Converso Non-Conformism in Early Modern Spain: Bad Blood and Faith from Alonso de Cartagena to Diego Velázquez

Description

This book examines the effects of Jewish conversions to Christianity in late medieval Spanish society. Ingram focuses on these converts and their descendants (known as conversos) not as Judaizers, but as Christian humanists, mystics and evangelists, who attempt to create a new society based on quietist religious practice, merit, and toleration. His narrative takes the reader on a journey from the late fourteenth-century conversions and the first blood purity laws (designed to marginalize conversos), through the early sixteenth-century Erasmian and radical mystical movements, to a Counter-Reformation environment in which conversos become the advocates for pacifism and concordance. His account ends at the court of Philip IV, where growing intolerance towards Madrid’s converso courtiers is subtly attacked by Spain’s greatest painter, Diego Velázquez, in his work, Los Borrachos. Finally, Ingram examines the historiography of early modern Spain, in which he argues the converso reform phenomenon continues to be underexplored. Front Matter ....Pages i-xx Introduction (Kevin Ingram)....Pages 1-10 From Toledo to Alcala (Kevin Ingram)....Pages 11-49 From Alcala to Seville and Beyond (Kevin Ingram)....Pages 51-89 The Road Out of Trent (Kevin Ingram)....Pages 91-116 Four Humanists (Kevin Ingram)....Pages 117-177 Diego Velázquez and the Subtle Art of Protest (Kevin Ingram)....Pages 179-224 The Converso Returns (Kevin Ingram)....Pages 225-241 Back Matter ....Pages 243-370