Table Of ContentRELIGIOUS REFUGEES IN THE
EARLY MODERN WORLD
Thereligiousrefugeefirstemergedasamassphenomenoninthelatefifteenth
century.Overthefollowingtwoandahalfcenturies,millionsofJews,Muslims,
andChristianswereforcedfromtheirhomesandintotemporaryorpermanent
exile. Their migrations across Europe and around the globe shaped the early
modern world and profoundly affected literature, art, and culture. Economic
and political factors drove many expulsions, but religion was the factor most
commonly used to justify them. This was also the period of religious revival
known as the Reformation. This book explores how reformers’ ambitions to
purify individuals and society fuelled movements to purge ideas, objects, and
people considered religiously alien or spiritually contagious. As an alternative
historyoftheReformation,it:
* Aims to explain religious ideas and movements of the Reformation in
non-technicalandcomparativelanguage.
* Moves Jews and Muslims from the margins of the traditional Reformation
narrativeandconsidershowtheexileexperienceshapedearlymodernculture,
art,politics,andcities.
* Traces the historical patterns that still account for the growing numbers of
modernreligiousrefugees.
NicholasTerpstraisProfessorandChairofHistoryattheUniversityofToronto.
HehasbeenavisitingprofessoratSydney,TelAviv,andWarwickUniversities
andattheHarvardCenterforItalianRenaissanceStudies.Hisbookshaveshown
how Renaissance cities handled orphans, abandoned children, criminals, and
thepoorinthefifteenthandsixteenthcenturies.Hismostrecentbook,Cultures
ofCharity:Women,Politics,andtheReformofPoorReliefinRenaissanceItaly(2014),
wonprizesfromtheRenaissanceSocietyofAmericaandtheAmericanHistorical
Association.
Published online by Cambridge University Press
Published online by Cambridge University Press
RELIGIOUS REFUGEES
IN THE EARLY MODERN
WORLD
An Alternative History of the Reformation
M
NICHOLAS TERPSTRA
UniversityofToronto
Published online by Cambridge University Press
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©NicholasTerpstra2015
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Firstpublished2015
PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica
AcatalogrecordforthispublicationisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary.
LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData
Terpstra,Nicholas.
Religiousrefugeesintheearlymodernworld:analternativehistory
oftheReformation/NicholasTerpstra,UniversityofToronto.
pages cm
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
isbn978-1-107-02456-4(alk.paper)
1. Reformation. 2. Religiousrefugees–History. 3. Europe–History–1492–1648.
I. Title.
br305.3.t472016
270.6086′91–dc23 2015005133
isbn978-1-107-02456-4Hardback
isbn978-1-107-65241-5Paperback
CambridgeUniversityPresshasnoresponsibilityforthepersistenceoraccuracyof
urlsforexternalorthird-partyInternetWebsitesreferredtointhispublication
anddoesnotguaranteethatanycontentonsuchWebsitesis,orwillremain,
accurateorappropriate.
Published online by Cambridge University Press
Tothememory ofAnne&Klaas andJean& John,whoseown
migrations,shapeddeeply byreligion,closedsomehorizons
butopened manyothers
Published online by Cambridge University Press
Published online by Cambridge University Press
CONTENTS
Introduction page1
OntheMove 1
ReformationHistories 7
PersecutionParadigms 11
TolerationandCo-Existence 15
BodyPolitics 17
1 TheBodyofChrist:DefinedandThreatened 21
PurityandCommunityintheBody 22
ThreatstotheCorpusChristianum 38
2 PurifyingtheBody 74
Separation 77
Containment 84
Prosecution 94
Purgation 105
3 DividingtheBody:PeopleandPlaces 133
People 134
Places 157
4 MindandBody 184
WaysofThinking:PurityofThought 186
WaysofLiving:PurityofAction 218
5 Re-FormingtheBody:TheWorldtheRefugeesMade 241
Tools 242
Personnel 257
Spaces 269
Imagination 289
ConfessionandCulture 305
6 Re-ImaginingtheBody 309
SelectBibliography 331
Index 337
vii
Published online by Cambridge University Press
Published online by Cambridge University Press
INTRODUCTION
One of the harshest realities of the modern world is
the plight of refugees. War, brutal dictators, and inter-communal
tensions regularly send tens of thousands fleeing for their lives over the
nearest border. Race, ethnicity, and religious identity often provide the
overtreasonsforexileandexpulsion.Somerefugeessettleincamps,hoping
toreturn,whileotherskeepmovingfromcountrytocountryinsearchofa
newlife.Familiesaretornapart,andthosewhochoosenottofleeriskbeing
killedbyarmies,guerillas,orneighbours.Thetwentiethcenturysawmillions
killed, millions flee as refugees, and millions more forced to migrate when
war destroyed their homelands. In 2014 the United Nations High
CommissiononRefugeesestimatedthatthecurrentglobaltotalofdisplaced
peopleshadrisenbeyond50million.Hasitalwaysbeenthisway?Whendid
refugeesfirstbecomeacommonphenomenon,andwhy?
OntheMove
Europeanstatesbeganusingexileandexpulsionasdeliberatetoolsofpolicy
aboutsixhundredyearsago,intheperiodknownasthelateMiddleAgesor
Renaissance. This was when the religious refugee in particular became a
mass phenomenon. Medieval traditions regarding purity, contagion, and
purgation took a sharper definition in the fifteenth century. Political and
economic realities deeply shaped the many cultural forces and historical
eventsthatthenspurredinstitutionalreligiousreformationinthesixteenth
and seventeenth centuries. Towns, cities, and states had long been con-
cerned with asserting their religious character and spiritual purity. As
powerbeganflowingtowardsmonarchsandcentralgovernments,French
kingHenryIV’sgoalof“onefaith,onelaw,oneKing”tookholdacrossthe
continent. Those who fell outside this unity were not just alien, but also
1
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139170055.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press
2 Introduction
impureandpossiblycontagious.Anysocietythattookitsresponsibilitiesto
God seriously might have to purge itself in order to purify its population
andsomaintainitsownhealth.
The sharp language ofpurification and purgation came outof medicine,
but was adopted by religious reform movements. The drive to purge and
purifyreshapedEuropeandtheglobethroughouttheearlymodernperiod.
Thisbookwillarguethatbecausepurgationwassocentralapartofreligious
reform, we should include the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 as
one of the critical events marking the start of ‘the Reformation’ – no less
significantthanMartinLuther’spostingoftheNinety-FiveThesesin1517or
EnglishkingHenryVIII’sdivorcecontroversyofthe1520sand’30s.Iberian
JewsweregiventhechoicetobebaptisedasChristiansortoleavetheland
that theyhad lived infor overa thousandyears. IberianMuslims,who had
lived in Spain for seven hundred years, were given the same ultimatum in
1502.Thesewerenotthefirstorlastthreats–Jewshadfacedsimilardemands
in1391,andMuslimswouldfacethemagainin1609–14.Yetthe1492decree
ofKingFerdinandandQueenIsabellawasthemostambitiousinitsnational
scope, numerical scale, and religious focus. To its proponents, it was an
exerciseincommunitybuildingandapiousact.Itwasalsothewaveofthe
future.Itsetmembershipinthenationalcommunityonthefoundationsof
religioustruthandindividualwill,ratherthanonaccidentsofbirth.Within
decades, Dutch Anabaptists, Italian Calvinists, English Catholics, and
BohemianHussiteswouldallbeofferedthesamechoice:joinorleave.
Mass expulsions did not come overnight. Throughout the course of the
fifteenth century, an accelerating wave of expulsions across Europe forced
hundredsofthousandsofpeopleoutoftheirhomes forreasons ofreligion:
20,000JewswereexpelledfromtownsacrossGermanyandFrancethrough-
out the century, before Spain’s unlucky 80,000 were given three weeks to
leavein1492.Adecadelater,the200,000whoremainedofGranada’shalf-
million Muslim population were given the choice of baptism or exile.
Anabaptists began fleeing from west and central to Eastern Europe in the
1520sand1530s;spiritualifledItalyfromthe1540s;ProtestantMarianexiles
abandonedEnglandinthe1550sandCatholicsleftunderElizabethI.Larger
andlargergroupswereonthemove:10,000CatholicsfledtheNetherlands
whenCalvinistsseizedpowerinthe1570sandearly1580s,andthen150,000
ProtestantsfledfromFlanderswhenSpanishtroopsretooktheregionlaterin
that decade. In the 1570s and 1580s, 80,000 moriscos were moved from
GranadaandValenciaintoCastile.
Thescaleofexpulsionsonlyincreasedthroughtheseventeenthcenturyas
nationsgainedafirmershapeandidentity,andasgovernmentsgainedgreater
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139170055.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press
