Blood and Faith: The Purging of Muslim Spain (56 page)

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Authors: Matthew Carr

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BOOK: Blood and Faith: The Purging of Muslim Spain
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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.

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