Download PDF | Nadia Zeldes - The Former Jews of This Kingdom - Sicilian Converts after the Expulsion, 1492-1516-Brill (2003).
190 Pages
PREFACE
The history of the Jews in late medieval Sicily is probably better documented than that of most Italian Jewries and many other Jewish settlements of that period." The late Eliyahu Ashtor made this state- ment almost thirty years ago, at a time when there were relatively few studies concerning Sicilian Jewry. The last decade has witnessed a growing interest in the history of the Jews of Sicily, as new doc- umentary material has come to light: letters from the Cairo Geniza, unpublished notarial documents, royal decrees from Spanish archives, and finally, inquisitorial registers.
Still, there are many questions as yet unanswered, in particular that of the ultimate fate of the Sicilian Jewish community: how many converted to Christianity, how they fared after conversion, and whether any of their descendents have remained in Sicily up to the present time. In the present study, I hope to provide at least a partial answer to these questions. This book originates in my Pli.D. thesis, "The Converted Jews of Sicily Before and After the Expursion, 1460-1550," presented at Tel Aviv University in 1997. In the years that followed, I have discovered additional documentary material that, along with recent publications, has necessitated certain revisions of my original thesis.
Consequently, the present book attempts to provide a svider frame of reference that takes into account the political developments in Sicily and the Italian south in the last years of Ferdinand the Catholic's reign, while striv- ing at the same time to compare the history of the converted Sicilian Jews with that of their Iberian brethren. There is a large body of literature pertaining to the phenomenon of mass conversions on the Therian Peninsula in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. However, there is no agreed upon terminology for these converted Jews.
Most modern scholars refer to them as comeros, a Castilian term, although some still employ the deroga- tory expression marranos, while Jewish scholars tend to use the Hebrew word 'amusim' (forced converts). None of these terms is suit- able to apply to Sicilian converts. Neither Castilian nor Spanish terms were ever used in Sicily, and even the less problematic expression, 'New Christian (Cristianus novus), is relatively rare in Sicilian docu- mentation. "Anusim' or 'crypto-Jews' are by definition forced con- verts or Judaizers, and I preferred to examine this issue without prejudice as to how Jewish or how Christian these converts were. Most Sicilian sources refer to them as 'neofiti' or 'neophyti (from the Greek neophytos, newly planted), and this is the term used through- out the book.
The title, 'The Former Jews of this Kingdom, is derived from a phrase used in an official royal document, which seems best to capture the ambiguous status of the Sicilian converts. Not only were many of them referred to as 'baptized Jews, but their status in fact resem- bled that of the Jews prior to the Expulsion in almost every sense. Lastly, new studies indicate that what applied in Castile did not necessarily apply to Aragon. William Monter has already shown that the differences between Aragon and Castile remain fundamental for a proper understanding of the history of the Spanish Inquisition; one may add that the same is true for the history of the Expulsion and its aftermath. Sicily can serve as a case study for examining both the converso problem and the process of establishing the Spanish Inquisition in each of the territories ruled by the Catholic monarchs.
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