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1492 Reconsidered: Religious and Social Change in Fifteenth Century Ávila

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1492 Reconsidered: Religious and Social Change in Fifteenth Century Ávila 1492 RECONSIDERED: RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN FIFTEENTH CENTURY ÁVILA by Carolyn Salomons A dissertation submitted to Johns Hopkins University in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Baltimore, Maryland May 2014 © 2014 Carolyn Salomons All Rights Reserved Abstract This dissertation is an assessment of the impact of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 on the city of Ávila, in northwestern Castile. The expulsion was the culmination of a series of policies set forth by Isabel I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon regarding Jewish-Christian relations. The monarchs invoked these policies in order to bolster the faith and religious praxis of Catholics in the kingdoms, especially those Catholics newly converted from Judaism. My work shows how the implementation of these strategies began to fracture the heretofore relatively convivial relations between the confessional groups residing in Ávila. A key component of the Crown’s policies was the creation of a Jewish quarter in the city, where previously, Jews had lived wherever they chose. This transformation of a previously shared civic place to one demarcated clearly by religious affiliation, i.e. the creation of both Jewish and Christian space, had a visceral impact on how Christians related to their former neighbors, and hostilities between the two communities increased in the closing decades of the fifteenth century. Yet at the same time, Jewish appeals to the Crown for assistance in the face of harassment and persecution were almost always answered positively, with the Crown intervening several times on behalf of their Jewish subjects. This seemingly incongruous attitude reveals a key component in the relationship between the Crown and Jews: the “royal alliance.” My work also details how invoking that alliance came at the expense of the horizontal alliances between Abulense Jews and Christians, and only fostered antagonism between the confessional groups. Ultimately, this antagonism was resolved by the expulsion of the Jews in 1492. But rather than plunge the community into a ii decline, the expulsion had no immediate detrimental effect on the city; rather, post-1492 Ávila experienced economic and social growth. iii Committee Members Richard L. Kagan, adviser John Marshall Gabrielle Spiegel Felipe Pereda Harry Sieber iv Acknowledgments My thanks go first and foremost to Richard Kagan. Without his encouragement, enthusiasm, generosity, insightful suggestions, and painstaking readings of the many drafts that went into the finished work, this project would be that much poorer. I would also like to thank those faculty members at the Johns Hopkins University who read parts of my dissertation at various stages, asked thought provoking questions about the material, or otherwise offered invaluable advice and insights: Lisa DeLeonardis, Michael Kwass, John Marshall, Felipe Pereda, Erin Rowe, Gabrielle Spiegel, and the late (and sorely missed) A. John Russell-Wood. My thanks also goes to James Amelang, Jodi Bilinkoff, and Sara Nalle for conversations over the past years, and their willingness to answer questions and offer suggestions regarding my work. I am immensely grateful to David Nirenberg for allowing me to cite his forthcoming book. In Spain, I am indebted to Serafín de Tapia Sánchez, who, on the basis of nothing more than a chance meeting in an archive in Ávila, agreed to assist me during my research year in Spain. His guidance made my time working in the archives more fruitful and productive than I ever could have hoped, and his continuing willingness to answer questions and share his work after I left Spain helped me more than I can say. My thanks also goes to the many archivists in Ávila who graciously helped me find my way around the fifteenth century documents and went out of their way to offer suggestions for other avenues of research and reading. The Fulbright Association generously provided the funds that allowed me to spend a year working in the various archives in Spain, for which I am truly grateful. I v also thank the Program for Cultural Cooperation between Spain's Ministry of Culture & United States' Universities (now Hispanex) for their supplemental grant, which permitted me to extend my time in Spain and ensured I could complete the research necessary for this project. At the Johns Hopkins University, both The Singleton Center for the Study of Pre-Modern Europe and The Leonard and Helen R. Stulman Program in Jewish Studies provided travel grants for valuable summer research trips which enabled me to formulate the foundations of my project. I also wish to thank the History Department at the Johns Hopkins University for providing a scholarly environment at once both stimulating and supportive in which to complete the dissertation. Megan Zeller in particular deserves thanks for the countless ways she made my life easier over the years. Tobie Meyer-Fong offered practical and valuable counsel in her role as Director of Graduate Studies. I would like to thank my fellow Hispanists for spirited discussions, not only during the sessions of the Early Modern Spain seminar, but also more informally, outside the seminar room: Amy Chang, Matthew Franco, Guillermo García Montúfar, Yonatan Glazer-Eytan, Jonathan Greenwood, Lauren MacDonald, Rebecca Quinn Teresi, and honorary member, Dave Casazza. I especially want to thank Andrew Devereux and Molly Warsh for being unofficial mentors during my first years at Hopkins, and continuing to be such supportive friends. I also thank the members of the European Seminar for their helpful comments and critiques of several chapters of this project, in particular Will Brown, Nathan Daniels, Jeremy Fradkin, Brendan Goldman, Jessica Keene, Ke Ren, Heather Stein, and Neil Weijar. vi Meeting other Fulbrighters made my year in Spain that much more enjoyable: I especially think of Victoria Blacik, Andrea Davis, Philip Fox (along with Marcella Kerrigan Fox and Lydia Fox), Claire Gilbert, Sarah Hamilton and Julia Perratore. I particularly need to thank Philip and Claire for reading and commenting on my chapters over the years as we all moved from researching to writing. I also thank Aitor Rubio Latorre, Paula Ortega Gómez and Maria Jesus Pablos at the Fulbright Commission in Madrid for all their efforts on my behalf. Personally, I would like to thank the friends in Baltimore who helped make it home for me over the years, especially Alana Bevan and Samuel Reinstra, Jamie Gianoutsos and Jessy Jordan, and Jessica Walker. I thank Lisa Evans and Joann Gusdanovic for being such thoughtful and excellent neighbors and the many rides to and from the airport. Friends around the globe inspired me and made me laugh when needed, especially Ellen Brinkman, Frances Clement, Hannah Gaganis, Nancy Palejko, and Sarah Waurechen. My family has provided nothing but love, support, and encouragement – and when needed, respite from work – over the past years: Herman and Leida Salomons, Elizabeth Salomons, Sharon Salomons and Peter Brolese, Tim, Wenda, Madeleine and Eve Salomons, Geoff, Michelle and Kiran Salomons. I could not have completed this without you. Finally, I wish to thank my mother, Alice Verbeek Salomons, for first instilling in me a love of both literature and learning, which was where I took my first steps on this path. I dedicate this dissertation to her memory. vii Table of Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgements v List of Maps ix Introduction 1 1. Medieval Ávila: Reconquest, repoblación, 17 and true convivencia 2. “For they receive much aggravation and harm”: 63 the Jewish community in Ávila and the Catholic Monarchs 3. The Inquisition and Ávila: Witnessing autos da fe 108 4. Pious Cruelty: The Expulsion of the Jews in 1492 151 5. Ávila after the Expulsion 200 Epilogue 230 Bibliography viii List of Maps Map 1 – Spain, major cities x Map 2 – Ávila, circa 1485 xi ix Map 1 – Spain, major cities x Map 2 – Ávila, circa 1485 xi List of Abbreviations ACA Archivo Catedral de Ávila AGS Archivo General de Simancas AHPAv Archivo Histórico Provincial de Ávila AHN Archivo Histórico Nacional AM Archivo Municipal de Ávila ASAA Archivo de Santa Ana de Ávila ARCV Archivo de la Real Chancillería de Valladolid BN Biblioteca Nacional de España, Madrid CODOIN Colección de Documentos Inéditos para la Historia de España c. (caja) box cód. (códices) codices exp. (expediente) file f. (folio) page leg. (legajo) bundle lib. (libro) book núm. (número) number xii Introduction In Sepharad, we settled our debts, quit our estates, exchanged houses for asses; our daughters of twelve and up married off, so that they might cross over adversity in the shadow of a husband. From the moment of the Expulsion Order our goods were seized. We had no rights as persons to be spoken to in public or private. The Bibles, synagogues and cemeteries were confiscated by the dogs of God. From the early morning we took the road into exile as far as the impenetrable night of history. – Homero Aridjis, Sefarad, 14921 In his poem, Sefarad, 1492, twenty-first century Mexican poet Homero Aridjis echoes contemporaneous accounts of the expulsion of the Jews from the Spanish kingdoms of Castile and Aragon in 1492.2 In so doing, he also reinscribes popular tropes about the expulsion, and the year 1492: that it marks a watershed moment, both the nadir of Iberian Jewish experience, and the pinnacle of persecution and intolerance of Iberian Catholics, led by their monarchs, Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabel I of Castile.3 1 Homero Aridjis, Eyes to See Otherwise/Ojos De Otro Mira: Selected Poems, trans. Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Bilingual edition (New York: New Directions, 2002), 215. 2 See, for example, the excerpts in David Raphael, The Expulsion 1492 Chronicles: An Anthology of Medieval Chronicles Relating to the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain and Portugal (Valley Village, CA: Carmi House Press, 1992).
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