Conversos, Inquisition, and the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain

by Norman Roth

The Jewish community of medieval Spain was the largest and most important in the West for more than a thousand years, participating fully in cultural and political affairs with Muslim and Christian neighbors. This stable situation began to change in the 1390s, and through the next century hundreds of thousands of Jews converted to Christianity. Norman Roth argues here with detailed documentation that, contrary to popular myth, the conversos were sincere converts who hated (and were hated by) the remaining Jewish community. Roth examines in depth the reasons for the Inquisition against the conversos, and the eventual expulsion of all Jews from Spain.

“With scrupulous scholarship based on a profound knowledge of the Hebrew, Latin, and Spanish sources, Roth sets out to shatter all existing preconceptions about late medieval society in Spain.”—Henry Kamen, Journal of Ecclesiastical History

“Scholarly, detailed, researched, and innovative. . . . As the result of Roth’s writing, we shall need to rethink our knowledge and understanding of this period.”—Murray Levine, Jewish Spectator

“The fruit of many years of study, investigation, and reflection, guaranteed by the solid intellectual trajectory of its author, an expert in Jewish studies. . . . A contribution that will be particularly valuable for the study of Spanish medievalism.”—Miguel Angel Motis Dolader, Annuario de Estudios Medievales

Genres: Spain, Religion

466 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1995

Reviews

[P. Es · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rough sledding but worth it. A real lesson in history versus communal memory; the majority of Jews in Spain by 1492 had willingly converted, the majority of them remained as faithful to their new faith as other Spaniards (which is saying something - but not a lot); rabbinic contemporaries condemned the converts as apostates - while modern Jewish memory celebrate them as martyrs and 'anusim', 'coerced ones' (though Jewish Law at the time stipulated martyrdom as THE ONLY alternative to exile or apostasy - and Conversos apostatized and on the main WERE classed as willing apostates, Minim by Jewish Law, plain and simple). Persecution of 'Conversos' was NOT a universal phenomena (the great many simply intermarried, and a good number of converts became clerics, government officials, etc), nor was persecution experienced by Jews alone - even non-Jews were accused. Much more.