Judaizers and malsines: crypto-jewish networks during the sixteenth century

Abstract

The Seventeenth Century involved the beginning of a new enemy for the Inquisition, the Portuguese crypto-jew, who was unfairly known as “marrano” in the society of their time. During the first years of Spanish Inquisition, the Judaism was absolutely doomed in Spain, after this new character appears in scene, with a new network, it grew again. In this article, we try to show the Portuguese New Christian society of Cordoba during the Early Modern Age. We will show with different examples the variety of Portuguese’s community and commercials interests for the Andalusian geographical area.