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A History of the Marranos, by Cecil Roth

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A History of the Marranos, by Cecil Roth A History of The Marranos By Cecil Roth ( Page 1 ) Isaac Aboab, 1605-1693 First Rabbi in America: Pernambuco, Brazil, 1642-1654. Haham of Sephardic Community of Amsterdam, 1626-1642; 1654-1693 ( Page 2 ) A History Of The Marranos Cecil Roth Published By Meridian Books, Inc. New York And The Jewish Publication Society Of America Philadelphia FOR IRENE 6. vi. 31. M First published by Meridian Books, Inc., and The Jewish Publication Society of America, October 1959 First printing September 1959 @ Copyright 1932 by The Jewish Publication Society of America Reprinted by arrangement with The Jewish Publication Society of America Library of Congress Catalog Card Number : 59-12914 Manufactured in the United States of America ( Page 3 ) TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter PAGE Foreword 6 Introductory: The Antecedents of Crypto-Judaism 7 The Beginnings of Marranism 11 The Establishment of the Inquisition 17 The General Conversion in Portugal 25 The Heyday of the Inquisition 34 The Inquisitional Procedure and the Auto-da-Fè 43 Saints, Heroes, and Martyrs 60 The Religion of the Marranos 68 The Marrano Diaspora 78 The Dutch Jerusalem 93 Resettlement in England 99 The Marranos in the New World 106 Some Marrano Worthies 115 The Literature of the Marranos 124 The Decline of the Inquisition 130 Epilogue: The Marranos of Today 136 Notes 144 Bibliography 157 Cecil Roth 162 ( Page 4 ) LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Isaac Aboab, First Rabbi in America. .. ...... 2. The Hall of the Inquisition in which Prisoners were Examined 45 The Place of Torments and Manner of Giving the Torture 47 Title Page of an Account of the Auto held at Seville on July 5, 1722. 50 List of the "Relaxed;" from the same Account 51 Title Page of List of Victims of Auto held at Seville on March 29, 1648. 51 The Place and Manner of Execution 52 The Habit of a Penitent, called Sanbenito. 53 The Habit of an Impenitent going to be burnt... 54 The Celebration of an Act of Faith in the Great Square of Madrid 55 The 17th-Century Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam 56 Title Page of Sermon preached at Auto held on September 5, 1638 57 Title Page of Columbus' Letter to Sanchez 57 First Page of the same Letter 58 ( Page 5 ) FOREWORD I have the great honour to present to the Reader, in the following pages, what may fairly be described as the most romantic episode in all history. As long ago as 1894, Joseph Jacobs indicated "one of the great desiderata of Jewish literature a .. history of the Marranos or secret Jews of the Peninsula." That lacuna is here filled, for the first time. It is hoped that the interest in it will not be confined to the Jew. The record of the “New Christians” is an inseparable part of the stories of Spain and Portugal, at the period of their greatest brilliance. It constitutes a fundamental, though tragic, chapter of ecclesiastical history. It touches on the life of every country of. Western Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, at crucial points. It is the background to the biography of countless persons of the highest eminence, both in the Peninsula and abroad. It had important reactions in politics, literature, science, and commerce. Throughout, it received lurid illumination from the flares of the autos-da-fè. Each of these aspects deserves a whole volume. I stand astonished at my own moderation in having compressed them into chapters, or even paragraphs. It is not, however, its importance which gives the history of the Marranos its appeal, but its incredible romance. The submerged life which blossomed out at intervals into such exotic flowers; the unique devotion which could transmit the ancestral ideals unsullied, from generation to generation, despite the Inquisition and its horrors; the figures of rare heroism which every now and again emerged to burst upon the world; the extraordinary climax in our own days—all combine to make a story unparalleled in history for sheer dramatic appeal. If the volume does not live up to the expectations which this description may have aroused, it is the fault of the author, and not of his subject. London, June 1931 FOREWORD TO THE THIRD EDITION The events that have taken place since this work was first published have changed the entire perspective of Jewish history. Pathetic parallels to Marrano history were known in Europe during the tragic period of Nazi oppression. Moreover, very important research has been clone recently on the early days of crypto-Judaism in Spain, on the origins of the Inquisition, and on various aspects of the history of the Marrano Diaspora. Years have diminished, though it is to be hoped not entirely obliterated, the author's high romanticism of a quarter-century ago. Nevertheless, in this new edition it has been thought best to leave this work basically as it first emerged, with the correction only of major errors of fact. Oxford, July 1958 A HISTORY OF THE MARRANOS ( Page 6 ) A HISTORY OF THE MARRANOS INTRODUCTORY The Antecedents of Crypto-Judaism RYPTO-JUDAISM, in one form or another, is as old as the Jew himself. In Hellenistic days, some weaklings endeavored to conceal their origin in order to escape ridicule Cwhen participating in the athletic exercises. Under the Roman rule, there was wide- spread subterfuge to avoid the payment of the special Jewish tax, the Fiscus Judaicus, which had been instituted after the fall of Jerusalem ; and the historian Suetonius gives a vivid account of the indignities inflicted upon an old man of ninety in order to discover whether or no he was a Jew. The official attitude, as crystallized in the dicta of the Rabbis, was plain. A man might, and should, save his life if the occasion demanded it, by any means—murder, incest, or idolatry alone excepted. Only when the alternative was to commit one of these three offences against divine and human law was death to be preferred. However, this aphorism applied exclusively to cases where positive action was demanded: the concealment of Judaism, unaccompanied by any formality, was another matter. Rigorists indeed insisted that a man should refuse even to make a change in his garments, if it were demanded as a measure of religious oppression. Yet such stern devotion to principle could not be expected from all persons. Traditional Jewish law, in fact, made special provision for cases when observance of ceremonial practices became impos- sible because of compulsion (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 persecution in Persia. This consisted, however, in enforced neglect of traditional observance rather than positive conformity to the dominant religion. Judaism was thus driven to some extent under- ground, regaining complete freedom only some years later. A fresh phase in Jewish life had been entered with the growth of Christianity, which became supreme in Europe in the fourth century. The new faith, which claimed exclusive possession of religious truth, inevitably regarded proselytization as one of the greatest of moral obligations. The Church, indeed, officially condemned conversion by forcible means. It specifically disap- proved of the application of such methods even to the laudable object of saving the souls of Jews. Baptisms so effected were generally held to be invalid. Thus Pope Gregory the Great (590-604), who set the example subsequently followed by the Catholic Church in its policy towards the stubborn adherents of the older faith, repeatedly condemned forcible conversions, although he eagerly welcomed proselytes secured by any other means. In this attitude, he was faithfully imitated by the majority of his successors. However, the papal injunctions were not infrequently disregarded. The theory, that conversion by force was uncanonical, was not indeed disputed. Instead, the Jews would be threatened with death or with expulsion, it being clearly understood that baptism would save them. It occasionally happened that they bowed to necessi- ty, their acceptance of Christianity under such circumstances being regarded as spontaneous. There had been a famous case of mass forced conversion at Magona (Mahon) in the island of Minorca, under the auspices of Bishop Severus, in 418. A similar episode took place at ( Page 7 ) Clermont, in Auvergne, on the morrow of Ascension Day, 576; and, notwithstanding the intense disapproval of Pope Gregory, the example was followed elsewhere in France in the ensuing period. Fired by this example, in 629 King Dagobert ordered all the Jews of the country to accept baptism under pain of banishment. Almost immediately afterwards, his measure was imitated in the kingdom of Lombardy. It is self-evident that conversions effected by such means must be insincere. Inevitably, the victims continued wherever possible to practice Judaism in secret, and took the first opportunity of reverting to their ancestral faith; there was a notable instance at the time of the persecutions in the Byzantine Empire, under Leo the Isaurian, in 723. The Church itself was fully conscious of this, doing all it could to prevent the continuance of relations between professing Jews and their renegade brethren, by whatever means their conversion had been secured. The Rabbis on their side were not behind-hand in recognizing the fact. They called these reluctant apostates anusim ("forced ones"), treating them very differently from deliberate renegades. One of the earliest utterances of rabbinic scholarship in Europe is a regulation of Gershom of Mayence, "The Light of the Exile" (c. 1000), prohibiting unkind treatment of forced converts 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 his father just as if he had remained a steadfast Jew.
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