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The Inception of Limpieza De Sangre (Purity of Blood) and Its Impact in Medieval and Golden Age Spain

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The Inception of Limpieza De Sangre (Purity of Blood) and Its Impact in Medieval and Golden Age Spain THE INCEPTION OF LIMPIEZA DE SANGRE (PURITY OF BLOOD) AND ITS IMPACT IN MEDIEVAL AND GOLDEN AGE SPAIN Gregory B. Kaplan In 1449, the outbreak of a violent insurrection in Toledo served as an outlet for popular sentiment by initiating a change in the nature of anti- converso discrimination. Whereas during the fijirst half of the fijifteenth century such discrimination was unsystematic, after the revolt of 1449 conversos were repeatedly targeted because of a public perception that they were crypto-Jews, that is, nominal Christians who practiced Judaism secretly. The stigma attached to conversos was communicated through the promulgation of estatutos de limpieza de sangre (purity-of-blood stat- utes), which excluded conversos from a variety of organizations to which only Old Christians, those with a non-Jewish ancestry, were affforded access. Although these statutes were not always enforced, their existence for centuries was fueled by the fact that conversos continued to be per- ceived as suspect Christians. The spread of this discriminatory attitude in late medieval and Golden Age Spain, as I will explain in the present study, is most accurately understood as a phenomenon that evolved from the ground up. From its early stages in the fijifteenth century as an expression of popular anti-converso animosity, the preoccupation with sangre impura (impure blood) extended through the higher spheres of Spanish society, in which advancement and prestige were determined by the abil- ity to prove pure lineage and maintain the outward appearance of an Old Christian. According to Américo Castro, the concern in Spain with purity of blood traces its origins to the Jews, as illustrated, for example, by a responsa composed around 1300 that permitted two brothers, David and Azriel, to marry into “las más honradas familias de Israel, dado que no ha habido en su ascendencia mezcla de sangre impura en los costados paterno, materno o colateral” (emphasis by Castro), (“the most honored families in Israel; for there had been no admixture of impure blood in the paternal or maternal antecedents and their collateral relatives”).1 This theory has 1 Américo Castro, La realidad histórica de España 2nd ed. (México, D. F.: Porrúa, 1962), 51. The translation is by Edmund L. King (The Structure of Spanish History, by Américo Castro [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1954], 526). 20 gregory b. kaplan been challenged by scholars, most convincingly by Benzion Netanyahu, who points out a number of inconsistencies in Castro’s understanding of Jewish traditions and his interpretations of medieval texts.2 Moreover, while Castro considers the aforementioned responsa to be “el más antiguo texto de una prueba de limpieza de sangre en España” (“the earliest text of a proof of purity of blood in Spain”) and a precursor to the institutionali- zation of purity of blood centuries later, there is no evidence that it repre- sents a widespread tendency, and it instead appears to concern the social status of a particular family.3 In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the military confraternities of Alcaraz, Baeza, Jaén, and Ubeda required those who were admitted to be of pure Christian blood, although, as Antonio Domínguez Ortiz explains, this should be understood as “un medio, para una minoría noble y guerrera, de conservar su individualidad” (“a means, for a small group of noble warriors, to preserve their individu- ality”).4 The responsa mentioned by Castro and the regulations of the mili- tary confraternities are similar insofar as they depict discrimination in a limited scope, that is, in terms of a single family or particular groups of nobles. The notion of purity of blood that would be defijined in the social climate of fijifteenth-century Spain difffered by implicating conversos col- lectively on the grounds that anyone who possessed a Jewish lineage was a heretical Christian. At the same time, the fijifteenth-century conception of purity of blood does fijind antecedents in the character of Visigothic discrimination in Spain directed against converts from Judaism to Christianity, which was also based on the perception that many converts had relapsed into Judaism. This perception was in large part based on the fact that conver- sions were mandated, whether by force or peaceful means, which undoubt edly produced neophytes who were reluctant to be educated in Christian doctrine.5 Moreover, contact between converted Jews and their 2 Benzion Netanyahu, Toward the Inquisition: Essays on Jewish and Converso History in Late Medieval Spain (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997), 1–42. 3 Castro, La realidad, 51. The translation is by King (527). Albert A. Sicrofff, Los estatutos de limpieza de sangre, trans. Mauro Armiño (Madrid: Taurus, 1985), 116, note 98. Sicrofff asserts that, rather than referring to purity of blood, this responsa “se trata más bien del honor de una familia, reivindicado por la decisión de un tribunal rabínico” (“actually deals with the honor of one family, which was vindicated by the decision of a rabbinic tribu- nal”). Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are my own. 4 Antonio Domínguez Ortiz, Los judeoconversos en España y América (Madrid: Istmo, 1971), 81. 5 Benzion Netanyahu, The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth Century Spain (New York: Random House, 1995), 35, and note 27; and James Parkes, The Conflict of the Church .
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