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Presence and Power | |
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In both Aragon and Castile, up until the time of Philip II, who deliberately constructed Madrid as his capital city, 1 political power was connected to physical presence. Upon his accession to the throne, a new king would promptly begin to tour his realms, reaffirming, in each location, that he would continue to honor the rights granted to it by the previous monarch, receiving the homage, sustenance, and entertainment each town in turn provided, and on occasion providing legal review in the area. When Martin I, the newly crowned king of Aragon, visited Teruel shortly after his coronation in 1398, the town arranged parties and amusements for him, hiring Muslim and Christian jugglers, along with musicians "so that the gentlefolk might dance." Indeed, the celebrations went beyond genteel balls and amusements; the town council authorized the expense of a fierce bull for the celebration, and in the aftermath, an irate citizen whose residence was near the plaza petitioned the council to pay for repairs to his front door, which had been "totally destroyed" by the crowds. The purpose of such a royal visit was not, however, purely festive. The fueros of each town in Aragon contained a series of confirmations from each ruler, and the king's personal visit was intended, in part, to affirm these fueros. 2 At times, the royal presence could also aid local justice. Pulgar, secretary to Isabella and chronicler of her reign, wrote that one of her activities when visiting a locale—the city of Vitoria, for example—was to "enforce justice throughout the area," as has been previously discussed. 3 | 1 |
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Philip II, breaking with the tradition established by his great-grandparents and those who had ruled before them, constructed Madrid so as to have a permanent capital city for the administration of all of Spain. A builder by nature, he went on to construct the Escorial. Some historians of the Aragonese Inquisition have assumed that, like Philip II, the inquisitors preferred to administer from a central location—in the case of the Aragonese Inquisition, the Aljaferia, a formidable fortress located in Saragossa and built, ironically enough, for the local Muslim ruler during the time that Saragossa was a taifa state. 4 But the memoranda and correspondence of the Aragonese Inquisition indicate that this was not the case. The inquisitors, returning to the Spanish tradition of assertion of political power through physical presence, sought to place inquisitors and commissioners throughout Aragon, to insert them into life at the local level. | |
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An Inquisition memorandum from the mid-1500s makes a strong case for extending the Inquisition's power by extending its immediate presence to numerous locations within Aragon, especially in the regions to the south and east of Saragossa. Whatever their motives, the Inquisition's own justification for such an immediate presence is made clear to the reader in this memorandum of "changes that ought to be made." 5 The memorandum is, from one point of view, a sort of mapping of all of Aragon into locations where concentrations of population could be found, together with an estimate of the population of ". . . the whole of the bank of the Jalon River, from Alagon to Calatayud, where Bardallas, Plasencia, Urria, Rueda, and Sabinian are. All of these towns are quite large and have a significant population of convertidos, over 1,500 citizens without counting the old Christians. . . ." 6 | |
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The document went on to note that on the opposite bank there were other towns, and these, too, had a significant number of Moriscos resident: 1,100, according to the author. Moreover, the commissioner resident in Sabinian was not able to visit all of these places. 7 There were other villages where the Morisco population was high as well . Lugares, or places, in the market region of Saragossa were centers of Morisco population, containing more than 700 convertidos. Then, too, there was, between Calatayud and Daroca, "a place with only convertidos, called Villafeliche, which has more than 400 citizens. . . ." In page after page, the inquisitors listed towns and villages, estimating population by the number of old Christians and Moriscos and remarking upon the pressing need to have a representative of the Inquisition present locally. | |
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Constructing a Morisco Identity | |
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Why, we might ask, was it necessary to count the Morisco population separately? 8 The clear presumption on the part of the Inquisition in this separate tally was that Moriscos—all Moriscos—were not the same as old Christians. Their loyalty was always questionable. The memorandum, for example, noted that "in Montalban, too, a commissioner is really necessary, because, besides being a significant departure point more than eight or ten leagues from the nearest commissioner, this is on the road to Valencia. And along it the convertidos who are leaving the kingdom make their way, and hence to Muslim lands. . . ." 9 | 5 |
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The theme of Moriscos returning "home" echoes throughout the Inquisition correspondence. Why did the inquisitors insist that the Moriscos were foreign, and not at home in their native country, Spain? The Manual for Inquisitors of Nicholas Eymeric, used by the Aragonese Inquisition in the first half of the sixteenth century, may provide some insight. How, asked Eymeric in the first part of the manual, ought we to understand the word "heresy"? He offered the insight of Isidore of Seville: "A heretic is one who cuts himself off from the communal life." The heretic, comments Eymeric, by choosing a false doctrine and adhering to it stubbornly, rejects those with whom he lives, his community. Such a person finds himself cut off indeed, "excommunicated." "It is thus urgent," wrote Eymeric, "that there be segregation if there is heresy." 10 For the inquisitors within the Aljaferia, foreignness and heresy were necessarily related to one another. We know, from the parochial records we have examined, that new Christian families in our villages were not foreigners; they had been residents of Burbaguena for generations. We have also seen evidence that even those whose families left the village and moved, for example, to Daroca, retained their ties to the local community. The inquisitors' presumption that the Moriscos of Aragon were inherently foreign ran directly contrary to what was actually happening in the villages. But it must have been fairly common knowledge among the population of Aragon that this was one of the presuppositions of the Inquisition, because by the mid-1550s, the Conde de Fuentes was using his knowledge of the Inquisition's thinking in a letter sent to the Inquisition in Saragossa. | |
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By 1519, some sections of southern Aragon, including the both the city of Teruel and the Morisco village of Gea de Albarracin, had been transferred to the jurisdiction of the Valencian tribunal of the Inquisition. Geography undoubtedly dictated this move, although this high plateau in southern Aragon is equally remote from both Valencia and Saragossa. The Conde de Fuentes, whose señorio included Gea, petitioned the Inquisition to grant "his" Moriscos the same general pardon and edict of grace that had been given to locations within Castile and Aragon (but not to Valencia.) The Conde wrote that he would need to "take care to teach them how they must live in the service of God, which up until now has not been done. . . ." 11 Remember that it was in this same time period that religious education was being stressed for the children within the Jiloca valley villages discussed here; it was in the 1550s, too, that the Archbishop of Saragossa made his recommendation that the new Christians of Burbaguena be encouraged to attend church on holy days. Educating the nuevo convertido in the doctrines of the faith seems to have been of importance to the Inquisition in the 1550s, and the Conde de Fuentes undoubtedly knew this. An argument for the education of the Moriscos would have ingratiated him to the inquisitors. But he went on to explain that, since the Moriscos of Gea were accustomed to freedom, the immediate imposition of strict measures (as Valencia would have required) would result in a headlong flight on the part of the Moriscos. While the Aragonese Inquisition had been vague about the ultimate destination of the Moriscos who left Aragon, claiming only that they were traveling to tierra de moros, or Muslim lands, the Conde de Fuentes, telling the Inquisition what they wanted to hear, was much more specific. They would leave the kingdom, he wrote, and go to Argel. 12 | |
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The Inquisition's presumption that Moriscos were ultimately "foreigners," not really part of Aragon, and that the primary loyalty of the Morisco population within Aragon was to the "Muslim lands" to which so many of them were, presumably, traveling, is quite clear in the Inquisition correspondence. The interrogations of prisoners only supported this conviction. When some Morisco prisoners from Avila were questioned in Aragon, they revealed that they had intended to go by way of France to Venice, and thence to "Muslim lands," with their families. 13 These Castilian Moriscos were presumably passing through Aragon on their way to France. The Inquisition, however, did not discriminate between Aragonese Moriscos and those from Castile; more importantly, it did not discriminate between those Moriscos who were guilty of heresy and those who were not. All Moriscos needed to be monitored by the Holy Office, and all were presumed to be ultimately loyal to "Muslim lands." By the mid-1570s, Inquisitors Santos and Gaedo could write to Saragossa that, among the Moriscos of the Ebro valley, they "had not found writings or other things that resulted in any particular suspicion, more than the general one there is against all the newly converted. . . ." 14 | |
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But Moriscos were not, in the eyes of the inquisitors, the only "outsiders" in Aragon. There were other "foreigners," and they, too, were suspect. For instance, the Inquisition claimed to need more commissioners along the main road to Catalonia "along which come into this kingdom all of the French, Germans, Italians, and other strangers." 15 The author did not even make explicit what would have been obvious to the inquisitors who read this report: strangers were much more likely to be heretics, and thus were more worthy of Inquisition attention. 16 The inquisitors in Saragossa, in particular, tended to see the terms "French" and "Protestant" as identical. As William Monter points out in his study of the Aragonese Inquisition, while other tribunals were charging the German and English Protestants within their jurisdictions, the Saragossa tribunal sought out French "Lutherans," with an occasional Italian included. In fact, 90 percent of all Protestant defendants in Saragossa after 1560 were French. 17 While the logical conclusion would be that most Aragonese Protestants were from France, the Inquisition seems rather to have presumed that most Frenchmen were Protestants. If we doubt that this suspicion of foreigners was the Aragonese Inquisition's attitude, we have only to look elsewhere, to the correspondence between Saragossa and the Suprema concerning forbidden books, for confirmation. | |
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One area that provides evidence of Inquisitorial suspicion of things foreign was their monitoring of questionable books. Printed books were being produced in Valencia prior to 1500 and, as we have seen above, literacy was more widespread in Aragon than we might have expected. 18 The Inquisition considered some of these books to be heretical and dangerous. As early as 1538, Gaspar Alfarex, of Muel, was sentenced to the Toledo jail "perpetually" for selling banned books. 19In Alfarex's case, the problem was that his books treated the doctrine of original sin in a way that the Inquisition had condemned. 20 While booksellers were jailed and ordered to pay fines in such cases, 21 the books themselves were promptly burned. Occasionally some doubt arose in the inquisitors' minds as to whether a particular book ought to be destroyed. In a list of prohibited books, "some condemned and others suspicious," inquisitors in Saragossa questioned whether they were really meant to include certain of the Roman classics, pointing out that the works of Terence, and Virgil's poetry (which was, in their words, like honey), could hardly be considered suspicious. 22 While ancient Rome might have had some art or learning worth salvaging, or that might have been at least familiar to the inquisitors, when a Sicilian was caught, in 1568, with "certain books in Italian and French," the inquisitors had no doubt that these books—written in foreign languages—were harmful. 23 This xenophobia extended to Arabic. Inquisitors Santos and Gaedo would write, in a later report, that they considered written Arabic to be worthy of suspicion simply because it originated with Moriscos. For the Inquisition, there was no question that written Arabic was forbidden, even when it did not relate to religion directly. 24 | 10 |
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The issue of documents written in Arabic is an interesting one, and one which demonstrates not only the quick suspicion of the Aragonese Inquisition of anything "foreign," but also the unfortunate tendency of some of those who study Morisco history to accept the Inquisition's point of view uncritically. Although the Muslim population of Aragon had, in general, adjusted to centuries of living among Christians by adopting, among other things, their language, Arabic was not unknown in Aragon. One would expect that, in a population that had converted to the vernacular, Arabic would be used primarily for religious purposes. But this was not necessarily true. On the one hand, there is good evidence that, at least in some cases, Arabic had lost its primacy as a religious language in Aragon. While the Quran in the Muslim tradition was not supposed to be translated, but instead was to be recited in the original Arabic, the Muslims of both Aragon and Castile had produced translations of many of the suras, or verses. 25 This is not to say that there were no Arabic texts in Aragon at all. 26 While the Quran might have been translated, traditionally Muslim professions, like medicine, could still have relied upon Arabic texts for training. In Saragossa, a college instructing students in medicine from the Qanun of Avicenna was active at least until the 1490s. 27 Thus, there was a continuing tradition of scholarly learning in Arabic in Aragon. And although these texts were scientific, rather than religious, the Inquisition still prosecuted Morisco physicians, forbidding them to practice their profession and thus reducing them, and their families, to poverty. It was for this reason that, in 1583, Felipe Quinacet appealed to the Inquisitor General in Saragossa. Quinacet was 74 at the time of the appeal; he had been sentenced to perpetual incarceration in the Hospital de Nuestra Senora de Gracia in Saragossa. "He had presented himself voluntarily for baptism during the time of conversion; his entire life he had exercised the profession of physician, always studying medicine in the Arabic language, and he had performed his duties well. . . ." Quinacet requested that he be permitted to continue to practice medicine in Saragossa. 28 | |
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The Inquisition's suspicion of medical doctors who used Arabic texts extended to a number of non-professional traditional healers, or curanderos, among the Morisco population. These curanderos used both herbs and spells to effect their cures, and it may have been their use of Arabic that attracted the Inquisition's attention. 29 We know about some of these practices thanks to the diligence of Inquisition questioning. Francisco Jabait, for example, cured the sick by applying papers on which he had written Muslim prayers. When questioned in Saragossa, he admitted that he knew full well that the Church did not approve of such methods. 30 Geronimo Patiz de la Sora, of Urrea, traced Arabic characters he found in a book on the palm of the patient; another healer, when questioned, admitted that he would trace Arabic letters, "which ones he did not know," on the body of the patient, washing them afterwards with water to erase them. 31 The curanderos might supplement such spells with the healing properties of herbs, perhaps consulting an Arabic text to learn about each plant's properties, as did Francisco Silvestre. 32 These healers were known to be effective, and had been, on occasion, consulted by the clergy. For example, when Francisco Ximenez, the Archbishop of Toledo, fell ill in 1500 as a result of his evangelization efforts, he consulted an 80-year-old Morisca healer, who restored him to health with certain "unknown plants." 33 But the use of Arabic, and particularly the use of "spells" and prayers, caught the Inquisition's attention, thus rendering all healers and physicians the object of Inquisition suspicion. | |
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William Monter's history of the Inquisition in Aragon interprets the issues of physicians and healers in a somewhat different light. Monter considers the issue of religion to be paramount in Inquisition treatment of Morisco physicians and healers, and ignores the tradition of Arabic scientific writing. Monter notes: "Unlike curanderos, Morisco physicians did not mix religion with medicine and thus were rarely prosecuted by the Inquisition. . . ." 34 Monter offers an article by Jacqueline Fournel-Guérin in support of this statement, but Fournel-Guérin writes quite convincingly in that article of Inquisitorial prosecution of physicians, including not only Felipe Quinacet, above, but also Francisco de Villanueva, who had studied in Paris but was forbidden to practice his profession because his father had returned to Muslim practices. 35 If Morisco physicians were not persecuted in great numbers, we must remember, as Fournel-Guérin points out, that purity-of-blood statutes ensured that Moriscos could not receive medical training within Spanish universities. Because of this restriction, the number of Morisco physicians was limited. If they were, as Monter writes, "rarely prosecuted by the Inquisition," it was because Morisco physicians were rare. The Inquisition has left behind abundant documentation, but the use of such documentation requires caution. The evidence, read carefully, indicates that the Inquisition was only too willing to believe that any book—religious or not—in a foreign language was suspect, and all Arabic books and writing were treated with suspicion. Healers like Silvestre, who used herbs instead of religion, were prosecuted by the Inquisition as fiercely as were those who used Quranic verses to cure. Silvestre's error thus seems to have been consulting an Arabic text on herbs. Not every document or book written in Arabic was a religious work, 36 but every text in Arabic was suspicious in the eyes of the Inquisition. | |
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The Inquisition's suspicion of anything written in Arabic was acknowledged by the words and actions of one young man taken prisoner by the inquisitors. In 1569, a young Morisco couple arrived in Belchite and, as strangers had been ordered to do when they arrived (see Part II), presented themselves to the parish priest for examination. The priest, searching their clothing, discovered a paper stitched into a cloak. When the priest began to remove the paper, the Morisco stated that he would do so. He pulled a few stitches, removed a doubled paper, and put it in his mouth and began to chew it. The priest and the notary both fell upon him, and when they were unable to retrieve the paper, jailed the Morisco. When questioned, the Morisco claimed that "the paper was a contract for the sale of a mule to a Morisco from Villafeliche; but, because it was written in Arabic, he didn't want the priest to see it, and so he put it into his mouth and chewed it." 37 On the face of it, as the story is told by Juan Llano de Valdes in the Inquisition correspondence, the Morisco is guilty. But what is interesting about this story is the explanation offered by our young Morisco. Given the atmosphere of suspicion the Inquisition had fostered in Aragon about anything written in Arabic, our Morisco claimed that he tried to destroy a paper which, whether it were a verse from the Quran or a bill of sale for a mule, was sure to incriminate him. While Monter sees this as story as evidence of the use of Arabic amulets among the Morisco population, I prefer to read this story, and the explanation this Morisco offered for his actions, as evidence of the extent to which the Morisco population was aware of the Inquisition's suspicion of anything written in Arabic. Thus, testimony against those accused by the Inquisition often included the fact that they were known to have written or spoken in Arabic. 38 | |
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From Foreigner to Enemy | |
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One problem with a "foreign" language is that it is not easily understood. So, by 1565, the Aragonese inquisitors were writing from the Aljaferia that they were interrogating Morisco "spies" who had been identified by the French ambassador. One of those apprehended for questioning was carrying "difficult to understand" letters which, although they were in "cipher," were eventually understood to mean that the Moriscos should not obey any orders to surrender their arms. 39 Moriscos were seen to be in alliance with other armed, and heretical, foreigners; according to one report, they were bringing "arms and other munitions" to France to "sell or give" to Lutherans. 40 It was in this environment of suspicion that the memorandum of "what things ought to be changed" appeared; it is not, therefore, surprising that a major concern of the inquisitors was to have an immediate physical presence in those places where foreigners of all sorts, including "foreign" Moriscos fleeing to their own land, would, sooner or later, show up—that is, "in places along the border." 41 | 15 |
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Given the ongoing warfare in the Mediterranean between the Christian West and the Muslim East, transforming a "foreigner" into an "enemy" was not difficult. In their interrogation of prisoners, the Inquisition sought evidence that the Moriscos of Aragon were aiding and abetting the Turks, and occasionally their suspicions were confirmed by an obliging prisoner. One of the more colorful tales told in this regard at the Aljaferia was also one that mentions Burbaguena. Sanchez Cartero, originally a citizen of Carmona, in Andalucia, age 57, testified that a Muslim had imprisoned him "forever" as a galley rower. Since his ship "had stopped in many Muslim ports, including the principal ones," his report seemed to have authority. Sanchez claimed that the village of Villafeliche was a major producer of gunpowder, and that it was shipped from the village to a location in Valencia, where it was stored until it "could be given to the Turks." These Villafeliche convertidos were led by one "Granadillo," a young man who "had a slash on the little finger of one of his hands." This gentleman was said to be from either Villafeliche or Burbaguena. 42 The Inquisitor, Cervantes, took careful notes as Sanchez continued. Gea de Albarracin was a factory for the Turks too. Their product went, very secretly, to Valencia for storage also, to a place called Nacara, to a house the name of which no one knew. Then, in Argel, there was an Aragonese from Savinian who kept a Christian slave, one Joan de Gassen. . . . 43 | |
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Even the casual reader will recognize the trope here. Muslim "sailor's tales," from the eighth century forward, circulated in the Indian Ocean. These stories, of which the tales of Sinbad the Sailor are perhaps the best known, were characterized by touches of the fantastic and dangerous, with an undercurrent that pointed out the shortcomings, along with the advantages, of Muslim culture. Since, for those from Spain condemned to the galleys to row in the war against the Turks, life was often mercifully brief, we might wonder that someone who claimed to have been a rower for the other side "forever" might have survived to the age of 57. But as Parry, 44 among others, has pointed out, critical thinking about such reports was not common in the early modern era. If this tale were accepted as truthful, the conclusion that the Moriscos were conspiring against the Crown was certainly logical. Now the Moriscos could be presumed to be much worse than foreigners—they were "enemies." Moreover, there were isolated incidents that did confirm the possibility of weapons manufacture under the very noses of the Aragonese Inquisition. Juan de Llano de Valdes noted that he had received a report from the commissioner in Daroca that two Moriscos had appeared near the road to Valencia with two loaded carts containing more than 80 arrobas of lead. Lead in this quantity—almost a ton of it—could be used in the manufacture of ammunition, as well as for more ordinary construction and repair. It is of interest that Inquisitor Llano and a companion had interrogated a young man from the area two weeks earlier. This manzebo 45 from Villafeliche told them "that they were so well provided with arms in his pueblo that they had enough for three other pueblos as well . . . and so that no one would see them they kept them underground." 46 This young man also revealed that the Turks had a contact in every kingdom. The inquisitors also heard that a muchacho —a younger child, "the son of a Morisco"—had told a number of old Christians in Daroca that his father had guns hidden in the wall of their home. This little one had also claimed that explosives and gunpowder had been sent to Villafeliche (instead of being made there and sent elsewhere), so that the inquisitors wouldn't discover them. Inquisitor Llano de Valdes even recorded a conversation between a Morisco child and a youngster from an old Christian family. 47 | |
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It is clear that inquisitors in Saragossa wanted to find evidence of conspiracy on the part of the Morisco community, and that they were willing to record and repeat whatever evidence they could find, whether it was the shipment of raw materials or the prattle of children. Significantly, although arms—which Moriscos were forbidden to own—were occasionally discovered and seized, and although the Inquisition reported every suggestion of weapons manufacture and/or hoarding, Inquisition correspondence does not yield any concrete evidence of serious weapons stockpiling. Perhaps it was not necessary for the Moriscos to stockpile more than a few guns; according to the inquisitors, the Moriscos were convinced that the Turks would provide them with armed support. 48 | |
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Given that the mission of the Inquisition was to find heresy—that is, errors in religious belief and/or practice—we might wonder at their investigation into "enemies" within. It is true that, for centuries, Aragonese history had conflated war and religion. But the Inquisition's interests, from the distance of several centuries, at times appear more military and territorial than religious and doctrinal. There are additional indications that the Inquisition was interested in associating the Moriscos with Spain's enemies. For example, inquisitors were willing to hear evidence about the stockpiling of more than just guns. Sixteenth-century rural Aragon, although it may not have been as isolated economically or socially as has previously been believed (see Part II), was a pre-modern economy, in which famine and food shortages did occur. In fact, we have seen that the town council of Baguena would, in times of shortage, initiate a search for wheat (Part II). | |
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It was thus alarming that Moriscos were, in fact, stockpiling more than arms, if the reports to Saragossa were true. The commissioner in Fuentes de Xiloca, Pasqual Gilberte, wrote to Saragossa in November of 1569, claiming that Pedro Xabela, a nuevo convertido from Villafeliche, had reported to him that enormous quantities of wheat were flowing into his village, more wheat than he had ever seen in his life. 49 Moreover, wrote the commissioner, someone from another village who had come to the miller in Villafeliche had claimed that the miller was "so rushed with the milling for his own village that he didn't have time to grind for outsiders." This was unheard of. 50The Inquisitors Llano de Valdes and Valcarcer had noted, the previous January, that "in some villages and especially in Calanda they are holding a great deal of wheat and flour and munitions, figuring that the Turks would have to come to Spain." 51 The Moriscos of Aragon had been forbidden to have weapons, and thus the Inquisition's interest in weapons manufacture and stockpiling seems to be justified; but their interest in the stockpiling of wheat, to the point of interrogating witnesses about it, seems to add another dimension to the Inquisition's interest. This investigation of arms and grain went beyond a narrow enforcing of statutes. It was, instead, the construction (from the outside) of an identity for the Moriscos of Aragon, an identity which pictured them as intrinsically alien, bent upon aiding and abetting Spain's enemies to the point of preparing for war. Thus, instead of integrating the Moriscos into the body of the faithful—if, indeed, one could regard them as in need of such integration—the Inquisition's conception of Morisco identity could be used to marginalize the Morisco population completely. 52 | 20 |
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Notes: Note 1: David Ringrose, Madrid and the Spanish Economy, 1560-1850 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983). Back. Note 2: The Archivo Historico Provincial de Teruel provides abundant documentation of expenses relating to Martin's visit at the end of the fourteenth century. The successive confirmations of the kings of Aragon are generally listed at the beginning of a town's fueros. Back. Note 3: Fernando Pulgar, Cronica de los reyes catolicos (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1943) Back. Note 4: William Monter, Frontiers of Heresy: The Spanish Inquisition from the Basque Lands to Sicily (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 79-80. Back. Note 5: "Lo que parasce que se debria remediar. . . ." AHN, Inquisicion, Libro 962, 222. Back. Note 6: ". . . toda la ribera de Xalon desde Alagon asta Catatayad en la qual estan Bardallas, Plasencia, Urria, Rueda . . . y Sabinian todos los quales pueblos son muy grandes y de mucha poblacion de convertidos que passaran de mil y quinentos vezinos sin los xpianos viejos. . . ." AHN, Inquisicion, Libro 962, 223. Back. Note 7: AHN, Inquisicion, Libro 962, 223-223v. Back. Note 8: A potentially more interesting question— how it was possible to do so—will be discussed below. Back. Note 9: "En Montalban tambien es muy necesario un comisario porque a mas de ser la partida muy grande/o/de mas de ocho/o/diezleguas distante donde ay comisario esta esta partida en la raya de Valencia y por donde hazen su camino los convertidos que se van deste reyno alse apra de alli vese a tierra des moros." AHN, Inquisicion, Libro 962, 223. Back. Note 10: "Il est donc peremptoire qu'il y a division s'il y a heresie." Nicolau Eymerich, Le manuel des inquisiteurs (Paris: Mouton, 1973), 42. Back. Note 11: ". . . tenga cuidado de enseñar les como han de vivir en servicio de Dios lo qual se hasta aqui no ha hecho. . . ." AHN, Inquisicion, Libro 962, 221 (October 1553). Back. Note 12: AHN, Inquisicion, Libro X, 221 (October 1553). However, the Count clearly had a vested interest both in keeping his vassals happy and in encouraging them to stay. Records from the cathedral at Teruel for the second half of the sixteenth century occasionally bear the one-word notation huido, indicating that it was not unheard of for a Morisco to flee. On the other hand, the municipal archive of Gea itself contains the record of an investigation of another "fleeing" Morisco. This fugitive, one Juan Herrero, evaded expulsion in 1610 so that he could return to Gea and to his old Christian friends (Archivo Municipal de Cella, concejo 74). Back. Note 13: AHN, Inquisicion, Libro 963, 414v. Back. Note 14: "No e las hallaron scripturas ni otra cosa de que resulte sospecha particular mas de la general que ay contra todos los nuevos convertidos." AHN, Inquisicion, Libro 963, 333 (September 17. 1576). Back. Note 15: ". . . por donde vienen en este reyno todos los franceses alemanes ytalians y otros estrangeros." AHN, Inquisicion. Libro 962, 223v. Back. Note 16: This Inquisition opinion was made more explicit elsewhere in the document; for example, the author warned that into Aragon "passan y andan muchos gascones y franceses y bearneses los mas dellos en unos opiniones/o/ in otros tienen de los errores. . . ."AHN, Inquisicion, Libro 962, 225. Back. Note 19: AHN, Inquisicion, Libro 961, 74 (December 23, 1538). Back. Note 20: AHN, Inquisicion, Libro 961, 78 (June 13, 1539). Back. Note 21: In Alfarex's case, the fine imposed was 200 ducados (AHN, Inquisicion Libro X, 74). Alfarex promptly argued that, having already paid 100 ducados in fines to the Valencian Inquisition, he had nothing left to give (AHN, Inquisicion libro 961, 78). Back. Note 22: AHN, Inquisicion, Libro 961,193 (July 28, 1552). Back. Note 23: AHN Inquisition, Libro 962, 264. In a clear ruling on Italian literature, the Inquisition later condemned the Triumphos de Petrarca, published in Valladolid in 1541. AHN, Inquisicion, Libro 962, 511. Back. Note 24: By 1576, The Inquisition had convinced the Crown; Philip II issued a pragmatica forbidding the use of Arabic. Back. Note 25: See Consuelo Lopez-Morillas, The Qur'an in Sixteenth Century Spain: Six Morisco Versions of Sura 79 (London, Tamesis Books, 1982). It may be significant that so many Castilian versions of this particular sura appeared in the sixteenth century, as sura 79 concerns the end of the world and the final separation of the good from the evil. Back. Note 26: Monter points out that Aragonese Moriscos were truly, as he puts it, "people of the book." According to Monter, twice as many books were seized from Aragonese Moriscos as were taken from those in Valencia, even though there were far more Moriscos in Valencia. Monter, 212. Back. Note 27: In The Muslims of Valencia in the Age of Fernando and Isabel: Between Coexistence and Crusade, Mark Meyerson writes: "The most impressive information on Mediterranean higher learning comes, surprisingly, from the Kingdom of Aragon. The letter of a student to a faqih in Belchite reveals the existence of a madrasah (school) in Saragossa as late as 1494. There the student in question studied theology and medicine from the Qanun of Ibn Sina (Avicenna.)" (262) The student's letter is from Julian Ribera y Tarragó, "La enseñanza entre los musulmanes españoles," Disertaciones y opusculos, vol. I (Madrid: 1928), 357-359. Back. Note 28: AHN, Inquisicion, Libro 990, 318. Quoted in Jacqueline Fournel-Guérin, "La Pharmacopée Morisque et l'exercice de la Medicine dans la Communaute Morisque Aragonaise (1540-1620)," Revue d'histoire maghrebine 5:6 (1979), 53-62. Emphasis added. Back. Note 29: Luis Garc"a Ballester's Medicina, ciencia y minor"as marginadas: Los Moriscos ( Granada: Universidad de Granada, 1977) is an excellent source for the practices of Morisco medicine. Back. Note 30: AHN, Inquisicion, Libro 990, 4. In Fournel-Guerin, 56. Back. Note 31: AHN, Inquisicion, Leg. 4919, No. 13. In Fournel-Guérin, 58. Back. Note 32: AHN, Inquisicion, Libro 989, 757. In Fournel-Guérin, 58. Back. Note 33: Francisco Bermudez de Pedraza, Historia Eclestica (Granada, 1638), 197v. In Fournel-Guérin, 56. The canny Morisca recommended that Archbishop Ximenez, once cured, recuperate with a long stay in the mountains of Castile. Back. Note 35: AHN, Inquisicion de Saragossa, Libro 100, folio 84v. In Fournel-Guérin. Back. Note 36: Although I do not have such a categorization for those Arabic documents confiscated by the Aragonese Inquisition, the Valencian Inquisition confiscated documents in Arabic including not only religious and "superstitious" documents, but also commercial records, marriage agreements (which might be considered a type of business document—see Part II), lists of books, histories, and correspondence. Ana Laborta, "Inventario de los documentos arabes contenidos en procesos Inquisitoriales contra moriscos valencianos conservados en el Archivo Historico Nacional de Madrid (Legajos 548-556)," Al-Qantara (CSIC, 1980), 115-164. One of these documents is a business inventory and record of debts: "Cuentas del Tendero Morisco Geronimo Hoix," Al-Qantara (CSIC, 1982), 135-172. Back. Note 37: AHN, Libro 962, 387 (April 26, 1569). Back. Note 38: For example AHN, Inquisicion, Libro 962, 401, testimony against a Morisco from Xelfa: "Visto escribir letra morisca y oydo le habla en moriego. . . ." In "Le Refus d'Assimilation des Morisques," Les Morisques et leur Temps (Paris: C.N.R.S., 1983), Rafael Carrasco provides a list of prisoners of the Saragossa tribunal who read and wrote Arabic, and another of those who were found to have Arabic books or papers. The language itself was incriminating. Back. Note 39: AHN, Inquisicion, Libro 962, 221 (August 2, 1565). Back. Note 40: AHN, Inquisicion, Libro 963, 253. Back. Note 41: ". . . en los lugares de frontera." AHN, Inquisicion, Libro 962, 222. Back. Note 42: ". . . tiene una cuchillada en el dedo pequeno de una de las manas." The parish registers of Burbaguena tell us that there was one young man named Granada resident in Burbaguena in the 1560s. Granada and his wife, listed in the parish register as "La Redonda," presented a daughter, Ysabel, for baptism on February 28, 1561. The godparents, all old Christians, were Pedro Vayllo, Mateo de Sanz, Catalina Castillo, and Juana Cavallos. AHDT, Burbaguena I, 65v. Francisco Granada, a new Christian from Belchite, appears in the death register of Burbaguena. Granada died in May of 1588, killed by soldiers. Two old Christians within Burbaguena paid for the funeral. AHDT Burbaguena, 307 (May 9, 1588). Back. Note 43: AHN, Inquisicion, Libro 962, 34-34v (February 25, 1560). According to Carrasco, the Valencian Tribunal was equally fascinated by such stories. They, too, had a tendency to repeat "simples rumeurs sans grand fondement." See below. Carrasco , 195. Back. Note 44: J. H. Parry, The Age of Reconnaissance (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981). See especially the introduction and Chapter 1, "Attitudes and Motives." An uncritical acceptance of these stories is not limited to the early modern period. See, for example, Joan Regla, Estudios sobre los Moriscos (Barcelona: Ariel, 1964), 71. Regla, studying the Crown Archives of Aragon, writes: "Por los años 1564-1566 . . . se descubrieron sintomas alarmantes: los moriscos de las comarcas de Calatayud y Villafeliche fabricaban armas, que enviaban a sus hermanos de Valencia." Alarming signs were uncovered in the years 1564-1566: the Moriscos of the market regions of Calatayud and Villafeliche were constructing weapons, which they were sending to their brothers in Valencia. (ACA reg.4,250, fol. 236 y ss in Regla) See below for some of the sources of these reports. Back. Note 45: The parish registers provide a good foundation for judging what this word, and others similar to it, meant in this area of Aragon in the mid-sixteenth century. Children to the age of ten or twelve were "muchachos," adolescents were known as "mancebos" and young men as "mozos." Thus, both of Inquisitor Llano's interlocutors were young people. Back. Note 46: ". . . que estaban en su pueblo tan proveydas de armas que tenian por otros tres pueblos. . .y porque no se las viessan les tenian debaxo de tierra." AHN, Inquisicion, Libro 962, 477 (February 9, 1569). Back. Note 47: AHN, Inquisicion, Libro 962, 477 (February 9, 1569). Back. Note 48: Inquisitors described the Moriscos as "confiados que el turco havia de enviar alguna armada por estas partes." AHN, Inquisicion, Libro 962, 321 (January 25, 1569). Back. Note 49: AHN, Inquisicion, Libro 962, 335. "P o Xabela, nuevo convertido de Villafeliche, me dixo esta semana que en Villafeliche venia mucho trigo, y que todo lo compraban y que hazian man harina en Villafeliche q[ue] en su vida habia visto hazer ." Back.
Note 50: AHN, Inquisicion, Libro 962, 338. ". . . un vezino desde lugar . . . de Atea que es lugar que van a moler a Villafeliche que tiene mucha prisa el molinero de Villafeliche de moler a los del lugar que no tiene tiempo de moler a los foranos cosa que nunca la he oydo . . . ." Back. Note 51: ". . . en algunos pueblos y especialmete en Calanda se hizo gran provision de trigo y harina y municiones teniendo entendido que . . . havian de venir los Turcos a España." AHN, Inquisicion, Libro 962, 321 (January 25, 1569). Back.
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