A Brief History of Iberian Antisemitism

Lina Gorenstein*

1. BACKGROUND In 1449, a discriminatory, racist, and antisemitic set of laws was passed in Toledo. It prohibited any Jew who converted to Christianity, or , from participating in a professional corporation or being admitted to any honorific office of the state or the Church. Known as the “Purity of Blood Statutes,” this legislation discriminated against indi- viduals on the basis of their ethnic origin and was aimed exclusively at Jewish converts to Christianity and their descendants. Since 1391, the number of converted in had been increasing. This was the year of the “ massacres” and the beginning of the conversion movement ordered by Friar Vicente Ferrer. Traditionally, Jews in the Iberian Peninsula were subject to their own legislation, which was becoming increasingly restrictive. As conversos, they were in the same posi- tion as the Christians and could compete with them in every field. In the realms of Christianity, the specific rights of Jewish communities were dis- played in the foros that had been promulgated since the 11th century.1 These provisions regarding the Jews were rarely incorporated into the municipal charters of the various localities. The Jewish community constituted a separate political body, with its own justice and laws, directed by Jewish law or the Torah and the decisions of the Talmudic authorities.2 The taxes that the Jewish communities had to pay directly to the King were laid down in those charters and represented an important contribution to the royal 3 treasury. The autonomy of the judarias. was reinforced, and laws were issued reaffirm- ing the autonomy of the Jews and assuring the safety of their property, regulated by the charters and submitted to the King. From the 14th century, canonical legislation became more prevalent in the realms of Iberian Christianity. Legislation concerning Jews had already been applied across the rest of Europe. This was restrictive legislation,4 aimed at prohibiting familiarity between

* Researcher, Laboratory for Studies on Intolerance, University of Sao Paolo. 1 Foro means charter or constitutional laws. See Benzion Netanyahu, The Origins of the Inquisi- tion in Fifeenth Century Spain (New York, Random House 1995) Chapter II: The Spanish Scene. 2 Leon Poliakov, De Maomé aos , 2nd ed. (São Paulo, Perspectiva 1996) p. 94. 3 Judaria refers to a Jewish neighborhood. 4 Renata Sancovsky, Inimigos da Fé—judeus, conversos e judaizantes na Peninsula Ibérica, século VII (Rio de Janeiro, Imprinta 2008). 297 Charles Asher Small (ed.), Global Antisemitism: A Crisis of Modernity. © 2013 Koninklijke Brill NV. ISBN 978 90 04 21457 6. 298 LINA GORENSTEIN

Jews and Christians. It had already been introduced by the Lateran Council in 1215 but was only enforced in the Iberian Peninsula in the 14th century. The tolerance and familiarity that ruled the relationship between Christians and Jews were slowly deteriorating. Since the middle of the 13th century—the end of the Christian —the normalization of life in Christian society offered a fertile soil for anti- semitism and traditional negative attitudes toward the Jews. In the 14th century, the popular belief that Jews were poisoners and a destructive element within Christianity was spread throughout Europe, and they were blamed for the plague that devastated Europe in 1348. Anti-Jewish feeling was growing, and the Jews were expelled from England, , and some German cities. It is this environment that provides the context for the “Seville massacres” of 1391 in Castela.5 The situation was different now, and the Old Christians reacted to this freedom by attempting to use legislation to limit competition from the converted Jews. In Toledo in 1449, a rebellion against the conversos—accusing them of being responsible for the rise in taxes—resulted in the promulgation of the Sentencia-Estatuto, known as the “Purity of Blood Statutes.”6 The Sentencia-Estatuto was both a judgment and a legislative act against the conversos. In reality, it was a measure based on economic motives, but those responsible for this discriminating legislation used religious pretexts. They accused all the conversos of being secret Jews and, therefore, of being bad Christians. It did not matter what the conversos did: was in their blood, and they drank it in with their mother’s milk.7 This was the first racial institutional legislation since the canonical laws. Conversos— or New Christians—were not equal to the Old Christians and would never be, since they carried in their blood the seeds of “impurity,” the seeds of Judaism. This racist politics against the conversos accused them all of being false Christians. It reflected a conflict between the Old and the New Christian bourgeoisie—a competition for the work and trade markets. This anti-Jewish politics reached its peak in 1492, when the kings of Spain presented the Jews with a choice between conversion or leaving the kingdom. The Edict of Expul- sion was published on March 31, 1492 and gave the Jews until August to leave Spain. These statutes were social and urban phenomena, with the purpose of stopping the converted middle class from competing in professional corporations and public office and blocking their social ascent. The statutes lasted for almost three centuries in the Iberian countries and its dominions, always favoring the upper classes.

5 Poliakov, supra n. 2, at p. 130. 6 The Sentencia-Estatuto has been studied by many historians, who devoted themselves to dis- cussing the reasons that led to this state of affairs. See, among many others, A. Sicroff, Los Estatutos de , trad. M. Arminõ (Madrid, Taurus 1958); Benzion Netanyahu, The Origins of in Fifteenth Century Spain (New York, Random House 1995); Jaime Contreras, “Limpieza de sangre, cambio social y manipulacion de la memoria,” in Inquisicion y conversos—III Curso de cultura hispano-judia y sefardi (Toledo, Associacion de amigos del museo sefardi/caja de Castilla la- Mancha 1993) pp. 81-102; Christiane Stallaert, Ni una gota de sangre impura (Barcelona, Circulo de Lectores/Galaxia Gutemberg 2006). 7 IAN/TT/IL (Institutos dos Arquivos Nacionais, Torre do Tombo, Inquisição de Lisboa). File of Antonio Rodrigues Mogadouro, letter from Francisco Paes Ferreira attached to the file.