The Marrano Factory: The Portuguese Inquisition and Its New Christians, 1536–1765

461 Pages·2001·7.676 MB·English

by  António José Saraiva, H.P. Salomon, I.S.D. Sassoon

THE MARRANO
FACTORY:
The Portuguese
Inquisition and Its New
Christians 1536-1765
ANTÓNIO JOSÉ SARAIVA
BRILL
Salomon.vw.b 22-08-2001 11:03 Pagina 1
THE MARRANO FACTORY
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Salomon.vw.b 22-08-2001 11:03 Pagina 3
THE MARRANO FACTORY
The Portuguese Inquisition and Its New Christians
1536-1765
BY
ANTÓNIO JOSÉ SARAIVA
TRANSLATED, REVISED AND
AUGMENTED BY
H.P. SALOMON AND I.S.D. SASSOON
BRILL
LEIDEN •BOSTON •KÖLN
2001
Salomon.vw.b 22-08-2001 11:03 Pagina 4
Originally published in Portuguese as Inquisição e Cristãos-Novos.
1969 1st – 4th edition by Editorial Inova, Lisbon
1985 5thamplified edition by Editorial Estampa, Lisbon
© For the Portuguese edition: António, José and Pedro Saraiva.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is also available.
Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufnahme
The Marrano Factory. The Portuguese Inquisition and Its New
Christians 1536 – 1765 / by António, José Saraiva. Translated,
Revised and Augmented by H.P. Salomon and I.S.D. Sassoon.
– Leiden; Boston; Köln:Brill, 2001
ISBN90–04–12080–7
ISBN 90 04 12080 7
© For the English edition: Copyright 2001 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written
permission from the publisher.
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Fees are subject to change.
printed in the netherlands
INTRODUCTION
TO THE MEMORY OF MARCEL BATAILLON
(1895-1977)
[…] another strapping lad volunteered the information that he was
from Lagos in the Algarve and that he had always been a very good
Christian but, seeing his father arrested and then garroted and burnt
as a Judaizer, he straightaway adopted Judaism and fled to Turkey
in order to live freely in the Law of Moses.
Pantaleão de Aveiro, Franciscan Friar
Itinerário da Terra Sancta(1593)
The procedure of the Inquisition, instead of extirpating Judaism,
propagates it. Friar Domingos de Santo Tomás, a deputy of the Holy
Office, used to say that just as on Lisbon’s Calcetaria there is the
mint, where coins are stamped out of metal, on Lisbon’s Rossio there
is a building where Jews are stamped out of Christians.
Luís da Cunha (1662-1749), Portuguese nobleman
Instruções inéditas(1737)
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Typographica Academica Traiectina. Salomon. Proef 1, 16-8-2001:991, page -7.
CONTENTS
IntroductiontotheEnglishEdition ............................... IX
AWordtotheReader .............................................. XV
Prologue(FifthEdition,1985) .................................... XIX
Introduction ........................................................XXIII
Illustrations1-18
ChapterOne:TheBirthofthePortugueseNewChristians ...... 1
ChapterTwo:WhyandHowtheInquisitionwasIntroduced
intoPortugal ................................................... 19
ChapterThree:ThePortugueseInquisitorialTrial............... 43
ChapterFour:“InsideInformation”(NoticiasReconditas):An
AccountoftheCrueltiesExercisedbytheInquisitionin
Portugal ........................................................ 66
ChapterFive:ThreeSpecimenTrialRecords:
FranciscoGomesHenriques,ManuelFernandesVilareal,
AntónioJosédaSilva .......................................... 84
ChapterSix:WhatwasaPublicAuto-da-Fé? ....................... 100
ChapterSeven:CleannessofBlood ............................... 116
ChapterEight:The“MarranoFactory”Accordingtoan
18th-CenturyNewChristian.................................... 123
ChapterNine:“PeopleoftheNation”or“MenofCommerce” .. 130
ChapterTen:IsThereSuchaThingasa“NewChristian
Ideology?” ...................................................... 156
ChapterEleven:TheInquisitionasanInstitutionandasa
CenterofPower................................................ 173
ChapterTwelve:TheKing,theInquisitorsandtheMerchants .. 192
ChapterThirteen:HowandWhytheNewChristiansPetered
OutinPortugal ................................................ 218
Typographica Academica Traiectina. Salomon. Proef 1, 16-8-2001:991, page -8.
VIII contents
AppendixOne:Polemicaldebateon“Inquisition
andNewChristians”BetweenIsraelSalvatorRévah
andAntónioJoséSaraiva ...................................... 235
–FirstPartofInterviewWithProf.IsraelSalvatorRévah .... 235
–ALetterFromAntónioJoséSaraiva ........................ 248
–SecondPartofInterviewWithProf.IsraelSalvatorRévah 250
AppendixTwo:DialogueontheSilva-RévahInterview ........... 264
–LettertotheEditoroftheDiáriodeLisboa from
Prof.Révah ................................................... 290
–CommentbytheEditoroftheDiáriodeLisboa ............. 291
–LetterfromAntónioJoséSaraivatotheEditorofthe
DiáriodeLisboa ............................................... 292
–LettertotheEditoroftheDiáriodeLisboa from
Prof.Révah ................................................... 293
AppendixThree:ThePortugueseNewChristiansandthe
Inquisition,SurrebuttertoMr.AntónioJoséSaraivaby
IsraelSalvatorRévah........................................... 295
AppendixFour:ThePortugueseInquisitioninGoa(India),
1561-1812 ...................................................... 342
AppendixFive:ReportbyInquisitorGeneralFranciscode
CastroonaMemorialAddressedtoKingPhilipIIIof
Portugalbythe“PortugueseMenofCommerceResiding
inSpain”in1630............................................... 354
AppendixSix:APleatoKingJoãoIVfortheReinstatementof
InquisitorialConfiscation ..................................... 375
AppendixSeven:ChronologyofRulersofPortugal,1128-1910 377
AppendixEight:ChronologyofInquisitorsGeneral,1536-1821 379
Bibliography ........................................................ 381
ListofIllustrations ................................................. 395
Index ................................................................ 397
AboutAntónioJoséSaraiva ........................................ 403
INTRODUCTION TO THE ENGLISH EDITION
INTRODUCTION TO THE ENGLISH EDITION.1
The underlying theses of António José Saraiva’s Inquisição e Cristãos-
Novos (first edition, 1969; fifth and last edition revised by the author,
1985) are fairly straightforward: the Portuguese Inquisition’s avowed
aim to extirpate the Judaic heresy and thereby purify Portuguese
Catholicism was a rationalization of other, tacit, ends. The net effect of
the Inquisitorial policies was, in fact, the manufacture of Judaizers
rather than their attrition. The caste or “race” of the New Christians
was coextensive with the Portuguese mercantile middle class which the
feudal fabric of Portuguese society would not tolerate or co-opt. Nearly
all of the New Christian Inquisitorial victims (some 40,000 so labeled
between 1540 and 1765) were devout or run-of-the-mill Catholics
whose Jewish ancestry, often partial, if not fictional, was their sole
crime.2 The Portuguese Inquisitorial procedure was not designed to
——————
1We express our thanks for their sundry support to Maria Francisca de Oliveira Banha
de Andrade, Harm den Boer, Ana Cannas da Cunha, Maria do Carmo Jasmins Dias
Farinha, António M. Feijó, Andrew Gluck, Frits J. Hoogewoud, Bart Kerrebijn, John
Monfasani, Fernanda Olival, Judith K. Place, Job de Ruyter, Pedro P. Saraiva, José António
Silva, Miguel Tamen, José Alberto R. D. S. Tavim, Maria Teresa Temudo, Michael Terry,
and The Research Foundation of the State University of New York at Albany.
2“Their ‘crime’ was being New Christian.” See Joaquim Romero de Magalhães,
“E assim se abriu Judaismo no Algarve,” Revista da Universidade de Coimbra, 29, 1981,
1-79: 6. As of 1987 a total of c. 42,000 numbered processos, 1540-1820, including
c. 37,000 complete trial records and c. 5000 incomplete, fragmentary or embryonic
documents erroneously classified as such, were known to be preserved in Lisbon’s
National Archives of the Torre do Tombo (see Maria do Carmo Dias Farinha,
“Os Arquivos da Inquisição Existentes na Torre do Tombo [Conhecimento Actual],”
Inquisição, Lisbon, 1989, pp. 1527-1537). An additional indeterminate number are
believed lost or misplaced but every year a few more turn up. Full trial records uncon-
nected to Judaizing include: c. 450 for sodomy (30 executed: see Luiz Mott, “Justitia
et Misericordia, A Inquisição Portuguesa e a repressão ao nefando pecado de sodomia,”
in Inquisição: Ensaios sobre Mentalidade, Heresias e Arte[Anita Novinsky and Maria Luiza
Tucci Carneiro, eds.], Rio de Janeiro, 1992, 703-738); c. 350 of mouriscos (converted
slaves and emancipated slaves as well as recent immigrants from Spain) for Islamic
practices, attitudes or attempted flight to Islamic lands (totaling c. 250, 1540-1560;
49 at Évora, 1555-1608; none executed: see Isabel M. R. Mendes Drumond Braga,
“Os Mouriscos perante a Inquisição de Évora,” Eborensia, 7, 1994, 45-76; id., Mouriscos
eCristãos no Portugal Quinhentista, Lisbon, 1999); c. 200 for Lutheranism, Calvinism,
Erasmianism, Illuminism, Disbelief (among whom c. 80 Netherlanders: see id.,
“Os Estrangeiros e a Inquisição Portuguesa: Os Súbditos dos Países Baixos,” in Amor,
Sentir e Viver a História — Estudos de Homenagem a Joaquim Veríssimo Serrão, Lisbon, 1995,
455-487 [95, 1540-1570, among whom 22 Portuguese]); c. 250 for turning Muslim in
North Africa (among whom c. 100 Portuguese: see id., Entre a Cristandade e o Islão, Ceuta,
1998); 9 for illegally transporting New Christian emigrants (2 in 1541, 7 in 1550: see
id., “O embarque de Cristãos-Novos para o Estrangeiro,” Gil Vicente, 29, 1994, 26-32);