The Tribunal of Zaragoza and Crypto-Judaism 1484-1515 (EUROPA SACRA) 9782503524726, 2503524729

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KATERN 1

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T HE T RIBUNAL OF Z ARAGOZA AND C RYPTO-JUDAISM

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EUROPA SACRA Editorial Board under the auspices of Monash University M egan Cassidy-W elch (University of Melbourne) David Garrioch (Monash University) Peter Howard (Monash University) F. W. Kent (Monash University) Constant J. Mews (Monash University) M . Michèle M ulchahey (Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto) Adriano Prosperi (Scuola Normale di Pisa)

Volume 3

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T HE T RIBUNAL OF Z ARAGOZA AND C RYPTO-JUDAISM 1484–1515

by

Anna Ysabel d’Abrera

H

F

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Abrera, Anna Ysabel d’ The tribunal of Zaragoza and crypto-Judaism, 1484-1515. (Europa sacra ; 3) 1. Marranos - Spain - Zaragoza 2. Inquisition - Spain Zaragoza 3. Zaragoza (Spain) - Religion I. Title 946.5’53’004924 ISBN-13: 9782503524726

© 2008, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. D/2008/0095/37 ISBN: 978-2-503-52472-6 Printed in the E.U. on acid-free paper

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C ONTENTS

List of Abbreviations

vii

Map: The Districts of the Tribunal of Zaragoza

ix

Introduction

1

Chapter 1. The Inquisition’s Archives in Spain

9

Chapter 2. The Inquisition and the Threat of Heresy

37 40 45

Chapter 3. The Judicial System

53

The The The The

Post-1482 Process Inquisitors’ Manuals Prosecution Defence

53 55 59 71

Chapter 4. Observing the Sabbath

75

Chapter 5. Holy Days

91

Yom Kippur Passover Sukkot The Fast of Queen Esther

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The New Inquisition in Aragón The Tribunal of Zaragoza The Tribunal’s New Christians

91 105 114 116

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Contents

Chapter 6. Community Life Dietary Laws Eating Together Births, Deaths, and M arriages

Chapter 7. Prayer Life Synagogues Sacred Texts Psalms and Benedictions

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119 119 128 134

141 141 151 157

Chapter 8. A Question of Belief

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Conclusion

189

Biographies

197

Bibliography

229

Index

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A BBREVIATIONS

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AHPZ

Archivo Histórico Provincial de Zaragoza. Sección Inquisición

AHSC

Archivo Histórico del Seminario Conciliar

BRAH

Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia

JSS

Jewish Social Studies

JQR

Jewish Quarterly Review

Leg.

Legajo (file)

LRB

London Review of Books

BnF esp.

Bibliothèque nationale de France, fonds espagnol

P&P

Past and Present

REJ

Revue des études juives

RABM

Revista de Archivos, Bibliotecas y Museos

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The Districts of the Tribunal of Zaragoza

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INTRODUCTION

W

hen Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain were informed in 1478 by the bishop of Cádiz, Pedro González de Mendoza, that a large proportion of their Christian subjects of Jewish descent in Andalucía and Castile were secretly practising Judaism, they asked Pope Sixtus IV to issue a bull which would allow them to establish an inquisition against heresy in the kingdom of Castile. Two years after the pope had initially given his permission for the judicial inquiry to be implemented, the first inquisitors appointed by the monarchs arrived in Seville in 1480 and began collecting evidence against the New Christians.1 By 1492, twenty-one tribunals of the Holy Office of the Inquisition had been established across the length and breadth of the Crown of Castile, which comprised the group territories or kingdoms of Castile, León, Galicia, the Basque provinces, Murcia, and Andalucía, and of the Crown of Aragón, which comprised the kingdoms of Aragón, Catalonia, and Valencia. Between 1480 and 1540, the inquisitors devoted their labours almost entirely to what they considered to be a serious problem of unorthodoxy prevalent among a sector of society within the different regions of the Peninsula. From 1540 onwards, when cases of Judaizing had become almost obsolete, the Inquisition turned its attention towards Muslim converts to Christianity (moriscos) who were suspected of practising their former religion, as well as to the

1 The converts were variously known as conversos, or marranos. The meaning of marrano is still open to speculation. It has been equated with the word for ‘pig’ but etymological evidence is yet to be found. Alternatively, it has been suggested that it is derived from the arabic moharrama or muharram meaning ‘a forbidden thing’. It is also possible that the term marrano can be traced to the Spanish verb ‘marrar’, ‘to mar’ or ‘spoil’.

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presence of Protestants in the country. In the second half of the sixteenth century, minor offences committed by Christians such as bigamy, sodomy, and the practice of superstition filled the Inquisitions’ court rooms. During this period, exiled Portuguese conversos returned to Castile and were accused of Judaizing. From 1725 to 1834, the powerful liberalism of Voltaire’s revolutionary France and the influence of her anti-Catholic Encyclopaedists gradually infiltrated Spain, ultimately proving fatal to the institution. In 1810, the Cortes of Cádiz called for the suppression of the Inquisition within the kingdom of Spain, and in 1834 the Holy Office of the Inquisition was abolished with a single stroke of a royal pen. Historians and scholars who have undertaken research into the three hundred and sixty-five year history of the Inquisition have benefited from the fact that the Holy Office was an extraordinarily self-aware institution. In what has been deemed a masterpiece of archival science, its employees scrupulously documented and filed away every papal encyclical, every new legislature passed, every report sent, and every trial that took place in its courts of law. The Madridbased Council of the Supreme and General Inquisition, which controlled the twenty-one tribunals, for example, required local inquisitors to send updates and reports on a daily basis. The Council would in turn respond to these letters with surprising rapidity. All correspondence was then placed according to each particular tribunal, and in chronological order, into bound volumes. In addition, the tribunals were requested to send summaries of each and every case which had been judged during the year. These case reports (relaciones de causas) were also bound or placed into loose covers and filed away. It has been estimated that if the entire series were bound, it would occupy some one hundred folio volumes, each a thousand pages long.2 One cannot help but be impressed at the remarkable bureaucratic achievement of Spain’s Holy Office. Although a great many of the archival holdings have not survived in their entirety into the twenty-first century, some were more fortunate than others. One tribunal which managed to maintain a significant portion of its collection was that of the city of Zaragoza, the kingdom of Aragón’s capital city. While the tribunal was established in 1482, the inquisitors did not arrive in the city until 1484, when they sought to determine the extent of crypto-Jewish activity among

2

Gustav Henningsen, ‘The Archives and the Historiography of the Spanish Inquisition’, in The Inquisition in Early Modern Europe: Studies in Sources and Methods, ed. by Gustav Henningsen and John Tedeschi (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1986), pp. 54–76 (p. 56).

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the New Christians as their counterparts had been doing in Seville and Córdoba since 1482. Roughly six hundred Christians with Jewish ancestry appeared before the inquisitors in Zaragoza and were charged with Judaizing between 1484 and 1515. Approximately one hundred and forty-two of these trial records are extant and comprise the basis for this study. The majority are preserved in Zaragoza’s own Archivo Histórico Provincial, while the remainder are housed in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris. Still bound with their original string and measuring approximately 29cm by 17cm, each trial record in the Archivo Histórico Provincial is covered with overlapping pieces of A4 paper which are then tied together with a piece of red ribbon. The front page of each trial record announces the charge, the name and origins of the defendant, and the date of the trial in Latin. Each folio is numbered on the top right-hand corner in roman numerals. Often the occupation of the converso is also stated in conjunction with the name. The thickness of each document varies immensely, depending on the particular make-up of each trial. The employment of a defence counsel, for example, nearly always ensures that the volume of paper is doubled. So great was the quantity of paper produced during the trial of the rich and powerful converso jurist Jaime Montesa, for example, that the bound folios have had be stored in a cardboard box in the Archivo Histórico Provincial. In Paris, the trial records are, of course, identical in format, but have been sewn into leather bound volumes. There has been surprisingly little research conducted on the surviving trial records in Zaragoza. The establishment of the Aragonese Inquisition has been somewhat overshadowed by its Castilian counterpart throughout Spanish historiography, and it is understandable yet regrettable that many scholars have tended to focus their studies on Castile. This proliferation of work is perhaps due in part to a number of factors, one of which is that, by the seventeenth century, the Crown of Castile boasted sixteen tribunals, as opposed to four in the Crown of Aragón. In addition, the archives from the Castilian tribunals, such as Cuenca and Toledo, have survived much better those of their Aragonese counterparts, and the contents of the Castilian repositories are both voluminous and easily accessed in Madrid. The favouring of the Castilian Inquisition from a purely historical standpoint is also understandable when one takes into account the fact that the Holy Office always kept its headquarters in Madrid. Even from 1506–18 when the Aragonese Inquisition was temporarily separated from its Castilian twin, the governing council for Aragón’s Holy Office remained at the Castilian court in Madrid. Moreover, the Castilian Inquisition was originally sent to replace the existing Aragonese Inquisition, rather than the Castilian population

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being forced to come to terms with an Aragonese institution. The focus on Aragón is perhaps also due to the Castile-centred historiography of centralist politics in Spain. It was not until 1959 that Ubieto Arteta and González Miranda collaborated together to first publish an entire list of the trial records to have survived in the Archivo Histórico Provincial.3 In 1950, José Cabezudo Astraín began but failed to complete a series of articles dealing in brief with charges of Judaizing, despite the promise that the articles were to be continued in a further issue.4 In 1963, he once again consulted the material in order to complete a study of the converso community in Barbastro and the predominance of the wealthy Santángel family in that particular Aragonese town.5 The early 1980s saw the publication of Encarnación Marín Padilla’s three major articles on the socio-religious aspects of Jewish-converso relations in terms of births, deaths, and marriages, based on the trial records from the Zaragoza tribunal.6 Since then, Miguel Ángel Dolader, primarily concerned with Aragonese Jewry, has included a largely statistical analysis of the tribunal’s activity in his book on the expulsion of the Jews from Aragón.7 He has also collaborated with three other scholars on a discussion of the observance of Yom Kippur8 as well as assisting in the publication of sixteen trial records originating from Daroca.9 A recent study of the Libro verde by Monique

3 Antonio Ubieto Arteta and Marina González Miranda, ‘Procesos de la Inquisición de Aragón’, RABM, 67 (1959), 552–95. 4

José Cabezudo Astraín, ‘Los conversos aragoneses según los procesos de la Inquisición’, Sefarad, 18 (1950), 272–82. 5

José Cabezudo Astraín, ‘Los conversos de Barbastro y el apellido “Santángel”’, Sefarad, 23 (1963), 265–84. 6

Encarnación Marín Padilla, ‘Relación judeoconversa durante la segunda mitad del siglo XV en Aragón; nacimientos, hadas, circuncisiones’, Sefarad, 41 (1981), 273–300; 42 (1982), 59–77; ‘Relación judeoconversa durante la segunda mitad del siglo XV en Aragón; matrimonio’, Sefarad, 42 (1982), 243–98, and ‘Relación judeoconversa durante la segunda mitad del siglo XV en Aragón; enfermedades y muertes’, Sefarad, 43 (1983), 251–343. 7

Miguel Ángel Motis Dolader, La expulsión de los judíos del reino de Aragón, 2 vols (Zaragoza: Diputación General de Aragón, Departamento de Cultura y Educación, 1990). 8

Miguel Ángel Motis Dolader and others, ‘Ritos y festividades de los judeoconversos aragoneses en la edad media: La celebración del Yom Kippur o Día del Perdón: Ensayo de etnología histórica’, Jerónimo Zurita, 61/62 (1990), 59–92. 9

Miguel Ángel Motis Dolader, Javier García Marco, and María Luz Rodrigo Esteban, Procesos inquisitoriales de Daroca y su Comunidad (Daroca: Centro de Estudios Darocenses, 1994).

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Combescure Thiry and Miguel Ángel Motis Dolader seeks to compare and contrast the sometimes dubious information in the Libro verde with the court trial records from the tribunal.10 The collection in the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris has been in the public and international forum considerably longer, largely due to Llorente’s employment of the de la Cavallería trial records in order to demonstrate the economic gain to be had by the Inquisition in arresting members of the family. Yitzhak Baer also focused attention upon the de la Cavallería family by consulting the documentation first hand and publishing excerpts from the trial records of brothers Alfonso and Jaime in Volume 2 of Die Juden in christlichen Spanien. He also discussed the murder of Arbués and Alfonso’s trial record at length in the second volume of A History of the Jews in Christian Spain. Even though there is an obvious lacuna in the archival holdings of the Zaragoza tribunal, by no means should it be paid less attention than tribunals with more complete collections. Despite the apparent discrepancy between the number of extant trial records and the number of conversos known to have been tried between 1484 and 1515, I would suggest that the existence of the large number of trial records of Teruel conversos serves to complement the holdings of the Zaragoza tribunal. If the trial records are to be taken as true indications of Judaizing, their respective adherence to Judaism was virtually indistinguishable from one another. Finally, it has to be stated that no work has yet been undertaken that attempts to combine and analyse both the French and Spanish collections. With a couple of minor exceptions, the accusations levelled at all the conversos during this period were identical. All were charged with practising Jewish ritual and the prosecution embarked on proving the guilt of the accused by presenting the evidence as such. It would seem reasonable to assume, therefore, that a survey of the trial records would reveal evidence of Judaic practices among the conversos on trial. According to historians Benzion Netanyahu and Norman Roth, however, this is quite an unreasonable assumption. For these historians, records of this nature, as well as the rest of the Inquisition’s substantial holdings, cannot and should not be employed as primary source material. Netanyahu and Roth maintain that the inquisitors fabricated the charges against the accused in an attempt to annihilate the New Christians from society, the truth being that the conversos had little interest in or knowledge of Judaism at that time.

10

El Libro verde de Aragón, ed. by Monique Combescure Thiry and Miguel Ángel Motis Dolader (Zaragoza: Libros Certeza, 2003).

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This hypothesis has been controversial. Contention and Inquisition are hardly strange bedfellows. The Holy Office has not only created a vast corpus of paper, but it has also generated enough literature to occupy an entire wing of any respectable national library. Historiographically speaking, the Inquisition has become a subject in its own right. Historians and anthropologists alike have seized upon the institution and its remarkable archival legacy, and have scrutinized it from a multitude of political, socio-economic, and cultural angles.11 Naturally, this has given rise to a number of divisions and disagreements among historians. In the first chapter, I examine this very particular debate by placing it in an historiographical context. I discuss the main arguments of those scholars who are willing to consult the records, and those who are not. A new generation of scholars has recently moved away from the polemic, returning to the sources themselves. This book seeks to join this movement by turning to the extant collection of court trials from Aragón’s first tribunal of the Holy Office and bringing their contents to the public’s attention. In Chapter 2, I introduce the tribunal of Zaragoza and the New Christians arrested and tried from 1484 to 1515, outlining the emergence of the converso class in the Peninsula in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. I then discuss the tumultuous political events which preceded the Inquisition’s establishment in Castile in 1482 and Aragón in 1484: one of the main arguments used by opponents at the time was that there was already a papal inquisition in existence in Aragón. Given that the one of the primary accusations levelled at the inquisitors is that they manipulated the system to their own ends, in Chapter 3 I discuss the judicial procedure by which the Inquisition operated. In term of procedure, the modern Inquisition was founded upon the Roman-canon judicial system and was a vast improvement upon its medieval predecessor. These particular trial records are testimony to the leaps and bounds made in procedural development, largely due to the modifications and changes introduced by the Inquisitor General, Juan de Torquemada. In Chapters 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8, I conduct an in-depth study of the rituals and beliefs observed by those New Christians arrested by the Inquisition, as expressed by themselves (in their confessions) and by the witnesses (in their arraignments). I have arranged the evidence according to the particular observance or belief in order to generate an overall picture of converso religious behaviour. In Chapter 4, I make an exposé of the conversos’ Sabbath observances, while in Chapter 5, I focus on their participation in the

11

See Ricardo García Cárcel and Doris Moreno, Inquisición: historia crítica (Madrid: Temas de Hoy, 2000), for a summary of historical perspectives on the Inquisition in Spain to date.

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holidays of Yom Kippur, Passover, Sukkot, and Queen Esther. In Chapter 6, I examine the complex dietary regulations and food preparation to which the accused adhered, as well as the social contacts between Jewish and converso communities in terms of births, deaths, and marriages. In Chapter 7, I look at converso prayer life and their possession of Jewish sacred texts and knowledge of psalms and benedictions, while in Chapter 8, I undertake to illustrate the general expressions of beliefs and attitudes manifested by the conversos towards Christianity and Judaism. In the light of this analysis, my conclusion raises some further points in regards to some of the fundamental problems encountered in rejecting these particular records as unemployable source material. Finally, this exposition should, to all intents and purposes, enable the reader to construct a general picture of converso life in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Furthermore, this image should be complemented by the biographical information contained at the end of the book on fifty-three of the individuals arrested by the Inquisition. The fact that it is possible to compile this data from the trial records should, in part, serve to counteract the argument proffered by Benzion Netanyahu and Norman Roth that the records bear no relation to the truth. Indeed, as discussed in the conclusion, there appears to be little or no internal evidence within the records themselves that the inquisitors invented the charges of Judaizing or manipulated the evidence in order to falsely condemn the accused. In essence, this book poses the same question which was being asked about the New Christians by the inquisitors at the time. Was there a crypto-Jewish movement alive and well at the end of the fifteenth-century? The answer lies in the hitherto unexplored pages of the trial records from the tribunal of Zaragoza.

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Chapter 1

T HE INQUISITION ’S A RCHIVES IN S PAIN

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ntil the French occupation of Spain from 1808–13, the entire archival holdings of the Holy Office of the Inquisition had been carefully guarded under lock and key for nearly four centuries. The foreign invasion opened the doors of the archives, and for the first time in the Inquisition’s history, the general public was allowed access to the decrees, papal bulls, case reports, court trials, rulings, and circulars which characteristically constitute the records of the Inquisition. Those few fortunate enough to be able to consult the records understood that the contents of the depositories were the key to understanding the institution which had successfully concealed its history since its establishment in 1482. The opening of the archives, however, came at a price. The release of documentation into the public sphere had been triggered by conflict, and the general chaos of the period was not conducive to maintaining order within the archives themselves. Thus, it is unfortunate that the records of the Inquisition’s activity in Spain have not survived in their entirety into the twenty-first century. Despite the efforts of some individuals to protect the holdings of the twentyone tribunals from various destructive forces, such as Napoleon’s ransacking troops, many archives suffered extensive damage and, obviously, irreplaceable losses to their collections. As Gustav Henningsen reported after his exhaustive enquiry into the state of the Inquisition’s archives in the 1980s, ‘The history of the tribunal archives resembles somewhat the old children’s song about the “ten little Indians” whose number is reduced by one with every repetition of the refrain’.1 By 1820, the archives of Galicia, Logroño, and Valladolid had disappeared, while those of Valencia, Mallorca, Seville, and Madrid had been 1

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sacked. More fortunate was the fate of the Suprema (Central Council) in Madrid, whose documentation was carefully preserved in alternative depositaries until the collection was finally returned to Madrid and placed in the Archivo Histórico Nacional, where it resides to the present day. Despite such regrettable lacunae in the collections, there is more than enough extant documentation, particularly in regards to the Suprema, for historians to examine.2 Moreover, the tribunals of Toledo, Cuenca, and to some extent Zaragoza, managed to conserve large parts of their respective papers. Thus, the foreign presence in Spain in the early part of the nineteenth century opened up the archives of the Holy Office, and this once most notorious of inquests was propelled into the centre of heated debate, causing irreconcilable differences among scholars working on the history of the Inquisition. In theory, this sudden freedom of information should have enabled interested parties to write objective accounts of the institution precisely because they were able to go directly to the primary sources, rather than having to rely on the speculation or hearsay of others. In practice, however, scholars were quick to employ the records in order to champion their own particular causes and ideologies. In Paris in 1809, Joseph Lavallée published Histoire des Inquisitions religieuses d’Italie, d’Espagne et de Portugal depuis leur origine jusqu’à la conquête de l’Espagne, based on the archives of Valladolid and Zaragoza. The following year John Joseph Stockdale wrote A History of the Inquisition, Including the Secret Transactions of Those Horrific Tribunals. Both accounts were tainted by their authors’ religious or political leanings; the use of a particularly forceful adjective by Stockdale betrays his commitment to the Protestant cause. In 1811 Juan Antonio Llorente, liberal Catholic priest and employee of the Holy Office, wrote his Historia crítica de la Inquisición en España based on the trial records themselves, in which he stated that greed was the determining factor in the Inquisition’s foundation, focusing on the monetary gain to be had in the persecution of the conversos.3 He wrote: ‘‘Facts prove beyond a doubt, that the extirpation of Judaism was not the real cause, but the mere pretext, for the establishment of the Inquisition by Ferdinand V. The true motive was to carry

2 3

Ibid., p. 56.

As an official employee of the Holy Office, Llorente should not necessarily be classed as a member of the general public, as he had access to the documentation before the Inquisition’s dissolution. He was, however, one of the first modern historians to make such extensive use of the records.

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on a vigorous system of confiscation against the Jews’.4 Llorente was an instigator of a reactionist movement among historians, the Inquisition symbolizing all that was detestable in their eyes about the ancién regime. His writings are given the full weight of authority because he had access to secret Inquisition records that had previously been for inquisitors’ eyes only. In the introduction to the Histoire critique he wrote: In order to write an exact history of the Inquisition, it was necessary to be an inquisitor or secretary. Only then could one have access to the papal bulls, the royal decrees, the decisions of the Council, original trial records and other papers from the archives. Perhaps then, I am the only person who has access to all this knowledge.5

Unfortunately, many of Llorente’s writings strayed quite generously from the truth. Writing some sixty years later, Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo tried desperately to salvage the reputation of his Church, and indeed of his fellow Spaniards, by disputing Llorente’s claims and re-focusing the argument once again on the alleged heresy of the conversos. Referring to Llorente, he said: His philosophy of history is reduced to a long Masonic sermon and to the high and transcendental idea that the Inquisition was neither established to maintain the purity of faith, nor as a result of religious fanaticism, but to enrich the government with confiscations. The philosophy goes no further than that of national wealth.6

Henry Charles Lea unashamedly made his firmly Protestant viewpoint known in his A History of the Inquisition of Spain (1906), an invaluable companion for its published primary sources and citations from numerous testimonies collected and ordered, as well as a list of tribunals. While he also maintained that there was a strong crypto-Jewish movement, he condemned the Spaniards for acting upon the very heresy which he believed to be rife among the conversos: ‘The 4 Juan Antonio Llorente, Historia crítica de la Inquisición en España, 4 vols (Madrid: Libros Hiperión, 1980), I, p. 7: ‘Se verá con evidencia que el judaísmo sirvió de pretexto a Fernando V para establecer la Inquisción; pero que el verdadero objeto fue de parte suya la codicia de confiscaciones’. 5 Ibid., I, p. 2: ‘Para escribir una historia exacta, era necesario ser inquisidor o secretario. Sólo así se pueden saber las bulas de los papas, ordenanzas de los reyes, decisions del Consejo de Inquisición, procesos originales y demás papeles de sus archivos. Tal vez soy el único que por hoy tiene todos estos conocimientos’. 6 Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo, Historia de los heterodoxos españoles, 3 vols (Madrid: Suárez, 1880–81), III, p. 418: ‘Su filosofía de la historia se reduce á un largo sermon másonico y á la alta y transcendental idea de que la Inquisición no se estableció para mantener la pureza de la fé, ni siquiera por fanatismo religioso, sino para enriquecerse el gobierno con las confiscaciones. La filosofía no se extendía más alla de los bienes nacionales’.

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perfected system of records kept by the tribunals so greatly increased the effectiveness of the Inquisition and rendered it such an object of dread, that some reference to it is indispensable’.7 It is a curious irony that, while Lea never once set foot in any of the Spanish archives, he relied upon and unequivocally accepted all Inquisition documentation. Although their conclusions were diametrically opposed, the works of Llorente, Menéndez Pelayo, and Lea (the Liberal idealist, the Catholic apologist, and the Protestant historian) were connected by a common thread which united them all. In order to complete their particular reflections on the Inquisition, these early historians employed the contents of the archives as reliable source material. All unquestionably believed and agreed that, by the end of the fifteenth century, there was indeed a cryptoJewish movement alive and well among some Spanish New Christians, which provoked and justified the establishment of the Inquisition. These records, especially the procesos originales (original trial records) referred to by Llorente, have of late become both the focus of attention and a central issue in the field of Inquisition studies. The religious identity of the conversos and the reliability or veracity of the trial records conducted against them has been thrown into doubt by a movement led by Benzion Netanyahu. This author was one of a number of Jewish scholars to concentrate their efforts on Jewish Spain by exploring the country’s archives, and his new ideology has firmly divided both Jewish and non-Jewish scholars into two distinct camps. Historians such as Yitzhak Baer and Haim Beinart have devoted their lives to the study of the archives in the belief that the objects of their investigations were irrefutable evidence of an unwavering adherence to Judaism within the converso communities. Yitzhak Baer, Beinart’s teacher and mentor, and interestingly enough, also that of Netanyahu, is the founder of this school of thought. It is with undisguised pride that he emphasizes the Jewishness of the conversos who he says ‘secretly visited their Jewish brethren in order to join them in celebrating the Jewish festivals’.8 Beinart’s impressive study of the tribunal of Ciudad Real

7

Henry Charles Lea, A History of the Inquisition of Spain, 3 vols (Philadelphia: Macmillan, 1906), II, p. 25. 8

Yitzhak Baer, A History of the Jews in Christian Spain, 2 vols (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1961; repr. 1992), II, p. 272. Unless otherwise stated, all references are from 1992 paperback edition.

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led him to conclude that ‘when stripped of its outer mantle of Christianity, the converso community of Ciudad Real emerges as a Jewish community’.9 Netanyahu, on the other hand, calls for a total departure from the traditional use of the archival material as an acceptable source. His central theory maintains that the Inquisition was designed with the aim of annihilation of the conversos, and thus that the records of their trials are in no way true indicators of their religious beliefs. He argues that, ‘in seeking to identify the whole Marrano group, the Spanish Inquisition was operating within a fiction’.10 In the author’s opinion, the only effective way of understanding the religious beliefs of the New Christians is to employ sources which are absolutely free from the Inquisition’s influence. This explains his notable lack of references to Beinart’s work on the tribunals of Ciudad Real and Trujillo, and to all other studies of the various tribunals, and reflects his attitude towards researchers who have gone directly to the tribunals’ records. Instead, Netanyahu chooses to consult a range of what he concludes to be purely objective material written by individuals who were able to express their views without fear of the Inquisition’s threats and punishments. Indeed, the self-proclaimed task of Netanyahu is to determine the origins of the Inquisition by putting his trust solely in both Hebrew and pre-Inquisition converso sources, which he believes to be untainted by bias or hidden agendas. In the 1930s, Yitzhak Baer went to Spain to examine for himself and at length the masses of evidence and also to introduce previously ignored Hebrew sources into the debate.11 In his preface to Volume 2 of A History of the Jews in Christian Spain he comments on the ‘treasures which lay hidden in their archives, a great many documents […] reveal the past of the Jewish people which found its home in Spain’.12 This is perhaps an indication of Baer’s more socio-religious standpoint, which earned him the distinction of a pioneering Jewish scholar responsible for ‘stimulating but controversial theories such as that which affirmed that the conversos and the Jews in Spain were one people’.13 His fundamental idea is ‘that the story of the conversos is not one of racial remnants

9

Records of the Trials of the Spanish Inquisition of Ciudad Real, ed. by Haim Beinart, 4 vols (Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1974–85), III, p. xii. 10 Benzion Netanyahu, The Marranos of Spain (New York: American Academy for Jewish Research, 1966), p. 3. 11

I can only know these sources secondhand.

12

Baer, A History of the Jews in Christian Spain (1961), II, p. ix.

13

Henry Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition: An Historical Revision (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1997), p. 313.

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that had lost their Jewish characteristics, but a large population-group, the majority of whose members adhered, consciously and by conviction to the living Jewish tradition’.14 By using the term ‘Jewish characteristics’ perhaps the author is referring to their personal and public adherence to Judaism, which identified them to the Old Christians as Jews by religion, not just by race. Baer is, in effect, making a moral judgement on his people by saying that this crypto-Judaism was commendable. Baer published Die Juden im christlichen Spanien between 1929 and 1936. A History of the Jews in Christian Spain, translated from the Hebrew Edition (1959) into English between 1961 and 1966, has become the standard version, and it was reprinted in 1992. The collection of Inquisition sources printed in Die Juden im christlichen Spanien comprise a selection of trial records from the Valencia tribunal (1489–1509), the Toledo tribunal (1487–1535), and documents pertaining to the trial records of the de la Cavallería family in Zaragoza (1485–1504), as well as extensive trial records of Teruel conversos. Baer concludes that Spanish Jews such as R. Isaac’Arama, Don Isaac Abravanel, and R. Shemtob ibn Shemtob considered the conversos to be secretly practising Judaism. According to Baer, the upsurge in anti-Semitism and forthright anti-Semitic propaganda, especially the sudden popularity of Fray Alonso de Espina’s Fortalitium fidei, written thirty years before the foundation of the Holy Office in Spain, as well as the infamous case of the Holy Child of La Guardia, turned reasonable men into bloodthirsty zealots. Anti-Semitism in this sense is the association of the conversos with Jews, both racially and religiously, by Old Christians. Angus Mackay considers this anti-Semitism as having been multifaceted, that is, that the converso persecution arose from notions of purity of blood, their threat to Christianity, and the sheer objection to their often privileged lifestyles. Thus, anti-Semitism became legalized in the form of an Inquisition which ‘monopolised persecution and, by working within a framework of rules and procedures, it substituted a rule of law […] for mob violence’.15 Baer believes that this growing anti-Jewish feeling or anti-Semitism among the Old Christians altered their treatment of the conversos within the trial records:

14 15

Baer, A History of the Jews in Christian Spain, II, p. 278.

Angus Mackay, ‘The Hispanic–Converso Predicament’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series, 35 (1985), 159–79 (p. 169).

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The inquisitors had usually taken pains, according to their rights to proceed in accordance with the rules of law and justice, demonstrating facts which were unquestionably correct and refraining from malicious libels. Now, however, they began conducting a trial, from beginning to end on the basis of the vilest slanders which emanated solely from the imaginations of medieval antisemites.16

However, rather than generalizing about the inquisitors as a whole, the author makes an assessment of each individual tribunal, believing that the proceedings of some tribunals were more brutal than others. The purpose of the Ciudad Real inquisitors, says Baer, was to kill and destroy by basing their sentences on the testimony of only a few witnesses, and their decisions were certainly inspired by ‘ulterior motives’,17 while the Inquisition in Valencia ‘seems to have dealt leniently in comparison with the acts of extreme fanaticism performed in Castile’.18 While the inquisitors were ‘ruthless in their judgement’ they ‘doubtless gathered a great deal of evidence to prove that most of the conversos actually did Judaize’.19 On the Zaragoza tribunal Baer has little to contribute other than to call the murdered inquisitor St Pedro Arbués a fanatic and to discuss the crime itself. The historian failed to consult the extant trial records in Zaragoza and based his conclusions on the trial records of the de la Cavallería family conserved in the Bibliothéque nationale de France, writing: ‘Since most of the court records are either missing or still await study by modern scholars, our only information is derived from semi-official notes made at the time’.20 The records which Baer presumed missing are actually conserved in the Archivo Histórico Provincial in Zaragoza. This means that an investigation into the contents of the Spanish archive in conjunction with the holdings of the Bibliothèque nationale de France collection fills a considerable gap in the study of the Inquisition which Baer had previously thought impossible. Like Baer, Haim Beinart unquestionably accepts the existence of cryptoJudaism, and like Baer, he succeeds in blaming both the Old and New Christians. Beinart asserts that the Inquisition was indeed established to achieve a religious aim, operating within clear political and territorial limits. However, within time, these limits were replaced with a persecution resulting from the social conditions created by the Christian political and social establishment in

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16

Baer, A History of the Jews in Christian Spain, II, p. 398.

17

Ibid., II, p. 334.

18

Ibid., II, p. 292.

19

Ibid., II, p. 326.

20

Ibid., II, p. 369.

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Spain. But then, paradoxically, he adds that the conversos were also at fault because they were unwilling to assimilate into Christian society. Beinart is implying that the monarchy began with honourable intentions, but was later swept up by the wave of anti-Semitism referred to by Baer. Norman Roth believes the king and queen were hardly fanatics, and that ‘the Monarchs appear to have been content to allow the Inquisition to deal with the problem as they saw fit’.21 Netanyahu says: ‘The Spanish kings felt the rising tide of antiSemitism, and rather than resist it, they decided to ride it. This is, in essence, what was behind the determination to establish — and uphold — the Spanish Inquisition’.22 What exactly is Beinart implying in his surprising charge that the conversos were unwilling to assimilate? The question of assimilation is one discussed by John Edwards, who makes a careful distinction between assimilation and acculturation. In his view, acculturation (living as Jews in a Christian society), was relatively easy as it meant adopting many of the external features of that society, while assimilation (conversion) meant the abandonment of one personal and social identity for another23 and thus was virtually impossible. The inability of the conversos to discard personal and social identities, such as the food they ate, the clothes they wore, or the language they spoke, seriously impeded natural assimilation and permanently identified the converso group as Jewish to nonconverso members of the community, even if they were fully Christianized. For his part, Netanyahu argues that Old Christians did everything in their power to prevent such assimilation and that they had become virtually indistinguishable from Christians without Jewish ancestry by the 1480s. Ángel Alcalá Galve has gone so far as to say that the majority of conversos were so Christianized that they too had become anti-Semites.24 Perhaps in this case he is referring to converso authors such as Pablo de Santa María, former chief rabbi of Burgos, and

21

Ibid., II, p. 315.

22

Benzion Netanyahu, Toward the Inquisition: Essays on Jewish and Converso History in Late Medieval Spain (New York: Cornell University Press, 1997), p. 200. 23

John Edwards, ‘Religious Belief and Social Conformity: The “Converso” Problem in Late-Medieval Córdoba’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series, 31 (1981), 115–28 (p. 127). 24

Ángel Alcalá Galve, Los orígenes de la Inquisición en Aragón: S. Pedro Arbués, mártir de la autonomía aragonesa (Zaragoza: Diputación General de Aragón, 1984), p. 2: ‘La inmensa mayoría de los judeoconversos no sólo estaba ya asimilada al cristianismo, sino antisemitizada’.

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Jerónimo Santa Fe of Alcañiz, who were seen by the Jewish community as traitors to the Jewish people. Benzion Netanyahu has stirred up a serious controversy in The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth Century Spain, first published in 1995. The author was well aware of the connotations of his new hypothesis as articulated by him in his introduction: ‘I do not delude myself that the conclusions of this book will be speedily accepted by all the scholars in the field. Views which have been rooted in the public mind for five centuries cannot be easily or speedily uprooted’.25 Netanyahu does not stand entirely alone in his conviction, being joined by Norman Roth in proposing that the majority of New Christians arrested by the Holy Office of the Inquisition and charged with Judaizing were genuine Christians, and that their persecution was a reaction to their Jewish roots. Roth proposes that anti-converso sentiment and the doctrine of limpieza de sangre (purity of blood) was a precursor to true anti-Semitism, that is, modern day antiSemitism. The author also believes the persecution to have been racially based. In his view, Old Christians used a supposed existence of crypto-Judaism among the conversos as an excuse for the Inquisition in order to eradicate them from society. Henry Kamen, also an exponent of this view and heavily influenced by Netanyahu, concludes that the Expulsion gave the necessary impetus to a dramatic rise in crypto-Judaism: ‘Though it can certainly be identified in the period of the forced conversions after 1492, there was no systematic “converso religion” in the 1480s to justify the creation of an Inquisition. Much of the evidence was thin; if not false’.26 Netanyahu’s ideas have also been speedily accepted in some Spanish circles by scholars such as Eloy Benito Ruano, Francisco Márquez Villanueva, and Ángel Alcalá Galve. Other scholars in Spain have not been so favourable towards Netanyahu. The translation of The Origins of the Inquisition into Spanish in 199927 and the subsequent interview with Netanyahu himself meant that, for a short time, the debate entered the domain

25

The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth Century Spain (New York: Random House, 1995), p. xxii. 26

Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition, p. 40. This is a revision of his earlier work and in many key respects he admits that he has been obliged to change his views. Benzion Netanyahu has compelled him to ‘look again in detail at the evidence’ (p. xi). 27

Page 27

Benzion Netanyahu, Los orígines de la Inquisición (Barcelona: Crítica, 1999).

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of the national press and occupied the pages of El País.28 Historians Antonio Domínguez Ortiz and José Antonio Escudero voiced their objections to Netanyahu’s theory, while Gabriel Jackson came to his defence.29 In The Origins of the Inquisition, Netanyahu is of the opinion that any conclusions previously arrived at by scholars researching the Inquisition have been erroneous precisely because they have mistakenly chosen to consult its records. He believes that his fellow historians have been duped, themselves becoming victims of a vast conspiracy which took place among the Old Christians five hundred years ago. For that author, the inquisitors successfully hid their true beliefs and hatreds behind the façade of a respectable judicial court. The duplicity that he attributes to inquisitors is the very charge levelled at the New Christians accused of secretly practising Judaism behind a false front of Christianity. In this respect, Netanyahu is casting a moral judgement upon both parties by exonerating the accused and placing the guilt directly onto the accusers themselves. Why is it that Netanyahu believes the New Christians to have been so ruthlessly pursued by the Inquisition if they were indeed true to the faith of their baptism? His central theory is that the sole reason for their persecution lay in the fact that they boasted Jewish ancestry, and that the Old Christians were driven by such hatred that they sought to prevent the assimilation of the new into society. He is prepared to concede that, after the initial baptisms resulting from the 1391 pogroms, the conversions in the wake of St Vincent Ferrer, and the Tortosa Disputation, there existed neophytes who remained faithful to Judaism. By the 1480s, however, they constituted an inconsequential minority of the population. The majority, he claims, were living their lives as fully fledged devout Catholics according to Church doctrine. Whether or not they were true Christians, he argues, was of no consequence to their persecutors. It was through religion, not because of religion, that the conversos found themselves the victims of an intense persecution and trumped up charges of heresy. In this respect, Netanyahu weds the extreme and long-running anti-Semitism in Spain to a race theory. That is, despite their relatively new status in society as Christians, the conversos were relentlessly associated racially with Jews. In The Origins of the Inquisition he poses questions raised by his own hypothesis that the conversos

28

Antonio Domínguez Ortiz, ‘Los orígines de la Inquisición’, El País, 16 December 1999; José Antonio Escudero, ‘Netanyahu y la Inquisición’, El País, 19 January 2000; Benzion Netanyahu, ‘Sobre Inquisición y lectura. Fin de un debate’, El País, 3 February 2000. 29

Page 28

Gabriel Jackson, ‘De Benzion Netanyahu y sus detractores’, El País, 24 February 2000.

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were Christians, and then endeavours to find the solution by turning to politics for the answers. He asks: ‘Why did the Inquisition attack so fiercely a community that was essentially Christian, and why did it seek, in so many ways, to stamp it out as non-Christian and heretical?’ He then proceeds to explain that, in order to arrive at the truth, ‘the focus of our attention shifted from the religious to the social and political fields’.30 In rejecting the more traditional views that the Inquisition was genuinely aimed at extirpating heresy, or that it saw the existing problem of crypto-Judaism as a useful means by which to fleece the wealthy defendants of their riches (as proposed by Llorente), Netanyahu attempts to convince his audience that the only driving force behind the Inquisition was racial hatred. This suggestion seriously impugns all those involved in its establishment and operation, from the lowliest familiar (lay official of the Inquisition) to the highly educated and able Dominican inquisitors, and effectively labels Pope Sixtus IV, Queen Isabel and King Ferdinand, Tomás de Torquemada, and all the employees of the Holy Office anti-Semites who schemed together on a grand project to rid Spain of its Christians of Jewish origin. ‘It is difficult for Spaniards’, Netanyahu remarked in an interview with El País, ‘to come to terms with having created a monster such as the Inquisition’.31 The clue as to why Netanyahu moves away from the religious issues and adopts a race theory perhaps lies with his political affiliations. The son of Rabbi Nathan Mielkowsky, Benzion Netanyahu was born in Warsaw in 1910, and after moving to Israel he began his political career with the Zionist Revisionist Party. He was to become the ideological and literary spokesman of the public supporters of the Revisionist movement through the monthly paper Beitar. As editor of the paper during the 1930s, Netanyahu was able to voice his opinions as well as attempt to gather support for the cause. Netanyahu became a member of the Executive Committee, and in 1940 he went to the USA with Vladimir Jabotinsky, founder of the Union of Zionist Revisionists. It appears the latter’s ideology concerning the establishment of the Jewish State profoundly influenced the academic life of Netanyahu and his particular approach to the Spanish Inquisition. Jabotinsky inherited Theodore Herzl’s concept of Zionism as essentially a political movement. By Netanyahu’s own admission, the truth about the New Christians’ religious identity slowly dawned upon him as he explored

30 31

Netanyahu, The Origins of the Inquisition, p. xxi.

Beatriz Oberländer, ‘Interview between Beatriz Oberlander and Benzion Netanyahu’, El País, 4 December 1999.

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the holdings of various archives. We learn that it was in the course of his investigations that he underwent his own particular conversion to an alternative way of thinking; as Edwards remarks, ‘Netanyahu appears to be a converso himself — a fine way indeed to identify with one’s subject!’32 When he began researching for his biography of Don Isaac Abravanel, published in 1953, Netanyahu accepted, along with all other historians who had preceeded him, the notion that the Spanish New Christians were secretly practising Judaism. This belief was soon replaced with another as he started to come across documents that effectively demonstrated the contrary. In the 1960s, his conversion was announced by way of The Marranos of Spain, a study based upon Hebrew documentation in which Netanyahu demonstrated an absence rather than a predominance of Judaizing individuals among the conversos. In this earlier work, he was unwilling to count the conversos as Jews but rather as Christians who had lost their Jewishness. In attempting to gauge the measure of their Jewishness, Netanyahu showed that, at this early stage in his academic career, he still considered the Marranos to have assimilated into Christian society by different degrees. By the time The Origins of the Inquisition was published, the author had changed his perspective, coming to the conclusion that the conversos should be considered Jews (as opposed to Christians) who had been barred from assimilation by the dominant culture. This different slant is indicative of Netanyahu’s Zionist Revisionist belief that Jews will always be prevented from assimilating while living among non-Jews. Netanyahu argues that the Inquisition’s records gradually became less true to him while alternative sources took on an air of greater veracity. The rabbinic responsa, for example, free from the Inquisition’s influence, were considered by him to be more true and based on fact and logic because their authors were Jewish. The rabbinic judgement, based on questions of marriage and inheritance of property, led to the general conclusion that the converted Jews were meshumadim (willing converts) rather than anussim (forced converts). In The Origins of the Inquisition it is suggested that the rabbis of Algiers and Spain considered the conversos to be completely assimilated. According to Netanyahu, rabbis such as Isaac ben Sheshet Perfet (Ribbash) of Algiers, Simon ben Zemah Duran (Rashbaz), and his son Solomon Duran expressed their conviction that the New Christians were fully Christianized. Conceding momentarily that the rabbis may have erred on occasion, Netanyahu maintains that their opinions were largely trustworthy and therefore worthy of consideration. Other scholars 32

Page 30

John Edwards, ‘W as the Spanish Inquisition Truthful?’, JQR, 87 (1997), 351–66 (p. 353).

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have suggested that the rabbis of the Sephardic Diaspora were more concerned with the legal status of the conversos once they had left Spain, rather than with those who remained,33 but it appears this aspect has not been taken into account by Netanyahu. Goerson D. Cohen casts some doubt upon the credibility of the rabbinical courts of Algiers, saying that the information they received was not and could not have been perfectly accurate.34 Perhaps Netanyahu should also be prepared to concede that the rabbis of Algiers might also have obscured the truth in order to meet their own particular agendas. As far as the theological–polemical works by New Christians about themselves are concerned, Netanyahu is fairly selective in his choice of authors from the early part of the fifteenth century. Naturally, the testimonies of New Christians concerning other New Christians who were devout Catholics are employed by the author as proof of the conversos’ unwavering devotion to Christ and his Church. Even when discussing these works, Netanyahu cannot help but reveal his bias. In a particular section devoted to the converso Cardinal Juan de Torquemada (uncle to Tomás de Torquemada), whom Netanyahu claims exonerated the New Christians of supposed guilt, he makes sure to show how the converso manipulated some sources as a means of demonstrating a particular theological point. He maintains that, in order to support his theory that the Jews were also ensured salvation, Torquemada distorted the writings of St Augustine and ‘had to resort to strenuous manoeuvring to make the points he thought vital for his case’; furthermore, ‘this kind of manipulation of sources violates modern scholarly norms, and even a medieval reader might question its propriety’.35 Whether or not Torquemada was indeed guilty of such a crime is not relevant to this discussion. What is of particular importance is that, on the one hand Netanyahu maintains that Torquemada deceitfully distorted his sources to produce a positive portrayal of the Jews, but on the other hand he accepts at face value Torquemada’s claim that the vast majority of the conversos were entirely sincere in their devotion to Christianity. Netanyahu is vicariously accepting the opinion of another author, which in itself is hardly firm evidence. Netanyahu cites works by Old Christians such as Alonso de Espina (Fortalitium fidei) and Alonso de Oropesa (Lumen ad revelationem gentium et

33

Yosef H. Yerushalmi, From Spanish Court to Italian Ghetto (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971), p. 25. 34

Goerson Cohen, Review article of the ‘Marranos of Spain’, JSS, 29 (1967), 178–84 (p.

181). 35

Page 31

Netanyahu, The Origins of the Inquisition, p. 466.

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gloria plebis Dei Israel) as further proof of the indelible impact that racial hatred had on the Old Christian psyche.36 Any tracts which presented New Christians as Judaizers are summarily condemned by Netanyahu as written by racists who ‘belonged to the category of writings called by the Germans “atrocity propaganda” — that is, agitation that ascribes to an opponent such loathsome improprieties and such deeds of horror that the general public is moved to view him as both despicable and frightful’.37 Consequently, to Netanyahu, these sources are as unreliable as the records of the Inquisition itself, and are of value only as an indication of racial hatred. Netanyahu’s chief ally, Norman Roth, is of the opinion that certain Inquisition scholars have severely misled the public with careless scholarship and misinterpretations of this epochal period of Spanish history. Roth pays particular attention to the kingdoms of Aragón and Catalonia in his Conversos, Inquisition, and the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain (1995). He follows the political, economic, and social lives of the converso population in relation to Jews and Christians from the first conversions until the Expulsion. Also included in the work is a critical survey of the literature on the Inquisition. Roth’s criticism of those historians who have committed themselves to a conclusion before consulting the evidence at hand is aptly expressed in his section entitled ‘Veracity of the Records’. He says, ‘It is not an acceptable method of historical research to rely upon such sources only when they support one’s personal theories and to reject them as “unreliable” when they do not’.38 Despite the manifest truth of such an admirable notion, it is regrettable that the author himself fails to follow his own advice when he rejects as unreliable all those archival sources which do not support his personal theory, albeit one shared by Netanyahu and to some extent by Kamen. His conviction that the inquisitors worked as a cohesive unit to exterminate the converso population from Spain by falsifying the charges against them is, in itself, hardly original. Roth opines that ‘only the extreme bigot, or the most zealous apologist for the conversos, can possibly continue to maintain otherwise’.39 There is, according to Roth, ample evidence to suggest that the testimonies in hand are a matter of myth, not history, and therefore do not concern him, for 36

Ibid., p. xxi.

37

Ibid., p. 984.

38

Norman Roth, Conversos, Inquisition, and the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995), p. 320. 39

Page 32

Ibid., p. 271.

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‘There is no doubt whatever that in the overwhelming majority, nearly all of these accusations are totally false’.40 Thus, the entire myth would be dispelled once and for all if someone were to lock up the archives again and throw away the key, although one cannot ignore the trial records published to date. In the face of Roth’s comments, it is something of a marvel that the author should be so dismayed at the ‘lack of research on the hundreds of thousands of extant documents which yet remain to be studied, and by the loss and destruction, often wilful, of documents which should exist’.41 Perhaps Roth is referring to sources that he finds personally acceptable and therefore reliable, as opposed to those he personally rejects as unreliable, such as the eyewitness accounts of the royal archivist both for Juan II and Fernando I, Pedro Miguel Carbonell, who was present at many an auto de fe (act of faith) in Barcelona and duly documented proceedings. Carbonell’s Documentos de Aragón are, in Roth’s view, the only absolutely reliable records of the Inquisition’s operations. Baer mentions these records only briefly as containing much relevant statistical information. These are considered by Roth to be absolutely reliable because they report on the outcomes of the trials, rather than what he considers to be the unjust proceedings of the trials themselves. Roth, like Netanyahu, relies heavily upon Hebrew sources as evidence and is adamant that these sources proclaimed the conversos to be fully Christianized. Henry Kamen has also been influenced by Netanyahu in his approach to the topic, although he is not prepared unequivocally to maintain that all New Christians, both before and after 1492, were devout Catholics. In a single sentence — ‘Many modern writers, in no way anti-Semitic, have consistently identified the conversos with Jews’42 — Kamen propels the question of cryptoJudaism of the fifteenth century into the twenty-first century and joins Roth and Netanyahu in their attack on Baer and Beinart. In ‘ironically insisting that the Inquisition was right’,43 Kamen is implying that, in their desire to believe in the romantic ideal of crypto-Judaism, Baer and Beinart unquestionably accept preand post-1492 records as the evidence needed to support their sentimentalism. They are, in his view, driven by the subjectivity of emotion rather than the objectivity of reason, and therefore their conclusions may not be trusted.

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40

Ibid., p. 268.

41

Ibid., p. 237.

42

Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition, p. 37.

43

Ibid., p. 37.

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Although Kamen acknowledges crypto-Judaism to be a question of primary importance, the author is reluctant to commit himself fully to either side (that is, accepting pre-1492 records as true evidence) of the debate. He chooses to focus his argument on the 1492 Expulsion as the trigger that awakened in the new conversos, those Jews who decided to stay and convert, a yearning to return to their forefathers. This was, according to Kamen, a desire which the preExpulsion converts had never experienced, hence their genuine adherence to Christianity. Beinart, on the other hand, refers to both the pre- and postExpulsion conversos in similar terms. He says that ‘The fidelity of these Conversos to the memory of the deeds of their fathers, and to their own belief, found expression in the ordeal they were called upon time and time again to undergo’.44 According to Kamen, the post-1492 archives are true indications of a Judaizing movement, while those prior to the event are worthless. Kamen comments further that the supposed Judaizing on behalf of the New Christians was simply a product of the clerical imagination. On the one hand, Roth is convinced that the inquisitors were lacking in originality to such an extent that they were forced to rely on manuals for their accusations, while on the other, Kamen seems to believe that, until 1492, their extraordinary imaginations allowed them to conjure up countless years of supposed crimes against Christianity. He distinguishes himself from Roth by exculpating the inquisitors, seeing no reason ‘to question the sincerity of the inquisitors, or to imagine that they maliciously fabricated the evidence’.45 In their place, he blames the court system itself for producing an environment which promoted ‘neighbours’ gossip, personal malice, communal prejudice and simple hearsay’.46 The judges were, in the author’s opinion, innocent pawns in a ruthless game of chess, with the converso danger invented to fleece the conversos of their wealth. Having established the virtual innocence of the inquisitors, Kamen then poses the following question: ‘What, in any case, did Judaizing imply? Even when the inquisitors started their work, they had no clear view of the offence’.47 This indeed appears to support his claim that the early testimonies were products of the ‘clerical imagination’ and that those employed by the Holy Office, as Christians, were completely oblivious to the practices of Islam and Judaism. He 44 Haim Beinart, Conversos on Trial: The Inquisition in Ciudad Real (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, Hebrew University, 1981), p. 235.

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45

Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition, p. 63.

46

Ibid., p. 62.

47

Ibid., p. 62.

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admits that the inquisitors observed what certainly existed in many households but sees these as nothing more than meaningless remnants of their former religion. This may be the case, but had they been true and devout Christians, as Kamen insists, the conversos would have been aware of the religious significance of the rituals and might have tried to cease performing them. Beinart writes that ‘the Inquisition considered such acts like the observance of other mitzvoth, as manifestations of a reversion to Judaism, for it realized that what was essential here was the intention behind the deed’.48 Kamen, however, not only gives the conversos the benefit of the doubt, but ventures to compare their habitual and apparently innocent adherence to Jewish rituals with a weak Christianity of the time. Indeed, there was concern very early on that the new converts had been brought into the fold and then spiritually abandoned. Before the Inquisition was introduced to Seville, Cardinal Mendoza asked Queen Isabel for permission to write a Catecismo de la doctrina (1478) for the conversos, but it was reported to have met with some scorn and derision by its target audience. In Alcalá de Henares, Archbishop Alfonso Carillo wrote constituciones sinodales in which he emphasized the importance of pre-baptismal instructions, requesting that conversos were not to be accepted into the Church until their ‘will, intention and spirit’ were assured49. It might well be argued that the inquisitors were concerned with conversos as Christians who wilfully continued to adhere to Judaism rather than as Christians who were unsure of their faith. Kamen, however, insists that ‘Hundreds of conversos, well aware that they had been lax in observing the rules of their faith, came forward to admit their offences and be reconciled’.50 To Kamen, then, the records are not indications of Judaizing but rather of a religious uncertainty or laziness among the conversos as well as the Old Christians. Kamen accepts and employs testimonies of conversos who expressed a deep regret at the loss of Judaism, in order to prove his point that the converts had truly abandoned their former religion by 1492. For example, Diego de la Peña, an inhabitant of Guadalajara, used to say that ‘it grieved him that he had turned Christian’ (1504) and Luis de Cerda said that ‘the law of the Christians was a joke; and that he thanked God that it was Lent, so that he did not have to

48

Beinart, Conversos on Trial, p. 239.

49

Miguel Ángel Motis Dolader, ‘Procesos de la Inquisición de Aragón: Conversión de la familia Abnarrabí’, RABM, 67 (1959), 548–99 (p. 576): ‘voluntad, intención y espíritu’. 50

Page 35

Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition, p. 57.

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partake of the food of the Christians’ (1504).51 In Zaragoza, Juan de Toledo, also a post-1492 convert, said that ‘he had never had better days than when he was a Jew and carrying rubbish in Turkey’.52 As these examples are post-1492, Kamen should readily accept them as true testimonies, and as expressions of a nostalgic yearning for an adherence to Judaism, for, in his view, there was no nostalgia until 1492. In Angela Selke’s study of the conversos of Majorca, she concludes that the Expulsion actually curtailed crypto-Judaism: ‘It is evident that these forbidden religious practices already reduced to a bare minimum, could only be carried out, even before the first persecutions of the seventeenth century, in a drastically curtailed form’.53 The Expulsion, therefore, had the opposite effect completely. In the light of this hypothesis, Kamen’s view that ‘the major qualitative change that took place in converso culture after 1492 has never been adequately analysed’54 appears justified. If there were indeed no cases of Judaizing before the Expulsion, it would be an interesting and profitable exercise to find evidence of a sudden zeal for Judaism in the post-1492 records. Such a study is yet to be completed, and as Kamen fails to provide the reader with any evidence of such a change, we cannot unquestioningly accept Kamen’s assertion that the inquisitors fabricated the testimonies before 1492. It seems that both Baer and Beinart have sought to exculpate the conversos from the accusation, and indeed the presence, of crypto-Judaism by re-defining them as victims of an intense social, religious, and political persecution. They consider the phenomenon to have developed during the Inquisition itself, as opposed to Netanyahu and Roth who believe that it had long been in existence. Beinart and Baer feel confident enough to presume the records to be incontrovertible fact, while Netanyahu and Roth dismiss them as tendentiously contrived fiction. Here we have two extreme examples of Jewish apologetics in which both sides are defining Jewish history and attempting to establish a specific Jewish perspective in their own terms; nevertheless both groups appear

51 Carlos Carrete Parrondo, ‘Nostalgia for the Past (and for the Future?) among Castilian Judeoconversos’, Mediterranean Historical Review, 6 (1991), 25–43 (p. 27). 52

Zaragoza, AHPZ, Leg. 22, no. 7, fol. 5r.

53 Angela Selke, The Conversos of Majorca: Life and Death in a Crypto-Jewish Community in XVII Spain (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1986), p. 83. 54

Page 36

Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition, p. 64.

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to have taken their own roles as Jewish historians seriously: ‘The most awesome responsibility facing the Jewish historian is the validation of Jewish memory’.55 While John Edwards and Angus Mackay both believe that the conversos were victims of social and religious intolerance, neither author is prepared to reject the records out of hand. Edwards is careful to emphasize that any admissions of Jewish practices were interpreted by the inquisitors as being what they perceived to be Judaizing. He suggests that the inquisitors were genuinely convinced that the evidence presented to them was an indication of crypto-Judaism because they misinterpreted the rituals as evidence of something far more dangerous. He adds that the ‘threat which the new converts were believed to pose to the Old Christian majority lay primarily in their public and private behaviour, rather than any doubts they may still have had about Christian doctrine’.56 Edwards uses Beinart’s study of Ciudad Real to demonstrate that, in his view, only six of the condemnations were doctrinal; the rest were ritual based. Although Edwards and Mackay point to various economic and political difficulties which led to the converso persecution, both authors believe that the targeting of the conversos arose from a change in the Old Christians’ attitudes towards them. According to the authors, the relatively tolerant environment of convivencia (coexistence) was replaced with an intolerant and religiously exclusive society: ‘After 1492, the new belief came to prevail that Spain was, or should be a country of one religion, a uniformly Christian society in which dissenters had no place’.57 Mackay opines that ‘the profound changes in attitude to Jews and conversos which took place during the medieval period must be taken into account’.58 The converso problem, therefore, was a product of the Old Christians’ failure to come to terms with their identities rather than a response to any real threat of crypto-Judaism. In the last few years, there has been a re-focus on the Inquisition’s court trial records by both Spanish and non-Spanish historians. It seems that, unlike Baer, Beinart, Netanyahu, and Roth, this next generation of scholars is not being constrained by its own political or religious dispositions. It is somewhat ironic that Netanyahu’s efforts to dismiss the archival documentation has resulted in a renewed focus upon the very sources he so emphatically condemns. Although 55 José Faur, In the Shadow of History: Jews and Conversos at the Dawn of Modernity (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), p. 210.

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56

Ibid., p. 210.

57

Ibid., p. 122.

58

Mackay, ‘The Hispanic–Converso Predicament’, p. 160.

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he has opened one important avenue of study in his discussion of alternative documentation, he has closed another by firmly and resolutely rejecting a significant portion of the records. Historians such as Renée Levine Melammed, David Gitlitz, Michael Alpert, and Pilar Huerga Criado are approaching the contentious subject of crypto-Judaism from an altogether more balanced angle in line with Edwards and Mackay. None is prepared to accept unequivocally that the documentation is one hundred percent reliable, but they independently conclude without question that crypto-Judaism existed among some conversos. Renée Melammed focuses on the numerous trial records from the tribunal of Toledo (much of the groundwork of which was already done by Beinart) in her study of the conversas’ indispensable role in transmitting Jewish rituals and beliefs from one generation to the next.59 David Gitlitz took on a rather ambitious project in an attempt to cover crypto-Jewish activity in converso communities in Spain and the New World from the fifteenth to the twentieth century. In doing so he was unable to consult any of the material first hand. He concludes that although the Inquisition records are not exhaustive, not even extant for all the Tribunals in all their phases of history, in the aggregate they present detailed information for a very wide swathe of Iberian and American New Christian communities, and in a sense can be considered representative.60

In Historia de la Inquisición en España y America, Volume III: Temas y problemas, Pilar Huerga Criado argues from the point of view that there existed among the conversos a complicated religious spectrum in which some New Christians were more aware of Judaism than others, but maintains all the same that many were making concerted efforts to follow the Old Testament religion of their forebears.61 By basing his study on hundreds of extant cases from among Castilian conversos of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Toledo and Cuenca, Michael Alpert shows beyond doubt in his Crypto-Judaism and the Spanish Inquisition (2001) that there were converso communities still observing the tenets of Judaism well into the 1700s. A series of articles in a volume entitled

59 Renée L. Melammed, Heretics or Daughters of Israel?: The Crypto-Jewish Women of Castile (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). 60

David M. Gitlitz, Secrecy and Deceit: The Religion of the Crypto-Jews (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1996), p. 79. 61

Historia de la Inquisición en España y America, Volume III : Temas y problemas, ed. by Juan Peréz Villanueva and Bartolomé Escandell Bonet (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Inquisitoriales, Biblioteca de autores cristianos, 2000).

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L’identità dissimulate: Guidaizzanti iberici nell’Europa cristiana dell’età moderna62 examines the Judaism imported into Italy by exiled Spanish New Christians in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In her book Il Vangelo e la spada: L’Inquisizione di Castiglia e i suoi critici, Stefania Pastore explores the origins of the Inquisition, leading the audience away from the notion of the Inquisition as a monolithic institution to consider alternative manifestations of the tribunal.63 Janet Liebman Jacobs has completed a study into contemporary crypto-Judaism as existing in the United States by conducting interviews with fifty men and women of Spanish converso heritage. The author concludes that women have been pivotal in maintaining both a culture of secrecy and certain home-based rituals, as did those fifteenth-century Aragonese conversas. In referring to the converso heritage of the modern-day respondents, she suggests that ‘the cryptoJews of medieval Spain represent one of the earliest and most drastic examples of this form of extreme Jewish assimilation’.64 Few voices, it seems, have been raised in objection to the suggestion that Crypto-Judaism existed in seventeenth-century Italy or that it exists in twentyfirst century America. The notion that six hundred years ago, however, a sizeable proportion of Aragonese and Castilian New Christians were practising Judaism in secret, has ignited such a fierce debate that it continues to rage largely unabated. While Benzion Netanyahu and Norman Roth are by no means the first to approach the Inquisition from a particular political or religious standpoint, they are the first to dismiss the entire holdings of the archives as works of fiction. The implications of this theory are vast. Not only does it render the extant documentation of the Inquisition completely unreliable as source material upon which to base any research, but it calls into question the impetus behind the establishment of the Holy Office as well as the motivation of its architects and employees. Finally, in the light of the accusation the inquisitors were able to conceal the truth about the religiosity of the New Christians by putting words into the mouths of the accused, it is imperative to consider the institution itself and the judicial procedures by which the Inquisition tried a number of the Aragonese conversos in the fifteenth century.

62

Ariel Toaff and others, L’identità dissimulate: Guidaizzanti iberici nell’Europa cristiana dell’età moderna (Florence: Olschki, 2000). 63

Stefania Pastore, Il Vangelo e la spada: L’Inquisizione di Castiglia e i suoi critici (1460–1598) (Rome: Edizioni Storia e Letteratura, 2003). 64

Janet Liebman Jacobs, Hidden Heritage: The Legacy of the Crypto-Jews (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), p. 10.

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n the night of 15 September 1485, the newly appointed inquisitor provincial for the kingdom of Aragón was murdered while reciting the office of matins at the altar of Our Lady in Zaragoza’s main cathedral. Having been warned that his life was in danger, young Brother Pedro de Arbués had taken to wearing chain-mail under his habit and a steel cap on his head. However, these precautions provided insufficient protection against the attack which ensued. There was little warning as the first of eight assassins jumped out from behind one of the cathedral’s pillars, plunging his sword straight through Arbués’s back into his neck. As the victim staggered away, two others joined in the assault to finish him off. It was later reported by witnesses that as the inquisitor lay dying his killers took fright and fled from the scene of the crime before they could be apprehended. The following day, the archbishop of Zaragoza managed to avert an attack by an enraged Old Christian mob upon the city’s conversos, whom they immediately blamed for having perpetrated the crime. The Old Christians’ violent response to the inquisitor’s brutal demise was by no means an isolated case. It came at a time in the Peninsula when hostilities between the two groups had, in some cities and towns, escalated into a virtual state of civil war. By the time Isabella and Ferdinand had established an Inquisition in Castile, the New Christians had already been operating as a cohesive group across their kingdoms for just under a century. During this period, the conversos had not only developed their own separate identity, but were resented for the positions of power and privilege they held. During the late fourteenth century, a number of prominent Jewish individuals had left their

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aljamas and voluntarily converted to Christianity,1 but it is generally accepted that the converso class came into being en masse during the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries as a result of one or all three major events. The first was a series of persecutions which swept across Spain in 1391. The second was the Dominican missionizing between 1412 and 1415 of St Vincent Ferrer, while the third was the year-long public theological disputation held in Catalonia in 1412. However, none of this can be taken in isolation from the broader Western European circumstance of the times. Since the fourth and fifth centuries, Western Europe (the Holy Roman Empire) had been almost universally Catholic in life and culture, deeply united by a single ecclesiastical and legal Latin-based realpolitik. True, princes fought princes, states fought states, and families tried to annihilate or neutralize each other, but always the highest ideals of Catholicism prevailed. Throughout this history, even the most partisan Christian historians record various manifestations of a common regard for the Jews as a despised and persecuted people, whose avowed naturalism was inimical to Catholic supernaturalism. But, contrary to modern opinion, and theological arguments aside, anti-Jewish sentiment was most certainly not confined to Christian Western Europe. In Muslim Spain the Jews were banished from Granada in 1066. Earlier, in 853, the Abasside caliph, al-Motawakel, re-enacted the Covenant of Omar, under which the indigenous Jews of ‘Irak’ were extinguished. In North Africa, Egypt, and Syria, under the Fatimite caliphate (909–1171), the Jews almost totally disappeared through oppression and selective molestation. In Byzantium, during the Macedonian dynasty (842–1056), this despised people endured persecution — as was to be their lot when the Russians totally destroyed the non-Semitic Jewish kingdom of the Khazars (in the middle of the tenth century). Subsequently, within Western Catholic Europe, kings and sacred councils would resume their attacks upon their own populations of Jews (where the word ‘Jew’ became synonymous with ‘merchant’), only to be contradicted and resisted by popes such as Alexander III, Gregory IX, Gregory X, Innocent III, Innocent IV, and Clement VI. Amongst the Jews themselves, in the fourteenth century, there was great division concerning the value of the Zohar, recently published by Rabbi Moses 1

Many of the individuals who voluntarily elected to receive baptism had been powerful members of the Jewish communities. Such luminaries included Pablo de Santa María, formerly Solamon Ha-Levi, who had been one of the wealthiest and most influential rabbis of Burgos and a scholar of Talmudic and rabbinical literature. He was baptized in 1390, having been converted by St Vincent Ferrer, and eventually rose in Church ranks to become archbishop and lord chancellor.

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of León. Others were deeply divided over the cultivation of Aristotelian philosophy, modern science, and literature, resulting in a public ban against the study of science by Jewish leaders in 1305, neatly anticipating the excommunication of Baruch Spinoza, the Father of the Enlightenment, by Dutch rabbis in the 1670s. But, during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the whole of Western Europe was suddenly shaken by a general series of economic, social, and political crises, interspersed with scuffles between the hitherto latent but well-disguised forces that distinguished the interests of Church from those of State. In 1355, the English parliament passed the statute of Praemunire, in which the power and influence of the papacy in English law was limited. In 1377, the anomalous Avignon papacy finally came to an end when Pope Gregory XI returned to Rome from what Petrarch had called ‘The Babylonish Captivity’. One year later, the great Western Schism was further to divide the Church and, fed by politics and passions, lasted for forty years. During these times of unrest, terrible natural storms raged from Greece to England. Famines struck between 1315 and 1317; a series of earthquakes shattered Italy; and by 1345 the bubonic plague had reached Sicilian shores. On the Iberian Peninsula, men found themselves involved in ceaseless internecine warfare in Castile and Aragón as well being drawn into the Hundred Years’ War. In Castile, civil war raged. During the 1340s and 1350s, harvests were particularly bad, and the bubonic plague finally reached the Peninsula itself in 1351. During this period everyone, but especially the minorities, suffered. Furthermore, the scandals and natural miseries prevalent in European society encouraged a certain fanaticism among some Christians, giving rise to such sects as flagellants which, in particular, were condemned by Clement VI in Avignon. In that city, where the plague had wiped out about sixty thousand people, such fanatics blamed the Jews, who were subsequently massacred, for poisoning the wells and for having been the cause of the pestilence itself.2 On the Peninsula, matters were probably exacerbated by extremists, the principal of whom was one Ferrant Martínez, the archdeacon of Éjica and administrator in Seville, who, during the 1370s and 1380s, had been exploiting latent anti-Jewish sentiment in his sermons. In June and August 1391, the working classes, who had already been suffering the rigours of a summer drought, directed their anger towards the

2

Clement VI reacted to the massacres by opening the city’s gates and offering the Jews refuge as well as issuing two bulls (July and September 1348) forbidding their persecution under pain of excommunication.

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privileged classes, which necessarily included Jews. Many Jews across Castile and Aragón fled the towns and cities during the massacres and some chose to be baptized. Estimates of those who perished amongst Jews and non-Jews alike vary from between hundreds or ‘thousands to tens of thousands’ of Jews,3 while estimates of numbers who converted are also equally difficult to divine. Between 1412 and 1415, the Dominican missionary, St Vincent Ferrer, travelled throughout Castile, Aragón, Murcia, Granada, Andalucía, Asturias, and Valencia, preaching to Christians, Jews, and Moslems alike. His sermons resulted in large-scale voluntary conversions to Christianity by Jews, Moslems, and pagans. It has been estimated that he was personally responsible for some twentyfive to thirty thousand conversions during his lifetime and that his audiences usually numbered anything up to sixteen thousand at a time.4 While St Vincent was tirelessly and charitably evangelizing across the Peninsula, a disputation between Jews and Christians was held from 1413 to 1414 at Tortosa. This was organized at the request of Pope Benedict XIII, a native of Aragón and later declared antipope by the Council of Constance, and the converso Gerónimo de Santa Fe, formerly known as Joshua ha-Lorki, who exercised considerable influence during the year-long event. The object of the disputation as defined by the pope was to prove the truth of Christian doctrines about the Messiah by referring to certain passages from the Talmud.5 In November 1412, each community in Aragón and Catalonia was commanded to send two or four scholars to Tortosa. Again, we can only assume that some of the conversos’ ancestors were indeed baptized after the disputation, but their true motives must always be subject to pure conjecture. According to Zurita, over two hundred families from the synagogues of Zaragoza, Calatayud, Fraga, and Barbastro converted to Christianity as a result of that particular disputation6. In Daroca, more than half of the Jewish population converted to Christianity in 1415.7

3 David Nirenberg, ‘Mass Conversions and Genealogical Mentalities: Jews and Christians in Fifteenth-Century Spain’, P&P, 174 (2002), 3–41 (p. 9). 4

St Vincent Ferrer, A Christology from the Sermons of St. Vincent Ferrer […] Selected and Translated by S. M. C. (London: Blackfriars, 1954), p. vii. 5

Judaism on Trial: Jewish–Christian Disputations in the Middle Ages, ed. and trans. by Hyam Maccoby (London: Associated University Presses, 1982), p. 89. 6

Jerónimo Zurita, Anales de la corona de Aragón, 9 vols (Zaragoza: Institución Fernando el Católico, 1967–86), V , p. 416. 7

Motis Dolader, Marco, and Estevan, Procesos inquisitoriales de Daroca y su Comunidad, p. xxxiii.

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The Church was suddenly faced with unprecedented numbers of new converts for many of whom the faith would indeed have been a mystery. It was generally believed that the transition from Judaism to Christianity was made all the more difficult by the fact that the new converts continued to associate socially with their former brethren. As early as 1393 it was reported by the king of Aragón that there was little, if any, difference between the new converts and the Jews. Certainly, after the conversions, the conversos continued to reside in their former abodes, not only living next door to their former co-religionists, but in some cases, also with them. Those marriages in which only one partner had converted, for example, were granted one year’s dispensation by Pope Benedict XIII. St Vincent Ferrer also understood the impact of Jewish influence on their new commitment. Both he and the king advocated the necessity for separation, and Ferrer stated that ‘he will never be a good Christian, who is neighbour to a Jew’.8 When Córdoba was re-taken by the Christians, St Vincent turned over four mosques to the Jewish community and gave them an excellent part of the city for their judería on condition that they would not proselytize among Christians. It appears that, demographically just as topographically, there was little change following the conversions. Individuals who had been artisans, shopkeepers, money lenders, or doctors when Jews simply retained their professions as Christians. In many cases, however, doors which had been previously closed to these individuals as Jews were now swiftly opened to them as Christian Spaniards. Everywhere across the Peninsula, the converts rose rapidly through the ranks of government, finance, and Church, their new religious status even enabling them to marry into noble but impoverished Old Christian families. In Castile the queen employed the New Christians Fernando Alvarez, Alfonso de Avila, and Hernando de Pulgar as her principal secretaries, while several other court officials and high-ranking individuals, as well as one of her chaplains, Alonso de Burgos, Bishop of Palencia, were New Christians. The top five posts in the kingdom of Aragón were occupied by Alfonso de la Cavallería, Luis de Santángel, Gabriel Sánchez, Sancho de Paternoy, and Felipe Climent, all of whom were subject to the Inquisition’s investigations, and all of whom claimed Jewish ancestry.9

8 9

Nirenberg, ‘Mass Conversions’, p. 11.

It is generally accepted that Luis de Santángel and Gabriel Sánchez personally arranged the financing of Christopher Columbus’s expedition of 1492.

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There was a great deal of resentment by Old Christians who watched former Jews become an exclusive and powerful minority that boasted its own confraternities, churches, and a thoroughly converso social life. The converso chronicler Alonso de Palencia had cause to remark that Old Christians complained that the New Christians behaved as a nation apart, and nowhere would they agree to act together with the Old Christians; indeed, as though they were a people of totally opposed ideas, they openly and brazenly favoured whatever was contrary to the Old Christians, as could be seen by the bitter fruit sown throughout the cities of the realm.10

Converso historian Diego de Valera remarked that, in the city council of Cordoba, ‘there was great enmity and rivalry, since the New Christians were very rich and kept buying up public offices, which they made use of so arrogantly that the Old Christians would not put up with it’.11 In a population of approximately five and a half million souls, estimates for the total number of conversos living in Spain before 1492 range from Domínguez Ortiz’s two hundred and twenty-five thousand12 to Netanyahu’s figure of six hundred to seven hundred thousand,13 while the number of Jews converted in 1492 has been estimated at anything between twenty-five to fifty thousand.14 The animosity towards conversos manifested itself in a series of violent outbreaks from the 1400s onwards. In Toledo, for example, Old Christian Pero Sarmiento and his legal advisor Marcos de García stormed the house of converso tax collector Alonso de Cota in 1449, the attack then spreading to other conversos in the city. Although order was once again restored by the Crown, the rebellion resulted in the issuing of the Sentencia-Estatuo (Sentence-Statute) by Sarmiento and Garcia, in which conversos were prohibited from holding public office. In 1467, a group of conversos led by Fernando de la Torre launched an attack on Old Christians while they were attending mass in the cathedral of Toledo. A battle ensued inside, and Old Christian reinforcements soon joined the fray, indiscriminately killing Christians of Jewish descent. Six years later in Córdoba, another violent episode took place after some dirty water emanating from a

10

Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition, p. 42.

11

Ibid., p. 29.

12

Antonio Domínguez Ortiz, Los judeoconversos en la España moderna (Madrid: Mapfre, 1992), p. 43.

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13

Netanyahu, The Marranos of Spain, p. 240.

14

Gitlitz, Secrecy and Deceit, p. 75.

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window of a converso house was tipped on a statue of the Blessed Virgin during a procession. Again, New Christians around the city were attacked, the incident igniting a war which lasted for four years. Massacres followed in Montmoro, Adamur, La Rambla, Úbeda, Jaén, and finally Segovia, in 1474, where annihilation of the conversos was only prevented by the intervention of the town’s governor. During their stay in Seville in 1477, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand were visited by the Dominican Prior of San Pablo, Alonso de Hojeda, who advised them that there was also a significant problem of Judaizing amongst the conversos. Their initial solution to the problem was a pastoral one, in which the conversos were to be educated in Christian doctrine. Cardinal Pedro González de Mendoza wrote a catechism aimed at strengthening the faith of New Christians, but this met with little success. In the meantime, the monarchs were exploring other options, and on 1 November 1478, Pope Sixtus IV issued a bull which authorized them, not only to establish an Inquisition in Castile, but to appoint the inquisitors, as well as giving them control of confiscations. Ferdinand realized that the pope could not refuse his request, as the Church was bound to declare where errors in faith existed. When the two new inquisitors, Fray Juan de San Martin and Fray Miguel de Morrillo, arrived in Seville in 1480, they had been commanded to accept the posts by the Crown. Consequently, failure to carry out their duty could have been punished by confiscation of their goods and even loss of citizenship. The friars had become servants of the state and not of the Church. Heresy had now become a treasonable offence.

The New Inquisition in Aragón The model upon which the new Inquisition in the Peninsula was based was the medieval Inquisition of Pope Gregory IX, which had been operating in Western Europe since the thirteenth century. In 1233, the pontiff had resorted to what was effectively an emergency measure by introducing an ecclesiastical tribunal specifically for the purpose of rooting out crypto-Cathars from local populations. Known as the inquisitio hereticae pravitatis, this was not a single Inquisition but a series of tribunals. Staffed by members of the clergy, who were appointed by the pope and who executed their doctrinal functions in his name, they possessed neither special nor greater procedural powers than normal judges. Gregory IX appointed Dominicans, and to a lesser extent, Franciscans, to act as both judges and auxiliaries to the bishops, to whom the task of protecting the faithful from heresy traditionally fell. Where his inquisitors sat, ipso facto there was the

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inquisitio hereticae pravitatis. Just twenty years after the first inquisitors had taken up their appointments in Toulouse, fellow inquisitors were sitting in tribunals along the Rhine in Germany, the diocese of Tarragona in Spain, the territory of Auxerre, the ecclesiastical provinces of Bourges, Bordeaux, Narbonne, Auch, the county of Toulouse, in Sicily, Aragón, Lombardy, France, and in Burgundy. By the mid-fourteenth century, inquisitorial legislation had been developed but the heresies were virtually non-existent in Aragón. The popes continued to nominate inquisitors in the 1400s. Diplomatic correspondence shows that, even before permission was given by Pope Sixtus, Ferdinand had been working to take greater control of the existing papal tribunals in Aragón, Valencia, and Catalonia. As early as 1482, the King’s inquisitors began operating in Zaragoza, Barcelona, and Valencia, but Sixtus IV soon received complaints from the conversos about the unjust treatment meted out to them, and he instructed that the inquisitors be allowed to continue only if supervised by bishops. In 1483, the monarchs obtained permission from Innocent VIII to name Torquemada as inquisitor general for both Aragón and Castile and the King promptly revoked the old papal appointments, thus allowing Torquemada, rather than the pope, to commission the new inquisitors. The new permanent tribunal for the kingdom of Aragón was established in the city of Zaragoza, and encompassed the intermittent tribunals of the towns of Huesca, Barbastro, Daroca, Calatayud, Calahorra, Lérida (actually in Catalonia), and Tarazona. Each town was allocated its own inquisitors. The configuration of the inquisitorial districts across Spain did not coincide with the actual territorial borders, and Aragón was by no means an exception. The ‘location of the districts […] is evidence of the remarkable indifference of the Inquisition to other secular or ecclesiastical authority’, as its districts often crossed political frontiers.15 On the one hand, from 1485 onwards, the tribunal of Zaragoza left the city of Teruel and its community, Segorbe, and Albarracín — all very much inside the kingdom’s border — to the jurisdiction of the Inquisition of Valencia, while on the other hand it encompassed western Catalonia as well as the land west of the Segre river.16 The arrival of the inquisitors in these districts provoked hostility and resentment from the Aragonese, who claimed, among other things, that there was no need for the Castilian Inquisition as the existing court had successfully

15 16

Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition, p. 144.

For territorial organization of the Inquisition in Aragón, see, El Libro verde de Aragon, ed. by Combescure Thiry and Motis Dolader, pp. xxix–xxxi.

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kept heresy in check for two hundred years.17 It was argued that it was a foreign encroachment on Aragonese soil as well as being fundamentally opposed to the fueros (local law or privilege). In Barcelona, the city’s officials responded to the proposal by protesting that persecution of the conversos would mean financial ruin for the city. Their fears, it seems, were not unfounded, as many conversos did indeed leave Barcelona, taking with them the contents of their bank accounts.18 The existing inquisitor, Joan Comes, was replaced by Torquemada’s appointee, Alonso de Espina, in 1486. In Valencia, the Cortes (regional assembly/parliament) proposed that the appointment of non-native inquisitors by Torquemada was contrary to the fueros and therefore could not be legally permitted.19 In both cases, the legal objections raised were ineffective, for Torquemada’s inquisitors proceeded to prosecute conversos under a State controlled and foreign institution. While the Cortes of Valencia and Barcelona capitulated to the King relatively easily, the strongest opposition was encountered by Ferdinand in Zaragoza and Teruel, where two major events heralded the Inquisition’s arrival and demonstrated the depth of anti-Inquisition sentiment among the Aragonese, especially those belonging to the New Christian community. The first was the murder of the inquisitor Pedro Arbués. The second was the ten-month blockade by the leading members of the ruling party in Teruel against Torquemada’s young Dominican appointee, Juan de Solivera. Despite ‘threats, violence, and a process for the excommunication of their municipal officials’,20 the town of Teruel managed to prevent the Inquisition from being established for almost a year. When the newly appointed inquisitor Juan de Solivera arrived with his retinue at the city gates in May 1484, he was prohibited entry and forced to set up camp in the neighbouring town of Cella. From there he began to collect testimonies against the converso residents of the city, as well as conducting a full-blown legal warfare with the city’s rebellious officials, who were led by New Christian lawyers. The arguments presented to

17

William Monter, Frontiers of Heresy: The Spanish Inquisition from the Basque Lands to Sicily (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 5. 18

Baer, A History of the Jews in Christian Spain, II, p. 381.

19

Ibid., II, p. 63.

20

John Edwards, ‘Religion, Constitutionalism and the Inquisition in Teruel’, in God and Man in Medieval Spain: Essays in Honour of J. R. L Highfield, ed. by Derek W. Lomax and David Mackenzie (Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1989), pp. 129–47 (p. 129); repr. in John Edwards, Religion and Society in Spain, c. 1492 (Aldershot: Variorum, 1996), pp. 129–47 (Essay XIII).

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the king by the civic authorities were very similar to those used by the New Christians in Zaragoza: that is, that the introduction of a foreign Inquisition in their lands was a direct threat to their liberties, as expressed in the fueros. Their main arguments were that Solivera had no power over them because he was under forty years old and because he was not from the kingdom of Aragón.21 They also proposed that the arrival of the Inquisition had profoundly negative economic implications by explaining that, if the Jews and conversos were to leave, the mass emigration would bring about financial ruin for the city.22 As previously mentioned, this situation actually came about in Barcelona when many conversos fled to France, taking their wealth with them. Nevertheless, the inhabitants of Teruel soon realized that the government was giving its full and unconditional support to Solivera. The rebels were outlawed and all other Aragonese officials were ordered to assist in their capture. Ferdinand appointed local nobleman Juan Garcés de Marcilla as Capitán of Teruel, at the same time deploying troops from Castile. The situation was eventually resolved after the jurists of Teruel ran out of legal manoeuvres and capitulated. Finally Solivera was able to return to Teruel armed with reams of testimonies against the accused, and a year after arriving at the city’s gates the first auto de fe was held in August 1485. The tribunal was absorbed into that of the kingdom of Valencia in 1485, and the tribunal of Valencia thereafter tried the conversos of Teruel. However, even after a sub-tribunal was established in Teruel in 1517, there continued to be problems between the officials from Valencia and the residents of Teruel.

The Tribunal of Zaragoza The Aragonese chronicler Jerónimo Zurita wrote that, after the first Edict of Grace was read out in Zaragoza, public riots broke out in the streets. He clarified this by adding that the activity was instigated by the conversos.23 Although there was opposition among the general population in Zaragoza, it seems that the insurrections took root among the more privileged classes, many of whom were of New Christian stock. Similarly to the response of the Cortes of Valencia and

21

Ibid., p. 142.

22

Antonio Floriano Cumbreño, ‘El tribunal del Santo Oficio en Aragón: Establecimiento de la Inquisición en Teruel’, BRAH, 86 (1925), 544–604 (p. 553). 23

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Barcelona, the officials in Zaragoza claimed that the fueros gave legal support to their stand against the imposition of the Castilian Inquisition, which, in their view, represented a threat to their freedom and liberty. By objecting to such procedures as the laws of property confiscation and the practice of maintaining the anonymity of prosecution witnesses, both Old and New Christian Aragonese immediately set about trying to show that the Inquisition was indeed a threat to politics and the constitution. In November 1484, the Diputación (the standing committee of the parliament of each realm), which was particularly important in Aragón, sent an Augustinian monk and Old Christian lawyer to the king to ask that the Inquisition be stopped on the grounds that it violated the fueros. One fuero, for example, stipulated that only Aragonese functionaries were entitled to exercise power in the crown of their birth, and the opposition to the Inquisition maintained that, because Tomás de Torquemada was clearly not Aragonese, he should not have jurisdiction over them, regardless of his status as inquisitor general.24 The monk and lawyer also replicated the argument used in Barcelona: that is, that in the event of the conversos’ arrest, the whole kingdom of Aragón would be ‘ruined and depopulated’.25 They suggested, furthermore, that despite the monarch’s suspicion that a large number of Aragonese New Christians were guilty of Judaizing, there were in fact no heretics in the kingdom and so the Inquisition simply was not required. As well as trying to impede the action of the tribunal by employing legal devices, Zurita suggests that the conversos resorted to bribery: ‘And the conversos began to divide a great deal of money between them, not only to send to Rome, but also to the king’s court’.26 Baer does not refer to the existence of such a plan, only mentioning briefly that some conversos raised money to rescue fellow New Christian Leonardo Eli from the Inquisition prison.27 This plot is referred to in the trial record of Luis de la Cavallería [Zaragoza 1488]28, who allegedly took part in the rescue operation.29 Lea asserts that ‘a heavy sum was subscribed to

24

Cabezudo Astraín, ‘Los conversos aragoneses’, p. 273.

25

Baer, A History of the Jews in Christian Spain, II, p. 364: ‘Y comenzaron a hacer entre los conversos repartimiento de mucha suma de dinero, así para enviar a Roma como a la corte del rey’. 26

Zurita, Anales de la corona de Aragón, III, p. 503.

27

Baer, A History of the Jews in Christian Spain, II, p. 367.

28

This is the tribunal before which the defendant appeared and the date of his or her

arrest. 29

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propitiate the curia’,30 but he fails to cite his source, presumably taking the information directly from Zurita. At least three trial records from the tribunal of Zaragoza support the Aragonese chronicler’s claim insofar as bribery is concerned.31 Various witnesses and the defendants themselves talk of a large sum of money being put together by the conversos for the King as well as the pope. Juan Diez [Barbastro 1486] briefly mentions that Jaime Montesa, the Aragonese jurist and deputy (condemned and burned at the stake in 1487), had sent a message to the New Christians of Barbastro, suggesting that they pull together financially if they genuinely wanted to help the cause: ‘if they wanted to help with something to send to the Holy Father and the King in order to be able to put a stop to that Holy Inquisition’.32 One of the actual meetings organized by Montesa is described in detail in Gabriel de Santángel’s file [Barbastro 1486]. We discover that late in 1484 Jaime called upon various conversos to represent the towns of Aragón and attend a general meeting at his house in Zaragoza. Gabriel either volunteered or was elected to travel the seventy odd miles from Barbastro to Zaragoza to attend the anti-Inquisition meeting. Upon returning home, the converso called a gathering and read out a letter, referred to as ‘una carta de creencia’ or ‘[a] statement of belief’33 from the jurist, and proceeded to inform wealthy conversos such as Salvador de Santángel, Juan Diez, and Pedro Ram, among others, that it was their duty to donate to the fund. But when Gabriel set about fulfilling Jaime’s directive he was met with hostility from many conversos in Barbastro, who seemed to believe that it was not their problem. Conversa witness Isabel Boyl testified that she and her husband had refused to make any financial contribution whatsoever when Gabriel arrived at their door asking for money:

30

Lea, A History of the Inquisition of Spain, II, p. 246.

31

These include Gabriel de Santángel [Barbastro 1486], Salvador de Santángel [Barbastro 1488], and although I did not have the opportunity to read the trial record of Jaime Montesa [Zaragoza 1485], this proceso would presumably be a rich source for information considering Montesa’s central role. 32

AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 3, fol. 4r : ‘si querian ayudar en alguna cosa para enbiar el padre Sancto y el señor rey para aquesta Sancta Enquesta en alguna cosa se pudiesse remediar’. 33 Reference to a carta de creencia is also found in the trial record of Salvador de Santángel: AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 5, fol. 5 r: ‘And he says that five or six weeks ago, a little more or less, Antonio de Bardaxi, converso of this city, had a letter of faith’ (‘Et assi mesmo dize que ha cinquo o seys semanas poco mas o menos que Anthon de Bardaxim confeso desta ciudad tenya una carta de creencia’).

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She remembers that one called Gabriel de Santángel, townsman, visited her […] and he said to her [… ] that it would be a good thing if she or her husband helped with some money for a fund for the Holy Father, so that they could be defended against the Inquisition. And this witness replied that she wasn’t at fault and that she didn’t want to give any money.34

In January 1485 Ferdinand finally responded from Seville to the deluge of arguments and objections in a circular which was directed to the chief nobles and deputies of the Cortes: There is no intention of infringing on the fueros but rather of enforcing their observance. It is not to be imagined that vassals so Catholic as those of Aragon would have demanded, or that kings so Catholic would have granted, fueros and liberties adverse to the faith and favourable to heresy. If the old inquisitors had acted conscientiously in accordance with the canons there would have been no cause for bringing in the new ones, but they were without conscience and corrupted with bribes. If there are so few heretics as is now asserted, there should not be such dread of the Inquisition. It is not to be impeded in sequestrating and confiscating and other necessary acts, for be assured that no cause or interest, however great, shall be allowed to interfere with its proceeding in future as it is now doing.35

At the same time as this circular was issued, it appears that the conversos were willing to abandon legal objections and attempts at bribery, and they instead resorted to more violent means to bring the Inquisition to an end through the murder of an inquisitor. Again, the trial record of Gabriel de Santángel [Barbastro 1486] is an excellent source of information regarding the conversos’ response to the tribunal. A Jewish witness informed the inquisitors that the merchant had told him about another meeting which took place at Montesa’s house in January 1485. Apparently the discussion became quite heated and Gabriel, caught up in the emotion of the situation, pledged to ‘cut them [the inquisitors] to pieces’36 in the event of their arrival. He was rumoured to have boasted to the witness that Montesa had everything under control, and that violence towards the inquisitors was definitely an option: ‘don’t you believe we conversos are dealing with this business in master Montesa’s house, and when

34 AHPZ, Leg. 6, no. 2, fol. 25 r: ‘se acuerda que bino a ella uno llamado Gabriel de Santángel ciudadano […] y le dixo […] diziendo que seria buena cosa que ella o el dicho su marydo hayudassen con algun dinero para una bolsa del Padre Sancto que ffuessen defendidos desta inquesta et esta deposante respuso que ella no tenya culpa y que no queria dar dinero nynguno’.

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35

Lea, A History of the Inquisition of Spain, I, p. 347.

36

AHPZ, Leg. 6, no. 2, fols 3 r and 4 r: ‘los cortaremos a pieças’.

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they come, they’ll be lanced and stabbed, and this Inquisition will not happen’.37 He continued that they were at an advantage because the Aragonese nobility was on their side, since they also apparently feared being robbed by the inquisitors, stating ‘that we are in agreement with the barons in that these thieving treacherous Christians will not rob us’.38 The murder of Arbués only temporarily succeeded in impeding the Inquisition, for the Holy Office was forced to cease activity for a year while it occupied itself with rounding up the suspects. Although it is generally accepted that the inquisitors Arbués and Juglar arrived in Zaragoza in 1484, there appears to be some doubt as to how many, if any, of the converso population were actually tried in that year. Lea, again basing his conclusions upon the Memoria de diversos autos, says that Arbués and Juglar went ahead and began their job by sentencing one man and three women to penance, executing two men, and exhuming and burning the bones of a conversa in 1484 for heresy.39 Kamen, in contrast, argues that the trial probably took place in 1485 so as to ensure Arbués and Juglar did not break their own rule of allowing for the period of grace.40 During the three decades from 1484 to 1515, the total number of New Christians tried for Judaizing, as estimated by Henry Charles Lea, who based his conclusion on the aforementioned Memoria de diversos autos, was approximately six hundred and fourteen.41 The Libro verde puts the number at around five hundred.42 Unfortunately, only one hundred and forty-two trial records relating to charges of Judaizing have survived, one hundred and twenty of which are located in the Archivo Histórico Provincial in Zaragoza with the remainder in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris.43 The latter collection was sold to

37 Ibid., fols 3 r and 4 r: ‘No creyes que agora tratamos este negocio en casa de mycer Montesa todos los conversos de tal manera que a estos aqui, y a quantos vendran les daremos de lançados y punyalados y no passara esta enquesta’. 38

Ibid., fols 3 r and 4 r: ‘Que somos concordes con los Barones en no nos robareran estos trayadores de robadores de cristianos’. 39

Lea, A History of the Inquisition of Spain, I, p. 245.

40

Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition, p. 51.

41

Lea, A History of the Inquisition of Spain, I, p. 611.

42

This is my own calculation, based on the list of arrested conversos supplied by Juan Anchias in Libro verde de Aragón, ed. by Isidro de las Cagigas (Madrid: Compañía iberoamericana de publicaciones, 1906), pp. 111–45. 43

I would emphasize that any estimations or statistical analysis are based purely on the extant trial records with the understanding that they are generally representational of the

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the Paris library by Llorente, who had absconded with a large series of archives as well as burning those which he had deemed irrelevant or unnecessary. The height of trial activity took place between 1486 and 1498 and as there are only eleven cases of post-1492 court proceedings, the following analysis of the trial records will focus largely on pre-1492 accusations and confessions. While the large majority of cases were concerned with Judaizing during this period, there was a smattering of individuals charged with non-religious crimes. In 1486, for example, Fray Martín Labata was tried for ‘opposing the Inquisition’s actions’;44 Luis de Molina was accused of ‘playing cards on Holy Thursday after Our Lord had been entombed’,45 and in 1491, Pedro Sánchez and Antonio Terol were charged with ‘having agreed to kill Alonso de Jaén and others’.46

The Tribunal’s New Christians An analysis of the one hundred and forty-two extant trial records from the tribunal of Zaragoza shows that fifty-seven percent of the accused were men, and that their occupations ranged from lower class shop keepers, weavers, tailors, and rope-makers, to wealthy middle class merchants, doctors, notaries, lawyers, and court officials. Women arrested by the Zaragoza tribunal comprised forty-three percent of the accused, and were identified by their husbands or sons (for example, ‘Isabel Fajol, Mother of Galcerán Fajol’) rather than by occupation. These statistics are very much in keeping with those in other parts of Spain, as demonstrated from the trial records of the seven hundred and thirty-six New Christians arrested and tried in the kingdom of Valencia, where thirty-four percent of them were in commerce and forty-three percent were artisans.47 The representation of the professional classes is unusually high due to the presence of the conversos who occupied the most powerful posts in Aragón. Their ancestry was printed and exposed in the late sixteenth century in the guise of the Libro verde de Aragón, a work which purported to trace the genealogy of the foremost converso families of the kingdom. It was most probably written by an

missing data. 44

Ubieto Arteta and González Miranda, ‘Procesos de la Inquisición’, p. 561.

45

Ibid., p. 561.

46

Ibid., p. 576.

47

Stephen Haliczer, Inquisition and Society in the Kingdom of Valencia, 1478–1834 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), p. 223.

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Inquisition notary who reflected the sixteenth-century fascination with limpieza de sangre. As an historical source it is by no means entirely reliable, as recently demonstrated by Monique Combescure Thiry, who notes that the facts are often contradictory.48 There is, however, other genealogical information regarding the great conversos of Aragón who fell victim to the Holy Office which is of interest and should not be ignored. According to the Libro verde, the name Santángel was first adopted by Azarías Chinillo, a Jew from Calatayud, who ‘as a young man converted, and his wife remained a Jewess, and as he was well read, he studied the law after becoming a Christian and was a very brilliant lawyer’.49 It was a name also embraced by many conversos after the disputation of Tortosa in 1415. Marín Padilla suggests the name was being used by Old Christians prior to the disputation, and that its immense popularity might have been due to a combination of the fact that it contained the word ‘sant’ with the idea that it possibly belonged to a respectable Old Christian family.50 Undertaking a study of the Santángels in Aragón is by no means an easy task, as Jews across the kingdom simultaneously decided to adopt the surname as well as employing exactly the same Christian names. Ten such Santángels from different parts of the kingdom appeared before the tribunal of Zaragoza between 1484 and 1490, with a noticeable predominance among the named conversos from Barbastro.51 This has been noted by Cabezudo Astraín, who remarked that the Santángels were involved in the principal professions and were constantly featured in the Protocolos notarios, ‘with the purpose of granting marriage settlements and

48 Asunción Blasco Martínez, ‘Aportaciones documentales para el estudio del origen troncal de los Santànge’, in Lluís de Santángel i el seu temps: congrés internacional, València, 5 al 8 d’Octubre 1987 ([València]: Ajuntament de València, [1992]), pp. 121–31 (p. 121). 49

Libro verde, ed. by de las Cagigas, p. 42: ‘Siendo moço se convirtió el y su muger quedó judia y como en sus letras era muy leydo estudio leyes despues de xpiano y fue muy excelente jurista’. 50 51

Blasco Martínez, ‘Aportaciones documentales’, p. 122.

These are: Jaime de Santángel [Teruel 1484], Gabriel de Santángel [Barbastro 1486], Luis de Santángel [Zaragoza 1486], Salvador de Santángel [Barbastro 1488], Sperandeo de Santángelo [Barbastro 1489], Violante de Santángelo [Huesca 1489], Antonio de Santángelo [Calatayud 1489], Isabel de Santángelo [Eximino de Cabrillas 1490], Violante de Santángel (wife of Gilabert Almazán) [Zaragoza 1490], and Juan de Santángel [Barbastro 1512].

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testaments, buying and selling land, collecting taxes, making loans, establishing chapels and anniversaries, commissioning paintings, etc’.52 Another surname which is regularly featured among the upper echelons of fifteenth-century society and in the trial records of Zaragoza is Sánchez. The Libro verde claims that the name was adopted by Alazar Uluf or Ulut who became the first Luis Sánchez, and that four of his brothers followed suit and were baptized.53 Between 1486 and 1503, five members of the family appeared before the Zaragoza tribunal on charges of Judaizing.54 Perhaps the most notable Sánchez was Gabriel, treasurer to the king, and although seriously implicated in the murder of St Pedro Arbués, he was granted an exemption and never taken to court. His brother, Juan de Pero Sánchez, was less fortunate: he was handed over to the secular authorities in 1486 and burned for his part in the murder. It is, of course, impossible to ignore the strong presence of the de la Cavallería family, at least eight of whom were tried between 1486 and 1500 in trial records from the tribunal of Zaragoza.55 The conversions also came about as a consequence of the efforts of Vincent Ferrer and the disputation.56 Perhaps one of the most notable descendants of these converts to be arrested by the Inquisition was Alfonso, vice-chancellor to Fernando. Alfonso was also implicated in the murder of the inquisitor Pedro Arbués but he obtained a special dispensation from the pope for his own trial and was eventually absolved of all charges in 1501.57 His brother Jaime was made to abjure publicly in 1504. Alfonso de la Cavallería was so powerful that he supposedly boasted ‘that the King has more need of me than I of him’.58

52

Cabezudo Astraín, ‘Los conversos de Barbastro’, p. 265: ‘con motivo de otorgar capitulaciones matrimoniales y testamentos, comprar y vender fincas, adquirir censos, hacer préstamos, fundar capillas y aniversarios, encargar retablos, etc’. 53

Libro verde, ed. by de las Cagigas, p. 20.

54

These are: Bartomé Sánchez [Zaragoza 1485], Catalina Sánchez [Zaragoza 1486], Isabel Sánchez [Zaragoza 1486], Luis Sánchez [Zaragoza 1490], and Juan de Pero Sánchez [Zaragoza 1486]. 55

Alfonso de la Cavallería, Beatriz Beltrán de la Cavallería (mother of Pedro), Juan de la Cavallería, Isabel Vidal de la Cavallería (wife of Pedro), Luis de la Cavallería, Isabel Vidal de la Cavallería (widow of Jaime Sánchez), Jaime de la Cavallería, and Felipe de la Cavallería. 56

Francisca Vendrell Gallostra, ‘Aportaciones documentales para el estudio de la familia Caballería’, Sefarad, 3 (1943), 115–54 (p. 115).

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57

BnF esp. 78 (1499–1501), II, fol. 339 r.

58

Ibid., I, fol. 51v: ‘que mas me ha menester el Rey a my que no yo a el’.

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Based on the trial records from Zaragoza, it may be concluded that the following three types of conversos are represented: 1. Those born and raised within the Christian faith, who were either second or third generation New Christians; 2. Converts who were born and raised as Jews but who then chose to be baptized in adulthood; and 3. Those Jews who converted in response to the Expulsion either in Spain or overseas. The majority of the trial records concern the conversos belonging to the first group. The inquisitors often referred to the individuals from the second and third categories as neophytes, thus creating a division between ‘new’ New Christians and ‘old’ New Christians. Their trial records comprise considerably less material in the collection under discussion. Unfortunately, it is impossible to ascertain from the trial records exactly how many of the conversos were inclined to become Christians out of religious motivation rather than being driven by fear or obedience to their rabbis. Gleaning information about the ancestors of those in the first category (the conversos baptized and raised as Christians) from the trial records is almost impossible, as the conditions surrounding their baptisms are simply not described in the great majority of cases. There is a rare reference to Ferrer in the trial record of post-1492 convert Juan de Toledo [Zaragoza 1515] in which Juan told a witness that his Jewish father had personally heard the saint predict ‘that there would be times when those who converted to the faith of Jesus Christ would be made very rich, and that afterwards they would suffer a big downfall’.59 Juan Diez [Belchite 1492] was born a Christian, but clarified that ‘it is true that as a young man, his father had become a Christian in the time of Saint Vincent Ferrer’.60 However, even these items are mere snippets of information about the event rather than significant indicators of its cause. Less speculation, of course, is required regarding the background of the third group of conversos represented in the trial records. The neophyte often supplied the court with the year of his or her conversion, but there are still some large omissions in the trial records, such as what it might have been that motivated that particular person to reject Judaism in favour of Christianity. Cases like that of Francisco de Torres [Epila 1488], who converted in order to marry an Old Christian woman, are all too rare. Francisco maintained that his Jewish friends and relatives tried to convince him that he had made the wrong decision, and

59

AHPZ, Leg. 22, no. 7, fol. 1 v : ‘que los que se convertiryan a la fe de Jesu Cristo que venian tiempos que se farian muy ricos y que despues havian de dar una gran cayda’. 60

AHPZ, Leg. 15, no. 4, fol. 16 r: ‘es verdat que su padre seyendo moço se fizo cristiano en el tiempo de Sant Vicent Ferrer’.

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even began putting some money together for a fund to send him to ‘Judaea’, telling him that ‘the Jewish law and the law of the Messiah is holy […] and everything of the Christians was nothing but a ceremony and was all joke’.61 We may also speculate that, because Esperanza de Santa Fe [Sariñena 1490] tried to convince her Jewish sister to convert to escape poverty, she too might have seen conversion as a means to an end.62 An interesting but isolated case which gives some insight into the deep sense of regret at the loss of Judaism is found in the trial record of Berenguer de Torellas [Zaragoza 1490], who converted to Christianity later in life. A witness told the inquisitors that, in 1476, a Jewish friend was entertaining a visitor at his house when Berenguer unexpectedly arrived at the door. At first the visitor was unwilling to answer Berenguer’s inquiry into his origins, but he was assured by his host that the converso would not betray his confidence. The mysterious stranger, explained the Jew, was actually a Christian who had converted to Judaism and was on his way to France. Berenguer responded positively and somewhat emotionally to the news by giving him money for the journey and expressing his disappointment that he was unable to flee to France with him: A Jew brought a man to this witness’s house, and this man said that he was Castilian, and that he had been Christian who had become a Jew […] Berenguer de Torrellas, deceased, […] came in […] and […] asked the man ‘where are you from?’ and the man said nothing, and the Jew said to the man; ‘It is fine to tell Torrellas where you are from and where you are going, and he [Torrellas] will even give you advice about where to flee’. And then the Jew said that he had been Christian [… ] and so this witness, and Torrellas gave the man a florin to help him on his journey, Torrellas saying, ‘Take this for the journey, and if I did not have so many responsibilities as I do here, I’d go with you because it’s such a worthy journey’, telling him that he should flee to France.63

61

AHPZ, Leg. 10, no. 9, fol. 13 r: ‘la ley de los Jodios ser santa y que lo de la mesias […] y todo lo de los cristianos que no era sino una cerimonya que todo era burla.’ 62 63

AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 10, fol. 4 r.

AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 18, fol. 45 v: ‘Un judio traxo a casa de este deposante hun hombre que dezia que era castellano, y dezia como havia seydo cristiano y que se havia tornado judio […] vino […] Berenguer de Torrellas, quondam, […] y […] dixo al dicho hombre que “de donde era” y el hombre no dezia nada, y tal judio que esta ally dixo al dicho hombre “bien podia dezir al dicho Torrellas que de donde era y adonde yba y que el le dira por donde havia que huyr” y assi las oras el dicho judio que dezia havia seydo cristiano […] y assi dio este testigo como el dicho Torrellas dio hun florin al dicho hombre para hayuda del camino [… ] “Thomat esto para el camino, que si yo no thuviesse tantos embaraços como tengo aqui, con vos me yria que buen camino levays” y que le dixo que podria huyr por Francia’.

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In another case, María Oluga [Lérida 1490] had apparently expressed her regret that a Moslem had converted to Christianity. A witness said: ‘And the woman [Maria] said […] bad luck […] that he had become Christian […] because he would not die in his law, showing that she was annoyed that he had turned Christian’.64 Greater detail about a particular individual’s conversion may be ascertained from the post-1492 trial records which deal exclusively with Jews who converted as a result of the Expulsion. Until 1499, Spanish Jews who converted overseas and returned home were able to buy back their goods for the same price as they had sold them.65 It was generally assumed that the individual had not been able to adjust to the unfamiliar environs their new country of residence and had naturally desired to return to his or her country of birth. In 1492, Nicolás Aragónés [Alagón 1510] and his family, for example, left Spain and went to Naples. There he was baptized, but he quickly regretted his actions and seriously considered going to Tunisia to return to the Jewish fold. Admitting in a confession that he had been extremely unsure of his new faith for a twelvemonth period, he continued by assuring the inquisitors that, after a year, he had believed in the faith of Jesus Christ like any other Christian (‘after that he has believed and believes in it like any other Christian’).66 He then decided to return to Aragón, presumably without his family, and set himself up as a weaver. In contrast, Dionisio San Juan [Biel 1514] and his family chose to stay in 1492 and underwent baptism at the monastery of San Juan de la Peña. They moved to Biel, a small town in the Aragonese Pyrenees, where it appears that they tried to start a new life as Christians. Dionisio confessed that thence, life became difficult, for he was treated as an outcast by the Old Christians of Biel. As a result, he ran away to Huesca with a converso friend, leaving his wife and son in Biel: ‘and seeing how badly he was treated for having become a Christian […] he went […] with another New Christian […] with the intention of going to live

64 AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 16, fol. 32 r: ‘E dixo la dicha muxer […] que enora mala […] para se havia tornado cristiano […] por que no moria en su ley, demonstrando que le pesava porque se havia tornado cristiano’. 65

Mark Meyerson, ‘Aragonese and Catalan Jewish Converts’, Jewish History, 6 (1992), 130–49 (p. 133). 66

AHPZ, Leg. 20, no. 7, fol. 8 v: ‘despues aqua que ha creydo y crehe en el como otro cristiano’.

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somewhere else’.67 Eventually returning to Biel, the two men tried to do business in Zaragoza but encountered opposition from the Old Christians. It is hardly surprising that, given the antipathy encountered by Dionisio, he confessed that for a month or so after his conversion he had deeply regretted his decision to stay in Spain.68 From these few post-1492 examples, there emerges a sense of regret, longing, and general confusion in terms of conversion from one religion to another. This is hardly surprising given the conditions and choices faced by the individuals as a result of the Expulsion. What is also evident, not only from these particular trial records, but from those not yet cited, is that, whether dealing with neophytes or veteran conversos, the inquisitors’ questions and conduct throughout the trials indicate that they were far more interested in the religious behaviour of the defendant after he or she had been received into the Church, rather than presuming to judge whether the conversion had been genuine or not. When the tribunal of Zaragoza was established in 1484, Old Christians, Jews, Moslems, and New Christians had been living together in the Crowns of Aragón and Castile for little less than a century. From the mid-1400s onwards, violent unrest between Old and New Christians had been increasing with alarming frequency across the Peninsula, the latter resenting the former for what appeared to be a disproportionate amount of power held by a small section of the population with Jewish ancestry. When King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella were informed that a number of conversos in their realm were suspected of Judaizing, their solution was to establish an ecclesiastical tribunal modelled on the medieval Inquisition of Pope Gregory IX. However, soon after Pope Sixtus IV granted them permission to establish an Inquisition in Seville, it became apparent that the Reyes Católicos sought to take control of the new Inquisition. The monarchs, rather than the Pontiff, would appoint the inquisitors even though it would remain an ecclesiastical tribunal. Control of the Inquisition’s confiscations would be in State, rather than Church, hands. These measures were perhaps the beginning of a political and economic process of centralization which would come to characterize the modern state of Hapsburg Spain.

67

AHPZ, Leg. 12, no. 10, fols 10 r –11v: ‘e visto tan mal hera tratado por haverse fecho cristiano […] que fue […] con otro cristiano nuevo […] con intencion de yrse a bivyr a otro parte’. 68

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The Post-1482 Process

O

ne of the fundamental differences between the Inquisition of the Middle Ages and the institution established in Spain at the end of the fifteenth century is that, while the latter also comprised a number of tribunals, each tribunal was ultimately answerable to a central governing body in Madrid, called the Consejo de la Suprema y General Inquisición (Council of the Inquisition). While it is true, and to be expected, that the individual courts adapted themselves to the particular environment in which they operated by developing and updating their own procedural manuals, it can be argued that each one did so within a strictly controlled legal framework. The central regulating body set up by Tomás de Torquemada in 1488 kept a watchful eye over all the tribunals by sending out instructions in the form of cartas acordadas (letters of correspondence), which served to regulate court procedures and encourage a certain conformity. The Council also monitored standards by sending its own inquisitors to inspect tribunals across Castile and Aragón, and ‘in order to control the tribunals, the Suprema applied some of the same methods towards its own officials as were ordinarily applied to heretics’.1 The individual tribunals continuously adapted their conduct as a response to local conditions and to the Suprema’s directive within a standard practice. It is also worth pointing out that the procedures followed in Aragón in 1484 were not entirely identical to those in effect in Castile from 1478–83, because of the changes made by the first inquisitor general, Tomás de Torquemada, in 1484. After his appointment to the post, Torquemada concentrated his efforts on 1

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reforming the Holy Office with a series of modifications which were unanimously approved by the Cortes of Tarazona and a committee (junta) in Seville. Aragón felt the full impact of the changes. These Ordinances (Ordenanzas) sought to improve the penal system with an aim to avoiding the injustices and transgressions committed by Miguel Morillo and Juan de San Martín in Seville, and were revised once by Torquemada in 1488 and again in 1498. In 1500, his successor, Diego de Deza, added further articles, and in 1561 the Inquisitor General, Francisco de Valdés, issued eighty-one clauses to the regulations. The years 1627 and 1630 saw Gaspar Isidro de Argüello collect and print them, with subsequent modifications, under the title Instrucciones del Santo Oficio de la Inquisición, sumariamente, antiguas y nuevas. Almost two hundred years after they had first been written, the regulations were compiled and published in 1667 in Madrid for the last time as Compilación de las Instrucciones. Torquemada may have used two important sources upon which to model his Ordenanzas. It is quite possible that he possessed a copy of the Directorium inquisitorum, written a century earlier by the Aragonese inquisitor Nicolas Eymerich, who incidentally tried to make a heretic of Vincent Ferrer. Another important document which may have influenced Torquemada’s approach was Fray Alfonso de la Espina’s Fortalitium fidei, or Fortress of the Faith for the Comfort of Believers and in Defence of the Holy Faith (1460), a work divided into four volumes which discuss heretics, Jews, Moslems, and demons, and which had already been reprinted by 1485.2 Espina based his observations of the New Christian community in Castile on his own experience of living among them, and he detailed twenty-five transgressions which he believed the New Christians to be committing. At the same time he offered up practical solutions for such problems. The similarity between Espina’s list and the charges levelled at the New Christians of Ciudad Real led Beinart to remark that, ‘If one compares Alonso de Espina’s plan for the solution of the Converso problem with the manner in which it was implemented by Spanish rulers, it appears as a readymade manual for all those in the kingdom of Spain who were to deal with the converts and everything connected with their Jewish way of life’.3 According to the instructions of 1498, each tribunal was to consist of two inquisitors (a jurist and a theologian, or two jurists), who were to be persons of good reputation. There was also to be an assessor (calificador), a constable (alguacil), a prosecutor (fiscal), as well as notaries, secretaries, treasurers, and lay

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2

I only have access to the 1525 edition.

3

Beinart, Conversos on Trial, p. 11.

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servants of the Holy Office.4 The inquisitors were expected to work a six-hour day, attend a daily mass, and wear a uniform of ecclesiastical robes.5 Each official took a solemn vow of secrecy and proceedings were conducted in strict privacy: it was ordained ‘that in each Inquisition there should be a safe, or vault of books, registers and secret papers, with three locks, and three keys’.6 The first inquisitors for Zaragoza, Gaspar Juglar and Pedro Arbués, were obliged to work from six until ten in the morning, and from one until five every afternoon from their headquarters in Zaragoza’s central Plaza del Pilar. After the murder of St Pedro, the court moved from the city centre to the Aljafería, a Muslim fortress and administrative centre on the outskirts of the city.

The Inquisitors’ Manuals As well being required to profess a detailed knowledge of judicial procedures, the friars were naturally expected to understand the nature of the heresy with which they were dealing. As the inquisitors were chosen from the ranks of religious orders, it follows that they were theologians rather than canon lawyers, and if we are to assume that these new appointees were concerned with the proper administration of justice through the Inquisition, then it is logical that they also required the means by which to do so. Over the course of four centuries, the inquisitors created their own body of reference materials from which to draw in their work to extirpate heresy from society. These manuals were copied and recopied into the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and spanned a vast array of sources and subjects, from a collection of legal documents required by the inquisitors to perform their tasks, to detailed descriptions of heretical sects and their beliefs and advice on how to go about interrogating particularly troublesome defendants. Given that a great majority of the inquisitors were Dominicans, it is to be expected that the bulk of these manuals invariably boasted Dominican authorship. The order had been composing manuals of theology and more especially manuals, or summae, on penance for the use of confessors in great

4

Gaspar Isidro de Argüello, Instrucciones del Santo Oficio de la Inquisición, sumariamente, antiguas y nuevas (Madrid: Imprenta Real, 1630 ), fol. 44r. 5 6

Ibid., fol. 36 v.

Ibid., fol. 36 v: ‘que en cada Inquisicion aya una arca, o camara de los libros, registros; y escripturas del secreto, con tres cerradas, y tres llaves’.

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numbers. The fact that they possessed and wrote their own literature meant that the transition from confessors’ manual to inquisitors’ manual was minimal. In fact, it has been suggested that the latter can be understood as ‘a very special form of the manual for confessors’.7 As Mulchahey opines, the Summa confessorum of John of Freiburg circa 1298, is every bit as much a juridicized moral tract as is Bernard Gui’s Practica inquisitionis of circa 1323 […]Even a moment’s consideration reveals the complementarity between the manuals of the Dominican order produced over the course of the thirteenth century for its confessors and those the order put in the hands of its inquisitors.8

The great Spanish canonist and Dominican, St Raymond of Peñafort, who had not only re-arranged and codified the entire canons of the Church, but founded institutes at Barcelona and Tunis for the study of Oriental languages to convert Moslems and Jews, wrote the immense confessors’ manual Summa de casibus poenitentiae and he also composed one of the first practical guides for inquisitors. After the Council of Tarragona had met in 1242, at which Raymond was present, there emerged a practical guide for inquisitors known as the Directorium Raymundi, thus entitled because of the vast contribution made by Raymond towards its compilation.9 The following century saw another Dominican, Bernard Gui, one of the most prolific writers of the Middle Ages and employed as inquisitor of Toulouse, write his Practica officii inquisitionis hereticae pravitatis (c. 1234). This was based on his dealings with the Albigenses and comprised an exposé of the prerogatives and duties of the inquisitors, citations, forms of condemnations, and instructions for examinations. In the late fourteenth century, the inquisitor general of Aragón and yet another Dominican, Nicholas Eymerich, compiled his Directorium inquisitorum, a masterful work of inquisitorial procedure, while conducting his campaign against the heretic Raymond Lully. This was by no means the bulky manual produced by Gui but an elaborate work that encompassed canon law, judicial

7

James Given, Inquisition and Medieval Society: Power, Discipline and Resistance in Languedoc (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997), p. 45. 8

Michèle Mulchahey, ‘Summae inquisitorum and the Art of Disputation: How the Early Dominican Order Trained its Inquisitors’, in Praedicatores inquisitores: The Dominicans and the Medieval Inquisition: Acts of the 1st International Seminar on the Dominicans and the Inquisition, 23–25 February 2002 (Rome: Istituto storico domenicano, 2004), pp. 145–56 (pp. 152, 155). 9

For discussion see Marie Jean Célestin Douais, L’Inquisition: Ses origines, sa procédure (Paris: [n. pub.], 1906), pp. 275–88.

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procedures, and heresy. In the late sixteenth century, Francisco Peña, a Spanish cardinal who had spent his entire adult life in Rome, added a commentary and appendix of canon law documents to the Directorium inquisitorum.10 The book is divided into three parts. The first is a confirmation of Catholicism and definitions of the articles of faith, as well as a clarification of what constitutes a heretic; it firmly excludes Jews and non-Christians from this category. The second is an extremely detailed catalogue of possible heresies and errors likely to entrap the faithful, which also points out various inaccuracies of ancient philosophers, including one section entitled ‘Heresies and Errors of Rabbi Moysis’: ‘But he said that the Trinity was not divine, nor was any kind of multitude, either in actual fact or in theory; and he aggressively mocks Christians who believe that a trinity of people is divine’.11 The third section explains the sixty-nine different heresies and their sects, and includes the Waldensians, Manichees, Albigensians, Pseudo-Apostles, and Judaizers. This work became the ‘master work of inquisition procedure, which replaced all the previous attempts, and would become the sure guide for all the judges in the question of faith’. 12 Thus, by the time the Inquisition was established by Isabella and Ferdinand, there existed a vast body of reference material, mostly composed by the Order of Preachers, which was available to new inquisitors such as Pedro Arbués (who, incidentally, was not a Dominican, but made his religious profession at Zaragoza) and Dominican Gaspar Juglar. Although Henry Kamen believes that the inquisitors possessed minimal understanding of Jewish religious practices in the early years of the Inquisition in Spain, there is abundant documentary evidence to suggest the contrary. It is clear that the inquisitors had at their disposal those manuals which described the religion in impressive detail, and these texts no doubt greatly facilitated the inquisitor’s ability to distinguish real Jewish practices from the confused or totally fictitious testimonies of many Old

10

He remarked on differences between Spanish and Roman procedures in an extensive commentary to the Directorium (Rome: [n. pub.] 1570) and in his Instructio, seu praxis inquisitorum, published in Cesare Carena, Tractatus de Officio Sanctissae Inquisitonis et modo procedendi in causis fidei etc (Bologna: Cremonae, 1641). 11

Nicolas Eymerich, Directorium inquisitorum: cum commentariis F. Peniae (Litterae apostolicae diversorum summorum Pontificum pro officio inquisitionis) (Venice: Marcum Antonium Zalterium, 1595), fol. 240 r : ‘Negavit tamen in divinis esse Trinitatem, & quamcunque multitudinem re, uel ratione; & tuperans ui deridet Christianos qui credunt in divinarum personarum trinitatem’. 12

Jaime de Puig i Oliver, ‘Nicolás Eymerich, un inquisidor discutido’, in Praedicatores inquisitores, pp. 545–93 (p. 545).

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Christian witnesses. One such document is currently conserved in the Archivo Histórico Nacional in Madrid and has been published in full by Enrique Cantera Montenegro.13 This comprehensive guide to Jewish practices as adhered to by Jews (not crypto-Jews) is employed by historians as an accurate portrayal of social and religious life in the aljamas of fifteenth-century Spain. It gives both the Hebrew and Spanish names of holidays, explains when and how they were observed, and informs the reader about the biblical and theological background to Jewish ceremonies. The author even launches into a detailed explanation of Jewish prayers such as the Shema and Amidah, and details a few lines in both Hebrew (written in Roman characters) and their Castilian translations.14 It is reasonable to assume that this manual, or one very similar to it, would have been used by the inquisitors Arbués, Juglar, and their successors in Zaragoza. The inquisitors may even have possessed a copy of a document entitled Repertorium inquisitorum, written by an anonymous fifteenth-century inquisitor of Valencia in 1484. There is also evidence that they might have received substantial assistance from the Jewish communities, some of which may have been particularly antagonistic towards the conversos, whom they saw as traitors. Such help is demonstrated in the document published by Ramon Santa María in the Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia.15 Again relating to Valencia, Rabbi Mosé Abenamías set out and clearly explained the significance of Jewish holidays and rituals in a section entitled ‘Explanations of the Ceremonies of the Jewish Rites by a certain Jewish Rabbi’ (Declaraciones de las ceremonias de los ritos judaycos por cierto judio Rabbi). His advice to the inquisitors was to ‘be very aware of the ceremonies that the Jews usually practise, in order to hold audience with the accused, to find out if the truth is being discussed, and help the accused to reveal all about the ceremonies which he most normally practises’.16 Lastly, it has been suggested that Torquemada was personally given a copy of the Censura et confutatio libri Talmud. This was an explanation of the Talmud and various Judaizing practices according to a certain Dr Antonio de Avila and Dominican

13

Enrique Cantera Montenegro, Aspectos de la vida cotidiana de los judíos en la España medieval (Madrid: Uned, 1998). 14

Ibid., p. 222.

15

Ramon Santa Maria, ‘Ritos y costumbres de los hebreos españoles’, BRAH, 22 (1893), 181–88. 16

Ibid., p. 181: ‘muy advertido de las ceremonias que suelen hacer los judíos, para poder la audencia con el reo, y enterarse si trata verdad, y ayuda al reo á enteramente diga todas las ceremonias y son las que se siguen las más ordinarias’.

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Fray Alonso Enríquez, whose aim, according to Father Fidel Fita, was to justify the presence of Jewish witnesses in the Inquisition’s courts.17 The existence of these documents suggests that the Inquisition took seriously its task of properly identifying Jewish practices among the accused. With documentation such as this at their disposal, it appears that the inquisitors would have possessed a more than adequate grasp of the rituals and ceremonies of Judaism than is conceded by many scholars. Furthermore, the inquisitors were required to be well-educated, hard working men of good repute and, as clearly stated in the Instrucciones, they should ‘work hard, and endeavour to be in agreement and in good accordance, because the honesty of their office requires it so’.18 It seems unlikely that the Inquisition would have employed capable and learned men, or have placed them in a fully functional judicial environment without supplying them with vital information about the nature of the particular heresy which they were required to pursue.

The Prosecution While the Ordenanzas were written for the purpose of instructing the inquisitors and regulating procedures, it must be stressed that they were describing an ideal scenario which may have differed considerably from actual situations. As with the procedure of the heresy Inquisition, once established in the town, the inquisitors would preach a sermon exhorting all those guilty of heresy to step forward and be reconciled during a period of grace, usually of thirty days.19 Those who confessed within the given time were absolved, reconciled, and perhaps given some penance. The entire Christian community would have gathered in the local church to listen to the sermon, which was accompanied by High Mass, and any absence would undoubtedly have been cause for suspicion. The congregants would also have been compelled to listen to an Edict of Grace, a procedure retained from the medieval Inquisition and which was later replaced by Edicts of Faith. This sermon detailed the ways in which the Judaizer might have observed, or be observing, Jewish rituals. Armed with this material, Old and 17

Fidel Fita, ‘La Inquisición de Torquemada: Secretos íntimos’, BRAH, 23 (1893), 365–434 (pp. 386–91). 18

Isidro de Argüello, Instrucciones del Santo Oficio, fol. 31v: ‘que los Inquisidores deve mucho trabajar, y procurar por que estén en concordia y buena conformidad, porque la honestad del oficio que tienen assi lo requiere’. 19

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Ibid., fol. 26 v.

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New Christians returned to their homes under oath to denounce any acquaintance, neighbour, or family member who might fit the profile of a Judaizer as painted in the edict. Unfortunately, there does not appear to be an extant document of this nature from the Zaragoza tribunal or surrounding districts from the period 1484–1515. There is, however, a sermon read out by the inquisitors of Valencia in 1484, currently located in the Archivo Histórico Nacional in Madrid, which has been transcribed and published by Bernardino Llorca.20 It is not unreasonable to assume that the edicts read out in Aragón would have been extremely similar, if not identical (except for the language), to the Valencian document, given the permanent association of the kingdoms of Aragón and Valencia with the Crown of Aragón. Although originally intended to assist the populace with identifying Jewish customs, it has been suggested that ‘later Edicts of Grace […] not only kept the Christian populace alert to signs of heresy but also ironically provided crypto-Jews with a kind of instruction manual in the basic concepts and practices of their faith’.21 However, this statement has been refuted outright by Alpert, who comments that: The crypto-Jews did not need the Church’s list of Jewish practices, announced in public to encourage denunciations, in order to learn them. Even assuming that the description of Jewish practices published by the Inquisition did help to teach Jewish family groups how to practise their Judaism, it would still signify that the latter wanted to know more than they could learn from their own resources and that their Jewish consciousness was strong though their knowledge was weak.22

After the Edict was read out, the court opened its doors and began to compile two books, noting down the responses of both the accused and general populace by way of confessions (libro de confesiónes) and testimonies (libro de testigos). Although the edicts promised clemency for a period of three months, it has been suggested that they ‘contained a trap for the unwary in the shape of a demand for a complete and full confession of all Mosaic practices that they had ever engaged in at any point in their lives as well as names of others whom they knew performed the same acts’.23 The reliance upon the community as informers was

20 Bernadino Llorca, ‘La Inquisición española en Valencia’, Analecta Sacra Tarraconensia, 11 (1935), 37–61. 21

Gitlitz, Secrecy and Deceit, p. 20.

22

Michael Alpert, Crypto-Judaism and the Spanish Inquisition (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001),

p. 18. 23

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Haliczer, Inquisition and Society, p. 59.

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vital for the functioning of the court; the nature of the crime, heresy, meant that the Inquisition had no other recourse but to use the friends and family of an accused. Those closest to the suspect became the main sources of information, because it was more likely that they themselves had witnessed, assisted, or even encouraged the individual to perform the act of heresy. The employment of family members as prosecution witnesses was deemed necessary by Eymerich, who seemed to have believed that the force of the truth would encourage friends and relatives to denounce one other to the tribunal, despite their natural desire to protect their loved ones: We declare that the testimony of domestic witnesses, that is, of parents, friends and servants of the accused should be accepted against him, and not in his support. This difference, on the one hand, is based on the presumption that the force of the truth is the only thing that can urge this type of witness to testify against the accused, and on the other it has to be suspected that their close ties with him will naturally persuade them to lie in order to free the accused […] The testimonies of these witnesses are however, very necessary because more often than not, the crime of heresy is committed within the walls of the home. Diximos que se admitía la declaracion de los testigos domesticos, esto es de los parientes, amigos y criados del acusado contra él, y no en su abono, y se funda esta diferencia en que por una parte se presume la fuerza de la verdad es lo unico que puede impeler á esta especie de testigos á que declaren contra el acusado, y por otra se ha de sospechar que los vinculos que con él los estrechan los persuaden naturalmente á que mienten por librar al reo […] Las declaraciones de estos testigos son por otra parte muy necesarias, porque las mas veces se comete el delito de heregía dentro de las paredes domesticas.24

This explains in part the large number of individuals, at least in Zaragoza, who were brought forward as prosecution witnesses to testify against their kin, but it remains difficult to accept that the force of the truth was the real motivation behind these apparent acts of treachery. In this respect it was society which responded to the heresy by testifying against the conversos. While the Aragonese inquisitors operated within a distinct legal framework which remained largely unchanged between 1484–1515, the doctrinal nature of the trials meant there was a complete lack of physical evidence to present in court. This naturally ensured that if, say, the trial had been for a murder (habeas

24

Nicolas Eymerich, [Directorium inquisitorum] Manual de inquisidores, para uso de las inquisiciones de España y Portugal, ed. by José Marchena (Barcelona: Fontmara, 1974), p. 27. This is a translation of a French compendium of Eymerich’s Directorium into Spanish in 1821 by José Marchena and is a summary of Eymerich’s Directorium (1595), fol. 613.

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corpus), the prosecution witnesses were simply substituted for the body. Likewise, the inquisitors had no choice but to use witnesses as evidence and they could only rely on witness testimonies and the confession of the accused to make their judgement. In the trial records from the Zaragoza tribunal, family members were often key witnesses, whose testimonies might have helped send the defendant to his or her death. The trial records from the collection reveal that a large proportion of witnesses came from the Jewish quarter, the inquisitors clearly understanding the value of Jewish friends, family, and neighbours and their close relationship with the conversos. In his Censura et confutatio libri Talmud, Antonio de Avila argues that the testimony of Jews against these anussim should be accepted by the Inquisition, even though some individuals were trying to convince the monarchs otherwise, writing: In VIIa, the sons and grandsons of Jews who convert to Christianity are called anuzes, whom the Jews are bound to bring back to Judaism; if they are willing to believe in the law of Moses, although they are not able to practise it, they [the Jews] will not kill them, and will work to bring them back to Judaism. It can be deduced from this that Jews are valid witnesses against such men, since they are obliged to protect their lives and not to kill them, which contradicts those who are making instigations amongst most majestic kings.25

The tribunal of Zaragoza incorporated a Jewish oath into the trial proceedings, the witness swearing by the law of Moses to tell the truth, ‘juravit decem precepta legis Moysi, de veritate dicenda’.26 In general, the Jews of Aragonese towns and cities were located in three different urban areas: 1. el barrio, or the neighbourhood which is referred to as the aljama (Jewish quarter — derived from Arabic); 2. el calle (the street), where Jews had not formed an aljama;27 and 3. an area where isolated Jews were found living among

25

‘La Inquisición de Torquemada: Secretos íntimos’, ed. by Fidel Fita, BRAH, 23 (1893), 365–434: ‘In VIIa, quod filii et nepotes Iudeorum qui conuertuntur ad Christianitatem dicintur anuzes, quos Iudei obligantur rreducere ad Iudaismum, et si uelint credere legem Moysi, licet eam non possint agere, non interficient eos, quia sunt anuzes, et laborabunt ad rreducere eos ad Iudaismum. Unde noscitur quod Iudei ualent pro testibus contra tales (I) quia obligantur ad conseruandam uitam eorum et non ad interficiendum, quod est contra instigantes apud serenissimos rreges’.

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26

AHPZ, Leg. 10, no. 10, fol. 7v .

27

A calle could, of course, exist where there was no judería.

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Christians.28 In her extensive research on the judería (Jewish quarter) of Zaragoza, Asunción Blasco Martínez has concluded that there were two Jewish quarters in existence by the fifteenth century.29 Although Jews were required by law to live within the walls of the judería, it appears that, from 1332 onwards, the Jews of Zaragoza were able to rent out buildings in the Christian areas for their businesses and even resided there outside their own barrio.30 The judería cerrada or ‘closed Jewish quarter’ was delineated by the Roman wall and had been originally colonized by the first Jews to arrive in the third century. The ‘New judería’ may possibly be dated to the thirteenth century. In 1256, Jaime I gave the cofradía (guild) of Christian shoemakers the area called Coso de Zurradores, but they moved away because of the bad smell; Jews began to settle there as early as 1273.31 By 1369, there were three hundred and thirteen Jewish houses.32 In fifteenth-century Zaragoza, the population consisted of about two hundred households, and was one of only two large Jewish communities (the other was Calatayud) to have survived the pogroms of the previous century. Surrounding towns such as Albarracín, Daroca, Alcañiz, Montalbán, and Teruel had significantly lower numbers of Jewish residents.33 The high proportion of Jewish witnesses before 1492 demonstrates the reliance upon the Jewish community for any information regarding the New Christians of Aragón. Jews had hitherto been legally prohibited from testifying against Christians and only those individuals accused of committing crimes against Christianity could fall under the jurisdiction of the Inquisition. It appears that the prohibition was waived in Aragón as well as in Toledo where, in 1485, the inquisitors made the rabbis swear to punish any Jews who failed to denounce Judaizers.34 On 10 December 1484, the Jews of Aragón were read the following decree:

28

David Romano, ‘Rasgos de la minoría judía en la Corona de Aragón’, in Xudeos e Conversos na Historia, ed. by Carlos Barros, 2 vols (Ribadavia: Centro de Estudios Medievais de Ribadavia, 1991), II, pp. 221–46 (p. 228). 29

Asunción Blasco Martínez, La judería de Zaragoza en el siglo XIV (Zaragoza: Institución Fernando el Católico, 1988).

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30

Ibid., p. 13.

31

Ibid., p. 98.

32

Ibid., p. 11.

33

Edwards, ‘Religion, Constitutionalism and the Inquisition’, p. 136.

34

Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition, p. 71.

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Chapter 3 For the successful investigation of the Inquisition, the inquisitors believe it necessary to be informed of some things by certain Jews of this aljama. For that reason, we order and compel the rabbi and the sacristan of the synagogue and any other Jews, by all means of justices, that when they are questioned, they tell the whole truth about everything .35

It was reported by Rabbi Levi aben Sento in 1492 that the inquisitors had addressed themselves to the residents of the Zaragoza aljama, stressing that it was both their legal and moral duty to come forward with information and assist in the inquiry: The inquisitors preached three sermons on three Saturdays, during which they exhorted the Jews to tell them everything that they knew about the Christians who had Judaized or committed heresies, and the aforesaid gentlemen […] would forgive them if they did so, their only guilt being in not having told them before.36

Other tribunals in Aragón also used Jewish testimonies. Edwards has concluded that at least thirteen Jewish witnesses came before the Teruel tribunal as prosecution witnesses, two of whom were rabbis and the rest of whom were very active members within the aljama.37 The reliance on the community for evidence was by no means satisfactory, for in their apparent quest for the ‘truth’ the inquisitors opened a veritable Pandora’s Box, imposing the subjectivity of quarrels, hatred, envy, human weaknesses, and the dross of everyday life into a strictly legal, and theoretically objective, environment. Yet, the fact that it was providing the perfect opportunity for revenge did not entirely escape the Inquisition’s attention. Torquemada’s Ordenanzas state that ‘the Inquisitors punish and give public

35 Fritz Baer, Die Judem im christlichen Spanien: Erster Teil, Aragon und Navarra, 2 vols (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1929–36), I, p. 91: ‘Los inquisidores de la heretica pravidat, para la buena prosecucion de la inquisicion, han menester ser informados de algunas cosas de ciertos jodios dessa aljama, por ende nos mandamos que al rabi e sacristan de la sinoga e otros qualesquier jodios […] los apremieys por todas las vias de justicia, para que digan la verdat de todo lo que seran interrogados’. 36

Baer, Die Judem im christlichen Spanien, II, p. 396: ‘Los senores inquisidores hizo tres sermones en tres sabados, en los quales por muchas razones exorto a los judios que dixiesen todo lo que sabian de los christianos que hoviesen judayzado o hereticado, y que los dichos sennores […] les perdonarian, si asi lo fazian, la culpa que tenian en no haver lo dicho ante’. 37

John Edwards, ‘Jewish Testimony to the Spanish Inquisition: Teruel 1484–1515’, REJ, 143 (1984), 333–50 (p. 335); repr. in John Edwards, Religion and Society in Spain, c. 1492 (Aldershot: Variorum, 1999), pp. 333–50 (Essay XII).

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punishment to those who falsely testify according to the law’.38 There is ample evidence that this particular modus operandi was adhered to by the inquisitors in Zaragoza, as demonstrated in the trial record of a Jewish witness, Joná Levi [Zaragoza 1490], who was accused of lying in his accusation against converso Juan de Ciudad.39 In Juan de la Cavallería’s trial record [Zaragoza 1486], the decision to torture a servant girl for giving false testimony led her to admit that she had lied in her first deposition.40 As well as using the community as the main body of evidence, the inquisitors also took great pains to keep the identity of the witnesses secret. This is one of the few devices mentioned by Netanyahu, who felt that the secret identities of the witnesses severely impeded the event of a fair trial: ‘Little value, I thought, could be attached to evidence originating in witnesses who remained anonymous and could not be cross examined by the accused’.41 As early as 1254, Pope Innocent IV issued a bull in response to the inquisitors’ requests that the witnesses’ names be kept a closely guarded secret. In 1298, Pope Boniface VIII partially revoked the ruling, authorizing that names could be revealed if there was no immediate danger to them.42 The Aragonese New Christians made clear their dissatisfaction with this ruling to King Ferdinand during the struggle to extend the inquest into Aragón. Beinart still considers such a measure to have prohibited the rendering of a just sentence by proposing that, in concealing their identities, the prosecution witnesses could be called in as defence witnesses without the family having any idea that they had already testified for the prosecution. ‘Thus’, he maintains, ‘did the Inquisition create a situation in which inviolable judicial principles were flouted’.43 In this respect, the lawyer for the defence was at a substantial disadvantage because he simply did not know who the accusers were. By the same token, it was in the Inquisition’s best interest to protect its witnesses from friends and families of the accused, who might decide to punish the informers:

38

Isidro de Argüello, Instrucciones del Santo Oficio, fol. 35 v: ‘que los dichos Inquisitores castiguen y den pena publica conforme a derecho a los testigos que hallaren falsos’.

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39

AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 5r.

40

BnF esp. 81 (1488–91), fols 27 r–47 r.

41

Netanyahu, The Origins of the Inquisition, p. xiii.

42

Beinart, Conversos on Trial, p. 128.

43

Ibid., p. 130.

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Chapter 3 The most common danger was the attempt by someone with a grudge to even a score by informing on a converso. Sometimes that converso might in fact have been a judaizer, but if it could be proven that the information was provided with malicious and harmful intent, it was to be disqualified […]. Unfortunately, it was not always possible to prove the existence of malice, even if the suspicion existed, so this system was far from flawless.44

Esteban de Ariza [Zaragoza 1487] beat his wife when she threatened to testify against him; despite (or because of ) the abuse, she gave evidence which undoubtedly played a significant part in her husband’s eventual condemnation to death.45 The brother of Luis de Santángel was forced to do penance for attempting to persuade witnesses to testify in his favour. One witness, Felipe Dadahuesca, a converso who testified in a great many proceedings against conversos from Barbastro, denied having testified against his New Christian acquaintances when threatened by them while their various trials were proceeding.46 Bernardo Remírez [Daroca 1488] desperately tried to find out who had been testifying against him, with the prosecution claiming that he had ‘threatened witnesses and asked who had testified in the Inquisition’.47 He also said in his confession that ‘outside prison he [Luis de Ruis] looked for false witnesses to testify against the accused’.48 It therefore appears that the Inquisition’s reason for concealing names was justified insofar as the Zaragoza tribunal was concerned, and was more than just a device introduced for the advantage of the prosecution.49 Nicolas Eymerich had studied this procedure in the previous century, stating that ‘the names of the witnesses should never be published as it always results in great risk’.50 Another reason for concealing the names was that the Inquisition needed to bring the defendant’s accomplices into custody as soon as they were named. If their identity had been revealed before

44

Melammed, Heretics or Daughters of Israel?, p. 11.

45

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 6, fol. 17 r.

46

AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 3, fol. 13 r.

47

AHPZ, Leg. 10, no. 10, fol. 17 r: ‘amezado a testigos e inquirido quien deposava en la Inquisicion’. 48

Ibid., fol. 28 v: ‘fuera de la carcel le buscava testimonios falsos para que deposassen contra el dicho denunciado’. 49 John Tedeschi, The Prosecution of Heresy: Collected Studies on the Inquisition in Early Modern Italy (Binghamton, NY: Medieval & Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1991), p. 139. 50

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Eymerich, Manual de inquisidores, p. 28.

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they were apprehended, this may have undermined the effectiveness of the system. After the material contained in the two books had been evaluated, and if the assessors decided that it warranted a case, a hearing (audencia) was then mandated to take place within three days following the arrest. Norman Roth expressed his concern that the inquisitors would arrest the accused on the flimsiest of evidence, and that ‘seldom if ever is there any corroborating testimony of more than one witness to these “crimes”’.51 However, a standard item in the judicial procedure was the requirement for two eyewitnesses for conviction.52 The evidence comprising the denunciations (denuncias) and attestations (testificaciones) was then examined by theologians, who decided whether or not the case was worth pursuing. The defendant, therefore, did not seem to be entirely at the mercy of the inquisitor’s emotional or subjective disposition, nor was he or she subject to a frivolous arrest upon mere suspicion. After the denunciation and secret investigation, they were imprisoned only if: 1. five witnesses with satisfactory proof testified against the accused; 2. the calificadores agreed upon the heretical statements or actions with the support of the bishop or inquisitors; 3. the approval of the Suprema was given; and 4. two doctors examined the defendant’s mental condition. After the charges were made, the defendant was arrested and an inventory was made of the sequestered goods. The confiscation of goods appears to have been a popular grievance among some individuals, who complained that the Inquisition was only interested in amassing wealth. Felipe de la Cavallería [Zaragoza 1486] was alleged to have said: ‘the Inquisition does not do any good, and rather than a good aim it has a bad one; to rob and take away the conversos’ goods […] The inquisitors were bad men and thieves […] and those burned by the Inquisition were of better conscience and better Christians than them, and Pedro de Burrea, condemned, had gone to paradise’.53 Catalina Sánchez [Zaragoza 1486] also maintained that ‘the inquisitors have done nothing but taken peoples’ goods’.54

51

Roth, Conversos, Inquisition and the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain, p. 218.

52

Haliczer, Inquisition and Society, p. 67.

53

BnF esp. 84 (1485–96), fol. 307r: ‘la Inquisicion no se hazia bien ny buen fin sino a mal fin y por robar y quitar los bienes a los confesos y que los inquisidores eran malos hombres y ladrones […] y que de mexor conciencia y mejores cristianos eran los que quemavan por la Inquisicion que no ellos y Pedro de Burrea, codempnado, havya ido a parayso’. 54

AHPZ, Leg. 7, no. 5, fol. 4 v: ‘los senores Inquisidores no lo han hecho sino por tomarle los bienes’.

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It was no secret that the Inquisition was self-funding and had to pay its own costs; such a practice became a main bone of contention between the monarchs and the pope.55 Once charged, the defendant appeared before the judges and swore to tell the truth. He or she was informed of the charges and then given the choice to confess if guilty and thus be reconciled. If the accused was absent, the prosecutor requested a summons to be issued in order that the fugitive appear to answer the charges. If the request to confess was met with refusal, the defendant was given another hearing after ten days, and if still obstinate a third session was granted. Then began the interrogation (interrogatorio), after which the accused was read the arraignment. This gave the accused (reo) a chance to reply to each article, while the notary recorded everything that was said. If there were blatant discrepancies between the interrogations and the testimonies, or if there was reason to assume that the defendant’s earlier confession, providing one had been made, was incomplete, then the decision to torture was taken. One of Torquemada’s revisions was to limit such a measure, re-establishing torture as a means of obtaining absolute proof of what was already established rather than a means of punishment. ‘From Eymerich on, jurists resurrected the ancient teachings of the Roman legist Ulpian, that “torture is a fragile and dangerous thing and the truth frequently is not obtained by it. For, many defendants because of their patience and strength are able to spurn the torments, while others would rather lie than bear them, unfairly incriminating themselves and also others”’.56 Another concern about the system, voiced by Netanyahu, is that torture simply forced people to confess to crimes against the faith that they had not committed.57 Yet, it should be noted that the decision to torture a defendant was not taken lightly, and the accused had to be admonished three times before being submitted to the session. As Kamen notes, ‘though permitted by the Instructions of 1484, in the early years [torture] seems to have been superfluous and was seldom used. Abundant testimony, from Edicts of Grace and from witnesses, was more than sufficient to keep the judicial process functioning’.58 Indeed, the examples among the trial records from the Zaragoza tribunal show that torture was used relatively sparingly. From ninety-four trial records there are only ten

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55

Melammed, Heretics or Daughters of Israel?, p. 12.

56

Tedeschi, The Prosecution of Heresy, p. 144.

57

Netanyahu, The Origins of the Inquisition, p. xviii.

58

Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition, p. 188.

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clearly identifiable cases in which the decision to torture was taken.59 On the morning of 20 March 1490, María Jiménez [Daroca 1488], imprisoned in the Aljafería, was subjected to one session of the toca (water torture) between eleven and twelve o’clock.60 She confessed to having observed the sabbath and Yom Kippur on various occasions. On 24 March she then denied the confession, saying that there was nothing true in what she had confessed, except that she ate the unleavened bread; in everything else it was untrue. If she confessed it, it was because of the torture.61 It was also standard practice that confessions gained under torture, because of the methods employed, were required to be ratified the next day.62 This extra step seems to indicate that the inquisitors understood that confessions made under such extreme circumstances were far from reliable and that it was expected that the individual would confess to anything and everything while being stretched on the rack or subjected to water torture. Juan Diez [Belchite 1492] confessed during the ratification that he lied during his torture session and had admitted to far more misdemeanours than confessed by him during the period of grace: ‘And first he was asked if what he had confessed in the torture was true, he answered no, and that he had not done any more than what he had confessed to in his spontaneous confessions’.63 While being subjected to the rack, Juana García [Daroca 1488] confessed to having believed in the law of Moses all her life but when she was read her confession the following day ‘she claimed all of its content to be true, except where she says that she has believed in the law of Moses all her life’.64 The procedure ratifying the confessions made under these

59

These include Nicolas Aragonés, Gabriel de Santángel, Esperandeo de Santángel, Salvador de Santángel, Juan Diez, Brianda de Bardaxí, Juana García, María Jiménez, Juan Doz, and (possibly) Esteban de Ariza. There are also references to conversos Jaime Montesa and Gaspar de la Cavallería having been tortured. 60

The accused was tied down to a rack, his/her mouth was kept forcibly open and a toca or linen cloth was put down his/her throat to conduct water poured slowly from a jar. 61

AHPZ, Leg. 10, no. 7, fol. 27 r: ‘que no havia cosa verdat de lo que havia confessado en la susodicha confesion, salvo lo del pan cotaço, que lo comio, pero que en todo lo otro no es verdad, y que si lo confeso lo dixo por el tormento’. 62

Isidro de Argüello, Instrucciones del Santo Oficio, fol. 29 r.

63

AHPZ, Leg. 15, no. 4, fol. 30 r: ‘Et primo fue pregunatado si era verdat lo que confeso en la tortura, respondyo que no, y que no havya fecho mas de lo que confeso en sus confesiones espontamente’. 64

AHSC, no. 12, fols 17 v and 18 v: ‘y ella dixo seyer verdat todo lo contenido en ella, salvo do dize que toda su vida a creydo la ley de Mosen’.

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circumstances appeared to have been followed closely, at least insofar as the tribunal in question was concerned. The punishments imposed by the Inquisition ranged from light penance and fines to capital punishment. If the prisoner was found guilty of lighter offences, he or she was given penance and made to abjure de levi for a lesser offence or de vehementi for a graver one.65 Lea goes to great lengths to explain the differences between the offences and it appears that he consulted the Instrucciones, Eymerich’s Directorium, manuscript sources, and Llorente when compiling his chapter on the Inquisition’s penalties.66 Normally, the abjuration was accompanied by a fine, confiscation of goods, or the humiliation of having to wear the sanbenito, the Inquisition’s penitential garment. Imprisonment was also an option, and this varied from short- to long-term incarceration. The most common form was known as carcel perpetu or perpetual imprisonment. Despite the implications of this phrase, it rarely meant being imprisoned for life but rather for a number of years.67 The heretic was most often confined to his or her house, or the home of specially chosen and trusted member of the community, as demonstrated in the trial record against Salvadora Salvat [Barbastro 1489 and 1505], who was forced to live out the terms of her sentence incarcerated in the Canero family’s home.68 For the unrepentant, the Inquisition handed over the defendant to the secular authorities, brazo seglar, and he or she was burned at the stake, which, in Zaragoza, usually took place in the central Plaza del Pilar. That the Church had no right to impose the death sentence was reflected in Alfonso X’s Siete Partidas, in which it was decreed that ‘it was the king’s responsibility to see that the death sentence was carried out on heretics and that their property was forfeited’.69 Before being strangled and burned, the heretic was given a final chance to be reconciled to the Church. If the individual had fled, he or she would be tried in absentia, and if handed over to the secular authorities, an effigy of the individual was burned. In the event of the defendant’s death while the court was still in session, or in those trials which were held posthumously, the remains of the dead were exhumed and burned. 65

Isidro de Arguello, Instrucciones del Santo Oficio, fol. 56 v.

66

For a full description of the range of penalties imposed upon those found guilty by the tribunal, see Lea, A History of the Inquisition of Spain, III, pp. 121–29.

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67

Ibid.,

68

AHPZ, Leg. 11, no. 1, fol. 40r.

69

Alpert, Crypto-Judaism and the Spanish Inquisition, p. 15.

III,

p. 159.

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The Defence The ultimate aim of the defence was to prevent the defendant from being burned at the stake. Although an individual was arrested only after the presumption of guilt, they had access to a lawyer, appointed either by the family or, if unnamed, by the court. Insofar as the motives of the latter are concerned, it should be assumed that the oath ‘to defend with zeal and good faith’ sworn by the attorney was taken seriously.70 As previously noted, when compiling his cases, the lawyer for the defence was at a disadvantage because he did not know the identity of the accusers, and the prosecutor had already formulated his arraignment. He did, however, have access to the arraignment as soon as it had been made and could rebut the accusations of the fiscal, disqualify witnesses, ask for new information or hearings, and gain full access to the accused. There are a number of trial records from Zaragoza in which the strategies developed by the counsel were put into practice with greater or lesser degrees of success. The first and foremost method the defence used was to present as many witnesses as possible who could prove the sincerity of the defendant as a devout Catholic through stories, examples, and sightings of their Christian behaviour. The counsel could also maintain that the testimonies of the prosecution witnesses were unsatisfactory because the procurator fiscal had failed to fulfil the legal requirements of stating where and when the supposed crime had taken place. Yet, the strongest and most frequently employed line of defence in the trial records from the tribunal of Zaragoza, and indeed in the majority of cases of Ciudad Real, was to compile a list of possible enemies of the accused and to discredit them. The technique became known as tachas, from the verb tachar, ‘to erase, to cross out’, and it was not uncommon for the defence to call the individuals in question prostitutes or drunkards. In the trial record of María Ferrandez from Tarazona in 1495, for example, the defence correctly guessed the identity of the prosecution witness Anna de Luna, accusing her of being ‘a bad woman, a whore and a loose woman [por mala de su cuerpo] and a gossip who has committed adultery with other men’.71 In a different case, the defence claimed that a Jewish witness who had testified against Bernardo Remírez [Daroca 1488], ‘was and used to be an abominable and slanderous Jew, gambler, thief, renegade, perjurer, liar, handler of robberies and

70 71

Isidro de Argüello, Instrucciones del Santo Oficio, fol. 29 v.

AHPZ, Leg. 16, no. 7, fol. 28 r: ‘una mala mujer, puta e ha cometido adulteryo con otros honbres y por mala de su cuerpo y puta […] y mujer de mala lengua’.

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false deals’,72 while in another instance, a witness called Mosse Jaba was ‘such an enormous enemy of Bernardo, that he worked to have him [Bernardo] killed’.73 Catalina de Arbus from Zaragoza was denounced in 1485 by various prosecution witnesses, and during three separate interrogations she denied all charges of the prosecutor’s arraignment. Catalina chose to employ an attorney to defend her against the charges of Judaizing, and he immediately requested and was granted re-interrogations and examinations of witnesses. He sought to prove that Catalina had been the unsuspecting victim of abundant false testimonies given by ‘principal enemies’ (enemigos capitales). The counsel maintained that one such enemy, Pedro de Moros, was widely known to be a man ‘used to making false testimonies, and in public’,74 and therefore any information he had to offer was spurious. The defence presented a substantial list of tachas which successfully rebutted the prosecution and showed Catalina as having fallen prey to persecution. She was vindicated with an absolution. Undermining the credibility of the witnesses was often the most effective means of rebutting the prosecution, but not necessarily of proving any innocence on the part of the defendant. María de Pisa [Zaragoza 1486] also benefited from the efforts and services of a lawyer, Pedro de Bordalba. In her first interrogation María was asked whether she had any enemies, to which she replied in the positive and suggested the identity of some of them. Again, the defence centred most of its efforts on guessing the identity of and discrediting the prosecution witnesses. It endeavoured to show that María’s terrible past was responsible for the onslaught of false testimonies by sustaining that her murdered first husband, Pedro de Chinillo had ‘treated her very badly in life […] and he associated with ruffians […] and bad women’.75 Moreover, the people who had killed Pedro also wanted to inflict the same fate upon his widow. The defence added that María had married a second time to Luis de Sierra, a good Christian, who was encouraged to write a plea of innocence on behalf of his new wife. The counsel sought out many witnesses prepared to testify that the conversa had never been untrue to her faith since her baptism, and again was able to present an impressive list of tachas.

72

AHPZ, Leg. 15, no. 5, fol. 36 r: ‘fue et era pessimo e malsin jodio, jugador, ladron, renegador, perjuro, mentiroso, tractador de furtos y falsos tractos’. 73

Ibid., fol. 36 r: ‘tan gran enemigo del dicho Bernat, que trabajava por fazerlo matar’.

74

AHPZ, Leg. 7, no. 11, fol. 8 r: ‘acostumbrado hazer testigos falsos y por tal publicamente’.

75

AHPZ, Leg. 7, no. 7, II, fol. 3 r: ‘le daba muy mala vida […] e andaba con rufianes […] e malas muxeres’.

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These strategies, combined with insubstantial evidence, lead to María’s eventual acquittal. Such procedures, which were highly effective in some cases, failed drastically in others. Despite various attempts to discredit the witness in the trial record of Isabel de Santángelo, [Tarazona 1489], she was handed over to the secular court in 1495. Although she denied all charges during her interrogation, the volume of prosecution witnesses and the corroboration of their stories drastically weakened the defence’s case. As a final resort it attempted to use the tactic of diminished responsibility and introduced a small number of people who said that Isabel was old and senile as well as suffering from a mysterious disease which had affected her mental stability. The attorney insisted that Isabel was prone to saying things which she did not really mean, but the judges remained thoroughly unconvinced by this line of argument and she was condemned to death. Jaime Ramon [Calatayud 1488] confessed to some minor offences during the period of grace, which included having eaten Jewish food, but the court was flooded with Jewish witnesses who alleged that, after Jaime’s baptism in around 1473, the new convert had continued to observe mitzvoth (commandments of Jewish religious law). Jaime died during the trial and his son, Juan, responded to the summons to defend him, saying that he often saw his father going to mass and that ‘he should neither be condemned nor exhumed’.76 The defence searched for acquaintances to testify to his genuine Catholicism but it was unable to present any tachas. Local priest Miguel Daça, along with ten other witnesses, testified that Jaime had lived the life of a Christian and had regularly attended mass. While Jaime had been alive he admitted during the interrogation to have often blessed the bread and wine with the Jewish benedictions. Despite the defence’s efforts, the inquisitors ruled that his bones be exhumed and burned. Despite such cases, the exponents of this new school of historical thought argue that this very judicial framework allowed for and even encouraged gross injustices, false accusations, and the condemnation to death of hundreds of innocent victims. Netanyahu and Roth conclude that both before and after 1492, the system was manipulated by the inquisitors to achieve the annihilation of the New Christian accused. Kamen instead argues that, before the Expulsion at least, the inquisitors were rather manipulated by the system and that it was the procedures themselves which prevented the natural course of justice from taking place. He sees no reason ‘to question the sincerity of the inquisitors, or to

76

Page 83

AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 7, fol. 57 r: ‘no deve seyer condempnado ny exhumado’.

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imagine that they maliciously fabricated the evidence’,77 but instead believes that they were ‘instruments of a judicial system in which social pressures and prejudices […] were given virtually unquestioned validity’.78 However, as Michael Alpert points out: It seems, however, highly unlikely that an institution so powerful and so aware of its own role, jealous of its prerogatives and proud of its mission as the Inquisition was, should have allowed itself to be manipulated to the point of imprisoning, torturing, extracting false confessions and false abjurations from genuine Christians — that is, acting out of mockery of its own procedures.79

It is true that, insofar as the Zaragoza tribunal is concerned, the trial records do not appear to have been produced by a system which allowed and encouraged the inquisitors’ own personal vendettas to impede the natural course of justice. Within the trial records we clearly see that the inquisitors did not deviate from the judicial procedures by which they were bound. Their rigorous following of procedures such as the employment of standard questioning, the care that they took to in order to ensure the corroboration of witnesses’ testimonies, their reliance upon manuals to assist in the decision making process, and the sheer attention paid to detail, all sit very uncomfortably with the accusation that the inquisitors themselves were guilty of grand-scale perjury.

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77

Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition, p. 63.

78

Ibid., p. 63.

79

Alpert, Crypto-Judaism and the Spanish Inquisition, p. 19.

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O BSERVING THE S ABBATH

I

n modern Judaism, the sabbath is the weekly day of rest and is observed from before sundown on Friday until after nightfall on Saturday. This was also the case for the Jews of Castile and Aragón in the late fifteenth century. Its importance in Jewish law echoed in the 1484 Valencian Edict of Grace, in which the first heretical act outlined is the accusation that the converso community in Aragón was observing the sabbath according to the precepts of Judaism: Item, if on Friday evenings at home lamps are lit […] in honour of the following Saturday, and if meals are prepared on Friday and eaten on Saturday, so that on Saturday nothing is cooked at home, or if you know or have heard it said that others do or have done this. Item, if Saturdays are observed by abstaining from work and not permitting anyone in the house to work with the intention of observing Mosaic law, or if you know or have heard it said that others do or have done this.1

The Edict specifies that all those who had committed such misdemeanours, or anyone with any knowledge of perpetrators of heresy, should step forward under oath and make their presence known to the Holy Office of the Inquisition. The Edict is briefly echoed and given legal sanction by the 1492 Aragonese Expulsion

1

Llorca, ‘La Inquisición española en Valencia’, pp. 50–53: ‘Item en los diuendres al vespre en casa si han enceses […] per solempnitat del dissapte seguent e si han fet aparellar lo diuendres de menjar per al dissapte, assi que en lo dissapte no’s aparellas res en sa casa, o si sab o ha oyt dir que alguns altres ho fessen o hajen fet. Item si ha celbrat los dissaptes no fen faena no permetre que se’n fes en sa casa ab intencion de seruar la ley mosayca, o si sab o ha oyt dir que alguns altres ho fessen o hajen fet’.

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Decree, in which the Jewish community is accused of ‘seducing’ Christians by ‘making them observe the sabbath’.2 The Edict’s charges are found with frequency among defendants’ confessions, testimonies of prosecution witnesses, and the prosecution’s arraignments. According to these sources of information, the conversos of Aragón were accustomed to keeping Saturday as the holy day by, amongst other things, wearing their best clothes. On Friday evenings they were refraining from work, changing the bed linen, and cleaning and decorating their houses. Moreover, there is further information regarding sabbath practices within the court trial records which is omitted from the Edict of Grace but entirely in keeping with accepted Jewish ritual. Most, if not all, observances reported to the inquisitors concerning the sabbath were domestic in nature, and as a consequence, the majority of the accused were conversas. While the prosecution often included domestic sabbath observances in the arraignments of trial records for both men and women, I have yet to find an example of a man who was accused by witnesses of practising rituals such as changing the bed linen or cleaning the house. Men had little or no role in daily household preparations, and it is hardly surprising that they were rarely accused of domestic observances. When Juan Bach’s daughter [Híjar 1497] was asked if her father observed Saturday and Jewish holidays as she and her mother did, she replied that ‘her father was a man and did no more chores on one day than another’.3 Kindling the sabbath flame on Friday evenings in preparation for shabbat is another example of a female-dominated ritual. Although the prosecution included this precept in trial records of both genders, the confessions of the accused and the testimonies of the prosecution witnesses indicate that the task generally fell into the woman’s domain. In one exception, Jaime de Santángel [Teruel 1484] was accused of lighting the sabbath flame by the prosecutor: ‘the prosecutor says that the accused and criminal has observed Saturday like any Jew […] lighting many small lamps and candles on Friday evening in honour of Saturday’;4 but the prosecution witnesses actually accused his wife, Gracia Ruiz,

2

Rafael Conde y Delgado de Molina, La expulsión de los judíos de la Corona de Aragón: documentos para su estudio (Zaragoza: Institución Fernando el Católico, 1991), p. 42. 3

AHPZ, Leg. 17, no. 8, fol. 8 v: ‘que su padre era hombre que no fazia fazienda mas un dia que otro’. 4

AHPZ, Leg. 3, no. 5, fol. 6 r: ‘dize el dicho procurador fiscal que el dicho reo et criminoso ha guardado el sabado como qualquier judio [...] ençendiendo el viernes a la noche muchas

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of having kept the ritual alive. When no women were present, men were supposed to act in their place, and it is not unreasonable to assume that Jaime might have kindled the flame in the event of his wife’s absence. Generally, however, it appears that many conversas maintained the precept within the home. Those women who ensured that they lit lamps on the eve of the sabbath were, it seems, well aware of the religious significance of their actions. Gracia confessed in Jaime’s trial record that she saw the act as a devotional duty: ‘in lighting the candles on Friday evenings she showed devotion’.5 Clara de Calahorra [Monzón 1487] confessed to having lit ‘more lights than on other evenings […] in honour of Saturday and for Jewish ceremony’.6 In these cases, ‘noches’ should perhaps be translated to mean ‘evenings’, which implies that the candles would be extinguished before going to bed. In Teruel, however, Gracia Ruiz ‘would make sure that the candles lit at dusk on Friday would burn all night’,7 which indeed indicates that she conspicuously attempted to keep the flame burning all night rather than putting it out. Similarly, a former servant of María Jiménez [Daroca 1488] reported that his mistress ‘used to light two lamps and they burned all night’.8 This would have immediately implicated María, for it was surely not normal practice to keep lamps burning the entire night when there was no visible need. Oil lamps were commonly employed in Aragón, as they were less likely to burn out than candles. These lamps were ‘sometimes hanging lamps with seven wicks, to represent the seven days of creation’.9 The numbers of lamps lit in converso homes varied from one to several. In addition, ‘tradition holds that the wick must be made of a substance to which the flame adheres firmly, such as a hatched flax, linen cloth, cotton cloth, and the like, that the lamp must burn oil, and that the light is to be kindled by a woman’.10 From the testimonies and

lampadillas et cresuelos por onra del sabado’. 5

Ibid., fol. 65 r: ‘en el ençender de los candiles los viernes a las noches tenya devocion’.

6

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 11, fol. 13 v: ‘mas lumbres que otras noches […] por honra del sabado y por cerymonya judayca’. 7

Manuel Sánchez Moya and Jasone Monasterio Aspiri, ‘Los judaizantes turolenses en el siglo XV’, Sefarad, 33 (1973), 111–43 (p. 327): ‘procuraba que ardiesen toda la noche los candiles ençendidos al atardecer del viernes’. 8

AHPZ, Leg. 10, no. 7, fol. 12: ‘ençendia dos lampadas y cremavan toda la noche’.

9

Nicholas De Lange, An Introduction to Judaism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 92. 10

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Gitlitz, Secrecy and Deceit, p. 324.

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confessions in Fresina Pastor’s trial record [Huesca 1487], we can conclude that, throughout her life, she resolutely lit lamps on numerous Friday evenings, while a witness ratified Fresina’s confession by adding that she ‘had a lamp in her house which she used to light on Friday evenings’.11 It is possible that she lit a single lamp rather than several in an attempt to disguise the ritual from members of the household or prying neighbours. As one witness mentioned, Fresina’s home was so well illuminated at night that ‘it seemed as if it were midday inside the house’.12 Illuminating the home was, of course, normal practice among all households, but when the accused seemed to make an effort to hide the fact that more lights had been lit, then it became clear that their intention was to honour the sabbath. Alfonso Iniesta [Alfaro 1490] and his wife were also aware of the unwanted attention that additional lights might have attracted, attempting to hide the ritual from their servants. A witness reported that Alfonso and his wife had put seven or eight little lamps on an iron candelabra, similar to one that the witness had seen in a Jewish home, and lit them behind their bedroom door in order to disguise the excess light being generated. On another occasion, Alfonso and his wife were discovered by a servant who unwittingly stumbled across a family gathering on the sabbath eve. The room was lit by ‘some seven or eight little lamps put on the wall, behind a bed cover, and under them [was] a large pile of cushions’.13 Alfonso was apparently trying to ensure against discovery by placing the lamps behind a bed cover paramento de sus cambras, but this precaution was clearly unsuccessful. The witness added that he used to spy on ‘the thing of the little lamps’14 every Friday night, while a fellow servant kept a look out to warn of their employer’s approach. The Teruel conversa Brianda de Santángel also tried to hide her devotion from her servants, one of whom chanced upon Brianda and some Jewish friends enclosed in a brightly illuminated room one Friday evening, testifying: ‘how they had gone into a room on Friday evening

11

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 9, fol. 62 r: ‘tenya una lampara en su casa e que la encendia el viernes a la noche’. 12

Ibid., fol. 60 r: ‘parecio que era medio dia dentro de la casa’.

13

Cabezudo Astraín, ‘Los conversos aragoneses’, p. 277: ‘unas siete u ocho candelillas puestas en la pared, detrás de un paramento de sus cambras, y debajo ellas una gran pila de almadraques’. 14

Page 88

Ibid., p. 277: ‘lo de las candelillas’.

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with Jews and they lit large candles’.15 Gracia Ruiz [Teruel 1486], in contrast, was reluctant to attract any further attention to herself: ‘that in lighting the lamps on Fridays evenings she had devotion, and that she refrained from it so as not to be judged by her companions’.16 Despite the obvious dangers of persisting with this weekly ritual, many of the accused openly employed the services of household staff to assist them in their evening tasks. It was customary to clean the lamps and change the wicks before lighting them, and in many households it was normal for the servants to be responsible for replacing the wicks to ensure a constant flame. The mother of the González sisters [Ciudad Real 1511] ordered that Francesca, her black slave, clean three lamps and put new wicks in them. She said to Francesca, ‘Look to see if the sun has set, then light those lamps’. They were left burning throughout the night and filled with new oil.17 Mayor Alvarez [Zaragoza 1487] was arrested by the Aragonese tribunal whilst fleeing from Portugal with her husband, Alfonso Rodríguez. Both had already been tried and condemned in absentia by the tribunal in Seville in 1480. A servant who had lived with them for five years testified before the Aragonese inquisitors, reporting that Mayor would order her servants to ‘clean four lamps’18 as well asking them to put new wicks in the lamps: ‘and Mayor would make the cotton wicks to put in those lamps, sometimes [she saw how she] put them in the lamps herself’.19 There is also evidence to suggest that some conversas preferred to perform the tasks themselves. Although Angela Salvat [Lérida 1492] employed servants, she confessed that, in days past, she had observed the sabbath ‘whenever she was able […] and Friday afternoons at the time […] she used to light more lights than on others, putting [down] many new lamps […] [in order] to do anything she could

15

Trial record of Brianda de Santángel (1486), printed in Lluís de Santàngel i el seu temps: congrés internacionale, Valencia 5 al 8 d’Octubre 1987 ([Valencia]: Ajuntament de Valéncia, 1992), p. 73: ‘como se havian entrado en una camara el viernes en la noche y ençendieron grandes lumbres en la qual camara estavan con ellos judios’. 16

AHPZ, Leg. 3, no. 5, fol. 65 r: ‘que en el ençender de los cresuelos los viernes a las noches tenya devocion, e que se abstuvyo de ello por no ser judicada de sus companyeros’. 17

Records of the Trials of the Spanish Inquisition, ed. by Beinart, II, p. 164: ‘Mira sy es puesto el sol, ençiende esos candiles’. 18 19

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 13, fol. 5 v: ‘limpiar quatro candiles’.

Ibid., fol 5v: ‘et la dicha Mayor hazia las mechas de algodon para poner en aquellos candiles, algunas vezes veya como ella mesma las ponia en los candiles’.

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in the law of Moses’.20 Jaime de Santa Clara [Zaragoza 1485] confessed that on Fridays his wife would carefully prepare the sabbath lamp by cleaning it and placing it on a specially prepared table. The Santa Clara family came from a wealthy merchant background and employed servants who could just have easily completed the chore; perhaps this menial act resulted from a combination of religious devotion and a desire to draw their servant’s attention away from the habitual nature of the ritual. Conversas from other parts of Spain were performing similar rituals in their homes. Indeed, the testimonies from the Castilian tribunal insofar as most sabbath observances are concerned, can scarcely be differentiated from those of Aragón. María González [Ciudad Real 1511], for instance, tried to conceal the practice from the non-converso members of her household. She confessed that, On the said Friday evenings, soon after sunset this confessant lit two lamps with new cotton wicks, and at other times the said slave Catalina lit them as commanded by this confessant; and most often this confessant cleaned and lit them, putting in new wicks so that the said maidservants and slave would not notice.21

She also used to ensure that two lamps were placed in two rooms, and in each lamp she and her servants ‘would put two wicks in each one [...] and they would not extinguish them until they burnt out naturally’.22 It appears that, with an understanding of the religious importance of the ritual, came a desire to keep the ritual alive by teaching it to successive generations. Mayor Alvarez [Zaragoza 1487] was taught by her sister-in-law to light the sabbath lamps until her husband discovered the practice and apparently forbade her from continuing: ‘she saw her sister-in-law called Isabel doing it on some Friday evenings […] she did it because it was Friday evening and in honour of Saturday […] and she learnt from her sister-in-law […] until her

20

AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 6, fol. 64 v: ‘quanto ha podido [...] y los viernes a las tardes a las vezes [...] encendia mas lumbres que las otras, ponyendo muchas nuevos candiles […] hazer qualquiere cosa que pudiera hazer de la ley de moyssen’. 21

Records of the Trials of the Spanish Inquisition, ed. by Beinart, II, p. 250: ‘E que los dichos Viernes en las noches, tenprano despues de puesto el sol, ençendia este confesante dos candiles limpios con mechas nuevas de algodon, e otras vezes las ençendia la dicha Catalina, esclava, por mandado deste confesante; e que los mas vezes los alimpiava este confesante e los ençendia poniendoles su mechas nuevas, porque las dichas moças y esclava no lo syntiessen’. 22

Ibid., II, p. 223: ‘ponian en cada uno dos mechas […] e que non los mataban hasta que ellos morian de suyo’.

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husband the doctor […] made her cease that ceremony’.23 Sisters Isabel and Catalina Sánchez [Zaragoza 1486] testified in separate trials that they were both instructed by older women in how to kindle the sabbath flame. Isabel simply lit the lamps in obedience to her mother, for ‘being a young girl in her mother’s house [and that] she had to do what her mother ordered her to do, and she used to light the lamps’.24 Clearly, in fifteenth-century Aragón, then, moral instruction was not only being practised in converso homes, but it was actively handed down through the female line. There are many examples of Aragonese conversos who were denounced and confessed to having cleaned the house in anticipation of the sabbath. María Salvat’s crimes, as listed by the prosecution, were that ‘She would lay clean table cloths on Friday evenings’ and ‘she would change into a blouse and other clothing and her children would change [clothes] for Jewish ceremony’.25 Brianda de Santángel was considered to be ‘a Jewess in a big way’ because she was seen to ‘clean and sweep the house’ on Fridays.26 Witnesses said that she and her husband also ‘prepared the house and behaved as if it were a holiday’.27 Pedro Abella [Barbastro 1491] was accused of ‘putting out clean towels on Saturday’.28 In Daroca, María Jiménez used to ensure that her abode was more presentable for the sabbath by thoroughly washing and tidying the house as part of the ritual: ‘every Friday evening, while this witness was in her house, she would sweep and prepare the house’.29 It seems that the Aragonese conversos also took great pride in their appearances, making sure they were wearing their best, or at least their cleanest, clothes on the sabbath. As Melammed remarks, unlike today, ‘clothes were not

23 AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 13, fol. 13 v: ‘vio fazer algunos viernes en la noche a huna cunyada suya llamada Ysabel [… ] lo fazia porque hera viernes en la noche y por honra del sabado […] y aprendio de la dicha su cunyada […] hasta el doctor su marydo […] gelo fixo dexar aquella cerimonia’. 24

AHPZ, Leg. 4, no. 6, fol. 12 v: ‘estando donzella en casa de su madre, e que havia de fazer lo que su madre le mandaba, et encendia los candiles’. 25

AHPZ, Leg. 6, no. 8, fol. 16 v: ‘Ponya el viernes a la noche manteles limpias’ and ‘se mudaba camysa y otros vestidos y los fijos se mudaban por cerimonya judayca’. 26

Luis de Santángel, p. 85: ‘grande judia’ and ‘limpiar y barrer la casa’.

27

Ibid., p. 78: ‘se adereçavan y estavan como de fiesta’.

28

AHPZ, Leg. 14, no. 1, fol. 9 r: ‘en el sabado mudando toallas limpias’.

29

AHPZ, Leg. 10, no. 7, fol. 12r: ‘cada viernes a la noche, mientre este deposant estovo en su casa, varria e adereçava la casa’.

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changed daily, and consistently changing one’s attire and wearing clean or new clothes on Fridays or Saturdays rather than Sunday would still be noticeable’.30 According to the servant of Catalina Funes [Calatayud 1491], ‘most Saturdays she would change into clean blouse’.31 Jaime de la Cavallería was also accused by the prosecution of taking more care with his appearance ‘most Saturdays […] He would dress better and go about more splendidly than on Sundays or other days’.32 When another of the accused, García de Alava, was a young student in Salamanca, he had his clothes washed by a Jewess. In the trial record he was accused of observing the sabbath as would ‘any Jew’.33 During his interrogations, García defended himself by saying that he was forced to collect the shirts from her on Friday evenings because he was not in Salamanca on the weekends and the Jewess obviously observed the sabbath as a day of rest. Moreover, he claimed, on many Sundays he was away from Salamanca and would be forced to change into the clean shirts given to him on Friday nights: ‘and because the said Jewess could not give him the shirt on Saturday, he went to pick it up on Friday afternoon’.34 According to one witness, María Jiménez [Daroca 1488] was careless enough to leave a dirty blouse lying around for a servant to discover, perhaps intended for washing: ‘And she knows this because on Saturday morning she saw the dirty blouse that she had left’.35 In an extra twist, Gabriel de Santángel was not only accused of dressing up, but of celebrating the day with good food: ‘he changed his shirt on Saturday and ate better than on other days’.36 All these activities, as reported to the inquisitors, were seen as evidence that the behaviour of the converso population was more Jewish than Christian. Another important activity for the conversos on the sabbath was actually a non-activity. While Old Christians were busily getting on with their lives, witness statements reveal that many New Christians refused to perform chores

30

Melammed, Heretics or Daughters of Israel?, p. 77.

31

AHPZ, Leg. 14, no. 8, fol. 4 r: ‘los mas sabados se mudavan las camisas limpias’.

32

BnF esp. 84 (1490), fol. 21r :‘los mas sabados [...] se vestia mucho mejor y yba mas pomposo que no en los domyngos ny en otros dyas’. 33

AHPZ, Leg. 17, no. 2, fol. 3 v: ‘qualquier judio’.

34

Ibid., fol. 3 v: ‘y porque la dicha judia no le podia dar la camisa el sabado, yva por ella el viernes en la tarde’. 35

AHPZ, Leg. 10, no. 2, fol. 32 r: ‘Y esto sabe porque vio la camisa suzia el sabado manyana que havia dexado’. 36

dias’.

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AHPZ, Leg. 6, no. 2, fol. 44r: ‘se mudava camissa el sabado y que comya mejor que otros

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or do any business from the sabbath eve until sunset on Saturdays. Pablo de Nuza [Daroca 1496] and his son, for instance, were tailors. A witness deposed with horror, ‘something that he thought abominable’:37 that father and son would rest on Saturday, and then get up at midnight to catch up on the lost working hours. The witness added: ‘Some Saturdays they do not do any chores, rather they go outside to an orchard and as it is Saturday night, they get up before midnight to sew, and then during all of Sunday’.38 According to numerous witnesses who testified against María Jiménez, she refused to do any business whatsoever on Saturdays. On one particular occasion, she refused to accept payment from a witness who was told sharply to return the following day when she would complete the transaction. ‘He said: “Take it [the money], why don’t you want it?” She replied “because it’s Saturday today, bring it to me tomorrow as it’s Sunday, and I’ll take it”’.39 Another frustrated witness encountered María’s refusal to do business when he attempted to recover a debt from her. An argument ensued and he lost his temper. She said, ‘And today is Saturday, and really one shouldn’t carry money’, to which he angrily retorted, ‘give me the money!’40 Wealthy merchant Luis de Santángel of Valencia also tried his level best to avoid entering into any business deals on the sabbath. When visited in his home on a particular Saturday by two silk merchants, he neither bought nor sold anything due to the fact that it was a Saturday.41 According to another deposition, María de Pisa [Zaragoza 1486] would cease any household activity and shut herself up at home earlier on Friday nights than on others.42 Jaime de Santa Clara [Zaragoza 1485] confessed that his wife would stop all work except to tidy the house and cook for Saturday on Friday nights.43 Asked by the inquisitors whether she ‘observed Saturday for being Saturday’, he responded in the affirmative.44 Similarly, Brianda de Santángel reportedly refused 37

AHPZ, Leg. 17, no. 3, fol. 7 v: ‘la qual tiende por abominable’.

38

Ibid., fol. 7 v: ‘Algunas sabados que no fazen fazienda antes se van de fuera como que tienen que fazer, a un guerto que tiene e como es de noche el sabado, antes de medianoche se levantan a coser, e de alli todo el dia de domingo’. 39

AHPZ, Leg. 10, no. 7, fol. 7 r: ‘Dixo el: “Tomadlos, por que no los quereys?” Respuso ella “porque es oy sabado, traedmelos maniana que es domingo, y yo tomarlos he”’.

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40

Ibid., fol. 9v : ‘Y oy es sabado, a la fe non levareis dineros’ and ‘¡dadme dineros!’

41

Lluís de Santàngel, p. 91.

42

AHPZ, Leg. 7, no. 7, fol. 5r.

43

AHPZ, Leg. 4, no. 3, fol. 27 v.

44

Ibid., fol. 27 v: ‘el sabado por ser el sabado’.

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to work on Saturdays. Instead she used to spend all day away from the house visiting converso friends.45 If circumstances did not allow conversos to stop working completely, they often kept their work to a minimum, or did as little as possible. It was reported that the wife of Berenguer de Torellas ‘did very few chores on Saturday’46 but the witness failed to specify which chores she actually performed. The wife of Guillermo Remírez [Híjar 1492] was accused of ceasing work on Saturdays and: ‘not doing those chores on the said day like on other days of the week’.47 A witness reported that Salvadora Salvat always baked her bread on Fridays and never on Saturdays. She used the excuse that the bread made on Friday was better quality: ‘They did not cook the bread on Saturday because they said that the bread which was cooked on Saturday was never as good as that which was cooked on Fridays, and she believes that they did it to observe Saturday like the Jews do’.48 García de Alava was accused by the prosecution of ‘not doing any work on that day, or not as much as on other days’.49 Numerous witnesses, both Old Christian and Jewish, testified that conversos would regularly send Old Christian servants to the judería as a favour to Jewish friends and relatives. By sending their employees to the Jewish Quarter to perform tasks on Saturday, they were seen to be accepting and practising the precept within Jewish law which prohibits working on the sabbath. María Salvat reportedly sent her servant to the aljama because she knew that on that day the Jews were prohibited from doing the jobs themselves. One of her servants ‘as ordered by her masters, would go to the judería on Saturdays to light the fire in the house of Astruch al Papery’.50 The Santa Claras [Zaragoza 1485] sent their

45

Lluís de Santàngel, p. 89.

46

AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 18, fol. 5r: ‘fazia muy poca fazienda el sabado’.

47

AHPZ, Leg. 15, no. 5, fol. 2 v: ‘no fazer aquellas faziendas en el dicho dia como en otros dias de la semana’. 48 AHPZ, Leg. 11, no. 1, fol. 7 r: ‘No cozian pan en sabado, porque dezian que el pan que se cozia el sabado nunca era tan bueno como el que se cozia el biernes, y crehe que lo fazian por guardar el sabado como los judios’. 49

AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 13, fol. 2 v: ‘no faziendo azienda aquel dia, o no tanta como otros

dias’. 50

AHPZ, Leg. 6, no. 8, fol. 40 v: ‘por mandamiento de los dichos sus amos, yba a la juderya los sabados a fazer fuego a cassa de Astruch al Papery’.

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servant ‘to light the fire in the judería to cook the Jews’ food’.51 Both a servant and a Jewish witness testified that, on Fridays, Raimundo Pujol’s father [Monzón 1486] had sent servants to the judería with eggs to put in the hamin, which was then prepared and sent back to the Pujol household.52 It appears that the conversos themselves were often instructed to go the judería. Pablo de Nuza [Daroca 1496] confessed that, when he was five or six and living under the care of Gilbert de Orunyo, Bernardo Remírez’s grandfather, he was sent to light the fire in Gilbert’s Jewish brother’s house. After performing the task he was occasionally given meat and bread for his efforts.53 Similarly, a Jewish witness and relative of Clara de Calahorra [Monzón 1487] remembered Clara visiting his mother’s house on the sabbath to light the fire and also deliver pots of hamin.54 They also used to give her food in payment for the deed. Although it is not mentioned specifically in the Edict of Grace, the charge that conversos prepared and ate hamin features heavily in the trial records. The meal was cooked on Friday, and then either kept warm overnight or eaten cold the following day, ensuring that the law which prohibited work such as cooking was not violated on the sabbath. Once again we find that household servants were involved in food preparation. An Old Christian servant to Bernardo de Ribas knew exactly how to prepare the Jewish dish, because Bernardo’s wife had carefully instructed her in the finer culinary skills necessary to produce a good pot of hamin. She accurately described to the inquisitors how to go about making the stew by ‘taking a piece of meat and [she] would wash it thoroughly in a lot of water and would put in eggs, chick-peas, silver beet and spinach’.55 This technique was also used by a servant in the employment of Pablo de Nuza, who said that she was told to make the dish with mutton, silver beet and chickpeas.56 One cannot presume that the meat being used was kosher, but it is reasonable to suggest that the same conversos accused of buying their meat from the judería were also using this meat for their hamin. The preparation of hamin

51 AHPZ, Leg. 4, no. 3, fol. 6 r: ‘encender fuego a la juderya a guissar las viandas de los jodios’. 52

AHPZ, Leg. 6, no. 4, fol. 54 r.

53

AHPZ, Leg. 17, no. 3, fol. 14 r.

54

AHPZ Leg. 8, no. 10, fol. 3r.

55 AHPZ, Leg. 4, no. 2, fol. 5 r: ‘tomando hun pecho de carne e lavavan lo muchos asy muchos aguas e metian guevos, garbanzos e azelgas e espincas’. 56

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AHPZ, Leg. 17, no. 3, fol. 8 v.

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was also one in which olive oil was used instead of butter or lard, and as Bernaldez remarked, the conversos always fried their meat in olive oil.57 What concerns us at this point, however, is the fact that the meal was made before sunset on Friday in full anticipation of the day which was to follow. As Melammed makes clear, ‘by eating cold food or food that had been left to simmer throughout the previous night on the sabbath day, the conversa was arranging her work schedule to suit the demands of Jewish law. However, by doing so, she was often implicating herself as a heretic, for a Catholic would have no cause to refrain from cooking on Saturdays’.58 Luis de Bardaxí [Huesca 1487] made sure that the meal was prepared on Friday so it could be eaten on Saturday with other Jewish dishes.59 Catalina Sánchez [Zaragoza 1486], who was forced to live with her parents-in-law for thirteen or so years, confessed that she regularly consumed hamin during this period due to the circumstances in which she found herself, as her relations always ate stews made in advance.60 María Jiménez [Daroca 1488] instructed her servant to watch over the dish as it cooked throughout the night. The poor man did not get a moment’s rest, but had to keep getting out of bed to attend to the stew: ‘And on that said Friday evening at home she would make a stew with meat and eggs and chick-peas, [she] would put everything to cook in one pot, and it would cook all night, and he knows this because he got up many times to tend to the fire as ordered by his mistress’.61 As well as cooking hamin at home, María Salvat [Monzón 1486] was quickly denounced as a heretic by a Jewish in-law for having gone to the house of Isach Rimoch in order to cook hamin on Friday nights. She would then send a servant to the judería the following day to collect it so that the Bonanat family could feast without having broken any precepts.62 If a conversa was unable to prepare the stew in advance, she would often be forced to rely on the generosity of the Jewish community. A Jewish witness told

57

Gitlitz, Secrecy and Deceit, p. 337.

58

Melammed, Heretics or Daughters of Israel?, p. 74.

59

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 3, fol. 4r: ‘En sabado carne que avya guissado del biernes por el sabado.’ 60

AHPZ, Leg. 4, no. 2, fol. 5 r:

61

AHPZ, Leg. 10, no. 7, fol. 12r: ‘Y en el dicto dia de viernes a la noche guisava un comer con carne y guevos y garbanços en casa, puesto todo a cocer en una olla, y que cozia toda la noche, e sabelo porque muchas vezes este deposante se levantaba adobar el fuego por mandado de la dicta su duenna’. 62

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AHPZ, Leg. 6, no. 8, fol. 34 r.

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the tribunal of how he had been approached by his mother, who asked him for a pot of hamin for converso Juan de Loperuelo [Daroca 1496].63 Bernardo de Ribas and Jaime de Santa Clara were accused of continually ordering hamin to be delivered to them on a regular basis. A Jewish witness testified that he had personally taken Berenguer de Torellas [Zaragoza 1490] some hamin from the judería. It appears that servants were also used by Aragonese conversos to collect hamin from the judería, so as to avoid working on the sabbath. Luis de Bardaxí regularly sent his servants to the judería to collect the hamin. Esteban de Ariza [Zaragoza 1487] was married to an Old Christian, but remained in constant contact with his Jewish relatives. Esteban would go to visit his relatives on the sabbath, smuggling home pots of the special dish hidden under his cape to avoid detection. Apart from the example of Esteban de Ariza, however, it appears that most of the Aragonese conversos made very little attempt to disguise the fact that they were observing the sabbath by preparing hamin in advance, or having it delivered from the judería so as not to break the precept which prohibited work. Evident in many of the conversas trial records, and in particular in Aragón, is the popular belief that a conversa would be blessed if they ceased spinning wool on Saturdays.64 Juan Bach’s wife, Aldonza, apparently ‘did not spin on Saturdays’.65 Juana García [Darcoa 1488] confessed that she had observed many Saturdays, ‘and that in most of those she did something, such as sew [cover with sheets], and knead, but she did not spin on them. And in this way she observed Saturdays’.66 Fresina Pastor testified that an aunt had taught her that she would be blessed with a good husband if she refrained from spinning. Witnesses said that Fresina would honour Saturdays in a Jewish manner, and that ‘For two or three Saturdays she saw that she [Fresina] was sitting at the door and that she neither worked nor did any chores’.67 In her final confession she admitted that ‘Some Saturdays she did not do any chores, she observed them because of

63

AHPZ, Leg. 16, no. 8, fol. 4 r.

64

AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 5, fol. 15 v.

65

AHPZ, Leg. 17, no. 8, fol. 21v : ‘no filava en Sabado’.

66

AHSC, no. 12, fol. 18 v: ‘y que en los mas dellos fazia alguna cosa, assi como coser, ençavanar y masar, pero que no filava en ellos. Y que desta manera guardava los dichos sabados’. 67

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 9, fol. 65 r: ‘por dos o tres sabados la vio que estava sentada a la puerta e no fazia nada ny fazienda’.

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temptation of the devil and did not spin’.68 Esperanza, wife of Maestre Fernando [Tamarite de Litera 1504], confessed that, after converting to Christianity, ‘For one or two Saturdays the devil tempted me to not to do any chores on them as like before [when] being a Jewess I had observed them’.69 Similarly, Esperanza Santa Fe [Sariñena 1490] confessed that, after having converted to Christianity, ‘For a time she did not spin on Saturdays, believing that she was sinning but she says that she ceased it and would do any chore like on any other day of the week’.70 Angelina Oluga [Lérida 1492] confessed that she had never spun on Saturday because an aunt forbade her, and because her mother and mother-inlaw persisted in the same non-practice. Some conversas confessed that they had ceased the practice for fear of offending the Virgin Mary. Blanca Adam, alias Leonor Montesa [Zaragoza 1486], claimed that on Friday evenings she would stop the practice because she did not want to sin against Our Lady.71 A defence witness had heard that ‘Many women ceased to spin on Saturdays in devotion to Our Lady and that they did other chores in their home’.72 Conversa Violante de Santángel [Zaragoza 1490] confessed that, as early as 1460, she was taught to stop spinning ‘on Saturdays in devotion to Our Lady, saying to her that if she did not spin on Saturday that Our Lord would give her a son’.73 The existence of the belief among Old Christians that spinning on a Saturday might have offended Our Lady meant that any conversas who were indeed attempting to refrain from working on the sabbath were able to do so with greater ease. Matters were further complicated with the allegation that Fresina Pastor had taken up spinning again once the Inquisition arrived in town: ‘The present witness says that she knows it to be true that she saw that before the Inquisition arrived how Fresina […] did not

68

Ibid., fol. 25v : ‘algunos sabados no fizo fazienda, los guardo por temptacion del diablo y no filava’. 69 AHPZ, Leg. 19, no. 11, fols 17 v–18 r: ‘por uno o dos sabados me tento el diablo para que no hiziesse hazienda en aquellos como antes los guardava seyendo jodia’. 70

AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 10, fol. 1v: ‘stuvo una temporada que en los sabados no filava, creyendo que peccava pero dize que la dexava y hazia qualquier hazienda como qualquier otro dia de la semana’. 71

AHPZ, Leg. 7, no. 1, fol. 16 r.

72

BnF esp. 84 (1499), fol. 180 r: ‘muchas mujeres dexaban de filar en los sabados por devocion a Nuestra Señora y que fazian otras faziendas en su casa’. 73

AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 15, fol. 15v : ‘los sabados por devocion de nuestra señora, diziendo le que sino filava el sabado que le daria nuestro señor hun fijo’.

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spin on Saturdays, it is true that she sewed or did some other chore, and ever since the Inquisition arrived she has seen her spin on the Saturdays’.74 There are very few references found among the Aragonese trials to conversos praying privately on the sabbath. There are, however, many witnesses and confessions which suggest that conversos were participating in Jewish communal prayer on the sabbath. One witness apparently saw María Oluga [Lérida 1492] reading from a book on Saturdays, ‘sabbathing like a Jewess’.75 Beatriz de Jerez [Zaragoza 1487] would reportedly say the shema every Saturday;76 this was the central sabbath prayer said among the Jewish community. Jaime de Santángel in Teruel was accused of reciting the same prayer said by Jews in the synagogue: ‘On Friday evenings and Saturday mornings and in the evenings he usually says prayers […] which the Jews are accustomed to saying in the synagogue’.77 One witness mentioned that zaragozano merchant Bernardo de Ribas, used to put on a hood, or capirote, on Friday evenings.78 The prosecution accused him of doing so in honour of the sabbath, and it is possible that he was covering his head in compliance with the Jewish custom of covering one’s head before praying. However, this practice may have started with the prayer leaders rather than being more universal. Alonso Rodrigo [Ciudad Real 1483] testified that one Friday night he saw a converso named Alvaro ‘in that large room, above some stairs, seated, with a hood on his shoulders and head, and that there he was reading to many conversos’.79 It is apparent from this study thus far that the sabbath was held in great esteem by the conversos, who placed great importance in its proper observance as a fundamental requirement of Judaism. While many of the rituals associated with the day, such as lighting the sabbath candle or refraining from work, were the exclusive domain of the conversas, it is also clear that there was substantial

74

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 9, fol. 28 v: ‘Dize la presente deposante que sabe ser verdad que vio antes de que vinyesse la enquesta como Fresina [...] no filaba el sabado es verdad que cosia o fazia otra fazienda, y dende que es venyda la enquesta la veya filar en los dichos sabados’. 75

AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 16, fol. 32 r: ‘sabeando como judia’.

76

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 13, fol. 20 r.

77

AHPZ, Leg. 3, no. 5, fol. 8 r: ‘los viernes a las noches y los sabados a las manyanas y a las noches acostumbra dezir oraciones […] que judios acostumbran dezir en la sinoga’. 78 79

AHPZ, Leg. 4, no. 2, fol. 30 v.

Gitlitz, Secrecy and Deceit, p. 323: ‘en aquel palaçio puesto encima de vnas gradas, asentado, con un capirote [sic] en el ombro e en la cabeça, e que ally estaua leyendo a muchos conversos’.

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communication and mutual assistance between the Jewish and New Christian communities. Judging from the information relayed to the inquisitors in depositions and confessions, there was a great deal of activity between converso and Jewish homes in regards to the sabbath. It appears that, by the time that the tribunal began its investigations in 1484, the sending and receiving of hamin or the farming out of Old Christian servants to Jewish households had become a well-established custom between Jews and New Christians. Furthermore, this relationship was not confined solely to the sabbath, but was further cemented throughout the year when the two communities would join together to observe the major Jewish holidays of Yom Kippur, Passover, Sukkot, and Queen Esther.

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H OLY D AYS

Yom Kippur

A

ccording to the testimonies and confessions of the trial records under discussion, Yom Kippur was widely observed by the converso population in the late fifteenth century. It was detailed in the 1484 Edict of Grace in the following terms: ‘Item, if you have fasted for the Great Forgiveness or other Jewish fasts, not eating until the end of the night until the stars are visible, or if you know or you have heard it said that someone has done it’.1 The festival was also referred to as the ‘Fast of Forgiveness’ (ayuno de perdon, ayuno de la perdonaza), the ‘Great Forgivness’ (el gran perdon), or simply as quipur by Old Christians, conversos, and Jews alike. Nearly fifty percent of the accused are charged with having observed at least one of the precepts of Yom Kippur, as well as being accused of other rituals which are fully in keeping with the observance of Yom Kippur according to Judaism. The evidence suggests that the most popularly guarded precept among the accused was their preoccupation with, and adherence to, ‘the Great Fast’ (el ayuno mayor) itself. However, before being able to undertake the fast, the conversos first had to find out exactly when Yom Kippur occurred. This proved to be problematic because the festival could fall on any day from mid-September to mid-October. Before the Expulsion, it appears that many New Christians were forced to rely upon the Jewish community for this information, and as a consequence, some Jews reported to the Inquisition that they had been

1

Llorca, ‘La Inquisición española en Valencia’, p. 52: ‘Item si ha dejunat del perdo o altres dejunis dels Juheus, no manjant fins a la nit vistes las estreles, o si sab o ha oyt dir que algns ho fasen’.

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approached by various conversos who had lost track of the date. María Jiménez [Daroca 1488] asked a Jewish acquaintance ‘when was the fast of Kippur?’2 In this instance, the question did not provide solid evidence that the accused was planning to observe the festival, but instead may have been an example of cultural curiosity. For Pedro de Santa Clara [Calatayud 1488], however, ascertaining the day of Yom Kippur was far more than a matter of curiosity, when he went on to state quite openly, even to boast, that he fully intended to fast on the holiday: He [Pedro] asked this witness with great emotion; ‘When is the fast of Kippur?’ Then this witness said to Pedro the Silversmith; ‘The fast of Kippur is on such and such a day [… ]’, then Pedro said to this witness; ‘Is it really the day that you say?’ This witness said ‘yes’. Then Pedro the Silversmith said to this witness; ‘You know that the truth is that I fast for Kippur and that’s why I’m asking you about it’.3

This was not the only year in which Pedro needed guidance from his Jewish friends. Another Jewish witness testified that, several times upon visiting Pedro’s house, Pedro had asked when Yom Kippur was because he wanted to fast on the day. Similarly, Haym Cordony, an outspoken member of the Barbastro aljama, testified that his wife had maintained a friendship with Antonio Santángel, father of Salvador de Santángel [Barbastro 1486]. She told Haym that in 1477 or thereabouts, Antonio asked her when the holiday was so that the whole family, including Salvador, would know when to fast.4 Esteban de Ariza [Fuentes 1487] had to rely on his own Jewish brother, Salamon Azis, to warn him when Yom Kippur was going to be, later informing him that ‘he had done Kippur’.5 According to Jewish law, the fast was for a period of twenty-four hours, during which time eating and drinking was strictly prohibited. Juan Doz [Barbastro 1486] said that his mother fasted all day ‘until the star’.6 The Edict of Grace exhorted those who ‘have fasted for the Great Forgiveness or other Jewish

2

AHPZ, Leg. 10, no. 7, fol. 11v: ‘quando era el ayuno de Quippur?’

3

AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 7, fol. 9 r: ‘demando deste testimonio con affeccion grande; “quando es el ayuno de quipur”. Entonces dixo este deposante al dicho Pedro el Platero; “el ayuno de quipur tal dia […]”, a la hora el dicho Pedro el Platero dixo a este testimonio deposante; “es cierto esse dia que dizis”. Dixo este testimonio “si”. Entonces dixo el dicho Pedro el Platero a este testimonio; “Sabet que yo a vos tengo que dezir sino la verdat, yo ayuno el ayuno de quipur y por esso lo demando”’.

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4

AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 3, fol. 34 r.

5

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 6, fol. 19 r: ‘havya fecho quipur’.

6

AHPZ, Leg. 6, no. 11, fol. 17 r: ‘asta la estrella’.

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fasts, not eating until the end of the night until the stars are visible’, to be reported or make themselves known to the tribunal. Even the de la Cavallería family did not escape accusations connected with the festival. A witness confirmed that he saw Felipe de la Cavallería [Zaragoza 1485] ‘once on the tenth of the September moon to make the fast of Kippur’.7 Fresina Pastor [Huesca 1487] confessed that she observed the holiday ‘after the fair of Barbastro in the month of September’.8 I am unable to find any examples of post-1492 observances of Yom Kippur among the trial records under examination. However, David Gitlitz has located various examples from seventeenth-century Castile, where the practice appeared to be very much alive. The absence of the Jewish community meant that some conversos had to revert to writing down the exact date, as in the case of the Gómez sisters [Ciudad Rodrigo 1588], who maintained a written calendar of Jewish festivals.9 Others relied on the new moon of September: Juana de San Juan [Baeza 1473] said that ‘she was ordered to fast on the tenth day of the September moon, which they call the Great Day’.10 In fifteenth-century Aragón and Castile, Jews celebrated Yom Kippur on a single day. However, Levi Haze, a Jewish witness in a Teruel trial, told the inquisitors that ‘the fast of Kippur is always four or five days before the Festival of the Booths’.11 Gitlitz interpreted this to mean that the Jewish community of Aragón celebrated Yom Kippur for four or five days continuously, and that they had lost sight of the fact that it was traditionally celebrated on a single day. I have yet to find evidence among the trial records which supports this theory. Given that most conversos asked on which day Yom Kippur fell rather than using the plural ‘days’, it appears that, before the Expulsion, the Jewish community celebrated and fasted for one day only. It is logical to conclude that, if the conversos were indeed relying on the aljama for guidance, then they would have followed the example of their Jewish neighbours and also observed Yom Kippur on a single day.

7

BnF esp. 84 (1485–96), fol. 299r: ‘una vez a diez de la luna de septiembre ayunar el ayuno de quipur’. 8

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 9, fol. 73 v: ‘apres de feria de Barbastro en el mes de septiembre’.

9

Gitlitz, Secrecy and Deceit, p. 358.

10

Ibid., p. 358: ‘Le manadaba ayunar […] en septiembre a diez de luna, que llamaban el día grande’. 11

Manuel Sánchez Moya, ‘El ayuno del Yom Kippur entre los judaizantes turolenses del siglo XV’, Sefarad, 26 (1966), 273–304 (p. 279): ‘el dayuno de Quippur es continuamente cuatro o cinco días antes de la Pascua de las Cabanillas’.

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The lack of food often drew attention to the conversos as they battled with hunger throughout the day, and witnesses noticed the fast taking its toll. Fresina Pastor was seen at her door by one such individual, who testified that ‘the day that the Jews made the fast of Kippur […] he saw how […] she was very faint’.12 Felipe de Adahuesca, an Old Christian witness who, for one reason or another, seemed to carry a personal vendetta against the majority of Barbastro conversos, also used the verb desmayar (to faint away) to describe the appearance of the conversos: ‘he saw their drained faces, like the dead’.13 Leonardo de Santángel admitted to the court that, on one occasion, he was so hungry that he took himself off to the orchard to breakfast surreptitiously upon an illicit picnic of bread and grapes.14 Angelina Oluga’s husband [Lérida 1490] noted that she looked very faint by the end of the day.15 Despite the severity of the fast, it appears that children were not altogether exempt from the precept. Conversos such as María de Esplugas [Alcalá de Henares 1487] cast their minds back to their childhood and the difficulty of the twenty-four hour fast. Writing to the inquisitors in Aragón from Castile because she was too ill to travel, she confessed that: From a young age […] until I was about nine or ten years old, my mother, God forgive her, told me that I had to make the Jewish fast called the Great Fast […] and I did not fast for it, and I remember that once as a child, on the day of the fast […] [being] hidden […] in the bedroom [in order] to eat […] my mother came in, took me by the hair and gave me a beating because I was eating.16

As a young girl, Angelina Oluga [Lérida 1490] was so overcome by hunger at midday that she guiltily ate some bread.17 Pedro de Santa Clara’s daughter noticed that her parents did not eat anything all day, but that they excluded her

12

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 9, fol. 3 v: ‘el dia que los jodios fazian el ayuno de quipur [… ] vio como […] estava muy desmayada’. 13

AHPZ, Leg. 12, no. 3, fol. 8 r: ‘les veia las caras esmayadas, de muertos’.

14

AHPZ, Leg. 14, no. 1, fol. 3 v.

15

AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 16, fol. 84 r.

16

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 11, fol. 3 v: ‘que seyendo de hedad pegueña […] hasta IX o X años y madre, que dios le perdone, me dixo que yo ovyesse de ayunar el ayuno de los judios que se dize el ayuno mayor […] y non lo ayunaba y acordome que una vez seyendo muchacha, en aquel dia del ayuno […] ascondida […] a la camara […] por comer […] y my madre vino […] y me tomo de los cabellos y diome de golpes porque comya’. 17

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from the fast.18 Juan Doz [Barbastro 1486] was thirteen when he first fasted with his mother, continuing to observe the holiday throughout his adult life, even after he had been ordained a Catholic priest.19 Galcerán Fajol [Huesca 1488] was only eight when he fasted for Yom Kippur with his grandmother. 20 It appears that, insofar as the fast was concerned, many conversos were taught and encouraged at an early age to participate in the practice. This is especially evident in the trial records from the conversos of Barbastro, Zaragoza, and Huesca. Many of the defendants from these areas were raised in a small town situated about one hundred miles south-west of Zaragoza, called Alcolea. By all accounts, these conversos were brought up in what appeared to be more Jewish than Christian home environments, in which Yom Kippur played an important part. Sisters Catalina and Isabel Sanchéz, both living in Zaragoza in adulthood, were raised by their parents in Alcolea. There, the family was instructed in the observances of Yom Kippur. Isabel confessed that ‘her mother Aldonza and her father Daniel Sánchez and her sisters […] and Bernardo Sánchez her brother […] made the fast of Kippur, being in the house of her father and mother’.21 When she grew up, Isabel married and went to live in Zaragoza where she ceased to observe the holiday. In 1489, Brianda de Bardaxí [Zaragoza 1486] testified against her mother, Salvadora Salvat [Barbastro 1489], and Salvadora testified against her daughter in the same year. Brianda stood before the inquisitors and told them that, when she was five, her mother went next door to visit a Jewish neighbour called La Benbenguda, and they both fasted for the entire day. Aged nine, Brianda was made to fast by her mother and Aldonza Junqueras [Barbastro 1489]. A witness reported in no uncertain terms that the wife of Gabriel de Cabra has said to her that her mother used to observe the fast of Kippur, and her sister-in-law […] and her eldest brother, and that she herself had said that her mother had made her fast for some years, and that she said that she did

18

AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 1, fol. 13 r.

19

AHPZ, Leg. 6, no. 11, fol. 17 r.

20

AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 5, fol. 59 r.

21

AHPZ, Leg. 7, no. 6, fol. 13 r: ‘su madre Aldonza y su padre Danyel Sanchez y hermanas […] y Bernat Sanchez su hermano […] fazian el dayuno de quipur, estando en casa de su padre e madre’.

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Chapter 5 not want to fast any more, and that she used to say that her mother should be burnt if she continued to make that fast. 22

It appears that Salvadora was also raised in Alcolea, confessing in her own trial record that, as an eight-year-old, her grandmother Violante Fajol taught her how to observe Yom Kippur.23 More than twenty years previously, a Jewish witness had seen, and been told by Isabel Fajol [Barbastro 1486], that she and her sisterin-law used to observe Yom Kippur in Alcolea.24 When Fresina Pastor [Huesca 1487] was fourteen she lived with her uncle, Juan Salvat, and his wife Angelina in Alcolea. The latter forced her to abstain from eating and drinking for twentyfour hours. Upon marrying, Fresina then taught her husband Miguel Pastor to observe the fast.25 It is apparent from these examples that, in Alcolea, the precept was mainly observed by women. They also indicate the depth to which keeping the fast of Yom Kippur had reached within a particular converso community. The most popular belief expressed by the conversos of Aragón was that fasting for Yom Kippur would bring them wealth and blessings. The day is traditionally one in which forgiveness plays a large role, but the idea of reconciliation seems to have been largely overshadowed by the individual’s desire to improve his or her lot in life. Clara de Calahorra [Monzón 1487] lived with her parents in Lérida for eighteen years until she was married, and during this time: ‘she saw that her mother used to make a fast of the Jews called Kippur, that fast which her deceased mother had told this penitent to observe […] and God would be very good to them’.26 María Jiménez [Daroca 1488] had fasted for Yom Kippur with friends and family ‘because they said that whoever fasted would be made rich’.27 A wealthy conversa impressed upon Angelina Oluga ‘that God would give her many blessings and many riches if she made the fast of Kippur which was a fast of […] Moses, [and] that at night God would give her rings for jewels and other

22

BnF esp. 80 (1482–92), fol. 4 r: ‘que la mujer de Gabriel de la Cabra le ha dicho que su madre dayunaba el dayuno de quipur, y su cunyaba [… ] e su hermano el mayor, y que ella le dixo assi mesmo que su madre lende havia fecho dayunar algunos años, y que dixo que no le queria mas dayunar, y que dezia que havia cemar a su madre si mas dayunaba aquel dayuno’. 23

AHPZ, Leg. 11, no. 1, fol. 31r.

24

AHPZ, Leg. 12, no. 3, fols 14 v–15 r.

25

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 9, fols 71v and 90 r.

26

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 11, fol. 13 r: ‘vio que la dicha su madre fazia hun dayuno de los judios llamado de quipur, el qual dayuno dixo la dicha su madre, quondam, que esta confessant lo fiziesse […] y dios le fazian mucho bien’. 27

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riches, and for that reason she was so rich’.28 In Alcalá de Henares, the apothecary Pedro de Segovia firmly believed that ‘God would increase my goods and would protect my chemist’s shop, and I learned [to make] this fast’.29 Catalina Sánchez was convinced that fasting would prevent her from dying in a state of poverty.30 Fresina Pastor was also led to believe by her aunt that fasting for Yom Kippur would ensure a ‘very rich husband with a great many possessions’.31 There are occasional references to more spiritual outcomes to be gained from observing the fast. In 1483, Violante Ram [Zaragoza 1488] told her granddaughter that her sins would be forgiven, that she would be blessed with many riches and, most importantly, God would give her a good husband.32 In turn, Violante confessed that she had been taught by her sister-in-law that ‘if she made this fast, Our Lord would forgive her her sins, and that the soul of her husband would be released from purgatory and his soul would be saved’.33 Alberto Oluga [Lérida 1490] was also told that ‘God would give him many riches in this world and salvation for the soul in the other’,34 but only if he kept the fast secret from his father. Galcerán Fajol [Huesca 1488] confessed that his grandmother had taught him to observe the holiday simply for the ‘love of God’.35 While the fast seemed to play the biggest part in the conversos’ observance of Yom Kippur, there is also evidence to suggest that many New Christians set aside the day for prayer and contemplation, using the time in a spiritually constructive sense. Luis de Heredia [Calatayud 1489] recited a prayer in court that he used to say on Yom Kippur and, ‘On that day none of them would do

28

AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 16, fol. 63 v: ‘que Dios le daria mucho bien y muchas riquezas, que si ella ayunara el ayuno de quipur que era hun ayuno de […] Mosen, que a la noche Dios le daria anyllos por las joyas y otras riquezas, y que por aquella causa stava tan rica’. 29

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 1, fol. 13 v: ‘Dios me aumentasse mys bienes e me dasse garantia en my botica y este ayuno aprendi’. 30

AHPZ, Leg. 7, no. 5, fol. 4 r.

31

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 9, fol. 71v: ‘marydo muy rriquo con muchos bienes’.

32

AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 2, fol. 13.

33

Ibid., fol. 5 r.

34 AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 16, fol. 7r: ‘dios le daria muchas riquezas en este mundo y salvacion para la alma en el otro’. 35

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any chores, instead they rested, praying Jewish prayers on that day’.36 Leonor de Ribera told the tribunal that her father, Alonso de Ribera, gave her a book to read on the day of Yom Kippur and that it contained ‘many Jewish prayers’.37 In Zaragoza, a witness described how a group of conversos would come together every year on Yom Kippur under the tutelage of a recent Jewish convert to Christianity, Florent Vidal. He apparently saw ‘how the said Florent Vidal, deceased, because he had been a well-learned Jew and knew the Bible […] used to teach all the aforenamed’.38 Salvadora Salvat and other Barbastro conversos supposedly congregated together every year, where they ‘touched shoulders, forming a ring and observed the old law for the fast’.39 One witness said the following about Leonardo de Santángel: In his study he kept a rabbi’s garment and two straps that are placed on the head. And he and his wife were sometimes shut in the study, and Leonardo wore a taller, that means the garment which is made of silk and is worn to make the fast of Kippur by Jewish rabbis.40

The end of the day was usually celebrated by having a large meal. Although this was not detailed in the Edict of Grace, there were various reports of celebratory feasts being held among the conversos. Salvadora Salvat and Aldonza Junqueras would eat a couple of eggs to stave off the hunger while they prepared the main meal.41 Salvador de Santángel and friends ‘used to eat meat and fowl in the evening, and they would have a big party […] some of them were shoeless’.42 Pedro de Abella ate a meal of ‘chickens and meat and grapes’ after

36

AHPZ, Leg. 12, no. 9, fol. 6 v: ‘En aquel dia ninguno dellos fazia fazienda ninguna, antes folgavan, rezando en aquel dia una oracion judayca’. 37

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 13, fol. 14 r: ‘muchas oraciones judaycas’.

38

BnF esp. 83 (1490–92), fol. 86 r: ‘como el dicho Florent Vidal, quondam, porque havia estado jodio y era grand letrado que sabia toda la biblia […] yba notifficando a todos los nombrados’. 39

AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 3, fol. 34r: ‘tocavan los hombros confabulando y diziendo la antiquydat por el dicho ayuno’. 40 Cabezudo Astraín, ‘Los conversos aragoneses’, p. 282: ‘Tenia en un estudio una camisa de Rabi y dos arrides [?] para encima de la cabeça. Y el y su mujer estaban a veces retirados en dicho estudio y el dicho Leonart llevaba un taller, que quiere dezir habito que se ponen lo jodios rabis, el qual habito es de seda y se lo ponen pa ayunar el ayuno de quipur’. 41 42

AHPZ, Leg. 11, no. 1, fol. 4 v.

AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 3, fol. 11v: ‘comyan carne y gallinas a la noche, fazian gran fiesta […] algunos dellos stavan descalços’.

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having fasted all day.43 In the trial record of Esperandeo Fajol, Felipe de Adahuesca reported that they had all recited Jewish prayers before and after the evening meal.44 Galcerán Fajol reported that, before sitting down to eat, Leonardo de Santángel ‘did not bless the table like Christians do’.45 References to the practice of asking one another for forgiveness are comparatively few. Juana García [Daroca 1488] confessed: ‘I would kiss their hands and ask them for forgiveness’.46 Salvadora Salvat taught her daughter the same ritual, who then confessed that she had kissed her mother’s hand and also ‘asked for forgiveness’.47 After the evening meal, Luis de Heredia included the whole family: ‘and after having eaten, the children asked their father for forgiveness and the father his children’.48 The themes of forgiveness and atonement were taken further than the home and applied to the Jewish community at large by some of the accused. Galcerán Fajol confessed to having given alms to Jews on two Yom Kippurs, with his accuser claiming: ‘And on the eve of the said fast of Kippur, you used to give and you gave alms to the Jews as they do’.49 Salvadora Salvat said that she gave ‘a sueldo to the synagogue for oil’ on Yom Kippur,50 and Fresina Pastors’s husband gave oil to the synagogue for two years running.51 Gracia Ruiz [Teruel 1487] said that, ‘once a year in the time and [on the] day of the fast of the Great Forgiveness I used to give oil for the synagogue’.52 Yom Kippur was considered to be a Great Sabbath, and as a consequence, preparations within the home were similar to those for the Sabbath. As part of the celebrations to end the day, Clara de Calahorra and her mother ‘lit many lights and candles more than on other nights’ and put clean tablecloths on the 43

AHPZ, Leg. 14, no. 1, fol. 20 v: ‘pollos y carne y huvas’.

44

AHPZ, Leg. 12, no. 11, fol. 4 r.

45

Ibid., fol. 6 v: ‘no santiguo la mesa como fazen los cristianos’.

46

AHSC, no. 12, fol. 17 v: ‘beasava la mano y les demandava perdon’.

47

BnF esp. 80 (1482–92), fol. 16 r: ‘demando misericordia’.

48

AHPZ, Leg. 12, no. 9, fol. 5v: ‘y dende que havyan que cenado, se demandavan perdon los fijos al padre y el padre a los fijos’. 49 AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 5, fol. 59r: ‘Y la viespra del dicho dayuno de quipur, davas e daste almosna a los jodios como ellos fazen’. 50

AHPZ, Leg. 11, no. 1, fol. 3 r: ‘un sueldo para olio a la sinoga’.

51

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 9, fol. 75r.

52

AHPZ, Leg. 3, no. 5, fol. 64 r: ‘huna vegada en el anyo en el tiempo e dia del dayuno Gran Perdonança dava olyo para la sinoga’.

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tables.53 When Leonardo de Santángel went to break the fast at Luys Fajol’s house, he noticed that it was arranged as if it were the sabbath eve: ‘And when the evening came he says that in the house of Fajol, [there were] many lights lit and clean tablecloths on the tables’.54 Fresina Pastor confessed to the inquisitors that she used to light more lamps than usual on Yom Kippur.55 Esperandeo de Santángel [Barbastro 1489] and his family proceeded to observe the holiday by lighting more lamps ‘with all the Jewish ceremony’.56 Many conversos were, according to the prosecution, clearly observing the precept which prohibited the wearing of leather shoes. Clara de Calahorra and her parents, for example, ‘fasted all day until the evening and in the evening they broke the fast with meat in the Jewish manner, and they were barefoot all for the entire day’.57 Upon hearing Old Christian Felipe de Adahuesca give testimony against Esperandeo de Santángel, the inquisitors asked him to clarify whether or not the accused had been wearing shoes. Felipe responded that they had not.58 García de Alava [Daroca 1490] said that he followed advice of a Jewish friend: ‘he says that he fasted in the way that the Jew told him to, barefoot’.59 As mentioned previously, many conversos took the opportunity to spend the day together. Gabriel de Santángel [Barbastro 1489] was quick to denounce friends and family with whom he had been observing Yom Kippur from as far back as 1469:60 There was a group of conversos in the city of Barbastro which met to observe the fast of Kippur of the Jews […] he says he knows this […] because they themselves told this

53

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 11, fol. 13 r: ‘encendian muchos lumbres e candiles mas que otras noches’. 54

AHPZ, Leg. 14, no. 1, fol. 4 r: ‘Y quando vino a la noche dize que en casa del dicho Fajol, muchas lumbres encendidas y manteles limpios en las mesas’. 55

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 9, fol. 71v.

56

AHPZ, Leg. 12, no. 11, fol. 5v : ‘con toda la cerymonia judayca’.

57

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 11, fol. 13 v: ‘dayunaron todo el dia asta la noche y a la noche se desdayunaron con carne a modo judayco, y estavan todo aquel dia a pies descalços’. 58

AHPZ, Leg. 12, no. 11, fol. 4 r: ‘Ynterrogado si estaban vestidos o spoxados o scalços, dice que bestidos estaban, empero algunos descalços en pies’. 59

AHPZ, Leg. 17, no. 2, fol. 3 v: ‘dize que lo ayuno de la forma que le dixo el judio, a pies descalços’. 60

Gabriel de Santángel was also denounced in the trial records of Esperandeo Fajol, Salvador de Santángel, Juan Doz, Violante de Santángel, and Leonardo de Santángel.

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witness how they had observed it, and among the conversos it was and is public knowledge.61

In Zaragoza, there also seems to have been a group or quadrilla of conversos who met together every year to fast. A witness testifying against Isabel Vidal de la Cavallería [Zaragoza 1487] named at least twenty-four prominent New Christians, and added that ‘he knew all the wives […] during this time he saw all the aforenamed and their wives, except deceased Juan Ruiz’s wife, make the fast of Kippur for three years […] in Leonardo Eli’s house’.62 If there is any truth in this testimony, then there were at least forty conversos meeting on one day in a single house. Such a large number certainly would have drawn attention to the congregation. In order to combat the problem of visibility, the conversos of Barbastro developed a rotational system to ensure that the group never met in the same house for two consecutive years. On one year, Esperandeo Fajol [Barbastro 1489], Luis Fajol, Juan Benet, and many others met in fellow converso Galcerán de Mur’s house for Yom Kippur. 63 On another occasion, Galcerán Fajol confessed to having fasted in the same company, but at Leonardo de Santángel’s house. In turn, Leonardo de Santángel testified that he had gone in secret to Galcerán Fajol’s house for the holiday. Not only did this group of Barbastro New Christians regularly change the venue, but they also developed a further technique to avoid suspicion. They would invite unsuspecting Old Christians to the Yom Kippur evening meal by leading them to believe that they had been asked along to a fifteenth-century equivalent of a modern-day poker night: ‘in order to cover up, they also invited Old Christians to this fast’.64 This act of deception was reported to have taken place on at least three occasions, and the New Christians also made sure to invite different Old Christians every year. There is also evidence that they celebrated

61

AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 3, fol. 34 r: ‘Havya una quadrilla de confessos en la ciudad de Barbastro que su juntavan a fazer, y fazian el ayuno de quipur de los judios […] esto dize sabe […] porque ellos mesmos gele dezian a este deposante como lo fazian, y entre los confesso esto era y es publico’. 62

BnF esp. 83 (1492–1500), fols 85r–85v: ‘conocio todas las mugeres en el susso dicho tiempo como todos los susso nombrados y sus mugeres exceptada la de Joan Ruys, quondam, por tres años les vio ayunar el ayuno de quipur […] en casa del dicho Leonart Eli’. 63 64

AHPZ, Leg. 12, no. 5, fol. 4 r.

AHPZ, Leg. 6, no. 2, fol. 41r : ‘y que tambien a este dayuno que fizieron, llamaron cristianos de natura por dissimular’.

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the holiday in the open air. Old Christian Felipe de Adahuesca noted that the conversos of Barbastro left town to meet in the orchards: in the time of the grapes and also of the figs, all the conversos of Barbastro would arrive at the orchards two by two, four by four, six by six, eight by eight, ten by ten, walking though the orchards and they did not do any chores that day, in that they were accustomed to the fast of the Jews.65

Unlike the two groups mentioned above, it appears that some New Christians did not have a support base on which to rely, and they were often forced to observe Yom Kippur as best they could, given the difficult circumstances. Angelina Oluga [Lérida 1490] and her son, Alberto, disappeared from town for the day and went to fast in the orchard so that her husband would not suspect anything. For twelve to fourteen years, mother and son successfully observed Yom Kippur in secret by discarding the more obvious practices from the holiday: ‘He says that they neither asked for forgiveness, nor were they barefoot afterwards, nor did they light more lights on those nights’.66 Moreover, Alberto was forced to transfer his observance of Yom Kippur to another day entirely when once he found himself travelling with his father. Finally, Alberto observed the holiday with a married converso couple who were fleeing from the Inquisition. That night, they placed clean tablecloths on the table, but left the candles unlit and did not ask each other for forgiveness.67 Fresina Pastor ‘pretended to be sick, lying down in bed in the afternoon because she did not want him to know that she was fasting’.68 Esperanza de Santa Fe [Sariñena 1490] once found herself isolated and said that she spent the day by herself, unable to perform any of the ceremonies other than to fast.69 Among the Jewish community, the main focus of Yom Kippur was on the synagogue. Despite the obvious dangers, it is evident that some of the converso residents were attracted to the aljama and the services in the synagogue. On the

65 AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 3, fol. 24 r: ‘en el tiempo de las ubas y tambien de los figos, todos los confesos de Barbastro iban llegados a los güertos de dos en dos, de quatro en quatro, de seys en seys, de ocho en ocho, de diez en diez, paseando en los güertos y no fazian fazienda aquel dia, en que acostumbraban al dayuno los judios’. 66 AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 6, fol. 7 r: ‘Dize que no se demandavan perdon, ny estavan apres descalços ny encendian mas lumbres aquellas noches’. 67

Ibid., fol. 7 r.

68 AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 9, fol. 73v: ‘que se fizo enferma, estando echada y acostaba a la tarde porque no le conociesse que dayunava’. 69

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advice of a Jewish friend in Híjar, Guillermo Remírez and his wife spent an entire day in a house near the synagogue so that they could participate in the ceremonies without having to step inside the building. As a result, they were reported to the Inquisition after being seen going to the Jewish quarter early in the morning and returning home late at night: ‘at night when this witness came out of the synagogue having said prayers, he saw the couple leaving the houses and going towards their house with […] those candles that the Jews light on that day of the fast’.70 The witness added that he saw Guillermo’s wife continually observing the day much more publicly than Guillermo. In Calatayud, Pedro de Santa Clara and his wife also used to spend the day in a house near the synagogue to listen to the prayers being said throughout the day.71 Juan Rodríguez [Zaragoza 1486] ‘used to go to the judería at the time of prayer of the fast’.72 Aldonza de Ribas [Zaragoza 1487] said that her curiosity had been aroused upon hearing musical instruments being played in the judería and on asking about it, was told that it was for Yom Kippur.73 Even Salvadora Salvat and Aldonza Junqueras sought guidance from their old Jewish neighbour in Alcolea, La Benbenguda. Jaime Martínez de Santángel’s house in Teruel was used as a central meeting point for the conversos because it was situated behind the synagogue, and the prayers could be heard through the walls.74 Pedro Ram [Híjar 1497] was accused of having spent the day in prayer in the judería, ‘having fasted Kippur of the Jews inside the house of a Jew, barefoot, reading those prayers from a book that the Jews usually pray’.75 A few conversos tried to pass the blame onto the Jewish community for encouraging them to fast. In his confession, Juan de Alava [Calamocha 1488] virtually claimed that he had been tricked into fasting on Yom Kippur, and much to his surprise only discovered exactly what he had done after the holiday:

70

AHPZ, Leg. 15, no. 5, fol. 3 r: ‘a la noche quando este testimonio sallio de la sinoga de fazer oraciones, veia que los dichos conyunges sallian de las dichas casas e yban para su casa con […] candelas de aquellas que los jodios ponian en aquel dia de ayuno’. 71

AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 7, fol. 20 r.

72

AHPZ, Leg. 6, no. 1, fol. 6 r: ‘yva a la juderia al tiempo de la oracion del dicho ayuno’.

73

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 1, fol. 13 v.

74

Sánchez Moya and Monasterio Aspiri, ‘Los judaizantes turolenses en el siglo XV’, p. 116.

75

AHPZ, Leg. 17, no. 8, fol. 42 r: ‘haver ayunado de quipur de los jodios encerrado de una casa de un judio, a pies descalços con un libro, leyendo en el las oraciones que los judios acostumbran de decir’.

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Chapter 5 He confessed that when he was about fourteen years old […] he used to sew in Luquo […] and a man called Daniel de Villahermosa, tailor, deceased […] and another man […] were asked by this penitent why they were not eating, and they said to him that they did not want to eat until they had finished what they were sewing. And so this penitent said that he did not want to eat either until they ate. And so they were until the evening, not eating all day, and in the evening they dined on meat, and then the aforenamed did not tell him what fast it was until a few days later, [when] Daniel […] said to him that day upon which they had eaten had been the day of the fast of Kippur that the Jews make.76

Gabriel de Santángel blamed a Jew, whose name he had forgotten, for initiating him into the yearly observance of Yom Kippur. Apparently he had fallen into a conversation at the city’s gates with a Jewish merchant. The latter asked Gabriel if he was a converso merchant of Barbastro, to which the former replied that he was, and that he also just happened to have some goods to sell. Quite unexpectedly, the conversation then turned to Yom Kippur: ‘Then the Jew said to him that there was a fast of the Jews in the month of September for St Mathew, and that this witness should fast and that God would recompensate him and he would double his profit in the market place’.77 Gabriel confessed that he took the advice and fasted. In 1484, García de Alava [Daroca 1488] had already embarked upon what appeared to be a discovery of his Jewish ancestry, even after having been ordained a priest. He was learning Hebrew and became deeply involved in theological discussions with a Jewish friend, who then encouraged him to fast for Yom Kippur: And asking him how to fast, the Jew told him how to fast, and so […] when the fast arrived, he says that he fasted according to how the Jew had told him, without shoes

76

AHPZ, Leg. 12, no. 4, fol. 10 r: ‘confeso que seyendo de edat de quatorze anyos […] este confesante, estuvo cosiendo en Luquo […] y huno llamado Daniel de Villafermosa, sastre, quondam […] y otro […] y este confesante les dixo que ellos por que no comian, y ellos le dixieron que no querian comer fasta que fuese acabado aquello que cosian. Y asi este confesante dixo que tanpoco queria comer fasta que ellos comiesen. Y assi estuvieron fasta la noche, que no comieron en todo el dia, y en en la noche cenaron carne, y que luego no le dixieron los susodichos que ayuno era fasta despues, a cabo de pocos dias, que el dicho Daniel […] le dixo como el dia que havian estado por comer era el dia del ayuno de Quipur que fazen los judios’. 77

AHPZ, Leg. 6, no. 2, fol. 40 v: ‘Entonce le dixo el dicho jodio que caya hun dayuno del mes de septembre por sant matheu de los jodios, y que lo dayunasse este deposante y que dios lo endrezaria y ganaria medio por medio en la mercaderia’.

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and not eating until the evening, and in the evening he just ate some bread and fasted at home with one of his cooks’.78

Passover Traditionally celebrated for eight days in the Diaspora, the holiday of Passover could fall in either March or April. As a consequence, the festival was often associated by witnesses with the Christian calendar because it coincided with Lent or Easter and was called the ‘Easter of the Jews’, or Pascua de los jodios. Similarly to Yom Kippur, the flexible nature of the date upon which Passover commenced meant that the conversos often asked their Jewish neighbours when to begin the observance. Guillermo Remírez [Híjar 1492] and his wife enquired yearly as to ‘when were the festivals of the Unleavened Bread of the Jews going to be?’79 Jaime Ramon [Calatayud 1488] wanted to know ‘When is Sukkot, and when is Passover?’80 The Edict of Grace makes only a passing reference to the festival: ‘Item, if you have eaten unleavened bread in the Easter of the Jews, celebrating it’.81 Thus, the most common accusation found among the trial records concerns the existence of a well-established reciprocal arrangement between converso and Jewish households in Aragón. The main symbol of Passover, unleavened bread, variously referred to as pan cotaço, pan cenceño, or pa alis, was such a prominent component of the festival that it became popularly known as the festival of Unleavened Bread, or Pascua del Pan Cotaço. Luis de Heredia [Calatayud 1489] confessed that, ‘For two festivals of Unleavened Bread that fell during Lent, being of good health, he ate meat’.82 Clara de Puxima and Belenguer Acho [Teruel c. 1484], ‘kept the festival of Unleavened Bread from the Saturday of the

78 AHPZ, Leg. 17, no. 2, fol. 3v : ‘Y preguntandole que de forma lo ayunavan, y el dicho judio gelo dixo como lo havia de ayunar, y assi […] cuando cayo el ayuno, dize que lo ayuno de la forma que le dixo el judio, a pies descalços y que no comia fasta en la noche, y en la noche ceno pan a solas y que lo ayuno en casa de huna cozinera suya’. 79

AHPZ, Leg. 15, no. 5, fol. 2 r: ‘quando venian las pascuas del pan çençeño de los judios?’

80

AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 7, fol. 29 r: ‘quando es cabanyellas y quando es pascua?’

81

Llorca, ‘La Inquisición española en Valencia’, p. 51: ‘Item si ha menjat pa alis en la pascua dels Juheus, celebrant aquell’. 82

AHPZ, Leg. 12, no. 9, fol. 14r: ‘por dos pascuas de pan ceçeño que cayan en quaresma, estuviendo bueno, como carne’.

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branches until the second day of Easter’.83 Jewish witnesses testified that they had been sending pan cotaço, turrados (toasted condiments), arruquaques,84 and artichokes to the conversos, and that the conversos had returned the gesture by sending such goods as leavened bread, lettuces, radishes, celery, and eggs at the end of Passover. The frenetic activity that existed between the judería and the converso homes meant that the inquisitors faced a deluge of testimonies and confessions from the respective parties. The main charge faced by the conversos was that, in accepting and eating pan cotaço during Passover, they were committing acts of heresy by actively involving themselves in the ceremonies of the Jewish festival. It was most often delivered to the homes of the conversos from the Jewish quarter, as mentioned in the Castilian Expulsion Edict: ‘[The Jews] […] give [to the Christians] and bring to their houses unleavened bread’.85 Although the clause is omitted from the Aragonese Expulsion Edict, the evidence suggests that the custom was as alive and well in Aragón as it was in Castile. Esperandeo de Santángel [Barbastro 1489] confessed that, as a regular and willing recipient of pan cotaço from the judería, he then shared the bread with the rest of the family.86 Blanca Adam, alias Leonor de Montesa [Zaragoza 1486], was testified against by her own mother-in-law, who said that ‘being with Leonor she noticed that they [the Jews] brought her unleavened bread during the time of the Jewish Easter […] she saw Leonor often

83

Sánchez Moya and Monasterio Aspiri, ‘Los judaizantes turolenses en el siglo XV’, Sefarad, 32 (1972), 105–40 (p. 132): ‘Guardaban la pascua del pan cenceño desde el sábado de Ramos hasta el segundo día de Pascua’. 84

The meaning of this word is unclear. It occurs with frequency among the trial records of Aragón and I believe it has been incorrectly transcribed by Cabezudo Astraín in ‘Los conversos de Barbastro’, p. 283, as ‘azuquaques’, which David Gitlitz translates as ‘sugar cakes’ (Secrecy and Deceit, p. 550). It is possible that these were a type of arrowroot biscuit, from the Spanish arrurruz. It is also referred to in AHSC, no. 12, fol. 6 r, the trial record of Juana García, as ‘muchas vezes entre el anyo fazian hamin e aruquaques’, which suggests that they were not exclusive to Passover but eaten throughout the year. 85 The Jews in Western Europe 1400–1600, ed. and trans. by John Edwards (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995), p. 50. 86

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eat it’.87 Salvadora Salvat [Barbastro 1489] confessed that she had eaten the bread on numerous occasions ‘and that a Jewish tailor had given it to her’.88 The accusation that the conversos refused to eat other types of bread during this time was of great interest to the tribunal, as it was understood that Jewish law strictly prohibited the consumption of leavened bread. Samuel Abnurrabe testified that Guillermo Remírez’s wife refused to eat any other bread during Passover.89 María Salvat’s household made a distinction between the two types of bread: ‘they used to eat unleavened bread which they separated from the other [bread]’.90 The prosecution also tried to find evidence that the gifts received from the judería during Passover were consumed with intent, that is, with an understanding of the bread’s ritual significance. Galcerán Fajol [Huesca 1488] confessed that he had been sent ‘arruquaques and unleavened bread’ and that ‘sometimes he ate it for Jewish ceremony’.91 Apparently Fresina Pastor was so overjoyed with two pieces of unleavened bread that she gave the bearer a kiss and accepted the gift ‘very happily’.92 Gracia Ruiz confessed that ‘she has voluntarily observed festivals of Unleavened Bread and she ate the unleavened bread […] and it is true that she was not able to observe it entirely because her husband did not know, but the intention was to sincerely observe it’.93 Conversely, Beatriz Beltran de la Cavallería [Zaragoza 1489] told a member of her household to take the food away when she saw that it was ‘Jewish bread’,94 thus expressing an awareness of the Jewish ceremony associated with unleavened bread. Those conversos who specifically asked that pan cotaço be delivered to them during Passover were accused of being Judaizers because they were seen to be actively observing the festival. According to Esteban de Ariza’s Jewish brother,

87

AHPZ, Leg. 7, no. 1, fol. 3 r: ‘estando en companya con la Leonor vio como al tiempo de la pascua de los judios le trayeron pan cotaço […] el vio comer a la dicha Leonor por muchas vezes’. 88

AHPZ, Leg. 11, no. 1, fol. 31r: ‘que le dava un sastre judio’.

89

AHPZ, Leg. 15, no. 5, fol. 2 r.

90

AHPZ, Leg. 6, no. 8, fol. 7 r: ‘comyan pan cotaço e que lo tenyan apartado de otro’.

91

AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 5, fol. 4r: ‘arruquaques e pan cotaço’; ‘algunas vezes lo comya por cerymonya judayca’. 92

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 9, fol. 60 r: ‘muy alegre’.

93

AHPZ, Leg. 3, no. 5, fol. 63 r: ‘de voluntad ha guardado las pascuas de pan cenceño y comya de dicho pan cenceño […] es verdad que no la podia guardar enteramente porque no lo supiesse su marido, pero que la voluntad era de guardar sinceramente’. 94

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‘once [Esteban] asked him for […] unleavened bread during the time of the Jewish Easter and […] it is true that one night he saw Esteban eat unleavened bread there in his house’.95 A Jewish witness confirmed that Esperandeo Fajol had continuously asked that unleavened bread be sent to him by Jewish relatives from a town called Naval: It had been fifteen days since they arrested Gabriel de Santángel […] and discussing the arrest of Gabriel de Santángel, this witness and others who were there said: ‘They say that they don’t live like Christians and that these conversos eat unleavened bread’, and then the Jew Isach said ‘If it’s true that one is punished for eating unleavened bread, then Esperandeo Fajol […] should be punished or burnt because he [used to go to?] the place of Naval for unleavened bread’.96

Esperandeo de Santángel [Barbastro 1489] also had Jewish relatives in Naval who used to send the whole Santángel family unleavened bread every Passover.97 Catalina de Arbus was denounced by a servant because she invited an old Jew called Bellica into her house for three consecutive years, receiving the Passover bread ‘during the time that the Jews used to eat it’.98 The same servant testified that, as far back as 1461, she had seen Catalina prepare the bread herself.99 In Ciudad Real, María Diaz was also accused of cooking the bread in her house, as well as refusing to eat other bread and making sure that she used dishes that had not been in contact with leaven. ‘She knows and saw that they sewed in her house and they prepared the unleavened bread and they ate it during her time, and they did not eat other bread, and [during] that Festival of Bread, they ate from new plates and bowls’.100 Clara Diez confessed that, when she was twelve,

95

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 6, fol. 18 r: ‘una vegada [Esteban] le demando […] pan cotaço al tiempo de la pascua de los judios y […] es verdat que una noche le bio comer el dicho pan cotaço al dicho Esteban alli en su casa’. 96

AHPZ, Leg. 12, no. 5, fols 3r–3 v: ‘ha quynze dias quando thomaron a Gabryel de Santangel […] e fablando de la pression del dicho Gabryel Santangel, dixeron este deposante y otros que estavan alli; “Dizen que no viven como cristianos e que comen estos confesos pan cotaço” a las horas dixo el dicho Isaach jodio, “que por cierto si por comer pan cotaço havyan de passar pena, que Esperandeu Fajol […] devyeran dar pena o cremar porque el […?] el lugar de Naval por pan cotaço”’. 97

AHPZ, Leg. 12, no. 11, fol. 6 r.

98

AHPZ, Leg. 7, no. 11, fol. 17 r: ‘al tiempo que los jodios lo iban comer’.

99

Ibid., fol. 17 r.

100

Records of the Trials of the Spanish Inquisition, ed. by Beinart, I, p. 55: ‘Sabe e vido que cosian en su casa e amasavan el pan çençeño e lo comian en su tiempo, e non comian otro pan, e aquella Pascua de Pan, comian en platos e escodillas nuevos’.

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she had been taught to make the bread by a Jewish mentor in the town of Alcolea. Afterwards, she was given the bread to take away and eat during Passover.101 María Jiménez reportedly gave some flour to be made into the Passover bread, then collected the bread afterwards. Strella, a Jewish witness said that, on another occasion, María had also asked her for unleavened bread.102 During Passover, Isabel de Santángelo blessed the bread before eating it, but the witness failed to describe exactly what type of blessing Isabel performed.103 Pedro de Abella was accused of requesting the bread, and then sending back lettuces and leaven as recompense for the gifts: ‘he asked that they bring hamin, and arruquaques, and toasted condiments from the judería or he would have the Jewish women prepare it, and in exchange for the unleavened bread that the Jews gave to him, he sent leavened bread and lettuces to the Jews […] and he would give them leaven’.104 Pedro was by no means the only converso noted to have been sending gifts back to the judería. The evidence suggests that the New Christians were not just recipients of pan cotaço and arruquaques, but conveyers of leavened bread, lettuces, and various other goods. María Salvat confessed that ‘she sent leavened bread to some Jews who had asked her to send it to them’.105 An excellent example of this reciprocal agreement is found in the trial record of María Jiménez and her husband, Benito Xavar, who were apparently both regular recipients and senders of various items during Passover. Note how the witness, Bienvenis Arueth, specified that the Jews received their leavened bread, lettuces, eggs, and horseradishes on the last day of Passover: During the Jewish Easter, he saw how the Levis, Yucef Abençar and Abraham Enforna used to send gifts of unleavened bread, toasted condiments and arruquaques from their home to Benito Zavar’s house, and he saw him eat them. And he noticed how on the second last day of the Easter of the Jews, Benito Xavar and his wife used to send

101

AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 10, fol. 7 r.

102

AHPZ, Leg. 10, no. 7, fols 14 r and 31r.

103

AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 4, fol. 22 r.

104

AHPZ, Leg. 14, no. 1, fol. 9 v: ‘demando que fazia traer amyn e arruquaques e turrado de la juderia o lo fazia aparellar a judias e en compensacion del pan cotazo que le davan los judios, enviaba a los judios pan levado y lechugas [… ] y les daria levadura’. 105

AHPZ, Leg. 6, no. 8, fol. 12r: ‘envio pan levado ad algunos jodyos que le rogaron les se enviasse’.

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Chapter 5 leavened bread, lettuces, eggs and radishes to the Jews in return for the unleavened bread.106

Jaime de Santángel [Teruel 1484] ‘was accustomed and is accustomed to eating the unleavened bread, which was sent to him from the judería in exchange for that which he sent to the judería, flour or […] leavened bread and lettuces for the last day of Passover’.107 Examples of this nature are numerous, and simply demonstrate the immense popularity of the custom among the communities of Aragón in the fifteenth century. When Passover ended, leaven was completely absent from Jewish houses, and it seems that the conversos had become accustomed to sending leavened bread or leaven to replenish their supplies. In this case, is possible that the conversos did not dispose of all leaven during the period in their own homes, or that they managed to obtain it from Old Christian friends.108 However, the other foodstuffs being sent by the conversos on the last days of Passover seem to have been the ingredients for the ceremonial meal which was traditionally celebrated at the beginning, rather than the end, of the festival. The radishes and lettuces could well have constituted the bitter herbs, and the eggs might have stood for the roasted egg of the ceremonial platter. The timing of these donations is somewhat perplexing. Perhaps the gifts simply represented a gesture of good will which was devoid of any religious significance, with the food meant only to replace ingredients which might have become scarce in Jewish homes. Another explanation which might explain the amicable exchange of goods between the two communities may very well be connected with the Maimuna festival, still held by North African Jews at the end of the last day of Passover, supposedly in memory of the death of Maimonides’ father. It is still common practice for the Moslems and Jews to exchange foodstuffs: ‘It was apparent that the Muslims looked forward to the Maimuna. On the last day of Pesah, in the early afternoon, they would already begin to bring flowers, milk, butter, honey, green 106

AHPZ, Leg. 10, no. 7, fols 9 r–9 v: ‘vio commo, al tiempo de la pascua de los jodios, enbiavan de casa de los Levis, y de casa de Yucef Abençar y de Abraham Enforna, a casa de dicho Benito Xavar, presentes de pan cotaço, turrado y arruquaques, y de aquel le a vido comer […] Y vido como, el çaguero dia de la Pascua de los jodios, el dicho Benito Xavar y su muger embiavan pan lievado, lechugas, huevos, rabanicos a los susodictos judios en remuneraçion del pan cotaço’. 107

AHPZ, Leg. 3, no. 5, fol. 7r: ‘acostumbrado y acostmbra comer el dicho pan cencenyo, el qual le era enbiado de la juderia encompensa del qual el enbiava a la dicha juderia, trigo o…pan levado y lechugas para el postrer dia de pascua’. 108

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beans, stalks of wheat and grain, lettuce etc to the homes of the Jews […] the Jews in turn, gave them gifts this season’.109 The meal includes lettuces dipped in honey, buttermilk, pancakes with butter and honey, a lucky dip inserted into a bowl of flour and eggs, beans, and dates in flour. Whatever the reason or reasons behind sending these particular items at the end of Passover, it appears that the conversos were fulfilling their side of the agreement with Jewish friends and family, and were consequently seen by the inquisitors as Christians partaking in the Jewish festival. These Jewish friends and family often told the inquisitors how they had included conversos in Passover celebrations. Most claimed that the custom had been in existence for a long time, but that the arrival of the Inquisition had panicked their converso relatives into putting a stop to the practice. For twenty years, Jaime de Santángel and Gracia Ruiz [Teruel 1484] were in receipt of pan cotaço during Passover, but in 1483 they suddenly asked that it no longer be delivered to them ‘because the Inquisition was going about these parts’.110 Jaime referred to it in his confession as ‘the bad custom that the Jews had of giving their unleavened bread’.111 In 1488, Ysach testified that, every year, he had been in the habit of sending the bread to Juan and Raimundo Pujol [Monzón 1488], but from 1486 onwards, the Pujol family had refused to take his gift, a decision which he attributed to the tribunal’s presence in Aragón.112 A change in circumstances also provoked Clara de Calahorra to express regret that, after moving to Monzón from Lérida, she had to stop eating the bread ‘because [there] she had greater freedom, and here she did not […] and that she was thankful that they sent unleavened bread to her which she ate’.113 Although the aim of this discussion is to examine the charges of cryptoJudaism against the New Christians, it is pertinent to mention some of the ambiguities faced by the inquisitors insofar as Passover was concerned. While Jewish law strictly prohibited the consumption of leavened bread during the festival, it did not oblige the Jews to eat pan cotaço. This argument was presented

109

Herbert C. Dobrinsky, A Treasury of Sephardic Laws and Customs (New York: Yeshiva University Press, 1988), pp. 265–66. 110

AHPZ, Leg. 3, no. 5, fol. 26 r: ‘porque andava por estas la inquysicion’.

111

Ibid., fol. 34r : ‘el costumbre malo que los jodyos tenyan de presentar de su pan cencenyo’. 112 113

AHPZ, Leg. 6, no. 4, fol. 50r.

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 11, fol. 4 r: ‘porque estava en libertat mejor, que aquy no estava […] e que se agradava que le enbiaba pan cotaço e comya de aquel’.

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by a post-1492 convert in the trial record of María and Pedro de la Cabra [Calatayud 1499]: It is true that by the text of the law of Moses it was prohibited for the Jews to eat leavened bread during their Easter, and by the law the Jews were not ordered to eat unleavened bread during the holiday. It was true that […] it was already practised and understood by the doctors of the Talmud and it was the custom among the Jews to eat unleavened bread on the first two nights of the holiday […] but they were not obliged to.114

The defence reasoned that, if eating unleavened bread was not a precept of Judaism, then the accusation that the conversos consumed this unleavened bread during Passover carried very little weight. However, the prosecution argued that the preparation and ritual consumption of the bread fulfilled a biblical commandment, and recalled the hurried departure from Egypt that prohibited the bread to rise. Indeed, it was an obligation to eat a very small amount at the reading of the Haggadah. Therefore, the consumption of unleavened bread could be considered a positive command or duty rather than a precept, which meant that the prosecution could — and did — include the accusation among the charges of heresy. The nature of the special reciprocal relationship between converso and Jewish households also provided ammunition for the defence counsel. Many conversos and Jews testified that the arrangement was merely a token of friendship between converso and Jewish communities across Aragón. In Calatayud for example, it was reported that: In the past, long before the Inquisition came, it was publicly said […] how many Jews […] during the time of their festival of the Unleavened Bread, used to send unleavened bread to the homes of many Christians with whom they had friendships […] and those who received unleavened bread would send leavened bread and lettuces to the Jews.115

114

BnF esp. 84 (1499), fol. 58 r: ‘Es verdat que por texto de la ley de Moysen era prohibido a los jodio que no comyessen pan levado en su paschua, y por la dicha ley no era mandado a los jodios que abiessen de comer pan cenceño en la dicha pascua. Era verdat que por los doctores talmudistas y costumbre que era entre jodios […] estava ya practicado y determindado que las dos noches primeras de la paschua abian de comer pan cenceño […] sino no eran obligados’. 115

Ibid., fol. 169r: ‘En tiempo passado, mucho antes que vinyese la Inquisicion, hoyo dezir publicamente […] como muchos judyos […] al tiempo de su pascua del cotaço, envyaban a muchas casas de cristianos con quienes tenyan amistat […] que los recibian el dicho pan cotaço enbvyaban a los dichos judyos pan levado y lechugas’.

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Juan Diez [Belchite 1492] testified that his grandfather constantly received such gifts from Jewish friends,116 while in Híjar, Guillermo Remírez confessed that, when he was very young, his parents were often sent unleavened bread by Jewish friends ‘as it was the custom that they used to send it to many in the town’.117 Alberto Oluga [Lérida 1490] attributed his actions to a strong friendship that he had formed with a Jew.118 Matters were further complicated with the revelation that Old Christians were being included in Passover celebrations. In Belchite, a Jewish witness said that ‘often, as is the custom among the Jews during the eight days of their Easter, they sent their unleavened bread, arruquaques and toasted condiments to many Christian and converso homes’.119 There is no evidence among the Aragonese trial records that the Old Christians returned the gesture, but by the same token, it is not unlikely that they did so. It has been recorded that, in the Middle Ages, ‘friendly Gentiles made it a custom to deliver chametz (leaven) to their Jewish neighbours late in the afternoon on the last day of Passover’.120 References to the religious aspects of Passover are scarce. The same converso witness who testified that Isabel Vidal de la Cavallería and converso friends in Zaragoza regularly met under the religious instruction of Florent Vidal during Yom Kippur, also said that the group met for Passover: ‘not only the day of Kippur, but even more so the festival of the Unleavened Bread […] and he would tell them where they had to meet’.121 Moreover, for three years, ‘they met in the house of Leonardo Eli, deceased […] they did not do anything and they ate only unleavened bread’.122 Isabel Vidal de la Cavallería also invited Jewish

116

AHPZ, Leg. 15, no. 4, fol. 3v.

117

AHPZ, Leg. 15, no. 5, fol. 8r: ‘como era costumbre que les enbiavan a muchos de la villa’.

118

AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 16, fol. 37 r.

119

AHPZ, Leg. 15, no. 4, fol. 11r: ‘que muchas vezes como es costumbre entre jodios en las ochavas de su pascua, enbiavan a muchas casas de cristianos e conversos de su pan cotaço, arruquaques y turrados’. 120

Abraham P. Bloch, The Biblical and Historical Background of Jewish Customs and Ceremonies (New York: Ktav, 1980), p. 243. 121

BnF esp. 83 (1490–92), fols 86 r–86 v: ‘no solamente el dicho dia de quipur, mas aun la paschua del pan cenzenyo […] y les dezia adonde se havyan de congregar’. 122

Ibid., fols 86 r–86 v : ‘se congregavan en casa del dicho Leonart Eli, quondam […] que no fazian cosa nynguna y comyan solamente pan cenzenyo’.

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friends into her house during Passover where they ‘all made a collation of unleavened bread there in this witness’s house’.123 One of the few testimonies that focused on a meal during Passover was related to the inquisitors by a post-1492 converso against Joan Daza [Calatayud 1500]. The witness told a story of how he and a friend had accidentally chanced upon a meal being shared by Joan Daza with his father and two brothers at the house of a Jewish friend and relative, Jeuda Naçan. On one of the days during Passover, at about midday, the two Jews knocked at his door but received no reply, so they went inside, climbed some stairs and came across the following scene: He saw how they were all eating with the Jew [Jeuda Naçan] seated at the table, and he noticed that there was unleavened bread on the table and he did not see any other type of bread, and at the entrance he noticed that they had put away the crockery with left-over hamin, and they were being brought capons or roasted chickens, and that the Jew wore a tsitsit garment, and he saw a closed book on the table which was close to the Jew, and that it was like a Book of Hours in quarto made of parchment.124

Juan Daza later confessed to having been present at the meal, adding that Naçan, wearing a white garment with cords, had been seated at the head of the table and that he had blessed the table.125

Sukkot Given the overt nature of the Feast of the Booths or La fiesta de las cabañuelas, otherwise known as Sukkot, it is hardly surprising that it makes an extremely brief appearance in the trial records under examination. According to Mosaic law, Jews were required to construct huts from trees and live outside for nine days in the Diaspora. The prosecution often charged the conversos with having had some involvement with Sukkot, but rarely went into more detail. Beatriz de Jerez [Zaragoza 1487] confessed, almost in passing, ‘that she has observed the

123

Ibid, fol. 100 v: ‘fizieron todos collacion alli en su casa deste testigo de pan cotaço’.

124

AHPZ, Leg. 19, no. 3, fols 8 v–9 r: ‘vio como comyan todos con el dicho judyo [Jeuda Naçan] asentados a la dicha mesa, y vio como tenyan pan cencenyo a la mesa y no vio otro pan, y que a la entrada vio que alçaban las escudillas de la mesa con sobras de hamyn y que los trayan capones o gallinas asadas, y que el judyo tenia un cit cit vestido y que vio un libro en la mesa cerrado como unas horas como de quarto de pliego de pargamyno el qual estava cerca del judyo’. 125

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Festival of the Booths’126 but she did not expound any further. Jaime Ramon [Calatayud 1488] asked a Jewish friend ‘when is Sukkot?’,127 while María Salvat was accused by the prosecution of ‘constructing booths in her house and going to eat in the Jewish quarter’.128 Apparently she also knew ‘very well the day of the booths’.129 Luis de Bardaxí confessed that ‘he was once at the Jewish festival of the booths and he had a meal with them there’.130 The nature of the accusations reveal that, as long as they had their Jewish friends in close proximity, the conversos did not have to run the risk of building their own booths. In Teruel, Violante de Santángel went with the wife of Martin Ruiz to see the booths in the Jewish quarter: ‘sometimes they went to look at the booths and went inside them, and the witness brought them collations of sweets’.131 When Violante was a little girl, her mother took her and her sister to visit the booths, and her sister Leonor was said to have gone to the judería to watch the bulls run, to see the booths and eat apricots. Jaime de Santángel was accused of the following by the prosecution: When observing the holiday, the accused made booths from branches in his house. And if he was not able to do so in his house, he would go to the house of his Jewish relatives or friends […] and there he made booths and would meet with others where they performed all the ceremonies that the Jews are accustomed to observe on those days, making food in them and preparing collations with toasted condiments and other things, and the accused even used to go the judería to sleep in the Jewish booths with them.132

126

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 13, fol. 22 r: ‘que ha guardado la pascua de los cabanyuelos’.

127

AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 7, fol. 29 r: ‘quando es Cabanyellas?’

128

AHPZ, Leg. 6, no. 8, fol. 14 r: ‘faziendo cavanyellas en su casa y yendo a comer a la juderia’. 129

Ibid., fol. 43 v: ‘sabe bien el dia de las cabanyellas’.

130

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 3, fol. 29 v ‘estuvo por huna vez en la pascua de los cabanyelos de los judios y fizo collacion ally con ellos’. 131 Sánchez Moya and M onasterio Aspiri, ‘Los judaizantes turolenses en el siglo XV’, Sefarad, 33 (1973), p. 118: ‘algunas vegadas fueron a mirar las cabanillas e alli estaban mirandolas y entraban dentro, y la testigo les sacaba colaciones de confites’. 132

AHPZ, Leg. 3, no. 5, fol. 7 r: ‘El dicho reo observando la dicha pascua y fiesta, fazia cabanyllas de ramos y las fazia fazer en su casa e en caso que en su casa no pudiesse, se yva a una casa de sus parientes y amygos […] judyos y alli fazia cabanyllas y con otros se congrevaria donde fazian todas las cerimonyas que judios acostumbran en tales dias, fazer comyendo en aquellas y faziendo colaciones con turrado y con otras cosas y aun yva el dicho reo a la juderia acostar en las cabanyllas de los judios con ellos’.

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The Fast of Queen Esther Isabel Alexandria, the same converso who had convinced Angelina Oluga [Lérida 1490] to follow her example and observe Yom Kippur, also taught Angelina to observe the Fast of Esther: ‘each year in the month of February she made the fast of Queen Esther for the entire time that she was in the city of Tarragona’.133 Luis de Heredia [Calatayud 1486] was instructed by his father to observe the festival: ‘This penitent, being the age of […?] years […], his father Francisco de Heredia said to him “son, you believe and observe the law of Moses […] and make the Jewish fasts like […] the day of Queen Esther because the fasts will make you rich […]” They all observed the fast of Queen Esther together […] in Lent’.134After leaving home, Luis confessed that he continued to fast for the holiday. In another example, Isabel Vidal de la Cavallería was having dinner with a Jewish friend one Saturday, and she apparently said to him that ‘when she was able to do so, she observed the law of the Jews, and especially on Saturdays, and she observed the fast of Queen Esther’.135 When the inquisitors commenced their enquiry into the religious practices of the New Christians of Zaragoza and surrounding areas, they discovered that a large proportion of the accused had been observing Yom Kippur on a regular basis for a significant number of years, often for an entire lifetime. It also transpired that Passover, Sukkot, and Queen Esther all featured in the religious calendars of the conversos. Many confessed that their parents had imbued them with a sense of the holidays’ importance from an early age, and as adults, they simply followed their parents’ examples. They sought to maintain the customs associated with each holiday to the best of their abilities, making every effort to properly observe the rituals alone, with other conversos, or in the juderia. In many cases, it transpired that the accused had relied upon their Jewish friends and family for advice and support during Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Passover, and to a lesser extent, Queen Esther. It also seems that this support was reciprocated by 133

AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 16, fol. 65 r: ‘todo el tiempo que stuvo en la dicha ciudad de Tarragona, ayuno cada anyo una vegada el ayuno della reyna ezter el qual ayunava en el mes de febrero’. 134

AHPZ, Leg. 12, no. 9, fol. 12 r: ‘Estuviendo este confesante de edad de […?] años […] Franciso de Heredia padre suyo le dixo “tu, filo, cree en la ley de moysen y aquello guarda […] y asi ayuna los ayunos de los jodios como es […] el dia de la Reyna Ester porque los ayunos te faras riquo […]” Ayunaron todos juntamente [… ] el de la Reyna Ester en Quaresma’. 135

BnF esp. 83 (1490–92), fol. 88 r: ‘ella guardava quanto podia la ley de los jodios, y el sabado senyaladamente, y dayunava el dayuno de la Reyner Ester’.

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the conversos, who in some cases donated oil and money to the synagogue during Yom Kippur, or who would more often assist the Jews by supplying them with ingredients for the Passover meal. There can be little doubt that the bond which existed between the two communites was strengthened during the yearly observance of those holidays.

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C OMMUNITY L IFE

Dietary Laws

T

he dietary laws of Judaism are a complex set of rules and regulations which are central to the proper observance of Judaism.1 The testimonies and confessions found amongst the pages of the Zaragoza trial records indicate that a large number of conversos and conversas tried to maintain these laws to the best of their abilities. As we have seen, the inquisitors in Zaragoza would have possessed a reasonable working knowledge of Judaism and an understanding of the heresy of Judaizing. By extension, they would have known that conversos who admitted to, or were accused of, eating kosher meat, drinking kosher wine, and avoiding certain foods might well have been doing so with the intention of observing Judaism. In keeping kosher, the conversos would have been constantly reminded of their Jewishness: ‘Keeping kosher becomes a kind of mantra, a series of infinitely repeated minute acts that focus the attention of men and women on their Jewishness’.2 On the strength of these accusations, the prosecution maintained that the accused were living as Jews on a daily basis and not as Christians; they were therefore guilty of Judaizing. Kosher meat was readily available to the conversos before the Expulsion, and it appears that the New Christians looked to the judería for their supply of freshly slaughtered meat. They were also able to buy fowl from the professional butchers or do the slaughtering at home. The accusation that a defendant willingly purchased and consumed kosher meat is a common and repetitive one within the trial records under examination. María Jiménez [Daroca 1488] and her

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1

The Jewish dinner table is often compared to the Temple altar in rabbinic literature.

2

Gitlitz, Secrecy and Deceit, p. 531.

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husband Benito Xavar were regular customers of Jewish butchers. Juçe Ofiçial, a former butcher, confidently recited a list of meat that Benito ordered be sent to him, including ‘mutton and veal, and goats’ udders, beef and lamb’,3 while Mose Enforna testified that his brother once sold an ox joint to Benito.4 The same Jewish witnesses also had their say against Juan de Loperuelo, another resident of Daroca. Juçe claimed that ‘he often saw veal, mutton and beef brought to the house of Juan de Loperuelo from the Jewish butchers’.5 A servant testified somewhat vaguely that he had seen Juan removing fat from a leg of meat, but he was not really so certain of the details.6 This act would have been relevant because Jewish butchers koshered the meat by discarding the fat and the sciatic nerve and by making sure that it was defect free, whereas Christian butchers did not. Although these kinds of accusations were frequent, they were also problematic. Jewish butchers had been doing a rather brisk trade with Old Christians long before the arrival of the Inquisition. Some major stipulations of the laws of Catalina of 1412 included the prohibition that ‘Jews and Moors should not have squares or markets to buy from or sell food or drinks to Christians under pain of five hundred maravedis’.7 Yet, a retired Jewish butcher testified that converso Juan Diez [Belchite 1492] would regularly purchase his meat along with other conversos: ‘thus Old Christians as well as conversos bought meat from the Jewish butcher’.8 Jueda Mayorvides, another former butcher, said that it was customary in his day to sell meat to Christians.9 The court heard only three testimonies against zaragozano Antonio Pérez, all of which were accusations by Jews that Antonio bought meat from the Jewish quarter. Jewish merchant Acach Obex remembered that, in 1474, Antonio would ‘often buy meat from the Jews, beef as well as veal and mutton, and he took the meat home, and those meats were cleansed in the Jewish manner according to the Jewish custom to sell

3

AHPZ, Leg. 10, no. 7, fols 8 r–8 v: ‘carne de carnero y ternera, y hubres de cabras, carne de vaca y cordero’. 4

Ibid., fols 8 r–8 v.

5

AHPZ, Leg. 21, no. 7, fol. 3r: ‘vio muchas vezes de casa de Juhan de Loperueolo, levar de la carniceria de los judios carne de ternera y de carnero y vaca’. 6

Ibid., fol. 5 r.

7

Netanyahu, The Origins of the Inquisition, p. 193.

8

AHPZ, Leg. 15, no. 4, fol. 7r: ‘assi cristianos de natura como confesos levar carne de la dicha carnyceria de los judios’. 9

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AHPZ, Leg. 6, no. 8, fol. 4r.

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the cleansed meat with the fats and sciatic nerve taken out’.10 This was not, however, evidence that the meat was bought with religious intent, and we do not know whether Antonio also bought meat from Christian butchers. In this case, the fact that Antonio fled from Zaragoza was far more incriminating than the charge that he had continually purchased kosher meat, and he was tried in absentia and handed over to the secular authorities. The argument that the entire community bought their meat from the judería regardless of religion was popularly employed by the defence counsel to win its case. It was up to the prosecution to distinguish the converso defendant from the Old Christian by proving that the meat was bought in compliance with Mosaic law, rather than because it was a healthier option than its Christian counterpart. The prosecution had to incriminate the accused by showing that the defendant bought meat solely from the judería when it was readily available from Christian butchers. Matters were further complicated by evidence that Old Christians and conversos alike were customers of Muslim butchers. Violante de Santángel [Huesca 1489] confessed during the period of grace to having purchased meat from both Jewish and Muslim butchers, while in Daroca, Pablo de Nuza admitted to having eaten meat prepared by Moslems, but specified that he made sure to bless it first: ‘and the meat cut by their hand, [I would] cross myself because our law is one of grace, and theirs one of ceremony’.11 María Jiménez, also from Daroca, stated that she had simply been doing the same thing as the rest of the population, including members of the clergy: ‘I bought meat from the Moorish butcher of this city, and I did this because I saw that all the clerics as well as friars and townsmen bought and ate it’.12 The fact that María and other New Christians were clearly buying hallal meat without religious intent, made it even more difficult for the prosecution to prove that the conversos were buying kosher meat for purely religious motives.

10

AHPZ, Leg. 4, no. 8, fol. 3 v: ‘muchas et diversas vezes comprar carne de la carniceria de los dichos judios assi de vaqua como de terneras, y carnero et aquella carne levo a su casa, e que aquellas carnes heran purgados a modo judayco segunt es la costumbre de judios vender las carnes purgados quitados las grasas et la landrezilla’. 11

AHPZ, Leg. 17, no. 3, fol. 3 r: ‘e carne travesada por mano dellos, santiguandome, porque por ley es de gracia, e la suya de cerimonia’. 12

AHPZ, Leg. 10, no. 7, fol. 5r: ‘Compre carne de la carniceria de los moros desat ciudat, et esto porque vidia que assi clerigos como frayres y ciudadanos, todos le levavan e comian’.

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Thus, when in 1488 Galcerán Fajol confessed that he had eaten meat from the judería in Huesca for ‘Jewish ceremony’,13 the inquisitors sat up and took notice. The two words ‘Jewish ceremony’ were very important to the Inquisition. Galcerán admitted that he had been buying the meat because he believed in the value of the dietary precepts of Judaism and not for any other reason. Another interesting piece of information was recorded by the notary concerning Gabriel de Santángel [Barbastro 1486]. Haim Cordonay, a Jewish butcher, testified that he would occasionally work for Christian butchers, but that, while doing so, he had continued to slaughter the meat the Jewish rather than the Christian way. He remarked that, on this occasion, Gabriel made a concerted effort to purchase the meat from him precisely because it was kosher: He remembers that eight or ten years ago he often used to slaughter meat in the Christian butcher’s shop of Barbastro, slaughtered by him according to the custom of his law, and they used to take that meat […] Gabriel de Santángel […] and he knows this because he used to see them take the meat slaughtered by him.14

Ysach, a Jewish trader, confirmed in 1486 that Raimundo Pujol and his father would regularly buy meat koshered by and with the blessing of the rabbi.15 This indicated a willingness and religious awareness on their part, as they actively sought out meat that had been specially blessed. Galcerán Fajol specifically asked for Jews to slaughter his livestock, and when Guillermo Remírez [Híjar 1492] and his wife wanted to eat chicken or other fowl, they sent their servant to the judería to have the task performed there.16 Esteban de Ariza [Zaragoza 1487] revealed in his first interrogation that he had been eating kosher meat with religious intent until 1482, but upon realizing the error of his ways, went to confession and was given penance. Apparently the priest also told him that he was under pain of excommunication if he continued in this practice. There are many other examples found in pre-Expulsion trial records in which conversos made concerted efforts to ensure that Jews slaughtered their livestock. Even when he could have killed a chicken at home, Guillermo Remírez sent one of his daughters to a Jewish friend’s house in order that it be done by a Jewish 13

AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 5, fol. 3 r: ‘cerymonia judayca’.

14

AHPZ, Leg. 6, no. 2, fols 27 v–28 r: ‘se acuerda de ocho o diez anyos aqua que degollava muchas vezes carnes en la carnyceria de los cristianos de Barbastro, por el degollava con su cerimonia según la costumbre de su ley, y levavan de aquella carne […] Gabryel de Santángel […] y lo sabe porque les veya thomar la dicha carne por el degollada’.

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15

AHPZ, Leg. 6, no. 4, fol. 4 v.

16

AHPZ, Leg. 15, no. 5, fol. 2 v.

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hand: ‘She saw a girl twice in two days […] come carrying a hen under her skirt to the house, and the father slaughtered the hen and then the girl took the hen away’.17 Bienbenis Arruet, a former rabbi, testified against Diego Parexo [Daroca 1489–90]. He said that Diego had often welcomed him into his house: ‘And this witness slaughtered the pigeons and the hen, and afterwards they ate the two pigeons and the hen slaughtered by this witness, and they ate at one table’.18 Bienbenis also testified against Juana García in her trial record, remembering a conversation that he once had with her husband, Juan Fierro, in about 1466. The pair would regularly visit his shop, and on one occasion Juan said to him, ‘Give me that fine cut of meat’.19 Before 1492, conversos had the luxury of having kosher meat delivered to their front door from the judería, or of having their own livestock ritually slaughtered by Jewish associates. These options, of course, greatly depended on the wealth and power of the converso in question. A leading citizen of Barbastro, Gabriel de Santángel, was apparently in weekly receipt of kosher deliveries to his home. Moreover, he would, according to the prosecution, only eat kosher meat and ‘He would leave that [meat] which was slaughtered by Christians’.20 Likewise, Jaime de Santángel in Teruel used to order a Jewish butcher to slaughter an entire ox for him each year. Countless Jewish witnesses cited occasions during which they had koshered meat for Jaime and his wife because the couple especially asked them to do so. Jaime and Gracia consumed only kosher meat and constantly employed the services of Jewish butchers, who they presumably paid admirably, to slaughter animals at their home. Yet another member of the Santángel family, Isabel de Santángelo [Tarazona 1489], had observed Mosaic law over a long period of time by continually ordering that kosher meat be delivered to her house.21 However, it should be noted that it is almost impossible to know if any of the conversos ate non-kosher food outside the home environment.

17

Ibid., fol. 12 r: ‘Vio por dos vezes en dos dias a una fila […] venir a casa con una gallina trahia debaxo de su falda y el padre degollaba la dicha gallina y la dicha mochacha tomo la gallina y se la levo’. 18 AHPZ, Leg. 12, no. 10, fol. 2 v: ‘Y este deposant degollo los palominos y la gallina, y enpues comieron los dos palominos y gallina degollada por este deposante, y comian a una mesa’.

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19

AHSC, no. 12, fol. 4 v: ‘Darmeys desa carne de buen tajo’.

20

AHPZ, Leg. 6, no. 2, fol. 57 r: ‘Dexava la que era degollada por cristianos’.

21

AHPZ, Leg. 12, no. 3, fol. 4 v.

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The charges concerning meat preparation vary from being quite brief to fairly detailed descriptions of the slaughtering technique. Gabriel de Santángel was accused by a former servant of having slaughtered and eaten a capon on a particular Good Friday, without actually mentioning how the bird was killed. Yet, this testimony would have been useful to the inquisitors because Gabriel blatantly ate meat on a special Christian day of fasting and abstinence.22 Likewise, in Zaragoza Fresina Pastor was reported by a servant as having slaughtered birds in her own house in a way that the witness thought strange, but she did not expand any further on the subject.23 A standard and more descriptive deposition is found in the trial record of Pedro Casado [Tarazona 1509], who ‘opened a leg of meat in the middle and took out the gland and fat from inside it in the Jewish manner’.24 It was rumoured that a resident of Daroca, Juana García, prepared her meat according to Jewish ritual exactly the same way as Pedro in Tarazona by taking out ‘the fats and the gland from the leg’.25 Similarly to many charges of hamin preparation, it appears that, on some occasions, servants were also required to kosher the meat for their employers. Brianda de Bardaxí, whose mother Salvadora was also tried by the Inquisition (mother and daughter testified against each other in both trial records), apparently insisted that all meat be fat-free in order to be fit for consumption, thus ordering her servant to remove all excess fat. She also made sure to buy lean meat from the butchers: ‘many times when they went shopping they did not buy meat with fat’,26 but whether or not this was in the judería remains undisclosed. Bernardo Remírez’s wife used to take out the sciatic nerve, and when asked why, she replied that ‘Jacob had butchered that part of the leg, and so they never ate it’.27 Catalina Sánchez confessed to having eaten kosher meat on a regular basis due to the fact that her husband leased out the premises of his shop to Jewish butchers. She also confessed that her mother-in-law taught her how to take out

22

Ibid., fol. 48 v.

23

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 9, fol. 20 r.

24

AHPZ, Leg. 20, no. 15, fol. 15 r: ‘habrio una pierna de carne por medyo y saco della glandezilla y las grassas que cabe ella estan al modo judayco’. 25

AHSC, no. 12, fol. 15r: ‘las grasas y la grandolica de la pierna’.

26

BnF esp. 80 (1482–92), fol. 5 r: ‘muchas vegadas quando yban a comprar que no comprassen carne con grassa’. 27

AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 4, fol. 9v : ‘se habia crebado la pierna por alli Jacob, y por que aquello nunqua la comian’.

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the sciatic nerve and fat from the meat, and indeed ordered that she prepare all the meat in this manner.28 Another member of the Salvat family who resided in Monzón was accused of buying meat from Christian butchers and then stripping it of all unwanted fat. In 1486, the prosecution accused María Salvat of having done everything in her power to obey Mosaic law, such as checking the meat for defects, taking out the sciatic nerve and fats, salting it until it was bloodless, and then rinsing off the salt with water. Indeed, it was a basic religious precept among the Jewish community that the meat was unfit for consumption until all traces of blood, the symbol of life, had been removed. María ‘would place it in water with some grains of salt before putting it onto cook because it drew out the blood, and she took out the sciatic nerve from the leg in the Jewish manner’.29 According to the prosecution, the defendant was koshering the meat like any good Jewess. It appears that María was not alone in safeguarding this important rite. Aragonese converso Juan Bach’s wife [Híjar 1497] used to ‘take that meat and put it in to soak with salt and water, and so then after it had soaked she put it in the pan’.30 Six hundred kilometres away in Córdoba, Dr Alfonso de Ribera and his wife, Beatriz, were making sure that their meat was bloodless by salting it before putting it on to cook. Nearly one hundred years later, Beatriz Gonçalves in Coimbra washed, salted, and rinsed her meat to draw out all the blood, because she considered it a sin to eat the blood.31 Slaughtering meat at home was commonplace among all communities in Spain, and animals such as chickens and pigeons were bred domestically. What mattered to the Inquisition was the manner in which the animal had been killed. Jews tried to limit the amount of pain caused to the animal, and thus employed very sharp knives without nicks for the job. After any blood was spilt, it was to be covered up by soil or some other substance. Beatriz López [Toledo 1520] ‘slaughtered the birds that she was to eat in secret sites in order to kill them according to Jewish ceremony […] and would throw, and has thrown dirt and

28

AHPZ, Leg. 7, no. 5, fols 6 v–7 v.

29

AHPZ, Leg. 6, no. 8, fol. 18v: ‘la fazia echar en agua con unos granos de sal porque se quytasse la sangre antes que la echasse a cozer, y tirava la landrezilla de la pierna a modo judayco’. 30 AHPZ, Leg. 17, no. 8, fol. 26 v: ‘tomaba aquella carne y ponya la en remosos con sal y agua, y assi despues que havya remojada la echavo en la olla’. 31

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ashes upon the blood of the birds in accordance with Jewish ceremony and rite’.32 Jaime de Santángel [Teruel 1484] would slaughter chickens and then cover the spilt blood with soil: When some fowl had to be killed, he would employ Jews to kill them, or he would do it himself, making a hole in a little flour or sand in the ground, so that the blood of the birds could be covered up and hidden, and he would make sure that the knife was very sharp without nicks so that the birds would not be slaughtered violently.33

Consuming kosher meat was not the only Jewish dietary precept to which the conversos adhered. While there is no mention of forbidden foods in the Edict of Grace there is evidence to suggest that many New Christians assiduously avoided those foods prohibited by the Scriptures. Pedro Moreno [Daroca 1511] refused to eat ‘pork, conger eel, nor any other fish prohibited to the Jews’,34 while Galcerán Fajol was starkly accused of not eating pork: ‘you did not eat pork’.35 Jaime de Santángel apparently avoided ‘pork, hare, rabbit, eel, conger eel’.36 The avoidance of, and aversion to, pork among the converso community is a charge to be found in trial records from Zaragoza. In 1515, Pedro de la Torre described an event which had occurred about four or five years previously. Apparently Juan de Toledo had invited him to a meal at his house in Zaragoza. Pedro was served a meat and pork dish, while his host opted for a rather unsubstantial meal of sultanas and grapes. Upon asking as to why he had avoided the dish, Juan replied that was suffering from an upset stomach.37 It was rumoured among those who knew Catalina de Arbus [Zaragoza 1487] that ‘she did not eat pork’,38 but there were no actual sightings or confessions to ratify this story. In Calatayud, Martin Xanar also ‘heard Pedro’s wife say that she did not

32

Melammed, Heretics or Daughters of Israel?, p. 85.

33

AHPZ, Leg. 3, no. 5, fol. 11r: ‘Cuando algunas aves las havia de matar, las fazia matar a judios, o el mesmo sobre alguna poca de ceniza o polvo fecho algun hoyo en tierra a modo que la sangre de las dichas aves se pudiesan cobryr et enbolver et fazia guardar que el guchillo contrase muy yfinese sin portillo por tal que las aves no pasasen violencia en tal degollar’. 34

AHPZ, Leg. 28, no. 8, fol. 6 v: ‘tocino, congrio, ni otro nengun pescado a los judios proybido’.

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35

AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 5, fol. 58 r: ‘no comyas tocino’.

36

AHPZ, Leg. 3, no. 5, fol. 10 r: ‘tocino, hebre, conejo, anguila, congrio’.

37

AHPZ, Leg. 22, no. 7, fol. 4 v.

38

AHPZ, Leg. 7, no. 11, fol. 15 r: ‘no comya tocino’.

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want to eat pork […] [and] she would not eat snails’.39 When Pedro Tomás went on trial in Bolea in 1491, his mother’s example was used as evidence against him. It was reported that ‘she did not want to eat what he [the witness] […] ate, she ate neither pork nor rabbit nor hare’.40 Conversas would often prepare two pots of stew — one which contained pork and another which did not. Violante de Santángel and her husband showed their contempt for those who ate pork, considering it to be food fit only for dogs: ‘She saw how they cooked chickens and other meat in one pot and in the other pot […] pork […] and they called the pot of pork, the dog’s pot’.41 On seeing her servant girl eat the stew containing pork she remarked, presumably to her husband, ‘Look at the girl, she’s put stew into the pots and is eating the dog’s stew’.42 Isabel Vidal de la Cavallería was also in the habit of separating pork from other meat. A servant noticed ‘that they put in pork to cook separately in a small pot, and they did not want it to cook in the pot in which the stew was being prepared’.43 Here Isabel was apparently concerned that the meat should not come into contact with the pork in case it would be contaminated. Brianda Bardaxí’s husband also had an aversion to pork. It was remarked that he seemed assiduously to avoid the meat and that ‘she never saw him eat pork nor did they eat it in the house’.44 Brianda de Santángel was not only averse to eating the meat, but she severely reprimanded a nanny for putting salted pork on her son’s head as a medical remedy: ‘Brianda became very angry and said to the nanny that she was amazed at her, being a conversa, that she had rubbed the child’s head with pork, and […] that from thence onwards she should never touch him with salted meat’.45 Late in the 1480s, Gaspar Ruiz was sitting at the table in the company of his family,

39 AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 7, fol. 2 v: ‘huyo decir al dicho Pedro su muger que no queria comer tocino […] no comia caracoles’. 40

AHPZ, Leg. 14, no. 8, fol. 6 r: ‘no queria comer lo que […] comya, no comya tocino ny conejo ny liebre’. 41

AHPZ, Leg. 12, no. 3, fols 9 v–10 r: ‘Vio como cozinavan pollos y otra carne en una olla y en otra olla […] tocino […] y llamaron a la dicha olla del tocino, olla de perros’. 42

Ibid., fols 9 v–10 r: ‘Myrat la moça, se ha escudiallado e come el caldo de perro’.

43

BnF esp. 81 (1492–1500), fol. 82 r: ‘Vio quando echavan toçino a cozer aparte en una olla pequenya, y no querian que se coziesse en la olla donde guisava’. 44 45

BnF esp. 80 (1482–92), fol. 5v : ‘nunca vio que comyesse tocino ny en la casa comyan’.

Lluís de Santàngel, p. 89: ‘se enojo mucho la dicha Brianda e le dixo a la dicha ama que se maravillava mucho della, por ser confessa, que untase la cabeça de un niño con toçino, e […] que no le tocasse de alli adelante con la dicha carne salada’.

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which included his daughter-in-law. She apparently took the pork out of the meal and threw it under the table, provoking him to say ‘with displeasure and melancholy […] we have Jews in my house, we have Jews in my house’.46 In comparison to the testimonies regarding the avoidance of pork and other food prohibited by Mosaic law, the number of confessions and accusations of eating meat on prohibited days is very high. These were not days in which the law of Moses enforced meat consumption, but in which the Catholic Church prohibited it. In the fifteenth century, Christians were prohibited from eating meat on Fridays, Saturdays, and the entire period of Lent. They were able to obtain dispensations if they were ill or had certain dietary requirements. This, of course, was another excellent opening for the defence counsel, or conversos pleading innocence during their interrogations.

Eating Together The prosecution’s claim that the conversos, as baptized Christians, were actively seeking involvement in social aspects of Jewish community life was given legal support by the existence of laws prohibiting interaction between Jews and Christians. A 1412 law from Valladolid states that ‘no male or female Jew or Moor, whether inside their houses or outside them, shall eat or drink among Christians […] or Christians among Jews’,47 while in Valencia, El diccionario de los inquisidores [1494] clearly explains the prohibition: ‘Converted Jews do not have the right to associate with infidels. Catholics can talk to Jews but they are forbidden to eat in their company’.48 The overwhelming number of testimonies claiming that Jews and conversos were in constant and habitual contact with each other starkly illustrated to the Inquisition that the laws in Aragón were not fully implemented. The concern that the conversos were adhering to Jewish dietary laws by eating with Jews appeared to be the main concern of the Inquisition: by maintaining close contact with Jewish friends and relatives, the conversos were deemed to be breaking both state and religious laws. The close relationship between the Jewish and New Christian communities indicated to the inquisitors

46

Marín Padilla, ‘Relación judeoconversa durante la segunda mitad del siglo XV en Aragón; matrimonio’, p. 247: ‘con desplacer y malenconya […] Judios tenemos en casa mia, judios tenemos en casa mia’.

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47

The Jews in Western Europe, ed. and trans. by Edwards, p. 88.

48

Ibid., p. 36.

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that those defendants accused of socializing with their Jewish friends and relatives were actually adhering to Jewish dietary laws. An awareness of Jewish–Christian social prohibitions was expressed by Juan Serrano [Zaragoza 1495], who converted to Christianity in 1482. A few months after his baptism he accompanied his friend Diego Maldonado to a celebration of a Jewish girl’s birth, known as a hada. Doubt soon emerged in Juan’s mind when, for the first time, he found himself a Christian at a Jewish occasion, and he turned to his friend for advice. Asking if they could eat the food being offered, Diego informed him that ‘the Christian has the law of grace and that he can eat anything that is blessed’.49 Believing him, Juan sat down to enjoy the feast, but later confessed to having done so to a priest. Apart from a few isolated cases within the trial records, it appears that Jews and New Christians like Juan often disregarded the legal ban on this aspect of their social interaction. The evidence suggests that Jews ate outside the aljama in converso homes just as freely as the conversos ate in the surrounds of the Jewish quarter. Prominent Jews such as Astuch Alpappery and his family were regular dining guests of María Salvat and her husband in Monzón. Her confession was summarized by the prosecution with the charge that ‘sometimes in the homes of Maria Salvat or of her husband, some Jews came, to those which this penitent […] gave food [and] they all ate at home’.50 In these cases, the Inquisition was concerned that the conversos chose to eat dishes that met the kosher dietary requirements of their Jewish guests over their own. Jews such as Bienvenis Arueth, who had often accepted such hospitality, testified against his former hosts and hostesses for having eaten kosher food in their company. Bienvenis claimed that María Jiménez [Daroca 1488] and her husband Benito Xavar had regularly entertained him in their house. This witness often saw ‘how some young Jewish boys and Jewish brothers of Benito were in Benito’s house, and Benito and his wife and the Jews [were] eating the same food and drinking the same wine at one table’.51 A witness saw that Jewish relatives often ate at the same table in Pedro Ram’s

49

AHPZ, Leg. 16, no. 4, fol. 2 r: ‘que el cristiano tiene la ley de gracia y qualquier cosa de la vendiga la puede comer’. 50

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 6, fol. 75v: ‘algunas vezes en las casas de la dicha Marya Salvat o de su marydo, benyan algunos jodios, a los quales este confessante […] daba collacion [e] comyan ally en casa’. 51

AHPZ, Leg. 10, no. 7, fol. 9 r: ‘commo estavan en su casa del dicho Benito, hunos moços judios y ermanos de dicho Benito, judios, y vido commian el dicho Benito y su muger y los judios, a huna mesa y de unas viandas y bever de un vino’.

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house in Híjar.52 Rabbi Acach Abadias and his wife used to dine regularly with Pedro Tomás and his wife [Bolea 1491], while another witness said that ‘sometimes he has seen […] a Jewish sister of his [Pedro’s] coming to his house and all of them eating there at his house at one table’.53 The conversos of Aragón were also regular guests in the judería and I have yet to find evidence to suggest that Jews prepared separate non-kosher dishes for such occasions. It is unlikely that they would have been willing to do so. A Jewish witness stated emphatically that Raimundo Pujol ‘has eaten and drunk in his house of his bread and wine and meat and chickens slaughtered according to Jewish ceremony’.54 As a girl, María de Esplugas [Alcalá de Henares 1487] was taken to the Jewish quarter by her mother after going to church on Holy Thursday, where they shared a meal of ‘chick-peas, toasted condiments, and pastry rings’55 with Jews and other conversos. Violante de Santángel [Huesca 1489] would often go to the Jewish quarter to eat a meal with conversas in the house of a woman called Estella.56 The parish priest of Burbáguena, García de Alava [Daroca 1490], confessed, ‘I often ate with Jews and food and meat cooked by Jews’.57 In Daroca, Jahu Levi said that ‘Bernardo Remirez drank his Jewish wine in this witness’s house’.58 Moreover, Bernardo and his wife often went to eat at the Levi’s house (relatives of theirs) where they sat down at the same table and ate the same dishes.59 Luis de Heredia [Calatayud 1489] ‘being in Zaragoza with Luis de la Cavalleria, deceased […] often ate in Jewish homes’;60 he later confessed: ‘I ate Jewish food in their homes’.61 Guillermo Remírez [Híjar 1492]

52

AHPZ, Leg. 17, no. 8, fol. 27 r.

53

AHPZ, Leg. 14, no. 9, fol. 10r : ‘algunas vezes ha visto […] venir a su casa una hermana suya jodia e comer ally en su casa todos a una mesa’. 54

AHPZ, Leg. 6, no. 4, fol. 50 v : ‘ha comydo y bebido en su cassa de su pan y bino y carne y gallinas degolladas por cerymonya judayca’. 55

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 1, fol. 14: ‘garbanzos, turrados y rosquillas’.

56

AHPZ, Leg. 12, no. 3, fol. 10 v.

57

AHPZ, Leg. 17, no. 2, fol. 5r : ‘comi muchas vezes con jodios y sus viandas y carne guisada por jodios’. 58 AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 4, fol. 5r: ‘Bernat Remírez bevio de su vino judayco en casa deste deposante’. 59

Ibid., fol. 5 v.

60 AHPZ, Leg. 12, no. 9, fol. 16 r: ‘estando en Çaragoça con Loys de Cavallería, quondam […] comio muchas vezes en casa de judios’. 61

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Ibid., fol. 21r: ‘comy en casa de judyos y sus comeres’.

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admitted that ‘he has often eaten meat and fowl slaughtered by Jews together with them at one table’,62 while Juan Diez, caballero (gentleman), also of Híjar, claimed that his profession gave him no choice but to sit down to meals with Jews, ‘going with Jews […] at one table he has eaten [food] slaughtered by Jews’.63 Naturally, complications often arose within marriages between Jews and conversos. Despite the fact that Jewish–Christian unions of this nature were forbidden, the trial records contain some examples in which representatives of two religions were living under the same roof. Such unions, in which only one of the pair had converted, would have posed difficulties insofar as everyday life was concerned, and the evidence suggests that New Christians invariably compromised their dietary habits in marital arrangements of this kind. Juan Bach [Híjar 1497] and Regina were both Jews when they were married, but when Juan decided to convert, his wife chose to remain Jewish, a witness referring to her as ‘she who had not converted’.64 Despite Juan’s religious change, the domestic arrangement remained unaltered and he continued to eat the Jewish food which Regina prepared, the prosecution stating that: ‘after having converted from Judaism to our Holy Catholic Faith, having lived and co-habited together in one house with his Jewish wife called Regina, who died a Jewess, and being with her he ate all the Jewish food and stews with her at one table’.65 Conversa María Salvat was also married to a Jew, and the couple spent considerably more time with his side of the family than with hers. As a natural consequence of the social circles in which the two moved, the diet of María’s household was a Jewish rather than a Christian one. After Juan Serrano converted to Christianity in 1482, he returned to his mother’s house in the

62

AHPZ, Leg. 15, no. 5, fol. 21v: ‘muchas vezes ha comydo carne y haves degolladas por judios juntamente con ellos a una mesa’. 63 AHPZ, Leg. 15, no. 4, fol. 16 r: ‘yendo con jodios […] ha comydo de lo degollado por jodios a una mesa’. 64 65

AHPZ, Leg. 17, no. 8, fol. 3 r: ‘la qual no havya convertido’.

AHPZ, Leg. 17, no. 8, fol. 40 r: ‘despues de haverse convertido de judio a nuestra Sancta ffe Catholica, haver estado vivydo y habitado juntamente en una casa con su mujer llamada Regina, la qual murio judya, y stando con ella comia con ella a una mesa de todas la viandas y guisadas de judios’.

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aljama, confessing that ‘in the judería I often ate the Jewish food given to me by my mother’.66 It seems that similar obstacles were encountered in marriages between Old and New Christians, especially when the latter group continued to maintain close relations with Jewish family members. A case in point is Esteban de Ariza [Zaragoza 1487], who used to eat regularly with his Jewish in-laws at their table. He insisted on taking his Old Christian wife with him and forcing her to partake of the meals. Her resistance, signifying an awareness that to eat with her Jewish relatives was wrong, met with physical abuse, as testified to by her father: ‘And Esteban and Astuch his Jewish cousin, used to eat from one plate and of one dish, except for the witness’s daughter who did not want to eat […] she has suffered many blows and some injuries’.67 The inquisitors were suspicious that this might have been the false testimony of a father who disapproved of his sonin-law, but he assured them that he was telling the truth despite his dislike for Esteban, and another witness subsequently confirmed the story. Francisco de Torres [Epila 1488] lamented the fact that being married to an Old Christian forced him to have to eat his Jewish food in secret.68 His comment suggests that, although he ate non-kosher food prepared by his wife, he was still driven by a desire to maintain the dietary precepts of Judaism whenever he could, albeit in secret. This case recalls many previously cited examples in which conversos partially observed Jewish laws when circumstances, such as being married to Old Christians, prevented their complete observance. The prosecution’s charge that conversos were committing a crime by sharing meals with Jews was given a significantly greater punch if it could prove that the accused was guilty of being present at the table during, or participating in, the Jewish blessing of the food. When summarizing Isabel de Santángelo’s crimes, the prosecution clarified that, aside from eating Jewish food at their table, ‘she was present at the blessing of the table’.69 Similarly, the Jewish brothers of Esteban de Ariza told the court that ‘sometimes […] he was present at the

66

AHPZ, Leg. 16, no. 4, fol. 17 r: ‘comy muchas vezes en la juderia de las viandas que my madre me dava’. 67

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 6, fol. 6 v: ‘Et comian el dicho Estevan y el dicho Astuch, judio su cosino, en hun plato e de huna bianda mas no su fija deste deposante que no queria comer […] que ha sufrido muchos golpes e unas heridas’.

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68

AHPZ, Leg. 10, no. 9, fol. 5v.

69

AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 4, fol. 11v: ‘stava presente a la bendicion de la mesa’.

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blessing that this witness gave’.70 In Calatayud, Pedro Ram’s wife paid regular visits to relatives in the Jewish quarter where she used to eat ‘together at one table [and] of the same food and he [the witness] saw how she was present at the blessing of the table that the Jew gave and she would answer “amen”’.71 This might well have been a reaction to a familiar situation in which ‘amen’ was an automatic response by both Jews and Christians to thanking God for the food. The prosecution, however, assumed that Pedro Ram’s wife was participating in the Jewish blessing. Social interaction between the two communities also extended to staying over night in each other’s houses. When Luis Sánchez travelled across Spain, ‘he used to stay in Jews’ houses and he would eat their food and blessed wine’.72 The brothers Jaime and Bernardo de Ribas both offered their homes to Jewish relatives for varying periods of time. One of Jaime’s servants could not help but notice that, ‘for some time, a Jew was in Jaime’s house […] who ate and slept for some time at home […] in Christian clothes [but] this witness did not think he was Jewish until the news that he was a Jew reached him’.73 It is interesting that this relative was disguised as a Christian, presumably in an effort to protect Jaime from suspicious servants and neighbours. It was also reported that Bernardo played host to a Jewish relative for a couple of days.74 Esteban de Ariza took his Old Christian wife with him when they went to stay with his Jewish sister: ‘when the King and Queen of Castile came here, Esteban de Ariza brought his wife to this city and went to stay with her in the judería’.75 It appears that the social situations in which the conversos placed themselves often gave rise to suspicion and added to the fear that New Christians were being led astray by Jews. Often the constant socializing between the two communities

70

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 6, fol. 18 v: ‘algunas vezes […] estava presente a la bendicion que dava este deposante’. 71 AHPZ, Leg. 17, no. 8, fol. 15r: ‘juntamente a una mesa de unas viandas y veya como estava presente a la vendicion de la mesa que el dicho jodio dava y respondia “amen”’. 72

Cabezudo Astraín, ‘Los conversos aragoneses’, p. 276: ‘moraba en casa de judios y comia sus comeres y vino bendecido’. 73

AHPZ, Leg. 4, no. 2, fol. 6 v : ‘por algun tiempo en casa del dito Jayme, hun jodio el qual se stava, comya e dormya por algun tiempo en casa [… ] en habito de christiano [… ] este deposante no se pensava era jodio hasta le caguerya huna noticia era jodio’. 74 75

Ibid., fol. 34 v.

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 6, fol. 6 v: ‘quando vinieron aqui el Rey et la Reyna de Castilla, traxo el dicho Estevan de Fariza a esta ciudad a la dicha su mujer e fue a posar con ella a la juderia’.

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simply confirmed the conversos’ Jewishness to both Old Christian and Jewish witnesses. Jaime de Ribas’s servant girl considered her employers to be more Jewish than Christian because of their constant conversation with Jewish acquaintances. Jaime de Santa Clara [Zaragoza 1485] and his wife had so many ‘dealings and conversation with Jews and Jewesses […] that it seemed as if they were Jews’.76 Finally, the general comportment of Juan Bach and his wife in Híjar, which seemed to be typical of many conversos, led a Jewish witness to remark that ‘he considered them to be more like Jews than Christians’.77

Births, Deaths, and Marriages The Jewish reputations of many Aragonese conversos were merely confirmed by reports that New Christians and Jews often came together to celebrate births, circumcisions, and weddings, as well as providing moral and physical support for each other in sickness and in death. A 1412 law of Catalina forbade Jews ‘to visit Christians in their illness, or give them medicines, or talk idly to them, or send them presents of dried herbs, or spices, or any article of food, and also forbade Jews to take part in Christian weddings or funerals’.78 A lengthy examination of these aspects of their relationship is found in the collection of articles published in Sefarad by Encarnación Marín Padilla. This work is an in-depth analysis of the interaction between New Christians and Jews in one another’s life cycles in fifteenth-century Aragón. The thoroughness of Marín Padilla’s study means that here I will include only a brief summary of main charges being faced by the conversos concerning their involvement in such activities. Some conversas relied on the help of Jewish friends when they experienced difficulties after childbirth. Violante de Santángel [Barbastro 1490], for example, was unable to feed her new born daughter, so her conversa mother-in-law fetched a Jewish wet nurse to care for the infant. Clara Diez [Sariñena 1490] was unaware that, during a period of illness, a Jew had been employed to look after and act as mother to her son: ‘because this penitent was sick, a Jewess breastfed this

76

AHPZ, Leg. 4, no. 3, fol. 6 r: ‘tenya mucha practica e conversacion con jodios y jodias’ and ‘que parecia que fuessen jodios’.

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77

AHPZ, Leg. 17, no. 8, fol. 4v: ‘los tenyan por mas judyos que no cristianos’.

78

Netanyahu, The Origins of the Inquisition, p. 193.

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penitent’s son for six or seven weeks’.79 It was also customary in Jewish homes to celebrate the birth of the newborn in a ceremony known as a hada. After Juan Serrano’s baptism in 1482 [Zaragoza 1495], he confessed that ‘he was at a celebration of some naming ceremonies’.80 Beatriz de Jerez confessed that ‘She performed the ceremony which the Jews usually perform which they call hadas’81 following the birth of her daughter. As well as the naming ceremonies, conversos were often seen attending celebrations following circumcisions. After the birth of a Jewish friend’s son, Catalina and her husband were invited to attend the festivities. Moreover, another Jewish friend testified that ‘the wife of this witness having recently given birth […] Pedro Ferrer and his wife [Catalina] came to this witness’s house to see his wife who had given birth […] and […] he gave them a collation of honey pastries and Jewish wine’.82 Conversos Pedro de Santángel, Iñigo de Condón, Antón de Santángel, and their wives all went to the circumcision in Calatayud and gave presents to the new parents.83 Very few conversos were accused of being circumcised, perhaps due to the fact that the procedure was permanent physical evidence which blatantly marked them out as Jews. The rite of circumcision was understood both by the inquisitors and Jews as a ‘visible sign of the covenant between God and the Jewish people’ known in Hebrew as berit milah, or ‘covenant of circumcision’.84 This meant that those who chose to have their sons circumcised, despite the obvious dangers, were seen to be ensuring that their boys were part of this covenant and Jewish way of life. Although the role traditionally fell to the father, Pedro de Santa Clara [Calatayud 1488] employed outside help to perform his son’s circumcision. The Jewish witness told the court that Pedro asked him to confirm that the ceremony had been performed well. The same witness was to

79

AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 10, fol. 8 r: ‘stando enferma esta confessant, una judia dio a hun fijo desta confessante la teta seys o siete semanas’. 80

AHPZ, Leg. 16, no. 4, fol. 17r: ‘estuve en una fiesta de unas fadas’.

81

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 13, fol. 20 r: ‘Se le ffizo la cerymonia que los judios acostumbran ffazer que se llaman las fadas’. 82

AHPZ, Leg. 14, no. 8, fol. 6 r: ‘estando parida la mujer desta deposante […] Pedro Ferrer y su mujer [Catalina] vinieron a casa deste deposante a ver su mujer que estava parida […] et […] dio les collacion de melados y vino judayco’. 83 Marín Padilla, ‘Relación judeoconversa durante la segunda mitad del siglo XV en Aragón; nacimientos, hadas, circuncisiones’, p. 287. 84

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De Lange, An Introduction to Judaism, p. 110.

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circumcise Pedro’s second son, and initially refused until he was offered payment for the job.85 Bernardo Remírez [Daroca 1488] was accused of having ordered the circumcision of his son, and a witness ‘said that a son of Bernardo Remirez […] did not have a prepuce on his member, and this witness saw this […]’.86 On a couple of occasions, those directly accused of having been circumcised, such as Diego Sánchez [Calamocha 1496] and Luis de Bardaxí [Huesca 1487], were examined and found to have defects.87 Finally, Luis de Heredia [Calatayud 1489] told the court that when he was eight or nine, the boys at school teased him. He said: ‘Mother, the boys call me clipped, as there is something wrong with my member’.88 To which his mother explained in response: Son, your grandfather Luis de Heredia invited some Jews called master Juçe Toriel, doctor, and master Salamon Avayut [surgeon?], and Huda Moreno, circumciser to your house, and in the presence of these Jews and your grandfather, master Juçe Toriel circumcised you and took a little blood from your member, and they gave you the name Jacobico and gave you four reales, and you were of age when they circumcised you, about four or five years old.89

In this instance, Luis’s grandfather employed Juçe Lupiel as a specialist circumciser, or a mohel, to perform the ceremony. It is unusual that Luis was circumcised at a relatively late stage in life; the ritual was traditionally performed seven or eight days after the birth. Also of interest is that Luis received the Jewish name of Jacobo, with the Aragonese diminutive form, Jacobico, during the ceremony, but clearly used and was identified by his Christian name in public. The joyous occasion of a wedding within the judería often saw the attendance of converso friends and relatives. Participating in Jewish weddings, as in the case of the hadas, meant that the kosher food was being served and enjoyed by all and 85

AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 11, fols 12 r–13 r.

86 AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 4, fol. 4 r: ‘dixo hun fijo de Bernat Remírez […] no tenia capillon en su miembro, y esto vio este deposante’. 87

Marín Padilla, ‘Relación judeoconversa durante la segunda mitad del siglo XV en Aragón; nacimientos, hadas, circuncisiones’, p. 293. 88

AHPZ, Leg. 12, no. 9, fols 10 r–10 v: ‘Madre, los muchachos me llaman rezmellado que mal he huvido yo en mi miembro’. 89

Ibid., fols 10 r–10 v: ‘Fijo, tu aguelo Luis de Heredia truxo a su casa unos jodios llamados maestre Juçe Toriel, medico, maestre Salamon Avayut, cilingiano y Huda Moreno, capatero, y el dicho maestre Juçe Lupiel en presençia de los dichos jodios y de tu aguelo te cirucuncidio y te saquo una poca de sangre de tu miembro, que te pusieron nombre Jaquobiquo y te estrenaron quatro reales, y eras de edat quanto te circuncidieron, de edat de quatro o cinquo años’.

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sundry. Pedro de Abella was accused by the prosecution of having ‘gone and used to go to weddings and circumcisions and festivals of Jews in the judería. And he has made collations in those, presenting gifts and honouring the Jews and consoling with them’.90 Jewish witness Oro testified that Juan Bach and Guillermo Remírez and his wife went to various weddings in Jewish quarter of Híjar: ‘they came to their weddings and ate the same food that the Jews ate at them, seated together with the Jews at one table’.91 Bernardo Remírez [Daroca 1488] and his wife were also guests at such occasions: ‘he saw the two of them there feasting at the weddings’.92 Conversely, when Raimundo Pujol’s daughter got married, Jewish friends went to his house and the two groups celebrated together: ‘Jews and Jewesses arrived there and were in the corridors, and they feasted with the Jews’.93 As Marín Padilla notes, Jews would go to converso homes to celebrate weddings, but with far less frequency, and not so openly: ‘owing to the danger that it implied for them, then it seems that to see conversos in Jewish homes did not cause as much scandal as seeing Jews in converso homes’.94 It is natural that close relations between converso and Jewish families fostered inter-familial concern in times of sickness and in death. Visiting the sick was a Jewish tradition, and it seems that conversos turned to Jewish friends and family when struck by illness. When Pedro de Santa Clara’s daughter was suffering from a high fever, a Jewish woman came to her bedside. Asking for the girl’s belt, she proceeded to say some prayers and sprinkled it with some herbs.95 Gracia Ruiz testified that ‘when one of her children was sick, she threw drops, those

90

AHPZ, Leg. 14, no. 1, fol. 10 v: ‘ha ydo y hiva en bodas y circuncisiones e fiestas de judios en la juderya. E ha fecho collacion en aquellas, estrenando y honrando los judios y consolando con ellos’. 91 AHPZ, Leg. 17, no. 8, fol. 4 r: ‘vinieron a sus bodas y comieron en ellas de las mismas viandas que los jodios comian, juntamente con los jodios a una mesa asentados’. 92

AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 4, fol. 5 v: ‘y les vio fazer collacion a los dos alli en las bodas’.

93 AHPZ, Leg. 6, no. 4, fol. 52 r: ‘Vinyeron ally judios y judias y stuvieron en las pasillas, y fizieron collacion con los judios’. 94

Marín Padilla, ‘Relación judeoconversa durante la segunda mitad del siglo XV en Aragón; matrimonio’, p. 270: ‘debido al peligro que para ellos suponía, pues parece que ver conversos en las casas de judías no movía tanto a escándalo como ver judíos en las casas de conversas’. 95

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Ibid., p. 255.

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drops which Jewish, Christian, and Moorish women often threw’.96 This was a reference to echando gotillas, which was a Jewish remedy that involved throwing drops of oil into a pan of water, and it was popularly employed by the New Christians. Blanca Adam [Zaragoza 1486] saw how Isabel de Bello took a belt and ‘threw some drops of oil in a pan and said certain words which Blanca did not understand’.97 Violante de Santángel confessed that she had gone to visit sick Jews on many occasions and that a Jewish woman gave her medicine to help her conceive.98 It is possible that the conversos went to the judería to be treated in preference to the Old Christian doctors simply because the Jewish doctors had such excellent reputations. María de Esplugas explained in her confession that she had been visited by a Jewish doctor because he was one of her husband’s associates. ‘I, already being married to the said doctor, was in such pain that a Jewish physician paid me a visit’.99 Catalina de Funes [Calatayud 1491] confessed that she had bought some medicine from the Jewish quarter,100 while Jaime de Santa Clara and his wife would often send their sick children to be cured in the aljama.101 Death, and the mourning period which succeeded it, were also occasions during which both communities came together. When María de Esplugas was a child, her mother and a Jew took her to the judería to spend time with some friends whose mother had died fifteen days previously, and ‘to console them’.102 A servant told the court that the night Jaime de Gracia [Montálban 1487] died, a Jewish relative entered the house and spent the entire night there.103 In this case it is reasonable to assume that the relative was acting as one of the shomrim, or ‘watchers’, whose job it was to stay with the body until the burial.

96

AHPZ, Leg. 3, no. 5, fol. 65v: ‘quando alguno de sus filos estava malo les fazia echar gotillas las quales gotillas fazian muchas vezes judyas, cristianas y moras’. 97

Marín Padilla, ‘Relación judeoconversa durante la segunda mitad del siglo XV en Aragón; enfermedades y muertes’, p. 255: ‘echaba unas gotas de aceite en una escudilla y decía ciertas palabras que Blanca no entendía’. 98

AHPZ, Leg. 12, no. 3, fols 4 r–4 v.

99

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 1, fol. 14 v: ‘Yo, siendo ya casada con el dicho dotor, yo seyendo doliente en tal manera me visitava un fisico jodio’.

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100

AHPZ, Leg. 14, no. 8, fol. 2 r.

101

AHPZ, Leg. 4, no. 3, fols 5v–6 r.

102

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 1, fol. 4 r: ‘por las consolar’.

103

AHPZ, Leg. 17, no. 8, fol. 21v.

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Moreover, conversos were often accused of observing Jewish rituals without the involvement of the Jewish community, such as preparing the body immediately after death. When Berenguer de Torellas [Zaragoza 1490] passed away, María de Pamplona saw how his wife ‘made him some linen stockings and put a hair net on him and a cloth for his face and with some bandages, covered his eyes and mouth the way the Jews do their deceased’.104 Bernardo Remírez’s wife reportedly placed a coin in her husband’s mouth when he had died. This conformed with the custom that some Iberian Jews practised at the time, in which they ‘commonly sought to ease the journey of the deceased with offerings of food and money’.105 There is also evidence to suggest that conversos maintained the precept that bodies should be buried in virgin soil. A witness testified that he heard Pedro Tomás’s mother say that she did not want to be buried in a place where the ground had already been used for that purpose. When she eventually died, Pedro buried her in a spot at the top of the cemetery in virgin land.106 Following the death of Juan de Loperuelo, his son reportedly adhered to the strict rules of mandatory mourning prescribed by Mosaic law, although the number of days during which he purportedly mourned varied from five to thirty, depending on the testimony of the particular witness. It was said that, for a certain period of time, Juan shut himself up at home, went about in bare feet, and refrained from meat: ‘He did not eat meat the day his father died, and he made one called Martin de Arandiga bring over fish. And moreover he said that for thirty days Loperuelo did not allow his children to leave the house’.107 Following the death of her husband, María Salvat ‘cried, wearing a cloak on her head, making some movements with her head’,108 as well as abstaining from eating meat for three or four days after her husband passed away. Finally, Gracia

104 AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 8, fol. 3 v: ‘le fizo hunos calçones de lienço y pusole huna cofia y hun trapo por la cara, y con ciertas bendas envendolo por los ojos y por la boca que los judios fazen a sus muertos’. 105

Gitlitz, Secrecy and Deceit, p. 284.

106

AHPZ, Leg. 14, no. 9, fol. 2 r.

107

AHPZ, Leg. 21, no. 7, fol. 8 r: ‘No comio carne el dia que murio su padre, e fizo cercar pescado a uno llamado Martin de Arandiga. Y dixo mas que el dicho Loperuelo tubo los trenta dias que no dexo sallir sus fijos de casa’. 108

AHPZ, Leg. 6, no. 8, fols 74 r–74 v: ‘ploraba con el manto en la cabeza, faziendo algunos gestos de la cabeza’.

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de Esplugas [Zaragoza 1487] mourned a death for eight days behind closed doors.109 It is abundantly clear from the trials records that the relationship between the Jewish and New Christian communities extended far beyond the daily routine of buying and selling, exchanging money, or following the dictates of normal neighbourly etiquette. Many of the accused who appeared before the tribunal of Zaragoza were considered by witnesses to be more Jewish than Christian because they were seen to be following many of the precepts of Judaism, often with the assistance of the Jewish community. Some ensured that their meat was kosher either by slaughtering it themselves or by employing Jews to slaughter it for them. Jews and New Christians often ate together, either in the Jewish quarter or at the homes of conversos. They invited one another to attend their respective weddings and hadas, and provided each other with moral support in times of crisis. They assisted one another when illness struck and mourned each other’s deaths. The Church’s fear that the line which divided social interaction and religious observance had become exceedingly blurred was simply confirmed by the testimonies and confessions heard by the inquisitors in Zaragoza. As detailed in the following chapter, this fear was further confirmed by evidence that many conversos were taking an interest and participating in the prayer life of Judaism, both in terms of owning Jewish sacred texts and being able to recite Jewish prayers.

109

Marín Padilla, ‘Enfe Relación judeoconversa durante la segunda mitad del siglo XV en Aragón; enfermedades y muertes’, p. 286.

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A

large number of conversos were not only spending time in the judería on social calls, but some were also frequenting synagogues. This is indeed surprising when one considers the danger of such an overt association with the centre of public Jewish prayer life. While both men and women were charged with some involvement with the proceedings of their local synagogue, there was a firm division between the sexes insofar as the accusations levelled at them were concerned. Whereas conversos were directly involved in communal prayer, either by attending services in the synagogues as congregants, or forming themselves into prayer groups, the role of the conversas remained very much peripheral. These accusations are entirely in keeping with the precepts of Judaism at that time, when Jewish women’s roles as observers, who could not lead prayers or take part in any conduct of services, were clearly defined. Thus, we find that the majority of female defendants were quick to point out to the inquisitors that the extent of their exposure to the synagogue had been nothing more than a fleeting look inside, driven by sheer curiosity and often undertaken in the company of equally inquisitive female friends. Blanca Adam [Zaragoza 1486] said that she went inside a synagogue in the company of friends because a certain conversa made them all go: ‘she […] did not want to enter but they made her go in like the others and they went inside to see the synagogue’.1 Isabel Fajol’s file [Barbastro 1489] is replete with the testimonies of witnesses (mostly Jewish) claiming to have seen her in the synagogue with conversas for

1

AHPZ, Leg. 7, no. 1, fol. 10 r: ‘ella […] no queria de entrar sino la fizeron dentrar como las otras y entraron por ver la sinoga’.

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whom the centre was a regular destination. Although she would often say that she had just been looking inside the building, further evidence suggests that Isabel’s visits to the Jewish quarter were driven by something greater than mere curiosity. When playing as a child in the square in front of the synagogue, a witness remembered seeing Isabel give money for oil. He saw that ‘Pablo Fajol’s mother and wife and his wife’s mother were inside the synagogue, looking at where they had the Torahs, and he heard it said that they had given donations for oil’.2 Another Jewish witness confirmed that he had gone to visit Isabel Fajol and her daughter-in-law, who told him that they had just come back from seeing the synagogue where they donated some oil.3 Galcerán Fajol [Huesca 1488] said that he had been inside in order to admire the decoration.4 The most serious of charges were levelled at the men, some of whom were accused by the prosecution of having gone into the synagogue to pray with the Jews. In Teruel, the prosecution claimed that Jaime de Santángel was a regular attendee of the synagogue,5 while Pedro de Abella [Barabastro 1491] was reported to have ‘been to visit the Jewish synagogue and prayed to the Torah’.6 A Jewish acquaintance of Juan de Loperuelo in Daroca said: ‘One day, Johan de Loperuelo, coming to pay respects here at the synagogue, took his hat off in front of the Torah’.7 The testimony given against Jaime de la Cavallería in Zaragoza provides by far the most serious allegation concerning direct participation in a prayer service found among the trial records from this period in Aragón. The witness, Jento Silton, told the inquisitors about one night when he was accompanying Jaime in the judería: As they passed by the door of the synagogue […] they heard the Jews singing in the synagogue, and as Jaime de la Cavallería was wearing a cloaked garment and a hood on his head, he went into the synagogue, and entering through the door, he said: ‘By

2

AHPZ, Leg. 12, no. 3, fol. 15 v: ‘la madre de Pablo Fajol e a su mujer et a la madre de su mujer que estavan dentro de la sinoga, myrando donde tenyan las toras, y huyo dezir que havyan dado limosnas para olio’. 3

Ibid., fol. 18 r.

4

AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 5, fol. 3 v.

5

AHPZ, Leg. 3, no. 5, fol. 8 r.

6

AHPZ, Leg. 14, no. 1, fol. 10r: ‘ha hido a visitar la sinoga de los judios y ha fecho oracion a la tora’. 7

AHPZ, Leg. 16, no. 8, fol. 6 r: ‘Un dia, veniendo Juhan de Loperuelo a fazer unas pazes aqui a la sinoga, se quito el bonete ante la Tora’.

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God! You see here, this is how my grandfather used to come into the synagogue when he was a Jew’. Jaime made some movements with his body, straightening himself out and lifting his head […] and he was inside for a quarter of an hour listening to what the Jews were praying.8

It would have been difficult for Jaime to maintain his anonymity for the fifteen minutes that the pair reportedly spent listening to the prayers. Jento, however, made a point of saying that Jaime was wearing a hood; perhaps by doing so the converso was able to keep his identity hidden by partially covering his face. This testimony, although plausible, must be treated with caution. Jento Silton converted to Christianity in 1492 rather than leaving Spain, and took the name of Alfonso García at his baptism. He also gave evidence against Alfonso de la Cavallería before the Expulsion. In 1496, however, he re-testified, this time as a New Christian, claiming that he had testified falsely against Alfonso de la Cavallería when he was a Jew. Although I cannot find any such admission in Jaime’s trial record, it would not be unreasonable to assume that Alfonso García might also have fabricated his story about Jaime. However, another witness, Simmuel Abnurrabe, also said that Jaime had requested that he be taken to the synagogue on many Jewish festivals.9 It seems that some conversos were content to participate less blatantly in the services taking place inside Jewish buildings. According to a rabbi, Juana García and her husband chose to go only as far as the door of the synagogue: ‘when the Jews brought out the Torah for some prayers so that God would make it rain, they would come to see it […] they would venerate it at the door of the synagogue and in the square’.10 Jaime de Santángel and friends used to go to a house close enough to the synagogue in Teruel in order to listen to the events taking place within the building.11 Juan Bach was seen to have positioned himself outside the synagogue in the Jewish quarter of Híjar so that he was able to see 8

BnF esp. 84 (1485–1502), fol. 12 r: ‘Quando pasavan por la puerta de la sinoga […] sintieron como cantaban los judios en la sinoga, a la hora el dicho Jayme de la Cavalleria, asi como estava vestido con la clocha y capirot en la cabeça, que dentro en la sinoga, y asi dentrava por la puerta, dixo estas palabras: “Por el dio, veis aqui, como entrava mi aguelo quando era judio en la sinoga”, faziendo el dicho Jayme unos gestos del cuerpo, haziendose muy derecho y alçando la cabeça, y asi dentro […] estubo alli un quarto de hora escuchando lo que estavan alli rezando los judios’. 9

Ibid., fol. 6 v.

10 AHSC, Leg. 12, fols 4 v–5 r: ‘quando sacavan los judios la Tora por algunas rogarias para que Dios ploviese, benian a veyerla [… ] a la puerta de la sinoga y a la plaça le fazian reverencia’. 11

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AHPZ, Leg. 3, no. 5, fol. 8 v.

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what was going on inside as well as listen to the prayers.12 Testimonies of this nature were much sought after by the prosecution, for the actions of the conversos revealed both a sincere belief in Judaism and a desire to participate communally with Jews in their synagogues. This was further confirmed in the eyes of the prosecutor where other testimonies confirmed that a converso had asked Jews to pray on their behalf inside the synagogue. A rabbi’s wife told the court how Galcerán Fajol wanted prayers to be said in the synagogue for his sick wife.13 According to two witnesses, Juan Diez [Belchite 1492] apparently asked a group of Jews where they were going, and when he discovered that their destination was the synagogue, he asked them to ‘pray for everybody’.14 Gonzalvo Ruiz [Teruel] had his illness announced in the synagogue and the congregation fasted for his restoration to health.15 Some conversos were charged with owning benches or lamps in the synagogues, such as Galcerán Fajol, who had his own lamp, and Jaime de Santángel, who was seen to be more Jewish than Christian because ‘he has a lamp that burns in the synagogue’.16 Alfonso de la Cavallería was accused of owning ‘pews and benches in the synagogue’.17 It was reported that Gonzalvo Ruiz [Teruel 1487] ‘has a bench in the synagogue which he guards and allows only his friends and relatives to sit on it and not anybody else’.18 Special importance was attached to the lamp as the Jewish symbol of the eternal light of the Torah, and every effort was made to ensure that the flame was always burning. As well as sending oil on a regular basis, the New Christians appeared to have made generous donations to oil funds. Fresina Pastor reportedly owned a bench in the synagogue, a witness also claiming that: ‘He has heard it said by certain Jews of Huesca that the wife of Miguel Pastor, conversa, used to give oil to the Synagogue’.19 Jaime de Santángel also used to send oil to the synagogue in Teruel, ‘especially Friday evenings and other holidays of the 12

AHPZ, Leg. 17, no. 8, fol. 3v.

13

AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 5, fol. 28 v.

14

AHPZ, Leg. 15, no. 4, fol. 2 v: ‘rogat por todos’.

15

Gitlitz, Secrecy and Deceit, p. 507.

16

AHPZ, Leg. 3, no. 5, fol. 9 v: ‘tiene lampada que arde en la dicha sinoga’.

17

BnF esp. 74 (1499–1501), fol. 8 r: ‘cadieras y aposientos en la sinoga’.

18

Gitlitz, Secrecy and Deceit, p. 507: ‘Tiene lugar en la sinoga e lo defendia e fazia que sus amigos y parientes se asentan a ella y no otros’. 19

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 9, fol. 15r: ‘Havya huydo dezir a ciertas judias de Huesca que la mujer de Miguel Pastor, confesa, dava olio a la Sinoga’.

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Jews’.20 Salvadora Salvat confessed that ‘It is true that in the first two years of Kippur she gave a sueldo for oil for the synagogue to La Benbenguda’.21 Gracia Ruiz confessed that she would often give oil on Yom Kippur and ‘also when a child of hers was in pain she promised to give oil to the synagogue’.22 Others such as María Salvat confessed that ‘she once gave oil to the synagogue because she had a sick son that God would give health to’.23 Pedro de Abella was accused of giving money for oil as an act of devotion.24 Esperanza de Santa Fe [Sariñena 1490] confessed that, a few months after converting to Christianity, she was approached by ‘a Jewess […] [who] asked that she give some oil for the Jewish synagague and so this penitent […] gave oil to the Jewess’.25 Helping Jews maintain oil provisions for their synagogue seems to have been linked with the concept of charity as an act of religious devotion. Conversos often confessed in the same breath that they had also given financial and material aid to members of the Jewish community by making donations to the ‘Jewish fund’, called the bolsa de los judios or cedaqua. Luis de Heredia simply confessed to having donated alms: ‘it is true that two or three times he has given charity to the Jews for the cedaqua’.26 Juan de Santa Fe [Tarazona 1486] not only gave donations to the Jews and the synagogue, but more specifically ‘silver for the Torah’.27 Galcerán Fajol was accused by the prosecution of having ‘often given donations to the cedaqua fund of the Jews. And other times you gave donations to the other Jewish fund called the fund of the [tamyt…?], that means for the

20

AHPZ, Leg. 3, no. 5, fol. 10 r: ‘especialmente los biernes a la noche y otras fiestas de judios’. 21

AHPZ, Leg. 11, no. 1, fol. 31r: ‘Es verdat que dio a la Benvenguda en los dos primeros ayunos de quipur […] hun sueldo para olio a la sinoga’. 22

AHPZ, Leg. 3, no. 5, fol. 64 r: ‘tambien quando alguna criatura suya estava doliente prometya de dar olyo a la sinoga’. 23

AHPZ, Leg. 6, no. 8, fol. 74r: ‘dio por una vegada olio a la sinoga por quanto tenya un fixo malo que dios lo diesse salvat’. 24

AHPZ, Leg. 14, no. 1, fol. 10 r.

25

AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 10, fol. 1r: ‘una judia […] demando que le diesse algun azeyete para la sinoga de los judios y assi esta confessante […] dio olio a la dicha judia’. 26 AHPZ, Leg. 12, no. 9, fol. 10 v: ‘es verdat que ha dado por dos o tres vezes limosna a judios para la cedaqua’. 27

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repair of the synagogue’.28 This charge comprises one of the many to be found in the Valencian Edict of Grace: ‘Item, if you have donated money or something else for the building, repair or ornamentation of the synagogue, or if you know or have heard it said that it has been done’.29 The conviction that such acts of charity would receive blessings from God was expressed by some of the accused in their confessions. María Salvat, for example, confessed that she had given charity to poor Jews so that they would offer up prayers for her. 30 Gracia Ruiz admitted that she gave charity for the wellbeing of her family: ‘she used to give donations to Jews for charity because they fasted and begged God for their health’.31 Esperanza de Santa Fe simply gave money for the love of God,32 while Juan de Alava was approached by a Jew who ‘asked him to give for the love of God, and this penitent put his hand in his bag and gave two coins to the Jew’.33 Upon seeing Galcerán Fajol contributing to the Jewish fund, a Jewish witness concluded that a good Christian would not have done such a thing: ‘And seeing that he gave the donation, he says that he neither considers him a good Christian nor having a reputation as one’.34 Galcerán confessed that he gave alms ‘for the love of the Law of Moses’.35 Every Friday when the Jews were collecting funds, Angelina Salvat said that she also distributed alms for the love of God.36 Bernardo de Ribas ‘gave a Jew cloth for a cloak for the love of God’.37

28

AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 5, fol. 58 v: ‘muchas vezes almosna a la bolsa de la cedaqua de los jodios. E otras vezes davas almosna a la otra bolsa de los judios llamada la bolsa de [tamyt…?], que quiere dezir para reparo de obra de sinoga’. 29

Llorca, ‘La Inquisición española en Valencia’, p. 52: ‘Item si ha donats dines o algun altra cosa per edificio, reparacio o ornament del sinoga, o si sab o ha oyt que algun ho haje fet’. 30

AHPZ, Leg. 6, no. 8, fol. 82 v.

31

AHPZ, Leg. 3, no. 5, fol. 64 r: ‘dava almos a judios por limosna porque dayunassen e rogassen a dios por la salut de aquellos’. 32

AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 10, fol. 1r.

33

AHPZ, Leg. 12, no. 4, fol. 11r: ‘demandole que le dase para amor del Dio, y este confessante echosse la mano a la bolsa y diole dos dineros al dicho judio’. 34 Ibid., fol. 19 v: ‘E visto que daba la dita almosna dize que no lo tiene por buen cristiano ny en reputacion de aquel’.

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35

Ibid., fol. 43r.

36

AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 16, fol. 64v .

37

AHPZ, Leg. 4, no. 2, fol. 34 v: ‘dio por amor de dios ha un jodio panyo para hun manto’.

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We also find cases in which the more financially secure conversos helped their poorer Jewish relatives, as well as contributing to general funds. Isabel Vidal de la Cavallería reportedly gave a Jewish doctor some type of donation, saying, ‘take these [baços?] […] and if at any time you need anything else for similar things, come to me and I will help you as much as I can’.38 Aldonza de Ribas said that she gave money to a Jewish relative for her dowry,39 while both Juan de Ariza and Bernardo Remírez gave money to orphaned Jews to enable to them to get married. Those conversos who did not wish to run the risk of being seen in the judería often took advantage of the fact that a synagogue could exist without a physical building. The word ‘synagogue’ can equally be applied to a community as to an actual space. The need for a minimum of ten men to form a congregational quorum, or minyan, was referred to in the trial record of Luis de Heredia, who, according to witnesses, eagerly volunteered to be the tenth man so that his Jewish acquaintances could meet their requirement.40 The lack of restrictions for such prayer meetings could leave the conversos to their own devices and completely free of any contact with the Jewish community. In Teruel, Gracia Ruiz used her home to hold services for local conversos. One testimony described the presence of a Jew, presumably to act as rabbi, an inclusion which was probably a luxury rather than a necessity. According to reports, her house contained ‘some very secret rooms […] and the girl as ordered by her mistress, had brought them a book from the judería, and they were all bent in prayer there, and a Jew had accompanied the girl’.41 In Zaragoza, Bernardo de Ribas had also converted one of the rooms in his house into a centre for prayer meetings, as attested in 1489 by Mosse Aninay, the son of an influential member of the aljama. Bernardo was a wealthy and successful merchant who owned a large house in the centre of Zaragoza, and he avoided arrest by fleeing the city and ignoring the summons to appear before the

38

BnF esp. 83 (1492), fol. 124 r: ‘tomat estos baços […] y si alguna vegada habreis menester alguna cosa para semejantes cosas, venyt amy y yo vos ayudare de lo que pueda’. 39

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 1, fol. 13 v.

40

AHPZ, Leg. 12, no. 9, fol. 4 v.

41 Manuel Sánchez Moya and Jasone Monasterio Aspiri, ‘La Inquisición de Teruel y sus judaizantes en el siglo X’: Proceso integro contra Brianda de Santángel y otras doncellas turolenses’, Teruel, 20 (1958), 145–200 (p. 186): ‘unas camaras muy secretas […] y que la dicha moza por mandado de su señora, les habia traido un libro de la juderia, y que alli estaban todas plegadas, y que con la dicha moza habia venido un judio’.

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tribunal. The trial was begun in his absence in 1485, but was suspended until 1486 after the murder of inquisitor St Pedro Arbués by conversos on 15 September 1485. After the case was re-opened, Mosse decided to relate the following story to the inquisitors: One Friday evening he was visiting Bernardo at his house on business, when the converso remarked that it was getting late and becoming the eve of the Jewish sabbath. Without further ado, Bernardo led Mosse upstairs to a room. There, behind a painting on the wall, Bernardo opened a small cupboard in which was housed a lamp. Mosse then questioned the fact that the converso proceeded to light the lamp: ‘and this witness said to Bernardo, “What’s that my lord?” Bernard said, “I usually light this lamp and say my prayers here on Saturdays because this is what should be done, and I do it better than you in the synagogue”’.42 Mosse also noticed a small table to support a Torah, as well as a window in the room’s door so that those outside could watch the ceremony taking place within. The witness assumed that Bernardo had used this room for daily prayer services, and that they were so popular that the room could not accommodate the crowds. After the conversation, Mosse decided to leave, but not before noticing the arrival of another converso who was making his way up to the stairs to join Bernardo. The inquisitors took an active interest in this testimony, as revealed in the sequence of events recorded faithfully by the notary. The entire court moved en masse to see the physical evidence first hand. What transpired was a step-by-step account of the entire proceedings and a detailed description of the room as described by Mosse. They found the painting on the wall, the cupboard, and the small table, but not the lamp. There were however, black markings where the lamp should have been, which suggested that something had been burning. It is reasonable to assume that, if a lamp had indeed existed, Jaime would have ensured its removal in the event of his house being searched during his absence. The window in the door was also visible but they discovered that one needed to stand on a table or chair in order to be able to see inside. Despite the absence of the lamp, these findings confirmed Mosse’s testimony that Bernardo had all the elements needed to form a synagogue in his own home.43

42

AHPZ, Leg. 4, no. 2, fol. 52 v: ‘y este deposante le dixo al dicho bernart, “que es esso señor”, dixo el dicho Bernat, “vet aqui que esto vos dezia que se fazia sabado porque yo acostumbro en tales dias encender esta lampeda y fazer aquy my oracion tanbien, y mejor que vosotros en la sinoga”’. 43

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Ibid., fols 52 r–55 r.

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The accusation that a large proportion of conversos of Barbastro used to meet in a church which had formerly been a synagogue in order to perform Jewish ceremonies deserves particular attention. The Hermitage of Saint Salvador, located within the city walls of the town, suddenly found itself at the centre of the Inquisition’s attention when the tribunal suspected that some conversos of Barbastro had been using the hermitage for heretical purposes. By now familiar names including Salvador de Santángel, Esperandeo de Santángel, Gabriel de Santángel, Juan Doz, Esperandeo Fajol, and Juan Diez were all part of a religious society of San Salvador, open only to conversos. In January 1486, Gabriel explained in his confession that: In the past, in the town of Barbastro’s Hermitage of Saint Salvador, the conversos used to perform certain Jewish ceremonies such as kissing the seat that had been there during the rabbi’s time when it had been a Jewish synagogue. And there was some Jewish writing on the walls and behind the altar where the Torah had been, and they worshipped there. And this was public knowledge and known among the conversos who used to say the old law and touch and kiss the seat and do other things and ceremonies.44

Gabriel then proceeded to name at least twenty conversos, all of whom were men, who met together on regular occasions where ‘they revered the Jewish letters on the wall, taking off their hats’.45 One of the priests who used to say mass there was none other than Juan Doz, who had been tried and condemned to death in 1490 for heresy, but who had named more than thirty-four members of the society before his execution. Juan confessed in 1490 that he had taken part in the ceremonies, and that they had ‘touched and adored the seat’46 because ‘Leonardo de Santángel the Elder told him to touch the Jewish seat […] and that he would be rich’.47 Leonardo also

44

AHPZ, Leg. 6, no. 2, fol. 39v : ‘En la hermyta de Sant Salbador de la ciudat de Barbastro, los confessos antiguamente fazian ciertas cerimonyas judaycas de besar una cadira que ally estava del tiempo del Raby quando fue Sinoga de jodios, y unas letras en la paret judaycas y caga el altar que estava el lugar efinestructa donde solia estar la tora, y ally adoravan y esto era publico y notorio entre los confesos y dizian la antigydat de aquel tocar y besar la cadira y las otras cosas y cerimonyas’. 45

Ibid., fol. 40 r: ‘fazian reverencia a las letras judaycas de la paret, qytandose del bonete’.

46

AHPZ, Leg. 6, no. 11, fol. 43 v: ‘toquavan y adoravan la cadira’.

47

Ibid., fol. 44 r: ‘Leonart de Santangel el viexo le dixo que tocase aquella cadira judayca […] y que seria riquo’.

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often bought a Torah from home, ‘which was a book of parchment, sometimes at midday, often at night and they adored it there’.48 The hermitage caretaker, Martin Dariego, told the court that for two years he had seen the group praying at a seat by the wall, where the synagogue’s decoration was still visible. Martin added that, on one particular occasion, the conversos unceremoniously ejected him from the building because they knew that he had been watching the proceedings, saying, ‘“Let’s throw this man out of the church”, meaning this witness. “We don’t need any Old Christians in here!”’49 Martin described the scene in Esperandeo Fajol’s trial record in great detail, and it deserves a full transcription: This witness remembers being in the Hermitage of Saint Salvador of Barbastro which had been a Jewish synagogue. And even though it had been a hermitage for some time, there was a chair made of brushwood where it was said that the rabbi used to circumcise little Jewish boys, and there were some Scriptures and Hebrew letters painted on one of the walls, and he saw how the aforementioned conversos often used to perform the undermentioned ceremonies, and [he remembers] two occasions especially; One was in the morning while he was lighting the hermitage’s lamps, and the other was when he was dusting the gallery’s stairs that he saw them adoring and kissing the seat and they did not see this witness […] And he saw from the corner of his eye while turning his head around, how they touched the Jewish seat with three fingers and afterwards they put their fingers and hands on their mouths, kissing them because they had touched the Jewish seat. And before they touched it, they mixed among each other, honouring their elders.50

48

Ibid., fol. 44 r: ‘a qual era hun cartapaz de pergamyno, a las vezes a medio dia, a las vezes de noche por muchas vezes y la adoravan ally’. 49

Ibid., fol. 24v : ‘“echemos este hombre de la yglesia” diziendo lo por este deposante, “que no havemos menester en ella xiano de natura!”’ 50

AHPZ, Leg. 12, no. 5, fol. 4 r: ‘Y se acuerda este deposante que estando de Hermitanyo en la hermita de Sant Salvador de Barbastro, la qual habia seydo Sinoga de jodios, y aun al dicho tiempo habia quedado en la dicha hermita una cadiera de fusta que dezian era la cadiera donde el Rabi circunzidaba a los jodiguelos, y habia cierta scripturas y letras ebraicas en una paret pintadas y vio muchas vezes como los dichos confesos fazian las cerimonias infrasriptas y senyaladamente dos vezes; La una vez alumbrando una manyana las lantias de la dicha hermita, y la otra esbalando por la scalera de la tribuna vio que adoraban y besaban la dicha cadiera y ellos no se recataban deste deposante […] y vio con el cabo del ojo girando la cabeza atras, como ponian la mano en la dicha cadiera judayca tocando con los tres dedos e apres ponian los dedos e mano en la boca, besando aquellas porque habia tocado en la dicha cadiera judayca y antes de que tocasen, se convidaban los unos a los otros dando la honra a los mas viexos y mayores’.

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It appears that the Barbastro conversos adopted certain methods to keep their meetings hidden from those likely to raise the alarm, such as Martin the Caretaker, who presumably lived within the grounds of the hermitage. Gabriel de Santángel confessed that one of their ploys was to arrive at different times via various routes: They would not all go up together to the hermitage to perform the ceremonies of the hermitage, but some would wait in front with crossbows […] and so that they were not noticed, and to disguise what they were doing, some conversos would go up one way and others another way, [then] they would all meet and go inside the church.51

He then added that, in order to maintain utmost secrecy, they would send Martin into town on unnecessary errands, giving him ‘seven or eight coins for nougat and for wine and so they would send him down to the city’.52 In the few years preceding the Inquisition’s arrival, the priest assigned to the hermitage, having realized what was happening, apparently burnt the niche and tried to scratch out the paintings.53 The absence of participating Jews, as illustrated in the cases of Bernardo de Ribas and the community of Barbastro, is significant because it suggests that the faith of the New Christians was strong enough to survive and flourish without assistance from the judería. This sentiment was alluded to by Bernardo when he boasted to Mosse that the services conducted in his house were far superior to any such ceremonies taking place within the Jewish Quarter.

Sacred Texts It is logical that, if the accused were indeed attending synagogues or forming themselves into exclusive prayer groups, the profoundly textual nature of Jewish culture would have influenced the conversos in their ownership and understanding of the value of Jewish sacred texts. An analysis of the trial records suggests that the ownership of such books was duly reported by witnesses or

51 AHPZ, Leg. 6, no. 2, fol. 40r: ‘Que todos no subian a la dicha hermyta a fazer dichas cerimonyas de la hermyta juntos, que unos se speravan delante y se ponyan a lugar a la ballesta […] que no fuessen sentidos, y por dissimular que no se sintiesse y otros confessos subian por otra parte y otras a otra parte, se juntavan todos y dentraron en la yglesia’. 52 Ibid., fol. 40 r: ‘siete o ocho dineros para turrones y para vino y assi lo inviaban baxo a la dicha ciudat’. 53

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confessed to by the conversos themselves. The point was also included in the Edict of Grace: ‘Item, if you have or you know someone who has some book against the Holy Catholic Faith, especially the faith of the Messiah promised in the law of Moses’.54 Any evidence of possession of the Old Testament in Hebrew, the Torah, or Hebrew prayer books by the defendant was immediately seized upon by the prosecution and used to support its arraignment. The trial records show that ownership of one or more of these texts among the New Christians was not only relatively high, considering the risks to be incurred, but that it was also confined almost exclusively to the male converso population. This trend is explained by the low literacy rates among women at the time, and by the requirement of male Jews to be able to read and discuss the Torah in order to fulfil their religious obligations. Often, as reported by both Old Christians and Jews, books were singled out and reported to the inquisitors by the fact that they were written in Hebrew. Salamon Alicia reported that Bernardo de Ribas [Zaragoza 1485] ‘has books in Hebrew and knows how to read Hebrew’,55 while it was rumoured that García de Alava, parish priest of Burbáguena, ‘had a Jewish book in Hebrew’.56 Martin Gomez heard that Galcerán Fajol [Huesca 1488] ‘had some prayers but he did not see what the prayers were’.57 Some testimonies, however, were more specific and the witnesses were able to identify particular texts when relaying their information to the inquisitors. Perhaps one of the most popular sacred texts mentioned in the trial records was the Bible. It appeared to be highly valued by some conversos, who not only counted copies of the entire Old Testament among their possessions, but avidly read and took instruction from them. In the 1460s, a Jewish worker doing some alterations to Jaime Ramon’s house in Calatayud saw that the converso had left a book lying on the breakfast table. Unable to contain his curiosity, he opened it and saw that it was a beautiful example of ‘a Bible written in Hebrew and it was of parchment and it had wooden coverings’.58 When discussing Pedro de Santa Clara el Platero, a Jewish witness said that ‘he gave him a Bible in Hebrew 54

Llorca, ‘La Inquisición española en Valencia’, p. 52: ‘Item si te ni sab que tinga algun libre contra santa fe catholica especialment sobre la fee del Messies promes en la ley de Moyses’. 55

AHPZ, Leg. 2, no. 1, fol. 32 v: ‘tiene libros en ebrayco et sabe leyr el ebrayco’.

56

AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 13, fol. 4 r: ‘tenia un libro en ebrayco de los jodios’.

57

AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 5, fol. 9 r: ‘tenya hunas oraciones [… ] no vio que tales oraciones eran’.

58

AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 7, fol. 24 v: ‘biblia escripta en ebrayco et era de pargamino et tenia cubiertas de tavla’.

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from which he recited his prayers, and this witness knows this because he gave it to him and read together with him’.59 The priest of Barbastro, Juan Doz, owned a copy of a Bible in Hebrew from which he read frequently: ‘Mosen Manuel de Lunel says that […] he had a Bible in Hebrew which he used to read and he saw him reading it’.60 Copies of the Torah also often comprised part of the defendant’s collection of Jewish books and were occasionally referred to as the ‘five books of Moses’ because they were the first five books of the Bible. The Torah can also mean the scroll with the codex. Jaime Ramon asked a Jewish acquaintance to lend him the ‘five books of Moses’,61 and Fresina Pastor ‘had a Torah in her house and she had a metal covering with the Torah’.62 Various New Christians were accused of displaying their religious devotion to the text as good Jews, which is also described in the Edict of Grace: ‘Item, if you have been taught by any Jew how to display the Torah, venerating it and kissing it as a sign of devotion, or if you know or have heard that it has been done’.63 Simuel Aburrabe said that when Jaime de la Cavallería [Zaragoza 1485] visited the synagogue during Passover, he and another converso saw the Torah laid out on a table and proceeded to honour it: ‘they kissed the Torah, and Jaime not only kissed it with his mouth, but even touched it with his eyes’.64 Leonardo de Santángel’s Torah was a collection of loosely bound parchment which became the focal point for the conversos’ religious services conducted in various Barbastro homes.65 The Jewish witness who testified that the Zaragoza merchant, Bernardo de Ribas, used his house for Jewish services, showed the inquisitors the table upon which Bernardo had placed the Torah and around which the events had clearly revolved. This is also mentioned in the Edict of Grace: ‘Item, if you know or have heard it said that

59

Ibid., fol. 11v : ‘le dio una biblia en ebrayco en la qual rezava sus oraçiones y esto sabe este testigo por que lo dio y leya con el juntamente’. 60

AHPZ, Leg. 6, no. 11, fol. 17 r: ‘Dize que Mosen Manuel de Lunel […] tenya una biblia en ebrayca y leya y lo vio leyr en aquella’. 61

AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 7, fol. 28 v: ‘cinco libros de Mosen’.

62

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 9, fol. 6 r: ‘tenya una tora en su casa y que tenia una launa con la tora’.

63

Llorca, ‘La Inquisición española en Valencia’, p. 52: ‘Item si se es feta instruir a ningun Juheu fentse mostrar la tora, venerant aquella e besantla en senyal de deuocio’. 64 BnF esp. 84 (1485–1502), fol. 1r: ‘vesavan la dicha tora, y el dicho Jayme no solamente la vesava con la voca, pero ahun con los ojos tocava en ella’. 65

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there is some place where some Christians meet to say prayers to the Torah in the Jewish manner’.66 Also found belonging to some New Christians were copies of the Jewish prayer book or siddur, from which many devoutly read on a daily basis. Galcerán Fajol seems to have had in his possession a number of siddurim, proudly showing them off to Jewish friend, Mosen Alazan, while boasting that ‘I read them each day’.67 A witness reported that he had often seen Juan de Toledo [Zaragoza 1515] pray from some such volume, but was unable to identify it exactly: ‘he saw how Juan de Toledo took a prayer book in his hand and opened them [the prayers] and […] he noticed how Juan de Toledo hunched his shoulders as if in prayer and he understood and heard that he said “Abraham” and “Moses”’.68 Alberto Oluga ‘was in the habit of having and reading some prayers written in Hebrew every morning, which he had hidden for fear of the Inquisition’.69 The reliance upon the sacred texts by the conversos is demonstrated by the example of Berenguer de Torellas who, upon hearing a Jewish friend say his prayers enthusiastically, volunteered that he too had said the same prayers in a prayer book. Much to his dismay however, he added that it had been borrowed from him and never returned: I also used to say some Jewish prayers like you [do, from] […] a book which contained the Scriptures, and when I went to Rome a market holder took it from me, and never wanted to give it back and so I have forgotten many things about your prayers, but with everything still […] I remember some things.70

There are many references to copies of the book of Psalms, which were sought by the conversos who ‘preserved vulgar language versions of them’.71 It was said

66

Llorca, ‘La Inquisición española en Valencia’, p. 52: ‘Item si sab ni ha oyt dir quen haja algun lloch, hon se ajunten agluns christians a fer oracio a modo judaych ab tora que tinguen’. 67

AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 5, fol. 13 r: ‘cada dia los leyo’.

68

AHPZ, Leg. 22, no. 7, fol. 2 v: ‘vio como el dicho Joan de Toledo tomo una oreta en las manos y las abrio y […] sintio como el dicho Joan de Toledo se abracava como que en reza y entendio y oyo que dixo abraham y Moysen’. 69 AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 16, fol. 3 r: ‘solia tener y leer todas manyanas en unas horas scritas de ebrayco, las quales havia scondido por myedo de la inquisicion’. 70

AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 8, fol. 14 r: ‘Yo tambien me solia dezir las oraciones de los judios como vosotros […] que hun libro las levava escripturas y quando fui en Rroma hun tal carpanel me lo tomo, y nunqua mas me lo quisieron dar y assi se me han olvidado muchas cosas de vuestras oraciones, pero con todo ahun […] acuerdo algunas cosas’. 71

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that Jaime Ramon ‘had a book of Psalms’72 and Alberto Oluga asked a witness to teach him the seven Psalms, ‘and that in no Psalm is the gloria patri said’.73 Of great interest to the inquisitors was Galcerán Fajol’s admission that he owned a book of Jewish prayers in Spanish which were accompanied by Christian illuminations. The witness reported that he ‘has seen some prayers in Christian letters in the hands of Galceran Fajol in the current style of Romanized Hebrew. And he says that in the prayers there were images and figures of saints which Christians possess and venerate’. The witnesses asked why it was that he owned a book of Hebrew prayers and Christian images, to which he replied ‘to hide and so that you think me a Christian’.74 Juan de Santa Fe had a copy of ‘a book that appeared to be a siddur in Hebrew script and illuminated, which is written in Romance in the hand of […?], in which was written some Psalms of David and the “Our Father” and Christians’ prayers’.75 The existence of such a text leads us to consider the possible origins of this custom-made Jewish prayer book which enabled the converso to maintain the Jewish faith on a textual level. It is reasonable to assume that Galcerán and Juan were not the only New Christians to own books of this nature. Pedro de Santa Clara el Platero also used a book of Prophesies as a daily source of instruction and confirmation of the Jewish faith. He had ‘some book of Prophesies […] then demonstrating affection for the law of the Jews, continually reading in the books’.76 A child of Pedro de Santa Clara el Platero remembered that Pedro and his friends used to meet to discuss a ‘roll of parchment’ on a regular basis. It is possible that they were discussing the Torah, which was most often written on scrolls, but equally they may well have been the rolls of Esther: Pedro the Silversmith used to have a roll of parchment in his house, but this witness neither knows why he had it, nor what it was, nor what was written on the roll of

72

AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 7, fol. 9r: ‘tenya un libro de salmos’.

73

AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 16, fol. 1r: ‘que ningun salmo dixiesse gloria patri’.

74

AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 5, fol. 25 r: ‘Ha visto en manos de Galcerán Fajol hunas oras en letra forma cristianegro, a estillo modo e ordinario ebrayco Romanyzado. E dize que en dichas oras tenya imagenes e figuras de santos y santas los quales celebran e tienen los cristianos’ and ‘por dissimular y porque me tengas por cristiano’. 75

BnF esp. 76 (1491–99), fol. 23r: ‘un libro de letra ebrayca e pintado que parecia ‘çiddur, en el qual esta escripta en Romanz en letra de […?], en el qual estavan escriptos algunos salmos de davyd e el pater noster e oraciones de cristianos’. 76

AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 7, fol. 8 r: ‘algun libro de profeçias […] luego mostrando tener affecion a la ley de los judios, continuamente leya en los dichos libros.’

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Chapter 7 parchment […] and […] he saw how on those days when his father took out the roll of parchment, that Esperandeo Ram, who had converted to Christianity and a rabbi came to his father’s house […] And they would go with his father into a room of the house [and] […] he heard them talking.77

In 1488, the Jew Michel de Bonaboya of Zaragoza would read the Bible in Hebrew to conversos of that city, including Alfonso de la Cavallería, bragging that ‘I read the Bible to some of them, they enjoy listening to me and learning about many things from me, because they know that I do it very well’.78 Finally, we find an occasion in which Jaime Ramon told the inquisitors that he had been asked to participate in a discussion of the Old Testament by Old Christians because he possessed a copy of the Old Testament in Hebrew, and was able to understand it: During the time that master Torres was still alive […] I had a Hebrew book lent to me by a Jew here in Calatayud, and in it was the story of Joshua and all the former prophets, and the psalter and the Kings. And in that [book] there were many highly decorated Psalms which are said and were said with gloria patri, et filio et spiritu sancto et sicut erat in principio etc. And when the teachers were to preach a sermon, they came to me to ask about a verse of the psalter or a part prophets or of the Kings, and what they meant […] And the headmaster and other students reading the psalter in the study, would ask me the meaning of many difficult vowels, and I would explain the meaning of the vowel with that book. And that book also contained Daniel and the headmaster asked me some things about Daniel and to explain what he [Daniel] meant.79

77

Ibid., fol. 14 v: ‘tenia en la casa del dicho Pedro el Platero un ruello de pargamino empero que no sabe porque se lo tenia, ny que se era, ny que se havia escripto en el dicho rollo de pargamino […] y […] vio como en aquellos dias que el dicho su padre saquo el dicho ruello de paragamino e vinieron a casa del dicho su padre […] Sperandeo Ram y un rabi […] que se havia tornardo cristiano, los quales […] con su padre [… ] se dentravan en un palaçio de la dicha casa […] les hoyo favlar’. 78

Gitlitz, Secrecy and Deceit, p. 426: ‘Lio adalgunos la biblia, que toman plazer deschuchar me e de saber de mi algunas cosas, por que saben que yo lo se yo bien fazer’. 79

AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 7, fol. 3 r: ‘Item que en tiempo que maestre torres vivia […] aquy en Calatayud tenia yo un livro ebrayco que me presto hun judio, endo estava la istoria de Josue y todos los profetas postumeras, et el salterio, y los reyes et en aquel decore et supe decoraçion muchos salmos del solterio et los dixe y los dixo con gloria patri et filio et spiritu sancto et sicut erat in principio etc. Et con aquel los dichos maestros quando havian de fazer algun sermon, venian a my a que les dixiesse algun vierso de salterio o alguna parte de las profecias o de los reyes que queria dezir […] Et el maestro mayor, leyendo en el estudio el solterio et otros estudiantes me demandarian muchos vocables muy escuros, et con aquel livro les declaraba el signifficado del vocable. E assi mismo en el dicho livro estava Daniel et el maestro mayor me

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Psalms and Benedictions It is clear from the trial records that a substantial number of conversos owned and took instruction from Jewish sacred texts. It is also evident that some New Christians in Zaragoza and surrounding areas endeavoured to keep an oral, as well as textual, tradition alive in their religious personal lives. Many were able to recite snippets of prayers or benedictions, and psalms in their entirety in front of the inquisitors. While the Hebrew taken down by the court notaries is often a mishmash of genuine and totally unrecognizable words, the surviving fragments are, on the whole, identifiable. Moreover, the context in which they were recited, such as the time of day, or the particular festival or ritual, was generally in accordance with the requirements of the Jewish liturgy. Just as the majority of New Christians charged with possession of sacred texts were men, those defendants accused of reciting Jewish prayers from the daily cycle were men. Again we find that the accusations are in accordance with the expected religious behaviour of men and women, and that the divide between the sexes is very much evident. Men were obliged to say the cycle of prayer a minimum of three times daily, and also repeat the benedictions. However, some Aragonese conversas had knowledge of the Psalms, or knew the Shema by heart. In general, the conversos knew the prayers in Hebrew and the Psalms in Spanish. Understandably, the testimonies of Old Christian witnesses were extremely limited in their scope insofar as this accusation was concerned. They were able to recognize the Hebrew, but were totally ignorant of its meaning. Albert de Santángel, for example, testified that he had heard Juan de Toledo [Zaragoza 1515] say something along the lines of ‘abraham [asan …?] and did not understand anything else except at the end he let out a big sigh’.80 A fellow prisoner, locked up with Juan in the Aljafería, testified that ‘three months ago, a little more a little less, hearing that he was praying in bed like on the other days, [he] very quietly went up to listen to what he was praying, and upon getting close to him, heard how […] he was praying in Hebrew’.81 A house guest of Juan’s managed to identify some Hebrew as well as the name of ‘Moses’

demandava algunas cosas de daniel por informarse que dizia’. 80

AHPZ, Leg. 22, no. 7, fol. 3r: ‘abraham [asan …?] y no entendio mas salvo que al fin con un sospiro grande’. 81

Ibid., fol. 3 v: ‘abra de tres meses poco mas poco menos, oyendo como otros dias havya oydo rezar en su camara muy calladamente subio a escuchar que rezava y de que llego cerca del, oyo como […] rezava en ebrayco’.

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uttered by Juan: ‘he was shut in the room, and as he was praying he was saying barym baramm and afterwards called upon Moses’.82 Old Christians often identified that the conversos were praying in the distinctive manner of the Iberian Jews, which was to sway back and forth and bob their heads. This was often described as sabadear, as in ‘to sabbath’. One of María Oluga’s neighbours reported that she had often seen her reading from a book on Saturdays, ‘sabbathing like a Jewess’83 as she did so. Facing the wall, in lieu of facing east towards Jerusalem, was also a sign reported by Old Christians that the prayers being said by the accused were not Christian. Jaime de Santa Clara was accused of facing the wall when saying his prayers.84 A servant testified that ‘each morning her master would pray in the following manner; he would turn towards a wall where there was no image, and thus turned, would move his head and murmur, she did not understand […] what he was saying’.85 In Zaragoza, Juan de Santa Fe often ‘said prayers facing a wall’.86 In Code, Rules of Prayer 8. 1, Maimonides says: Communal prayer is always hearkened to and even if there are sinners among them the Holy One, blessed is He, does not reject the prayers of the many. Consequently, a man should associate himself with the community and he should not recite prayers in private when he is able to recite them together with the community.87

Although there is evidence that the Aragonese conversos took every opportunity to gather for prayer meetings, as previously discussed, the dangerous nature of doing so might have meant that the spiritual life of the individual and the role of private prayer said in the home became more important. Jaime Ramon even went so far as to boast to a Jewish acquaintance that his moments of private contemplation and prayer were better than the communal worship taking place in the synagogue, saying that he prayed ‘better than you’.88 Such isolating conditions might well have focused the conversos’ attention on the benedictions 82

AHPZ, Leg. 22, no. 7, fol. 3r : ‘estava en la camara encerrado y commo que rezava dezia barym baramm y que despues llamava a Moysen’. 83

AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 16, fol. 32 r: ‘sabadeando como una judia’.

84

AHPZ, Leg. 4, no. 3, fol. 26 r.

85 AHPZ, Leg. 10, no. 7, fol. 12 r: ‘cada manniana al dicto su amo fazer oracion en sta manera, que bolviase enta una pareth, en la qual no avia ninguna ymagen, y asy vuelto, estava commo cabeçeando y murmurando; que dicia […] no lo entendia’.

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86

BnF esp. 76 (1491–99), fol. 6 v: ‘fazia oracion cara a una paret’.

87

De Lange, An Introduction to Judaism, p. 136.

88

AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 7, fol. 27 r: ‘mejor que vos’.

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and Psalms and increased their popularity among them. Benedictions were said in the worship of the synagogue, but also played a large part in the private devotional life of the Jew. The Psalms comprised much of the standard liturgy and perhaps appealed to the New Christians because they represented ‘supplications to a just God who rewards steadfast commitment to Judaism with rescue from adversity’89 and were also accessible in the Christian Bibles. Some New Christians omitted the Gloria patri et filio et spiritu sancto from their Psalms so as to identify them as Jewish rather than Christian. Alberto Oluga confessed that a couple of converso friends had taught him ‘the seven Psalms […] and in none of the Psalms the Gloria patri is said’.90 In Zaragoza, Jaime Ramon also owned a book of Psalms of David in Hebrew from which the ‘Glory be to the Father’ was entirely absent.91 Conversos often said their prayers at the beginning of the day. A Jewish relative who had been an overnight guest in Jaime Ramon’s house in 1485 testified against Jaime that he heard the New Christian recite the morning blessing from Exodus 15 which is said after the Shema: One day at bedtime […] when Jaime Ramon went to bed in the room, this witness entered and heard that he was saying this prayer in Hebrew: ‘hay veçayam ram venyça Gadol venora maspil queym anearez magahbia se sabiz admaron mory açirum pode hanam Ozer Dallum anne Leanto yçrael beet sussnean elass teilla Leal elion guoaban haruch hu vubocat mosse hubne yzrael loqua anifira veçimha rebha vehanera enellam miqua moha vahelum adonay michamoha nedar vocades nora cheillar. Oste ffele sira ha dassa sibehum gehilum le sunha hal fessar hayam yahar enllaz hodu vihumlim veanbin adonay imloc leolam vaoff venemal goalen adonay cenaot semo quedos yzrael’, and this witness heard everything that Jaime Ramon had said, seeing this witness and not acknowledging him, and he said this in the form of a prayer especially upon going to bed. This is a part of a prayer that the Jews say in the morning called varaçot dequirrat sema […] la tefila of the morning.92

89

Gitlitz, Secrecy and Deceit, p. 462.

90

AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 16, fol. 1r: ‘los siete salmos […] y en ningun salmo dixiesse gloria

patri’. 91 92

AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 7, fol. 11v.

Ibid., fols 32 r–32 v: ‘Un dia a la hora de acostar[…] al tiempo que el dicho Jaime Raimon se echava en la cama en el lecho, entro este testimonio deposante y oyole que dezia esta oracion en ebrayco: “hay veçayam ram […] quedos yzrael” y oydo todo esto este testimonio lo qual el dicho Jaime Ramon dixo en presencia deste testimonio, y viendo lo a este deposante y no dando senada de el, y esto dizia en fforma de oracion de notamdamente echandose en la cama. Esta es una parte de una oracion que los jodios hazen en la manyana que se llama varaçot dequirrat sema [… ] la tefila de la manyana’.

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This benediction comprises part of the daily morning service: The living and eternal God and King, who is high and exalted, great, mighty and tremendous; who casteth down the proud to the earth, and raiseth the humble on high; who delivereth prisoners, redeemeth the meek and helpeth the poor, who answereth his people Israel when they cry unto him. Praise be the most high God, their Redeemer, blessed and ever blessed be he! Moses and the children of Israel sang a hymn unto thee with great joy, and they all exclaimed, ‘Who is like unto thee, O Lord! among the mighty? Who is like unto thee, glorious in holiness, tremendous in praises, working miracles?’ Those that were redeemed sang a new song unto thy great name upon the sea-shore, they all unanimously praised and acknowledged thy kingly power, and said, ‘The Lord shall reign for ever and ever’. And it is said, ‘Our Redeemer, Lord of hosts is his name, holy One of Israel’. Blessed art thou, O Lord, who hast redeemed Israel.93

The Jewish relative’s testimony is unusual because the witness insisted that Jaime had recited the blessing before going to bed rather than when he got up. Perhaps, rather than being confused about when to say the blessing, the converso, upon going to bed extremely late, anticipated that he would sleep through the morning and that the only way to keep the commandment would be to say the prayer before going to sleep. A Jewish weaver gave further evidence that Jaime knew when to recite the blessing. The witness testified that he had gone to Jaime’s house one morning to deliver some material that the converso merchant had ordered. Much to his annoyance, he was forced to wait for two hours until Jaime decided to appear from inside his house and pay him. Complaining that time spent waiting meant a loss of income, he asked Jaime why he had kept him waiting for so long. The answer he received was that: ‘I was saying my tefila to the God of heaven […] I do this each morning before I leave my house and each afternoon’.94 A curious testimony is found in the trial record of Juan Diez [Belchite 1492], given by a priest who reported that, one particular day while saying mass, he heard Juan recite his own prayer: ‘that he said saying his prayer “God Abraham, God Isaac, God Jacob, God Moses”’.95 It is possible that Juan took these words from the start of the traditional benedictions of the sabbath service. It may even

93

The Book of Prayer and Order of Service According to the Custom of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews, ed. by Moses Gaster (London: University of Oxford Press, 1901), p. 30. 94

AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 7, fol. 27 r: ‘estava faziendo mi tefila al dio del cielo […] lo fago cada manyana antes que salgo de my casa y cada tarde’. 95

AHPZ, Leg. 15, no. 4, fol. 2 r: ‘que dixo diziendo su oracion “deus abraham, deus Ysach, deus Jacob, deus Moysen”’.

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be that he was reciting part of the evening service of Amidah: ‘Blessed art thou, O Lord, our God! and God of our fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob; the great, mighty and tremendous God: most high God’.96 In Ciudad Real, Juan Dias and his wife reportedly recited the same prayer as part of their sabbath eve worship: ‘Juan Dias would read from the book on Friday evenings and Saturday, his wife listening to him sabbathing, they said; God Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob’.97 Another example of morning worship can be found in the testimony of Pedro de Santa Clara’s daughter [Calatayud, 1488], who claimed that her father had taught her part of the Shaharit and then recited what seems to be Psalm 91. This Psalm is the first to be said before the morning prayer both on the sabbath and during the week: And my father said to me: ‘E aquesta en la cubierta del alto en la sombra de ala bastada, dormira digo por el gor que es mi cobertura mi fortaleza my Dios que me fio en el. Et me escapara del lazo del danyador de pestilencia, y tortura con su pluma [cembria …?] vaxo de tus alas. Cobrira a ti adarga escudo su fortaleza y verdat que no havras sabor de la noche ni faeta que buela de dia ni de [posti …?] que en la tinebra anda ni de cajadura de piqua en la fiesta la heran de tu lado mil millonas de ti a tu derecha no se llegaran ciertos con tus ojos myras el pensamiento de los malos e veras que tu Señor es mi fortaleza en el alto pusiste tu morada, no se llegara a tu malo ny languia e moraran en tus tiendas con tus angeles encomendaran a ti por guardar te todas tus carreras, sobre palmas te llevaran que no estropieçe tu pie. En piedra sobre leon, el escorpion fallara, refallara, cadillo en le bio el [yente…?] fforçar lo e en favoreçer lo e que conoçio mi nombre llamar mea. Responder le sere con el en la turbulacion e sea parte y yo lo hovare de llargamienteros de dias lo farcace a mostrarle su salvacion’.98 Psalm 91 Yoseb besether Estan en encubierta del alto, en sombra del abastado manira. Dire Adonay mi esperança, y mi fortaleza. Dio mio confiarmee enel. Por que el te escapara de lazo de caçador, de mortandad de quebrantos. Con su pluma cubrira a ti, y debaxo de sus alas te abrigaras; escudo y adarga su verdad. No temeras de pauor de noche de saeta {que} abolare de dia. De pestilencia {que} en tiniebla anda, de tajamiento {que} destruye en las sistas.

96

The Book of Prayer, ed. by Gaster, p. 30.

97

Records of the Trials of the Spanish Inquisition, ed. by Beinart, I, p. 289: ‘El dicho Juan Dias leya el viernes en la noche y el sabado, estando su muger oyendole sabadeando, desian en el libro; Dios Abraam, Dios de Ysaque, Dios de Jacob’. 98

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AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 7, fol. 6 v: ‘E my padre me dixo: “E aquesta […] salvacion”’.

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Chapter 7 Caera de tu lado mil y millaria de tu derecha, a ti no llegara. De cierto con tus ojos miraras y paga de malos veras. Que tu Adonay mi esperança; alta posiste tu morada. No se aparejara a ti mal, y llaga no se acercara en tus tiendas. Que sus angeles encomendara a ti para guardarte, en todas tus carreras. Sobre palmas te lleuaran; por que no llagues con piedra tu pie. Sobre leon y biuora, pisaras, refollaras, leonzillo y culebro. Que en mi cobdicio, y escaparloe, ampararloe por que conoscio mi nombre. Llamarmea, y responderlee, con el yo en angustia escaparloe, y honrrarloe. De longura de dias lo fartare, y fazerlee veer mi saluacion.99 Psalm 90 Qui habitat He that dwelleth in the aid of the most High, shall abide under the protection of the God of Heaven He shall say to the Lord: Thou art my protector and my refuge; my God, in him will I trust For he hath delivered me from the snare of the hunters: and from the sharp word. He will overshadow thee with his shoulders and under his wings thou shalt trust His truth shall compass thee with a shield: thou shalt not be afraid of the terror of the night. Of the arrow that flieth in the day, of the business that walketh about in the dark: of invasion, or of the noonday devil. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand: but it shall not come nigh to thee. But though shalt consider with thy eyes: and shalt see the reward of the wicked. Because thou, O Lord, art my hope: thou hast made the most high refuge. There shall no evil come to thee: nor shall the scourge come near thy dwelling. For he hath given his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. In their hand they shall bear thee up, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. Thou shalt walk upon the asp and the basilisk: and thou shall trample under good the lion and the dragon. Because he hoped in me I will deliver him; I will protect him because he hath known my name. He shall cry to me, and I will hear him: I am with him in tribulation, I will deliver him, and I will glorify him. I will fill him with length of days: and I will shew him my salvation.100

In Lérida, converso Alberto Oluga confessed to having regularly recited what appears to be Psalm 121 in the evening. He told the inquisitors that on one 99

Libro de Oracyones: Ferarra Ladino Siddur (1552), ed. by Moshe Lazar (Lancaster, CA: Labyrinthos, 1995), p. 108. 100

The Holy Bible: Translated from the Latin Vulgate and Diligently Compared with Other Editions in Divers Languages (Douai: [n. pub.], 1609; repr. London: Burns & Oates, 1964 ), p. 787.

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occasion, when he was still living in his father’s house, a doctor called Master Benet stayed overnight. The two shared a room, and upon hearing Alberto praying aloud, the doctor enquired as to the nature of the prayers and asked to be taught them: One night in bed, Master Benet asked this penitent what prayers he said, and this penitent told him that he said certain prayers, and Master Benet told him that he would not mind if the other were to teach him two prayers; one for going to bed and the other for getting up. And so he says that he taught him these two prayers. The one which is to be said upon going to bed goes like this: Benet sies tu adonay quens ha sanctifficat ab tos manamentos ens has manat arebre sobre nos juhiso regisme a reguar ab cor complit oyes ysrael con den ab tot ton cor ab tota ta anima ye seran les paviles aquestes que yo manat a tu vir sobre ton cor helegir les has sobre [ta…?] y seran salut sobre tots. [vees?] […] los sobre els lindas dy les portes de ta casa angel que cebe a my dy tot mal benera a tu mostrar les has atots fills. E dequy speri adonay benet de dia benet en ton dormir en ton levar en la tua anima dels dius e dels notts alcare los ulls a les montanayes dy un dia la ajuda amy que no me domrira la moret.

And the one that has to be said in the morning upon getting up is as follows: Señor omnipotente de moltes gracies de faz com me has guardat aquesta nyt prech la tua clemencia mysericordios den que mi vulles atorgar que lo dya venidor te puxa axi lohar y benir quy bivis regimes per tot lo sigle a me’, this penitent has said those prayers for a long time and often, especially that of the morning and of the night, because they had in them those words of ‘adonay’.101 Psalm 121, Esa enay Cantico de las gradas. Alçare mis ojos a los montes, de donde verna mi ayuda. Mi ayuda de con Adonay, fazedor de cielos y tierra. No dara a resualo tu pie, no se adormecera tu guardador. He no se admormecera y no dormira, guardán Ysrael. Adonay tu guardador, Adonay tu solombra, sobre mano de tu derecha. De dia el sol no te ferira, y luna de noche. Adonay te guardara de todo mal, guardara tu alma,

101

AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 16, fol. 12 r: ‘Una noche stando en la cama, pregunto al dicho micer benet a este confessante que oraciones dezia y este confessante dizo le que dezia ciertas oras que tenia, y el dicho micer benet le dixo que no curasse que aquella que el le mostraria dos oraciones, la una para quando se acostassse en la cama la otra para cuando se levantasse. Y asi dize que le mostro estas dos oraciones assaber es para quando se acostasse esta que dize assi: “Benet sies tu adonay […] domrira la moret”. Y la que havia de dezir de manyana quando se levantasse es la que se sigue: “Señor omnipotente […] per tot lo sigle a me”, las quales oraciones ha dicho este conffessante por mucho tiempo y muchas vezes, specialmente la de manyana […] e noche por quanto havia en ella aquellas palavras de “adonay”’.

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Chapter 7 Adonay guardara tu salida y tu entrada, de agora hasta siempre.102 Psalm 120, Levavi oculos I have lifted up my eyes to the mountains, from whence thy help shall come to me. My help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. May he not suffer thy foot to be moved, neither let him slumber that keepeth thee. Behold he shall neither slumber nor sleep, that keepeth Israel. The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy protection upon thy right hand. The sun shall not burn thee by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord keepeth thee from all evil: may the Lord keep thy soul. May the Lord keep thy coming in and thy going out: from henceforth now and for ever.103

This Psalm seems to have been a favourite among conversos across Spain and was traditionally recited in times of crisis, danger, or illness. In Teruel, Francés de Puxima and his wife were seen and heard by a servant reciting the Psalm on Passover: ‘they made strange gestures over the table while they recited the prayer; “I lift my eyes towards the mountains watching over from where my help of that creator of heaven and of earth will spring”’.104 Gracia Ruiz confessed that, on Yom Kippur, she was accustomed to reciting Psalm 85, Hateh Adonay oznecha which begins: ‘Incline Thine ear, O Lord, and answer me; For I am poor and needy’.105 It continues, ‘Preserve my soul, for I am holy: save thy servant, O my God, that trusteth in thee’.106 Gracia confessed that: On the day of the fast of the Great Forigvenes [she said] a prayer that the Jews say in the judería, although she did not understand what they were saying she heard that they had devotion and good intention, and there they were reciting some Psalms of David in the vernacular, such as ‘incline your ear Lord [and…?] hear me because without your help I am poor’ among others.107

102

Libro de Oracyones, ed. by Lazar, p. 109.

103

The Holy Bible, p. 811.

104

Sánchez M oya and Monasterio Aspiri, ‘Los judaizantes turolenses en el siglo XV’, Sefarad, 32 (1972), p. 112: ‘hacian gestos raros sobre la mesa mientras recitaban la oracion; “Alcé mis ojos a los montes atalayando donde verná la mi ayuda de aquel fazedor del cielo y de la tierra”’. 105

Libro de Oracyones, ed. by Lazar, p. 77: ‘Inclina Adonay tu oreja, respondeme que pobre y dessoso yo’. 106 107

The Holy Bible, p. 783.

AHPZ, Leg. 2, no. 1, fol. 74v: ‘en el dia del dayuno de la perdonança […] una oracion que los judios fazen en la juderia, verdat es que no entendia lo que dezian pero pues los oyan estavan con aquella devocion y voluntat, e dezian ally algunos psalmos de davyt en romanz

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The Shema, ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one, Blessed be the name of the glory of his kingdom for ever and ever’, from Deuteronomy 6. 4–9, also featured largely in the prayer life of some of the conversos. It is the central prayer in Jewish liturgy and, as a declaration of the monotheism of God, it might have also taken on special meaning for those conversos who refused to accept his plurality. A Jewish witness testified that Galcerán Fajol [Huesca 1487] had asked him to write down a Spanish version of the prayer so that he could recite it: ‘so this witness did it and gave it to him, he believes that he wanted it to pray the prayer which began “blessed is he that gave the word and the world was” etc which the Jews say each day in Hebrew which says “baro baruch seamar beoya a olam” etc’.108 This is quite close to the Hebrew: Baruh she-amar ve-hayah haOlam. Alfonso de Ribera’s daughter confessed that she would recite the Shema every Saturday, as taught and encouraged by her parents: ‘that every Saturday she recited a Jewish prayer which is called the Shema and it says “sema ysrael adonay lohenu marocen malhocon olam bachet” and she said this prayer each Saturday in the evening when she went to bed’.109 Juan Bach [Híjar 1497] confessed that he would say the prayers twice daily and that ‘the morning one begins “bara se amar” and the afternoon one “Cria sema”’.110 Meal times often proved to be moments in which some of the accused confirmed their desire to keep the Jewish prayer tradition alive in the family by taking the opportunity to thank God for providing them with food. Jaime Ramon confessed that he had continually recited the blessing said for bread and wine at every meal. It is unusual that he always used the blessing for the wine (kiddush), as this is usually reserved for the sabbath and festivals. Whenever I ate, I always blessed the table in Hebrew by blessing the bread in Hebrew saying ‘baroch moci lehumi arez’ which means ‘Blessed be he that takes the bread from

entre los otros “abaxa señor la tu oreja [y… ?] oyeme porque sin tu ayuda pobre soy”’. 108

AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 5, fol. 21r: ‘asi lo fizo este deposante y gelo dio, creye que la querya para rezar que comenzaba la dicha oracion “bendicho sea el que dixo y fue el mundo” etc la qual dize cada dia los judios en ebrayco que dize “baro baruch seamar beoya a olam” etc’. 109

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 13, fol. 4 r: ‘que todos los sabados rezava huna oracion judayca que se llama “sema y dize sema ysrael adonay lohenu marocen malhocon olam bachet” y esta oracion dezia cada sabado en la tarde quando se yva adacostar’. 110

AHPZ, Leg. 17, no. 8, fol. 41v: ‘la de la manyana empieza “bara se amar” y la de la tarde “Cria sema”’.

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Chapter 7 the earth’. And the blessing of the wine that I said in Hebrew is this; ‘baroch bore pery ahgua fen’ which means ‘Blessed he who takes the wine from the vine’.111

The Hebrew can be accurately identified as the following: Birkat ma-Motzi. Baruh ata Adonay Elohenu Melekh ha-Olam ha-Motzi lehem min haAretz (Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who bringest forth bread from the earth) Barukh ata Hashem Elohenu melekh haolam bore peri hagafen. (Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who bringest forth the wine from the vine)

Francisco de Heredia confessed that his father had recited the kiddush at meal times during Yom Kippur and Purim. He described how his father would take some wine in a cup, recite a benediction, and then pass it around the table in order that each person drink: He would take a cup [and] a little wine […] and with that […] he would say ‘barbaca adonay cabahot elhenu meholan’, he [the witness] does not know more of it or if there are more words in the prayer, and so having said the prayer, his father Francisco de Heredia would respond ‘amen’ and then he would drink a little of the wine from the cup, and then this penitent and each one of the aformentioned would drink a little.112

In this confession the Hebrew is so garbled that it can barely be recognized as the blessing of the wine, although the context is certainly correct. The Old Christian servant of María Jimenez also referred to some Hebrew being spoken before meals, but she appears to have been a little confused as to what she actually heard: When her master and mistress sat down at the table, before bread or anything else was laid down, no one would sit down, her master used to take a cup of red wine and a piece of bread, and would sit down and they would recite something like a prayer, and as soon as this had finished, he would take the piece of bread, dipping it three times in the wine, and each time he would say ‘cados, cados’ and after these three times had

111 Ibid., fols 11r–12 r: ‘cuando comia siempre bendezia la mesa en ebrayco en aquesta manera que fazia huna bendiçion en ebrayco a la mesa la del pan “baroch moci lehumi arez” que quiere dezir “bendito sea el que saco el pan de la tierra”. Y la bendicion que fazia en ebrayco al vino es esta; “baroch bore pery ahgua fen” que quiere dezir “bendito sea el que saca el vino de la vit”’. 112 AHPZ, Leg. 12, no. 9, fol. 12 v: ‘thomaba una taza […] un poco de vino y tuviendo assi […] dezia “barbaca adonay cabahot elhenu meholan”, que no sabe mas della si ay mas palabras en la oraçion, y assi como havia dicho la dicha oraçion, el dicho francisco de heredia padre suyo respondia “amen” y luego bebia un poco del vino de la taza, y assi ende bebia este confessante y cada uno de los sussodichos un poco’.

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finished they would eat the bread and drink a sip of wine, and once done he made them all sit down to eat, and so they ate.113

It seems that the ‘cados cados’ is the witness’s own interpretation of the word kaddish, but the act of dipping the bread into the wine three times is more puzzling. Luis de Bardaxí [Huesca 1488] also confessed that he had not only blessed the table before every meal, but that he had also become accustomed to reciting the benediction which accompanied the ceremony of washing the hands (netilat yadayim): He says and confesses that he used to say the following prayer in Hebrew when he blessed the table: ‘Baruch adonay elohen meach aser guit desano veny mezan [anotera gelahun]’. He says and confesses that when he washed his hands in the morning he said the following in Hebrew: ‘Barahota adonay elohen enel hoharam’. And he knew many other prayers in Hebrew which were said in front of a Jew who knew how to recite them well.114

The prayers which the notary transcribed, however, are barely recognizable as the benediction which should have accompanied the blessing of the table. The first is an incomplete beginning of many standard blessings: Baruh ata Adonay Elohenu melekh ha-Olam asher kideshanu be-mitzvotav […] (‘us with Your commandments and […]’) while the second, although complete, is not a standard blessing and was perhaps used on holidays such as Hanukkah or the sabbath: Baruh ata Adonay Elohenu melech ha-Olam asher kideshanu be-mitzvotav ve-tzivanu al netilat yadayim. Francisco de Heredia confessed that he used to say a prayer when washing his hands, but again, the actual prayer written down by the notary is completely garbled: ‘And moreover he says that when he washed his hands he would say a

113

AHPZ, Leg. 10, no. 7, fol. 12 v: ‘quando los dictos sus amos se asentavan a la taula, antes que se pusiese pan otra cosa alguna, ni ninguno asentase, el dicto su amo tomava una taça de vino tinto y un bocado de pan, y asentavase y dezian commo que oracion, y desque avia acabado, tomava el dicto bocado de pan y mojando en el vino tres vezes, y en cada vez dizia “cados, cados” y acabadas las tres vezes comian el dicto pan y bevian un gloch de vino, y fecho aquesto hacia asentar a todos a comer, y asi comian’. 114 AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 3, fol. 30 v: ‘Dize e conffiessa que dezia la oracion siguiente en ebrayco quando vendezia la tabla: “Baruch adonay elohen meach aser guit desano veny mezan [anotera gelahun]”. Dize e conffiessa que quando se lababa las manos en la manyana dezia en ebrayco lo siguiente: “Barahota adonay elohen enel hoharam”. E otras muchas oraciones sabia en ebrayco las qualles quedaron para dezir delante de hun judio que las supiesse bien declarar’.

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Jewish prayer which begins “meloha melay melaho”’.115 He also described the prayer said by the entire family on Yom Kippur, which is also difficult to accurately identify. Given the hour and the day upon which it was recited (before the meal), it could possibly be one of the prayers from the concluding service of the Day of Atonement, known as the Neilah, literally meaning ‘closing of the gates’: On that day none of them did any chores, instead they rested, each one reciting a Jewish prayer which begins ‘Adonay çabahot yzrael baran Adonay loha melohin çabahot baruh adonay melahum meloha yrrael’ etc and after they had eaten, the children asked their father for forgiveness and the father each of the children separately so that they would not hear ‘sorry’, and they asked each other for forgiveness.116

The confused nature of Francisco’s testimony can perhaps be explained by his admission that he did not know what either of the prayers meant, but that he had simply been imitating his father and a Jew. In his interrogation, the inquisitors asked him where he had learnt the prayers: ‘Asking who had shown him the prayer that is said at the head of the table, and the prayer that is said upon washing ones hands and what they mean. He answered that he does not know what they mean and that he had heard a Jew say the prayer of the veraha and the other [prayer] his father’.117 A Jewish business associate of Pedro de Santa Clara had heard what he described as ‘Jewish prayers’ consisting of ‘seventy-two verses’ being recited by Pedro as they travelled together: He heard Pedro the Silversmith, deceased, going for a walk, recite Jewish prayers in the vernacular which were the seventy-two verses and he said them all, and he heard him recite them twice […] once on one day and another time on another day and he says that he does not know which day it was. And the verses, which the Jews hold in great

115

Ibid., fol. 13v : ‘E mas dize que quando se lavava las manos dezia una oraçion judayca que comiença “meloha melay melaho”’. 116 AHPZ, Leg. 12, no. 9, fol. 6v : ‘en aquel dia nynguno dellas fazia fazienda nynguna, antes folgavan, rezando en aquel dia una oracion judayca cada uno dellos que comyença “Adonay çabahot yzrael baran Adonay loha melohin çabahot baruh adonay melahum meloha yrrael” etc y dende que havyan cenado se demandavan los fijos al padre y el padre a los fijos en apartado que nynguno no los sintiesse “perdon” y ellos se perdonavan los unos a los otros’. 117

Ibid., fol. 12 r: ‘Preguntando quien gelo demostro la dicha oracion que haze al principio de la mesa, y la una oracion que fazia a lavar [de] las manos y que quieren dezir. Respusso que no lo sabe que quieren dezir y que a un jodio la hoyo dizir la oracion de la veraha y la una al dicho su padre’.

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devotion, begin in this way: “In Adonay empara por mi mi honor” and he does not remember how they end.118

Nicolas Aragonés was heard to give a blessing in Hebrew: ‘he recited a blessing in Hebrew to him, le les salom which means go in peace’.119 Also of interest but unrelated to the actual prayers being said is the porch area of the synagogue, referred to as an azara, in the trial record of Juan Bach. The prosecution accused him of having gone to sit in the portico of the synagogue in order to watch the service being conducted inside: ‘he was often listening to the prayer that the Jews say in the synagogue in a side room that belonged to the synagogue from where one could see inside the synagogue, that side room is called azara by the Jews’.120 It appears that many Aragonese conversos were not only making concerted efforts to maintain the ritual aspects of Judaism but, where possible, they were endeavouring to maintain a semblance of prayer life on a day-to-day basis. The men in particular possessed and valued Jewish sacred texts and knew which prayers should be recited. A few, such as Alberto Oluga and Pedro de Santa Clara’s daughter, were able to recite Psalms with remarkable accuracy to the inquisitors, which further confirmed to the prosecution that they were indeed guilty of transgressions against the faith. Again, the evidence that the conversos had formed themselves into their own prayer groups, such as the Barbastro converso confraternity, or that some of the wealthier New Christians of Zaragoza had been utilizing their own dwellings from which to conduct Jewish ceremonies, indicated that converso religious beliefs were based upon the fundamental tenets of Judaism rather than those of Christianity.

118

AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 7, fol. 7 v: ‘Le hoyo dezir al dicho Pedro el platero, quondam, yendo por el camino, oraçiones judiegas en romanz que eran aquellos setanta y dos versos y los dixo todos, y gelos hoyo dezir unas dos vezes […] un dia una vez et el otro dia otra vez,y dize que no sabe en que dia era. E comiençan los versos los quales tienen en mucha devoçion los jodios en esta manera; “In Adonay empara por mi mi honor” el findellos no le acuerdan’. 119

AHPZ, Leg. 20, no. 17, fol. 1v: ‘le dijo la bendicion en ebrayco, le les salom que quiere dezir vet in paz’. 120 AHPZ, Leg. 17, no. 8, fol. 41v: ‘muchas vezes stava scuchando la oracion que los judios fazian en la sinoga de un apartado que se tenia con la sinoga por donde se veya lo de dentro de la sinoga al qual apartado llaman los judios azara’. The word in Castilian is zaguán (vestibule) and is derived from the Arabic, ustuwan. It is found in Exodus 43. 14 and II Chronicles 4. 9.

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hen preparing an arraignment, the prosecution included such external manifestations of the internal religious beliefs of the accused as koshering meat or fasting for Yom Kippur and claimed that, by participating in Jewish rituals, the defendant was effectively declaring his or her religious affiliations. It appears, however, that the prosecution had little choice but to focus on heretical behaviour at a ritual level because the New Christians rarely, if ever, verbally expressed a positive profession of the Jewish faith. Rather, they defined their own religious beliefs in terms of a general incredulity and refusal to accept the doctrine of their professed faith. This negative belief system, more precisely known as heresy, is referred to in the 1484 Valencian Edict of Grace: ‘Item, if you have believed, taught or said you believe something against the Catholic faith or if you know anyone who has blasphemed’.1 Perhaps the most frequently occurring heresy interspersed among the reams of testimonies and confessions was the idea that a Jew could be saved in Judaism and that a Catholic could be saved in Catholicism. It was also included in the Edict of Grace: ‘Item, if you have believed or said that you believe that man can be saved in the law of Moses’.2 In 1215, the Fourth Lateran Council declared that ‘The Universal Church of the faithful is one outside of which none is saved’.3 The inquisitors believed without doubt that those Christians who stated, taught, or believed anything contrary to the teachings of the Church were guilty of the 1

Llorca, ‘La Inquisición española en Valencia’, p. 52: ‘Item si ha cregut, dogmatizat o dit creure res que sia contra le santa fee catholica o si sab que ningu ho haje blasfemat’. 2 Ibid., p. 52: ‘Item si ha cregut o dit creure que los homens se puguan saluar obseruant la ley Mosayca’. 3

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sin of heresy, and in danger of eternal damnation. Conversas such as Isabel de Santángelo [Tarazona 1489] often expressed their belief that salvation could be obtained outside of the Church. She opined that ‘the good Jew could also be saved in his law like the good Christian in his’4 and, according to one witness present during a discussion between Alfonso Rodríguez [Zaragoza 1487] and Jewish friends, the former was heard to say that ‘the good Jew observing his law well could also be saved like the Christian in his’.5 Juan de Alava [Calamocha 1488] confessed that he was taught by another converso that ‘the law of Moses was good and gave salvation’,6 while Luis de Bardaxí’s father taught him that salvation was possible in both: ‘You, son, believe in the law of Moses and observe it, and so too the same in the faith of Jesus Christ, and we will observe them both’, and ‘you can be saved in either one of them’.7 The origin of this heresy is somewhat puzzling. The concept of salvation is not a Jewish one, for Judaism is essentially a religion that emphasizes this world rather than the next; the Christian concept of saving one’s soul conflicts with the naturalism of Judaism. Gitlitz considers the appearance of this false doctrine in the lives and beliefs of the conversos to be a Christian influence, but there is evidence to suggest that the idea of salvation was also held and passed on to conversos by some Jews. In the confession following his arrest, Luis de Heredia [Calatayud 1489] claimed that a Jewish friend had spoken to him about the possibility of salvation in Judaism, teaching him that ‘the good Jew could be saved in his law like the Christian in his’.8 Converso Juan Carequo commented to Pedro Moreno [Darcoa 1511] that he was treated well by his employer, ‘because I believe in the law of Moses and that should get me to paradise’.9 This conversation took place in the period following Pedro’s conversion and it is logical that his Jewish beliefs would have exercised greater influence in his life

4

AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 4, fol. 7 r: ‘tambien se podia salvar el buen judio en su ley como el buen cristiano en la suya’. 5

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 13, fol. 6 v : ‘tambien se podia salvar el buen jodio guardando bien su ley como el cristiano en la suya’. 6

AHPZ, Leg. 12, no. 10, fol. 6 r: ‘que la ley de Mosen era buena et dava salvacion’.

7

AHPZ, Leg. 12, no. 9, fols 12 r–12 v: ‘Tu, fijo, cree en la ley de Moysen y aquello guarda y assi mismo de fe de Ihesu Christo y guarda las entramos las dos’ and ‘en qualquier de ellas te puedes salvar’. 8 9

Ibid., fol. 14v : ‘se podia salvar el buen judio en su ley como el cristiano’.

AHPZ, Leg. 21, no. 3, fol. 3 v: ‘porque yo creo en la ley de Moysen, y aquella me a de levar al parayso’.

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than the newly embraced Christianity. The fact that he mentioned a paradise suggests that Jews understood salvation to be the attainment of paradise or the coming age, whereas the Christians’ comprehension of salvation was that of the eternal reward that awaited them in heaven. Whatever the religious origins of the apostasy, the inquisitors deemed it dangerous because, firstly, it effectively placed both religions on an equal footing, and secondly, it presented the individual with the option, in theory at least, to follow one religion or the other. Indeed, many of the conversos charged with propounding the heretical doctrine often seemed to prefer Judaism to Christianity. In most cases they neglected to provide the court with an explanation for this choice, simply stating that, in their opinion, the better of the two religions was Judaism. Luis Bardaxí [Huesca 1487] went through life firmly believing that this was the case, saying that the ‘law of Moses was worth more than that of Jesus Christ, and how the good Christian could be saved in his law and the good Jew in his’.10 Isabel de Santángelo extended the concept of universal salvation to include Moslems, saying that ‘the good Jew would be saved in his law and the good Moor in his and the good Christian in his’.11 She nevertheless preferred Judaism and was accused of observing Jewish rather than Christian precepts. According to reports, Jaime Ramon [Calatayud 1488] had shown a greater disposition towards Judaism by having ‘a lot more affection and fondness for the law of the Jews than for the law of the Christians’.12 Gabriel de Santángel [Barbastro 1486] was also said to find Judaism a more sympathetic religion, and was accused of maintaining ‘more hope and belief in the law of Moses than in the faith of the Christians’.13 Cinfa Caçani, arrested by Aragonese Papal Inquisition [Zaraogoza 1482], saw the division in terms of a battle which was to be won or lost, and told her daughter that, in her opinion, the Christians

10

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 3, fol. 28 r: ‘mas valia la ley de moysen que la de Ihesu Christo, y que como el buen cristiano se podia salbar en su ley y el buen jodio en la suya’. 11

AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 4, fol. 7 r: ‘el buen jodio se salvaria en su ley y el buen moro en la suya y el buen cristiano en la suya’. 12

AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 7, fol. 23 v: ‘mucho mas affecion y voluntad a la ley de los jodios que no a la ley de los cristianos’. 13

AHPZ, Leg. 6, no. 2, fol. 6 r: ‘mas esperança e credulidat en la ley de Moyssen que en la ffe de los cristianos’.

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were on the losing side: ‘You are the losers and we are the winners, [and] that the angels of Moses would protect me’.14 Occasionally, a converso would explain his or her apparent preference for Judaism in more specific terms. Sometimes, as previously discussed in the observances of Yom Kippur, they fasted so as to improve their lot in life. In Teruel, Gracia Ruíz lost a young daughter, revealing to the inquisitors that residents of the judería had successfully convinced her that she had more belief in the law of Moses than in the law of the Christians because once the first daughter she gave birth to died, and at the time the aforementioned Jews said that it was her fault because if she had had devotion to the law of Moses, those disasters would not have befallen her.15

In this case, a personal tragedy caused disillusionment with one religion and the hope that the other would bring greater happiness in this life. In other cases, the prevailing belief was that Judaism was superior because it pre-dated Christianity. Prosecution witness Bartholomeno Gilabert testified that he had heard Alfonso de la Cavallería say in the company of fellow conversos that ‘the old law was better than the new’.16 Guillermo Buisán [Zaragoza 1485] considered the persecution of those who ‘came from the tribe of Israel’ as unjust because ‘it was the first law and it is the law’.17 Teruel converso Jaime de Santángel was accused of adopting the Catholic doctrine that salvation lay only in Christianity and applying it to Judaism. The prosecution denounced him with the following accusation, as well as referring to a Jewish prayer which asks that the Jews be released from tribulation: That the accused truly believes and hopes to be saved in the law of Moses, and that outside this law no one can be saved, but are damned, especially the Christians. And the prayer that they recite in the Jewish manner will be heard and heeded, and he truly hopes and believes to receive what he asks for through this prayer. And he truly hopes

14

AHPZ, Leg. 2, no. 1, fol. 125 v: ‘Vosotros soys los perdidos y nosotros somos los ganados, que los angeles de Moysen me guardarian’. 15 AHPZ, Leg. 3, no. 5, fol. 66 r: ‘Tenya mas creencia en la ley de moyssen que en la ley de cristianos porque una vegada se le murio una fija la prima que parida, y que la ora los sobredichos judios le dixeron que era mal por suya porque si ella tuvyesse devocion en la ley de moyssen, no le vinyeron aquellos desastres’. 16 17

BnF esp. 74 (1499), fol. 22 v: ‘era mejor la ley vieja que no la nueva’.

AHPZ, Leg. 4, no. 4, fol. 39 v: ‘los que venyan del tribu de Ysrael’ and ‘fue la primera ley y aquella es la ley’.

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and believes that this prayer will free him from all the anguish and tribulations in which he will be placed.18

Esteban de Ariza [Zaragoza 1487], whose Jewish relatives most frequently testified against him, was also said to have expressed his belief that Judaism was the only religion in which one could be saved, ‘affirming that there was no other true law but the one that God gave to Moses and is observed by the Jews’.19 It appears that the religious beliefs of the accused were not always as clear cut as presented by the prosecution, since some New Christians claimed to have changed allegiances during their adult lives. Altered circumstances, such as getting married, could prompt a change in religion. Alberto Oluga [Lérida 1490] told the inquisitors that when he was living at home under parental jurisdiction he had fasted for Yom Kippur with his mother and was ‘incredulous’20 when attending mass. He then confessed that, after getting married, I went to mass and believed in the mystery of it, and I also believed that the consecrated host elevated by the priests was the True Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and that I also believed that one could be saved in the evangelical law as well as in the law of Moses.21

Alonso de Ribera [Zaragoza 1487] said during his interrogation that, in Cordoba, ‘he did not believe anything about the faith of Jesus Christ until he was eighteen and when he began to believe in the faith of Jesus Christ he was the at the age of twenty-three or twenty-four years’.22 Luis de Heredia said that for two months he believed salvation to be possible in both religions,23 while Diego Parexo

18

AHPZ, Leg. 3, no. 5, fols 8 v–9 r: ‘Que el dicho reo crehe verdaderamente y tiene tal sperança que se ha de salvar en la ley de moysen, e que fuera de aquella ninguno se salvia, antes van dampnados y specialemente los cristianos, y que la oracion que dizen a modo de judios que sera oyda y exordida mediante la qual cre y tiene sperança de recabar e [...?] lo que por tal sera demandado y aun cree y tiene verdadera sperança que mediante aquella sera librado de toda congoxa y tribulacion en que sera puesto’. 19

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 6, fol. 10 v: ‘afirmando que no havia otra ley verdadera sino la que Dios dio a Moysen e guarda los judios’. 20

AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 16, fol. 8 v: ‘incredulo’.

21

Ibid., fol. 37r: ‘yva a missa y creya el misterio de aquella, y creya tambien que en la ostia consagrada que alcavan los capellanes estava el verdadero cuerpo de Nuestro Señor Ihesu Christo, y que tambien creya poderse salvar en la ley evangelica como en la ley de Moysen’. 22 AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 13, fol. 25v : ‘creyo cosa alguna de la fe de Jesu Cristo hasta 18 y quando empeço a creyer en la fe de Jesu Cristo era de edat de veinte tres o veinte quatro años’. 23

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[Cariñena 1489] confessed that, ‘being young, he believed that the law of Moses was holy and good, and that you could be saved in it, and he had believed this for a period of ten years’.24 By confessing that he had maintained this heretical belief for a limited period, Diego was attempting to prove his innocence insofar as the rest of his life was concerned and it was effectively up to the prosecution to find evidence to the contrary. Also of great concern to the Inquisition were the confessions and denunciations in which the accused openly admitted their vehement disbelief in the basic tenets of Catholicism. Again, Luis de Bardaxí is a prime example of a man who, by all accounts, made very little effort to disguise his true religious convictions in both his conduct and conversation. A witness testified that Luis ‘neither believed that the Messiah had come, nor anything about the Holy Mother Church. This witness knows that because he heard him say so and saw it in his works’.25 Aside from denying all Catholic doctrine, he was also heard to exclaim: that the law of Jesus Christ was nothing but a fantasy because when they baptized some Christian they also say God and Isaac God, God Jacob and God Abraham, and for that the law of Moses was better than that of Jesus Christ.26

Luis not only believed that the Messiah was yet to come, but he was unable to reconcile what he saw as the contradiction of two religions given to man by God: ‘These words master, I find impossible that Our Lord God had to become human flesh, and it seems amazing to me that God had to teach one thing according the Jewish law and the opposite thing in the Christian law’.27 Galcerán Fajol [Huesca 1488] also entertained grave doubts that Jesus Christ was the Messiah, as expressed by him on a particular Good Friday. After attending a

24 AHPZ, Leg. 12, no. 10, fol. 12 r: ‘seyendo joven, creyo que la ley de Moysen era sancta y buena, y que se podia salvar en aquella, y que estuvo en esta crehencia por tiempo de diez anyos’. 25

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 3, fol. 5r: ‘no creya que fuesse venido el Messias ny creya ninguna cosa de la Sancta Madre Yglesia. Eso sabe este deposante porque assi gelo huydo dezir y lo veya por sus obras’. 26

Ibid., fol. 28 r: ‘que la ley de Ihesu Christo no hera sino huna fantasia porque quando baptizavan algun cristiano tambien dizen Dios y Ysach Dios, Dios Jacob y Dios Abraham, y por aquello la ley de Moysen hera mejor que la de Ihesu Christo’. 27

AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 7, fol. 23 v: ‘Estas palabras maestro, por imposible tengo que Nuestro Señor Dios tuvyesse de tornar carne humano, et parece me muy fuerte que Dios tuvyese de mandar huna cosa en la ley de los judios et otra cosa en contrario en la ley de los cristianos’.

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reading of the Passion in his local Church, he asked the witness, ‘Do you think that it is all just a story?’28 When discussing the existence of hell and purgatory with a priest, Isabel de Santángelo could not believe that ‘there was purgatory, or devils, or punishments in the other world as they say, just the punishments in this world’.29 When another priest informed her that these beliefs were heretical, she retorted that Christianity was just a fantasy and stubbornly refused to accept any notion of the afterlife. A popular refrain found among some of the conversos was that it did not really matter how one behaved in this world, because there was no punishment in the next. In rejecting the idea of hell, these New Christians were also repudiating the idea of heaven, which, for them, was to be attained in this life. Esperandeo Fajol was reported to have commented to an Old Christian that whatever he did in this life was of no value because he did not believe in divine retribution, saying: ‘Go on, in this world you don’t see me having a bad time and in the other you won’t see me punished’.30 In Zaragoza, Jaime Montesa also made clear his scepticism by saying: ‘Are you not of this world, don’t you know that they say that you won’t see me suffer in this world and you won’t see me punished in the next?’31 Jaime Martinez de Santángel [Teruel 1484] was said to modelled his life on the philosophy that: The glory and the honour is in this world, and that in the other there is neither hell nor paradise. That God is no more than a tree, which grows leaves in summer, and in winter sheds them and they fall. So God creates and destroys people.32

While Jaime de la Santa Cruz [Zaragoza 1501] expressed his belief that ‘there was no other world but this one’,33 he was also supposed to have commented that:

28

AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 5, fols 11r–11v: ‘que pensays que esto todo es ystoria?’

29

AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 4, fols 7 r–7 v: ‘hovyese purgatorio ny diablos, ny penas en el otro mundo asi como dizen, sino las penas deste mundo’. 30

AHPZ, Leg. 12, no. 5, fol. 22 r: ‘Andad, que en este mundo no me veas mal pasar que en el otro no me veras penar’. 31 Marín Padilla, ‘Relación judeoconversa durante la segunda mitad del siglo XV en Aragón; enfermedades y muertes’, p. 338: ‘Vos no sois deste mundo, no sabeys que dizen en este mundo no me veras mal passar que en otro no me veras penar?’ 32

Ibid., pp. 338–39: ‘En este mundo es la gloria y la honra, que en el otro no hay infierno ni paraiso. Que Dios no es mas que un arbol, que el verano face las hojas, el invierno las lanza y se caen. Asi es Dios facer y desfacer gentes’. 33

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Chapter 8 God had never made anything perfect but imperfect, and that he had never made anything worse than man, and when God had made everything, it was nothing, and so much of a burden God was to us as we to him, and that we had as much power over him as he over us.34

The doctrine of Transubstantiation often provoked considerable scepticism and negativity among many of the accused. Beatriz de Jerez [Zaragoza 1487] confessed that her attendance at mass was really nothing more than show, as she had never actually believed that the Eucharist became the True Body of Christ. For Beatriz, the mystery of the transformation of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ was an incomprehensible and impossible occurrence: ‘When I received the host I neither thought nor believed that it was the True Body of Jesus Christ but a piece of bread’.35 In Monzón, it was also said of María Salvat that ‘she does not believe it to be God and True Man […] thinking that it was nothing but a piece of bread’.36 Similarly, Juan de Santa Fe [Tarazona 1485] never actually believed that the Eucharist was the True Body of Christ,37 while Juan de Toledo did not believe that the Messiah had come, admitting that ‘when the host was elevated during mass he doubted whether the True Jesus Christ was there’.38 When Alonso de Ribera attended mass, he ‘never believed that the host was the True Body of Jesus Christ […] nor the wine […] his blood’.39 Esperandeo Salvador [Zaragoza 1484] went so far as to say that ‘when he had received the Body of Our Saviour Jesus Christ, it seemed to him as if he had a devil inside his body’.40

34

Ibid., fol. 11r: ‘Dios nunqua havya fecho cosa perfecta sino imperfecta, y que no havya fecho peor cosa que el hombre, y quando Dios havya fecho todo, era nada, y que tanto cargo era Dios a nosotros como nosotros a El, y que tanto poder tenyamos nosotros sobre el como el sobre nosotros’. 35

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 13, fol. 24 r: ‘Quando recibio el corpus no pensava ny creya que aquel fuesse el cuerpo verdadero de Ihesu Christo sino un pedaço de pan’. 36

AHPZ, Leg. 6, no. 8, fol. 19r: ‘no cree ser Dios y Hombre verdadero [...] pensando que no era sino un pedazo de pan’. 37

BnF esp. 76 (1491–99), fol. 10 r.

38

AHPZ, Leg. 22, no. 7, fol. 12v : ‘quando alcava la hostia en la missa dudava que alli stuvyese el verdadero jesu cristo’. 39

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 13, fol. 25 v: ‘nunqua creyo en aquella ostia estasse el verdadero cuerpo de Ihesu Christo […] ny el bino [...] el sangre’. 40

AHPZ, Leg. 3, no. 3, fol. 359 v: ‘quando abia reçebido el cuerpo de nuestro Salvador Ihesu Cristo, dezia que le pareçia que tenya un demonyo en el cuerpo’.

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The efficacy of baptism and confession also seemed to provoke sheer disbelief in many of the New Christians arrested by the Aragonese tribunal. Juan Doz, parish priest of Barbastro, entertained so little credence in the power of the sacraments that he failed to fulfil his pastoral obligations because he believed it all to be nothing more than a meaningless ceremony. One witness reported that she had gone to Juan for confession and that, although he went through the motions of absolving her, he told her that ‘confession was all ceremony’41 and as a result she departed feeling rather unhappy. Some, like Alonso de Ribera, simply went through the motions of going to confession in order to appear a good Christian, admitting that whenever he did so he simply lied ‘because they told him that he had to confess but not because he believed’.42 Bernardo de Ribas [Zaragoza 1485] was reported to have said something along the lines that he would ‘neither confess nor tell his sins to anyone, almost saying that he would confess to no one, and that he [the confessor] could not know your [sins]’.43 Luis Bardaxí confessed that, When he went to take communion, it distressed him because he was taking communion, yet he did it so that the people would think him good, and when he took communion he thought nothing about the host but only did what he saw the others doing, and he did not think that for that he would be saved, just doing what he saw them doing.44

Here we have a real sense of the conversos’ awareness that, in order to survive, they should do as the Old Christians did. Although there are no cases of a parent washing the forehead of a newly baptised baby in the trial records of the Aragonese conversos, it does form part of the Valencian Edict: ‘Item, if you have washed the forehead of a baby boy or girl when they are brought from baptism to wash the cross from the forehead’;45 it

41

AHPZ, Leg. 6, no. 11, fol. 3r: ‘la confession toda era cerimonya’.

42

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 13, fol. 25v: ‘porque le costuvyeron que huviesse de conffesar pero no porque el creyesse’. 43

AHPZ, Leg. 4, no. 2, fol. 7 v: ‘que confesar ny dezir sus pecados a nynguno, quasi quysiendo dezir a ningun confesar, e que el no pudiese saber los suyos’. 44

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 3, fol. 30r: ‘Quando hiba a comulgar, le pessaba mucho porque comulgava, empero que lo fazia porque las gentes lo tuviessen por bueno, y quando comulgava no pensaba en nada de la hostia sino que fazia como veya fazer a los otros, y que no pensaba que por aquello se devya salvar sino como veya fazer’. 45

Llorca, ‘La Inquisición española en Valencia’, p. 52: ‘Item si ha fet lauar la font de algun infant o infanta quant los trauen del baptisme per lavar lo crisma del front’.

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is therefore not unreasonable to assume that there were other cases of a similar nature among the conversos from the kingdom of Aragón. In the event of the defendant’s death during court proceedings, there is evidence to suggest that the prosecution expected that the final moments of the accused’s life would betray their true religious credence. Witnesses claimed that, on his deathbed, Berenguer de Torrellas demonstrated his absolute aversion to Christianity by refusing to say the name of Jesus, kiss the cross, or accept a candle in the shape of a cross with some money, which was a Christian custom at that time.46 Moreover, the conversos’ reaction towards the death of family and friends was often interpreted as a good indication of his or her religious convictions. Barbastro cleric Juan Doz [1486] denied his mother the last rites and confession prior to her death, thus demonstrating his belief that under no circumstances should his mother die a Catholic. The accusation that Luis de Bardaxí lived and died in the Jewish faith was confirmed by witnesses who reported that, when any of his Jewish relatives passed away, he would always ask ‘that God forgave him and that he had a good century’.47 Similarly, whenever Jewish friends died, Luis de Heredia said that God would forgive them in their law.48 Dionisio de San Juan [Cariñena 1489] said, ‘although my father died a Jew, he is in a better place than he who died as a Christian’.49 Upon the death of Fresina Pastor’s Jewish friend, she considered him to have been forgiven ‘because it seemed to me that he had been a good Jew, and God [would] forgive him in his law’.50 The evidence suggests that the conversos’ scepticism also manifested itself in their avoidance of Christian rites and rituals, such as the obligatory attendence of mass. Jaime de Santa Clara was accused of averting his gaze during the elevation so that he would not have to look at the host, confessing that ‘because he was kneeling in order to look at the host that they raised, he looked towards the wall’.51 Felipe de la Cavallería was also accused of looking elsewhere during

46

AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 18, fol. 4r.

47

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 3, fol. 26 r: ‘que Dios lo perdonasse y buen siglo huviesse’.

48

AHPZ, Leg. 12, no. 9, fol. 10r.

49

AHPZ, Leg. 12, no. 10, fol. 5r: ‘aunque my padre murio jodio, en mejor lugar esta que el vio que murio christiano’. 50

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 9, fol. 8 v: ‘porque me parescia havya seydo buen judio, Dios le perdone en su ley’. 51

AHPZ, Leg. 4, no. 3, fol. 35 v: ‘porque estando rodillado como abia de myrar a la hostia que alçavan, myrava fazia la paret’.

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the elevation: ‘At the moment that they raised the Body of God, he looked from one side to another and did not look properly at the host’.52 Witnesses said that when Diego Sánchez, priest of Calamocha, was saying mass, he would avoid consecrating the host by omitting the words of the consecration. Moreover, it was noted that ‘when he wanted to consume the Body of Christ, he turned one way and another to see if he was being watched’.53 Mingo Blasco described how his father often attended novenas in the church of Burbaguena at the same time as the accused priest of Barbastro Juan de Alava: ‘At the moment that they elevated the Body of Christ, Juan de Alava said “Oh, Adonay!” when saying his prayers’.54 The foundation of the Jewish faith is based on the belief of the unitary God, and to the Spanish Jews, ‘Dios’, derived from the Latin ‘Deus’, symbolized the Three Divine Persons in One. Consequently, the uni-personal nature of God was emphasized by adding an article and omitting the ‘s’ so as to create ‘el Dio’. It appears that this practice was adopted by some conversos, who refused to accept the concept of the Triune God, and felt it necessary to refer to him in the singular. In Monzón, Pedro Ram’s wife said to him, ‘Tomorrow is Saturday’, and he answered, ‘For God [el Dio], I hadn’t remembered’.55 A Jewish witness said that he heard Fresina Pastor and her husband chatting together in Hebrew, saying, ‘God [el Dio] help you’.56 Another reported about Jaime de Santa Clara: ‘Once Santa Clara had exclaimed, “Oh your God”, about a suffering that he had experienced’.57 An interesting testimony as told by a fellow prisoner emerged in Galcerán Fajol’s trial record after his arrest and incarceration. When the two prisoners said their prayers at midday, the witness would say, ‘God help the Christians’, whereas Galcerán would say, ‘God help us’.58 Moreover, when

52

BnF esp. 84 (1485–96), fol. 293r: ‘Al tiempo que alçava el cuerpo de Dios, myrava a un cabo a otro et no myrava propiamente a la hostia’. 53

AHPZ, Leg. 21, no. 8, fol. 4 v: ‘quando queria consumir el Corpus, que se girava a una parte y a otra a veyer si lo mirava’. 54

AHPZ, Leg. 10, no. 3, fol. 4 v: ‘Faziendo oracion [...] a la hora que alcaban el Corpus, dixo el dicho Johan d’Alaba “O, Adonay!”’ 55 AHPZ, Leg. 17, no. 8, fol. 25v : ‘Manyana lo es sabado’, and ‘para el Dio, no me acordava’. 56

AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 9, fol. 14v: ‘el Dio os hayude’.

57 AHPZ, Leg. 4, no. 3, fol. 9 r: ‘una vez sobre una malencomya que huvo el dito Santa Clara exclamando se dixo “O tu Dio”’. 58

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Galcerán crossed himself he would only say, ‘In the name of the Father and of the Holy Ghost’, always leaving out, ‘and of the Son’, thereby betraying his disbelief in the Holy Trinity.59 Witnesses, especially servants and domestic staff who lived with the conversos for extended periods of time, often testified that their employers neglected such obligations as attending mass and going to confession. This act was also included in the Valencian Edict: ‘Item, if in disobedience to the Holy Mother Church you neither bother to confess, nor congregate every year, nor hear mass on Sundays or holidays of obligation’.60 In the five years that Paschuala Contin worked for Pablo de Nuza [Daroca 1489], she never once heard him say that he had gone to confession and never heard him say any prayers.61 Leonor de Montesa [Zaragoza 1486] often avoided going to mass and ‘was not in the habit of continually going to mass’.62 A witness in the trial record of Diego Parexo [Cariñena 1489] told ‘how on Holy Thursday and Holy Saturday Diego neither wanted to go to mass in the church, nor did he let this witness go, although when asked why he was not going to mass during this period, he answered, “Leave me alone!”’63 Juan Doz, priest of Barbastro, lived with his brother and sister-in-law for some years, during which time he was never seen to say Christian prayers,64 while in Híjar, Juan Bach’s former servant of seven years said that he never saw Juan recite a Christian prayer.65 Another witness said that neither Jaime de Gracia nor his wife wanted to ‘adore or receive [the host]’ and as a consequence ‘he considered them to be bad Christians’.66 It was rumoured that Jaime de Santángel’s house was devoid of any visible signs of devotion to saints,67 while Zaragoza converso Pedro

59

Ibid., fols 52 r–52 v.

60

Llorca, ‘La Inquisición española en Valencia’, p. 52: ‘Item si menyspreant la obediencia de santa mara esglesia no se es curat de confessor y combregar tots anys ni de oyr missa los diumenges o festes manades’. 61

AHPZ, Leg. 17, no. 3, fols 6 v–7 r.

62

AHPZ, Leg. 7, no. 1, fols 12 r–12 v: ‘no acostumbria de yr a Myssa continuamente’.

63

AHPZ, Leg. 12, no. 10, fol. 3 r: ‘como Juebes Sancto y Viernes Sancto no quiso ir al oficio a la yglesia el dicho Diego, ni dexo yr a este deposante, ahunque este deposante dixo por que no yba en tal tiempo al oficio, y le respondio: “Dexame estar!”’ 64

AHPZ, Leg. 6, no. 11, fol. 4 v.

65

AHPZ, Leg. 17, no. 8, fol. 21v.

66 Ibid., fol. 23 r: ‘no lo queria adorar ny recebir’, and ‘los tenia en possesion de malos cristianos’. 67

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Durrea was rarely seen making the sign of the cross or saying the name of Jesus Christ.68 The prosecution often attempted to prove that the accused was secretly practising Judaism because he or she lacked a basic knowledge of Catholic prayers. Galcerán Fajol, for example, was asked to recite the ‘Our Father’ and the ‘Hail Mary’ but the converso ‘did not know how to say the “Hail Mary” nor the “Our Father” well’.69 Similarly, Alberto Oluga was unable to recite the Creed. Pedro de Abella [Barbastro 1491] was accused by the prosecution of knowing vitually nothing about his religion: ‘He knows neither the articles of the Christian faith, nor the Creed nor the “Our Father” nor the “Hail Mary” nor does he have […?] of the figure of Our Redemptor Jesus Christ, nor of the Virgin Mary nor Saints’.70 Upon being questioned in court, María Salvat [Monzón 1486] said that she knew the ‘Our Father’ and the ‘Hail Mary’ but only half of the Creed,71 while Pedro Tomás [Bolea 1491] knew the ‘Our Father’ and the ‘Hail Mary’ very well, but could not recite the Creed or the ‘Hail Holy Queen’.72 The readiness with which many New Christians used the Ten Commandments rather than the Holy Bible upon which to swear their oaths was also employed as evidence against the defendants. Rabbi Salamon said that whenever Jaime Ramon made an oath, he would say ‘I swear by the Ten Commandments of the holy law of Moses that such a thing is true’.73 According to Açach Xuen, he was part of a group which acted as mediators in a dispute between Juan de Loperuelo [Daroca 1496] and a Jew, and: Loperuelo swore many times as a Christian that he would not do anything that was not fair, and later [...] he took the hand of this witness and pretended to swear and he said

68

AHPZ, Leg. 4, no. 2, fol. 39 r.

69

AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 5, fol. 52 r: ‘no sabia dezir bien el Ave Marya ni Pater Noster’.

70

AHPZ, Leg. 14, no. 1, fol. 10 v: ‘No sabe los articulos de la fe cristiana ny oraciones, ny el credo, ny el pater noster ny el ave marya ny tiene […?] de la figura de nuestro redemptor Ihesu Christo ny del virgen María ny santos’. 71

AHPZ, Leg. 6, no. 8, fol. 10v.

72

AHPZ, Leg. 14, no. 9, fol. 20 r.

73

AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 7, fol. 19 r: ‘Yo juro por los diez mandamyentos de la ley sancta de Moysen que tal cosa es verdat’.

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Chapter 8 something like this, ‘On those Ten Commandments, I would not do anything that was not fair’.74

On another occasion a Jewish witness reported his surprise that, as a Christian, Juan had sworn something to be true on the Ten Commandments rather than on the Holy Bible: ‘“By those Ten Commandments that it is the truth”. And this witness was amazed at this, that he [Juan] being a Christian, had sworn a Jewish oath and he considering him to be bad’.75 Pedro de Santa Clara [Calatayud 1488] also swore the following oath: ‘I swear by the holy law of Moses that you and I believe that this happened like that’.76 In Daroca, Pablo de Nuza was heard to swear by the Ten Commandments two or three times.77 It appears that a general scepticism and disbelief in Catholic doctrine often developed into converso antipathy and contempt for the religion. Leonor Montesa testified that Isabel de Bello never wanted to go to mass and that, upon being convinced to attend, cried, ‘I’ll go for a joke!’78 Pedro de Santa Clara said that he thought that both the Holy Trinity and images of saints that they painted in the church were a joke, and that ‘if Jesus Christ was God, that it would behove him to call him his father and then if Jesus Christ was the Lord then it would behove him to say the “Our Father”’.79 Salvadora Salvat [Barbastro 1489] once told a blasphemous story to her children, as remembered and recounted to the tribunal twenty-four years later by her daughter Brianda. One evening, when the family was sitting around the fire, Salvadora claimed that Jesus had been the product of an illicit encounter between Mary and a blacksmith: ‘Joseph, having gone away from the house where he had left the Holy Mary, and the blacksmith had his way with the Holy Mary, and from that union came Jesus Christ, the son of a

74

AHPZ, Leg. 16, no. 8, fol. 4 r: ‘Jurava muchas vezes el dicho Lopuerelo como christiano que no faria sino lo que de justicia fuese, y a la postre [...] tomo de la mano a este deposante y fizo senblante juramento y dixo asi; “Por estos diez mandamientos, que nonde faga cosa ninguna sino lo que de justicia fuere”’. 75

Ibid., fol. 9r: ‘“Por estos diez mandamientos que esta la verdat”. Y desto se marabilla este deposante, seyendo christiano, jurar juramento de judio, toviendogelo a mal’. 76 AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 1, fol. 13 r: ‘yo juro por la ley sancta de Moysen que vos y yo creemos que sto passo assi’. 77

AHPZ, Leg. 17, no. 3, fol. 5 r.

78

AHPZ, Leg. 7, no. 1, fol. 12 r: ‘ire por burla!’

79

AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 1, fols 2 r–2 v: ‘si Ihesu Christo era Dios que le cumplia llamar a su padre, y pues que Ihesu Christo era el Senyor que le cumplia dezir Pater Noster’.

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blacksmith’.80 Salvadora succeeded in scandalizing her young son Antonio, who reprimanded her, saying, ‘Mother, do not say that, it is not something to say’; to which Salvador replied ‘son, I am not saying it as something bad’.81 Salvadora later confessed that her Jewish father had taught her the story and, more importantly, she had believed it to be true.82 Jaime de la Cavallería [Zaragoza 1485] reportedly inserted the word puto (whore) whenever the name of Jesus appeared during the reading of the Passion. The Passion also featured in the trial record of Pedro de Santa Clara el Platero [Calatayud 1489], as reported by a witness who heard a conversation between the accused Pedro and a rabbi, who had been denigrating the Christians during Holy Week: ‘The rabbi said “they [Old Christians] were crying and I was laughing”. And […] he heard the rabbi say some insulting things against the law of the Christians. And Pedro said, “Don’t you think that everything they believe is a marvellous delusion?”’83 The most serious denunciation of the conversos’ anti-Catholic and antiChristian behaviour was the allegation that their hatred of Christ was so intense that they devised a ceremony consisting of whipping and verbally abusing the crucifix. The Valencian Edict contains a clause which mentions the crucifixion of both animals and people: ‘If, in hatred of the Passion of Our Saviour, you have whipped or crucified a fowl, man, animal or lamb’.84 I have not found any evidence of mock crucifixions in the trial records in hand, yet there were three conversos accused of mistreatment of the crucifix itself. On 28 April 1487, Luis de Bardaxí told the court that he had been part of a select group of conversos in Lérida who met together in order to whip and mistreat a crucifix. Luis confessed to having participated in the ritual on three different occasions in three different

80

AHPZ, Leg. 11, no. 1, fol. 8 r: ‘Josef haviendo ydo fuera de casa, bino hun ferrero a su casa adonde havia dexado a Sancta María, y aquel ffererro huvo que fazer con Sancta María, y que de alli havia fallado Ihesu Christo, fijo de fferrero’. 81

Ibid., fol. 8 r: ‘Madre, no nos digays esso, que no es cosa de dezir’, and ‘ffijo, no lo digo por cosa de mal ninguna’. 82

Ibid., fol. 32 v.

83

AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 7, fol. 4 v: ‘dixo el dicho Rabi, “ellos lloravan y yo reya”. E […] hoyo dizir al dicho Rabi presente los sobredichos algunas cosas en menosprecio de nuestra Ley de los Cristianos. Y el dicho Pedro dixo “No pensays que son cosas alucanyas vestiales todo lo crehen.?”’ 84

Llorca, ‘La Inquisición española en Valencia’, p. 52: ‘Si en vituperi de la passio de nostre Redemptor ha açotat o crucificat algun gall, home, animal o anyell’.

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houses, where each time they ‘badly treated a crucifix’.85 He also testified that on another occasion at his house in Huesca, he actually spoke to the figure and admitted to having wished that he had had time to whip it: He had a crucifix of Our Lord Jesus Christ in his house hung on the wall above a curtain, and because one of the arms of the crucifix became unnailed and it moved, he took it and and gave it an enormous kick on the ground and he said to it ‘If you are going to be dead, be dead for me now!’ and he said that for hatred of Jesus Christ, and for the figure because he saw it move. And […] that also he would whip it […] but he did not have time as he was in a hurry.86

Galcerán Fajol made a point of not having any crucifixes in his house, confessing that they presented him with the opportunity for mistreatment: ‘And you confess that you have not had a crucifix in house from then for three years past: in order to avoid creating scandals so that you should not have reason or opportunity to whip it and punish it’.87 Whenever Isabel Fajol found herself in church, ‘she used to sit in church and look at the figure of Jesus Christ and say such words as “the lunatic and villainous”’.88 The lengthiest testimony regarding the scandalous abuse of a crucifix was given against both Jaime and Felipe de la Cavallería. Cleric Miguel de Almazán alleged that, during Holy Week, he had witnessed various conversos and their wives gathered in a secret room to perform a ritual parody of the Passion of Christ. This involved whipping, verbally abusing, and then burning a crucifix. He noticed that some were dressed in ‘mourning cloaks and hoods, all standing with bent bodies, face forward with hunched shoulders’.89 At one end of the room there was a Hebrew book and a crucifix made out of cypress which was to

85

AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 3, fols 44 v–45 r: ‘mal tratava el crucifixo’.

86

Ibid., fols 44 v–45 r: ‘tenya hun crucifixo que de Nuestro Señor Ihesu Christo en la dicha su casa enclavado en la paret encima de huna cortina, e que por quanto se desclavo el hun braço el dicho crucifixo y se movya, lo thomo y lo echo muy grant golpe en el suelo y le dixo “si me pues ser muerte, agora ser me lo” y que lo dezia por vituperio de Ihesu Christo, e por su figura porque lo vio mover. Et [...] que tambien la açotava [...] sino no tuvo tiempo que estava de prissa’. 87 AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 5, fol. 58 v : ‘Y confiessas que nunqua has tuvydo crucifixo en tu casa aca de tres anyos aqua: por tirarte de escandalos porque no tuvyesses causa e oportunydat de açotarlo e castigarlo’. 88

AHPZ, Leg. 12, no. 3, fol. 33 r: ‘se sentava en la yglesia y veya la figura de Ihesu Christo e dizia por la dicha figura tales palabras “el orat y malavat”’. 89

BnF esp. 84 (1485–96), fol. 294r: ‘clochas de luto y capirotes, todos de pies e inclinados los cuerpos cara adelante con los braços plegados’.

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be burnt in a lit brazier once the ritual had finished. Miguel said that Juan de Pedro Sánchez took the role of Pilate, that Juan de Juan Sánchez was Annas, and that the third New Christian was to play the part of Judas. Apparently the conversos took fright when they noticed his presence and forced him to leave the room. While Miguel’s testimony is shocking and unusually detailed, it is not completely distinct from the attitudes displayed by many conversos against Christ and his Church. Clearly, there was a certain degree of antagonism towards their professed religion in some converso circles. While an avoidance of mass or a reluctance to receive communion was hardly evidence of crypto-Jewish activity, and was not taken as such by the inquisitors, such behaviour did indicate to them that the individual concerned was failing to fulfil the basic obligations required by members of the Church, which in itself was a serious matter. Equally, while the individual’s refusal to accept dogma such as the Triune God or Transubstantiation was not a sign of Judaizing, it did indicate that the accused was guilty of heresy when he or she openly and publicly denied the basic tenets of the faith. Finally, the fact that these reports were rarely, if ever, isolated would no doubt have worked in the prosecution’s favour, as it was invariably able to present the individual’s positive observance in daily life of some aspects of Jewish ritual in conjunction with his or her failure to properly observe Christianity. In general, then, it appears that the daily life of those conversos arrested and tried by the tribunal of Zaragoza was one marked by the rituals of Judaism. It was a life in which contact between the Jewish and converso communities was maintained on a daily basis. Whether it was through an observance of the major Jewish holidays, an attempt to keep the stringent dietary laws of Judaism, or through maintaining a Jewish prayer life, the day-to-day existence of the Aragonese New Christian was defined by his or her proper observance of mitzvoth. When the Inquisition was established in Aragón in 1484, it is evident that a sizeable number of Aragonese conversos were secretly attempting to observe and preserve the laws of Judaism to the best of their abilities, despite facing many difficulties in doing so. A thorough reading of the extant records compiled by the tribunal of Zaragoza leaves us with little doubt that, at end of the fifteenth century, the sabbath flame was not only burning brightly in the Jewish quarters, but also behind many a closed door of converso homes across the kingdom of Aragón.

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W

hile the inquisitors made no obvious distinction between Jewish, Old Christian, and New Christian witnesses, the nature of their evidence speaks for itself: the information volunteered by a witness within the environment of the courtroom perfectly mirrored their relationship with the accused in the outside world. For example, reports of the accused lighting the sabbath flame and preparing the stew called hamin appear with regularity in the trial records from Aragón, and these accusations were most often made by domestic servants. Equally, the testimonies that some conversos followed the dietary precepts of Judaism were primarily given by Jewish witnesses, from whom the New Christians were reportedly purchasing their meat. In these cases, the word of the Old Christian servant who worked in a converso kitchen and the Jewish butcher who sold the converso his or her meat was corroboratory rather than contradictory. It is improbable that the courtroom became a microcosm of society by chance or through the clever manipulation of sources by the inquisitors; it is more likely that these social patterns were manifest simply because, in general, the testimonies were based on the individual’s real experiences and contact with the accused. There is evidence within the trial records that the Inquisition was prepared for the possibility that not all those who testified were compelled by their conscience to do the right thing and inquisitors were scrupulous in sorting through the numerous depositions for evidence which did not corroborate. We have seen both the theoretical warning against false testimonies in the Ordenanzas, as well as the actual punishment of perjurers: Juan de la Cavalleria’s maid, Lucia, admitted to having lied about the dietary practices of her employees

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after being tortured.1 Jewish witnesses Adret Aninay, Salamon Abenlopiel, and Salamon Aliçia were all found guilty of perjury in the trial record of Alfonso de la Cavallería [Zaragoza 1484], and were duly punished.2 It could be argued that the inquisitors punished a few individuals as perjurers merely for show, in order to give the impression that justice was being done. However, the Inquisition’s archives were available only to the employees of the Holy Office, and it is unlikely that the inquisitors would have gone to such lengths to fabricate records to which only they had access. The sentences received by the conversos within this particular collection show that twenty-four percent of the accused were handed over to the Secular Court to be burnt at the stake. This number includes nine individuals who were charged after having passed away, while four individuals were tried in absentia and their effigies burnt. If the Inquisition’s aim was the annihilation of all the conversos from society, then it failed spectacularly in its goal: the extant trial records show that the large majority of conversos arrested by the tribunal survived their arrests. The inquisitors achieved a homogeneity of charges levelled at conversos in both Aragón and Castile, which is difficult to explain if one were to assume that the court trials were a product of the inquisitors’ subjective imaginations. One needs only to look at Beinart’s study of the tribunal of Ciudad Real to notice the similarities between the information contained in the trial records pertaining to Castile and those of Aragón during the same period. According to these trial records, the New Christians arrested by the Inquisition who lived and worked in the areas of Castile which fell under the jurisdiction of the tribunal of Ciudad Real, practised mitzvoth just as did their Aragonese counterparts. The Libro de los testigos and the Libro de confesiónes pertaining to Ciudad Real contain strikingly similar testimonies and confessions to those of the tribunal of Zaragoza with regard to the rituals and ceremonies allegedly observed by the two groups of conversos.3 At first glance, the charges presented in the records could very well be lifted straight from an inquisitor’s manual. Indeed, there can be no doubt that, on a superficial level, many of the accusations found in the trial records of the Zaragoza tribunal are monotonous because they concern the ritual elements of

1

BnF esp. 81 (1488–89), fol. 36 v.

2

BnF esp. 74–75 (1499–1501), fol. 339 r.

3

See Beinart, Conversos on Trial, Chapters 7 and 8, pp. 237–99, for detailed discussion of the nature of accusations levelled at New Christians of Ciudad Real in the late fifteenth century.

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Judaism. It is also true that we see identical accusations aimed at the New Christians of Castile: but this does not mean that because the accusations are the same in one tribunal, they must be false in all of them. The observance of ritual, whether it be daily, weekly, or yearly, is by its very nature repetitious. If these rituals were indeed an indication of religious affiliation, then it was only natural that the conversos of Aragón and Castile — if indeed they were practising Judaism — would perform identical ceremonies en masse. As Beinart points out, the conversos’ adherence to the rituals of Judaism was a sure sign of their credence, and the intention behind the deed concerned the inquisitors rather than the deed itself.4 This notion appears to be accurate in the case of the inquisitors of Zaragoza, who clearly worked from the assumption that the lighting of the sabbath flame or the koshering of one’s meat, for example, signified the defendant’s understanding of, and belief in, the theological significance behind the ritual. As we have seen, there are cases from the tribunal of Zaragoza which demonstrate a distinctive individuality, that is, where conversations, comments, and actions were reported to have been unique to one person or to a group of people. There are subtleties which indicate that most of what was reported to the inquisitors, with some exceptions, was based on actual events, conversations, and comments of individuals. Their stories frequently take off in idiosyncratic directions, revealing unusual, non-standard events, practices, or details. The fifty-three biographies which follow this chapter are themselves indicative of the individual, distinctive personal experiences that emerge from the confessions and testimonies. An event which occurred during the trial of one of the noted conversos, merchant Bernardo de Ribas [Zaragoza 1484], demonstrates this uniqueness. After Bernardo, who was reported to have shown a Jewish colleague how he had used his house as a synagogue, had fled Zaragoza, the entire courtroom visited the abandoned house to see if there was any truth in the story. The physical evidence at the house confirmed the testimony of the witness. Moreover, the surviving confessions of some of the guild’s members, as well as the testimony of the hermitage’s caretaker, corroborate with regards to the names of the active members of the cofradía, the periods during which they met, and what took place at the meetings. The selection of trial records from the Barbastro conversos are also good examples of these non-standard accusations. There is corroborating testimony from at least four witnesses in five trial records which detail the involvement of 4

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the leading members of the converso community in the exclusive cofradía, whose members met together to conduct secret Jewish prayer services in the Hermitage of San Salvador.5 From piecing the testimonies, confessions, and interrogations together, it is apparent that the New Christians of Barbastro devised ingenious ways of averting suspicion by taking different routes to, and arriving separately at the hermitage, as well as sending the caretaker on pointless errands so as to be left in peace.6 The same group confessed that they had invited unwitting Old Christians to play cards with them during the meal at the end of Yom Kippur in order to disguise the true motives behind the gathering.7 It is highly unlikely that this level of circumstantial detail would have been outlined in the inquisitors’ manuals. While there are no other reports of the use of a hermitage among the New Christians of Ciudad Real to conduct prayer services, it was reported that in Castile, Sancho de Ciudad, called ‘Rabbi Mayor’ by witnesses for the prosecution, offered the tower in his house for prayer meetings. It was revealed that, in 1453 (at the fall of Constantinople), falling comets were observed by many, and the conversos were reported to have gathered in a tower at Sancho’s home in Ciudad Real and proclaimed, ‘Nascido es el que nos ha de saluar!’8 One of the witnesses was himself a converso and denounced nine others as having been present at the meeting. If we are to believe the testimony of Jewish witness Mosse Aninay of Zaragoza, his New Christian acquaintance Bernardo de Ribas [Zaragoza 1486] converted a room in his house into a place of worship for converso friends and family.9 These conversos, it seems, were participating in truly crypto activity by meeting secretly in a hermitage or in each other’s houses away from the public eye. The accusation in which the inquisitors were supposed to have replaced the truth (the defendant’s genuine Catholicism) with untruth (the defendant’s fictitious adherence to Judaism) poses more questions than answers. At what point in the proceedings did this supposed manipulation of the facts take place? Working on the presumption that the falsification took place while the court was in session, for example, poses all manner of logistical conundrums. We know 5

See pp. 149–51 of Chapter 7 for discussion of secret prayer meetings in the hermitage and the main protagonists. 6 7

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AHPZ, Leg. 6, no. 2, fol. 40r. Ibid., fol. 41r.

8

Records of the Trials of the Spanish Inquisition, ed. by Beinart, I, p. 37.

9

AHPZ, Leg. 4, no. 2, fols 50 r–52 v.

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that court notaries took down the words of both the prosecution and defence witnesses, and if illiterate, the confessions of the accused themselves. As plainly evident from the trial records under scrutiny, individual notaries often developed their own particular short hand to allow them to transcribe the maximum amount of detail given the time constraints. This suggests that the notaries were obliged to document proceedings as fully as possible, as faithfully as possible, often while they were taking place. If this is the case, there would have been little room for unfounded speculation or inaccuracies in the wake of a particular interrogation. Those fifteenth-century scribes can perhaps be compared to the stenotypists in the modern courts of today, whose sole job it is to type exactly and accurately what is being said, and whose professionalism is defined by their role as objective recorders. The relationship between the notary and his environment is best exemplified in the instances in which the defendant recited Jewish prayers in court. As discussed in Chapter 3, many Aragonese conversos were able to stand up in court and recite prayers from memory, such as the Shema, the blessings over the bread and wine, or one or two Psalms. Most of these were detailed in the manuals for the inquisitors’ benefit. For example, we find a reference to the blessing of the wine in the Castilian manual in the following terms: En todos los días del año que los hebreos comían, todas las vezes que comían tomavan el pan e desçian una bendiçión sobre él, teniendo en la mano, que en su lengua desçía: ‘Du tuchata Adonay, Elohenu, me fech ha olan hamoçi lequen minha e tez’ que en rromanze quiere desçir: ‘Bendito seas tú Señor, nuestro Dios, el que saca el pan de la tierra’.10

In Jaime Ramon’s trial record [Calatayud 1488], Jaime informed the court that he knew a Jewish blessing of the bread to be said at mealtimes. The notary then wrote down his confession, which included a confused version of the prayer as apparently recited by the converso. According to the document, Jaime would say: ‘baroch moci lehumi atez’11 on the occasions that he would bless the bread. Although it is impossible to know whether this confusion resulted from Jaime’s own lack of understanding, or from an extremely poor transcription of the Hebrew by the notary, what was written down was an extremely garbled yet identifiable Jewish blessing. If the inquisitors had been lifting the information directly from the manuals, it is odd that they chose to distort it before putting

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10

Cantera Montenegro, Aspectos, p. 225.

11

AHPZ, Leg. 17, no. 8, fol. 11v.

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it into the mouths of the accused. It seems highly doubtful that the scribes would have been able to write down anything contrary to what was taking place. So, was the evidence was altered or fabricated before it was immortalized on paper? Would it have been possible for an almost simultaneous twisting of the truth during an interrogation, for example? We might assume that the inquisitor, dissatisfied with a lack of evidence of Judaizing, and deprived of a legitimate cause for condemnation, re-worded the defendant’s answer and instructed the notary to write down his version of the events. Such a scenario is quite improbable and the proposal reduces the entire judicial system to nothing more than a farce. In terms of the method by which information was relayed to the inquisitors, it appears that, when the individual found himself relating a first-hand story to the inquisitors, any unfamiliarity with the subject matter or the language was duly conveyed by the notary. When the Old Christian servant to the Jiménez family reported that her employers had recited what she called ‘a kind of prayer’ at meal times, for example, she informed the inquisitors that her master had said ‘cados cados’ when dipping wine into bread before a meal; in actual fact she probably heard him say kiddush.12 Similarly, a witness described how he had crept down some stairs and heard Juan de Toledo [Zaragoza 1515] praying something along the lines of ‘abraham [asan…?]’13 but they had not understood anything else. A detail such as this in combination with the Chinese whispers phenomenon in which the words were substantially altered, further confirms the idea that the notaries were writing down what the witnesses were actually saying rather than what the inquisitors were telling them to say. The confessions contained in the trial records themselves also reveal certain details and variety which are not contained in the Edict of Grace or inquisitors’ manuals. The confessions are, of course, of an entirely different nature and the circumstances under which they were made, with the ever present threat of torture, is important to the evidence itself. The trial records from Zaragoza show that the majority of confessions were made within the three-month Period of Grace when torture was not yet applied. There is no doubt, however, that, once arrested and faced with torture, an individual would have been more inclined to confess what he or she thought the inquisitors wanted to hear. These fearinduced confessions, of course, would have invariably caused problems of perjury if the confession bore no relation to the testimonies of the witnesses. As

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12

See discussion in Chapter 7, p. 167.

13

AHPZ, Leg. 22, no. 7, fol. 3r.

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demonstrated in Chapter 2, only a small percentage of the arrested were actually tortured, and they were required to ratify their confessions the following day when not under immediate duress. Also noteworthy are the examples in which uncertainty or the individual’s faulty memory emerges in the confession. When Francisco de Heredia confessed that his father [Luis de Heredia, Calatayud 1489] and a Jew had taught him some Hebrew prayers, he was not able to recite them either correctly or in their entirety, finally admitting that he was not quite sure what they meant. The versions of the prayers as they appear in the dossier are garbled, but even so, they are still recognizable and identifiable within the context that Francisco claimed that he had been reciting them.14 Why, then, would the inquisitors choose to place the prayers in their correct context but distort the words of the accused if they were the only party permitted to read the trial records? It is generally understood that the records of the Holy Office were classified information which were for the eyes of the inquisitors only, and it therefore seems absurd that those working for the Holy Office should conspire together to censor documents that only they could read. As Yerushalmi says, ‘To view the Inquisitors as involved in what amounts to a universal conspiracy of fabrication is to ignore the mentality of men of a bygone day and to flatter them with Machiavellian intentions and capabilities beyond their reach’.15 One of the problems with advocating the conspiracy theory is that one then has to explain how the conspiracy was so successfully co-ordinated and put into action. Such a movement would have undoubtedly required immense organization and direction from a central body such as the Suprema, but there is no evidence that a document of this nature ever existed. The proposition which maintains that countless witnesses’ testimonies, confessions, and interrogations are pure fiction, leaves many unanswered questions as to how the inquisitors were able to obscure the truth. Without adequate documentary evidence of the alleged manipulation of the truth within the sources themselves, such a hypothesis cannot be sustained. The inquisitors would no doubt have been aware that many witnesses would have been tempted to use the tribunal as a means for troublemaking or gaining revenge on the accused. Even so, all confessions and testimonies were duly transcribed word for word by the court notaries, then filed, and then locked away for safekeeping in the Inquisition’s secret archives until they were opened

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14

See discussion in Chapter 6, p. 168.

15

Yerushalmi, From Spanish Court to Italian Ghetto, p. 24.

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in the nineteenth century. In one bureaucratic masterstroke, the Inquisition unintentionally documented daily life in fifteenth-century Aragón for the benefit and appreciation of future historians and anthropologists. If one is to accept that the trial records allow us a privileged glimpse into Jewish and Christian daily life in Early Modern Spain, then one must be equally prepared to accept that the image of converso daily life as revealed in the records is also an accurate one.

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T

he following fifty-three biographical summaries are compiled from the information related by the accused in their confessions made to the inquisitors, or contained in the stories told about them in the form of witnesses’ testimonies. Most of these conversos survived their arrest and subsequent trials, the majority incurring imprisonment, penances, or confiscations of their goods. An unfortunate few did not. While each biography is peculiar to the individual, when taken as a whole, the biographical data provides us with a unique glimpse into the social and religious life of the Aragonese converso community living and working in the kingdom during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Abella, Pedro, Animal-Hide Seller Barbastro 1491 AHPZ, Leg. 14, no. 1 In 1491, Pedro Abella, animal-hide seller and native of Barbastro, decided to step forward during the period of grace and make a spontaneous confession of ‘minor transgressions’. However, the damning testimony of one of his acquaintances and fellow New Christians, Leonardo de Santángelo, who had already been arrested and imprisoned, meant that Pedro’s case went ahead. Leonardo claimed in his lengthy narrative that, in 1476 or thereabouts, Pedro had secretly met with his converso friends in order to fast on Yom Kippur. With the introduction of such incriminating evidence into the proceedings, the inquisitors asked Pedro to reconsider his position and to make another confession. Pedro resolutely continued to deny all charges, even though

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Leonardo repeated that he had told the truth and knew nothing else after having been re-read his testimony by the court notary. Pedro finally confessed that, in the early 1470s, his brother-in-law, Juan Doz,1 heretico condenado, along with his sister, had convinced him to observe Yom Kippur with them, but then he added that they had failed to tell him that it was a Jewish holiday! Despite the evidence that Pedro had clearly been socializing with conversos who had already been handed over to the secular authorities for their alleged crypto-Jewish activities, and the accusation that he had not made a full confession during the period of grace, Pedro was abjured de vehementi in 1491. Adam, Blanca, alias Leonor de Montesa Zaragoza 1486 AHPZ, Leg. 7, no. 1 The trial of Blanca Adam is a prime example of an apparent lack of familial loyalties and a breakdown of family ties among many conversos of Aragón. In this proceso we find a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law ready to testify against one another, and a niece quick to formally accuse her own aunt of Judaizing. Blanca’s mother-in-law, Isabel de Bello, was one of the first witnesses to claim that the defendant had regularly observed the sabbath, as well as having eaten unleavened bread presented by Jewish friends during Easter. Moreover, her niece Catalina Sánchez was to confirm these accusations, adding that Blanca used to fast on Yom Kippur and eat kosher meat. In the early stages of the trial, Blanca took the decision to make an extremely detailed spontaneous confession, which, despite its length, was remarkably superficial. Both she and her husband, Juan de Santa Fe, had lived with and worked for the Count and Countess Buendia in Castile, and she claimed that the Countess had ordered her to observe the sabbath. Blanca then mentioned that Isabel de Bello had continually eaten meat during Lent and had refused to attend mass. Blanca was interrogated five times, and in each interrogation she admitted further transgressions. Finally, on 20 October 1486, she basically confessed to having observed many precepts of Judaism to the best of her ability all her life.

1

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Not to be confused with Juan Doz, priest from Barbastro.

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The inquisitors sentenced Blanca to perpetual imprisonment on 6 November, just five months after the case began. Alava, Juan de, Shoemaker Calamocha 1488–90 AHPZ, Leg. 12, no. 4 In early 1488, Juan de Alava, a shoemaker from Burbáguena, listened to the edict being read out in his local church and decided to step forward during the period of grace. He confessed to having eaten unleavened bread given to him by a Jewish friend five or six days before Easter, to having regularly consumed hamin (but he added that he frequently ate and enjoyed pork), and to having once eaten a chicken slaughtered by a Jewish acquaintance. The prosecution presented at least three witnesses who divulged information which Juan had omitted from his confession. In March 1489, Juan’s time in prison, combined with an interrogation, prompted him to confess that he fasted on Yom Kippur in 1470 and 1474, that he blessed his children in a Jewish manner, and that he truly believed that salvation was possible in both Christianity and Judaism. The trial concluded in 1490, but unfortunately the sentence was included in another trial record that is now missing. Alava, García de, Parish Priest Zaragoza 1490 AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 3 García de Alava was the parish priest in Burbáguena, and as a young man had studied at the University of Salamanca. He was interrogated in Zaragoza on 8 April 1490, during which he had to justify a previous comment that the ‘law of Moses was good, and that a Jew could be saved’. He argued that he had actually meant that a Jew could be saved in Mosaic law before the coming of Jesus Christ rather than afterwards. He also admitted that, in 1485, he had visited some Jewish friends during Sukkot and had eaten with them in their booths. It appears that García was keen to further his knowledge and had embarked upon learning Hebrew from a Jewish friend in Daroca. The two used to argue about Judaism and Christianity, and it seems that the intense polemic resulted

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in Juan’s eventual observance of Yom Kippur, as encouraged by his friend. By his own admission, he undertook this observance with full knowledge and an understanding of the holiday. García was sentenced to perpetual imprisonment in 1490 for these transgressions. Aragonés, Nicolás, Weaver Zaragoza 1510 AHPZ, Leg. 20, no. 17 In 1492, Nicolás, a young Jewish weaver, and his family took the momentous decision to leave Spain rather than convert to Christianity. They chose to head towards Naples and start a new life among the Jewish communities in Sicily. After three months, his mother broke the news to Nicolás and his siblings that she believed their father to be dead, as he had failed to arrive in Italy. Shortly after his move, in 1493 or 1494, for reasons unknown, Nicolás decided to be baptized in Italy so that he could return to the country of his birth as a Christian. It emerges from his confessions and various conversations that the young neophyte severely regretted having converted for at least a year after his baptism. He continued to believe that the precepts of Mosaic law were superior to Christian doctrine and was so unconvinced by his new faith that he even considered going to live in Tunisia among Moslems, where he could return to the religion of his birth. He added that he was prevented from apostatizing by the company he was keeping at the time, but further details are rather vague. Nicolás refused the services of a lawyer, preferring to leave his case to the discretion of the inquisitors. The decision to torture the convert was taken, even though he said defiantly that he ‘would not tell them anything different even after thirty tortures’. He was inflicted with one session of the rope and pulley, during which time he added nothing new to his confession. In the ratification the following day, he admitted to having wanted to observe the sabbath for a period after his conversion but that he did not act upon the desire to do so. In 1510, the weaver was abjured de vehementi and sentenced to perpetual imprisonment.

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Arbus, Catalina, Wife of Domingo de Azeyt Zaragoza 1486 AHPZ, Leg. 7, no. 11 While conversa Catalina and her husband lived a comfortable existence in Zaragoza, the inordinate number of prosecution witnesses who testified against them indicates that the couple had a great many enemies who saw the Inquisition as a perfect opportunity for revenge. Catalina denied all charges in three separate interrogations and hired a lawyer to prove her innocence. The defence promptly requested a re-examination of the witnesses, one of whom was Pedro de Moros, a notorious informer who regularly gave false testimonies in the trials of other Aragonese conversos. The defence presented an impressive list of witnesses whose testimonies convinced the court that Catalina had indeed been a victim of malicious slander and that the accusations of Judaizing were unfounded. She was absolved of all charges in 1486. Ariza, Esteban de, Weaver Zaragoza 1487–88 AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 6 Esteban de Ariza was born into a Jewish family, but he was baptized at the age of five and taken to live under the care of Pedro de Bardaxí, where he was apprenticed as a weaver. When he turned fifteen, he asserted his independence by taking leaving of Pedro’s protection to go travelling, but where he went, what he did, and the length of his absence remains a mystery. He stated vaguely that he had ‘andado por muchas tierras’. Upon returning to Aragón, Esteban married an Old Christian woman called Gracia and set himself up in business as a weaver. Despite being separated from his family at such an early age, Esteban kept in close contact with his Jewish relatives in Fuentes. His wife, his father-in-law, and his Jewish brothers and sisters were all quick to testify against him. All agreed that Esteban was in no way a model Christian and that he spent far more time in the judería than in his own house. Gracia, as an obedient wife, was often forced to stay with her Jewish in-laws and Esteban frequently attempted to make her eat their food. Her father proudly reported that his daughter had stubbornly refused to partake of the meal but that Juan

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had beaten her as a result. She also fell victim to his violence when she threatened to report him to the Inquisition. Esteban relied on his Jewish brothers and sisters to supply him with unleavened bread during Passover and to advise him as to the date of Yom Kippur. He spent countless Saturdays observing the day in the company of his relatives, and would smuggle home hamin under his cape because his wife was clearly not cooking it for him. The court found him guilty and he was released to the secular court on 17 March 1488 with Teruel converso Jaime de Santángel. Bach, Juan (deceased) Híjar 1487–97 AHPZ, Leg. 17, no. 8 It seems that Juan decided to convert to Christianity in his twenties, but the factors that prompted this decision remain unknown. He was already married at the time of his baptism, and although his Jewish wife, Regina, remained faithful to Judaism, the couple remained married and living under the same roof. The testimonies against Juan go as far back as the early 1450s when he was already married. Most of the witnesses were Jews who remembered Juan to have been ‘more Jewish than Christian’. After his baptism they claimed that his lifestyle had not really been transformed by his conversion, as he continued to eat the Jewish food prepared by Regina, and observe the sabbath and other holidays. Some reported that he devoutly recited Jewish prayers such as the Shema and visited the synagogue to watch the service taking place inside. Juan, Regina, their daughter Aldonza, and her husband Guillermo Remírez were often witnessed attending Jewish weddings in the judería. Aldonza (who was also arrested but her trial record is missing) tried to protect her father by telling the inquisitors that he had taught her a couple of Christian prayers, but it seems that the court remained unconvinced by her testimony. Juan’s bones were exhumed and burned on 25 November 1497, ten years after the first deposition. Also included in this trial were Pedro Ram, his wife Dolcia, Jaime de Gracia and his wife María.

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Bardaxí, Luis de Huesca 1486–87 AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 3 Luis de Bardaxí converted to Christianity in Lérida as a young man, although the reasons for his decision to be baptized are not made clear in the trial itself. By the time he was arrested in late fifteenth century, Luis was quite advanced in years and had been married twice by 1486. While countless Jewish and Christian witnesses were presenting themselves in court to testify that Luis had lived his life as a ‘pure Jew’ and had nothing but contempt for the religion of his baptism, he took fright and fled across Aragón into Catalonia. He returned (presumably in response to the summons issued by the tribunal), and claimed that the purpose of the trip had been to visit his children living in Barcelona. Unsurprisingly, the prosecution proposed that his true motive had been to escape being arrested and punished for heresy. Luis did not live to see the outcome of his own trial, dying in 1487 while the court was still in session. While lying on his deathbed, the New Christian was visited by the inquisitors, who implored him to tell the truth. He confirmed exactly what the prosecution witnesses had maintained, confessing that ‘Christianity was nothing but a fantasy’ and that he had always believed that his Jewish relatives would be ‘saved in the law of Moses’. Luis even confessed that he had attended crucifix-whipping sessions on three different occasions in Lérida. Rather than defending his memory, his son Pau simply confirmed that, after converting to Christianity, his father had continued to live as a Jew in all aspects of his life. In April 1487 his body was handed over to the secular authorities and burned. His children were thereafter prohibited from holding public office. Calahorra, Clara de, Wife of Sancho, Wineskin Maker Monzón 1487 AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 11 Clara de Calahorra was raised in Lérida, where she lived for eighteen years in an environment in which Jews and New Christians led closely connected lives. Married twice by the time of her trial in 1487, Clara was followed to Monzón by her past life. A Jewish relative remembered how Clara would visit her house in Lérida on Saturdays in order to light the fire and how the witness’s mother

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would either give her a pot of hamin to take home, or invite her to sit down and eat with the family. Clara confessed that, as a girl, her parents, especially her mother, had taught her to observe Yom Kippur and the Sabbath. She also ate unleavened bread sent from the judería during Passover and conscientiously gave alms to the Jews of Lérida. When Clara married for the second time, she moved to Monzón with her new husband, Sancho. In the period following the move, she quietly admitted to a friend that it had been far more difficult to observe any Jewish precepts in Monzón than in Lérida. However, she had continued to do so to the best her ability. She was sentenced to perpetual imprisonment in December 1489. Cristián, Jaime, Son of Juan Cristián Daroca 1488–90 AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 3 Jaime’s trial is extremely short. It appears that he was still living under his parents’ roof in Daroca when he was bought to trial in 1487. He confessed to having eaten hamin and kosher meat throughout the year, as well as unleavened bread, turrados, chick-peas, and almendolas during Passover, as instructed by his father. He added that he had also eaten hallal meat quite often. During an interrogation he confessed that his grandmother and parents had taught him to observe the Sabbath when he was about eight years old. In 1490, he was sentenced to temporary imprisonment, public abjuration, and was obliged to fast and recite penitential Psalms as well as pay a fine of 2000 sueldos. Díez, Juan Belchite 1492 AHPZ, Leg. 15, no. 4 When Juan Diez was arrested in 1488 he was already an old man. His father converted to Christianity after hearing St Vincent Ferrer preach in Aragón in the early part of the fifteenth century. His own granddaughter testified that Juan, along with other Christians of Belchite, had received gifts from the judería during Passover. Several Jewish witnesses confirmed this.

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During his confession on 10 May, it emerged that his job had required that he and Old Christians socialize and eat meals with their Jewish associates in the aljama. A few months later he confessed that he used to recite a Jewish prayer. In 1493, the court took the decision to torture him, during which time he did not admit to any other transgressions. His sentence is included in the trial of converso Luis Sánchez, which is, regrettably, missing. Doz, Juan, Parish Priest Barbastro 1486–90 AHPZ, Leg. 6, no. 11 Cases of priests being arrested by the Inquisition on charges of Judaizing are of particular interest, as the souls of the faithful were entrusted to their care. By all accounts, Juan Doz was in no position to provide Christian spiritual direction to the parishioners of Barbastro. The very first prosecution witness claimed that, on going to confess her sins, Fr Doz informed her that the sacrament of confession was a joke and nothing more than ceremony. Fellow priests said that they had rarely seen Juan recite the daily office and those living in his house heard him reciting Jewish prayers. When his brother passed away, Juan tried to convince his newly widowed sister-in-law that the Old Law gave him conjugal rights. Finally, it came to light that he had denied his mother the last rites, and he admitted that he had let her die without a final confession. In his first interrogation Juan managed implicate several fellow conversos who had apparently been secretly observing Jewish rituals, although he did not admit to any transgressions on his part. The real difficulties for the priest began in 1490, when he detailed and named thirty members of the cofradía which met together to conduct Jewish services in the Hermitage of San Salvador. Juan swore that he had taken no part in the ritual, but its caretaker, Martin Dariego, testified that he had seen the converso attending the ceremonies. The converso was tortured, confessing that he too was a member of the cofradía and had participated in the Jewish rituals. Despite employing the services of a lawyer, Juan was found guilty, and on 16 September 1490 he was relaxed to the secular court and burned at the stake.

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Esplugas, María, Wife of Dr Francisco de Huesca Alcalá de Henares 1487 AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 1 María was unable to appear before the tribunal of Zaragoza because she had given birth in Castile, where she lived with her husband, Francisco. As she was too ill to travel, he eventually made the journey to Zaragoza to appear on his wife’s behalf and to plead her case. Various witnesses stepped forward and claimed that both María and her father had fasted together on Yom Kippur, that she had eaten meat during Lent, as well as reportedly being a regular attendee of Jewish weddings. María wrote down and signed her own confession, which was duly sewn into her file. It emerged that her mother had forced her to observe Yom Kippur while still living at home, as well as taking her to attend a Jewish friend’s wedding. The tribunal had already arrested her mother, and María admitted to having lied to save her from the flames. María was fined fifty florins. Fajol, Galcerán, Spice Trader Huesca 1487–88 AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 5 Galcerán was a wealthy and well-established member of the Huesca community and had extensive business dealings with Jews, Old Christians, and conversos before his arrest. During a period of twelve months, the inquisitors heard stories of Galcerán’s apparent adherence to the precepts of Judaism from thirty-one witnesses. He was charged with buying all his meat from Jewish butchers, giving oil to and owning a lamp in the synagogue, sending unleavened bread to the aljama during Easter, reciting Jewish prayers on a daily basis, and possessing a sacred text of Hebrew prayers adorned with Christian images. One month before the tribunal arrived in town, Galcerán and his wife were seen burning many of their books in a state of panic. Moreover, in 1485 Galcerán gave a Jewish friend his book of Hebrew prayers to look after because he did not want any incriminating items in his house. Galcerán mentioned that his grandmother, Violante de Fraga, had encouraged him to fast on Yom Kippur, and that this was the only occasion upon which he done so, but countless

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witnesses told of other instances later in life in which the converso had observed the holiday. A fellow prisoner in the Inquisition jail testified that Galcerán had refused to refer to himself as a Christian when saying his prayers. He was relaxed to the secular court in 1488. Fajol, Esperandeo, Shopkeeper Barbastro 1486–91 AHPZ, Leg. 12, no. 5 Esperandeo was another well-off converso who belonged to the infamous and exclusively New Christian cofradía in Barbastro. Like most of the trials pertaining to the mid-1480s in Barbastro, Esperandeo was unable to rely on his converso friends to protect him from the Inquisition. The third witness who gave evidence against him was New Christian Antonio de Lunel, and converso Felipe de Adahuesca was given another opportunity to tell his story concerning the yearly meetings of the conversos to observe Yom Kippur together. More importantly, the testimony of Fr Pedro Pérez corroborated with Martin Dariego’s story of the cofradia’s secret Jewish rituals in the Hermitage of San Salvador. This testimony is repeated in the trials of Juan Doz and Gabriel de Santángel. Again, Esperandeo was to find no protection in his converso associates, as Gabriel de Santángel and Juan Diez both said that he had regularly attended the secret services. Esperandeo employed a lawyer, who, among other tactics, sought to discredit the major witnesses. The lawyer claimed that Gabriel de Santángel was a ‘vain’ ‘capital enemy’ and that he and his mother were both ‘mad’. The lawyer also proposed that Juan Diez had made his statements through fear of death and therefore they were not to be trusted. Several Old Christians were produced to confirm the exemplary Christian behaviour of the defendant who they said had attended mass regularly. Esperandeo was sentenced to abjure de vehementi in 1489.

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Fajol, Isabel (deceased), mother of Galcerán Fajol, Priest Huesca 1487–89 AHPZ, Leg. 12, no. 3 Isabel Fajol had passed away by the time the first witnesses gave evidence against her in 1486. The conversa spent her early years in the small town of Alcolea with the Salvat family, which included Fresina Pastor, who was to testify against Isabel on 8 February 1489, one month before being sentenced to death herself. Fresina told the inquisitors that Isabel had fasted on Yom Kippur in the company of her son Manuel, her husband Esperandeo, and Juan and María Salvat. One of Isabel’s sons, Pablo, was married to a Catalan conversa called Beatriz. A witness testified that Isabel, Beatriz, and a Jewish friend had regularly visited the synagogue together and that she often made donations of oil. It was further reported that Isabel had openly declared her hatred for Christ by sitting in Church and verbally abusing his image. She also apparently claimed that the Christians ‘were in greater captivity’ than the Jews because they were being so greatly influenced by Mosaic law. Not one of her relatives appeared in court to defend her memory, and the judges ruled to exhume and burn her remains in 1489. García, Juana, Widow of Juan del Fierro, Notary Daroca 1488–90 AHSC, no. 12 We can gather from the abundant prosecution testimonies in this trial that Juana García and her husband were a close married couple who seemed to be permanently in each other’s company. A former Jewish butcher, Rabbi Bienvenis Aruet, said that they had been customers of his since the 1460s. He also claimed that they had sent lettuces and leavened bread to the judería towards the end of Passover, and that he had seen them standing at the synagogue entrance paying reverence to the Torah. Other witnesses reported that the Jewish dietary laws were being regularly observed in the García household. After hearing her confession, the inquisitors clearly noticed the discrepancies between Juana’s transgressions in her own words and the evidence against her, so, in March 1490, the decision to use torture was taken. During the session she said that ‘she had believed in the law of Moses all her life and had observed the

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Sabbath [and] Yom Kippur [and] kept her diet kosher. These admissions were ratified the following day, although María claimed that she had not believed in the Law of Moses all her life as confessed to under torture. Unfortunately the sentence appears to be missing. Gracia, Jaime de and María his Wife (both deceased) Montalbán 1488–99 AHPZ, Leg. 17, no. 18 Both Jaime and María de Gracia converted to Christianity in adulthood but, according to witnesses, they continued to live by Jewish precepts long after their baptisms. We do not know what motivated their decision to convert but a witness who had lived with the couple for five years remembered hearing them cursing Old Christians because ‘they had made them turn Christian’, thus implying a certain degree of social pressure. They were eventually charged with adhering to the Jewish dietary laws, reciting Hebrew prayers, and observing the Sabbath and other holidays. The pair made no effort to go to mass, and Jaime admitted that had no desire to receive the Blessed Sacrament. By all accounts, Jaime died in the Jewish faith. Salamon Axenyl, one of Jaime’s relatives, sat at by his bedside on the night that the New Christian passed away. According to his son, Salamon was left ‘a certain quantity of goods’ by the converso. The outcome of the trial remains unknown. Heredia, Luis, Bailiff Calatayud 1489 AHPZ, Leg. 12, no. 9 On 5 January 1489, Luis spontaneously confessed to having committed some minor transgressions, perhaps believing that he would be let off with a small fine or penance. However, his ‘crimes’ of occasionally eating with Jews and Moslems because of his job, and his admission that he once bought and ate a kosher chicken, paled into insignificance in comparison to the allegations of the prosecution witnesses.

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One such testimony from the aljama claimed that Luis had offered to be the tenth person in a minyan. Others said that he had continually eaten meat (often kosher) during Lent. Then, in 1490, Luis was interrogated and the defendant told a different story to the tribunal. He admitted that, aged eighteen, he believed that Jews could be saved in their religion and that he had once fasted on Yom Kippur. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. However, in 1492 his trial was re-opened, the prosecutor claiming that Luis had failed to confess to everything. This was in part due to his brother’s testimony, which claimed that their father, Francisco, taught them Hebrew prayers and encouraged them to fast on Yom Kippur and to observe the Sabbath. Luis eventually made a full confession and was handed over to the secular court on 7 February 1492. Jiménez, María, Widow of Benito Xavar Daroca 1488–85 AHPZ, Leg. 10, no. 7 María was married to a tanner from Daroca, and the first witness in her trial claimed that she had not only lived all her life as a Jew, but had insisted on being called ‘Mariam’. Both Old Christian and Jewish members of the community had much to say about the public and private behaviour of María and Benito. From the testimonies emerges a picture of a couple who made sure to eat and prepare kosher meat, refrain from doing any business on Saturdays, send and receive the usual comestible goods during Passover, and observe the yearly fast on Yom Kippur. These accusations bore no relation to María’s first confession, which by no means suggested any such misdemeanours. When interrogated, she simply denied all charges and told the inquisitors to refer to her confession. She was sentenced to one session on the rack, during which her resolved weakened and she confessed to having fasted on Yom Kippur. However, in the ratification the following day the conversa then denied having done so. The witnesses were re-examined and asked to repeat their stories, and María was asked if she had any enemies. She again denied all charges during another interrogation. A lawyer for the defence was brought in and argued the case for María’s innocence by showing inherent faults in the prosecution testimonies.

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On 16 January 1495, María was sentenced to make a public abjuration and pay a fine of 1500 sueldos. Junqueras, Aldonza, Widow of Juan de Bardaxí Huesca 1489 and 1505 (See Salvat, Salvadora) Loperuelo, Juan de, Merchant Zaragoza 1496-97 AHPZ Leg. 16, no. 8 Juan de Loperuelo appears to have been a well-established and busy merchant in his home town of Daroca, and the nature of his trade meant that he came into daily contact with fellow merchants who happened to be Jewish. One of the testimonies to be repeated several times throughout the trial was that, when closing a deal, Juan would habitually ‘swear on the Ten Commandments’ rather than the Bible. Others claimed that he had observed Jewish mourning practices after the death of his father. Even though he was given the option of a defence counsel, he refused, apparently confident enough to let the trial take its natural course. After a reexamination of the witnesses, and further interrogations of the defendant, the court pronounced its sentence. On 21 July 1496 he was sentenced to abjure de levi and was fined 1500 sueldos. Moreno, Pedro, Shoemaker; Neophyte Zaragoza 1511 AHPZ, Leg. 28, no. 8 This trial was extremely short and was over within a period of a few months. According to the main witness, Pedro had mistaken him for a fellow converso, confiding to him that he too ‘believed in the law of Moses’. The accused made a point of explaining to the inquisitors that this conversation had taken place shortly after his baptism, when he was still unsure of his new faith. Pedro also

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admitted to the tribunal that he had regretted becoming a Christian because his life as a Jew had been far superior. On 24 May 1511, he was sentenced to abjure publicly, wear a sambenito, and had his goods confiscated. Oluga, Alberto, Hosier Lérida 1490–92 AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 16 Alberto Oluga, a hosier from Lérida, made three long confessions in 1492 in which he detailed the Jewish precepts to which he had adhered all his life. His mother, María Oluga, also arrested and tried in 1492, taught her son to observe Yom Kippur and to give charity to Jews for the love of God. After marrying conversa Angelina Oluga, María encouraged her son and new daughterin-law to observe Yom Kippur together. The only problem was that Alberto’s father, Daniel, was not inclined to observe Jewish holidays, so Alberto, Angelina, and María would leave town to fast in secret. Alberto also confessed to having omitted the ‘Gloria Patri’ when reciting Psalms, as well as regularly saying morning and afternoon prayers from the Jewish faith. He was relaxed to the secular court on 5 August 1492. Oluga, María, Widow of Daniel Oluga Lérida 1492 AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 16 María’s son, Alberto, testified against his own mother in 1491, just over a year before he was condemned to death himself. He told the court that, unbeknownst to his father Daniel, the two had fasted on Yom Kippur when living in the village of Fraga. The conversa was originally married to Luis Ribelles in the 1450s and was the daughter of conversos Galcerán and Isabel Sant Jordi. The entire family used to observe Yom Kippur, and when her first husband passed away, she married Daniel but was forced to keep her religious observances hidden from him. She was able to educate Alberto in some of the precepts of Judaism, as well as encouraging him to marry conversa, Angelina. The outcome of the trial is unknown.

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Oluga, Angelina, Wife of Alberto Lérida 1492 AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 16 Angelina, daughter of Antonio and Francisca Tarrega, confessed that her mother taught her to abstain from work on the sabbath and to observe Yom Kippur. When María Oluga was looking for a prospective bride for her son Alberto, Angelina’s background would have been very much in her favour. Angelina confessed that, after marrying Alberto, they both fasted on Yom Kippur as well as on Mondays and Thursdays because they found themselves in financial difficulties and believed that observing the fasts would improve their lot. She was sentenced to perpetual imprisonment in 1492. Pastor, Fresina, Wife of Miguel Pastor, Shopkeeper Huesca 1487–89 AHPZ, Leg. 8, No. 9 Between the age of nine and seventeen, Fresina Pastor lived with her aunt and uncle, Juan and Angelina Salvat, in Alcolea, a small town one hundred miles south west of Zaragoza. There she was taught the precepts of Judaism, which remained with her all her life She observed Yom Kippur with Isabel Fajol against whom she testified in Isabel’s trial. In the 1460s she married a shopkeeper called Miguel Pastor and moved into his house in Huesca, where she continued maintain the precepts of Judaism with him. Her daughter Isabel was born in 1474 and was taught by Fresina to fast on the holiday so that God would reward her with a worthy husband. Her confessions tended to focus on her upbringing and the strong influence that Juan and Angelina had over her, possibly in the hope that the inquisitors would show some clemency. Yet, the sheer number of prosecution witnesses and her lack of a defence weighed heavily against her. At least forty-five witnesses, comprising Jewish friends and Old Christian servants, testified to her Jewish practices. Two important witnesses of interest were her husband, Miguel, who claimed that Fresina had continually observed Yom Kippur, and whose testimony effectively condemned his own wife to death, and Luis de Bardaxí, who was asked to ratify his deposition against Fresina as he lay on his deathbed.

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In July 1489, a doctor reported that, while imprisoned, Fresina had purposely made her gums bleed so as to appear sick and thus justify consuming eggs and meat during Lent. She was relaxed to the secular court in 1489, aged somewhere in her sixties. Pérez, Antonio, Merchant Zaragoza 1485 AHPZ, Leg. 4, no. 8 Antonio, a wealthy merchant from Zaragoza, was one of the first Aragonese conversos to be prosecuted for heresy by the tribunal in that city. However, like other merchants such as Bernardo and Jaime de Ribas, he fled in fear of arrest and punishment, failing to respond to the court’s summons. In November 1484, Antonio met with Jaime de Montesa at his house with fourteen or fifteen other conversos to discuss the possibility of doing away with one of the inquisitors. The trial contains very few allegations of heretical behaviour, as the only witnesses were Jews who claimed that Antonio had continuously purchased his meat from them. Antonio was sentenced to death in absentia in 1485. Pujol, Raimundo, Son of Juan Pujol, Merchant Monzón 1486 AHPZ, Leg. 6, no. 4 Rumours that both Raimundo and his father, Juan, fled their homes in Monzón to escape the Inquisition were confirmed by witness Sento Profet, who claimed that he knew that Juan had crossed the border and gone to the town of Tudela de Navarra. Raimundo failed to respond to the summons, and the prosecutor immediately declared him a heretico fugitivo and charged him with fifty-six ‘crimes’ against the faith. By all accounts, father and son would have been extremely unwise to stay in Monzón. Even Raimundo’s mother said that her son and his household were accustomed to eating unleavened bread during Passover. His Jewish friends told how they had frequently entertained him in their houses, and that he had regularly bought kosher meat from them. A servant mentioned that, on one occasion, when Raimundo had been ill, his wife sent her to the juderia where a weeping Jewish woman recited some prayers

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over his hat. Upon returning home it was placed on the sick man. Johan Benet, a fellow converso, also claimed that the accused had played a part in the death of St Pedro Arbués. He was relaxed to the secular court in absentia in 1486. Ram, Violante, Widow of Jacobo Altabás Zaragoza 1488–89 AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 2 Violante Ram made a spontaneous confession in which she admitted to having observed Yom Kippur for six years because her mother-in-law had advised her to do so. Her grand daughter, Beatriz Ram, testified that, for two years running, Violante had encouraged her to observe the holiday by fasting, leading her to believe that she would be rewarded with riches and a good husband. For this misdemeanour, Violante was sentenced to perpetual imprisonment. In 1490, however, her case was re-opened because a witness reported that Violante had said that she had been punished for crimes she had not committed. Admitting that she had made false confessions to be released from prison early, she added that, as well as fasting on Yom Kippur, she had continuously observed the sabbath, given alms to Jews and oil to the synagogue, eaten hamin, and koshered her meat. Violante denied all such charges during the interrogations, but in 1498 she was relaxed to the secular court and burned. Ram, Pedro, Merchant, and Dolcia his Wife (both deceased) Montalbán 1486–99 AHPZ, Leg. 17, no. 18 Pedro and Dolcia’s trial is included in the trial of Juan Bach. Both had already passed away when the first testimonies were given against them in 1486. Very little information can be gleaned from this trial due to its brevity, but a Jewish relative claimed that, in 1450, Pedro had eaten with him at his table and had responded to the Jewish blessing. He also claimed that Pedro had fasted on Yom Kippur and read prayers from a Jewish prayer book. Dolcia used to prepare hamin, would ask when Yom Kippur was, and send for unleavened bread and turrado from the judería. Both were relaxed to the secular court in 1500.

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Ramon, Jaime, Merchant Calatayud 1488–90 AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 7 Jaime converted to Christianity in 1473, just fifteen years before the first witnesses testified against him, and he died while the trial was still in progress. He was to confess during the period of grace to have kept in touch with his Jewish family on a purely social level, rather than as a way of observing Judaism. However, the number of Jews who testified that Jaime had not really abandoned his former religion was overwhelming. In his interrogation, Jaime recited a couple of Jewish blessings which he had been continually employing before meals despite his baptism. The lawyer for the defence produced Fr Miguel Daza, who claimed that he had given Jaime the last rites and that he had died with a crucifix in his hands. Although his son came to his defence, in 1490 the court voted that his bones should be exhumed and burned. Remírez, Bernardo, Merchant Daroca 1488–91 AHPZ, Leg. 10, no. 10 Bernardo’s trial is extremely lengthy, largely due to the detailed and strenuous contribution of his lawyer to prove his client’s innocence. The charges against the converso resulted from Jewish, Old Christian, and New Christian witnesses who claimed to have seen Bernardo faithfully adhering to a great many of the Jewish precepts. The defence was able to demonstrate that many of the witnesses had testified falsely and that they were motivated by revenge rather than a sense of truth. Bernardo was eventually condemned to make a public abjuration, was fined 1600 sueldos, and was asked to pay another 400 sueldos for judicial costs.

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Remírez, Guillermo and his Wife, Aldonza Híjar 1492 AHPZ, Leg. 15, no. 5 Guillermo Remírez was married to Aldonza Bach, daughter of Juan Bach (deceased, and who was handed over to the secular court in 1497), and many of the same Jewish witnesses testified in the trials of both husband and wife. The pair were alleged to have celebrated Passover, observed the sabbath, bought kosher meat, and spent Yom Kippur in the company of Jewish friends in the judería. They were often seen attending weddings in the aljama, accompanied by their in-laws. His wife, Guillermo was taught the ceremonies and rituals of Judaism by his parents, Jaime and Madalena. The result of this trial is missing. Ribas, Bernardo de, Merchant Zaragoza 1485 AHPZ, Leg. 4, no. 2 Bernardo was one of many conversos who chose not to face his accusers and defend his name, instead fleeing across Spain and heading to Rome when the Inquisition arrived in town. In 1485, the trial proceedings were in full swing, with the testimonies of three witnesses who claimed to possess knowledge of Bernardo’s crypto-Jewish activities. The trial was temporarily suspended due to the murder of St Pedro de Arbués. His successor, Alfonso de Alarcón, wasted no time and swiftly continued proceedings in 1486. The prosecution presented an important witness — a servant who testified that Jaime Ribas, Bernardo’s brother, ran his household according to Jewish law and custom. The family ate hamin, frequently consumed meat on days forbidden by the Church, and received unleavened bread, chick-peas, and almonds during Passover from the judería. Moreover, the servant was ordered by her mistress to do the chores on Sundays rather than Saturdays. Further witnesses testified that Bernardo and his family lived in the same manner. Mosen Aninay, a second Jewish witness, presented ‘evidence’ which the inquisitors chose to follow up. Aninay’s name also appears in many trials from Zaragoza, and by 1489, he had already testified against Alfonso de la Cavallería and Beatriz Beltrán de la Cavallería. His testimony described how Bernardo had

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offered a room in his house in order that the converso community of Zaragoza could congregate for Jewish prayer services. The entire court moved en masse to see the room for themselves, finding that there seemed to be some semblance of truth in Aninay’s testimony. In October 1486 the jury made its decision. Bernardo was excommunicated, declared an heretico fugitivo, and relaxed to the secular court Ribera, Alfonso de and his Wife Beatriz de Jeréz, both from Cordoba Zaragoza 1487-1488 AHPZ Leg. 8, no. 13 Dr Alfonso de Ribera and his wife were arrested by the authorities in Aragón as they were making their way towards France from Murcia in 1487. The couple were fugitives from the Castilian Inquisition, which had already declared them rebels and burned their effigies in an auto de fe in Seville in 1485. Their capture meant that they were re-tried by the Aragonese inquisitors, who managed to procure copies of their previous trials. It seems that both were aged in their early forties when arrested and had been married for about fifteen years before becoming fugitives from the law. During the second trial, their own daughter, Leonora, begged the inquisitors to confirm upon her the sacrament of baptism, testifying that her parents had deliberately failed to do so. Beatriz had actively encouraged Leonora to fast on Yom Kippur and observe the sabbath. Alfonso and Beatriz confessed separately to having observed Jewish precepts throughout their lives to the best of their abilities. Alfonso was taught the importance of Jewish ritual at an early age, and Beatriz had also been brought up by her parents in a similar manner. There is very little difference between the rituals they confessed to having observed in comparison with the confessions from the Aragonese conversos. Both were relaxed to the secular court in 1488. Rodríguez, Alfonso, Doctor and his Wife Mayor Alvarez Sevilla 1487 AHPZ, Leg. 8, no. 13 Alfonso Rodríguez and his wife were also apprehended on their way across Aragón as they escaped from the Inquisition in their native town of Seville. In

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1483, Miguel de Morillo had declared them to be rebels, fugitives, and heretics, and their effigies had been burned in an auto de fe. Before the conclusion of the trial, the pair fled to Portugal, but when they heard of plans to establish a Portuguese Inquisition, they decided that the safest option was to go to Italy by way of Aragón. Mayor confessed that she had disguised herself as a man to avoid recognition. The inquisitors in Zaragoza had a copy (or at least part) of the first trial at their disposal. The court also heard the testimony of Juan de Jerez, a former servant of five years. He detailed his employers’ extensive and complete adherence to Judaism, which left no doubt in the minds of the assessors that the couple were guilty of Judaizing. Both were handed over to the secular court and burned at the stake in the early part of 1488. Rodríguez, Juan, Merchant Zaragoza 1486 AHPZ, Leg. 6, no. 1 Juan Rodriguez fled Zaragoza, never to return, to avoid facing the charges being levelled against him by Jewish and New Christian friends and relatives. Those from the judería claimed that Juan spent a great majority of his time in the Jewish quarter. He observed Yom Kippur and Passover, bought kosher meat and sent his servants to light fires for Jewish relatives on the sabbath. His own sister testified that she, her sister, Juan, and her parents had all fasted on Yom Kippur and eaten unleavened bread during Passover. Juan was relaxed to the secular authorities in 1486. Romeo, Aldonza, Wife of Juan Ferrando, Notary Alcañiz 1492–93 AHPZ, Leg. 15, no. 7 Aldonza Romeo chose to defend herself against charges of heresy by employing a defence counsel, which was able to prove that many testimonies against her were malicious and largely unfounded. Various individuals claimed that the conversa had observed Yom Kippur, that she and her husband had been heard speaking Hebrew, and that she had allegedly claimed superiority to Old Christians because she was descended from the Virgin Mary.

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The court found her guilty of ‘minor’ offences and was sentenced to public abjuration in 1493. Salvat, María, Widow of Juan Bonanat Monzón 1486 AHPZ, Leg. 6, no. 8 Both before and after María’s husband passed away, she kept in close contact with her Jewish in-laws. It appears that Juan had converted to Christianity as an adult but his baptism signalled very little change in his lifestyle. One of his relatives, called Astuch Alpappery, was a key prosecution witness who testified that the couple had lived as Jews, and had continuously eaten with him in his house, and fasted on Yom Kippur. María was raised in Alcolea with her brother Juan and sister Isabel. According to Isabel, all three were taught by their parents to observe the sabbath and fast on Yom Kippur. A servant claimed that she had often been sent to the Jewish quarter by María to kindle fires for Astuch Alpappery on Saturdays, and that the diet of the household was kosher. In December 1489, she confessed to all the charges and was sentenced to perpetual imprisonment. Salvat, Salvadora, Widow of Antonio Bardaxí Huesca 1489 AHPZ, Leg. 11, no. 1 Salvadora was born of a Jewish father (Salvat) and a New Christian mother (Fajol), and it appears that her upbringing was more Jewish than Christian. The lives of Aldonza Junqueras, her sister-in-law, and Brianda de Bardaxí, her daughter, were all intertwined, and all were to testify in each other’s trials. Brianda claimed that Aldonza and Salvadora had taught her to fast on Yom Kippur. She added that, on one occasion when still a child, her mother had shocked the family, especially her little brother Antonio, by telling them a blasphemous story about the Virgin Mary. Aldonza confirmed that she had observed Yom Kippur at Salvadora’s house. Salvadora was interrogated twice, but in a final confession she admitted to having consumed unleavened bread during Passover, donating oil to the local synagogue, and observing Yom Kippur just twice in her lifetime.

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In 1491 both Aldonza and Salvadora were given penance and ordered to wear the sambenito. Aldonza’s trial was re-opened in 1495 after she was accused of failing to wear her sambenito. She was sentenced to abjure publicly. Sánchez, Catalina, Wife of Beltrán de Lagarda Zaragoza 1486 and 1495 AHPZ, Leg. 7, no. 5 Catalina was denounced by her sister-in-law, Isabel de Bello, on 11 May 1486. Her parents were Daniel and Aldonza Sánchez. Catalina was married twice and her first husband was Juan Manuel de Bello, son of Manuel and Rita Martínez. When interrogated on 22 September 1486 Catalina said that, when she lived under the roof of her first set of parents-in-laws, they had made her fast on Yom Kippur, observe the sabbath, and eat kosher meat. She then confessed to having observed Yom Kippur for sixteen years after having left home, as well as preparing food according to Mosaic law. She was condemned to life imprisonment on 15 November 1486, but her case was re-opened in 1495. She was accused of not having worn her penitential sambenito and of having performed many more Jewish observances than those to which she had confessed. Catalina hired a defence counsel for the second trial. It named false witnesses and maintained that the prosecution had failed to specify the date, the year, or the place of the alleged event. It also claimed insanity on behalf of Catalina and produced various Old Christian witnesses who swore that she was a devout Christian but mentally unstable. On 22 and 23 September 1495 the prosecution produced her mother Aldonza and her sister Isabel Sánchez, who both said that as a family, they had all observed Yom Kippur. Catalina was interrogated again five days later, but insisted that she had forgotten whether or not she had actually kept the fast. The inquisitors found her guilty and handed her over to be burned at the stake that same year.

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Sánchez, Isabel, Widow of Jaime de Arquero Zaragoza 1486 AHPZ, Leg. 7, no. 6 The first prosecution witness to testify against Isabel was her own father, Daniel Sánchez, who said that the entire family, including Isabel, observed Yom Kippur. This testimony was corroborated by her sister, Catalina Sánchez. Isabel admitted that she had indeed observed Yom Kippur and the sabbath while living with her parents, but once married to an Old Christian, she ceased all Jewish practices. The court sentenced her to life imprisonment on 10 November 1486. Santa Clara, Pedro de, Silversmith (deceased) Calatayud 1488–92 AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 7 Between the years 1488 to 1492, the court notaries entered a large number of testimonies into the libro de testigos concerning the life of Pedro de Santa Clara. According to the witnesses, the silversmith and his wife, despite being baptised Christians, had lived their lives according to Mosaic law. Moreover, Pedro considered Christianity to be a joke, showing nothing but contempt for the teachings of the Church, and Jesus Christ, and for Old Christians. The converso taught his son to recite Psalm 91 and avidly read from a book of Jewish sacred texts as well as to recite Jewish prayers. Jewish friends testified that he had observed Yom Kippur with them, as well as claiming he had employed them to circumcise his son. His daughter, Johana, testified that she had seen her parents fasting on Thursdays. Although his son attempted to defend his memory in 1492 by naming some possible enemies, Pedro’s bones were exhumed and relaxed to the secular court. Santa Fe, Esperanza, Wife of Pedro Gómez Sariñena 1490 AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 10 Esperanza’s trial is extremely short, as it comprises only her confession made during the period of grace; she was never actually arrested. She was baptized in

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1463 aged twenty-three. Although she did not explain why, it is possible that she fell in love with her first husband, Pablo de Santa Fe, and decided to convert in order to marry him. It may be that she saw conversion and marriage as a means of escaping from poverty, for in one of her confessions she revealed that she had tried to convince her poverty-stricken Jewish sister to also be baptized. She confessed that she had found it difficult to leave her old faith behind, and for a short time after her conversion had continued to give charity to Jews and oil to the synagogue ‘for the love of God’. She also admitted to having fasted on Yom Kippur in 1470, but after a priest had advised her that this was a sin, she never fasted again. Esperanza abjured under pain of relapse in 1490. Santángel, Gabriel de, Merchant Barbastro 1486–89 AHPZ, Leg. 6, no. 2 Gabriel de Santángel, wealthy merchant and leading member of Barbastro’s converso community, was accused of Judaizing as well as playing a part in the conspiracy to murder Arbués. The first witness to testify against him was Jacob Bercajo, who told the inquisitors that Gabriel been present at an ‘anti-Inquisition’ meeting at the house of Aragonese jurist, Jaime Montesa in 1485. Apparently Gabriel threatened to ‘cut the inquisitors to bits’ if they arrived in Aragón. Upon returning to Barbastro to start collecting money, he was met with a certain degree of hostility and antipathy from fellow conversos who did not hesitate to report him to the Inquisition. Felipe de Dadahuesca testified that Gabriel had taken down Jewish prayers that had been above his front door before the Inquisition arrived. According to the caretaker of the Hermitage of San Salvador, the defendant had definitely been a member of the cofradía that used the site to conduct secret Jewish services. Despite denying most charges during the interrogations, the merchant finally made a confession in which he admitted to having observed Yom Kippur as well as regularly having worshipped at the hermitage. Gabriel de Santángel was sentenced to perpetual imprisonment in 1489 and his goods were confiscated.

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Santángel, Esperandeo de, Son of Leonardo de Santángel Barbastro 1487–89 AHPZ, Leg. 12, no. 11 Esperandeo’s trial opened in 1487, with testimonies from two New Christian witnesses who told the inquisitors that they had fasted on Yom Kippur with the defendant at his father’s house. He was also a member of the exclusive converso cofradía in Barbastro. Moreover, he was said to observe Passover and bless the meal with a Jewish blessing, but Esperandeo denied all charges in 1489. A year later the imprisoned Juan Diez testified that the defendant had participated in Jewish services with him and at least sixteen others at the Hermitage of San Salvador. It seems that Esperandeo was tortured three times, but the actual pages appear to be missing from the file. He was sentenced to abjure de vehementi in 1490. Santángel, Salvador de, alias el royo, Merchant Barbastro, 1485–1490/92 AHPZ, Leg. 9, no. 3 Salvador de Santángel, another powerful member of the Barbastro converso community, was arrested in 1488 and testified against by friend and fellow New Christian, Juan Diez (who also testified against Esperandeo de Santángel). The trial record itself is quite substantial. Juan explained how Salvador had been involved in the movement to bribe the authorities in order to prevent the establishment of the tribunal in Aragón. Salvador denied any part in this. Felipe de Dadahuesca claimed that Salvador and others used to donate money and oil to the synagogue in Monzón several times a year. He also said that Salvador had taken down Jewish prayers from above his front door four months before the Inquisition arrived. Salvador and his parents were known as ‘grandes judios’ who always spoke in Hebrew. During this period, it emerged that some of the New Christians against whom Felipe had been testifying took him aside and threatened him. In May, Haym Cordonay, who had been close friends with Salvador’s parents, testified that they had asked him when to fast for Yom Kippur, as well as asking him for unleavened bread during Passover.

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Finally, in June 1489, Gabriel de Santángel confirmed the story about San Salvador and the observance of Yom Kippur by a great many Barbastro New Christians. Salvador employed a defence counsel, which proposed that the accused was a devout Catholic, that Gabriel de Santángel was both insane and malicious and that Felipe de Dadahuesca was a dishonourable drunkard. In July 1490, Salvador was tortured, but he continued to deny everything and maintained that he had never done anything against the faith. The court finally condemned him to perpetual imprisonment and confiscated his goods in September. However, in 1492 or 1493 he was sentenced to abjure de vehementi. Santángel, Violante de (deceased), Widow of Alfonso Gómez, Merchant 1487–89 Huesca AHPZ, Leg. 12, no. 3 Violante de Santángel confessed during the period of grace in July 1487 to having had extensive social contact with Jewish friends in the judería, but she died while the trial was still in progress. Three months previously, on 20 April, Luis de Bardaxí testified that Violante, her husband, and two daughters had thrown a crucifix on the ground and whipped it. Then, in October, Felipe de Dadahuesca, a converso witness who made regular court appearances during the late 1480s, said that Violante had been part of the Barbastro group of New Christians to have continually observed Yom Kippur. It was alleged that Violante and her husband Alfonso went to great lengths to avoid pork, which they called ‘dog food’. When preparing meals in the kitchen, Violante made sure that one pot for the guests would contain pork, while the one without would be reserved for their own consumption. The couple were often seen celebrating Passover in the Jewish quarter with Jewish relatives. Violante’s bones were exhumed and burnt with those of Isabel Fajol in 1489. Santángelelo, Isabel, Widow of Eximino Cabrillas Tarazona 1490–95 AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 4 When Isabel made her confession during the period of grace, she was already quite advanced in years and had been a widow for at least thirty years. This confession admitted to only ‘minor’ transgressions, such as sharing meals with

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Jewish friends in the judería, and on one occasion believing that ‘a good Jew could be saved.’ However, as in the case of so many other trials belonging to this collection, the defendant’s confession and the testimonies are very different. Witnesses claimed that Isabel had lived according to the precepts of Judaism all her life. A priest said that he had tried to show her the error of her ways and that as a Catholic she could behave as she did, but she stubbornly refused to listen. When interrogated, she either denied everything or said that she was too old to remember events of the past. The defence counsel presented a doctor who maintained that Isabel’s actions were mostly due to old age and senility, but the judges remained unconvinced and on 30 June 1495, she was handed over to the secular court. Serrano, Juan, Saddle-maker Zaragoza 1486–95 AHPZ, Leg. 16, no. 4 Juan, a saddle-maker from Zaragoza, was baptized a Christian in 1482 in the company of a converso friend called Diego de Maldonado. In 1486, he confessed that just three or four months after his conversion he had attended a hada with Diego, who advised him that it was perfectly acceptable to eat Jewish food as a Christian. The trial is of interest, as it demonstrates an uncertainty about how Juan should behave as a Christian in Jewish company. In 1489, a New Christian testified that Juan had fasted on Yom Kippur one year after his baptism, and the defendant later admitted to the transgression. He abjured de levi that year. Toledo, Juan de, Cord Maker Zaragoza 1515–16 AHPZ, Leg. 22, no. 7 It appears that Juan de Toledo left Spain in 1492 with his Jewish brethren. We know that he ended up in Turkey and later confessed that he had never experienced better days than when living as a Jew and ‘carrying rubbish and water for the Moors’. Despite this claim, Juan proceeded to Sicily and then converted to Christianity.

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Upon returning to Spain, Juan was tried by the tribunal of Valladolid and reconciled in 1510. He then moved to Zaragoza and was promptly arrested again in 1515 and charged with having continued to observe many Jewish rites and ceremonies even after having publicly abjured in Castile. An Old Christian witness who spent some time with the converso said that he ‘had a lot of affection for the law of Moses’, believing that the Jews observed the rites that God had given them. The testimonies reveal that, despite his nomadic life, Juan had managed to amass substantial personal wealth and was not ashamed to display it by dressing somewhat ostentatiously. His riches and status as a neophyte made him an object of ridicule and name-calling. Despite the evidence against him and lack of a defence, Juan was abjured in 1516. Torrellas, Berenguer de, Notary (deceased) Zaragoza 1490–1500 AHPZ, Leg. 13, no. 10 Berenguer de Torrellas, a notary in the service of the King of Aragón, was missing his right arm and was known for his extremely bad handwriting. His importance in the community meant that there was a large pool of both prosecution and defence witnesses from which to draw information. Berenguer’s trial began after he had already died. Rumour had it that his wife buried him according to Jewish precepts, and that he had refused to kiss the cross before passing away. Some witnesses declared that Berenguer had publicly lived a Jewish religious life and that he had never shown any signs of being a Christian. On one particular occasion, he was said to have given financial aid to a Christian-turned-Jew who was making his way to France. The defence tried to maintain that Berenguer had been falsely accused by a great many enemies, especially among the Jewish community who resented their former brethren having turned Christian. However, the prosecution won the case, and on 5 July 1500, the notary’s remains were exhumed and burned. His children were thereafter barred from holding public office.

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Torres, Francisco de Epila 1488 AHPZ, Leg. 10, no. 9 Francisco’s trial is one of the few in this collection in which the reasons for conversion are given. In this case, the defendant admitted to a Jewish friend that he had been baptized ‘for the love of a woman’. In 1480, a young Christian woman caught the eye of Francisco (we do not know his former Jewish name) and he was received into the faith in order to marry her. He admitted that he had continued to observe the sabbath and Yom Kippur after becoming a Christian, as well as confessing to his Jewish relatives that he very much regretted having converted. In 1488 he was sentenced to carcel perpetua by the tribunal of Zaragoza.

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Manuscript Sources Zaragoza, Archivo Histórico Provincial de Zaragoza. Sección Inquisición Leg. Leg. Leg. Leg. Leg. Leg. Leg. Leg. Leg. Leg. Leg. Leg. Leg. Leg. Leg. Leg. Leg. Leg. Leg. Leg. Leg.

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2, no. 1 2, no. 3 2, no. 4 3, no. 3 3, no. 5 4, no. 1 4, no. 2 4, no. 3 4, no. 7 4, no. 8 6, no. 1 6, no. 2 6, no. 4 6, no. 5 6, no. 8 6, no. 9 6, no. 10 6, no. 11 7, no. 1 7, no. 2 7, no. 5

(1482) (1482) (1484) (1484) (1484) (1485) (1485) (1485) (1485) (1485) (1486) (1486) (1486) (1486) (1486) (1486) (1486) (1486) (1486) (1486) (1486)

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7, no. 11 8, no. 1 8, no. 3 8, no. 4 8, no. 6 8, no. 9 8, no. 10 8, no. 11 8, no. 12 8, no. 13 9, no. 1 9, no. 2 9, no. 3 9, no. 5 9, no. 7 9, no. 10 10, no. 3 10, no. 4 10, no. 6 10, no. 7 10, no. 8

(1486) (1487) (1487) (1487) (1487) (1487) (1487) (1487) (1487) (1487) (1488) (1488) (1488) (1488) (1488) (1488) (1488) (1488) (1488) (1488) (1488)

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230 Leg. Leg. Leg. Leg. Leg. Leg. Leg. Leg. Leg. Leg. Leg. Leg. Leg. Leg. Leg. Leg. Leg. Leg. Leg. Leg. Leg. Leg. Leg. Leg. Leg.

Bibliography 7, no. 6 (1486) 7, no. 7 (1486) 7, no. 9 (1486) 7, no. 10 (1486) 12, no. 5 (1489) 16, no. 4 (1495) 12, no. 9 (1489) 12, no. 7 (1489) 12, no. 10 (1514) 12, no. 11 (1489) 13, no. 4 (1490) 13, no. 5 (1490) 13, no. 3 (1490) 13, no. 10 (1490) 13, no. 15 (1490) 13, no. 16 (1490) 13, no. 18 (1490) 14, no. 1 (1491) 14, no. 8 (1491) 14, no. 9 (1491) 15, no. 1 (1492) 15, no. 4 (1492) 15, no. 5 (1492) 15, no. 6 (1492) 15, no. 7 (1492)

Leg. 10, no. 9 (1488) Leg. 10, no. 10 (1488) Leg. 11, no. 1 (1489) Leg. 12, no. 3 (1489) Leg. 16, no. 5 (1495) Leg. 16, no. 7 (1495) Leg. 16, no. 8 (1496) Leg. 17, no. 2 (1497) Leg. 17, no. 6 (1497) Leg. 17, no. 7 (1492) Leg. 17, no. 8 (1497) Leg. 18, no. 6 (1498) Leg. 19, no. 1 (1490) Leg. 19, no. 3 (1500) Leg. 19, no. 7 (1501) Leg. 19, no. 11 (1504) Leg. 20, no. 1 (1505) Leg. 20, no. 6 (1506) Leg. 20, no. 15 (1509) Leg. 20, no. 17(1510) Leg. 21, no. 3 (1511) Leg. 22, no. 1 (1514) Leg. 22, no. 2 (1514) Leg. 22, no. 7 (1515)

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74–79 76 77 78 78 78 78 79 80

(1499–1501) (1491–99) (1489–92) (1485) (1507) (1512) (1513) (1485–87) (1482–92)

esp. esp. esp. esp. esp. esp. esp. esp.

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Aljama 32, 58, 62–64, 84, 92, 102, 129, 132, 138 Amidah 58, 161 Anti-Semitism 14, 16, 17–19, 23, 32–34 Anussim 20, 62 Arbués, St Pedro Inquisitor 5, 15, 31, 39, 44, 47, 55, 57, 58, 148 Aragonese Inquisition 1, 3, 4, 62, 187 Barbastro conversos 101, 102, 149–51, 169 Bible, The 152, 156 Bigamy 2 Carbonell, Pedro de 23 Carillo, Archbishop Alfonso 25 Castilian Inquisition 1, 3, 32, 38, 41, 53 Cavallería de la, family 5, 14, 15, 35, 47, 65, 67, 69n, 93, 101, 107, 113, 116, 142, 144, 147, 153, 156, 174, 181, 185, 186, 189, 190 Circumcision 135, 136 Confiscations of goods 67–68 Converso And Dietary Laws Avoidance of pork 126–28

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Buying kosher meat from Jewish butchers 119–21 Keeping kosher 122, 123 Koshering meat themselves 124–26 And Relations with Jews Donating to the Synagogue 144, 145 Giving alms to Jews 145–47 Praying in synagogues 142, 143 Assimilation 16, 20 Antipathy towards Christianity 25, 180, 184, 185 Avoidance of pork 126–28 Belief in a Unitary God 181, 182 Conducting Jewish prayer services at home 147, 148 Different types of 47–51 Disbelief in Christian doctrines 175–79 Failing to attend Mass 180–82 Ignorance of Christianity 183 Knowledge of Christian prayers 183 Knowledge of Hebrew 150, 152, 153–57, 159, 165–67, 169, 193, 195 Not attending M ass 180–82

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238 Persecution of 18, 19, 26, 27 Preferment of Judaism 26, 174 Resentment towards 36, 37, 58 Views on afterlife 139, 140, 177 Views on Salvation 171–76 Swearing on Ten Commandments 183, 184 Crypto-Judaism 2, 7, 12, 14, 15, 17, 23, 26–29, 58, 60, 69n, 111, 187 Deza, Diego de 54 Disputation of Tortosa 18, 32, 34, 46, 47 Edict of Grace 40, 59, 60, 68, 75, 76, 81, 85, 98, 91, 92, 98, 105, 126, 153, 171, 172, 179, 182, 185, 194 Espina, Alonso de 14, 21, 39, 54 Expulsion of Jews 4, 17, 22, 24, 26, 48, 50, 51, 73, 75, 92, 93, 106, 143 Eymerich, Nicholas 54, 56, 57, 61, 66, 68, 70 Ferdinand II, King of Aragon 10, 11n, 16, 19, 31, 37, 38, 19, 40, 51, 43, 57 Ferrer, St Vincent 18, 32, 34, 35, 47, 48, 54 Fueros 39, 40, 41, 43 Gui, Bernard 56 Gregory IX 32, 37, 51 Hadas 135–37, 140 Hojeda, Alonso 37 Holy Child of La Guardia 14 Inquisitors Anti-Semitic 15, 19 As Dominicans 37, 55, 56

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Index As Franciscans 37 Fabricating charges against conversos 5, 7, 8, 22, 23, 24, 26, 29, 73, 74, 192, 194 Hostility towards 38–40 Nominated by Torquemada 38 Papal nominations of 38 Requirements of 54, 55 Understanding of Judaism 56, 59 Isabella, Queen of Castile 1, 16, 19, 25, 31, 37, 51, 57 Judaizing 1–5, 7, 17, 20, 24–27, 37, 41, 44, 45, 47, 51, 58, 72, 120, 187, 194 Jewish–Christians social interaction 128, 129, 131, 133–37 Jews converting to Christianity Juglar, Gaspar Inquisitor 44, 55, 57, 58 Kiddush 165–67, 194 Lavallée, Joseph 10 Lea, Henry Charles 11, 12 Libro verde de Aragón 4, 5, 44–47 Libro de confesiónes 60, 190 Libro de testigos 60, 190 Limpieza de sangre 17, 45 Llorente, Juan Antonio 5, 10–12, 19, 44, 70 M arriage between Jews and Christians 131, 132 M artínez, Ferrant 33 M edieval Inquisition 5, 6, 37, 38, 53, 59 M endoza, Cardinal Pedro de 1, 25, 37 M enéndez Pelayo, Marcelino 11, 12 M orillo, Inquisitor Miguel 37, 54 Moriscos 1

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Index

Oropsea, Alonso de 21 Palenica Alonso de 36 Passover Timing of 105 Unleavened bread 105–07, 110, 111 Prayers and benedictions 159–61, 164 Synagogue 153 Period of Grace 44, 59, 60, 194 Perjury 57, 61, 62, 65, 189, 190 Peñafort, Raymond de 56 Pogroms of 1391 18, 32 Psalms 154–57, 161–64 , 169, 193 Punishments 70 Relaciones de causa 2 Queen Esther 116 Sabbath Hamin 85–87, 90, 189 Prayer 89, 148, 161, 166 Preparing the house for 81 Pride in appearance 76, 81, 82 Refraining from work 75, 76, 82, 83, 84 Sabbath flame 76–80 Spinning 87–89 Sacrament of Baptism 18, 25, 32n, 48, 50, 179 Sacrament of Confession 179 Sánchez family 46 San Martin, Inquisitor Juan de 37, 54 Santa Fe, Jerónimo 17, 34 Santa M aría, Pablo de 16 Santángel family 46 Secrecy of witnesses 65, 66

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Shararit 161 Shema 58, 159, 165, 193 Sickness 136–38, 144, 158 Siddur 154, 155 Sixtus IV 1, 19, 37, 38, 51 Solivera Inquisitor Juan de 39, 40 Spinoza, Baruch 33 Sukkot 115 Suprema 2, 10, 53, 67, 195 Sodomy 2 Solivera, Juan de 39, 40 Stockdale, John Joseph 10 Tachas 71, 72, 73 Torah 142–45, 148–50, 152–54 Torquemada, Inquisitor General Tomás de 6, 19, 21, 38, 39, 41, 53, 54, 58, 68 Torquemada, Cardinal Juan de 21 Torture 65, 68–70, 194 Transubstantiation 178, 180, 181 Tribunal of Ciudad Real 12, 13, 15, 27, 71, 80, 190, 192 Tribunal of Teruel 38–40, 64 Tribunal of Toledo 10, 14, 28, 63 Tribunal of Zaragoza Opposition to establishment of 39–43 Total number of conversos tried 3, 44, 45 Trial records 4–7, 10, 15, 45, 60 Research into 3–5 Veracity of 12, 13, 22 Valdés, Francisco de 54 Valencia Inquisition 15, 38–40, 45, 58, 60 Valera, Diego de 36 W itnesses, secret identity of 65–67

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240 Yom Kippur Asking for forgiveness 99 Asking Jews for advice 91–93 Beliefs 96, 97, 174 Blaming Jews for making observe 103, 104 Fasting 91–95, 175 Giving alms 99, 145 Going barefoot 100 M eal 98, 99, 100, 101

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Index Observing together 100, 101 Observing with Jews 102, 103 Observing with other conversos 100, 101 Prayers 97–99, 164, 166, 168 Preparations for 99, 100 Teaching children to observe 95, 96 Zionism 19, 20 Zurita, Jerónimo 34, 40–42

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E UROPA S ACRA

All volumes in this series are evaluated by an Editorial Board, strictly on academic grounds, based on reports prepared by referees who have been commissioned by virtue of their specialism in the appropriate field. The Board ensures that the screening is done independently and without conflicts of interest. The definitive texts supplied by authors are also subject to review by the Board before being approved for publication. Further, the volumes are copyedited to conform to the publisher’s stylebook and to the best international academic standards in the field.

Titles in series Religious and Laity in Western Europe, 1000–1400: Interaction, Negotiation and Power, ed. by Emilia Jamroziak and Janet Burton (2007)

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