Much has been written, and in various languages and different countries, about the nature and plight of the conversos, Jewish converts to Christianity, and their descendants in the Iberian world. Beginning with mass conversion in Spain in the late fourteenth and throughout the fifteenth century, a new category was created of Nuevo Cristiano (New Christian). According to Christian doctrine, these converts should have been welcomed with open arms, yet the opposite was the case. First in Spain and then, following the expulsion of Jews in 1492, also in neighboring Portugal, where many sought refuge and later were forced to convert, Jewish converts and their descendants were subject to discrimination, persecution, and in many cases torture and death at the hands of the Inquisition.
The story of this centuries-long persecution in Portugal and its territories is the subject of this compelling and thoroughly researched book. The author quite correctly refers to the central theme of his study, the alleged anti-Christian conspiracy of descendants of conversos, as anti-Semitic. As he notes, many historians reserve the term for the racist theories advanced in nineteenth-century Europe, but the infectious theory of purity of blood (limpieza de sangre) of the Old Christians, which was allegedly being tainted by Jewish (converso) contamination, was as much anti-Semitic as any modern manifestation.
It is important to point out the differences between the situation of conversos and their descendants in Spain and those in Portugal. The author notes that while Spanish conversos suffered continuous persecution from the Inquisition, their Portuguese brethren were spared similar persecution from the time of their conversion in 1497 to the late 1530s, which “appears to have allowed them to form a stronger communal identity” than in Spain (12). However, even more important is that the Spanish converts willingly chose to become, and to remain, Christians, whereas the already demoralized Jewish refugees in Portugal were faced once again with expulsion or the alternative of forced baptism.
The innovative and compelling thesis of this book is that this hatred of all things Jewish unleashed a new category of “conspiracy theories,” according to which Jews (actually far-removed descendants of converted Jews) were engaged in local and international plots to undermine old Christian society socially, religiously, and economically. Most of the latter part of the first chapter is devoted to analysis of conspiracy theory in general and historical examples from ancient to modern times. In the case of Jews and conversos, this built on a long history of fabricated charges, such as ritual murder and blood-libel accusations, and formal and popular anti-Jewish attitudes, not only in the Iberian Peninsula, of course. What is impressive in this study is the detailed analysis of the interplay of these elements as they found renewal in Portugal and its colonies in the early modern period. Another myth with a long history, that of the Jewish doctor who poisoned his or her (yes, there were female Jewish physicians and even surgeons in medieval Spain) patients, was also repeated in Portugal (chapter 4, perhaps too much devoted to well-known cases from medieval Spain).
Hatred and fear of the conversos was not limited to sentiment but found expression in the actual torture and burning of accused heretics by the hundreds. Another very dangerous result was the accusation that these descendants of Jews were conspiring with the Protestant Dutch not only in economic competition but in planned warfare with Portugal. Such charges spread to Peru and even Mexico, where the Inquisition was also hard at work against Judaizers. Not only church officials or the Inquisition but also various government officials and foremost intellectuals and writers, both in Portugal and Spain (such as Quevedo and Lope de Vega), were advocates of these conspiracy theories.
The author concludes with evidence of the continuation of much of this into later periods, including modern times, yet it may be dangerous to exaggerate anti-Semitism in modern Spain. The conclusions should nevertheless serve as a warning. The author is to be congratulated on an important, and highly recommended, contribution.
