Silencing the Voices: Finding Conversas in the Inquisitorial Records
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21301/eap.v18i2.10Keywords:
Judeo-Conversas, Early Modern Period, Iberian Peninsula, women’s history, social memoryAbstract
The past decades have generated much discussion by archivists and historians surrounding the claim that archives and written documents on women’s lives cannot be examined separately since archives play crucial roles within the conceptual framework of women’s history. By researching women’s experiences preserved in archives, it has been demonstrated that their voices were frequently obscured within archival data. In order to reconstruct the lives of women in history, this paper will attempt to address quantitative, qualitative and methodological challenges that arise when power silences the voices of Judeo-Conversas (Christian women of Jewish origin) from the early modern crowns of Castile and Aragon. By unearthing Conversas’ religious experiences from written sources, mainly inquisitorial dossiers, and by applying theoretical framework defined by Michel-Rolph Trouillot, the author suggests that Conversas’ voices were silenced at four stages: first, when the sources were written; second, when these documents were assembled; third, when narratives were created; and finally, when history was written by historians.
Downloads
References
Alcalá, Angel (ed). 1987. The Spanish Inquisition and The Inquisitorial Mind. New York: Columbia University Press.
Arnold, John H. 2001. Inquisition and Power. Catharism and the Confessing Subject in Medieval Languedoc. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Arnold, John H. 1998. ,,The Historian as Inquisitor: The ethics of interrogating subaltern voices”. Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice 2 (3): 379-386. https://doi.org/10.1080/13642529809408974
Avilés, Miguel, José Martínez Millán, and Virgilio Pinto Crespo. 1978. ,,El Archivo del Consejo de Inquisición. Aportaciones para una historia de los archivos inquisitoriales”. Revista de Archivos, Bibliotecas y Museos 83: 459-518.
Baer, Yitzhak. 1966. A History of the Jews in Christian Spain Vol. 2. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America.
Beinart, Haim. 1981. Conversos on Trial: The Inquisition in Ciudad Real. Jerusalem: Hebrew University Magnes Press.
Beinart, Haim. 1977. Records of the trials of the Spanish Inquisition in Ciudad Real, vol 2: The Trials of 1494-1512 in Toledo. Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.
Bennett, Judith and Ruth Karras, eds. 2013. ,,Women, Gender, and Medieval Historians”. In The Oxford Handbook of Women and Gender in Medieval Europe, edited by Judith Bennett and Ruth Karras, 1-17. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199582174.013.037
Blasco Martínez, Asunción. 1997. ,,Las mujeres judias aragonesas y la escritura (siglos XIV y XV)”. In La conjura del olvido: escritura y feminismo, edited by Nieves Ibeas and María Ángeles Millán, 349–368. Barcelona: Icaria.
Bofarull y de Sartorio, Manuel de. 1865. Colección de documentos inéditos del Archivo General de la Corona de Aragón, tomo XXVIII, Opúsculos inéditos del cronista catalán Pedro Miguel Carbonell, vol. II. Barcelona: Publicada de real orden por su archivero, D. Manuel de Bofarull y de Sartorio.
Chaudhuri, Nupur, Sherry J. Katz, and Mary Elizabeth Perry. 2010. Introduction to Contesting Archives: Finding Women in the Sources, edited by Nupur Chaudhuri, Sherry J. Katz, and Mary Elizabeth Perry, xiii-xxiv. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.
Contreras, Jaime. 1982. El Santo Oficio de la Inquisición de Galicia, 1560–1700: poder, sociedad y cultura. Madrid: Akal edic.
Contreras Contreras, Jaime. 1992. Sotos contra Riquelmes. Regidores, inquisidores y criptojudíos. Madrid: Muchnik.
Cruselles Gómez, José María. 2013. ,,La primera contabilidad inquisitorial. El fondo del Archivo del Reino de Valencia (1482-1527)”. In En el primer siglo de la Inquisición Española: fuentes documentales, procedimientos de análisis, experiencias de investigación, edited by José María Cruselles Gómez, 221-250. València: Universitat de València.
Dedieu, Jean-Pierre. 1989. L’Administration de la foi: l’Inquisition de Tolède, XVI–XVII siècle. Madrid: Casa de Velázquez.
Dedieu, Jean-Pierre. 1986. ,,The Archives of the Holy Office of Toledo as a Source for Historical Anthropology”. In The Inquisition in Early Modern Europe. Studies on Sources and Methods, edited by Henningsen et al., 158-189. Illinois: Northern Illinois University Press.
Dedieu, Jean-Pierre. 2011. ,,The Spanish Inquisition. Current Research in Perspective”. A dieci anni dall'apertura dell' achivio della Congregazione per la Dottrina della Fede: storia e archivi dell'Inquisizione, Atti dei Convegni Lincei, 260: 51-69.
Du Cange, Charles Du Fresne. 1678. Glossarium mediae et infimae Latinitatis 2., Niort: L. Favre.
Eymerich, Nicolas. 1821. Manual de inquisidores. Mompeller: Imprenta de Feliz Aviñon.
Fernández-Mota de Cifuentes, María Teresa. 1984. ,,Expedientes genealógicos en el tribunal de la Inquisición de Llerena (Badajoz)”. Hidalguía 32: 357-368.
Fort Cogul, Eufemià. 1973. Catalunya i la inquisició. Barcelona: Editorial Aedos.
Galende Díaz, Juan Carlos. 2020. ,,Documentación inquisitorial”. In La diplomática y sus fuentes documentales, edited by Nicolás Ávila Seoane and Juan Carlos Galende Díaz, 263-282. Madrid: Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
García-Arenal, Mercedes. 2015. ,,Comparing Minorities of Converso Origin in Early Modern Spain: Uses of Language, Writing and Translation”. In In the Iberian Peninsula and Beyond: A History of Jews and Muslims (15th-17th Centuries), edited by José Alberto R. Silva Tavim, Maria Filomena Lopes de Barros, and Lúcia Liba Mucznik, 117-154. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
García-Arenal, Mercedes. 2021. ,,Reading Against the Grain, Readings of Substitution: Catholic Books as Inspiration for Judaism in Early Modern Iberia”. Jewish History 35: 241 - 263. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10835-021-09423-1
García Cárcel, Ricardo. 1980. Herejía y sociedad en el siglo xvi. La Inquisición en Valencia, 1478 –1530. Barcelona: Ediciones Península.
García Cárcel, Ricardo. 2003. ,,‘¿Son creíbles las fuentes inquisitoriales?’”. In Grafía del imaginario. Representaciones culturales en España y América (siglos XVI-XVIII), edited by González S. Carlos Alberto and Enriqueta Vila Vilar, 96-110. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica.
Gil, Juan. 2000-2003. Los conversos y la inquisición sevillana. Sevilla: Fundación El Monte.
Ginzburg, Carlo. 1989. Clues, Myths, and the Historical Method. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Gitlitz, David. 1996. Secrecy and Deceit: The Religion of Crypto-Jews. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society.
Given, James B. 1997. Inquisition and Medieval Society: Power, Discipline, and Resistance in Languedoc. Ithaca, New York, and London: Cornell University Press.
Goodich, Michael. 2006. Voices from the Bench. The Narratives of Lesser Folk in Medieval Trials. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Grossman, Avraham. 2004. Pious and Rebellious: Jewish Women in Medieval Europe. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England/Brandeis University Press.
Henningsen, Gustav. 1986. ,,The Archives and the Historiography of the Spanish Inquisition”. In The Inquisition in Early Modern Europe. Studies on Sources and Methods, edited by Gustav Henningsen et al., 54-71. Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press.
Hill, Derek, 2019. Inquisition in the Fourteenth Century: The Manuals of Bernard Gui and Nicholas Eymerich. York: York Medieval Press.
Ingram, Kevin, ed. 2009. The Conversos and Moriscos in Late Medieval Spain and Beyond, vol 1: Departures and Change. Leiden and Boston: Brill.
Ingram, Kevin, ed. 2015. The Conversos and Moriscos in Late Medieval Spain and Beyond, vol 2: Displaced Persons. Leiden and Boston: Brill.
Ingram, Kevin, ed. 2021. The Conversos and Moriscos in Late Medieval Spain and Beyond, vol 4: Resistance and Reform. Leiden and Boston: Brill.
Kamen, Henry. 2014. The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
Kessler, Amalia D. 2005. ,,Our Inquisitorial Tradition: Equity Procedure, Due Process, and the Search for an Alternative to the Adversarial”. Cornell Law Review 90: 1181-1275.
Klein, Elka. 2006. ,,Public Activities of Catalan Jewish Women". Medieval Encounters 12 (1): 48-61. https://doi.org/10.1163/157006706777502488
Legajo 169, n. 600. Inquisición de Toledo. Archivo general central de Alcalá de Henares, Alcalá de Henares.
López, Belinchón and Bernardo José. 2013. ,,Procesos y complicidades. El uso de las fuentes inquisitoriales en la reconstrucción de grupos conversos en el siglo XVII”. In En el primer siglo de la inquisición española, edited by Cruselles Gómez, 451-473. València: Universitat de València.
Manoff, Marlene. 2004. ,,Theories of the archives across the disciplines”. Libraries and the Academy 4 (1): 9-25. https://doi.org/10.1353/pla.2004.0015
Marín Padilla, Encarnación. 1983. ,,Relación judeoconversa durante la segunda mitad del siglo XV en Aragón: Enfermedades y muertes”. Sefarad 43 (2): 251-343.
Marín Padilla, Encarnación. 1981. ,,Relación judeoconversa durante la segunda mitad del siglo XV en Aragón: Nacimientos, hadas, circuncisiones”. Sefarad 41 (2): 273-300.
Melammed, Renée Levine. 1994. ,,A 16th century Castilian Midwife and her encounter with the inquisition”. In The Expulsion of Jews: 1492 and after, edited by Raymond B. Waddington and Arthur H. Williamson, 53-72. New York: Garland Publishing.
Melammed, Renée Levine. 1999a. Heretics or Daughters of Israel? The Crypto-Jewish Women of Castile. New York: Oxford University Press.
Melammed, Renée Levine. 1999b. ,,Crypto-Jewish Women Facing the Spanish Inquisition: Transmitting Religious Practices, Beliefs, and Attitudes”. In Christians, Muslims, and Jews in Medieval and Early Modern Spain: Interaction and Cultural Change, edited by Mark Meyerson and Edward D. English, 197-219. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
Melammed, Renée Levine. 1996. ,,Judaizing women in Castile: A look at their lives before and after 1492”. Studies in Jewish civilization 5: 15-37.
Melammed, Renée Levine, 2010. ,,Judeo-Conversas and Moriscas in Sixteenth-Century Spain: A Study of Parallels”. Jewish History 24 (2): 155–68. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40864935
Melammed, Renée Levine. 2001. ,,Life-Cycle Rituals of Spanish Crypto-Jewish Women”. In Judaism in practice, edited by Lawrence Fine, 143-154. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Melammed, Renée Levine. 1989. ,,Noticias sobre los ritos de los nacimientos y de la pureza de las judeo-conversas castellanas del siglo XVI”. El Olivo 13: 235–243.
Melammed, Renée Levine. 1991. ,,Some death and mourning customs of Castilian conversas”. In Exile and Diaspora: Studies in the History of the Jewish People Presented to Professor Haim Beinart, edited by Aharon Mirsky, Avraham Grossman, and Yosef Kaplan, 157-167. Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute.
Melammed, Renée Levine. 1986. ,,The Ultimate Challenge: Safeguarding the Crypto-Judaic Heritage.” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 53: 91–109. https://doi.org/10.2307/3622610
Meyerson, Mark D. 1992. ,,Aragonese and Catalan Jewish Converts at the Time of the Expulsion”. Jewish History 6 (1/2): 131-144. https://www.jstor.org/stable/i20101112
Nalle, Sara T. 2016. ,,Literacy and Education among Judeo-Conversa Women in Castile, Portugal, and Amsterdam, 1560–1700.” Early Modern Women 11 (1): 69–89. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26431440
Munslow, Alun. 2007. Narrative and History. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Netanyahu, Benzion. 1999. The Marranos of Spain from the Late Fourteenth to the Early Sixteenth Century According to the Hebrew Sources. New York: American Academy for Jewish Research.
Netanyahu, Benzion. 1995. The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth Century Spain. New York: Random House.
Nirenberg, David. 2002. ,,Mass Conversion and Genealogical Mentalities: Jews and Christians in Fifteenth Century Spain”. Past & Present 174 (1): 3–41. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3600715
Nirenberg, David. 2014. Neighboring Faiths: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism in the Middle Ages and Today. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Panizo Santos, Ignacio. 2014. ,,Aproximación a la documentación judicial inquisitorial conservada en el Archivo Histórico Nacional”. Cuadernos de Historia Moderna 39: 255-275. https://doi.org/10.5209/rev_CHMO.2014.v39.45850
Panizo Santos, Ignacio. 2013. ,,Fuentes documentales para el estudio de la actividad procesal del Santo Oficio: el Tribunal inquisitorial de Navarra”. Huarte de San Juan. Geografia e historia 20: 7-47.
Pastore, Stefania. 2003. Il vangelo e la spada. L'inquisizione di Castiglia e i suoi critici (1460-1598). Roma: Edizioni di storia e letteratura.
Pastore, Stefania. 2004. Un'eresia spagnola. Spiritualità conversa, alumbradismo e inquisizione (1449-1559). Florencia: Leo Oslchki Editore.
Pérez Villanueva, Joaquín and Bartolomé Escandell Bonet, eds. 1984-2000. Historia de la Inquisición en España y América, 3 vols. Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, Centro de Estudios Inquisitoriales.
Perpinyà Morera, Remei, and Pilar Cid-Leal. 2018. ,,Los portales de archivos españoles: transparencia, interoperabilidad y orientación a los usuarios”. Revista Española de Documentación Científica 41 (3): 1-15. https://doi.org/10.3989/redc.2018.3.1507
Perry, Mary Elizabeth. 2008. ,,Finding Fatima, a Slave Woman of Early Modern Spain”. Journal of Women's History 20 (1): 151-167. https://doi.org./10.1353/jowh.2008.0008
Perry, Mary Elizabeth. 2005. The Handless Maiden: Moriscos and Politics of Religion in Early Modern Spain. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Pinto Crespo, Virgilio. 1983. Inquisición y control ideológico en la España del siglo XVI. Madrid: Taurus Ediciones.
Real Cancillería registros núm. 3684. n.d. Regum sobre negocios de la Inquisición de Fernandi II. Arxiu de la Corona d’Aragó (ACA), Barcelona.
Rosaldo, Renato. 1986. ,,From the Door of his Tent: the Fieldworker and the Inquisitor”. In Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, edited by James Clifford and George E. Marcus, 77-97. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Roth, Cecil. 1959. A History of the Marranos. Philadelphia: Meridian Books, Inc., and The Jewish Publication Society of America.
Schartz, Joan M. and Terry Cook. 2002. ,,Archives, Records, and Power: The Making of Modern Memory”. Archival Science 2: 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02435628
Soyer, François. 2012. Ambiguous Gender in Early Modern Spain and Portugal: Inquisitors, Doctors and the Transgression of Gender Norms. Leiden/Boston: Brill.
Starr-LeBeau, Gretchen D. 2003. In the Shadow of the Virgin: Inquisitors, Friars, and Conversos in Guadalupe, Spain. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Starr-LeBeau, Gretchen D. 2003. ,,Writing (for) her Life: Judeo-Conversas in Early Modern Spain”. In Women, text and authority in the early modern Spanish world, edited by Marta V. Vicente and Luis R. Corteguera, 57-73. New York: Routledge.
Szpiech, Ryan. 2012. Conversion and Narrative: Reading and Religious Authority in Medieval Polemic. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Tartakoff, Paola. 2010. ,,Jewish Women and Apostasy in the Medieval Crown of Aragon, c. 1300–1391”. Jewish History 24 (1): 7–32. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25653810.
Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. 1995. Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. Boston, Mass: Beacon Press.
Vergara Doncel, Maria. 1980. ,,Breves notas sobre la Sección de Inquisición del Archivo Histórico Nacional”. In La Inquisición española: Nueva visión, nuevos horizontes, edited by Joaquín Pérez Villanueva, 839-843. Madrid: Siglo XXI de España Editores, S.A.
Vollendorf, Lisa. 2005. The Lives of Women: A New History of Inquisitional Spain, Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.
Yerushalmi, Yosef Hayim. 1971. From Spanish Court to Italian Ghetto: Isaac Cardoso: A Study in Seventeenth-Century Marranism and Jewish Apologetics. New York: Columbia University Press.
Yovel, Yirmiyahu. 2009. The other within: The Marranos: Split Identity and Emerging Modernity. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Zozaya Montes, Leonor. 2012. ,,Costumbres judaizantes femeninas y transgresiones masculinas; análisis de las fuentes inquisitoriales en el tránsito de la Edad Media a la Moderna”. Investigaciones Feministas 2: 355-377. https://doi.org/10.5209/rev_INFE.2011.v2.38560
Web Sites
Bibliografia de textos catalans antics (BITECA). n.d. https://bancroft.berkeley.edu/philobiblon/
Documentos medievales aragoneses (DARA-Medieval). n.d. https://dara.aragon.es/opac/doma/
El Centre de Recursos per a l'Aprenentatge i la Investigació (CRAI). n.d. https://crai.ub.edu/en/information-resources/bibliographic-heritage
Portal de archivos Españoles (PARES). n.d. http://pares.mcu.es/.
Sistema de Archivos de Cataluña (SAC). n.d. https://cultura.gencat.cat/ca/temes/arxius-i-gestio-documental/
The Municipal Archive of Girona (AMGi) n.d. https://www.girona.cat/sgdap/cat/index.php
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
ERIH PLUS - European Reference Index for the Humanities
World Cat
AnthroSerbia
