Language:
French
Year of publication:
2009
Titel der Quelle:
Plurielles
Angaben zur Quelle:
14 (2009) 59-66
Keywords:
Antisemitism History To 1500
;
Antisemitism History 1500-1800
;
Jews History 1500-1800
Abstract:
The "purity of blood" statutes of 1536 were the product of fear among "Old Christians" of competition from "New Christians", Jews who had converted after the pogrom in Seville in 1391 and gained access to positions from which they were formerly barred. The statutes were in turn used as a weapon against competitors and triggered a national obsession with purity. Writers like Escobar del Corro and Jiménez Patón, active in the 17th century, expressed racist phobia, but some voices, even within the Church, warned of racist extremism, demanding a revision of the statutes. The Jesuits were critical of them, and even Philip II himself, their instigator, feared their consequences for society. Argues that the obsession with "limpieza de sangre" contributed to Spain's decline, the result of self-admiration and rejection of economic activity which was viewed as "Jewish". Spain, destined by God to "purify the world through exemplary Catholicism", did not experience a Cartesian revolution and the country opened up to liberal values only in the mid-19th century. The "purity of blood" statutes were officially abolished in 1865.
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