The Lisbon Massacre

A memorial in Lisbon*

We touched on the Lisbon Massacre, in which between 1000 and 2000 (and maybe more) Jews were slaughtered, in the post on Crypto-Jews. Here is a little more detail.

To be precise, no "Jews" were slaughtered in Lisbon; technically, they were all "New Christians," Jews who had grudgingly converted years earlier, rather than be expelled from their home. Portugal in 1506 was in dire straits for everyone, however, because drought had brought famine; also, a plague was sweeping through. The people gathered to pray for deliverance from these problems.

History tells us that one of the devout, while praying at the Saint Domingo of Lisbon Convent on 19 April 1506, said he saw the face of Christ appear on the altar. This miraculous manifestation was taken as a sign that better times were coming. One parishioner who was present, however, said it was probably just a trick of reflection. This second opinion came from a New Christian. The devout Christians around him objected to this mundane interpretation, and they dragged him outside and beat him to death.

Suddenly, blaming New Christians for their troubles seemed like a good idea. It was reinforced by Dominican friars—by now the Dominicans were thoroughly entwined with the papal inquisition—who preached forgiveness of all sins for the previous 100 days to whomever killed heretics. The result was about 500 deaths that day. New Christians hid in their homes, but by Monday the fervor of the crowd could not be stopped. They dragged New Christians from their homes and burned in public. By Tuesday the number of victims had approached 2000.

King Manuel had been out of Lisbon, avoiding the plague. When he learned of the slaughter, he sent emissaries to stop it. Major malefactors were tried and had their possessions confiscated; some were executed. The two Dominicans were defrocked and burned at the stake, meeting the same fate that they had just meted out to hundreds of others.


*The inscription reads: “In memory of the thousands of Jews victims of intolerance and religious fanaticism, murdered in the massacre started on this square on the 19th of April 1506.”

Crypto-Jews

A secret seder [source]

Yesterday I alluded to a third option available to persecuted Jews in the Middle Ages who were forced into the choice between conversion to Christianity and expulsion from there home country. The un-offered third choice was to publicly choose conversion but privately maintain the practices of Judaism. One modern term for those who chose this way is "Crypto-Jews."

There were a few terms for Jews who remained in Spain after the Alhambra Decree or in Portugal after its decree of expulsion.

• Christianos Nuevos ["New Christians"]
• conversos ["Converted"]
• ...and the derogatory Marranos

Marranos is a racist term: it means "pig" and was used to describe both Jews and Muslims whose dietary practices forbade eating pork. Conversion to Christianity did not remove the social stigma of being an "outsider" or "inferior," and Jewish converts who stayed in their home countries on the Iberian Peninsula were still treated poorly.

This explains why the Lisbon Massacre could happen in 1506: even years after Jews should have been gone from Portugal, evidence could be found of Jewish religious practices—or simple suspicion that conversos were not sincere—that stirred a mob to violence.

Marranos could have a difficult time even if they finally left Portugal and joined Jewish communities:

Even though the rabbis of [those] times had decreed that Marranos be accepted and taken back into the community, Jews outside of Spain had very little sympathy for the Marranos. For many generations, people would not even marry into their families or treat them as Jewish — mostly out of resentment that when the moment of truth came they opted to convert rather than take upon themselves the privation of exile. [source]

In Belmonte, Portugal, a community of Jews survived for centuries, intermarrying to keep families Jewish and hiding every outward sign of their faith. The "Belmonte Jews" returned openly to Judaism in 1970 and opened a synagogue in 1996.

Running to Portugal

The Inquisition in Portigal [source]

When the Alhambra Decree gave Jews the choice of converting to Christianity or leaving the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, tens of thousands—there are no accurate estimates; they vary between 130,000 and 800,000—began the search for a new home. Fortunately, shelter was closer than expected for some.

Portugal had experienced an on-again/off-again anti-Semitism. Many Jews who fled to Portugal wound up being persecuted or imprisoned under King John II (1455 - 1495), but King Alfonso V (1432 - 1481) had appointed a Jew as his treasurer. His successor, King Manuel I, was a very religious man, building religious buildings and trying to round up a Crusade against the Turks, but he was friendly to the Jews and released them from prison. Things seemed to be looking up.

Manuel had ambitions, however, that put his future at odds with his past as a tolerant ruler. Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon had a daughter, the Infanta Isabella. Through her parents, she was the heir to Castile and Aragon. A marriage between Manuel and Isabella would unite most of the Iberian Peninsula, and their children would rule a large part of Europe and be allied to even more of Europe.*

Ferdinand and Isabella, however, would never allow their daughter to marry the monarch of a land that allowed Jews. A contract was written up for the marriage; one of its stipulations was that the Jews of Portugal would no longer be tolerated. Four years after the Edict of Expulsion sent Jews migrating to Portugal, Portugal in 1496 decreed that all Jews had to convert to Christianity or leave Portugal by October of 1497. (This edict applied to Muslims as well.)

The tide had turned for Jews in Portugal. Thousands fled to Amsterdam, Constantinople, France and Morocco; even to the New World. Not all left, which led to the Lisbon Massacre in 1506, when up to 2000 Jews (or people perceived to be Jews) were tortured and burned at the stake by a Catholic mob. Thirty years later, the Inquisition came to Portugal, creating more risks for anyone not seen to adhere strictly to Roman Catholicism.

If the Jews were supposed to be expelled, how was it that the Lisbon Massacre seemed like a good idea? That would be because there was a third, unofficial option between expulsion and conversion. We will look at the Marranos tomorrow.

*Her sister was Catherine of Aragon, King Henry VIII's first wife.