How the category emerged
- 1391Pogroms and mass baptisms. Tens of thousands enter the Christian community all at once.
- 15th centuryBaptized families take up positions and marry into the nobility. Resentment grows, along with suspicion that they are insincere.
- 1478The Inquisition is established, with jurisdiction over baptized people: secretly practicing one's former faith is treated as heresy.
- 1492An edict of expulsion presents a choice: convert or leave. The number of New Christians rises sharply again.
The key legal detail here is easy to miss. The Inquisition had no authority over people of other faiths: its concern was heresy within Christianity. That is why baptism did not protect people but instead placed them under its jurisdiction.
The Inquisition persecuted Jews and Muslims for their faith.
Formally, it dealt only with baptized people, accusing them of secretly returning to their former faith. The unbaptized did not fall under its jurisdiction: for them, there was expulsion.
Purity of blood
By the 15th century, statutes on purity of blood began to appear: access to positions, orders, and universities was restricted for people who had members of another faith among their ancestors. A person's faith was no longer decisive.
This was a fundamental shift. A religious boundary could be crossed through baptism, but a family line could not, and suspicion was inherited. Historians see this as one of the early examples of a shift from religious distinction toward what would later be called racial distinction.
A whole industry of certificates also emerged: proof of ancestry, witnesses, and searches for records about ancestors. A document certifying an impeccable family line became valuable property, while forged genealogies became commonplace.
People's fates varied. Some families blended into society, some emigrated, and some preserved the memory of their origins for centuries. Debate over how widespread the secret observance of their former faith was continues to this day.
Who were called New Christians?
Why did baptism not protect people from the Inquisition?
Sources
- The term “New Christians” was used in Spain and Portugal for baptized Jews and Muslims and their descendants. The Inquisition's jurisdiction extended to baptized people because its concern was heresy
- in 1492, an edict of expulsion was issued for the unbaptized. Statutes on purity of blood restricted access to positions based on ancestry
- the extent of secret observance of the former faith remains a subject of historiographical debate
Next in the “The Inquisition” series
2 articles in full on the site, 3 more in the app
