Alisa Meyuhas Ginio - Jews, Christians, and Muslims in the Mediterranean World After 1492

Edited by
Alisa Meyuhas Ginio

First published 1992 by
FRANK CASS PUBLISHERS
Published 2013 by Routledge
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711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA

Copyright 1992, 2002 Frank Cass & Co. Ltd.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of Frank Cass and Company Limited.

This group of studies first appeared in a Special Issue on Jews, Christians and Muslims in the Mediterranean World After 1492, Mediterranean History Review, Vol. 6, No. 2.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Jews, Christians and Muslims in the
Mediterranean World After 1492.
(Mediterranean Historical Review Series,
ISSN 0951-8967)
I. Ginio, Alisa Meyuhas II. Series
909.08
ISBN 978-0-714-68050-7 (pbk)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Jews, Christians, and Muslims in the Mediterranean world after 1492 /
edited by Alisa Meyuhas Ginio.
p. cm.

1. SephardimHistory. 2. JewsSpainCastileHistory.
3. SephardimItalyHistory. 4. JewsItalyHistory 5. Muslims
SpainHistory. 6. Castile KingdomEthnic relations. 7. Italy
Ethnic relations. 8. SpainEthnic relations. I. Meyuhas, Ginio,
Alisa, 1937
DS134.J48 1992

The Mediterranean has played a central role in the history of mankind's major civilizations, especially up to the early modern period; it is still the focus of universally significant events. The continuity of the Mediterranean heritage clearly emanates from the works of Fernand Braudel and Shlomo Dov Goitein. The Braudelian Mediterranean history aims at wide perspectives, claiming, in terms of longue dure, that notwithstanding basic differences in language, religion, and culture, certain unifying elements have been apparent throughout the history of the Mediterranean basin.1 Despite the many frontiers and the frequent wars to quote Goitein's words people and goods, books and ideas travelled freely from one end of the Mediterranean to the other.2 This was true for the middle of the Middle Ages. However, during the long centuries of a multifaceted Mediterranean history, such passage was not always of a voluntary nature. The conquest of Granada, last Muslim stronghold in the Iberian Peninsula, and the expulsion of the Jews (and later of the Muslims) from the newly unified Spanish kingdom and from other territories at the end of the fifteenth century, initiated a new era in the life of the Mediterranean world. Old communities were disrupted and new ones came into being. The impact of this change was felt throughout the Mediterranean basin, while the Age of Discovery opened up new horizons for the peoples of Europe. The following articles discuss the aftermath of the crucial historical events that took place in the Mediterranean world during the year 1492, focusing on the social, economic, and cultural consequences of those occurences, with reference to ethnic groups and religious denominations, thus integrating Jewish and world history in a wide geographical and historical context.

Maurice Kriegel wrote that l'expulsion des juifs tait, certainement le dernier des moyens que les souverains voulaient utiliser pour briser la progression de l'hrsie judaisante dans la socit chrtienne: c'tait le plus coteux.3 Haim Beinart states that, from the moment of their accession to the throne, the Catholic Monarchs had been considering the expulsion of the Jews from their newly united realms.4 At all events, during the first two decades of their reign, prior to the promulgation of the edict ordaining the general expulsion, and despite several sometimes harsh anti-Jewish decrees, the policy of the Catholic Monarchs towards the Jews allowed the latter economic enterprise and community self-government. Tax assessments bear witness to the existence of a Jewish community of some size and economic standing in Medina del Campo. This Castilian town whose economic activities were centred round its annual fairs was, in many respects, the financial capital of the Iberian Peninsula. In her article, Maria Fuencisla Garcia Casar discusses the bustling economic activities of the thriving Jewish community which lived in Medina del Campo until the time of the Expulsion.

The expulsion of the Jews has long been considered by many historians as a decisive cause for the decline (decadencia) of Spain. True enough, that concept of decline has never been free from some political prejudice: in effect, all the shortcomings of Spanish history have been traced to the expulsion of the Jews and Muslims, and the consequent inability of Spain to make profitable use of the influx of precious metals produced in the newly discovered Americas and shipped to the Castilian port of Seville. In view of the important role played by Jews and judeoconversos5 in the economic activities of the Iberian Peninsula, it is clear that by expelling the Jews and the Muslims, and by instituting the. New Spanish Inquisition against the conversos, Spain turned its back on long-range economic considerations, giving priority to ideological issues. Yet, paradoxically enough, as Albert Sicroff has pointed out, even during the whole century preceding the 1492 Expulsion, the circumstances perpetuating the presence of Judaism in the Iberian Peninsula were being formed and implemented due to the very existence of the judeoconversos.6 The Jews, and later the moriscos even 100 years after their forced conversion to Christianity were expelled from the Iberian Peninsula.7 The conversos lingered on, and were joined by Jews who, under the obligation of converting to Christianity, returned to Spain after 1492 in order to resettle there. The life of the conversos was marked by a tragic duality; for they found it very hard to be fully integrated into Catholic society, yet they had already crossed the lines and abandoned their former creed. Carlos Carrete Parrondo expounds historical documentation and literary sources reflecting the nostalgia of Castilian judeoconversos living far from the cultural centres, and in direct contact with a closed, rarefied, rural society for their former faith; their inability to part with a thousand-year-old tradition; their Messianic fervour; and their criticism, and sometimes ridicule of the Christian faith. Parenthetically, it is both noteworthy and touching to weigh the nostalgia expressed by those Castilian