The New Nobility: Arrival of the Conversos

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Do curso por University of Colorado System

Burgos: Deciphering Secrets of Medieval Spain

2 ratings

University of Colorado System

Burgos: Deciphering Secrets of Medieval Spain

2 ratings

This advanced course focuses on two primary goals: (1) appraising how Jews, Christians, and Muslims shaped the history of medieval Spain and (2) mastering the craft of Spanish paleography, the skill of identifying Spanish handwriting in the 11th- through 15th-century manuscripts. Through the lens of the medieval history of Burgos, we dedicate 75% percent of our efforts to developing pragmatic expertise in the interpretation of Carolingian/French/Gothic handwriting. Specifically, the course explores how the royal Castilian city of Burgos influenced, and was influenced by, Jews, Christians, and Muslims. We closely evaluate the Spanish Christian Reconquest, the Plague and the 14th-century Castilian civil war, anti-Jewish pogroms, the emergence of elite conversos (Jewish converts to Christianity), and the role of the king and Roman Catholic Church in the creation of Catholic Spain. Through onsite interviews in archives and museums in Burgos, we experience the medieval city, artifacts, and manuscripts. While we teach using Spanish manuscripts, very little or no knowledge of the Spanish language is necessary to complete the course. Using an intensive array of paleography practices, exams, independent projects, and collaborative efforts, you will garner exceptional skills that you can apply to interpreting any medieval European handwriting. To demonstrate your mastery of paleography you will (1) create a 14th-15th-century alphabet, numeral, and abbreviation guide using manuscript images, and (2) transcribe one selection from a medieval manuscript.

Na lição

14th Century Tragedy, Jewish and Christian Museum Artifacts, and Continuing 11th Century Manuscripts

This week we delve into the Castilian crisis of the 14th-century -- the arrival of the Black Death (Plague), an intensive civil war, and rampant anti-Jewish violence. We explore the creation of a new Spanish identity -- the conversos -- Jewish converts to Christianity. Via virtual field trips, we visit medieval Burgos and return to the Museo de Burgos. We continue our investigation of 11th-century manuscripts, working hard to perfect our paleography skills.

Plague, Crisis, and Civil War in the 14th Century8:18

Anti-Jewish Pogroms (1390s CE)8:56

The New Nobility: Arrival of the Conversos7:30

Conheça os instrutores

Dr. Roger Louis Martínez-Dávila
Associate Professor
History

[MUSIC]

Under the typical constraints of most medieval European monarchs,

we had titles and the power to grant titles, but lack financial resources.

Enrique II and

his three heirs devised an ingenious method to regenerate the noble class.

Their approach and calculations were simple.

In return for political loyalty and financial assistance, Enrique socially

promoted lower class noble Christian families, and elite Jewish and

new Christian ones, conversos clans, to become his new nobility.

The social experiment was widely successful,

even if it came at the expense of the traditional old nobility, ran counter to

anti-Jewish polemics during the Civil War, and thus angered Christian commoners.

At the heart of rebuilding the nobility was the rapid integration of elite

conversos, Jews that had converted to Christianity, into royal and

church institutions.

Henceforth, conversos would rapidly secure new opportunities, and

Jews who maintained their religion would face an uncertain future.

The explosive 1390s, long characterized as one of the most prominent times

in the decline of the Spanish Jewry, and the ensuing first decades of the 1400s,

present a perplexing history that defies artful explanations.

Jewish converts to Catholicism, especially those converts who had successfully

intermarried and collaborated with Christian elite,

experienced an unprecedented social and political ascendancy.

On the other hand, it was both a period of intense communal pressure for

the Sephardi, and of uneven outcomes across the Iberian peninsula.

Many Jewish communities were annihilated.

Others weathered the storm of Christian persecution under extreme distress.

And yet some managed to survive due to an uncommon respect for convivencia,

coexistence by all Christians and conversos.

While the Sephardi suffered,

their former co-religionists found new opportunities as a result of the political

disintegration of the old nobility during the late 14th century.

This was a significant transformation in the nobility during this era.

As the crown bankrupted and disempowered the old feudal nobility

prior to the 1370s, and replaced them by creating new elite families,

such as the Mendoza, and de Toledo.

While new elite nobles who were quite powerful themselves

could spar with the crown for authority and resources.

Lesser families, like the and Santa remained the creatures of the king.

Prior to the world of Pedro I, the old christian noble families of Castile

prospered through control of family feudal lands,

which were not indissoluble [FOREIGN], or entailed lands.

These territories, given to feudal families by the crown, generated rents and

natural resources, and

created the conditions for them to prosper financially.

Likewise, these older noble families were responsible for

contributing men, resources, and tax receipts to the Castilian crown.

Pedro I's reign disenfranchised these families,

by relying on local municipal administrations instead of his nobles.

Preventing the Cortes, the parliament of Castile, from meeting,

actively controlling military orders.

And relying on foreign Genoese administers and Castilian Jewish advisors.

These restrictions on the old noble families,

in addition to the Castilian civil war between Pedro I and Enrique II, and

the war with Aragon, left Castile in a vulnerable position.

Enrique II's victory over his half brother, Pedro I,

created novel opportunitis for a new nobility.

Bartolome Clavero's seminal text on the [FOREIGN] system,

[FOREIGN] 1369 to 1836, provides an expansive

discussion of this heir to wealth protection system.

Clavero argued that the Castilian development of the [FOREIGN]

was built upon the preexisting concept of feudal concession.

Through this system, the king granted vassals conditional dominion

over their individual patrimonial villages and lands.

And more critically, a right to benefit materially and

financially for control over these territories.

The first feudal concessions of Castile prior to

1374 were known as [FOREIGN] [LAUGH] which were later

enhanced into their [FOREIGN] form by King Enrique II.

On March 23, 1374, the King specified in

the 23rd clause of his testament that his royal donations and

[FOREIGN] made to his noblemen were to pass to the firstborn son of each man.

Should one of his nobleman die without an heir,

the rights to the land would revert to the Crown.

Based on Enrique II's statement, from 1380 to 1488, eight

elite new noble families individually collected and combined their royal rights,

donations, and gifts, and formed familial [FOREIGN] entailed lands.

The new noble families most important to this study, and inside of our course,

those suspected and documented as conversos include

the family foundations of Rodrigo Ponce de Leon started in 1392.

Pedro Gonzales de Bendosa, 1380.

Diego Lopez de Estroniga, 1397.

And Rodrigo Alonso de Pimental, 1440.

Uncovering the Jewish and converso heritages of

the late Castilian families is by no means an inconsequential task.

As the great majority of these families labored intensively to hide

their problematic ancestries during the 15th and 16th centuries.

With the arrival of the 15th century, the elite new nobility

enjoyed an unprecedented oligopoly on political and economic power.

The converso upper class were by no means alone,

as other great noble houses benefited from the trust of [INAUDIBLE] concessions.

Such as the Enriques, the [INAUDIBLE], Guzman,

Manrique, Menichelli, Quinones, Velasco, and

Vinena clans, boy, that's a mouthful.

This disturbance in the old order led to waves of violence and

instability, as the crown was consistently tested by its noble houses,

and as they challenged each other.

Therefore, it is at this historic moment that Spanish identity began to take on

a fragmented characteristic.

As elite clans became a dynamic mix of old Christian, new Christian,

old nobility, new nobility.

All of which used every political and

cultural tool at their disposal to out compete each other.

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