In the Shadow of the Virgin: Inquisitors, Friars, and Conversos in Guadalupe, Spain(Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ancient to the Modern World)

On June 11, 1485, in the pilgrimage town of Guadalupe, the Holy Office of the Inquisition executed Alonso de Paredes--a converted Jew who posed an economic and political threat to the town's powerful friars--as a heretic. Wedding engrossing narratives of Paredes and other figures with astute historical analysis, this finely wrought study reconsiders the relationship between religious identity and political authority in late-Medieval and early-modern Spain. Gretchen Starr-LeBeau concentrates on the Inquisition's handling of conversos (converted Jews and their descendants) in Guadalupe, taking religious identity to be a complex phenomenon that was constantly re-imagined and reconstructed in light of changing personal circumstances and larger events. She demonstrates that the Inquisition reified the ambiguous religious identities of conversos by defining them as devout or (more often) heretical. And she argues that political figures used this definitional power of the Inquisition to control local populations and to increase their own authority. In the Shadow of the Virgin is unique in pointing out that the power of the Inquisition came from the collective participation of witnesses, accusers, and even sometimes its victims. For the first time, it draws the connection between the malleability of religious identity and the increase in early modern political authority. It shows that, from the earliest days of the modern Spanish Inquisition, the Inquisition reflected the political struggles and collective religious and cultural anxieties of those who were drawn into participating in it.

Table of Contents:
Maps and Illustrations vii Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 Chapter One: Before the Inquisition: Guadalupe, The Virgin, and the Order of Saint Jerome 12 The Landscape and the Virgin 12 The Jeronymites 18 The Expansion of Guadalupe's Economic and Spiritual Authority 30 Anti-Jeronymite and Anticonverso Violence in the Mid-Fifteenth Century 41 Chapter Two: Living in the Shadow of the Virgin 50 Sabbath and Sunday Observances 53 Christian and Jewish Dietary Regulations 66 Life Rituals: Birth, Marriage, and Death 71 The Acts of Community Life: Holidays, Festivals, and Processions 81 Chapter Three: Conversos in Christian and Jewish Societies 90 Converso Connections to Jews 91 Links between New and Old Christians 94 Perceptions of Assimilation 99 Attempts to Slow Assimilation into Christian Society 102 Chapter Four: Political Conflicts, Social Upheaval, and Religious Divisions: The Origins of the Guadalupense Inquisition 111 The Jeronymites and the Establishment of the Spanish Inquisition 112 The Ecclesiastical Inquisition in Guadalupe in 1462 117 Prior Diego de Par'?s and Changing Conditions in Guadalupe 121 Converso Functionaries and Resistance to the Friars' Overlordship 124 Fray Fernando de Ubeda, Converso Traperos, and the Misuse of Power 136 The Prior's Election of 1483 141 Chapter Five: The Inquisitors' Gaze 145 The Holy Office in Guadalupe 146 The Trials 152 Rendering a Verdict 166 The Autos de Fe 174 Chapter Six: Strategies of the Accused 180 The Trajectory of Resistance 180 Confronting Family and Friends 187 Tactics of Desperation 195 Chapter Seven: Investigating the Friars 200 Jeronymite Spirituality in Guadalupe 202 Conversos in Guadalupe and the Order of Saint Jerome 203 An Internal Inquisition 206 New and Old Proconverso Friars 218 Chapter Eight: Guadalupe after the Inquisition: Envisioning the Early Modern State in Guadalupe 224 Guadalupe after the Inquisition 225 Expulsion from Guadalupe 237 The Hegemony of the Friars 240 Guadalupe and the Sacrality of the Early Modern Spanish State 251 Conclusion 259 Appendix: The Trial of Juana Gonz'alez, Wife of Lope de Herrera 263 Index 277

About the Author :
Gretchen D. Starr-LeBeau is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Kentucky.

Review :
"Because only a handful of documents for the earliest years of the Inquisition survive anywhere in Spain, these ... cases are exceptionally valuable, and Starr-LeBeau makes a masterful use of them to address the questions that have preoccupied scholars... [She] provides a much more detailed analysis than previously available of the incremental steps in the process by which the Inquisition established boundaries and orthodox practice, its major impact on Spanish society."--Helen Nader, American Historical Review "[T]his comparative study in church discipline is recommended to all scholars in the field. It may be hoped that some of them will imitate its approach in their own research."--Avshalom Laniado, Mediterranean Historical Review