Reconquista - Classifications and Consequences Post-Reconquista

Classifications and Consequences Post-Reconquista

The many advances and retreats created several social types:

• The Muladi: Christians who converted to Islam after the arrival of the Moors.
• The Renegades: Christian individuals who embraced Islam and often fought against their former compatriots.
• The Mozarabs: Christians in Muslim-held lands. Some of them migrated to the north of the peninsula in times of persecution bringing elements of the styles, food and agricultural practices learned from the Moors, while they continued practicing their Christianity with older forms of Catholic worship and their own versions of the Latin language.
• The Marranos: Jewish conversos. Jews who either voluntarily or compulsorily converted to Catholicism. Some were Crypto-Jews who continued practicing Judaism secretly. All remaining Jews were expelled from Spain in Treaty of Granada of 1491, and from Portugal in 1497. Converso Jews often became victims of the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions.
• The Mudéjar and Moriscos: Muslim conversos. Muslims who were compulsorily converted to Catholicism. Most were Crypto-Muslims who continued practicing Islam secretly. They ranged from successful skilled artisans, valued and protected in Aragon, to impoverished peasants in Castile. After the Alhambra Decree the entire Islamic population was forced to convert or leave, and within a century most, if not all, were expelled.