Table Of ContentThe
Origins of the
Inquisition
in Fifteenth Century Spain
B. NETANYAHU
Thomas J. Bata Library
TRENT UNIVERSITY
P€T£RBOROUGH, ONTARIO
RANDOM HOUSE
NEW YORK
V\) V o, c\ r
Copyright © 1995 by Benzion Netanyahu
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American
Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by
Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by
Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Netanyahu, B. (Benzion)
The origins of the Inquisition in fifteenth century Spain / B.
Netanyahu,
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-679-41065-1
1. Inquisition—Spain. 2. Converts from Judaism—History.
3. Jews—Spain—History. 4. Antisemitism—Spain—History.
I. Title.
BX1735.N48 1992
272'.2'o94<S-dc20 92-53643
Manufactured in the United States of America
24689753
First Edition
This book is dedicated
with unrelieved grief
to the memory of my beloved son
JONATHAN
who fell while leading
the rescue force at Entebbe
on July 4, 1976
Unless otherwise indicated, the terms Conversos, Marranos and
New Christians are used in this work synonymously. Each of them
has long served to designate the same group in Jewish, Spanish and
European scholarship.
Spanish names of persons and places are given in this book in
their Spanish forms, except in cases where the English usage is long
established—e.g., Seville, Cordova, Ferdinand and Isabella.
Italicization in quotations from works written before the end of
the 16th century is in all cases the author’s.
Biblical translations follow standard English versions, except
when occasionally modified by the author to fit his understanding
of the original.
Contents
Introduction xiii
BOOK ONE
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
I. The Jewish Question 3
II. The Spanish Scene 28
I. Earlier Stages 28
II. The Second Cycle 54
III. The Castilian Cities 74
IV. Debacle and Transition 93
III. The Age of Conversions 127
I. Ferran Martinez 129
II. Paul of Burgos 168
III. The Conversos Enter Spanish Society 207
BOOK TWO
THE REIGN OF JUAN II
I. The Struggle for Monarchic Superiority 217
I. The King and His Minister 217
II. Precursors of Toledo, 1449 254
III. The Outbreak of the Rebellion 296
CONTENTS
X]
IV. Toledo Under the Rebels 3!4
V. The Rebels Under the Prince 328
II. The Great Debate 351 II. III. IV. V.
I. First Attack on the Conversos 35l
I. The Petition 351
II. The Sentencia-Estatuto 3^7
II. Converso Counter-Attack 385
I. The Relator 385
II. Juan de Torquemada 421
III. Second Attack on the Conversos 486
I. The Memorial 48^
II. The Privilege S12
IV. Conversos Bare Their Final Goals Sll
I. Alonso de Cartagena 5ll
II. Diego de Valera 578
V. The Political Views of the Toledan Rebels 584
VI. Old Christian Apologies for the Conversos 606
I. Fernan Perez de Guzman 606
II. Lope de Barrientos 610
III. Alonso Diaz de Montalvo 619
VII. The Historiographic Evidence: The Cronicas
of Juan II 628
III. Reverses and Triumphs 662
I. The Aftermath of the Rebellion 662
II. End of Alvaro de Luna 681
III. Closing the Circle 7°9
BOOK THREE
ENRIQUE IV AND THE CATHOLIC KINGS
I. Enrique IV: His Aims and Tactics 71 $
I. The Baffling King 715
II. The Delusive Peace 724
III. Pacheco Undermines the Regime 744
IV. The Civil War and the Second Toledan Outburst 768
V. Anti-Marrano Fury Engulfs the South 794
II. Later Old Christian Controversy 814
I. Alonso de Espina 814
II. The Alboraique 848
III. Alonso de Oropesa 855
III. The Chroniclers of Enrique IV 897
IV. The Catholic Kings: The Early Period 915
CONTENTS [xi
BOOK FOUR
THE ORIGINS OF THE INQUISITION
I. The Major Causes 925
I. The Lesson of the Sources 925
II. The Social-Economic Reasons 95°
III. The Rise of Racism 975
IV. Ferdinand of Aragon IO°5
V. Conclusions I°4I
II. Sidelights and Afterthoughts 1048
I. Conceptions and Realities i°4^
II. The Racial Substitute 1 °52
III. The Parallel Drive io55
IV. The Unchanged Goal 1064
V. Struggling Assimilation io7°
VI. The Insidious Pretext io74
VII. The Destructive Urge 107^
VIII. Expulsion J°87
APPENDICES
A. The Number of the Marranos in Spain 1095
B. Diego de Anaya and His Advocacy of Limpieza 1103
C. When Did Sarmiento Leave Toledo? 1106
D. Juan de Torquemada 1110
I. Race and the Jewish People 1110
II. More on the Judaizers IU3
III. On the Reliability of Torquemada’s Testimony
Concerning the Conversos m7
E. The Gibraltar Project 1122
F. The Death of Enrique IV II27
G. Espina’s Source for the “Tale of the Two Tents” 1131
H. The Abuse of the Conversos as “Judaizers”: When Did It Begin? 1133
I. Bernaldez on the Conversos’ Occupations ”37
J. Racism in Germany and Spain n4!
K. The Converso Conspiracies Against the Inquisition 1147
NOTES °73
BIBLIOGRAPHY !321
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS !349
1351
INDEX
Introduction
T
he vast literature on the Spanish Inquisition created in the course of
half a millennium includes a large number of superb studies on almost
every aspect of the Inquisition’s activity and every phase of its evolution.
Conspicuously absent from these master works is a thorough investigation of
the first phase, exploring the origins and causes of the Inquisition and the
circumstances from which it emerged. Although the subject has been repeat¬
edly discussed, primarily in histories of the Inquisition, it has more often than
not been treated perfunctorily, sometimes partially or one-sidedly, and never
in a manner befitting the importance of the questions involved.
This lacuna in so ramified a history is certainly an oddity that calls for
explanation. One would naturally assume that the renown of the Inquisition,
its centuries-long duration and far-flung sway and, above all, the great
influence it wielded on the history of Spain, Europe and the world should
have excited the curiosity of many a scholar to dig deep until its roots were
exposed. That this did not happen was due, in our judgment, to the firm belief
entertained by most scholars that they were in possession of all the necessary
facts to determine the primary cause of the Inquisition. That cause, they were
sure, was the presence of a heresy, steadily spreading and highly contagious,
which threatened the future of Christianity in Spain. The Inquisition was
created to crush that heresy and, if possible, to destroy it root and branch.
There were several reasons for the deep inculcation of this belief in
literature and in the public mind. The heresy referred to was a Judaizing
tendency claimed to be rampant among the Marranos (known also as conver¬
ses or New Christians), almost all of whom descended from Jews converted
xiv ] INTRODUCTION
to Christianity during the persecutions of 1391 and 1412. That such a tendency
actually existed seemed credible, first, from the cardinal fact that most of the
above-mentioned converts were forced—a circumstance inclining one to
assume that, though outwardly Christian, these converts remained Jewish,
secretly upholding their old tenets and rites and also transmitting them to
their children. Apart from this, there was the structure of the Inquisition,
which was likewise conducive to that presumption. Its guidelines, its laws, its
modes of operation were all a replica of the earlier inquisitions which,
without exception, were designed to fight heresies. It stood to reason that,
like all its predecessors, the Spanish Inquisition was created for the same
purpose—that is, to arrest some deviation from the faith. And this presump¬
tion was further supported by testimonies of the highest authority and
reliability. We refer to the bull of Pope Sixtus IV (1478), which sanctioned the
establishment of the Inquisition in Castile, and the royal proclamation made
public in Seville upon the commencement of the Inquisition’s activity (Jan.
1481). In both these documents it was stated explicitly that the sole purpose
of the new tribunal was to put an end to the Judaic heresy that had infected
the camp of the conversos. Finally, that purpose was reaffirmed by the
Inquisition in both the judgments it pronounced and many other statements
by which it sought to justify its punitive acts—those acts which indeed
appeared more telling than all the above indications put together. For the
Spanish Inquisition attacked the Marranos with a savage ferocity that by then
was outmoded; it burned them by the thousands, confiscated their posses¬
sions, incarcerated them in its dungeons, branded them as outcasts, robbed
their sons of their rightful inheritance while denying them the right to public
office, and subjected them all to a reign of terror, which “turned their lives
into something worse than death,” as Mariana, the Spanish historian, put it.
Is it possible that all this could be done if there had not been that reason—
that sole reason—so repeatedly given by the kings and the Inquisition for its
establishment and operations? Common sense rebelled against such an as¬
sumption.
Thus we can see how that belief was founded. It was based on the testimo¬
nies of the authors of the Inquisition, i.e., the Spanish kings and the inquisi¬
tors themselves—that is, on their verdicts and assertions. These testimonies
appeared sufficient for most scholars not only to determine the causes of the
Inquisition, but also to serve as a standard of judgment for all other evidence
that came their way. As a result, no diverse and free-ranging inquiry into the
origins of the Spanish Inquisition was attempted, or at least evolved to a
significant degree. And what further hindered or blocked such evolution was
the overwhelming influence of a special development which is often over¬
looked.
Writing in the middle of the 16th century, Samuel Usque, a Portuguese
INTRODUCTION [ XV
Jewish author, called the Inquisition a “wild monster of such terrible mien
that all of Europe trembles at the mere mention of its name.” When Usque
wrote these words, the Spanish Inquisition had just passed the peak of the
persecution that characterized the first period of its activity—namely, its
persecution of the conversos—and was moving ahead, through its attacks on
the Moriscos and other Spanish groups whom it charged with dissidence, to
its battle against the Reformation. There was not of course any historical
connection between the original reasons for the founding of the Inquisition
and its subsequent fight against the “heretical” Reformers. But its perform¬
ance in that period, which was indeed devoted to the struggle against a
variety of heresies, tended to substantiate its claims about the motives for its
creation and earlier activity. In fact, that second period covered with oblivion
the original purpose of the first; and thus, by the turn of the 18th century, it
was universally believed that the Spanish Inquisition was created to fight
heresies, among which the Jewish heresy was merely the first it encountered
on its historic route.
I mentioned the turn of the 18th century because later, with the rise of
modern historiography, that reigning concept about the origins of the Inqui¬
sition was totally discarded and replaced by another view. Scholars in Spain,
Germany and France, including the leading historians of the age, noticed
certain features in the Spanish Inquisition which contradicted the old hy¬
pothesis. They observed that, unlike all earlier inquisitions, the Spanish
Inquisition was ruled, from its inception, much more by the king than by the
pope; they saw how the king sought to appropriate to himself more and more
papal powers in governing the Inquisition; how he spurned the pope’s cen¬
sures of its excessive persecutions, and how he used the incomes of the
Inquisition for his own needs and none for the needs of the Catholic Church.
Thus they concluded that the Spanish Inquisition was a royal rather than a
papal institution, that its real aims were secular rather than religious, and that
it was actually erected to finance the king’s ventures and promote his abso¬
lute power.
One can well understand why the authors of such a theory felt no necessity
to undertake a major inquiry into the origins of the Inquisition. For in their
view its origins were right in its beginnings, in the mind of King Ferdinand,
whom they judged to be its founder. Their theory appeared self-sufficient,
and plausible enough to attract adherents. Nevertheless, it was ultimately
abandoned—and not without good reason. It failed, to begin with, to explain
what made Ferdinand embark on a plan so bizarre and complex in order to
promote his monarchic interests. Nor did it explain how the conversos came
to play such a tragic part in that unprecedented scheme. It was hardly
credible that so fierce a persecution, reflecting the dominant sentiment of a
nation—and this not for one but for many generations—could be the product
