cecil roth a history of the marranos publisher's row varda books (2001)

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A HISTORY OF THE MARRANOS

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Isaac Aboab, 1605–1693First Rabbi in America: Pernambuco, Brazil, 1642–1654.

Haham of Sephardic Community of Amsterdam, 1626–1642; 1654–1693.

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A HISTORY OF THE MARRANOS

Cecil Roth

Books skokie, illinois, usapublished by Varda

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CECIL ROTH

Born in England in 1899, Cecil Roth has been reader inJewish studies at Oxford University since 1939. AmongProfessor Roth’ s numerous works are: HISTORY OF THE JEWS

IN ENGLAND, HISTORY OF THE JEWS OF ITALY, A SHORT

HISTORY OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE, THE HOUSE OF NASI,A LIFE OF MENASSEH BEN ISRAEL, and many monographson the history of the Jews of England, Italy, and Spain.

Copyright © 2001 by Varda BooksOriginal copyright © Copyright 1932 byThe Jewish Publication Society of America

This ebook has been published with permissionof The Jewish Publication Society (Philadelphia).The printed book, which served as a basis for thisbook is catalogued by the Library of Congress thus:Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 59–12914

Manufactured in the United States of America

New ISBN 1-59045-410-3 Library PDF

No part of this publication may be reproduced ortransmitted in any form or by any means, electronicor mechanical, including photocopy, recording, orany information storage retrieval system, except forbrief passages in connection with a critical review,without permission in writing from the publisher:Varda Books, 9001 Keating Avenue, Skokie, Illinois, USA

Prepared as an ebook by Varda Graphics, Inc.

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FOR

IRENE

6. vi. 31.

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“Contra la verdad no ay fuerça.”

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TABLE OF CONTENTSPAGE

Foreword ......................................................................................... xi

Introductory: The Antecedents of Crypto-Judaism .................... 1

Chapter I. The Beginnings of Marranism ........................... 11

II. The Establishment of the Inquisition ............... 29

III. The General Conversion in Portugal ............... 54

IV. The Heyday of the Inquisition .......................... 74

V. The Inquisitional Procedure and the Auto-da-Fè ...................................................................... 99

VI. Saints, Heroes, and Martyrs ............................ 146

VII. The Religion of the Marranos ......................... 168

VIII. The Marrano Diaspora ..................................... 195

IX. The Dutch Jerusalem ........................................ 236

X. Resettlement in England .................................. 252

XI. The Marranos in the New World .................... 271

XII. Some Marrano Worthies ................................... 296

XIII. The Literature of the Marranos ...................... 322

XIV. The Decline of the Inquisition ......................... 339

Epilogue: The Marranos of Today .................................... 355

Notes ............................................................................................. 379

Bibliography ................................................................................ 403

Index ............................................................................................. 411

TOC IndexHome << >> Chapter | |

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING PAGE

1. Isaac Aboab, First Rabbi in America ................. frontispiece2. The Hall of the Inquisition in which Prisoners were Ex-

amined .............................................................................. 1023. The Place of Torments and Manner of Giving the Torture 1064. Title Page of an Account of the Auto held at Seville on

July 5, 1722 ..................................................................... 1165. List of the “Relaxed;” from the same Account ................. 1216. Title Page of List of Victims of Auto held at Seville on

March 29, 1648 ............................................................... 1227. The Place and Manner of Execution................................. 1248. The Habit of a Penitent, called Sanbenito ....................... 1289. The Habit of an Impenitent going to be burnt ............... 131

10. The Celebration of an Act of Faith in the Great Squareof Madrid ......................................................................... 132

11. The l7th-Century Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam 13512. Title Page of Sermon preached at Auto held on Septem-

ber 5, 1638 ....................................................................... 13613. Title Page of Columbus’ Letter to Sanchez ..................... 13814. First Page of the same Letter ............................................. 141


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xiii

FOREWORD

I have the great honor to present to the Reader, in thefollowing pages, what may fairly be described as themost romantic episode in all history. As long ago as 1894,Joseph Jacobs indicated “one of the great desiderata ofJewish literature—a . . . history of the Marranos or se-cret Jews of the Peninsula.” That lacuna is here filled,for the first time.

It is hoped that the interest in it will not be con-fined to the Jew. The record of the “New Christians”is an inseparable part of the stories of Spain and Por-tugal, at the period of their greatest brilliance. It con-stitutes a fundamental, though tragic, chapter of ec-clesiastical history. It touches on the life of every coun-try of Western Europe in the seventeenth and eight-eenth centuries, at crucial points. It is the backgroundto the biography of countless persons of the highesteminence, both in the Peninsula and abroad. It hadimportant reactions in politics, literature, science, andcommerce. Throughout, it received lurid illuminationfrom the flares of the autos-da-fè. Each of these as-pects deserves a whole volume. I stand astonished atmy own moderation in having compressed them intochapters, or even paragraphs.

It is not, however, its importance which gives thehistory of the Marranos its appeal, but its incredibleromance. The submerged life which blossomed out atintervals into such exotic flowers; the unique devotionwhich could transmit the ancestral ideals unsullied, from


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xiv FOREWORD

generation to generation, despite the Inquisition and itshorrors; the figures of rare heroism which every now andagain emerged to burst upon the world; the extraordi-nary climax in our own days—all combine to make astory unparalleled in history for sheer dramatic appeal.If the volume does not live up to the expectations whichthis description may have aroused, it is the fault of theauthor, and not of his subject.

London, June 1931.

FOREWORD TO THE THIRD EDITION

The events that have taken place since this work wasfirst published have changed the entire perspective ofJewish history. Pathetic parallels to Marrano historywere known in Europe during the tragic period of Nazioppression. Moreover, very important research has beendone recently on the early days of crypto-Judaism inSpain, on the origins of the Inquisition, and on variousaspects of the history of the Marrano Diaspora. Yearshave diminished, though it is to be hoped not entirelyobliterated, the authors high romanticism of a quarter-century ago. Nevertheless, in this new edition it has beenthought best to leave this work basically as it firstemerged, with the correction only of major errors of fact.

Oxford, July 1958


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A HISTORA HISTORA HISTORA HISTORA HISTORYYYYY

OF THE MARRANOSOF THE MARRANOSOF THE MARRANOSOF THE MARRANOSOF THE MARRANOS


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1

INTRODUCTORY

The Antecedents of Crypto-Judaism

CRYPTO-JUDAISM, in one form or another, is as old asthe Jew himself. In Hellenistic days, some weaklingsendeavored to conceal their origin in order to escape rid-icule when participating in the athletic exercises. Underthe Roman rule, there was wide-spread subterfuge toavoid the payment of the special Jewish tax, the FiscusJudaicus, which had been instituted after the fall of Je-rusalem; and the historian Suetonius gives a vivid ac-count of the indignities inflicted upon an old man ofninety in order to discover whether or no he was a Jew.

The official attitude, as crystallized in the dicta of theRabbis, was plain. A man might, and should, save hislife if the occasion demanded it, by any means—mur-der, incest, or idolatry alone excepted. Only when thealternative was to commit one of these three offencesagainst divine and human law was death to be preferred.However, this aphorism applied exclusively to caseswhere positive action was demanded: the concealmentof Judaism, unaccompanied by any formality, was an-other matter. Rigorists indeed insisted that a man shouldrefuse even to make a change in his garments, if it weredemanded as a measure of religious oppression. Yet suchstern devotion to principle could not be expected fromall persons. Traditional Jewish law, in fact, made spe-cial provision for cases when observance of ceremonialpractices became impossible because of compulsion


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2 HISTORY OF THE MARRANOS

(Ones), or in time of persecution (She‘at ha-Shemad).The theory was put to the test in late Talmudic times,in the fifth century, during the Zoroastrian persecutionin Persia. This consisted, however, in enforced neglectof traditional observance rather than positive conform-ity to the dominant religion. Judaism was thus drivento some extent underground, regaining complete freedomonly some years later.

A fresh phase in Jewish life had been entered with thegrowth of Christianity, which became supreme in Eu-rope in the fourth century. The new faith, which claimedexclusive possession of religious truth, inevitably regard-ed proselytization as one of the greatest of moral obli-gations. The Church, indeed, officially condemned con-version by forcible means. It specifically disapproved ofthe application of such methods even to the laudableobject of saving the souls of Jews. Baptisms so effectedwere generally held to be invalid. Thus Pope Gregorythe Great (590–604), who set the example subsequentlyfollowed by the Catholic Church in its policy towardsthe stubborn adherents of the older faith, repeatedlycondemned forcible conversions, although he eagerlywelcomed proselytes secured by any other means. Inthis attitude, he was faithfully imitated by the major-ity of his successors. However, the papal injunctionswere not infrequently disregarded. The theory, thatconversion by force was uncanonical, was not indeeddisputed. Instead, the Jews would be threatened withdeath or with expulsion, it being clearly understoodthat baptism would save them. It occasionally hap-pened that they bowed to necessity, their acceptanceof Christianity under such circumstances being regard-


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3

ed as spontaneous. There had been a famous case ofmass forced conversion at Magona (Mahon) in the islandof Minorca, under the auspices of Bishop Severus, in418. A similar episode took place at Clermont, in Au-vergne, on the morrow of Ascension Day, 576; and,notwithstanding the intense disapproval of Pope Gre-gory, the example was followed elsewhere in France inthe ensuing period. Fired by this example, in 629 KingDagobert ordered all the Jews of the country to acceptbaptism under pain of banishment. Almost immediate-ly afterwards, his measure was imitated in the kingdomof Lombardy.

It is self-evident that conversions effected by suchmeans must be insincere. Inevitably, the victims con-tinued wherever possible to practice Judaism in secret,and took the first opportunity of reverting to their an-cestral faith; there was a notable instance at the time ofthe persecutions in the Byzantine Empire, under Leo theIsaurian, in 723. The Church itself was fully consciousof this, doing all it could to prevent the continuance ofrelations between professing Jews and their renegadebrethren, by whatever means their conversion had beensecured. The Rabbis on their side were not behind-handin recognizing the fact. They called these reluctant apos-tates anusim (“forced ones”), treating them very differ-ently from deliberate renegades. One of the earliest ut-terances of rabbinic scholarship in Europe is a regulationof Gershom of Mayence, “The Light of the Exile”(c. 1000), prohibiting unkind treatment of forced con-verts who returned to the Jewish fold. His own son,indeed, had been among the victims of persecution; and,though he died a professing Christian, was mourned by

INTRODUCTORY


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his father just as if he had remained a steadfast Jew. Inthe service of the Synagogue a special prayer found itsway imploring the divine protection for all the Houseof Israel and the “Forced Ones” of Israel who were inperil by land and sea, not differentiating between thetwo categories. When the age of martyrdom began formedieval Jewry, with the Rhineland massacres at theperiod of the first Crusade (1096), many persons savedtheir lives by accepting baptism. Subsequently, with thesedulous encouragement and protection of Solomon benIsaac of Troyes (“Rashi”), the great Franco-Jewish schol-ar, many of them returned to Judaism; though the ec-clesiastical authorities looked black at the loss of theseprecious souls which had been won for the Church.1

The phenomenon of Marranism is more, however,than the commonplace occurrence of forcible conversion,followed frequently by the practice of Judaism in secret.Its essential element is that this clandestine religion ispassed on from generation to generation. This is by nomeans a unique occurrence. Among the reasons givenfor the expulsion of the Jews from England in 1290 wasthat they persisted in seducing recent converts to returnto the “vomit of Judaism.” Ancient Jewish authoritiesadd that many children were kidnaped and sent to thenorthern part of the country, where they long continuedtheir ancestral religious practices. To this fact, reportsone chronicler, was due the readiness of the English toaccept the Reformation, as well as their predilection forbiblical names and certain dietetic peculiarities obtain-ing in Scotland. The tale is not quite so improbable asmight appear on the surface: and it is interesting as anindication of how the phenomenon of the crypto-Jew


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5

may sometimes appear in the most unlikely places. Sim-ilarly, for two hundred years at least after the expulsionof the Jews from the South of France, spiteful antiquar-ies were able to trace, in some outstanding noble fami-lies (which, they said, still practiced Judaism in the pri-vacy of their homes), the blood of those who had pre-ferred to remain in the country as professing Catholics.2

There are other parallels to the phenomenon of theMarrano which are even closer. The most remarkableof all is the story of the neofiti (neophytes) of Apulia,only recently brought to light after many centuries ofoblivion. At the close of the thirteenth century, the An-gevin rulers of the kingdom of Naples brought about ageneral conversion of the Jews in their dominions, cen-tered about the city of Trani. Under the name of neofi-ti, these continued a crypto-Jewish existence for threecenturies or more afterwards. Their secret fidelity toJudaism was one of the problems which led to the ac-tivity of the Inquisition in the kingdom of Naples in thesixteenth century. In February 1572, several were burnedat the stake in Rome, including Teofilo Panarelli, a sa-vant of some reputation. Others succeeded in escapingto the Balkans, where they joined the existing Jewishcommunities. Certain vague recollections of Judaismpersist amongst their descendants in southern Italy downto the present day.

The phenomenon was by no means confined to theChristian world. Even now, there are communities ofcrypto-Jews of many centuries’ standing to be found inseveral parts of the Moslem world. The Daggatun of theSahara continued Jewish practices long after their for-mal conversion to Islam, and traces of this have not

INTRODUCTORY


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entirely died out among their offspring. The Donmeh ofSalonica3 were the descendants of those adherents of thepseudo-Messiah, Sabbatai Zevi, who followed him intoapostasy; and, while ostensibly conforming Moslems,they practice a Messianic Judaism in their homes. Fur-ther East, there are yet closer parallels. The religiouspersecutions in Persia in the seventeenth century andafter left in the country, particularly at Meshed, manyfamilies who are punctiliously scrupulous in Jewish ob-servance in private while outwardly devout adherentsto the dominant faith. Many have fled to Afghanistan,Turkestan, and especially to Palestine: but a remnantstill remains, numbering some hundreds of families, andknown as Jedidim. Although they bear Moslem names,their real identity is an open secret. Regular bribery ofthe officials secures them freedom from molestation.Marriages before the Kadi according to Mohammedanlaw are repeated according to the Jewish ceremonial athome. Similarly, there are double funeral rites. Since theycannot maintain their own butchers, all of them arefamiliar with the method of slaughtering animals accord-ing to the traditional Jewish rite. They have under-ground prayer-houses, the entrances to which are guard-ed by women to prevent disturbance. They have no al-ternative but to keep their shops open on the Sabbath:but they avoid doing business by putting in charge asmall child, who will say that his father is away, or elseby asking such exorbitant prices that the purchaser willbe discouraged. Near Khorasan there is another bodyof Jedid al-Islam, whose history is identical. Similar tothem are the Tschola of Bokhara, officially converted


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to Mohammedanism in the last century, but still large-ly Jewish in practice, and wholly so by descent.

The classical land of crypto-Judaism, however, isSpain. Here, the tradition was so protracted, and sogeneral, that one almost suspects some predisposition toit in the very atmosphere of the country. As far back asthe Roman period, the Jews of the Peninsula had beennumerous and influential. Many of them, indeed,claimed to trace their descent from the aristocracy ofJerusalem, who had been carried into exile by Titus, oreven by earlier conquerors. After the Barbarian inva-sions, in the fifth century, their position at first amelio-rated; for the Visigoths embraced the Arian form ofChristianity, and tended to favor the Jews both as strictmonotheists and as an influential minority, whose sup-port was worth conciliating. However, upon their con-version to Catholicism, they began to show the tra-ditional zeal of the neophyte. The Jews were the first tosuffer. In 589, with the accession of Reccared to thethrone, the current ecclesiastical legislation began to berigorously enforced against them in every detail. Hisimmediate successors were not so intolerant; but fromthe accession of King Sisebut (612–620), a spirit of theutmost fanaticism prevailed. In 616, possibly at the in-stigation of the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius, he issuedan edict ordering the baptism of all the Jews of his king-dom, under the pain of banishment and the loss of alltheir property. According to Catholic authorities, nine-ty thousand embraced Christianity at this time. Thiscataclysm, known to the Jewish chroniclers of a laterperiod as the “First Evil,” was the earliest of the great

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disasters which punctuated the history of the Jews ofSpain.

Down to the reign of Roderic, “the last of the Visi-goths,” the tradition of persecution continued consist-ently, save for brief intermissions. Over a large part ofthe period, the practice of Judaism was utterly pro-scribed. Nevertheless, the moment governmental vigi-lance was relaxed, the recent converts seized the oppor-tunity to revert to their ancestral religion. SuccessiveCouncils of Toledo, from the fourth to the eighteenth,devoted their energies to devising fresh methods to pre-vent backsliding. The association of neophytes with theirformer coreligionists was prohibited. The children ofsuspects were to be seized, to be brought up in an un-contaminated Christian atmosphere. The recent convertswere forced to sign a declaration binding themselves toobserve no Jewish rite in future; though they made anexception with respect to eating the flesh of the pig,which, they said, it was physically impossible for themto touch. In spite of all these provisions, the notoriousinfidelity of the recent converts and their descendantsremained one of the great problems of Visigothic states-manship down to the period of the Arab invasion in 711.The number of the Jews found in the country by thelatter proves the utter failure of the conversionist at-tempts. The tradition of Marranism in the Peninsula hadalready emerged.4

With the coming of the Arabs, a Golden Age wasinitiated for the Jews of Spain; first in the Caliphate ofCordova, and after its fall (1012) in the minor kingdomswhich sprang up on its ruins. The strength of Judaismin the Peninsula became immensely reinforced.


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Its communities exceeded in numbers, in culture, andin wealth, those of any other country in the whole of thewestern world. The long tradition of tolerance was in-terrupted with the invasion of the Almoravides, at thebeginning of the twelfth century. When the puritanAlmohades, a North African sect, were summoned to thePeninsula in 1148 to check the threatening advance ofthe Christian powers, the reaction became drastic.5 Thenew rulers introduced to Spain the intolerance whichthey had already shown in Africa. The practice of Juda-ism or of Christianity was proscribed throughout thoseprovinces which were still subject to Moslem rule, Mostof the Jews fled to the Christian kingdoms of the north:and it is from this period that the hegemony of the com-munities of Christian Spain may be said to date. Largenumbers were put to the sword or sold into slavery. Aminority, however, followed the example set a few yearspreviously by their brethren in northern Africa, out-wardly embracing the religion of Islam. Yet in theirhearts they remained steadfast. Once more, large partsof the Peninsula knew the phenomenon of insincereproselytes, paying lip service to the dominant faith, butin the privacy of their homes faithful to the traditionsof Judaism. Their infidelity was notorious. In the Afri-can possessions at least of the Almohades, the recentconverts were compelled to wear a distinguishing sign.One of the most distinguished Arab poets of the period,Abu-Ishak Ibrahim ibn Sahl of Seville, was of Jewishextraction, and returned to the religion of his fatherswhen his native city was recaptured by the Christians.6

Among the victims of the Almohadan persecution wasRabbi Maimon, son of Joseph, who left Cordova with

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his family and, after a considerable period of wander-ing, found refuge in Fez. Here, Maimon wrote his fa-mous Letter of Consolation to comfort his coreligionistsin this time of affliction. However, it was possible to livein Morocco at this time only under the outward guiseof Moslems; and it would appear that Maimon benJoseph’s family, under the stress of circumstances, hadto bow to necessity and do likewise. When, some littletime later, a foreign rabbi replied in the negative to theinquiry of some Moroccan Jews as to whether it waspermissible for them assume Islam in order to save theirlives, he was rebuffed in a lengthy epistle by Maimonasfamous son, Moses.7 In a closely reasoned torrent ofinvective, the latter demonstrated not only that suchprocedure was permissible, but also that for a man toimperil his life by acting otherwise would be a grievoussin; for the Moslems, unlike the Christians, required insuch cases merely a formal declaration of conformity,without insisting upon the neglect of Jewish practices orthe performance of any idolatrous act. This is not theplace to discuss the ethical or the legal aspect of theproblem. So much, however, may perhaps be said. Acontemporary French or German Jew would not havespoken in this fashion. To the north of the Pyrenees, aspirit of greater fortitude prevailed. The Jews of theRhineland, who “sanctified the name of God” to a manrather than abjure their faith, were more heroic, if lesspicturesque, than their Andalusian brethren.


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11

CHAPTER I

THE BEGINNINGS OF MARRANISM

THE beginnings of the Reconquest, or Reconquista,in Spain had involved obvious danger for the Jews. Therude Christian warriors could not easily distinguishbetween one sort of unbeliever and another; and theJews, dressed in the same fashion as the Moslems,speaking their language, and belonging in essence tothe same culture, inevitably shared their fate. Whenany place was captured, the synagogue, like themosque, was piously burned, and the Jewish popula-tion put to the sword.

From the tenth century, however, a different spiritbegan to show itself. The initial religious fanaticismcommenced to wane. It was realized that the Jews con-stituted an important minority, whose support should beconciliated if the Christian position in the Peninsula wereto be maintained. Moreover, it was clear that the Jewscould be of great utility to the Court, whether as physi-cians, as financiers, as interpreters, or as diplomats.Accordingly, notwithstanding occasional legislativemanifestations of religious bias, the favorable policy ofthe Moslem states with regard to the Jews was adoptedin its entirety. With the reign of Alfonso X of Castile(1065–1109), and the capture of Toledo, in 1085, theChristian states became dominant in the Peninsula. Jew-ish life and Jewish scholarship continued to flourishunder the Cross as they had done under the Crescent.


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After the Almohadan invasion, when the practice of anyreligion other than Islam was proscribed in Andalusia,Christian tolerance compared most favorably with Mos-lem persecution; and the center of Spanish Jewry wasdefinitely transferred to the northern states.

The gradual conquest of the Moorish territories pro-gressively diminished the necessity of conciliating theminority. Hence, from this period, there was a gradualdeterioration in the position of the Jews. In 1212, aChristian coalition defeated the Moslems at the decisivebattle of Las Navas de Tolosa, and their power was fi-nally crushed. Before many years had passed, they weredriven back into the kingdom of Granada, and the ex-iguous frontier, which was to remain with few changesuntil the close of the fifteenth century, had been estab-lished. This epoch synchronized with the promulgationof the anti-Jewish policy which had been enunciated bythe Lateran Councils of 1179 and 1215. In Spain, thiswas embodied in the famous Code of Alfonso the Wiseof Castile (1252–1282), known as the Siete Partidas (Sev-en Sections). This was, however, enforced only locallyand sporadically. The social and economic degradationof the Jew was never completed in the Peninsula, as itwas in other parts of Europe. Cultural activities contin-ued undisturbed: and, in spite of occasional local out-breaks, life and property were generally safe.

Nevertheless, the tide of hostility against the Jewsgradually rose. The Crusaders from across the Alps hadattacked the community of Toledo, in the approvedRhineland fashion, as they set out on the campaign whichwas to culminate in the battle at Las Navas de Tolosa.On that occasion, indeed, the Christian inhabitants came


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to the rescue. But before long, foreign example becameunnecessary. There were sporadic popular outbreaks,especially in the north of the country, where the Frenchexample was potent. Thus, in 1328, the communities ofNavarre were almost exterminated in a series of mas-sacres. At the time of the Black Death, the attacks uponthe Jews in Savoy and Germany were anticipated inCatalonia, though they remained localized. The turning-point came a few years later. The favor shown by Pedrothe Cruel of Castile to the Jews, and their enthusiasticespousal of his cause, resulted in much suffering for themat the time of the struggle for the throne which ensuedbetween him and Henry of Trastamara, his half-broth-er. One prosperous judería (Jewry) after another wassacked during the course of the civil war. When finallyPedro was overthrown, the Jews suffered for their at-tachment to his cause. To the prejudices of the Churchand the antipathies of the people was now added theresentment of the sovereign. The new king, Henry II,made no secret of his feelings. For the first time, therepressive ecclesiastical policy, including even the wear-ing of the Jewish badge of shame, was more or less con-sistently enforced.

In the financial administration of the country, indi-vidual Jews continued to enjoy considerable influence.The most notable instance was Don Joseph Pichon, whooccupied the position of almoxarife and contador may-or—important posts in the financial administration ofthe kingdom. In 1379, certain private enemies among hisown coreligionists procured his judicial murder. Thesovereign, Juan I. (1379–1390), beside himself with pas-sion at the loss of his minister, was still further antago-

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nized; and amongst the population of Pichon’s nativecity of Seville, where he had been surprisingly popular,feeling against the Jews rose alarmingly.

In October 1390, Juan I of Castile died, being suc-ceeded by his infant son, Henry III (1390–1406). Dur-ing the minority, great authority was enjoyed by theQueen Mother, Leonora, whose confessor, FerrandMartinez, Archdeacon of Ecija, immediately became apower in the state. The latter was a man of little learn-ing, but noteworthy for his indomitable spirit, and asworn enemy of the Jews. For the past twelve years, hehad been inveighing against them from the pulpit andendeavoring to procure their expulsion from the varioustowns of the region. Injunctions from the king, and evenfrom the Pope, had been quite ineffectual to silence him.He asserted roundly that the twenty-three synagoguesin the diocese of Seville had been constructed in defi-ance of the laws, and should be torn down. Now, withthe death of the king, and almost simultaneously thatof the Archbishop Barroso, who had previously beenable to check his activities to some extent, Martinez wasfreed from all restraint, and procured, by letters to thelocal clergy, the partial destruction of some of theunauthorized Jewish places of worship. Half-heartedinstructions addressed to him from the Court, to desistfrom his activities and make good the damage, onlyserved to enlist the sympathy of the populace on his side.A feeling of unrest spread throughout the country. Theadvent of Lent, with its reminders of the Passion, servedas the pretext for a fresh series of inflammatory sermonswhich keyed the popular passions to the highest pitch.

On Ash Wednesday (March 15, 1391), a turbulent


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crowd broke into the Jewish quarter of Seville, whichwas in imminent danger of sack. The civic authoritieshad a couple of the ringleaders seized and scourged, butthis served only to exasperate the feelings of the rest.After some further disturbances, order was outwardlyrestored; but the spirit of unrest still simmered, whileMartinez continued his unbridled invective from thepulpit. At length, on June 4, 1391, the mob could nolonger be restrained. An orgy of carnage raged in the city.The Judería was pitilessly sacked. As many as four thou-sand persons, it was estimated, were killed; while thosewho did not succeed in making good their escape wereable to save their lives only by accepting baptism. Thefury spread during that summer and autumn throughthe whole of the Peninsula, from the Pyrenees to thestraits of Gibraltar. At Ecija and at Carmona, the wholecommunity was exterminated. At Cordova, the entireJudería was reduced to ashes: Toledo was the scene ofa frightful massacre on the fast-day of the seventeenthof Tammuz. Similar outbreaks took place in seventyother towns in Castile. In Aragon, despite the severemeasures taken by King Juan I to suppress the disor-ders, the example was followed. In the kingdom of Va-lencia (in the capital city of which the lead had beengiven on July 9 by a crowd of hysterical boys) not a sin-gle professing Jew was left alive. At Barcelona, in spiteof the protection of the authorities, the whole commu-nity was wiped out. From Catalonia, the frenzy spreadto the Balearic Islands, where on August 2 an extermi-natory massacre took place at Palma. The total numberof victims was said to have amounted to as many as fiftythousand in all. There were some important communi-



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ties—as, for example, that of Barcelona, which hadmaintained an unbroken existence from the eighth cen-tury at least—which henceforth were never reestab-lished. Outbreaks were avoided only in Moslem Granadaand, thanks to the vigorous measures of protection tak-en by the Crown, in Portugal. In Aragon, those respon-sible for the disorders were punished, though in mostcases not too severely. In Castile, however, the passivi-ty of the authorities showed that they condoned theoutrages which had been committed.

A wave of massacres of this description was not byany means new in Jewish history. Something of the sorthad taken place on the Rhineland during the Crusades,in England in 1189–90, and throughout Germany at theperiod of the Black Death. The consequences of thisoccasion, however, were unique. Elsewhere, it had beenonly a weak remnant which had accepted baptism as thealternative to death. The vast majority had unquestion-ingly preferred martyrdom “for the Sanctification of theName” rather than abjure their faith. But in Spain con-ditions were different. The morale of the people hadbeen undermined by centuries of well-being. Their so-cial assimilation to the general population had pro-gressed so far as to make the change seem perhaps lessdrastic. The expulsions throughout Europe—from Eng-land in 1290, from France in 1306 and 1394, from themajority of the cities of Germany at the time of the BlackDeath—had cut off most avenues of escape. Possibly, therecent disasters had made them feel that there was, af-ter all, no hope for their religious and national future.But, above all, there was a moral difference, which hadbeen shown in the long tradition of crypto-Judaism in


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the Peninsula. It was not difficult for insincere, tempo-rizing Jews to become insincere, temporizing Christians.Whatever the reason, throughout the Peninsula, largebodies of Jews accepted baptism en masse in order toescape death. At Toledo, the example was set by the agedSamuel Abrabanel, formerly the confidential adviser ofHenry of Trastamara; and a majority of the communi-ty followed his example. At Barcelona, those who savedtheir lives by the same means are said to have beennumbered in thousands. In Valencia, the wealthy andinfluential Joseph Abarim and Samuel Abravalla led theway; and they were followed by all of their survivingcoreligionists, except a few who remained in hiding. Somany came forward for baptism, it was said, that theholy chrism in the churches was exhausted, and it wasregarded as miraculous that the supply held out. Thenumber of converts here alone was stated, with palpa-ble exaggeration, to amount to eleven thousand. In someplaces, the Jews did not wait for the application of com-pulsion, but anticipated the popular attack by comingforward spontaneously, clamoring for admission to theChurch. All told, the total number of conversions in thekingdoms of Aragon and Castile was reckoned at the im-probable figure of two hundred thousand. It was a phe-nomenon unique in the whole of Jewish history.

The movement did not stop with the restoration oforder. Fray Vincent Ferrer, to whose fiery eloquence theoutbreak at Valencia had been due, continued to travelabout preaching to the Jews and endeavoring to securetheir conversion. In 1411 he traversed Castile from endto end, in pursuance of what he had come to regard ashis mission. In one place after another, he appeared in



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the synagogue bearing a scroll of the Law in one armand a crucifix in the other, while an unruly mob at hisheels added force to his arguments. Everywhere, manypersons allowed themselves to be won over by his im-passioned appeals. On a single day, in Toledo, he is saidto have gained four thousand converts. Some wholecommunities gave way in a body. In the Bishopric ofSegovia, the remnants of Judaism were almost entirelydestroyed. Subsequently, the self-appointed missionaryreturned to Aragon, where he followed a similar course.Here he was assisted by the apostate Mestre Gerónimode Santa Fe (Megadef—“the blasphemer”—as he wasacrostically called by his former coreligionists). The latterhad succeeded in inducing the anti-Pope, Benedict XIII,whose body-physician he was, to stage a disputation onthe merits of the two religions at Tortosa (1413–1414).During its course and after its conclusion, the labors forthe faith continued. Converts were secured in largenumbers at Saragossa, Calatayud, Daroca, Fraga, andBarbastro. The entire communities of Alcañiz, Caspe,Maella, Lérida, Tamarit, and Alcolea followed the lead.Thirty-five thousand additional converts are said to havebeen secured in the two kingdoms during the course ofa few years.

Of the neophytes, some returned to Judaism when theimmediate danger was past, fleeing for the purpose toparts of the country where they were unknown, or elseto Moslem Africa. The vast majority, however, remainedin their former places of residence as conforming Chris-tians. Although the canons of the Church condemnedconversion by force (as we have seen), baptism securedeven by such means was generally, though not invaria-


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bly, regarded as an irrevocable sacrament, from whichthere was no escape. Even had the Church condonedbacksliding, the popular fury would indubitably havepunished it. Moreover, large numbers had accepted Chris-tianity under only a remote threat of violence, the canon-ical force of their conversion being unquestionable. In anycase, however doubtful their sincerity might be, theircondition as titular Christians became permanent.

Thus, from the close of the fourteenth century, a com-pletely new state of affairs existed in Spain. By the sideof those, now sadly decreased in wealth and numbers,who still openly professed their Judaism, there were vastnumbers of conversos (converts); totaling, according toreport, some hundreds of thousands in all. Some of them,perhaps, were sincere enough. It is sufficient to mentionPablo de Santa Maria, who, as Solomon ha-Levi, hadat one time been a rabbi, but subsequently rose to thedignity of Bishop of his native Burgos, and member ofthe Council of Regency of Castile. There were manyothers, who had not been over-sincere in their attach-ment to Judaism, and did not find much difficulty inaccommodating themselves equally well to their newreligion. But the vast majority had accepted Christian-ity only to escape death, and remained at heart as com-pletely Jewish as they had ever been. Outwardly, theylived as Christians. They took their children to churchto be baptized, though they hastened to wash off thetraces of the ceremony as soon as they returned home.They would go to the priest to be married, though theywere not content with the ceremony and, in the priva-cy of their houses, performed another to implement it.Occasionally, they would come to be shriven; but their



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confessions were so unreal that one priest is said to havebegged a piece of the garment of one of them as a relicof so blameless a soul!

Behind this outward sham they remained at heartas they had always been. Their disbelief in the dogmasof the Church was notorious, and was not always con-cealed. They kept all the traditional ceremonies, insome instances down to the least details. They observedthe Sabbath so far as lay in their power; and it was pos-sible to see, from a height overlooking any city, howmany chimneys were smokeless on that day. The morepunctilious would eat only meat prepared in the Jew-ish fashion and supplied by a Jewish butcher.1 Someeven went so far as to circumcise their children. In mostcases, they married exclusively amongst themselves.They consorted familiarly with their old coreligionists,often continuing to live in the same quarter. On occa-sion, they furtively frequented the synagogues, for theillumination of which they regularly sent gifts of oil.Alternatively, they would form religious associationswith titularly Catholic objects and under the patron-age of some Christian saint, using this as a cover forobserving their ancestral rites.2 In race,3 in belief, andlargely in practice, they remained as they had beenbefore the conversion. They were Jews in all but name,and Christians in nothing but form. They were more-over able to transmit their disbelief to their children,who, though born in the dominant faith and baptizedat birth, were as little sincere in their attachment to itas their fathers.

Nevertheless, with the removal of the religious disabil-ities from which they had previously suffered, the so-


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cial and economic progress of the recent converts andtheir decendants became phenomenally rapid. Howev-er dubious their sincerity, it was now out of the ques-tion to exclude them from any walk of life on the groundof their creed. The Law, the administration, the army,the universities, the Church itself,4 were all overrun byrecent converts of more or less questionable sincerity, orby their immediate descendants. They thronged thefinancial administration, for which they had a naturalaptitude, protest being now impossible. They pushedtheir way into the municipal councils, into the legisla-tures, into the judiciary. They all but dominated Span-ish life. The wealthier amongst them intermarried withthe highest nobility of the land, few impoverished countsor hidalgos being able to resist the lure of their gold.Within a couple of generations, there was barely a sin-gle aristocratic family in Aragon, from the royal housedownwards, which was free from the “taint” of Jewishblood. Many were the offices of importance at Courtoccupied by conversos or their children. In 1480, boththe supreme court of justice of that kingdom and theCortes were presided over by persons of Jewish extrac-tion. A certain jurist of the period amused his leisureduring a period of pestilence by drawing up genealogi-cal lists demonstrating the precise Jewish antecedents ofa very large proportion of the contemporary notables—the famous Libro Verde de Aragon (“Green Book ofAragon”). Conditions in Castile were very similar.5

The progress of the Santángel family was character-istic. Noah Chinillo had been a member of an old Sara-gossan Jewish family established at Calatayud. One ofhis five sons, Azariah Chinillo, became converted to



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Christianity in the early years of the fifteenth century,in consequence of the preaching of Fray Vincent Fer-rer. As was usual amongst the renegades, he assumed asaintes name instead of his old Jewish patronymic, be-coming known as Luis de Santángel. He removed toSaragossa, studied law, attained high office at court, andwas raised to the nobility. His nephew, Pedro de Santán-gel, was Bishop of Majorca. His son, Martin, was zalm-edina, or magistrate, at the capital. Other members ofthe family attained high rank in Church and state. ALuis de Santángel of a later generation, perhaps grand-son of the founder of the family, was financial agent inAragon and in 1473 represented the knights and noblesat a meeting of the Estates of the realm. Another per-son bearing the same name farmed the taxation andultimately became escribano de racion (Secretary of theRoyal Household) and one of the most influential menin the state. Within a very few years of their acceptanceof Christianity, the Santángel family was one of the mostimportant in the whole country. As subsequent eventswere to show, their attachment to Catholicism was luke-warm in the extreme.

More dramatic still was the rise of the De la Caballe-ria family. It had already been prominent in Cataloniafrom as early as the thirteenth century, when Don Ju-dah de la Caballeria, ibn Labi, had acted as baile (bail-iff) for King Jaime I. Many of his descendants attainedsimilarly high position. At the close of the fourteenth orbeginning of the fifteenth century, eight out of the ninesons of Don Solomon ibn Labi de la Caballeria, the thenhead of the family, were baptized. Their lineage was soancient and so honorable that they did not change their


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surname—an almost unexampled phenomenon. Theeldest brother, Bonafus, who assumed the Christianname of Pedro, was mestre racional, or ComptrollerGeneral, at the court of Aragon, won the favor of QueenMaria, and was her commissioner at the Cortes con-vened at Monzon and Alcañiz (1436–7). He was theauthor of a fiercely anti-Jewish work, Zelus Christi con-tra Judaeos et Sarracenos (Zeal of Christ against theJews and Saracens), upon which he was engaged forfourteen years, and in which he accused his former core-ligionists of all imaginable and some unimaginablecrimes. In 1464, he was assassinated—possibly at theinstigation of his fellow-Marranos. All his sons subse-quently attained high position: Alfonso was appointedVice-Chancellor of the Kingdom, Luis became Counselorto King Juan, and Jaime was a trusted companion ofFerdinand the Catholic. One of Bonafus’s brothers,Samuel, who likewise assumed the name of Pedro, roseto high office in the Church. Another, Isaac (Fernando),was Vice-Principal of the University of Saragossa; andAhab (Felipe) became a leader in the Cortes. The young-est brother, Luis, who was baptized in infancy, rose tothe office of High Treasurer of the kingdom of Navarre.The sons of Isaac de la Caballeria amassed vast fortunesby farming the public taxes, and attained high positionin the state by reason of their wealth. One of them,Pedro, was partly responsible for negotiating the epoch-making marriage between Ferdinand of Aragon andIsabella of Castile, which united the Spanish monarchy.Another member of the family, Martin de la Caballeria,was appointed to the command of the fleet at Majorca.The remaining son of Don Solomon ibn Labi, Benven-



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iste, continued faithful to Judaism. However, after hisdeath, his family followed the general tendency of thetime. One of his daughters married Don Apres de Pa-ternoy, a wealthy landowner of Jewish extraction, andtheir descendants were important in Spanish history. Hisson Vidal, an accomplished Hebrew poet, who assumedthe name of Gonzalo, continued his literary interests af-ter his conversion, and translated some of the works ofCicero into Spanish. By marriage, the family becameclosely allied with all the wealthiest and most influentialof the converso families in the kingdom. It was an out-standing, but not by any means an exceptional, illustra-tion of the completeness and thoroughness with which therecent converts and their immediate descendants pene-trated into every conceivable field of Spanish life.

A few further important figures of the fifteenth centu-ry may be mentioned in illustration. We have already seenthe high rank attained by Solomon ha-Levi, alias Pablode Santa Maria, Bishop of Burgos. His son, Alfonso, whohad been converted to Christianity with him, followedhim in that dignity, and was one of the Spanish delegatesto the great Church Council of Basle, the anti-Jewishpolicy of which he advocated. His brother, Gonzalo, wasBishop of Sigüenza, and several other members of thefamily attained eminence in politics and literature. Juande Torquemada, Cardinal of San Sisto, was (it was al-leged) of immediate Jewish descent, as were also the saint-ly Hernando de Talavera, Archbishop of Granada, andAlonso de Oropesa, General of the Geronimite Order. TheLunas, Mendozas, Villahermosas, and others of theproudest nobility contracted family alliances withwealthy conversos. So did the Henriquez family, to which


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the mother of Ferdinand the Catholic belonged. TheZaportas of Monzon intermarried with the royal houseof Aragon. Ximeno Gordo, a popular idol, lorded it overSaragossa. The Epses, Clementes, Coscons and Villa-novas became notorious for their wealth. Sancho de Pa-ternoy filled the post of mestre racional, or Comptrollerof the Royal Household. The immensely wealthy Gabri-el Sanchez, nephew of Alazar Ussuf of Saragossa (LuisSanchez), was elevated to the office of Treasurer. In Cas-tile, the families of Gonzalez, Chinet, and Coloma attainedsimilar dignities. Hernando de Pulgar, a member of an-other converso house, was Secretary to Queen Isabella.Alonso de Cabrera, who belonged to the same class andwas governor of the Alcazar at Segovia, married her fa-vorite, Beatriz de Bobadilla. Don Juan Pacheco, Marquisof Villena and Grand Master of the Order of Santiago(who was king-maker in Castile in the reign of Henry theImpotent and actually aspired to Isabella’s hand), was adescendant on both sides of the former Jew, Ruy Capon.His brother, Don Pedro Giron, was Grand Master of theOrder of Calatrava; while the Archbishop of Toledo wastheir uncle. Seven at least of the principal prelates of thekingdom were of Jewish extraction—not to mention thecontador mayor, or Treasurer. Indeed, there was hardlya single office of importance at either court, especially inthe financial administration, which was not occupied bythe descendants of some converted Jew, or by membersof families closely allied with them.

In intellectual life, conditions were similar. The revivalof vernacular literature at the court of Juan II of Aragonwas due in considerable measure to the genius of personsof Jewish blood, and was largely inspired by the converso,



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Alfonso de Santa Maria. The latter’s kinsman, MicerGonzalo de Santa Maria, a great-nephew of the formerBishop of Burgos and assessor to the Governor ofAragon, was virtually Historiographer Royal. Hernan-do de Pulgar was a notable figure in literature as wellas in politics. Andrés Heli, another writer of high emi-nence, traced his descent to a Jewish family of Saragos-sa. In a later generation, Pedro Guttierez de Santa Clara,the historian of the conquest of Peru, belonged to thesame category. Fernando de Rojas, the father of theSpanish novel and author of Celestina, which had animmeasurable influence upon European literature inevery country, was similarly of Jewish blood. Juan deEspaña of Toledo, known as El Viejo, was a sound Tal-mudist as well as a poet of note, and introduced rab-binic phrases into his pasquinades against his formercoreligionists. In this he was imitated by his rival, EraDiego de Valencia.6 Other well-known poets of Jewishblood included Rodrigo Cota da Maguaque (long con-sidered, incorrectly, the author of Celestina), Anton deMontoro, Pero Ferrus, and Juan de Valladolid. FranciscoLopez de Villalobos was one of the most famous physi-cians of his time, and an author of considerable reputa-tion, who is considered one of the classical writers of theSpanish tongue. Even the foremost anti-Jewish writersof the period, such as Pablo de Heredia and Alfonso deZamora, were conversos. In the arts, mention may bemade of Juan de Leví, a religious painter highly es-teemed at the beginning of the fifteenth century; and ofJuan de Altabás, who flourished at its close.7

Numerically, the importance of the converts, withtheir rapidly increasing descendants and their wide-


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spread family connections, was very considerable. In thesouth of the country, it was said, they numbered some-thing like one third of the population of the larger towns.If this were the case, there must have been at least threehundred thousand in all (some authorities suggest tentimes the figure) throughout the Peninsula. This numberwould however include all—both those who were of fullJewish blood and their half-Gentile kinsmen, the ferventproselytes and their unwilling fellows. Those who werecompletely Jewish, by descent and by sympathy, werenot by any means so numerous. Nevertheless, theyformed in the organism of the state a vast, incongruousbody which it was impossible to assimilate, and not easyto neglect.

Amongst the Jews, these recent converts to Chris-tianity, or even their remoter descendants, were knownby the name of Anusim—the “Forced Ones,” who hadadopted the dominant religion under duress. The gen-eral population, on the other hand, used a variety ofterms to describe them. They were called conversos—aterm which could properly be applied only to the actu-al converts themselves. More strictly, they were denom-inated New Christians (Nuevos Christianos) to distin-guish them from the general population of “Old Chris-tians.” Satirically, they were sometimes termed Alboray-cos, from al-Burak, the marvelous steed of Mohammed,which was neither horse nor mule, male nor female—much like the persons to whom the name was applied,who were neither Jews nor Christians.8 However, theywere popularly known, more generally, as Marranos.Many origins have been sought for this word. It has beenderived from the Hebrew Mar’at ‘Ayin, or Appearance



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of the Eye, as referring to the fact that these personswere only ostensibly Christians. Other fanciful deriva-tions are from the word Mumar, or apostate, given aSpanish ending (Mumarano); Mohram Atta—“Thou artExcommunicated”; or Mar Anuss—“Master Anuss.”However, the fact that the term was practically9 un-known amongst the Jews indicates that it did not orig-inate amongst them, and that a non-Hebrew origin mustbe sought for it. One such derivation which has beensuggested is from the second word in the ecclesiasticalterm of execration Anathema Maranatha;10 another isfrom the Arabic Mura’in, signifying hypocrite. Howev-er, all this linguistic speculation is needless. The wordMarrano is an old Spanish term dating back to the ear-ly Middle Ages and meaning swine. Applied to the re-cent converts in the first place perhaps ironically, withreference to their aversion from the flesh of the animalin question, it ultimately became a general term of exe-cration which spread during the sixteenth century tomost of the languages of western Europe. The wordexpresses succinctly and unmistakably all the depth ofhatred and contempt which the ordinary Spaniard feltfor the insincere neophytes by whom he was now sur-rounded. It is the constancy shown by them and theirdescendants that has redeemed the term from its formerinsulting connotation, and endowed it with its enduringpower of romance.


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CHAPTER II

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE INQUISITION

As the fifteenth century advanced, it became increas-ingly obvious that the recent mass-conversions to Chris-tianity had enhanced, rather than solved, the difficul-ties of the religious position in Spain. Instead of theprevious homogeneous body of Jews, there was now inaddition a vast number of titular Christians scatteredthroughout the country, pushing their way into everywalk of life, and constituting a problem of their own.

The attitude of the Church in relation to them waseasily understandable. As we have seen, Roman Catholi-cism officially disapproved of the policy of securingconversions by force. It was nevertheless held widely, ifnot universally, that conversions thus secured were valid.The victims therefore had to be considered in the full-est degree sons of the Church, any reversion to theirformer beliefs or practice being an heretical action.Much, moreover, depended upon the interpretation ofthe term “violence.” If a man were dragged forcibly tothe font and baptized, in spite of his protests, there wasno question about the invalidity of the baptism. If onthe other hand he consented to the operation in orderto save his life, there was an element of spontaneity inthe transaction. If he came forward voluntarily, in an-ticipation of attack, it might be said that he acceptedbaptism of his own free will. Sometimes, the element ofcompulsion was even more remote and indirect. More-


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over, a fresh generation had by now grown up, born aftertheir parents’ conversion, and baptized in infancy as amatter of course. As to the canonical status of the lat-ter, there was no question. They were full Christians; andthe observance of the Catholic religion was as muchincumbent upon them as it was upon any other son ordaughter of the Church.

It was, however, notorious that they were Christiansonly in name; observing, in public, a minimum of thenew faith while maintaining, in private, a maximum ofthe old one. The position, as far as the Church was con-cerned, was more difficult by far than it had been be-fore the fatal year 1391. Previous to that date, there hadbeen a considerable body of unbelievers outside theChurch, easily recognizable, and rendered theological-ly innocuous by a systematic series of governmental andclerical regulations. Now, there was a similarly largebody inside the fold, insidiously working its way intoevery limb of the body politic and ecclesiastic, openlycontemning in many cases the doctrines of the Churchand contaminating by its influence the whole mass ofthe faithful. Baptism had done little more than to con-vert a considerable proportion of the Jews from infidelsoutside the Church to heretics inside it. The only solu-tion to the problem would have been to allow the recentconverts and their descendants to return openly to Juda-ism, and thus restore the position which had obtainedprevious to 1391. In an age which took religion so seri-ously, this was out of the question. It is doubtful, more-over, whether the populace on the one hand or many ofthe conversos themselves on the other would have


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consented to it. Inevitably, therefore, the problem of theNew Christians claimed more and more attention fromthe leaders of the Spanish Church. The Provincial Coun-cil of Tortosa, in 1429, and the General Council of Basle,in 1434, took the matter into consideration, and urgedthat measures should be taken to check the blasphemousduplicity of these recent adherents to the Christian faith.It was natural, and indeed pardonable, that all the pul-pits resounded to impassioned sermons calling attentionto the misconduct of the New Christians and urging thatsteps should be taken to check them.

The populace, whose feelings thus became more andmore inflamed, could not be expected to appreciate thetheological subtleties of the matter. In the Marranos itcould see only hypocritical Jews, who had lost none oftheir unpopular characteristics, fighting their way intothe highest positions in the state. The change which theformality of baptism had made in their favor was ac-centuated by the contrast with their unconverted breth-ren, who since the beginning of the fifteenth century hadbecome utterly humiliated and had by now reached thenadir of their misery. The natural ability and acumenof the conversos had attracted them in vast numbersabove all to the financial administration, from which,as Jews, they had previously been excluded. Through-out the country, they farmed the taxes. Thus, they in-evitably became identified in the popular mind with theroyal oppression. The occupation was as remunerativeas it was unpopular; and the vast fortunes which wererapidly accumulated added jealousy to the other groundsfor dislike. In some parts of the country, further consid-

ESTABLISHMENT OF INQUISITION


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erations came into question. Thus, in Catalonia, theconversos supported the Crown against the populace,earning thereby a further measure of enmity.

The nobility, on their side, scorned and detested theNew Christians, partly for the reasons given above, butespecially for their enterprise. A hidalgo of ancient lin-eage could not restrain his jealousy when he saw thescion of a family well-known in the judería forcing him-self into high office at court, snapping up all the bestmatrimonial alliances for his daughters, and procuringhigh advancement in the Church for his sons. The prej-udice was most marked in Castile, especially in thesouthern provinces—Toledo, Murcia, and Andalusia, butit was little less in other parts of the Peninsula. Theproblem was almost identical with that of the Jews be-fore 1391, accentuated by a blind resentment of theMarrano hypocrisy and of the golden opportunitieswhich it had furnished.

Political conditions enhanced the difficulties of thesituation. The real ruler of the kingdom of Castile, af-ter King Juan II attained his majority, was his capablebut intensely unpopular favorite, Alvaro de Luna. Seek-ing his instruments wherever was most convenient, thelatter appointed the immensely wealthy Diego AriasDávila,1 a New Christian, as treasurer of the kingdom.Through the latter, other Marranos began to rise to sim-ilar high positions. Thus they began to share in theunpopularity of the Minister. In 1449, de Luna ordereda forced loan of 1,000,000 maravedis to be raised inToledo for the purpose of defending the frontier. Thelevy was regarded with abhorrence, and the odium forit fell upon the Marrano tax-gatherers who attempted


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to collect it. Two Canons, fired with religious ardor,preached resistance. The great bell of the Cathedraltolled to summon the populace. A fierce mob attackedthe house of Alonso de Cota, one of the wealthiest of thetax-farmers, sacked it, and set it on fire. Then, rushingto the Barrio de la Magdalena, where many of the richMarrano merchants lived, they repeated the process.Some of the other party, led by Juan de la Cibdad, sal-lied out fully armed. They were, nevertheless, forcedback, the leaders being killed and their bodies hangedhead downwards from the public gallows—the execu-tion traditionally reserved for Jews. All attempts topunish the city were in vain, and the citizens refused toadmit the troops sent to chastise the malefactors. Anemergency court was organized to discuss whether theconversos could hold any public office. In spite of theoutspoken clerical opposition, a quasi-judicial pro-nouncement known as the Sentencia Estatuto waspassed. The bitterness of its language reveals the extremetension which existed between the two sections of thepopulation. The conversos were declared incapable ofholding office or of bearing testimony against Christians;and twelve judges, notaries, and civic counselors of Jew-ish extraction, as well as one presbyter, were immedi-ately deposed. From Toledo, the disorders spread toCiudad Real. Here, the knights of the Order of Calat-rava headed the Old Christian faction. There was muchfighting in the streets; and for five days the quarter oc-cupied by the conversos was sacked.

Appeal against the Sentencia Estatuto was made tothe Pope, Nicholas V. It was obviously uncanonical, inthat it deprived converts to the faith of the full privi-



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leges of Christians. He condemned it therefore repeat-edly, in Bulls of 1449 and 1451, besides excommunicat-ing those responsible for promulgating it. Its real impor-tance, however, lay in the attitude of mind which it ex-pressed; and this could not be so easily eradicated.

In proceeding against the leaders of the Toledo out-break, Alvaro de Luna had been lukewarm; for he sus-pected that the New Christians were implicated in theintrigues against himself. This was in part true; andsome influential members of the class sat in the courtwhich condemned him to death in 1453. Nevertheless,his fall was generally regarded as a triumph for the oldnobility and a severe blow against the Marranos. In thefollowing year, the king died, and was succeeded by hiselder son, Henry the Impotent (1454–1474). Among thefavorites by whom he allowed himself to be guided inthe early part of his reign were several persons of Jew-ish extraction. His misgovernment led to his temporarydeposition; and his reinstatement on the throne was ef-fected only upon the understanding that he would takeserious action in the problem which was perturbing therealm. His confessor was Fray Alonso de Spina, rec-tor of the University of Salamanca, who (though report-edly of Jewish origin) sedulously endeavored to stir upthe general feeling against the insincere New Chris-tians. His Fortalicium Fidei (Stronghold of the Faith),composed about 1460, raked up all the old chargesagainst the Jews and their baptized brethren, who wereasserted to be the worst of all. Meanwhile, stories oftheir enormities were circulating in increasing numbers.It was alleged, for example, that very many had recent-ly circumcised their children—one friar asserted that


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he had tangible proof of the truth of the story. In onehouse in Medina del Campo, it was said, thirty menwere laid up at one time in consequence of havingundergone the operation.

Toledo continued to remain the hot-bed of distur-bance, in spite of the attempts of the Archbishop toconduct an inquiry into the causes of the dissension andto bring about an understanding. Both sides armedthemselves; Fernando de la Torre, a leader of the NewChristians, boasted that he had four thousand men readyfor any emergency. A conference held in the Cathedralon July 21, 1467, failed to restore peace. Swords weredrawn, and one man was killed. Fierce fighting contin-ued in the streets for nine days. In the end, the conver-sos were worsted, de la Torre and his brother beingcaptured and hanged. Meanwhile, eight streets in themercantile center of the town were laid in ashes. Thevictorious faction removed all of their opponents fromoffice, and reenacted the Sentencia Estatuto of eighteenyears before. Since the pretender to the throne, AlfonsoXII, refused to confirm what they had done, they trans-ferred the allegiance of the city back to Henry the Im-potent, who thus had an additional reason to throw hisinfluence against the conversos.

Similar occurrences took place elsewhere throughoutCastile. In 1468, as the price of the adherence of Ciu-dad Real to his cause, Henry decreed that henceforth noconverso should hold office in the city. At Cordova, thebishop Pedro de Córdova y Solier formed a religiousconfraternity, known as the Christian Brotherhood,membership of which was confined to Old Christians.On March 14, 1473, during the procession which was



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to inaugurate the new body, the cry was raised that theimage of the Virgin had been bespattered with foul waterthrown from a window by a little Marrano girl. Withfierce shouts of Viva la Fé de Dios (“Long live the faithof God”), the mob broke loose and attacked the housesoccupied by the conversos. Alonso Fernandez de Agui-lar, assisted by his brother Gonsalvo (later, as the GranCapitan, to become one of the most distinguished gen-erals of his age), led a body of troops to suppress thedisorder, and killed one of the ringleaders. It happenedthat Alonso’s wife was a New Christian, being a mem-ber of the widely-ramified family of Pacheco. His sternaction thus served to infuriate the mob, which allegedthat he had been bought over by his kinsmen. After ashort interval, rioting broke out again, and the Aguilarswere driven to take refuge in the Alcazar. A general sackfollowed, accompanied by murder and rape, which con-tinued for three days, until no further victims were tobe found. Order was restored only on the understandingthat no converso was in the future to be allowed to livein the city.

From Cordova, the wave of disorder spread throughthe rest of Andalusia. At Jaen, the Constable of Castile,who had endeavored to preserve the peace, was bar-barously murdered as he knelt before the altar, the NewChristians being subsequently plundered and despatchedat leisure. In the following year, there was a similar out-break in the north of the country, centering at Segovia,where the bodies of the victims were piled in heaps inthe streets.2 Of the important towns, only a few escapedwithout disturbances but, except at Almodovar delCampo, no attempt was made to punish the culprits.3


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There was no parallel to this in the whole of Spanishhistory save for the wave of massacres in 1391. Therewas, however, one great difference. On that occasion, ithad been possible for those attacked to save their livesby accepting baptism. Now, no such avenue of escapelay open. In 1474, when Isabella and her consort, Fer-dinand (who was to become king of Aragon five yearslater), ascended the throne, the converso poet, Antón deMontoro, of Cordova, addressed their Majesties a poemin which he painted a terrible picture of the deplorablecondition of his brethren. Obviously the problem wasan acute one. To the devout Christian mind, only onesolution offered itself—the introduction of the Inquisi-tion.

The conception of inflicting punishment for heresywas almost as old as the Church itself. Already in thedays of the Roman emperors Theodosius and Justinian,special tribunals existed for the purpose. Under itspresent title, however, the Inquisition dates back onlyto the period of the Albigensian heresy, which threat-ened the existence of the Church in the thirteenth cen-tury. It was placed at the outset under the control of theDominican friars, who stimulated it to ever greater ef-forts. When the immediate problem was partially solved,attention was turned to Judaizing heretics and to rene-gades who had lapsed again into Judaism after theirconversion; conforming Jews, as such, stood outside thebounds of the Church, and did not come under its scopeunless they were guilty of religious interference withChristians or attack on Christianity. About the year1276, a number of backsliding converts were burned inthe south of France; while another person who had re-



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lapsed into Judaism suffered similarly at Paris on March31, 1310. The institution had penetrated at an early dateinto the kingdom of Aragon, which was always greatlysubject to French influences. Here, in 1233, the Arch-bishop of Tarragona had been empowered to appointInquisitors: and, in 1359, a number of fugitives fromFrance who had relapsed into Judaism were hunteddown. But the Aragonese Inquisition had long beeninactive; while, in Castile, the institution had never hith-erto gained a footing.

Inquisitorial powers for the hunting out and punish-ment of heresy were vested in the bishops, by virtue oftheir office.4 A few such cases occurred in Spain from themiddle of the fifteenth century. However, other problemswere more pressing; the bishops were absorbed in theirmore worldly interests; and the general condition of thecountry was too unruly to allow regular operations to beinitiated. An external impetus was thus essential.

For some time past the idea of introducing an Inqui-sition into the country had been mooted. In 1451, in-deed, Alvaro de Luna had obtained from Pope Nicho-las V a delegation of the Papal inquisitorial powers toa couple of high ecclesiastical dignitaries. In their com-mission it was specifically stated that they might pro-ceed even against bishops: a plain indication that theunpopular minister was mainly desirous of obtainingan additional weapon to use against the converso prel-ates who opposed his policy. However, this license wasnever acted upon. From 1461 onwards, Fray Alonso deSpina, inspired by the Observant Franciscans, began toagitate for the introduction of a special tribunal. Theirextreme violence and lack of moderation defeated the


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attempt. The Geronimite Order, under the influence oftheir saintly General, Fray Alonso de Oropesa, strenu-ously advocated the use of the existing ecclesiasticalmachinery, and the opposing side were for the momentsilenced. Nevertheless, in the Concordat of Medina delCampo in 1464–5 with his revolted nobles, Henry IVenjoined the bishops throughout the land to establish asearching inquiry into the conduct of the New Chris-tians, and to punish rigorously those found guilty ofbacksliding. In consequence of this, there were a fewvictims, at Toledo, Llerena, and elsewhere.

For some time after her accession, the attention of Is-abella the Catholic was taken up by the civil war. Alonsode Spina meanwhile continued his agitation withoutintermission. He now had powerful assistance at Court.Thomás de Torquemada, who had been the queen’s con-fessor while she was still Infanta, was fanatically op-posed to the Marranos, in spite of the fact that he him-self was reputedly of Jewish extraction on one side. Itwas said, indeed, that before her brother’s death he hadmade Isabella take a vow that, should she reach thethrone, she would devote herself to the extirpation ofheresy. He was outdone in virulence by Fray Alonso deHojeda, Prior of the Dominican Convent of S. Pablo atSeville, who lost no opportunity of urging extreme meas-ures against the enemies of the true faith. The rulingPope, Sixtus IV, was no less eager, and hopefully invest-ed his Legate to Castile with full Inquisitorial powers.The sovereigns would not permit any outside interfer-ence in the affairs of their country, and the Papal attemptended in failure. An inquiry which was instituted inSeville revealed nevertheless that there were good



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grounds for suspecting the orthodoxy of a great part ofthe population of Andalusia, and, indeed, of Castile asa whole.

In 1477, the civil war came to an end. With the res-toration of peace, Isabella came to Seville, remainingthere for over a year. The sight of the conversos whothronged the court, monopolizing many of the highestoffices, stimulated Hojeda to fresh efforts. For a longtime he had no success; but a chance episode strength-ened his case. On the night of Wednesday, March 18,1478, a number of Jews and Marranos were surprisedtogether, at some mysterious celebration, by a youngcavalier who had penetrated into the Judería for thepurpose of carrying on an intrigue with a fair Jewesswho had taken his fancy. As a matter of fact, it was theeve of Passover, and it is obvious that they had cometogether simply for the purpose of the Seder celebration.By an unfortunate but by no means uncommon coinci-dence, it happened to be Holy Week. Under the circum-stances, no explanation commended itself to the gener-al mind except that these miscreants had assembled, atthe season of the Passion of Jesus, in order to blasphemethe Christian religion. When the news reached the earsof the Prior of S. Pablo, he immediately hastened toCourt and laid the evidence before the sovereigns. This,according to report, finally decided them. The Spanishambassadors to the Holy See were immediately instruct-ed to obtain a Bull authorizing the establishment of anInquisition. Sixtus hesitated: prompted not so much byhumanity, as by the desire to keep the new body underhis own control. Ultimately, however, he complied. OnNovember 1, 1478, a Bull was issued empowering the


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Spanish sovereigns to appoint three bishops or othersuitable persons above the age of forty, whom they mightremove or replace at will, with complete jurisdiction overheretics and their accomplices. In this simple, unosten-tatious way, the Spanish Inquisition was launched on itscareer of blood.

Even now, matters did not move too rapidly. It wasonly on September 17, 1480, that commissions were is-sued to Miguel de Morillo, Master of Theology, and Juande San Martin, Bachelor of Theology, both members ofthe Dominican Order, with instructions to begin theiractivities forthwith. On October 9, a royal order waspublished, securing them free transport and provisionson their way to Seville, where they were to begin oper-ations. On their arrival in the city, on Christmas day,they were received at the door of the Chapter House bythe municipal council, who conducted them to the CityHall. A solemn procession was arranged for the follow-ing Sunday so as to inaugurate their activities with duepomp.

The recent developments had come as a great blowto the conversos of Seville, who had felt convinced thatthey would be able to avert the danger which threatened.The city was one of the principal New Christian cent-ers. No serious disturbances had taken place there inrecent years: and Marranos played an extremely prom-inent part in every aspect of local life. They determinedtherefore to resist with all their might. The lead amongstthem was taken by Diego de Susan, an immenselywealthy New Christian merchant, whose fortune wassaid to amount to ten millions of maravedis. He was oneof the eight persons who had supported the canopy a



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couple of years before on the occasion of the baptism ofthe Infant Juan. With him were associated numerousother influential merchants, including several membersof the Town Council. The conspirators held a meetingone night in San Salvador; this was the parish churchof the part of the city most favored by the Marranos,many of them serving on its governing body. A coupleof prominent personalities from the neighboring citiesof Utrera and Carmona were also summoned to attend.An account of the impassioned harangue which wasdelivered by one of the leaders has come down to us.“How can they come against us?” he cried. “We are theprincipal members of the city, and well liked by thepeople. Let us assemble our men. If they come to takeus, we will set the city in a turmoil, with our followersand our friends.” As his voice died away, an old manwho had been asked to attend was heard to mutter de-spairingly out of the shadows: “By my life, to assemblemen and to be prepared seems good to me. But thehearts, where are they? Find me the hearts!”

In spite of this warning, the conspiracy persisted.Each man present promised money, arms, or men. PedroFernandez Benedeva, major-domo of the Church, whoseson was a canon, brought together weapons in hishouse to arm one hundred men. The plotters onlyawaited the conclusion of their preparations to strikethe blow.

Diego de Susan had a daughter, nicknamed La Su-sanna, whose surprising beauty had earned her the nameLa Hermosa Hembre.5 She was carrying on an intriguewith a Christian caballero, to whom in a moment ofweakness she disclosed the secret. Through his instru-


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mentality, it was revealed to the Inquisitors. Nothingcould have served their turn better, as all the principalMarranos of the region were placed in their power at asingle stroke. A series of arrests was carried out. Manyof the richest and most honorable citizens of Seville,including several magistrates and other civic dignitar-ies, were involved. They were hurriedly tried and con-demned to death. The first-fruits were seen on Febru-ary 6, 1481, when the first Act of Faith6 was held, sixmen and women being burned alive. The sermon waspreached by Fray Alonso de Hojeda, who was thusenabled to see the triumphant results of the agitationwhich he had been carrying on for so many years. Thespectacle was repeated a little later. Hojeda was not,however, privileged to witness it, since the pestilencewhich was to carry away fifteen thousand of the peopleof Seville had just begun, he himself being one of itsearliest victims.

Amongst the three who suffered on the second occa-sion was Diego de Susan himself. He went to the stakequite calm and unmoved. The halter fastened round hisneck trailed uncomfortably in the mud. He turned to abystander. “Be so good as to lift up the end of my scarf,”he said courteously. As though to show that the workthus begun was to be permanent, a quemadero, or burn-ing place, was constructed in the Campo de Tablada justoutside the city walls. At the four corners were erectedfigures of the four prophets, in plaster of Paris. The costof this embellishment was defrayed by a burgher namedMeza, whose zeal won him the lucrative position of re-ceiver of the property confiscated by the Holy Office.He was however himself subsequently discovered to be



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a Judaizer, and was burned on the spot which he hadhelped to adorn.

La Hermosa Hembre, left destitute on her fathersdeath, was befriended by Rainoldo Romero, Bishop ofTiberias, who procured her admission into a convent.The life was naturally irksome to her and she soon es-caped. She adopted a life of shame and died in want,leaving directions that her skull should be placed as awarning over the door of the house which had been thescene of her disorderly life, in what was subsequentlyknown as the Calle de la Muerte (Street of Death).7 Hereit remained until the building was pulled down duringthe course of structural alterations in the first half of thenineteenth century; and it was said that strange cries ofgrief and distress were sometimes heard to issue fromthe fleshless, grinning jaws.

Meanwhile, the activities of the Inquisition had beenextending. On the first news of its establishment, manyMarranos had fled to the surrounding territories. Per-emptory demands were addressed to the local nobility,ordering them to give up the fugitives. The terror whichthe tribunal had excited was such that they immediate-ly complied. From the Marquisate of Cadiz alone, eightthousand persons were sent back. So rapidly did thenumber of prisoners at Seville grow that the Inquisitorswere forced to remove their headquarters from the Con-vent of S. Pablo, where they had first established them-selves, to the Castle of Triana, just outside the city, thedungeons of which soon became overcrowded. Conver-sos of blameless reputation were not allowed to leave thecity even during the time of plague save on conditionthat they left their property behind.


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The Inquisitors themselves took up their residenceat Aracena, where they managed to find plenty to do;but as soon as the pestilence showed signs of dimin-ishing, they returned to the city. Autos-de-fè continuedwithout intermission, a month seldom elapsing in whichnone was held. Property to an immense value was con-fiscated, most of the proceeds going to the Crown. Eventhe dead were not spared, their bones being exhumedand burned after a mock trial. This was not altogeth-er a pointless formality, since the condemnation auto-matically led to confiscation. By November 4, no lessthan 298 persons had been burned, while 98 had beencondemned to perpetual imprisonment. Vast numbersof others, who came forward spontaneously to confesstheir guilt on the understanding that they would bedealt with mercifully, were made to parade as penitents.At one of these solemnities, fully fifteen hundred menand women were exhibited. The severity displayed wasso extreme that the conversos appealed to the Pope,who, in January 1482, wrote to the Spanish sovereignsexpressing his disapproval of the methods employed.A list was drawn up and circulated of thirty-seven signs(most of them grotesque) by which a Judaizer could berecognized; from changing linen on the Sabbath towashing the hands before prayer, and from calling chil-dren by Old Testament names to turning the face tothe wall at the moment of death. The promise of a freepardon in return for full confession within a stipulat-ed time encouraged wholesale denunciations, andplaced thousands more in the power of the dreadedTribunal. The aid of the Jews was called in to help inthe work, their rabbis being compelled to enjoin their



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congregations, under pain of excommunication, to re-veal everything in their knowledge concerning Judaiz-ers. Judah ibn Verga, the scholarly head of the com-munity of Seville, who had encouraged many Marranosto revert to their ancestral rites, anticipated arrest bya timely flight to Lisbon. Even thither, the long armof the Inquisition stretched out after him, and he ulti-mately died in prison as a result of the tortures whichhe underwent.8

It had soon become manifest that the work was toogreat for the Tribunal at Seville to cope with alone. Bya papal brief of February 11, 1482, seven other Inquisi-tors were nominated—amongst them Thomás deTorquemada, the Queen’s fanatical confessor. Otherappointments followed at intervals. Additional tribunalswere speedily organized at Jaen, Ciudad Real, Cordo-va, and probably also at Segovia. At Cordova, amongthe victims of the earliest auto-de-fé was the mistress ofthe Treasurer of the Cathedral, who was himself burnedin the following year. The tribunal of Ciudad Real wasintended for the province of Toledo. In its first auto, onFebruary 6, 1484, four persons figured; at the second,on the 23rd and 24th of the same month, thirty men andwomen were burned alive, as well as the bones or effi-gies of forty more who had anticipated proceedings bydeath or flight. In its two years of existence, the Tribu-nal burned fifty-two obstinate heretics and condemned220 fugitives, as well as sentencing 183 persons to per-form public penance.

In 1485, the seat of this Tribunal was transferred toToledo. The conversos of that city, who were both nu-merous and wealthy, followed the example of those of


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Seville, and formed a plot to prevent it from enteringinto its functions. It was their intention to raise a tumultduring the procession of Corpus Christi (June 2), in thehopes of despatching the Inquisitors during the disor-der. Subsequently, they proposed to seize the city gatesand the tower of the Cathedral, and to hold the placeagainst the Crown. As at Seville, however, the plot wasbetrayed. On February 12, 1486, the first auto was held.Seven hundred and fifty persons of both sexes figuredin it. They were compelled to march through the cityin procession, bareheaded and barefoot, carrying un-lighted tapers and surrounded by a howling mob, whichhad streamed in from the neighboring country-side towitness the spectacle. At the doorway of the sacred ed-ifice, they were marked on the forehead with the sym-bol of the Christian faith, with the words:

“Receive the sign of the Cross which ye have deniedand lost.” By the sentence which was promulgated overeach individual before the High Altar, they were finedone-fifth of their property for the war with the Moors,subjected to a perpetual incapacity to hold honorableoffice or to wear other than the coarsest garments, andwere required to march in procession on six Fridays insuccession, flagellating themselves with hempen cords.Any disobedience to these injunctions would be treatedand punished as a relapse into heresy. At the secondauto, 900 penitents appeared; at the third, a further 750.Before the year had elapsed, the total approached fivethousand. Besides those who were thus treated withrelative leniency, large numbers were burned, as manyas fifty persons sometimes on one day. Among the vic-tims were several friars and ecclesiastical dignitaries,



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who had hitherto lived in an odor of unblemished sanc-tity.

In 1483, a supreme council was established to coordinatethe work of the various local tribunals of Castile and Leon,under the title Consejo de la Suprema y General Inqui-sición (Counsel of the Supreme and General Inquisition).Thomás de Torquemada, one of the seven Inquisitors des-ignated in the previous year, was appointed at its head. OnOctober 17, 1483, the Pope issued a brief extending hisauthority also over the kingdom of Aragon, with Catalo-nia and Valencia. Thus, the Spanish Inquisition becameunified under one central control.

Under Torquemada’s direction, activities in Castilebecame more and more severe. Ultimately he went sofar as to take proceedings on a charge of protecting theirkinsfolk against two Bishops of Jewish descent: the ven-erable Juan Arias Dávila, Bishop of Segovia, son of theformer treasurer of the Kingdom, who had given proofof his zeal for the faith by the ferocity with which hehad persecuted the Jews of his diocese; and Pedro deAranda, Bishop of Calahorra, President of the Councilof Castile.9 Both were sent to Rome for trial. The formerdied, apparently before sentence could be promulgated;the latter was deposed and degraded from orders, dy-ing in prison in the Castle of St. Angelo. It does notappear that in either case the accusations were basedupon anything more than personal enmity.

In the kingdom of Aragon, notwithstanding the factthat the Inquisition had already been at work in thethirteenth century, there was great resistance to the in-troduction of the institution on the Castilian model.Nevertheless, after violent debates, the Cortes which had


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assembled at Tarazona gave its assent on April 14, 1484.Activities were not long in commencing; and furthertribunals were set up in Valencia and Saragossa in thecourse of the same year. The New Christians of Aragonwere, however, wealthy, influential and well-organized,and determined to take matters into their own hands.Shortly after the first auto held at Saragossa, on May10, 1484, the Inquisitor Gaspar Juglar was found dead.It was confidently asserted that he had been poisoned;but so unostentatious a mode of satisfying their venge-ance does not seem in accordance with the bellicose spiritof the conversos. Their attention was concentrated onPedro Arbues, Canon of the Cathedral of Saragossa, whowas the heart and soul of the Tribunal. A conspiracy wasformed against him which involved many of the mostprominent persons in Aragon: Sancho de Paternoy, themestre racional at court; Gabriel Sanchez, the HighTreasurer of the kingdom; Francisco de Santa Fé, as-sessor to the Governor of Aragon and son of the notori-ous conversionist, Gerónimo de Santa Fé. It is obviousthat amongst these were included some whose sympa-thy with Judaism must have been of a feeble nature, butwho joined in the conspiracy because they knew of thedanger which the introduction of the Inquisition in-volved to all those of Jewish origin, especially if theywere possessed of any wealth. Among them they raiseda fund and engaged a couple of bravos to assist in car-rying out the desperate deed. On the night of Septem-ber 15, 1485, while Arbues was kneeling in prayer in theCathedral, between the choir and the High Altar, he wasattacked. Notwithstanding the armor which he wore, inanticipation of some such event, he was mortally wound-



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ed. Two days later, he died. He was of course reveredas a saint. Miracles were reported to be effected by hisrelics. A splendid tomb was erected over his body. Fi-nally, in 1867, he was formally canonized by the HolySee.

The crime was tactically as well as morally a blun-der. When the news of the attack became known in thecity, excited crowds gathered together; and only the ef-forts of the Archbishop averted a murderous attack uponthe Jews and conversos. The Inquisition soon set aboutexacting a bloody vengeance. The actual assassins wereput to death with a refinement of cruelty. Their accom-plices figured in a succession of autos. The total numberof persons who suffered for complicity has been reck-oned at as many as two hundred, though the figure ispossibly exaggerated. Francisco de Santa Fe anticipatedhis sentence by suicide. Sancho de Paternoy, after longtortures, was condemned to perpetual imprisonment;though, in the end, his wealth and influence secured hisrelease and reinstatement. Luis de Santángel, the escrib-ano de racion (Secretary of the Household), escaped; buthis cousin and namesake, who had been one of the chiefconspirators, was beheaded in the market-place, his headbeing set on a pole and his body burned; he had stoodin high favor at Court, being knighted by Juan II forservices in battle. Numbers of others fled to France, andwere burned in effigy. Alfonso de la Caballeria, Vice-Chancellor of the kingdom, who had been implicated inthe conspiracy against Arbues, appealed to Rome, andwas able to have his orthodoxy confirmed. He was how-ever unable to prevent the exhumation and burning ofthe bones of his grandmother, or his wife’s appearance


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as a penitent in an auto-de-fé. Thus, when his son sub-sequently married King Ferdinand’s granddaughter, theblood of the royal house of Aragon mingled with thatof condemned heretics.

In the following years, the tribunal of Saragossa con-tinued its activity. A large number of the conversos ofthe city were virtually in its hands, to condemn when itpleased. The names of the great families of Santángeland Sánchez appear with monotonous regularity in itsrecords. Even the court historian, Micer Gonzalo deSanta Maria, fell into its clutches, and died in prison,after three trials. Within fifteen years, over fifty autoswere held in the city. In 1488, in spite of the generalopposition, activities began in Barcelona, where the tri-bunal for Catalonia had been set up at the close of theprevious year. Among the earliest victims was anothermember of the family of Gerónimo de Santa Fé. In thefollowing year, a tribunal for the Balearic Islands wasestablished in Majorca.

Professing Jews meanwhile had continued to live inSpain without serious disturbance. Compared with theirancestors of a century before, they were only a miserableremnant; decimated by massacre and conversion, andbroken down by the humiliating legislation which wasbeing enforced against them with ever increasing severi-ty. The recent developments had not affected them to anygreat extent. So long as they did not meddle in mattersof faith, the Inquisition could not interfere with them, asbeing infidels outside the Church, and not heretics with-in it. The position was however hopelessly illogical. AMarrano, Christian only in name, would be burned alivefor performing in secret only a tithe of what his uncon-



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verted brethren were performing every day in public withimpunity. It was hopeless to attempt to extirpate theJudaizing heresy from the land while Jews were left in itto teach their kinsmen, by precept and by example, thepractices of their ancestral religion. A trumped-up storyof the martyrdom at Avila, for ritual purposes, of anunnamed child from La Guardia, by Jews and conversosacting in conjunction, was taken as proof of the complicitybetween the two elements. Recent research has estab-lished the fact that the alleged victim never existed out-side the frenzied imagination of a few fanatical clerics.Nevertheless, the Inquisition was stimulated to fresh ef-forts; and, within eight years, seventy persons suffered onthe charge. The episode, wholly fictitious though its ba-sis was, provided a fresh weapon against the Jews, whichTorquemada did not scruple to use.

The spiritual problem was intensified by other con-siderations. Spain, after many long centuries of dis-ruption, was at last realizing its national unity. It wasinevitable that it should begin to strain, more and more,against the alien element which the Jews presumablyconstituted. The religious zeal, which expressed theSpanish national genius, was at its acme. This resultedin 1492 in the capture of Granada and the final com-pletion of the work of reconquest which had lasted forseven centuries. There was now not the slightest furtherreason why the sympathies of the Jewish minority needbe conciliated for support against the Moslems. More-over, the growing degradation and impoverishment ofthe Jews had rendered nugatory the material advantageswhich their presence had formerly conferred upon theState. They could be dispensed with without misgiving


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and without loss. Accordingly, on March 30, 1492, in thecaptured Alhambra, the Spanish sovereigns decreed theexpulsion of the Jews from all their dominions—thecrowning disaster in the history of the Jews in medie-val Europe. Four months later, by July 31, they had alldeparted. The history of the Marranos, thus left in iso-lation, enters upon a new phase.



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CHAPTER III

THE GENERAL CONVERSION IN PORTUGAL

THE Jewish exiles who were driven out of Spain in1492 were scattered to every corner of the Mediterra-nean world. Large numbers went overseas to Italy andto the Moslem countries, where they could count at leaston tolerance. It was thus that the great communities ofthe old Turkish Empire, which even today still speak theCastilian of their fathers, were formed. But the largestsingle body unenterprisingly took the obvious course andcrossed the frontier into Portugal. Jews had been settledhere ever since the birth of the monarchy and generallyhad been well-treated. The wave of massacres of 1391had not affected them; and, save for an isolated attackupon the community of Lisbon in 1449, the reactionwhich had prevailed in the rest of the Peninsula duringthe fifteenth century had left the country virtually un-touched. It offered itself therefore as the natural placeof refuge for the less adventurous. Neither the nativeJews on the one hand nor the counselors of state on theother were anxious to receive the influx. However, theruling monarch, João II, was more friendly; though hewas plainly actuated by anticipation of profit rather thanby a sense of humanity. Thirty important families, head-ed by Rabbi Isaac Aboab, the last Sage of Castile, werepermitted to establish themselves at Oporto. Another sixhundred wealthy householders, who could afford to paya tax of one hundred cruzados apiece, were allowed to


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settle in other parts of the country. Besides these, anumber of craftsmen, who might be of assistance in thepreparations for the forthcoming African campaign,were allowed to take up their residence on the paymentof a nominal sum.

Only these were to be allowed to settle permanently.Others might enter the country on the payment of a poll-tax of eight cruzados for each adult, on the under-standing that they would not remain for longer thaneight months. Within this period the king bound him-self to find shipping for their transport wherever theydesired. The number of those who crossed the frontierunder this agreement is reckoned to have amounted tonearly one hundred thousand souls.

The conditions upon which they entered the countrywere not fulfilled. Shipping was provided only tardily;and those who ventured on board were treated with thegreatest cruelty, being disembarked whether they desiredit or no at the nearest point in Africa. All those whoremained behind, through no fault of their own, afterthe prescribed period had lapsed were declared to haveforfeited their liberty, and were sold as slaves. A largenumber of children were ruthlessly torn from their par-ents’ arms, seven hundred being sent to populate theinsalubrious island of St. Thomé, off the African coast,1

where the vast majority inevitably perished.In the midst of this, João II died. He was succeeded

by his cousin, Manoel “the Fortunate” (1495–1521). Thelatter, on his accession, seemed to deserve the title whichposterity bestowed upon him. Recognizing that thoseJews who had not left the realm in time were guiltless,he restored them their liberty; and he even went so far

GENERAL CONVERSION IN PORTUGAL


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as to refuse the gift which was offered to him by thecommunities of the kingdom in gratitude for his gener-ous action. A contemporary authority indicates that itwas hoped to win them over to Christianity by this dis-play of magnanimity. Possibly this was the case; for,shortly afterwards, the young king showed himself in avery different light. Ferdinand and Isabella, who hadunited Castile and Aragon by marriage, had a daugh-ter, Isabella. If she became Manoel’s wife, there was aprospect that their children would ultimately rule overthe whole of the Peninsula. However, the Catholic sov-ereigns, who resented unreasoningly the reception of theSpanish refugees elsewhere, would consent to the matchonly on condition that the smaller country was “puri-fied” of the Jews as their own dominions had been. Thematter was brought up before the Great Council of therealm. Opinions were varied, some members warning theking against strengthening his African enemies by theexpulsion of this thrifty and diligent section of the pop-ulation. It was the Infanta herself who decided matters,writing to Manoel that she would not enter his countryuntil it was cleansed of the presence of all infidels. Thiswas decisive. On November 30, 1496, the marriage trea-ty was signed. Less than a week later, on December 5,there was issued from Muje a royal decree banishing theJews and Moslems from the country. They were giventen complete months to wind up their affairs. After thelapse of this period, at the end of October 1497, nonewas to remain.

Hardly was the ink dry on this edict, when Manoelbegan to take the other side of the question into con-sideration. His psychology was curious and warped,


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but, in its way, by no means inconsistent. His previousfriendliness towards the Jews had been due to his rec-ognition of their value as citizens. He was naturallyunwilling to lose their services, though, as long as theyremained faithful to their ancestral religion, he could nolonger allow them to remain in the realm. Moreover, heappears to have been genuinely anxious to save theirsouls, whether they were willing or no. The conclusionwas obvious. For his own sake, for the sake of his realm,and for the sake of the Jews themselves, they must bedriven to accept the Christian faith. If only they did this,the obvious disadvantages of their imminent departurefrom the country—political, financial, economic—wouldall be obviated: and into the bargain they would be as-sured of eternal felicity.

He struck first at the parents through the children: astep advised by an apostate, Levi ben Shem-tob, whodisplayed in this foul act of treachery perfect familiari-ty with the Jewish mentality. The Council of State,assembled at Estremoz, disapproved of the plan; espe-cially the clerical party, led by the noble FernandoCoutinho, subsequently Bishop of Silves, who stoutlymaintained that the step meditated was uncanonical.The king, more fanatical than the Church, was un-moved, retorting that the action he proposed was for thesake of religion, and that he did not trouble about thelaw. On Friday, March 19, 1497, orders were issuedthroughout the country for all children between the agesof four and fourteen years to be presented for baptismon the following Sunday. That day, as it happened, wasthe beginning of the feast of Passover—the birthday ofHebrew freedom! At the appointed time, those children



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who were not presented voluntarily were seized by theofficials and forced to the font. Scenes of indescribablehorror were witnessed as they were torn away by theroyal bailiffs. The latter did not obey their instructionstoo closely, frequently seizing young people of both sexesup to the age of twenty. In many cases, parents smoth-ered their offspring in their farewell embrace. In others,they threw them into wells in order to save them fromthe disgrace of apostasy, and then killed themselves.Sometimes, even old men were dragged to the churchesand forcibly baptized by over-zealous fanatics, who wereunder the impression that a general conversion of all theJews had been ordered. The desired effect of forcing theparents to accompany their children into baptism rath-er than lose them for good was achieved only on excep-tionally rare occasions. In all other cases, the unwillingneophytes, some mere babies, were distributed through-out the country, as far as possible from home, to bebrought up in Christian surroundings.

No considerations of rank availed. Judah Abrabanel,one of the more eminent physicians of his age, whosefather was a familiar figure in half the courts of south-ern Europe, lost his twelve-year-old son, whom he com-memorated in a touching Hebrew elegy. Isaac ben Ab-raham ibn Zachin, a learned refugee from Spain, killedhimself and his children “for the sanctification of theName.” Contemporary opinion was not entirely callous.Some kind-hearted Christians received the children oftheir Jewish neighbors into their own homes, in orderto help them to escape.

More than thirty years later, the terrible scenes stilllived in the mind of the old Bishop Coutinho. “I saw


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many persons dragged by the hair to the font,” he wrote.“Sometimes, I saw a father, his head covered in sign ofgrief and pain, lead his son to the font, protesting andcalling God to witness that they wished to die togetherin the law of Moses. Yet more terrible things that weredone with them did I witness, with my own eyes.” Thechildren of the Moslems, who were included in the edictof expulsion, were untouched. The authorities cynical-ly confessed the reason. It was that there were lands inwhich the Crescent was supreme, and in which repris-als might be carried out!

Meanwhile, the final date fixed for the departure ofthe Jews from the country approached. Originally, threeports of embarkation had been assigned—Lisbon, Al-garve, and Oporto. After some vacillation, the kingchanged his mind and announced that all were to passthrough the capital. The Jews assembled there from allparts of the country, to the number of some 20,000 souls.On their arrival here, they were herded successively intothe palace known as Os Estãos, which was generallyutilized for the reception of foreign ambassadors.2 Therethey were kept cooped up in vast numbers, without foodor drink, in hopes that the deprivation would open theireyes to the true faith. Periodical visits were paid to themby the Queen’s apostate physician, Master Nicholas, andhis brother, Dom Pedro de Castro, a prominent ecclesi-astic, who endeavored to persuade them to adopt Chris-tianity. Under these circumstances, many accepted bap-tism. Those who still refused were kept closely guardeduntil the time-limit set for their departure from the coun-try had elapsed. Then they were informed that by theirdisobedience they had forfeited their liberty, and that in



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consequence they were now the King’s slaves. By thismeans, the resistance of the majority was broken down,and they went in droves to the churches for baptism.Others were dragged to the font by brute force. Thedefiant attitude of some won them the martyrdom theycraved. The rest, still protesting, had holy water sprin-kled over them and were declared to be Christians. Onlya few, led by Simon Maimi, the last Arrabi-Mor, or ChiefRabbi of Portugal, kept up open opposition. In order toinduce these to set an example to the rest, they were halfwalled-up in a dungeon. They still refused to yield; andafter a week Maimi died in consequence of his suffer-ings. Some of the recent converts, at the peril of theirlives, took the body to the Jewish burial-ground for in-terment. Two more of his companions similarly suc-cumbed; the rest, not more than seven or eight in all,were transported to Africa. This pathetic relic was allthat was left of the ancient and once renowned Portu-guese Jewry.

The expulsion from Portugal is thus, as a matter offact, a misnomer. The number of those who were ableto emigrate was so exiguous as to be negligible. Whatput an end to the residence of the Jews in the countrywas a General Conversion of unexampled comprehen-siveness, knowing almost no exceptions and carried outby means of an unbridled exercise of force.

There was thus a vast difference between the massconversions in Spain and in Portugal. In the formercountry, if was only the weaker who had yielded— some-times, indeed, in order to save their lives, but frequentlyeven when immediate danger was absent. In the lattercase, matters were entirely dissimilar. Those who sub-


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mitted to baptism with any show of willingness, how-ever remote, were few in the extreme. In most instances,they were not even afforded the alternative of martyr-dom. They were literally forced to the font and, after themerest parody of the baptismal ceremony, were declaredto be Christians. Those who were thus treated comprisedall elements in the Jewish population—the rich as wellas the poor, the learned, the pious, the indifferent. In-cluded with them moreover were many of the recentexiles from Castile, amongst whom were some of thenoblest and most stalwart scions of Spanish Jewry. Thus,even the family of the last Sage of Castile, who had diedbut a few months after he had reached Oporto, wereforced to give in; though their descendants afterwardsreturned to great prominence in Jewish life. Eminentscholars and rabbis, like Solomon ibn Verga, the chron-icler, or Levi ben Habib, subsequently spiritual leaderof the community of Jerusalem, were among those whowere compelled by sheer force to accept Catholicism. Itwas thus inevitable that the Portuguese New Christianswere stauncher than those of Spain. The latter all butdied out in the course of the sixteenth century. Theformer displayed more vitality, showing themselves ableto maintain their resistance in spite of centuries of per-secution and (as we shall see) providing the Inquisitionof Spain with an ample field of activity long after thenative Judaizers had been exterminated.

There was a further factor, which made for the greatertenacity of Marranism in Portugal. In Spain, from themoment of the expulsion of the Jews in 1492 and theviolent breach of the direct Jewish tradition in the coun-try, the Inquisition had existed, grimly determined to do



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its utmost to stamp out all traces of Judaizing. Its taskwas relatively simple. In Portugal, in this respect, con-ditions were entirely different. There, no Inquisitionexisted until nearly half a century after the Edict ofExpulsion. In the intervening period, the emigration ofNew Christians was generally forbidden; while on theother hand some of the more steadfast of the SpanishJudaizers crossed the frontier into the land of greatersecurity. During this period, the Portuguese Marranoshad ample opportunity to accommodate themselves tothe possibilities of crypto-Judaism, that acquired in theprocess a strength and tenacity which, in the event,proved almost invincible.

It had been impossible to expect immediate religiousconformity from the bewildered Portuguese conversos,who had suddenly been declared to be Christians butwere absolutely ignorant of the religion to which they nowofficially belonged. Though they were driven to thechurches at regular intervals, fathers and sons together,in order to have the rudiments of Catholicism flogged intothem, it was obvious that their knowledge of their newfaith must remain slight for a considerable period to come.Pope Alexander VI, appealed to for guidance, fully rec-ognized the fact, and counseled moderation. Immediatelyafter the earliest baptisms, on May 30, 1497, the king hadpublished a rescript promising that for a period of twen-ty years to come the New Christians should enjoy immu-nity from molestation for offences arising out of mattersof Faith. After this period had elapsed, they were to besubjected to ordinary civil procedure only, no ecclesias-tical tribunal being allowed to act against them. A gen-eral amnesty was meanwhile granted for all offences in


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religious matters of which they might have been guiltyin the past. Above all, it was promised that at no timewould there be any legislation against the New Chris-tians as a separate race.

These regulations guaranteed the safety of the Portu-guese Marranos for the moment. Meanwhile, it was in-evitable that they should have continued to practiceJudaism all but in public. Their physicians were evenauthorized to continue to possess Hebrew books forprofessional guidance, though the retention of otherJewish literature was forbidden. The more stalwartseized any opportunity of fleeing overseas to some placewhere they might practice their ancestral religion inpeace. Large numbers made their way to Italy, Africa,and Turkey. To this period, probably, belongs the foun-dation of the “Portuguese” communities at Salonica,Smyrna, and elsewhere in the Levant. It soon becameobvious that the royal policy would be circumvented,and that those who had been prevented from leavingthe country as Jews would do so as Christians, revert-ing to the faith of their fathers as soon as they crossedthe seas. There was only one logical course. On April20, 1499, Manoel published a decree forbidding anyNew Christian to leave the country without special roy-al license. This was reinforced by a further provisionforbidding the ordinary population to facilitate theirflight by purchasing from them land or bills of ex-change. This enactment continued to be enforced, withbrief intermissions, through a large part of the sixteenthcentury. Thus, crypto-Judaism in the country was fur-ther strengthened. The New Christians were obliged toremain against their will in the midst of an alien popu-



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lation which, already filled with hatred and contempt,regarded their successes with jealousy and was constant-ly incited against them from the pulpit by a fanaticalclergy.

In 1503 the harvest was scanty. In the following win-ter famine threatened the country; and the populace, look-ing about for a scapegoat, found it in the unfortunateMarranos, whose deceitful way of life had plainly arousedthe divine anger. On Whit-Sunday, a quarrel betweensome New Christians and an insulting band of youths inthe Rua Nova, in Lisbon, led to a popular outbreak whichwas suppressed only with difficulty. In the following April,there were similar disorders in Evora, where the build-ing which had previously served, as a synagogue waspulled down by the mob. All this led up to the terriblescenes which took place at Lisbon early in 1506.

On the night of April 7, a number of New Christianswere surprised celebrating the Passover together. Theywere arrested, but were released after only two days’imprisonment. This display of mildness enraged thepopulace. A few days later, on April 19, mass was cele-brated in the Jesus Chapel of the Church of S. Domin-go, to implore for cessation of the pestilence which hadrecently begun to spread. A crucifix which stood at thealtar was observed to be unusually luminous. Thosepresent, wrought up to a high pitch of religious enthu-siasm, asserted that the phenomenon was caused by amiracle. A New Christian among them tactlesslylaughed at the idea, saying that nothing more extra-ordinary was in question than the normal refraction oflight. His scepticism was taken as being equivalent toblasphemy. He was dragged out of the church and


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butchered, his body being dragged to the principalsquare (the Rocio) where it was burned. Attention wasthen turned to his brethren in disbelief. Two Domini-can friars—one of them an Aragonese—paraded throughthe streets with an uplifted crucifix, crying Heresia, andsummoning the people to avenge themselves on the en-emies of the faith. The mob was joined by German,Dutch, and French sailors whose ships were lying in theharbor. A terrible massacre began. On the first day, overfive hundred New Christians were murdered. Babes inthe cradle were not spared. Women seeking refuge in thechurches were dragged out and put to death, their bod-ies being committed to the flames. On the next day, thescenes were repeated. One of the last victims was thetax-farmer João Rodriguez Mascarenhas, the richest andmost hated man in Lisbon, who was done to death inthe Rua Nova amid the rejoicing of the mob, his housebeing subsequently demolished. Women showed them-selves foremost amongst the rioters.

A German eye-witness—a Christian—gives a graph-ic description of the horrors which took place. “OnMonday, I saw things that I would certainly not havebelieved had they been reported or written, or unlessI had witnessed them myself. Women with child wereflung from the windows and caught on spears by thosestanding underneath, their offspring being hurled away.The peasantry followed the example of the towns-people. Many women and girls were ravished in thefanatical pursuit. The number of New Christians slainis estimated at between 2,000 and 4,000 souls.” Isaacibn Farraj, a Hebrew writer, provides a gruesome side-light. He managed to remove from the ashes part of the



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burned skull of one of his dearest friends, which he wassubsequently able to bury in the Jewish cemetery atValona.

When the news reached the king, at Aviz, he wasenraged. The disorders were sharply punished. Thetwo friars who had instigated them were degraded,and then garroted and burned. Another twenty orthirty persons suffered capital punishment. The citytemporarily lost its proud title, “Noble and AlwaysLoyal,” and its inhabitants were fined one-fifth of theirproperty, as well as deprived of the right of electingtheir Town Councilors. Above all, the Matonça dosChristãos-Novos, or “Massacre of the New Christians,”as it was called, had displayed the utter inadequacy ofthe policy of forcible assimilation, which had been hith-erto followed. Early in the following year (March 1,1507), a royal edict restored to the New Christians theright of removing from the country like any other sec-tion of the population, at the same time confirming theimmunities from penal procedure and special legisla-tion granted ten years previously. In 1512, these wererenewed for a further period of twenty years, duringwhich no prosecution on the grounds of heresy mightbe allowed. The tide of emigration which consequent-ly set in was however so great that in 1521 freedom ofmovement was again restricted.

This more moderate policy, which might in the endhave resulted in assimilating the Marranos, continuedto be followed up to the period of King Manoel’s deathin 1521. His son and successor, João III, was guided inthe early years of his reign by his fathers advisers. Therewas accordingly no drastic change in his attitude; though


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in 1524 a secret inquiry amongst the parish priests con-firmed the fact that the New Christians were still Jewsin everything but name. In the following year, the youngking married Catalina, a granddaughter of Ferdinandand Isabella and the sister of the Emperor Charles V, astrong-minded woman, with all the determination aswell as the religious zeal characteristic of her family. Shewas the only Queen of Portugal ever to have a seat uponthe Council of State, where she was thus able to bringdecisive influence to bear. To one familiar with the stateof affairs in Spain, only one satisfactory solution couldbe applied to the religious problems of Portugal: theintroduction of an Inquisition on the Spanish model tocleanse the realm of heresy.

The idea was not a new one. Notwithstanding hisrepeated promise not to allow any ecclesiastical tribu-nal to take proceedings against them, Manoel had ap-plied secretly to Rome in 1515 for the introduction ofthe Holy Office into his dominions; but nothing hadcome of it. His son, in spite of his confirmation on morethan one occasion, in 1522 and 1524, of the immunitiesgranted by his father, was thus provided with an exam-ple which he might piously follow.

The conduct of the minority was not altogether cal-culated to induce moderation. In 1524, a New Christianinformer named Henrique Nuñes, who was acting asagent provocateur with the object of obtaining the in-troduction of the Inquisition, and had provided the kingwith lists of persons guilty of the practice of Judaismwhose confidence he had obtained, was assassinated bya couple of Marranos disguised as friars. They were ofcourse put to death, after having been tortured cruelly



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in order to discover the names of their accomplices. Thememory of the crime was however kept alive, the re-mains of Firme Fé or “Firm-Faith” (as Nuñes was nowgenerally called) being revered as those of a martyr.When in 1528 that incredible adventurer, David Reube-ni, arrived in Portugal on a pretended mission from theindependent Jewish tribes of the Far East to arrangejoint action against the Turk, and armed with authen-tic letters of recommendation from the Pope, a greatimpression was naturally caused in crypto-Jewish circles.The report was even bruited abroad that he had beengiven permission to teach the “Law of Moses.” Much tohis personal annoyance, the Marranos flocked to him inlarge numbers wherever he went, showing him everysign of deference. A promising young government offi-cial, Diogo Pires, finding himself treated with some cold-ness, went so far as to circumcise himself; subsequently,he left the country, to become famous in the annals ofJewish history and martyrdom as Solomon Molcho, thepseudo-Messiah. A number of Spanish Marranos, whohad fled to Campo-Mayor, were emboldened to makean armed raid on Badajoz, where they released by forcea woman imprisoned in the dungeons of the Inquisition.Great unrest was spread through the country by a ru-mor that the New Christians had made common causeand were about to rise in arms. Attacks were made uponthem by the populace in Alentejo, Santarem, and Gou-vea, where an image of the Virgin had been found de-faced. Serious riots, which were checked only by theefforts of the poet Gil Vicente, took place at Santarem.At Olivença, five Marranos found practicing “Mosaic”rites were arbitrarily burned by the Bishop of Ceuta,


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amid popular enthusiasm. There were disorders even inthe Azores and at Madeira. At the beginning of the fol-lowing year (1531) a large part of Lisbon was laid inruins by a destructive earthquake. It seemed that thedivine power was manifesting its indignation directlyagainst the New Christian duplicity; and a further mas-sacre was only narrowly averted.

This last event seems to have determined the king’smind. Early in the same year, Brás Neto, the Portugueseambassador at Rome, was instructed to procure in strict-est secrecy from Pope Clement VII the authorization forthe establishment in Portugal of an Inquisition on theSpanish model. After prolonged negotiations, on Decem-ber 17, 1531, Frei Diogo da Silva, the king’s confessor,was formally appointed Inquisitor General. Meanwhile,the departure of the New Christians from the country,even to the Portuguese colonies, was again forbiddenunder heavy penalties.

Every endeavor had been made to keep the negotia-tions secret. The news inevitably leaked out and the NewChristians, on their part, took energetic steps. Theychose as their emissary a certain Duarte de Paz, an oldsoldier of Jewish extraction, a man of considerable abilityand few scruples. Taking advantage of a foreign missionwith which he had been entrusted by the king, he madehis way to Rome, where he remained for ten years asthe agent of his fellow New Christians. He was wellsupplied with money, the key to most things at the pa-pal court. By dint of systematic propaganda backed upby bribes, the cause of the Marranos made great head-way. The attitude which they adopted was simple, andfrom the religious point of view unimpeachable: that



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notwithstanding their origin, they were faithful adher-ents of Christianity, and that the proposed innovationwas actuated entirely by jealousy and greed. In Portu-gal, they succeeded in buying over the Bishop of Sini-gaglia (who had been sent to Lisbon as Papal Nuncio).Frei Diogo himself, who refused to take up the office towhich he had been appointed, was also suspected ofbeing in their pay.

At Rome, de Paz succeeded in procuring from thePope a Brief suspending the action of that establishingthe Holy Office, and forbidding any Inquisitorial actionto be taken against the Marranos. This was reinforcedby the famous Bull of Pardon (Bulle de Perdão) of April7, 1533, which provided the New Christians with a com-plete amnesty for all past offences in matters of faith,coupled with the concession that those accused of here-sy in future might justify themselves before the PapalNuncio. The latter, naturally, reaped a handsome prof-it; within the next three years, he is said to have gained30,000 crowns. Henceforth, the struggle centered aboutthe Bulle de Perdão, which prevented serious Inquisi-torial activity. It was confirmed in July and in October,suspended in December, but renewed by Clement on hisdeath-bed in the following July. His successor, Paul III,referred the question to a commission of cardinals. Theyreported in favor of the Bull, recommending that theInquisition should be authorized only under considera-ble limitations, coupled with the right of appeal to Rome.This last provision would have nullified the royal su-premacy over the Tribunal, and was hence unaccepta-ble to the Portuguese authorities. While negotiationswere being carried on, the New Christians entered into


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a contract with the Nuncio, promising to pay the Pope30,000 ducats if he would prohibit the Inquisition andlimit the power of prosecution to the bishops, who wereto be confined to ordinary criminal procedure.

A deadlock had arisen, when the Emperor Charles Varrived in Rome, fresh from his triumph over the infi-del at Tunis. He threw the weight of his authority, nowalmost omnipotent, into the scales on the side of hisbrother-in-law. This advocacy carried the day. Aftersome slight further delay, a Brief was issued on May 23,1536, repealing the previous temperate Bulls and defi-nitely constituting in Portugal an Inquisition on theSpanish model. The only reservations made were thatfor the forthcoming three years the forms of secular lawwere to be observed, and that no confiscations of prop-erty (which struck at the family, as well as at the cul-prit himself) were to be allowed until a full decade hadelapsed.

The struggle was, indeed, by no means over. The NewChristians, a rare fit of parsimony on whose part hadbeen partly responsible for the recent check, now redou-bled their efforts. Thanks to lavish bribes, the newNuncio, Girolamo Recanati Capodiferro, was authorizedto hear appeals from the decisions of the Inquisition, andeven to suspend its action altogether if he thought fit.He used his powers lavishly, to no small personal prof-it. Judaizers were occasionally prosecuted, and sentencedto light punishments. However, the establishment of anomnipotent tribunal like that of Spain seemed no near-er than it had been years before.

Once again, a piece of extravagance on the part of oneof the persecuted minority nullified all their efforts. One



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morning, in February 1539, placards were found affixedto the doors of all the principal churches in Lisbon bear-ing the following words:—“The Messiah has not come.Jesus Christ was not the true Messiah.” There was, notunnaturally, a general wave of indignation. Very consid-erable rewards were offered to any person who discov-ered the culprit. Shortly after, a further notice was foundon the door of the Cathedral: “I am neither Spaniard norPortuguese, but an Englishman. If instead of 10,000escudos you offered 20,000, you would not discover myname.” It seemed obvious that this was intended to di-vert suspicion from the Marranos, who were generallyregarded as being responsible for the outrage. One ofthem, Manuel da Costa, was accused of having perpe-trated it. He was tortured until he confessed his guilt,after which he was burned with every circumstance ofcruelty.

Popular feeling against the conversos was now gen-erally aroused. The period of comparative mildness andhumanity was at an end. The king appointed as Inquis-itor General his brother, Dom Henrique, thus plainlyshowing his own determination. The three years’ delayaccorded in 1536 had now elapsed, the way being thusopen for the full and untrammeled exercise of Inquisi-torial power to begin. The New Christians indeed werestill busy at the papal Court, where the Bull PastorisAeterni, allowing appeals to Rome and limiting the pow-er of the Inquisition in other ways, was issued on Octo-ber 12, 1539. However, owing to a quarrel between theNew Christians and the rapacious Capodiferro, Nuncioat Lisbon, this was never published.

Nothing now stood in the way of the initiation of


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operations. Tribunals were speedily organized at Lisbon,Evora, and Coimbra, and temporarily also at Lamego,Thomar, and Oporto. (The three last-named were dis-continued before long as being superfluous; though acontributory reason was the discovery of shameful irreg-ularities and abuses in their administration.) On Septem-ber 20, 1540, a formal Act of Faith took place at Lis-bon: the earliest in Portugal, and the first of a long andgruesome series which extended over two and a halfcenturies. The Marranos had not indeed given up thefight, nor had the Pope altogether abandoned them.There was a further succession of quarrels and of brib-ery, culminating in the suspension of the Holy Office in1544. The magnificent bribe of the revenues of the Ar-chiepiscopal see of Visieu finally overcame the Pope’sopposition. By the Bull Meditatio Cordis of July 16,1547, the existence of a free and untrammeled Inquisi-tion in Portugal was finally authorized. Negotiations stillcontinued over the vexed question of the power of con-fiscation. This was one of the most deadly weapons inthe hands of the Holy Office, and was considered by theNew Christians to be a perpetual incitement to actionagainst them. After prolonged negotiations and chang-es of policy, this too was finally conceded in 1579. Fromthat date, Portugal was endowed with an independentInquisition on the same model as that of Spain, capa-ble of extremities of rigor not surpassed even by its morefamous prototype. The work of the General Conversioncould now be enforced.3



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CHAPTER IV

THE HEYDAY OF THE INQUISITION

BY the time that the Portuguese Inquisition was prop-erly established, the original generation of forced con-verts had all but died out. A fresh generation had grownup, here as in Spain, of persons who had been born tit-ular Christians, brought up in the full traditions oi thedominant faith, and fully assimilated in externals to themass of the population. In spite of this fact, and of thepledge made by King Manoel at the time of the Gener-al Conversion, they continued to be treated as a raceapart. They were generally known as “conversos,”“Jews,” or “Persons of the Nation.” A close distinctionwas drawn between the “Old” and “New” Christians, thelatter comprising the descendants—even after half adozen generations or more—of those who had acceptedbaptism. The utmost prejudice prevailed against main-taining any connection with them, so that they wereforced to marry in most cases only amongst themselves.Children of a mixed marriage would be designated (inthe Inquisitional processes especially) as being “HalfNew Christian”; while a person with a grandparent ofJewish blood would be called “Quarter New Christian.”Similarly, we find persons described as having “a partof the New Christian” if they possessed a single tracea-ble Jewish ancestor, or as being “More than one half NewChristian” if Jewish blood predominated. Occasionally,still more minute gradations were recorded. It is remark-


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able how the mere fact of consciousness of Jewish de-scent, however remote, determined large numbers ofpersons to brave all dangers and to throw in their lotwith their persecuted kinsmen. Similarly, not a few in-dividuals of undiluted Old Christian blood are knownto have become martyrs for the cause of Judaism.

Conversely, Christians of old family prided themselveson their limpieza, or purity of blood—it will be recalledhow Sancho Panza delighted in the fact. Among thefunctions of the Inquisition was that of giving certifi-cates to this effect to persons who had no traceable Jew-ish or Moslem ancestor to contaminate their lineage.Certain offices—for example, commissions in the army,or employment under the Holy Office—were titularlyconfined to persons who could fulfill this condition; and,at one time, it was a condition of entrance into the fac-ulty, or even the student-body, of certain universities.However, it was impossible in these inquiries to go backtoo far; and in fact not many houses can have been en-tirely pure. Thus it sometimes happened that the pros-ecution of a distant kinsman for Judaizing would revealsome unsuspected streak of infidel ancestry, which wouldthrow obloquy upon a distinguished family and dis-qualify it for honorable office.

The prejudice against the conversos throughout thePeninsula was undiminished by the lapse of time. InSpain, they had been expelled from the districts ofGuipúzcoa and Vizcaya early in the sixteenth century;and, as late as 1565, an attempt was made to repeat this.In Portugal, there were occasional outbreaks againstthem throughout the northern provinces (over one hun-dred towns of which contributed victims to the autos-

HEYDAY OF INQUISITION


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da-fè between 1565 and 1595)—at Trancoso, Lamego,Miranda, Visieu, Guarda, Braga, and elsewhere. On oneoccasion, a plot was discovered for the extermination ofall the New Christians on a single day. Anti-Semiticworks, which refused to differentiate between conversoand Jew, poured from the presses in a steady stream. In1562, the Portuguese bishops presented a petition re-questing that the New Christians should be compelledto wear special badges, and to be segregated in Ghet-tos, just as their unconverted ancestors had been.

In spite of all these restrictions and prejudices, therewas no stratum of society to which the New Christiansdid not penetrate. This was the case even more in Por-tugal than in Spain. They were to be found in everywalk of life—from beggars to statesmen, from play-wrights to revenue-farmers, from cobblers to explorers.Their wealth was enormous. Early in the seventeenthcentury, they themselves admitted that they were worthbetween them no less than 80,000,000 ducats. They al-most monopolized commerce. Within a few years of theGeneral Conversion, one of the greatest banking housesin Europe was the establishment which the Mendesfamily had developed at Lisbon out of a comparative-ly small business in precious stones. The export tradeof Portugal, especially, was very largely in Marranohands. They provided politics and literature with im-portant figures. Pedro Texeira, whose Travels areamong the most important sources for our knowledgeof the Orient at the beginning of the seventeenth cen-tury, was of Jewish extraction, and is believed to havereverted to his ancestral faith before his death. DuarteGomez Solis, whose Discourses on the Commerce of the


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Two Indies (Lisbon, 1622) gives him a place as one ofthe foremost economists of his age, was similarly a NewChristian. The mathematician, Pedro Nuñes, Cosmog-rapher Royal to King João III, was another, his grand-children actually falling into the clutches of the Inqui-sition. The same was the fate of the poet, Serrão deCastro, who afterwards commemorated his experienc-es in his writings, and of Antonio Bocarro, the chron-icler, who reverted to Christianity after a brief experi-ence of Judaism.

A number of the most illustrious physicians of the daywere of Jewish origin, and many of them devout Jewsat heart; the profession was indeed adopted by some per-sons specifically by reason of the facilities which it af-forded for the observance of the Sabbath. Thus, TomasRodrigues da Veiga (son of the converso Mestre Rodri-go da Veiga, body-physician to King Manoel, and grand-son of Mestre Tomas de la Veiga, a Spanish exile of 1492)was medical attendant to King João III, and is describedas the most famous professor of the University of Coim-bra. Dr. Emmanuel Vaz was in the service of four Por-tuguese sovereigns in succession, from João III to PhilipII. Garcia d’Orta, the founder of the study of tropicalmedicine and of Asiatic botany, has recently been dis-covered to have been a secret Jew, his body having beenexhumed and burned by the Inquisition. When at theclose of the sixteenth century the Grand Dukes of Tus-cany set about the reorganization of the University ofPisa, it was especially to New Christian scholars fromPortugal that they had recourse. Thus the eminent Es-tevão Rodrigues de Castro, professor of medicine suc-cessively there and at Padua, was in this category. He



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was followed in both places by Antonio (Rodrigo) daFonseca, author of an important work on fevers. Chris-toval Acosta, who was a native of one of the Portuguesesettlements in Africa, composed a treatise on drugswhich is still, after a lapse of three and a half centuries,regarded as authoritative. Further names in this spherecould be added almost indefinitely. Indeed, in an anti-Jewish work of the period, there was included a list ofno less than fifty-one physicians and apothecaries whohad been condemned by the Inquisition. In the Univer-sities—particularly that of Coimbra—the proportion ofNew Christian professors was sometimes extraordinar-ily high.

In spite of all precautions, intermarriage with thenobility took place on a comparatively large scale. Thusthe daughter of the converso Mestre Rodrigo da Vei-ga, body-physician of Manoel I, married a member ofthe Ximenes d’Arragon family, their descendants in-cluding nobles, statesmen, and ecclesiastics who wereprominent in every part of Europe. There were how-ever in Portugal a number of so-called “puritan” houses,who would contract family alliances with none whocould not prove a lineage as unblemished as their own.Even in the army, notwithstanding the regulations tothe contrary, the number of New Christians wasconsiderable, and some of them rose to high rank.Many persons even adopted a clerical career, fancyingperhaps that thus they would be safer from persecu-tion. A lengthy list could be made of nuns and monksand friars, some of whom attained great distinction inthe Church, who either suffered at the hands of theInquisition, or else ended their lives as professing Jews.1


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At one single auto at Coimbra, which lasted over twodays and at which over two hundred persons in all fig-ured, the victims included professors, canons, priests,curates, vicars-general, friars, nuns, and even an un-frocked Franciscan who maintained his convictions tothe last and was in consequence burned alive.2 In thecourse of eight years, from 1619 to 1627, the 231 per-sons condemned to appear at public autos in Portugalincluded 15 doctors of the university, of whom two heldprofessorial chairs; eleven other graduates; 20 advo-cates, and as many physicians and notaries; and aboveall forty-four nuns and fifteen beneficed clergy of whomseven were canons.

Launcelot Addison, the father of the great essayist,writing in 1675, gives the following graphic account:—

“. . . I am assured that some Jews have gone here-in so far as to enter into Holy Orders and the Pro-fession of a Religious Life, who yet coming to placeswhere the Jews have publick Toleration, have joynedthemselves to the Synagogue.

“And of this we have a very late instance of twoJews, who in Spain having for several years professedthe religion of Saint Dominique, coming to Legorn intheir Fryar-Habits, they instantly changed their Cowlfor a Ganephe3 and of idle Fryers become progging4

Jews. Another Jew (of my acquaintance, who forabout five years had studied Physick at Saragoza inSpain) being asked how he could comply with theReligion, he merrily made this reply, That his com-plyance was only the work of his Nerves and Mus-cles, and that his Anatomy told him nothing of theheart was therein concerned.5 Another Jew who in



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Malaga counterfeited Christianity so well as to beintrusted with the Sale of Indulgences, having madea good market thereof in Spain, came with what hehad left to a Christian city in Barbary, where hisIndulgences being all bought up by the Irish andothers of the Papal perswasion, he declared his reli-gion. The Papists who had bought his Indulgencesimpeach him to the Governur for a Cheat, and cla-mour to have him punished according to demerit.The Jew pleaded the Laws of the free Port, that hehad neither imported nor sold any thing but his pro-fessed Merchandise, and therefore desired (and ob-tained) the Liberty and Priviledges of such as traf-ficked to that Port. I report nothing but matter ofpersonal knowledge.

“That there are many such Temporizing Jews, es-pecially in Spain and Portugal, I have been assuredfrom their own mouths: and what is more observable,some have ventured to affirm, that there want notJews among the very Judges of the Inquisition, . . .”

(The Present State of the Jews, pp. 31–2)

It was upon this capable but extraordinarily motleyelement, by now inextricably intermingled with the gen-eral population, that the attentions of the Inquisitionremained centered in the sixteenth and seventeenth cen-turies, both in Portugal and in Spain. In the latter coun-try, its work had continued uninterrupted after the ex-pulsion of the Jews. The immediate result of that cruelmeasure had been to increase the number of the insin-cere converts in the country. Large numbers of persons,despairing of finding any resting place abroad, had


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gained permission to remain behind at the price of con-version. The example was set by the sceptical Don Ab-raham Senior, the last Rab de la Corte in Castile andprincipal farmer of taxes, who was henceforth knownas Fernando Perez Coronel. Many of those who choseexile turned back to Spain, after prolonged sufferings,and despairingly submitted to baptism. Sincerity couldnot be expected from persons who had embraced theCatholic religion under such circumstances. Thus, thefield of labor of the Inquisition was further extended.

Thomás de Torquemada had been succeeded asGrand Inquisitor by the scholarly Diego Deza, the friendand patron of Columbus. Notwithstanding the fact thathe himself (like his predecessor) was said to be of Jew-ish extraction on one side, the activity of the tribunalreached its zenith under his auspices. In 1500, an exalt-ed Marrano woman, who pretended to be a prophetess,was arrested at Herrera.6 This provided a unique op-portunity for action. On February 22, 1501, a great autowas held at Toledo, at which 38 of her followers wereburned; on the next day, 67 more—all of them women—suffered the same fate. Worse still were the excessescommitted by Diego Rodrigues Lucero, Inquisitor ofCordova. Here, accusations were made wholesale. Theseverity shown was incredible. The grounds for prose-cution were of the flimsiest nature, and the ruthless useof torture was generally sufficient to extract some sortof confession. No further cause was thus needed to con-demn a man to the stake other than that he was of Jew-ish blood. Even the Archdeacon de Castro, whose moth-er was of an Old Christian family, while his father wasa converso of high rank, was sentenced and made to



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perform public penance, his enormous fortune beingconfiscated. The climax came when no fewer than 107persons were burned alive on the accusation of havinglistened to the sermons of one Membreque, a Bachelorof Divinity, who had sought to diffuse the doctrines ofJudaism by this means. The Inquisitors, complained theCaptain of Cordova, “. . . were able to defame the wholekingdom, to destroy, without God or justice, a great partof it, slaying and robbing and violating maids and wives,to the great dishonor of the Christian religion. . .”

Complaints against the atrocities which were beingperpetrated became so rife that, on September 30, 1505,Philip and Juana, the Castilian sovereigns, suspendedall action on the part of the Inquisition until they shouldreturn from Flanders. Meanwhile, the conversos spentmoney lavishly at Rome to induce the papal Curia totake a merciful view of their plight. It happened that,before anything definite could be done to amelioratetheir position, Philip suddenly died, leaving his wifedemented. Lucero now seized the opportunity to avengehimself for the check he had received, embarking uponfresh extravagances. He asserted categorically that mostof the nobles and caballeros of Cordova and the othercities of Andalusia were Judaizers, and even maintainedsecret synagogues in their houses. A batch of recklessaccusations followed, no rank or dignity being spared.The most illustrious of the victims was the saintly Her-nando de Talavera, Archbishop of Granada (formerlyconfessor to Isabella the Catholic), who happened tohave Jewish blood in his veins. The charge was ridicu-lous; but the old man died in consequence of the humili-ation to which he was exposed. The popular outcry


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became so great that Ferdinand, who was now rulingover Castile in his daughter’s name, was forced to dis-miss Deza, and to appoint the Cardinal Ximenes asInquisitor General for the country (1507). Proceedingswere instituted against the inhuman Lucero, but theywere ultimately allowed to drop.

Under Ximenes and his successors, the proceedingsof the Inquisition in Spain were more regular, but no lesszealous. Upon the accession to the throne of Charles V(1516–1556), the Spanish New Christians sent to him,promising an enormous subsidy if he would restrict thepower of the Holy Office in his dominions. Above all,they desired the system of secret accusations to be abol-ished. Similar steps, backed up by lavish gifts, were tak-en at Rome. Here Pope Leo X, true to the tolerant tra-dition of the Medici, prepared a Bull embodying thedesired concessions. Charles, on the other hand, aftertemporary vacillation, was ultimately decided by thenarrow obscurantism which was to characterize himthroughout life. Not only did he refuse to accede, buthe even went so far as to prevent the publication of theBull. Thereafter, there was never any serious threat tothe authority of the Holy Office in Spain; and it couldcount, throughout, upon the implicit royal support.During Ximenes’ tenure of office, 2,500 persons weregiven to the flames. Charles’ son, Philip II (1556–1598),carried on and even enhanced his father’s bigoted tradi-tion, maintaining the tribunal, in spite of the protests ofthe Cortes, in all its terrible power. The Duke of Oli-vares, the reforming minister of Philip III (1598–1621),endeavored to restrict its might, which had by now be-come overpowering. It survived the attempt, however,



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with its status enhanced rather than otherwise. It wasduring this reign and that of the next monarch, PhilipIV (1621–1665), that the Spanish Inquisition attained itsgreatest authority and pomp.

The number of Spanish tribunals ultimately totaledfifteen: Barcelona, Cordova, Cuenca, Granada, Logroño,Llerena, Madrid, Murcia, Santiago, Seville, Toledo, Va-lencia, Valladolid, and Saragossa, in addition to that sit-uated at Palma, in the island of Majorca. All of theseacted under the authority of the central Council, Conse-jo de la Suprema y General Inquisición—a title conven-iently abbreviated to La Suprema. The activity was great-est, as far as the Jews were concerned, in Old Castile andAndalusia; it was least in Catalonia, where the NewChristians never attained any great number. As timeadvanced, the exclusive preoccupation of the Inquisitionwith Judaizers, on whose account it had been founded,was very much diminished. From 1525, when the prac-tice of Mohammedanism was forbidden in Spain, Moorswho remained secretly faithful to the religion of theirfathers also came within its scope. As the century ad-vanced, there was an increasing number of Protestantsand of the licentious mystics known as the Alumbrados.It dealt besides with what were considered to be less se-rious offenses, such as bigamy. Sorcery also fell within itsprovince; but, under its moderating influence, Spain re-mained the one country in Europe where the persecutionof so-called witches in the seventeenth and eighteenthcenturies never generally obtained. In this respect, Spaincompared very favorably with England or North Amer-ica; and the debt which she owes on this account to theHoly Office is not to be underestimated.


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The Jews, however, continued to be the main objectof attention, particularly in the south of the country.Thus, at Cordova, between 1655 and 1700, out of 399persons who figured in the public autos, 324 had beencharged with Judaizing. In Toledo, out of 855 cases triedin the second half of the seventeenth century, 556 werefor the same offence. At Valladolid, 78 out of the 85 casespending in 1699 were of Judaizers. In Aragon and OldCastile, the proportions were definitely less, but theywere by no means insignificant.

Of all those who fell within its scope, moreover, it wasthe Marranos whom the Spanish Inquisition houndeddown with the greatest ferocity. Such indeed was itsinitial zeal against them in the first few decades of itsexistence that, to a large extent, it succeeded in its ob-ject. By the middle of the sixteenth century, the nativeSpanish Judaizers—the descendants of the renegades of1391 and the succeeding years—had disappeared. Themost steadfast had perished at the stake, or else had fledoverseas. The remainder, cut off from direct associationwith their Jewish kinsfolk, had become completely ab-sorbed. The apostates of 1492 survived a little longer,but their ultimate fate was identical. It is not, as a mat-ter of fact, a very remarkable phenomenon. As we haveseen, the Spanish New Christians, unlike the Portuguesecounterparts, comprised mainly those Jews of the weakersort who had embraced Christianity in order to savetheir lives, and sometimes on even less pardonablegrounds. Their descendants did not therefore possess thefull measure of devotion and self-sacrifice which gener-ally characterized their race. Inevitably, therefore, thegreat majority in the end gave way to force of circum-



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stances. But the labors of the Inquisition were not light-ened thereby. Their place was taken by immigrants fromPortugal, attracted by the economic possibilities of thewealthier country, or else seeking refuge where they wereless known. From the second half of the sixteenth cen-tury, native Spanish Judaizers figure less and less fre-quently; those Marranos who so largely engaged the at-tention of the Holy Office in Madrid, in Toledo, or inSeville being in the overwhelming majority immigrantsfrom Portugal or else their immediate descendants. His-tory had achieved its usual irony. The Forced Conver-sion in Portugal, brought about by Ferdinand and Isa-bella in order to purge their dominions of even the pro-pinquity of unbelief, ultimately resulted in perpetuatingthe Judaizing tradition there long after the Inquisition-al Tribunal which they had founded had completed itsimmediate work. King Manoel had consented in thehopes of bringing the whole of the Peninsula under therule of his house. His grandson, Sebastian, however, fellin battle in Africa in 1578, his nobles thinking them-selves fortunate if they became the slaves of the humaneJews whose fathers had been chased out of the Penin-sula; and ultimately, instead of the larger country fall-ing into the hands of the rulers of the smaller, the matchresulted in the temporary absorption of the smaller bythe larger.

After the unification of the two countries, in 1580, thetide of emigration naturally increased. In Seville andMadrid, there were whole streets where nothing butPortuguese was spoken; and the fact of origin from thesmaller country was in itself regarded as ground forsuspicion. Insofar as the Inquisition busied itself with


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Judaizers, it was these immigrants who were mainly inquestion. Every now and again, a fresh covey of suspectswould be discovered. Thus, in 1630, a secret communi-ty was unearthed at Madrid, presided over by MiguelRodriguez and his wife, Isabel Nuñez Alvarez. Servic-es were regularly held in their house in the Calle de lasInfantas, at which, according to the ridiculous report, acrucifix was formally scourged.7 The members of thegroup figured amongst the fifty-three persons who ap-peared at the great auto held at Madrid on July 4, 1632,in the presence of the King, Queen, and foreign ambas-sadors, seven of them being burned in person and fourmore in effigy. In the same month, the Infant Carlosdied; and Jewish observers were not slow to note thecoincidence, which they considered to be a judgmentfrom God. The house in which the outrage was allegedto have taken place was ceremoniously destroyed, aCapuchin convent aptly known as La Paciencia beingsubsequently erected on its site.

In 1635 another Jewish conventicle was discovered inthe Capital, where the Day of Atonement services wereheld in the home of a certain Diego Ximenes. That sameyear a further group of Portuguese was unearthed in thecity of Badajoz. One hundred and fifty of the personsimplicated managed to avoid trial by flight or otherwise;and the tribunal of Llerena was engaged for three or fouryears afterwards in trying the rest. In 1647, a gaol-birdin prison at Valladolid, in the hopes of securing his ownrelease, gave information concerning an alleged secretcongregation at Ciudad Real. Its principal member wasPablo de Herrera, the paymaster of the army on thePortuguese frontier. In his house, it was alleged, his fel-



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low New Christians met each Friday for the purpose ofscourging images of Christ and the Virgin, which wereceremonially burned during Holy Week! Large numbersof arrests were carried out in consequence of this ridic-ulous story. A lavish employment of torture securedample confirmatory evidence, parents testifying againsttheir own children and brothers against sisters. The trialsdragged on for four years. Finally, it was established thatthe story of the image-scourging was a spiteful inven-tion. Nevertheless, there were several convictions; andthe tribunal was enriched by enormous fines.

In the township of Beas, meanwhile, a small colonyof Portuguese had established themselves. For about tenyears, they lived without disturbance. Ultimately, theattention of the neighboring tribunal of Cuenca wasdrawn to them. Thirteen were arrested and put on tri-al; nine more fled just in time to escape the same fate,leaving all their property behind. Their effigies wereburned in the great Seville auto of 1660, when eighty-one Judaizers (nearly all Portuguese) figured, seven ofthem perishing at the stake. Two or three of the Beasfugitives, who had settled at Malaga, were tried by theInquisition of Toledo in 1667; a couple more, who hadtaken the precaution to change their names, were arrest-ed after long adventures at Daimiel in 1677—seventeenyears after they had been burned in effigy at Seville; and,after a two and a half years’ trial, they were condemnedto perpetual imprisonment. Similar little groups werecontinually being unearthed. At a Seville auto of 1660,eight of the Portuguese Judaizers who figured were fromUtrera, and as many as thirty-seven—nearly one-half ofthe total—from Osuna. In 1679, in the course of his tri-


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al at Toledo, one Simon Múnoz gave the names of twen-ty-two accomplices residing at Pastrana, nearly all ofwhom figured at an auto on December 21, 1680. In 1676,a similar group of over twenty persons was unearthedat Berin (Orense), where they had been long settled. Twoof them—Baltasar López Cardoso and his cousin, Feli-pa López—who proudly confessed their attachment toJudaism, were burned alive at the auto at Madrid in1680.

In Portugal, the persecution of the Marranos hadentered upon a new phase with the Spanish conquest.A nominee of the new rulers—the Cardinal-ArchdukeAlbrecht of Austria, who was also governor of the coun-try—succeeded to the office of Inquisitor General. Un-der his direction, the activity of the Inquisition increased.In twenty years, the three tribunals held in all fifty au-tos-da-fè. Of these, the records of five are lost; but, inthe other forty-five, there were 162 “relaxations” in per-son, fifty-nine in effigy, and 2979 less ferocious pun-ishments, or “reconciliations.”8 The Tribunal of Evoraparticularly distinguished itself for its ferocity, beingresponsible for nearly two-thirds of the burnings alive,though for considerably less than one-half of the totalnumber of trials.

This activity, coupled with the impoverishment of therealm under Spanish rule, was responsible for the whole-sale flight of the Portuguese Marranos across the fron-tier, which gave the tribunals of the larger country agrowing field of activity in the coming years. At the sametime, it tended to make the Portuguese Marranos fiercelyopposed to the new regime, and favor every attempt tosecure independence. The nominee of the national par-



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ty was Antonio, Prior of Crato. He was himself as amatter of fact partly of Jewish origin, being the son ofa member of the old royal house through an irregularunion with a beautiful New Christian, Violante Gomez.Down to his death in 1595 he remained a prominentfigure in current politics, intriguing in every court ofEurope for assistance to gain the Portuguese throne.Everywhere, both at home and abroad, the Marranosstrove their utmost to assist him. So notorious were theirsympathies, indeed, that Drake’s forays were generallysaid to have been plotted by the Marranos. Dom An-tonio’s failure was therefore regarded by them as a gen-eral disaster. After his death, a more constitutionalmethod of obtaining relief was attempted. A dazzlingbribe to the Crown of nearly two million ducats securedapplication to the Pope for a Brief authorizing the rec-onciliation of all Portuguese New Christians, wherev-er they might be found, after undergoing only spiritu-al penances (1605). This was, in effect, a General Par-don for all past offences. Under its terms, on January16,1605, the Portuguese tribunals simultaneously lib-erated 410 prisoners after imposing formal penance. AtSeville, on the eve of an auto, for which the inhabitantsof all the surrounding countryside had streamed intothe city, the Inquisitor was aroused from his bed by acourier, who had broken all records on the journey, andwas informed that the celebration had to be suspend-ed. On the same day, the silver-fleet under Don Luisde Córdova was destroyed with enormous loss. It wasconsidered by the pious that this disaster was an ex-pression of the divine disapproval of the ill-adviseddisplay of clemency.


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The intermission was only temporary. After the stip-ulated period of twelve months had elapsed, the tribu-nals were again occupied in prosecuting those who hadnot taken advantage of the General Pardon by comingforward spontaneously to confess their wrongdoing, orhad reverted to their former practices since it had beenissued. The prejudices against the New Christians tend-ed to increase rather than otherwise. In 1621, a Portu-guese named Vincente da Costa Mattos published awork, Breve Discurso contra a Heretica Perfidia doJudaismo (A Brief Discourse against the Heretical Per-fidy of Judaism), in which he roundly accused the Por-tuguese New Christians of perpetuating all of the mostdastardly crimes, as well as the disbeliefs, of their Jew-ish ancestors, and seriously suggested that they shouldbe expelled from the country. Notwithstanding its ex-travagant tone, the work was a great success, beingtranslated into Spanish, and frequently republished. TheInquisitional watchfulness was unrelaxing. In 1618 thewhole of Oporto was thrown into confusion by the ar-rest of nearly all the New Christian merchants of the city,who controlled the trade with the colonies. A few yearslater three hundred children were left destitute at Tran-coso through the arrest of their parents, whose houseswere sacked. In the little town of Montemor o Novo,where the Jewish tradition seems to have been peculiarlytenacious, no less than one hundred persons were seizedalmost simultaneously in 1623. The Portuguese autosoutdid in scale those of contemporary Spain, and bus-ied themselves with little else than Jews. Thus one washeld by the tribunal of Coimbra, on August 16, 1626,in which two hundred and forty-seven persons in all ap-



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peared, and another on May 6, 1629, with 218. In 1627and 1630, by dint of heavy payments, two further Gen-eral Pardons were obtained; but their benefits were onlytemporary.

One winter’s morning, in 1630, it was discovered thatthe Church of Santa Engracia, at Lisbon, had been bro-ken into overnight, and that a silver pyx holding theconsecrated elements had been stolen. It was assumedthat no ordinary thief would have the hardihood to per-form so sacrilegious an action. In consequence, suspicionautomatically fell upon the Marranos, who were allegedto have obtained possession of the Host for the purposeof perpetrating a ritual outrage upon it. It happened thata New Christian youth of good family named SimãoPires Solis had been observed passing that way on theprevious night, on his way to visit a lady. He was ar-rested, and submitted to terrible tortures. Finally, thehands suspected to have committed the outrage werechopped off, and the mutilated body was draggedthrough the streets and burned. Some time afterwards,a common thief confessed at the foot of the gallows thathe had himself been guilty of the crime. In the mean-time, the consequences upon the New Christians hadbeen terrible. The popular passions against them werearoused to an unprecedented degree. The streets of Lis-bon were placarded with inflammatory proclamations.At Santarem and Torres Novas, there were riots inwhich some persons lost their lives. At several places,the students prevented New Christian youths from en-tering the lecture halls, the University of Coimbra be-ing temporarily closed in consequence. From all thepulpits, the preachers incited the people against those


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whom they now openly designated as Jews. The flightfrom the country increased; from a single parish of Lis-bon, no less than 2,000 persons were said to have fled.The agitation for the expulsion of the New Christians,which had been gathering weight during the last dec-ade, and which had been seriously recommended toPhilip IV by the Portuguese bishops in 1628, attainedsuch proportions as to have given the impression thatit was actually carried into effect in 1631.9 Meanwhile,the activities of the Inquisition received a further stim-ulus. At the auto of Coimbra on August 17, 1631, no lessthan 247 persons appeared. In ten only of the series heldbetween 1620 and 1640, no less than 230 New Christianslost their lives, while over 5,000 persons figured all told.A bitterly anti-Jewish memorial, drawn up in the mid-dle of the century, makes the assertion—no doubt ex-aggerated, but none the less highly suggestive—that theInquisitional zeal in this period had partly depopulatedmany of the greatest cities of the country, includingCoimbra, Oporto, Evora, Santarem, and some districtsof Lisbon. It was only after the accession of the Houseof Braganza in 1640, and the recovery of Portugueseindependence (in which the labors of the New Christiansplayed a prominent part), that the activities of the HolyOffice were to any extent restrained.

In the Balearic Islands, subject to the crown ofAragon, the activity of the Inquisition reached its cli-max at the close of the seventeenth century. The origi-nal Jewish community of Majorca had come to an endafter the terrible massacre which took place on August24, 1391, in consequence of which a very large propor-tion had submitted to baptism. The commercial advan-



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tages of the place had speedily attracted fresh settlers.In 1435, however, there had been a ritual murder charge,the Jews being accused of having crucified a Saracen onGood Friday in mockery of the Passion. The principalmembers of the community were cruelly put to death,after a grotesquely partial trial, all the rest were com-pelled to submit to baptism. After that date, no declaredJews lived on the island. Nevertheless, the descendantsof the converts remained true to their ancestral faith,providing the Inquisition (which was introduced in 1488)with an ample field for activity. At the initial solemni-ty, on August 18, 1488, no less than 338 persons wereforced to do public penance. In the following year, seri-ous work began, seven autos taking place and a consid-erable number of New Christians being burned, eitherin person or in effigy. Between 1489 and 1535, a totalof nearly seven hundred and fifty persons were pen-anced, 460 burned in effigy, and 99 (all but five of whomwere Judaizers) in person. After this date, the persecu-tion languished, so that there was some question of al-lowing the vacant posts on the Tribunal to remain emp-ty.10

This inactivity emboldened the native New Chris-tians, who still remained numerous on the island, tobecome less cautious. In 1678, the Inquisitor’s attentionwas attracted to a meeting held in a garden, outside thecity, where there was rumored to be a synagogue.Investigations resulted in a very large number of arrestsof New Christians suspected of Judaizing. There wasobviously no spirit of martyrdom abroad. All those ac-cused confessed their sin and professed contrition. In aseries of four public autos in 1678, 219 of them figured


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as penitents, none however being condemned to death.They comprised all the wealthiest business men in theisland. Their property, to the value of at least a millionand a half pesos, was confiscated; and, out of the pro-ceeds, the Tribunal built itself a new Palace, which wasconsidered to be one of the finest in Spain.

The subsequent degradation and ill-treatment of thoseconvicted and their families led many of them to forma plot to leave the island on an English ship; but stormsdelayed the boat, and they were arrested. As they hadnot obtained the requisite license to leave Spain, theiraction was taken as a confession of guilt, and all wereput on trial. This time, they were treated as heretics whohad “relapsed” into guilt, and there could be no ques-tion of mercy for them. A series of four autos was heldin March, May and July, 1691. A huge quemadero, eightyfeet square and eight feet high, provided with twenty-five stakes for the victims, was erected to serve as thestage for the last act of the tragedy. With a truly sardonicconsideration for the comfort of the ordinary population,this was situated on the sea-shore, two miles from thecity, so that the stench should not cause any inconven-ience. In all, thirty-seven persons were burned, whilefifty suffered lesser punishment. The majority of thoseconvicted professed repentance, as on a previous occa-sion, and thus secured the grace of being garroted be-fore their bodies were committed to the flames. Onlythree held out defiantly to the last, and were burnedalive. These were Raphael Valls, the spiritual leader ofthe secret community, with his pupil, Raphael BenitoTerongi, and the latter’s sister, Catalina. All of thesesuffered, with nine of their less heroic brethren in faith,



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at the principal auto of the series, on May 6, 1691. Ca-talina Terongi, who had confessed proudly that she wasa Jewess and wished to remain one, cried out patheti-cally for mercy from the middle of the flames; but it wasnoticed that in her worst extremity she never allowedthe name of Jesus to cross her lips. Her brother, a stal-wart youth of twenty-one, struggled hard to escape, andultimately succeeded in snapping his bonds; but as hebroke loose, he fell back on the pyre. Old Raphael Valls,a simple soap-maker, who had succeeded in holding hisown against all the most erudite theologians of the is-land, maintained a stoic attitude until the flames reachedhim, when (as the old chronicler jubilantly records) hisbody flared up like a torch. The local poets celebratedthese victims in popular ballads, which continued untilquite recently to be chanted by the women of the island,as they went about their work.

By this awful lesson, crypto-Judaism in Majorca wasfinally blotted out; and, though the tribunal celebratedone or two further autos, only three native Judaizersfigured in them. Nevertheless, though their orthodoxywas henceforth unimpeachable, the descendants of theNew Christians to the number of three hundred fami-lies continued to be treated with the acme of degrada-tion and contempt. They were scornfully designated asChuetas, or “swine.”11 They were not allowed to liveoutside the old Jewish quarter, or Calle (hence the oth-er title applied to them: Individuos de la Calle, or GhettoFolk). They were excluded from all public office andfrom all honorable professions. The ordinary populationrefused to approach them unnecessarily, or to do any butthe most pressing business with them. Inevitably, they


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were forced to marry only amongst themselves. At publicworship they sat apart. Even in the cemetery, their bod-ies were isolated. The Church did everything to keepalive the prejudice against them, preserving in the Do-minican convent the effigies of those of their fathers whohad suffered at the hands of the Inquisition, and repeat-edly publishing a list of all those who had been con-demned by it. They were treated in every respect asthough they were still Jews, though their fidelity toCatholicism was never seriously questioned.

No attempt was made to ameliorate their conditionuntil late in the eighteenth century. In 1773, following ona pathetic appeal to the Crown, an edict was issued tak-ing them under the royal protection. In 1782, they wereformally permitted to reside outside the Calle, in any partof the city of Palma or of the island; and it was forbid-den to call them Jews, Hebrews, or Chuetas under severepenalties. Three years later, they were declared eligiblefor all public office, as well as to enter the Army andNavy. A further Real Cedula (royal decree) to a similareffect was issued in 1788. But this carried little weight.Local prejudices still remained so strong as to nullify thegood intentions of the Madrid government. The Chuetascontinued to live largely in the old Calle, no houses be-ing rented to them in any other part of the island. Theyremained excluded from all offices and honorable pro-fessions. They were still forced to intermarry amongstthemselves. The pillar which marked the site of the se-cret synagogue discovered in 1679 was re-erected in1814. The passage of generations and the progress ofcivilization made little difference to the island prejudices.As late as 1857, a book La Sinagoga Balear (The Bal-



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earic Synagogue), was directed against them, recapitu-lating the lists of those condemned two centuries beforeand maintaining that their descendants still adhered totheir old Jewish practices and were unworthy to be reck-oned as Christians. The main purpose of the work wasblackmail; and the Chuetas bought up almost the wholeedition.

Even in the present generation, the prejudice con-tinues, no self-respecting family consenting to ally itselfwith them by marriage.12 Until very recently, the threehundred families remained cooped up in their Calleknown by the same contemptuous name as their con-demned ancestors of many generations before, and fol-lowing mainly the solitary craft of goldsmith to whichonly they were admitted. In spite of all this, they weresincere Catholics at heart, ultra-observant in public, andblankly ignorant of the Judaism of their fathers, forwhich they themselves still suffered. In very recent years,their condition has considerably improved; but still theIndividuos de la Calle remain, a pathetic relic of thecommunity which once flourished in the Balearic Is-lands, and a living record of the heavy hand of the HolyOffice of the Inquisition.13


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99

CHAPTER V

THE INQUISITIONAL PROCEDURE ANDTHE AUTO-DA-FÈ

WITHIN comparatively few years of its establishment,the Inquisition had evolved an elaborate procedure ofits own. This was laid down in a number of handbooks,of which that of 1561 became authoritative in Spain. InPortugal, the organization of the tribunals of the neigh-boring country served as model, the differences beingnegligible.1

When a new tribunal was established at any place,an “Edict of Grace” would generally be published, in-viting those persons conscious of having committedheretical actions in the past to come forward and con-fess their crimes, on the understanding that they wouldreceive merciful treatment. A time limit, generally ofthirty or forty days, known as the “Term of Grace,” wasassigned for this purpose. After the lapse of this period,guilty persons were liable to be proceeded against withall the rigor of the Inquisition. Those who presentedthemselves under the Edict of Grace would be requiredto denounce all others with whom they had associatedor whom they knew to be guilty of similar offences;hence the Holy Office was generally provided with avast mass of information which kept it busy for sometime to come.

At later stages, an “Edict of Faith” would periodical-ly be issued. This summoned all the faithful, under pain


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of excommunication, to denounce to the Inquisitionalauthorities any person of whom they had cognizancewho was guilty of certain specified heretical offences.The latter invariably comprised, even down to the fi-nal period, all those practices popularly associated withJudaism, such as lighting special lamps on Fridayevening, changing linen on the Sabbath, abstaining fromforbidden food, observing the Day of Atonement or otherfasts, laying out the dead according to the Jewish meth-od, etc. By this means, the whole population becameenlisted as accomplices of the Holy Office in its task oferadicating heresy; and the denunciation of some trivi-al action, performed absent-mindedly or by mere forceof habit, was frequently sufficient to bring a man to thestake. The relevant portion of a typical “Edict of Faith,”throwing a vivid light upon Marrano customs, is hereappended:—

“. . . If they observe the Sabbath, putting on clean orfestive clothes, clean and washed shirts and headdress;arranging and cleaning their houses on Friday afternoon,and in the evening lighting new candles, with new ta-pers and torches, earlier than on other evenings of theweek; cooking on the said Fridays such food as is re-quired for the Saturday, and on the latter eating the meatthus cooked on the Friday, as is the manner of the Jews;keeping the Jewish fasts, not touching food the wholeday until nightfall, and especially the Fast of QueenEsther, and the chief fast of Cinquepur2 and other Jew-ish fasts, laid down by their Law; and keeping other fastsin the week, especially Mondays and Thursdays, keptby them as devotional fasts; eating on (the conclusion


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101

of?) such fast days such meats and other viands as arecustomary with the Jews; and on the said fast days ask-ing pardon of one another in the Jewish manner, theyounger ones to the elders, the latter placing their handson the heads of the former, but without signing themwith the sign of the Cross; . . . keeping the feasts and fes-tivals of the Jews, in particular the feast of unleavenedbread, which falls in Holy Week, upon which festivalthey eat unleavened bread, beginning their meal withlettuce and celery; keeping the feast of Tabernacleswhich falls in the month of September; saying Jewishprayers . . . reciting these with the face turned to thewall, moving the head backwards and forwards as theJews do; cutting the nails and keeping, burning or bur-ying the parings; cleansing, or causing meat to becleaned, cutting away from it all fat and grease, andcutting away the nerve or sinew from the leg; cuttingthe throats of fowls as is the manner of the Jews, recit-ing certain words during the process and passing theknife across the nail; killing oxen as the Jews do, cover-ing the blood with cinders or with earth; giving the Jew-ish blessing before eating, called the baraha; reciting cer-tain words over the cup or vase of wine, after which eachperson sips a little, according to the custom of the Jews;not eating pork, hare, rabbit, strangled birds, conger-eel,cuttlefish, nor eels or other scaleless fish, as laid down inJewish law; and upon the death of parents and otherseating, on the floor or on very low tables, such things asboiled eggs, olives, and other viands, as do the Jews; . . .pouring water from jars and pitchers when someone hasdied, believing that the soul of such persons will come andbathe in the water; and who when kneading bread will

INQUISITIONAL PROCEDURE


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throw particles of dough in the fire, which the Jews callHallah; making divinations for children born to them, onthe seventh day; not baptizing them, and when they havebeen baptized scraping off the chrism put on them in thesacrament of baptism; . . . If they give Old Testamentnames to the children, or bless them by the laying on ofhands; if the women do not attend Church within fortydays after a confinement; if the dying turn towards thewall; if they wash a corpse with warm water; if theyrecite the Psalms without adding the Gloria Patri at theclose; who say that the dead Law of Moses is good, andcan bring about their salvation, and perform other ritesand ceremonies of the same. . .”3

The Tribunal of the Inquisition was, theoretically, animpartial one. Hence the formal function of prosecutionwas assumed by a special official, known as the Promo-tor Fiscal. In this manner, the fiction of a fair trial waspreserved, though it was not always necessary to awaithis formal denunciation before initiating proceedings.Before the case came up for consideration, the chargeswere examined by calificadores to determine whetherthey presented calidad de oficio, or justification for fur-ther action. If it were found that they did (as was almostinvariably the case, though occasionally a little revisionmight be needed), the way was clear for the PromotorFiscal to present his clamosa, or formal demand for theopening of proceedings. Judaizers and other perniciousheretics were however deprived even of this slendersafeguard. The next step was the arrest of the personsaccused.


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[103]

Th

e HA

LL

of the IN

QU

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ION

in w

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the P

risoners are exam

ined

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The trial, and everything connected with it, took placeunder conditions of the greatest secrecy. This, indeed,became one of the greatest terrors of the Inquisitionaccording to the Spanish model. All the parties con-cerned—witnesses, accusers, and accused—were swornto observe the most profound confidence. Any breachwhich came to the ears of the authorities was liable tobe punished with the utmost severity, just as heresy it-self. It can easily be realized how this system lent itselfto groundless denunciations, prompted only by privateenmity. As a natural consequence, from the moment ofarrest the utmost segregation was enforced, it being re-garded as a very serious offence for prisoners to com-municate with one another. The accused were confinedin the dungeons of the Palace of the Inquisition, suchas may still be seen in Evora and elsewhere. As wasinevitable, there were sometimes terrible abuses, femaleprisoners suffering especially; and it not infrequentlyhappened that a woman was dragged pregnant to thestake. All the expense connected with the imprisonment,which sometimes lasted over a period of years, was sup-posed to be borne by the prisoner. Thus, even if a manwere acquitted, he might find himself utterly ruined. Atthe same time, in cases which might ultimately involveconfiscation, all the possessions of the accused were se-questered at the moment of arrest; sometimes with veryserious effects upon the economic life of a whole townor province. When a condemnation resulted, all thisproperty devolved on the Holy Office, which thus hadevery inducement to bring in a verdict of guilty.

The rules of evidence were so devised as to excludeall witnesses likely to be serviceable to the accused, on


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the ground that their testimony would be untrustwor-thy. No such scruples prevailed with regard to witness-es for the prosecution, who were frequently inspired bymere venom. Moreover, the names of the accusers weresuppressed. This provision was originally introducedonly in the case of “powerful persons,” who might in-timidate the witnesses. Ultimately, all Judaizers and sim-ilar dangerous heretics had been included in this cate-gory, precisely those persons who most needed protectionbeing hence deprived of it. The accusers and accusedwere never confronted—a practice inconceivable inmodern jurisprudence. Thus, any attempt upon the partof the prisoner to invalidate the evidence, while his lifewas at stake, had to be based upon utter conjecture. Itwas necessary for him to search his memory for the nameof some personal enemy who might have denounced himwithout cause, and to demonstrate that any evidencewhich might have been received from this quarter orfrom that ought not to obtain credence so far as he wasconcerned.4

The details admitted were flimsy in the extreme. Thusmere regard for personal cleanliness might be enoughto convict a person of secretly practicing Judaism orIslam, and so cost him his life. The system naturally lentitself to false accusations, sometimes on an enormousscale. In the early years of the eighteenth century, a cer-tain physician from Faro, named Francisco de Sá eMesquita, denounced a number of persons at Beja who,he alleged, had come together to practice Jewish rites—on one occasion, sixty-six, and on another ninety-two.They were arrested; several of them died in prison as aresult of their sufferings. Ultimately it was found that



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the accusation was utterly baseless. It is only fair to addthat the Inquisition punished the crime rigorously, theinformer being executed at Lisbon in the auto of Octo-ber 10,1723.5 Such exhibitions of severity in cases of thisdescription were not, however, common.

Once the formal accusation was made, the whole ofthe subsequent procedure was based upon a desire tomake the accused person confess his crime and so beadmitted to penitence. Thus, though his body mightsuffer, his immortal soul would be saved. If confessionwere not forthcoming voluntarily, torture might be ap-plied. This was in fullest accordance with the spirit ofthe age.6 As a matter of fact, in this particular instancethe Spanish Inquisition, notorious though its crueltieswere, compared favorably with that of Rome, wheretorture might be continued even after confession in or-der to obtain the names of presumed accomplices orassociates. Nevertheless, in those cases where the con-fession did not cover other persons who were implicat-ed in the same charge, the torture would frequently becontinued in caput alienum (as it was termed), so as toextort fresh evidence against them.

In the earlier period, the most common methods oftorture were the strappado (in which the victim was letfall from a beam to which he was attached by a shortrope, being brought up with a jerk before he reachedthe ground), and the water-torment. Afterwards, freshand (as they were considered) more humane fashionscame into vogue—notably the cordeles and the garrotes.An eighteenth-century English account gives some ideaof the procedure, and will spare the unpleasant neces-sity of embarking upon an original description:—


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[107]

Th

e place of T

OR

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er of givin

g the T

OR

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AN ACCOUNT OF THE PROCESS OF THE INQUISITION

AND ITS MANAGEMENT BY TORTURE

“When the prisoner has been examined three timesand still persists in the negative, it often happens thathe is detained a whole year or longer before he is ad-mitted to another audience, that being wearied withhis imprisonment, he may more readily confess whatis desired; but if he still persists in the negative hisaccusation is at length delivered to him intermixtwith a number of pretended crimes of a heinous na-ture, which composition of truth and falsehood is asnare for the unhappy wretch; for as he seldom failsto exclaim against the feigned crimes, his judgesthence conclude the others of which he makes lesscomplaint are true. When his trial comes on in goodearnest, the witnesses are examined afresh, a copy ofthe depositions is delivered to him with those circum-stances suprest as might discover the evidence; hereplies to each particular, and gives interrogatoriesto which he would have the witnesses examined andthe names of others that he would have examined inhis behalf; an advocate is appointed for him, whichtho’ it has the appearance of Justice is really of nouse to the prisoner—for the advocate is under, oathto the office, is not admitted to speak to his client butin presence of the inquisitor, nor to alledge anythingin his favour but what he thinks proper. After theprocess has been carried on in this manner for a con-siderable time, the judges with their assessors exam-ine the proofs and determine the fate of the Prison-er; if his answers and exceptions are not satisfacto-


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109

ry, nor the proofs against him sufficient for conviction,he is condemned to the TORTURE. The scene of this dia-bolical cruelty is a dark underground vault, the pris-oner upon his arrival there is immediately seized by atorturer, who forthwith strips him. Whilst he is strip-ping, and while under the torture, the inquisitorstrongly exhorts him to confess his guilt, yet neitherto bear false witness against himself or others. The firstTORTURE is that of ye ROPE which is performed in thismanner. The prisoner’s hands are bound behind him,and by means of a rope fastened to them and runningthrough a pulley, he is raised up to the ceiling, wherehaving hung for some time with weights tyed to hisfeet, he is let down almost to the ground with suchsudden jerks as disjoints his arms and legs, wherebyhe is put to the most exquisite pain, and is forced tocry out in a terrible manner. If the prisoner’s strengthholds out, they usually torture him in this mannerabout an hour, and if it does not force a confessionfrom him to their liking, they have recourse to the nexttorture, viz.: WATER. The prisoner is now laid upon hisback in a wooden trough which has a barr runningthrough ye midst of it upon which his back lies, andupon occasion his back bone is hereby broke and putshim to incredible pain. The torture of Water is some-times performed by forcing the prisoner to swallow aquantity of water and then pressing his body by screw-ing ye sides of ye trough closer; at other times a wetcloth is laid over the prisoners mouth and nostrils,and a small stream of water constantly descendingupon it he sucks ye cloth into his throat, which be-ing suddenly removed draws away with it water and



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blood and puts ye unhappy wretch into the AGONIES

OF DEATH. The next torture, viz,: that of FIRE, is thusperformed, the prisoner being-placed on the groundhis feet are held towards a fire and rubbed withunctious and cumbustible matter, by which means,ye heat penetrating into those parts, HE SUFFERS

PAINS WORSE THAN DEATH ITSELF.”

As may be imagined, death under torture was by nomeans uncommon, though in most instances the physi-cian in attendance enforced sufficient moderation toavoid a fatal conclusion. But in any case the sufferingswere terrible. Even pregnancy was not regarded as a suf-ficient reason to save a woman from the ordeal. It isworth while to quote at some length the official recordof the torture of Elvira del Campo, wife of the scriven-er Alonso de Moya, who was tried by the Inquisition ofToledo in 1567–9 on a charge of not eating pork and ofputting on clean linen on Saturdays. She admitted hav-ing been guilty of these heinous practices, but pleadedthat she had no heretical intention. Naturally, she wasnot believed. When the sentence of torture was read outto her, she fell to her knees and begged to know whatthey wanted her to say. This was obviously unsatisfac-tory, and orders were given for the proceedings to be-gin. It may be added that the administration of one jar-ra (jug) of water in this particular variety of torture wasunusually lenient, the number sometimes reaching six oreight. The present case is one which omits the screamsand cries of horror, which are usually set forth in excru-ciating detail. The cold, unmoved tone in which theofficial account proceeds is worth noting:—


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She was carried to the torture chamber, and toldto tell the truth, when she said that she had noth-ing to say. She was ordered to be stripped and againadmonished, but was silent. When stripped, she said“Señores, I have done all that is said of me and Ibear false-witness against myself, for I do not wantto see myself in such trouble; please God, I havedone nothing.” She was told not to bring false tes-timony against herself but to tell the truth. The ty-ing of the arms commenced; she said “I have toldthe truth; what have I to tell?” She was told to tellthe truth and replied “I have told the truth and havenothing to tell.” One cord was applied to the armsand twisted and she was admonished to tell thetruth but said she had nothing to tell. Then shescreamed and said “I have done all they say.” Toldto tell in detail what she had done she replied “Ihave already told the truth.” Then she screamed andsaid “Tell me what you want for I don’t know whatto say.” She was told to tell what she had done, forshe was tortured because she had not done so, andanother turn of the cord was ordered. She cried:“Loosen me, Señores, and tell me what I have to say:I do not know what I have done, O Lord have mercyon me, a sinner!” Another turn was given and shesaid “Loosen me a little that I may remember whatI have to tell; I don’t know what I have done; I didnot eat pork, for it made me sick; I have done eve-rything; loosen me and I will tell the truth.” Anotherturn of the cord was ordered, when she said “Loos-en me and I will tell the truth; I don’t know what Ihave to tell—loosen me for the sake of God—tell me



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what I have to say—I did it, I did it,—they hurt meSeñor—loosen me, loosen me and I will tell it.” Shewas told to tell it and said “I don’t know what Ihave to tell—Señor I did it—I have nothing to tell—O my arms! release me and I will tell it.” She wasasked to tell what she did and said “I don’t know,I did not eat because I did not wish to.” She wasasked why she did not wish to and replied “Ay! loos-en me, loosen me—take me from here and I will tellit when I am taken away—I say that I did not eatit.” She was told to speak and said “I did not eat it,I don’t know why.” Another turn was ordered andshe said “Señor I did not eat it because I did notwish to—release me and I will tell it.” She was toldto tell what she had done contrary to our holy Cath-olic faith. She said “Take me from here and tell mewhat I have to say—they hurt me—Oh my arms, myarms!” which repeated many times and went on “Idon’t remember—tell me what I have to say—Owretched me!—I will tell all that is wanted, Señores—they are breaking my arms—loosen me a little—I did everything that is said of me.” She was toldto tell in detail truly what she did. She said “Whatam I wanted to tell? I did everything—loosen mefor I don’t remember what I have to tell—don’t yousee what a weak woman I am? Oh! Oh! my armsare breaking.” More turns were ordered and as theywere given she cried, “Oh, Oh, loosen me for I don’tknow what I have to say—Oh, my arms! I don’tknow what I have to say—if I did I would tell it.”The cords were ordered to be tightened when she said“Señores have you no pity on a sinful woman?” She


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was told, yes, if she would tell the truth. She said,“Señor tell me, tell me it.” The cords were tightenedagain, and she said “I have already said that I didit.” She was ordered to tell in detail, to which shesaid “I don’t know how to tell it señor, I don’tknow.” Then the cords were separated and count-ed, and there were sixteen turns, and in giving thelast turn the cord broke.

She was then ordered to be placed on the potro(frame). She said: “Señores, why will you not tell mewhat I have to say? Señor, put me on the ground—have I not said that I did it all?” She was told to tellit. She said: “I don’t remember—take me away— Idid what the witnesses say.” She was told to tell indetail what the witnesses said. She said “Señor, as Ihave told you, I do not know for certain.” I have saidthat I did all that the witnesses say. Señores releaseme, for I do not remember it.” She was told to tell it.She said “I do not know it. Oh, Oh, they are tearingme to pieces—I have said that I did it—let me go.”She was told to tell it. She said “Señores, it does nothelp me to say that I did it, and I have admitted thatwhat I have done has brought me to this suffering—Señor, you know the truth—Señores, for God’ssake have mercy on me. Oh Señor, take these thingsfrom my arms—Señor release me, they are killingme.” She was tied on the potro with the cords, shewas admonished to tell the truth and the garroteswere ordered to be tightened. She said “Señor do younot see how these people are killing me? Señor, I didit—for God’s sake let me go.” She was told to tell it.She said “Señor, remind me of what I did not know



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—Señores have mercy upon me—let me go for God’ssake—they have no pity on me—I did it—take mefrom here and I will remember what I cannot here.”She was told to tell the truth or the cords would betightened. She said “Remind me of what I have tosay for I don’t know it— I said that I did not wantto eat it—I know only that I did not want to eat it,”and this she repeated many times. She was told totell why she did not want to eat it. She said “For thereason that the witnesses say—I don’t know how totell it—miserable that I am that I don’t know howto tell it. I say I did it and my God how can I tellit?” Then she said that, as she did not do it, how couldshe tell it—“They will not listen to me—these peo-ple want to kill me—release me and I will tell thetruth.” She was again admonished to tell the truth.She said, “I did it, I don’t know how I did it— I didit for what the witnesses say—let me go—I have lostmy senses and I don’t know how to tell it—loosenme and I will tell the truth.” Then she said “Señor, Idid it, I don’t know how I have to tell it, but I tell itas the witnesses say—I wish to tell it—take me fromhere. Señor as the witnesses say, so I say and con-fess it.” She was told to declare it. She said “I don’tknow how to say it—I have no memory—Lord, youare witness that if I knew how to say anything else Iwould say it. I know nothing more to say than thatI did it and God knows it.” She said many times,“Señores, Señores, nothing helps me. You, Lord, hearthat I tell the truth and can say no more,—they aretearing out my soul—order them to loosen me.” Then


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she said, “I do not say that I did it—I said no more.”Then she said, “Señor, I did it to observe that Law.”She was asked what Law. She said, “The Law thatthe witnesses say—I declare it all Señor, and don’tremember what Law it was—O, wretched was themother that bore me.” She was asked what was theLaw she meant and what was the Law she said thewitnesses say. This was asked repeatedly, but shewas silent and at last said that she did not know.She was told to tell the truth or the garrotes wouldbe tightened but she did not answer. Another turnwas ordered on the garrotes and she was admon-ished to say what Law it was. She said “If I knewwhat to say I would say it. Oh Señor, I don’t knowwhat I have to say—Oh, Oh, they are killing me—if they would tell me what—Oh, Señores! Oh, myheart!” Then she asked why they wished her to tellwhat she could not tell and cried repeatedly “O,miserable me!” Then she said “Lord bear witnessthat they are killing me without my being able toconfess.” She was told that if she wished to tell thetruth before the water was poured she should doso and discharge her conscience. She said that shecould not speak and that she was a sinner. Thenthe linen toca (funnel) was placed (in her throat)and she said “Take it away, I am strangling and amsick in the stomach.” A jar of water was thenpoured down, after which she was told to tell thetruth. She clamoured for confession, saying thatshe was dying. She was told that the torture wouldbe continued till she told the truth and was admon-ished to tell it, but though she was questioned re-



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peatedly she remained silent. Then the inquisitor,seeing her exhausted by the torture, ordered it to besuspended.

The unhappy woman’s sufferings were by no meansat an end. Four days were allowed to elapse before hernext appearance; for long experience had shown thatin the interval the limbs would be stiffened, and repe-tition of the torture thereby rendered more painful. Themiserable victim was again brought to the torture-chamber; but she broke down when she was stripped,and piteously begged to have her nakedness covered.The interrogation was resumed. Under torture, herreplies were even more rambling and incoherent thanbefore. Ultimately, her powers of resistance brokedown, so that the Inquisitors were able to elicit theconfession of Judaism at which they had been aiming,coupled with a prayer for mercy and penance.7 It maybe imagined with what feelings of attachment to theChristian Faith she emerged from the auto-de-fé atwhich she was formally reconciled to the Holy Catho-lic Church. Indeed, in one or two well-authenticatedinstances, the sufferings endured during the course ofan unjust imprisonment finally caused the victims toturn to Judaism, for which they had previously had noinclination. There was generally ample opportunity formeditation, as the Inquisition proceeded with southernleisureliness. Persons sometimes languished in prisonfor as long as fourteen years, at the close of whichperiod they might be acquitted!

It may readily be understood that the torture wasgenerally abundantly sufficient to elicit a confession, if


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[117]

Title Page of an Account of the Auto held inSeville on July 5, 1722.

(See p. 120)


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one had been withheld up to that point. It is howeveronly right to add that the Inquisition, however cruel andrelentless, was just according to its own severe stand-ards. It generally proceeded only after having collectedample evidence of crime; and the student of any Inqui-sitional process is impressed by the care and delibera-tion with which the case progresses. Torture was im-posed, in most instances, only to procure confirmationof what the Inquisitors already knew; for, without con-fession, penitence was out of the question, and there wasno alternative but death. The cases in which a condem-nation did not result were thus extremely few. Thus, inthe Toledo Tribunal, the acquittals between the years1484 and 1531 averaged less than two yearly. In thePortuguese Inquisition, the number of condemnationscomes to well over three-quarters of the total numberof cases tried. But even when the Inquisitors were con-vinced that the silence of the accused under torture wasbased on innocence, in most instances a certain meas-ure of culpability was nevertheless assumed, and formalpenance was required.

In the case of any convicted person who professedrepentance, whether spontaneously or as the result oftorture, “reconciliation” to the bosom of the Church fol-lowed as a matter of course. The culprit had to swearbefore a crucifix that he accepted the Catholic religionin its every detail; that he anathematized every sort ofheresy, particularly that of which he had been convicted;and that he accepted fully the punishment which hadbeen imposed upon him in token of penitence. This “ab-juration,” as it was termed, might be “light” or “vehe-ment.” In the former case (de levi) the person convict-


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119

ed added that in case of failure in his undertaking tocomply with the sentence he should be held impenitent;in the latter (de vehementi), that in such case he shouldbe considered and treated as a relapsed heretic. Logi-cally, a reconciliation of this sort could be performed onlyonce. Any subsequent conviction was taken as a clearproof that the original penitence had been insincere; andthe culprit was ipso facto condemned to the stake.8

The reconciliation was invariably accompanied by apunishment, of varying intensity. The spiritual penanc-es, such as fasting each Friday for six months or recitinga certain number of Ave Marias or Paternosters, were themost infrequent: a curious paradox, considering the factthat the offences were not of a material nature. In anycase, they would not figure to any appreciable extent inthe sentences of those convicted for so heinous a sin asJudaizing. For these, harsher penalties existed. Amongthese was that of scourging—very common in the earlierperiod, but remitted more and more frequently as timewent on. This was executed publicly, with every circum-stance of humiliation. Similar, with the omission of thelashes, was the verguenza (“shaming”), imposed both onmen and women. This consisted in parading the townstripped to the waist and bearing the insignia of the of-fence; the town-crier meanwhile proclaiming the sentence.The mordaza, or gag, was sometimes applied, this beingregarded as enhancing the humiliation of the punishment.More severe was the penalty of the galleys, an economi-cal device of Ferdinand the Catholic, whereby the pun-ishment of heresy was turned to the benefit of the State.In 1573, and again in 1591, the Suprema ordered thatall convicted New Christians, even when they confessed



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[120]

Beginning of List of those «Relaxed» to be Burned.Seville, July 5, 1722.

(See p. 117; for the Penha family, p. 217.)


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their crime freely, should be sent to the galleys; and itremained a punishment very commonly inflicted uponsecret Jews. The sentences ranged from three years tolife; but these terms frequently approximated, as thesufferings involved often resulted fatally. In the courseof the eighteenth century, other types of penal servitudewere substituted. For women the most frequent alterna-tive was forced service in hospitals or houses of correc-tion. Perpetual incarceration was another usual form ofpunishment; though the prison was known by the eu-phemistic title of casa de la penitencia or de la miseri-cordia.9 At a later period, the duration of the imprison-ment was generally decreased, those convicted beingreleased at the close of eight years, or even less.10 Thetitle of the punishment, however, “perpetual imprison-ment,” officially remained as before. Among the otherpenalties may be mentioned that of exile (frequently tothe colonies), exclusion from certain cities, and the prac-tice of rasing to the ground the house of any peculiarlyheinous offender, or one in which heretical services—particularly Jewish—had been held.

It was not only in his own person that anyone con-victed by the Inquisition of a serious offence was pun-ished. A number of disabilities were entailed which fellnot only on those penanced, but also on their childrenand their descendants for some generations to come.They were not allowed to enter Holy Orders. They wereexcluded from any public dignity. They were not per-mitted to become physicians, apothecaries, tutors of theyoung, advocates, scriveners, or farmers of revenue.They were submitted to certain sumptuary regulations,not being allowed to be dressed in cloth of gold or sil-



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ver, or to wear jewelry, or to ride on horse-back. Neglectof these provisions, sometimes after the lapse of severalgenerations, brought the offender once more into theclutches of the Holy Office. Generally, infractions werepunished in such cases by fine only; and the grantingof rehabilitations, in return for a monetary considera-tion, ultimately became very common.

But the most terrible weapon of the Inquisition, oth-er than the power of inflicting the death sentence, wasthe right it enjoyed of confiscating the property of thosewhom it convicted. At the beginning, the proceeds weredevoted to the use of the sovereign. Gradually, theydevolved upon the Holy Office itself, only a very smallproportion reaching the public treasury. In the earlierperiod, general compositions on the part of the NewChristians, to save themselves from the possibility ofarbitrary confiscation, were not uncommon. Later, con-ditions changed, and concerted action became impos-sible. We have seen how the conversos and their de-scendants, particularly in Portugal, struggled against thisright of confiscation, which they considered to be a per-petual incitement to proceed against them, howeverunimpeachable their orthodoxy might be. It was throughthis means that the Inquisition was raised into a cor-poration of such vast influence and wealth. Above all,it thus became overwhelmingly to its interest to procurethe conviction of all who were brought before it, espe-cially when they were persons of great means. It was aweapon which struck at the whole of a man’s family,reducing them at one stroke from affluence to beggary;while through such action the economic life of the wholecountry was liable to be thrown into sudden disorgani-


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[123]

Title Page of List of Victims of Auto held at Seville on March 29, 1648;Printed in Mexico in 1648.


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zation. No other single factor, perhaps, was so instru-mental in draining the Peninsula of its accumulatedwealth during the course of the sixteenth, seventeenth,and eighteenth centuries.

The final sanction in the hands of the Inquisition wasthe penalty of death. As an ecclesiastical body, it couldnot itself be a direct party to this (it will be rememberedhow the warlike prelates of the Middle Ages used to gointo battle armed with a mace, so as to avoid the shed-ding of blood!). It therefore handed over, or “relaxed,”the persons convicted to the secular arm, with a formalrecommendation that, if it were found necessary to pro-ceed to the extreme penalty, this should be effected“without effusion of blood”—that is, by burning. Thiswas an ancient legal fiction of the Church, dating backto the eleventh or twelfth century. The actual mode ofpunishment was justified by a text of the New Testa-ment (John, 15.6): “If a man abide not in me, he is castforth as a branch and is withered: and men gather themand cast them into the fire, and they are burned.”

Generally speaking, the extreme penalty was reservedfor such as refused the opportunity for repentance. Thesecomprised the “contumacious,” who gloried in theircrime, and died true martyrs to their convictions; the“relapsed,” who had been reconciled on some previousoccasion, and whose backsliding proved their insincerity;the “diminutos” whose confession was incomplete, andwho shielded their accomplices;11 or the negativos, whorefused to confess the charges made against them. Un-der this heading there must necessarily have been includ-ed on occasion persons who were absolutely innocent ofthe crimes imputed to them, and who would not con-


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[125]

Th

e place an

d m

ann

er of EX

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UT

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fess falsely to the sin of heresy even to escape death. Thefact that those who came under this last category werecondemned to the flames shows more clearly than any-thing else on what sure ground the Inquisition general-ly found itself. “Dogmatizers,” or those who propagat-ed heretical views, whether baptized or no, were alsomarked out as victims; and, in the earliest Inquisitionalperiod, many fervent professing Jews suffered under thishead.12 On the other hand, by no means all of thosepersons upon whom a capital sentence was pronouncedwere burned alive. A profession of repentance, even aftercondemnation, was, except in the case of relapsed here-tics, almost sufficient to secure the preliminary mercyof garroting, only the corpse being burned at the stake.The effigies of fugitives, with the bones of those who hadescaped justice by death (sometimes in prison, or elseunder torture), would similarly be committed to theflames. Those burned in effigy often numbered nearlyas many as those burned in person, sometimes evenmore. This was not, indeed, a barren formality, as thecondemnation even of the dead secured the confiscationof their property, no matter how much time had elapsedsince the alleged offence had been committed; whilereconciliation in such cases was obviously outside thebounds of possibility.

Under the circumstances, it is obviously incorrect toconsider all the victims of the Inquisition as martyrs totheir faith. The “contumacious,” who went to the stakeproudly confessing their Judaism, were a comparativelyinsignificant minority. As we have seen, on the occasionof the great persecution in Majorca, in 1691, only threepersons out of a total of some forty were burned alive.


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127

All the rest saved themselves the worst agonies by avery timely repentance, so that only their garroted bod-ies were committed to the flames. The proportion wasnot peculiarly high. It was not to be expected that per-sons who had lived a life of subterfuge would sudden-ly acquire the spirit of martyrdom in their last mo-ments, though that sometimes happened. The generalimpression that the Inquisition burned Jews must beclassed as a popular misconception. Normally, as wehave seen, the Jews did not come within the scope ofits activity, provided that they did not interfere inmatters of faith; and sometimes the defence of personsput on trial was that they had been born Jews, that theyhad never been baptized, and that they were accord-ingly guilty of no crime except that of being in thecountry illegally. Of those who died at the stake, anoverwhelming majority had denied Judaism while theylived; while a very large proportion repudiated it evenin the hour of death. The proportion of real martyrsamongst the Inquisitional victims was not large. Evenof the minority who were burned alive, some werediminutos or relapsados, whose profession of repent-ance was now insufficient to procure mercy; while oth-ers were negativos who stoutly disclaimed the chargesbrought against them, and sometimes were indubita-bly innocent. In either case, such victims died profess-ing the Catholic faith with their last breath. It was asa matter of fact sometimes agreed upon among theMarranos, as being the safest course, to deny all charg-es brought against them. Thus they would have at leastsome possibility of escaping sentence, and would notimplicate their accomplices. It is this which explains the



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strange silence of some persons, indubitably guilty, whoforewent by their persistently negative attitude even thefull satisfaction of martyrdom.13

The sentences of the Inquisition were announced atthe so-called Act of Faith : Auto de Fé as it was termedin Spain, and Auto-da-fè in Portugal. It is the latter ti-tle which has obtained universal currency—a fact whichthrows a vivid light upon the unenviable prominence inInquisitional activity which the smaller country ulti-mately attained. For lighter offences, involving abjura-tion de levi, the ceremonial might be private (auto par-ticular, or autillo). In these cases it would be held in achurch, with a minimum of publicity. This was howeverrarely resorted to for so heinous a crime as Judaizing;particularly as it was considered wrong to pronounce inthe sacred precincts a sentence ultimately involvingcapital punishment. In most cases, therefore, the cere-mony was public (auto publico general). This ultimatelybecame the subject of elaborate organization. The cer-emony would be arranged to take place on some feast-day, in the principal square of the city. Ample notice wasgiven so as to attract as large a concourse of spectatorsas was possible, spiritual benefits being promised to allthose present. Two stagings were erected, at considera-ble expense, for the accommodation of the principalactors—one for those convicted and their spiritual at-tendants, and the other for the Inquisitors and the restof the authorities, civil and ecclesiastical. Pulpits and atemporary altar, draped in black, were set up betweenthem.

The proceedings would be opened at dawn by a pro-cession, in which all the clergy of the city would take


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[129]

The Habit of a PENITENT called SAMBENITO.


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[130]

The Habit of a RELAPSE or IMPENITENT going to be burnt.


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part, headed by the great standard of the Inquisition.Behind followed those condemned to appear at the cer-emony. Those abjuring de vehementi had to carry lightedtapers in their hands and to wear the sambenito, or sacobendito14 (the abito, as it was called in the official sen-tence). This, an innovation of the Spanish Inquisition,consisted of a long yellow robe, transversed by a blackcross (in the case of those convicted of only formal her-esy, only one of the diagonal arms was necessary). Wherethe heretic had escaped the stake by confession, flamespointing downwards (fuego revuelto) were painted onthe garment, which in these instances were sometimesof black. Those condemned to be burned bore arepresentation of devils thrusting heretics into the firesof hell. All wore in addition tall mitres (coraza), simi-larly adorned. In certain cases, as an additional punish-ment, the sambenito had to be worn in public, particu-larly on Sundays and festivals, even after the release ofthe prisoner, exposing him to universal scorn and deri-sion. After its immediate utility had passed, it was gen-erally hung up in the parish church of the delinquent,accompanied by a fitting inscription; the wearer and hisfamily being thus marked out for lasting humiliation.These memorials of shame were destroyed only with theabolition of the Inquisition in the early years of the nine-teenth century.15

When, amid the universal obsecration, the processionhad arrived in the square where the auto was to be cel-ebrated, the penitents and dignitaries would take theirplace on the respective scaffoldings reserved for them.Thereupon, a notary would administer a solemn oath toall present to defend the Catholic faith and to support



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the Holy Office. A sermon would then be delivered bysome distinguished ecclesiastic. Its object was not somuch the edification of the audience as the humiliationof the penitents, upon whose heads a torrent of the mostunsparing insults, revoltingly cruel under the circum-stances, would be poured. They would then appear oneby one before the pulpit to hear their sentences, whichhad hitherto been kept a profound secret. The readingof the sentences took some time, the proceedings beingoften protracted into the night, and sometimes spreadover two or even three days. The formal acts of abju-ration would generally take place in batches, half adozen prisoners appearing before the altar at a time.

Only those who were to be “relaxed” to the seculararm had known their fate before, being brought fromtheir dungeons in the Palace of the Inquisition to hearit, on the previous evening. From that time, a couple ofeloquent Confessors were permanently attached to theperson of each one, in the hope of persuading him to alast-minute repentance. For the more steadfast, thiscannot have been the least part of the sufferings in-volved. At the auto, the sentences of relaxation were leftto the last. Those so fated were then formally condemnedto death by the civil magistrate and escorted to the que-madero, or place of burning,16 by a detachment of sol-diers whose presence was sometimes necessary to savethem from a violent (but indeed more humane) death atthe hands of the infuriated mob. With them were bornethe effigies of any who had anticipated their fate byflight or death, as well as the exhumed bones of the lat-ter, all of which were formally committed to the flames.To light the brand with which the pyre was set afire was


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[133]

The C

elebration of an AC

T of F

AIT

H in the G

reat Square of MA

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as solemnized in honour of N

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[134]

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Am

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135

considered an honor, or rather a religious duty, of thehighest magnitude and usually fell to the lot of somedistinguished visitor. It should be noted that the execu-tion of sentence did not, as is generally imagined, forman integral part of the solemnity, being carried out at adifferent place (generally outside the city-walls), andsome time later. The windows of the nearest houses werelet out at high prices to those who desired to enjoy thespectacle, or else reserved for honored guests. At someplaces, such as Toledo, the Plaza do Quemadero stillretains its old name. At Lisbon, the place of burning wasthe great square on the sea-front, formerly called theTerreiro do Paço (now the Praca do Municipio), adja-cent to the royal palace. The ashes of the victims weresupposed to be scattered to the winds. However, mass-es of bones have more than once been found during thecourse of recent excavations near the place of execution—notably at Saragossa—showing that the fire did notalways complete its task. It was the fiendish custom ofthe populace to set fire to the beards of the condemnedpersons before the pyre was lighted, so as to increasetheir sufferings. This they called “shaving the NewChristians.”

During the course of the sixteenth and seventeenthcenturies, the auto came to be reckoned a great publicspectacle in the Peninsula and its dependencies, vyingin popular appeal with bull-fights. Tens of thousands ofpeople, of every sort and degree; would stream in fromthe surrounding countryside to take advantage of thespiritual benefits which were involved. The splendorwas extreme. At one great auto at Cordova, on June 29,1665, nearly 400,000 maravedis were expended on the



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entertainment of the Inquisitors, their servants, and thenumerous guests. The proceedings lasted from seven inthe morning to nine o’clock at night; and fifty-fiveJudaizers were “relaxed” either in person or in effigy,three of them being burned alive. Another especiallynoteworthy auto took place at Seville in 1660. It con-tinued over three days, from April 11 to April 13, andwas with only few exceptions the greatest yet known.A throng estimated at no less than 100,000 persons issaid to have witnessed it. Forty-seven Judaizers (most-ly Portuguese) figured in it, of whom seven were burned— three of them alive. Besides these, thirty fugitiveswere burned in effigy, including one of the best knowndramatists and one of the greatest physicians of theday.17 Special celebrations would sometimes be arrangedin honor of royalty. Thus, on February 24, 1570, and thefollowing day, one was held at Toledo to celebrate thevisit of Philip II and his bride, Isabella of Valois. InMadrid on July 4, 1632, an auto was held in celebration(could fanatical unimaginativeness go further?) of thesafe delivery of the Queen; it was on this occasion thatthe members of the secret synagogue in the capital werepunished. But the climax was reached on June 30, 1680,on the Plaza Mayor of the same city, in the presence ofthe young Carlos II and his young bride, Louise Maried’Orléans, newly arrived from France. At this auto,which began at six o’clock in the morning and lasted forfourteen hours, no less than fifty-one persons (most ofthem Judaizers) were “relaxed” either in person or ineffigy; while sixty-seven penitents were reconciled. It issaid that one strikingly beautiful girl of about seventeencalled out, as she passed the royal stand: “Noble Queen,


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[137]

Title Page of Sermon preached by the Dominican Manuel Rebelloat Auto held at Lisbon, September 5, 1638.


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cannot your royal presence save me from this? I suckedin my religion with my mothers milk; must I now diefor it?” In spite of this, the king himself set light to thebrand which kindled the quemadero on which she per-ished. This, as a great Court spectacle, formed the sub-ject of a painting by Rici, and of a triumphant descrip-tion by Olmo. It was, however, as matters turned out,the last great solemnity of its kind.

The sermons preached at the autos were often pub-lished subsequently; in Portuguese alone, about seven-ty-five are extant in print. They usually speak of thepenitents as Jews, and in terms of the utmost vitupera-tion. Similarly, “Relations” of the autos, containing fulldetails of the proceedings, or more succinct “Listas” ofthe persons who appeared, were usually printed andhawked about the streets in order to satisfy the ghoul-ish tastes of the populace. They are among our mainsources of knowledge for the history of the period, giv-ing full information as to the names of the victims andthe nature of their crimes, with gruesome details as towho was burned alive, who after garroting, and who ineffigy.

These publications had their counterparts in the Jew-ish communities of the free world abroad. When thenews of the autos-da-fè reached them, special serviceswould often be held; an elegy especially composed forsuch an occasion by Ezekiel Rosa would be recited; asermon would be preached by some eminent rabbi; andthe local poetasters would celebrate the martyrs in touch-ing elegies. When on May 3, 1655, Manuel (Abraham)Nuñez Bernal was burned at Cordova, all the littera-teurs of the community of Amsterdam collaborated in


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[139]

Title Page of Columbus’ Letter to Sanchez, Basle, 1493.


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[140]

First Page of Columbus’ Letter to Sanchez.


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a memorial volume which was published in his honorand that of his nephew, Isaac de Almeyda, who perishedabout the same time.18 In the prayer-books of the time,a special form of Hascaba, or Memorial Prayer, was in-serted, to be recited in commemoration of those “Burnedfor the sanctification of the Divine Name:” “God ofVengeance! O Lord, God of Vengeance! Shine forth!” itbegins, after a formal opening. A number of other sim-ilar verses follow, and then the final prayer:—

“May the great, mighty, and terrible God avengethe vengeance of His holy servant . . . . who wasburned alive for the sanctified unity of His name. MayHe seek his blood from his enemies by His mighty armand repay his foes according to their deserts. May theKing, in His mercy, remember unto us His merit, asit is written: ‘Rejoice, O ye nations, His people, forHe will avenge the blood of His servants, and willrender vengeance to His adversaries, and will absolvethe land and His People.’ ”19

The organization, and the thoroughness, of the Inqui-sition cannot but excite a certain admiration. No lapseof years nor alteration of circumstances nor complete-ness of disguise could apparently baffle it. It knew nodistinction of age or sex or degree. Its memory could beincredibly long; its relentlessness and its conscientious-ness were worthy of a better cause. We read of a fugi-tive Portuguese family implicated in a case in 1656,burned in effigy in 1660, finally arrested in a differentpart of the country under a disguised name in 1677, andbeing sentenced to lifelong imprisonment in expiation of



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their crime in 1679—twenty-four years after the open-ing of the case! A certain woman—Isabella, wife ofFrancisco Palos of Ciudad Real—was tried by the Val-ladolid tribunal in 1608, when 22 years of age. Subse-quently, she was again tried five times—twice at Llere-na, twice at Cuenca, and finally at Toledo. Altogether,about eighteen years of her life were thus passed. Thelast trial began in 1665, when she was in her eightiethyear, and lasted until 1670. During its course, notwith-standing her advanced age, she was tortured three times,ultimately succumbing (as was not remarkable) to hersufferings. Nevertheless, the tribunal would not bebaulked of its revenge; and she was burned in effigy,with her bones, as one who had died in sin.

The tentacles of the Tribunal were stretched out toevery part of the known world. Denunciations wereregularly received, from informers or from spies, fromFrance, England, Holland, Italy, Turkey, Africa, andeven India and the New World. The disclosures madein one trial might involve whole families, or even com-munities, which would methodically and mercilessly betracked down in their turn. Cases are on record of per-sons who denounced under torture as many as five orsix hundred of their relatives or acquaintances, thoughthis did not always save their own lives. During the caseat Toledo in 1669–70, against Fernando Gil de Espino-sa, alias Benjamin Gil, of Madrid, information was elic-ited which led to the issue of warrants for the arrest ofno less than 213 persons, without counting numerousothers who had left the country. If the Inquisition wasno respecter of persons, it was even less so of years. Inthis respect, the record is perhaps held by the venera-


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ble Anna Rodriguez, of Chaves, who figured as a peni-tent at the auto-da-fè held at Lisbon on May 10, 1682, atthe hoary age of ninety-seven years; but she has a closesecond in Maria Barbara Carillo, who was actuallyburned alive at Madrid on May 18, 1721, in her ninety-sixth year. In 1726 Blasca Gomez Fernandez, who haddied in prison at the age of one hundred, was relaxed ineffigy at Cordova. Maria Alejandra Rodriguez, a wom-an of ninety, was similarly “relaxed” at Granada in 1721.20

At the Lisbon auto of thirty-nine years previously, awoman of seventy was sentenced to deportation to Bra-zil! At the other end of the scale, we frequently find chil-dren of twelve or thirteen of both sexes similarly con-demned, and forced to implicate their whole families intheir confessions. In 1659, two girls only ten years old werereconciled by the Tribunal of Toledo.

The extent of the devastation achieved by the Inqui-sition can best be conveyed only by brutal figures. Asfar as Spain is concerned, the estimates given vary im-mensely. Llorente, the earliest scientific historian of theinstitution, states that all told, from its foundation downto 1808, the number of heretics burned in person in thatcountry totaled 31,912; those burned in effigy, 17,659;and those reconciled de vehementi 291,450—a total of341,021 in all. These huge figures are open to suspicion.However, they are exceeded by the indications given bythe intensely Catholic Amador de los Rios, usually mostmoderate in his views. He estimates that up to 1525,when the Moriscos first began to suffer, the number ofthose burned in person came to 28,540; those burned ineffigy to 16,520; and those penanced to 303,847; mak-ing a total of 348,907 condemnations exclusively for



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Judaism in less than half a century of existence. Rodri-go, the apologist of the Inquisition, on the other hand,puts forward the impossible assertion that less than 400persons were burned in the whole course of the exist-ence of the Inquisition in Spain. Even if this refers tothose true martyrs who remained steadfast to the lastand so were burned alive, it is a manifest understate-ment; but the total number of victims enormously out-numbered those in this category. It was in the earlier andmost ferocious period of the Inquisitional activity thatthe secret Jews especially suffered, being at that time thealmost exclusive object of its persecutions. They furnishtherefore a disproportionate number of the victims. Inthe later period, their contribution progressively de-clined. In the very last years, as will be seen, only a verysmall proportion of the cases were for Judaizing; but themajority of the charges at this period were trivial ones,and the sentences imposed were in most cases negligi-ble.

As far as Portugal and its dependencies are concerned,the figures can be given with a much greater approachto precision. There are extant the records of approxi-mately 40,000 cases tried before the Inquisition in thatcountry in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenthcenturies, the archives embodying them being virtuallycomplete so far as the tribunals of Coimbra and Lisbonare concerned. Of these, upwards of 30,000 resulted incondemnations. The sentences were carried at record-ed autos-da-fè totaling approximately 750 in all. In these,1,808 culprits were burned at the stake (633 in effigy and1,175 in person) and 29,590 were reconciled.21 Of thosewho suffered at the hands of the Portuguese Inquisition,


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down to its last days, an overwhelming proportion wereJudaizers. Lists have been compiled of little less than2,000 autos which took place in the Peninsula and itsdependencies from 1480 to 1825. This figure can be in-creased even further. All told, the Judaizers who wereput to death by the Inquisition in Spain and Portugalduring its three centuries of activity probably totaledmore than 30,000. Of these, a goodly number wereburned alive, true martyrs to their faith. Since historybegan, perhaps, in no spot on the earth’s surface has sosystematic and so protracted a persecution ever beenperpetrated for so innocent a cause.



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CHAPTER VI

SAINTS, HEROES AND MARTYRS

THE victims of the Inquisition were recruited fromevery walk of life and every section of society, from thehighest to the lowest. They included priests and nobles,poets and statesmen, nuns and friars, farmers of therevenue, beggars, merchants, craftsmen, pastry-cooks,peddlers, scriveners, attorneys, booksellers, professors,university students, uneducated women, children scarce-ly out of school, old men with one foot in the grave,knights of the various military orders, aristocrats alliedto the noblest families in the land. Each story embodiesits own tragedy, set down with incredible callousness bythe functionary who reported the trial or the chroniclerwho recorded it. Some of the cases are of more univer-sal interest than the rest; and a few of them, illustrat-ing in a larger measure the pathetic romance of Marranohistory, will be described here at greater length.1

The earliest of the Portuguese autos-da-fè witnessedthe martyrdom of a succession of extraordinary popu-lar religious leaders. During the period which precededthe establishment of the Inquisition in that country, aconsiderable amount of disturbance had been caused onaccount of a certain Luis Dias, a poor and uneducatedNew Christian tailor of the sea-port of Setubal, to thesouth of Lisbon. His mind was filled with confused Jew-ish ideas which he had heard from his parents. Theseworked on him to such an extent that he began to con-


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sider himself a prophet. Ultimately, he persuaded him-self that he was the promised Messiah, who was to de-liver his people from oppression. As such, he was lookedup to with reverence by his fellow New Christians, bothin his native place and in the capital, which he frequent-ly visited. Many Old Christians of all ranks also believedin his claims. Wherever he went, he was treated withextravagant signs of respect, his followers kissing hishand devoutly when they encountered him in the street.He received mystical letters from persons in all parts ofthe country who believed in his pretensions. He wasreported to work miracles. An even more serious accu-sation made against him was that he circumcised thechildren of his adherents. These reports reached the earsof the authorities, and he was arrested. However, at thisperiod the Inquisition had not yet attained its plenarypower. In consequence, after confessing his wrong andundergoing formal penance, he was released.

Very soon he was found reverting to his previous prac-tices, and was again arrested. By this time, the HolyOffice had acquired plenary authority, and was fully em-barked upon its career of blood. On this occasion therewas no mercy for him. He was accordingly sentencedto death, and was burned at the second auto-da-fè heldat Lisbon, in 1542. Eighty-three of his associates andadherents, Old Christians and New, suffered with him.Among the latter was the pseudo-prophet “MasterGabriel,” a physician, who had gone about from houseto house preaching the Law of Moses, and making manyproselytes. Gonçalo Eannes Bandarra of Trancoso, apopular mystical poet, who was in close relations withhim, though apparently not of Jewish descent, was sim-



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ilarly burned. His fate did not destroy his influenceamong the people; and his rhymes were largely re-sponsible for the curious semi-Messianic belief whichbecame current in Portugal that Dom Sebastian, whohad fallen in battle against the Moors in 1578, was notreally dead, but would one day return to deliver hispeople from oppression. The most illustrious member ofthe group was a government official, the Desembarga-dor Gil Vaz Bugalho, an Old Christian of good family,who occupied a high position in the government serv-ice. Through the influence of “the Messiah of Setubal”(as Luis Dias was termed), he became converted into aconforming Jew, translating parts of the Bible into thevernacular, composing a handbook of religious practicefor the use of the New Christians, and observing the“Law of Moses” as far as lay in his power. Meanwhile,he kept up an intimate mystical correspondence withDias himself. He too ultimately died at the stake, in 1551;while Francisco Mendes, physician to the Infant Alfon-so, escaped the same fate only by flight.

Another Messianic adventurer who met his end at thehands of the Inquisition was David Reubeni, the self-styled emissary from the independent Jewish tribes ofthe East. He had been arrested while endeavoring toapproach the Emperor Charles V at Ratisbon, and wasfinally carried off in chains to Spain, and lodged in thedungeons of the Inquisition at Llerena. From this point,he disappears from view. However, among the victimsof the first auto held at Evora, in 1542, was “the Jew ofthe Sabbath (O Judeu do Sapato2), who came from In-dia to Portugal to manifest himself to his people, say-ing that he was the promised Messiah, and that he came


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from the Euphrates; whence all the Jews believed inhim.” There can be little doubt that the reference is toDavid Reubeni, who suffered presumably on the chargeof having caused the New Christians to weaken in theirdevotion to their new faith. As far as his former associ-ate, Solomon Molcho, alias Diogo Pires, is concerned, weare on surer ground. He perished in Italy, at Mantua,in December, 1532, as a Judaizing apostate from theHoly Catholic Church.

A further martyr of the sixteenth century who creat-ed a great deal of attention in his day was Diego Lopes,of Pinancos, near La Guardia, who suffered at Coim-bra about the year 1580. From the moment of his ar-rest, he proclaimed proudly that he was a Jew, and de-sired to live and die in the Law of Moses. The effortsof all the theologians whose assistance was summonedagainst him could not convince him of his error, and hewas “relaxed” to the secular arm for punishment. As theflames began to get a hold on the pyre, a curious thinghappened. The chains with which he was bound fell intothe flames, but the body was nowhere to be seen. TheCatholic population had a ready explanation: that thedevils, unable to restrain their eagerness to have so per-nicious a heretic in their clutches, had carried him offto Hell, before the soul had been dissociated from theflesh. His fellow New Christians, to be sure, had a morecomforting interpretation of what had occurred; and, fora century after, the memory of this event continued toinspire them at the hour of trial.

One of the most illustrious and distinguished martyrsof the Inquisition in Portugal was Frei Diogo da As-sumpção, a young Franciscan friar, born at Viana in



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1579. He had in his veins only a small amount of Jew-ish blood. Nevertheless, his attention had become at-tracted to Judaism by reason of the ferocity with whichits adherents were persecuted. His own studies con-vinced him of the untenability of the principal doctrinesof Christianity, and the immeasurable superiority of theolder faith. It was impossible for him to keep his viewsto himself. Finding his position increasingly dangerous,he endeavored to make his escape to England or toFrance, but was apprehended on the way. Brought be-fore the Inquisition, he freely confessed all that was al-leged against him, and at first professed repentance.Ultimately his attitude changed, and he proudly con-fessed himself an adherent of the Law of Moses, “inwhich he lived and wished to die, and to which helooked for salvation.” His impressions of Judaism werebased only upon a literal interpretation of the Bible;but all attempts to shake his belief proved powerless.Even when in prison, he refused to take any oath onthe Gospels, fasted every Friday, found means to lightthe Sabbath lamp at nightfall, made some differentia-tion on Saturday to mark the sanctity of the day,worked ostentatiously on Sunday, and removed the fatmeticulously from all the meat brought to him, in ac-cordance with his impression of the Mosaic code. Asuccession of theologians was called in to argue withhim and to persuade him to abandon his hereticalviews, but he was able to hold his own against themall. The ultimate conclusion was inevitable. He wascondemned, and handed over to the secular arm forpunishment “without effusion of blood.” On August 3,1603, in his twenty-fifth year, he was burned alive at


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Lisbon “for the Sanctification of the Name,” remainingconstant to the end.

This episode created a profound impression. Too late,the Inquisitors realized the error which they had com-mitted in publishing his arguments against Christiani-ty, as well as the confutation; for they were by nowwidely circulated. Abroad, the martyr was generallymourned, numerous elegies being composed and pub-lished to celebrate his heroism and his devotion. Anumber of Marranos in Portugal formed a religious as-sociation in his memory (called, in order to divert sus-picion, the Brotherhood of S. Diogo), which kept a lampperpetually burning before the Ark of the Law of thesynagogue in some place of greater freedom. Thus, bythe blood of the victim, the faith of the secret Jews wasfertilized and strengthened.

The cult of the martyr was strongest in the city ofCoimbra. Here there was a considerable group of NewChristians attached to the famous University—all, ornearly all, devoted adherents to their ancestral faith. Theprincipal among them was Antonio Homem, one of themost gifted figures in the learned society of the age. Hehad been born at Coimbra in 1564, being the son ofJorge Vaz Brandão and great-grandson of Moses Boino(Bueno), a Jewish merchant and physician of Oporto, avictim of the general conversion of 1497. He was broughtup by his mother, Isabel Nuñez de Almeida, who be-longed to an Old Christian family. Antonio Homem waseducated by the Jesuits and studied in the famous uni-versity of his native place, where he graduated in Can-on Law in 1584. In 1592 he obtained an appointmenton the faculty. On the occasion of the great Plague of



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1599, he was able to render considerable services. Inreward for these, the University granted him an eccle-siastical benefice, to enjoy which he entered into HolyOrders, becoming a deacon. In 1614, he was appointedProfessor of Canon Law at the University. In this ca-pacity, he enjoyed an unrivaled reputation. His opinionwas widely consulted on all matters concerned withecclesiastical law. Several of his treatises are extant inmanuscript. He was even called upon, in 1612, to makea deposition in connection with the proposed canoniza-tion of Queen Isabella of Portugal. At the same time, heattained a considerable reputation as preacher and con-fessor. In 1616, accusations of improper conduct werebrought against him, and he was punished by a fine; buthis intellectual reputation was unimpaired.

During the period when he was at the height of hisfame as a theologian, Antonio Homem became the lead-ing spirit of the Marrano group which flourished atCoimbra. This comprised several of the most distin-guished figures in the University. There was Andréd’Avelar, Reader in Mathematics in the university, au-thor of a couple of scientific works, and, like Homem, aclerk in Holy Orders—at this time, an old man of sev-enty-six. Antonio Gomez, born at Alcobaça in the mid-dle of the sixteenth century, had been Professor of Med-icine in the University since 1584. Tomé Vaz was a dis-tinguished author and jurist, in practice at Oporto. Hewas a cousin of Homem’s, who had brought him overto his own beliefs. Francisco Dias was Reader in Can-on Law. A younger, but very illustrious member of thecircle was Francisco Vaz (Velasco) de Gouvea, son of theeminent New Christian jurist Alvaro Vaz. Francisco de


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Gouvea had been born at Lisbon in 1580. After a dis-tinguished career as a student, he became Reader inCanon Law at the University of Coimbra, as well asArchdeacon of Vila Nova de Cerveira, holding besidesother minor appointments. He had already written oneimportant work, and was subsequently to publish manyothers. The then Inquisitor General thought highly ofhim, and specially recommended him to the Pope. Sev-eral others connected with the University were alsomembers of the little group, including, all told, half adozen canons, as many eminent physicians, and severalpriests.

They held regular services at a house in the Largo dasOlarias in Coimbra. These were attended by as manyas a couple of dozen persons, including some studentsat the University. They were conducted by one DiogoLopes da Rosa. Antonio Homem seems to have acted asthe rabbi, or priest. A graphic description has comedown of the service held here on the Day of Atonement.The ritual seems to have been very far from Jewish tra-dition, being based largely on a literal interpretation ofthe Pentateuch. A prominent part appears to have beenplayed by the cult of the martyred Frei Diogo da As-sumpção. In the confraternity formed in his memoryAntonio Homem played an important part.

Ultimately the secret was betrayed. On November 24,1619, Homem was arrested by the Inquisition and sentto Lisbon for trial. After four and a half years of im-prisonment, he was sentenced to death as a “contuma-cious and negative” heretic. He was put to death, bygarroting, at the auto-da-fè held at Lisbon on May 5,1624, without having admitted his sin in any way; and



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his body was subsequently burned. At the same time,eight other members of the circle (one of whom had diedin prison) were relaxed to the secular arm. These includ-ed two priests, both of them Half New Christians, likeHomem himself. None of these, as it appears, followedthe example set by the martyred Frei Diogo by holdingout to the last. Seventy-five other persons—42 men and33 women—were condemned at the auto to less severesentences.

The other members of the Coimbra group were morefortunate than their spiritual leader had been. Tomé Vazhad professed penitence, and had been reconciled atCoimbra on March 29, 1620, when Antonio d’Avelarsimilarly appeared. The latter however was promptlyrearrested, in consequence of fresh facts discoveredduring the trial of his own children. At the age of eighty,he was despatched to Lisbon, there to undergo perpet-ual imprisonment. His two sons and his four daughters,three of whom were nuns, were meanwhile put on trialon the same charge, and were reconciled at successiveautos. Francisco de Gouvea was not implicated for themoment. He was nevertheless arrested in 1626 on acharge of Judaizing and, after five years of imprisonmentaccompanied by torture, was penanced and deprived ofhis Chair at the University. Subsequently, he became oneof the most important polemists on behalf of the royalHouse of Braganza. Antonio Gomez, whose wife Mariahad perished with Homem, managed to escape to Spain.Here the long arm of the Holy Office overtook him, andhe was penanced de vehementi at an auto held at To-ledo in 1629, being in consequence deprived of his Chair.The house at Coimbra in which the secret synagogue


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had been situated was pulled down, a pillar suitablyinscribed being erected on the site; and Antonio Homemwent down to posterity as the Praeceptor Infelix—theUnhappy Doctor. His Marrano brethren subsequentlyfounded a Fraternity in his honor, as they had done inthat of Frei Diogo, under the name of the Confraria deS. Antonio.

The scandal had far-reaching repercussions. On April30, 1620, the Portuguese tribunals had sent to Philip III,intimating that at the recent autos held by them, therehad appeared several lawyers, three friars, and as manyCanons of Coimbra: while six more—all nominees of thePope—were under arrest. The king was therefore re-quested not to allow any New Christian to be admittedhenceforth to benefices or to Holy Orders. The petition,indeed, was not acceded to; but the palmy days of theMarranos at the University of Coimbra were henceforthat an end.

A parallel case to that of Frei Diogo da Assumpção,but if anything more remarkable, took place in Spainhalf a century later. Don Lope de Vera was the son ofDon Fernando de Vera y Alarcon, a gentleman of SanClemente, not far from Cuenca. He was of gentle birthand of unsullied limpieza, having no Jewish blood in hisveins. Of a studious nature, he had been sent at the ageof fourteen to the University of Salamanca. Here hestudied Hebrew (among other tongues) with such zealthat at the age of nineteen he actually competed for achair in the university. His reading of the Scripturesinclined him, without any outside persuasion, towardsJudaism. It was natural for him to attempt to win overhis brother to his new way of thinking. The latter, a



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bigoted Catholic, denounced him to the Inquisition. Hewas arrested at Valladolid, on June 24, 1639. After ashort interval of hesitation, he suddenly announced tothe Inquisitors that he wished to be a Jew and to holdall that the Jews believed, for all other religions werefalse. He was kept in prison for five years, while ear-nest endeavors were made to win his soul back for theCatholic faith. All was fruitless. In his cell, he managedto circumcise himself with a bone and to abstain frommeat. From this time, he changed his name to Judah theBeliever, refusing to answer to any other. In spite of flog-ging, he maintained complete silence when called uponto meet the eminent Catholic theologians who came toconvince him of his error, refusing to set forth his argu-ments except in writing. Even for this, he would notmake use of a quill pen, on the ground that it was ananimal product, and so forbidden. Over a long period,the only words which crossed his lips when the Inquis-itors made their weekly visit was: Viva la ley de Mois-en!3 Ultimately, after fìve years’ imprisonment, the at-tempt to convince him was abandoned. In the auto heldat Valladolid on July 25, 1644, he was burned alive, inhis twenty-sixth year, maintaining his constancy to theend. As he was led to his death through the streets, herecited Hebrew prayers to the amazement of the spec-tators; and from the middle of the flames he was heardto chant, literally with his last breath, the Psalm, “UntoThee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.” In the middle ofthis, he expired.

His heroic end created a profound impression. As inthe case of Frei Diogo, the Marrano poets and histori-ans celebrated it in their writings, so that his martyrdom


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became one of the best-known episodes of contemporaryhistory. “He was the greatest Jewish heretic that I thinkhas been in the Church,” wrote the Inquisitor Mirezo tothe Countess of Monterrey; but he was not able to con-ceal his admiration for the firmness displayed in the fi-nal scene. Long after, a youth on trial before the Inqui-sition in the same city referred repeatedly to Don Lopede Vera and declared that he had seen him in a visionafter death, riding on a mule and glistening with thesweat that was on him when he was taken to the que-madero.

Different from this case in all but its heroism was thatof Isaac de Castro Tartas. His father, a native of Bra-ganza named Christovão Luis, or Abraham de Castro,had emigrated to France with his wife, Isabel de Paz,settling down at Tartas, in Guienne. There, in 1626, wasborn their son, Thomas Luiz, alias Isaac de Castro, whoadopted the name of Tartas from his birth-place. He hadstudied the elements of philosophy and medicine at theUniversities of Paris and Bordeaux, and had afterwardsremoved, with his parents, to Amsterdam. Thence hesailed to seek his fortune in the Dutch possessions inBrazil. Having got into a scrape at Paraiba, where hehad settled, he took it into his head to pay a visit toBahia, which was in Portuguese hands. Here he wasarrested, and after a little time was sent to Lisbon fortrial. He attempted to defend himself at first by statingthat he was a Jew by birth, and hence could not be pro-ceeded against as a heretic. Ultimately he was forced toadmit that, like all the children of the Portuguese émi-grés in France, he had been baptized at birth. From thispoint, he took up a more heroic attitude. He proudly



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proclaimed his Judaism, and his determination to remaintrue to his faith. All attempts to reconvert him to Chris-tianity failed, and he was condemned to death. On De-cember 15, 1647, the heroic youth (he was only twenty-one years old) was relaxed to the secular arm, with fiveothers, at the great auto-da-fè held at Lisbon. He re-tained his constancy to the last. As the fire leapt upround him, there was heard from the midst of the flamesa strange cry, which was repeated about the town by thepopulace until the Inquisition ordered them to desist. Itwas the Jewish confession of faith, the Shema‘: “Hear,O Israel! The Lord, our God, the Lord is One” It is saidthat the heroic end of this youth so affected the Inquisi-tors that for some time to come they refrained fromburning any further persons alive. Of all martyrdoms atthe hands of the Inquisition, none was more generallymourned abroad. In Amsterdam, poets, preachers, andchroniclers vied with one another in celebrating the trag-ic end. It was told that, in order to relieve his parents’mind of anxiety, he had written to them after his arrest,before he left Brazil, saying that he was going to Rio deJaneiro to see whether he could induce some of his rel-atives who were living there to embrace Judaism, andthat they would not hear from him for some years. Bya curious error, on the day when the memorial sermonwas to be delivered for him in the synagogue of Amster-dam, his name was drawn by lot for the coveted honorof opening the doors of the Ark.

Another true martyr who deserves to be remembered(though, unlike those who have preceded, his memorywas entirely forgotten in after years) was Antonio Cabi-cho, a Spaniard, who was relaxed in person at Lisbon


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on December 26, 1684. He marched to the pyre loudlyproclaiming his constancy to the Law of Moses. A highwind was blowing, which kept the flames from consum-ing his body. Over a period of three hours he remainedin agony, fearfully scorched and half suffocated by thesmoke. Meanwhile the populace expressed its detesta-tion by pelting him with stones and pieces of wood, fromwhich he vainly endeavored to shield his face. Never-theless, he continued steadfast to the very end. His clerk,Manoel de Sandoval, was condemned to go to the stakewith him. On the morning of the auto-da-fè, he requestedan audience. He was asked whether he believed in Godthe Father, and said that he did; but nothing wouldpersuade him to admit belief in God the son. They in-quired in what religion he desired to die. “In the sameas my Master,” he replied. The faithful souls thus wenttogether, after the same agonizing martyrdom, to greeteternity.

None of the victims of the Inquisition in Portugal wasmore distinguished than Manuel Fernandes Villareal. Anative of Lisbon, he studied at the University of Madrid,and served for a number of years in the army, rising tothe rank of Captain. He became one of the foremostchampions of the restoration of the House of Braganzain Portugal, and was rewarded by being sent to Parisas Consul-General. Here he became a friend and admirerof the great Cardinal Richelieu, upon whose family andcareer he wrote a panegyric which enjoyed no littlevogue. He was the author of a number of other works,historical and political, in addition to some able plays.Thus he became known not only as a rising diplomatbut also as one of the foremost Portuguese men of let-



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ters of his day. In 1650, he returned to Lisbon on a vis-it. Just as he was on the point of being sent abroad onan important mission, he was denounced to the Inqui-sition by a certain literary friar, a rabid personal enemyof his. Searching inquiries revealed the fact that thiseminent public servant was not only of New Christianblood, but also a devoted adherent of the faith of his fa-thers. He had worked to obtain some amelioration in thecondition of the New Christians in Portugal, publiclycondemned the rigor of the Inquisition, boasted that hewas of the tribe of Levi, and had been in the habit of goingto Rouen to celebrate the Passover with his wife. The caseagainst him was damning enough; it was made worse byhis imprudence in allowing it to become known that hehad discovered the spy-hole through which he waswatched in his cell. He was not cast in the heroic mould.He confessed his crimes, professed repentance, and en-deavored to shield himself by giving information againstseveral other New Christians, including his own wife. All,however, were living in France, this coincidence givingrise to the very natural suspicion that he was concealingany fact which might be of material assistance to the HolyOffice. Moreover, his discovery of the system of espionage,it was frankly confessed, made it dangerous to set himat liberty. Accordingly he was condemned. As a memberof the nobility, he was spared the additional indignity ofbeing burned; but, on December 1, 1652, he was garrot-ed. The king, for whom he had worked so devotedly, haddone nothing to protect him.4

Balthasar Lopez introduces an element of humor intothe grim story. He was a native of Valladolid, who hadamassed a considerable fortune as court saddler. Betak-


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ing himself to Bayonne, he joined the Jewish commu-nity of that place, and was received into the Covenantof Abraham. However, in 1645 he ventured back intoSpain, with the object of persuading some of his kins-men to embrace Judaism. He was discovered, arrested,and relaxed to the secular arm in the great auto held atCuenca on June 29, 1654, at which there figured in all57 persons (almost all of them Portuguese Judaizers), tenbeing burned. The confessor, who remained in attend-ance on him from the moment that the sentence wascommunicated, persuaded him to avoid the worst ago-nies by a profession of repentance. As they approachedthe quemadero, the priest exhorted him to rejoice, sincethrough this action the gates of Paradise were openingfor him freely. “Freely say you, Father?” retorted Lopez,indignantly. “The confiscation of my property has costme two hundred thousand ducats; am I to believe thatI struck a bad bargain?” At the brasero, he looked oncritically, while the executioner, Pedro de Alcalá, bun-gled in garroting two of his fellow-victims, ViolanteRodriguez and Ana de Guevara. “Pedro,” he said, inmild reproach, “if you strangle me no better than thosetwo poor souls, I had rather be burned alive.”

When his turn came, the executioner began to fas-ten his feet. Lopez struggled against this indignity. “PerDios!” he cried. “If you bind me, I won’t believe in yourJesus. Take this crucifix away!” Suiting the action tothe word, he threw it from him. His attendant priest,horrified, succeeded after some little trouble in persuad-ing him to take it back again, and to ask its forgiveness.The last moment approached. As the executioner beganto do his work, the priest asked whether he was truly



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repentant. The dying man looked at him, in reproof.“Father,” he said, sadly, “do you think this a time tojoke?”

The New World, too, had its martyrs. At the splen-did auto held in the city of Mexico on April 11, 1649,the only one of the thirteen persons relaxed who had thefortitude to hold out to the end was the wealthy TomásTreviño, of Sobremonte. He belonged to a family ofmartyrs. His mother had been burned at Valladolid, andnearly all of his kindred, as well as that of his wife, hadsuffered at the hands of the Inquisition. Already in 1625he had been reconciled for the crime of Judaizing, buthad been subsequently implicated in the confessions ofa tortured child and was arrested again. During the fiveyears that he lay in prison on trial, he persisted in de-nying his guilt. On the night before the auto was to takeplace, his sentence was communicated to him. Thougha relapsed apostate, he could have secured by profess-ing repentance the preliminary grace of strangulationbefore he was burned. At the last moment, however, hisattitude changed. He proudly proclaimed himself a Jew,and declared his intention to die as such. All the assem-bled confessors combined to persuade him to reconsid-er his decision, but without effect. To silence his blas-phemies, as they were called, he was gagged as he wastaken to the auto. In spite of this, he managed to expressaudibly his attachment to Judaism and his contempt forChristianity. Even the patient beasts of burden, it wasafterwards related, joined the populace in expressingtheir abhorrence of so great a sinner; for, one after theother, the mules assigned to bear him to the quemaderorefused to submit to the load, so that he was obliged to


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walk until a broken-down horse could be found.5 Therewas mounted behind him an Indian, who made a finalattempt to convert him as they went. Enraged at hisfailure, he beat the condemned man about the mouth,so as to check his blasphemies. On the pyre, Treviñocontinued to mock the Pope and his hirelings. As theflames leaped up, he drew the blazing brands towardshim with his feet. “Pile on the wood! How much mymoney costs me!” he was heard to say, sarcastic to theend. They were his last audible words.

An even more remarkable character was FranciscoMaldonado da Silva. He was a surgeon of considerablereputation in Concepción de Chile. His father, who wasof Portuguese birth, had been reconciled for the crimeof Judaizing, and, warned by the experience, hadbrought up his children as good Christians. At the ageof eighteen, Francisco happened to read the conver-sionist work of the renegade Pablo de Santa Maria,Bishop of Burgos, the Scrutinium Scripturarum (Exami-nation of the Scriptures). Paradoxically, this drew hisattention to the very views which it was intended to con-fute. He naturally consulted his father, who advised himto read the Bible and instructed him, as far as lay in hispower, in the Law of Moses. In consequence, he becamean ardent Judaizer, going so far as to circumcise him-self with a pair of scissors, and to give himself the bib-lical name of Eli. He kept the secret even from his ownwife, but, nevertheless, ultimately thought it his duty tobring over his sister to his way of thinking. The latter,a bigoted Catholic, overcame her natural affection anddenounced him to the Holy Office. Early in 1627, he wasarrested, and sent to Lima for trial. Here, he made no



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secret of his convictions, averring that he was an adher-ent of the faith of his fathers, and refusing to be swornon a crucifix. The ablest theologians of the country, inrepeated audiences, were unable to shake him in hisbeliefs; and, on January 26, 1633, he was unanimouslycondemned to be relaxed to the secular arm for punish-ment.

The most amazing portion of the whole episode nowfollowed. So great was the pressure of business, that yearafter year elapsed before the sentence was carried out.Meanwhile, the condemned man continued to practiceJudaism to the utmost limit of his ability. He observedthe Day of Atonement with excessive rigor, fasting forfour days instead of one in penitence for his sins. He tookthe biblical vows of a Nazirite, allowing his hair to growlong and not touching any meat. In his depositions, herefused to sign his name excepting as: “The unworthyservant of God, Eli Nazareno, alias Silva.” A specialfast of eighty days which he imposed upon himself un-dermined his constitution and reduced him to littlemore than a skeleton, covered with sores. Asking formaize husks instead of his usual ration of bread, hefashioned with them a rope. By means of this, he man-aged to get out through a window. Instead of makinggood his escape, he visited two neighboring cells andurged the inmates (both Old Christians accused onminor charges) to become converted to Judaism. Withmarvelous ingenuity, he pieced together out of scrapsof paper two books (each of more than one hundredleaves) “so neat, that they seemed to have come out ofa stationer’s shop.” In these he wrote, with ink madefrom charcoal, and pens cut out of a chicken-bone6 with


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a knife fashioned from a nail, long treatises vindicatinghis attitude. At last, after an imprisonment of nearlytwelve years, he was relaxed, with ten others, in the autoof January 23, 1639—the greatest as yet known in theNew World.

Seven of those who suffered on this occasion joinedwith him in proclaiming their convictions to the end, andwere therefore burned alive. As the sentences were be-ing read, a sudden whirlwind tore away the awning fromoverhead. “This is the doing of the Lord God of Israel,”Maldonado da Silva exclaimed, “so that I may now lookupon Him, face to face.” On the quemadero, his twopaper books were hung around his neck so that theymight assist the flames, and that the record of his he-retical views might perish with him.7

One of the most illustrious of all the victims of theInquisition, and one of the last of the long series, com-bines European and American interest. Antonio José daSilva had been born in Brazil, at Rio de Janeiro, in 1705.His father, João Mendes da Silva, was an eminent law-yer and poet. His mother, Lourença Coutinho, was apersistent Judaizer. She had already been condemnedonce by the Tribunal of Valladolid. In 1713, she wasagain arrested and carried off to Lisbon for trial, togeth-er with her family. On July 9, at a public auto, she wasreconciled for a second time (the Inquisitional methodshad now lost something of their rigor). Antonio José daSilva studied Canon Law at the University of Coimbra,where he graduated in 1726, at the age of twenty-one.It was natural that the actions of a member of such afamily should be closely scrutinized. The result was seenlater in the same year, when he was arraigned before the



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Inquisition in consequence of an unwelcome satire whichhe had written, as well as on a suspicion of Judaizing.Under torture, which left him so crippled that he wasunable to sign his name, he denounced several membersof his family. On October 13, he appeared as a penitentat a public auto.

Upon his release, besides practicing as an advocate,Da Silva turned his attention to literature. He wrotenumbers of comedies and operas, making a reputationas one of the foremost playwrights of his day. From 1733,his productions were amongst those most favored by thetheater-goers of Lisbon; and he has been styled the Por-tuguese Plautus. But from the moment of his first re-lease, he was a marked man. On October 5, 1737, he wasagain arrested, together with his young wife, then preg-nant. The latter was released, but rearrested and con-demned to public reconciliation, her mother-in-law si-multaneously abjuring for the third time. For the poet,whose mordant pen had gained him many enemies, therecould be no such lenience. The principal witness againsthim was a negro slave-girl who alleged that he had beenaccustomed to change his linen and even to abstain fromwork on the Sabbath, besides observing fasts which didnot coincide with those of the Church. Watch kept uponhim in prison showed that even there he abstained fromfood on certain days and practiced certain other unfa-miliar rites. He was again submitted to torture; but,during recent years, his character had become firmer,and nothing was elicited from him. Accordingly, he wascondemned as a convicted, negative, and relapsedJudaizer. The general sympathy, the efforts of distin-guished statesmen and litterateurs, and even the inter-


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vention of the king himself, were now insufficient to savehim. On October 1, 1739, he was relaxed to the seculararm at an auto held at Lisbon, being garroted and sub-sequently burned. On the same night, by a tragic buthardly unintentional coincidence, one of his comedieswas produced at the principal theater of the town. An-tonio José da Silva is still remembered in the annals ofPortuguese literature as O Judeu—“The Jew.”



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CHAPTER VII

THE RELIGION OF THE MARRANOS

A PICTURE of the Marranos cannot be complete with-out an attempt to describe, not only the vicissitudesthrough which they passed, but in addition the actualpractices and beliefs which they cherished; not merelywhat happened to them, but also what they were. Thepopular conception of a subterranean Judaism, entirelycut off from the outer world, but in secret clinging withthe utmost fidelity to every jot and tittle of the ances-tral rites and ceremonies, is obviously untrue. Unin-structed and isolated, cut off from the outside world, anddeprived even of the guidance of literature, it was im-possible for them to preserve the traditions of Judaismin anything like entirety. This did not indeed apply tothe earliest generations. Down to the middle of the six-teenth century, both in Spain and in Portugal, the in-fluence of Judaism remained strong, and, though observ-ances were restricted by fear, they were not warped byignorance. The Marranos of this period retained someknowledge of the Hebrew language. They continued topossess Hebrew books. They observed the dietary lawsin full, when it was possible. Private synagogues weremaintained, the services being conducted perhaps byformer rabbis. Sabbath and festivals were kept with allpossible rigor. They would do their utmost to be buriednear their unconverted fathers, and would follow Jew-ish funeral rites.


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As the sixteenth century progressed, such an approachto conformity became exceptional. A new generationgrew up, with no first-hand acquaintance of officialJudaism, no knowledge of the traditional language ofprayer, and no literature for their guidance. All that theyhad to go upon was oral tradition and the authority ofthe Jewish Scriptures, which remained accessible to themin the Latin version. To this we may perhaps add theedicts and fulminations of the Inquisition itself, whichin certain cases demonstrably served to indicate to thosewavering in their faith what they should do, instead ofthe practices which they should avoid. It is from thispoint that the “religion” of the Marranos (for it was lit-tle less) had of necessity to begin; and from that timeonwards we can trace an uninterrupted tradition.

Complete uniformity, of course, is not to be expected.Cut off as they were from one another, and lacking theunifying influence of books, it was inevitable that the de-gree and nature of observance should have differed fromgeneration to generation, from place to place, and evenfrom family to family. Nor is the information upon thesubject which is to be found in contemporary sources tobe relied upon implicitly. The nature of the Inquisitorialsuspicions, largely based upon biblical reminiscence, nat-urally colored the accusations on the one hand and theenforced confessions on the other, so that the latter, in manycases, must inevitably be suspect. There are discernible,however, certain main tendencies, which may be utilizedin drawing a consistent picture, to be applied with moreor less fidelity to the whole period.1

The new religion did not lack what may perhaps betermed its “theology.” In the last chapter of the apocry-

RELIGION OF THE MARRANOS


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phal Book of Baruch, the Epistle of Jeremy, there oc-curs a passage in which the prophet exhorts his breth-ren of the Babylonian exile: “When ye see a multitudebefore you and behind bowing down ye shall say in yourhearts: Thou alone art to be praised, O Lord.” We areinformed by an erudite contemporary that the Marran-os of his generation applied the words “bowing down”to the Jews instead of to their Babylonian enemies, in-terpreting the passage as a divine license to worshipstrange gods in case of necessity, so long as the heartremains inclined to the God of Heaven. Equally inform-ative is the sermon preached by Antonio Homem, thePraeceptor Infelix, at the secret service at which he of-ficiated at Coimbra on the Day of Atonement in 1615,as reported by an informer who was present. He taught,it appears, that the essential difference between Juda-ism and Christianity lay in the two questions of theobservance of the Sabbath and the worship of images;and that, while living in persecution, it was sufficientto have in mind the intention of performing those pre-cepts of the Law which could not safely be observed.

The doctrine of the ordinary Marrano was, however,simpler than this by far. It lay in one sentence—thatsalvation was possible through the Law of Moses, andnot through the Law of Christ. This phrase is of con-stant recurrence throughout the Inquisitional records,occurring with an insistence which it is impossible toignore. It is pathetic in the extreme. Intended as a con-fession of the Jewish faith, it employed nevertheless thelanguage and the conceptions of Catholic theology. Toobserve one’s religion merely in order to secure salva-tion unattainable to followers of another faith, is an


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intolerant conception entirely alien to the traditionalJewish spirit.

In some other points of considerable importance, theMarranos were profoundly influenced by their environ-ment. Victims of the Inquisition were revered as mar-tyrs. In honor of certain outstanding figures, religiousconfraternities were actually formed, very much asthough some Christian saint were in question. “St. Rap-hael,” “St. Esther,” and “St. Tobit” (the last-named be-ing considered the patron of travel) actually found theirway into the Marrano liturgy. Catholic in inspiration,too, was the usage of fasting “for the living and for thedead;” and even more so, the custom of paying a thirdperson, or even leaving a legacy, for vicarious affliction,as was sometimes done. We even read of a Mexicanwoman who acted as a professional faster, charging onepiece-of-eight on each occasion.

Nevertheless, Jewish doctrine was not by any meanssubmerged. Though persecution may have embitteredsome to the point of sacrilege and blasphemy, othersmanaged to retain the traditional Jewish tolerance forthe views of others, no matter how difficult the con-ditions. “A man will be saved by his works, whateverhis creed,” asserted a simple Marrano woman; and azealous priest denounced Antonio Fernando Carvajal,the founder of English Jewry, for the heretical statement:“Don Mathias, although I am a Jew, we shall meet inheaven.” Similar instances could be multiplied.

The Messianic idea did not exhaust itself with themere denial of the claims of Jesus. Restoration of the“Land of Promise” continued to occupy an importantpart in Marrano hopes and prayers. In its early genera-



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tions, as we have seen, the Marranos had their pseudo-Messiah, Luis Dias of Setubal, and their prophetess, theMaid of Herrera, to mention only two. As late as themiddle of the seventeenth century, the reports whichreached the Peninsula of Sabbatai Zevi, the Turkishpretender who set all the Levant in a blaze, were suffi-cient to attract a concourse of adherents. A special watchwas set at all the sea-ports to detain those who set outto join him; and a muleteer of Toledo was punishedseverely for conducting suspected Judaizers clandestinelyout of the country for that purpose. A few years later,the Mogadouro family, seven members of which sufferedat successive autos at Lisbon, were fortified in theirJudaism by the report that the astrologers of Hollandhad asserted the existence of undiscovered lands, wherethe Jews were in instant expectation of the coming ofthe Messiah. In Mexico, the Messiah had been confident-ly expected for 1642 or 1643; and extravagant hopeswere centered in the person of Gaspar Vaez Sevilla, aknown descendant of the tribe of Levi, who had beenborn there of devout parentage in 1624.

Judaism, even at its least traditional, is necessarily toa large extent a rule of life, rather than a mere creed;and Marranism never ceased to partake of this nature.A preliminary inquiry which suggests itself is the natureof the initiation into its practices. Children were fre-quently brought up as devout Catholics, being allowedby their parents to be introduced fortuitously into thesecrets of their faith by outside influences. Thus in somefamilies the various members tacitly assumed that all theothers were Judaizers, or “Portuguese,” but never ven-tured to communicate together on the subject. Some-


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times, the rational tendency inherent in the Jew seemsto have sufficed to bring out doubts which ultimatelyled automatically to reversion to the ancestral faith (aninstance of this we have already seen above, in the caseof Maldonado da Silva). One person who appeared be-fore the Inquisition, half a New Christian, frankly con-fessed that “his blood on his mother’s side had inclinedhim to entertain doubts in matters of faith, and, if any-body had informed him that there was a Law of Mo-ses, doubtless he would have followed it.” Some personsbraved all perils to proselytize amongst those whom theyknew to be of Jewish stock. Finally, the fulminations ofthe Inquisition itself, and natural feeling for the perse-cuted, led in some cases to sympathetic attention to thevery beliefs and practices which it was desired to sup-press; this was indeed the case sometimes with OldChristians as well as New.

Parents must obviously have been unwilling to riskthe eternal damnation of their children (as they consid-ered it) by leaving the matter to chance. Yet, whicheverway they turned, they were faced with danger. If theyounger generation were initiated into their secret fromearliest youth, their childish prattle was likely to jeop-ardize the lives of the whole family. If they waited untilmaturity, Catholicism might be so deeply instilled inthem that disclosure would be dangerous as well as use-less; for religious zeal was no respecter of so trivial aconsideration as family ties, and cases where childrenaccused their parents, or even husbands their wives, areby no means uncommon. The obvious compromise be-tween the two alternatives was to wait until adolescence,when parental authority on the one hand was still strong,



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and on the other discretion might be expected. For thispurpose, the ancient Jewish rite of Bar Mizvah, at theend of the thirteenth year, when a boy entered upon hisfull religious responsibilities, was naturally indicated. Itappears highly probable that the traditional introduc-tion at this age to full performance of the precepts of theLaw became transformed into initiation to the secretrites and mysteries of Marranism. Thus Gabriel de Gra-nada, tried in Mexico for Judaizing in 1642–3, statedspecifically that “when he was at the age of thirteenyears, Dona Maria de Rivera, his mother, called him and,when alone with him in the house in which they livedin the Alcayceria, she told him how the law of Our LordJesus Christ which he followed was not good, nor true,but that of Moses . . . because it is the true, good, andnecessary law for his salvation . . .” One of the chargesbrought against Antonio Roiz de Castello, who wasmartyred at Lisbon in 1647, was that he had been in thehabit of instructing children in Jewish practices at theage of thirteen. It may be assumed that this was thecommon, if not the invariable, practice.

The religion into which a child was thus initiated wasnecessarily far removed from integral Judaism. Thefundamental rite of circumcision was obviously an im-possibility; for its discovery was tantamount to a sen-tence of death. Although therefore some neophyte ofespecial zeal might perform the operation on himself, orsome venturesome youth might be initiated overseas, orisolated groups at distant spots might show a greaterhardihood, the generality dispensed with the rite. Theyfound, indeed, some justification in the Bible. God didnot account it a sin that the children of Israel born in


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the wilderness were not circumcised until they reachedthe Promised Land, by reason of the inconvenience oftheir circumstances. Assuredly, their own unwilling non-compliance would be judged with equal lenience.

The weaker sex were fully as steadfast in their obser-vance as men, or even more so. At the earliest Inquisi-tional period in Spain, we are informed how womencomprised the vast majority of the few who maintainedtheir Judaism to the end and thus died the deaths of truemartyrs. It is significant that women took a prominentpart in initiation to Judaism in several known cases,showed an especial familiarity with the prayers, andwere in some instances peculiarly meticulous in theirobservance. It was by the mothers and the wives thatthe Marrano circle in Mexico, in the first half of theseventeenth century, was presided over and inspired.Ultimately it became customary for a woman to act asthe spiritual leader of the Marrano groups. It is a strik-ing manifestation of the vital position occupied by thewoman in Jewish life.

Any knowledge of Hebrew, the traditional languageof prayer, was almost out of the question. True, in theearlier period, we frequently read of the seizure of He-brew books, and even the use of Hebrew speech; whileon one occasion we are informed of a person againstwhom no other complaint could be made, except thathe could sign his name only in Hebrew! However, in thesubsequent generation, any acquaintance with thattongue must have been a rare phenomenon, except thatnot inconsiderable class which endeavored to dissimu-late its disbelief by entering Holy Orders. Even the pos-session of Jewish works in translation would have ex-



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posed the owner to persecution; indeed, in the wholevast Inquisitional literature, there is barely a mentionof the seizure of Judaistic writings after the sixteenthcentury. The place of the voluminous ancient sacred lit-erature was now taken by the Latin version of the Bi-ble. The New Testament was of course neglected; butso far was Jewish tradition forgotten that the Apoc-rypha seems to have been treated with the same rev-erence as the Old Testament. It was from the Biblealone, fortified by fragmentary tradition, that theMarranos derived encouragement and guidance. Ob-servance was almost exclusively based upon its literalinterpretation, even in points when it was at variancewith catholic Jewish teaching. Of the Hebrew language,only the very fewest fragments were preserved in oraltradition. Adonai continued to be used for the DivineName; and one solitary complete phrase in which itfigures was remembered, though in a mutilated form.With these trivial exceptions, which had long since losttheir full meaning, the prayers of the Marranos werein the vernacular. Of necessity, they had to be handeddown by word of mouth. No books were used in theirservices: and the couple of manuscripts of the liturgywhich have been preserved are late in date, and mostexceptional. Sometimes the prayers were original, espe-cially those composed in verse which, it may be imag-ined, are the latest in date. Many, however, and espe-cially those in prose, seem to have been based uponmemories of the ancient Hebrew texts.

The number of prayers was most exiguous. A fullcompilation of the Marrano liturgy so far as it is knowndoes not fill more than forty printed pages. Sometimes,


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a neophyte seems to have been taught only one prayeras the whole of his spiritual panoply. A new specimenwas regarded as treasure-trove, and a person wholearned one hastened to communicate it to his confi-dants. On special occasions, it appears, the whole rep-ertory had to be repeated, time after time, with pathet-ic monotony. Nevertheless, there was a perpetual storeof spiritual comfort in the Psalms of David, accessible toall in the Vulgate version; though the Inquisition wasalways lying in wait for such as should be heard repeat-ing them without the gloria patri at the close.2 In the secretconventicle at Coimbra, psalms comprised a very largepart of the service on the Day of Atonement. Vernacularversions, in prose and verse, form a considerable propor-tion of the Marrano liturgy of the later period, and in-spire the majority of the remainder. Instead of the Chris-tological concluding formula repeated by their neighbors,the Marranos were accustomed to recite some similar, butless objectionable, phrase, such as: “In the name of theLord, Adonai: amen!” Another manner of making up theliturgical dearth was by reciting familiar prayers of theChurch, with any necessary omissions: thus we are toldof a certain New Christian youth who confessed that heused to commend himself to God with the “orations” ofthe Christians. The Lord’s Prayer, in its primitive sim-plicity, obtained a definite place in liturgical usage. Meet-ings for prayer were generally informal. However, we readoccasionally of the existence of secret synagogues or con-venticles, at which services were held at more or less reg-ular intervals.

In worship, Jewish and Christian practices were inter-mingled. At the earliest period, it was customary to cover



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the head; but this soon fell into desuetude. The prelim-inary washing of the hands, whereby Judaism madecleanliness precede Godliness, remained usual; indeed,it was at one time taken as a sign of Judaizing. Facingtowards the East was another practice which was per-petuated. Covering the head during prayer with awhite cloth, in imitation of the traditional tallit, man-aged to survive, at least locally, up to a very late peri-od. On the other hand, kneeling during service, con-trary to Jewish usage, became so prevalent as to receivespecific mention in the liturgy. Prayers were recitedrather than chanted in the traditional fashion; obvious-ly, in part from oblivion of the old tunes, and in partfrom fear of attracting attention. Highly characteris-tic was the loyal preservation of the custom of bless-ing the children, the father passing his hands over theirfaces at the close.

Of the ceremonial Jewish rites, the most character-istic are those connected with food. In this, too, someof the Marranos of the first generation were meticulous,a shohet or ritual slaughterer being occasionally foundcontinuing his activities although baptized. Detailedobservance in so public a matter would have beenequivalent to suicide at a later period. The flesh of theunclean beasts mentioned in the Mosaic code could in-deed be omitted from the diet without too much diffi-culty. Hence the Inquisition was always especially onwatch for such as abstained from pork, rabbit, andscaleless fish. Yielding to circumstances, however, theMarrano had to abandon the idea of procuring foodkilled in the Jewish manner. One or two things remainedpossible. In the Bible, he could read (Gen. 32.33) how


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the children of Israel do not eat the sinew of the thigh;and it was customary accordingly, whenever it couldbe done without suspicion, to “porge” the leg beforepreparing it for food. Moreover, when chickens werekilled at home, their heads were chopped off insteadof their necks being wrung—an approximation to theritual regulations. A prayer even existed to be recitedbefore killing animals for food. In over-meticulous con-formity with the Levitical ordinance, the Marranosrefused to touch any animal fat. Hence they wereforced to utilize oil only in cooking, this coming to berecognized as one of the regular practices of Judaism.All meat was regularly washed, in order to remove eve-ry trace of blood.

From pork, the Marranos of the earlier generationswould try to abstain, going so far as to destroy any dishin which it had been inadvertently prepared, and tell-ing their children that those who ate pork would beturned into pigs. The intense suspicion attaching to this,coupled with the fact that in a large part of the Penin-sula the flesh of the pig in some form or other is thestaple food of the majority of the population, ultimate-ly made rigid observance in this respect impossible. Yetfor all this, the regulations concerning it did not entire-ly disappear. Though forced to contaminate themselveswith “impure” food for the major part of the year, theMarranos refused to do so on any occasion of especialsanctity. Thus it became customary with them to abstainfrom pork at least on Sabbaths, and during the periodsleading up to the Passover and to the Day of Atonement;while they avoided eating any meat during the sevendays of mourning upon the death of a parent and im-



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mediately before or after any fast. The origin of thiscustom was ultimately so completely forgotten that itcame to be considered an integral observance of Juda-ism. On those days when any individual kept a minorfast, he was restricted to supping off fish and vegeta-bles; while the rest of his family, who had not fasted, hadno scruples against partaking of meat.

The difference between Judaism and Christianity con-sisted principally, according to the doctrine of AntonioHomem, in the two questions of the worship of imagesand the observance of the Sabbath. The latter contin-ued to be one of the main cares of the Inquisition. Toabstain from ordinary occupations on Saturday was anobvious indication of guilt. Nevertheless, food was pre-pared as far as possible on the previous day; and Mar-rano ladies would sit idle before their spinning-wheels,taking up their work only when a stranger appeared. Itwas usual to make a point of changing linen on Fridaynight, though the imprudence might bring a man to thestake. This, indeed, figured foremost among the charg-es which cost the illustrious Antonio José da Silva hislife. In the circumstances, observance became more andmore difficult. It was clung to, nevertheless, with pathet-ic eagerness. Angela Nuñez Marques, a devout Marranowoman of Pastrana, tried at Toledo in 1680, admittedthat in spite of all her efforts she had been unable to keepmore than fifteen Sabbaths in twenty years. Regularmeetings for prayer on Saturdays were obviously dan-gerous. They were however held, as far as possible, inthe months before the Passover and the Day of Atone-ment.

But the most persistent of all traditions relating to the


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observance of the day was the kindling of the Sabbathlight on Friday evening. This, in the eyes of the Inqui-sition, was the most damning proof of Judaism. Theobservant Jew would not extinguish a light after theSabbath was inaugurated. This was a rigor the contin-ued observance of which was not possible in time ofoppression. Nevertheless, the Marranos would not cou-ple what they conceived to be a transgression with theperformance of a religious action. Hence the Sabbaticallight, at all events, was allowed to burn itself out; and,long after the origin of the practice was lost, this con-tinued to be considered an essential. Such was the ven-eration with which the Sabbath light was regarded (asindicated by its name, “the candle of the Lord”) that itbecame customary to prepare the wicks with specialprayers, as a religious rite. Naturally, only pure olive oil,not animal fat, was to be used in kindling it. To con-ceal it from prying eyes, it was customary locally to kin-dle the light in a cellar, or to place it inside a pitcher;this similarly coming to be regarded as an essential ob-servance.

Preoccupied with the salvation of their souls, and liv-ing under the conditions in which they did, the Marranoscould not be expected to appreciate Judaism in its com-prehensive whole. Prohibitions took a greater share intheir outlook than practices. They attached more impor-tance to fasting than to feasting. With one exception,therefore, the festivals seem to have fallen into consid-erable desuetude. Even the New Year, despite its tradi-tional solemnity, appears to have been absolutely ne-glected—largely, no doubt, on account of its compara-tive inconspicuousness in the Bible. The only annual



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celebrations which retained their importance were thePassover and the Day of Atonement.

At this point, an obvious problem arises. How werethe dates calculated? The Jewish calendar, with itscareful adjustment of the solar and lunar systems bymeans of sporadic intercalary months, was far toocomplicated to be preserved orally. Had twelve lunarmonths been reckoned to every year, the preservationof the reckoning would have been difficult, and in anycase the cycle of seasons would have become ridicu-lously inaccurate within a very short period. We haveone clue to the solution of this mystery. In the Inqui-sitional records, the Day of Atonement is consistent-ly referred to as being celebrated on the tenth dayafter the New Moon of September, and the Passoveras coinciding with the Full Moon of March. Whatseems to have happened was, that the Marranos madeuse of the current solar calendar as a basis for theirlunar reckoning. Thus they celebrated the Day ofAtonement on the tenth day after the New Moonwhich fell in the month of September, and the Passo-ver on the fourteenth day after the New Moon ofMarch. In most cases, this reckoning would have beenaccurate, within a day or two; but sometimes it musthave been nearly a month out. Thus in 1606, whenthe Day of Atonement actually fell on October 12, itwas celebrated at Coimbra some time between thetenth and the fifteenth of the previous month; and in1618, when Passover occurred on April 10, it was ob-served some time in the month of March. In Mexico,on one occasion, there was a great dispute in the Mar-rano community relative to the date of an approach-


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ing celebration, one faction wishing to observe it tendays before the other.

Ultimately, a further complication was introduced. Atthe time of the more solemn celebrations of the Jewishyear, the Inquisition and its myrmidons became morevigilant. In order to evade their watchfulness, it becamecustomary to wait for a day or two, until their attentionwas relaxed. Then the customary rites could be observedwith comparative impunity. Thus the Day of Atonementwas kept on the eleventh day after the New Moon ofSeptember, instead of the tenth; while the major solem-nities of the Passover were observed after the first twodays had expired, on the night of the sixteenth of thelunar month instead of the fourteenth. This curiousperversion was ultimately regarded as mandatory, itsorigin being forgotten. For fixing the dates, the author-ity of some person of especial piety or learning was fol-lowed. Thus we hear that the New Christians of Guad-alajara in New Galicia, when they were desirous ofknowing whether they should fast on one day or another,watched the house of Violante Juarez (subsequently rec-onciled at the auto in Mexico City in 1648). If the doorwas closed and she was idle, they knew that some reli-gious celebration fell on that day.

The Day of Atonement, in particular, retained all ofits solemnity amongst the Marranos, who braved allperils in order to celebrate it together. On the previousday, they bathed, in accordance with the traditionalpractice. In the evening, candles were lighted in abun-dance “for the living and for the dead,” being placedupon clean white cloths. The entire day was spent in one



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another’s company, in complete abstention from food.Meanwhile, all the prayers they knew were repeated,time after time, or the Messianic prophecies of the Bi-ble were discussed. Among the ancient traditions of theday preserved was that of having four services betweensunrise and sundown, instead of the normal three.Though the practice of wearing no shoes was retained,they did not recognize it as one of the traditional dep-rivations, but considered it a tribute to the sanctity ofthe place of prayer; finding biblical precedent in theconduct of Moses before the Burning Bush (Ex. 3.5).The title given to the day was Dia Pura or “Day of Pu-rity”—an obvious corruption of the Hebrew Kippur,but giving nevertheless an impression of the specialcharacter with which it was invested in their eyes. Thetraditional Jewish characterization as the Day of Par-don (from Heaven) seems to have been slightly misin-terpreted; for an outstanding feature of the celebrationwas the formal forgiving of one another for offencesreceived.3 Thus, at the prayer-meeting at Coimbra in1616, all the congregation were urged to pardon oneanother: “for that was the Day of Pardon.” It was nat-ural for the dates of the various celebrations of the com-ing year to be publicly announced at the general as-semblage on this occasion. Before and after the fast,as has been pointed out, it was customary to make ameal of fish and vegetables; not meat, since none wasavailable which had been prepared according to theritually prescribed fashion.

The other great biblical celebration was the Passover.The observance of this, locally at least, was obviouslydictated by biblical reminiscence, a meal being prepared


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in which the principal dish was a lamb cooked whole.Those partaking of it stood, booted, with staffs in theirhands, in literal fulfillment of the biblical precept: prac-tices long since abandoned in Jewish usage. In Mexi-co, persons went so far as to smear their doorposts withthe blood of the sacrifice. The traditional three cakesof unleavened bread was consumed at the same timeas the lamb. A special ritual grew up in time about thepreparation of this “Holy Bread,” as it was called. Afragment separated from it, symbolizing the ancientoffering (Num. 15.17–21), was thrown into the fire: asurvival of a regular Jewish religious practice whichhad originally caused the Inquisition grave pre-occupation, and which had survived sporadically in itsold form up to the close of the seventeenth century. Inorder to elude the Inquisitional vigilance, it becamecustomary to perform the ceremony of baking the un-leavened bread two days late, on the sixteenth of themonth; so that on the first two days of the feast nobread, leavened or unleavened, was eaten. This cere-mony ultimately assumed the prominence of the tra-ditional Seder-service on the first evening of the festi-val. Such elaborate observance was possible howeveronly under unusual conditions of security.

Of the observance of the other biblical feasts, we hearvirtually nothing. Tabernacles is occasionally mentioned,but without details. Pentecost disappeared entirely, ornearly so. The minor celebration of Hanukkah seems tohave remained (though no details are given) as the Feastof Candles. Except for these scant remains, the festivecycle which plays so prominent a part in traditionalJewish life was utterly submerged.



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Notwithstanding this general diminution, there wasone occasion of the Jewish year which attained an en-hanced importance in Marrano eyes. Although the joy-ous minor feast of Purim was entirely forgotten, the so-called Fast of Esther (observed, as a sort of antidote,upon its eve) attracted their attention to a remarkabledegree; and the importance which it ultimately acquiredrivaled that of the Day of Atonement itself. The reasonis not far to seek. Was not the case of Esther “telling nother race nor her birth,” yet still faithful to the religionof her fathers in an alien environment, almost identicalwith their own? Moreover, the touching prayer ascribedto her in the Apocrypha (to them equal in sanctity withthe Bible itself) seemed exactly adapted to their needs.So much significance was attached to it that, we read,one of the daughters of Francisco Rodríguez Mattos,“dogmatist and Rabbi of the Jewish sect,” burned ineffigy in Mexico in 1592, could actually repeat it back-wards. The phraseology of the passage* explains thepopularity which it enjoyed:—

“And she prayed unto the Lord God of Israel, say-ing, O my Lord, Thou only art our King: help me,desolate woman, which have no helper but Thee: Formy danger is in mine hand. From my youth up I haveheard in the tribe of my family, that Thou, O Lord,tookest Israel from among all people, and our fathersfrom all their predecessors, for a perpetual inherit-ance, and Thou hast performed whatsoever Thoudidst promise them. And now we have sinned beforeThee: therefore hast Thou given us into the hands

*The Rest of Esther, 14.3–19.


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of our enemies, because we worshipped their gods:O Lord Thou art righteous. Nevertheless it satisfieththem not, that we are in bitter captivity: but theyhave stricken hands with their idols, that they willabolish the thing that Thou with Thy mouth hastordained, and destroy Thine inheritance, and stop themouth of them that praise Thee, and quench the glo-ry of Thy house, and of Thine altar, and open themouths of the heathen to set forth the praises of theidols, and to magnify a fleshly king for ever. O Lord,give not Thy sceptre unto them that be nothing, andlet them not laugh at our fall; but turn their deviceupon themselves, and make him an example, thathath begun this against us. Remember, O Lord, makeThyself known in time of our affliction, and give meboldness, O King of the nations, and Lord of all pow-er. Give me eloquent speech in my mouth before thelion: turn his heart to hate him that fighteth againstus, that there may be an end of him, and of all thatare likeminded to him: But deliver us with Thinehand, and help me that am desolate, and which haveno other help but Thee. Thou knowest all things, OLord: Thou knowest that I hate the glory of the un-righteous, and abhor the bed of the uncircumcised,and of all the heathen. Thou knowest my necessity:for I abhor the sign of my high estate, which is uponmine head in the days wherein I shew myself, andthat I abhor it as a menstruous rag, and that I wearit not when I am private by myself, and that Thinehandmaid hath not eaten at Aman’s table, and thatI have not greatly esteemed the king’s feast, nordrunk the wine of the drink offerings. Neither had



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Thine handmaid any joy since the day that I wasbrought hither to this present, but in Thee, O LordGod of Abraham. O Thou mighty God above all,hear the voice of the forlorn, and deliver us out ofthe hands of the mischievous, and deliver me out ofmy fear.”

The fast associated with the name of Esther thus at-tracted the Marranos in an especial degree; and in theInquisitional records it has an importance second to noother day in the Marrano calendar. It was generallyobserved on the Full Moon of February, precisely amonth before the Passover. According to the biblicalaccount, Esther herself fasted on three consecutive days—not, as a matter of fact, in the month of Adar, whenthe commemoration is observed, but three months lat-er. So greatly did the parallel with their case affect theMarranos that some at least of them followed the exam-ple, keeping a three-days’ fast, with an austerity un-known to traditional Judaism. Thus we hear of a wom-an of good family, who died young by reason of observ-ing the three days of this fast.

Without any biblical authority, it had been custom-ary in former ages for certain ultra-pietists to fast twiceevery week, on Mondays and Thursdays, in atonementfor their presumed sins. No sin, obviously, could begreater than that of apostasy. Some of the original forcedconverts seem accordingly to have taken up the observ-ance of these biweekly fasts, which, though recognizedas voluntary, became an institution amongst the Mar-ranos. They are repeatedly mentioned in the Inqui-sitional records; and even lukewarm Judaizers in distantMexico observed several of them in the course of com-


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paratively brief periods of conformity. Such fasts wereobserved “for the living and for the dead”—in atonementfor a departed kinsman, or for the welfare of some per-son in the clutches of the Inquisition. Other minor fastswhich were observed, locally at least, were that of theFirst-born on the eve of Passover (transformed, withan excess of rigor, into a general celebration) and thatof Gedaliah, on the day following the New Year. Spe-cial pietists inflicted additional austerities upon them-selves, eating only every third day, besides spendingtwo nights each week absorbed in prayer. All these fastswere kept, with characteristic severity, from sundownto sundown.

The expedients resorted to, in order to conceal the factthat a fast was being observed, were numerous. Thesimplest was to go out into the country, or else to feigna headache. In other cases, the servants would be sentout of the house on a trifling errand, the plates andcutlery being carefully greased during their absence inorder to make it appear that the household had eaten.The most convincing and elaborate scheme was to stagea family quarrel just before mealtime, one person rush-ing out of the house in an assumed fit of rage, and therest following at his heels to appease him.

Though the Marranos had to be buried with Catho-lic rites, they would do their best to be interred in vir-gin ground, or amongst their own people. On the death-bed, Jewish practices retained their hold. The Inquisi-tion was especially concerned with those who turnedtheir faces to the wall in their last moments; thoughbiblical, rather than Jewish, reminiscence would appearto be reflected in this. When all was over, a piece of gold,



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or a jewel, was placed in the mouth of the dead person,as the toll to be paid on being ferried over the Jordan—an extraordinary garbled survival of classical, not He-brew, mythology. All standing water about the house wasmeanwhile emptied out. The traditional taharah, or rit-ual laving of the body, remained customary. No doubtall strangers, including of course the priest, were hur-ried out of the death-chamber before the last momentsarrived, so that the dying man might end his days, atleast, in an atmosphere of sincerity. It is possible thatthe ridiculous legend prevalent among the Portuguese,that the end was hastened by suffocation, may be trace-able to this fact.

After the funeral, certain of the rites of the tradition-al Jewish week of mourning were observed. The firstmeal of hard-boiled eggs—the customary mourningfare—was served to the family by a stranger after theirreturn home, just as orthodox practice prescribes. Dur-ing the whole week, they would remain at home, no meatbeing eaten, so as to avoid a direct breach of the die-tary laws at this period. Ample charity would be given.On the last of the seven days, a fast would be observed.Other fasts “for the dead” were repeated at intervals,either by the mourners themselves or else by some oth-er person, paid for his services. Money was sometimesleft with this object.

The matrimonial customs of the country had perforceto be accepted. In the earliest period, however, therewere instances of New Christians who were guilty ofpolygamy, as was still permitted (though not by anymeans usual) amongst the Jews of Spain; this coming tobe considered one of the symptoms of Judaizing. Even


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later, Catholic matrimonial regulations were treatedlightly, persons sometimes marrying their near kindred“according to the Law of Moses.” Fasting on the partof the bridal couple remained usual. The ceremony wasinevitably performed in Church, though it was supple-mented by a very simple home function. Nevertheless,the idea was always cherished that it should be con-firmed in some proper community according to full Jew-ish rites when the occasion should arise. Down to theclose of the eighteenth century, cases were common inthe great Marrano centers overseas of the remarriage ofcouples “come from Portugal.” As a matter of course,alliances were contracted as far as possible amongstthemselves. Somewhat amusing accounts may be readof the efforts made to find out whether a prospectivebridegroom was a secret Jew, or the expedients resort-ed to in order to get rid of him when it was discoveredthat he was not, or the difficulties experienced in find-ing a suitable husband for a Marrano girl who was ig-norant of the traditional practices, or the anger of theparents if a mixed marriage were contracted. We readhow on one occasion an apathetic youth, who had fall-en in love with a Marrano maiden of observant family,was taken to the principal church and shown his grand-father’s sambenito, as an inducement to Judaize. ManuelAlvarez de Arellano, who was almoner for the secretcommunity in Mexico, also acted as medianero or mar-riage-broker to contract matches between the variousNew Christian families.

A Jewish life without charity is an unknown phenom-enon. It was something with which not even Marranoobservance could dispense. Accordingly, they used to pay



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particular attention to their own “New Christian” poor,giving them preference over others, and making addi-tional distributions to them on all special occasions. Sogreat was the importance attached to this that an ap-posite prayer was prescribed, to be recited on the occa-sion of giving alms.

For a prolonged period, the Marranos handed on fromfather to son the secret of their old family name (gener-ally of Hebrew or Arabic origin), though they were knownto the outside world by the Gothic appellations which theyhad assumed from some noble sponsor at baptism. Onescaping to freedom, they hastened to reassume them(witness the Abendana, Abrabanel, Musaphia, and Usquefamilies, to cite only a very few examples). At a laterperiod, when the hidalgo tradition had become moredeeply rooted, some families combined the two elements,like the Aboab da Fonseca. Ultimately, the Hebraic tra-dition died out in the Peninsula. Some enthusiasts nowinvented fresh, characteristically Jewish appellations forthemselves, or else had to rely upon the information ofgraybeards who had known their families. Thus a well-born youth named d’Oliveira, a nephew of Mestre Pedro,the Queen’s physician, was assured when he reachedSafed at the close of the sixteenth century that his prop-er family name should be Gedaliah. The less fortunatehad to content themselves with the recently acquiredSpanish or Portuguese surnames which are consideredcharacteristic of them in Northern Europe. It was long,however, before the tradition of descent from the housesof Levi or of Aaron died out. We have seen how Villare-al prided himself upon his semi-priestly ancestry; and,outside the Peninsula, incongruous juxtapositions of the


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Hebrew and the Gothic, such as Levi Ximenes or CohenHerrera, became common.

As far as the first names were concerned, biblical ones(generally patriarchal) were apparently adopted in se-cret at the time of baptism. The story was current of aMarrano youth who, asked his name, ingenuously in-quired if he should say that by which he was known outof doors, or that by which he was called at home. Thus,more than one Inquisitional martyr was mourned abroadby a name different from that under which he had suf-fered at the stake.

Occasional attendance at Church was of course neces-sary. To be sure, it was reduced to a minimum. At serv-ice time, for the benefit of the neighbors, the parentswould summon their children in a loud voice to go tomass. They would then sally into the street together, butwould employ their time in going for a walk or payinga call. Thus it was possible for a child in one authen-ticated case to reach the age of fourteen without hav-ing attended a Christian service more than once. This,however, must have been exceptional. For those occa-sions when they were forced to enter a Church, it isnot surprising that they had an uncomplimentary for-mula to recite, specifying that they bowed down, notto the images, but to the God of Heaven. Curious ex-pedients were resorted to so as to avoid any active par-ticipation in the service. Thus when the Host was ele-vated, they would happen to be wiping their eyes, andthus would be unable to see it in time to perform thecustomary genuflexion.

From what has been said above, it should not beimagined that the religion of the Marranos was simply



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a negative one, consisting in the denial of a few Catho-lic doctrines coupled with the observance of a numberof dry, meaningless survivals. It is true that theirs wasinevitably a narrowed, atrophied existence. In somecases, perhaps, the conception of Judaism that was cur-rent was not far removed from that of a mystical secretsociety, adherence to which would entail, notwith-standing its perils, considerable advantages both in thisworld and in the next. On the other hand, even at itsfurthest from traditional Judaism, the religion of theMarranos had its positive side. Notwithstanding the pro-gressive diminution in doctrine and in practice, the fun-damental Jewish conceptions retained their importance.At the constant peril of their lives, the Marranos stern-ly upheld the unity of God in a country where the wor-ship of images had obscured the essentials of monothe-ism. They conceived divine service as something to becarried out and realized, not in prayer alone, but in theactions of daily life. They retained a vivid realizationof the brotherhood of Israel and of their own identitywith the great mass of their people, wheresoever theymight be found. They hoped eagerly for the final De-liverance, which they bound up with the recollection ofthe former national center in the Land of Promise. Thus,notwithstanding oppression, all the characteristic fea-tures of traditional Judaism were preserved; and theappellation “Jews”, applied by the Inquisitors to theMarranos in scorn, may be vindicated for them as theirrightful due.


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CHAPTER VIII

THE MARRANO DIASPORA

THE most natural method by which the Peninsula couldhave been purged of the taint of disbelief, at the periodof the introduction of the Holy Office and after, was ob-viously by encouraging those persons who refused toconform to the dominant faith to emigrate. This simpleexpedient would have been at variance with the idealsof the period. Had the recent converts been allowed torevert to their ancestral beliefs and practices, their soulswould have been endangered, and all the work of recentyears would have been wasted. Heresy was, moreover, incontemporary eyes a positive crime—indeed the greatestof all crimes; and to permit persons guilty of it to go un-scathed was no more to be thought of than to allow de-liberately a thief or a murderer to escape from justice. Asecondary consideration, though by no means without itsweight, was that flight would have robbed the Holy Of-fice of the confiscations and profits which must have fol-lowed upon condemnation. Hence, a logical consequenceof the general policy which was adopted towards the NewChristians was to keep them in the country at all costs.Accordingly, in the period following upon the establish-ment of the Inquisition in Spain, orders were continual-ly issued prohibiting emigration on the part of the con-versos, and imposing heavy fines, of as much as five hun-dred florins, on persons conveying them. In 1499, theArchbishop of Messina issued an order that no ship-cap-


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tain or merchant should transport any New Christianoverseas without royal license, under pain of excommu-nication, confiscation, and prosecution as a fautor or fa-vorer of heresy. This was confirmed and sporadicallyenforced in succeeding years, would-be emigrants beingsometimes arrested at the sea-ports as they were aboutto embark.

In Portugal, a more consistent policy was followed.There, from the moment of the General Conversion, theprohibition of emigration had been a logical necessityif the efforts of King Manoel to secure the Christiani-zation of his Jewish subjects were not to be nullifiedwithin a few years. Accordingly, as we have seen, a de-cree was published in 1499 forbidding any New Chris-tian to leave the country without special license, andprohibiting the general population to facilitate theirflight, however indirectly. After the massacre of 1507 inLisbon, freedom of movement was restored; but emigra-tion immediately attained such proportions that in 1521it was again forbidden. The prohibition was again re-newed, generally for three- or ten-year periods in 1532,1535, 1547, 1567, and 1573, and perhaps at other inter-mediate dates. It was suspended in 1577, but reenactedagain in 1580 and 1587. In 1601, on the payment of theenormous bribe of 200,000 ducats to Philip III, the pro-hibition was removed, the king promising that it wouldnever again be enforced; and the right of the New Chris-tians to emigrate to the colonies of both Spain and Por-tugal was expressly guaranteed. This “irrevocable” per-mission was canceled in 1610. Freedom of movementwas, however, restored in 1629—on this occasion, nev-er to be withdrawn again. This did not of course apply


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to suspected persons, who continued to have great dif-ficulty in leaving the country. Over a large part of theperiod, evasion was prevented by a provision forbiddingthe purchase of land or bills of exchange; from NewChristians, who by clandestine emigration would thussacrifice a large part of their substance.

It was not impossible, of course, to evade this prohibi-tion. There were many methods. The ports and frontierscould not be guarded so closely as to prevent flight onthe part of those who were willing to leave their proper-ty behind. The necessary royal license could generally bepurchased without too much difficulty. Authorization totravel might be obtained for several plausible causes, suchas trade or personal business abroad. Most characteristic,perhaps, was the plea of pilgrimage. Several cases areknown of persons, who, leaving the country on a piousvoyage to Rome, became pillars of the Synagogue in someplace outside the realm. In 1500, a whole party of Portu-guese New Christians was arrested at Malaga, where theyhad assembled with the ostensible intention of going tothe capital of Christendom to celebrate the jubilee!

Accordingly, almost from the moment of the forcedconversions in Spain, at the close of the fourteenth cen-tury, the Mediterranean ports, especially along theneighboring coasts of northern Africa, became filledwith Marrano refugees who had fled in order to returnto Judaism.1 Their number was naturally greatest inthe Moroccan ports, across the Straits of Gibraltar.After the establishment of the Inquisition, the flightwas accentuated. Thus Obadiah di Bertinoro, a cele-brated Italian rabbi who visited Egypt, on his way toPalestine, in 1484, writes: “There are in Cairo today



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about fifty householders belonging to the Anusim thatwere in Spain. All were truly penitent. The majorityof them are paupers, having left their houses and theirsubstance and their sires and their grandsires, whoobserved the laws of the Gentiles, to come to take ref-uge beneath the wings of the Divine Presence.” Largenumbers fled to the Aragonese possessions overseas—Sicily, Sardinia, and ultimately Naples. Their presencewas the pretext for the introduction of the Holy Officeinto these two islands, in 1487 and 1492 respectively.In Sicily, real activity began on June 6, 1511, when anauto was held at which eight persons lost their lives.In 1513, there were three autos, thirty-nine persons alltold (mostly relapsed penitents) being burned. After aperiod of disturbance and inactivity, the persecutionbegan again. The climax was reached at the great autoof May 30, 1541, at which twenty-one persons appeared—nineteen of them New Christians, almost all refugeesfrom Spain. Thereafter, cases of Judaizing gradually di-minished, ultimately ceasing entirely. Notwithstandingits close connection with the Spanish throne, or perhapsbecause of it, Sicily had become too dangerous to com-mend itself as a place of refuge. Very similar was the casein Sardinia, where the branch of the Holy Office foundedin 1492 lapsed into inaction for want of material at thebeginning of the sixteenth century. In Naples, no inde-pendent tribunal was introduced, owing to the popularopposition. However, the papal Inquisition was activethere, Waldensian heretics sharing attention with thenative Judaizing neofiti2 and immigrant Marranos fromSpain. In 1572, seven of them were sent to Rome andburned at the stake. By the middle of the seventeenth


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century, all heresy had been virtually rooted out of thecountry.

The importance, and the diffusion, of the refugeesfrom Portugal was very much greater. The latter werenot likely to escape to a Christian country, where theycould practice their religion only under the same limi-tations from which they already suffered. They madetheir way therefore in the first instance to the Moslemcountries of the Mediterranean littoral. We read of manyof them fleeing to the neighboring coast of northernAfrica. In Turkey, they were numerous enough to formtheir own separate communities in many towns—Con-stantinople, Valona, Arta, Smyrna. In Salonica andAdrianople, the refugees from Evora and Lisbon weresufficiently influential to form additional congregationsof their own. Owing to the circumstances of the mis-named “expulsion” from Portugal, it is obvious that themajority of those who sought refuge in these places musthave lived as professing Christians at one period of theirlives. This fact itself is enough to indicate the magni-tude of the migration. At a later period, these commu-nities were reinforced by new arrivals, who had beenborn and brought up as Catholics. When owing to thesuspicions of the government direct migration becameimpossible, or dangerous, an indirect flow began. TheMarranos would obtain permission to leave the coun-try in a direction diametrically opposite to the goal forwhich they were bound—generally for Flanders. Hencethey would go overland, across the Alps, to Turkey, theirultimate objective; sometimes, by way of Italy. In duecourse, a regular organization was set up to facilitate themigration. When the vessels put in at some English port



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on their way to Flanders, the fugitives would be in-formed whether it was safe to continue their journey orno. Agents were stationed here and there on the route.Letters were drawn up and circulated, giving minuteinstructions as to the journey, specifying what roadsshould be taken, what inns chosen, and where the refu-gees could obtain help and advice in case of need.3

It did not take long for the secret of this roundaboutmigration to be penetrated. Soon, it began to becomedangerous. Convoys were periodically arrested and mal-treated en route. In 1532, the Emperor Charles V for-bade admittance to the Low Countries to New Chris-tians on their way to Turkey. Naturally, after the intro-duction of the Inquisition to Portugal, matters becameworse. The New Christians were accused of taking withthem, to aid the enemy of Christendom, not only theirpersons and their fortunes, but also munitions of warand the art of manufacturing them. In 1540, a commis-sion was appointed at Milan to investigate the migra-tion, and wholesale arrests were made in Italy of per-sons on their way to the Levant. Jean de la Foix, whowas in charge in Lombardy, made himself especiallynotorious for his barbarous treatment of those who fellinto his hands. Four years later, orders were given forthe arrest throughout the Empire of New Christians whosold arms to the Grand Turk. In pursuance of this, aconvoy of forty-three persons traveling in four wagonswas arrested at Colmar, in 1547, and released only upongiving an undertaking that they would settle in someChristian country.

Those Marranos who directed their steps to the Eastgenerally became swallowed up in the great Jewish com-


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munities which were already to be found in all of themore important cities of the Turkish Empire and theBalkans, thus leaving no separate trace. They were how-ever to be found all over the Levant. In 1544, a wholeshipload arrived at Ragusa. A little settlement was tobe found in Cyprus. They were numerous in Palestine.There was a considerable colony among the mystics ofSafed. In 1620, a Portuguese bishop, on his way homefrom the Indies, met one at Aleppo, whose ingenuousconversation enabled him to give information, on hisreturn to Portugal, which led to the arrest of severalJudaizers all over the country. Many naturally foundtheir way to Constantinople. But the greatest place ofrefuge was Salonica, at this period the leading Jewishcenter of Europe. Here, at the close of the sixteenth cen-tury, there was a large Portuguese-speaking colony,which has left its mark to the present day upon theLadino dialect of the region. So frequent was the phe-nomenon of the arrival of repentant New Christiansthat special regulations were required to deal with theproblems which arose in consequence from time totime. For example, the local scholars decided thatmarriages contracted among the Marranos in the Ibe-rian Peninsula, even in those cases where a fully tra-ditional home ceremony supplemented that carried outin Church, were of no validity. This decision is by nomeans as harsh and unsympathetic as appears at firstglance. If a couple escaped to freedom together, it waseasy for them to be married again. If only the wife hadthe hardihood or the conviction to flee, then she couldfind another partner, and not remain tied down to aperson with whom all sympathy and all connection had



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ceased. The responsa of the Levantine rabbis of theperiod are filled with discussions relating to the positionof the Marranos in Jewish law. Very characteristic wasone as to whether a person who had escaped to freedomand reverted to his Jewish name might continue to makeuse of his previous appellation for purposes of trade. Incertain matters, a differentiation was made between theconversos of Spain, who had adopted Christianity moreor less voluntarily, and those of Portugal, who had itthrust upon them. The emigration to Turkey continueddown to the eighteenth century, though circumstancesprevented the exercise of any permanent influence there,or the development of a distinctive communal life.

Two Marrano refugees in Turkey deserve specialmention, since they were among the foremost figures ofsixteenth-century diplomacy in the Near East. JoãoMiguez was the son of the late body-physician of theKing of Portugal, and nephew by marriage of the broth-ers Mendes, the famous bankers. On the death at Lis-bon of Francisco Mendes, the head of the firm, his wid-ow, Beatrice da Luna, had gone to Antwerp with herdaughter, her sister, and her nephew, to join her broth-er-in-law, Diogo, who managed the powerful localbranch. Their vast wealth and culture obtained themadmittance to the highest circles in their new home. Itis reported that the Queen Regent of the Netherlandssolicited the hand of the fair Reyna for one of her courtfavorites. The mother replied outspokenly that shewould rather see her daughter dead. This incrediblerefusal, coupled with the rising tide of suspicion againstthe Marranos in the Low Countries, made it advisablefor the family to seek a safer environment.


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Through Lyons and Venice they made their way toConstantinople. Here they threw off their disguise ofCatholicism. Beatrice da Luna became known as Gra-cia Mendes, the most benevolent and the most adoredJewish woman of her day. João Miguez married his cous-in, the lovely Reyna, and was henceforth called JosephNasi. His subsequent career is like a tale out of theArabian Nights. He rose to high position at the SublimePorte, so that for a time he was considered virtually theruler of the Turkish Empire, then the most powerful inEurope. He was able to recuperate himself for the con-fiscation of his property in France by the seizure of one-third of every cargo despatched from that country toEgypt. His interest was solicited by every power in Eu-rope. He was able to sway the election of a new ruler inMoldavia. He avenged himself on Spain by encouragingthe revolt of the Netherlands. He repaid Venice for theindignities that his family had suffered at her hands bybringing about a declaration of war, in the course of whichshe lost the island of Cyprus. He was created Duke ofNaxos and the Seven Islands. He ruled his Duchy throughthe medium of a deputy, Dr. Francisco Coronel, whosefather Salomon, perhaps a descendant of the renegadeAbraham Senior,4 had been governor of Segovia. Mean-while, Nasi remained generally in Constantinople enjoy-ing an almost royal state. He is above all memorable inJewish history for his remarkable attempt to re-create aJewish center in Palestine in and around Tiberias, whichcity, then in ruins, was granted to him by his gratefulmaster. For a few years before his death, which took placein 1579, his political influence was on the wane; but hiscoreligionists continued to look up to him as a verita-



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ble Prince. No professing Jew in recent history has everattained such power.

Joseph Nasi was closely rivaled by Alvaro Mendes,whose very name was long forgotten, but who exerciseda remarkable influence in his day. He was born in 1520at Tavira, in Portugal. After making a considerable for-tune in India, he returned to Europe. Here his worth wasquickly recognized, and he was created by João III aKnight of Santiago. For some time, he traveled aboutfrom one place to another, being a familiar figure inParis, Florence, Venice, and elsewhere. Ultimately, hefollowed the example of Joseph Nasi (with whom he hadlong been in close touch), adopting as a Jew the nameof Solomon Aben-Ayish and settling in Constantinople.Here he soon attained similar distinction. He became apower at the Turkish court. He was one of the mostimportant figures in international diplomacy of the day.He was one of the principal movers in the epoch-mak-ing alliance between England and Turkey against Spain,was in close touch with the great Lord Burleigh, andsent agents almost like an independent potentate to treatwith Queen Elizabeth. As a reward for his services, theSultan created him Duke of Mitylene. He did not indeedfollow the example of Joseph Nasi in patronizing He-brew learning. Nevertheless, the grant of Tiberias wasrenewed to him, and he did his utmost to forward itssettlement. After his death, in old age, in 1603, his de-vout and studious son Jacob, alias Francisco Aben-Ay-ish, continued to live in the colony which his father hadmaintained.5

Simultaneously, a considerable tide of emigration hadset in towards those parts of Italy which were not un-


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der Spanish rule. A report of 1564 states that there wasno city in the Peninsula in which refugees from the In-quisitions of Spain and Portugal were not to be found.A scandalized Portuguese clergyman, Fernando Gois deLoureiro, filled a whole volume with their names anddetails of the amounts which they had taken with themfrom the Peninsula. They prospered immensely since, astitular Christians, their activities could not be limited.However, after making their fortunes, they emigrated tothe Levant, where they threw off the disguise of Chris-tianity and kept the Grand Turk informed of everythingthat was going on in Italy.

Not all, indeed, waited till they had left Italy in or-der to declare themselves Jews. Many proclaimed theiradhesion to their ancestral faith without delay, and wentimmediately to join the Jewish communities of the placesin which they settled. Even in Rome, such figures wereby no means uncommon. The main center of attractionwas however the coast-town of Ancona. The seat of anancient and renowned Jewish settlement, it was at thistime one of the most flourishing Italian sea-ports; andits close relations with Turkey and the Levant added toits other attractions. The fact that the city was underthe rule of the Holy See made no difference, for theRenaissance Popes were notorious for their tolerance.Marranos from Portugal had accordingly begun to set-tle there under Clement VII (1523–1534); they had re-ceived a special safe-conduct in 1547 from Paul III, guar-anteeing that, in case of any prosecution for apostasy,they should be exclusively subject to the papal jurisdic-tion. The local authorities meanwhile promised that theyshould remain undisturbed for a period of five years at



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least, and that any person against whom proceedingswere at any time meditated should have freedom todepart. These articles were confirmed in 1552 by JuliusIII. Under these auspices, the Marrano settlement grewapace. It numbered something over one hundred adults.They controlled the maritime traffic of the town. A gooddeal of the commerce of the entire Papal States passedthrough their hands. Many of the great Jewish mercan-tile houses of the Levant maintained agencies amongstthem. A synagogue was established, in which divineworship was conducted according to the traditionalPortuguese rite.

Upon this prosperous little community, disaster sud-denly fell from heaven, in one of the most appalling trag-edies in Italian Jewish history until recently. In 1555,there ascended to the throne of St. Peter as Paul IV thefiery Cardinal Caraffa, in whom the most fanatical as-pects of the Counter-Reformation seemed to be per-sonified. Notwithstanding all the solemn promises of hispredecessors, the Marranos of Ancona were among thefirst to suffer from his religious zeal. On April 30, 1556,he withdrew the letters of protection and ordered im-mediate proceedings to be taken against them. The un-fortunate victims undertook to raise among themselvesthe sum of 50,000 ducats in order to secure a respite. Butin vain—the Pope’s order was no attempt at blackmail;and he remained implacable. It was of no use for themto deny, even under torture, the fact of their baptism;since it was notorious that for the past sixty years nodeclared Jew had been able to live in Portugal. Thepersecution was carried out remorselessly. Twenty-fourmen and one woman, who stood steadfast to the end,


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were burned alive in successive “Acts of Faith,” in thespring of 1556, their martyrdom being celebrated in sev-eral poignant elegies. Joseph Mosso, the agent of Gra-cia Mendes, escaped the same fate by suicide. Contem-poraries were struck especially by the heroism of thevenerable Solomon Jachia, who proclaimed his faithundauntedly from the scaffold. Twenty-six others whoprofessed penitence, and were reconciled, were con-demned to be sent to Malta to row in the galleys aspunishment for their apostasy. But by great good for-tune, they succeeded in making good their way to free-dom. Thirty others had escaped from prison before tri-al in consequence of a heavy bribe paid to the papalcommissary.

Meanwhile, at the court of Constantinople, the nobleGracia Mendes had been exerting her influence. Thanksto this, on March 9, 1556, the Sultan had addressed ahaughty letter to the Pope, protesting against this inhu-manity and insisting upon the release of any of the victimswho were his subjects. The city of Ancona, fearing the totaldestruction of its Levantine trade, fervently supported therequest. Accordingly, those of the survivors who were dom-iciled in Turkey were released. The few who remained fled,mainly to the neighboring Italian states.

An episode followed which was almost unique in Jew-ish history. The Jews had only one weapon by whichthey could retaliate for this savage outbreak—the eco-nomic one. Doña Gracia Mendes, with characteristicinsight, was the first to realize this, and threw herselfheart and soul into the work of organizing it. An attemptwas made to bring about a complete boycott of the portof Ancona, if not the Papal States as a whole, on the part



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of the Jewish merchants who controlled the trade of theTurkish Empire. Their agencies were to be transferredto the neighboring port of Pesaro, where many of theMarranos had been benevolently received by order ofthe Duke of Urbino. The plan was enthusiastically es-poused by the communities of Constantinople, Saloni-ca, and Adrianople. However, that of Brusa hung back.Moreover, the native Jews of Ancona appealed pathet-ically for a reconsideration of the decision arrived at,which, they urged, would only result in ruining them andbringing reprisals upon their heads. The result was thatthe attempt ended in utter failure. What was worse, theDuke of Urbino, disappointed in the hope of transfer-ring the trade of Ancona to his own ports, expelled therefugees from his dominions.

The great center of Marrano migration in Italy dur-ing the next few decades was Ferrara. Here, it was pos-sible to count upon a benevolent reception from theenlightened Dukes of the house of Este. As early as 1538,we find “Portuguese Jews” (about whose antecedentsthere can be no doubt) settled there for the purpose oftrade; and, from the middle of the sixteenth century, theprivileges granted by the Popes to those of Ancona wereextended to them. Even after Paul IV had committedhis great act of treachery, they were protected. Many ofthe refugees were received there; and the colony grewapace. Numerous New Christians formally re-enteredJudaism in this city of refuge, before going on to settlein the Levant. A flourishing “Portuguese” communitytook its place by the side of those of the Italian andGerman elements which had been settled there for manygenerations. Literary life in the little colony was active;


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and it was here, in the first decade of the second half ofthe sixteenth century, that the first Spanish translationsof the Bible and liturgy, as well as various independentworks, were published for the benefit of those Marran-os who knew no Hebrew.

Meanwhile, scandalized Catholics or treacherousrenegades, returning to Portugal after a stay in Italy,were filled with outspoken condemnation of what theyhad seen. In 1574, for example, a penitent New Chris-tian denounced by name to the Inquisitional Tribunalat Lisbon over thirty Marrano householders who wereliving openly at Ferrara as Jews. Four years later, theInquisitor General caused to be drawn up, for presen-tation to the Pope, a list of refugees from the district ofCoimbra alone who were to be found Judaizing in var-ious parts of Italy, particularly in the dominions of thehouse of Este. The numbers were impressive, and it wasimpossible for the head of the Catholic Church to re-main indifferent. In consequence, pressure was broughtupon the reigning Duke, Alfonso II, who was forced tosubmit. In 1581, vigorous steps were taken at Ferrara.Many of the members of the Portuguese communitywere thrown into prison, where they remained for overa year. Three, worse offenders than the rest, were sentto Rome for punishment, and, on Saturday, February 19,1583, were put to death at an Act of Faith on the Cam-po dei Fiori. The only one who remained steadfast tothe last was Joseph Saralbo, alias Gabriel Henriques, anative of Serpa, who prided himself that he had initiat-ed no less than eight hundred of his fellow-Marranosinto the Covenant of Abraham. As he passed throughthe streets on his way to the place of execution, bare-



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headed and almost naked, he urged his brethren in faithnot to mourn for him, as he was going gladly to meetimmortality. For many years after, his memory was re-vered as that of a saint and a martyr.

The Marrano colony of Ferrara was thus finally bro-ken up. The main stream of migration, as far as Italywas concerned, was henceforth directed to Venice. TheMarranos had already begun to settle here at an earlydate, their expulsion being ordered by the scandalizedSenate as far back as 1497. After the establishment ofthe Inquisition in Portugal they began to turn their stepsthither once again. Many of them went to join theircoreligionists in the Ghetto. A greater number remainedliving among the ordinary population about the city, stillwearing a transparent mask of Christianity, and prov-ing strenuous competitors in trade. This aroused greatjealousy. In 1550 the question of their expulsion againcame up. It was generally believed that three hundredat least would be allowed to remain, by reason of theadvantage which their activities brought to the city.Unfortunately, the Emperor Charles V, with his charac-teristic zeal for the faith, threw his influence into thescales against them; and, in 1550, their expulsion wasdecreed for the second time.

The relief to orthodoxy was only temporary. Almostimmediately afterwards, a few individuals again beganto settle furtively in the city, both in the Ghetto andoutside it, as the Inquisitional tribunals in Portugal wereinformed with pained horror. Meanwhile, the policy ofthe Government underwent a change. It began to real-ize the material benefits which might accrue through theactivities of these immigrants—a fact which outweighed


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the spiritual considerations that had hitherto prevailed.Daniel Rodrigues, himself apparently a Marrano, hadcome forward with a plan to resuscitate the dwindlingcommerce of the Republic by creating a free port atSpalato, in Dalmatia. In pursuance of this, he was au-thorized to do what he could to persuade his fellow-Jewsto transfer themselves there; and several New Christianfamilies took advantage of the opportunity. At the sametime, thanks to his intervention, Jews from Spain andPortugal were authorized to settle in the capital itself,for the purpose of trade, without any close inquiry be-ing made into their antecedents. Indeed, the great Vene-tian theologian, Fra Paolo Sarpi, maintained that theseMarranos could not be considered Christians, since theirancestors had been baptized by force. Hence, no pro-ceedings could be brought against them by the Churchif they threw off allegiance to their new religion, nomatter after how many generations. In consequence,though a tribunal of the Holy Office existed at Veniceand attempted to intervene in a number of cases, it waskept relatively innocuous.6

The new colony increased with the utmost rapidity.The tide of migration, diverted to Venice, gathered forcewith every year. Portuguese was heard everywhere aboutthe narrow Ghetto courts, where the aristocratic namesof the best families of the Peninsula became familiar. Thecurate of a neighboring parish asserted categorically in1651 that there were many red-hatted Jews there, whohad once been Christian priests in Portugal. The Inqui-sitional tribunals in the Peninsula were kept busy hear-ing the shocked denunciations made by returned visi-tors. Many illustrious figures in Jewish life had their first



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experience of Judaism in the Venetian Ghetto—physi-cians, philosophers, poets, scholars, and mystics. Themembers of the new colony were known as “Ponentines”or Westerners; and, in Venetian Jewry, they formed adistinct element by the side of the German and Levan-tine “nations” which already existed. The members ofthe ”Ponentine” element were legally restricted to whole-sale maritime trade, in which some prospered exceed-ingly. Within a few years, they attained the hegemonyin local affairs, in importance though not in numbers.They paid as much in communal taxation as the twoother elements combined. In consequence, they wererepresented on the Council of the community by sixtymembers, as against forty Germans (who were by farthe most important numerically) and twelve Levan-tines. Their synagogue, originally constructed in 1584,and rebuilt later under the supervision of the greatLonghena, was the greatest and most luxurious in theGhetto, and served as the official place of worship onimportant occasions. The language officially employedin it, for sermons and announcements, was Spanish orPortuguese. Numerous works in these languages—lit-erary, legal, and liturgical—were published at the lo-cal printing-presses. The coats-of-arms of hidalgo fam-ilies from the Peninsula appeared upon the marbletomb-stones on the Lido, where the exclusive use ofHebrew became less general. The local rabbis were as-sailed with casuistic questions relative to the problemsraised by these numerous demi-proselytes. Thus, thefirst of the permanent communities formed by theMarrano exiles came into being. For a long time, itenjoyed the hegemony in the Marrano world. Its print-


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ing-presses provided most of its newer literature. It wasthe main center of spiritual and intellectual activity. Itsent forth teachers to guide the nascent congregationselsewhere, and furnished the model upon which theirorganization was based.7

The influx to Venice did not in every case come di-rect from Spain or Portugal. Frequently the exiles foundtemporary refuge on the way, at some place where theywere free from danger, professing Judaism publicly onlyat a later stage. In about 1630, an episode took placewhich greatly shocked contemporary opinion. For sometime past, there had been living at Florence an eminentPortuguese jurist named Antonio Dias Pinto, who hadbeen invited to Pisa in 1609 by the Grand Duke to lec-ture on Canon Law, and had afterwards become a mem-ber of the ecclesiastical Court of Appeal (Giudice dellaRuota) at Florence. After he had lived there for manyyears, fulfilling this semi-clerical function, he suddenlytransferred himself to Venice and declared his allegianceto Judaism. In the same year, his example was followedby two other jurists practicing at Florence—FranciscoJorge and Duarte Pereira, the latter a judge of the su-preme court. This triple defection caused great scan-dal, all the more so since Jews were canonically inca-pable of acting as judges. A special edict was accord-ingly necessary to confirm the validity of the decisionsin which these renegades had participated! DuartePereira, who apparently assumed the name of JudahLombroso, became a doughty protagonist for his newfaith, writing important polemical works in its defence.Antonio Dias Pinto took up his residence under the pro-tection of the Lion of S. Marco at Verona, where there



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had grown up a small Marrano colony. There he diedabout 1650.

These were by no means the only illustrious Marranocharacters associated with Venice. There was ImmanuelAboab, great-grandson of the last Sage of Castile, whoreturned to Judaism in manhood but nevertheless be-came one of the foremost polemists in its favor; AndreasFalleiro, alias Jacob Aboab, a wealthy merchant andfather of an illustrious line of rabbis; Jacob (Rodrigo)Mendes da Silva, formerly Historiographer Royal at theCourt of Spain; the brothers Cardoso, both physicians,of whom one ended his days in the odor of sanctity asan apologist of Judaism and the other as a Messianicprophet in attendance upon the Pasha of Egypt; andvery many others of equal importance, whose names willbe mentioned later in a different connection. If theGhetto of Venice in the seventeenth century was so color-ful a place, and its intellectual standards were so high,the influence of the polished refugees from the Inquisi-tions of Spain and Portugal was by no means least ofthe contributory causes.

The prosperity brought by the Marrano settlers to theVenetian Republic was followed with eager eyes by oth-er Italian rulers. When therefore Ferdinand II, GrandDuke of Tuscany, set himself to develop the commerceof his dominions by the establishment of Free Ports atPisa and at Leghorn, he endeavored to attract personsof this class. The charter which he issued in 1593 totempt merchant strangers contained one remarkableclause: “We desire moreover that, during the said time,no Inquisition, Visitation, Denunciation or Accusalshall be made against you or your families, even though


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during the past they may have lived outside our domin-ions in the guise of Christians, or with the name of be-ing such.” This was little less than an open invitationto the persecuted Marranos of Spain and Portugal tocome to establish themselves in the new Free Ports. Pisawas at the time the more important of the two, beingthe seat of an ancient Jewish community of some note.Occasional Marranos had found their way thither dur-ing the past half-century, but they had not dared tothrow off the disguise of Christianity, and generallymade their way to Venice in order to be admitted intoJudaism. Now, however, the influx began on a largerscale. Before long, the old Italian congregation had be-come entirely swamped by the new immigrants—linguis-tically, liturgically, and culturally. Meanwhile, the GrandDuke carried out his promise, and protected the immi-grants from ecclesiastical persecution to the best of hisability.

The port of Pisa had passed its prime. Contrary toexpectations, a far greater tide of emigration was direct-ed towards the hitherto unimportant harbor of Leghorn.Through the influence of the new settlers, it was raisedwithin a very few years to the position of one of the mostimportant ports in Italy, and, indeed, in Europe as awhole. In a short time the new community outstrippedthe parent body in which its absolute control had beenvested by the Charter of 1593. There was inevitablefriction, until in 1614 its independence was at last es-tablished. It was not long before the Kaal Kados deLiorne had become in numbers, in wealth, and in cul-ture one of the most important in Italy. The contributionwhich its members made to the wealth of the Grand



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Duchy of Tuscany is inestimable. Their share in thecommerce of the port was a dominant one. They initi-ated, and almost monopolized, the coral trade. The traf-fic in drugs and medicine was entirely in their hands.Their ships traded to every port in the Mediterranean.They introduced the manufacture of soap. They set uplooms for the weaving of silk and woolen cloths. Theyestablished a company for maritime insurance. Theirwealth was immense. They made enormous donationsto the government. The feasts and spectacles with whichthey regaled the populace in honor of a royal visit werefamous. On one occasion, they constructed a militaryhospital at their own expense. In the eighteenth centu-ry, no less than sixteen families possessed their coaches;and this, at a time when in the majority of Italy it wasforbidden for a Jew to be seen riding in a carriage. In1593, Leghorn was little more than a fishing village. Twocenturies later, the Jewish population alone amountedto little short of 7,000.

As has been indicated, this extraordinary develop-ment was due to a very large extent to the influx andthe influence of the Marranos from Spain and Portu-gal, who were the backbone of the community. Alreadyby 1644, they numbered close upon one hundred well-to-do families; and, in the following years, further ref-ugees continued to arrive—scholars, physicians, sol-diers, and above all merchants, who added still furtherto the welfare of the growing port. Unlike their kins-men at Venice and elsewhere, the Marrano settlers ontheir arrival had found no Jewish community in exist-ence. They were therefore able to develop their owncharacteristic life in a manner unexampled at any other


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place in Italy. As at Pisa, no formal Ghetto was estab-lished, for that would have been contrary to the spiritof the concessions of 1593. Accordingly, the tradition-al grandeza of the hidalgo was abundantly retained.The official language of the community, down to thebeginning of the nineteenth century, was Spanish. Indaily life, Portuguese—the lingua franca of Mediterra-nean commerce—was generally used. In these languag-es, there flourished an independent cultural life, withits own literature and its characteristic intellectual insti-tutions.

Only once was the security of the colony threatened.In May 1730, Jacob Guttieres Penha, a newly arrivedimmigrant from the Peninsula, was arrested by order ofthe local Inquisitional tribunal on a charge of apostasy.Great consternation was naturally felt in the communi-ty, hardly one of the leading families of which wouldhave felt safe had this precedent been followed. Withina short while the central government realized the blun-der that had been made and ordered the release of theprisoner. Thereafter, the pledge made in 1593 was nev-er again in danger of being broken.

The control of the community was originally vestedexclusively in the Spanish and Portuguese section. It wasonly in 1715 that a constitutional reform gave the re-maining elements any voice whatsoever in communalpolitics; and even after that date the latter remained,socially and economically, in a position of unmistaka-ble inferiority. Thus, the Marrano element was able toimpose its own distinctive culture upon all the later ar-rivals, whether they were Levantine merchants from theMediterranean ports, or refugees from distant Poland,



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or even immigrants from the neighboring Italian towns.All these, if they wished to settle at Leghorn, had toobtain permission from the Jewish communal authori-ties, who belonged exclusively to the dominant class.Subsequently, they found themselves constrained toconform to the manner of life followed by the latter.Thus we find the extraordinary spectacle of the nativesof the country having to adapt themselves to the stand-ards of the immigrants, to follow their customs, and evento learn their language! Families of ancient Italian stockhad to spell their names in accordance with Portuguesestandards of orthography, and German settlers flaunt-ed Spanish inscriptions on their tombstones.

The method by which the community was governedapproached complete autonomy. In its final form, thesupreme authority was vested in a Council of sixtymembers designated by the Grand Duke, whose seatsdescended by primogeniture from father to son. Of thisnumber, one third sat in rotation each year to transactthe affairs of the community, the whole body being con-voked only in matters of supreme importance. Three“Censors,” nominated biennially, supervised expenditureand exercised ultimate control. There was complete in-ternal jurisdiction, in both civil and criminal cases, thesecular authorities being enjoined to enforce the sentenc-es of the Jewish courts. There was an elaborate systemof taxation, the proceeds of which covered all branchesof expenditure—political, religious, charitable, andeducational. A model organization of societies embracedall aspects of life, from dowering penniless brides toreading penitential prayers. Numerous academies existedfor the study of the Law; and the name of Leghorn was


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famous throughout the Mediterranean world as a seatof learning.

The Marrano settlement at Leghorn was no less dis-tinguished than that of Venice. Quite a number of Span-ish priests and friars made their way thither to embraceJudaism. On one occasion, a Spanish colonel who wasexpressing his contempt of the Jews a little too openlyin a Leghorn coffee-house, found himself confronted bythe cultured Dr. Jacob Fonseca, who to the generalamusement demonstrated that the two of them wereclosely related, though his own blood was if anythingthe nobler. In 1658, informers denounced to the LisbonInquisition an illustrious group, including one Chaves,a captain in the Portuguese army; a couple of membersof the Villareal family, kinsmen of the martyred states-man-poet of that name; Custodio Lobo, alias MosesYesurun Ribero, a poet and controversialist of note; andtwo physicians, one of whom was Jacob Rosales, aliasImmanuel Bocarro Frances—one of the most illustriouspractitioners of his age. The latter, a friend of Galileo,was author of a number of important works on medi-cine and astronomy, and had been created a Count Pal-atine by the Emperor Ferdinand III in recognition of hisservices to scholarship. In conversation with his fellow-Portuguese in the Synagogue, he had admitted quitefrankly that he was a Jew, though he held that the fol-lowers of the religion of Jesus would also be saved. Thisheretical expression of opinion was reported with hor-ror at Lisbon, when, not long after, those to whom hehad spoken returned thither and gave an account of theirjourney.

In western and northern Europe, the settlement of the



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Marranos followed somewhat different lines. Those whohad fled to Turkey and to Italy in the first part of thesixteenth century had been in the main persons of a moreor less intense religious feeling, who seized the first pos-sible opportunity to make their way to some spot wherethey might revert to the faith of their fathers with im-punity. Those who were left in the Peninsula after thisperiod were necessarily of somewhat feebler convictions.As we have seen, they had penetrated deeply into thecommercial life of the two countries, much of the mar-itime trade of which rested in their hands. It was the erawhen Spain and Portugal had attained the zenith of theirpower, and when they regarded trade with the NewWorld and with the Far East almost as a monopoly.Accordingly, in every city of northern Europe which layon the newly developed routes of oceanic commerce,there was now a considerable Spanish and Portuguesemercantile colony. A very large proportion of this wasnecessarily composed of persons of New Christian de-scent. Some may have been led to emigrate from fearof falling into the hands of the Inquisition, the suspicionsof which were inevitably attracted to them by reason oftheir origin. Nevertheless, the motives which broughtabout the formation of these settlements were essentiallyeconomic and not religious in character. It was notori-ous that their members were of doubtful orthodoxy, somuch so, indeed, that throughout Europe, at this time,the terms “Portuguese” and “Jew” were regarded as al-most synonymous.8 Nevertheless, the religious spirit inmany of them was weak. In most cases, the recent ar-rivals were content to have found a place where theycould earn their living without fear of persecution. They


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retained the mask of Catholicism, complying punctili-ously with all of its rites and ceremonies. At the most,they continued to maintain some sort of crypto-Jewishexistence in the privacy of their own homes, just as theyhad done before leaving Spain or Portugal. The ultimatehistory of these colonies varied. Some faded away, orbecame absorbed in the surrounding population; theattempts at proselytization made amongst them by theirmore fervent kinsmen in letters from Venice or the Le-vant being in vain. Others maintained a dual existencefor many generations, until finally they were able toadopt Judaism openly without any untoward results.Others, again, who had the good fortune to discoverthemselves in a more tolerant environment (generally ina Protestant country), were able to cut short the inter-vening period and to organize themselves into undis-guised and open Jewish communities without great lossof time.

Once these communities were established, on the oth-er hand, they attracted increasing numbers of personsendowed with a more steadfast spirit, whose main ob-ject in leaving the Peninsula was to be able to worshipthe God of their fathers in security. At one time, indeed,there was an elaborate organization to smuggle the NewChristians to the safer regions of northern Europe. Acertain friar named Martin Lopes, alias Martin de San-to Spirito, who distinguished himself in this direction,was long considered a thorn in the flesh of the Spanishgovernment. One of the charges brought against theMogadouro family, member after member of which per-ished in a prolonged martyrdom between 1672 and 1684,was that they had facilitated the flight of fellow-Mar-



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ranos to France, being in consequence known as “Trans-porters of New Christians” (passadores dos christãos-novos).

In France, the Marrano settlement followed a charac-teristic course. The country was Catholic, and officiallyin sympathy with the policy which had been adopted inSpain and Portugal. It had expelled the Jews finally in1394; there were therefore no congregations existing in thecountry to serve as precedent (as in Italy) for the treat-ment of any new arrivals. But at the same time the In-quisition was not active in France. Declared Jews wereindeed unable to settle there. Marranos on the other handmight immigrate without interference so long as theycontinued to call themselves Christians; and there was noover-meticulous supervision of their conduct.

In 1474, Louis XI had accorded many privileges tothe foreign merchants who came to settle in Bordeaux.Spaniards in particular availed themselves of the oppor-tunity; and there were among them a large proportionof New Christians. After the period of the introductionof the Inquisition and the forced conversion in Portu-gal, their numbers increased. In 1550, their position wasstrengthened, Henry II issuing letters patent specifical-ly granting the Portuguese New Christians rights of resi-dence, naturalization, property, and traffic similar tothose enjoyed by all other foreign merchants. This char-ter was confirmed in 1574, 1580, and 1604. In 1614,Louis XIII ordered that all Jews, disguised or otherwise,should leave France within one month. The New Chris-tians of Bordeaux alone, though their secret was all butopen, were not disturbed. Ten years later, the jurats ofthe city passed a resolution speaking in the highest terms


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of the loyal services which the “Portuguese merchants”had rendered to the city during the past forty years. Afterthis date, their right of residence was never seriouslyquestioned.

Elsewhere in southern France, conditions were verymuch the same. From about 1520, there were settlementsat the foot of the Pyrenees, in the flourishing port ofBayonne, as well as in the neighboring towns of St.-Jean-de-Luz and Biarritz. In 1597, their number was recruitedby the arrival of a few families expelled from Bordeauxat the instigation of their coreligionists, on the groundthat they had not been established there for ten years.In 1602, Henry IV ordered their removal to some placefurther distant from the frontier; but it does not appearthat this was generally carried into effect. Thus, a sec-ond center of Marrano settlement was formed besidesthat at Bordeaux.

The immigration took on very considerable propor-tions. By the beginning of the seventeenth century, it wascalculated that from 800 to 1000 families were living inthe frontier provinces. In 1632, the commissioner of theInquisition at Pamplona despairingly reported thattroops of Portuguese were passing into France, many ofthem persons of considerable wealth, with their littersand coaches.

As we have seen, Jews were not, officially, allowedto live in France. The new immigrants were thus una-ble to lay aside their disguise and to return formallyto their ancestral religion, as was the case in Turkey,Venice, or Leghorn. They had to keep up the pretenceof being Christians. On the other hand, now that themenace of the Inquisition was removed, they began to



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throw off precaution and to revert more and moreopenly to their ancestral faith and practices. Gradual-ly, a properly organized Jewish life began to grow up,with its academies, its rabbis (imported, in the firstinstance, from abroad), its autocratic organization, itsnetwork of charitable and religious institutions. Syna-gogues were built, thronged for worship three timeseach day, and frequently visited by curious strangers.Hardly any disguise was kept up. It was obvious to allthe world that these Portuguese newcomers were Jews.They were not, however, permitted to describe them-selves as such. They were officially designated as “NewChristians” or “Portuguese Merchants”—though it wasnotorious what those appellations meant. They hadtheir own Portuguese priests and confessors (possiblyas little sincere as they were themselves) who admin-istered the Catholic sacraments to them as a matter ofform. They were married in the Church, in accordancewith Catholic rites, notwithstanding the fact that theJewish wedding-service was performed in elaboratedetail under the traditional canopy at home. They tooktheir children to be baptized, though the rite of circum-cision was performed upon the boys by expert practi-tioners. They had a burial-ground reserved for theiruse; but it was not, officially, a Jewish one, that atBordeaux being situated in the courtyard of the con-vent of the Cordelite Friars, who did not object to lend-ing their protection to the sham. Even when, at theclose of the seventeenth or the beginning of the eight-eenth centuries, the “Portuguese Nation” purchased itsown cemetery, from the inscriptions in which their realidentity was made perfectly obvious, the pretext was


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still kept up. In 1705, the practice of having marriag-es celebrated in Church was abandoned, a declarationin the presence of the parish priest henceforth takingits place. The baptism of children was kept up for someyears later. It was not until 1730 that the hollow for-mality which had prevailed for two centuries was aban-doned and that the New Christians of southern Francewere at last officially recognized as Jews.

The most important numerically of the French Mar-rano communities continued to be at Bordeaux. Here,there were said to be as many as seven synagogues; and,down to the last decade of the eighteenth century, therewas a perpetual stream of Marranos from Spain andPortugal who arrived there to be received into the cov-enant of Abraham. Second in importance was the K. K.Nefusot Yehudah (Holy Congregation “The Dispersal ofJudah”) of Bayonne. So qualified was the local tolerancethat the Marranos were not allowed to establish them-selves in the city itself, but were restricted to the sub-urb of St.-Esprit, just across the river. Here, a synagoguewas built as early as 1660; and Jewish life has remainedcentered in this quarter till the present time. Bayonnewas the center of a little group of communities—at Bi-arritz, Bidache, Peyrehorade, St.-Jean-de-Luz—overwhich it attempted to exercise an autocratic control.These smaller communities, too, had their own distinc-tive names. Thus that of Bidache was the K. K. NevehShaanan (Holy Congregation “Tranquil Abode”—aname obviously referring to the present freedom fromInquisitional persecution); that of Peyrehorade wascalled K. K. Beth El (Holy Congregation “The Houseof God”).9



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The local record had its more tragic pages. The exist-ence of the community of St.-Jean-de-Luz was especiallychequered. In March 1619, a New Christian woman ofsixty, named Catharina Fernandes, newly arrived fromPortugal, went to Church to receive the Holy Com-munion from one of the three Portuguese priests who atthat time served the formal needs of their compatriotssettled there. After having accepted the consecratedparticle, she was observed to remove it surreptitiouslyfrom her mouth. She was immediately arrested; but thepopulace, infuriated, broke into the prison, dragged herout, and burned her alive. Public indignation was notsatisfied until all New Christians had been expelled fromthe city. Many of them settled in the neighboring town-ship of Biarritz; but a whole ship-load was so intimidat-ed that they sailed to the freer atmosphere of northernEurope. It did not apparently take long for the littlecommunity to reestablish itself. When in 1636 the Span-iards captured St.-Jean-de-Luz, the Inquisition seized theopportunity to pursue its revenge against the refugees;and the Admiral of Castile was ordered to arrest andsend to the frontier all whom its agents might designate.Many Marranos from the south of France who had ven-tured back to their native land figured in the Spanishautos throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth cen-turies. Thus, at the famous Madrid holocaust on June30, 1680, Luis Saraiva, alias Arraya, of Bordeaux per-ished gallantly at the stake; while five other persons fromthe same region were burned in effigy, and several morewere reconciled.

The contribution of the Marrano settlers in southernFrance to local, and indeed to national, achievement was


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considerable. This was especially the case at Bordeaux,where the largest colony was situated. Already in thefirst half of the sixteenth century the Granholas, the Ran,the Tarrégua, the Millanges, the Costa, and especiallythe Gouvea families were prominent in every branch oflocal life; and there is little doubt that all were of NewChristian origin. The mother of the great Montaigne wasAntoinette de Loppes, or Lopez, a descendant of thefamily Pazagon which had once been prominent in thejudería of Calatayud. Isaac La Péreyre, the jurist andtheologian, one of the founders of higher criticism, wasobviously of Marrano extraction, though himself a fer-vent Huguenot. They provided large numbers of emi-nent physicians, culminating in the eminent Jean-Bap-tiste de Silva, principal of the faculty of the Universityof Paris and medical attendant on Louis XV. Their con-tributions to economic activity were great. The ship-building house of Gradis was especially noteworthy forits public spirit. Its services at the time of the wars withEngland in the eighteenth century were incredibly large;and much of the weight of the Canadian campaignsrested on its shoulders. The most illustrious member ofthe colony was probably Jacob Rodrigues Pereira, in-ventor of the system for the instruction of deaf-mutes,who was brought from Portugal to Bordeaux in his in-fancy.

Elsewhere in France, especially in the south of thecountry, there were further Marrano centers, thoughnone of them was able to develop (as was the case withBordeaux and Bayonne) into a formal Jewish commu-nity. Such settlements were to be found at Toulouse,Montpellier, Lyons, La Rochelle, and even small places



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like Tartas, where one of the most mourned Inquisitionalmartyrs had been born. At Nantes, in Brittany, there wasfrom the close of the sixteenth century a considerablecolony, viewed askance by the local merchants, but pro-tected and encouraged by the wise policy of Henry IV.The settlement was broken up by the decree of expul-sion issued against the Jews in 1615; though, even afterthis date, a few Marranos managed to find their waythither. At Rouen, there was a similar colony, headed byJoão Pinto Delgado, a poet of great repute in his day. Itwas alleged that the New Christians settled here monop-olized the trade of the city and amassed enormous for-tunes, after which they took the first opportunity to leavefor some place where they might observe Judaism pub-licly. Meanwhile, they continued to act in public as de-vout Christians—so much so that when in 1613 an at-tempt was made to dislodge them, they had no difficul-ty in obtaining certificates of orthodoxy from the curésof the parishes in which they lived. From 1631, theEstates of Normandy became outspoken in their com-plaints against these unwelcome settlers. Nevertheless,no steps were taken against them; and the communitymight have managed to develop in the same manner asthose of Bordeaux or Bayonne excepting for an inter-nal quarrel which broke out in 1632. Delgado and hisfriends were denounced to the authorities as Judaizers.The little group was broken up. Half of its memberssought safety in flight; the rest were transferred underarrest to Paris. Here, they brought counter-chargesagainst their enemies, to precisely the same effect,backed up by further certificates testifying to their ownimpeccable orthodoxy. Finally, as the result of the pay-


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ment of an enormous bribe, they were released. TheRouen colony never regained its previous prosperity; andnot long afterwards, with the commercial decline of theport, it came to an end.

Some members of the Rouen community subsequentlysettled in Hamburg. Here (attracted by the commercialpossibilities of the place, now one of the principal portsof Northern Europe), a considerable body of PortugueseMarranos had been established ever since the close ofthe previous century. As early as 1577, the settlementwas already of some importance. The city was a Pro-testant one, while the new immigrants were titularlyCatholic; but it had become increasingly evident thatthey practiced Judaism in secret. In 1604, the Court ofAldermen (Bürgerschaft) complained to the Senate atthe state of affairs, but nothing was done. By 1612, thecommunity numbered some 125 adults, without count-ing children and servants. Their utility to the city wasfar from negligible. In the period 1604–7, they contrib-uted 10,000 reichsthalers in extraordinary taxation to thecivic treasury, besides the ordinary dues which theyshouldered with the other inhabitants. They first creat-ed, and subsequently monopolized, trade with the Pe-ninsula. They were the sole importers of colonial prod-ucts such as tobacco, cotton, and spices. When in 1619the Bank of Hamburg was established, the Portugueseimmigrants took a prominent part in it; and over fortyof them figured on its earliest roll of shareholders. Mean-while, the disguise of Christianity was being slowly laidaside. By 1610, there were already three small syna-gogues in the city. In the following year, three represent-atives of the “Portuguese Nation resident in this city of



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Hamburg” purchased a piece of ground near the neigh-boring port of Altona—at that time under the rule of theKing of Denmark—for use as a cemetery.

This increasing lack of caution naturally attractedattention. Accordingly, in 1611, a petition was present-ed to the Senate requesting the expulsion of these stran-gers from the city. It was decided to apply for a deci-sion to the Lutheran academies at Frankfort and at Jena.The reply of these bodies was far from intransigent; forthey recommended that the Jews should be received,under certain restrictions, in order that they might bewon over to the love of the Gospel. In consequence, onNovember 7, 1612, the Senate at last formally author-ized the settlement of the Jews in the city, on conditionthat they did not give scandal to the Christians by in-dulging in public worship. Further concessions weremade in 1617 and 1623; and, in 1650, public worship wasat last authorized. The result was seen two years later,when the three little synagogues which had hithertocarried on an unostentatious existence in the houses ofthe wealthier communal magnates were unified as theK. K. Beth Israel (Holy Congregation “House of Isra-el”), which henceforth represented the whole body of thePortuguese Jews in the city. Daughter communities hadmeanwhile been founded at Glückstadt (1622), Altona(1642), and Emden (1649).

The Hamburg colony included the inevitable men ofmark. No less than five physicians are included in aninformer’s list of 1617. Among these the most illustri-ous was Rodrigo de Castro, of Lisbon (1550–1627), “thetyrannical doctor.” In his native city, he had been ofconsiderable service to the Great Armada before it


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sailed, in 1588; he was prominent for his devotion at thetime of the plague which ravaged Hamburg in 1595—the year following his arrival; and he may be reckonedthe founder of the science of gynaecology, on which hewrote a classical work. He served as medical attendantto the sovereign Count of Hesse, the Bishop of Bremen,and the King of Denmark. Of his two sons, one, Andréde Castro, alias Daniel Nahmias, was body physician tothe King of Denmark, and the other, Bendito de Cas-tro, alias Baruch Nahmias, who played a prominent partin communal life, served in the same capacity to thefamous Queen Christina of Sweden. Rodrigo de Cas-trons reconversion to Judaism had been due to the per-suasions of another Hamburg physician, Enrique Rod-rigues, alias Samuel Cohen, of Santa Comba (d. 1638),whose wife had herself suffered at the hands of the In-quisition. She was the daughter of Anrique Dias Millão,burned at Lisbon in 1609, all of whose family was set-tled at Hamburg. Samuel da Silva, of Oporto, anotherlocal physician, was a notable theological writer, whochampioned the doctrine of the immortality of the soulagainst Uriel Acosta. He was the father-in-law of Ben-jamin Musaphia (Dionysius), scientist, mystic, and lex-icographer, physician-in-ordinary to Christian IV ofDenmark, who was expelled from Hamburg in 1640 inconsequence of a frank expression of his views on Chris-tianity. Alvaro Diniz (Dionis), alias Samuel Jachia, whomaintained one of the three local synagogues in hishouse, became Master of the Mint at Altona and Glück-stadt, and was the author of an abortive scheme to pro-cure a settlement of Portuguese Jews in the kingdom ofBohemia. His descendants were the financial agents to



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the Dukes of Gottorp (Schleswig-Holstein) and to theDanish crown. The Abaz family (one of whom, SamuelAbaz, alias Jorge Diaz, was a notable figure in local lit-erary and intellectual life) were ennobled by the Emper-or Mathias. It would not be difficult to protract the liststill further.

The foregoing does not give a complete idea of thevast extension of the area of Marrano settlement. Theimportant colonies in London, Amsterdam, and theNew World will be dealt with in detail in the succeed-ing chapters. Christian IV of Denmark issued, in 1622,Letters Patent guaranteeing protection to those whosettled in his dominions and, though the commercialprospects were not sufficiently promising to attractthem in large numbers, a few settled at Copenhagen,besides those who had spread from Hamburg to theneighboring ports. In the middle of the eighteenth cen-tury, an attempt was made to draw them to Sweden.Under the protection of the Dukes of Savoy, they set-tled at Nice and Villafranca. The house of Este, in theseventeenth century, attempted to attract them to Reg-gio. Scattered families were to be found at Corfu, Flor-ence, Rome, Turin, Lucca, Genoa, Marseilles, Ostendand Vienna. Individuals made their way to Russia.Outposts were to be found, as will be seen, even as farafield as India.

The importance of these settlements was great, bothin Jewish and in general life. In the economic sphere,they played an extremely significant part. From the be-ginning of the seventeenth century, these little colonieswere to be found in every important commercial cent-er of Europe, as well as in America and the Far East.


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They played a role which was altogether out of propor-tion to their numbers in the trade of Western Europe.The same language and the same essential culture pre-vailed among a larger or smaller circle in every port. Itwas possible for a man to go from Hamburg to Bor-deaux, and from Bordeaux to Leghorn, without anyviolent sense of change. Correspondence could be con-ducted over half of the civilized world in the sametongue. Most of the important families were internation-al, members being settled in each of the greatest cent-ers. Thus “credit,” in the literal sense, was a social re-ality, which automatically assisted commercial inter-course. Even with Spain and Portugal, economic rela-tions were continued, though for obvious reasons as-sumed names were adopted for the purpose.10 A com-mercial nexus was thus formed which has perhaps noparallel in history except the Hanseatic League of theMiddle Ages. Certain branches of commerce were almostentirely in the hands of these Marrano settlements. Theycontrolled the importation of precious stones into Eu-rope, both from the East Indies and from the West. Thecoral industry was a Jewish, or rather a Marrano, mo-nopoly. Trade in sugar, tobacco, and similar colonialcommodities rested largely in their hands. From themiddle of the seventeenth century, Jews of Spanish andPortuguese origin were prominent figures on the vari-ous European exchanges. They played an important partin the establishment of the great national banks. It wasthey above all whom Joseph Addison had in mind whenhe wrote, in his famous Essay on the Jews: “They are,indeed, so disseminated through all the trading parts ofthe world, that they are become the instruments by



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which the most distant nations converse with one an-other, and by which mankind are knit together in a gen-eral correspondence.” The transference of the center ofthe world’s commerce during the course of the seven-teenth century from southern to northern Europe is notthe least important of the achievements which the In-quisition helped to bring about.

In Jewish life, their importance was no less. Theypossessed, it is true, the faults of their qualities, to a verymarked extent. They were conscious, and proud, of theirexternal qualifications. Accordingly, they introducedwith them into Judaism a certain sense of separatism andclass-pride which had never been known before. Theyaccentuated the superficial differences which existedbetween them and the tudescos, from Germany andPoland, or even the italianos and berberiscos whoseantecedents were nearer to their own. They did their bestto accentuate this superficial distinction even in gentileeyes. They regarded intermarriage with them as littlebetter than apostasy. They excluded them as far as theywere able from all synagogal dignities and office. In morethan one instance, in their eagerness to safeguard theirown position, they endeavored to deprive their less for-tunate and less polished brethren of the political privi-leges which they had won. Nevertheless, in spite of them-selves, the ultimate results of their influence were dia-metrically opposed to their more narrow views.

As compared with the generality of the inhabitantsof those countries in which they settled, they were es-sentially persons merely of a different faith. They werenot, like their coreligionists, members of a different peo-ple, a different culture, a different world. Intellectually,


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they stood on a level with any other burghers. Theydressed in the same manner. They spoke as pure a lan-guage. They were by no means deficient in the socialgraces. Hence, the social emancipation of the Marranosreturned to Judaism was complete from the start. Theyhad to be accepted as equals, and, from this point ofvantage, the movement for political emancipation couldbe begun.

In many places, too, the Marranos were pioneers.Before their reversion to their ancestral faith they hadbeen accepted in Protestant London, Amsterdam, orHamburg as foreigners. It was impossible to excludethem simply because they turned out to be not Papists,but Jews. Once a Jewish settlement was authorized,however, it was not possible to exclude the Germans andthe Poles, less attractive though they might be superfì-cially. Hence, in Holland, Hamburg, and in England thesettlement of the uncouth Ashkenazi Jews from EasternEurope, long excluded, followed automatically upon thereception of these aristocratic forerunners. The Marranoswere thus the pioneers of Jewish settlement in half thecivilized world.11

Within the community, too, their influence was con-siderable. They were, as will be seen, the pioneers of thevernacular literature of the Jews. They set the examplefor abandoning the traditional Jewish costume and thehybrid Jewish dialect. In synagogal worship, they firstadopted secular standards of decorum and harmony.The members of the Marrano Diaspora may be termed,without exaggeration, the first modern Jews.



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CHAPTER IX

THE DUTCH JERUSALEM

THE settlement of the Marranos in the Low Countries,contrary to the general impression, goes back to a com-paratively early date. From the beginning of the six-teenth century, the region had been dynastically associ-ated with Spain. Antwerp was moreover, at this time,the greatest port of northern Europe. It was thereforeinevitable that it should have offered considerable at-traction to the New Christians of Spain and Portugal,who found there both commercial opportunity and free-dom from persecution. Hence they began to settle in thecity at least as early as 1512. With the approach of per-secution in Portugal, the stream of migration increased.As we have seen, recent converts were forbidden to leavethat country without special license. If the object of thejourney were Turkey or some other Moslem country,where the opportunity would certainly be taken to re-vert to Judaism, the requisite permission would unques-tionably be refused. Hence an increasing number of therefugees used a round-about route, obtaining permissionto proceed to the untainted parts to the north, fromwhere they made their way overland to Salonica or someother haven of refuge. Thus the emigration directed toAntwerp increased; and in 1526, new arrivals wereempowered to remain in the city for a period not exceed-ing thirty days.

Besides those who passed through the city en route


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for Turkey, others remained as permanent settlers. Themost important member of the New Christian colonywas Diogo Mendes, who managed the Antwerp branchof the great Bank founded by his family in Lisbon,which now enjoyed the coveted pepper monopoly. In1532, drastic action was taken against the group. Mendesand twelve others were arrested, and put on trial forJudaizing. The case was ultimately allowed to lapse, onthe payment of heavy fìnes; this being partly due to theintervention of Henry VIII of England, who made useof the House of Mendes as his financial agents. Pettyminor annoyances continued. All the same, in 1537, theEmperor Charles V formally permitted New Christiansto settle in Antwerp, with full rights. This license seemsto have been utilized to the full, the advent of the In-quisition in Portugal stimulating the emigration from thecountry. In 1540, whole shiploads, to avoid suspicion,made their way thither by way of Madeira. One convoy,comprising one hundred persons, was arrested inZealand on their arrival. Ultimately, they were released,since no definite ground could be found for proceedingagainst them.

Henceforth, as was inevitable, conditions became lessfavorable. The entrance of Judaizing New Christiansinto the Low Countries was strictly forbidden. Simul-taneously, proceedings were taken against the fugitivesthroughout the Spanish dominions in Europe. At Milan,as we have seen, a commission was appointed to inquireinto the question.1 When the news reached Antwerp,Diogo Mendes hurriedly called together a meeting toconsider what action should be taken. It was resolvedto instruct his agent in Lombardy to exert himself to the

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utmost to help the prisoners and to procure their release.A relief fund was immediately raised among thosepresent, a draft for two thousand ducats being des-patched by special courier to Milan.

The Antwerp colony was for the moment left undis-turbed. Nevertheless, conditions there became more andmore difficult. About 1542, Diogo Mendes died. Short-ly afterwards, his sister-in-law, Beatrice da Luna, aliasGracia Mendes, fled from the country under dramaticcircumstances, with all her family, who were to attainsuch distinction. An edict was issued in 1549 expellingfrom the Low Countries all New Christians arrived fromPortugal during the last five years. The Burgomastersof Antwerp strenuously resisted, going so far as to refuseto append their signatures. In the end, their oppositionwas overruled. The regulation was repeated on May 30,1550, after which it was rigorously enforced. Even now,the New Christians of older establishment, as well asthose who were of Spanish origin, were allowed to re-main. They seem to have been somewhat less attachedto Jewish tradition than those of a previous generation.Many of them, indeed, brought up in ignorance of Juda-ism, apparently leaned towards the Reformed Church,which was rapidly gaining ground. Thus, for example,a certain Marco Perez was at the head of the Calvinistconsistory at Antwerp. It was even alleged that theMarranos in Flanders were deliberately introducingLutheran literature into Spain.

From 1565, a fresh immigration began, which in-creased after the union of Portugal with Spain in 1580.The new arrivals were not transients, but permanentsettlers, of a somewhat different type from those who


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had preceded them. Removed from immediate dread ofthe Holy Office, the members of the colony began tosome extent to throw off the mask of secrecy. It wasreported that many of them were circumcised, and thatthey had established a synagogue. In 1585, the LisbonInquisition received a detailed denunciation of a coupleof dozen refugees Judaizing at Antwerp, whither theyhad brought two “rabbis” from Italy to act as their spir-itual guides. All the Portuguese families residing there,with three exceptions, it was asserted, were Judaizers.In the same year, the Duke of Alva ordered the arrestof a number of secret Jews who were said to be resid-ing at Arnhem and elsewhere. Whether this was carriedout or not, it was no permanent deterrent.

The settlement of the Jews in the Netherlands wasnot, therefore, a sudden or a miraculous phenomenon.When, with the establishment of the independence of theUnited Provinces, Amsterdam ousted Antwerp from itsprevious unquestioned supremacy, it was natural thatan increasing number of those merchants who thoughtfit to leave Spain and Portugal should have establishedthemselves there. This, of course, became the case morethan ever after 1648, when the Treaty of Westphaliaclosed the navigation of the Scheldt and reduced Ant-werp to the position of comparative unimportance whichlasted for the next two centuries. The overthrow of theRoman Catholic Church in the revolted provinces mayhave given rise to hopes that more humane treatmentmight be expected there in future; but this was not thesole cause of the settlement which now began.

An ancient legend, which need not be discounted inall its details, gives a most romantic origin for the Am-

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sterdam community. In the year 1593, we are told, abrother and sister, Manuel Lopez Pereira and MariaNuñez (whose parents had suffered from the persecu-tions of the Inquisition), set sail from Portugal with theiruncle, Miguel Lopez, and a large party of Marranos, inthe hope of finding a place of refuge in the freer landsto the north. The vessel was captured on its journey byan English ship, and brought to port. An English no-ble, fascinated by Maria’s rare beauty, solicited herhand. Queen Elizabeth, hearing the story, expressed adesire to see the fair prisoner. Captivated by her love-liness, like everyone else, she drove about London withher in the same coach, and gave orders for the vesseland all its passengers to be set at liberty. In spite of this,Maria would not accept the tempting offer which shehad received. “Leaving all the pomp of England for thesake of Judaism” (as the old record puts it), she pur-sued her way with her companions to Amsterdam.Here, in 1598, they were joined by her mother and oth-er members of the family. Later in the same year, whewas married to one of her fellow fugitives. This, as itappears, was the first wedding to take place in the Am-sterdam community; and it was celebrated by a statelydance, in which twenty-four cousins of the bridal pairtook part.2

There was thus far no manifestation of communal orreligious life. Another venerable legend tells how thiscame into being. Early in the following century, anoth-er party of Marranos who had left the Peninsula withall their household property, in search of a place of ref-uge, put in at the port of Emden. Walking about the city,they saw over a doorway some letters which they sus-


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pected to be Hebrew. They managed to get in touch withthe occupant of the house, who was a certain Moses UriLevi. They begged him to receive them into the Jewishreligion. He refused, on the ground that it was too dan-gerous a step, but he promised that, if they went toAmsterdam, he would follow them and do as they de-sired. He kept his promise punctually. Ten men and fourchildren, who formed the kernel of a new community,were circumcised; and services were regularly held in thehouse of the Morroccan envoy, Samuel Palache, whohappened to be a Jew.

The activities of these recent arrivals from the Penin-sula, titularly Christians as they were, could not escapeattention for long. It seemed obvious that they wereholding Catholic services—at that time forbidden—andperhaps even conspiring against the newly-establishedgovernment. On the Day of Atonement, the unwontedattendance resulted in drastic steps being taken. Thewhole party was arrested, and dragged off for examina-tion. They were as yet entirely ignorant of Dutch, andtheir difficulty in expressing themselves increased thesuspicion against them. Fortunately, one of the leadersof the little group—Manuel Rodrigues Vega, alias JacobTirado, who had recently been circumcised notwith-standing his advanced age—happened to be thorough-ly familiar with Latin, and had the happy idea of ex-pressing himself in that language. He made it clear thatthe assembly was not one of Papists, but of followers ofa religion persecuted by the Inquisition even more feroci-ously than Protestantism; and he pointed out the greatadvantages which might accrue to the city if the NewChristians of the Peninsula were encouraged to estab-

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lish themselves in it. His appeal, whether to humanityor to interest, was convincing. The prisoners were re-leased; the Atonement service was finished in peace; andthe position of the refugees was henceforth regularized.Not long after, under the auspices of Jacob Tirado, aJewish congregation was formally founded, being namedafter him K. K. Beth Ja’acob (“Holy Congregation, TheHouse of Jacob”). As their first rabbi, they brought theSalonican scholar, Joseph Pardo, from Venice, the tra-ditions of which community became firmly embeddedin that of the “Venice of the north.”

The colony grew with astonishing rapidity. In 1608the immigrants from North Africa who were groupedabout Samuel Palache established their own synagogue,K. K. Neveh Shalom (“Abode of Peace”), choosing firstJudah Vega, from Constantinople, and then Isaac Uzielof Fez as their rabbi. The unbending sternness of thisscholar drove some members of the community, head-ed by one David Osorio, to secede and form yet a thirdcongregation, K. K. Beth Israel (“House of Israel”), in1619. In 1638, the petty différences between the threewere composed, and they were welded into one singlecommunity, named like that of Venice K. K. TalmudTorah (“Study of the Law”). In 1675, a stately new syn-agogue, which is still one of the architectural monumentsof the city, was constructed to accommodate the grow-ing congregation. In 1602, a plot of land for use as acemetery had been secured at Groede. Fourteen yearslater, that at Ouderkerk, which is still in use, wasopened. In 1615, after a report had been drawn up bythe great jurist, Hugo Grotius, the Jewish settlement wasformally authorized by the civil power, without any re-


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strictions of importance save that intermarriage withChristians and attacks on the dominant religion wereforbidden. Every city was empowered to regulate theJewish settlement at will. Minor communities wereformed in the course of time at The Hague, Rotterdam,Maarsen, and one or two other places. That of Amster-dam, however, remained unquestionably supreme.

That picturesque city was now at the height of itsfame. Its harbor was filled with shipping, which unload-ed the merchandise of every quarter of the world intoits warehouses. Its wealth increased with phenomenalrapidity. Considerations of material advantage werereinforced by the reputation for tolerance which Hollandhad recently acquired. Almost weekly, some fresh NewChristian immigrant arrived from the Peninsula—some-times, a more or less apathetic merchant, who had emi-grated in order to benefit himself, but seized the oppor-tunity to declare his adherence to Judaism now that hemight do so with impunity; sometimes, refugees fleeingfrom the rigors of the Inquisition, and eager to return tothe religion of their fathers. Occasionally, a whole ship-load came together. When the New Christians were ex-pelled from Nantes, in 1615, it was to Amsterdam thatthe greater number of them transferred themselves. In1617, seventy-three persons arrived from St.-Jean-de-Luz—in consequence, no doubt, of some local persecution.Many of those who had been released in consequence ofthe General Pardon of 1605 in Portugal seized the firstopportunity to migrate to the new land of refuge. Withthe intensification of persecution after 1630, immigra-tion began on an even larger scale. Merchants and oth-ers, who had hitherto been established as crypto-Jews

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in rapidly decaying Antwerp, transferred themselves inlarge numbers to the rival port, where they threw off alldisguise and joined the community. In 1617, over onehundred Marrano householders settled in Amsterdamwere denounced by name by a returned informer to theLisbon Inquisition. By the middle of the century, thecommunity counted over four hundred families. Beforeits close, the total had risen to something like four thou-sand souls.

It was no insignificant body. They controlled a greatpart of the maritime commerce of the town with thePeninsula, the East Indies, and the West. They estab-lished important industries. They introduced with themvast capital. Ultimately, they controlled 25 per cent ofthe shares of the famous East India Company.3 Thewealth of some was legendary. The house of one, DavidPinto, was so ornately adorned that the civic authori-ties were forced to intervene; but still its splendor re-mained such as to tempt the populace to sack it. Thedowry which this same individual gave to his daugh-ter was immense. On one occasion, at a wedding in thecommunity, the combined wealth of forty of the guestsexceeded 40,000,000 florins. It is difficult to say to whatextent this influx actually contributed to the well-be-ing of the city. It may be stated however as a fact thatthe greatest period of Dutch prosperity coincided withthe period of the Marrano immigration and activity. Inthe nexus of the Marrano settlements, the primacy haddefinitely passed, together with her mercantile suprem-acy, from the City of the Lagoons to the City of Ca-nals.

Hardly any rank or calling was left unrepresented in


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the stream of migration. There were scholars, professors,priests, friars, physicians, manufacturers, merchants,soldiers, poets, statesmen. Simão Pires Solis, who hadsuffered for the so-called “outrage” of Santa Engraciaat Lisbon in 1630, had a brother called Henrique Solis—a Franciscan friar, noted both for his learning and forhis eloquence as a preacher. Dismayed or disgusted athis brother’s fate, he made his way to Amsterdam, wherehe adopted the name of Eleazar de Solis, married, fol-lowed the career of medicine, and became a pillar of thecommunity. His effigy was burned in an auto-da-fè heldat Lisbon on Sunday, March 11, 1640, but the fact didnot seriously inconvenience him. When in 1596 theEnglish fleet under the Earl of Essex sacked Cadiz,among the captives was the Moroccan Resident at thatport, a certain Alonso Nuñez Herrera, who boasted thathe was a descendant of Gonsalvo de Cordova, the GranCapitan, After some little difficulty, he was ransomed,but, instead of returning to Spain, he retired to Amster-dam, where he entered official Judaism and spent anexemplary old age, under the name of Abraham CohenHerrera, in the compilation of Cabalistical treatises.4

Thomas de Pinedo, of Trancoso, was reckoned one ofthe most promising pupils of the Jesuits in Madrid. How-ever, to their disgust, he settled in Amsterdam, adoptedthe name of Isaac, and established a reputation as oneof the foremost classical scholars and philologists of histime. The seventy-five year old martyr, Jorge Mendezde Castro (alias Abraham Athias), who was burned alive“for the sanctification of the Name” at Cordova in 1665,had a son Joseph, who was already established at Am-sterdam. Here he attained such distinction as a printer,

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more especially of beautiful editions of the Bible, thathe was awarded a medal and a gold chain by the StatesGeneral. Fra Vincente de Rocamora, born at Valenciaabout 1600, had been a Dominican friar famous for hispiety and eloquence. To this he owed his appointmentas Confessor to the Infanta Maria of Spain, subsequentlyEmpress of Austria, who thought highly of him. In 1643,he disappeared from Spain. He is next heard of, underthe name of Isaac, studying medicine in Amsterdam, andplaying a prominent part in the general life of the com-munity. Enrique Enriquez de Paz, alias Antonio En-riquez Gomez, was one of the doughtiest competitors ofCalderon for the favors of the theater-going public ofMadrid, where several of his twenty-odd comedies wereproduced and rapturously received. He was in additiona gallant soldier, holding the rank of Captain and be-ing created in recognition of his services a Knight ofthe Order of San Miguel. Accompanied by his son,Diego Enriquez Basurto, who also made himself aname in the annals of Spanish literature, he made hisway, first to France, and then to Holland, where heopenly joined the community. His flight could not ofcourse be kept secret. He was tried by the Inquisitionof Seville, which executed symbolic punishment uponhim at a public auto on April 13, 1660. Some time after-wards, a fellow Marrano, whose presence at the grislyspectacle had prompted him to follow the poet to Am-sterdam, met him in the street. “Ah! Señor Gomez!” heexclaimed, excitedly. “I saw your effigy burning on thepyre at Seville.” “They are welcome to it,” replied thepoet phlegmatically.

The community boasted a model organization. The


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power of the Parnasim, the elected Wardens, was auto-cratic, as offenders like Benedict Spinoza or Uriel Acostalearned to their cost. It seemed, almost, as though some-thing of the spirit which prevailed in the Peninsula hadentered into their soul, so that they endeavored to setup a miniature Inquisitional tribunal of their own.There were, besides, no less than one hundred minororganizations, which covered every branch of commu-nal activity—benevolent, educational, religious, evenliterary. On the banks of the Amstel, about the Joden-breestraat, it seemed that a miniature Lisbon or Ma-drid had arisen. Spanish and Portuguese remained theofficial tongues of the community, and were everywhereheard about the streets. Books in those languagespoured in an incessant stream out of the printing press-es—literary, liturgical, historical, philosophical, ethical,scientific. Literary academies existed where poets ofconsiderable reputation met to criticize one another’slatest productions.

Jewish studies were of course not neglected. The pub-lic school of the Portuguese community, with its extraor-dinarily modern system and organization, was consid-ered a model foundation, and turned out many men ofmark in both the Jewish and the non-Jewish world. Thesuperior academy, Etz Òayim, was famous for the acuteacademic responsa published monthly by its alumni.There were many further associations for the purposeof study, such as the Yeshiba de los Pintos, establishedby the immensely wealthy Pinto family, which theytransferred, with themselves from Rotterdam. Out ofthese institutions, many native-born or native-trainedrabbis issued to lead the Spanish and Portuguese com-

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munities in the New World and the Old, such as IsaacAboab da Fonseca, Moses Zacuto, Menasseh ben Isra-el, Solomon d’Oliveira, Daniel and David Cohend’Azevedo, Joshua da Silva, and very many others. In1627, Menasseh ben Israel established the first localHebrew printing press, thus setting, a tradition whichwas to make Amsterdam for the next two hundred yearsthe center of the Jewish book-trade.

For the newly arrived refugee from the Peninsula,the transition to his new life was an easy one, save forthe contrast in climate. He might employ the same phy-sician, the same attorney, the same poetaster, the samebookseller, the same tradesman, the same broker, thesame bravo, and even the same priest of whose serv-ices he had made use at home. In their place of ref-uge, many rose to positions of importance—not mere-ly as financiers and captains of industry, but even asdiplomats. Some of them were even elevated to the no-bility by various European monarchs. In the congre-gational cemetery at Ouderkerk, sonorous Spanish andPortuguese inscriptions, surmounted by elaborate coatsof arms with knightly helms or nobiliary coronets,testified to the hidalgo origin which so many membersof the community boasted. Rembrandt van Rijn, liv-ing in the midst of them in the Jodenbreestraat, foundin these picturesque fugitives an ideal subject for hisactive brush.

The coming of the Marranos to Holland was of morethan local importance. Jewish communities similar tothose in the neighboring regions of Germany had exist-ed in the Low Countries in the Middle Ages. Expulsionand massacre had however done their work; and the


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final traces of the medieval settlement had disappearedwith the banishment of three last families from Wagen-ingen in 1572. With the formal authorization of theMarrano settlement, the continued exclusion of profes-sing Jews, however inferior they might be in fortune orin superficial graces, became impossible. Hence a sepa-rate immigration began to set in from Germany. A com-munity gradually grew up. Public service after their owntraditional rite was first held on the New Year of 1635.The new settlement multiplied. After the Chmielnickimassacres in Poland in 1648 and the following year, therefugees at Amsterdam formed yet a third grouping,which maintained a separate existence until 1673. Ulti-mately, this, the “Ashkenazi” community, came to out-number the “Sephardi” composed of the descendants ofthe Marrano pioneers. The latter nevertheless main-tained its superiority in wealth and general influence forsome time to come.

It is extraordinary to what extent the communities ofAmsterdam and the other Marrano centers were affect-ed by the pseudo-Messianic mania in the middle of theseventeenth century, associated with the name of Sab-batai Zevi. It might have been imagined that, culturedmen of the world as they were, they would have real-ized from the beginning how hopelessly fantastic it was.In fact this was far from being the case. A strong streakof mysticism ran through them. By virtue of their re-cent sufferings, they imagined that the final deliverancemust be imminent. Moreover, they were predisposed tosympathize with any such movement in consequence ofthe facts of their previous life, when their cardinal prin-ciple of faith had been that the Messiah was still to come.

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Accordingly, a wave of enthusiasm ran in that fatalyear 1666 through the whole of the Marrano world,where the imposter found his most steadfast supporters.In the Peninsula, as we have seen, there was a generalattempt at flight to join him. A Marrano physician, whohad escaped to the Levant and had been amongst thefirst to swear allegiance to the Pretender, received as hisreward investiture to the throne of his native Portugal.In London, recent arrivals from Spain and Portugal werewaited upon by the leaders of the community, who in-formed them gravely that the time had now come toproclaim their allegiance to Judaism. In Hamburg,youths wearing wide green sashes—the livery of theirMaster—danced madly in the synagogue, led by men ofdistinction like Bendito de Castro, the physician to theQueen of Sweden, or Manoel Texeira, the great capital-ist. On the bourses, large sums were wagered that theirhero’s claims would be officially recognized within avery short period.

But it was in Amsterdam that the mania reached itsheight. Rabbis, like Isaac Aboab da Fonseca and Rap-hael Moses Aguilar, were carried away in the stream ofenthusiasm. The philosopher and physician BenjaminMusaphia, despite his rationalistic tendencies, becamea devoted adherent. Even Benedict Spinoza watched themovement with interest. An official letter was sent, sub-scribed by a couple of dozen of the leading members ofthe community, whose signatures would have been goodon Exchange for an almost unlimited amount, assuringthe pseudo-Messiah of their devotion. The immenselywealthy philanthropist and author, Abraham IsraelPereira, alias Thomas Rodrigues Pereira, who had not


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long since fled from Spain to escape the unwelcome at-tentions of the Inquisition, set out for the Levant to joinhis hero. The printing presses were kept busy turningout devotional works, in Hebrew and in Spanish, for usein the many services, private and public, by which it washoped to hasten the great consummation. Even after thepseudo-Messiah had apostatized and died, his cause waskept alive by one of his many Marrano adherents, Ab-raham (Miguel) Cardoso (brother of the philosopher andapologist, Isaac Cardoso). It is not perhaps far wrongto trace the beginning of the decline of the Amsterdamcommunity to this terrible disillusionment. Nevertheless,down to the second half of the eighteenth century, itcontinued one of the principal centers of attraction tothe fugitive Marranos, and an island of Iberian culturein the Teutonic north. Spiritually, it remained down tothe tragic year 1940 the center of the far-flung group ofMarrano communities; and throughout this period, it stilldeserved the title which the enthusiasm, the learning,and the industry of the original settlers had won for itsoon after their arrival—the Dutch Jerusalem.

THE DUTCH JERUSALEM


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CHAPTER X

RESETTLEMENT IN ENGLAND

THE last great community of Western Europe to beformed by the Marrano refugees was that of London.It was long considered that this was due to the provi-dential intervention of one man, Menasseh ben Israel,at the time of the Protectorate. Recent research hashowever made it plain that this is not quite correct. Onthe one hand, the intervention of Menasseh ben Israel,though epoch-making, was not decisive. On the other,the formal establishment of the Jewish community wasmerely an episode in a long Marrano connection, dat-ing back for over a century.

The Jews had been banished from England in 1290;and from that date down to the end of the Middle Ages,none had been officially allowed to live in the country.Nevertheless, there is evidence that after the Expulsionfrom Spain, in 1492, some of the refugees came to Lon-don, with bills of exchange on the local Spanish mer-chants. Apparently, a few Marranos similarly soughtshelter here. This “infesting scourge,” as it was described(though the numbers in question must have been ex-tremely small), continued till 1498. Then, at the time ofthe negotiations for a marriage between his son Arthurand Catherine of Aragon, Henry VII promised the Span-ish envoys that he would prosecute without mercy anyJew or heretic whom they might point out in his domin-ions.


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After the forced conversion in Portugal, the NewChristian element began to figure more prominently inthe growing mercantile colony in England. Traces ofthem are not to be found until 1521, but the settlementprobably began even earlier. The great Marrano mercan-tile and financial house of Mendes had established itsAntwerp branch in 1512; its operations, carried on large-ly by New Christian agents, speedily spread across theNorth Sea; and it ultimately became the agent for theloan transactions of the English treasury. On her wayto Antwerp in 1535, Beatrice da Luna, better known asGracia Mendes, paid a short visit to England with herwhole family, including the young João Miguez, laterfamous as the Duke of Naxos.

The Marrano community which she found in Englandwas not by any means an insignificant one. It comprisedat this period no less than thirty-seven householders.Organized religious life was not absent. Services wereregularly held at the house of one Alves Lopes, to whomnewly arrived fugitives would come for assistance andadvice. Christopher Fernandes, one of Diogo Mendes’local agents, would send to intercept the Portuguesespice-ships touching at Southampton and Plymouth, andwarn any Marranos who might be on board if dangerawaited them in Flanders. There were several physicians—Master Diogo, Master Antonio, Manuel Fernandes,and Dionysius Rodriguez; the last-named, who was todie as a professing Jew at Ferrara, had formerly beenin the service of the Queen of Portugal. Another promi-nent member of the community was a kinsman of theMendes family named Antonio de la Roña, apparentlya man of some erudition, since he is described as a “mas-



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ter of Jewish theology.” It was his practice to help refu-gee Marranos to realize their property, providing themwith bills of exchange on Antwerp. When in 1540 pro-ceedings were taken at Milan against the fugitives, hewas summoned to Antwerp to the meeting at which werediscussed the steps to be taken to meet the situation; andhe subscribed to the emergency fund one hundred duc-ats—partly in English crown pieces. The crisis was, infact, even more serious than was realized at the time.One Gaspar Lopes, a cousin and agent of Diogo Mendes,on whose behalf he had resided in England for sometime, was arrested by the Milan commission and turnedinformer. In consequence of this, and of other indicationselicited in the course of proceedings in Flanders, thesecret of the little London community was laid bare. TheSpanish authorities communicated what they had dis-covered to the English government. On February 4,1542, the Privy Council ordered the arrest of certainMerchant Strangers “suspected to be Jews” and the se-questration of their property. Ultimately, they were re-stored to liberty at the request of the Queen Regent ofthe Netherlands, who gave her personal assurance thatthey were good Christians. Her information turned outto be based upon pious hope rather than established fact,and possibly proceedings were again initiated againstthem. In any case, the little community seems to havedwindled henceforth. A majority of its members madetheir way in due course to Antwerp, while one or twostraggled as far as Ferrara. For a time, the London groupwas very small in number.

It was not long before the settlement was resumed;the total exclusion of such furtive refugees for any long


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period of time was impossible. The Añes family, whichhailed from Valladolid in Spain, had not been disturbedby the upheaval of 1542; for they had been settled inLondon ever since 1512, and were after so long a peri-od of residence hardly to be included in the category ofMerchant Strangers. The same applied to the family ofSimon Ruiz, with whom they had intermarried. By theclose of the reign of Edward VI (1553), we find dimin-utive Marrano communities settled, not only in London,but also at Bristol, which maintained a considerabletrade with the Peninsula. Among the residents in thelatter place was Pero Vaz, a young surgeon (nephew ofthe great Amatus Lusitanus), and a physician namedHenrique Nuñes. The latter, with his wife Beatriz Fern-andes, acted as the leader of the community. Serviceswere regularly held at their house; they periodically re-ceived from London the dates of the festivals; they werein touch with the latest Jewish literature, reading avid-ly Usque’s Consolaçam ás Tribulaçoës de Israel, recent-ly published at Ferrara.1 It is on record that BeatrizFernandes baked unleavened bread for Passover, andwas careful, on her journeys between London and Bris-tol, not to touch food which had been cooked in pansdefiled by forbidden flesh. Of the community of Lon-don at this period, we have less information; but it com-prised at least eight householders.

No doubt, the Marranos of this period had posed asCalvinist refugees from the Continent. Hence, with thereaction under “Bloody” Queen Mary against the Ref-ormation, no safe course remained for them but to leavethe country. Henrique Nuñes with his family retired toFrance in 1555, and probably other members of the two



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communities followed his example; though, once again,a small residuum remained behind.

In the remarkable period of English expansion whichcoincided with the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the foreignmercantile colony in London naturally increased. Amongthese there was, as always, a considerable number ofNew Christians from the Peninsula; encouraged, per-haps, by the greater possibilities of tolerance which wereheralded by the victory of Protestantism. Thus theMarrano community developed. It numbered at this timeapproximately one hundred souls. At its head was Dr.Hector Nuñes, who had been the leading spirit alreadyin the reign of Mary. Though a physician, he also en-gaged in trade. His wide-spread connections were ofconsiderable benefit to the Government, particularly asregards Spanish affairs. He enjoyed the complete con-fidence of both of Elizabeth’s great ministers, Burleighand Walsingham, and actually brought the latter the firstnews of the arrival of the Great Armada at Lisbon onits way to the English channel. The most importantfamily in the community, after that of Hector Nuñes,was that of Jorge Añes, or Ames, which (as we have seen)had been settled in London ever since 1512, thoughpossibly they had returned to Portugal in the meanwhile.Dunstan Ames, Purveyor to the royal Court, tradedextensively with Spain, and was in addition the finan-cial agent in London to Dom Antonio, Prior of Crato,Pretender to the throne of Portugal. Dunstan’s eldestdaughter, Sarah, was the wife of Dr. Roderigo Lopez,the Queen’s physician. The latter was connected bymarriage with Alvaro Mendes, Duke of Mitylene, whowas at this time in continuous diplomatic intercourse


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with the English Court. The degree of religious observ-ance in the little community is obscure. But it is certainthat they were Jewish by virtue of something more thandescent. At the beginning of the reign of Mary, HectorNuñes and Simon Ruiz (Dunstan Ames’ father-in-law)had provided the crypto-Jews in Bristol with calendarsand literature for their guidance; and it is hardly likelythat their attachment to Judaism decreased in the sub-sequent period. They collected funds among themselvesfor the maintenance of the secret synagogue at Antwerp.At one period, at least, in 1592, when an envoy of Al-varo Mendes’ was in England, proper services were heldat his house; and the crypto-Jews of the capital seizedthe opportunity to attend.

From the time of the defeat of the Armada, the Mar-rano community in England began to decline. The rea-son was partly political. Hector Nuñes and RoderigoLopez had broken with the Prior of Crato, whose preten-sions to the crown of Portugal they had previously cham-pioned, and began to work for peace with Spain. Thisbrought them into opposition to the war party, headedby the Earl of Essex. The latter trumped up a chargeagainst Lopez of implication in a plot to poison his roy-al mistress; and, after a partisan trial, he was executed,on June 7, 1594. This episode aroused a miniature anti-Semitic storm in England, reflected in Shakespeare’sMerchant of Venice. The heyday of the Marrano com-munity was over. Hector Nuñes had died in 1591; Dun-stan Ames followed him to the grave in 1594. Of thelatter’s family, some remained in the country, where theybecame assimilated with the general population; othersmade their way to the Levant, where English travelers



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in after-years were surprised to encounter, openly pro-fessing Judaism, men and women born in London. Thedisturbed relations with Spain in the following years,coupled with the rapid decline in English prestige at thebeginning of the following century, no doubt adverselyaffected the settlement of the New Christians, who nowfound a powerful counter-attraction in the communityof Amsterdam. Finally, in 1609, the Portuguese mer-chants living in London who were suspected of Judaiz-ing were expelled from the country, having called theattention of the authorities to their existence by an inter-necine quarrel. It was necessary to wait for a furtherhalf-century before a settlement was officially author-ized.

As the seventeenth century advanced, the expansionof international commercial activity and organizationresulted in the formation of a further settlement of Span-ish and Portuguese merchants in England. A goodnumber of them, as usual, were New Christians; espe-cially so, after the year 1630, when the recrudescence ofpersecution in Portugal drove hundreds into exile. More-over, the formation of open communities in the other greatcommercial centers of northern Europe, such as Amster-dam and Hamburg, which stood in close commercial re-lations with London, made it inevitable that their agents,correspondents, or rivals, should settle here also. An im-petus seems to have been given to the process in 1632,when, as we have seen, the Marrano colony at Rouenwas temporarily broken up. Some of its members appar-ently sought refuge in England. Among them was An-tonio Fernando Carvajal, a native of Fundão, who hadpreviously lived for some time in the Canary Islands. It


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did not take him long to establish his position in his newhome. Speedily, he became known as one of the mostprominent merchants in the City. He possessed his ownvessels, which traded in a variety of commodities withthe East and West Indies, South America, and the Le-vant; he imported bullion on a large scale; and duringthe Civil War, he acted as Grain Contractor for theParliament. When in 1649 war broke out with Portu-gal, the Council of State expressly exempted his goodsfrom seizure, and he was given special facilities for thecontinuance of his trading activities. The political intel-ligence which he obtained at this period from his busi-ness correspondents overseas was found immensely use-ful by the government. In 1655, he and his two sons wereendenizened as English subjects. Another prominentMarrano resident in London was Simon de Caceres, whomade himself useful at the time of the conquest of Ja-maica, advised the government concerning the tradewith Barbados, and presented Cromwell a memorandumin which he actually suggested the conquest of Chile bya Jewish force. Others of their associates were notablemerchants, controlling a good part of the trade of theCity. They were all living, however, as Catholics, attend-ing Mass regularly in the chapel of the French or Sar-dinian ambassador. Such Jewish sympathies as they hadwere sedulously concealed.

There were in England at this period, in the heydayof the Protectorate, two independent philo-Semitic ten-dencies. Firstly, there was a religious element. Puritan-ism had represented a return to the Bible, and above alla return to the Old Testament. Many of its adherentshad carried this to its logical extreme. We find persons



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prosecuted in England for holding Judaistic doctrines,and English proselytes admitted to the Jewish com-munity at Amsterdam. One sect of the Puritans sug-gested the alteration of the Christian Sabbath to theseventh day. Others championed total abstention fromblood. These literalistic biblical tendencies naturallybrought about a more favorable frame of mind towardsthe Jews, as the People of the Old Testament. With thiswas intermingled the hope that the Jews, so long blindto Popish or Episcopal blandishments, might be unableto withstand the attractions of the new and purer formof Christianity, once they had the opportunity of becom-ing acquainted with it at close quarters. This was theattitude of agitators like Sir E. Spencer or LeonardBusher, the Brownist. On the other hand, a more dis-interested standpoint was taken up by Sir Edward Ni-cholas, Roger Williams, and others. In 1649, two Puri-tans settled at Amsterdam, Johanna Cartwright and herson Ebenezer, boldly presented a petition to the govern-ment asking point-blank for the recall of the Jews toEngland. The proposal was well received; and, althoughconsideration of it was indefinitely deferred, it assistedin preparing a favorable atmosphere.

Another, more practical, point of view was represent-ed by some of the more responsible statesmen, withOliver Cromwell himself at their head. The latter wasnaturally inclined to favor the Jews by reason of hisreligious attitude, based as it was largely upon the OldTestament. He was not indeed in sympathy with theextreme sectaries, whose desire for “Judaistic” practiceshe condemned and opposed without qualification. But,on the other hand, his naturally tolerant nature was


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antagonistic to any religious persecution which could notbe justified on political grounds. His idealism was, more-over, reinforced by a strong practical tendency. He wasquick to realize the material advantages which the Jewscould bring to England, as they had done to Holland andother countries. In the mercantile revival which he wasendeavoring to foster, the Spanish and Portuguese mer-chants, with their far-flung international connections,could play an important part, assisting to establish Lon-don as a principal center of European commerce. Con-versely, the capital which was not brought by them toEngland was more than likely to go to Amsterdam, thusstrengthening England’s most serious commercial rival.In a manner, Cromwell’s patronage of the Resettlementwas merely an episode in the Anglo-Dutch rivalry whichwas one of the distinctive features of the middle yearsof the seventeenth century.

Events in England had their repercussion in Amster-dam. Here, the Puritan mystics found a kindred spiritin Menasseh ben Israel, alias Manoel Dias Soeiro, who,notwithstanding the fact that he had been born outsidethe pale of Judaism, had made himself a name as oneof the most illustrious rabbis of his age. Savants andstatesmen both at home and abroad had been in thehabit of consulting him on matters of Jewish scholarship.He had thus become a representative figure in gentileeyes, and had no hesitation in approaching those inauthority on behalf of his people as a whole. He was amaster of Latin, at that time still an international tongue,and thus had no difficulty in expressing himself in anycircle. A curious episode set his mind on England. AMarrano traveler named Antonio de Montezinos, alias



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Aaron Levi Montezinos, who had recently returned fromAmerica, claimed that about 1642 he had discoverednear Quito, in Equador, certain natives belonging to thelost Hebrew tribes of Reuben and of Levi, who practicedvarious Jewish ceremonies and were even acquaintedwith the traditional confession of faith, the Shema‘. Onhis return to Holland, he embodied his account in anaffidavit executed under oath before the authorities ofthe Amsterdam community. The report aroused a gooddeal of attention throughout Europe. Menasseh ben Is-rael himself gave a full account of it in 1650 in a littleMessianic treatise in Spanish and in Latin, which hecalled The Hope of Israel.

Slowly, he began to realize what appeared to him tobe the less immediate implications of the report. TheProphet Daniel had intimated (12.7) that the final Re-demption would begin only when the scattering of theJewish people was complete. On the other hand, theBook of Deuteronomy plainly stated (28.64) that thedispersion was to be universal, “from one end of theearth even unto the other.” Hebrews had now been foundin America; they were missing only in Great Britain.Moreover, the classical name for England, in medievalJewish literature, was “the end of the earth”—an over-literal translation of the French Angleterre. It was plainthat, if only they were introduced into the British Isles,the utter Dispersion prophesied could be completed, andthe great Messianic Deliverance would begin. Filled withthese thoughts, Menasseh had dedicated the Latin edi-tion of his recent work to the English Parliament, whose“favour and good-will” he solicited for the scattered Jew-ish nation. In the following year, he opened up formal


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conversations with the mission to Holland, headed byOliver St. John. The results must have been satisfacto-ry; for in October 1651 Menasseh sent the Council ofState a formal petition for the readmittance of the Jews.This was considered in London on the day after thepassing of the Navigation Act, which dealt so shrewd ablow against Dutch commerce; a coincidence which isnot without its significance. An influential committee,of which Cromwell was a member, was appointed toconsider the question; and two passports, couched inflattering terms, were sent over to enable the DutchRabbi to come over to treat in person. At this stage, war,inevitable for some time past, broke out between Eng-land and Holland; and Menasseh’s family persuadedhim to remain at home. When peace was concluded, hewas too ill to travel. Accordingly, he empowered hisfriend, Manuel Martinez Dormido, to appear in hisstead.2

The latter’s had been a typically adventurous Mar-rano career. He had been born in Andalusia, where hehad been life-treasurer of the royal revenues and hadheld the rank of Alderman. Falling under the suspicionof the Inquisition, he had been arrested, together withhis wife and sister, and had remained in prison for fiveyears (1627–1632). On his release, he had gone to Bor-deaux, and thence to Amsterdam. Here he threw off alldisguise and became a member of the community, be-ing known henceforth by the name of David AbrabanelDormido. He was accompanied to London by Me-nasseh’s son, the young Samuel Soeiro. On November3, 1654, they appeared before Cromwell with a petition.The Protector received it benevolently; but it was reject-



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ed by the Council of State. Samuel Soeiro returned toAmsterdam to lay the matter before his father. The lat-ter, though not yet fully recovered from his illness, wasnow no longer to be restrained; and, in September 1655,he arrived in London. Here he was joined by a few Jewsfrom other parts of Europe, such as Raphael Supino, ofLeghorn. Immediately on his arrival, he presented to theLord Protector his Humble Addresses, which he hadbrought with him from Amsterdam; following it up witha further formal petition in which he requested in mov-ing language the authorization of the resettlement of theJews.

To consider the various aspects of this question,Cromwell convened a Conference of various notables—statesmen, lawyers, and theologians. They met at White-hall on December 4, 7, 12, 14, and 18, 1655. The law-yers gave it as their opinion that there was no statutewhich excluded the Jews from the country. Theologicaland mercantile interests, on the other hand, were eitheropposed to their readmission, or would countenance itonly with such restrictions as to rob it of all attractive-ness. By the close of the fifth session, Cromwell was con-vinced that the outcome would disappoint his expecta-tions and be contrary to the best interests of the coun-try. He therefore dissolved the conference, after a speechof extraordinary vigor, before it came to any definiteconclusion.

It was now expected that he would make use of hisprerogative and assent to Menasseh’s petition on his ownauthority. Month after month dragged on, and it becameevident that this was not to be the case. Instead of for-mally authorizing the resettlement of the Jews, he pre-


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ferred to ‘connive’ at it; to allow those persons alreadyin the country, or who cared to follow them, to remainundisturbed, without making any official declaration onthe subject. The little group of Marrano merchants inLondon gave up hopes of anything more definite. In thefollowing Spring (March 24, 1655/6) they presented afurther petition to Cromwell asking simply that theymight “meete at owr said private devotions in our Par-ticular houses without feere of Molestation” and estab-lish a cemetery “in such place out of the cittye as weeshall thincke convenient.”

This was granted in due course. At the same time, theproperty of Antonio Rodrigues Robles, which had beenseized on the outbreak of war with Spain, was restoredto him in consequence of his plea that he was not aSpaniard, but a Jew—a member of the people which wasundergoing such suffering at the hands of the SpanishInquisition. A small number of fresh arrivals “with in-tent to live in London” trickled in during 1656, and wereadmitted by the authorities. In December 1656, a housewas rented for use as a synagogue. A couple of monthslater, a piece of ground for use as a cemetery was ac-quired. Moses Israel Athias, a cousin of Carvajal, wasbrought over from Hamburg to act as the spiritual guideof the nascent community. The London Marranos hadthrown off the mask. Their position was indeed stillhighly informal. The Resettlement had not been author-ized—it had been ‘connived’ at. It was a typical Eng-lish compromise—inconsistent, illogical, but unexpect-edly satisfactory as a working arrangement. The highmillenary hopes with which Menasseh ben Israel hadcome to London were disappointed. This furtive proce-



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dure was not what he had dreamed of, nor could it becounted as completing the Dispersion of Israel. He re-turned, broken-hearted, to Holland, dying almost imme-diately after his arrival. His mission, as it seemed, hadended in utter failure.

Though he did not live to see it, what had happenedwas providential. Menasseh had succeeded in creatingthe favorable atmosphere, as a result of which the Mar-ranos were able to throw off their disguise. If nothingformal had been done, it was (as matters turned out) allto the good. At the Restoration of Charles II, when al-most the whole body of the legislation of the Common-wealth was automatically repealed, there was nothingto undo. The Jews were hence able to continue livinginformally in London without disturbance, just as theyhad done before. Moreover, some Amsterdam Jews hadbeen in close relations with Charles II while he was inexile, and had liberally supported him with money. Hewas thus favorably inclined towards their London core-ligionists. Hence an agitation for the expulsion of theJews, fostered by Thomas Violet and embodied in apetition of the corporation of London, had no effect.When in 1664, the Earl of Berkshire and Peter Ricautmade an attempt to blackmail them, a formal charterof protection was easily obtained from the Crown.Henceforth, the community was properly and legallyauthorized. Before long it took its place, by the side ofthe congregations of Venice, Amsterdam, Hamburg, andLeghorn (with all of which it continued to maintainclose connections), as one of the most important com-ponents of the Marrano Diaspora. The distinctive nameadopted was K. K. Sha‘ar ha-Shamayim—Holy Con-


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gregation “The Gate of Heaven”—an accurate charac-terization of the light in which the community appearedin the eyes of many Marranos who had there their firstexperience of official Judaism. After another petty dis-turbance, freedom of worship was guaranteed in 1673,and again, under similar circumstances, in 1685. Hence-forth, the position of the Jew in England was unques-tioned.

The informality of the Resettlement had an importantconsequence. By reason of its somewhat equivocal andunofficial nature, it was impossible to make for the con-trol of the settlement any special provisions, such as evenMenasseh ben Israel himself had assumed to be a mat-ter of course. Thus, alone almost in the whole of Europe,the new Anglo-Jewish community was treated juridicallyfrom the first on terms of virtual equality with the gen-erality of the population. Its condition compared favo-rably even with that of Amsterdam. Disabilities werefew, and on the whole unimportant. The separate, andipso facto excessive, taxation of the Jew, elsewhere in-variable, never obtained any footing, though it was onceor twice proposed. Thus the strangely casual nature ofthe Resettlement in England, so disappointing to theprime mover in the matter, ultimately had a markedlybeneficial effect, which spread far beyond the BritishIsles.

The next hundred years witnessed a rapid expansion.Fresh immigrants were continually arriving—either di-rect from the Peninsula, or by way of Bordeaux, Am-sterdam or Leghorn. Remarriages of couples vindos doPortugal or ‘arrived from Portugal’ as it was recordedin the synagogue registers, were common. After the



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Revolution of 1688, there was a considerable influx fromHolland, the wealthy Portuguese Jews of which coun-try had assisted to finance the triumphant expedition ofWilliam of Orange. In 1701, a synagogue was erectedin Bevis Marks; the first specially constructed for thepurpose since the Jews had been expelled from Englandin 1290. Meanwhile, the small Marrano settlement whichhad existed in Dublin since about 1660 had developed,by the end of the century, into a diminutive congrega-tion, which flourished for some decades.

The London community included many men of mark.Its earliest spiritual leaders included men like JacobSasportas, Joshua da Silva, Solomon Ayllon, and Dav-id Nieto. The latter, who belonged to a family of Mar-ranos settled in Italy, was among the most eminent schol-ars of his age, and produced several works of impor-tance. Among his successors were Moses Gomes daMesquita and Moses Cohen d’Azevedo, both of Amster-dam, whose highly characteristic names indicate theirMarrano origin. Other notable Marranos who resided inLondon included Dr. Fernando Mendes, physician toQueen Catherine of Braganza; Jacob (Henrique) deCastro Sarmento, physician and scientist, who was aleading member of the community in the course of aromantic peregrination which he began as a Catholicand ended in an Anglican churchyard; Isaac SequeiraSamuda, the former’s contemporary and fellow-practi-tioner, a Fellow of the Royal Society; Diego Lopez Perei-ra, first Baron D’Aguilar; and many others. Of mem-bers of the community of Marrano descent, of the firstor second generation, may be mentioned Anthony (Mo-ses) da Costa, a famous financier, though not (as was


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long asserted) a governor of the Bank of England; hiskinsman Emmanuel Mendes da Costa, the eminent con-chologist, Secretary of the Royal Society; Solomon daCosta Athias, founder of the Hebrew collection of theBritish Museum; Sir Solomon de Medina, who was incharge of the commissariat during Marlborough’s cam-paigns; Isaac Pereira, Commissary General to the forc-es in Ireland at the time of the Battle of the Boyne; andmany another. One of the Henriques family (it is said)first projected the Bank of England. As in Amsterdamand elsewhere, Spanish or Portuguese remained the of-ficial tongue of the community long after direct immi-gration from the Peninsula had ceased; and severalworks of importance in those languages—philosophical,liturgical, or literary—were printed in London.

In the middle of the eighteenth century, the K. K.Sha‘ar ha-Shamayim was at the height of its influence.Its members were prominent in the city of London.Among their coreligionists, of whatever provenance, theywere supreme. They had begun to move about in Eng-lish society on terms of virtual equality. Assimilation hadalready made great strides. The repeal in 1753, in con-sequence of a popular agitation, of the famous “JewBill,” which would greatly have facilitated naturaliza-tion, was a general and deep disappointment. A waveof desertion began, which robbed the community ofmany of its most gifted sons. Simultaneously, the Mar-rano emigration from the Peninsula was slackening,notwithstanding a momentary increase after the greatLisbon Earthquake of 1755. The community was be-coming progressively diluted by the arrival of differ-ent elements, from Italy, the Levant, or Africa, previ-



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ously contemptuously referred to as Italianos or Berber-iscos, and long excluded from any share in the synagogalgovernment. When Gibraltar was besieged by the Span-ish in 1786, a large number of refugees arrived from thatplace together, revitalizing the congregation, but at thesame time permanently modifying its composition.

Meanwhile, the “Sephardi” community had lost itsprevious unquestioned supremacy in the country. As inAmsterdam and elsewhere, the less prepossessing, andless pliable, “Ashkenazi” Jews from Central and East-ern Europe had taken advantage of the privileges some-what surreptitiously won by their more courtly coreli-gionists. A congregation was formed no later than theyear 1690; a permanent synagogue was constructed thir-ty years later. By the middle of the century, they weresuperior to the Spanish and Portuguese community innumbers, if not in wealth and general influence; and theycontinued to make rapid strides. The Marrano elementis now insignificant in the general Jewish population ofLondon. It is no longer supreme even in the venerablecongregation, still hale and flourishing, which wasfounded under the auspices of Cromwell and Menassehben Israel. Nevertheless, with those first romantic set-tlers must always lie the credit of the establishment ofthe Anglo-Jewish community, which, but for their efforts,might have been delayed for many a long decade.


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CHAPTER XI

THE MARRANOS IN THE NEW WORLD

“In the same month in which Their Majesties issuedthe edict that all Jews should be driven out of the king-dom and its territories—in that same month they gave methe order to undertake with sufficient men my expeditionof discovery to the Indies.” With this significant passage,Christopher Columbus began his account of the expedi-tion which led to the discovery of the New World. Hemight have added, had he thought it worth-while, thathe actually set sail within a day or two of the departureof the last of the Jewish exiles, and that the vessels whichconveyed them were lying in the roadstead of Seville inclose proximity to his own little squadron.

The connection between the Jews and the discoveryof America was not, however, merely a question offortuitous coincidence. That epoch-making expedition of1492 was as a matter of fact very largely a Jewish, orrather a Marrano, enterprise. There are grounds forbelieving that Columbus was himself a member of aNew Christian family. It is, indeed, highly ironical thatthe patriotic attempts made today to claim him as aSpaniard are mostly based upon an assumption that hewas a furtive member of the race which Spain was eventhen chasing from her shores. Less hypothetical is thecase of others who participated in the great expedition.It was made possible by a loan which Luis de Santán-gel, Chancellor and Comptroller of the royal household,


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a great-grandson of Noah Chinillo, advanced (though notout of his own purse) to his royal master and mistress.He was, as a matter of fact, the first person to listen toColumbus’ dreams seriously, and it is highly doubtfulwhether the Queen would have displayed any interest butfor his intervention. Gabriel Sanchez, the High Treasur-er of Aragon, who was another of the explorer’s mostfervent patrons, was of full Jewish blood, being a son ofa converso couple, and a nephew of Alazar Ussuf, ofSaragossa. It was to these two that Columbus addressedthe famous letter first announcing the news of his discov-eries. Among Columbus’s other patrons was Alfonso dela Caballeria, member of a famous Marrano family, ViceChancellor of Aragon. The only one of the high officialsintimately concerned with the genesis of the expeditionbelonging to an Old Christian house was the royal sec-retary, Juan de Coloma, whose wife was however de-scended from the Jewish clan of De la Caballeria.

The personnel of the expedition was very similar incomposition. There was Alonso de la Calle, whose veryname denoted that he was born in the Jewish quarter.Rodrigo Sanches, a relative of the High Treasurer,joined the party as Superintendent at the personal re-quest of the Queen. One Marco was the ship-surgeon;Mestre Bernal, who had been reconciled in 1490 forJudaizing, served as physician; and Luis de Torres, whoaccompanied the expedition as interpreter, was bap-tized just before sailing. The latter was, as a matter offact, the first European to set foot in the new land(which had been first sighted by the Marrano sailor,Rodrigo de Triana), and is worth recording also as thefirst to make use of tobacco. [Recent research necessi-


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tates a modification of this statement. Only Torres wasassuredly of Jewish origin.] Those who had favored theenterprise naturally reaped some of the rewards. Thefirst royal grant to export grain and horses to Americawas made in favor of Luis de Santángel, who may thusbe reckoned the founder of two great American indus-tries.1

The Marranos (possibly, in part, in order to escape theattentions of the Inquisition) were quick to realize thepossibilities of the New World and to transfer themselvesthither as colonists. Thus Luis de Torres, the interpret-er to the expedition, received large grants of land inCuba, where he died. Many others of his race followedhim. Attempts were repeatedly made in after-years toprevent New Christians and those penanced by the In-quisition, as also their descendants, from emigrating tothe Indies. This was at the best difficult to enforce; whilesuspension was occasionally secured for financial con-siderations. Thus in 1509, in the composition arrivedat in Seville between the conversos and the Crown, itwas specifically stipulated that, in return for a paymentof 20,000 ducats, the former were at liberty to go to thecolonies for the purpose of trade for periods not exceed-ing two years. In 1518, Charles V, with characteristiczeal for the faith, ordered the royal officers at Sevilleto prevent them from embarking. After a prolongedstruggle, they gained their point, and were again al-lowed to leave freely. Among the conquistadores whoaccompanied Cortes to the conquest of Mexico, therewas at least one Marrano—Hernando Alonso, a smithby trade, of whom we have a picturesque glimpse, “ham-mering nails into the brigantines which served to recap-

MARRANOS IN THE NEW WORLD


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ture the city of Mexico,” taking a personal share in theassault, and subsequently swaggering about in a belt ofrefined gold which he had exacted from the natives.

The nightmare of the Inquisition was not long in fol-lowing the Marranos to the new home, the discovery ofwhich had owed so much to their energy and enterprise.As early as 1515, a Marrano, Pedro de Leon, wasbrought back with his family from Hispañola to face histrial at Seville. Four years later, Apostolic Inquisitors forthe American colonies were appointed by the SupremeTribunal in Spain. Among the earliest batch of victimswas Hernando Alonso, the conquistador, who wasburned at the stake with another Judaizer in 1528, atthe first auto held in the New World, a third personbeing reconciled at the same time. In 1539, a New Chris-tian named Francisco Millan was penanced for the sameoffence. On the whole, the main preoccupation of theInquisitors in America at this period was with Luther-an heretics rather than with Judaizers. The reason is notdifficult to find. In 1537, Paul III had issued a Bull for-bidding any apostate from going to the Indies, and sixyears later Prince Philip ordered the expulsion of anyconversos found resident there, or their children. Thusthe native Spanish Judaizers, who were now rapidlylosing ground in the Peninsula, were prevented fromobtaining a footing. Within a very short time, however,a fresh and more vital influx began.

The beginning of the persecution in Portugal drovelarge numbers of the conversos to migrate. In view ofthe difficulty of finding a refuge anywhere in Europe,their thoughts naturally turned to the New World. It wasa land of golden opportunity, where the inhabitants of


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the less prosperous parts of the Peninsula might hopeto make their fortunes. Moreover, in this virgin field ofsettlement, where they were entirely unknown, theymight hope to begin a new life, free from suspicion andfrom persecution. Judaizers thus spread in increasingnumbers throughout the Spanish Main. They were es-pecially numerous in Mexico, where a group existed inalmost every town. They maintained connections withevery part of the Old World, even as far afield as Italy,Amsterdam, and Salonica. In many ways they seem tohave been better informed of Jewish lore and practicethan their brethren in the Peninsula. They entered intoalmost every field of economic activity. In Peru (and thedescription was true also of the other provinces) theybecame by the beginning of the sixteenth century themasters of the colonial commerce. All imports and ex-ports “from brocade to sackcloth, and from diamondsto cumin-seed” passed through their hands. Castilianscomplained that it was impossible for them to succeedin business without a Portuguese partner. It was allegedagainst them that they purchased with fictitious creditsthe cargoes of whole fleets, which they divided amongstthemselves, thus rendering capital unnecessary; in oth-er words, that they evolved an economic system in ad-vance of their age. The articles in question were distrib-uted throughout the country by their agents, who werelikewise Portuguese. In 1634, they negotiated for thefarming of the royal revenue.

So rapidly did they grow in influence and numberthat, before the sixteenth century was over, it was con-sidered necessary to make-special provision againstthem. Thus in 1571, Philip II secured the establishment



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in the city of Mexico of an independent Inquisitionaltribunal, on the model of those which flourished in thePeninsula, for the purpose of “freeing the land, whichhas become contaminated by Jews and heretics, espe-cially of the Portuguese nation.” On February 28, 1574,the first auto under these auspices took place, with greatpomp. At this, but one New Christian appeared, andthat for a minor offence only. It was in 1577 that the firstJudaizer suffered. Thereafter, the number rapidly grew.

One family, of Portuguese origin, was particularlyprominent among the martyrs of this period. The father,Francisco Rodriguez Mattos, was described as a rabbiand dogmatizer, or teacher, of the Jewish religion. Hehad died before punishment could be executed on him.He was accordingly burned in effigy, as also was his son,who had escaped trial by flight. His four cultured daugh-ters (of whom the youngest, a girl of seventeen, wasreported to know all the Psalms of David by heart andto be able to repeat the Prayer of Esther and otherhymns backwards) were all reconciled. The most illus-trious member of the group was their uncle, Luis deCarvajal, Governor of the Province of New Leon, whohad rendered considerable service to the state. For thecrime of having failed to denounce his sisters, he wasprosecuted, deprived of his office, and died in prison.Before long the family was found to have relapsed intotheir Judaistic practices. There was now no possibilityof escape; more especially since the ruthless Fray Alon-so de Peralta (against whom proceedings were subse-quently brought for misconduct in office) had in themeantime been appointed Inquisitor. In a great auto heldin 1596, the governors nephew, another Luis, was


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burned, with his mother and three of his sisters. At thesame time, four other persons were relaxed in person forJudaizing, ten relaxed in effigy, and twenty-two recon-ciled. All told, forty-one persons out of the sixty-six whoappeared on this occasion were Marranos. One of theyounger Carvajal’s surviving sisters, who escaped onthis occasion, was burned for relapse on March 26, 1601,when another was reconciled.

During the previous quarter of a century, no fewerthan 879 trials had taken place, activity being thus near-ly as great as that of the far-famed tribunal of Toledo.The work of extermination was done so well that for thenext forty years, up to 1642, less than thirty furtherJudaizers were punished, of whom some twenty werereconciled, one relaxed in person and six in effigy. Whenin 1605 the General Pardon for Judaizers of Portugueseextraction reached Mexico, there was only one in theInquisitional dungeons to be liberated. Elsewhere in theNew World, the same falling-off was to be observed. Thusin Peru, where a tribunal had been opened in 1570 (a yearbefore that of Mexico), the number of Marrano victimshad been small until 1595. At the great auto held at Limaon December 17 in that year, ten Judaizers figured, fourof them being relaxed, of whom one—Francisco Rodrigu-ez—was burned alive. On December 10, 1600, fourteenPortuguese Judaizers were punished, two being relaxedin person and one in effigy. The auto of March 13, 1605,exhibited sixteen Judaizers reconciled, six burned in effi-gy and three in person. Thereafter, there was a very con-siderable falling-off, though there were slight recrudes-cences in 1608 and 1612. The Tribunal of New Grana-da, founded in 1610 with its seat at Cartagena, was less



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concerned with Judaizers, and only attained its maximumactivity after the first quarter of the seventeenth centurywas finished. Thus, at the auto of June 17, 1626, sevenJudaizers suffered among the twenty-two penitents; oneof them, Juan Vincente, being relaxed. All told, in its twocenturies of existence, something like fifty Judaizers fig-ured in a total number of condemnations comprising 767persons, and pronounced at approximately fifty-four au-tos. The majority of the sentences inflicted were howevercomparatively light, only five persons all told beingburned. To the Philippine Islands, too, the Marranos hadpenetrated, persons being sent thence to Mexico for tri-al. Here, similarly, there are no traces of any such casesfor nearly half a century after 1601.

A chance episode made it clear, with startling rapidi-ty, that this diminution of activity was not due to any lackof material, and that the Marranos were stronger in theNew World than they had ever been before. One day, inAugust 1634, a jealous trader at Lima appeared beforethe Inquisitional tribunal to denounce Antonio Cordero,the local factor of a merchant from Seville, on the groundthat he had been unwilling to make a sale on Saturday,besides refusing to eat a rasher of bacon for his break-fast. A secret inquiry was made into the matter; and, inthe following April, the accused person was secretly re-moved to prison in a sedan-chair. Under torture, he madeadmissions which implicated his employer and a coupleof other persons. The latter in turn were forced to de-nounce many other accomplices. To accommodate thefresh prisoners expected, fresh cells were erected. Then,on August 11, between 12:30 and 2 o’clock, seventeenarrests were made, among the most prominent citizens


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and merchants of the city. But the work was not by anymeans complete. Up to May 16, eighty-one arrests hadbeen carried out, and evidence collected against as manymore suspects. Property to a vast value was confiscated.The impression created in the city, from the first day, weare told, was like that of the Day of Judgment; for themajority of the trade of the city was concentrated in thehands of those implicated. A wide-spread commercialcrisis ensued, culminating in the failure of the Bank.

The fruits were seen in a great auto held on January23, 1639, at which about sixty Judaizers figured. Ofthese, seven abjured de vehementi forty-four were recon-ciled, after being sentenced to punishments of varyingseverity, and eleven persons were relaxed. Seven of thelatter were burned alive, as pertinacious and impenitentheretics—true martyrs to their faith. The most promi-nent of them was the heroic Francisco Maldonado daSilva, alias Eli Nazareno, who had been languishing inprison for thirteen years.2 All of the others were mem-bers of the Complicidad Grande, as the crypto-Jewishconnection at Lima was henceforth called. Foremostamongst them was Manuel Bautista Perez, the wealth-iest merchant of the city and a great patron of literature.He was known among his fellow-Portuguese as theCapitan Grande; and it was at his house that they hadbeen accustomed to come together for prayer. Besidesthese, the effigy of one person who had committed sui-cide during trial was condemned to the flames. Anoth-er prisoner, a mere boy, had become mad as a result ofhis sufferings. On the next day the populace enjoyed thespectacle of the public scourging through the streets oftwenty-nine of those reconciled, men and women, na-



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ked from the waist up. In the autos of the followingyears, the remnants of the Complicidad Grande weredealt with. The last victim was Manuel Henriquez, whowas burned as late as 1664, in company with the effigyof Dona Murcia de Luna, who had died under torture.This exemplary display of severity (coupled with a men-ace of total expulsion in 1646, evaded only through anample payment) finally exterminated the offence ofJudaizing in the province for many years to come. Thenext case—a light one—occurred as long after as 1720.The last victim burned at the stake by the PeruvianInquisition was a reputed Judaizer, the beautiful andromantic intriguer Ana de Castro, who suffered on De-cember 23, 1736—apparently, in consequence of privateenmity. In the following year, at an auto particular, JuanAntonio Pereira was punished for the same crime.Though the Inquisition in Peru continued a sporadicactivity for another three quarters of a century, and evenhad a few accusations of Judaizing brought before it, ontrivial grounds, no further prosecutions of this naturefigure in its records.

The Complicidad Grande had its repercussions atCartagena, where several persons implicated in the con-fessions extorted at Lima were arrested and put on tri-al. Of these, eight were reconciled. There were indeedno relaxations, but the confiscations which resulted wereso considerable as to put the Tribunal in the possessionof enormous funds. Thereafter, it was comparativelyinactive as far as Judaizers were concerned; though in1715 it reconciled the disreputable renegade ex-friar andex-pirate, José (Abraham) Diaz Pimienta, who five yearslater, after a relapse, was burned at Seville.


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More drastic by far was the upheaval in Mexico. Here,it had taken some time for the possibilities which hadbeen opened up to be realized. However, in July 1642,Gabriel de Granada, a child of thirteen against whomsuspicions had been aroused, was arrested. He was ruth-lessly examined, and thus forced to make admissionswhich implicated no less than 108 persons in all, includ-ing his own mother and the whole of his family. Theprovince was found to be filled with Judaizing heretics,who clung to their ancestral religion with unusual fidel-ity. They were in contact with their co-religionists as farafield as Italy and Turkey; and large numbers of themales amongst them were circumcised. The vast major-ity of them were emigrants from Portugal, some directand some via Spain. The little community enjoyed acertain degree of organization. Miguel Trinoco acted astheir sacristan and religious factotum, distributing theunleavened bread amongst them before the Passover.Services were held at fairly regular intervals at the houseof Captain Simon Vaez Sevilla (whose whole family hadsuffered bitterly at the hands of the Inquisition) and hiswife, Juana Enriquez.3 The latter was the daughter ofBlanca Enriquez, an eager Judaizer, who had initiatedall of her family and circle into the Jewish faith, andwhose bones were afterwards exhumed and burned. Inorder to announce when a service was to be held, it wasthe custom for them to send a negro slave in party-color-ed clothes to play a tambour in those streets where theirfellow-Marranos lived. At Guadalajara, the house ofManuel de Mello served as the religious center.

The whole of this circle was implicated in the confes-sions wrung out of Gabriel de Granada. Wholesale ar-



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rests were immediately carried out, this complicidadforming the solitary subject of conversation in the city.Meanwhile, an embargo was placed upon the emigra-tion of any Portuguese from the province without spe-cial license. At the first signs of danger, a meeting washeld by the Marranos in the house of Simon Vaez Se-villa to decide upon the best course of action. The gen-eral consensus of opinion was that in case of arrest allshould deny the whole charge steadfastly, this being thesafest means to prevent the implication of other persons;as one of those present remarked, his arms were strongenough to withstand torture. Meanwhile, fasting andpenitence were resorted to in order to incline the Godof Israel to save His children from the present persecu-tion and strengthen the hearts of those in prison, so thatthey should not display any weakness.

The Inquisition set to work with its usual thorough-ness and its usual deliberation. In 1646, a total of thirty-eight Judaizers were reconciled, bringing a very consid-erable profit to the coffers of the Holy Office. Twenty-one followed in the next year. In 1648, there were twoautos, in one of which eight Judaizers were penanced,eight reconciled, twenty-one burned in effigy and one inperson; in the other, twenty-one Judaizers figured, thoughno burnings took place. The climax of the Mexican Inqui-sition was reached in the terrible Auto General of April11, 1649—the greatest known outside the Peninsula. Outof 109 persons who appeared, all but one were Judaiz-ers. Of these, fifty-seven persons were relaxed in effigyand thirteen in person. Twelve indeed professed repent-ance, and so secured the preliminary grace of garroting.The only person burned alive was thus Tomás Treviño


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of Sobremonte, a member of a family of martyrs, who methis death heroically.4 The spectacle was a magnificent one.We are informed how there was a double row of coachesall along the route of the procession, their occupants re-maining in them all night so as to make sure of theirpositions. So many of the inhabitants of the surroundingplaces streamed into the city in order to be present thatit seemed as though all the countryside, for a hundredleagues round or more, had been depopulated.

This terrible lesson went far to check Marranism inthe province. In the following period, Judaizers occupieda less and less prominent position in the preoccupationsof the Inquisition. Thus, in the auto of 1659, only fourfigured amongst the thirty-two victims;5 and in lateryears the proportion was even lower. In 1712, a solitaryJudaizer was reconciled. As late as 1788, one RaphaelGil Rodriguez, a cleric in Holy Orders, was sentencedto relaxation for the same offence. He however professedrepentance at the last moment, and was reconciled in-stead. Thus, by the close of the first half of the seven-teenth century, it may be said that in the Spanish do-minions of the New World crypto-Judaism had beenalmost completely suppressed.6

A very considerable stream of Marrano emigrationwas meanwhile being directed to the Portuguese colo-ny of Brazil. This was not entirely spontaneous in ori-gin. From 1548, one of the penalties imposed by the tri-bunals of the mother-country upon convicted but “pen-itent” heretics was that of deportation—generally acrossthe Atlantic. Hence Brazil became filled with NewChristians, of doubtful orthodoxy. Indeed, even beforethis date, the settlement had been considerable. The



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colony thus harbored an increasingly high proportion ofsecret Jews. They comprised many persons of greatwealth, some being worth from 60,000 to 100,000 cru-zados. They controlled a great part of the commerce ofthe country. In Bahia (S. Salvador) nearly all the physi-cians were New Christians, who were said to prescribepork to their patients in order to lessen the suspicionsagainst themselves. It is stated that the sugar-cane wasfirst introduced into Brazil from the island of Madeira byPortuguese Marranos. They were thus instrumental in theinauguration of one of the most important local industries,in which they continued to engage on a large scale.

The Inquisition was never formally introduced intoBrazil, which continued to be subject in this respect tothe mother country. The New Christian settlement hadbecome so considerable by 1579 that Inquisitorial pow-ers were conferred on the Bishop of Salvador. All pris-oners, however, had to be sent to Europe for trial. Great“visitations” were held under these auspices in 1591–5 and1618. In the latter year (in consequence of the revelationsmade during the proceedings against the New Christianmerchants of Oporto) an Edict of Faith was published atRio de Janeiro by an Inquisitor specially despatched fromLisbon. This resulted in extensive arrests, coupled withconfiscations to the value of 200,000 pesos. Despite thegovernmental precautions large numbers of terrifiedJudaizers sought refuge on Spanish territory, where thelocal Inquisitors were kept busily occupied for a time. AtLima, the fugitives provided the material for the greatauto on December 21, 1625, at which ten Judaizers werereconciled, and four relaxed, two of them in person.

This outburst of Inquisitorial activity in their new


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home drove the Marranos of Brazil into disaffection.When in the second decade of the seventeenth centurythe Dutch began their attempt to conquer the country,the local New Christians eagerly espoused their cause.Naturally, it was also warmly favored by those Marranosrecently admitted to Amsterdam, who realized the greateconomic opportunities which they might enjoy in theevent of success. Thus, the war resolved itself almost intoa struggle between the Spanish and Portuguese on theone hand and an alliance between the Marranos and theDutch on the other. Francisco Ribeiro, a Portuguesecaptain with Jewish relatives in Holland, was intimate-ly concerned with the earliest intrigues. Two Jews, NuñoAlvarez Franco and Manuel Fernandez Drago, plannedthe capture of Bahia by the Dutch in 1623. The takingof Pernambuco was said to be the work of certain Am-sterdam Jews, the principal of whom was Antonio VaezHenriquez, alias Moses Cohen. The latter, who arrangedthe plans and accompanied the expedition, subsequentlysettled at Seville, where he was suspected of acting as aspy in the Dutch interest. Another Jew of Amsterdam,Francisco de Campos, was said to be responsible for thecapture of the island of Fernando de Noronha; yet an-other, David Peixotto, was alleged to be in the commandof a fleet of eighteen-sail which fitted out at a later pe-riod for the relief of Pernambuco; and it was said thaton the way he proposed to make a raid on the Portu-guese coast and to penetrate as far as Coimbra, wherethe palace of the Inquisition was to be burned and theprisoners released. Other Marranos were believed tomaintain an extensive espionage service in the Penin-sula. The Dutch themselves, in forming their West In-



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dia Company in 1622 in furtherance of the scheme ofconquest, counted confessedly upon the support of thenative New Christians; while the fugitives in Hollandinvested eagerly (though, at the outset, modestly) in theshares. It was therefore natural that, in those placeswhich were captured by the Dutch, the Marranos seizedthe first opportunity to declare their true identity. Thus,when Bahia was taken, the Dutch commander imme-diately issued a proclamation guaranteeing protectionand religious liberty to all who would submit. Howev-er, in 1625 the city was recaptured; and although theterms of surrender provided for the safety of the inhab-itants, five renegade New Christians who placed over-much trust in the agreement lost their lives.7

The Dutch rule was of longer duration in the city ofRecife, or Pernambuco, which was captured in 1630.The local Marranos immediately threw off all disguise;and they were reinforced by numerous immigrants fromHolland. In 1640, the Jewish inhabitants were said tobe more numerous than the Christians. Their tradeexceeded that of any other section of the population; andtheir sugar-mills and stately houses were among thesights of the city. In 1642, a large party arrived directfrom Amsterdam, bringing with them two young schol-ars to minister to their spiritual needs—Isaac Aboab daFonseca, “the first American Rabbi,” born of New Chris-tian parentage at Castrodaire in Portugal; and RaphaelMoses de Aguilar, who was to act as reader or Hazzan.A community was organized, after the model of that inAmsterdam, under the name of K. K. Zur Israel (HolyCongregation “The Rock of Israel”),8 with the usual sub-sidiary institutions. The backbone of the congregation


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was formed of persons who had returned locally to Juda-ism. In 1648, when the Ascamot or communal regu-lations were revised, four persons “well-acquainted withJudaism” had to be co-opted to assist in the work. EvenMenasseh ben Israel, the great Dutch Jewish scholar,was proposing at this period to go to Recife, and inter-rupted the printing of his Conciliador to dedicate thepart dealing with the Book of Kings to the leading menof the local congregation.

Other Marrano settlements were to be found else-where in the colony. In Tamarica, Jacob Lagarto offici-ated as Rabbi. At Paraiba, Captain Moses Peixotto wasthe leading spirit.

The war for the reconquest of Brazil was pursuedwith additional vigor after the restoration in Portugalof the House of Braganza, and the shaking off of theSpanish yoke. One of the arguments made to the newgovernment in order to incite them to begin a fresh cam-paign was the scandalous spectacle of the synagogueswhich had been opened publicly by renegades in thoseplaces under Dutch rule. It is a somewhat ironical con-sideration that the new campaign was directly financed,though much against their will, by the New Christiansin Portugal. In 1649, King João IV introduced certainreforms into the Inquisitional procedure, restoring prop-erty recently confiscated and abolishing sequestration incase of arrest. In return for this short-lived concession(which, in the event, did not survive the reign of the rulerwho made it), the New Christian merchants organizeda trading company, the Companhia do Brazil, which wasto provide thirty-six men-of-war to serve as convoys fortheir merchantmen.



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It was this fleet, backed up by the enormous resourcesof the affluent Marrano, Duarte da Silva, which provedthe decisive factor in the campaign. It was, in effect, astruggle between the Marranos of Portugal and theirbrethren who had escaped beyond the seas. The latteron their side supported the Dutch regime to the utmostlimit of their ability. They raised large subscriptions forthe benefit of the treasury. The wealthy Abraham Co-hen Henri ques made himself prominent by his indis-criminate beneficence. Isaac Aboab da Fonseca pro-claimed days of prayer and fasting, and stimulated hisbrethren to further efforts in fiery addresses from thepulpit. In the two sieges of Recife, the Jews fought des-perately, many being killed in action or dying of star-vation. On the first occasion when relief came, the con-gregation celebrated the event by a service of thanks-giving; and Aboab recorded the tribulations throughwhich they had passed in a lengthy Hebrew poem—thefirst specimen of Jewish literature to be composed inAmerica. But a second siege followed; and, despite allexertions, the city was forced to capitulate (1654). In theterms of surrender the captors granted an amnesty “inall wherein they could promise it.” Nevertheless, thecontinuance of the community was now out of the ques-tion. Large numbers returned to Amsterdam—amongthem Jacob de Andrade Velosinho, then an infant, butsubsequently to distinguish himself for the ability withwhich he opposed Spinoza. He was thus the first Jew-ish author of American birth. Others of the refugees werescattered throughout the New World.9

The reconquest of Brazil by the Portuguese and theConsequent break-up of the local communities of Mar-


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ranos returned to Judaism under Dutch protection wasan episode of the highest importance in Jewish history,a majority of the older American communities owingtheir origin to the minor dispersion which that catas-trophe brought about. In those places which were notunder the intolerant rule of Spain or Portugal, little opencolonies of Marranos of Portuguese descent now cameto be established, formed in the first instance by refu-gees, but subsequently reinforced from Europe. In Ja-maica, where the Inquisition had never obtained a foot-ing, large numbers of “Portugals,” as they were called,were to be found even before the English conquest in1655. The pilot upon whom Penn and Venables reliedin their attack, Captain Campoe Sabbatha, is said tohave been a Marrano; another, Acosta, superintendedthe commissariat for the English troops and negotiatedthe terms of capitulation; while Simon de Caceres, “thechauvinist Jew,” in London, contemporaneously fur-nished much valuable information. Ultimately therewere open communities at Kingston, Spanish Town,Falmouth, and Lacovia; and the majority of the Jewishcommunity of Jamaica even today is of Marrano descent.

In the island of Barbados, the oldest English colony,the earliest known arrivals were refugees from Brazil.They included Abraham de Mercado, who had previ-ously been an elder of the dispersed congregation ofRecife, and his son, David Raphael de Mercado; bothdoctors of medicine. On April 20, 1655, these two wereofficially permitted to settle on the island; and they werespeedily followed by others. In the following year, onAugust 12, 1656, the Jews were granted full enjoymentof the “privileges of Laws and Statutes of ye Common-



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wealth of England and of this Island, relating to foreign-ers and strangers.” At one time, there were two commu-nities on the island, the K. K. Nidhe Israel (“Dispersalof Israel”) at Bridgetown, and the K. K. Semah David(“Branch of David”) at Speightstown.10 Spiritual lead-ers were forthcoming from Europe: for example, Abra-ham Gabay Izidro, a native of Spain, where, with hiswife, he had been imprisoned for some time by the In-quisition (he had been circumcised in London and stud-ied at Amsterdam). He died in London in 1755. OtherMarranos who found refuge in the island included mem-bers of the Chaves and Vargas families, of Covilhã inPortugal. The community on the island is now entirelyextinct; but a little synagogue and a cemetery, filled withinscriptions in Portuguese, remained at Bridgetown torecall its existence and the tradition to which it was heir.

Conditions were very similar in the other West Indi-an islands. In Martinique, an open community of ex-Marranos was formed during the Dutch regime. Thiswas allowed to continue after the French conquest in1654. In 1655, the sugar industry on a large scale wasestablished in the island by Benjamin da Costa, a refu-gee from Brazil, who went there accompanied by a largenumber of his coreligionists with their slaves. In 1685,with the promulgation of the Code Noir, the Jews wereexpelled. Under British rule, there was, at the close ofthe seventeenth century, a community of a similar na-ture at Nevis. Another existed at the island of Tobago.In Curação, at the very outset of Dutch rule, in 1634,we encounter an alleged Jew named Coheño whose lin-guistic ability gained him appointment as Captain of theIndies. Eighteen years later, the Dutch West Indian


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Company granted a considerable tract of land along thecoast to Joseph Nuñez da Fonseca (alias David Nasi) toestablish a settlement of his coreligionists. The colonistswere under the lead of João Ilhão (Jan Illan), a Portu-guese long settled in Brazil, where he had been de-nounced for Judaizing. When in 1654 Pernambuco wasrecaptured, the colony was very considerably reinforced:and in 1659 twelve families were formally permitted tosettle in the town of Nassau. Fresh settlers afterwardscame from Amsterdam, or else in some cases direct fromPortugal. The local congregation, which still flourishes,was at one time among the most important in the Mar-rano Diaspora.

To Cayenne, Jews of Portuguese origin had penetratedat the middle of the century, being reinforced by therefugees from Brazil a few years later. In 1660, a wholeparty (including Daniel Levi de Barrios, the Marranopoet) left Leghorn to settle there. They nearly perishedon the way owing to lack of drinking water, and sever-al ultimately turned back. Shortly after the arrival of theparty, the colony was ceded to France; and, despite aclause which guaranteed them freedom of worship, theJewish community was dispersed. A majority removedto the English colony of Surinam. This was ceded to theDutch in 1667. The wealthy Jews living there nowformed the subject of an unusual international dispute,the English desiring to remove with them to Jamaica allwho desired, while the Dutch were anxious to retainthem at all costs, owing to their great importance to thewelfare of the colony. Under the Dutch rule, the Jewishsettlement continued to flourish, becoming one of themost remarkable of its sort in the world. After the recon-



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quest of Brazil, their numbers had been immensely re-cruited by the fugitives, this being the nearest place ofrefuge. Besides the congregation at Paramaribo, on thesea-coast, which still exists, there were a number of flour-ishing settlements grouped about the “Savannah of theJews” (Joden Savanne) up the river, where a splendidsynagogue was built in 1685. Here, they enjoyed aremarkable degree of autonomy. Their status in the col-ony was very high. It goes without saying that theircommercial importance was considerable. They werelargely interested in agriculture, and were the first per-sons to cultivate the sugar-cane. When, in 1689, Suri-nam was attacked by the French fleet, the Jews underSamuel Nasi fought bravely in the defence. On a sec-ond attack, in 1712, the defence was led by CaptainIsaac Pinto. The Jews of the Joden Savanne were alsoforemost in the suppression of the successive negro re-volts, from 1690 to 1722: these as a matter of fact werelargely directed against them, as being the greatest slave-holders of the region. These disturbances, together withthe inroads of the climate, led ultimately to the aban-donment of the settlement, of which nothing but the ruinnow remains. However, as late as 1796 proposals werecirculated for the establishment here of a seminary forthe youth. The importance of Paramaribo, on the otherhand, has continued to the present day. Towards the endof the eighteenth century, some Portuguese sailors whowere chased by a French privateer and put in at Suri-nam were amazed to find themselves greeted by the Jewsin their native tongue; and on their return to their owncountry the government hastened to attempt to estab-lish relations with this forgotten outpost.


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Events on the mainland of North America followedmuch the same course. In 1654, a ship-load of twenty-three refugees from Brazil arrived at New Amsterdam.They were not, indeed, the earliest settlers, a Germanor Polish Jew named Jacob, son of Samson (Jacob Bar-simson), having preceded them by a few months. Theywere shortly afterwards followed by another contingentof Portuguese Jews coming from Holland. The new ar-rivals received a surly reception from Governor PeterStuyvesant, who ordered them to leave. Fortunately,before he could take action, letters arrived from theGovernor of the Dutch West India Company, datedApril 26, 1655, intimating that it was inequitable forthose who had taken so important a share in its under-takings and had lost so much in the Brazilian disaster,to be excluded from its possessions. They were thereforeauthorized to remain, “provided that the poor amongstthem shall not become a burden to the community, butbe supported by their own nation.” A congregation,named the K. K. Shearith Israel (“Remnant of Israel”),which still flourishes, was founded immediately after-wards. It was thus as an indirect consequence of thePortuguese reconquest of Pernambuco that the greatestJewish community of all time was founded.

From New York, the settlements of the Marrano com-munities spread. Some of the earliest arrivals, discour-aged by the reception which they had received fromStuyvesant, migrated to Newport, Rhode Island, wherethe congregation, K. K. Yeshu‘ath Israel (“Salvation ofIsrael”) perhaps originated in 1658. They were reinforcedfrom many quarters. A small contingent arrived fromCuração in 1690, and, in the eighteenth century, the



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community enjoyed a brief halcyon period. Jacob Rod-rigues Rivera, who came to Newport direct from Por-tugal in 1745, was the first person to introduce themanufacture of spermaceti to America. Aaron Lopez wasthe wealthiest merchant of the port in the pre-Revo-lutionary era, owning as many as thirty vessels. Afterthe Lisbon earthquake of 1755, a number of Marranos,whose consciences had been stirred by the disaster, aresaid to have arrived to swell the community, which how-ever fell into complete decadence with the decline of theport after the Revolution. Towards the close of the lastcentury, the Jewish connection with Newport was re-vived. Hence the dignified synagogue constructed in1763 by the Marrano refugees, which still stands, is reg-ularly used for worship, although the families original-ly associated with it have without exception either em-igrated or died out.

In Georgia, a group of Jewish immigrants, who hadsailed under the auspices of the Spanish and Portuguesecommunity of London, arrived in 1733, within a monthof the first settlers, and on the actual day of the formalpartition of the land of the colony. They were receivedin a kindly manner; and a community was founded atSavannah. Among the most prominent members was Dr.Samuel Ribeiro Nuñez, who had been a Court Physi-cian at Lisbon, had suffered at the hands of the Inqui-sition, and had himself smuggled out of the country onan English brigantine in the middle of a dinner whichhe had given to allay suspicion. Another member of thesettlement was Abraham de Leon, who introduced intothe colony the culture of grapes, having been a wine-grower in Portugal. The first child born in the colony


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was a Jew, Isaac Minis, the son of one of the immigrantfamilies. The community is in existence to this day,though it may have been suspended for a time duringthe Revolution; while some of the very families thatfounded the congregation in Savannah still live there.Other similar communities were set up in the course ofthe eighteenth century in Charleston and Philadelphia.The first Jewish resident in Maryland who is known tous by name is João (Jacob) Lumbrozo, “ye Jew Doctor,”a Portuguese Marrano who was arrested in 1658 forsome unwary remarks which he had let slip in the courseof a religious discussion.

Thus, of the half-dozen Jewish congregations estab-lished in the united States before the War of Independ-ence, practically all had been founded by Marranos re-turned to Judaism, or else by their immediate descend-ants; though this original stock had been diluted to aconsiderable degree, even at this early date, by personsof German or Polish origin. As in the Old World, Span-ish or Portuguese remained the official language of thecommunity for many years, long after the use of thevernacular had become universal in private life. Thus,the circle of Marrano communities was complete fromthe Indian Ocean to the furthest shores of the Atlantic,and from the immemorial East to the newest Republicof the West.11



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CHAPTER XII

SOME MARRANO WORTHIES

IN no branch of history, perhaps, does the record ofindividuals possess quite such fascination or importanceas is the case in connection with the Marranos. No de-gree of rationalization of their romantic record can di-minish this. The underlying phenomenon is not by anymeans difficult to understand. The forced assimilationto the general population of a large body of Jews at theclose of the middle ages allowed the natural talents ofthe latter to assert themselves and afforded opportuni-ties for instantaneous advancement perhaps unexampledin any other period of history. Freed from the deadweight of the disabilities from which they had previouslysuffered, the neophytes rose irresistibly to the top, likea cork suddenly released below the surface of the wa-ter. The process was discernible from the very beginning.Already in the fifteenth century, the Marranos had be-gun to push their way forward, whether as poets, states-men, Churchmen, explorers, or pioneers in any otherbranch of human endeavor. At a later period, in Portu-gal, the Jewish leaven was even more universal. Tradeand commerce lay very largely in Marrano hands. Theirblood permeated a large part even of the nobility. Nat-ural aptitude was responsible for the fact that the mosteminent physicians were of Jewish descent. The Marran-os were important in literature, in science, in the uni-versities, in the army, even in the Church.


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A list of those who may be identified, whether byreason of their ultimate flight or of their persecution, isnothing less than dazzling. Yet a majority indubitablyescaped discovery, and, if they resisted the temptationsto emigrate, maintained a crypto-Jewish existence to theend. What eminent figures are comprised in this cate-gory must remain a matter of conjecture.1

The exiles continued this magnificent tradition in theirnew homes throughout Europe. In consequence, theregrew up in Amsterdam, Hamburg, London, and else-where an intellectual life as brilliant as any city in thePeninsula could boast, and no less distinctively Iberianin character. Coupled with their personal distinctionthere was the romance inherent in the career of almostevery one of the refugees, enhanced in many cases bythe amazing contrast between their former and theirpresent circumstances. There was no branch of humanactivity which they did not touch and adorn. In the fewfollowing pages account will be taken only of a smallselection of the eminent figures who actively provedtheir Jewish sympathies.

Of many, there has been occasion already to speak indetail. A mere recapitulation of their names is eloquent.In medicine, there was Juan Rodrigo, alias AmatusLusitanus, of the old family of Habib, one of the great-est practitioners and theorists of his age, who escapedfrom Ancona in 1556, and subsequently practiced his artin Salonica; Felipe Rodrigues, alias Elijah Montalto,physician to Marie de Médicis who received special dis-pensation to make use of his services; and Rodrigo deCastro, creator of gynaecology. To these we may addManoel Alvares, alias Abraham Zacuto (Zacutus Lusi-

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tanus), a friend of Menasseh ben Israel, whose reputa-tion was second to none in his day; Joseph Bueno, whoattended the Prince of Orange in his last illness; his son,Ephraim, the friend of Rembrandt; Ezekiel (Pedro) deCastro, who settled at Verona as a professing Jew, andpublished there some important scientific works; andmany more, the enumeration of whom would fill pages.

In politics, there were João Miguez, Duke of Naxos,and Alvaro Mendes, Duke of Mitylene, both of whomexercised enormous power at the Turkish court; andDaniel Rodriguez, creator of the Free Port of Spalato.In literature, there were characters like Didaco Pyrrho,of Evora (Flavius Eborensis), who lived successively inFlanders, Switzerland, Ancona, and Ragusa, and wasone of the outstanding Latin poets of the sixteenth cen-tury; Antonio Enriquez Gomez, the famous playwright;and several more. Philosophy was represented by UrielAcosta; theology by Thomas de Pinedo; science by theCount Palatine, Immanuel Bocarro Frances, the friendof Galileo. Many were those who had attained distinc-tion even in Holy Orders, like Vicente de Rocamora orEleazar de Solis. A surprisingly large number studiedon their return to Judaism with such a will that theybecame renowned rabbinic scholars: witness Jacob Ze-mah, apparently a lecturer in law in the Peninsula, whoescaped to Palestine, embraced the medical profession,and became known as one of the most abstruse mysticsof his day. Such lists of names could be continued al-most indefinitely. It is a better plan to take in greaterdetail a few concrete instances. The plain, unadornedfact will outdo fiction in interest, though not in credi-bility.


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At the great auto held at Seville in 1660, one of thethirty persons burned in effigy—almost all for Judaiz-ing—was Doctor Melchor (Balthazar) de Orobio, a na-tive of Braganza in Portugal. He was a person ofconsiderable distinction, having been Professor of Med-icine in the University of Seville,1a and subsequentlyphysician to the Duke of Medina Celi. Some years be-fore, he had been denounced to the Inquisition by aservant accused of theft. In consequence, he had beenthrown into prison, where he remained, undergoing ter-rible sufferings for three years. In the end, he had beenreconciled, and this illustrious figure in intellectual lifehad to go about for some time wearing the sambenito.It is no wonder that he seized the first opportunity toflee the country. In France, he found a safer environ-ment, and began a new life. His abilities rapidly wonhim appointment as Professor of Medicine at the uni-versity of Toulouse, together with the honor of Medi-cal Attendant and Privy-Counselor to His ChristianMajesty. He had not yet declared his allegiance to Juda-ism, though his sympathies were sufficiently notoriousat this period to secure his condemnation and figura-tive burning by the Seville Tribunal, as we have seenabove. About 1666, he took the final step, going to Am-sterdam and declaring himself a Jew, under the nameof Isaac Orobio de Castro. Henceforth, he was one ofthe leading figures of the community, and naturallyconsidered among its greatest ornaments. His was theinspiration in all manifestations of literary and intel-lectual life. Above all, he threw himself with all hisheart into the work of defending and vindicating hisnew faith, to which he devoted all his extensive learn-

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ing and his trained intellect. He opposed Spinoza on theone hand and the Catholic theologians on the other. Hecrushed, with a minimum of effort, Juan (Daniel) dePrado, a fellow-Marrano and a fellow-physician, whodared to criticise Jewish tradition. He discussed Chris-tianity with the Dutch preacher, Philip van Limborch,one of the foremost critics of the Inquisition, who em-bodied their conversation in a Latin work. His vindi-cation of the Jewish interpretation of the fifty-thirdchapter of Isaiah is still classical. His death, in 1687,deprived Amsterdam Jewry of one of its outstandingcharacters.

Rodrigo Mendes da Silva, whom Thomas de Pine-do criticised for knowing nothing of classical litera-ture, or of Hebrew, was a native of Celorico in Por-tugal, and was one of the most prolific writers of hisday. He was the author of vast numbers of historicalworks, which earned him the name of the SpanishLivy and the post of Historiographer Royal to the Kingof Spain, as well as a seat on the Privy Council. Latein life, however, he retired to Italy, leaving behind hima library to the value of 20,000 ducats. He is next heardof at Venice, where he became circumcised, assumingthe name of Jacob; and, to the amusement of somespiteful contemporaries, he married a girl of eighteen.Not unnaturally, the veteran historian found some dif-ficulty in accommodating himself in his old age to acompletely different manner of life. It was remarkedthat he was seldom seen in synagogue, and never worephylacteries. By force of habit, he continued to raisehis hat at the mention of the names of Jesus and Mary,and regularly kissed the robe of any Christian priest


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with whom he spoke. His freedom of opinion, too, gaverise to considerable talk. He held very modern viewsabout the Bible, denying in particular the historicityof the Book of Esther. He was a confessed sceptic,being reported to doubt even the immortality of thesoul. Nevertheless, the fact that he continued to liveas a red-hatted Jew in the oppressive atmosphere of theGhetto, rather than occupy the place which belongedto him of right in the intellectual life of the outsideworld, shows unequivocally in what direction his sym-pathies lay.

One of the most illustrious of all Marrano families wasthat of Sampaio. Dom Francisco de Sampaio, alias Fran-cisco de Mello, was a gentleman of the Portuguese roy-al household; his wife, Doña Antonia de Silva Texeira,was lady-in-waiting to the Queen. Their second son wasDiego Texeira de Sampaio. The father died in battle in1609, and in 1643, Don Diego left the Peninsula andsettled in Antwerp, where he acted as Consul and Pay-master-General for the Spanish Government. Here hisfirst wife died, and he renewed an earlier romance bymarrying Doña Anna d’Andrade, who by her descentfrom Tomas Rodrigues da Veiga,2 was related to half thenobility of Portugal. So strong was the call of the Jew-ish blood in her that she persuaded her husband to re-move to Hamburg. Here, on Good Friday, 1647, he sub-mitted to circumcision, together with his two sons, not-withstanding the fact that he was approaching the ageof seventy. Henceforth he was known as Abraham Sen-ior Texeira, his. wife assuming the name of Sarah.

This episode naturally caused great scandal in Cath-olic circles. The Imperial government demanded that the

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apostate should be arrested and put on trial. The Min-ister of Hamburg at the court of Vienna, however, indi-cated that this display of religious zeal was inspiredmainly by a desire to lay hands on Texeira’s fortune,valued at 300,000 crowns. Accordingly, the Senate en-ergetically opposed the demand. Thus Don Abrahamwas able to pass undisturbed the not inconsiderable spanof life which was left to him. He adopted the cause ofhis new religion zealously. He contributed lavishly to theconstruction of the new synagogue, obtained consider-able privileges for the community of Glückstadt, found-ed a couple of important benevolent institutions, and forsome years served as president of the congregation. Hisshare in the general civic life was equally notable. Hesupplied the copper roofing for the Church of St.Michael, refusing all payment. He was universallyknown as “The Rich Jew.” He maintained a princelyhousehold. His carriage was luxuriously upholstered invelvet, and he never stirred abroad without a wholeretinue of servants. When therefore in 1654 QueenChristina of Sweden visited Hamburg, she took up herresidence in the house of the aristocratic old Marrano,whom the Spanish envoy cordially recommended to her.In recognition of this, she appointed him her financialagent and diplomatic representative in Hamburg. Thisoffice he filled with distinction from 1655 to his deathin 1666. He was then succeeded in it by his son, IsaacHayim (Manoel) Senior Texeira (1625–1705), who hadembraced Judaism at the same time as his father. Theson held the office for twenty-one years, to the completesatisfaction of his royal mistress, who more than oncestayed at his house and highly valued his advice. Late


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in life he removed to Amsterdam, where he died in 1705.His descendants, some of whom were known by thename of Texeira de Mattos, remained prominent in Jew-ish and general life.

A more remarkable phenomenon perhaps was that ofJews acting in the capacity of diplomatic agents for thecountries from which they had fled, and where theywould have been burned had they dared to ventureback. Sir William Temple, the famous English writerand diplomat, for a long time ambassador at The Hague,expressed his wonder both at the Spaniards for makingsuch appointments and at the Jews for accepting them.A typical instance was that of Duarte Nuñes da Costa(d’Acosta), alias Jacob Curiel. He belonged to a nota-ble Portuguese house, being the nephew of Fray Fran-cisco de Vittoria, Archbishop of Mexico.3 Born at Lis-bon in 1587, he transferred himself first to Pisa, then toFlorence, and in 1618 to Amsterdam. Ultimately, hesettled in Hamburg. He had proved highly useful toDom Duarte de Braganza, the brother of the king ofPortugal. In consequence, when the latter establisheddiplomatic relations with Hamburg, in about 1640,Duarte Nuñes da Costa was the first chargé d’affaires,being in consequence raised to the nobility. He was suc-ceeded in this office by his son, Manoel Nuñes da Cos-ta, or Solomon Curiel (d. 1679); and other members ofthe family continued to occupy it until its extinction in1795. Duarte’s elder son, Geronimo Nuñes da Costa,alias Moses Curiel, filled a similar post in Holland,which remained hereditary in his family until the mid-dle of the eighteenth century.

The Belmonte family was no less illustrious. It was

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allied with half of the noblest families of the Peninsula.Baron Manuel de Belmonte, known in the communityas Isaac Nuñez Belmonte, acted from 1664 as Agent-General for the King of Spain in the Netherlands, andfrom 1674 to his death in 1704 as Resident. In 1693, hewas created Count Palatine by the Holy Roman Emper-or, in recognition of his great public services. This em-inent diplomat was at the same time a loyal Jew. Hefounded at Amsterdam two famous literary societies;and, on the martyrdom of Abraham Nuñez Bernal, hecomposed a touching elegy in his memory. He was suc-ceeded in his high diplomatic office by his nephew,Baron Francisco de Ximenes Belmonte, whose sonEmmanuel continued to hold it after his death. Anoth-er member of the family, distantly related to them, wasJacob de Abraham de Belmonte, grandson of the poetJacob Israel Belmonte, who altered his name into theDutch equivalent of Franz van Schoonenberg and (pre-sumably after embracing Protestantism) entered theDutch diplomatic service. In this capacity, he served aschargé d’affaires successively in Madrid and Lisbon(where he died in 1717), and was one of the architectsof the Grand Alliance. His aid was partly instrumentalin the acquisition of the English throne by William ofOrange.

This by no means exhausts the list of Jews who at-tained similar distinction, in the diplomatic service oras financial agents for foreign potentates. In Hamburg,Daniel and Jacob Abensur (descendants of the martyredAnrique Dias Millão) acted in succession as Residentsfor the King of Poland, at the close of the seventeenthand beginning of the eighteenth centuries; while, about


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1650, Gabriel Gomez was agent of the King of Denmark.In Tuscany, in 1746, the King of Portugal was represent-ed by Joseph d’Oliveira. Joseph Jesurun Lobo was Span-ish Consul in Zealand at the close of the seventeenth cen-tury, and Joseph Manoel de Acosta filled the same postfifty years later. Jacob Cohen (son of the Abraham Co-hen Henriques who had made a name for himself inBrazil4) was Agent at Amsterdam for Prince Maurice ofNassau. David Bueno de Mesquita acted as Resident forthe Margrave of Brandenburg, besides being entrustedwith a number of diplomatic missions by the Sultan ofMorocco. In 1684, Miguel Osorio was appointed repre-sentative in Holland for the Queen of Sweden. DavidSalom d’Azevedo and various other members of his fam-ily successively represented the court of Algiers. Thatquestionable character, Agostino Coronel (Chacon), oneof the founders of the Anglo-Jewish community, wasPortuguese Agent in London, negotiating the match withCatherine of Braganza through which the British ob-tained their first footing in India.

Their diplomatic interests were largely responsible forthe fact that many of the Marranos, even after theirreturn to Judaism, entered into the ranks of the nobili-ty, In Holland, the Barons de Belmonte were prominent.In gratitude for his financial assistance at the time of theRestoration, Charles II of England raised AgostinoCoronel Chacon to the knighthood; while Solomon deMedina received a similar honor for his services as Com-missary in the wars at the end of the seventeenth cen-tury. Antonio (Isaac) Lopez Suasso, of the Hague, wasraised by Charles II of Spain to the dignity of Baron ofAvernas de Gras in return for services rendered. His

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son’s devotion to the House of Orange contributed large-ly to the success of William III’s expedition to Englandin 1688. It is recounted that he advanced the enormoussum of 2,000,000 crowns free of interest, refusing evena receipt, saying: “If your expedition is successful, youwill repay me; if not, I will lose in either case.”

The antecedents of the Marquisate of Montfort de-serve special mention. Mention has already been made,on more than one occasion, of Duarte da Silva. Born inLisbon in 1596, of middle-class New Christian parent-age, he became one of the most opulent Portuguesemerchants of his day. He had agencies at Antwerp,Rouen, Rome, Venice, London, and Leghorn. From theNew World, he imported merchandise on a vast scale.He was in close relations with the Portuguese court, towhich he advanced large sums. He provided ships, sup-plies, and munitions during the struggle with Hollandfor the possession of Brazil, the final retention of whichprovince by Portugal was due in some measure to hisassistance. More than once, he had been denounced byhis personal enemies to the Inquisition as a Judaizer,without any proceedings being taken. In 1647, however,he was implicated in the confessions wrung from thechildren of his kinswoman, Brites Henriques, who wasmartyred in that year. The news of his impending arrestreached his ears, and he managed to keep in hiding untilhe could set his affairs (not all, apparently, of a businessnature) in order. Ultimately, he gave himself up; but hisaction had exposed him to a second charge—that of vio-lating the secrecy of the Inquisition, as well as that ofJudaizing. The news of his arrest caused great commo-tion in Lisbon. It was bruited abroad that the Inquisi-


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tors were in the pay of Spain, and that they had acted asthey did in order to undermine the credit of the country.In Amsterdam, the exchange on Lisbon slumped by 5%.

The trial dragged on for five years. In the end, onDecember 1, 1652—in the same auto-da-fè at whichManuel Fernandez Villareal lost his life—Duarte daSilva appeared as a penitent; apparently escaping aworse fate through the intervention of the Court. It wasnot long before he regained his former position. Whenin 1662 Catherine of Braganza went to England as thebride of Charles II, she took Duarte da Silva with herto administer her dowry. Now that he was safe out ofthe country, he put forward certain proposals for theamelioration of the position of the New Christians inPortugal, for which he professed himself willing to payheavily. Samuel Pepys knew him, and appreciated hiscomfits. Even now, he did not formally profess allegianceto Judaism. When his mission was ended, he retired toAntwerp, where he died in 1688. His sons, however,found the call of their ancestral religion stronger thantheir father had done. One of them, Diogo, went toHamburg, where he assumed the name of Isaac da Sil-va Solis, became a pillar of the community, and was pre-vented only by the prejudices of the burghers from con-structing in his house a synagogue which was allegedto threaten the outlook from a neighboring Church.Francisco, another son, who had been reconciled at theauto of December 1, 1652, and accompanied his fatherto London, was destined to a more refulgent career. Hebecame a Knight of the Military Order of Christ, as wellas Counselor and Treasurer General to Queen Cather-ine. In the Low Countries, he entered into the Spanish

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service and was responsible for the defeat of the Ducde Créqui’s attempt to relieve Treves in 1673. In re-ward for his services, he was raised by the Emperorin 1682 to the dignity of Marquis de Montfort. His son,Fernando, the second Marquis, returned publicly toJudaism, assuming like his uncle the name of Isaac daSilva Solis.

Duarte da Silva was naturally not the only great cap-italist to figure in Marrano history. Let us take a coupleof more typical cases. José da Costa Villareal wasProveditore General, or Comptroller General, to thearmies of the King of Portugal. In 1726, a charge ofJudaizing was brought against him, and it came to hisears that his arrest was about to be ordered. As it hap-pened, a great fire broke out in Lisbon. Profiting by theconfusion, he embarked for England on one of his shipswhich happened to be in harbor, together with as muchof his property as he could collect and seventeen mem-bers of his family, including his aged parents. The totalvalue of the fortune which they thus brought with themwas said to exceed £300,000. Immediately on their ar-rival in London, the family openly declared their adhe-sion to Judaism. The males underwent circumcision, ledby the old father, then in his seventy-fourth year. Allassumed Hebrew names to replace those which they hadbeen given at baptism; and those who had wives sawto it that their marriages were resolemnized in syna-gogue. As a thank-offering for their escape, large sumswere given to charity; and a school for Jewish girls,which still exists under the name of the Villareal School,was endowed.

Diego Lopez Pereira was one of the outstanding Por-


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tuguese financiers of his age. He farmed the tobacco reve-nue with conspicuous success, and established branchesof his banking house in London and Amsterdam. Dur-ing the course of the War of the Spanish Succession, hemade the acquaintance of the Austrian Archduke Charles,one of the rival claimants to the throne. When the Arch-duke became Emperor, he summoned Pereira to Viennato administer the tobacco revenue. He accepted only oncondition that he and his whole household would enjoycomplete religious freedom. Hardly had he arrived inAustria, when he declared his allegiance to Judaism,adopting the name of Moses. In Vienna, he played aprominent part. The Emperor Charles created him Bar-on d’Aguilar; Maria Theresa made him a privy counselor;and he was responsible for the rebuilding of the imperialpalace at Schönbrun. He espoused the cause of his ownpeople enthusiastically, founding the so-called “Turkish”community in the capital, and proving a constant cham-pion for his brothers in faith at any time when persecu-tion threatened. Ultimately, according to report, the Span-ish government demanded the extradition of this fabu-lously wealthy renegade for trial by the Holy Office. Thisdetermined him to leave Vienna; and he settled in Lon-don, with his fourteen children and his immense retinueof servants and slaves. He died, in the then fashionablethoroughfare of Bishopsgate, in 1759. His son, EphraimLopez Pereira, succeeded to his title and his fortune. Thelatter’s claim to fame was a very different one. After liv-ing in great style for some years, the loss of an estate of15,000 acres in America made him apprehensive of ut-ter ruin. He accordingly went to the other extreme, be-coming notorious for his parsimony. His miserliness

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verged on mania. He gave up his town mansion and histhree country houses; and his one remaining estab-lishment, at Islington near London, became known as“Starvation Farm,” from the ridiculously scanty foodprovided for the cattle. For all this, when he died, in1802, a fortune estimated at £200,000 was found secretedabout the house.

The variety of the pageant of Marrano life perhapsreaches its climax with Daniel da Fonseca, a memberof a well-known family of martyrs. His grandfather hadbeen burned at the stake by the Inquisition; his fatherhad escaped the same fate only by flight. The little son,whom he had been forced to leave behind him in Por-tugal, was brought up as a priest. This did not preventhim from adhering to Judaism in stealth. The secretreached the ears of the Inquisition, and like his fatherhe had to flee for his life. He studied medicine in France,and then made his way to Constantinople, where heopenly embraced Judaism. His medical skill soon carvedhim out a position in the Turkish capital. He obtainedthe confidence of many high officials. He showed him-self an accomplished diplomat, consistently espousingthe cause of France and thereby earning the hearty dis-like of the Court of Austria. He was appointed a physi-cian to the French embassy, in which he occupied theposition of confidential adviser. Subsequently, he becamemedical attendant to Prince Nicholas Mavrocordato atBucharest. On his return to Constantinople, he becamebody-physician to the Sultan, continuing to occupy thisoffice till 1730; and he was of great assistance to CharlesXII of Sweden in his intrigues at the Sublime Porteagainst Russia and Poland. Finally he settled in Paris,


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where he intermingled with the highest society of his ageand earned the respect of Voltaire, who regarded him asthe only philosopher of his nation. It was a far cry fromthe sacerdotal career to which he had been brought up.

To what unexpected spots individual Marranos pene-trated is remarkable. The last of the series of eminentphysicians who came from the district of Castello Bran-co in Portugal, which had included Amatus Lusitanus andElijah Montalto, was Antonio Ribeiro Sanchez, who wasborn at Penamacor in 1699. In his twenty-eighth year, hewas denounced to the Inquisition by reason of his familyconnections and fled to join his uncle, Diogo Nuñes Ribei-ro,5 in London. Here, profoundly impressed by a passagerelative to circumcision which he read in Saint Augus-tine’s City of God, he formally entered the Jewish com-munity. Subsequently, he was assisted to study at Leydenby his wealthy English coreligionists; and he showed suchpromise that he was recommended to the Empress Annaof Russia as her court physician. He remained in prac-tice in St. Petersburg from 1731 to 1747, under severalreigns, saving the future Catherine II from a dangerousillness and being made a Counselor of State by the Em-press Elizabeth. At length, the secret of his Jewish originleaked out, though for some time he had been out of sym-pathy with his coreligionists, and had even written againstthem. He was therefore dismissed and retired to Paris,where he ruined both his health and his finances byworking gratuitously among the poor. His writings (in oneof which he gives a graphic description of the consequenc-es of the Inquisitional tortures, which he had witnessedwith his own eyes) are of the greatest scientific impor-tance. He was the first person to acquaint wider circles

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with the medicinal value of the Russian vapor baths; andhe was a pioneer in educational reform. Moreover, despitehis estrangement from Judaism, he wrote an importantmemorial advocating the amelioration of the condition ofthe Portuguese New Christians and the restriction of thepower of the Holy Office.6

The subsequent history of some of the Marrano fam-ilies is in itself a study of high interest. Amply endowedwith all social graces, and blessed in many cases withan abundant measure of the goods of this world, theymixed from the first on conditions of virtual equalitywith other citizens in their lands of refuge. A generationor two of tolerance sometimes achieved what centuriesof persecution had failed to do, and finally assimilatedtheir descendants to the dominant culture and religion.Intermarriage similarly began at an early date. Thus,particularly in the Protestant countries in the north,Marrano blood runs in the veins of many of the proud-est and most noble houses. In England, indeed, hardlya single family of the older aristocracy is free from somesuch admixture or alliance.

Let us take a fairly typical family story. Paul de Pinabelonged to a good New Christian family of Lisbon. In1599, he left for Italy, with the intention of entering somereligious order. On the way he passed through Leghorn.Here there was living at the time the erudite FelipeRodrigues, alias Elijah Montalto, who was subsequentlyto become famous as a Jewish polemist and as physicianto the Court of France. To him, the youth brought aletter of introduction from his kinsman, Diego GomezLobato, a convinced Judaizer. It was conceived in thefollowing terms: “Our cousin, Paul de Pina, is going to


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Rome to become a monk. You will oblige me by puttinghim on the right road.” Montalto (a born controversia-list, as proved in his various writings) was quick to graspthe meaning of this intentionally equivocal message. Heexecuted the commission so effectively that Pina re-turned to Lisbon a devoted adherent to the religion ofhis fathers. With Gomez Lobato, he emigrated to Bra-zil. Thence, after a short time, they went to Amsterdam,where both embraced Judaism. De Pina was henceforthknown as Reuel Jessurun; the other, who preserved thetradition that he was of priestly descent, adopted thename of Abraham Cohen Lobato. It is noteworthy thatthe unusual name of Reuel is still common in the Co-hen Lobato family.

Reuel Jessurun was henceforth an active worker inthe Amsterdam community. He became a prominentmember of the earliest congregation, K. K. Beth Ja‘acob;was one of the persons responsible for drawing up thefirst regulations of the burial-ground; and is recordedamong the earliest presidents of the Talmud Torah, thefamous educational establishment of Amsterdam Jew-ry. His considerable literary gifts were henceforth devot-ed to his own people. In 1624, he composed in Portu-guese his famous Dialogo de los Montes, consisting of apoetical discussion between the seven principal moun-tains of Palestine in honor of the faith of Israel. This wasperformed in the Amsterdam synagogue on Pentecost bya number of youths: Isaac Cohen Lobato—probably ason of Diego Gomez Lobato—taking the part of MountZion. The work was published only in 1767, being ded-icated to David de Aaron Jessurun, presumably a de-scendant of the author.

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Reuel Jessurun had a daughter, Sarah. She becamethe wife of Moses Gideon Abudiente, of Lisbon, who hadembraced Judaism at Amsterdam and subsequentlymigrated to Hamburg. Here he became known as agrammarian, poet, and theologian, a couple of his workshaving been published in his lifetime. Their son, namedReuel after his grandfather, settled first in Boston, thenin the West Indies, and finally in London, where he wasknown as Rowland Gideon. Here, in 1699, was born hisson Sampson. The latter inherited some of the literarygifts of his ancestors, contributing a graceful commend-atory poem in English to one of the local publications.But he devoted his main attention to more mundanematters. Entering the West India trade, he prosperedexceedingly. Within a few years he was recognized asone of the wealthiest merchants in the city of London,and the most active of the twelve “Jew Brokers” thenofficially authorized. At the time of the “South SeaBubble” he was one of the few persons in the countryto keep his head; and he is said to have advised Wal-pole in the steps taken at this time to cope with thecrisis and to restore public credit. During the JacobiteRebellion in favor of the Young Pretender in 1745, hethrew his influence whole-heartedly on the side of theHanoverian dynasty, and was largely responsible forthe maintenance of the financial stability of the Treas-ury. In this and the following years, he raised loans forthe government to the total value of millions of poundssterling. He was popularly thought to be the person re-sponsible for the abortive Jewish Naturalization Billof 1753. Its failure and repeal convinced him of the im-possibility of establishing his position as an English


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gentleman while still a Jew. Accordingly, he resigned hismembership of the synagogue (to which he continued tocontribute clandestinely): already his children were be-ing brought up as Christians. On his death in 1762, heleft over half a million pounds. In his will was found tobe included a legacy of £1,000 to the Spanish and Por-tuguese community, conditional upon his being buriedin the congregational cemetery. It was accepted; and, inthe synagogue which he once attended, the soul of Samp-son Gideon is still commemorated annually upon the eveof the Day of Atonement.

Sampson Gideon’s eldest son, called after his father,was baptized in childhood, educated at Eton, created abaronet while still at school, and finally married thedaughter of Chief Justice Sir John Eardley Wilmot,whose name he assumed. In 1789 he was raised to thepeerage under the title of Baron Eardley. His father’sdream of founding a landed family, for which he hadgiven up so much, was not destined to be fulfilled, asall of Lord Eardley’s sons predeceased him. However,one of his daughters married Lord Saye and Sele, herson succeeding to the title. Another became the wife ofColonel Childers of the Light Dragoons. One of the lat-ter’s granddaughters married Lord Auckland; whileamong the other descendants of the match was H. C.E. Childers, Gladstone’s Chancellor of the Exchequer.It is interesting to speculate what amount of the latter’sfinancial ability he owed to his ancestor, Sampson Gide-on Abudiente, the famous “Jew Broker” of his age. Onhis death, the headship of the family devolved upon MissRowlanda Childers, whose first name recalls the bibli-cal Reuel which her ancestor, Paul de Pina, assumed

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when, under the influence of Elijah Montalto, he em-braced Judaism.7

One more instance, less dramatic though no less char-acteristic. The Bernal family was one of some impor-tance in Marrano annals. Mestre Bernal, as we haveseen, was physician to Christopher Columbus on hisepoch-making voyage; Abraham Nuñez Bernal, andIsaac (Marco) de Almeyda Bernal, burned by the Span-ish Inquisition in 1655, had been among the out-standing martyrs of the seventeenth century, their kins-man Jacob Bernal editing the memorial volume pub-lished in Amsterdam in their honor. One branch of thefamily emigrated to London. Here in 1744, Jacob Is-rael Bernal was elected Gabbai, or treasurer of the com-munity. In the following year, he desired to marry atudesca—a member of the despised German and Polishcommunity. The idea of the contamination of hishidalgo blood in this manner shocked his fellow-offi-cials. He had to resign his position, and consent wasgiven for the wedding ceremony only under the mosthumiliating conditions. Henceforth, his connection withthe community was less intimate; and it was not re-markable that his son, Jacob Israel Bernal, married outof the faith and left the community. The latter’s son,Ralph Bernal, was famous as an art-collector, and wasa prominent member of Parliament for a third of thenineteenth century. His son, in turn, married the daugh-ter of an Irish landowner, whose name he adopted inaddition to his own; and, as Mr. Bernal Osborne, wasdistinguished in Victorian society as a wit. Grace, hisdaughter, became the Duchess of St. Albans. Thus theblood of the Inquisitional martyrs, and of the despised


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tudesca, and of Charles Stuart, and of Nell Gwynne,became united in one of the foremost families of theBritish aristocracy.

Many are the family legends still current among thedescendants of the old Marrano families, in the NewWorld and in the Old, of hairbreadth escapes from theInquisition and extraordinary subsequent episodes. It isnot to be imagined that all are literally true; but theycontain at least a substratum of fact, and recall to asuperlative degree the romance of Marrano history. TheGomez family, of Bordeaux and New York, told howthey were descended from a Spanish aristocrat, whostood in high favor with the king. The latter, hearing thatthe Inquisition was contemplating his favorite’s arrestas a Judaizer, warned him with the enigmatical phrase:“Gomez, the onions begin to smell.” Gomez thereupontook the precaution of sending his family and much ofhis property to France; but he himself underwent im-prisonment for fourteen years before he could followthem into safety. The Da Silva Solis family, which sub-sequently made its mark in American life, used to re-count how an ancestress of theirs was immured in aconvent by her cruel stepmother, in order to secure thefamily titles and estates to her own children. The girlmanaged to make her escape, and fled to Amsterdam.Here she became converted to Judaism, and married aDa Silva Solis, who had befriended her on her first ar-rival. Some years later, a representative of the Spanishgovernment is said to have waited upon a descendantof this romantic match in London and to have offeredhim restitution of the high dignities and titles which thefamily had previously enjoyed if he would revert to

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Catholicism. On encountering a point-blank refusal, theastonished grandee exclaimed: “Do not be foolish; youare refusing one of the greatest dignities in Europe.”The other replied, with quiet dignity: “Not for thewhole of Europe would I change my faith—nor wouldmy little son here, either;” and he placed his hand onthe head of a small boy playing about the room, whoused to recount the tale to his grandchildren in afteryears. Abraham Mendes Seixas (grandfather of Ger-shom Mendes Seixas, “the patriot Jewish minister of theAmerican revolution”) was said in family legend tohave been smuggled out of his house, when the famil-iars of the Inquisition came to arrest him, under a pileof washing in a large pannier, which a family retainerof gigantic strength carried on his back on board anEnglish ship.8

The intellectual importance of the Marrano fugitivesfrom the Peninsula was not confined to the first genera-tion. It is, indeed, difficult to point to any branch ofhuman activity in which their descendants did not windistinction. Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield,used to recount how the founder of his family was aMarrano refugee, who adopted his distinctive name ingratitude to the God of Israel for his escape. This ap-pears to have been a typical piece of hyperbole on thepart of the great statesman; but the fact remains that,in the female line, he was descended from the great NewChristian houses of Aboab, Cardoso and Villareal. Ben-edict Spinoza belonged to a Marrano family establishedin Holland no more than a single generation. CesareLombroso, the founder of the science of criminology,appears to have been descended from a family of simi-


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lar origin settled at Verona. To these names may beadded those of General Juan (Isaac) de Sola, ofCuração, a notable soldier of the War of Liberation inVenezuela; Benjamin Peixotto, the American diplomat;David Ricardo and Nassau Senior, the eminent econ-omists; Olinde Rodrigues, the companion of St. Simonand one of the fathers of modern Socialism; Georgesde Porto-Riche, the eminent French dramatist; DavidBelasco and Arthur Wing Pinero, his English counter-part; Charles Fustado and Isidore de Lara, both emi-nent musicians; Henrietta Hertz (née de Lemos), theGerman beauty and leader of a salon; Joseph Samu-da, builder of the first armor-plated warships used inthe British Navy; Texeira de Mattos, the English lit-terateur, and Isaac da Costa, the Dutch poet; Ameri-can patriots like Daniel (Francis) Salvador, scalped inCarolina, or Major Benjamin Nones; actors like Jacobde Castro and actresses like Teresa Furtado; financiersand philanthropists like the French house of Péreireand the English house of Mocatta; jurists like theAmerican Benjamin N. Cardozo; even heroes of theprize-ring, like the brothers Belasco and Daniel Men-doza. The foregoing are only a few names which cometo the mind at random; but the list could be extendedalmost indefinitely.

As for the Marrano influence in the intellectual lifeof the Peninsula, it is not so easy to tell. On the one hand,there can be few families in whose veins there runs noJewish blood at all; on the other, except in those caseswhere the facts were made clear by condemnation or byflight, there is no means of identifying those whoseMarrano affiliations were closer. Nevertheless, there can

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be no doubt that the element is very strong indeed.Guerra Junqueiro, the most eminent Portuguese poet ofrecent times, was known to be of New Christian descent,and looked like one of Rembrandt’s Rabbis. Camillo deCastello Branco, the Portuguese Scott, showed in hiswritings that he had strong pro-Jewish sympathies; butit is only recently that it has been discovered that he wasof Jewish blood. As recently as 1924, a Portuguese writerpublished a work in which he endeavored to demon-strate that all the prominent figures in the country, inany line of activity, with whose opinions he disagreed(and there were not many who did not fall into thiscategory), belonged to New Christian families. As far asSpain goes, recollections are less distinct. It has howev-er been stated that both the Premier, the Minister ofJustice and the Minister of the Interior, in the revo-lutionary government of 1931, were of Jewish descent.

It is customary to speak of the Expulsion of the Jewsas having proved a fatal blow to Spanish greatness. This,of course, is an indubitable exaggeration. The most glo-rious age of Spanish history—the era of the Conquestof America, of the Conquistadores, of the Great Captain,of Velasquez, of Cervantes—came when there were noprofessing Jews left in the country. Similarly, in Portu-gal, the period when the great colonial Empire was builtup, when Manoelline architecture flourished, when GilVincente and Camões penned their immortal works, wassubsequent to the forced conversion of 1497. It remainsa matter for speculation what proportion of those towhom was due the greatness of the two countries hadJewish blood in their veins, how far that Jewish bloodcontributed to their achievements, and how much great-


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er progress might have been realized had the Jews, as abody, been able to collaborate in it. Notwithstanding allthis, it must be recognized that the decline of Spain andPortugal began a considerable time after the Expulsionfrom the two countries. On the other hand, when it tookplace, it was with a rapidity and a thoroughness perhapsunexampled in history. For this, the Inquisition cannotbe held blameless. It was prompted by truly religious,though assuredly mistaken, motives. It was not withoutits better, and even beneficent, side. Nevertheless, throughmany generations, it was systematically engaged in crush-ing out that freedom of thought without which no civili-zation can progress and no country hold its own. Its meth-od of activity was calculated to cause frequent commer-cial upheavals and to undermine the sense of stabilityessential for economic welfare. In addition, it set itselfto carry on a vendetta against one class of the popula-tion—the New Christians—peculiarly possessed of theintellectual qualities which make for progress. Thou-sands of them were burned; tens of thousands wereforced to emigrate; a greater proportion still were led tostifle their natural inclinations. Over a period of centu-ries, it systematically deprived the Peninsula of some ofits best intellects. Under such circumstances, progress isinconceivable. The wonder is, perhaps, that the Span-ish and Portuguese kingdoms were able to maintain asemblance of their former greatness for so long.

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CHAPTER XIII

THE LITERATURE OF THE MARRANOS*

UP TO a certain extent, the Marranos may be con-sidered the originators of vernacular literature amongthe Jews. Of course, throughout medieval Europe, as inthe classical world, the language of the country had uni-versally been spoken in the home, but it had undergonecertain inevitable dialectical modifications. Moreover, forliterary compositions, the Hebrew tongue had been pre-ferred; it monopolized attention in the schools; and,when it was necessary to write the language of the coun-try for the benefit of the less erudite, it was universallytransliterated into Hebrew characters. Thus a whole lit-erature arose in Judeo-German, Judeo-Spanish, andeven Judeo-French and Judeo-Italian.1 The incongruityof these dialects became even more striking when (as inthe two former cases) those speaking them were driveninto exile, continuing to cherish them in places far dis-tant from their original homes and among peoples of acompletely different culture. With the forcible con-version of the Marranos, a different situation arose. Afresh generation grew to manhood, educated in the full-est cultural tradition of the Peninsula, and entirely ig-norant of the tongue of their fathers. When they escapedto countries of greater tolerance, where they were able

* I wish to record my thanks to Professor Alexander Marx for re-vising this chapter in the light of his vast bibliographical knowledge.


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to return publicly to Judaism, they began to study thetraditional language of prayer from the beginning. In themeanwhile, they had to have recourse to translations.Sometimes, even, the old phenomenon was reversed, andthe Hebrew liturgy was transliterated into Latin char-acters for their benefit, this being the case in at least onecomplete manuscript now extant as well as many scat-tered fragments.

From generation to generation, in the fogs of London,the marshes of Holland, or even the wastes of Man-hattan, knowledge of the Spanish and Portuguesetongues was piously handed down. The former, spokenby the descendants of the exiles of 1492 in the Levant,the source and home of traditional lore, was regardedas something more of a sacred tongue, as well as be-ing more polished; and it was used, besides, as the inter-national medium of communication with itinerantscholars or merchants. The latter, the mother-languageof the majority of the fugitives, tended to be used to agreater extent in private life and for less formal pur-poses. Down to the beginning of the nineteenth centu-ry, by which time these languages had become fully asunfamiliar as Hebrew itself, all communal business wasconducted in the one or the other: the minutes of thegoverning body were written, its regulations were pub-lished, proclamations were made, sermons were deliv-ered. It was only in 1735 that English began to figureon the curriculum of the public school of the Londoncommunity; while at least at Amsterdam, Portugueseremained a principal item on the syllabus until the nine-teenth century was well advanced. Even down to thepresent day, in the Sephardic synagogues of London and

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New York, Amsterdam and Bordeaux, little snatches ofSpanish and Portuguese remain embedded in the serv-ice to remind the congregation of the land from whichthe founders of the community originated and the vi-cissitudes through which they passed.

The earliest home of Marrano literature was Ferra-ra. Here, the first press for the production of Spanishand Portuguese works for the use of Jews was set up,at the beginning of the second half of the sixteenth cen-tury. In the course of the next decade, several transla-tions as well as one or two original works appeared here.Towards the end of the century, the center removed toVenice, at that time the home of Hebrew publishing,which retained the supremacy for a short period. Afterthe settlement of the Marranos in the Netherlands, thehegemony passed thither. In 1612 appeared the firstSpanish work to be published at Amsterdam. This citywas henceforth the seat of publication of this sort of lit-erature, producing many hundreds of volumes, over aperiod of more than two centuries. Hamburg, Leghorn,and, later, London were minor centers; while a fewworks appeared at Frankfort, Florence, the Hague, Pisa,Bayonne, etc. One or two similarly were printed amongstthe vast mass in Ladino (or Spanish in Hebrew char-acters) in the Levant, at Smyrna or at Salonica. Worksby Marrano authors, without any specific Jewish char-acter, were also published in Naples, Antwerp, Rouen,and elsewhere. It is not surprising, in these circum-stances, that occasionally the authors had to apologizefor the printing errors which had crept into their works,owing to the fact that the composition was done bypersons imperfectly acquainted with the language.


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Thus the environment for this exotic literature wasmaintained. It was not, to be sure, confined to religiousor liturgical use. Forcibly assimilated as they were toEuropean standards, and counting in their ranks litter-ateurs of the utmost eminence, the intellectual horizonsof the Marranos were by no means bounded by the tra-ditional “four cubits” of rabbinic lore. Accordingly, in thecolonies of the new Diaspora, there flourished a literarylife hardly inferior in brilliance or in comprehensivenessto that of Lisbon or of Madrid itself. Poetry and dra-ma, history and science, theology and philosophy, werecultivated with sublime impartiality. Among the produc-tions were some of more than ordinary literary merit.One of the earliest of all was that stately prose-poem bySamuel Usque, Consolaçam ás Tribulaçoës de Israel,published at Ferrara in 1553. This magnificent work,one of our main sources for the history of the period,reaches its climax in a tirade against the PortugueseInquisition, from which the author was himself a fugi-tive. It is now regarded as a classic of Portuguese liter-ature of the period, and studied as such in the schoolsof the country from which the author had been forcedto flee for his life.

Naturally, the first requirement of the Marranos wasa translation of the Bible. This was therefore among theearliest products of the Ferrara press, where one basedupon the old traditional rendering current among Span-ish Jews, literal to a degree, appeared in the same yearas the work just mentioned. It was published in twoeditions, virtually identical. The one, intended for Chris-tian eyes, was dedicated to the Duke of Ferrara, borethe date 1553, and purported to have been produced by



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Duarte Pinel at the expense of Jeronimo de Vargas. Theother, which was for the Jews, was inscribed to DonaGracia Mendes, contained a list of the Haftarot (Prophet-ical lessons), gave the year according to the era of theCreation, and furnished the editor and publisher withtheir Jewish names, Abraham Usque and Yom-Tob Ath-ias, instead of the Marrano counterparts. This editionbecame classical. It was repeatedly republished, in fullor in separate books, for many years to come. Frequentre-issues appeared at Amsterdam; and subsequent re-vised editions were invariably based upon it. It was fromthe Ferrara Bible that successive generations of theMarranos re-learned their Judaism.

The earliest printed translation of the prayer book intoany language published in Latin characters was simi-larly that issued by Yom-Tob Athias at Ferrara in 1552and the following years, being the first of a long series.Among the subsequent editions may be mentioned onewhich was published furtively in 1584 with the imprintMaguntia (Mayence), but was probably printed actual-ly at Dordrecht, and was no doubt intended to serve theneeds of the crypto-Jewish community at Antwerp; an-other edited by Menasseh ben Israel, which enjoyedconsiderable vogue; and finally, a new version by IsaacNieto, spiritual leader of the community of London. Atthe time of the Pseudo-Messianic movement of 1666,associated with the name of Sabbatai Zevi, large num-bers of special compilations in Spanish as well as inHebrew poured from the press. In the case of these li-turgical or biblical translations, it was exceptional forthe text to be accompanied by the Hebrew original. Thiswas not due merely to typographical exigencies; for in


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some of the earliest Venice editions the difficulties wereovercome. The reason was quite different. They wereintended essentially for the Marranos who had beenbrought up in ignorance of the traditional language ofprayer. On their first arrival, a Hebrew text would havebeen useless; afterwards, it was hoped, the Spanish onewould be superfluous. The only compromise made wasto transliterate passages from certain of the more impor-tant prayers or hymns into Latin characters, so that eventhe most ignorant could join with the congregation atthese points.

For a prolonged period, it was considered little lessthan sacrilege to render the Hebrew prayer book intothe actual vernacular of the country, as distinct from theSpanish hallowed by long association. Thus, the firstpublished Dutch translation dates from late in the eight-eenth century, nearly two centuries after the settlementof the first Marranos in Amsterdam. The earliest Eng-lish version, published by Isaac Pinto in 1761–1766,appeared in distant New York, since (according to re-port) the Mahamad would not allow so undignified aproduction to appear in England.2

These liturgical and biblical translations, being of asacred or semi-sacred character, and following moreo-ver very closely upon the model set by their prototypes,were all in Spanish. For other publications, not of soessentially traditional a nature, Portuguese was used toan increasing extent. In the one language or the other,works appeared in a never-ending stream from the press-es of London, Amsterdam, or Leghorn until the nine-teenth century was well advanced: sermons, ethical trea-tises, handbooks of Jewish law and practice, calendars,



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polemical compositions, Purim-plays, dramas, epics, ele-gies, complimentary addresses, synagogal laws, regu-lations of various organizations, and all manner of otherliterature. There were Jewish publishers, and Jewishbooksellers, whose main interest was in Spanish works.As late as 1821, the regulations of the Society for Dower-ing the Brides at Leghorn were re-issued in Portuguese— the last work, possibly, of the whole long series. Amongthe interminable series of published sermons, a completelist of which would fill a whole volume, particular inter-est is attached to one preached at Amsterdam by Samu-el Mendes de Solia, later Rabbi at Curação, to celebratethe safe arrival from Spain of his mother and two broth-ers. The little work contains a ‘Eulogy’ of Haham Dav-id Israel Athias, who had with his family made a similarescape from the clutches of the Inquisition.

A branch of literature which flourished especiallyamongst the Marranos was that of polemics. Each ofthem, it may be said, had known an acute internal con-flict before he decided to abandon Catholicism in fa-vor of Judaism. It was inevitable that they should haveattempted in many cases to set down the argumentswhich had determined them, in the hopes of influenc-ing others to take the same step, or of confuting theiropponents. They were moreover familiar with Catho-lic literature—more so, in many cases, than they werewith the traditional Jewish lore. They thus possessedall the necessary intellectual equipment; and in the freeatmosphere they were able to write what they pleasedwithout any misgivings. Hence a whole literature grewup, calculated to persuade wavering Marranos or tovanquish Christian objections.3 Immanuel Aboab wrote


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his erudite Nomologia, a vindication of Jewish tradition.Elijah Montalto composed an acute examination of theMessianic prophecies in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah.Saul Levi Mortara, the latter’s pupil and former factotum,wrote The Providence of God with Israel, as well as adefence of the Talmud. Isaac Orobio de Castro, as we haveseen, produced a whole series of works in defence of hisnew faith. Lorenzo Escudero of Cordova (apparently anOld Christian, who adopted Judaism under the name ofAbraham Guer or Peregrino, and whose political activityin the Peninsula was a thorn in the flesh of the Spanishgovernment) composed the Strength of Judaism and Con-fusion of the Stranger, subsequently translated into Hebrew.David Nieto, Rabbi in London, skillfully championed theOral Law. Isaac, or Fernando, Cardoso, formerly CourtPhysician to Philip IV at Madrid, and equally distinguishedas a scientist and as a philosopher, who had settled as aprofessing Jew at Verona, was the author of The Excellen-cies of the Hebrews—one of the most impressive apologiesfor Judaism and the Jews that has ever been written. Thisis only a very small selection out of the large literature onthe subject which exists.4

Inevitably, the literature of the Marranos bore stronglythe imprint of their sufferings. The poems and sermonson the victims of the Inquisition were sometimes print-ed, as permanent records. In 1626, David AbenatarMelo, who had lived at Madrid and had passed severalyears in the dungeons of the Holy Office, published atFrankfort a translation of the Psalms into Spanish verse.He dedicated it to “The Blessed God and the Holy Com-pany of Israel and Judah, scattered through the world:”



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and the prologue contains a detailed account of his suf-ferings. The work itself is more of a paraphrase than atranslation, and no opportunity is lost of introducingallusions to current events. Thus that well-known verseof the thirtieth psalm, “O Lord, Thou hast brought upmy soul from the grave; Thou hast kept me alive, thatI should not go down to the pit,” is rendered:—

“Doomed in the depths to dwellOf the Inquisition’s Hell,

At those fierce lions’ hard arbitrement,Thou hast redeemed me,Healed all my misery,

For Thou didst see how deeply I repent”5

Another well-known poet, whose work similarly ech-oes his sufferings, was Daniel Israel Lopez Laguna. Bornin Portugal in the second half of the seventeenth centu-ry, he was taken while still in his youth to France, wherehe lived at Peyrehorade. Subsequently, he returned to thePeninsula, in order to study at some Spanish university.Like Abenatar, he fell under the suspicions of the Inqui-sition, and was imprisoned for a considerable time. Onhis release, he settled in Jamaica, where he publicly pro-fessed Judaism. His life-work was a translation of thePsalms of David into Spanish, in a variety of metricalforms. This he had planned while in prison, and it occu-pied twenty-three years of his life. It was printed in Lon-don in 1720, under the title Espejo Fiel de Vidas (“Faith-ful Mirror of Life”), at the expense of the affluent Mor-decai Nuñes de Almeida. A score of local litterateurs ofeither sex wrote commendatory verses, in Hebrew, Lat-in, Spanish, or Portuguese, and even English, which are


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prefaced to the work and demonstrate the vitality of lo-cal intellectual life. Like Abenatar’s version, this is repletewith current allusions. Thus Psalm 10.2 (“The wicked inhis pride doth persecute the poor”) becomes: —

The wicked prosper: and their terrors fallUpon the just, arraignèd in the HallOf that sad Court, which dastards ‘Holy’ call.”

David Nieto, the erudite Rabbi of London, in his mas-terly polemic on behalf of Jewish tradition, the MattehDan (which he published in both Hebrew and Spanish),goes out of his way to include the following reference tocontemporary conditions (Book IV, § 164):—

“. . . Come and see the advantage enjoyed by the Saintwho renders up his soul for the sanctification of theDivine Name, serving God with all his soul—‘eventhough He takes away his soul’: and, although he maysuffer terrible tortures at his death, he yet accepts themwith joy and contentment . . . Thus, at the present day,is the case with our brethren and kinsfolk in Spain andPortugal. For they know that, besides receiving there-by pardon for their sins, their souls are left pure likethose of angels and of seraphs, and they will enjoy per-petually infinite good and rejoicing . . . Can this be calledEvil, and Death? or Good, and Life?”

There was on the other hand nothing essentially Jew-ish, or even essentially religious, about some of thepublications which appeared in the centers of the Mar-rano Diaspora, except as regards the public to whichthey catered. Frequently, complimentary verses ap-peared in honor of some political celebrity or some Eu-



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ropean potentate, in whom Jewish sympathies wereentirely lacking. Solomon Usque (Salusque Lusitano),who lived in Italy in the second half of the sixteenthcentury, a kinsman of the author of the Consolaçam ásTribulaçoës de Israel, translated Petrarch into polishedSpanish verse and wrote a play based upon the storyof Esther as well as Italian poetry. One of the Meldolafamily published a Portuguese grammar and book ofcommercial correspondence. As late as 1816, a Portu-guese reading book was issued for the use of the schoolof the Amsterdam community. In 1726, a collection ofSpanish comedies, mainly on biblical subjects but inbarely a single case by a Jewish author, was publishedat Amsterdam, being dedicated to Don Manuel Xi-menes, Baron de Belmonte. Similarly, in 1688, a vol-ume of old Spanish romances or ballads saw the lightin the same place. The oldest Jewish newspaper onrecord is the Gazeta de Amsterdam, which appearedfrom 1675 to 1690 in Spanish for the benefit of therefugees in the Low Countries, though news of Jewishinterest was conspicuous in it by its absence. It is im-possible to give any account of the innumerable med-ical works by Marrano physicians which appearedthroughout this period (largely in Latin, but occasion-ally in Spanish), some of which became standard worksof reference.

Besides the works published by the Marranos aftertheir return to Judaism, mainly in northern Europe,there were a few which lay on the border-line, beingwritten in exile subsequent to their escape from thePeninsula, though before formal reversion to their ances-tral faith. Many of these indicated the state of mind in


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which they were written by their choice of subject. ThusJoão (Moses) Pinto Delgado, the leader of the crypto-Jewish community at Rouen, issued in that city in 1627an exquisite poetical version of the books of Esther,Ruth, and Lamentations, dedicated to the CardinalRichelieu but showing clear indications of the religioustendencies of the author. Similarly, Miguel de Silveyra,an encyclopedic scholar, and relative of Thomas de Pine-do, gave scant indication of his inclination to Judaismsave in his somewhat ambiguous poem The Maccabee,published at Naples in 1638. Many of the works of thefamous playwright, Antonio Enriquez Gomez (EnriqueEnriquez de Paz), were printed at Rouen and elsewhereafter he had left Spain: among them, an epic on Sam-son (Rouen, 1656) is worthy of mention. His son, DiegoEnriquez Basurto, published in the same place in 1649a poem based upon the book of Job, which he dedicat-ed to the Queen Mother.6

The Poet Laureate of the Amsterdam community wasMiguel, or Daniel Levi, de Barrios. His career, apartfrom his writings, deserves a moment’s attention. Hewas born about 1625 at Montilla in Spain of Portugueseparents who had emigrated in order to avoid the perse-cutions of the Inquisition. Ultimately, the whole familyleft the Peninsula—the parents for Algiers, and the sonfor Italy. Here he resided successively at Nice and atLeghorn, where an aunt persuaded him to declare hisallegiance to Judaism. Shortly after, he married his kins-woman, Deborah Vaez. In 1660, the young couple joinedthe colonizing expedition to America which sailed fromLeghorn on July 20. Their sufferings during the jour-ney through lack of drinking-water have been eloquently



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described by the poet in one of his works. Shortly afterhis arrival at Tobago, his young wife died. Barrios, bro-ken-hearted, returned to Europe. He now seems to haveconcealed the fact of his recent conversion. Going toBrussels, he entered the Spanish service, and rose to therank of Captain. He had ample opportunity to indulgehis poetical gifts. He wrote several comedies, and vers-es galore, dedicated to any person of eminence withwhom he might have been brought into contact. To thisperiod belongs his Flor de Apolo (Brussels, 1663) and hisCoro de las Musas (Brussels, 1672)—a series of poemsin honor of the principal cities and princes of Europe,preceded by a panegyric of Charles II of England. Dur-ing all this time, his Jewish interests do not seem tohave been marked, though he paid periodic visits toAmsterdam, where he married his second wife andwhere his son Simon (subsequently to be distinguishedlikewise as a poet) was born. He was however pro-foundly influenced by the mystical tendencies set looseas a result of the activities of the impostor, SabbataiZevi. In 1674 he left the Spanish service and settled atAmsterdam. For a time, he seems to have becomementally unbalanced, confidently expecting the com-ing of the Messiah on the approaching New Year’s Day,and submitting himself to fantastic austerities to pro-mote that happy consummation. After his disillusion-ment, he continued to live in Holland, earning a scantyliving by writing eulogistic verses on all of the commu-nal magnates. Besides his major works, he published avery considerable number of smaller effusions. Hardlya single death or marriage took place in any of the moreimportant families that was not either celebrated or


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deplored by his facile pen, which was suitably, if notalways adequately, rewarded. He described, in prose andin verse, the glories of the Amsterdam community—itsacademies, its institutions, its charities, its scholars, itslitterateurs. He directed three Epistles to the Holy Con-gregation of London. He composed a Royal History ofGreat Britain—in the same year, unfortunately for theauthor, as the Glorious Revolution which drove out theStuarts, for whom it was intended. He celebrated Inqui-sitional victims in pathetic verses. And, when he died,lines from his own pen marked the spot where he waslaid to rest.

Apart from De Barrios, the army provided a sur-prisingly large quota of authors. Nicolas de Oliver yFullana was a native of Majorca, of considerable erudi-tion, who had embraced a military career. He wrote inthree languages, was a competent poetaster, interestedhimself largely in cosmographical works, and rose to therank of Sergeant Major in Catalonia. Ultimately he wastransferred to Flanders, rising to the rank of Colonel andserving with distinction in the wars against France. Atthis period, he declared himself a Jew and was circum-cised, assuming the name of Daniel Judah; and he mar-ried as his second wife the gifted Marrano poetess, Isa-bella de Correa. He continued his scientific interests,collaborated in editing one of the great atlases of theperiod, and was appointed Cosmographer Royal by theKing of Spain. At one time, another distinguished Mar-rano acted as his adjutant; this was Captain JosephSemah Arias, who translated Josephus’ Contra Apioneminto Spanish and published it under the auspices of theJewish community. Captain Moses Cohen Peixotto, who



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had distinguished himself in the wars in Brazil, wasamong the poets who wrote elegies in honor of the mar-tyrdom of Abraham Nuñez Bernal.

The breadth of the literature of the Marranos, and theversatility of the environment in which it flourished, isillustrated by nothing so well as by the career and thewritings of Joseph Penso de la Vega. His father, IsaacPenso Felix, a native of Espejo, was arrested by theInquisition early in the second half of the seventeenthcentury. While in prison, in danger of his life, he madea vow that, if he escaped, he would embrace Judaismopenly within one year. After much suffering, he wasreleased. He took the first opportunity to flee to Ant-werp, whence he made his way to Amsterdam. On theday of his arrival on the free soil of Holland, at Mid-dleburg, he was received into the Abrahamic covenant.His wife, Esther de la Vega, had accompanied him inhis flight, together with other members of the family.Their eldest son, Joseph Penso de la Vega, who had beenborn at Espejo in 1650, displayed extraordinary literaryability. At the age of seventeen, he composed a play,Assire ha-Tikvah, which is among the earliest specimensof the Hebrew drama. He was a prominent member ofthe various literary academies of the time, and a favoritespeaker at their meetings. He was interested in politics,composing more than two hundred epistles addressedto various statesmen all over Europe. In his Triumphosdel Aguila, he celebrated the relief of Vienna by JohnSobieski. In his Retrato de la Prudencia, he eulogizedthe wisdom and valor displayed by William of Orangein mounting the throne of England. His Rumbos Peli-grosos are reckoned by critics among the finest exam-


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ples of the Spanish short story of the period. Particularlyoutstanding is his Confusion de Confusiones, publishedat Amsterdam in 1688. This is the first work to treat ofthe business and methods of the Stock Exchange in allits branches, and has been characterized as being still,to the present day, the best description, both in form andsubstance, of dealings in stocks and shares. Joseph Pensode la Vega died in 1692, when he was little more thanforty years of age. The measure of the loss caused toSpanish literature by his forced expatriation is not eas-ily to be estimated.

Intellectual life in the Marrano Diaspora was centeredto some extent about the literary academies, so char-acteristic of the period, which flourished in Holland andin Italy as they did on their native soil of Spain. In these,cultured men and women came together to read and todiscuss their poetical effusions; and the stranger mighthave imagined himself transported back into the mostpolished literary circles of Madrid. The first of these so-cieties, the Academy of the Thirsty, or Academia de losSitibundos, was founded by the Baron Manuel de Bel-monte in 1676. Among its members were the poetessesIsabella Enriquez and Isabella (Rebecca) Correa—thetranslator of Guarini’s Pastor Fido into Spanish, and wifeof the gallant historian, Nicolas de Oliver y Fullana. Oneof the Arbiters was Doctor Isaac de Rocamora, the formerDominican friar; another was Isaac Gomez de Sossa, adistinguished poet both in Latin and in Spanish, whosefather, Abraham Gomez de Sossa, had been body-physi-cian to the Infant Ferdinand, Governor of the Low Coun-tries. This association was outdone in brilliance as wellas in fame by the Academia de los Floridos, founded in



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1685, similarly under Belmonte’s inspiration. Its Presidentwas that doughty polemist, Isaac Orobio de Castro; themantenedores, or Champions of the Poetic Art, includedthe versatile Daniel Levi de Barrios and Don Manuel deLara, of whom it was recounted that he brought morethan three hundred souls back to Judaism; the Secretarywas the poet and economist, Joseph Penso de la Vega, ofwhom we have just spoken; Moses Orobio de Castro, theson of the President, and an illustrious physician like him,was the Advocate; while among the members were menof eminence in every walk of life, such as Geronimo Nuñesda Costa, Portuguese representative in Holland; JosephJesurun Lobo, the Spanish Consul; Joseph Israel Alvar-ez, who enjoyed some reputation as an historian; andMoses Machado, the Purveyor-General to the Dutch forc-es, to whom William III wrote in appreciation of his serv-ices, that he had saved the State, “Vous avez sauvé l’état.”Another similar institution, named Academia de los Sit-ibundos, likewise existed contemporaneously at Leghorn,being founded by Joseph Penso de la Vega during his res-idence in that city, in imitation of the more famous bodyat Amsterdam. Other informal groups no doubt existedelsewhere. The “Discourses” delivered before these bod-ies were occasionally published, to the inevitable accom-paniment of laudatory sonnets.

By now, the courtly environment in which this trans-planted culture flourished with such extraordinary vig-or has entirely decayed. A whole literature consisting ofmany hundreds of volumes, however, remains; eagerlysought after by bibliophiles, and a standing record of thedamage which a suicidal intolerance inflicted upon theintellectual life of the Iberian Peninsula.


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CHAPTER XIV

THE DECLINE OF THE INQUISITION

IN the middle of the seventeenth century, both inSpain and in Portugal, the Inquisition appeared to beat the height of its power. It was one of the wealthiestand most influential corporations in the land. The tri-bunals were housed in magnificent palaces, construct-ed with the wealth that a long series of confiscations hadamassed. Ceremonious autos-da-fè were held at frequentintervals in all the principal cities of the Peninsula, vy-ing with bull-fights in popularity, and frequently gracedby the presence of royalty. For all that, it is obvious inretrospect that the first traces of decline were alreadyto be discerned. If the autos had gained in pomp, theyhad lost ground as far as numbers were concerned. Theimportance of the Judaizers was appreciably diminished.In Spain, as we have seen, Moslems had also been sub-ject to the Holy Office from 1525; and in the subsequentperiod an increasing number of Protestants and otherheretics fell under its scope. The native Marrano tradi-tion had by now almost entirely died out, so that themain attention for some time past had been devoted toimmigrants from Portugal. Here, too, conditions hadbeen altering. As in Spain, though to a minor degree, theexclusive preoccupation of the Holy Office with Judaiz-ers had somewhat lessened in the course of time. Theforce of Marranism had been weakening partly owingto ignorance, partly to assimilation, and partly to the


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protracted emigration which had drained the country ofits ablest brains.

The restoration of the House of Braganza, in whichthe New Christians had participated to a notable extent,marked the beginning of the decline of the Inquisition,which had attained its greatest influence under Span-ish rule. The new King, João IV, was reported (proba-bly unfoundedly) to be willing to allow freedom of con-science in the country, and certainly attempted to mod-ify the rigor of the Inquisitional procedure. He wasforced to forego this owing to the impossibility of ob-taining confirmation from Rome; but he was able for ashort time to suspend the sequestration of the propertyof persons accused. Meanwhile, the Inquisition had con-tinued its activity with apparently unabated zeal; and,as a matter of policy, the King and his family had at-tended a series of autos held at Lisbon, in 1642 and 1645.In 1652 the poet-statesman, Manuel Fernandez Villare-al, was relaxed, notwithstanding the favor which heenjoyed at Court. On June 23, 1663, an auto with onehundred and forty-two penitents was held at Evora, inspite or perhaps because of the fact that Don John ofAustria was occupying the city with a hostile Spanishforce. From 1651 to 1673, in the three tribunals of thekingdom, no fewer than 184 persons were relaxed inperson and 59 in effigy, while 4793 were penanced.

In 1663, Duarte da Silva, who had been reconciledeleven years earlier, brought forward from his refuge inLondon proposals for the amelioration of the positionof the New Christians (including, it was reported, thoughwith obvious exaggeration, the establishment of an opensynagogue) in return for which he promised the govern-


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ment considerable subsidies in men and ships. DomFrancisco de Mello, the eminent Portuguese statesmanand man of letters (himself apparently of Marrano birth),threw the weight of his influence into the scales in favorof these concessions. They were viewed sympatheticallyby the Court; and the refugees, in London and elsewhere,were looking forward eagerly to hearing the good tidingsof the release of their imprisoned kinsmen. Before longthe rumor reached the ears of the Pope, who protestedvigorously, and with complete success. On the death ofJoão IV, in 1656, the Inquisition set about collecting thearrears of confiscations of which it had been deprivedduring the last half-dozen years. Within the next quarterof a century, the total reached twenty-five millions, ofwhich not more than one-fiftieth found its way to theroyal treasury. In 1671, a pyx with a consecrated host wasstolen from the church of Orivellas in Lisbon. A greatcommotion was caused throughout the country. TheCourt put on mourning. An edict was actually signedbanishing all New Christians (whose guilt was naturallyassumed) from the country. Before this could be put intoexecution a common thief was arrested near Coimbra,with the stolen article in his possession. Fortunately, noJewish blood was traceable in his veins; and, though hewas burned, the New Christians were saved.

By this time, a ray of hope had burst through theclouds. An interregnum in the office of Grand Inquisi-tor from 1653 to 1672, though it did not bring about anydecrease in the activity of the Tribunal, sensibly lessenedits authority. Meanwhile, arms had been taken up onbehalf of the New Christians by no less a person thanAntonio Vieira, the distinguished Jesuit, who had earned

DECLINE OF THE INQUISITION


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the name of the Apostle of Brazil. He had urged JoãoIV to abolish confiscations and to remove the differenceswhich still obtained between New and Old Christians.His freedom of opinion brought upon him the enmityof the Inquisition. After a three years’ imprisonment(1665–1667), his writings were condemned, and he wasformally penanced. His experience of the horrors of theHoly Office increased his sympathy for the oppressed.He transferred himself to Rome, where, at the citadelof Christianity, he assailed the Portuguese Inquisition asan unholy tribunal, inspired more by greed than by pi-ety, condemning the innocent as frequently as the guilty,and inimical to all the best interests of Christianity.

The Society of Jesus, resenting the treatment whichone of the most distinguished of its members had re-ceived, espoused his cause. Heartened by the turn whichevents were taking, the New Christians appealed to theCrown for certain definite reforms, including the freepardon of those persons then under trial and the modifi-cation of the Inquisitional procedure by the adoption ofthe more humane forms customary in Rome. In returnfor these concessions, moderate though they appeared,they offered to pay annually 20,000 cruzados, to main-tain 4,000 troops in India, and to send out each year 1200reinforcements, with an additional 300 in time of war.The Inquisition protested strenuously against the con-sideration of this appeal. Nevertheless, it was support-ed by many of the greatest magnates of the kingdom,including the faculty of the University of Coimbra andthe Archbishop of Lisbon himself. It was accordinglyapproved, and forwarded to Rome for authorization.Here, Francisco de Azeyedo, the representative of the


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New Christians, prepared in conjunction with Vieira ascathing indictment, from which it appeared that thePortuguese Inquisition was nothing but an instrumentof oppression, thriving upon blackmail, and preyingupon any person of New Christian blood. The latter, itwas alleged, were in truth nearly all fervent Catholics,who were either put to death as negativos for denyingJudaism or reconciled as a result of confessing it false-ly. After a prolonged struggle, the New Christians gainedthe day. On October 3, 1674, Pope Clement X suspend-ed the action of the Portuguese tribunals, evoking alloutstanding cases to Rome. Since the Inquisitors refusedcooperation in the subsequent inquiry, on the groundthat it would reveal the secrets of procedure, an inter-dict was pronounced upon them; and ultimately, on May27, 1679, they were suspended from office.

The respite was only momentary. On August 22, 1681,the suspension was removed, after a few unimportantreforms had been ordered. The resumption of activityin Portugal was celebrated by triumphant processionsand gala illuminations. In January of the following year,the first auto-da-fè since the Interdict was held atCoimbra. It was outdone a few months later at Lisbon,where, on May 10, four persons were burned—three ofthem alive, as impenitent. The latter included an ad-vocate of Aviz, Miguel Henriques (Isaac) da Fonseca,who insisted that he should be called Misael Hisnequede Fungoça; Antonio de Aguiar, alias Aaron CohenFaya, of Lamunilla near Madrid; and Gaspar (Abra-ham) Lopez Pereira, who were mourned by the litter-ateurs of Amsterdam as martyrs. All told, nearly threehundred persons appeared in the autos at Lisbon, Evo-



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ra, and Coimbra at this period. The resumption of ac-tivity on the part of the last-named tribunal reachedits climax in the awful holocaust of November 25, 1696,when fourteen men and women were relaxed in personand five in effigy. The revival was signalized by an or-der of September 1683, banishing from the realm, withinthe impossible period of two months, all persons whohad been reconciled for Judaizing. They were, howev-er, to leave behind them all children up to seven yearsold until it was proved that they were living the livesof true Christians in their new homes. It was in part tothis measure, which was suspended only on the outbreakof war with France in 1704, that the rapid increase inthe communities of the Marrano Diaspora about thistime was due.1

Notwithstanding superficial appearances, the powerof the Inquisition was not so great as it had previouslybeen. The number of its victims from year to year,though still appalling, shows eloquently the change thathad come about. During the period 1651–1673, 184 per-sons had been burned in person by the three tribunalsof the country, while 59 had been relaxed in effigy and4793 had been penanced. From 1682 to 1700, despite theaccumulations of the period of the interdict, only 59suffered in person and 61 in effigy, while 1351 werepenanced. The yearly average was thus decreased bytwo-thirds. During the War of Spanish Succession, thereseems to have been a recrudescence of violence, par-ticularly at Lisbon—due, no doubt, to the prevalence ofwar-time passions. The numbers that appeared werereminiscent of the last century, the total rising on oneoccasion, in September 1706, to as many as 111, and on


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June 9, 1713, to 138. In spite of this, over the wholeperiod from 1701 to 1720 there was a further decreasein the number of capital punishments, only 37 beingrelaxed in person and 26 in effigy. Thus, in the courseof half a century, the average had gone down from morethan eight each year to less than two. The number ofpenanced in the same period rose to 2126, indicating thatthe change was in the temperament of the Inquisition,not in the strength of crypto-Judaism. At Evora, formany years after 1686, no relaxations in person tookplace at all; while in Coimbra, the last burnings werein 1718.

Subsequently, there was a recrudescence of activity,and the figures again rose; but they never reached theghastly totals of the first half of the previous century.Over a period of little more than forty years after 1721,139 individuals were relaxed in person. Thus the year-ly average of victims was nearly quadrupled as com-pared with the first two decades of the century, althoughthe total number of penitents was proportionately ratherless. The number of women who were punished wassurprisingly high, often far exceeding that of the men.2

But, as was subsequently to appear, this was a last de-spairing outburst of ferocity, which preceded final qui-escence. By this time the offence of Judaizing had ap-parently been almost crushed in the greater towns. Thecenter of activity was now the country districts, wherethe New Christians were relatively more numerous andwhere, it may be presumed, secrecy was more easy tomaintain. The vast proportion came from the northernprovinces of Beira and Tras-os-Montes, especially fromthe towns of Covilhã, Fundão, Idanha, Guarda, Lame-



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go, and Braganza. There was a minor center farthersouth in the northern part of Alentejo. In this region, itwas said, whole towns were deserted and prosperousindustries destroyed by reason of the activities of theHoly Office. It was a systematic war of extermination.In 1718, over fifty natives of Braganza appeared at asingle auto at Coimbra; and in succeeding years that citycontinued to provide nine-tenths of the total number ofvictims to the northern tribunal. In all, the names of noless than 805 persons from the city, and nearly 2000 fromthe district, figure in the records of those punished bythe Holy Office; yet the lists are by no means complete.At an auto held on May 25, 1737, at Lisbon (whither atthis period it became customary to send persons con-demned by the other tribunals for punishment) all of thetwelve persons who were relaxed, except one woman,were from Celorico and Lamego. Next, it was the turnof the district of Aviz; and, in 1744 and the followingyear, eight out of the ten persons burned were from thatregion. On October 16, 1746, the majority of those whoappeared came from the same part of the country; allof the six persons relaxed—three in person and three ineffigy—being natives of Beira or the northern part ofAlentejo. However, from the middle of the century, thenumbers decreased with the utmost rapidity. It almostseemed as though the intensification of the war againstthe Marranos had succeeded in its object, its adherentsbeing at last exterminated.3

The reaction against the Inquisition, outside the Pe-ninsula, had meanwhile been growing. The Protestantsof northern Europe, whose compatriots and sympathiz-ers were subject to its attentions fully as much as the


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Jews, regarded it as the instrument of anti-Christ.Philosophical France thought of it with horror. Antag-onistic books and pamphlets poured from the press ina never-ending stream. As early as the middle of thesixteenth century, works began to appear in Englandand elsewhere, giving details of the Protestant martyr-doms in Spain. In 1688, there appeared in Paris Dellon’sRelation de l’Inquisition de Goa, giving an account ofhis protracted sufferings. Contemporaneously, theDutchman, Philip van Limborch, published his bitterlyantagonistic history of the Inquisition. Both of thesebooks were widely translated and exercised great influ-ence among thinking persons in all countries. A refugeeSpaniard, Reginaldo Gonsalves Montano, wrote a wholeseries of anti-Inquisitional works. Dr. Michael Geddes,a Scottish divine, took up the cudgels in London, wherehe published a couple of striking tracts laying bare theiniquity of the system.4 Bayle, Montesquieu, Voltaire,and Sterne joined in the fray, in caustic comments.

The Jews were not behindhand. On September 6,1705, a solemn auto-da-fè at which sixty-six penitentsfigured was held on the great square of the Rocio atLisbon. The sermon was preached by Diogo da Anun-ciação Justiniano, Archbishop of Cranganor, in India.He opened it with a brutal series of insults directedagainst the poor victims:—“Miserable relics of Judaism!Unhappy fragments of the synagogue! Last remains ofJudea! Scandal of the Catholics and detestable objectsof scorn even to the Jews themselves! . . . You are thedetestable objects of scorn to the Jews, for you are soignorant that you cannot even observe the very lawunder which you live.” This savage address was natu-



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rally deemed worthy of perpetuation in print. A copyreached the hands of David Nieto—himself of Marranodescent— who was then rabbi of the congregation es-tablished by the refugees in London. He replied to it ina vigorous but dignified pamphlet, in Portuguese, inwhich he exposed simultaneously both the ignorance andthe brutality of the Archbishop. This was publishedanonymously in 1709 with the imprint Turin, but prob-ably at London. So sure was the author of his groundthat he had the courage, unusual in a controversialist,of reissuing with his pamphlet the sermon to which itwas intended as a reply. A similar work, in Spanish, ap-peared some years later (probably in 1722 or 1723), pur-porting to be printed in Villa Franca (“The City of Free-dom,” obviously London) by Carlos Vero (“CharlesTruth”).5 In the meantime, in 1722, he followed up thisinitial encounter by publishing, similarly in “Villa Fran-ca,” the Recondite Notices of the Inquisitions of Spainand Portugal, in two parts, Spanish and Portuguese. Thiswork comprised the memoranda prepared by AntonioVieira, for his onslaught upon the institution half a cen-tury before, which the Marranos then settled in Londonhad already prepared for publication.6 The abuses of thesystem were once more laid bare in a damning fashion.In 1750, the work appeared again in Venice under a slight-ly different title, this time under Vieira’s own name. Allthis adroit propaganda assisted in undermining the posi-tion of the Holy Office; and it was inevitable that ulti-mately repercussions should reach those parts of south-ern Europe where it still held undisputed sway.

The spirit of humanity abroad in Europe at last be-gan to penetrate into the Peninsula, though by very slow


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degrees. Antonio Ribeiro Sanchez, the eminent Marranophysician, who had become reconciled to Catholicism,submitted a striking memorandum suggesting in theinterest of the State the abolition of distinctions betweenOld and New Christians and the restriction of the powerof the Inquisition. Don Luiz da Cunha, the famous dip-lomat, went even further, suggesting that Jewish wor-ship should be tolerated in the country. Alexandre deGuzmão, another personage of importance at the Courtof João V, poured ridicule on the pretensions of certainfamilies to complete purity of blood, pointing out thatover a period of centuries the total number of ancestorsof any person ran into hundreds, concerning the ante-cedents of all of whom it was impossible to be absolutelysure. Finally, this point of view was adopted by the re-forming statesman, Sebastian Joseph de Carvalho eMello, Marquis of Pombal, under whose competent rulePortugal was transformed from a medieval into a mod-ern state.

The year of his accession to power, 1751, saw thefirst step, it being forbidden for any auto-da-fè to beheld without the permission of the civil authorities, bywhom all sentences were henceforth to be confirmed.Thus, the subordination of the Inquisition to the statewas accentuated. This did not by any means put animmediate end to activity. In Lisbon, on September 24,1752, 30 men and 27 women appeared, all but twelvefor Judaizing. Besides these, three—all negativos—were condemned to relaxation in person, and one ineffigy. All told, eighteen victims were relaxed in the firstten years of the enlightened new regime—an eloquenttestimony to the hold which the Holy Office had es-



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tate lished upon the country. After the great Earth-quake of 1755, which laid the palace of the Inquisitionin ruins, and according to legend facilitated the escapeof many prisoners, no further Judaizers suffered inLisbon. In Evora, on the other hand, there was a sud-den resumption, after a complete cessation which hadlasted since 1686. In four successive autos from the year1756 to 1760, eight New Christians were relaxed there.In the year following the last of these, on September20, 1761, the inoffensive Jesuit father, Gabriel Mala-grida, was burned at Lisbon, for having dared to as-sert that the recent earthquake was a punishment fromheaven for the sins of the country. He was the last ofthe many hundreds of persons to suffer capitally at thehands of the Portuguese Inquisition, and one of thecomparatively few during the whole series whose crimewas not that of Judaizing.7

The next move was against the old and by now ri-diculous differentiation between Old and New Chris-tians, which had been introduced by Manoel I in directcontravention of his promise at the time of the GeneralConversion, and had caused untold suffering to thoseof Jewish blood ever since. Antonio Ribeiro Sanches,who was himself in this category, has left a graphic de-scription of the slights and disabilities which a child ofNew Christian parentage had to face at every stage ofhis life, from his school-days upwards. It was now anantiquated as well as a pernicious system. Pombal dealtwith it with characteristic vigor. On May 2, 1768, heordered the destruction of all registers containing thenames of the New Christian families. Next, he gave in-structions to the heads of all the so-called “puritan”


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houses (who had hitherto prided themselves on contract-ing no outside alliances) that within four months theymust arrange matches for all their daughters of marriage-able age with members of families hitherto excludedfrom their circle, as being contaminated with Jewishblood. This order, worthy of any Oriental despot, andcommunicated in private so as to avoid ridicule abroad,was to be enforced by depriving of all their dignitiesthose who refused compliance. Finally, on May 23, 1773,all legal distinctions between Old and New Christianswere removed. Thus, Marranism was officially abolishedin Portugal; and the seal was set on the long process ofassimilation which the Forced Conversion of nearlythree hundred years before had begun.8

For the past few years, the Inquisition had been al-most entirely inactive, Pombal having ensured its sub-servience by appointing his own brother to preside overit as Grand Inquisitor. It was now made powerless. OnApril 8, 1768, it was deprived of the power of censorship.On November 15, 1771, orders were given forbidding thecelebration of autos-da-fè in public and the printing oflistas of those who figured in them. Thus it was clearlyindicated that, in the eyes of the government, this wasentirely an ecclesiastical concern, which should not beallowed to interfere with the civil life of the country. Threeyears later, in 1774, there was issued a new code, or Reg-imento, for the Inquisition. This removed the worst of theold abuses, now naively attributed to the machinationsof the Jesuits, and received the royal approval on Sep-tember 21, 1774. (The last public auto-da-fè, with its in-variable accompaniment of New Christian penitents, hadbeen held on October 27,1765. )9 In succeeding years, the



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various tribunals continued to hold in private occasionalautos, at which minor punishments were inflicted fortechnical offences, though the populace was deprived ofthe pleasure of participation. (The last recorded cere-mony of the sort was in 1778.) Henceforth the dreadedInquisition of Portugal was almost powerless. The threelong centuries of martyrdom were ended.

In Spain, meanwhile, the first blow had been dealtat the power of the Inquisition at the beginning of theeighteenth century, when Philip V, the first king of theHouse of Bourbon, true to his French upbringing, hadrefused to grace with his presence an auto arranged (inaccordance with precedent) to celebrate his accession.Under less august auspices, similar ceremonies continuedwith little intermission. As far as Judaism was concerned,indeed, it appeared for the moment as though the victo-ry had been won. The native New Christians had longsince been assimilated or else exterminated; and it seemedthat the menace offered to orthodoxy by the Portugueseimmigrants had finally been overcome. There was how-ever to be one final outburst. At Madrid, a secret syna-gogue was discovered where for some years twenty fam-ilies had been accustomed to meet for service, under theauspices of a spiritual guide whose name had been sentto Leghorn for confirmation. Five of those implicated inthe affair were relaxed in an auto on April 7, 1720. Thisdiscovery aroused the other tribunals to renewed activi-ty. There was a general recrudescence of persecutionthroughout the country.10 Within the short period 1721–1727, there were held at least 64 autos. Of the 868 casesdealt with in these, no less than 820 were for Judaizing;75 persons being relaxed in person and 74 in effigy. The


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climax was reached in 1722–3, after which date therewas a gradual diminution. At Cordova, autos were heldin 1728, 1730, and 1731, 26 cases of Judaizing being pun-ished in them; but thereafter there was none for a peri-od of fourteen years. At Toledo, there was an inter-mission from 1726 to 1738 when fourteen cases weretaken into consideration; but afterwards, down to theclose of the series in 1794, there was only one more.11

At Valladolid, a Judaizer was relaxed in person in 1745,and six in effigy, together with the bones of one deadwoman, at Llerena, in 1752. These are the last record-ed cases of the sort. Owing perhaps to the suspensionof immigration from Portugal, crypto-Judaism in Spainseems suddenly to have collapsed. Out of a total of 4,000cases tried by all of the tribunals of the country from1780 to 1820, only sixteen were for Judaism. Of these,ten were in connection with foreign Jews who had beenfound in the kingdom without authorization, four werediscovered to be groundless, and only two were reallyserious. In the Spanish colonies, similarly, cases con-cerned with Judaizers had been rare since the beginningof the century.

Thus, in its last days, the connection between theSpanish Inquisition and the Marranos was slight. Never-theless, it continued its career, with undiminished au-thority though with no more than a fraction of its oldvitality, down to the period of the Napoleonic wars—long after the sister-tribunal of Portugal had been ren-dered powerless. It was formally abolished by JosephBonaparte during his brief reign, in 1808, this actionbeing confirmed after his fall by the liberal Cortes of1813. The reactionary Ferdinand VII, however, reinstat-



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ed it in all its previous power and authority by a decreeof July 21, 1814. Its activity during the succeeding pe-riod was not great and it was abolished again during theconstitutional revolution by a royal edict of March 9,1820. With the counter-revolutionary movement of 1825,its powers automatically revived. As late as July 26,1826, a Deist schoolmaster (not a Jew, as is commonlystated) was garroted at Valencia by an episcopal juntade fé. He was the last victim of the Inquisition in thePeninsula; for, on July 15, 1834, the Queen Mother,Maria Christina, finally and definitely abolished theInquisition and all its powers, direct or indirect. Thus,the career of blood which had lasted for three and a halfcenturies was closed.12

For some years more, the discrimination between theOld and New Christians survived in Spain, proof oflimpieza, or purity of blood “from any admixture of Jewor Moor,” being required for entry into certain pro-fessions. This gradually disappeared. The last strongholdwas the Corps of Cadets, where it hung on tenaciously.At length, in 1860, the need for this qualification wasabolished by the Cortes. Socially, the differentiation stillto some extent survived;13 and, in the Balearic Islands,the prejudice against the descendants of the local cryp-to-Jews, or Chuetas, remained extraordinarily virulentand effective. This survival was beyond the power oflegislation to control. Officially, the record of the Mar-ranos in the Peninsula was ended by that trivial decreeof 1860, by which the efforts of the past five centurieswere crowned and the descendants of the Jewish con-verts were admitted finally and without qualificationinto the body politic.


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EPILOGUE

THE MARRANOS OF TODAY

HAD the present work been written fifty, or even ten,years earlier it would have finished at this point. For,at that time it seemed as though at last, after all its ef-forts, the Inquisition had completed its task in the eight-eenth century, and that crypto-Judaism in the Peninsu-la had been stamped out. Nothing, or barely nothing, isheard of Judaizers, whether in Spain or in Portugal, fromthe period of the French Revolution onwards. The tideof emigration, to Amsterdam or to London, had dwin-dled. A fresh, native-born generation had grown up,ignorant of Spanish and of Portuguese, for whose ben-efit the vernacular of the country had to be admitted,with lingering regrets, as the official language of thecommunities of the Marrano Diaspora. Not that the flowhad altogether ceased. In the Lisbon auto of 1746, twoboatmen had been punished for assisting fugitives toleave the realm. The great Earthquake of 1755 hadcaused great searchings of heart amongst the New Chris-tians, numbers of whom had in consequence fled. Thusthe parents of Abraham Furtado (the politician of therevolutionary era in France, a close friend of the Giron-dins and a leading figure in the Napoleonic Sanhedrin)had sought refuge in London in consequence of a vowwhich they had made when their lives seemed to be indanger. Simultaneously, quite a number of persons aresaid to have emigrated to America, joining the communi-


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ty of Newport, Rhode Island. As late as 1795, manymembers of the ancient Spanish and Portuguesecongregation in London, in their Aliens Certificates,gave flight from the persecutions of the Inquisition asthe reason for their coming to England; and one, IsaacPenha of Lisbon, added the tragic detail that his motherhad been burned alive for Judaism. To Bordeaux, therehad been a constant though decreasing influx duringthe whole of the eighteenth century. The last cases onrecord are those of Isaac Lopes Simões, of Lisbon, andDavid Pereira, of Lamego, aged 21 and 16 respective-ly, who were received into the Abrahamic Covenantthere in 1791. There were the latest instances of the sortof whom any mention survived. Crypto-Judaism in thePeninsula seemed to be at an end. Many reasons wereput forward to explain the phenomenon. It was gener-ally assumed that persecution, after so many centuries,had at last succeeded in completing its work, or thatthe constant emigration had drained the country of thefew who had been able to resist persecution on the onehand and assimilation on the other. Moralists took thephenomenon as proof that toleration could be morefatal than oppression, suggesting that the Marranos hadrequired persecution as a condition of their existence,and that with its suspension they had melted away intonothingness.

Occasionally, suggestive pieces of information pene-trated to the outside world. When the French invadedPortugal in 1807, it was said, they were hailed by twentythousand “Jews;” and, in the following year, when warfeeling was at its height, the cry “Death to the Jews andthe Jacobins” was common in the pulpits of the north-


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ern provinces. A certain Jewish soldier who had foughtunder Napoleon in the Peninsula War, and was madeprisoner near Gerona, used to recount how he was un-expectedly released by an innkeeper of Jewish descent,who happened to hear him recite the Shema‘. When,after the resettlement of the Jews in Lisbon, a synagoguewas first established, early in the nineteenth century, itis reported that descendants of the New Christians,many of them belonging to noble families, were presentat its opening. A certain English Jew, who died in theUnited States in 1890, and had lived at Lisbon for ashort time in his youth, left on record an interestingaccount of the condition of the Marranos in Portugal inthe second decade of the nineteenth century: —

“The old families of private Jews, who outwardlyprofessed Catholicism, but secretly kept to the funda-mental belief of Judaism, received their co-religion-ists with open arms, aiding the poor traders as breth-ren . . . I have vividly remembered two gentlemenwith decorated orders coming one Saturday eveningto the Minyan held in the house of Simon Cohen andthrow themselves down before the ark, containing thescrolls of the law, and on their knees fervently pray-ing. They had come to Lisbon from the Tras-os-Montes, and there in Lisbon wished to know, whenthe kippur was held, and returned to the country,bearers of the date for the year 1819.

“Although (he continues) the Jews were allowed toreside freely in Portugal, the prejudices and lawsagainst apostates prevented private Jews and theirfamilies, who had always outwardly professed Chris-

MARRANOS OF TODAY


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tianity, from being publicly known as Jews. Afashionable hatter in Lisbon was called ‘Brandon theJew,’ although outwardly ostentatiously a Christian.On Sunday morning I have seen him go in Portu-guese fashion with his family to mass — first him-self, then his wife, daughters and servant girls, oneafter the other in line . . .

“My departed friend, Samuel the Pole, who livedwith me for some time, was invited to spend the sum-mer months in the country with private Jewish fam-ilies, one of whom was a Justice of the Peace, andthey assured Samuel that they never divulged to theirchildren the secret of their religion until they hadattained the age of reason. Many houses, includingdomestics, were Jewish, and in some districts theJewish families were numerous, and a young manwould often become a monk, so that he might pre-tend to be the confessor to families in the circuit . . .An old friend, named Pereira, used to tell me thatfrom a mixed marriage all trace of his being descend-ed from a Jewish family were lost . . . and he was notat all a Catholic in belief, but was liable like allCatholics to fine or imprisonment, which was theconsequence if any Portuguese did not annually showthat he had confessed at least once a year; so a wellknown monk for a Crusado (a Portuguese coin of goldor silver) gave certificates of confessions to such per-sons as Pereira.”1

George Borrow, the imaginative purveyor of the Bi-ble in Spain, gives an extraordinary account of person-al encounter in 1835, during his visit to the Peninsula.


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Having regard for the exuberant fancy of the author, thiswas universally regarded as a characteristic piece of ro-mancing. There is perhaps more in it than was at one timethought; and it is worth while to cite it at length:—

“There was something peculiarly strange about thefigure: . . . I see him standing in the moonshine, star-ing me in the face with his deep calm eyes. At lasthe said—

‘Are you then one of us?’

. . . . . .

Myself: You say you are wealthy. In what doesyour wealth consist?

Abarbenel: In gold and silver, and stones of price;for I have inherited all the hoards of my forefathers.The greater part is buried underground; indeed, Ihave never examined the tenth part of it. I have coinsof silver and gold older than the times of Ferdinandthe Accursed and Jezebel; I have also large sumsemployed in usury. We keep ourselves close, howev-er, and pretend to be poor, miserably so; but, on cer-tain occasions, at our festivals, when our gates arebarred, and our savage dogs are let loose in the court,we eat our food off services such as the Queen ofSpain cannot boast of, and wash our feet in ewers ofsilver, fashioned and wrought before the Americaswere discovered, though our garments are at all timescourse, and our food for the most part of the plain-est description . . .

Myself: Are you known for what you are? Do theauthorities molest you?

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Abarbenel: People of course suspect me to be whatI am; but as I conform outwardly in most respects totheir ways, they do not interfere with me. True it isthat sometimes, when I enter the church to hear themass, they glare at me over the left shoulder, as muchas to say—‘What do you here?’ And sometimes theycross themselves as I pass by; but as they go no fur-ther, I do not trouble myself on that account . . .

Myself: Do the priests interfere with you?Abarbenel: They let me alone, especially in our own

neighbourhood. Shortly after the death of my fatherone hot-headed individual endeavoured to do me anevil turn; but I soon requited him causing him to beimprisoned on a charge of blasphemy, and in prisonhe remained a long time, till he went mad and died.

Myself: Have you a head in Spain, in whom isvested the chief authority?

Abarbenel: Not exactly. There are, however, cer-tain holy families who enjoy much consideration; myown is one of these—the chiefest, I may say. Mygrandsire was a particularly holy man; and I haveheard my father say, that one night an archbishopcame to his house secretly, merely to have the satis-faction of kissing his head.

Myself: How can that be? What reverence couldan archbishop entertain for one like yourself or yourgrandsire?

Abarbenel: More than you imagine. He was one ofus, at least his father was, and he could never forgetwhat he had learned with reverence in his infancy . . .he then returned to his diocese, where he shortly af-terwards died, in much renown for sanctity.


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Myself: What you say surprises me. Have you rea-son to suppose that many of you are to be foundamongst the priesthood?

Abarbenel: Not to suppose, but to know it. Thereare many such as I amongst the priesthood, and notamongst the inferior priesthood either; some of themost learned and famed of them in Spain have beenof us, or of our blood at least, and many of them atthis day think as I do. There is one particular festi-val of the year at which four dignified ecclesiasticsare sure to visit me; and then, when all is made closeand secure, and the fitting ceremonies have been gonethrough, they sit down upon the floor and curse.

Myself: Are you numerous in the large towns?Abarbenel: By no means; our places of abode are

seldom the large towns; we prefer the villages andrarely enter the large towns but on business. Indeed,we are not a numerous people, and there are fewprovinces of Spain which contain more than twentyfamilies. None of us are poor, and those among uswho serve, do so more from choice than necessity, forby serving each other we acquire different trades. Notunfrequently the time of service is that of courtshipalso, and the servants eventually marry the daugh-ters of the house . . .“2

In spite of these and similar revelations, nothingreached the outside world which made it appear that anytrace of the Marranos had survived beyond the firstdecades of the nineteenth century, at the latest. In 1867,Kayserling, the eminent historian, who made a life-longstudy of the subject, closed his classical monograph on

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the Jews in Portugal with a pathetic reference to thecomplete oblivion of Judaism among the descendants ofthe New Christians of former years. When about 1885the Portuguese consul at Holyhead died, leaving instruc-tions that he should be buried among Jews, it hardlyoccurred to contemporaries that this request should beassociated with the romantic history which, officially,had ended a century before. An article published in alearned periodical, the Jewish Quarterly Review in 1903,records a few prayers and customs current amongst theMarranos, but not in such a way as to make it appearthat anything survived beyond the bare recollection ofJewish descent, in some isolated cases, coupled with afew meaningless and moribund traditions. The JewishEncyclopedia, which summed up the state of Jewishknowledge at the beginning of the present century, men-tions casually the existence of Marranos at Covilhã, butwithout further details. Even the well-informed histo-rian of the New Christians in Portugal, J. Luciod’Azevedo, writing on the spot as recently as 1921, de-clared, judicially, that the heavy hand of Pombal hadsolved the problem of nearly three centuries. An emi-nent American anthropologist, in a work published in1911, went so far as to indicate the psychological causefor the disappearance. “It is evident,” he wrote, “that theso-called Crypto-Jews are the product of social condi-tions, having no ethnic basis. With a change in socialconditions, especially as soon as they are no more per-secuted by the majority around them, they cease to bepeculiar and are lost in the multitude.”3

In 1917, a Polish Jewish mining engineer establishedat Lisbon, M. Samuel Schwarz, was on a business visit


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to Belmonte, a somewhat inaccessible spot in the hill-country in the north of Portugal, not far from the Span-ish frontier. One of the inhabitants, desirous of obtain-ing his patronage, warned him pointedly against hav-ing anything to do with one of his competitors. “It isenough for me to tell you,” he said, “that the man is ajudeu—a Jew.” The information naturally stirred M.Schwarz, a passionate student of things Jewish, to fur-ther inquiries. The person indicated by his informantcould not help him much; he had married an “Old”Christian, and was thus out of touch with his formerbrethren in faith. However, he did his best to introducethe inquirer to them. “E dos nossos”—“He is one of us,”he whispered to them, confidentially. With some diffi-culty, M. Schwarz began to gain their confidence. Theywere dubious as to the strangers claims. They had notheard of any Jews different from themselves. They hadno knowledge of the greater Jewish community livingoutside the bounds of Portugal. Their conceptions werelimited to an exiguous body in their own township andthe immediate neighborhood, for whom secrecy was aprimary condition of religious existence. The strangermoreover could not recite any of the traditional Portu-guese prayers current amongst that and the sister com-munities. It was in vain that he tried to point out thatthe universal Jewish language of prayer was Hebrew, inwhich the Jews throughout the world carried on theirdevotions. They had not heard of the language, anddoubted its existence. At last an old woman, whom therest treated with particular deference, asked him scep-tically to repeat some prayer in the tongue for which heclaimed such sanctity. His choice was an obvious one.

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He recited the Jewish confession of faith—the samewhich Isaac de Castro Tartas had on his lips when heperished at the stake: “Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God,the Lord is One.” As he pronounced the name of God—Adonai—the woman covered her eyes with her hands—the traditional formality, intended to shut out all out-side distractions during the recital of this verse. Whenhe had finished, she turned to the bystanders. He is in-deed a Jew,” she said, authoritatively, “for he knows thename of Adonai.” Thus this solitary survival of the oldHebrew tongue, which had been preserved orallythroughout the long centuries of subterfuge and perse-cution, at last brought the remnant of the Marranos intotouch with a representative of the outside Jewish world.

Now that he was recognized as a coreligionist, M.Schwarz had no difficulty in being admitted to full con-fidence. What he discovered was nothing less thanamazing. Throughout the period subsequent to the fallof the Inquisition, there had continued to exist in theremoter parts of the northern provinces of Portugalwhole colonies of crypto-Jews, absolutely isolated fromthe general Jewish world, and not even suspecting itsexistence. Long centuries of persecution had left itsmark on their outlook. They could not conceive anyform of Judaism except that stunted and furtive onewhich they followed. They were not conscious of anyshort-comings or lapses on their part. But, at the sametime, their religion in its essentials was unmistakablyJewish—a natural development of that which theirancestors had practiced at the time of the Inquisition-al persecutions, an account of which has been givenabove. They steadfastly denied the Messiahship of Je-


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sus and withheld recognition from the saints of theRoman Catholic Church. They recognized themselvesas Jews, or as New Christians. They met together atregular intervals for prayer. They married only amongthemselves. They observed with the utmost possible fi-delity the Sabbath and the major solemnities of Passo-ver and the Day of Atonement, together with the Fastof Esther. True, the persecution of centuries had left itstrace. On Friday night, many of them placed the Sab-bath light, which they so religiously kindled, inside apitcher, safe from prying eyes. The Day of Atonementand Passover were both observed a day or two after theirproper date, when the vigilance of their persecutorsmight be assumed to have been relaxed.

Their prayers, though sadly altered and diminished,were recognizably Jewish in inspiration and in origin.They were in Portuguese—a large number of them inverse. Nevertheless, the ancient archetypes are in manycases recognizable. One or two words of Hebrew, even,survived—notably, the name Adonai. The formula ofbenediction, before performing any religious function,was strikingly similar to the traditional one. It ran thus:“Blessed art Thou, my Lord, my Adonai, who hast com-manded us with His blessed and holy commandmentsthat we do . . . as our brethren do in the land of Prom-ise.” Only the concluding phrase, with its striking testi-mony to the unity of Israel and the living influence ofPalestine, is not to be found in the traditional Hebrewformula.4 The prayers were scanty in number, and wereseldom written down, being transmitted from generationto generation by word of mouth. The principal reposi-tories of these as of other traditions were the mothers

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and the wives. Indeed, on those occasions when meetingswere held for prayer, it was generally an old woman whoacted as sacerdotisa (“priestess”) or spiritual guide of thecommunity. Among themselves, they continued to main-tain feelings of the utmost solidarity, expressed in mutu-al charity and characteristically generous help at times ofstress.5 All of this had continued for the past century anda half, absolutely unknown to the Jews of the outsideworld, who were meanwhile endeavoring to understandhow it was that the Marranos had died away with suchdramatic suddenness after Pombal’s reforms.

What had happened was as a matter of fact by nomeans difficult to explain. In the principal towns, themain centers of the Inquisitional activity, where sur-veillance was continual and whence departure from thecountry was comparatively easy, the persecution hadbeen more or less effective. Almost all the Marranopopulation had been driven to emigrate, exterminated,or else forced to conform. Indeed, in the last days of theperiod of the autos-da-fè, as has been seen, only a smallproportion of those who figured had been natives of thecapital or the greater cities in the western part of thecountry. But, in the rural centers, matters were differ-ent. The maintenance of some sort of communal lifewas simpler, and traditions could thus be perpetuatedwith greater ease. On the other hand, emigration fromthe country (for the poorer classes especially) was diffi-cult in the extreme. Hence, crypto-Judaism had here agreater vitality than in the capital or the other greatcities.

The Inquisition was deprived of its power by Pom-bal, at the close of the eighteenth century. But the fact


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that active persecution had finally ended, though obvi-ous to us today, was by no means clear to contemporar-ies. Even when the institution was abolished entirely in1821, the apparent change was by no means revolution-ary. The Apostolic and Roman Catholic religion contin-ued to be the only creed recognized by law. Its publicrenunciation remained a crime, punishable by heavy pen-alties. Even if the state were inactive, public opinion wasnot likely to be indifferent, so that apostasy was certainto be requited in some way. In the rural centers, aboveall, the power of the parish priest continued supreme.Moreover, in their remote homes, often far removed fromthe railroads and highways of communication, many ofthe Marranos hardly realized the progress of civilization,and feared that, even in the nineteenth or twentieth cen-tury, they might be burned like their ancestors if they hadthe temerity to come out into the open.6 By this time,moreover, the tradition of secrecy implanted during cen-turies of persecution had affected their whole outlook.They imagined that their God could not properly beworshiped except by stealth, and regarded a public pro-fession of faith as little less than a profanation.

They were hence little affected by the alteration ofcircumstances. They continued to attend Church, thoughon a minimum number of occasions. They resorted auto-matically to the parish priest for baptism, marriage, andburial; inevitably so, since no civil form of registrationhad as yet been introduced. Though they continued tomeet together for the purpose of worship, and retainedtheir own secretive traditions amongst themselves, theyremained Catholics in form. With the revolution of 1910,the public institutions of the country were secularized.

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Henceforth, some of them took advantage of the newopportunities which offered themselves, abandoning thepractice of getting their children baptized and no long-er troubling to have their marriages solemnized inChurch as well as by the civil authorities. It remainednecessary for them only to have recourse to the priestfor the purpose of burial, since none but the Catholicgraveyard existed.

By this time, all touch with the main current of Juda-ism had been absolutely lost. Their own attenuated prac-tices and orations appeared to them to be the whole ofthe Jewish religion. Even those who were sufficientlyindependent to neglect public opinion, and sufficientlyenlightened to realize that the Inquisition and its hor-rors indeed belonged to the past, had no knowledge ofany shortcoming in their traditional religious practice.Thus, the crypto-Jewish communities continued theirstrange, furtive existence, absolutely unaffected by theprogress of time and the change of circumstances.

The number of persons and the extent of territoryinvolved was far from negligible. In southern Portugal,so far as is known, the case is identical with that inSpain, where all traces of crypto-Judaism appear to havedied out, save for the consciousness of Jewish descentin a few persons here and there.7 In the northern prov-inces of the country, on the other hand—in the hill-coun-try towards the Spanish border, Tras-os-Montes andBeira—the Marranos are still very numerous. Some vil-lages, such as Villarinho, appear to be full of them. Inall, they are to be found in some numbers in at leastthirty-four places. At Covilhã, the Manchester of Por-tugal, there is a considerable colony. Other important


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centers are Belmonte, Fundão, Castello Branco, Idan-ha, Pernamacor, Guarda, Braganza, and Monsanto. Itis a striking fact that it was precisely these townshipswhich provided so large a proportion of the victims ofthe Inquisition in its last years, and that from there camemany of the founders of the communities of the Mar-rano Diaspora in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen-turies. For the most part, the Marranos of today belongto the lower middle class, though they count among themalso many prosperous merchants and professional men.As with the bulk of the population of Portugal, the pro-portion of illiteracy among them is high; this account-ing to a large extent for their credulity and slight knowl-edge of conditions in the outside world.

As for their actual numbers, it is difficult to speakwith any degree of certainty. Beyond doubt, the fami-lies who still follow their own conception of Judaismwith more or less fidelity and refuse resolutely to con-form to the dominant religion, are to be numbered bymany hundreds—perhaps by thousands. In addition tothese, there are many more, now professing Catholics,or attached to no religion, who still remember with pridethe fact of their Jewish descent, and are in some casesdesignated by their neighbors as Jews. Throughout thenorthern provinces, indeed, traces of New Christianblood are extremely strong, in some localities almostpredominating over the other elements of the popula-tion. Thus places like Pinhel, where the professingMarrano element is not large, are generally spoken ofthroughout the neighborhood as “Jewish” towns.

Contemporaneously with these sensational disclo-sures, a certain degree of Jewish consciousness had been

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stirring spontaneously amongst the Marranos. The leadwas taken by a striking personality who irresistibly re-calls the great figures of the sixteenth and seventeenthcenturies. Arthur Carlos de Barros Basto was born in1887 at Amarante, a little place near Oporto. He was amember of one of the old New Christian families, whichremained true to their ancestral ideals. His grandfatherin particular was meticulous in his attachment to thetradition which he had received from his fathers. It wasthe latter who instilled into his grandson his Jewishenthusiasm. Barros Basto’s racial origin was perhapsbetrayed by the phenomenally many-sided activitywhich he began to manifest as soon as he reached man-hood. Like Daniel Levi de Barrios or Antonio EnriquezGomez, three centuries before, he sought his career inthe army, becoming a professional soldier. Like them, hispassion was in writing. He made himself known as anauthor, and was a prominent member of the literarycoterie which had its center in Oporto. He was respons-ible for the introduction into Portugal of the Boy-Scoutorganization. He took a prominent share in politics,becoming one of the first adherents of the revolution-ary movement of 1910, to which modern Portugal owesits birth. It was he who, on one memorable day in thatyear, hoisted the Republican flag on the town hall ofOporto, at the risk of his life, being subsequently car-ried through the streets on the shoulders of the deliri-ous populace. During the War of 1914–1918, he servedon the British front with the Expeditionary Force inFrance, with exceptional distinction, being repeatedlydecorated and mentioned in despatches for valor.

Throughout this profusion of activity, there was surg-


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ing up in Barros Basto a Jewish sentiment which couldnot be gainsaid; an overwhelming sense of the compel-ling force of the Jewish religion and of his personal iden-tity with the body of the Jewish people. Already beforethe War, he had begun to frequent the synagogue ofLisbon and to study the Hebrew language, of which heattained an unusually good knowledge for a self-educat-ed man. But the official community of the capital,brought up in the timorous traditions of the last centu-ry, gave him no encouragement. (It must be rememberedthat, before the Revolution, professing Jews lived in Por-tugal only on sufferance.) After the War, Barros Basto’sJewish sentiment became too strong to be further sup-pressed. Going across to Tangiers, he formally entered theJewish fold. Some time after, he married a charming ladybelonging to one of the most prominent families of theLisbon community, and his ambition of setting up a tru-ly Jewish household was realized. At Oporto, where hisofficial duties called him, he organized the heterogeneousJewish elements into a proper congregation, and estab-lished a synagogue. At the same time, he set about a sys-tematic propaganda among his fellow Marranos to over-come their inherent timorousness, their ignorant preju-dices and their curious attachment to secrecy, and to bringthem back to the faith which their fathers had been forcedto abandon over four centuries before. Thus his activi-ties and those of M. Schwarz came to coincide.

The Jews of Lisbon, perplexed by the new situationwhich was arising, applied in 1924 to the Rabbinate ofJerusalem for advice concerning the attitude which theyshould adopt. The reply was encouraging. Early in thefollowing year, students of Jewish matters throughout

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the world were astounded to read in the Anglo-Jewishpress a communication from the Secretary of the Lisboncommunity, revealing the extraordinary fact that theMarranos, who had disappeared from view so strange-ly and so completely a century and a half before, stillexisted, and requesting assistance in bringing them backto the Jewish fold. It would have been extraordinary hadsuch an appeal fallen upon deaf ears. Mr. Wilfred Sam-uel, of London, an eager student of everything connectedwith the Jewish past, generously defrayed the expensesof a mission of inquiry to Portugal on the part of theveteran diplomat, Mr. Lucien Wolf, who had long madea special study of Marrano history.8 The latter returnedfull of enthusiasm. Thanks to his recommendations, aPortuguese Marranos Committee was formed in Londonunder the joint auspices of the Alliance Israélite Uni-verselle, the Anglo-Jewish Association and the Spanishand Portuguese community. This set itself to arouse in-terest in the object and to collect funds on its behalf.Thanks to the subsidies which it transmitted, CaptainBarros Basto was able to extend very considerably thescale and radius of his activity. The congregation ofOporto was consolidated. Largely through the liberal-ity of Baron Edmond de Rothschild, of Paris, and, lateron, the munificence of the Kadoorie family of Shang-hai, a handsome new synagogue was built on the out-skirts of the city—a tangible sign of the revival. At-tached to it, there was created a Seminary, in whichboys might learn the tenets of their ancestral faith,which they might subsequently spread amongst theirkinsfolk in the remoter centers. A newspaper wasfounded for the purpose of propaganda in the less ac-


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cessible spots. In it regularly appeared the rudiments oftraditional practice (especially with regard to any forth-coming holiday), generally taken from the Thesouro dosDinim which Menasseh ben Israel had compiled for theMarranos of Amsterdam three centuries before. Themain portions of the Jewish liturgy were translated forthe first time into Portuguese and published in con-venient editions, which were circulated far and wide.Pastoral journeys were undertaken throughout the re-gion where the Marranos were to be found, for the pur-pose of propaganda. In one place after another, former-ly memorable in history, public services were conduct-ed in accordance with Jewish tradition for the first timein four hundred years. It is not surprising that many ofthose present shed tears—tears of joy, at the marvelousconsummation which had come to pass; tears of appre-hension, lest the abandonment of the age-long traditionof secrecy might after all bring disaster in its train.

The results of all this activity, though slow (for theprejudices and habits of centuries are not easily to beshaken off), were not negligible. Numbers of Marran-os, throughout the northern provinces of the countrydeclared openly their adherence to official Judaism; notall simple country folk, but in some cases civil servants,bankers, army officers, and professional men. Little,quasi-open Jewish communities were established atCovilhã, Belmonte, Pinhel, and Braganza—in the lastcase, generously supported by the Central Conferenceof American Rabbis.9 Provisional Jewish centers weremoreover formed at smaller places, such as Argozêlo,Escalhao, Villa Real, Vilarinho, and elsewhere. In vari-ous places in northern Portugal, services began to be

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held at intervals, in increasingly close fidelity to the tra-ditional Jewish forms, and attended by congregationsnumbering up to one hundred souls.

As to the ultimate outcome of this amazing movement,it is as yet too early to judge. It is not to be imaginedthat the prejudices, and the habits, and the fears, andthe ignorance which have accumulated in the course ofages can be entirely eradicated in so short a time. More-over, other difficulties hardly less serious are not absent.With the decline of the former prejudice against the NewChristians, the forces of assimilation are beginning tomake themselves felt to a degree hardly paralleled evenin the age of persecution. Since the beginning of thepresent century, secularism and the modern pseudo-ra-tionalistic tendencies have made considerable headwayhere, as in every other part of the world’s surface. Onthe other hand, the forces of reaction are not by anymeans defeated, and, in country districts, the return toJudaism is by no means an easy task. It is not impossi-ble that the Marrano Renaissance has set in too late tobe effective amongst the great mass of the people. If, inthe end, it appears that the revival has been left too long,the catastrophe will have been due to the slow, inexo-rable pressure of circumstance, and not to Inquisitionalpersecution. That protracted martyrdom, unexampledin history, proved powerless to vanquish the indomita-ble Jewish spirit. In spite of all its horrors, the Marran-os were able to preserve their identity and the essentials


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of their faith down to the present day. In their own his-tory, they exemplify the adage which the great Marranopoet prefixed as title to his elegy on the three Marranomartyrs in 1665: Contra la verdad no ay fuerça—“Against Truth, Force does not avail.”

MARRANOS OF TODAY


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NOTES


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NOTES TO INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER

1 Jewish Folk-Lore has preserved many stories illustrating thesecret fidelity to Judaism of persons baptized under such circum-stances. The most striking is the legend of Elhanan, the legendaryJewish Pope, kidnapped son of a learned Rhineland rabbi. �

2 See Critique du nobilaire de Provence composé par M. l’AbbéRobbert de Briançon, contenant l’epurement de la noblesse dupays . . . l’abrégé de l’histoire des Juifs en Provence, le cataloguedes nouveaux chrétiens de race judaique de ce pays, etc., by AbbéBarcilon de Mouvans (British Museum, Ms. Add. 15653: John Ry-lands’ Library, Manchester, Mss. Crawford 26 and 48). �

3 After the Greek occupation and the systematic Hellenizationof Salonica, the Donmeh migrated, particularly to Smyrna, Adri-anople, etc. It is difficult therefore to give exact details of theircondition and distribution at the present day. It may be mentionedthat the Young Turk movement of 1913 was to a large extent ledby members of this sect (Djavid Bey, etc.). �

4 According to one theory, the famous ceremony of the Annul-ment of Vows on the eve of the Day of Atonement, the Kol Nid-re service, was instituted for the benefit of these Spanish crypto-Jews, in order to absolve them from any undertaking for theobservance of Christianity in the following year. According to thisview, the congregation cover their heads with the Tallit at thispoint, so that any crypto-Jew amongst them should avoid recog-nition; while the initial reference to the ‘Abaryanim (i. e. “the trans-gressors”) is taken as a cryptic allusion to the Iberians! �

5 Almoravides derives from the same root as the English ma-rabout, with the Arabic definite article prefixed: Almohades isfrom the same root as the Hebrew Ehad (“One”), its followersvaunting their devotion to strict monotheism. �

6 A close parallel to these secret Jews was provided by theMavali, or secret Christians of Moslem Spain. �

7 It is only right to add that the temporary apostasy of Mai-monides, and even his authorship of the treatise here under dis-cussion, are strenuously denied by many scholars. �


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NOTES TO CHAPTER I

1 The story is told of one Marrano who ate unleavened breadthroughout the year, on the pretext of ill health, so as to ensurehaving it on Passover! �

2 Jerome Munzer, a German traveler who visited Spain in1494–5, recounts how there had existed up to a few years previ-ous at Valencia, on the site subsequently occupied by the Con-vent of St. Catherine of Sienna, a church dedicated to St. Chris-topher. “Here the Marranos (that is false Christians, inwardlyJews) had their sepulchers. When one of them died, they feignedconformity to the rites of the Christian religion, going in proces-sion, with the coffin covered with cloth of gold and bearing animage of St. Christopher in front of them. However, in secret theywashed the bodies of the dead and buried them in accordancewith their own rites . . .” He indicates that the same was the caseat Barcelona, where it was understood that if a Marrano washeard to say: “Let us go today to the Church of the Holy Cross,”he meant the secret synagogue, which was thus called. The clas-sical account of Marrano conditions and subterfuges at this peri-od may be read in Bernaldez, Historia de los Reyes Católicos,ch. XLIII. �

3 I use this term in a loose sense; scientifically it is meaning-less no less with Jews than with other sections of humanity. �

4 There is extant an extraordinary letter of recommendationin Hebrew written by the community of Saragossa early in thefifteenth century to recommend a certain friar of Jewish birth,who was to preach a Holy War against the Moors. Their coreli-gionists were begged to believe that, notwithstanding appearances,he was favorable to them at heart! �

5 Out of the whole of Spain, it was only in Catalonia that theprocess was to some extent restrained, though the boast that theCatalan blood was never polluted by intermixture is unfounded.In Valencia, on the other hand, intermarriage took place mainlyin the rural districts.

A similar work to the Libro Verde de Aragon was the Tizon dela Nobleza de España, drawn up about 1560 by the CardinalMendoza y Bobadilla for presentation to Philip II, and showing


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that virtually all the nobility both of Castile and of Aragon hadJewish blood in their veins. �

6 A typical satire of the period was that directed by a penuri-ous poet against the wealthy Alfonso Fernandez, previouslyknown as Samuel, who had actually dared to refuse him alms.The other revenged himself by circulating a fictitious will, inwhich Fernandez is represented as leaving one penny to theChurch and a hundred ducats to poor Jews, to enable them torest on the Sabbath. He bequeaths his shirt to a Synagogue-bea-dle at Salamanca to recite psalms for the repose of his soul. Heorders a crucifix to be placed in his coffin at his feet, a copy ofthe Koran on his breast, and a scroll of the Law of Moses at hishead! �

7 Another New-Christian painter, named Just, was an earlyvictim of the Inquisition at Valencia, in 1490. �

8 A famous anti-Jewish work of the fifteenth century was en-titled Libro del Alborayque. �

9 Not entirely; the Jewish grammarian and polemist, Ephodi,was familiar with the term, which he derived (in his Kelimat ha-Goyim, X, I) from the Hebrew hamir, apostatize. �

10 As a matter of fact, the word Maranatha, found in the NewTestament, I Corinthians 16.22, is simply a transliteration of theJudeo-Aramaic Maran Ata—“The Lord cometh.” An alternativederivation is from Muranita, the rod with which those put un-der the ban were chastised. �

NOTES TO CHAPTER II

1 There is extant an amusing satire written to celebrate the mar-riage of one of his family with a relative of the eminent Church-man, Pedro Gonzalez de Mendoza, in which the descent of thebridegroom, from the Jewish families of Ibn Sason, Ibn Nahmi-as, and Saboca is vividly compared with that of the bride fromthe grandees of Castile. �

2 The attack here was instigated by Don Juan Pacheco—him-self a member of a Marrano family. �

3 A proposal was made at this period to hand over the for-tress of Gibraltar to the conversos as a city of refuge. �

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4 Sometimes, similar powers were assumed by other authori-ties; for example, in England, precedent in common law for theburning of heretics had been provided by the condemnation atOxford in 1222 of a certain Deacon who had become convertedto Judaism for the love of a Jewess. �

5 i. e. The Beautiful Woman. �6 For a full explanation of this and other technical terms, see

infra, ch. V. �7 According to another account, Calle del Ataud (Street of the

Coffin). �8 A record has recently been published which illustrates the

extraordinary delicacy of the Jewish consciousness in such matters.In consequence of the governmental action, a certain rabbi at Sara-gossa had to order his coreligionists publicly, to obey the Inquisi-tors and to tell them under penalty of excommunication all theyknew concerning any Marrano who followed Jewish practices.Subsequently, one of his flock privately implored for exemptionfrom this, since, if he told all he knew about Alfonso de la Caballe-ria, the whole community would be placed in jeopardy. The rabbicomplied: but after the publication of the edict of expulsion, in 1492,he considered it his duty to go to the authorities and inform themof the episode, since the plea of danger no longer applied. �

9 One of the charges against Dávila was that, on the introduc-tion of the Inquisition into Segovia, he had the remains of hisancestors exhumed, in order to destroy proof of the fact that theyhad been interred in accordance with Jewish tradition. �

NOTES TO CHAPTER III

1 Not, as is usually assumed by historical writers, the islandof St. Thomas in the West Indies which (a) had not been discov-ered at that time (b) was never in Portuguese possession and (c)is a Garden of Eden in comparison with the other island, whichactually lies on the Equator. �

2 That all were packed into this building at the same time, assome contemporary records imply, is a physical impossibility. Thebuilding was subsequently used as the Palace of the Inquisition,being radically reconstructed at a later date. Thus the Marranos


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were tried for Judaizing on precisely the same spot where theyhad been forcibly made into Christians. The site is now occupiedby the National Theater (formerly the Theater of Donna MariaII) which pious Lisbon Jews even now refuse to enter. �

3 In the above account, an attempt has been made to summa-rize in a few pages the long and wearisome negotiations spreadover many years, which form the subject-matter of Herculano’sclassical History of the Origin and Establishment of the Inquisi-tion in Portugal. For fuller information, reference should be madeto this massive work, now available in English. �

NOTES TO CHAPTER IV

1 Mention may perhaps be made in this connection of the fam-ily of Manoel Pereira Coutinho, all of whose five daughters werenuns in the convent of La Esperança at Lisbon, while his sonswere living as Jews at Hamburg, under the name of Abendana!

Among noteworthy ecclesiastical figures of the seventeenthcentury in Spain, who were of Jewish extraction, were the famousdramatist and novelist, Juan Perez de Montalvan, a close friendof Lope de Vega, who was priest and notary of the Holy Office;and Felipe Godinez, a famous preacher and playwright, who wasreconciled by the Inquisition in 1624 at Seville as a Judaizer, butwas afterwards allowed to continue his career. �

2 Mariana de Macedo, a Dominican nun burned at Lisbon forJudaizing, in 1647, is worthy of record as another case in point.For other instances, cf. the cases of Frei Diogo da Assumpção(infra, p. 149) and Father Manuel Lopes de Carvalho (ch. XI, note9). At the earlier period of Inquisitional activity in Spain, therewere some cases which were if anything even more striking. Thuson his trial at Toledo, in 1486, Andrés González, parish priest ofSan Martin de Talavera, confessed that for the past fourteen yearshe had been a Jew at heart and had failed to take his sacerdotalfunctions seriously. More extraordinary still were the stories cir-culated about Fray Garcia de Zapata, prior of the Geronimitemonastery of Toledo. �

3 Ganephe: the characteristic Jewish garb in northern Africa. �4 Progging: Industrious. �

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5 The person in question is probably to be identified with Dr.Jacob Israel Belgara, a Spanish Marrano who had graduated atSaragossa and was circumcised in Barbary (at Tangiers?) in 1667,in his fortieth year. Addison mentions him repeatedly (pp. 63, 226).It is not impossible, however, that we have here one of the na-tive Barbary Jews who, according to the same authority (p. 83),concealed their religion and went to the Spanish and PortugueseUniversities to study medicine. �

6 The prophetess and her companions are said to have recountedto their adherents how they were taken up to heaven and there hada vision of the Marranos who had been martyred, installed on thronesof gold. They foretold the speedy advent of Elijah and of the Mes-siah, who would lead them all to the Promised Land. �

7 It was added that the image, besides shedding blood, actuallyspoke to them in reproof; after which they consumed it in fire! Con-tinued stubbornness in the face of so extraordinary a manifesta-tion is a phenomenon deserving of more than passing note.

It may be added that a certain woman who was discovered tohave been responsible for these denunciations was put to deathby order of the local New Christians, the assassin subsequentlyescaping to Holland. �

8 See p. 124 for an explanation of these terms. �

9 So Adler in Auto de Fé and Jew, pp. 36–8; but cf. the correc-tion in D’Azevedo, Historia dos Christãos Nows Portugueses, p.217. �

10 Such activity as there was centered about immigrants fromthe mainland. Thus, at an auto on January 13, 1675, the effigiesof six fugitive Portuguese Judaizers were solemnly, but innocu-ously, committed to the flames; and one refugee from Madrid wasburned alive. �

11 The word is a contemptuous dialectical form of judio (Jew).According to another theory, it is a diminutive of chuya, a Ma-jorcan term for pig, or pork—perhaps a contemptuous referenceto these unfortunates’ antipathy to the flesh of the pig. Anotherderivation is from the local equivalent of the Spanish chuco orFrench chouette—a cry used when calling a dog. �

12 As recently as 1904, the Prime Minister of Spain, MiguelMaura, was publicly taunted in the Cortes with being a Chueta!


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Even this is not perhaps quite so surprising as the fact that in1877 a student for the priesthood named Terongi (like two of themartyrs of two centuries earlier) was actually disqualified fromtaking Holy Orders by reason of his ancestry.

The famous novel of Ibañez, The Dead Speak (Los MuertosMandán), is inspired by the pitiable condition of the Chuetas inour own time. (See now also Sylvette de Lamar’s somewhatinsubstantial Jews with the Cross, 1932). The most recent reportshowever indicate that the condition of the Chuetas has very great-ly ameliorated recently. It is said that there are a couple of localfamilies who still hold secret Friday evening services. �

13 To the Canary Islands, also under Spanish rule, numerousNew Christians had penetrated at an early date after discov-ery. An Episcopal Inquisition was set up to deal with them asearly as 1499. As a result of its inquiries, there was discoveredto be in the group a number of secret Jews, who went so far asto maintain a synagogue for their services. A branch of the In-quisition of Andalusia was accordingly set up at Las Palmas in1504. Autos, at which a few persons were penanced or recon-ciled, were held in 1507 and 1510. In 1526, however, the tribu-nal was very active, eight individuals being relaxed in person,ten reconciled, and two penanced. Of these, over one half, in-cluding six out of the eight relaxados (persons relaxed; see ch.V, p. 124), were condemned for Judaizing. Further autos, atwhich however no persons suffered capitally, were held in 1530and 1534. This outburst of activity seems to have temporarilyeradicated crypto-Judaism in the islands. Only four New Chris-tians figured in the sporadic prosecutions which continued un-til 1581, and none at all thenceforth until 1597, when all activ-ity was temporarily suspended. The immigration of Marranosfrom the mainland—principally from Portugal—at the beginningof the seventeenth century stimulated fresh activity. In 1625, anEdict of Faith against Judaism was issued. The informationwhich this elicited revealed the presence of a whole colony ofsecret Jews. A considerable proportion of them had however fled.Owing partly to this and partly to political considerations, noprosecutions ensued; and crypto-Judaism in the islands washenceforth virtually unknown. �

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NOTES TO CHAPTER V

1 The description which follows is based principally upon thesystem of the Spanish Inquisition. With a slight change of vocabu-lary, it applies equally well to Portugal. �

2 =Zom Kippur (Fast of Atonement). �3 The foregoing is a composite text, based mainly upon that given

in Wolf, Jews in the Canary Islands, pp. 26–9, but including a fewcharacteristic passages from other Edicts which happen to beomitted there. The original belongs to the early part of the sixteenthcentury. At a later period, naturally, the Inquisition was even lesswell-informed. The disproportionate prominence given to unimpor-tant customs and mere superstitions is worthy of note. �

4 It is pertinent to remember, in this connection, that even inenlightened England, it has only been since 1836 that persons ac-cused of felony have been able to avail themselves of the assistanceof Counsel or to see copies of the depositions made against them. �

5 It appears that, owing to some confusion, another physiciansettled in London as a Jew, Dr. Jacob de Castro Sarmento (whosefathers name was Francisco and his mothers Mesquita: see in-fra, pp. 105, 268) was accused by his coreligionists of having beenresponsible for these denunciations. After a formal inquiry by theSynagogue authorities he was absolved. �

6 Menasseh ben Israel (Vindiciae Judaeorum, p. 11) recounts anamusing tale of a Portuguese nobleman, who in order to secure therelease of his body-physician, who had confessed to the crime ofJudaizing under torture, seized the Inquisitor himself and extracteda precisely similar confession out of him by the same means! �

7 This account is taken from Lea, A History of the Inquisitionof Spain, III, 23–6, who derived it from the original Inquisitionalprocess in the National Archives at Madrid. It is right to add thatthe Inquisition of Portugal was less ferocious in this respect thanthat of Spain, the methods of torture being restricted. �

8 In those rare cases where the Holy Office felt inclined toexercise clemency in the case of a second condemnation, the cul-prit would be sentenced to the physical penalties of imprisonment,etc., without the formal act of abjuration, which could only beadmitted on one occasion. �

9 “House of Penitence” or “House of Mercy.” �


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10 In Portugal, the term was fixed in 1640 at three to five years. �

11 Cases are on record of persons who made confessions im-plicating hundreds of others, including the whole of their ownfamilies, but were nevertheless condemned to the flames on thepretext that their admissions were incomplete. �

12 E. g. Rabbi Judah ibn Verga (supra, p, 46) : Abraham Bibajo,the philosopher, accused in 1489 with other notables of the com-munity of Huesca of converting certain Marranos and assisting themto escape to Palestine (he, however, died in prison): and a couple ofthe ancestors of the famous Rabbi Moses Almosnino. �

13 The opponents of the Inquisition, on the other hand, main-tained that out of one hundred negativos punished, hardly a sin-gle one was guilty. They pointed above all to the case of two nunswho were burned at Evora in 1673. One of them had lived anunblemished life in her convent for forty years and died invokingJesus with her last breath. It is difficult to know whether she is tobe reckoned a martyr to Judaism or to Christianity. In the samecategory is a distinguished New Christian soldier, the QuartermasterJoão Alvares de Barbuda, who went to his death at Lisbon in theauto of April 4, 1666, and who took with him into prison a bookof hours and a little image of Saint Antony. In the Lisbon auto ofMay 10, 1682, eight victims who had perished in prison were pro-nounced innocent. In the following year, the acquittal was orderedat Coimbra of a woman who had died in prison after seventeenyears of incarceration, under a false accusation, and was now dis-covered to be after all an Old Christian of unblemished family andreputation. Such cases were, however, rare. �

14 “Sacred Sack.” �

15 The horror which the sambenito inspired was extreme. Ribei-ro Sanchez, the famous Marrano physician and reformer, records ahamusing story connected with this. In Lisbon, those New Christianswho had been penanced at an auto had to present themselves atChurch every Sunday to learn Christian doctrine. Once, the pressof people who were waiting to see the “Jews” (as they called them)was so great that they were unable to leave the building. One of themtherefore took off his sambenito and advanced, waving it about infront of him. So great was the popular fear of being contaminatedwith its touch that there was a general stampede, and the path was

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completely and immediately cleared. Sanchez was told this story bythe hero of the occasion, then living as a Jew in London. �

16 Also known as brasero (“brazier”). The function of mount-ing guard at the autos and furnishing wood for the pyre was rel-egated in some cities to a body, known as the compañia de laZarza. �

I7 Orobio de Castro, and Antonio Enriques Gomez. See infra,chapter XII, p. 299 and XIII, p. 333. �

18 Elogios que zelosos dedicaron á la felice memoria de Abra-ham Nuñez Bernal, que fue quemado vivo, sanctificando el nom-bre de su Criador, en Cordova a 3. de Mayo anno 5415. Otherssimilarly commemorated include the seventy-five year old Abra-ham Athias (alias Jorge Mendes de Castro), Jacob RodriguezCasseres and Raquel Nuñez Fernandez, who “sanctified theName” in the same place in the great Auto of June 1665. �

19 The translation here given is in accordance with the OldSpanish version rather than the exact grammatical meaning, so asto convey the idea in the mind of those who recited the prayer. Itis to be found in more than one edition of the prayer-books print-ed in Amsterdam in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It isinteresting to note that, in his introduction to the first full editionof the Hebrew ritual printed in America, the editor, Solomon Jack-son, says in reference to this: “Martyrdom having ceased, and theliberality of mankind assuring us it will no more be revived, it wasthought best to omit the prayer.” This was in 1826. In the sameyear, the Inquisition claimed a human victim! �

20 See Publications of the Jewish Historical Society of Ameri-ca, XXIII, 132, 134. One would gladly assume a misprint. How-ever, since apparently a son of Maria Carillo was “relaxed” onthe same occasion at the age of 56, the possible margin of erroris not great.

Beauty, apparently, made no more impression on the Inquisi-tors than did age. Gracia d’Alarçon, wife of Pedro Montero, whowas reconciled at Granada in 1593, was described in the officialrecord as the most beautiful woman in the kingdom! �

21 I now have reason to doubt the Portuguese figures. Detailsfor the period 1651–1750 indicate that 419 culprits were relaxedin person—and this was the period of comparative mildness. �


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NOTES TO CHAPTER VI1 The only complete account of the trial of a Marrano availa-

ble in English is that of Gabriel de Granada, who was sentencedby the Mexican Tribunal in 1645. A complete translation of theofficial record, extending over 127 printed pages, was edited byDavid Fergusson and Cyrus Adler as volume VII of the Publica-tions of the American Jewish Historical Society (1899). The per-sons concerned in it are of no great importance; but it gives aremarkably graphic impression of a typical Inquisitional case. Asomewhat more important trial, that of Jorge d’Almeida, wasedited in less detail by Cyrus Adler, ibid., vol. IV, pp. 29–79. �

2 Or, “of the Shoe.” Perhaps there is some confusion with LuisDias, the cobbler; or else Sapato refers to the mythical river Sam-bation which rested on the Sabbath—a piece of Jewish folk-lorewhich is known to have retained its hold amongst the Marranosfor a considerable time later. [See now my article in Revue desEtudes Juives 116: 93–5.] �

3 “Long live the Law of Moses,” �4 The stateman’s son, José da Villareal, became Professor of

Greek at Marseilles towards the close of the century, and was theauthor of the work Escada de Jacob (Jacob’s Ladder), still inmanuscript. �

5 The reputed “miracle” could, of course, equally convenient-ly be interpreted in a diametrically opposite sense. �

6 Lea, Inquisition in the Spanish Dependencies, p. 425, addsto the martyres gifts that of miracle-working, asserting that heused pens cut out of egg-shells. He has obviously confused huevos(eggs) and huesos (bones)! �

7 It is remarkable that the report of these two martyrs in theNew World, like that of some of those in the old, reached theJewish communities of Europe, where they were duly celebratedin prose and verse. �

NOTES TO CHAPTER VII1 The following account applies most faithfully to the Marranos

of Portugal, reflecting their more organized religious life. It isdifficult to say how far any active proselytization was carried onamong the Marranos of the Peninsula by their coreligionists

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abroad. We occasionally hear of professing Jews, or else returnedfugivites, who were arrested by the Inquisition; but their pres-ence in Portugal appears in every case to have been due to pri-vate business only. Contemporary Catholic writers inform us thatFernando Gomez, alias Daniel Franco, who was relaxed at Evo-ra in 1608, was a rabbi sent from Salonica to initiate his kins-men into the elements of their ancestral faith. An examination ofthe original record of his trial, however (Archives of Torre doTombo, Lisbon: Inquisição de Evora, processo 8424), makes itplain that he was in fact nothing more than a talkative and notover-courageous youth, who had come to the country about hisown affairs. The only piece of definite evidence in the reversedirection is a statement contained in a Denunciation of 1639, andemanating indirectly from Menasseh ben Israel, that “every yearthere went certain Jews from Holland to the capital of Madridto circumcise the New Christians.” �

2 The case is on record of an ignorant Marrano who knew no prayers,and learned to recite Psalms without the orthodox conclusion on hear-ing the sentence on a New Christian burned at Lisbon. One sees thushow the Inquisitional severity defeated its own ends. �

3 The custom has, of course, a parallel in traditional practice;but the Marranos attached a disproportionate importance to it. �

NOTES TO CHAPTER VIII

1 Above all, the capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453had caused some searching of heart amongst the Marranos, whoimagined that it was a portent of the close of the rule of the Cross.In the subsequent period, many of them set out for the Levant.In 1464, for example, no less than seventy families embarked atValencia for Valona, in Albania, though one was intercepted onthe journey. The depositions made by the latter indicate thestrength of the mystical expectations amongst the Marranos, whobelieved that the Messiah had actually been born near Constan-tinople, invisible to all but true Jews. �

2 See above, p. 5. �

3 At Venice, Daniel Bomberg, the famous Christian printer ofHebrew books, assisted in transmitting the property of the Mar-


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ranos: while his rival, Jeronimo Soncino, boasted that he wasinstrumental in the reconversion of many of them to Judaism. �

4 See above, ch. IV, p. 81. �

5 Another eminent Marrano who settled in Turkey at the closeof the sixteenth century was João Lopes, who, after administer-ing the business affairs of Pope Sixtus V for some years, in theguise of an earnest Christian, fled to Constantinople or Salonica,where he settled down as a Jew! �

6 This was not always the case in Italy. Thus in 1640 Fernan-do Alvarez, alias Abraham da Porto, was martyred at Rome; whilein 1602 Emmanuel Mocato of Scandiano, who had saved him-self by flight, was burned in effigy at Reggio. �

7 One point of especial interest may here be noted. It is to bepresumed that the original Marrano settlers began by attendingthe Levantine synagogue, forming among themselves only a so-ciety for the purpose of studying the Law—Talmud Torah. Whenthey set up their own congregation, they transferred the samename to it, so that it became known as the K. K. (Kahal Kadosh,or Holy Congregation) Talmud Torah. Hence it became the fash-ion in the Marrano diaspora for each congregation to have its owndistinctive title; as, for example, the K. K. Talmud Torah of Am-sterdam, or the K. K. Shaar ha-Shamayim (“Gate of Heaven”) inLondon. The fashion was imitated in the New World, with thecongregations Shearith Israel (“Remnant of Israel”) in New York,Yeshuath Israel (“Salvation of Israel”) in Newport, etc. When atthe beginning of the nineteenth century Ashkenazic congregationsbegan to be established by the German settlers in the UnitedStates, they very naturally followed this example, adopting a spe-cific, picturesque title for each one. It would appear therefore thatthe characteristic practice prevalent throughout America todayis directly traceable to the Marrano community of Venice. �

8 The story is told of a certain priest in Rome, who could notfind anybody to tell him the way to the Ghetto, it being assumedthat, as a Portuguese, he must necessarily know it! Somewhatsimilarly a preacher at a Portuguese auto-da-fé repeated the joc-ular statement of a certain Venetian rabbi who, when challengedto state whether the Jews anywhere had a kingdom of their own,replied that they certainly had—in Portugal. �

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9 At Bordeaux, a stream of immigrants from other parts—no-tably from the Papal States in southern France—took advantageof the toleration won by the Marrano element; much, indeed, tothe disdain of the latter, who did not hesitate to give drastic ex-pression to their opposition. Paradoxically enough, these also,notwithstanding their different antecedents, had to submit to thesurreptitious designation locally applied, becoming known similarlyas “Avignonese New Christians.” Avignon itself, like Rome, attract-ed a few Marranos from the Peninsula, who joined the ancient com-munity which had continued to exist there, under the papal aegis,even after the expulsion of the Jews from the rest of France. �

10 The Inquisition always did its best to obtain details of thecommercial pseudonym of any Marrano fugitive, as well as theidentity of his business correspondents in the Peninsula. Thus,for example, Abraham Isaac Pereira of Amsterdam traded asGerard Carl Bangardel. �

11 For an elaboration of these points, see my article in TheMenorah Journal for April, 1929. �

NOTES TO CHAPTER IX1 Above, p. 200. �

2 In August, 1598, a Maria Nuñez, aged 19, married one Du-arte Saraiva at Amsterdam; in the following November, anotherperson of the same name, aged 23, married Manuel LopezHomem. It is not easy to see which of the two is the heroine ofthis romantic story. �

3 It may be mentioned, however, that the story of their beinglargely instrumental in its foundation is untrue. At the outset theyowned only 1/10 of 1% of the shares. �

4 This traditional story can be reconciled with a little ingenuitywith the official documents in the Hatfield Papers, VI, 536. �

NOTES TO CHAPTER X1 See below, p. 325. �2 Dormido is generally stated, though on insufficient authority,

to have been Menasseh’s brother-in-law. For this and other pointsin which the present account differs from the generally accepted story,see my History of the Jews in England, Oxford, 1941, etc. �


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NOTES TO CHAPTER XI

1 In the above sketch no account has been taken of the by nomeans negligible share in the discovery of America which maybe ascribed to professing Jews, both scientists (such as AbrahamZacuto, the astronomer, and the “Map-Jew” Crescas) and finan-ciers (like Abraham Senior). �


3 So far was the family looked up to by their fellow-Marranosthat (as we have seen) their son, Gaspar Vaez Sevilla, born in 1624,was said to be hoped to be their Messiah. �


5 On this occasion the executioner began to garrot one of thevictims by mistake, under the impression that he had receivedthis preliminary act of mercy by a profession of repentance. Theerror was however discovered in time, and the unfortunate per-son was dragged half-dead to the brasero; thus (as the chroniclertriumphantly puts it) “tasting the agony of both deaths.” �

6 As late however as 1754 a zealous Jesuit proposed theestablishment of an independent Inquisitional tribunal at Bue-nos Aires, where he alleged that there were residing from four tosix thousand Portuguese Judaizers. �

7 When at a later stage in the campaign Rio de S. Franciscowas recovered, five Judaizers of Portuguese birth were capturedwith the Dutch and sent back to Portugal for trial. They all ap-peared as penitents in the auto-da-fè held at Lisbon on Decem-ber 15, 1647—the same in which Isaac de Castro Tartas, who hadbeen arrested at Bahia, perished as a martyr. In 1649 anotherbatch of five captured in Brazil were relaxed at Lisbon. �

8 Recife = Rock: a play upon words. �

9 The Portuguese recon quest did not of course close the asso-ciation of the Marranos with Brazil. Transportation to that coun-try continued to be a common sentence against condemned Judaiz-ers until well on in the eighteenth century; while voluntary emi-gration remained frequent. The Marranos of Brazil were at thisperiod very important in the diamond trade as well as otherbranches of commerce. The Inquisition continued its activities.On one occasion, the arrests were so wide-spread as to create acrisis in the sugar industry at Rio de Janeiro. When, in 1702, the

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Bishop of Coimbra was appointed Governor of the Colony, therewas a recrudescence of persecution. Over one hundred personsfrom Rio de Janeiro alone were committed to prison in 1712. Inthe following year, seventy-two of these—thirty-two men and fortywomen—figured at an auto in Lisbon. In the following year,there was a further batch. Among the prominent Brazilian vic-tims were Antonio José da Silva, the dramatist; and the vision-ary Father Manuel “Lopes de Carvalho was burned alive as aJudaizer. �

10 The founder of the Bridgetown community was Joseph Jes-surun Mendes (1616–1699), whose Marrano origin is proved by thealias. Lewis Dias, which—highly exceptionally—was also inscribedon his tombstone, still to be read in the local cemetery. �

11 Even in the remotest parts of the Old World, Marranos wereto be found. The Portuguese Inquisition maintained a branch atGoa, in India, whither the New Christians had penetrated at anearly date. Here, as early as 1543, a certain Dr. Jeronimo Diaz hadbeen burned for maintaining heretical opinions. The Holy Officewas formally introduced some years later. In 1546, “St.” FrancisXavier petitioned for its establishment, but his wishes were com-plied with only in 1561. From that date to 1623, no less than 3,800persons were tried—many of them native “St. Thomas” Christians.The first auto took place on September 27, 1563, two Judaizersfiguring amongst the four victims. The subsequent activities be-came greater and greater. Autos of peculiar virulence took placein 1575 and 1578 under the zealous Inquisitor Bartholomeu daFonseca. In each of these, seventeen Judaizers lost their lives. Withthe return of Fonseca to Portugal, the fury abated, so that from1590 to 1597 no death sentences were pronounced. Simultaneous-ly, the number of Judaizers diminished, only two figuring amongthe twenty victims from 1597 to 1623. Elsewhere in India, outsidethe Portuguese sphere of influence, considerations of caution didnot obtain. A few individuals made their way to Cochin, wherethey joined the ancient and romantic native community which hadexisted there from time immemorial. Thus there was in the sixteenthcentury a local Hebrew poet who had apparently lived previouslyas a Marrano in the Peninsula; and early in the seventeenth cen-tury a New Christian physician from Oporto, named Manuel Lopes,fled thither to return to his ancestral faith. At Madras, under Eng-


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lish rule, a small open; Jewish community was formed later in thecentury with one of the Nieto family as its minister. Its componentswere all of Portuguese origin, some of them having no doubt comedirectly from the Peninsula, and others by way of the free coun-tries of northern Europe. Thus Domingo, alias Abraham Israel daPorto, who had been one of the leading spirits of the London com-munity at the time of the Resettlement, and had settled in India in1691, was one of the first freemen of the city. As in Brazil, the dia-mond industry was almost entirely in their hands. At a later peri-od, there were a few Portuguese Jews at Fort St. George, as Cal-cutta was then called.

A few New Christians also found their way to the Portuguesecolony of Angola in West Africa, where there was an Inquisitori-al visitation to hunt them out in 1626. �

NOTES TO CHAPTER XII1 Cf. the testimony of an erudite contemporary: “What can I say

of Spain and Portugal, where nearly all the princes, and nobility,and commoners are descended from apostatized Jews? This fact isthere so well known that nobody doubts it . . . The monasteries andconvents are all full of Jews, while many even of the canons, In-quisitors, and Bishops themselves are of Jewish descent. There aremany of them who are convinced Jews at heart, though for the sakeof the goods of this world they pretend to believe in Christianity.Some subsequently suffer from pangs of conscience and, if they findan opportunity, escape. In Amsterdam and elsewhere there areAugustinians, Franciscans, Jesuits and Dominicans who are Jews.In Spain, on the other hand, there are Bishops and observant fri-ars whose parents and relatives live here and in other towns in orderto be able to practice the Jewish religion” (Limborch, Arnica Col-latio, pp. 102, 209, 276. The authority for this statement is IsaacOrobio de Castro, for whom see below).

If one include men of partly Marrano extraction, the roll wouldbe greater and more distinguished by far: Cf. the case of Luis deLeòn, the very distinguished Spanish poet and theologian whowhen arrested and investigated by the Inquisition was found tobe one-eighth New Christian. The background of Sta Teresa deAvila was similar. �

1a See the dedication to the Spanish translation of the Contra

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Apionem (Amsterdam, 1687); the statement that he taught at Sala-manca or at Alcalá de Henares has apparently no foundation. �

2 See above, ch. IV, p. 77. �

3 Two brothers of this prelate, Abraham and Jacob Curiel, diedin the Levant as Jews, in Tripoli and Safed respectively. �

4 Above, p. 288. �5 Diogo Nuñes Ribeiro had been reconciled for Judaizing at

Lisbon at the auto of October 19, 1704. �

6 It may be mentioned that Ribeiro Sanchez was not the onlyMarrano representative at the court of Russia. The court jesterunder Peter the Great and the Empress Anna was João d’Acosta(”Lyacosta”), who had previously been in business as a broker inHamburg, and had heated arguments with the fiery Czar on theo-logical topics. �

7 The last prominent member of the family was ErskineChilders, the Irish author and patriot, who was executed for hisshare in the Irish Rebellion of 1922; while in the female line, adescendant of Rachel de Payba, Rowland Gideon’s daughter,became Duchess of Norfolk. �

8 It is perhaps worth while to mention, in this connection, thata Mathias Mendes Seixas, of Covilhã, merchant, was reconciledand condemned to perpetual imprisonment at the auto-da-fè heldat Lisbon on October 16, 1746. �

NOTES TO CHAPTER XIII

1 Similarly further East, we find Judeo-Greek, Judeo-Arabicand Judeo-Persian. There was a considerable amount of litera-ture written in the vernacular by the Jews of Spain before theexpulsion, but this was largely intended for the gentile world. �

2 There were earlier translations in manuscript from the be-ginning of the eighteenth century. In print, however, Pinto’s waspreceded only by The Book of Religion, Ceremonies and Prayersof the Jews, published in London by an apostate in 1738. �

3 Some circumspection had of course to be exercised so as notto arouse feeling in gentile circles. In consequence a considerablenumber of these works were never published, and are extant onlyin manuscript. �


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4 Besides this there was a considerable amount of internalapologetic and polemical literature, intended to confute unbeliev-ers like Uriel Acosta or Samuel Prado. �

s The version is that of Dean Milman, who has placed it onrecord that Melo’s translation “is one of the finest in any Euro-pean language” (History of the Jews, Book XXX). The view ofMenendez Pelayo (Heterodoxos Españoles, II, 608–9) is obvious-ly motivated by religious prejudice. �

6 The Spanish epic David by Jacob Uziel, which appeared atVenice in 1630, dedicated to the Duke of Urbino, should be men-tioned in this connection, though on the one hand the author wasa professing Jew at the time of its publication, and on the otherit is not certain that he was of Marrano origin. A further verydistinguished Marrano writer who chose biblical subjects wasFelipe Godinez, a fashionable preacher as well as dramatist, whowas reconciled by the Inquisition at Seville in 1624, though af-terwards reinstated in his clerical functions. His case, with thoseof Antonio Enriques Gomez and Isaac Orobio de Castro, showsthe unfairness of Menendez Pelayo in belittling the importanceof the Spanish Judaizers at this period. �

NOTES TO CHAPTER XIV

1 This law may be responsible for the curious phenomenon thatpersons, who afterwards became loyal Jews, lived for some timein London or Amsterdam without joining the community, sub-sequently visited Portugal and embraced Judaism only severalyears later. �

2 Perhaps the most characteristic auto in this respect was thatheld at Coimbra on May 23, 1660, with 176 penitents. Of these,eighteen were relaxed, including five men and no less than thir-teen women. �

3 The extent to which the original purity of blood of the Por-tuguese Marranos had been modified by this period may be real-ized by the fact that, out of 625 persons convicted in various autosbetween 1683 and 1746, only, 364 were classified as “New Chris-tians,” 207 as “partly New Christians,” 22 as “Half New Chris-tians,” 6 as “Quarter New Christians,” 2 as “Old Christians,” and

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the few remaining by various other gradations (Wolf, Jews in theCanary Islands, p. xxvii). �

4 In one of these, republished in his Miscellaneous Tracts, thereis a complete translation of the Lista of the persons who appearedin the great Lisbon auto of May 10, 1682. Geddes gives a first-hand account of a certain “New Christian” acquaintance of hiswhose Catholicism was unimpeachable until he was arrested bythe Inquisition, but whose sufferings at its hands turned him intoa convinced Judaizer. �

5 It may be mentioned that this little work is so able that itwas thought worthy of republication in English at London, in1845, and at Philadelphia in 1860. �

6 David Machado de Sequeira, a well-known litterateur of theperiod and the leading spirit of the little community of Dublin, hadcome over to London in 1708 for the purpose. He had prepared aletter to send to the King of Portugal to accompany the book; butit was not despatched for fear that it might prejudice the positionof the native New Christians. Even before this time, the Noticiashad been in circulation in London in manuscript. �

7 The last person to be burned at Lisbon for Judaizing was theNew Christian merchant, Jeronimo José Ramos, of Braganza, whosuffered the extreme penalty immediately before the great Earth-quake, on January 15, 1755. He had managed to escape, by somemeans which it has been impossible to trace, in the auto of Sep-tember 24, 1752, when he had been condemned to be relaxed.

It may be mentioned, for the purposes of comparison, that aslate as 1786 the body of a woman condemned and executed forthe crime of coining was burned at the Old Bailey in London;while in enlightened France, in 1761, a Jew and a Christian wereburned at Nancy, after strangulation, for an alleged offenceagainst the consecrated Sacrament. �

8 This measure did not receive anything like unanimous approv-al in the country. It was actually rumored that Pombal had receivedm return for it a bribe of half-a-million cruzados from the “Jews,’’’as those who benefited by its provisions were still called.

A well-known but apocryphal story recounts how the king wasby no means satisfied with the policy of his minister, and inti-mated that if he had his own way he would make all of the de-


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scendants of New Christians wear yellow hats, like their uncon-verted ancestors. On the next day, Pombal turned up at Courtwith three of the articles in question:—one for His Majesty, onefor himself, and the other for the Inquisitor General. �

9 The last auto at Lisbon had been held on September 20, 1767,being the 227th anniversary of the first. The last private autorecorded in Portugal was in 1778, but there may have been laterinstances. �

10 In all, during the reign of Philip V (1700–1746), 1564 here-tics are said to have been relaxed and 11,730 otherwise punished—an appalling total, in the century of enlightenment, when theEncyclopedists were flourishing in France and the breath of reli-gious liberty was sweeping throughout Europe. The figures arehowever gravely suspect. Lea (History of the Inquisition, III, 310)speaks of a final recrudescence at Madrid in 1732, when severalNew Christians were relaxed on the fantastic charge of havingscoured and burned an image of Jesus in a house in the Calle de lasInfantas. It is obvious that this is the result of some confusion withthe events of precisely a hundred years previous, when a number ofpersons were punished for having performed an identical outrageat Madrid, at a house situated in a road of a similar name. Perhapsthe last recorded punishment for Judaizing in Spain was that ofLorenzo Beitran, who appeared at an auto in Seville on March 31,1799. It is symptomatic that, notwithstanding the heinousness of hisoffense, his punishment was comparatively slight. �

11 See Lea, History of the Inquisition in Spain, III, 310. How-ever, as late as 1801, an accusation of Judaizing was made be-fore that tribunal. See Vignau, Catálogo . . . de la Inquisición deToledo, p. 164. �

12 To complete the picture, it should be added that the Portu-guese Inquisition, which had survived Pombal’s reforms in anemasculated form, was finally abolished on March 31, 1821. Thatof Goa had been abolished in 1774, was reinstated in 1778, andfinally disappeared in 1812. The American Tribunals ended theirexistence at the same period—Peru and Mexico in 1820, etc. �

13 Until the nineteenth century was well advanced, notices weredisplayed in many parish churches indicating which were theconverso families and warning the faithful not to intermarry withthem. �

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NOTES TO EPILOGUE

1 Schechter, “An Unfamiliar Aspect of Anglo-Jewish History,” inPublications of the American Jewish Historical Society, XXV, 72–3. �

2 George Borrow, The Bible in Spain, ch. XI. �3 Fishberg, The Jews, p, 161. �

4 The traditional counterpart reads: Blessed art Thou, O Lord,our God, King of the universe, who has sanctified us with Hiscommandments and commanded us to do . . . �

5 An interesting piece of folk-etymology current amongst the Mar-ranos illustrates this fact in a striking manner, as well as indicatingthe utter decay of Jewish knowledge amongst them: “A denominaçãode judeu vem do facto de nos ajudarmos mutuamente” (The name Jewis derived from the fact that we assist one another). �

6 It is significant that a prayer on behalf of their brethren inthe dungeons of the Inquisition has remained in their liturgy forthe Day of Atonement down to the present day. By a curious coinci-dence, the Spanish and Portuguese congregations in London, etc.preserve a similar petition for the service on the Eve of Atonement,which was recited down to a few years ago in Portuguese. �

7 This statement does not apply to the Balearic Islands, wherethe Chuetas (as the descendants of the Jews are still called) con-tinue to maintain their own separate, and somewhat despised,existence although they have apparently lost all traces of theirancestral faith. (Some very recent reports contradict this. Seeabove, ch. IV, note 11.)

In the rest of Spain, where after the sixteenth century the cryp-to-Jewish tradition was never really strong, there are a number ofpersons who are conscious of Jewish origin, and possibly even a fewvery vague recollections of Jewish practice; but nothing more. Thusthe present writer has been informed of a Spanish country gentle-man who kindles a lamp in his cellar every Friday night, withoutknowing the reason: of families which abstain from pork, etc.

As far as the former Spanish colonies are concerned, therecollections seem to be no stronger. In Mexico, there was pub-lished in 1889 a curious periodical named El Sabado Secreto (TheSecret Sabbath), which appears to have been intended mainly toappeal to persons of Marrano blood. In Southern Chile, nearTemuku (according to an article published in The New Judaea


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401

in 1928) there is still a semi-secret community of “SabbathistCabanists,” who observe the Sabbath and the Feast of Tabernac-les. It is difficult to tell what credence is to be placed in this re-port. The small group of autochthonous “Mexican” Jews, notwith-standing their romantic legends concerning their origin, are ap-parently descended from recent converts. �

8 It is a source of gratification to the present writer, which hewould like to put on record here, that he was the first personoutside Portugal to express himself publicly in favor of a move-ment to help the Marranos. �

9 The funds for this were provided by the veteran philanthro-pist, Lucius N. Littauer. �

NOTES TO TEXT


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403

BIBLIOGRAPHY1

of some of the more important works used

(i) General

H. C. Lea, A History of the Inquisition in Spain, 4 vols.,1906–7.

J. Lucio d’Azevedo, Historia dos Christãos Novos Portu-gueses, 1921.

J. Mendes dos Remedios, Os Judeus em Portugal, 2 vols.,1895–1928.

H. Graetz, History of the Jews.M. Kayserling,2 Geschichte der Juden in Portugal, 1867; Die

Juden in Navarra, den Baskenländern und auf denBalearen, 1861.

1 Use has also been made throughout of various manuscripts andpamphlet sources, especially anti-Jewish tracts, records of Inqui-sitional trials at the State Archives in Lisbon, etc., and “Relations”of the autos-da-fè, as well as the invaluable Hebrew “Responsa” Lit-erature. Recourse should be made to the standard works of reference,particularly The Jewish Encyclopedia, for further information aboutthe various persons and places mentioned. Separate mention of var-ious monographs will be made with reference to the chapters in whichthey are first of special utility, and will not be repeated in connec-tion with other sections on which they may contain equally valuableinformation.

2 It is impossible to mention here individually all of Kayserling’svery numerous contributions to this subject, some in volume form andsome scattered about in various periodicals. But it would be churlishnot to pay a tribute to his valuable researches, but for which this workcould never have been written. It is my duty to point out, in addition,that my debt to Lea’s classical writings is immeasurably greater thanthe small space which they occupy in this bibliography might lead thereader to suppose.


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J. A. Llorente, Historia Critica de la Inquisición de España(frequently translated and re-issued).

M. Menendez y Pelayo, Historia de los Heterodoxos Es-pañoles, 3 vols., 2nd ed., 1929.

S. Asaf, The Marranos of Spain and Portugal in the Re-sponsa Literature (Hebrew), in Zion, Part 5, 1932.

H. J. Zimmels, Die Marranen in der rabbinischen Literatur,Berlin, 1932.

(ii) Detailed Monographs

INTRODUCTORY

A. Emanuelson, The Remnant of the Jews, 1929: for thecrypto-Jews of Persia, etc.

U. Cassuto, Un’ ignoto capitolo di storia ebraica, in Her-man Cohen Festschrift, Judaica, Berlin, 1912: for theNeofiti of Apulia.

See also L. V. Vitale, Un particolare ignorato di storiapugliese: neofiti e mercanti, Naples, 1926.

I. Abrahams and D. Yellin, Maimonides, Philadelphia, 1903:for the Almohadan persecution.

S. Katz, The Jews in the Visigothic and Frankish Kingdomsof Spain and Gaul, Cambridge, 1937.

CHAPTER I

J. Amador de los Rios, Historia de los Judios de España,vol. II, 1876.

F. Baer, Die Juden im christlichen Spanien, vol. I pt. l, 1929;pt. 2, 1936.

A. Farinelli, Marrano: storia di un vituperio (for the deri-vation of the word).

N. Lopez Martinez. Los judaizantes y la Inquisición, 1954.


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405

CHAPTER II

J. Amador de los Rios, Historia de los Judios de España,vol. Ill, 1876.

M. Serrano y Sanz, Origenes de la dominación española enAmerica, vol. I, 1918.

W. T. Walsh, Isabella of Spain, 1931.3

CHAPTER III

A. Herculano, Historia da origem e estabelecimento daInquisição em Portugal, English translation, 1926.

A. Baião, A Inquisição em Portugal e no Brasil, 1921.

CHAPTER IV

E. N. Adler, Auto de Fe and Jew, 1908.Idem, Documents sur les Marranes d’Espagne et de Por-

tugal sous Philippe IV (in Revue des Études Juives, vol.XLVIII, et seq.).

(V. Vignau), Catalogo . . . de la Inquisición de Toledo, 1903.L. Wolf, Jews in the Canary Islands, 1926.J. de la Puerta Vizcaino, La sinagoga balear, 1857.A. Lionel Isaacs, The Jews of Majorca, 1936.B. Braunstein, The Chuetas of Majorca, 1936.

CHAPTER V

M. Kayserling, Ein Feiertag in Madrid, 1859.J. del Olmo, Relacion Historica de Auto General de Fee

que se celebró en Madrid este Ano de 1689 conassistenci del Rey, 1680. (The most famous of the

3 This work is important, psychologically if not historically,as a twentieth-century restatement of the standards and preju-dices of the fifteenth.

BIBLIOGRAPHY


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“relations” of the various great Autos which were pe-riodically printed, and cited as characteristic. Kay-serling’s little work mentioned above is based uponthis).

D. Fergusson and C. Adler, Trial of Gabriel de Granada bythe Inquisition in Mexico, 1642–1645 (Publications ofthe Jewish Historical Society of America, vol. VII, 1899:The only complete Inquisitional trial available in Eng-lish).

A. J. Moreira, Historia dos principaes actos e procedi-men-tos da Inquisição em Portugal.

CHAPTER VI

J. Lucio d’Azevedo, A Evolução do Sebastianismo: in Ar-quivo Historico Portugueses, X (1916). On Luis Diasand his companions.

A. J. Teixeira, Antonio Homem e a Inquisição, 1895–1902.

Ramos Coelho, Manuel Fernandes Villareal e o seu proc-esso, 1894.

A. Baiao, Episodios Dramaticos da Inquisição Portuguesa,3 vols., 1919–1937.

CHAPTER VII

C. Roth, The Religion of the Marranos, in Jewish Quarter-ly Review, new series, 1931. (The only study devotedto this subject containing full documentation. I am in-debted to the Editor for his kind permission to repro-duce here substantial portions of it).


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407

CHAPTER VIII

G. Rosanes, History of the Jews in Turkey (Hebrew).M. A. Levy, Don Joseph Nasi, 1859.

D. Kaufmann, Gesammelte Schriften, vol. II (1910) (for theMarranos of Ancona, etc., cf. also Revue des ÉtudesJuives, vols. XVI, XXXI, LXXXIX). C. Roth, Ibid.,LXXXVIII, LXXXIX, XC (on the Marranos in Ven-ice, Leghorn and Rouen).

C. Roth, The House of Nasi: Dona Gracia, 1947; The Dukeof Naxos, 1948.

T. Malvezin, Histoire des Juifs à Bordeaux, 1875; also im-portant subsidiary studies by Cirot, 1909–1920.

M. Léon, Histoire des Juifs de Bayonne, 1893.M. Grünwald, Portugiesengräber auf deutcher Erde.

U. Cassuto, Elementos para a historia dos judeus portu-gueses de Hamburgo (and other studies).

CHAPTER IX

S. Ullman, Histoire des Juifs en Belgique.J. A. Goris, Études sur les marchands méridionales à An-

vers, 1925.J. S. da Silva Rosa, Geschiednis der Portugeesche Joden te

Amsterdam, 1925.S. Seeligman, Bibliographie en Historie, 1927; and other

writings by the same.I. Prins, De Vestiging der Marranen in Noord-Nederland

in de XVIe eeuw, 1927.C. Gebhardt, Uriel Acosta, 1922.J. Zwarts, Hoofdstukken uit de geschiednis der Joden in

Nederland, 1929, and other studies.

BIBLIOGRAPHY


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J. Hillesum, Uri-ha-Levi 1904, from the Centraal Blad v.Isr. in Nederland; and other studies.

H.I. Bloom, Economic Activities of the Jews of Amsterdamin the 17th and 18th centuries, 1937.

CHAPTER X

L. Wolf, Menasseh ben Israel’s Mission to Oliver Cromwell,1901.

M. Gaster, History of the Ancient Synagogue of the Span-ish and Portuguese Jews, 1901.

Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England18 vols., 1894 et seq.

C. Roth, Menasseh ben Israel, Philadelphia, 1934. Historyof the Jews in England, Oxford, 1941.

A. M. Hyamson, The Sephardim of England, London, 1952.

CHAPTER XI

H. C. Lea, The Inquisition in the Spanish Dependencies,1908.

M. Kayserling, Christopher Columbus and the Participationof the Jews in the Spanish and Portuguese Discoveries,1894 (from the German).

J. T. Medina, Historia de la Inquisición de Lima; de Chile;de la Plata; de Cartagena de las Indias; en las IslasFilipinas, 6 vols., 1887–1899.

Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, 48vols., 1893, et seq.

G. Garcia, La Inquisición de Mexico (Reprint of original“Relations”), 1906.

Leite, S., Os Judeus no Brasil, 1923.Los Judios en la Nueva España, Publicaciones del archivo

general de la nacion, XX, 1932.


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409

A. Toro, La familia Carvajal, 2 vols., 1944.B. Lewin, Martires e conquistadores judíos en la America

hispana, c. 1950, and numerous other studies.

CHAPTER XII

I. da Costa, Israel and the Gentiles (from the Dutch), 1850.[Now available in Noble Families among the SephardicJews . . . with some account of the Cafadose Family, byG. B. Brewster and C. Roth, London, 1936.]

M. Lemos, Ribeiro Sanches, 1911, and other studies by thesame author on other Marrano physicians, such asAmato Lusitano, J. de Castro Sarmento, etc.

A. da Silva Carvalho, Um celebre medico Portugues (JoãoBaptista Silva), 1928; Garcia d’Orta, 1934; and otherstudies on Marrano physicians by the same author.

CHAPTER XIII

M. Kayserling, Sephardim: Romanische Poesien der Judenin Spanien, 1859.

Idem: Biblioteca Española-Portugueza-Judaica, 1890.M. B. Amzalak, As operações de bolsa segundo Iosseph de

la Vega, 1926.4

CHAPTER XIV

J. Lucio d’Azevedo, Historia de Antonio Vieira, 2 vols.,1918–20.

Jordão de Freitas, O Marques de Pombal e o Santo Oficioda Inquisição.

4 I cite this as an example of the very numerous contributionsto the subject of the literature of the Marranos by this scholar.

BIBLIOGRAPHY


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EPILOGUE

S. Schwarz, Os Christãos-Novos em Portugal no século XX,1925 (an English abstract in the Menorah Journal, XII(1926), pp. 138–149, 283–297).

L. Wolf, Report on the Marranos or Crypto-Jews of Portu-gal, 1925.

C. Roth, L’Apôtre des Marranes, Paris, 1929 (impressionsof a personal visit).

N. Slouschz, The Marranos in Portugal (Hebrew), 1932.[P. Goodman] Marranos in Portugal; survey by the Portu-

guese Marrano Committee, London, 1938.


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A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

411

INDEX“ABARBENEL,” 359–362,Abarim, Joseph, 17.‘Abaryanim, 379.Abaz, family, 232.Abaz, Samuel, 232.Abenatar, see Melo.Aben-Ayish, Jacob, 204.Aben-Ayish, Solomon, see Mendes, Alvaro.Abendana, 383.Abendana, family, 192.Abensur, Daniel and Jacob, 304.“Abjuration,” 118.Aboab, family, 318.Aboab, Immanuel, 214, 328.Aboab, Isaac, 54.Aboab, Isaac da Fonseca, 248, 250, 288.Aboab, Jacob, 214.Abrabanel, family, 192.Abrabanel, Judah (“Leone Ebreo”), 58.Abrabanel, Samuel, 17.Abravallo, Samuel, 17.Abudiente, family, 314, 315. See Gideon.Academia de los Floridos, 337 f.Academia de los Sitibundos, Amsterdam,

337.Academia de los Sitibundos, Leghorn, 338.Acosta, Christoval, 78.Acosta, João d’, 396.Acosta, Joseph Manoel de, 305.Acosta, Uriel, 231, 247, 298. 397. See

also Costa, da.Addison, Joseph (quoted), 233.Addison, Launcelot (quoted), 79, 384.Adler, Cyrus, 384, 389.Adonai, 176, 177, 364, 365.Adrianople, 199, 379.Afghanistan, 6.Africa, 9, 18, 60, 142, 197.Aguiar, Antonio de, 343.Aguilar, Alonso Fernandez de, 36.Aguilar, Diego (Moses) Lopez Pereira,

Baron d’, 268, 309.Aguilar, Ephraim Lopez Pereira, Baron d’

(son of above), 309.Aguilar, Gonsalvo (de Cordova), 36.

See Gran Capitan.Aguilar, Raphael Moses de, 250, 286.Alarçon, Gracia d’, 388.Alban’s St., Duchess of, 316.Albigensian Heresy, 37.Alboraycos, 27.Albrecht, Cardinal Archduke, 89.Alcalá de Henares, 396.

Alcañiz, 18, 23.Alcázar, 25, 36.Alcobaça, 152.Alcolea, 18.Alentejo, 68.Aleppo, 201.Alexander VI, Pope, 62.Alfonso II of Ferrara, 209.Alfonso X of Castile, 11.Alfonso the Wise, 12.Alfonso XII of Castile (Pretender), 35.Alfonso Infante of Portugal, 148.Algiers, 333.Alhambra, 53.Almeida, Isabel Nuñez de, 151.Almeida, Jorge d’, 389.Almeida, Mordecai Nuñez de, 330.

See also Bernal.Almeyda, Isaac de, 138, 141.Almodovar del Campo, 36.Almohades, 9, 12.Almoravides, 9; derivation of word, 379.Almosnino, Moses, 387.Almoxarife, 13.Alonso, Hernando, 273.Altabas, Juan de, 26.Aliona, 230, 231.Alumbrados, 84.Alva, Duke of, 239.Alvarez, Fernando, 391.Alvarez, Isabel Nuñez, 87.Alvarez, Joseph Israel, 338.Alvarez, Manoel, see Zacuto, Abraham.Amador de los Rios, J., 143.Amatus Lusitanus, 255, 297, 311.America, 142, 162, 232, 244, 262.Amsterdam, 232 ff.Ancona, 205, 297.Andalusia, 10, 12, 32, 36, and passim.Andrade, see Velosinho.Andrade, Anna de, 301.Añes (Ames), family, 255, 256.Añes (Ames), Jorge and Dunstan, 256.Angleterre, 262.Angola, 394.Anna, Empress of Russia, 396.Antonio, Dom, Prior of Crato, 90, 256.Antonio, Mester, 253.Antonio, S., Confraria de, 155.Antwerp, 236, 237, 238, 254. 257, 306, 324.Anusim, 3, 27, 198.Apulia, 5.Arabs, 5 f.Aragon, Kingdom of, 15 ff., 380.


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412 INDEX

Aranda, Pedro de, Bishop of Calahorra, 48.Arbues, Pedro, 49.Arellano, Manuel Alvarez de, 191.Argozêlo, 373.Arians, 7.Arias, Joseph Semah, 335.Armada, the Great, 230, 256.Arnhem, 239.Arraya, Luis, alias Saraiva, 226.Arta, 199.Arthur, Prince, 252.Assire ha-Tikvah, 336.Assumpçâo, Frei Diogo da, 149, 153, 155, 383.Athias, Abraham, 245, 388.Athias, David Israel, 328.Athias, Joseph, 245.Athias, Moses Israel, 265.Athias, Solomon da Costa, 269.Athias, Yom-Tob, 326.Augustine, St., 311.Austria, 309.Austria, Don John of, 340.Auto da fè, auto de fé (Act of Faith), XI

ff., 43, 45, and passim; descriptionof, 127 rf.; explanation of term, 128.

Avelar, André d’, 152, 154.Avernas de Gras, Baron, 305.Avignon, 392.Avila, 52.Aviz, 66. 346.Ayllon, Solomon, 268.Azevedo, Francisco de, 342 f.Azevedo, J. Lucio de, 362, 384; see also

Cohen d’Azevedo, Salom d’ Azevedo.Azores, 69.

BADAJOZ, 68, 87.Bahia, 157, 284.Balearic Islands, 15, 51, 93. 98, 354, 400.Bandarra, Gonçalo Eannes, 147.Bangardel, Gerard Carl, 392.Bank of England. 269.Bank of Hamburg, 229.Bank of Lima, 279.Baptism, forced, 2, 16, 17 f., 29 f., 57, 94.Barbados, 259.Barbary, 79.Barbastro, 18.Barbuda, João Alvares de, 387.Barcelona, 15, 17, 84, 380.Bar Mizvah, ceremony, 174.Barrios, Daniel Levi de, 291, 333, 338, 370.Barros Basto, A. C. de, 370 f.Barroso, Archbishop, 14.Barsimson, Jacob, 293.Baruch, Book of, 170.Basle, Council of, 24, 31.Basurto, Diego Enriquez, 246, 333.Bayle, 347.Bayonne, 161, 225, 227, 324.Beas, 88.

Beira, 345, 368.Beja, 105.Belasco, David, 319; the brothers (boxers),

319.Belgara, Dr. Jacob Israel, 384.Belmonte, 363, 369.Belmonte, family, 303, 305.Belmonte, Francisco de Ximenes, 304.Belmonte, Jacob de Abraham, 304.Belmonte, Jacob Israel, 304.Belmonte, Baron Manuel (Isaac Nuñez) de,

304, 332, 337.Beitran, Lorenzo, 398.Benedeva, Pedro Fernandez, 41.Benedict XIII, anti-Pope, 18. “Berberiscos,”

234, 270.Berin, 89.Berkshire, earl of, 266.Bernal, Abraham Nuñez, 138, 304, 316. 336.Bernal, Isaac de Almeyda, 316.Bernal, Jacob Israel, 316.Bernal, Mestre, 272, 273, 316.Bernaldez, 380.Bertinoro, Obadîah di, 197.Beth El, K. K. (=Kahal Kadosh, Holy

Congregation), Peyrehorade, 225.Beth Israel, K. K., Hamburg, 230.Beth Israel, K. K., Amsterdam, 242.Beth Jaacob, K. K., Amsterdam, 242.Biarritz, 223 f.Bibajo, Abraham, 387.Bible, 174, 209, 259, 325.Bidache, 225.Bigamy, 84.Black Death, 13, 16.Bobadilla, Beatriz de, 25.Bobadilla, Cardinal Mendoza y, 380.Bocarro, Antonio, 77.Bocarro, Frances, Immanuel, seeRosales, Jacob.Boino (Bueno), Moses, 151.Bokhara, 6.Bomberg, Daniel, 390.Bonaparte, Joseph, 353.Bonaparte, Napoleon, 357.Bordeaux, 157, 222, 226, 233, 356, 392.Borrow, George (quoted), 358 f., 400 f.Boyne, battle of the, 269.Braga, 76.Braganza, 299, 346, 369.Braganza, Duarte de, 303.Braganza, house of. Restoration in Portu-

gal, 93, 154, 159, 287, 340.Brandão, Jorge Vaz, 151.Brandenburg, Margrave of, 305. “Brandon

the Jew,” 358.Brasero, 161, 387, 393, See Quemadero,Brazil, 157, 283, 305, 313, 335. 393–4.Bremen, Bishop of, 231.Briançon, Robert de, 379.Bridgetown, 290, 393.Bristol, 255.Brusa, 208.


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413INDEX

Bueno, Ephraim and Joseph, 298.Bueno de Mesquita, David, 305. See also

Boino.Buenos Aires, 393.Bugalho, Gil Vaz, 148.Bulle de Perdão, 70.Burgos, Bishop of, 19, 24, 25; see S. Mar-

ia, Pablo and Gonzalo de.Burial, 189, 367 f.Burleigh, Lord, 204, 256.Busher, Leonard, 260.

CABALLERIA, DE LA, family, 22 ff., 272.Caballeria, Alfonso, 23, 50, 272, 382.Caballeria, Don Judah, 22.Caballeria, Don Solomon, 22.Cabicho, Antonio, 158, 159.Cabrera, Alonso de, 25.Caceres, Simon de, 259 f., 289.Cadiz, 44, 245.Cairo, 197.Calahorra, Bishop of, 48.Calatayud, 18.Calatrava, Order of, 25, 33.Calcutta, 395.Calderon, 246.Calendar, computation of by Marranos,

182.Calificadores, 102.Calle. Alonso de la, 272.Calle del Ataud, 382.Calle de las Infantas, 86.Calle de la Muerte, 44.Campo, Elvira de, 110 ff.Campos, Francisco de, 285.Canada, 227.Canary Islands, 258, 385.Capodiferro, Girolamo Recanati, 71.Capon, Ruy, 25.Cardoso, Abraham and Isaac (Fernando),

214, 251, 318, 329.Cardoso, Baltasar Lopez, 89.Cardoso, Felipa Lopez, 89.Cardozo, Benjamin N., 319.Carillo, Maria Barbara, 143, 388.Carlos II of Spain, 136, 305.Carmona, 15, 41.Cartagena, 277, 280.Cartwright, Johanna and Ebenezer, 260.Carvajal, Antonio Fernando, 171, 258 f.Carvajal, Luis de, 276–7.Carvalho, Father Manuel Lopes de, 383,

394.Casa de la penitencia (misericordia), 121.Caspe, 18.Casseres, Jacob Rodriguez, 388.Castello, Antonio Roiz de, 174.Castello, Branco, 311, 320, 369.Castello, Camillo de, 320.Castile, 13, 15, 16, 17, 19, 21, 25, 32, 35.

36, 38, 48, 380, 381.Castro, Abraham de, see Tartas.Castro, Ana de, 280.Castro, André de, 231.

Castro, Bendito de, 231, 250.Castro, Estevão Rodrigues de, 77.Castro, Ezekiel (Pedro) de, 298.Castro, the Archdeacon de, 81.Castro, Isaac de, see Tartas.Castro, Isaac Orobio de, 299, 329, 338, 395,

397.Castro, Jacob de, 319.Castro, Jorge Mendes de, see Athias, Ab-

raham.Castro, Orobio de. 388.Castro, Don Pedro de, 59.Castro, Rodrigo de, 230, 231, 297.Castro, Serrão de, 77.Castro Sarmento, see Sarmento.Castrodaire, 286.Catalina, Queen of Portugal, 67,Catalonia, 13, 15, 22, 32, 48, 380.Catherine of Aragon, 252.Catherine Braganza, 268, 305, 307.Catherine II, of Russia, 311.Cayenne, 291.Celestina, 26.Celorico, 300, 346. “Censors,” at Leghorn,

218.Ceuta, Bishop of, 69.Charity, among Marranos, 45, 67, 191, 192.Charles II, of England, 266. 305, 334.Charles V, Emperor, 71. 83, 148, 200, 210,

237, 273.Charleston, 295.Chaves, 143.Chaves, family, 290.Chaves, Captain, 219.Childers, Colonel, 315.Childers, Erskine, 396.Childers, H. C. E., 315.Childers, Rowlanda, 315.Chile, 259, 400.Chinet, family, 25.Chinillo, Azariah, 21.Chinillo, Noah, 21, 272.Chmielnicki Massacres, in Poland, 249.Chouette, 384.Christian IV of Denmark, 231, 232.Christian Brotherhood, 35; Christianity,

rise of, 2.Christina of Sweden, 231, 250. 302.Christopher, St., 380.Chuco, 384. “Chuelas,” 96. 97, 354, 385,

400.Church, attendance at, 193; Marranos in,

78, 121, 149 f., 209, 245, 298.Church, official policy of, 2, 29, 85, 205.Chuya, 384.Cibdad, Juan de la, 33.Cinquepur, 100.Circumcision, 20, 34, 174, 209, 224.Ciudad Real, 33, 35, 46, 87, 142.Clement VII, Pope, 69, 205.Clement X, Pope, 343.Clemente, San, 155.Clementes’ family. 25.


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414 INDEX

Clermont, 3.Cochin, 394.Code Noir, 290.Cohen, Abraham, 288.Cohen, Jacob, 305; see Peixotto.Cohen, Samuel, 231; see Rodrigues, En-

rique.Cohen d’Azevedo, Daniel and David, 248.

305.Cohen d’Azevedo, Moses, 268.Cohen, Faya, see Faya.Cohen, Herrera, family, 192.Cohen, Lobato, see Lobato.Cohen, Peixotto (Picciotto), see Peixotto; see

also Rodrigues.Coimbra, 72, 79, 91, 93, 144, 184, 285, 341,

346, and passim.Coimbra, Bishop of, 393.Coimbra, university of, 78, 151, 165.Coimbra university. Marrano group in, 151,

154.Coloma, family, 25.Coloma, Juan de, 272.Columbus, Christopher, 81, 271 f.Commerce and Industry, 211, 218, 226,

230, 232, 243, 268, 271, 274.Companhia da Bolsa, 287.Compania de la Zarza, 388.Complicidad Grande, 279, 280.Conciliador, 287.Confiscation, 122.Conquistadores, 273, 274, 320.Consejo de la Suprema y General Inqui-

sición, 48, 84.Consolaçam as Tribulaçoes de Israel, 255,

325, 332.Constantinople, 199, 202, 204, 208, 310,

391.Contador Mayor, 13, 25.Conversion, General, in Portugal, ch. III,

74, 86, 350.Conversos, passim; explanation of term, 19.Copenhagen, 232.Coral Trade, 216, 233.Cordeles, 106.Cordero, Antonio, 278.Cordova, 8, 9, 15, 35, 36, 37, 46, 84, 85,

135, 245, 353, and passim.Cordova, Bishop of (Pedro de Cordóva y

Solier). 35.Cordova, Caliphate of, 8.Cordova, Gonsalvo de, 35, 245; see Gran

Capitan.Cordova, Luis de, 90.Corfu, 232.Coronel, Fernando Perez (Abraham Sen-

ior). 81, 203.Coronel, Francisco, 203.Coronel, Salomon, 203.Coronel Chacon, Sir Agostino, 305.Correa, Isabella (Rebecca) de. 335, 337.Cortes, 273.

Cortes, the, 353; of Tarazona, 48.Coscon, family, 25.Costa, family, 227.Costa, Benjamin da, 290.Costa, Durate Nuñes da, 303.Costa, Emmanuel Mendes da, 269.Costa, Isaac da, 319.Costa, Manuel da, 72.Costa, Michael, Sir, 319.Costa, Moses (Anthony) da, 268.Costa, Uriel tia; see Acosta; see also Villar-

eal, José da Costa.Cota, Alonso de, 33.Cota de Maguaque, Rodrigo, 26.Coutinho, Fernando, Bishop of Silves, 57.Coutinho, Lourença, 165.Coutinho, Manoel Pereira, 383.Covilhã, 290, 345, 396.Cranganor, Archbishop of, 347.Credit, 233.Créqui, duc de, 308.Cromwell, Oliver, 259 ff.Crusades, Crusaders, 4, 12, 16.Cuba, 273.Cuenca, 84, 88, etc.Cunha. Don Luis da, 349.Curacao, 290, 293.Curiel family; see Nuñez da Costa.Curiel, Abraham, 396.Curiel, Jacob, 303, 396.Cyprus, 201, 203.

DAGGATUN, 5.Dagobert, 3.Daimiel, 88.Dároça, 18.Dávila, 382.Dávila, Diego Arias, 32.Dávila, Juan Arias, 48.Dávila, Juan Dias, Bishop of Segovia, 48.Day of Atonement, observance of, 87, 100,

170, 182.183–6, 241.Delgado, João, Pinto, see Pinto.Dellon, 347.Denmark, King of, 230.Deportation, 121, 143.Deza, Diego, 81, 83.Diaz, Francisco, 152.Diaz, Dr. Jeronimo, 394.Diaz, Jorge, see Abaz, Samuel.Diaz, Lewis, 393.Diaz, Luis, “The Messiah of Setubal,” 146,

148, 172; the cobbler, 389.Diminutos, 124.Diniz (Dionis) Alvaro, see Jachia, Samuel.Diogo, Master, 253.Diogo, San, Brotherhood of, 151.Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beacons- field,

318.Djavid Bey, 379.”Dogmatizers,” 126.


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415INDEX

Domingo, alias Abraham Israel da Porto,395.

Dominican Order, 37.Donmeh, 5, 379.Dormido, Manuel Martinez (alias

David Abrabanel), 392.Drago, Manuel Fernandez, 263 f., 285.Drama, 332, 336.Dublin, 268, 398.Dutch, ch. IX, 285 ff.

EARDLEY, BARON, 315.Eardley, Wilmot, Sir John, 315.Earthquake of 1755 at Lisbon. 269, 294,

350, 355.East India Company, 244.Ecija, 14, 15.Economists, Marrano, 77.Edict of Faith, 99 f.Edict of Grace, 99.Education, 247.Edward VI of England, 255.Effigies, burning of, 126 and passim.Egypt, 197, 214.Elhanan, the Jewish Pope, 379.Elizabeth I, Queen of England, 240. 256.Elizabeth, Empress of Russia, 311.El Sabado Secreto, 400.Emden, 230, 240.Emigration of Marranos, 195 ff.England, 4, 16, etc., ch. X, et passim.English language, use of, 323.Engracia, Santa, Church of (Lisbon), 91,

245.Enriquez, Blanca, 281.Enriquez. Isabella, 337.Enriquez, Juana, 281; see alsoHenriquez.Equador, 262.Escada de Jacob, 389.Escalhão, 373.Escudero, Lorenzo, 329.España, Juan de, el viejo, 26.Espejo, 336.Espejo Fiel de Vidas, 330.Espes, family, 25.Espinosa, see Gil.Estaos, Os, Palace of Lisbon, 59.Este, House of, 208, 232; see Ferrara,

Dukes of.Esther, Fast of, 100, 186, 365.Esther, Prayer of, 186 f., 276.Esther, Play, 332.Estremoz, 57.Etz Hayim academy, 247.Evora, Inquisition and autos da fe at, 64,

72, 89, 104, 199, 387.Evora, Congregation, at Salónica, etc., 199.Excellencies of the Hebrews, 329.

FALLEIRO, ANDREAS, see Aboab, Jacob.Falmouth (Jamaica), 289.Faro, 105.

Farraj, Isaac ibn, 65.Fasting, 180, 183, 188, 189, 282.Ferdinand the Catholic, 23, 37, 119.Ferdinand II of Tuscany, 214.Ferdinand III, Emperor, 219.Ferdinand VII, 353.Fergusson, David, 389.Fernandes, Beatriz, 255.Fernandes, Catharina, 226.Fernandes, Christopher, 253.Fernandes, Manuel, 253.Fernandez, Alfonso, alias Samuel, 381.Fernandez, Blasca Gómez, 143.Fernandez, Raquel Nuñez, 388.Fernando de Noronha, 285.Ferrara, 208, etc.Ferrara, Dukes of, 208, etc., see Este.Ferrer, Fray Vincent, 17, 22.Ferrus, Pero, 26.Fez, 10, 242.Firme Fe, 68.Fiscus Judaicus, I.Fishberg, 400.Flanders, 200. 238 ff., 253. See Holland.Florence, 213, 232.Foix, Jean de la, 200.Fonseca, family, 192.Fonseca, Aboab da, 192, 250, 286, 288.Fonseca, Antonio (Rodrigo) da, 78.Fonseca, Bartholomeu da, 394.Fonseca, Daniel da, 310 f.Fonseca, Jacob de, 219.Fonseca, Miguel Henriques da, 343.Food, preparation of, 178.Fortalicium Fidei, 34.Fraga, 18.France, 16, 222, etc.France, crypto-Jews in, 5.France, Inquisition in, 37.France, Marranos in, 142, 219, 222 f.Frances, Immanuel Bocarro. 298.Franciscan Order, 38, 149, 245.Francisco, Rio de S., 393.Franco, Daniel, 390.Franco, Nuñp Alvarez, 285.Frankfort, 230, 329.French Revolution, 355.Fundão, 258, 345, 369.Furtado, Abraham, 355.Furtado, Teresa, 319.

GABRIEL, MASTER, 147.Galicia, New, 183.Galileo. 219, 298.Galleys, 121.Ganephe, 79, 383.Garrotes, 106.Gazeta de Amsterdam, 332.Gedaliah (Guedalla), family, 192.Gedaliah, fast of, 189.Geddes, Michael. 347, 398.Genoa, 232.Georgia, 294.Germany, 13, 16, 248; see Hamburg.


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416 INDEX

Geronimite Order, 39–40.Gershom of Mayence, 3.Gibraltar, 270, 381.Gideon, Rowland, 314, 396.Gideon, Sampson, 314 f.Gil, Benjamin (alias Fernando Gil de Es-

pinosa), 142.Giron, Don Pedro, 25.Glückstadt, 230, 231, 302.Goa, 394, 399.Godinez, Felipe, 383, 397.Gomez, family, of New York, 317.Gomez, Antonio, 152, 154.Gomez, Antonio Enriquez (alias

Enrique Enriquez de Paz), 246, 298,333, 370, 388, 397.

Gomez, Duarte, see Usque, Solomon.Gomez, Fernando, 390.Gomez, Gabriel, 305.Gomez, Maria, 154.Gomez, Violante, 90.Gomez da Mesquita, Moses, 268.Gomez Solis, Duarte, 76.Gomez, de Sossa, 337.Gonzalez, family, 25.Gonzalez, Andrés, 383.Gordo, Ximeno, 24.Gottorp, Dukes of, 232.Gouvea, 68.Gouvea, family, 227.Gouvea, Francisco Vaz de, see Vaz.Gradis, family, 227.Granada, 12, 16, 24, 52, 84.Granada, Kingdom of, 12, 16, 388.Granada, Gabriel de, 174, 281, 389.Gran Capitan, 36, 245.Grand Alliance, 304.Granhola, family, 227.Gregory the Great, 2, 3.Great Britain, 335; see England.Groede, 242.Grotius, Hugo, 242.Grove, Anthony, 319.Guadalajara, 183, 281.Guarda, 76, 345, 369.Guardia, La, 52, 149.Guarini, 337.Guer, Abraham; see Escudero, Lorenzo.Guevara, Ana de, 161.Guipúzcoa, 75.Guttierez de Santa Clara, Pedro, 26.Guzmão, Alexandre de, 349.Gwynne, Nell, 317.

HABIB, family, 297.Habib, Levi ben, 61.Hague, The, 243. 303.Hallah, 102.Hamburg, 229, 232, 250. 266, 383, 396.Hanseatic League, 233.Head, covering of in prayer, 178.Héli, Andres, 26.Henrique, Cardinal (afterwards King of

Portugal), 72.

Henriques, Henriquez, family, 24, 269.Henriques, Antonio Vaez, alias Moses Co-

hen Henriques, 285.Henriques, Brites, 306.Henriques, Gabriel, see Saralbo, Joseph.Henriques, Manuel, 280; see also

Enriquez.Henry II of Castile (“of Trastamara”), 13,

17.Henry III of Castile, 14.Henry IV (“the Impotent”), 25, 34, 35, 39.Henry II of France, 222.Henry IV of France, 223, 228.Henry VII of England, 237, 252.Henry VIII of England, 237.Heraclius, Emperor, 7.Herculano, 383.Heredia, Pablo de, 26. “Hermosa Hembre,

La,” 42, 44.Herrera, 81.Herrera, family, 192.Herrera, Alonso, Nuñez, alias Abraham

Cohen Herrera, 245.Herrera, the Maid of, 81, 172.Herrera, Pablo de, 87.Hertz, Henrietta, 319.Hispañola, 274.Hojeda, Fra Alonso de, 39, 40, 43.Holland, 142, 172, 236 n., 261, 268, 303.Homem, Antonio, 151 f., 170.Homem, Manuel Lopez, 392.Hope of Israel, 262.Huesca, 387.Huguenot, 227.Humble Addresses, 264.

IBAÑEZ, 385.Iberians, 379.Idanha, 345.Ilhão, João (Jan Ulan), 291.Imprisonment by Inquisition, 121.India, 142, 201, 204, 232, 305, 342, 394.Individuos de la Calle, 96, 98.Initiation into secret Judaism, 172.Inquisition, chapters II, IV, V, VI, XIV and

passim.Inquisition, methods of, chapter V.Isabella the Catholic, 23, 25, 37, 39, 82–272.Isabella, Infanta, 56.Isabella of Portugal. 152.Isabella of Valois. 136.Islington, 310.Israel, Menasseh ben, 248, 252 ff., 326–373,

386, 390.Italianos, 234, 270.Italy, 5, 142, 199, 269. 275, 332. See Ven-

ice, Leghorn, etc.Izidro, Abraham Gabbay, 290.

JACHIA, SAMUEL, 231.Jachia, Solomon, 207.Jackson, Solomon, 388.


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417INDEX

Jacobins, 356.Jacobs, Joseph, xiii.Jaen, 36, 46.Jamaica, 259, 289.Jedidim, Jedid-al-Islam, 6.Jena, 230.Jeremy, Epistle of, 170.Jerusalem, 61, 371.Jessurun (Yesurun) Reuel, 313 f. See Logo.Jessurun, Sarah, 79.Jesuit Order, 342.“Jew Bill,” 269, 314.Jewish Encyclopedia, 362.Jewish Quarterly Review, 362.Jews, passim.João II of Portugal, 54, 55.João III of Portugal, 66, 77, 204.João IV of Portugal, 287, 340.Joden Savanne, 292.Jorge (Giorgi), Francisco, 213.Juan I of Aragon, 15.Juan II of Aragon, 25, 50.Juan I of Castile, 14.Juan II of Castile, 32.Juana, Queen, 82.Juarez, Violante, 183.Judeo-Spanish, 322.“Judah the Believer” (Don Lope de Vera), 156.“Judeu. O,” 167.“Judeu do Sapato, O,” 148.Juglar, Gaspar, Inquisitor, 49.Julius, III, Pope, 206.Junqueiro, Guerra, 320.Just, 381.Juvenal, l.

KAYSERLING, M., 361, 403.Khorasan, 6.Kingston (Jamaica), 289.Kol Nidre, 379.Koran, 381.

LACOVIA, 289.Ladino, 322 ff.La Esperança, convent of, 383.Lagarto, Jacob, 289.Laguna, Daniel Israel Lopez, see Lopez,

Laguna.Lamar, Sylvette de, 384.Lamego, 72, 76, 345.Lamunilla, 343.Lara, Isidore de, 319.Lara, Manuel de, 338.La Rochelle, 227.Las Palmas, 385.Lateran Councils, 12.Lea. H. C.. 386, 389, 398, 399, 403.Leghorn, 79, 96, 214, 218 ff., 264, 291, 327,

328, 338, 352.Lemos, Henrietta de, see Hertz.Leo X, Pope, 83.Leon, Abraham de, 294.León, Luis de, 395.

Leon, Pedro de, 274.Leonora, Queen, 14.Lerida, 18.Levi, Juan, de, 26.Levi, M oses Uri, 241.Levi, tribe of, 160, 172, 192.Levi, Ximenes, family, 192. See

Montesinos.Libro del Alborayque, 381.Libro Verde de Aragon, 21.Lima, 164, 278.Limborch, Philip van, 300, 347, 395.Limpieza, 75, 155, 350, 351, 354.Lisbon, 46ff., 59, 64, 72, 92, 143, 346, and

passim.Listas (of Inquisitional victims), 138, 144,

351.Literature, 25, 208, 212, 245 f., 268, eh.

XIII.Littauer, Lucius N., 401.Liturgy, translations of, 326 f.Llerena, 39, 84, 87, 142, 148, 353.Llorente, 143.Lobato, Diego Gómez (Abraham Cohen),

312 f.Lobato, Isaac Cohen, 313.Lobo, Custodio, 219.Lobo, Joseph Jesurun, 305, 338.Logroño, 84.Lombardy, 200, 237.Lombroso, Cesare, 318.Lombroso, Judah, 213; see Lumbroso.London, 232 ff., 305, and passim.Longhena (architect), 212.Lope de Vega, 383.Lopes (Lopez), Aaron, 294.Lopes, Alves, 253.Lopes, Diego, 149.Lopes, Friar (alias Martin de S. Spirito),

221.Lopes, Gaspar, 254.Lopes, João, 391.Lopes, Manuel, 394.Lopes Pereira, Diego (Baron d’Aguilar),

268, 309.Lopes Pereira, Gaspar (Abraham), 343.Lopes Pereira, Manuel, 240.Lopes Suasso, see Suasso.Lopez, Balthasar, 88, 160.Lopez, Felipa, 88.Lopez, Francisco (de Villalobos), 26.Lopez, Miguel, 240.Lopez, Roderigo, 256.Lopez Cardoso, Balthasar, 88.Lopez Laguna, Daniel Israel, 330.Loppes (Lopez), Antoinette de, 227.Lord’s Prayer, 177.Louis XI of France, 222.Louis XIII of France, 222.Louis XV of France, 227.Louise Marie d’0rléans, Queen of Spain,

136.Loureíro, Fernando Gois de, 205.Lucca, 232.


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418 INDEX

Lucero, Diego Rodrigues (Inquisitor), 81,82, 83.

Luis, Christovão, 157.Luiz, Thomas, 157.Lumbroso, João (Jacob), 295.Luna, family, 24.Luna, Alvaro de, 32, 34, 38.Luna, Beatrice da, see Mendes, Gracia.Luna, Murcia de, 280.Luna, Phelipe Rodrigues de, see Montalto.Lutherans, see Protestants.“Lyacosta,” 396.Lyons, 227.

MAARSEN, 243.Macedo, Mariana de, 383.Machado, David, 397–8.Machado, Moses, 338.Madeira, 69, 237.Madras, 394.Madrid, 84, 86, 87, 136, 142, 159, 226, 352.Maella, 18.Magona (Mahon), persecution in, 3.Mahamad, 327.Maimi, Simon, 60.Maimon, 9, 10.Maimonides, Moses, 10, 379.Majorca, 22, 23, 51, 84, 93 ff.Malaga, 88, 197.Malagrida, Gabriel, 350.Malta, 207.Manoel (“the Fortunate”), King of Portugal,

55 ff., 86, 196, 350.Mantua, 149.Marabout, 379.Maranaiha, 381.Maria (Infanta, afterwards Empress of

Austria), 246.Maria, Christina, Queen Mother of Spain,

354.Marlborough, Duke of, 268.Marrano, etymology, 27.Marriage amongst Marranos, 190, 201, 240,

351.Marriage broker, 191.Marseilles. 232.Martin, Juan de S., 41.Martinez, Ferrand, 14, 15.Martinique, 290.Marx, Alexander, 322.Mary, Queen of England, 255.Mascarenhas, João Rodriguez. 65.Massacres of 1391, in Spain, 14.Massacres of 1506, in Lisbon, 64 ff.Matança dos Christaos Novos, 66.Mathias, Don, 171.Mathias, Emperor, 232.Matteh Dan, 331.Mattos, Francisco Rodriguez de, 186, 276.Mattos, Texeira, 319.

Mattos, Vincente da Costa, 91; see alsoTexeira.

Maura, Miguel, 384.Mavali, 379.Mavrocordato, Prince Nicholas, 310.Mayence, 326.Medina, Sir Solomon de, 269, 305.Medina, del Campo, 35, 39.Medina, del Campo, Concordat of, 39.Meditatio Qordis, Bull, 73.Meldola, family, 332.Mello, Manuel de, 281.Mello, Don Francisco, 301, 341.Melo, David Abenatar, 329, 396.Membreque, Bachelor of Divinity, 82.Menasseh ben Israel, see Israel,Menasseh ben.Mendes (Mendez), family, 76, 202, 253.Mendes, Alvaro, Duke of Mitylene, 204,

256, 298.Mendes, da Costa. Emmanuel, 268.Mendes, Diogo, 202, 237, 253, 254.Mendes, Fernando, 268.Mendes, Francisco, 148, 202.Mendes, Gracia (Beatrice da Luna), 202,

203, 207, 238, 253, 326.Mendes, Joseph Jessurun, 394.Mendes, Reyna, 202.Méndez, Seixas, see Seixas.Méndez da Silva, João, 165.Méndez da Silva, Roderigo (Jacob), 214, 300.Mendoza, Daniel, 319.Mendoza, Pedro Gonzalez de, 381.Mendoza, family, 24.Mercado, Abraham de, 289.Mercado, David Raphael de, 289.Meshed, 6.Mesquita, David Bueno de, 305.Mesquita, Moses Gomes da, 268.Mesquita, see Sae.“Messiah of Setubal,” 148.Messianic movements, 146 f., 171, 214, 249,

261 f., 326.Messina, Archbishop of, 196.Mexico, 162, 172, 281, etc.Mexico, Archbishop of (Fray Francisco

deVittoria), 303.Meza (constructor of quemadero at Seville), 43.Miguel, S., Order of, 246.Miguez, João, see Nasi, Joseph.Milan. 200, 237.Millan, Francisco, 274.Millanges, family, 227.Millão, Anrique Dias, 231, 304.Milman, Dean, 397.Minis, Isaac, 294.Minorca, Island of, 3.Miranda, 76.Mirezo. Inquisitor, 157.Mitylene, Duke of, see Mendes, Alvaro.Mocato, Emmanuel, 391.Mocatta, family, 319.


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419INDEX

Mogadouro, family, 172, 221.Mohammedanism, 5 f., 9; Crypto-

Mohammedanism, 84.Molcho, Solomon, 68, 149.Monsanto, 369.Montaigne, Michel de, 227.Montalto, Elijah, 297, 311, 312, 316, 329.Montalvan, Juan Perez de, 383.Montano, Reginaldo, Gonsaîves, 347.Montemoro Novo, 91.Montero, Pedro, 388.Monterrey, Countess of, 157.Montesquieu, 347.Montezinos, Antonio (Aaron Levi) de, 261.Montfort, Marquis of, 306, 308.Montilla, 333.Montoro, Anton de, 26, 37.Mordaza (gag), 119.Morillo, Miguel de, 41.Morocco, 10, 305.Mosso, Joseph, 207.Mortara (Morteira), Saul Levi, 329.Moses, Law of, 159 and passim.Moslems, 5 f., 52, 84, 143, 339.Moslems, expulsion of from Portugal, 56.Mourning, 190.Mouvans, Abbe Barcilon de, 379.Moya, Alonso de, 110.Muje, 56.Muñoz, Simon, 89.Munzer, Jerome, 380.Muranita, 381.Murcia, 32, 84.Musaphia, family, 192.Musaphia, Benjamin (Dionysius), 231, 250.

NAHMIAS, Ibn, family, 381.Nahmias, Baruch, 231.Nahmias, Daniel, 231.Names, 192, 193.Nancy, 398.Nantes. 228, 243.Naples, 198.Naples, Kingdom of, 5, 198.Nasi, family, 76.Nasi, David, 291.Nasi, Joseph, Duke of Naxos, alias João

Miguez, 202, 203, 253, 298.Nasi, Samuel, 292.Nassau, Prince Maurice of, 290, 305.“Nation, The,” 74; “Portuguese

Nation,” at Bordeaux, 224.Navarre, 13, 23.Navas de Tolosa, battle of, 12.Naxos, Duke of, see Nasi, Joseph.Nazareno, Eli (= Francisco Maldonado da

Silva), 164, 279.Nefusot Yehudah, K. K., Bayonne, 225.Negativos, 124, 343, 387.Neofiti, 5, 198.

Netherlands, revolt of, 203; Regent, of 254;see Flanders, Holland.

Neveh Shaanan, K. K., Bidache, 225.Neveh Shalom, K. K., Amsterdam, 242.Nevis, 290.New Amsterdam, see New York.New Christians (Nuevos Christianas,

Christãos Novos), XI, 27, etc.; Inquisi-tional use of term, 74.

New Galicia, 183.New Granada, 277.New Leon. 276.New World, see America.New Year, observance of, 181.New York (New Amsterdam), 293, 324,

327.Newport, R. I., 293, 356.Nice, 232, 233.Nicholas V, Pope, 33 f., 38.Nicholas, Sir Edward, 260.Nicholas, Master (apostate), 59.Nidhe Israel, K. K. (Barbados), 290.Nieto, David, 268, 329, 331, 348.Nieto, Isaac, 326.Nomologia, 329.Nones, Major Benjamin, 319.Normandy, Estates of, 228.Noronha, Fernando de, 285.Nuñez. Hector, 256, 257.Nuñez, Henrique, 67, 255.Nuñez, Maria, 240, 392.Nuñez, Pedro, 77.Nuñez, Samuel Ribeiro, 294.Nuñez Bernal, Abraham, see Bernal.Nuñez da Costa, Duarte, alias Jacob Cu-

riel, 303.Nuñez da Costa, Geronimo, alias Moses

Curiel, 303, 338.Nuñez da Costa, Manoel, alias Solomon

Curiel, 303.Nuñez da Fonseca, Joseph, see Nasi, David.

OBSERVANCES, MARRANO, 19f., 97f., 100 f.,255, 365, and ch. VII.

Olivares, Duke of, 83.Oliveira, d’, family, 192.Oliveira, Joseph, 305.Oliveira, Solomon d’, 248.Olivença, 68.Oliver y Fullana, Nicolas (Daniel Judah),

335, 337.Olmo, Fra, 138.Ones, see Anusim.Oporto, 54, 59, 73, 91, 394.Orange, Prince of, 298.Orta, Garcia d’, 77.Orivellas, church of, at Lisbon, 341.Orobio, Dr. Melchor (Balthazar) de, 299.Oropesa, Alonso de, 24, 39.Osborne, Bernal, 316.Osorio, David, 242.Osorio, Miguel, 305.


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420 INDEX

Ostend, 232.Osuna, 88.Ouderkerk, 242, 248.

PABLO, S., convent of, at Seville, 39, 44.Pacheco, family, 36.Pacheco, Don Juan, 25.Paciencia La, convent of, at Madrid, 87.Palache, Samuel, 241, 242.Palestine, 6, 171, 298.Palma, 15, 84, 97, 385.Palos, Isabella, wife of Francisco, 142.Pamplona, 223.Panarelli, Teofilo, 5.Paraiba, 157, 287.Paramaribo, 292.Pardo,Joseph, 242.Pardon, General, 90, 91, 92, 277.Paris, 157, 159, 204, 227.Parliament, English, 262.Passover, observance of, 160, 179, 182.Pastoris Aeterni, Bull, 72.Pastrana, 89.Paternoy, Sancho de, 25, 49, 50.Paul III, Pope, 70, 205, 274.Paul IV, Pope, 206, 208.Payba, Rachel de, 396.Paz, Duarte de, 69.Paz, Isabel de, 157.Pedro, the Cruel, 13.Peixotto, (Picciotto) Benjamin, 319.Peixotto, David, 285.Peixotto, Moses Cohen, 287, 335.Pelayo, Menendez, 397.Penha,Isaac, 356.Penha, Jacob Guttieres, 217.Penn, 289.Penso, Felix Isaac, 336.Penso de la Vega, Joseph, 336, 338.Peralta, Fray Alonso, 276.Peregrino (Guer) Abraham, 329.Pereira, Abraham Isaac, 392.Pereira (Pereyra), Abraham Israel, alias

Thomas Rodrigues, 250.Pereira, David, 356.Pereira, Diego Lopez, 268, 308 f.Pereira, Duarte, 213.Pereira, Ephraim Lopez, 309.Pereira, Gaspar (Abraham) Lopez, 343; see

also Aguilar.Pereira, Isaac, 269.Pereira, Jacob Rodrigues, 227.Pereira, Juan Antonio, 280.Pereira, Manuel Lopez, 240.Péreire, family. 319.Péreyre, Isaac la, 227.Perez, Manuel Bautista, 279.Perez, Marco, 238.Pernambuco (= Recife), 285, 286.Persia, 6.Peru, 26, 275, 399.Pesaro, 208.Peter the Great, 396.

Petersburg, St., 311.Petrarch, 332.Peyrehorade, 225, 330.Philadelphia, 295.Philip I, of Spain, 82.Philip II, of Spain, 77, 83, 275, 380.Philip III, of Spain, 83, 196.Philip IV, of Spain, 84, 93.Philip V, of Spain, 352, 399.Philip, Prince, 274.Philippine Islands, 278.Physicians, Marrano, 63, 77, 78, 151, 153,

227, 245, 248, 250, 253, 268, 289, 294–5, 297, 310, 312, 332.

Pichon, Don Joseplh, 13.Pimienta, José (Abraham) Diaz, 280.Pina, Paul de, alias Reuel Jessurun, 312, 316.Pinancos, 149.Pinedo, Thomas de, 245, 298, 300, 333.Pinel, Duarte, 326; see Usque, Abraham.Pinero, Arthur Wing, 3–19.Pinhel, 94, 95.Pinto, family, 247.Pinto, Antonio Dias, 213.Pinto, David, 244.Pinto, Delgado, João, 228, 332.Pinto, Isaac, 327.Pinto, Isaac, Captain, 292.Pires, Diogo, alias Solomon Molcho, 68, 149.Pisa, 77, 213, 214, 303.Plymouth, 253.Poland, 217.Polemical literature, 328 f.Pombal, Marquis of, 349 f., 366, 398, 399.“Ponentine” Community, at Venice, 212 f.Pope, Elhanan, the Jewish, 379.Pork, abstention from, 179.Porto, Abraham da, 391.Porto. Abraham Israel da, 394.Porto-Riche, Georges de, 319.Portugal, 16, ch. III, and passim.“Portuguese,” in Spain, etc., 172, 208, 224.

289.Portuguese Language, use of, 82 ff.Prado, Juan (Daniel) de, 300.Prado, Samuel, 397.Prayers, Marrano, 176; see Liturgy.Printing, 209, 246, 251, 269, 324 ff.Promotor Fiscal, 102.Protestants, Protestantism, 84, 221, 229,

238, 256.Providence of God with Israel, 329.Psalms, 177; translations of, 329 f.Pulgar, Hernando de, 25, 26.Punishments, Inquisitional, 116 ff. “Puri-

tan” families in Portugal, 78, 351.Puritans in England, 259, 260, 261.Pyrrho, Didaco, 298.


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421INDEX

QUEMADERO, 43, 95, 132, 135, 136, 157, 163, 165.Quito, 262.

RAB DE LA CORTE, 81.Ragusa, 201, 298.Ramos, Jeronimo José, 398.Ran, family, 227.Rashi, 4.Reccared, King of Spain, 7.Recife (Pernambuco), 285, 286.“Reconciliation,” 118.Reconquista, 11.Reformation, 4; see Protestants,

Protestantism.Reggio, 232, 391.“Relapse,” relapsados, 127.“Relations” of autos-da-fè, 138.“Relax,” relaxados, 122, 385.Rembrandt van Rijn, 248, 298, 320.Restoration, The, in England, 266.Reubeni, David, 68, 148, 149.Rhineland, massacres in, 4, 12, 16.Ribeiro (Ribero), Diogo Nuñes, 311, 396.Ribeiro, Francisco, 285.Ribeiro, Moses Yesurun, 219.Ribeiro, Sanchez, 387, 396.Ribeiro, Sanchez Antonio, 311, 349, 350.Ricardo, David, 319.Ricaut, Peter, 266.Richelieu, Cardinal, 159, 333.Rio de Janeiro, 158, 284, 287, 393–4.Rivera, Jacob Rodrigues, 294.Rivera, Maria de, 174.Robles, Antonio Rodrigues, 265.Rocamora, Isaac (Fra Vincente) de, 246,

298, 337.Roderick, 7.Rodrigo, 144.Rodriguez, Anna, 143.Rodriguez, Benjamin, 319.Rodriguez, Daniel, 211, 298.Rodriguez, Dionysius, 253.Rodriguez, Enrique, alias Samuel Cohen

Rodrigues, 231.Rodriguez, Felipe, see Montalto, Elijah.Rodriguez, Francisco, 277.Rodriguez, Juan, see Amatus Lusitanus.Rodriguez, Maria Alejandra, 143.Rodriguez, Miguel, 87.Rodriguez, Raphael Gil, 283.Rodriguez, Violante, 161.Rojas, Fernando de, 26.Romances, 332.Rome, 5, 48, 82, 197, 209, 232, 391, 392.Romero, Rainoldo, Bishop of Tiberias, 44.Roña, Antonio de la, 253.Rosa, Diogo Lopes da, 153.Rosa, Ezekiel, 138.Rosales, Jacob, alias Immanuel Bocarro

Frances, Count Palatine. 219, 298.

Rothschild, Baron Edmond, 372.Rotterdam, 243, 247.Rouen, 160, 228, 306, 324.Royal Society, 268.Ruiz, Simon, 255, 257.Russia, 232, 310, 311, 396.

SABBATAI ZEVI, 6, 172, 249, 326, 334.Sabbath, observance of, 20, 100, 170.Sabbatha, Captain Campoe, 289.“Sabbathist Cabanists,” 401.Saboca, family, 381.Sa e Mesquita, Francisco de, 105.Safed, 192, 201, 396.Sahl, Abu-Ishak Ibrahim ibn, 9.Saint-Jean-de-Luz, 223, 243.Saint-Esprit (Bayonne), 225.Saints, among Marranos, 171.St. Alban’s, Duchess of, 316.St. John, Oliver. 262.Salamanca, 381, 396; University of, 34, 155.Salom d’Azevedo, David, 305.Salonica, 63, 199, 208, 236, 242, 297, 379, 391.Salvador, Francis (Daniel), 319.Salvador, S., church of, at Seville, 42.Salvador, S., 284.Salvador, S., bishop of, 284.Sambation, 389.Sambenito, 128, 131, 350, 387.Sampaio, Francisco de, 301.Samuda, Isaac Sequeira, 268.Samuda, Joseph, 319.“Samuel,” 358.Samuel, Wilfred, 372.Sanchez, Gabriel, 25, 49, 272.Sanchez, Luis, 25.Sanchez, Rodrigo, 272.Sanchez, Ribeiro, Antonio, see Ribeiro.Sandoval, Manoel de, 159.Sanhedrin, Napoleonic, 355.Santa Fé, Francisco de, 49, 50.Santa Fé, Geronimo de, 18, 49, 51.Santa Maria, family, 24.Santa Maria, Alfonso de, 25.Santa Maria, Gonzalo de, 25, 51.Santa Maria, Paul (Pablo) de, 19, 24, 163.Santa Maria, Bishop of Burgos, 19, 24, 25.Santangel, family, 21.Santangel, Luis de, 22, 50, 271, 273.Santangel, Pedro de, 22.Santarem, 68, 92, 382.Santiago, 25, 84, 204.Sapato, 148, 389.Saragossa, 18, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 49, 84, 380,

382, 383.Saraiva, Luis, alias Arraya, 226.Saraiva, Duarte, 392.Saralbo, Joseph, 209.Sardinia, 198.


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Sarmento, Jacob (Henrique) de Castro, 268,386.

Sarpi, Fra Paolo, 211.Sason, Ibn, family, 381.Sasportas, Jacob, 268.Savoy, 13, 232.Savannah, 294, 295.Saye and Sele, Lord, 315.Scandiano, 391.Schechter, S., 400.Schoonenberg, Franz van (Belmonte), 304.Schwarz, Samuel, 362 f.Scotland, crypto-Jews in, 4.Scrutinium Scripturarum, 163.Sebastian, Dom, 148.Sebastian, King of Portugal, 86, 148.Segovia, 7, 18, 25, 46, 382.Segovia, Bishop of, 48.Seixas, Abraham and Gershom Mendes,

318.Seixas, Mathias Mendes, 396.Semah David, K. K. (Barbados), 290.Senior, Abraham, 81, 203, 393.Sentencia Estatuto, 33, 35.Sequeira, David Machado de, 398; see also

Machado.Sermons, 132, 327, 347.Setubal, 146.Severus, Bishop, 3.Sevilla, Vaez, see Vaez Sevilla.Seville, 14, 39, 40, 43, 46, 47, 84, 86.136,

246, 280, 285.Shaar ha-Shamayim, K. K. (London), 266,

269.Shakespeare. William, 257.“Shaving the New Christians,” 135.Shearith Israel, K. K., New York, 293.She ‘at ha Shemad, 1.Shema‘ (Deut. 6.4–9.), 158, 262, 357.Shem-Tob, Levi ben, 57.Sicily, 198.Sienna, Convent of St. Catherine of, 380.Siete Partidas, 12.Silva, Abraham da, 319.Silva, Antonio José da (”O Judeu”), 165,

180, 394.Silva, Frei Diogo da, 69.Silva, Duarte da, 288, 306, 340.Silva, Francisco Maldonado da, 163, 165,

173, 279.Silva, Jean-Baptiste de, 227.Silva. Joshua da, 249, 268.Silva, Rodrigo Mendes da, 214, 300.Silva, Samuel da, 231.Silva Solis, family, 307, 317.Silveyra, Miguel de, 333.Simões, Isaac Lopes, 356.Sinigallia, Bishop of, 70.Sisebut, King of Spain, 7.Sixtus IV, Pope, 39, 48.Sixtus V, Pope, 391.Smyrna, 63, 199.

Sobieski, John, 336.Sobremonte, see Treviño.Soeiro, Manoel Dias, see Israel, Menasseh

ben.Soeiro, Samuel, 263 f.Sola, General Isaac de, 319.Soldiers, Marranos as, 219, 319, 334, 335, 370.Solis, Duarte Gomez, 76.Solis, Eleazar (Henrique) de, 245, 298.Solis, Simão Pires, 92, 245.Solis, da Silva, family, 307, 317.Solla, Samuel Mendes de, 328.Solomon ben Isaac of Troyes (”Rashi”), 4.Soncino, Jeronimo, 391.Sorcery, 84.Sossa, see Gomez de Sossa.Southampton, 253.Spain, passim; expulsion of Jews from,

52–3.Spalato, 211, 298.Spanish language, use of, 323 f.Spanish Town, Jamaica, 289.Speightstown, Jamaica, 290.Spencer. Sir E., 260.Spermaceti, manufacture of, 294.Spina, Fray Alonso de, 34, 38, 39.Spinoza, Benedict, 157, 247, 250, 288, 300,

318.St. John, Oliver, 263.“Starvation Farm,” 310.Statistics of victims of Inquisition, 143, 343.Sterne, Laurence, 347.Strappado, 106.Suasso, Antonio (Isaac) Lopez, 305.Sugar industry, 284, 290, 292.Sumptuary Laws, 121.Supino, Raphael, 264.Surinam, 291, 292.Susan, Diego de, 41, 42, 43.Sweden, 231, 302, 310.Sweden, Christina of, 231, 250, 302.Sweden, Charles XII of, 310.Synagogues, secret, 94, 153, 168.

TALAVARA, HERNANDO DE (Archbishop ofGranada), 24, 82.

Talavara, San Martin de, 383.Tallit, 178, 379.Talmud Torah, K. K., at Amsterdam, 242.Talmud Torah, K. K., at Venice, 242.Tamarica, 287.Tamarit, 18.Tangiers, 371.Tarazona, Cortes of, 49.Tarragona, Archbishop of, 38.Tarrégua, family, 227.Tartas, 157, 228.Tartas, Isaac de Castro, 157–8, 364, 393.Tavira, 204.Temple, Sir William, 303.


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423INDEX

Temuku, 400.“Term of Grace,” 99.Terongi, Catalina, 95, 96, 384.Terongi, Raphael Benito, 95, 96.Thesouro dos Dinim, 374.Texeira, Abraham Senior (Diego

Texeira di Sampaio), 301.Texeira, Antonia de Silva, 301.Texeira, Isaac Senior (Manoel), 250, 302.Texeira, Pedro. 76.Texeira de Mattos, family, 303, 319.Thomar, 73.Thomas, St.. island of, 382.Thomé, St., island of, 55.Tiberias, 203.Tiberias, Bishop of, 44.Tirado, Jacob, 241.Tizon de la Nobleza de España, 380.Tobago, 290, 334.Toledo, 8, 11, 12, 15, 17, 18, 32, 33, 34, 35,

39, 46, 84, 85, 86, and passim.Toledo, Archbishop of, 25.Toledo, councils at, 8.Torquemada, Juan de, 24.Torquemada, Thomás de, 39 ff., 46, 81.Torre, Fernando de la, 35.Torres, Luis de, 272, 273.Torres Novas, 92.Tortosa, council of, 18, 31.Torture, 108 ff.Toulouse, 227.Trancoso, 76, 91, 245.Tras-os-Montes. 345, 368.Travelers, Marranos, 76.Treves, 308.Treviño, Thomas, of Sobremonte, 162, 283.Triana, castle of, 44.Triana. Rodrigo de, 272.Trinoco, Miguel, 281.Tripoli, 396.Tschola, 6.Tudescos, 234.Tunis, 71.Turin, 232.Turkestan, 6.Turkey, 54, 142, 199, 205, 207.Tuscany, Grand Dukes of, 77, 214, 216.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 295.Universities, 75, 79.Urbino, Duke of, 208, 397.Usque, family, 192.Usque, Abraham, alias Duarte Pinel, 326.Usque, Samuel, 255, 325.Usque, Solomon (Salusque Lusitano), 332.Ussuf, Alazar, 25, 272.Utrera, 41, 88.Uziel, Isaac, 242.Uziel, Jacob, 397.

VAEZ, see Vaz.Valencia, 15, 17, 48, 49, 84, 380, 381, 390,Valencia, Fray Diego de, 26.Valladolid, 84, 85, 87, 142, 353.Valladolid, Juan de, 26.Vails, Raphael, 95, 96.Valona, 66, 199, 390.Vargas, family, 290.Vargas, Jeronimo de, 326. See Athias.Vaz (Vaez), Deborah, 333.Vaz, Emmanuel, 77.Vaz, Pero, 255.Vaz. Tomé, 152, 154.Vaz (Velasco), Alvaro and Francisco de

Gouvea, 152, 153, 154.Vaz Sevilla. Gaspar, 172, 281, 393.Vaz Sevilla, Simon, 282.Vega (Veiga), family, 77.Vega,Judah, 59.Vega, Manuel Rodrigues, 241.Vega, Thomas and Tomas Rodrigues da,

77, 301.Vega, Rodrigo da, 77, 78.Vega, Isaac Penso de la, 336.Vega, Joseph Penso de la, 336 f., 338.Velasquez, 320.Velosinho, Jacob de Andrade, 288.Venables, 289.Venezuela, 319.Venice, 202, 203, 204, 211, 213, 242, 266,

300, 324, 390, 391.Vera, Lope de, 155, 157.Verga. Judah ibn, 46, 387.Verga, Solomon, 61.Verguenza, 119.“Vero, Carlos,” 348.Verona, 213, 329.Viana, 149.Vicente, Juan, 278.Vicente, Gil, 68, 81, 382.Vieira, Antonio, 341, 342, 348.Vienna, 232, 302, 309, 336.Vignau, 399.Vila Nova de Cerveira, 153.Vilarinho, 373.Villafranca, 232.“Villa Franca,” 348.Villahermosa, family, 24.Villalobos, Fr. Lopez de, 26.Villanova, family, 25.Villa Real, 373.Villareal, family, 192, 219, 318.Villareal, José da, 389.Villareal, José da Costa, 308.Villareal, Manuel Fernandez, 159, 307, 340.Villena, Marquis of, 7.Vindiciae Judaeorum, 386.Violet, Thomas, 266.Visieu, 73, 76.Visigoths, 7, 8.Vittoria, Fray Francisco, Archbishop of

Mexico, 303.


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424 INDEX

Vizcaya, 75.Voltaire, 311, 347.

WAGENINGEN, 249.Walpole, Sir Robert, 314.Walsingham, Sir Francis, 256 f.Washing before prayer, 178.Water Torture, 109.West India Company, Dutch, 285 f., 290 f.Whitehall Conference, 264.William of Orange, 268, 304, 336.Wolf, Lucien, 372, 386, 397, 403.Women, position of, 207.

XAVIER, “St.” Francis. 394.Ximenes, family, 192; see Belmonte, Car-

dinal, 83.Ximenes d’Arragon, family, 78, 304.

YESHIBA DE LOS PINTOS, 247.Yeshuath Israel, K. K. (Newport, R. I.),

293.Young Turk Movement, 379.

ZACHIN, Isaac ben Abraham ibn, 58.Zacuto, Abraham (Zacutus Luisitanus,

alias Manoel Alvares), 297, 393.Zacuto, Moses, 248.Zamora, Alfonso de, 26.Zapata, Fray Garcia de, 383.Zaporta, fainily, 25.Zealand, 237, 305.Zemah, Jacob, 298.Zevi, Sabbatai, 6, 172, 249, 326, 334.Zom Kippur, 385.Zoroastrian persecutions, 2.Zur Israel, K. K. (Pernambuco) 286.
