Lope de Barrientos - Activities As Inquisitor and Policy On Conversion

Activities As Inquisitor and Policy On Conversion

At the end of 15th century, a wide sector of Spanish society was hostile toward Jews; as the Franciscan, Alphonso de Spina explains in his treatise, Fortalitium Fidei: "Entraron, ¡oh Señor!, en tu rebaño los lobos rapaces. Nadie piensa en los pérfidos judíos, que blasfeman de tu nombre" (They entered your flock, oh Lord!, as greedy wolves. Nobody thinks about the perfidious Jews, who blaspheme in your name).

By contrast, there were influential Spaniards who decried these attitudes—at least toward converted Jews (some of them being converts themselves) such as Díaz de Toledo, Alonso de Cartagena, Lope Barrientos, and Juan de Torquemada (the uncle of the inquisitor). Benzion Netanyahu, a noted writer on 15th-century Spanish affairs, affirms that when the converted Spaniards were persecuted, they were "determined to fight fire with fire, the Marranos enlisted in their support men of courage and brilliance, such as Lope de Barrientos".

Barrientos wrote a number of tracts defending Jews; in one he recognized that it is "posible es que aya algunos, pero puesto que ansy sea, injusta e inhumana cosa sería todo el linaje dellos manzellar nin diffamar" (possible that there are some deserving of condemnation, but even if that is the case, it would be unjust and cruel to debase and defame all people of Jewish heritage). Thanks to his position as inquisitor and the influence that title conferred upon him, he was able to contact Pope Nicholas V regarding the issue. In 1449 he obtained a favorable response; according to Barrientos, the Pontiff "había mandado que no se hiciera ninguna discriminación entre los nuevos convertidos a la fe y los cristianos viejos en la recepción y tenencia de honores, dignidades y oficios, tanto eclesiásticos como seculares" (ordered him not to discriminate between new converts to the faith and old Christians in the reception and tenancy of honors, dignities and offices, both ecclesiastical and secular).

Barrientos went so far as to make sure that he was descended from converted Jews. However, the research's aim was to establish himself as an old Christian, with the goal of using this evidence to strengthen his ideological position: to defend converted Jews, but to attack unconverted Jews.

Despite his defense of converted Jews, Barrientos and, the Dominican Order in general, supported the prohibition of Judaism in Castile. His stance was that the Judeo-Spaniards had to convert or leave, and they defended that ideology until Tomás de Torquemada, the grand inquisitor, convinced Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon to act. In 1492 the Alhambra Decree issued, which mandated the expulsion of all Jews from Spain and its territories and possessions by July 31, 1492.

Another campaign Barrientos took up with the king was the prosecution of Enrique de Villena, whom he charge with witchcraft and necromancy. Villena was a man of letters who wrote on diverse topics, was a translator (most notably of Virgil's Aeneid), a surgeon, and it is possible that he collected books in Hebrew and Arabic; such pursuits automatically turned him into a suspected heretic. Although John II was himself a man of innovative ideas and one of the more cultured people of his age, like many of the era, he distrusted intellectuals, and, in response to Barrientos' suit, condemned Enrique de Villena to prison. These events are well attested in unpublished works authored by Barrientos, which still exist in Salamanca such as his Tratado de caso e fortuna (Treatise on Prophesies).

After Villena died in jail in 1434, King John II submitted his library to Barrientos for investigation. Barrientos ordered the majority of the manuscripts burned, but preserved a few.

The poet, Juan de Mena (1411–1456), a chronicler of King John II's life, skewered Barrientos for these deeds in his Laberinto de fortuna ("Labyrinth of Fortune"), a 300-octave poem which explicitly mirrors the form of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy:

Perdió los tus libros sin ser conosçidos,	(He lost your books without knowing what's what,
e cómo en esequia te fueron ya luego	and since in funeral you had already came
unos metidos al ávido fuego,	put into the thirsty flame,
otros sin orden non bien repartidos;	and others were without order badly divided;)

Some accused Barrientos of being a savage and of plundering the most valuable books in Villena's collection in order to plagiarize them. Others, however, justified his acts by rationalizing that since John II wanted the entire collection put to the torch, it was only through Barrientos' intervention that even some were saved. Barrientos himself offered an explanation of the events, addressed to the king, in his Tractado de la Divinança, translated from the original Spanish as follows:

Your Majesty, after the death of Don Enrique de Villena, as a Christian king, you sent me, your devoted follower, to burn his books, which I executed in the presence of your servants. These action, and other ones, are a testament to your Majesty's devotion to Christianity. While this is praiseworthy, on the other hand, it is useful to entrust some books to reliable people who would use them solely with the goal of educating themselves to better defend the Christian religion and faith and to bedevil idolaters and practitioners of necromancy.