We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
It seems quite extraordinary that an important European country should apparently have wished to go down in history as the originator of calculated cruelty and violence against members of its civil population. Yet the writers of the famous sketches in Monty Python’s Flying Circus were far from being the first to introduce ‘the Spanish Inquisition’ as a cliché to represent arbitrary and yet calculated tyranny. By the late sixteenth century, Christian Europe, both Catholic and Protestant, had already formed the image of Spain which has become known as the ‘Black Legend’. Just as many Spaniards distrusted Italy, because Jews lived freely there, and France because Protestants were in a similar condition in that country, so Italian opposition to the forces of Ferdinand the Catholic and his successors, together with the ultimately successful Dutch rebels, created, with the help of growing knowledge of Spain’s atrocities against the inhabitants of the New World, a counter-myth, in which the Spaniards themselves appeared as heardess oppressors, but also, ironically, as crypto-Jews (marranos). Erasmus wrote that France was ‘the most spotless and most flourishing part of Christendom’, since it was ‘not infected with heretics, with Bohemian schismatics, with Jews, with half-Jewish marranos’, the last term clearly referring to Spain. Not surprisingly, there is also a Jewish story of what happened in Spain before, during, and after 1492, which may best be summed up, in general outline, in the words, written in 1877, of Frederic David Mocatta’s study of Iberian Jews and the Inquisition.
1 Kamen, Henry, Spain, 1469-1714. A Society of Conflict, 2nd edn (London, 1991), p. 194 Google Scholar; Elliott, J. H., ‘Spain and its Empire in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’, in Spain and its World, 1500-1700 (New Haven and London, 1989), p. 11.Google Scholar
2 Edwards, John, The Jews in Christian Europe, 1400-1700 (London, 1988), pp. 54–5.Google Scholar
3 Mocatta, Frederic David, The Jews of Spain and Portugal and the Inquisition (New York, 1973), p. vi.Google Scholar
4 Litvinoff, Barnett, The Burning Bush. Antisemitism and World History (Glasgow, 1989), p. 84.Google Scholar
5 Hillgarth, J. N., The Spanish Kingdoms, 1230-1516, 2, 1410–1516.Google Scholar Hegemony, Castilian (Oxford, 1978), p. 149 Google Scholar; Ruano, Eloy Benito, Toledo en el Siglo XV. Vida Politica (Madrid, 1961), pp. 34–81 Google Scholar, and ‘La “Sentencia-Estatuto” de Pero Sarmiento’, Revista de la Universidad de Madrid, 6 (1951), pp. 207–306, reprinted in Los Orígenes del Problema Converso (Barcelona, 1976), pp. 41–92.
6 Edwards, John, ‘Religion, Constitutionalism and the Inquisition in Teruel, 1484-5’, in Lomaxand, Derek W. Mackenzie, David, eds, God and Man in Medieval Spain. Essays in Honour of J. R. L. Highfield (Warminster, 1989), pp. 129–47 Google Scholar; Monter, William, Frontiers of Heresy. The Spanish Inquisition from the Basque Lands to Sicily (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 3–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
7 Kamen, Henry, Inquisition and Society in Spain in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (London, 1985), pp. 30–43.Google Scholar
8 Ibid., pp. 41–2; Keith Whinnom, ‘Interpreting La Celestina: the motives and the personality of Fernando de Rojas’, in F. W. Hodcroft, D. G. Pattison, R. D. F. Pring-Mill, and Truman, R. W., eds, Medieval and Renaissance Studies on Spain and Portugal in Honour of P. E. Russell (Oxford, 1981), p. 5911.Google Scholar
9 Kamen, Inquisition and Society, pp. 101–13; John Edwards, ‘Mission and Inquisition among conversos and moriscos in Spain’, SCH, 21 (1984), pp. 139-51, and ‘Christian mission in the kingdom of Granada, 1492–1568’, Christianity and Islam, Renaissance and Modem Studies, 31 (1987), pp. 20–33; Meyerson, Mark D., The Muslims of Valencia in the Age of Fernando and Isabel: between Coexistence and Crusade (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and Oxford, 1991 Google Scholar).
10 Monter, , Frontiers of Heresy, pp. 189–92 Google Scholar; Haliczer, Stephen, Inquisition and Society in the Kingdom of Valencia, 1478-1834 (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and Oxford, 1990), pp. 244–72.Google Scholar
11 Kamen, , Inquisition and Society, pp. 66–70 Google Scholar; Huerga, Alvaro, Historia de los Alumbrados, 2 vols (Madrid, 1978 Google Scholar); Haliczer, , Inqubition and Society, pp. 273–80.Google Scholar
12 Kamen, , Inquisition and Society, pp. 70–1 Google Scholar; Bataillon, Marcel, Erasmo y España, 2nd edn (Madrid, 1979 Google Scholar); Haliczer, , Inquisition and Society, pp. 280–5.Google Scholar
13 Kamen, , Inquisition and Society, pp. 71–100 Google Scholar; Haliczer, , Inquisition and Society, pp. 285–90 Google Scholar; Monter, , Frontiers of Heresy, pp. 231–52 Google Scholar; Boix, Rafael Gracia, Autos de Fey Causas de la Inquisición de Córdoba (Córdoba, 1983), pp. 81, 88 Google Scholar; L. de Alberti and A. B. Wallis, eds, English Merchants and the Spanish Inquisition in the Canaries (London, 1912).
14 Lea, Henry Charles, A History of the Inquisition in Spain, 4 vols (New York, 1906-7 Google Scholar). Notable examples of modern work are Jaime Contreras, El Santo Officio de la Inquisición de Galicia, 1560-1700 (Madrid, 1982); Ricardo García Cárcel, Orígenes de la Inquisición Española (Barcelona, 1976), and Herejía y Sociedad en el Siglo XVI (Barcelona, 1980); Jean-Pierre Dedieu, L’Administration de la foi. L’Inquisition de Tolède (XVIe-XVIIIe siècle) (Madrid, 1989); Gustav Henningsen, The Witches’ Advocate: Basque Witchcraft and the Spanish Inquisition (Reno, 1980); Kamen, Inquisition and Society; Haliczer, Inquisition and Society; Beinart, Haim, Conversos on Trial: the Inquisition of Ciudad Real (Jerusalem, 1981 Google Scholar).
15 For examples of Jewish belief and practice, see the above works and also John Edwards, ‘Religious faith and doubt in late medieval Spain: Soria circa 1450–1500’, Pa P, 120 (1988), pp. 6-9. For the Inquisition’s use of Jewish testimony, see John Edwards, ‘Jewish testimony to the Spanish Inquisition: Teruel, 1484-7’, RE], 143 (1984), pp. 333-50.
16 Edwards, , ‘Religious faith and doubt’, pp. 9–11.Google Scholar
17 Ibid., pp. 11-25.
18 Elliott, J. H., ‘The Discovery of America and the Discovery of Man’, in Spain and its World, p. 46.Google Scholar
19 Rivkin, Ellis, ‘The utilisation of non-Jewish sources for the reconstruction of Jewish history’, JQR, 48 (1957-8), p. 193 Google Scholar, and ‘How Jewish were the New Christians?’ in Josep M. Sola, Samuel G. Armistead, and Silverman, Joseph H., eds, Hispania Judaica: Studies on the History, Language and Literature of the jews in the Hispanic World, I, History (Barcelona, 1980), pp. 105–15.Google Scholar
20 Saraiva, A.J., Inquisição e Cristãos Novos, 2nd edn (Oporto, 1969 Google Scholar).
21 Edwards, , ‘Religious faith and doubt’, pp. 24–5 Google Scholar; Langmuir, Gavin I., History, Religion and Antisemitism (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and Oxford, 1990), pp. 143–57.Google Scholar
22 Langer, Lawrence L., Holocaust Testimonials. The Ruins of Memory (New Haven and London, 1991 Google Scholar).
23 Burke, Peter, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (London, 1978), pp. 74–5 Google Scholar; Pullan, Brian, The Jews of Europe and the Inquisition of Venice (Oxford, 1983), p. 117.Google Scholar
24 Neusner, Jacob, Jews and Christians. The Myth of a Common Tradition (London, 1991 Google Scholar); Langmuir, Gavin I., ‘Anti-Judaism as the Necessary Preparation for Antisemitism’, and ‘Doubt in Christendom’, in Toward a Definition of Antisemitism (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and Oxford, 1990), pp. 57–62, 100–33.Google Scholar
25 Langmuir, , ‘Doubt in Christendom’, pp. 114–16 Google Scholar; Moore, R. I., The Origins of European Dissent (Oxford, 1977 Google Scholar).
26 Moore, R. I., The Formation of a Persecuting Society (Oxford, 1987 Google Scholar).
27 Langmuir, , ‘The Transformation of Anti-Judaism’, in Toward a Definition, pp. 63–99 Google Scholar; Riley-Smith, Jonathan, ‘The First Crusade and the persecution of the Jews’, SCH, 21, pp. 51–72 Google Scholar; Chazan, Robert, European Jewry and the First Crusade (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 1987 Google Scholar).
28 Langmuir, , ‘Thomas of Monmouth: Detector of Ritual Murder’, in Toward a Definition, pp. 209–36 Google Scholar; Thomas of Monmouth, The Life and Miracles of St William of Norwich, ed. Augustus Jessopp and James, M. R. (Cambridge, 1896 Google Scholar). For the Jewish crowd see Matthew 27. 25. See also Chazan, , ‘The Blois incident of 1171’, Proceedings of the American Academy of Jewish Research, 36 (1968), pp. 13–31 Google Scholar; Langmuir, , ‘The Knight’s Tale of Young Hugh of Lincoln’, in Toward a Definition, pp. 237–62.Google Scholar
29 Langmuir, , ‘Ritual Cannibalism’, in Toward a Definition, pp. 263–81 Google Scholar, and History, Religion and Antisemitism, pp. 301–3.
30 Bonfil, Robert, ‘The Devil and the Jews in the Christian Consciousness of the Middle Ages’, in Almog, Shmuel, ed., Antisemitism Through the Ages (Oxford, 1988), pp. 91–8.Google Scholar
31 Hillgarth, , The Spanish Kingdoms, 1, pp. 375–87.Google Scholar
32 Sharot, Stephen, ‘Jewish millenarianism: a comparison of medieval communities’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 22 (1980), pp. 394–415.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
33 Ruano, Benito, Orígenes del Problema Converso, pp. 51–2 Google Scholar; Cartagena, Alonso de, Defensorium Unitatis Christianae, ed. Manuel Alonso (Madrid, 1943), p. 94.Google Scholar
34 Cumplido, Manuel Nieto, ‘La revuelta contra los conversos de Córdoba en 1473’, in Homenaje a Antón de Montoro en el V Centenario desu Muerte (Montoro, 1977), pp. 35–6.Google Scholar
35 Sicroff, A. A., Los Estatutos de Limpieza de Sangre. Controversias entre los Siglos XV y XVII (Madrid, 1985 Google Scholar); Pere Molas Ribalta, ‘El exclusivismo en los gremios de la Corona de Aragón’, in Les Sociétés fermées dans le monde ibérique (XVIe-XVIIIe siècles). Définitions et problématique (Actes de la Table ronde des 8 et 9 février, 1983) (Paris, 1986), pp. 69–70, 78; Claude Chauchadis, ‘Les Modalités de la fermeture dans les confréries religieuses espagnoles (XVIe—XVIUe siècle)’, in Les Sociétés fermées, pp. 83–105.
36 Edwards, , ‘Religious faith and doubt’, pp. 13–25 Google Scholar; ‘Debate: religious faith, doubt and atheism, a reply to C. John Sommerville’, PaP, 128 (1990), pp. 15 5-61; and ‘Trial of an inquisitor: the dismissal of Diego Rodriguez Lucero, inquisitor of Córdoba, in 1508’, JEH, 37 (1986), pp. 240-57.
37 Kamen, Henry, ‘The Mediterranean and the expulsion of Spanish Jews in 1492’, PaP, 119 (1988), p. 50.Google Scholar
38 Kamen, , Inquisition and Society, pp. 31, 35–6 Google Scholar; Edwards, John, ‘“Development” and “underdevelopment” in the western Mediterranean: the case of Cordoba and its region in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries’, Mediterranean Historical Review, 2 (1987), p. 36 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and ‘Trial of an inquisitor’, p. 249.
39 MacKay, Angus, ‘Popular movements and pogroms in fifteenth-century Castile’, PaP, 55 (1972), pp. 35–67 Google Scholar; Edwards, John, Christian Cordoba. The City and its Region in the Late Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 131–63, 183–4.Google Scholar
40 Fernández, Luis Suárez, ed., Documentos acerca de la Expulsión de los Judíos (Valladolid, 1964), pp. 392–3 Google Scholar; Bernaldez, Andrés, Memorias del Reinado de los Reyes Católicos, ed. Gómez-Moreno, M. and Carriazo, Juan de Mata (Madrid, 1963), p. 54.Google Scholar
41 Kamen, , ‘The Mediterranean’, p. 54 Google Scholar; Vives, Jaume Vicens, Aproximación a la Historia de España (Barcelona, 1976), p. 103 Google Scholar; Lynch, John, Spain under the Habsburgs, 2 vols (Oxford, 1964-9), 1, p. 15.Google Scholar
42 Miguel Angel Ladero Quesada, ‘Le Nombre des juifs dans la Castille du XVe siècle’, in Proceedings of the Sixth World Congress of Jewish Studies (Jerusalem, 1973) (Jerusalem, 1975), 2, p. 47; Edwards, The Jews, p. 34; Kamen, , Spain, 1469-1714, p. 42 Google Scholar (in both 1983 and 1991 edns); Inquisition and Society, p. 16; and ‘The Mediterranean’, p. 44.
43 Fernández, Suárez, ed., Documentos, pp. 392–3 Google Scholar; Edwards, John, ‘Jews and conversos in the region of Soria and Almazán: departures and returns’, Pe’amim (Jerusalem), forthcoming (in Hebrew).Google Scholar
44 Beinart, Haim, ‘La Inquisición española y la expulsión de los judios de Andalucía’, in Andalucía y sus Judíos (Córdoba, 1986), pp. 51–81 Google Scholar; Kamen, , ‘The Mediterranean’, p. 52 Google Scholar; Harvey, L. P., Islamic Spain, 1250 to 1500 (Chicago and London, 1900), p. 321.Google Scholar
45 Kriegel, Maurice, ‘La Prise d’une decision: l’expulsion des juifs d’Espagne en 1492’, Revue Historique, 260 (1978), pp. 83–5 Google Scholar; Fidel Fita, ‘La verdad sobre el martirio del Santo Niño de La Guardia, o sea el proceso y quema (16 noviembre 1491) del judio Juçe Franco en Avila’, Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia, 11 (1887), pp. 7-134.
46 Kochan, Lionel, Jews, Idols and Messialts. The Challenge from History (Oxford, 1990), PP. 5–7.Google Scholar
47 Dedieu, , L’Administration de la foi, p. 337.Google Scholar
48 V. S. Pritchett, interview in The Sunday Times, 10 July 1988.
