The Expulsion of Jews from Spain was the expulsion of practicing
Jews
Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
following the
Alhambra Decree
The Alhambra Decree (also known as the Edict of Expulsion; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Decreto de la Alhambra'', ''Edicto de Granada'') was an edict issued on 31 March 1492 by the joint Catholic Monarchs of Spain, Isabella I of Castile and Ferdi ...
in 1492,
which was enacted to eliminate their influence on
Spain
Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...
's large ''
converso
A ''converso'' (; ; feminine form ''conversa''), "convert" (), was a Jew who converted to Catholicism in Spain or Portugal, particularly during the 14th and 15th centuries, or one of their descendants.
To safeguard the Old Christian popula ...
'' population and to ensure its members did not revert to Judaism. Over half of Spain's Jews had converted to
Catholicism
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
as a result of the
Massacre of 1391
The Massacre of 1391, also known as the pogroms of 1391, refers to a murderous wave of mass violence committed against the Jews of Spain by the Catholic populace in the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, both in present-day Spain, in the year 139 ...
.
Due to continuing attacks, around 50,000 more had converted by 1415.
Many of those who remained decided to convert to avoid expulsion. As a result of the Alhambra decree and the prior persecution, over 200,000 Jews converted to Catholicism, and between 40,000 and 100,000 were expelled. An unknown number returned to Spain in the following years.
The expulsion led to
mass migration
Mass migration refers to the migration of large groups of people from one geographical area to another. Mass migration is distinguished from individual or small-scale migration; and also from seasonal migration, which may occur on a regular basi ...
of Jews from Spain to
France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
,
Italy
Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...
,
Greece
Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...
,
Turkey
Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...
and the
Mediterranean Basin. One result of the migration was new
Jewish surnames appearing in Italy and Greece. The surnames Faraggi, Farag and Farachi, for example, originated from the Spanish city of
Fraga.
In 1924, the regime of
Miguel Primo de Rivera
Miguel Primo de Rivera y Orbaneja, 2nd Marquis of Estella, Grandee, GE (8 January 1870 – 16 March 1930), was a Spanish dictator and military officer who ruled as prime minister of Spain from 1923 to 1930 during the last years of the Resto ...
granted Spanish citizenship to a part of the
Sephardic Jewish diaspora.
[Celia Prados García: La expulsión de los judíos y el retorno de los sefardíes como nacionales españoles. Un análisis histórico-jurídico](_blank)
(in Spanish) The edict was formally and symbolically revoked on December 16, 1968,
''The New York Times'', Dec. 17, 1968 following the
Second Vatican Council
The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, commonly known as the or , was the 21st and most recent ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. The council met each autumn from 1962 to 1965 in St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City for session ...
, by the regime of
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco Bahamonde (born Francisco Paulino Hermenegildo Teódulo Franco Bahamonde; 4 December 1892 – 20 November 1975) was a Spanish general and dictator who led the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalist forces i ...
. This occurred a full century after Jews had openly begun to practice their religion in Spain and synagogues were once more legal places of worship under Spain's Laws of Religious Freedom.
In 2015, the
Cortes Generales
The (; ) are the Bicameralism, bicameral legislative chambers of Spain, consisting of the Congress of Deputies (the lower house) and the Senate of Spain, Senate (the upper house).
The Congress of Deputies meets in the Palacio de las Cortes, ...
of Spain passed a law whereby the descendants of Sephardic Jews
could obtain Spanish nationality by naturalisation to "compensate for shameful events in the country's past." Jews who could prove that they are the descendants of those expelled from Spain due to the
Alhambra Decree
The Alhambra Decree (also known as the Edict of Expulsion; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Decreto de la Alhambra'', ''Edicto de Granada'') was an edict issued on 31 March 1492 by the joint Catholic Monarchs of Spain, Isabella I of Castile and Ferdi ...
could "become Spaniards without leaving home or giving up their present nationality." The deadline to apply was October 1, 2019.
Background
Jews in Peninsular states

Up until the fourteenth century, Jews who lived under the Muslim
caliphate
A caliphate ( ) is an institution or public office under the leadership of an Islamic steward with Khalifa, the title of caliph (; , ), a person considered a political–religious successor to the Islamic prophet Muhammad and a leader of ...
s of
al-Andalus
Al-Andalus () was the Muslim-ruled area of the Iberian Peninsula. The name refers to the different Muslim states that controlled these territories at various times between 711 and 1492. At its greatest geographical extent, it occupied most o ...
were tolerated, a period referred to as the
Convivencia
''Convivencia'' (Spanish for "living together") is a term used by scholar Américo Castro to describe a period in Spanish history from the Muslim Umayyad conquest of Hispania in the 700s to the expulsion of the Jews in 1492. It claims that in t ...
.
María Rosa Menocal
María Rosa Menocal (April 9, 1953 – October 15, 2012) was a Cuban-born scholar of medieval culture and history and Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. She later went on to win the Mellon and Guggenheim Fellowship for Humanities ...
wrote that Jews under Muslim rule were
dhimmi
' ( ', , collectively ''/'' "the people of the covenant") or () is a historical term for non-Muslims living in an Islamic state with legal protection. The word literally means "protected person", referring to the state's obligation under ''s ...
s with reduced rights relative to Muslims, but were still generally in a better position than other European Jews living under Christian rule.
Mark R. Cohen, whose book ''Under Cross and Crescent'' reviewed the treatment of medieval Jews, writes that while there were significant restrictions on Jews in Islamic states, they did not suffer
serfdom
Serfdom was the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism and similar systems. It was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude with similarities to and differences from slavery. It developed du ...
,
supersessionist oppression, and
demonisation
Demonization or demonisation is the reinterpretation of polytheistic deities as evil, lying demons by other religions, generally by the monotheistic and henotheistic ones. The term has since been expanded to refer to any characterization of indivi ...
like the Jews of Christendom.
Darío Fernández-Morera states that the supposed harmony between Jews and Muslims in Spain was an exaggeration that proliferated in the 19th century. However, this position has been strongly criticized as
far-right
Far-right politics, often termed right-wing extremism, encompasses a range of ideologies that are marked by ultraconservatism, authoritarianism, ultranationalism, and nativism. This political spectrum situates itself on the far end of the ...
Islamophobia
Islamophobia is the irrational fear of, hostility towards, or hatred against the religion of Islam or Muslims in general. Islamophobia is primarily a form of religious or cultural bigotry; and people who harbour such sentiments often stereot ...
.
Expulsion
On January 2, 1492, the
Catholic Monarchs of Spain
The Catholic Monarchs were Queen Isabella I of Castile () and King Ferdinand II of Aragon (), whose marriage and joint rule marked the '' de facto'' unification of Spain. They were both from the House of Trastámara and were second cousins, ...
conquered the
Emirate of Granada
The Emirate of Granada, also known as the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada, was an Emirate, Islamic polity in the southern Iberian Peninsula during the Late Middle Ages, ruled by the Nasrid dynasty. It was the last independent Muslim state in Western ...
. The last Muslim king,
Muhammad XII (''Spanish:'' Boabdil), withdrew to
Alpujarras
The Alpujarra (, ) is a natural and historical region in Andalusia, Spain, on the south slopes of the Sierra Nevada and the adjacent valley. The average elevation is above sea level. It extends over two provinces, Granada and Almería; ...
as almost 800 years of Muslim rule were ended by the
Reconquista
The ''Reconquista'' (Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese for ) or the fall of al-Andalus was a series of military and cultural campaigns that European Christian Reconquista#Northern Christian realms, kingdoms waged ag ...
.
A letter sent by the Catholic Monarchs to the
Bilbao City Council in 1490 stated that under
canon law
Canon law (from , , a 'straight measuring rod, ruler') is a set of ordinances and regulations made by ecclesiastical jurisdiction, ecclesiastical authority (church leadership) for the government of a Christian organization or church and its membe ...
and the laws of the kingdoms, Jews were tolerated and allowed to live in the kingdoms as subjects and
vassals
A vassal or liege subject is a person regarded as having a mutual obligation to a lord or monarch, in the context of the feudal system in medieval Europe. While the subordinate party is called a vassal, the dominant party is called a suzerai ...
.
Joseph Pérez considers that "the myth of the 'Spain of the three cultures,' widely used as an element of propaganda, is so far detached from historical reality that it can only generate new elements of confusion." In Christian kingdoms, according to
Henry Kamen, both Jews and Muslims were treated "with contempt"
and the three communities "lived separate existences." In Muslim kingdoms, on the other hand, Christians and Jews were required to pay a tax to profess their religion.
In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries,
Christian anti-Judaism in the West had intensified, which was reflected in the harsh anti-Jewish measures agreed at the
Fourth Council of the Lateran
The Fourth Council of the Lateran or Lateran IV was convoked by Pope Innocent III in April 1213 and opened at the Lateran Palace in Rome on 11 November 1215. Due to the great length of time between the council's convocation and its meeting, m ...
called in 1215 by
Pope Innocent III
Pope Innocent III (; born Lotario dei Conti di Segni; 22 February 1161 – 16 July 1216) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 8 January 1198 until his death on 16 July 1216.
Pope Innocent was one of the most power ...
. The peninsular Christian kingdoms were not at all oblivious to the growth of increasingly belligerent anti-Judaismthe Castilian statutory code of
Siete Partidas stated that the Jews lived among Christians "so that their presence reminds them that they descend from those who crucified Our Lord Jesus Christ", but the kings continued to "protect" the Jews for the important role they played in their kingdoms.
In the fourteenth century, the period of relative tolerance towards the Jews ended, passing into a phase of increasing conflict.
The Jewish massacres of 1391 and their consequences

The first wave of violence against the Jews on the Iberian Peninsula occurred in the
Kingdom of Navarre
The Kingdom of Navarre ( ), originally the Kingdom of Pamplona, occupied lands on both sides of the western Pyrenees, with its northernmost areas originally reaching the Atlantic Ocean (Bay of Biscay), between present-day Spain and France.
The me ...
as a consequence of the arrival of the
Shepherds' Crusade across the
Pyrenees
The Pyrenees are a mountain range straddling the border of France and Spain. They extend nearly from their union with the Cantabrian Mountains to Cap de Creus on the Mediterranean coast, reaching a maximum elevation of at the peak of Aneto. ...
in 1321. The Jewish communities of
Pamplona
Pamplona (; ), historically also known as Pampeluna in English, is the capital city of the Navarre, Chartered Community of Navarre, in Spain.
Lying at near above sea level, the city (and the wider Cuenca de Pamplona) is located on the flood pl ...
and
Estella-Lizarra
Estella (Spanish language, Spanish) or Lizarra (Basque language, Basque) is a town located in the autonomous community of Navarre, in northern Spain. It lies south west of Pamplona, close to the border with La Rioja (autonomous community), La Rioj ...
were massacred. Two decades later, the impact of the
Black Death of 1348 provoked assaults on the
Jewish quarters (''juderías'') of several places, especially
Barcelona
Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...
and other places in the
Principality of Catalonia
The Principality of Catalonia (; ; ; ) was a Middle Ages, medieval and early modern state (polity), state in the northeastern Iberian Peninsula. During most of its history it was in dynastic union with the Kingdom of Aragon, constituting together ...
.
In the
Crown of Castile
The Crown of Castile was a medieval polity in the Iberian Peninsula that formed in 1230 as a result of the third and definitive union of the crowns and, some decades later, the parliaments of the kingdoms of Kingdom of Castile, Castile and Kingd ...
, anti-Jewish violence was closely related to the civil war during the reign of
Peter of Castile
Peter (; 30 August 133423 March 1369), called Peter the Cruel () or the Just (), was King of Castile and León from 1350 to 1369. Peter was the last ruler of the main branch of the House of Ivrea. He was excommunicated by Pope Urban V for h ...
. In this conflict, the side supporting Enrique de Trastámara (later King
Henry II of Castile
Henry II (13 January 1334 – 29 May 1379), called Henry of Trastámara or the Fratricidal (''el Fratricida''), was the first List of Castilian monarchs, King of Castile and List of Leonese monarchs, León from the House of Trastámara. He became ...
) used anti-Judaism as a propaganda weapon, and the pretender to the throne accused his stepbrother,
Peter of Castile
Peter (; 30 August 133423 March 1369), called Peter the Cruel () or the Just (), was King of Castile and León from 1350 to 1369. Peter was the last ruler of the main branch of the House of Ivrea. He was excommunicated by Pope Urban V for h ...
, of favoring the Jews. The first slaughter of Jews, in
Toledo in 1355, was carried out by the supporters of Enrique de Trastámara when they entered the city. The same happened eleven years later when they occupied
Briviesca.
In
Burgos
Burgos () is a city in Spain located in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is the capital and most populous municipality of the province of Burgos.
Burgos is situated in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, on the confluence of th ...
, Jews who could not pay the large tribute imposed on them in 1366 were
enslaved and sold. In 1367 in
Valladolid
Valladolid ( ; ) is a Municipalities of Spain, municipality in Spain and the primary seat of government and ''de facto'' capital of the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Castile and León. It is also the capital of the pr ...
, Jews were assaulted to shouts of "Long live King Henry!" There were no deaths, but the synagogues were burned down.
The great catastrophe for the Jews took place in 1391 when the communities of Castile and the
Crown of Aragon
The Crown of Aragon (, ) ;, ; ; . was a composite monarchy ruled by one king, originated by the dynastic union of the Kingdom of Aragon and the County of Barcelona (later Principality of Catalonia) and ended as a consequence of the War of the Sp ...
were massacred. The assaults, fires, looting, and slaughter began in June, in
Seville
Seville ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Spain, Spanish autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the Guadalquivir, River Guadalquivir, ...
, where
Ferrand Martínez , archdeacon of
Écija
Écija () is a city and municipality of Spain belonging to the province of Seville, in the autonomous community of Andalusia. It is in the countryside, 85 km east of the city of Seville. According to the 2008 census, Écija had a total popula ...
, took advantage of the power vacuum created by the death of the archbishop of Seville. Hardening his preaching against the Jews that had begun in 1378, he ordered the overthrow of
synagogue
A synagogue, also called a shul or a temple, is a place of worship for Jews and Samaritans. It is a place for prayer (the main sanctuary and sometimes smaller chapels) where Jews attend religious services or special ceremonies such as wed ...
s and the seizure of
prayer books. In January 1391, an assault on the Jewish quarter was avoided by the municipal authorities, but in June, hundreds of Jews were murdered, their houses were ransacked, and their synagogues were converted into churches. Some Jews managed to escape; others, terrified, asked to be baptized.
From Seville, anti-Jewish violence extended throughout
Andalusia
Andalusia ( , ; , ) is the southernmost autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in Peninsular Spain, located in the south of the Iberian Peninsula, in southwestern Europe. It is the most populous and the second-largest autonomou ...
, and then towards other parts of Castile. In August, it reached the crown of Aragon. Murders, looting, and fires occurred everywhere. The Jews who managed to survive either fled, many seeking refuge in the kingdoms of
Navarre
Navarre ( ; ; ), officially the Chartered Community of Navarre, is a landlocked foral autonomous community and province in northern Spain, bordering the Basque Autonomous Community, La Rioja, and Aragon in Spain and New Aquitaine in France. ...
, Portugal and France, and in
North Africa
North Africa (sometimes Northern Africa) is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region. However, it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of t ...
, or chose baptism to avoid death. It is difficult to be certain of the number of victims. In Barcelona some 400 Jews were murdered; in
Valencia
Valencia ( , ), formally València (), is the capital of the Province of Valencia, province and Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Valencian Community, the same name in Spain. It is located on the banks of the Turia (r ...
, 250; and in
Lérida
Lleida (, ; ; ''#Name, see below'') is a city in the west of Catalonia, Spain. It is the capital and largest town in Segrià, Segrià county, the Ponent, Ponent region and the province of Lleida. Geographically, it is located in the Catalan Cent ...
, 68.
After the
Massacre of 1391
The Massacre of 1391, also known as the pogroms of 1391, refers to a murderous wave of mass violence committed against the Jews of Spain by the Catholic populace in the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, both in present-day Spain, in the year 139 ...
, anti-Jewish measures were intensified. In Castile in 1412, Jewish men had to let their beards grow, and Jews were required to wear a distinctive red badge sewn to their clothes, so they could be recognized. In the Crown of Aragon, possession of the
Talmud
The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...
was declared unlawful, and the number of synagogues was limited to one per Jewish community (''
aljama
''Aljama'' (, , ) is a term of Arabic origin used in old official documents in Spain and Portugal to designate the self-governing communities of Moors and Jews living under Christian rule in the Iberian Peninsula. In some present-day Spanish cit ...
''). In addition, the
mendicant orders
Mendicant orders are primarily certain Catholic Church, Catholic religious orders that have vowed for their male members a lifestyle of vow of poverty, poverty, traveling, and living in urban areas for purposes of preacher, preaching, Evangelis ...
intensified their campaign of proselytism to make Jews convert to Christianity. The Dominican
Vincent Ferrer
Vincent Ferrer, Dominican Order, OP ( ; ; ; ; ; ; 23 January 1350 – 5 April 1419) was a Kingdom of Valencia, Valencian Dominican Order, Dominican friar who gained acclaim as a preacher, missionary and logician. After supporting Antipope Benedic ...
of Valencia played a prominent role in this campaign, which had the support of the monarchs. In the Crown of Aragon, it was decreed that Jews were obligated to attend three sermons a year. As a result of the massacres of 1391 and the measures that followed, by 1415 more than half of the Jews of the crowns of Castile and Aragon had renounced
Mosaic law
The Law of Moses ( ), also called the Mosaic Law, is the law said to have been revealed to Moses by God. The term primarily refers to the Torah or the first five books of the Hebrew Bible.
Terminology
The Law of Moses or Torah of Moses (Hebr ...
and had been baptized, including many
rabbi
A rabbi (; ) is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi—known as ''semikha''—following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of t ...
s and important members of the community.
Jews in the fifteenth century

After the massacres of 1391 and the preaching that followed them, by 1415 scarcely 100,000 Jews continued to practice their religion in the crowns of Castile and Aragon. The historian Joseph Perez explains that "Spanish Judaism
ould Ould is an English surname as well as an element of many Arabic names. In Arabic contexts it is a transliteration of the word wikt:ولد, ولد, meaning "son".
Notable people with this surname include:
English surname
* Edward Ould (1852–190 ...
never recover from this catastrophe." The Jewish community "came out of the crisis not only physically diminished but morally and intellectually shattered".
In the Crown of Aragon, Judaism virtually disappeared in important places such as Barcelona, Valencia, and Palmain 1424 the Barcelona Jewry was abolished because it was considered unnecessary and only the one in
Zaragoza
Zaragoza (), traditionally known in English as Saragossa ( ), is the capital city of the province of Zaragoza and of the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Aragon, Spain. It lies by the Ebro river and its tributaries, the ...
remained. In Castile, once-flourishing
aljama
''Aljama'' (, , ) is a term of Arabic origin used in old official documents in Spain and Portugal to designate the self-governing communities of Moors and Jews living under Christian rule in the Iberian Peninsula. In some present-day Spanish cit ...
s such as those of Seville, Toledo, and Burgos lost many of their members; in 1492, the year of the expulsion, in the Crown of Aragon only a quarter of the former number of Jews remained. The famous Jewish community of
Gerona, for example, was left with only 24 families. In the Crown of Castile, there were less than 80,000. In Seville before the revolts of 1391, there were about 500 Jewish families. According to Joseph Perez, at the time of the expulsion, there were fewer than 150,000 Jews, distributed in 35 aljamas of the Crown of Aragon and 216 in the Crown of Castile. In both Crowns, it was observed that the Jews had left the great cities and lived in the small and rural areas, less exposed "to the excesses of the Christians."

After the critical period of 1391–1415, the pressure on Jews to recuperate their confiscated synagogues and books had decreased, and they were then able to avoid certain obligations such as carrying the red ribbon or attending friars' sermons. They were also able to reconstruct the internal organization of the aljamas and their religious activities, thanks to the agreements reached by the procurators of the aljamas gathered in Valladolid in 1432 and sanctioned by the king, which meant that "the Crown of Castile accepts again officially that a minority of its subjects has another religion than the Christian one and recognizes the right of this minority to exist legally, with a legal status." "In this way, the Jewish community is rebuilt with the approval of the crown."
Abraham Benveniste, who presided over the meeting of Valladolid, was appointed court rabbi with authority over all the Jews of the kingdom, and at the same time as delegate of the king over them.
During the reign of the Catholic Monarchs, in the last quarter of the 15th century, many Jews lived in rural villages and engaged in agricultural activities. Crafts and trade were not monopolizedinternational trade had passed into the hands of converts. While Jews continued to trade as
money-lenders, the number of Christian lenders had increased by a large percentage. Jews also continued to collect royal, ecclesiastical, and seigniorial rents, but their importance there had also diminishedin Castile they were only in charge of a quarter of the revenues. However, in the court of Castilebut not in the crown of AragonJews held important administrative and financial positions.
Abraham Senior was from 1488 treasurer-major of the Holy Brotherhood, a key organ in the financing of the
Granada War
The Granada War was a series of military campaigns between 1482 and 1492 during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs, Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, against the Nasrid dynasty's Emirate of Granada. It ended with the defeat o ...
, and also chief rabbi of Castile. Yucé Abravanel was "A greater collector of the service and mountaineering of the herds, one of the more healthy income and greater yield of the Crown of Castile." However, according to Joseph Perez, the role of the Jews in the court must not be exaggerated. "The truth was that the state could do without the Jews, both in the bureaucratic apparatus and in the management of the estate."

The Hebrew community at the end of the 15th century was therefore far from rich and influential. "In fact, the Spanish Jews at the time of their expulsion did not form a homogeneous social group. There were classes among them as in Christian society, a small minority of very rich and well-placed men, together with a mass of small people: farmers, artisans, shopkeepers."
What united them was that they practiced the same faith, different from the one recognized, which made them a separate community within the monarchy and which was "property" of the crown which thereby protected them. In a letter dated July 7, 1477, addressed to the authorities of
Trujillo, where incidents had occurred against the Jews, Queen
Isabella I of Castile
Isabella I (; 22 April 1451 – 26 November 1504), also called Isabella the Catholic (Spanish: ''Isabel la Católica''), was Queen of Castile and List of Leonese monarchs, León from 1474 until her death in 1504. She was also Queen of Aragon ...
, after putting the aljama under her protection and prohibiting all type of oppression or humiliation against its members, states:
Thus, the Jews "formed not a State in the State, but rather a micro-society next to the majority Christian society, with an authority, the
crown rabbi, that the crown delegated to it over its members." The aljamas were organized internally with a wide margin of autonomy. They designated by lottery the council of elders that governed the life of the community; collecting their own taxes for the maintenance of worship, synagogues, and rabbinical teaching; lived under the norms of Jewish law; and had their own courts that heard all cases in civil matters – since the of 1476, criminal cases had passed to the royal courts. But Jews did not enjoy full civil rights: they had a specific tax system far more burdensome than that of Christians and were excluded from positions that could confer authority over Christians.
The situation in which the Jews lived, according to Joseph Perez, posed two problems: "As subjects and vassals of the king, the Jews had no guarantee for the future – the monarch could at any time close the autonomy of the aljamas or require new Most important taxes"; and, above all, "in these late years of the Middle Ages, when a state of modern character was being developed, there could be no question of a problem of immense importance: was the existence of separate and autonomous communities compatible with the demands of a modern state? This was the real question."
Conversos and the Inquisition
In the 15th century, the main problem stopped being the Jews becoming
conversos, who, according to Henry Kamen, probably numbered around three hundred thousand people. “Christian convert” was the term applied to Jews who had been
baptized
Baptism (from ) is a Christian sacrament of initiation almost invariably with the use of water. It may be performed by sprinkling or pouring water on the head, or by immersing in water either partially or completely, traditionally three ...
and their descendants. As many of them had been forcibly converted, they were often looked upon with distrust by those who considered themselves
Old Christians.
The positions abandoned by Jews were mostly filled by converts, who congregated where Jewish communities had flourished before 1391, doing work formerly performed by Jews – trade and crafts – with the added advantage that as Christians they could now access trades and professions previously forbidden to Jews. Some even entered the clergy, becoming
canons,
prior
The term prior may refer to:
* Prior (ecclesiastical), the head of a priory (monastery)
* Prior convictions, the life history and previous convictions of a suspect or defendant in a criminal case
* Prior probability, in Bayesian statistics
* Prio ...
s and even bishops.
The socio-economic position of converts was viewed with suspicion by the "old" Christians, a resentment that was accentuated by the conscience on the part of those who had a differentiated identity, proud of being Christians and having Jewish ancestry, which was the lineage of Christ. Popular revolts broke out against the converts between 1449 and 1474, a period in Castile of economic difficulties and political crisis (especially during the civil war of the reign of
Henry IV). The first and largest of these revolts took place in 1449 in Toledo, during which a "Judgment–Statute" was approved that prohibited access to municipal positions by "any confessor of Jewish lineage" – an antecedent of the
blood-purity statutes of the following century. The origin of the revolts was economic in Andalusia especially because there was a situation of hunger, aggravated by an epidemic of
plague – and in principle "not directed especially against the converts. ... It was the parties and the demagogues that took advantage of the exasperation of the people and directed it against the converts."
To justify the attacks on converts, they affirmed that ''conversos'' were false Christians and that they still practiced the Jewish religion in secret. According to Joseph Perez, it is a proven fact that, among those who converted to escape the blind furor of the masses in 1391, or by the pressure of the proselytizing campaigns of the early fifteenth century, some clandestinely returned to their old faith when it seemed that the danger had passed, of which it is said that they "Judaized". The accusation of
Crypto-Judaism
Crypto-Judaism is the secret adherence to Judaism while publicly professing to be of another faith; practitioners are referred to as "crypto-Jews" (origin from Greek ''kryptos'' – , 'hidden').
The term is especially applied historically to Spani ...
became more plausible when some cases arose of prominent converts who continued to observe Jewish rites after their conversion. But Judaizers, according to Joseph Perez, were a minority, although relatively important.
Henry Kamen says that "it can be affirmed that at the end of the 1470s, there was no Judaizing movement highlighted or proven among the converts." He also points out that when a convert was accused of Judaizing, in many cases the "proofs" that were brought were, in fact, cultural elements of his Jewish ancestry – such as treating Saturday, not Sunday, as the day of rest – or the lack of knowledge of the new faith, such as not knowing the
creed
A creed, also known as a confession of faith, a symbol, or a statement of faith, is a statement of the shared beliefs of a community (often a religious community) which summarizes its core tenets.
Many Christian denominations use three creeds ...
or eating meat during
Lent
Lent (, 'Fortieth') is the solemn Christianity, Christian religious moveable feast#Lent, observance in the liturgical year in preparation for Easter. It echoes the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in the desert and enduring Temptation of Christ, t ...
.
This is how the "''converso'' problem" was born. The baptized cannot renounce their faith according to the canonical doctrine of the Church, which considers
Crypto-Judaism
Crypto-Judaism is the secret adherence to Judaism while publicly professing to be of another faith; practitioners are referred to as "crypto-Jews" (origin from Greek ''kryptos'' – , 'hidden').
The term is especially applied historically to Spani ...
to be
heresy
Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, particularly the accepted beliefs or religious law of a religious organization. A heretic is a proponent of heresy.
Heresy in Heresy in Christian ...
that must be punished. This is how various voices began to claim, including those of some converts who do not want to question the sincerity of their baptism because of those "false" Christians who are beginning to be called
Marrano
''Marranos'' is a term for Spanish and Portuguese Jews, as well as Navarrese jews, who converted to Christianity, either voluntarily or by Spanish or Portuguese royal coercion, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but who continued t ...
s. And it also bolstered the idea that the presence of the Jews among the Christians is what invites the converts to continue practicing the
Law of Moses
The Law of Moses ( ), also called the Mosaic Law, is the law said to have been revealed to Moses by God. The term primarily refers to the Torah or the first five books of the Hebrew Bible.
Terminology
The Law of Moses or Torah of Moses (Heb ...
.
When
Isabel I of Castile ascended to the throne in 1474, she was already married to the heir to the
Crown of Aragon
The Crown of Aragon (, ) ;, ; ; . was a composite monarchy ruled by one king, originated by the dynastic union of the Kingdom of Aragon and the County of Barcelona (later Principality of Catalonia) and ended as a consequence of the War of the Sp ...
, the future
Ferdinand II of Aragon
Ferdinand II, also known as Ferdinand I, Ferdinand III, and Ferdinand V (10 March 1452 – 23 January 1516), called Ferdinand the Catholic, was King of Aragon from 1479 until his death in 1516. As the husband and co-ruler of Queen Isabella I of ...
. At this time, there was no punishment for practicing
crypto-Judaism
Crypto-Judaism is the secret adherence to Judaism while publicly professing to be of another faith; practitioners are referred to as "crypto-Jews" (origin from Greek ''kryptos'' – , 'hidden').
The term is especially applied historically to Spani ...
, not out of tolerance for Jews, but for legalistic reasons.
They decided to confront the "
converso
A ''converso'' (; ; feminine form ''conversa''), "convert" (), was a Jew who converted to Catholicism in Spain or Portugal, particularly during the 14th and 15th centuries, or one of their descendants.
To safeguard the Old Christian popula ...
problem," especially after having received some alarming reports in 1475 by the Prior of the
Dominicans
Dominicans () also known as Quisqueyans () are an ethnic group, ethno-nationality, national people, a people of shared ancestry and culture, who have ancestral roots in the Dominican Republic.
The Dominican ethnic group was born out of a fusio ...
of Seville, Friar Alonso de Ojeda, who reported that there were a large number of ''conversos'' in that city secretly practicing their religion in private, some even doing so openly.
After receiving these reports, the monarchs applied to Pope
Sixtus IV
Pope Sixtus IV (or Xystus IV, ; born Francesco della Rovere; (21 July 1414 – 12 August 1484) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 9 August 1471 until his death in 1484. His accomplishments as pope included ...
for authorization to name a number of
inquisitors in their kingdom, which the pontiff agreed to in his
bull
A bull is an intact (i.e., not Castration, castrated) adult male of the species ''Bos taurus'' (cattle). More muscular and aggressive than the females of the same species (i.e. cows proper), bulls have long been an important symbol cattle in r ...
''
Exigit sincerae devotionis'' of 1 November 1478.
"With the creation of the Tribunal of the Inquisition, the authorities will have sufficient instruments and methods of investigation at their disposal."
According to Joseph Pérez, Ferdinand and Isabella "were convinced that the Inquisition would force the ''conversos'' to assimilate into society once and for all: the day when all of the new Christians would renounce Judaism, and nothing would distinguish them anymore from any other member of society."
Expulsion
Segregation of the Jews (1480)

From the beginning of their reign,
Isabel and Ferdinand were concerned with protecting Jews – since they were "property" of the crown. For example, on September 6, 1477, in a letter addressed to the Jewish community of Seville, Queen Isabel I gave assurances about their safety:
Hence, even the Catholic Monarchs were reputed to be favorable to the Jews until 1492. This is what the German traveler, Nicolas de Popielovo said, for example, after his visit in 1484–1485:
But the monarchs could not do away with all the vexations and discrimination suffered by the Jews, encouraged on many occasions by the preaching of the friars from the mendicant orders. They decided to segregate the Jews to end the conflict. Already in the Cortes of Madrigal of 1476, the monarchs had protested the breach of the provisions in the Order of 1412 on the Jews – prohibition to wear luxury dresses; obligation to wear a red slice on the right shoulder; prohibition to hold positions with authority over Christians, to have Christian servants, to lend money at usurious interest, etc. But in the Cortes de Toledo of 1480, they decided to go much further to fulfill these norms: to force the Jews to live in separate quarters, where they could not leave except during daytime to carry out their professional occupations. Until then, the Jewish quarterswhere the Jews used to live and where they had their synagogues, butchers, etc.had not formed a separate world in the cities. There were also Christians living in them and Jews living outside them. From 1480 onwards, the Jewish quarters were converted into ghettos surrounded by walls, and the Jews were confined in them to avoid confusion and damage to Christianity. A term of two years was established for the process, but it lasted for more than ten years and was not exempt from problems and abuses by Christians.

The text approved by the Cortes, which also applied to the
Muslims of the region, read as follows:
The decision of the kings approved by the Courts of Toledo had antecedents, since Jews already had been confined in some Castilian localities like Cáceres or Soria. In this last locality it had been carried out with the monarchs' approval "to avoid the harms that followed from the Jews living, dwelling, and being present among the Christians." Fray Hernando de Talavera, the queen's confessor and who had opposed the use of force to solve the "converso problem," also justified the segregation "by avoiding many sins that follow from the mixture and a great deal of familiarity
etween Christians and Jewsand from not keeping everything that, encompassing their conversation with Christians, by
holy canons and civil laws is ordered and commanded."
With the decision to detain Jews in ghettos, it was not only a question of separating them from Christians and of protecting them, but also of imposing a series of obstacles to their activities, so that they would have no choice but "to give up their status as Jews if they want to lead a normal existence. Their conversion is not demanded – not yet – nor is their autonomous statute touched, but it continues with them in such a way that they end up convincing themselves that the only solution is conversion."
The expulsion of the Jews from Andalusia (1483)

The first inquisitors appointed by the kings arrived in Seville in November 1480, "immediately sowing terror." During the first years, in this city alone, they pronounced 700 death sentences and more than 5,000 "reconciliations" – that is, prison sentences, exile or simple penances – accompanied by confiscation of their property and disqualification for public office and ecclesiastical benefits.
Over the course of their inquiries, the inquisitors discovered that for a long time many converts had been meeting with their Jewish relatives to celebrate Jewish holidays and even attend synagogues. This convinced them that they would not be able to put an end to crypto-Judaism if converts continued to maintain contact with the Jews, so they asked the monarchs for the Jews to be expelled from Andalusia. This request was approved and in 1483, the monarchs gave six months for the Jews of the dioceses of Seville, Cordoba, and Cadiz to go to
Extremadura
Extremadura ( ; ; ; ; Fala language, Fala: ''Extremaúra'') is a landlocked autonomous communities in Spain, autonomous community of Spain. Its capital city is Mérida, Spain, Mérida, and its largest city is Badajoz. Located in the central- ...
. There are doubts as to whether the order was strictly enforced, since at the time of the final expulsion in 1492 some chroniclers speak of the fact that 8,000 families of Andalusia embarked in Cadiz and others in Cartagena and the ports of the Crown of Aragon. On the other hand, the expulsion of the Jews of Saragossa and Teruel was also proposed, but in the end, it was not carried out.
According to Julio Valdeón, the decision to expel the Jews from Andalusia also obeyed "the desire to move them away from the border between the crown of Castile and the
Nasrid Kingdom of Granada, the scene, during the 1480s and the first years of the 1490s, of the war that ended with the disappearance of the last stronghold of peninsular Islam."
The genesis of the expulsion decree

On March 31, 1492, shortly after the end of the Granada War, the Catholic Monarchs signed the decree of expulsion of the Jews in Granada, which was sent to all the cities, towns and lordships of their kingdoms with strict orders to not read it or make it public until May 1.
It is possible that some prominent Jews tried to nullify or soften it but did not have any success. Among these Jews,
Isaac Abravanel stands out, who offered King Ferdinand a considerable sum of money. According to a well-known legend, when Inquisitor General
Tomás de Torquemada discovered this, he presented himself before the king and threw a crucifix at his feet, saying: "Judas sold our Lord for thirty pieces of silver; His Majesty is about to sell it again for thirty thousand." According to the Israeli historian Benzion Netanyahu, quoted by Julio Valdeón, when Abravanel met with Queen Isabella, she said to him: "'Do you think this comes from me? The Lord has put that thought into the heart of the King?"
A few months before, an
auto da fe was held in Avila in which three converts and two Jews condemned by the Inquisition were burnt alive for an alleged ritual crime against a Christian child (who will be known as the
hild of the Guard contributed to create the propitious environment for the expulsion.

The
Catholic Monarchs
The Catholic Monarchs were Isabella I of Castile, Queen Isabella I of Crown of Castile, Castile () and Ferdinand II of Aragon, King Ferdinand II of Crown of Aragón, Aragon (), whose marriage and joint rule marked the ''de facto'' unification of ...
had precisely entrusted to the
inquisitor general
Grand Inquisitor (, literally ''Inquisitor General'' or ''General Inquisitor'') was the highest-ranked official of the Inquisition. The title usually refers to the inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition, in charge of appeals and cases of aristo ...
Tomás de Torquemada and its collaborators the writing of the decree fixing to them, according to the historian
Luis Suarez
Luis is a given name. It is the Spanish form of the originally Germanic name or . Other Iberian Romance languages have comparable forms: (with an accent mark on the i) in Portuguese and Galician, in Aragonese and Catalan, while is archai ...
, three previous conditions which would be reflected in the document: to justify the expulsion by charging Jews with two sufficiently serious offenses – usury and "heretical practice"; That there should be sufficient time for Jews to choose between baptism or exile; And that those who remained faithful to the Mosaic law could dispose of their movable and immovable property, although with the provisos established by the laws: they could not take either gold, silver, or horses. Torquemada presented the draft decree to the monarchs on March 20, 1492, and the monarchs signed and published it in Granada on March 31. According to Joseph Pérez, that the monarchs commissioned the drafting of the decree to Torquemada "demonstrates the leading role of
the Inquisition in that matter."Of the decree promulgated in Granada on March 31, which was based on the draft decree of Torquemada – drawn up "with the will and consent of their highnesses" and which is dated March 20 in Santa Fe – there are two versions: One signed by the two monarchs and valid for the Crown of Castile and another signed only by King Ferdinand and valid for the
Crown of Aragon
The Crown of Aragon (, ) ;, ; ; . was a composite monarchy ruled by one king, originated by the dynastic union of the Kingdom of Aragon and the County of Barcelona (later Principality of Catalonia) and ended as a consequence of the War of the Sp ...
. Between the draft decree of Torquemada and the two final versions, there exist, according to Joseph Pérez, "significant variants." In contrast to the Torquemada project and the Castilian decree, in the version addressed to the Crown of Aragon:
* The advocacy of the Inquisition is recognized – "Persuading us, the venerable father prior of Santa Cruz
orquemada inquisitor general of the said heretical iniquity...";
* Usury is mentioned as one of the two crimes of which the Jews are accused: "We find the said Jews, by means of great and unbearable usury, to devour and absorb the properties and substances of Christians";
* The official position is reaffirmed that only the Crown can decide the fate of the Jews since they are the possession of the monarchs – "they are ours," it is said;
* And it contains more insulting expressions against the Jews: they are accused of making fun of the laws of Christians and of considering them
idolatrous; it mentions the abominable circumstances and of Jewish perfidy; labels Judaism as "leprosy"; and it recalls that the Jews "by their own fault are subject to perpetual servitude, to be slaves and captives."
Regarding the essentials, the two versions have the same structure and expose the same ideas. The first part describes the reasons why the monarchs – or the king in the case of the Aragonese version – decided to expel the Jews. The second part details how the expulsion would take place.
The conditions of expulsion
The second part of the decree detailed the conditions for expulsion:
# The expulsion of the Jews was final: "We agree to send out all male and female Jews from our kingdoms and
rderthat none of them ever come back or return to them."
# There was no exception, neither for age, residence, nor place of birth – it included both those born in the crowns of Castile and Aragon and those from elsewhere.
# There was a period of four months, which would be extended ten more days, until August 10, to leave the monarchs' domains. Those who did not do so within that period, or who returned, would be punished with the death penalty and the confiscation of their property. Likewise, those who aided or concealed the Jews were liable to lose "all their goods, vassals, and fortresses, and other inheritances."
# Within the set period of four months the Jews could sell their real estate and take the proceeds of the sale in the form of bills of exchange – not in coinage or gold and silver because their export was prohibited by law – or merchandise, as long as they were not arms or horses, whose export was also prohibited.
Although the edict did not refer to a possible conversion, this alternative was implicit. As the historian
Luis Suárez
Luis Alberto Suárez Díaz (; born 24 January 1987) is a Uruguayan professional Association football, footballer who plays as a Striker (association football), striker for Major League Soccer club Inter Miami CF, Inter Miami. Known for his go ...
pointed out, the Jews had "four months to take the most terrible decision of their lives: to abandon their faith to be integrated in it
n the kingdom, in the political and civil community or leave the territory in order to preserve it."
The drama that the Jews lived is documented by a contemporary source:

The most outstanding Jews, with few exceptions such as that of
Isaac Abravanel, decided to convert to Christianity. The most relevant case was that of
Abraham Senior, the chief rabbi of Castile and one of the closest collaborators of the monarchs. He and all his relatives were baptized on June 15, 1492, in the Guadalupe monastery, with the monarchs Isabel and Ferdinand as their godparents. He took the name of Fernán Núñez Coronel, while his son-in-law Mayr Melamed took the name Fernán Pérez Coronel – in both cases, the same
Christian name
A Christian name, sometimes referred to as a baptismal name, is a religious personal name given on the occasion of a Christian baptism, though now most often given by parents at birth. In English-speaking cultures, a person's Christian name ...
as the king. This case, like that of Abraham de Córdoba, was given much publicity, to serve as an example for the rest of their community. In fact, during the four-month tacit term that was given for the conversion, many Jews were baptized, especially the rich and the most educated, and among them the vast majority of the
rabbis
A rabbi (; ) is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi—known as '' semikha''—following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of ...
.
A chronicler of the time relates the intense propaganda campaign that unfolded:
The Jews who decided not to convert "had to prepare themselves for the departure in tremendous conditions." They had to sell their goods because they had very little time and had to accept the sometimes ridiculous amounts offered to them in the form of goods that could be carried away, since the export of gold and silver from the kingdom was prohibited. The possibility of taking
bills of exchange
A negotiable instrument is a document guaranteeing the payment of a specific amount of money, either on demand, or at a set time, whose payer is usually named on the document. More specifically, it is a document contemplated by or consisting of a ...
was not much help because the bankers, Italians for the most part, demanded enormous interest. A chronicler of the time attests:
They also had serious difficulties in recovering money lent to Christians because either the repayment term was after August 10, the deadline for their departure, or many of the debtors claimed "usury fraud," knowing that the Jews would not have time for the courts to rule in their favor. In a letter to the monarchs, the
Ampudia Jews complained that, "The mayors of the said village were committing and have committed many wrongdoings and affronts that were specifically not consented to, no less do they want to pay their personal property and real estate that they have, nor pay the debts owed to them and that which they owe urge them to do and then pay them even if the deadlines are not reached."
In addition, they had to pay all the expenses of the trip – transport, maintenance, freight of the ships, tolls, etc. This was organized by Isaac Abravanel, who contracted the ships (having to pay very high prices), and whose owners in some cases did not fulfill the contract or killed the travelers to steal what little they had. Abravanel counted on the collaboration of the royal official and convert
Luis de Santángel and of the Genovese banker
Francisco Pinelo.
The monarchs had to give orders to protect Jews during the trip because they suffered vexations and abuse. This is how
Andrés Bernaldez, pastor of
Los Palacios
Los Palacios () is a municipality and town in the Pinar del Río Province of Cuba. It was founded in 1760.
Geography
The municipality is divided into the barrios of Limones, Macurijes, Paso Real, Santa Mónica, Santo Domingo, Sierra and Urbano. ...
, describes the time when the Jews had to "abandon the lands of their birth":
Reasons for the expulsion

In the Castillian version of the Alhambra Decree, reference is made exclusively to religious motives. The Aragonese version also alludes to usury. The Jews are accused of heretical depravity, that is, of serving as an example and inciting the
convert to return to the practices of his ancient religion.
At the beginning of the decree, It is said that:
The measures taken up to that point by the monarchs to put an end to communication between the Jewish community and the converts, a fundamental cause of the new Christians "Judaizing," according to the monarchs and the Inquisition, are as follows. The first was the agreement of the Cortes of Toledo of 1480, by which the Jews were forced to live in separate neighborhoods from the Christians, to prevent the Jews from being able to "subvert and subtract the Christian faithful from our holy Catholic faith." The second was the decision to expel the Jews from Andalusia, "believing that this would be enough for those of the other cities and towns and places of our kingdoms and manors to stop doing and committing the aforementioned." But this measure failed "because every day it is found and it seems that the said Jews continue to grow their evil and damaged purpose where they live and converse."
Finally, the reason for deciding to expel the entire Jewish community, and not just those of its members who allegedly wanted to "pervert" the Christians, is explained:
As highlighted
Julio Valdeón, "undoubtedly the expulsion of the Jews from the Iberian site is one of the most controversial issues of all that have happened throughout the
history of Spain
The history of Spain dates to contact between the List of the Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula, pre-Roman peoples of the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean coast of the Iberian Peninsula with the Greeks and Phoenicians. During Classical A ...
." It is not surprising, therefore, that historians have debated whether, in addition to the motives laid out by the Catholic Monarchs in the decree, there were others. Nowadays, some of the arguments made over time, such as that the Jews were expelled to keep their wealth, seem to have been discarded, since the majority of the Jews who left were the most modest, while the richest converted and they stayed. And on the other hand, the crown did not benefit at all from the operation; rather, it was damaged, because it stopped receiving the taxes paid by the Jews. Nor does the argument seem to hold that the expulsion was an episode of class conflict – for instance, that the nobility wanted to get rid of an incipient bourgeoisie, represented by the Jews, that supposedly threatened their interests – because many Jews were defended by some of the most important noble families of Castile, and because in addition, it was among the ranks of the "bourgeoisie" of "old Christians" where anti-Judaism grew the most.
A personal motive on the part of the monarchs can also be ruled out, as there is no indication that they felt any repugnance towards Jews and converts. Among the monarchs' trusted men were several who belonged to this group, such as the confessor of the queen
friar Hernando de Talavera, the steward
Andrés Cabrera, the treasurer of the
Santa Hermandad
Santa Hermandad (, "holy brotherhood") was a type of military peacekeeping association of armed individuals, which became characteristic of municipal life in medieval Spain, especially in Castile. Modern hermandades in Spain, some of which evo ...
Abraham Senior, or Mayr Melamed and
Isaac Abarbanel
Isaac ben Judah Abarbanel (; 1437–1508), commonly referred to as Abarbanel (; also spelled Abravanel, Avravanel or Abrabanel), was a Portuguese Jewish politician, statesman, philosophy, philosopher, Rabbinic commentaries, Bible commentator ...
, without counting the Jewish doctors that attended them.

Current historians prefer to place expulsion in the European context, and those such as
Luis Suárez Fernández or Julio Valdeón highlight that the Catholic Monarchs were, in fact, the last of the sovereigns of the great western European states to decree expulsionthe Kingdom of England did it in 1290, the
Kingdom of France
The Kingdom of France is the historiographical name or umbrella term given to various political entities of France in the Middle Ages, medieval and Early modern France, early modern period. It was one of the most powerful states in Europe from th ...
in 1394; in 1421 the Jews were expelled from
Vienna
Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...
; in 1424 from
Linz
Linz (Pronunciation: , ; ) is the capital of Upper Austria and List of cities and towns in Austria, third-largest city in Austria. Located on the river Danube, the city is in the far north of Austria, south of the border with the Czech Repub ...
and of
Colonia; in 1439 from
Augsburg
Augsburg ( , ; ; ) is a city in the Bavaria, Bavarian part of Swabia, Germany, around west of the Bavarian capital Munich. It is a College town, university town and the regional seat of the Swabia (administrative region), Swabia with a well ...
; in 1442 from
Bavaria
Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 of the total l ...
; in 1485 from
Perugia
Perugia ( , ; ; ) is the capital city of Umbria in central Italy, crossed by the River Tiber. The city is located about north of Rome and southeast of Florence. It covers a high hilltop and part of the valleys around the area. It has 162,467 ...
; in 1486 from
Vicenza
Vicenza ( , ; or , archaically ) is a city in northeastern Italy. It is in the Veneto region, at the northern base of the Monte Berico, where it straddles the Bacchiglione, River Bacchiglione. Vicenza is approximately west of Venice and e ...
; in 1488 from
Parma
Parma (; ) is a city in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna known for its architecture, Giuseppe Verdi, music, art, prosciutto (ham), Parmesan, cheese and surrounding countryside. With a population of 198,986 inhabitants as of 2025, ...
; in 1489 from
Milan
Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...
and
Luca
Luca or LUCA may refer to:
People
* Luca (masculine given name), including a list of people
* Luca (feminine given name), including a list of people
* Luca (surname), including a list of people
Places
* The ancient name of Lucca, an Etruscan ...
; in 1493 from
Sicily
Sicily (Italian language, Italian and ), officially the Sicilian Region (), is an island in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula in continental Europe and is one of the 20 regions of Italy, regions of Italy. With 4. ...
; in 1494 from
Florence
Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025.
Florence ...
; in 1498 from
Provence
Provence is a geographical region and historical province of southeastern France, which stretches from the left bank of the lower Rhône to the west to the France–Italy border, Italian border to the east; it is bordered by the Mediterrane ...
...-. The objective of all of them was to achieve unity of faith in their states, a principle that would be defined in the 16th century with the maxim "
cuius regio, eius religio
() is a Latin phrase which literally means "whose realm, his religion" – meaning that the religion of the ruler was to dictate the religion of those ruled. This legal principle marked a major development in the collective (if not individual) ...
," i.e., that the subjects should profess the same religion as their prince.
As Joseph Pérez has pointed out, the expulsion "puts an end to an original situation in Christian Europe: that of a nation that consents to the presence of different religious communities" with which it "becomes a nation like the rest in European Christendom." Pérez adds, "The
University of Paris
The University of Paris (), known Metonymy, metonymically as the Sorbonne (), was the leading university in Paris, France, from 1150 to 1970, except for 1793–1806 during the French Revolution. Emerging around 1150 as a corporation associated wit ...
congratulated Spain for having carried out an act of good governance, an opinion shared by the best minds of the time (
Machiavelli,
Guicciardini,
Pico della Mirandola
Giovanni Pico dei conti della Mirandola e della Concordia ( ; ; ; 24 February 146317 November 1494), known as Pico della Mirandola, was an Italian Renaissance nobleman and philosopher. He is famed for the events of 1486, when, at the age of 23, ...
)...
..it was the so-called medieval coexistence that was strange to Christian Europe."
Julio Valdeón affirms that the decision of the Catholic Monarchs, who "showed themselves, in their first years of rule, clearly protective of the Hebrews," was due to "pressure from the rest of Christianity" and to "the constant pressure of The Church, who often preached against those it called "deicides," as well as the "tremendous animosity that existed in the Christian people against the Jewish community." In this sense, he quotes the thesis of the Israeli historian
Benzion Netanyahu that the expulsion was the consequence of the climate of racism that lived in the Christian society of the time. A thesis of the latter – that the monarchs decided on the expulsion to ingratiate themselves with the masses in which anti-Jewish sentiments predominated – Joseph Pérez considers to be without foundation: "Why should the monarchs have had to worry about what the masses felt about Jews and converts when they did not
ven
Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It comprises an area of , and its popul ...
attend to the more concrete interests of those masses? Of the three surviving versions of the expulsion edict, only the third
he Aragonese which was signed only by King Ferdinand, refers to the subject of usury, and certainly in very harsh terms. In the other two versions, we do not read a single mention or even the slightest allusion to this matter. Accusations that had been repeated for centuries against the Jews: a deicide people, desecration of hosts, ritual crimes ... do not appear in any of the three versions."
For Joseph Pérez, the decision of the Catholic Monarchs, as evidenced by the content of the
Granada Edict, is directly related to the "converso problem." The first step was the creation of the Inquisition, the second the expulsion of the Jews to eliminate those who allegedly incited the converts to Judaize. "What concerned them
he monarchswas the total and definitive assimilation of the converts, for which the previous measures failed; they resort to a drastic solution: the expulsion of the Jews to root out evil." "The idea of expelling the Jews comes from the Inquisition; there is no doubt about this.
..The expulsion of the Jews seemed to the Inquisition the best way to end the Judaizing of converts: by removing the cause – communication with Jews – the effect would fade away.
��The Catholic Monarchs take the idea on their own, but this does not mean that they are under pressure from the inquisitors. The concerns, for them, are also religious: heresy is not to their liking; they want to cleanse the kingdom of it, as the queen wrote, but these concerns are also political: they hope that the elimination of Judaism will facilitate the definitive assimilation and integration of the converts into Spanish society. ".
On the other hand, Joseph Pérez, following Luis Suárez, places the expulsion within the context of the construction of the "modern State," which requires greater social cohesion based on the unity of faith to impose its authority on all groups and individuals in the kingdom. Unlike in medieval times, in this type of state there are no groups that are governed by particular rules, as was the case for the Jewish community. For this reason, it is not by chance, Pérez warns, that only three months after having eliminated the last Muslim stronghold on the peninsula with the conquest of the Nasrid kingdom of Granada, the monarchs decreed the expulsion of the Jews. "What was intended then was to fully assimilate Judaizers and Jews so that there were only Christians. The monarchs must have thought that the prospect of expulsion would encourage Jews to convert ''en masse'' and that thus a gradual assimilation would destroy the remnants of Judaism. They were wrong about this. The vast majority preferred to leave, with all that this entailed in tears, sacrifices and humiliations, and remain faithful to their faith. They flatly refused the assimilation that was offered them as an alternative." However, "assimilation" is in this quote a euphemism: what was offered to the Sephardic Jew was, in fact, conversion to a faith that was not his own, hence his mass emigration (towards the different directions indicated in the map above).
Consequences
The end of religious diversity in Spain

As Joseph Pérez has pointed out, "In 1492, the story of Spanish Judaism ends, thenceforth leading only an underground existence, always threatened by the Spanish Inquisition and the suspicion of a public opinion that saw in Jews, Judaizers and even sincere converts natural enemies of Catholicism and Spanish idiosyncrasy, as understood and imposed by some ecclesiastical and intellectual leaders, in an attitude that bordered on racism."
Historic accounts of the numbers of Jews who left Spain are based on speculation, and some aspects were exaggerated by early accounts and historians:
Juan de Mariana speaks of 800,000 people, and
Don Isaac Abravanel of 300,000. While few reliable statistics exist for the expulsion, modern estimates by scholars from the
University of Barcelona
The University of Barcelona (official name in ; UB), formerly also known as Central University of Barcelona (), is a public research university located in the city of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. It was established in 1450. With 76,000 students, ...
estimated the number of Sephardic Jews during the 15th century at 400,000 out of a total population of approximately 7.5 million people in all of Spain, out of whom about half (at least 200,000) or slightly more (300,000) remained in Iberia as
''conversos''; Others who tried to estimate the Jews' demographics based on tax returns and population estimates of communities are much lower, with Kamen stating that, of a population of approximately 80,000 Jews and 200,000 ''conversos'', about 40,000 emigrated. Another approximately 50,000 Jews received a Christian baptism so as to remain in Spain; many secretly kept some of their Jewish traditions and thus became the target of the Inquisition. The Jews of the kingdom of Castile emigrated mainly to Portugal (where the entire community was forcibly converted in 1497) and to North Africa. The Jews of the kingdom of Aragon fled to other Christian areas including Italy, rather than to Muslim lands as is often assumed. Although the vast majority of ''conversos'' simply assimilated into the Catholic dominant culture, a minority continued to practice Judaism in secret, gradually migrating throughout Europe, North Africa, and the Ottoman Empire, mainly to areas where Sephardic communities were already present as a result of the Alhambra Decree.
The situation of those who returned was regularized with an order of November 10, 1492, in which it was established that civil and ecclesiastical authorities had to be witnesses to baptism, and in the event that they had been baptized before returning, evidence and testimonials that confirm it. They were also able to recover all their goods for the same price at which they had sold them. Returns are documented at least until 1499. On the other hand, the Provision of the Royal Council of 24 October 1493 set harsh sanctions for those who slandered these New Christians with insulting terms such as ''tornadizos'' ("transgressors").
As for the economic impact of the expulsion, it seems to be ruled out that it was a hard setback that stopped the birth of capitalism, which would be one of the causes of the decline of Spain. As Joseph Pérez has pointed out, "in view of the published literature on taxation and economic activities, there is no doubt that the Jews were no longer a source of relevant wealth, neither as bankers nor as renters nor as merchants who conducted business at an international level.
..The expulsion of the Jews produced problems at the local level but not a national catastrophe. It is unreasonable to attribute to that event the decline of Spain and its supposed inability to adapt to the transformations of the modern world. What we know now shows that 16th century Spain was not exactly an economically backward nation.
...In strictly demographic and economic terms, and apart from human aspects, the expulsion did not imply for Spain any substantial deterioration, but only a temporary crisis quickly overcome."
An issue of the Amsterdam Gazette published in the Netherlands on September 12, 1672, and preserved at
Beth Hatefutsoth evidences interest by the Jewish community in what was happening at that time in Madrid, and it presents the news in Spanish, 180 years after the expulsion.
Continued persecution of crypto-Jews
After the expulsion, the Spanish Inquisition remained active for centuries and continued into the 18th century, targeting conversos suspected of 'Judaizing,' that is, secretly observing Jewish beliefs and practices. As the Church could not legally execute, it transferred convicted individuals to secular authorities, who implemented sentences such as
death by burning
Death by burning is an execution, murder, or suicide method involving combustion or exposure to extreme heat. It has a long history as a form of public capital punishment, and many societies have employed it as a punishment for and warning agai ...
—a punishment developed within ecclesiastical circles and justified as saving the soul through earthly suffering. Public executions, called ''
autos-de-fé'', became elaborate ceremonies featuring processions, sermons, and mass spectacle, sometimes even attended by royalty. Those who confessed under pressure were paraded in humiliating garments called ''
sanbenitos'', with their offenses read aloud and their names displayed in churches for generations. Others were burned in
effigy
An effigy is a sculptural representation, often life-size, of a specific person or a prototypical figure. The term is mostly used for the makeshift dummies used for symbolic punishment in political protests and for the figures burned in certain ...
if they had died or fled, and even the remains of deceased suspects were exhumed and destroyed as part of the symbolic enforcement of orthodoxy.
The Sephardic diaspora and the Jewish identity continuity
The expulsion initiated a prolonged period of exile and hardship, triggering a
refugee crisis
A refugee crisis can refer to difficulties and/or dangerous situations in the reception of large groups of refugees. These could be Forced displacement, forcibly displaced persons, internally displaced persons, asylum seekers or any other huge ...
as Jews sought new places of refuge and resettlement.
Most of the expelled Jews settled in North Africa, sometimes via Portugal, or in nearby states, such as the
Kingdom of Portugal
The Kingdom of Portugal was a Portuguese monarchy, monarchy in the western Iberian Peninsula and the predecessor of the modern Portuguese Republic. Existing to various extents between 1139 and 1910, it was also known as the Kingdom of Portugal a ...
, the
Kingdom of Navarre
The Kingdom of Navarre ( ), originally the Kingdom of Pamplona, occupied lands on both sides of the western Pyrenees, with its northernmost areas originally reaching the Atlantic Ocean (Bay of Biscay), between present-day Spain and France.
The me ...
, or in the Italian states. As they were also expelled from these first two kingdoms in 1497 and 1498 respectively, they were forced to emigrate again. The majority of those from Navarre settled in
Bayonne
Bayonne () is a city in southwestern France near the France–Spain border, Spanish border. It is a communes of France, commune and one of two subprefectures in France, subprefectures in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques departments of France, departm ...
. And those from Portugal ended up in Northern Europe (England or
Flanders
Flanders ( or ; ) is the Dutch language, Dutch-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to culture, la ...
). In North Africa, those who went to the
Fez kingdom suffered all kinds of ill-treatment and were plundered, even by the Jews who had lived there for a long time. Those who fared the best were those who settled in the territories of the Ottoman Empire, both in North Africa and in the
Middle East
The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq.
The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...
, such as in the
Balkans
The Balkans ( , ), corresponding partially with the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throug ...
and the
Republic of Ragusa
The Republic of Ragusa, or the Republic of Dubrovnik, was an maritime republics, aristocratic maritime republic centered on the city of Dubrovnik (''Ragusa'' in Italian and Latin; ''Raguxa'' in Venetian) in South Dalmatia (today in southernmost ...
, after having passed by
Italy
Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...
. The sultan gave orders to welcome them, and his successor
Suleiman the Magnificent
Suleiman I (; , ; 6 November 14946 September 1566), commonly known as Suleiman the Magnificent in the Western world and as Suleiman the Lawgiver () in his own realm, was the List of sultans of the Ottoman Empire, Ottoman sultan between 1520 a ...
exclaimed on one occasion, referring to King Ferdinand: "You call him king who impoverishes his states to enrich mine?" This same sultan commented to the ambassador sent by
Carlos V Charles V may refer to:
Kings and Emperors
* Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (1500–1558)
* Charles V of Naples (1661–1700), better known as Charles II of Spain
* Charles V of France (1338–1380), called the Wise
Others
* Charles V, Duke ...
who marveled that "the Jews had been thrown out of Castile, which was to throw away wealth."
Over the course of a few generations, the Ottoman Empire's cities emerged as the heart of the Sephardic world.
As some Jews identified Spain and the Iberian Peninsula with the biblical
Sepharad
Sepharad ( or ; , ; also ''Sfard'', ''Spharad'', ''Sefarad'', or ''Sephared'') is the Hebrew-language name for the Iberian Peninsula, consisting of both modern-time Western Europe's Spain and Portugal, especially in reference to the local Je ...
, the Jews expelled by the Catholic monarchs took or received the name of
Sephardi
Sephardic Jews, also known as Sephardi Jews or Sephardim, and rarely as Iberian Peninsular Jews, are a Jewish diaspora population associated with the historic Jewish communities of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) and their descendant ...
.
Contemporary Jewish accounts frequently compared their suffering to that of the ancient Israelites, expressing both their trust in God and their hope for messianic deliverance.
In addition to their religion, they also "kept many of their ancestral customs, and in particular preserved the use of the Spanish language, a language which, of course, is not exactly what was spoken in fifteenth-century Spain: like any living language, it evolved and suffered notable alterations over the passage of time, although the structures and essential characteristics remained those of late medieval Castilian.
..The Sephardis never forgot the land of their parents, harboring mixed feelings for her: on the one hand, the resentment for the tragic events of 1492, and on the other hand, as time goes by, the nostalgia for the lost homeland."
Regarding
Judeo-Spanish (also known as ''Ladino'') as a socio-cultural and identity phenomenon, Garcia-Pelayo and Gross wrote in 1977:
Notes
References
Sources
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Expulsion of Jews from Spain
1490s in Spain
1492 in Europe
Ethnic cleansing in Europe
Expulsions of Jews
Forced migrations in Europe
History of the conversos
Judaism and politics
Judaism and society
Spanish Inquisition
Jewish Spanish history
Racism in Spain