Alhambra Decree - Background

Background

Beginning in the 8th century, Muslims had occupied and settled most of the Iberian Peninsula. Jews, who had lived in these regions since Roman times, were considered "People of the Book" and given special status and often thrived under Muslim rule. The tolerance of the Muslim Moorish rulers of al-Andalus attracted Jewish immigration, and Jewish enclaves in Muslim Iberian cities flourished as places of learning and commerce. Progressively, however, living conditions for Jews in al-Andalus became harsher, especially after the fall of the Muslim Umayyad Caliphate.

The Reconquista, the gradual reconquest of Islamic Iberia by the Catholic kingdoms, was justified by a powerful religious motivation: Iberia was being reclaimed for Christendom following the fall of the Visigothic Kingdom to the Umayyad Caliphate centuries before. By the 14th century, most of the Iberian Peninsula, present day Spain and Portugal, had been regained from the Moors.

Overt hostility against Jews became more pronounced, finding expression in brutal episodes of violence and oppression. Thousands of Jews sought to escape these attacks by converting to Catholicism; they were commonly called conversos, New Christians, or marranos. At first these conversions seemed an effective solution to the cultural conflict: many converso families met with social and commercial success. But eventually their success made these new Catholics unpopular with some of the clergy of the Church and royal hierarchies.

These suspicions on the part of Christians were only heightened by the fact that some of the coerced conversions were undoubtedly insincere. Some, but not all, conversos had understandably chosen to salvage their social and commercial prestige by the only option open to them – baptism and embrace of Christianity – while privately adhering to their Jewish practice and faith. These secret practitioners are commonly referred to as crypto-Jews or marranos.

The existence of crypto-Jews was a provocation for secular and ecclesiastical leaders who were already hostile toward Spain's Jewry. The uncertainty over the sincerity of Jewish converts added fuel to the fire of antisemitism in 15th-century Spain.