V
The Converted Jews: From Persecution to Assimilation

The origins of the converted Jews, or conversos, who provided the Valencian Inquisition with 91.6 percent of its victims during the period 1484-1530 may be traced to the great series of pogroms that swept over Spain during the summer of 1391. Everywhere, Jewish communities were attacked and the Jews massacred or forced to convert. In Valencia city, the pogrom began on July 9 when a group of young men forced their way into the Jewish quarter. When the Jews, now thoroughly alarmed, shut the gates to prevent others from entering, the Christians trapped inside cried for help and a mob composed primarily of artisans, vagabonds, and soldiers stormed the ghetto. Amid scenes of religious exaltation, a number of Jews were killed, and many others took refuge in the churches and accepted conversion.^[1] The same scenes were repeated, on a smaller scale, when the pogroms spread to Alcira, Játiva, Sagunto, and other places.^[2] Deteriorating economic and political conditions in both Castile and Aragon, popular hatred of the Jews for their role as tax farmers and moneylenders, and the vicious attacks launched against them by fanatical anti-Semites like Ferrant Martínez, the archdeacon of Ecija, had combined to severely disrupt the centuries-old pattern of Jewish life in Spain. In spite of official statements deploring the rioting and forced conversions and the protection extended to the remaining Jews by the kings of Aragon and Castile, restoration of the Jewish communities to their former size and prosperity had become impossible.^[3]

Faced with growing discrimination and legally barred from holding offices in the towns or in the royal administration, most Jews found their economic opportunities limited and worked as artisans, peddlers, and shopkeepers. As a result, the Jewish community continued to decline, and there was a slow but steady stream of conversions to Christianity.

The legal and social disabilities that led to the decline of Spanish Jewry in the fifteenth century did not affect the conversos. During the first decades of the fifteenth century, there appear to have been few obstacles to the assimilation of converted Jews into Spanish society, and even such religious leaders as San Vicente Ferrer, who dedicated himself to converting the Jews of Aragon, harshly criticized those Christians who refused to accept the converts because of their Jewish origins.^[4] Hard work, financial acumen, and the traditional role of persons of Jewish origin in finance and revenue collection made it possible for many conversos to obtain official positions in the royal administration, enter the church, and join city councils.^[5]

It was in Castile, where the conversos' rapid rise to power on municipal councils coincided with the intensification of the struggle between the disenfranchised popular classes and the municipal oligarchy, that a virulent form of popular anti-Semitism emerged. Spurred by the economic distress of the years 1447-1449 and 1465-1473, this popular hatred culminated in a violent series of riots reminiscent of the pogroms of 1391, directed not against the Jews but against the conversos.^[6] At the same time, the entire basis for the conversos' integration into Spanish life was being called into question. For confirmed anti-Semites like Pero Sarmiento, the leader of Toledo's violent anticonverso rebellion of 1449, the conversos had continued practicing Judaism in spite of their nominal conversion. Since they were really Jews masquerading as Christians, they had no right to occupy municipal offices in the city of Toledo, offices from which it was alleged they had already done incalculable damage to the city and its Old Christian inhabitants.^[7] For the chronicler and parish priest of Los Palacios, Andrés Bernáldez, there was no such thing as a sincere convert. The conversos consisted of two groups only: those who had left Spain to practice Judaism openly and those who had remained to become crypto-Jews.^[8]

The conversos' response to this polemic was to lay stress on the traditional church position, which was reiterated by Pope Nicolas V in a Bull of September 24, 1449, that baptism makes all men Christian regardless of their origins "siue Judaei, siue Gentiles."^[9] For the converso general of the order of Saint Jerome, Alonso de Oropesa, the conversos' sincerity could not be doubted, and attempts by Old Christians to place the conversos in a separate category were tantamount to "dividing the body of Christ."^[10]

It was this controversy over the sincerity of the converted that spawned the first proposals for the establishment of a Spanish national Inquisition, and that very same controversy continues to affect the way in which historians view the operations of the Holy Office during the first phase of its activity. But how Jewish were the conversos? It is on this issue that any moral and religious justification for inquisitorial action against them must rest. If the vast majority of the conversos were secret Jews, then, even though we might criticize the Inquisition's procedures, it would be difficult to deny some moral basis for its actions given the prevailing attitudes toward religious heresy. However, if the conversos can be considered largely Catholic in terms of their religious beliefs and practices, then the Inquisition could be justly condemned for persecuting them for reasons of racial hatred, greed, or political expediency. Historians have been deeply divided over this issue. Some, like I. F. Baer or, more recently, Haim Beinart, have insisted on the essential Jewishness of the conversos. For Beinart, "the conversos were, and remained, Jews at heart, and their Judaism was expressed in their way of life and their outlook."^[11] Virtually the opposite position is held by Benzion Netanyahu, who insists that "the overwhelming majority of the Marranos at the time of the establishment of the Inquisition were not Jews but "detached from Judaism, or rather, to put it more clearly, Christians."^[12] Yet a third position is represented by Caro Baroja, who holds that some of the conversos formed a distinct religious tendency neither Jewish nor Christian.^[13]

Analysis of the cases of Judaizers brought before the Valencia tribunal, however, reveals a complicated picture that does not seem to entirely fit any of these views. When the Inquisition began its operations in the district during the mid-1480s, the conversos appear to have been divided into three broad groups: those who did everything possible to maintain a Judaic style of life and were

Jewish in all but name, those who believed in and practiced both Judaism and Catholicism simultaneously, and those who believed themselves to be fervent Catholics. Representatives of all three tendencies fell into the Inquisition's clutches because even in the case of persons in the latter category, the slightest lapse of memory regarding the performance of a Judaic ceremony or mitzvah or the failure to mention even one person who was present during the performance of such a ceremony in a confession made during a period of grace could, and often did, result in serious trouble with the Holy Office.

The rich and devout Jewish life-style led by Valencian notary Pedro Alfonso and his family attests to the continued strength of Judaism among the conversos long after they had been all but written off by rabbinical observers in both Spain and North Africa. Alfonso and his family observed the Sabbath rigorously and regularly. On Friday evening, candles were lit and food was prepared to be consumed cold on the Sabbath when no work of any kind could be performed. Alfonso practiced Jewish ritual slaughter, and the family observed the kosher dietary rules by rigorously refraining from eating pork or other forbidden items. All the major Jewish Holy Days were celebrated, including Yom Kippur (when the family would be joined by other devout conversos), Passover, and Succoth, when Alfonso would build the ritual Succoth hut with his own hands. Apart from the performance of Jewish mitzvah, Alfonso's immersion in Jewish culture is demonstrated by his ability to speak and read Hebrew. This was so widely known that when a Jew who was carrying a Hebrew book was asked who in Valencia could read it, he answered, Pedro Alfonso. Witnesses also testified that Alfonso and his wife spoke Hebrew in the home.

Alfonso's devotion to Judaism was only equaled by his disdain for Catholicism. According to former servants and other witnesses, he did not maintain any images of Christ or the saints before which prayers could be said. He regularly ate meat during Catholic fast days and took great pains to avoid going to mass. He had also been heard to denounce Christians as idolators because belief in the Trinity implied belief in three separate gods. Finally, Alfonso made no secret of his belief that Judaism was superior to Christianity and frequently declared publicly that he "would rather be a Jew than a Christian."^[14]

Frequently, the flame of Jewish belief among the conversos was kept alive by women. In fact, Judaizing was one of the few offenses tried by the Valencia tribunal in which there was a rough equality between the sexes. One of these devout women was Brianda Besant of Teruel. Like Alfonso, Besant was assiduous in observing the Sabbath and the Jewish High Holy Days. In addition, she would pray in Hebrew several times each day and attend services in Teruel's synagogue each Friday evening and twice on Saturday. Besant was also recognized as a leader of Teruel's converso community and would frequently hold services in her own home. On High Holy Days when it was too dangerous to go to the synagogue, she and several other devout conversos would go to a house near the Jewish quarter from where they could hear the Jews pray and sing.

Her rejection of Christianity was complete. She had frequently declared that Christians were her enemies and denounced them as idol worshipers and "believers in many gods instead of one only." She specifically denied the Trinity and was accused of refusing to learn any Christian prayers until after the Inquisition had commenced operations in the city.^[15]

Devoutly Jewish conversos maintained a close relationship with the local Jewish community, and their financial support for Jewish worship, charitable contributions, and purchases helped to sustain those communities economically in the face of the growing pressure against them. Both Besant and Alfonso contributed money and oil to the synagogue, while Besant even paid for a reserved seat there so that she could attend prayers on the High Holy Days. Alfonso also gave charity to poor Jews and gave Jews gifts of oil so that they would pray for him when he fell ill. A desire to maintain ritual purity in their lives and religious observances also led these conversos to make certain purchases from Jewish merchants. Jewish butchers were popular as a source of meat that had been ritually slaughtered, and if the converso wanted to slaughter in his own yard, he would frequently hire a Jew to do it.^[16] Sometimes Sabbath food was obtained ready cooked from the ghetto, and Besant, Alfonso, and other devout conversos would send flour to the ghetto so that Jewish bakers could bake matzohs for Passover. Alfonso even went so far as to purchase most of his wine from a Jewish-owned tavern. For such devout converted Jews, the existence of a viable and functioning Jewish community close at hand was more than just

a source of ritually purified products. They felt themselves to be a part of that community and were considerably less "detached" from it than those Jewish intellectuals of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries whose rationalism and epicureanism had been condemned by orthodox rabbis long before any large number of Jews had converted. On occasion, the rigid orthodoxy of these conversos exceeded that of the Jews themselves. José Alfara, a Jew from Valladolid who was a witness in the trial of Enrique Fuster, testified that one day when he was visiting Fuster in Valencia, he expressed a desire to witness a Christian procession in honor of the Virgin Mary which was about to take place. Both Enrique and his son Adrian were horrified at the suggestion and refused, declaring that it would be a sin and that the Bible prohibited idol worship.^[17]

Enrique and Adrian Fuster, Pedro Alfonso, Brianda Besant, and her husband, Luis de Santangel, were all executed during the period when the Valencia tribunal devoted most of its attention to the converted Jews. There can be little doubt that they, along with hundreds of others like them, "perished at the stake as martyrs to their faith" and were the victims of a religion that they neither liked nor understood.^[18]

The term martyr cannot, however, be applied to all conversos tried by the Spanish Inquisition. Those within the ranks of the conversos who saw nothing incompatible in believing in both Judaism and Catholicism at the same time also suffered. Sincere believers in the promise of salvation made by both religions, their tragedy was the tragedy of people who assume a degree of religious toleration in an age of religious totalitarianism.

Pedro Besant, Brianda's brother, had been brought up in a profoundly Jewish environment, but he, unlike his sister, had taken pains to learn Christian prayers and observances. At the same time, he was intensely curious about Judaism and had numerous conversations about it with local Jews. One of these, a certain Zacarias, had written down some of the psalms of David for him. The result, as he declared in his 1486 confession, was that during the period in which he confessed engaging in Judaic observances, he derived great pleasure from reciting Christian prayers so that when he awoke in the morning he would first recite the articles of the faith and Our Father and then, after washing his hands, he would say several of the psalms of David that he had been taught. Moreover,

he insisted that during this entire period, he "believed firmly and completely in both faiths."^[19]

The ease of Pedro de Ripoll, a merchant and tax farmer in the town of Albarracín, illustrates how a converso could practice both Judaism and Catholicism while experiencing strong ambivalent feelings that came from an inability to feel entirely at home in either religion. In the course of his trial, witnesses described Ripoll as celebrating the Sabbath and other Jewish festivals, frequenting the company of Jews, and eating matzohs and ritually slaughtered meat in his home. During the same period, other witnesses observed him violating the Jewish Sabbath by working on Saturday, attending mass regularly, and going to confession. During the time when he was most eager to welcome Jews into his home, he was also reported to have denounced his first wife in public as a "mala cristiana" who "had dealings with Jews." In 1473, Juan Montarde, the bailiff of the town, caught him beating his first wife with a stick, but when he ordered him to stop, Ripoll said, "Let me alone . . . leave me with this bad Christian." This tense and conflict-ridden equilibrium could not last forever, and when the Inquisition arrived in the mid-1480s, an abyss opened before Ripoll. His initial reaction was to denounce the Inquisition. "Inquisition, what Inquisition . . . they are robbers, not inquisitors." But soon after, he began instructing the servants not to let any more Jews in the house, had several pigs slaughtered, ate pork for the first time, and began fighting with his second wife over her continued desire to observe Jewish dietary precepts. They began eating separately, and he refused to eat the unleavened bread she bought from the Jewish baker.^[20] With the arrival of the Inquisition, Ripoll hastily abandoned his effort to be both a Jew and a Christian, but his previous Jewish observances had made him vulnerable to denunciation. In 1522, after several separate trials, Pedro de Ripoll finally ended at the stake.

The third tendency among the conversos, and the one that church, crown, and Inquisition were ostensibly trying to promote, was to assimilate freely into the wider Christian community. Unfortunately, they could not escape their past, and rigid inquisitorial procedures, which seemed to take little cognizance of shades of guilt, frequently resulted in heavy punishment.

In some cases, the converso had practiced Jewish mitzvah as a

teenager in his parents' home but abandoned Judaic practices soon after he set up an independent establishment. Jaime Almenara, a Valencian draper, clearly fell into this category since all the testimony in his case related to the period some 35 to 40 years earlier when Almenara was between twelve and fifteen years old and still living in the home of his parents. In fact, he seems to have had only the vaguest notion of the real significance of the Jewish ceremonies that he had celebrated so long ago. This was shown when he responded to an inquisitor's question about whether he had ever observed a fast in honor of Queen Esther. In reply, Almenara declared that "he had fasted not eating all day until evening and knew that they were Jewish fasts but did not know what they were called except that he thought that they were in honor of the devil."

In spite of the complete absence of any evidence for Judaic observances as an adult, Almenara's problem was that he had failed to confess two instances of celebrating Yom Kippur as a teenager in the confession that he had made during the 1491 period of grace. Evidence of these instances having surfaced, Almenara was promptly arrested and tortured. These omissions, combined with his failure to mention the names of his parents and other family members who celebrated with him, were sufficient to open him up to the charge of having confessed "falsely and incompletely." After a long trial, Almenara was condemned to the stake on May 29, 1518.^[21]

In the case of Pedro Mateo, a master velvet worker brought to trial in June 1519, Judaism seems to have been little more than a flag of convenience required to get through his apprenticeship. All of the evidence of Judaic observance (Yore Kippur and the Sabbath) dealt with a period some 40 to 45 years earlier when Mateo was learning his trade from a succession of converso masters. Since, like all other apprentices, he lived with the family of his master, he was in no position to refuse when Antonio Palau's wife insisted that everyone in the house take part in Yom Kippur observances. Apparently, after he had become established as a master in his own right, these Judaic observances were forgotten. He married a woman who was half Old Christian and was regarded by both conversos and Old Christians as a practicing Catholic who went regularly to mass and confession. Mateo had become so assimilated that even when he swore his oaths, they were exactly like Old Christian blasphemies, and his occasional expressions of doubt about the Immaculate Con-

ception were no different from those expressed by hundreds of Old Christians.^[22] Mateo was fortunate; after a long trial lasting almost two years, inquisitors Juan Calvo and Andreas Palacio rejected the prosecuting attorney's call for the death penalty and sentenced him to confiscation of property and perpetual imprisonment.^[23]

In certain cases, there can be little doubt that an inquisitorial trial interrupted the process of assimilation, sometimes with tragic consequences. Rafael Baro was another artisan who performed most of his Judaic ceremonies either as a child or when he served converso master artisans during his apprenticeship. In fact, he gave every evidence of being a devout Catholic. He attended mass regularly, went to confession, celebrated Christian holidays and fast days including Lent and Good Friday, and claimed special devotion to the Virgin. Baro was a converso already well on his way to becoming a devout Catholic, but arrest by the Holy Office was a shattering blow to his precarious new identity. On November 16, 1520, a little more than two months after his arrest, Baro committed suicide by hanging himself in his cell.^[24]

When the Inquisition began operations in the district during the mid-1480s, it found a close-knit converso community whose relative affluence and local political influence could have made it almost impossible to successfully prosecute any large number of Judaizers. Its success in meeting this challenge was due, at least in part, to the conversos' own social relations. Jews, Old Christians, and conversos had much to tell the Inquisition about the activities and beliefs of conversos who practiced Judaic ceremonies. The fact that the Inquisition was able to make use of witnesses from all of these groups is less a tribute to the perspicacity of judges and prosecuting attorneys than to the ambivalent nature of the con-versos' position in Valencian society.

In the famous decree of March 31, 1492, by which Ferdinand and Isabella ordered the Jews expelled from Spain, they stress that the major reason for their decision was the aggressive efforts made by Jews to "subvert" Christians and draw them to Judaism. The decree asserts that the Jews did everything possible to achieve their goal: instructing Christians in the Judaic ceremonies and fasts they had to observe, organizing meetings where neophytes would be instructed in Jewish law, and giving them Hebrew prayer books.^[25]

Coolness and reserve rather than the zealous wooing implied by the decree of expulsion seem to have characterized the attitude of Valencia's remaining Jews toward the conversos of the district. Of course, there were rare instances of a Jew whose behavior toward the conversos matched exactly the description of converso/Jewish relations given in the decree of expulsion. In 1488, Saloman Zaporta, a Jew from Sagunto, was fined and exiled for having invited conversos to his home for kosher meals, reading the Old Testament to them in Hebrew, and teaching Hebrew to converso children.^[26] Almost equally rare were Jews who openly expressed hostility or disdain for conversos. When Juan Aguilaret went to a Jewish acquaintance in Valencia city and confessed with tears in his eyes that he was sick of Catholicism and wanted to turn Jewish, the Jew replied, "Go along with you, you have worn out one faith and now you want to use up another."^[27] Most Jews were willing to provide wealthy converso homes with services like slaughtering or ritual products like matzohs, and they certainly were not unwilling to accept contributions of oil or money for the synagogue or charity for themselves. The danger to the converso and the thing that exposed him to inquisitorial persecution was that the Jews then became a source of information about his activities.

In three separate trials held in 1485, for example, the tribunal found that David and Pastor Enforna were quite willing to give evidence about contributions of oil and money given to the synagogue by three of Teruel's most devout conversos, Francisco de Puigmija, Pedro Besant, and Ursula Navarro. Their testimony was all the more damaging because the Enforna brothers had an official connection with the synagogue.^[28] In two of these trials, the Inquisition even received testimony from a Rabbi Samual who had been hired to slaughter animals by both Pedro Besant and Francisco de Puigmija. In Besant's case, the rabbi was able to add that he had observed him performing Jewish prayers some fifteen years earlier. With the exception of fanatics like Zaporta, the relationship between Jews and conversos in the Valencia district seems to have been one-sided. Far from seeking to attract conversos back to their old religion by active proselytizing as implied in the decree of expulsion, the Jews were content to let the conversos come to them for services, products, and occasional instruction while maintaining an attitude of coolness and reserve toward even those who seemed

most devout. At Ursula Navarro's trial, for example, Pastor Enforna testified that he considered her "neither Jewish nor Christian."^[29] As far as the Inquisition was concerned, many of Valencia's orthodox Jews may well have agreed with such Jewish leaders as Don Isaac Abravanel that it was part of God's plan to punish those who had willingly rejected the faith of Israel. There could be nothing wrong with a Jew testifying against conversos and thereby causing their downfall, for as José Jabez, another contemporary Jewish writer, observed in referring to the conversos, "When the wicked are lost, it is a cause for rejoicing."^[30]

During the trial of Manuel Manrana, one of the defense witnesses declared that he believed him to be a "good Christian" because he "got along well with Old Christians, went to mass, ate pork and gave alms to poor Christians."^[31] In an age when popular religion consisted of little more than a collection of rituals and social customs, there was no other way to judge, and it was the conversos' failure to conform to the behavioral patterns expected of a Catholic rather than any deeply held religious views that made him an object of suspicion and denunciation for his Old Christian neighbors, servants, and associates.

Occasionally, the converso would be unfortunate enough to run across a hardened anti-Semite who would watch every movement for signs of religious nonconformity. Aldonza Miro had been left impoverished and embittered after she had been reconciled with confiscation of property in March 1491. She made the mistake of criticizing the Holy Office to her neighbor, Diameta Culla, a beata (a laywoman living in pious retirement) who had already denounced three other conversos, one of whom, Frances Vicent, had died at the stake. Her suspicions thoroughly aroused, Culla and her sister Margarita, another beata who lived with her, began watching Miro's every move. Observing Miro and her daughter from a little window from which they could see directly into the main room of her house, the Culla sisters saw her light Sabbath candles and celebrate the Sabbath and eat meat on days prohibited by the church. At Miro's trial in 1501, the only witnesses against her were the Culla sisters and their servant, but that was sufficient, in spite of the fact that Miro had identified the Cullas as her enemies, to have her condemned to death as a relapsed heretic.^[32]

Old Christian domestic servants were an especially rich source

of testimony for the tribunals. As a servant and dependent of a converso household, an Old Christian could find herself directly or indirectly helping the family to perform Jewish ceremonies. In Pedro Besant's home, for example, even the servants were prohibited from working on Saturdays and were expected to help with ritual slaughtering.^[33] At the same time, given the social distance that separated masters and servants in Valencian society, a servant's assertion of her religious attitudes could lead to abuse. In Manuel de Puigmija's devoutly Jewish home, his wife, Violante, beat a servant who refused to eat meat at Lent, and the family prevented another servant from attending mass during the entire two-year period that she worked for them.^[34] Both servants had the satisfaction of taking revenge for these and other abuses by denouncing their converso masters to the Holy Office.

But it was not only domestic servants (mainly female) who could be a source of danger to conversos. They were in constant danger from others whom they employed in a variety of capacities. In 1483, for example, Fernando Ligador was denounced for Judaizing by his former apprentice, Bodrigo de Morales.^[35] The person who first came forward to denounce Pedro Alfonso, a wealthy Valeneian notary and tax farmer who was executed in 1487, was a scribe who had worked in his home, while one of the most important witnesses in Pedro Besant's trial was a man whom he had hired to assist him while he traveled through the district on business. In each instance, the Old Christian had noticed something unusual about the converso's behavior and came forward later to denounce him to the Holy Office.^[36] The domestic servant beaten by her mistress, the poor scribe envious of the wealth and influence of the notary for whom he worked on an occasional basis, the manservant paid starvation wages—to all these the Inquisition offered an opportunity for revenge that they would not have had if their masters or employers had been Old Christians.

In constant danger of denunciation by Old Christians, and exposed to grave risks because of their relations with Jews, Valencia's conversos were also vulnerable because of the divisions within their own community. Within families, the appeal of the wider Christian society varied with the individual and generated strong tensions between the more assimilated and those who endeavored to remain faithful to the old ways. Even Manuel de Puigmija, who

was rigorous in carrying out a large number of Jewish mitzvah, had been expelled from his parents' home because his father felt that he was lax in his Sabbath obligations.^[37] Frequently, tensions such as these produced denunciations. Gracia Garbellent, who had been reconciled during the 1485 period of grace and then continued to carry out Judaic observances, made the mistake of remonstrating with her son's fiancée Beatriz about her habit of saying Ave Maria. She also forced the girl to celebrate the Sabbath, then quarreled with her and ordered her out of the house. In 1491, a conscience-stricken (or perhaps merely fearful) Beatriz came to the tribunal to confess having celebrated the Sabbath in her prospective mother-in-law's home and testified to the large number of other Judaic ceremonies that were regularly practiced there. Gracia's son Juan also provided the tribunal with evidence that led to his mother's condemnation as a Judaizer and execution as a relapsed heretic in January 1492.^[38]

Conversos who performed mitzvah were also vulnerable to blackmail from unscrupulous acquaintances whose capacity to extort money from their victims was a direct result of the Inquisition's campaign of persecution against Judaizers. One of these converso blackmailers was Alfonso Fusillo, who made a career out of extorting money from his fellow conversos while himself carrying out Judaic observances. Fusillo, who would frequent the homes of many converso families and seek to gain their confidence by reciting some of the Jewish prayers that he knew, never lost an opportunity to wring money out of conversos who appeared vulnerable to denunciation. In one instance, he insinuated himself into a quarrel between Daniel de Artes and Miguel Ferrer after the former had threatened to expose Ferrer to the Inquisition as a Judaizer and "have all of you burnt." Fusillo calmed Artes and persuaded him not to denounce Ferrer but then proceeded to blackmail Ferrer himself.^[39]

Every success that Fusillo had in extorting money from his converso acquaintances and business associates, however, made him more vulnerable to denunciation in his turn. The conversos who paid him and feared him were also in a position to denounce him since he had recited Jewish prayers or celebrated mitzvah in their company. At the same time, by not revealing to the Holy Office the names of conversos whom he knew to be guilty of

Judaizing so that he could blackmail them, he had committed the serious offense of failing to inform the Holy Office concerning evidence of heresy. In the end, Fusillo was arrested when one of his victims denounced him in the course of his trial. Tortured and forced to admit his own Judaizing as well as his activities as a blackmailer, Fusillo was condemned to death not only as a Judaizer but as a "concealer of heretics."^[40]

Like any other criminal court under the Old Regime, the Inquisition provided the community with a powerful weapon of social control that could be used to increase the cohesion of already tightly knit communities by permitting them to settle disputes at the expense of unwanted or marginal elements. Under these circumstances, the Inquisition became a powerful new weapon in the social struggle.

In the late 1490s, one of the vendettas typical of all Mediterranean societies of the period broke out in Gandía between neighboring converso and Old Christian families. It started, as many of them did, with a quarrel among women, in this case, Onafranca Guitart, the wife of Pedro Guitart, and Bianca Manrana, Manuel Manrana's mother. The two women fought, and when Bianca retreated to her own home, she was followed by several angry members of the Guitart family carrying weapons and bent on revenge. But when Julio Guitart and several other men invaded the Manrana home and attacked young Manuel Manrana, he fought back and killed Julio with a lance thrust to the face. In revenge, Pedro Guitart killed Francisco Tristany and Francisco Francoli, two close relatives of the Manrana family. Both extended families now became involved in the vendetta, which went on with more killings until even Martin Giner, an important judicial official of the city, who happened to be Pedro Guitart's son-in-law, was assassinated by a member of the Tristany family who was linked with the Manrana. The Old Christian Guitart and their allies, the Fortuny appeared to be losing the struggle against the combined weight of the Manrana, Tristany, and Francolin families when they decided to denounce Manuel Manrana to the Inquisition. The strategy proved brutally effective. Manuel Manrana was arrested, and after a two-year trial in which he was tortured three times, he admitted to performing some Judaic ceremonies. He was sentenced to die at the stake on September 19, 1505. Not content with this, and with

its suspicions thoroughly aroused, the Inquisition moved against the entire clan, and in the years after 1503, eight other members of the Manrana family and six members of the Tristany were tried, and seven were executed. ^[41]

The Valencia tribunal's activity against the converted Jews may be divided into two major periods. The first of these, a span of only forty-six years lasting from the commencement of its operations in the kingdom in 1484 to about 1530, was a period of intense persecution in which highly motivated inquisitors and officials decimated a weak and divided converso community. During this time, the Valencia tribunal tried 1,160 Judaizers and handed down 909 death sentences. The second period, from 1540 to 1820, witnessed a sharp decline in the number of Judaizers, with only 100 trials taking place. The most intense persecution occurred during 1701-1730 when 55 trials are recorded. Thus, in the period before 1530, the Valencia tribunal had already tried 95.4 percent of the Judaizers it was to bring to trial during the entire 336 years of its history. This second phase was also one of decreased severity, with the tribunal only handing down seven death sentences and suspending thirty-one cases, or 29.2 percent. The precipitate decline in this aspect of the tribunal's activity stands in marked contrast to certain other tribunals where conversos continued to make up a surprisingly large percentage of the accused. Of course, in most of these cases, the tribunals involved were either close to the Portuguese border (Llerena, Galicia) or received a large influx of Portuguese New Christians because of the economic opportunities offered in these areas, or because they were close to Madrid (Toledo). As far as the Valencia tribunal was concerned, the ferocity and intensity of the first phase meant that the majority of devout Judaizers among the Valencian conversos had been either physically eliminated or forced to assimilate, while the relatively small number of Portuguese who made their way to the kingdom provided the tribunal with very few victims.

Apart from a sprinkling of nobles and priests during the first phase of persecution, the social composition of the Judaizers remained substantially uniform. The group was dominated by a middle class of merchants, money changers, and shopkeepers (44.6%) and a popular class of artisans (43%) in the period 1478-1530. After 1540, the tribunal dealt almost entirely with Portuguese, some of

whom, especially during the early eighteenth century, occupied important positions in tax farming and the administration of royal monopolies. Many of the New Christians may be placed in an upper middle class of tax farmers and fiscal agents comprising some 34.2 percent of the accused; merchants and shopkeepers comprised another 34.2 percent, and the number of artisans fell substantially (8.5%), indicating the transient nature of the New Christian population. This impression is also confirmed by the small number of soldiers (14.5%) in the group.^[42]

Apart from the profound divisions within the converso community and the atmosphere of insecurity and suspicion that surrounded the conversos, three other elements were essential to the tribunal's success in mounting the violent wave of persecution that took place between 1485 and 1530: detailed knowledge of Jewish ceremonies and practices, special procedures that would permit the tribunal to gain an intimate knowledge of the converso community, and a group of committed, even fanatical inquisitors and officials.

Official awareness of and sensitivity to Judaic ceremonies increased rapidly in the fifteenth century in response to the growing national preoccupation with the converso problem. By 1460, Catholic lay and ecclesiastical authorities could turn to Alonso de Espina's Fortalitium Fidei (Fortress of the Faith), which provided them with a kind of "master catalog" of typical offenses against the Catholic faith committed by conversos. These twenty-five offenses were divided into three broad categories: specific Jewish ceremonies and customs, ways in which the conversos avoided participation in Catholicism, and deviant or superstitious practices that they engaged in. ^{[ 43]} As this last category of offenses reveals, the process of "demonizing" whereby Spain's conversos were coming to be accused of employing magic, worshiping evil spirits, and committing particularly horrible and inhuman crimes in addition to religious heresy was well advanced.^[44]

Espina's catalog not only represented a considerable improvement over the rather sketchy description of Judaic customs described in Eymerich's late-fourteenth-century Directorium inquisitorum but its system of classification of offenses provided the Inquisition with a model for interrogation of suspects. ^[45] This is quite evident from the list of questions that the inquisitor-general ordered the Valencia tribunal to ask conversos coming before it during the

1491 period of grace. Here we find an Espina-style classification of offenses including a fairly complete series of mitzvah (Sabbath, Yore Kippur, Passover, Succoth, and Shivah) and the ways in which conversos violated church precepts (eating meat on days prohibited by the church, refusal to go to confession or take communion, and refusal to attend mass) along with a series of questions that reveal the degree to which the demonizing process had taken hold in official circles. Conversos were to be asked if they had participated in whipping or otherwise abusing a crucifix or image of the Virgin, had crucified and lashed an animal as a way of denying and denigrating Christ's passion, and had invoked evil spirits, employed magic spells, or used other "magical arts" prohibited by the church.^[46]

Armed with fairly complete knowledge of the Judaic practices likely to be engaged in by conversos, the tribunal then had to confront the problem of identifying the converso population and gaining an intimate knowledge of the networks of interlocking families that comprised it. For this, the tribunal was able to make highly effective use of the period of grace.^[47] Expecting to be fully reconciled with the church and let off with a fine, many hundreds of conversos presented themselves before Valencia's inquisitors and endured the humiliation of being forced to march bareheaded through the streets of the city enduring the taunts and hostile glances of their neighbors. Unfortunately, in the majority of cases, the hope of being free from future persecution proved illusory, and 88 percent of those who came forward during the grace period were subsequently brought to trial.^[48]

After 1500, as the conversos became more suspicious, the use of the period of grace as a way of recruiting a pool of potential victims became far less effective. But by that time, the tribunal had already gained a great deal of knowledge about dozens of interlocking families who comprised the converso community, while the use of such innovative techniques as the converso "census" of 1506 allowed the tribunal to monitor changes in family structure and relations.^[49] The census includes some 275 extended families from five parishes and gave such information as occupation, marital status, number of children, names of parents and siblings, and previous involvement with the Inquisition. Interestingly enough, several of the individuals listed had recently arrived in Valencia from Italy where they had converted to Catholicism.^[50]

Given the ferocious anti-Semitism that pervaded fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century Spain, the identification of conversos with Jews, and the process of "demonizing" by which they were singled out as an especially dangerous element capable of the most heinous crimes against Old Christians and their religion, it is not surprising that many of the early inquisitors and officials brought strong feelings of hostility and suspicion to their task. For certain inquisitors and officials, these feelings manifested themselves in expressions of profound antagonism toward the conversos and their families, an antagonism not unmixed with a desire to exploit them for financial gain. These attitudes were quite persistent and continued long after the tribunal had ceased to deal with any large number of converted Jews.

A broad range of anti-Semitic attitudes, from mild hostility to outright belligerence, were revealed by testimony taken from the tribunal's staff during the visitations of 1528. The families of conversos whose property had been confiscated by the tribunal were particularly vulnerable to the petty tyranny that was exercised by the officials of the court. According to testimony received from Dr. Martínez, the judge of confiscated property, both the receiver and the fiscal frequently insulted those who appeared before the court, while the receiver was notorious for failing to pay out claims made by successful litigants "except to those he wishes."^[51]

Juan de Velásquez, the chief jailer, appeared to have a particularly exploitative relationship to conversos. Accused by several officials of abusing prisoners verbally and physically, he also used prisoners as a source of cheap labor in his silk business, forcing them to work up cloth and then paying them less than the going rate.^[52] Velásquez also exploited the anxiety felt by the wives and families of the accused. In return for bribes and presents, he allowed members of the family to communicate with their loved ones from the roof of his house, which adjoined the jail.^[53]

Inquisitors themselves were far from immune from anti-Semitic feelings that affected the way they conducted themselves with prisoners. Juan González de Munibrega, undoubtedly the most overtly and violently anti-Semitic inquisitor ever to sit on the Valencia tribunal, was appointed in 1535 after having served as prosecuting attorney in the mid-1520s. During the six years that he spent on the tribunal, he carried out a virtual reign of terror during which

the most basic legal procedures were violated, prisoners were left to rot in the Inquisition's jails without being brought to trial, and the inquisitor heaped abuse on the prisoners during interrogation.

In 1538-39, Munibrega thought he had discovered an entire network of Judaizers among certain converso families of Gandía who were suspected of performing Jewish ceremonies and abusing the crucifix with whips when they all took refuge together in the Valldigna Valley during the plague year of 1519. Insight into the way in which Munibrega ran the court may be gained from the ease of Miguel Oriola, one of a number of hapless conversos who were swept into the tribunal's net by Munibrega's zealous pursuit of all those involved in the Valldigna conventicle. Oriola, a silversmith of modest means, protested his innocence of any wrongdoing and begged Munibrega to begin his trial so that he could secure his release and support the nine children he had left at home "in much peril and with little to sustain them." Munibrega's only reply to these entreaties was to insist that "no accusation is necessary for you to unburden your conscience."^[54] In the end, Oriola spent a total of three years and eight months in captivity without even hearing a formal presentation of the charges against him.

Apart from habitually keeping prisoners in jail without trial for long periods, Munibrega used verbal abuse, threats, lies, and torture to get confessions even to charges that had little foundation. It was one such confession, extorted from a member of the Almenara family, that led to the intervention of the Suprema and cut short Munibrega's career on the court. Pedro Luis Almenara, a wealthy merchant and member of a family that had suffered heavily from inquisitorial persecution, was apparently a devout Catholic who went regularly to mass and confession, visited famous shrines like the Catalan monastery of Montserrat, and served faithfully as a lay official of his parish church. ^[55] Arrested and accused of having celebrated Yom Kippur along with his parents in Valldigna (when he was six years old), Almenara at first stoutly maintained his innocence, but Munibrega's response was a stream of hysterical abuse: "Ha, you son of a whore, what a cunning one you are. I hope to God that you confess one-third of the heresies that you have committed." Undaunted, Almenara declared that he wished to defend himself and asked for a defense attorney, but Munibrega said, "Take care, if you defend yourself well you will be here more than

two years." He then refused to allow the appointment of a defense attorney, remarking, "Now I want to prepare an auto; I have no time to judge defenses." Almenara was then turned over to jailer Fernando de Cabrera, who assured him that there were already ten witnesses against him (there were actually only three) and warned him to "confess if you don't want to die." In the next few days, while Almenara languished in his cell, Cabrera, who had frequently demonstrated his zeal by spying on prisoners late at night, kept his anxiety at a fever pitch by telling him that the confessions made in other trials had implicated his entire family and that what he did not confess now, "he would end by confessing two or three years from now."

In spite of this campaign of psychological warfare, Almenara continued to maintain his innocence. As a result, he was brought to the torture chamber, where to increase his terror, Inquisitor Munibrega told him, "Today's work will be very tedious; do you see those beams, you will have to reach them with your head." After the torture was over, and Almenara was lying on the floor doubled up with pain, Munibrega informed him that he would decide later when to resume the torture "in hours or days, whenever I think its best."^[56] It was this threat to renew the torture almost indefinitely that finally broke Almenara's nerve and, aided by leading questions from Inquisitor Munibrega, brought him to confess his participation in the Yore Kippur ceremony. He appeared at the auto de fé of June 22, 1539, and was sentenced to imprisonment and confiscation of property.

In the days and weeks that followed, Almenara became more and more convinced that he had sinned grievously by confessing to something that he had not done. Good Catholic that he was, he was haunted by the thought that his soul would burn in hell for having confessed falsely, and he spurned an offer by Melchor de Perelles to use his influence with Inquisitor Munibrega to lighten his sentence, declaring that "he wanted nothing more than to save his soul." At length, after being confronted by his confessor's refusal to give him absolution because he had perjured himself, he appeared before the tribunal to retract his confession. By this time, however, several of Munibrega's other victims had revoked their confessions, and their cause had received the support of one of Valencia's most powerful nobles, Sancho de Cardona, admiral of Aragon. Cardona, who

wanted to weaken the Holy Office in the hope of blunting its campaign against his Morisco vassals, would later pay dearly for his temerity in supporting conversos, but for the moment, the Suprema was forced to send several of its own members to take over the tribunal and hear the eases of those who had retracted their testimony before Munibrega's court.

As a result, the next few years saw the gradual rehabilitation of his victims. Pedro Luis Almenara was at first sentenced to imprisonment at the discretion of the inquisitor-general and to a fine and penitential garment. This was later modified to allow him to return home, but he was restricted to travel only within Valencia city. Finally, by special order of the Suprema, all restrictions on him were lifted, and he was permitted to travel anywhere in Spain.^[57]

Miguel Oriola also benefited from the change of regime. After looking into his case, Navarra and Lagasca evidently decided that there was no substance to the charges against him and ordered him released from prison and placed under house arrest within Valencia city. Less than a year later, the two inquisitors terminated the ease by allowing him to return to his home in Gandéa.^[58] As for Munibrega, he was permitted to follow the typical cursus honorabilis of the provincial inquisitor and retire to a lesser diocese, in this case, that of Tarazona in upper Aragon. But when Catholic Spain's ruling circles were thrown into a panic by the discovery of Protestant conventicles in Seville and Valladolid, the old war horse was brought back to service and sent to Seville to help with the large number of eases the tribunal had to prepare. Once there, he behaved in his accustomed manner, quarreling with his colleagues, forcing appeals to the Suprema, and "desiring to burn everyone."^[59]

The strongly anti-Semitic attitudes expressed by inquisitors and officials during the first wave of persecution eventually became so ingrained in the minds of Inquisition staff that they formed a permanent part of the bureaucratic tradition and persisted long after the tribunal had ceased trying significant numbers of Judaizers. In 1551, long after the first phase of inquisitorial persecution was over, Baltasar Vidanya, a wealthy converso attorney, came to the tribunal to present a papal brief absolving him of any disabilities incurred through the condemnation of his mother's memory by the Holy Office. Presentation of this brief sparked an immediate protest from prosecuting attorney Luis Ferrer, and the tribunal asked the

Suprema to appeal the brief to Rome in terms that would have done credit to an Alonso de Espina or a Pedro Sarmiento. Allowing conversos like Vidanya to benefit from papal concessions, the inquisitors declared, would only encourage them in their diabolical intention to destroy Old Christians. Already, the tribunal's letter alleged, they had condemned many innocent persons to death acting as judges and royal officers. As lawyers, they cynically helped both sides in judicial disputes in order to lengthen trials and gain more fees, and as doctors, they have murdered their patients by prescribing poisons instead of drugs.^[60] Violent persecution of native converso Judaizers was over by the 1550s, but anti-Semitism among inquisitors and officials remained as an enduring legacy of the first wave of persecution.

During the last half of the sixteenth century, merchant-bankers from the Republic of Genoa dominated Spanish imperial finance by handling the transfer of funds from Spain to Flanders. The Spanish treasury paid dearly for its dependence on the Genoese, but Spanish efforts to break free of them in the last quarter of the sixteenth century proved unavailing since no rival network of bankers existed which could provide the same services. After an abortive attempt to substitute a group of Spanish and Portuguese financiers in 1575, Philip II reluctantly turned back to the Genoese, signing an agreement with them in December 1577 which ushered in the golden age of Genoese finance during the last quarter of the sixteenth century.^[61]

The failure of their earlier efforts to replace the Genoese did not prevent the crown and its treasury officials from renewing the search for an alternative set of bankers in the seventeenth century. This time their search was rewarded. The union of Spain and Portugal after 1580 and the general expansion of Atlantic trade in the late sixteenth century opened up commercial opportunities that Portuguese New Christian merchants were quick to exploit. Many of these men made vast fortunes by trading in Asian products, investing in the Brazilian sugar industry, and supplying slaves to both Brazil and the Spanish Americas.^[62] As a result, when a reformist regime led by Philip IV's chief minister, the Conde Duque de Olivares, came to power in 1621, the Portuguese New Christians were ready and willing to take up the challenge of replacing the Genoese as the crown's principal bankers.

In spite of their key role in Spain's remarkable military and strategic recovery in the first decades of the seventeenth century, however, the Portuguese New Christians found that they had many enemies. The strength of anti-Semitic feeling is demonstrated by the rapid translation into Spanish of a violently anti-Semitic work by Vicente de Costa Mattos, a Portuguese who denounced New Christians as idolators and sodomites and claimed that all heretics were either Jews or descendants of Judaizers.^[63] The New Christians were also victims of street violence and the subject of attacks by poets and writers like Francisco de Quevedo. It was the Inquisition, however, that was in the best position to undertake a campaign of persecution. Royal support notwithstanding, anti-Semitic feeling among inquisitors remained strong, and both the Suprema and the regional tribunals remained highly suspicious of the New Christians. In 1586, for example, just at the time when the New Christians were first becoming active in tax farming and military and naval contracting, the Valencia tribunal wrote the Suprema to ask for instructions regarding the Portuguese "confessos" who passed through the kingdom on their way to foreign countries because it was suspected that they were emigrating so as to practice Judaism freely.^[64]

Since the New Christians had been able to prevent the Portuguese Inquisition from operating effectively until well into the sixteenth century, Judaic traditions remained strong among them, and evidence of Judaizing was not difficult to find. Moreover, the fact that their business success depended, at least in part, on maintaining relations with the Jewish communities in Amsterdam and Italy meant that they could renew their Jewish traditions by contact with practicing Jews. But the New Christians, like the conversos before them, were vulnerable to attack. The issue of assimilation had divided the community deeply, and the hostility between those who wished to become Roman Catholic and those more closely tied to Judaism was productive of denunciations. Ma-ría Rodríguez, who testified against Fernán Vázquez during his trial in 1586, was the daughter of Portuguese New Christians who had been imprisoned by the Inquisition in Seville while attempting to leave the Iberian peninsula so that they could practice Judaism. Apparently while still in Seville, she secretly married an Old Christian, but when her father found out, he beat her so severely

that she still carried the sears twenty years later. Her second husband was a New Christian, but the women in Valencia's small New Christian community were very suspicious of her, refusing to invite her to meals and showing hostility when she manifested any outward sign of Christian belief. Rebellion against a tyrannical parent combined with anger at Valencia's New Christians were enough to turn her into a more than willing witness and spy who even brought a beata to the homes of her New Christian acquaintances on Saturdays so that she could attest to the fact that no work was being performed there.^[65]

A century of inquisitorial edicts, sermons of the faith, and autos de fé had also served to indoctrinate the Old Christian population against any signs of Judaic observance; even a lack of zeal in fulfilling Christian duties aroused suspicion. When Fernán Vázquez was selected as a lay official of the parish church of San Nicolas, the neglectful way in which he performed his duties was enough to arouse the suspicion of the parish priest who considered all his Portuguese parishioners "judíos," a benefice holder in the church who later took it on himself to gather more information about the New Christians of the parish, and a familiar of the Holy Office who happened to belong to the same church. All of these men later testified against Vázquez at his trial.^[66]

Old Christian servants were also dangerous. Juana Ana Farragut worked for Cristóbal Gómez during the time he played host to Pedro Méndez Rosete and his wife. Rosete, who had been an important tax farmer and tobacco wholesaler, refused to eat pork while in the Gómez home and pretended to be ill when it was time to go to mass. Ferragut eventually proved an excellent witness and was even able to report on the couple's whereabouts after they left her master's house.^[67]

In spite of the fact that certain New Christians were using Valencia as a transit point on their journeys to southern France and Italy and the undoubted presence of a small group of Portuguese merchants like Fernán Vázquez or Francisco Brandon, the depressed economy of seventeenth-century Valencia offered few opportunities, and the majority of the New Christians preferred to settle in Andalucia where they could participate in the Seville trade or in New Castile where there were opportunities in royal finance, contracting, and tax farming. As a result, the Valencia tribunal tried only fifteen New

Christians during the period 1615-1700, when other tribunals like Toledo, Córdoba, and Galicia tried large numbers.

During the eighteenth century, the imposition of a whole series of new taxes after 1707 and the enforcement of the royal salt and tobacco monopolies made the kingdom considerably more attractive to New Christians who were already involved in administering royal taxes elsewhere in Spain.^[68] The first decades of the eighteenth century also saw a sharp increase in the persecution of Judaizers by the peninsular tribunals, with 820 appearing in the sixty-four autos held between 1721 and 1727. Valencia contributed only fifty-one eases but, following the national trend, was clearly becoming somewhat more active. In all, the tribunal tried sixty-seven Judaizers in the period 1701-1799, but the majority (55) were tried between 1712 and 1733.^[69]

A revealing glimpse into the lives of these early eighteenth-century New Christians is afforded by the case of Simón de Alarcón, who was arrested by the Valencia tribunal in March 1721. Simón came from a family of tax farmers impoverished by inquisitorial persecution. His father, Tomás de Valenzuela y Alarcón, who had been reconciled with confiscation of property by the Toledo tribunal, died when Simón was only six, leaving him with his mother, Isabel de los Rios, who had been reconciled by the Logroño tribunal. Bloodied but unbowed, Isabel continued to practice Judaism after her release and exhorted Simón to "live like the son of his father."^[70]

Fortunately for Simón, his family was well known among the tight-knit group of Madrid New Christian merchants, financiers, and tax farmers whose role in royal finance appeared to be as important under the early Bourbons as it had been under the later Hapsburgs. As a result, Simón was able to enter the service of several of these men, including Manuel de Olivares, an important sugar merchant whose family had been recruited into the ranks of the royal asentistas in the early 1640s, and Francisco de Lara, treasurer of the royal tobacco monopoly. Through these connections, Simón was able to marry Maria de Molina, the daughter of the administrator of the millones of Antequera. He also met Manuel de Andrade, another official of the tobacco administration, and through him entered the tobacco administration himself, working first in Ciudad Real and then in Zaragoza. He then went to Valencia

where he made contact with Felipe de Paz, who, along with his father, Diego, controlled the tobacco monopoly of the entire Kingdom of Valencia. From Felipe he obtained the administration of tobacco in Segorbe and Castellón. This evidently proved quite lucrative; when he was arrested, he had in his possession a substantial amount of cash as well as jewels and silver.

Simón de Alarcón's contacts in Madrid formed a tight-knit group of New Christian families who married among themselves or with other families of known Judaic sympathies. Jewish ceremonies in-eluding the Sabbath, Yom Kippur, and Shivah were routinely practiced, and members of the group spoke to one another without the slightest reserve about their firm belief in the Jewish faith. In spite of their efforts to present themselves as devout Catholics, the members of the network and their families suffered grievous persecution at the hands of the Inquisition. In a series of trials sparked by the incautious revelations made by María de Tudela to another prisoner of the Toledo tribunal in 1718, the Madrid, Murcia, Toledo, Cór-doba, Granada, and Valencia tribunals virtually destroyed the entire network of New Christian families between 1718 and 1727. Among the victims the Valencia tribunal claimed from among these families were Diego and Felipe de Paz, general administrators of the royal tobacco monopoly for the Kingdom of Valencia, Sebastián de León, Manuel Rodríquez de León, who sold tobacco for the crown in Viñaroz and Torrente, and the members of their families.

Unfortunately for the tribunal, which had expected windfall profits from its prosecution of the New Christians, the evidence suggests that the Paz and their associates were able to remove most of their funds from Spain before they could be seized. By 1724, Felipe and several of his leading associates had been released and were once again offering to take over the tobacco monopoly.^[71]

The discrimination and persecution suffered by the Portuguese New Christians during the late sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries stands in marked contrast to the substantial assimilation of the Spanish conversos in the same period. During the sixteenth century, the obstacles the conversos had to face appeared to loom ever larger. Purity of blood statutes spread from the religious orders to Colegios Mayores and cathedral chapters, and by the end of the century, even the Jesuits were forced to exclude conversos in spite of their earlier tolerance. ^[72] Moreover, the descen-

dants of those punished by the Inquisition were barred from holding public office, carrying arms, exercising certain professions, and wearing certain types of clothing. In a still largely oral society, memories were long, and the officials responsible for carrying out the genealogical investigations designed to trap conversos who tried to enter honorable corporations in spite of the statutes could rely on this collective memory to trace the Jewish origins of conversos claiming to be "pure." Investigators could also rely on the Inquisition, whose records were an invaluable repository of information about converso families. In 1569, for example, the Valencia tribunal furnished the cabildo of the cathedral of Toledo, which had recently (1547) adopted a purity of blood statute, with copies of trials involving the Santangel family.^[73] The council of canons intended to use this material as ammunition in its effort to prevent Diego López de Ayala, Hernando de Santangel's grandson, from obtaining a place on the cabildo. ^[74]

In spite of the ingrained hostility of many inquisitors and officials, however, the Inquisition proved to be a major channel through which the conversos became accepted into the mainstream of Spanish life. This was the result not of altruism on the part of the Holy Office (although there were inquisitors and officials who favored integration) but of necessity. Of all the honorable corporations with purity of blood statutes, the Inquisition was the most penurious and the most politically vulnerable and was therefore not in a position to overlook any opportunity to generate income from relieving the disabilities that it had imposed on converso families or of winning influential friends and allies by allowing certain con-versos to become officials, familiares, notaries, and the like.

One of the most common revenue-raising devices used by the Holy Office, especially during periods of acute financial distress, was the commutation of all or part of a sentence or even the complete rehabilitation of an individual from the social disabilities that he might have incurred as a result of the condemnation of an ancestor. In 1520, for example, the Suprema asked the tribunal of Barcelona to estimate how much it could earn by commuting the penitential garments of all persons presently wearing them in view of "la mucha necesidad" in which the tribunal found itself. ^[75] In that same year, the Suprema ordered a special payment of 150 gold ducats to be made to the inquisitors and officials of the Valencia tribunal to

come in part from fees for commutations of habits and prison sentences. In 1531, the Suprema ordered the complete rehabilitation of Onofre Dura and his family. Dura, a wealthy silversmith from Gandía, paid well for the right to hold honorable offices, carry arms, and wear cloth of gold and silver in spite of the condemnation of his father, mother, and grandparents. ^[76] By the early seventeenth century, the Holy Office had largely abandoned any pretense at enforcement of personal disabilities except as a revenue-raising device. In the instructions issued to Inquisitor Ambrosio Roche for his visitations to Gandía, Denia, and Alcira in 1632, he was specifically told to confine himself to levying fines on the descendants of reconciled or relaxed persons who were holding honorable offices or wearing prohibited clothing, since it was no longer the custom to impose public penance or exile.^[77]

One of the principal ways in which the Inquisition was supposed to perpetuate the disgrace of those it had punished was by preserving sanbenitos along with suitable inscriptions in the churches. When these had deteriorated, they were replaced by sheets of linen inscribed with the name, crime, and punishment of the individual. In the Instructions of 1561 and again in 1569, the Suprema charged inquisitors on visitation with the duty of making sure that all the appropriate sanbenitos were in place and hanging new ones when necessary.^[78]

In spite of the hard line taken in these instructions and royal support for exhibiting the sanbenitos, there is considerable evidence to suggest that, in practice, the policy was difficult to carry out. Fully realizing the grief and distress that public exhibition of the penitential garments would cause to the families of the victim, some inquisitors were opposed to displaying them. Hernando de Loazes, who was inquisitor in Valencia in 1541, was so affected by the pleas of victims' relatives that he had not replaced a single sanbenito during his term of office and then refused to cooperate with the tribunal when it wanted to renew those in the cathedral after he became archbishop of Valencia.^[79]

In other cases, it was opposition from some powerful individual that prevented the sanbenitos from being displayed. In 1644, for example, the Suprema asked the tribunal to account for the fact that not a single sanbenito was hung in the collegiate church of Gandía even though records indicated that thirty-four individuals

from that town had been reconciled or relaxed. In reply, the tribunal related that the inquisitor who visited Gandía in 1606 was told that the Duke of Gandía had vetoed placing the sanbenitos in the church. A diligent search of the tribunal's premises then led to the discovery of Gandía's sanbenitos, which had evidently been in storage since the auto de fé when they were first used. By curious oversight, however, Inquisitor Pedro de Herrera y Guzmán failed to take them when he left on visitations to Gandía later that year. The record ends with the information that the duke went out of his way to welcome Herrera y Guzmán when he arrived, but it is legitimate to wonder whether his welcome would have been so warm if the inquisitor had not been quite so forgetful.^[80]

Influential conversos were also in a position to do something about the sanbenitos they detested. In 1613, Valencia's inquisitors wrote the Suprema to report that Dr. Guardiola, a judge on the Audiencia, had removed several of the linen sheets that were used to record the names of victims from the front of his chapel in the cathedral. He did this without even notifying the tribunal, but he was so influential that the inquisitors confined themselves to asking one of the secretaries to go to the church and "nonchalantly" explore it to find out where the sheets had been placed. Doubtless, the Guardiola family had long felt the affront of having these obnoxious yellow sheets directly in front of their chapel, especially since they recorded the names of several of their ancestors. By the early seventeenth century, they felt strong enough to act, and the tribunal was so politically weak that it could not stop them.^[81]

The image of an inquisitorial secretary skulking through the cathedral to locate sanbenitos removed by order of a converso is an indication of just how far the prestige of the Holy Office had declined since the palmy days of the early sixteenth century. Clearly, the tribunal faced strong and growing opposition to its efforts to perpetuate the infamy of its victims through maintaining sanbenitos. In the face of this opposition, some inquisitors, like Pedro de Herrera y Guzmán, abandoned them entirely, while others, like Hernando de Loazes, had never supported the use of the sanbenitos in the first place. In spite of the Suprema's insistent demands for enforcement of the regulations regarding the sanbenitos, therefore, the tribunal's zeal for them flagged noticeably, and by the mid-seventeenth century, a device that had proved so

effective in maintaining the conversos as a class apart was falling into desuetude.^[82]

But it was through successfully overcoming the barriers posed by the Inquisition's own purity of blood statute and genealogical investigations that certain wealthy and influential converso families were able to obscure their origins, gain respectability, and integrate themselves more fully into Spanish society. The process by which members of these families were admitted, albeit grudgingly, to the corps of unpaid officials really began in earnest during the early years of the seventeenth century when the Holy Office encountered growing opposition from Audiencias and royal councils and the Suprema was struggling to find ways of rebuilding its political influence at court.

An excellent example of how persistence, influence, and the gradual accumulation of positions in honorable corporations could eventually carry an individual from a "tainted" family into the ranks of the familiares is provided by the case of Vicente Valterra, eldest son and heir to the Count of Villanueva. Vicente's saga began in spring 1627 when he applied to the Suprema for admittance as a familiar of the Valencia tribunal in spite of being single and therefore formally ineligible to serve. The Suprema granted his request and ordered him to be admitted provided that he met the criteria for purity of blood demanded for entrance to the corps.^[83] The Suprema's letter drew an immediate protest from the secretaries who were chiefly responsible for verifying the lineage of applicants by checking the tribunal's secret archive. On his mother's side, Vicente was descended from the Santangels, one of the most famous converso families in the Crown of Aragon. The public outcry that the recent admission of his two cousins, Juan Çanoguera and Vicente Sorell, as familiares had caused made the secretaries still more determined to resist opening the door even wider.^[84] The Suprema then requested copies of all cases involving the Santangels and documents establishing Valterra's connection with that family. After reviewing this material carefully, the Suprema instructed the tribunal not to admit Vicente and to suspend any genealogical investigation.^[85]

The Suprema's letter of August 23 would seem to have ended the case, but just a few days later, it returned to the charge, asking for new copies of all relevant documents and inquiring disingenuously if

the tribunal had already admitted Valterra by virtue of its original letter of May 11 dispensing of the requirement that he be married. ^[86] The cause of the Suprema's strange about-face on the issue was the growing respectability and political influence of the family of the counts of Villanueva. Notwithstanding the failure of Valterra's application to enter the corps of familiares, other members of the family with the same relationship to the Santangels were making progress in their efforts to enter other honorable corporations. The event that appears to have triggered the Suprema's decision to reopen Val-terra's case was the admittance of his first cousin, Jaime Millán, to the Order of Santiago, Spain's most prestigious corporate body. ^[87] As Valterra pointedly reminded the Suprema, he came of a family both numerous and influential whose members occupied important positions and were related by marriage to many of the greatest aristocratic houses in Spain.^[88] By May 11, 1629, his demand for a familiatura had acquired enormous momentum. Not only had two other cousins, Luis and Remigio Sorell, been admitted to the Order of Calatrava but the family could now boast ten actos positivos (eight from the Military Orders), so that by the royal pragmática of 1623, Valterra could be admitted without even going through a genealogical investigation. ^[89]

A family with so many of its members in the prestigious Military Orders and an individual with such great, and growing, landed possessions (Valterra had recently added Canet to his list of villages) could no longer be ignored lest he become a powerful enemy. The feelings of Valencia's secretaries now meant nothing to the Suprema, which summarily ordered them to commence Val-terra's genealogical investigation in its letter of October 17, 1629.^[90]

Finally, more than three years after he had first applied, Valterra became a member of the corps. The following year, in a now-familiar pattern of using acceptance into one honorable corporation as a springboard to another, he applied to enter the Order of Calatrava. By this time, the Council of the Military Orders was no longer following the pragmática of 1623, and he was aware that representatives of that council would be sent to Valencia to interview the tribunal's secretaries about his lineage. The danger was that Valencia's disgruntled secretaries would balk at testifying and thus delay the entire investigation. But now Valterra had gained the upper hand, and in a letter conspicuous for its aggressive tone,

he demanded that the Suprema secretly issue them a formal authorization to testify in his favor and even "compel" them to do so if that became necessary. Needless to say, the Suprema, which had clearly supported Valterra's application in the first place, went along with his demand and issued its authorization on September 26, 1630.^[91]

Much the same strategy was used by the next generation of this ambitious family. In 1647, the Suprema approved the application of Francisco Pérez de los Cobos to be a familiar of the Murcia tribunal. By this time, Luis Sotell had become count of Albalat, Valterra's two sons were familiares, and Francisco Pérez de los Cobos was himself a knight of the Military Order of Santiago. Sheer persistence had opened Spain's honorable corporations to this converso family, and the Suprema's order that no one from it was to be admitted in the future without specific permission must be viewed as little more than a pretense of upholding standards that had long ceased to be observed. ^{[ 92]}

An even more significant case, and one that illustrates a growing division within the Holy Office itself about the value of the purity of blood statutes, was that of Tomás Ginart y March, who applied to be an official in August 1699.^[93] Ginart y March was descended from the March, Palau, Malet, and Almenara, four of the most notorious families of Judaizers in late-fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century Valencia. Between them, these families had a total of 65 members punished by the Holy Office, including 34 relaxed in effigy or in person.^[94] The converso origins of the Almenara family, in particular, were so well known in Valencia that as recently as July 27, 1697, the Suprema had stated categorically that no descendant of that family could even be considered by the tribunal. ^[95]

In spite of this prohibition, the Suprema was evidently prepared to allow the application to proceed and ordered the tribunal's secretaries to carry out the customary search through the secret archive. Predictably, the secretaries turned up a considerable amount of evidence against Ginart y March's family and were especially concerned to point out that his great grandfather, Francisco March, had married into the Almenara family, "one of those most frequently mentioned in the secret archive."^[96]

During the next three years, a series of hearings were held which appeared to further damage Ginart y March's ease. Further

investigation by fiscal Vicente del Olmo turned up evidence that the genealogy that he had originally presented was fraudulent and that the March family had attempted to obfuscate its connection with the Almenaras by inserting counterfeit documents in the notarial records of the corte de gobernación.^[97]

By the end of May 1704, when Valencia's two inquisitors sat down to render judgment, the case against Ginart y March appeared overwhelming, and, after restating all the negative evidence, Inquisitor Diego Muñoz Baquerizo concluded by saying that considering Ginart y March would "greatly dishonor this tribunal." But all along, the inquisitors had been divided on the case. Muñoz Baquerizo's colleague, Juan de la Torre y Guerau, had previously sought to aid Ginart y March by refusing to close the case in spite of the accumulation of negative evidence, and he now emerged as an open supporter. In his written opinion, he dismissed the witnesses against Ginart y March as "few and inconstant" and argued rather implausibly that the older notarial records should be accepted in spite of their glaring deficiencies. Since the inquisitors were now split, the tribunal had no option but to follow Torre y Guerau's recommendation and send the ease on to the Suprema for its consideration.^[98] Evidently, this was exactly what the Suprema had been waiting for. On June 25, it bent toward Ginart y March, favoring him by authorizing Inquisitor Torre y Guerau to act alone in rendering a final verdict.^[99] Since Torre y Guerau's views were already known to the Suprema, it could have surprised no one when he rendered a favorable opinion, and on July 9, 1704, the Suprema authorized Ginart y March's admission as an official of the Valencia tribunal.^[100]

The counts of Villanueva were too important for either the Suprema or the tribunal to ignore. The large number of actos positivos that the family had accumulated, especially from the prestigious Military Orders, and its growing wealth and influence made it politically unwise to exclude Vicente Valterra from the corps of familiares. The same cannot be said of the March family. Even though Tomás Ginart y March's grandfather, Jacinto March de Velasco, had been a jurat and represented Valencia city at the Cortes, the family could not lay claim to such distinction at the time of Tomás's application. His father had been a mere ciutadà, and he himself spoke frequently of his own modest circumstances. Judging

by this case, the official barriers to the assimilation of the conversos had diminished appreciably. It is not difficult to see in the attitude of Juan de la Torre y Guerau or in that of the Suprema itself a growing acceptance of assimilation within the Inquisition itself.^[101] After all, it was an inquisitor, probably Juan Roco Campofrio, who joined in the debate over the purity of blood statutes during the reign of Philip IV and condemned them as a major cause of social division, corruption, and litigation.^[102] By the end of the century, even the once taboo Almenara family had become acceptable, and Tomás Almenara, a prominent city councillor in Enguera, was permitted to enter the corps of familiares in spite of the prosecuting attorney's objection that the family was "seriously tainted" with Jewish blood.^[103]

By the middle of the eighteenth century, the last wave of persecution was over, and the inquisitorial tribunals saw few Judaizers. Between 1792 and 1820, the last years of its activity, the Valencia tribunal only dealt with six cases, and some of these were of Jews from Gibraltar who came requesting baptism and religious instruction.^[104]

Nevertheless, in spite of the virtual disappearance of Judaizing and the complete absence of actual Jewish communities, anti-Semitism remained strong in Spanish society, and for this the Inquisition must bear much of the blame. Within the Inquisition itself, the tendency to accept the conversos did little to allay the suspicion and fear of Jews that underlay the first wave of persecution. At the time of the allied invasion of Valencia in 1705-1707, for example, the tribunal was extremely concerned about the presence of Jewish contractors among the allied forces because it feared that they would try to bring Hebrew books into the city.^[105]

For some officials, the Jew remained the incarnation of evil. In a letter to the Suprema dated Novemer 19, 1643, Fray Juan Ponce, a calificador and former Holy Office commissioner in Oran, warned of the imminent arrival of several Jews from that city. The group included Jacob Cansino who was known to Fray Ponce from his days in Oran as a "powerful magician" who could mix up powders and herbal concoctions that bent others to his will even if they had only the slightest contact with them. Fray Ponce assured the Suprema that Cansino intended to bring these magic potions with him to Spain along with some anti-Catholic propaganda of his own

manufacture. Saloman Zaporta, another of these Jews, was coming to Madrid to sell slaves. Fray Ponce had no real objection to this so long as Zaporta could be counted on to leave Spain promptly after his business had been concluded. There could be no guarantee of this, however, and the spectacle of Zaporta living at court in a Judaic manner, eating unleavened bread, slaughtering in a kosher style, "mocking our religion and offering prayers for our destruction," was too horrible to contemplate. A worried Suprema responded by ordering the Valencia tribunal to send back any of these Jews who landed without specific royal license.^[106]

For such men as Fray Ponce, the Jew was necessarily evil, necessarily an enemy of the Catholic faith. For the popular masses, generations of autos de fé and inquisitorial edicts had associated the Jew with everything dangerous, foreign, and unorthodox. This thinking, which was kept alive by the tattered remnants of sanbenitos that could still be seen in many churches, remained an important element in the Inquisition's continued popularity in spite of the fact that it had itself provided many converso families with the passport to full integration into Old Christian society.