Blood and Faith

by Matthew Carr

  Chapter 2. The Victors

  1 Moore, Formation of a Persecuting Society, p. 5.

  2 Cited in Nirenberg, “Mass Conversion and Genealogical Mentalities,” p. 10.

  3 Ibid., p. 12.

  4 Ibid., p. 13.

  5 For an examination of the evolution of the idea of blood purity in the colonial era, see Martínez, “Black Blood of New Spain,” pp. 479–520. In late twentieth-century Guatemala, the anthropologist Diane Nelson still found descendants of Spanish colonists who defined themselves as “white and with no mixing of Indian blood.” See Diane M. Nelson, “Biopolitical Peace in Guatemala,” in Moore, Kosek, and Pandian, Race, Nature, pp. 122–46.

  6 Pérez, Spanish Inquisition, p. 25.

  7 Roth, Spanish Inquisition, pp. 81–82.

  8 Charter of Expulsion of the Jews, trans. from Castilian by Edward Peters, in Constable, Medieval Iberia, pp. 353–54.

  9 Bernáldez, Memorias del Reinado, p. 262. I have used the translation in Liss, Isabel the Queen, p. 273.

  10 Letter from Ferdinand to Count of Aranda, March 31, 1492, cited in Kamen, Spanish Inquisition, p. 21.

  11 Letter from Christopher Columbus to the Catholic Monarchs (1493), trans. from Castilian by William Phillips, in Constable, Medieval Iberia, p. 373.

  Chapter 3. The Vanquished

  1 al-Maqqari, History of the Mohammedan Dynasties, p. 392.

  2 Not surprisingly, given the distance of time and the scarcity of reliable demographic data regarding the number of immigrants from the Muslim world and the rate of conversion to Islam among Iberian Christians, these statistics are not universally accepted by scholars. For example, Glick’s estimate of an indigenous Iberian Muslim population of 5.6 million in 1100, in Islamic and Christian Spain, has been questioned by Harvey as too high, in Islamic Spain, pp. 7–9. Nevertheless, all historians agree on the dramatic fall in the Muslim population from 1100 onward.

  3 In Boswell, Royal Treasure, p. 60.

  4 From Abul Abbas Ahmad al-Wansharishi, Kitab al-mi’yar al-mugrib (Rabat: 1981), p. 141, trans. from the Arabic in Harvey, Islamic Spain, pp. 58–59.

  5 Cited in Halavais, Like Wheat to the Miller, p. 17.

  6 Cervantes, Don Quixote, pp. 365–66.

  7 For an interesting account of attitudes to bathing in early modern France, with relevance to Spain, see Vigarello, Concepts of Cleanliness.

  8 Pulgar, Crónica, cited in Harvey, Islamic Spain, p. 271.

  Chapter 4. Broken Promises: Granada 1492–1500

  1 Cited in Harvey, Islamic Spain, p. 316.

  2 Mármol y Carvajal, Historia de la rebelión, p. 63.

  3 Bermúdez de Pedraza, Historia ecclesiastica, p. 187.

  4 Munzer, Viaje por España.

  5 Harvey, Islamic Spain, p. 328.

  6 Ibid.

  7 In Ladero Quesada, Los mudejares, colección documental, p. 236.

  8 Prescott, History of the Reign, p. 458.

  Chapter 5. Rebellion and Conversion

  1 See Suberbiola Martínez, Real Patronato, p. 206.

  2 Cited in Harvey, Islamic Spain, pp. 338–39.

  3 Martire d’Anghiera, Una Embajada, p. 164.

  4 “Morisco Appeal,” in Constable, Medieval Iberia, p. 369.

  5 This belief is not restricted to modern historians. In the opinion of Fray José de Siguenza, sixteenth-century historian of the Hieronymite Order, “If there had been more prelates who walked in his path, there would not have been so many souls stubborn in the sects of Moses and Muhammad in Spain, nor so many heretics in other nations.” José de Siguenza, Historia de la Orden de San Jerónimo (Madrid, 1907), p. 306, cited in Kamen, Spanish Inquisition, p. 70.

  6 In Ladero Quesada, Los mudejares, colección documental, no. 127, p. 293.

  Chapter 6. Faith Triumphant

  1 Antoine Lalaing, “Viajes de Felipe El “Hermoso” a España,” in García Mercadal, Viajes de extranjeros, p. 485.

  2 Cited in Hillgarth, Spanish Kingdoms, p. 620.

  3 Nader, Mendoza Family, p. 187.

  4 Fray Antonio Guevara, “letra para un amigo secreto del autor,” cited in Janer, Condición social, p. 165.

  5 In Barrios Aguilera, Granada morisca, p. 243.

  Chapter 7. The Last Redoubt: Aragon 1520–1526

  1 Cited in Harvey, Muslims in Spain, p. 87.

  2 Such phenomena were not unique to Spain. From the Middle Ages onward, peasant insurrections often took a religious form, and such upheavals were often preceded and accompanied by similar omens and potents. See Cohn, Pursuit of the Millennium.

  3 There are many accounts of these events in the historiography of the Moriscos. The most recent—and most iconoclastic—is Benítez Sánchez-Blanco, Heroicas decisiones , which challenges many of the assumptions made by earlier historians regarding the extent to which the conversions were carried out at the point of a sword.

  4 There was, of course, no direct connection between these two “conquests,” but both shared elements of post-Reconquista Catholic supremacism. The conquistadores who brought down the Aztec empire invoked the name of St. James the Moorslayer, while Cortés referred to Aztec temples in his early letters as mezquitas—the Spanish word for mosques.

  5 The Germanías rebellion was one of several episodes in early modern Spanish history in which the biblical figure of the Hidden One was rumored to be have made an appearance or was believed to be about to do so. These imminent visitations were another indication of the millenarian expectations that were prevalent in this period, expectations that often sought confirmation in radical social movements and affairs of state alike.

  6 On these debates, see Boronat y Barrachina, Los moriscos, vol. 1, pp. 131–32. Written in 1901, Boranat was resolutely in favor of the expulsion, and his two indispensable books were intended to bear out his thesis that it was entirely justified and inevitable.

  7 Ibid., p. 136.

  8 For a detailed narrative of the events in Benaguacil, see Pardo Molero, “‘Per salvar la sua ley,’” pp. 113–54.

  9 Escolano, Decada primera, p. 1682.

  10 See Harvey, Muslims in Spain, pp. 95–96.

  Chapter 8. A “House Full of Snakes and Scorpions”

  1 Letter in Boronat y Barrachina, Los moriscos, vol. 1, pp. 162–64.

  2 Or else they simply avoided such contact altogether—as the reports of empty churches testify.

  3 An exception in his family’s often less than salubrious history, Francisco de Borgia experienced a religious epiphany upon seeing the putrefied corpse of Charles’s wife, Empress Isabella, who died of fever in 1539. He subsequently joined the Society of Jesus and was later canonized in recognition of his piety and religious zeal.

  4 This was not necessarily because of antipathy on the part of their parents toward Catholicism. Many Morisco boys in the Albaicín were the sons of local craftsmen who became apprenticed at a very young age and therefore left school early. As the Old Christian population of Granada increased during the sixteenth century, their spaces were filled by Old Christians who were keen to ensure that their children received a Catholic education that might lead to the priesthood and a career in the Church.

  5 “Discurso antiguo en material de los moriscos,” in Janer, Condición Social, pp. 266–68.

  6 Cited in Coleman, Creating Christian Granada, p. 153.

  7 At least not on a national level. There is evidence of resistance to mixed marriages from both Old Christians and Moriscos in the sixteenth century. Nevertheless, in some towns and rural communities, such marriages were not uncommon, for example in Teruel and parts of Castile, where Muslims and Christians had been closely integrated over a longer period.

  8 For a specific account of such complications in Valladolid, which were undoubtedly repeated elsewhere, see Manuel Moratinos García and Olatz Villanueva Zubizarreta, “Consecuencias del decreto de conversión al cristianismo de 1502 en la aljama mora de Valladolid,” Sharq al-Andalus 16–17 (1999–2002), pp. 117–39.

  9 Cited in Cardaillac, Moriscos
y cristianos, p. 328.

  10 In Gallego Burín and Gámir Sandoval, Los moriscos, pp. 226–34.

  11 Los Angeles was tried by the Valencia Inquisition in 1544. For extracts of the trial, see Boronat y Barrachina, Los moriscos, vol. 1, pp. 485–99.

  12 Ibid., pp. 443–69. The Inquisition was aware of Cardona’s activities for some time, but the power of the Valencian seigneurs was such that it was not until 1570 that it felt strong enough to arrest and prosecute him. Considering the gravity of his offenses, Cardona got off relatively lightly, with a fine and seclusion, but he died soon afterward while still serving his sentence.

  13 Cited in Kamen, Spanish Inquisition, p. 223.

  Chapter 9. Parallel Lives

  1 See Harvey, Muslims in Spain, pp. 60–63.

  2 Cited in Ehlers, Between Christians and Moriscos, p. 23.

  3 Cited in Cardaillac, Moriscos y cristianos, p. 24. Cardaillac’s book contains numerous similar incidents, drawing extensively on Inquisition trial records.

  4 Cited in Green, Inquisition, p. 200.

  5 See Cervantes, Don Quixote, pp. 76–78.

  6 The notion of an aljamiado “literary Indies” is generally attributed to the writer and book collector Serafín Estéban Calderón, who described these writings as “the Indies of Spanish literature, virtually undiscovered and unexplored” in an address to the Ateneo de Madrid in 1848.

  7 There is no space to do justice to the range of aljamiado writings here. For more detailed analysis and discussion, see Cheyne, Islam and the West, and Harvey, Muslims in Spain.

  8 For a moving examination of the Carcayona legend and its significance in Morisco Spain, see Perry, Handless Maiden, pp. 27–34.

  9 Cited in Harvey, Muslims in Spain, p. 86.

  10 Ibid., p. 182.

  11 See Abadía Irache, “Los Zauzala,” pp. 331–40.

  12 Cited in Coleman, Creating Christian Granada, p. 133.

  13 For an interpretation of Castellio’s life and ideas, from a very twentieth-century perspective, see Zweig, Right to Heresy.

  Chapter 10. Dangerous Times: 1556–1568

  1 Fray Antonio Baltasar Alvarez, cited in Felipe Fernández-Armesto, “The Improbable Empire,” in Carr, Spain, p. 140.

  2 Cited in Sicroff, Los estatutos de sangre, p. 173.

  3 Cited in Fisher, Barbary Legend, p. 62. Despite—or perhaps because of—the anathema pronounced upon the North African pirate enclaves by most European governments, these cities were often attractive to European outcasts and fugitives from the law or from Christian mores in general. For a colorful account of this lost history, see Wilson, Pirate Utopias.

  4 For a powerful analysis of Cervantes’ ordeal in Algiers and its impact on his work, see Garcés, Cervantes in Algiers.

  5 Quoted in Braudel, Mediterranean, p. 882.

  6 Cited in Kamen, Spanish Inquisition, p. 225.

  7 Report in Boronat y Barrachina, Los moriscos, vol. 1, pp. 225–28.

  8 In Monter, Frontiers of Heresy, p. 34.

  9 Cited in Braudel, Mediterranean, p. 959.

  10 Writing from the Alpujarras in the summer of 1561, the official concerned, the licenciado Hurtado, also informed King Philip II that the Moriscos had uncomplainingly suffered more than twenty years of “crimes, misdeeds, malpractice and countless thefts” at the hands of those who were now accusing them of sedition. See Braudel, Mediterranean, p. 787.

  11 AGS, Estado K, legajo (file) 1512, letter from don Francés de Álava to Gabriel de Cayas, October 29, 1569.

  Chapter 11. The Granada Pragmatic

  1 Such legislation was not a historical novelty in Europe, even if its severity and range was unprecedented in Spain itself. In 1367, the English Crown decreed what became known as the Kilkenny statutes, which banned the use of Gaelic, Celtic hairstyles, clothing, and various other indigenous customs from the colony. Similar legislation was enacted by Henry VIII when he declared himself king of Ireland in 1540. See Barbara Fuchs, “Spanish Lessons: Spenser and the Irish Moriscos,” Studies in English Literature, 1500–1800 42, no. 1 (Winter 2002), pp. 43–62.

  2 There are various versions of this crucial document. All quotations I have used here are from Muley, Memorandum for the President.

  3 Ibid., pp. 72–73.

  4 Mármol y Carvajal lists some of these jofores in his indispensable Historia de la rebelión, book 3, chap. 3, pp. 75–80. The Granadan historian is contemptuous of the Morisco “ignorant rustics” who placed their faith in such “fictions,” apparently forgetting that the Christian population was equally prone to such prophecies in the course of the sixteenth century.

  5 “Moorish Ballad of 1568,” in Lea, Moriscos of Spain, p. 435.

  6 Hurtado de Mendoza, War in Granada, p. 47. Mendoza could not have known the exact words of El Zaguer’s speech, but like the writings of the classical historians he admired, it was a fictionalized speech that was true to the spirit if not the letter of the drama that he described.

  Chapter 12. “A Dirty Little War”

  1 King Philip II to Juan Vázquez, April 22, 1579, cited in Kamen, Philip of Spain, p. 131.

  2 Hurtado de Mendoza, War in Granada, p. 69.

  3 “Auto de Fe Celebrated in Granada, March 18, 1571,” in Homza, Spanish Inquisition , p. 245.

  4 Mármol y Carvajal, Historia de la rebelión, book 4, chap. 8, p. 95.

  5 See Braudel, Mediterranean, p. 1063

  6 Pérez de Hita, La Guerra, p. 79–80.

  7 For a detailed analysis of the participation of women in the Morisco revolt, see Perry, Handless Maiden, pp. 88–109.

  8 Pérez de Hita, La Guerra, p. 187.

  Chapter 13. Defeat and Punishment

  1 Cabrera de Córdoba, Historia de Felipe II, vol. 1, pp. 401–2.

  2 Some of the more lurid and exotic accounts of Aben Humeya’s death claim that he was found in bed with two women and that his killers were high on hashish and strangled him with a silk cord. Others claim that he died proclaiming his wish to be a Christian. Such claims cannot be proven or disproven, but should certainly be regarded with skepticism.

  3 Cited in Tazón Salces, Life and Times of Thomas Stukeley, p. 96.

  4 Ibid., p. 123.

  5 AGS, Estado K, legajo 1512, Francés de Álava to King Philip II, September 18, 1569.

  6 William of Orange to Count John, February 20, 1570, cited in Parker, Philip II, p. 106.

  7 Cited in Braudel, Mediterranean, p. 1070.

  8 Don John of Austria to King Philip II, August 14, 1570, in Barrios Aguilera, Granada Morisca, p. 361.

  9 Don John of Austria to Ruy Gómez, November 5, 1570, cited in Braudel, Mediterranean , p. 1072.

  10 Pérez de Hita, La Guerra, pp. 352–53.

  11 AGS, Cámara de Castilla, legajo 2157, report of the alcalde of Molina de Mosquera in Albacete, December 8, 1570, cited in Perry, Handless Maiden, p. 114.

  12 AGS, Cámara de Castilla, legajo 2157, report to King Philip II, December 15, 1570.

  13 AGS, Cámara de Castilla, legajo 2157, report of the governor of Mérida, January 4, 1571, in Perry, Handless Maiden, p. 113.

  14 Cited in Ballester, Medicina, p. 45.

  15 See Fernández Martín, Comediants, p. 164.

  Chapter 14. The Great Fear

  1 This ill-fated expedition was largely carried out at Sebastian’s instigation and was supported by King Philip II with some reluctance. Sebastian’s body was never found, and his disappearance generated the strange and enduring cult of Sebastianismo in Portugal, whose adherents believed that he would one day return.

  2 Report of Inquisition of Aragon, in Cardaillac, Moriscos y cristianos, pp. 454–59.

  3 These commitments did not mean that the Ottomans ignored Spain altogether. There is some documentary evidence to suggest that the Ottoman sultan at least considered the possibility of responding to Morisco requests for assistance in the late sixteenth century, even if these deliberations do not seem to have produced any practical results. See Hess, “Ottoman Fifth Column,” pp. 1–25.<
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  4 Anonymous and undated document in Regla, Estudios sobre los moriscos, pp. 207–8.

  5 Cited in Benítez Sánchez-Blanco, Heroicas decisiones, p. 297.

  6 Ibid., p. 305.

  7 “Los granadinos en Castilla” in García Arenal, Los moriscos, pp. 69–70.

  8 Statistics from Jaime Contreras and Gustav Henningsen, “Forty-Four Thousand Cases of the Spanish Inquisition (1540–1700): Analysis of a Historical Data Bank,” in Henningsen and Tedeschi, Inquisition in Early Modern Europe, pp. 100–129.

  9 For a fuller account of the persecution of the Compañero family, see Monter, Frontiers of Heresy, pp. 218–22.

  10 My account of this tragic episode is drawn largely from Cordente, La morisca Beatriz de Padilla. The first part of the book consists of a powerful fictionalized reconstruction of what took place, but the second part contains actual documents from the Inquisitorial records of the case.

  11 Cited in Epalza, “Caracterización del exilio musulman,” p. 221.

  Chapter 15. “The Vilest of People”

  1 Enrique Cock, “Anales del Año Ochenta y Cinco en el cual el Rey Católico de España Don Felipe, con el Principe Don Felipe, Su hijo, fue a Monzon a tener las Cortes del Reino del Aragon,” in García Mercadal, Viajes de extranjeros, p. 1308.

  2 Cited in Woolard, “Bernardo de Aldrete and the Morisco Problem,” pp. 446–78.

  3 Camilo Borghese, “Diario de la Relación de Viaje 1584,” in García Mercadal, Viajes de extranjeros, p. 1472.

  4 For an excellent study of “Turkenschriften” and the evolution of Austrian Hapsburg attitudes toward the Ottoman enemy, see Sutter Fichtner, Terror and Toleration.

  5 See Tomaz Mastnak, “Europe and the Muslims: The Permanent Crusade?” in Qureshi and Sells, New Crusades, pp. 217–18.