Language:
English
Year of publication:
2008
Titel der Quelle:
Sefer Yuhasin
Angaben zur Quelle:
24-25 (2008-2009) 43-70
Keywords:
Crypto-Jews Legal status, laws, etc.
;
Crypto-Jews Legal status, laws, etc.
;
Jews History To 1500
;
Jews History
;
Christian converts from Judaism
;
Christian converts from Judaism
;
Antisemitism History To 1500
;
Antisemitism History 16th century
;
Antisemitism History 16th century
Abstract:
From the 6th-7th centuries on, rulers of both the Byzantine Empire and the Christian West (e.g. Visigothic Spain) enacted coercive measures in order to force Jews to convert. The resulting mass conversions were followed by legislative measures that separated converts and their descendants from the community of "faithful" Christians. By the Late Middle Ages there already existed a tradition of legal discrimination of large groups of converts that formed in the aftermath of forced conversions. Examines the phenomenon of "universitas neophitorum", a community of converts, regarded by secular authorities as a separate legal body. Such communities emerged in Sicily and in the Kingdom of Naples in the 14th-15th centuries. Their legal status was closer to that of the Jews than to that of the Christians, e.g. Sicilian New Christians paid a special tax, were entitled to royal protection, and addressed authorities as a group; they also suffered harassment and persecution for being former Jews. In 1511 Ferdinand of Aragon expelled both Jews and New Christians from the kingdom of Naples. The initiative for such treatment of converts came from below (city councils, university boards, religious orders, etc.), rather than from the Inquisition.
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