Heretics or daughters of Israel? : the crypto-Jewish women of Castile PDF
Preview Heretics or daughters of Israel? : the crypto-Jewish women of Castile
Heretics or Daughters of Israel? This page intentionally left blank Heretics or Daughters of Israel? The Crypto-Jewish Women of Castile Renee Levine Melammed New York Oxford Oxford University Press 1999 Oxford University Press Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogota Buenos Aires Calcutta Cape Town Chennai Dares Salaam Delhi Florence Kong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Paris Sao Paulo Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Copyright © 1999 by Renee Levine Melammed Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press 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 permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Melammed, Renee Levine. Heretics or daughters of Israel?: the crypto-Jewish women of Castile / Renee Levine Melammed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-19-509580-4 i. Jews—Spain—Castile—History. 2. Marranos—Spain—Castile—History. 3. Jewish Christians—Spain—Castile—History. 4. Inquisition—Spain—Castile—History. 5. Jewish women—Spain— Castile—Religious life. 6. Castile (Spain)—Ethnic relations. I. Title. DS135.S75.C336 1998 305.48'8924—dc21 97-50630 135798642 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Preface L HE WOMEN WHOSE lives are reconstructed in this book have been my constant companions for many years. Each Inquisition trial opens new worlds to the reader, for the lives of these conversas were multifaceted. One trial leads to en- tanglements with the Jewish community while a second reveals family tensions and complications. Others center on messianic hopes that were eventually dashed while yet another leads to an investigation into medieval Spanish midwifery. There is never a dull moment when these conversas are involved, but one always must start from the beginning, which involves the painstaking encounter with the Spanish paleography that was used in order to record the proceedings. This entails deciphering the numerous scribal manuscripts now immortalized by fifteenth- and sixteenth-century notaries (who, in this particular period, often created their own abbreviations for the sake of expediency). Each file contains the scripts of a number of notaries; the easily decipherable ones became my friends while the tougher de- manded more time, patience, and imagination on my part. Once the script is tran- scribed-into legible medieval Spanish, one attempts to understand precisely what transpired; if and when a file contains hundreds of pages, this is by no means an easy task. Occasionally, one file is intricately related to another, as with the three tri- als of the Lopez-Villarreal family or the two proceedings dealing with the Alcazar trials of the late sixteenth century. In these cases, one has to unravel relationships that are not always fully revealed at any given time. When one sets out to interpret and analyze these trials, the challenge is immense, and the possibilities are endless. Needless to say, I am grateful to the Archivo Historico Nacional in Madrid for enabling accessibility to these documents during my visits as well as from afar; its staff photocopied all the Inquisition documents that I needed, and efficiently mailed the dossiers to me at various locations. My colleagues Carlos Carrete Pa - rrondo and Moises Orfali graciously helped me gain access to this material. I also thank the staff of the Judaica Reading Room at the National Library in Jerusalem for its readiness to help in every way possible throughout the years. I could not have begun this project without having received a year's postdoctoral vi Preface grant from the Annenberg Research Institute (now Center for Judaic Studies) in Philadelphia during 1990-1991, and I thank the American Philosophical So- ciety for a timely grant for the summer of 1991 as well. My two years as scholar- in-residence at Franklin and Marshall College from 1991 to 1993 enabled me to continue my research as well as to participate in many superb conferences com- memorating the 500 years since the Expulsion; most of the papers from these meet- ings helped to shape this book, and I thank my colleagues Bernard Cooperman (University of Maryland), Jay Berkovitz (University of Massachusetts, Amherst), Ray Waddington (University of California, Davis), Esther Benbassa (CNRS, Paris), Aron Rodrigue (Stanford), and Mark Meyerson (University of Toronto, formerly of University of Notre Dame) for their gracious invitations. Portions of this book have appeared in print in various forms. An earlier version of chapter 2 appeared in Religion in the Age of Exploration, ed. Menaham Mor and Brian Le Beau, pp. 15-37 (Omaha: Creighton University Press, 1996). An abbrevi- ated version of chapter 4 can be found in Women at Work in Spain from the Middle Ages to Early Modern Times, ed. Marilyn Stone and Carmen Benito- Vessels, pp. 81-100 (New York: Peter Lang, 1998), and an extremely brief version will appear in Proceedings of the Twelfth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem. The story of Maria L6pez, which forms a part of chapter 5 and 6, can be found in Women in the Inquisition: Spain and the New World, ed. Mary Giles, pp. 53-72 (Bal- timore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999). An earlier version of chapter 7 was published in The Expulsion of the Jews: 1492 and After, ed. Raymond B. Waddington and Arthur H. Williamson, pp. 53-72 (New York: Garland, 1994). The Harvard Divinity School afforded me the opportunity to begin writing, and I thank Dean Constance Buchanan for inviting me to the Women's Studies in Religion Program (1993-1994) and for her enthusiastic support. My special thanks to two for- mer teachers and dear friends who pushed me onward, Denah Lida (Brandeis Uni- versity, Emeritus) and Irene Eber (Hebrew University, Emeritus), and to my counter- part in research of Muslim conversas, Mary Elizabeth Perry; their faith in me has been inspirational. The list of dear friends who lent me moral support over the years both in person and by electronic mail is overwhelming; my gratitude extends from Jerusalem to Saragossa, Salamanca, Paris, Hamilton, Boston, Amherst, Philadelphia, Albany, Morristown, Washington, D.C., Tennessee, and Palo Alto. I am grateful to Cynthia Read of Oxford University Press and her terrific staff of editors headed by Robert Milks, who paid such fine attention to every detail of the book. Lastly, I thank my family, my mother, my husband, and my two beautiful children, for sharing their love with me over the years and for having faith in me as I ploughed through numer- ous trials of the Spanish Inquisition. I pray the memories of these women and the tenacity they displayed will give us all strength and hope. Jerusalem July 1998 R.L.M. Contents Introduction The Judaizing Heresy, the Inquisition, and the Conversas 3 1 Jews and Conversas: The First Century of Crypto-Judaism 16 2 The Lives of Judaizing Women after 1492 31 3 Messianic Turmoil circa 1500 45 4 Castilian Conversas at Work 73 5 The Lopez-Villarreal Family: Three Convicted Judaizers (1516-1521) 94 6 The Lopez Women's Tachas 113 7 The Inquisition and the Midwife 140 8 The Judaizers of Alcazar at the End of the Sixteenth Century: "Corks Floating on Water" 150 Conclusion Heretics or Daughters of Israel? 166 Appendix 1 175 Appendix 2 189 Appendix 3 191 Notes 205 Bibliography 243 Index 249 This page intentionally left blank Heretics or Daughters of Israel?
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