones concludes the theme of the alleged
Jewish male menstruation by saying that it is a natural and widely recog-
nized phenomenon still present in those considered New Christians. (88)
Paradoxically, Quiñones was suffering from a hemorrhoid condition simi-
lar to that which he distortedly imputes to the Jews in this treatise when
he was visited by Doctor Isaac Cardoso. Not satisfied with reporting only
circumcised Jews, Quiñones states that his will is to imprison all those
who are the subject of his treatise. He then contradicts himself yet again
by making it clear that it is not all of them, since he has not witnessed
such extraordinary events first hand, with the obvious exception of his
own case.30
Si hallara algunos que padecieran este fluxo de sangre los remetiera a la
Santa Inquisición, pues no pueden dexar de ser judios o apostatas, porque si le

29
 Circumcision was a symbol of purification, as St. Paul admits it, although it was not
related to the spiritual impurity of the sinner, i.e., the Jew.
30
 Cardoso, 345–46. Curiously enough there is an anecdote told by Doctor Cardoso
after he and a surgeon visited Quiñones, who was suffering from tail-like hemorrhoids,
the same condition he attributed to the Jews in this treatise. When Quiñones was ques-
tioned about his condition, he is said to have laughed stating that his origin was that of a
noble Old Christian. This episode spread rumors about Quiñones descending from old
conversos.
246 luis g. bejarano

tienen no estan baptizados, pues con el baptismo se les quita, y si estan bapti-
zados y les viene cada mes son apostatas … (89)
If I found some who suffered from this flux of blood I would remand them
to the Holy Inquisition, since they cannot avoid being Jews or apostates,
because if they have it they are not baptized, since it is removed with bap-
tism, and if they are baptized and it comes every month they are apostates
….
Quiñones attempts to convince his readers of his official duty in defense
of the faith and the Spanish crusade as he closes his treatise: “Our Lord
keep you, our Illustrious, many long years for the wellbeing and preserva-
tion of the Holy Catholic Faith.” (89) By supporting this crusade, the
author also altered alleged testimonies by historic and scientific person-
alities to demonize the Jews and justify Inquisitorial persecution against
conversos. His defamatory attacks are based on the premise that a crusade
leading to the defense of the faith and of the institutions created by God
no matter the means would work beyond the limitations of human jus-
tice, being only a concern for the divine. Since the author’s only moral
code proceeds from distortions of biblical passages, he uses them as
guidelines to find sinners and to help unveil marvelous signs by which
God shows his greatness and support of the Holy Crusade. The power of
his position in the court and his passion as a supporter of the Inquisition
surpass the intolerance exhibited by some newly baptized Christians
in the role of a Jew hater, such as that of the converted monk of the
Disputation of Barcelona.31
Thus, the explicit intentions of Quiñones’ discourse are not only to
entertain Sotomayor and support anti-Portuguese sentiment by degrad-
ing Judaizers through a series of biblical and medical distortions, but to
provoke a defensive reaction from his readers.32 As a scholar, Quiñones
must have been aware that the contradictory and incoherent nature of his
discourse may invalidate his anti-Semitic medical arguments in front of
notable converso physicians like Isaac Cardoso. His underlying intention
was then to protect his reputation as hidalgo through his official duties,
and by using cruel anti-Semitic rhetoric in his treatises, suggesting his

31
 The Disputation of Barcelona occurred in 1263 before King James I of Aragon between
the French Dominican monk Pablo Christiani (a converted Jew) and Rabbi Nachmanides.
32
 Intentions are a function of the information being communicated, rather than a
function of the structure of the text. The intentional component of the discourse structure
captures the discourse-relevant purposes, expressed in each of the linguistic segments as
well as relationships among them. See Barbara Grosz and Candace Sidner, “Attention,
Intentions, and the Structure of Discourse”, Computational Linguistics, 12 (1986): 175–204.
 anti-semitic discourse247

attempts, as did some Spanish Golden Age writers, to evade rumors of his
own converso origin.

Bibliography

Alvarez, Jesús. “El antisemitismo de san Agustín.” Augustinus 26. Madrid. (Jul, 1981): 5–16.
Cardoso, Isaac. Las excelencias de los Hebreos. Amsterdam: David Castro Tartas, 1679.
Egmond, Florike, and Robert Zwijnenberg, ed. Bodily Extremities: Preoccupations with the
Human Body in Early European Culture. Burlington: Ashgate Publishing, 2003.
Elliot, John. The Count-Duke of Olivares: The Statesman in an Age of Decline. New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1986.
Espinosa, José. Fray Antonio de Sotomayor y su correspondencia con Felipe IV. Vigo: M. Roel,
1944.
Finuci, Valeria, and Kevin Bownlee, ed. Generation and Degeneration: Tropes of Repro­
duction in Literature and History from Antiquity to Early Modern Europe. Durham: Duke
University Press, 2001.
Grosz, Barbara, and Candace Sidner. “Attention, Intentions, and the Structure of
Discourse.” Computational Linguistics, 12 (1986): 175–204.
Jowett, Garth S., and Victoria O’Donnell. Propaganda and Persuasion. Newbury Park:
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MacDonald, Kevin. Separation And Its Discontents: Toward an Evolutionary Theory of Anti-
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Morreale, Margherita. “Sobre San Vicente Ferrer y Pedro Cátedra, sermón, sociedad y lit-
eratura en la edad media. San Vicente Ferrer en Castilla.” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies
73.3. Liverpool (Jul, 1996): 323–32.
Murphy, James. Rhetoric in the Middle Ages. A History of Rhetorical Theory from Saint
Augustine to Renaissance. Berkeley: California University Press, 1974.
Netanyahu, Benzion. Toward the Inquisition. Essays on Jewish and Converso History in Late
Medieval Spain. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997.
Perceval, José María. “Un crimen sin cadáver: el Santo Niño de La Guardia.” Historia 16,
Año XVI, 202 (Feb, 1993): 56–57.
Quiñones de Bonavente, Juan. Al ilustrísimo Señor Don Fray Antonio de Sotomayor… ms.
868. Biblioteca Nacional de Lisboa (Collecçao Moreira, II); National Library of Medicine,
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 INDEX

abogado de prisioneros 56 Baer, Yitzhak 5, 5 fn. 9, 43, 43 fn. 1,

adab 12, 70, 81–86, 82 fn. 41, 83 fn. 44 73 fn. 15, 75 fn. 22
Alemán, Mateo 15, 186 fn. 8, 187–191, 187 Barcelona 2 fn. 4, 32 fn. 42, 35 fn. 55, 43 fn.
fn. 9, 194, 196 fn. 22, 198, 199, 203–205 1, 49 fn. 17, 50 fn. 18, 55 fn. 27, 60 fn. 36,
Alfarache, Guzmán de 15, 183, 186, 187 fn. 9, 74 fn. 19, 99, 119, 119 fn. 6, 145 fn. 13, 153,
188, 193, 201, 202 fn. 27, 202 fn. 28, 202 fn. 154, 161 fn. 2, 219 fn. 31, 246, 246 fn. 31
29, 203, 204 Bede 169, 170, 172
Alfonsi, Petrus 3, 12, 69–86, 70 fn. 3, 70 fn. Benito Ruano, Eloy 26, 26 fn. 24, 27 fn. 27,
4, 70 fn. 5, 70 fn. 6, 71 fn. 8, 72 fn. 11, 74 28 fn. 29, 29 fn. 31, 31 fn. 39, 32 fn. 41, 32
fn. 16–18, 74 fn. 22, 75 fn. 24, 77 fn. 29, 78 fn. 42, 32 fn. 43, 32 fn. 44, 32 fn. 45, 32 fn.
fn. 31, 79 fn. 32, 80 fn. 35, 83 fn. 46, 84 fn. 46, 119 fn. 6
50, 84 fn. 51, 85 fn. 53, 85 fn. 54, 85 fn. 55, Berceo, Gonzalo de 2, 13, 91–115, 96 fn. 17,
85 fn. 56, 86 fn. 57, 86 fn. 58, 86 fn. 59, 86 97 fn. 19
fn. 60, 86 fn. 61 Black Death 164, 183
Alfonso X, King of Castile 23, 23 fn. 10, 23 Blood cleansing 233 fn. 1, 233 fn. 2, 234,
fn. 13, 74, 75, 91, 240 235 fn. 10
aljama 98
aljamía 161 calificadores 56
aljamiado 14, 161, 161 fn. 2, 161 fn. 3, Canaan 222
162–164, 164 fn. 10, 166, 167, 168 fn. 27, cancionero poetry 170, 170 fn. 29, 171
169 fn. 27, 170 fn. 29, 171–174, 175 fn. 44, cancioneros 170
179 Cantigas de Santa María 23, 23 fn. 12, 23
Alpujarras 64, 65 fn. 13, 91 fn. 4, 92 fn. 12
Amador de los Ríos, José 35 fn. 55, 35 fn. Cardoso, Doctor Isaac 233 fn. 3, 234, 234
57, 75 fn. 22, 163 fn. 10, 166 fn. 22 fn. 7, 234 fn. 8, 238 fn. 19, 245, 245 fn. 30,
Andrada, Francisco de 235, 236, 236 fn. 12 246
Angel of Death 165, 166 fn. 19 Carrión, Shem Tob de 9 fn. 21, 161, 161 fn. 2
anti-converso 4, 6, 7 fn. 15, 9, 11, 19, 22, Cartagena, Alonso de 7, 7 fn. 13, 31, 31 fn.
26–28, 34, 39, 119 38, 34, 39 fn. 31, 117–138, 117 fn. 1, 120 fn. 7,
anti-Jewish 2–4, 6, 7, 13, 24, 26 fn. 23, 47, 132 fn. 15
69, 76, 93, 98, 100, 101, 104, 114, 153–155 Castro, Américo 1, 1 fn. 1, 1 fn. 2, 7 fn. 15, 9,
anti-Semitic 48, 93, 95, 102, 103, 141, 150, 9 fn. 18, 19, 19 fn. 1, 20, 20 fn. 3, 24, 35 fn.
151, 151 fn. 31, 153, 155, 156, 159, 166, 184, 55, 44, 44 fn. 3, 142, 186 fn. 7, 204 fn. 31,
185, 188 fn. 19, 233–247, 238 fn. 20, 238 fn. 207 fn. 2, 208 fn. 3, 209 fn. 6, 233 fn. 1
21, 238 fn. 22 Catholic faith 34, 54, 61, 62, 125, 126, 148,
anti-Semitism 2 243, 246
Aragón 2, 12, 39, 39 fn. 73, 48 fn. 14, Cava Rumía 225
49 fn. 15, 50, 64, 69, 71, 71 fn. 7, 72, 73, Ceriol, Fadrique Furió 118, 118 fn. 4
82, 84, 84 fn. 52, 85, 86, 98, 151 fn. 31, Cervantes, Miguel de 10, 15, 37, 37 fn. 65,
153, 154, 154 fn. 44, 158, 163, 163 fn. 8, 207, 207 fn. 1, 207 fn. 2, 224 fn. 39
167, 178 fn. 56, 183, 184, 246 charambela 175, 175 fn. 43, 176, 177
Aram 210, 213, 220, 223, 226 charamela 175, 175 fn. 42
Aronson-Friedman, Amy I. 1–16, 9 fn. 21, Christiani, Paulus 99, 115
86 fn. 62 Cicero 129
Asenath 211, 219, 222 civitas 123, 124, 126, 127, 129, 138
Augustine 117, 122, 125, 125 fn. 9, 152 fn. 35, civitas dei 117
237 fn. 15, 238, 239 fn. 20 civitas terrena 117
auto de fe 54, 63, 66, 208, 235 Coci, Jorge 146, 146 fn. 16
250 index

Código de Partidas 240 dhimmî 73

Cogolludo 52, 53 Dialogus contra judaeos 69–86
Cohen, Jeremy 75 fn. 22, 75 fn. 23, 78 fn. Dinah 220, 221, 221 fn. 36
32, 99 fn. 23, 152 fn. 35 Disciplina clericalis 3, 12, 69–86, 70 fn. 4,
Compurgated 58 70 fn. 6, 85 fn. 53
conquistadores 82 dominandi libido 120, 123, 124, 127, 138
conversas 46, 225, 234 fn. 5 Domínguez Ortiz, Antonio 3 fn. 6, 20,
Conversion 3, 4, 6–8, 11, 13, 20, 21 fn. 5, 20 fn. 4, 38 fn. 70, 39 fn. 71, 47 fn. 11,
23–25, 29, 32, 44, 45 fn. 8, 47–50, 55, 69, 64 fn. 44
70, 72, 75, 75 fn. 22, 76, 77, 77 fn. 30, 78,
79, 84, 91–115, 106 fn. 38, 117 fn. 2, 125, 130, ecclesia 138
130 fn. 14, 143, 184, 187, 188, 197–200, 202, Edict of Expulsion 8, 183, 184
202 fn. 27, 203, 219, 222, 227 fn. 49, Egypt 122, 210, 211, 215, 217, 219, 223,
233, 235 226, 238
Conversos 3, 3 fn. 6, 4, 4 fn. 7, 5, 5 fn. 9, 6, Eimeric, Nicolau 50, 50 fn. 18, 53 fn. 22, 53
6 fn. 10, 6 fn. 12, 7, 7 fn. 15, 8, 8 fn. 17, 9, fn. 24, 56 fn. 31, 58 fn. 34, 59, 60 fn. 37
9 fn. 20, 10–12, 14–16, 19, 20, 24, 24 fn. 15, Ekbert of Schönau 151
25, 26, 26 fn. 25, 27–31, 31 fn. 38, 32–36, el dictamen revocado 110, 111
38 fn. 70, 39, 39 fn. 71, 40, 44, 44 fn. 4, 45, El judïezno 13, 91–115, 101 fn. 30,
46, 46 fn. 8, 47–49, 49 fn. 17, 50, 51 fn. 20, 106 fn. 38
52, 54, 55, 55 fn. 28, 56, 62–65, 69, 72, 73 El tizón de la nobleza de España 39,
fn. 13, 74, 75, 75 fn. 22, 86, 93, 94, 117 fn. 1, 39 fn. 73
119, 120 fn. 1, 121, 126, 126 fn. 11, 127, 127 fn. Esau 213, 215, 216, 224
12, 130 fn. 14, 138, 141, 142, 142 fn. 5, 143, escudero 28, 36, 37
144, 146, 147, 149, 154, 155, 162, 171, 171 fn. Estatutos de limpieza de sangre 19, 20, 76,
30, 172 fn. 32, 178, 183, 183 fn. 2, 184, 184 119, 155, 208
fn. 3, 185, 185 fn. 4, 186, 187, 192, 196, 198, Eulogies 177
199, 203–205, 211, 216, 233, 233 fn. 1, 233 Eusebius 125
fn. 3, 234, 235, 239 fn. 21, 239 fn. 22, 241, exempla 69, 85, 86
245, 246 Extremadura 48, 51, 64
converso voice 9, 9 fn. 21, 10, 13, 14, 16, 45
fn. 5, 48 fn. 8, 75 fn. 21, 86 fn. 62, 93, 141, Ferrer, Vicente 3, 240, 240 fn. 23
142, 142 fn. 4, 143, 143 fn. 6, 144, 150, 157, Foetor Judaicus 242
159, 170–172 Fortalitium fidei contra Judaeos 8, 8 fn. 16,
convivencia 1–3, 1 fn. 1, 9 fn. 21, 11, 13, 46 fn. 35, 35 fn. 55
8, 91–115, 98 fn. 21, 107 fn. 38 Fourth Lateran Council 96 fn. 18,
coplas 161 fn. 3, 163, 164, 164 fn. 10, 172 fn. 105, 115
32 Frametale ix
Coplas de Yoçef 161 fn. 3, 162, 172 fn. 32, 173, Franciscans 8, 30, 33, 99 fn. 24, 105, 127,
211, 211 fn. 13 152, 152 fn. 35, 239 fn. 21
IV Council of Toledo 21, 21 fn. 5, 23 Friars Minor 105
IX Council of Toledo 21 funerary ritual 177
Council of Trent 201
Cromberger, Jacobo 148 Genesis 91, 110 fn. 44, 145 fn. 14, 162 fn. 4,
Crypto-Jews 4 fn. 7, 5, 6, 9, 10, 19, 24 fn. 15, 211, 212, 216 fn. 25, 217 fn. 26, 219, 220,
26, 29, 36, 41, 48 fn. 8, 64, 75 fn. 22, 142, 221 fn. 36, 224, 226, 229
143, 144 fn. 9, 162, 178, 184 fn. 3, 208 fn. 5 genial tejedor 82, 85, 86
Gerli, E. Michael 91, 91 fn. 5, 175 fn. 42, 214,
Dame World 191 214 fn. 19
Dance of Death 161, 162, 167, 177, 178 Gitlitz, David M. 24 fn. 15, 45 fn. 8, 142, 143,
Danse macabre 178, 178 fn. 54 144 fn. 9
Danza de la muerte 14, 161–179, 164 fn. 10 Granollachs, Ber fn. at de 145, 145 fn. 13
Danza general de la muerte 164, 171 Guadalajara 52
Defensorium unitatis christianae 7 fn. 13, Guadalupe 51, 51 fn. 20, 52, 55, 55 fn. 27, 56,
31, 31 fn. 38, 31 fn. 39, 119, 120 fn. 7 58, 62
 index251

haggadoth 211 La vida del Buscón llamado don Pablos 15,

Haliczer, Stephen 49 fn. 15 187
Historia de la vida del Buscón 15, 187 Leah 213, 219, 220, 223
Holy Communion 97, 115, 241 letrado 48, 119
Hurus, Pablo 145, 145 fn. 12, 147, 148, 159 Li, Andrés de 4, 14, 141, 144–146, 146 fn. 17,
148 fn. 22, 157, 159
ikhtiyār 80, 80 fn. 36, 80 fn. 37, 84 Libro del entretenimiento de la pícara
imprenta 145, 146 fn. 16, 158 Justina 183
Inquisition 3 fn. 6, 4 fn. 7, 5, 5 fn. 9, 8, 10, libros verdes 33
12, 16, 20 fn. 2, 20 fn. 5, 25 fn. 21, 30 fn. 34, Libro verde de Aragón 39, 39 fn. 73
35 fn. 56, 36, 43–66, 46 fn. 8, 47 fn. 12, limpieza 30, 37, 186 fn. 7, 228
48 fn. 14, 49 fn. 15, 49 fn. 17, 52 fn. 21, limpieza de sangre 11, 16, 19–40, 76, 119, 119
55 fn. 28, 60 fn. 36, 119 fn. 6, 127, 142, fn. 6, 127, 146, 155, 185, 208
145–147, 150, 155, 158, 161, 162 fn. 4, linaje 27, 29, 185 fn. 5, 213, 214
172 fn. 32, 174, 184 fn. 3, 185, 185 fn. 4, Llull, Ramon 1
203 fn. 30, 209, 233, 233 fn. 1, 233 fn. 2, locus amoenus 92
233 fn. 3, 234, 235, 235 fn. 9, 235 fn. 10, lo eternal 133
239 fn. 21, 241, 245, 246 lo temporal 133
Israel 7, 122, 124, 126, 175, 208, 214, 215, 221, Ludolphus of Saxony 153
223, 227, 239 Luna, Àlvaro de 26, 26n25, 27–29, 154
Lunari 145, 145 fn. 13
Jacob 16, 152, 207–229, 224 fn. 42
jāhilīyya 83 MacKay, Angus 4, 4 fn. 8, 46, 46 fn. 9,
Jami 211 51 fn. 19, 85 fn. 52
Jeronymite 51 Mahzor 174, 174 fn. 36, 174 fn. 39, 178
Jewish male menstruation 238, 245 Maimonides 2 fn. 5, 80, 172 fn. 32,
Jews 1, 19, 43, 69, 93, 117 fn. 2, 141 fn. 1, 162, 174 fn. 36, 176, 176 fn. 49, 177, 177 fn. 49
183, 209 fn. 5, 233 Manual 50, 52, 53, 56–58, 58 fn. 35, 59, 60,
Johnson, Carroll B. 204 fn. 31, 214 fn. 19 60 fn. 37
Jonah 195, 196, 196 fn. 22, 197–202 Marién, Lela 224, 227
Jonah, Book of 195, 196, 196 fn. 22, 200–202 Maritain, Jacques 118, 118 fn. 5
Joseph 16, 26 fn. 23, 36 fn. 61, 72 fn. 11, Márquez Villanueva, Francisco 7 fn. 15,
84 fn. 52, 118 fn. 5, 158 fn. 53, 166, 24 fn. 16, 24 fn. 17, 207 fn. 2, 208, 210,
207–229, 217 fn. 26, 227 fn. 49, 228 fn. 51 219 fn. 30
Juan II, King of Castile 24, 26, 119, 127, marranos 24 fn. 15, 28, 45, 45 fn. 7, 49 fn.
146, 154 17, 64, 65, 183 fn. 2, 223
judaizantes 48 fn. 13 máximo religioso 117, 118, 127, 128, 130, 138
Judaizers 27–29, 36, 46 fn. 8, 47, 49, 55, 63, Medieval anti-Semitic fables 245
209, 209 fn. 5, 234 fn. 5, 237, 246 Melammed, Reneé Levine 47, 52, 52 fn. 21,
judíos bautizados 22 73 fn. 14
judíos ocultos 35 midrash 161, 166, 174 fn. 36, 211, 211 fn. 12,
211 fn. 13, 215
Kalīla Wa-Dimna 74 Milagros de Nuestra Señora 2, 3, 13, 91, 91
Kamen, Henry 33 fn. 49, 47 fn. 12, 72 fn. 11, fn. 3, 91 fn. 5, 92 fn. 12, 93, 96 fn. 17, 108
186 fn. 7 Monster of Ravenna 190, 191
Kaplan, Gregory B. 170 moriscas 64
Kugel, James L., 211 fn. 13 215 fn. 21, moriscos 12, 43–46, 47 fn. 10, 47 fn. 11,
217 fn. 26, 221 fn. 36 48–50, 63, 63 fn. 43, 64, 64 fn. 44, 65, 130
fn. 14, 165, 183 fn. 2, 210, 216
Laban 213, 214, 223, 225 mudéjar 43, 168
La Guardia, the boy of 241 mystical body 118, 123, 128, 129, 133
La pícara Justina 15, 183, 187, 187 fn. 9, 203
Las Siete Partidas 23, 23 fn. 10, 24 Nahmanides 99, 115
La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes 36, 36 fn. Nepaulsingh, Colbert R. 9, 209 fn. 5,
61, 38 211 fn. 11
252 index

Netanyahu, Benzion 3 fn. 6, 6 fn. 11, 7 fn. Reportorio de los tiempos 145, 145 fn. 12,
15, 20, 20 fn. 2, 20 fn. 5, 21 fn. 5, 24 fn. 14, 145 fn. 14, 147, 157
24 fn. 15, 25, 25 fn. 19, 26 fn. 25, 27 fn. 26, responsa 6, 19, 20, 20 fn. 3, 21
28 fn. 28, 29 fn. 33, 35 fn. 55, 35 fn. 58, Rosh ha-Shanah 14, 162, 167, 173, 173 fn. 34,
119 fn. 6, 142, 233, 233 fn. 1, 233 fn. 2, 174, 174 fn. 36, 176–178
233 fn. 3, 234 fn. 4, 239 fn. 21 Roth, Norman 1, 1 fn. 3, 2 fn. 5, 3 fn. 6, 142,
New Christians 3–6, 8, 15, 24, 26, 27, 31, 32, 184 fn. 3
38, 38 fn. 70, 39, 45, 50, 51, 54, 63, 162, 171,
185–187, 192, 195, 196, 198, 199, 204, 205, Saint Bonaventure 151–153
233 fn. 3, 240, 245 sanbenito 66
New Testament 22, 34 fn. 53, 110, 111, 115, Sánchez-Albornoz, Claudio 1, 2 fn. 4,
120, 162 fn. 4, 204, 236 fn. 14 234 fn. 4
Nirenberg, David 1, 2, 2 fn. 4, 26 fn. 23, San Dominguito de Val 241
101 fn. 30, 106 fn. 38, 107 fn. 38, 151 fn. 31, sangre impura 19, 39
152 fn. 36, 152 fn. 37, 152 fn. 38, 153 fn. 39, Sarmiento, Pero 27–29, 32, 119,
154 fn. 44, 154 fn. 45 119 fn. 6
Satan 101
Old Christians 3, 6, 7, 15, 19, 24–28, 30, 34, Saugnieux, Joël 91 fn. 1, 163, 163 fn. 7, 164
38, 38 fn. 70, 39, 47, 51, 52, 56, 64, 142, 171, fn. 12, 165, 165 fn. 14, 165 fn. 15, 165 fn. 16,
185, 186, 191, 192, 195 165 fn. 17, 165 fn. 18, 168 fn. 24
Old Testament 16, 91, 92, 94, 99, 109–111, Scholberg, Kenneth 24, 25 fn. 18
115, 120, 122, 126, 162 fn. 4, 185 fn. 4, 210, Sefardí, Moshé 12, 70, 71, 73, 75, 77,
218 fn. 28, 226 fn. 46, 239 fn. 20 81, 85
Seidenspinner-Nuñez, Dayle 29, 30 fn. 34,
paganism 117, 121–125, 125 fn. 9 75, 75 fn. 21, 117, 119 fn. 6, 142, 142 fn. 4,
Palatina Library in Parma, Italy 161 143, 143 fn. 7, 143 fn. 8, 144
Passion texts 150–153, 155, 156, 158, 159 Sentencia-Estatuto 28–32, 34, 119
Pena de talión 110, 110 fn. 42, 111, 115 shofar 175, 175 fn. 41, 176, 176 fn. 48, 177,
Peña, Francisco 50, 50 fn. 18 177 fn. 51, 178
Peregrinatio vitae 91 Sicroff, Albert A. 20 fn. 3, 25, 26, 26 fn. 22,
Peters, Edward 25 fn. 21, 60 fn. 36 29 fn. 33, 30 fn. 35, 31 fn. 36, 31 fn. 37, 33,
Pharaoh 215, 217, 222, 224, 226 33 fn. 47, 33 fn. 48, 33 fn. 50, 34 fn. 52,
pícaras 183 34 fn. 53, 36, 36 fn. 59, 38, 38 fn. 67,
pícaros 183 38 fn. 69, 119 fn. 6
political theology 10, 13, 117–138, 117 fn. 2 Smith, Paul Julian 213 fn. 17, 219 fn. 32,
pork (tocino) 169, 170 222 fn. 37
promotor fiscal 56 Sotomayor, Fray Antonio de 235, 235 fn. 9,
purity-of-blood statute 7, 10, 11, 15, 19, 21, 235 fn. 10, 236, 246
24, 28–34, 39, 146 Spanish Inquisition 5, 8, 12, 25, 31,
33 fn. 49, 48, 49, 49 fn. 17, 50, 72 fn. 11,
qual fizo atal prenda 109–111 234, 235 fn. 9
Quevedo, Francisco de 187 fn. 9, 205, Statement of reconciliation 54
234 fn. 6 Summa de paciencia 14, 141–159, 146 fn. 17
Quiñones, Juan de 16, 234 fn. 6, 235,
235 fn. 9 tachas 53, 54
Talmud 70, 99, 115, 168 fn. 25, 174 fn. 36,
Rabbi Ben Sheshet 169, 170 175 fn. 41
Rabbi Moses ben Nahman 99 teraphim 225
Rachel 213, 216, 219, 220, 223, 225 Thesoro de la passion 141–159, 148 fn. 22,
reconciliación 54, 55, 55 fn. 28, 56, 149 fn. 24
213, 225 tiempo de gracia 54, 58
reformistas 47 Toledo 4, 5 fn. 9, 7, 7 fn. 13, 7 fn. 14, 12, 19,
Religious polemic 12, 69, 70, 76 fn. 26 21, 21 fn. 5, 23, 26, 26 fn. 24, 27, 27 fn. 27,
Renegado 215, 222, 222 fn. 37 28, 28 fn. 29, 29, 29 fn. 31, 30, 31, 31 fn. 39,
 index253

32 fn. 41, 33, 35, 36, 39 fn. 72, 48, 49 fn. 17, Virgin Mary 13, 54, 91, 92, 92 fn. 11, 93–95,
54, 61, 74 fn. 19, 108, 119, 119 fn. 6, 108, 109, 113–115, 210, 242
120–124, 127, 129, 138, 142 fn. 5, 154, Visigothic 1, 2, 20, 21, 23, 23 fn. 8, 84
184, 208 Vitoria, Francisco de 13, 117–138, 117 fn. 1,
Transculturation 70, 81, 82, 82 fn. 40, 128 fn. 13
84–86
turba 124, 127, 129, 138 William of Norwich 100, 100 fn. 27

Úbeda, Francisco López de 15, 20, 187, Yom Kippur 14, 162, 167, 173, 173 fn. 4, 174,
203–205 174 fn. 36, 175 fn. 41

Vendrell Gallostra, Francisca 7, 24, Zaragoza 39 fn. 73, 49 fn. 17, 144, 144 fn. 10,
25 fn. 18 145, 145 fn. 12, 148, 168 fn. 26, 241