Table Of ContentHeretics or Daughters of Israel?
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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
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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,
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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
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Heretics or Daughters of Israel?
