Converso

A converso (feminine form conversa), "convert", was a Jew who converted to Catholicism in Spain or Portugal, particularly during the 14th and 15th centuries, or one of their descendants.

To safeguard the Old Christian population and make sure that the converso "New Christians" were true to their new faith, the Holy Office of the Inquisition was established in Spain in 1478. The Catholic Monarchs of Spain Ferdinand and Isabella expelled the remaining openly practising Jews by the Alhambra Decree of 1492, following the Christian Reconquista (reconquest) of Spain. However, a significant proportion of these remaining practising Jews chose to join the already large converso community rather than face exile.

Conversos who did not fully or genuinely embrace Catholicism, but continued to practise Judaism in secrecy, were referred to as judaizantes "Judaizers" and pejoratively as marranos "swine".

New Christian converts of Muslim origin were known as moriscos. Unlike Jewish conversos, moriscos were subject to an edict of expulsion even after their conversion to Catholicism, which was implemented severely in Valencia and in Aragón and less so in other parts of Spain.

Conversos played a vital role in the 1520–1521 Revolt of the Comuneros, a popular uprising in the Crown of Castile against the rule of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.

History
Ferrand Martínez, Archdeacon of Écija, directed a 13-year anti-Jewish campaign that began in 1378. Martínez used a series of provocative sermons, through which he openly condemned the Jews with little to no opposition. He rallied non-Jews against the Jews, creating a constant state of fear through riots. Martínez's efforts led to a series of outbreaks of violence on 4 June 1391, where several synagogues in Seville were burned to the ground and churches were erected in their place. Amidst this outbreak, many Jews fled the country, some converted to Christianity in fear, and some were sold to Muslims. Martínez set in motion the largest forced mass conversion of Jews in Spain.

Both the Church and the Crown had not anticipated such a large-scale conversion stemming from the unplanned anti-Semitic campaign led by Martínez. The new converts represented a new problem. Their conversion temporarily resolved the friction between the Christian and Jewish populations in Spain; however, it led to the creation of a new group that was neither completely Catholic nor Jewish and new tensions resulted.

Conversos, who were now fully privileged citizens, competed in all aspects of the economic sphere. This resulted in a new wave of racial anti-Semitism that targeted conversos. This anti-Semitism evolved into small and large riots in Toledo, 1449, that now oppressed not Jews by Christians, but New Christians (conversos) by the Old Christians. Thus, the Crown established an office of the Inquisition in 1478, monitored the religious loyalty a newly-baptized Christian (converso). Such religious surveillance continued to the descendants of converts. Often due to continued oppression, some Jews and conversos fled Spain, going to Portugal, then when the Portuguese crown instituted similar anti-Jewish policies as Spain's, they migrated particularly for the Netherlands. Others created crypto-Jewish communities to ensure the survival of Judaism in the Iberian Peninsula, although outwardly practicing Christianity.

Perpetuation of Jewish heritage
Conversas played a pivotal role in keeping Jewish traditions alive by observing many Jewish holidays such as Shabbat. They prepared traditional Jewish dishes in honor of the Sabbath (starting on Friday sundown), Yom Kippur, and other religious holidays. During festivals such as Sukkot and Passover, Conversas participated by giving clothing articles and ornaments to Jewish women, attending a seder, or obtaining a baking matzah. Conversas ensured that their household maintained similar dietary regulations as their Jewish counterparts, by eating only kosher birds and other animals. These women also financially contributed to the growth of the Jewish/Converso community and synagogue. The Jewish community and conversos exchanged books and knowledge, Jews taught conversos how to read to ensure constant growth of their Jewish heritage. To take a stance against the church and its principles, some conversos performed professional work even on Sundays.

The traditional Jewish Purim was kept by conversos still adhering to Jewish observances in the disguise of a Christian holiday, they named it "Festival of Santa Esterica".

Description
Conversos were subject to suspicion and harassment from both what was left of the community they were leaving and that which they were joining. Both Christians and Jews called them tornadizo (renegade). James I, Alfonso X and John I passed laws forbidding the use of this epithet. This was part of a larger pattern of royal oversight, as laws were promulgated to protect their property, forbid attempts to convert them back to Judaism or the Muslim faith, and regulate their behaviour, preventing their cohabitation or even dining with Jews, lest they convert back.

Conversos did not enjoy legal equality. Alfonso VII prohibited the "recently converted" from holding office in Toledo. They had supporters and bitter opponents in the Christian secular of general acceptance, yet they became targets of occasional pogroms during times of social tension (as during an epidemic and after an earthquake). They were subject to the Spanish and Portuguese inquisitions.

While "pure blood" (so-called limpieza de sangre), free of the "taint" of non-Christian lineage, would come to be placed at a premium, particularly among the nobility, in a 15th-century defence of conversos, Bishop Lope de Barrientos would list what Roth calls "a veritable 'Who's Who' of Spanish nobility" as having converso members or being of converso descent. He pointed out that given the near-universal conversion of Iberian Jews during Visigothic times, (quoting Roth) "[W]ho among the Christians of Spain could be certain that he is not a descendant of those conversos?"

With advances in science able to trace individuals' ancestry via their DNA, according to a widely publicised study (December 2008) in the American Journal of Human Genetics, modern Spaniards (and Portuguese) have an average admixture of 19.8 percent from ancestors originating in the Near East during historic times (i.e. Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Jews and Levantine Arabs) – compared to 10.6 percent of North African – Berber admixture. This proportion could be as high as 23% in the case of Latin Americans, however, according to a study published in Nature Communications. The possibly higher proportion of significant Jewish ancestry in the Latin American population could stem from increased emigration of Conversos to the New World to avoid persecution by the Spanish Inquisition.

In Spain
The Chuetas are a current social group on the Spanish island of Majorca, in the Mediterranean Sea, who are descendants of Majorcan Jews that either were conversos (forcible converts to Christianity) or were Crypto-Jews, forced to keep their religion hidden. They practiced strict endogamy by marrying only within their own group.

The Chuetas has been stigmatized up until today in Balearic Islands. In the latter part of the 20th century, the spread of freedom of religion and laïcité reduced both the social pressure and community ties. An estimated 18,000 people in the island carry Chueta surnames in the 21st century. Traditionally, The church of Saint Eulalia and the church of Montesión (Mount Zion) in Palma de Mallorca have been used by the families of Jewish converts (Xuetas).

All this, however, does not imply the complete elimination of rejection behaviors, as indicated by a survey carried out among Majorcans by the University of the Balearic Islands in 2001, in which 30% stated that they would never marry a Chueta and 5% declared that they do not even want to have Chueta friends.

In Italy
Specific groups of conversos left Spain and Portugal after the Spanish Inquisition in 1492, in search for a better life. They left for other parts of Europe, especially Italy, where they were inevitably looked at with suspicion and harassment, both in their old and new communities. Subsequently, many conversos who arrived in Italian cities did not openly embrace their Judaism, since they were tempted by the advantages they could seek in the Christian world.

The first three cities to accept the conversos who openly converted back to Judaism, were Florence, Ferrara, and Ancona. Most of these conversos appeared after 1536 from Portugal, and most lived in Florence. In 1549, Duke Cosimo de' Medici allowed the Portuguese conversos to trade and reside within Florence. Most of the re-converted Jews lived in the ghetto of Florence, and by 1705 there were 453 Jews in the city.

Conversos arrived to Ferrara in 1535, and were able to assimilate with their neighbours, perform circumcisions, and return openly to Judaism, due to the Lettres Patentes issued by Duke Ercole II. After the plague in 1505 and the eventual fall of Ferrara in 1551, many of these Jews relocated North towards the economically stable ports in Venice. Venice slowly became a center for conversos who either stopped temporarily on their way to Turkey or stayed permanently as residents in the ghetto Jewish community port. Venetian leaders were convinced to openly accept conversos to practice Judaism because they recognised that if conversos were not welcome in Venice, they would take their successful trades to the country's economic rival of Turkey. A Portuguese converso in Venice, named Abraham de Almeda, connected strongly with Christianity, however, turned to the Jewish members of his family when in need of financing for moral support. As a result, many of the conversos during this period struggled with their Christian and Jewish identities.

Conversos in the city of Ancona faced difficult lives living under the pope and eventually fled to Ferrara in 1555. Portuguese conversos in Ancona were falsely misled that they were welcome to Ancona and that they could openly convert back to Judaism. Their fate was overturned by the succeeding pope, Pope Paul IV. The conversos in Ancona faced traumatic emotional damage after the pope imprisoned 102 conversos who refused to reside in the ghetto and wear badges to distinguish themselves. In 1588, when the duke granted a charter of residence in return for the conversos building up the city's economy, they refused, due to accumulated scepticism.