Richard Kagan | |
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Born | 1943 (age 80–81) |
Academic background | |
Education | |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Spanish history |
Institutions |
Richard Lauren Kagan (born 1943) is an American historian specializing in modern history. His focus of research is on the intellectual and legal history of the Spanish Empire under the Habsburgs.
Born in 1943,he holds an undergraduate degree from Columbia University and a PhD from the University of Cambridge. [1] Kagan has been a professor at Johns Hopkins University since 1972. [2] There,he acts as the Arthur O. Lovejoy Professor Emeritus of History,with a joint-appointment as a professor in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures. [3] His work has given him international recognition. He has been invited to deliver speeches about his work in Spain and France (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid,Universidad Complutense de Madrid,Centre national de la recherche scientifique and École des hautes études en sciences sociales).
Kagans is a resident member of the American Philosophical Society [4] He has been a corresponding member of the Real Academia de la Historia since 2012. [5]
His work has addressed various issues regarding intellectual life in the Spanish Empire,such as art,law,the development of higher education,as well as its repercussion in North America. He is a supporter of the hypothesis of the black legend.
Marranos is one of the terms used in relation to Spanish and Portuguese Jews who converted or were forced by the Spanish and Portuguese crowns to convert to Christianity during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,but continued to practice Judaism in secrecy or were suspected of it,referred to as Crypto-Jews. "Crypto-Jew" is the term increasingly preferred in scholarly works,instead of Marrano.
Tomás de Torquemada,also anglicized as Thomas of Torquemada,was a Castilian Dominican friar and first Grand Inquisitor of the Tribunal of the Holy Office. The Spanish Inquisition was a group of ecclesiastical prelates that was created in 1478,and which was charged with the somewhat ill-defined task of "upholding Catholic religious orthodoxy" within the lands of the newly formed union of the crowns of Castile and Aragon. The lands of this newly formed royal union are now known as the Kingdom of Spain.
A converso,"convert",was a Jew who converted to Catholicism in Spain or Portugal,particularly during the 14th and 15th centuries,or one of their descendants.
Crypto-Judaism is the secret adherence to Judaism while publicly professing to be of another faith;practitioners are referred to as "crypto-Jews".
The Catholic Monarchs were Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon,whose marriage and joint rule marked the de facto unification of Spain. They were both from the House of Trastámara and were second cousins,being both descended from John I of Castile;to remove the obstacle that this consanguinity would otherwise have posed to their marriage under canon law,they were given a papal dispensation by Sixtus IV. They married on October 19,1469,in the city of Valladolid;Isabella was 18 years old and Ferdinand a year younger. It is generally accepted by most scholars that the unification of Spain can essentially be traced back to the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella. Their reign was called by W.H. Prescott "the most glorious epoch in the annals of Spain".
Anusim is a legal category of Jews in halakha who were forced to abandon Judaism against their will,typically while forcibly converted to another religion. The term "anusim" is most properly translated as the "coerced [ones]" or the "forced [ones]".
Diego de Deza y Tavera was a theologian and inquisitor of Spain. He was one of the more notable figures in the Spanish Inquisition,and succeeded Tomás de Torquemada to the post of Grand Inquisitor.
New Christian was a socio-religious designation and legal distinction in the Spanish Empire and the Portuguese Empire. The term was used from the 15th century onwards primarily to describe the descendants of the Sephardic Jews and Moors baptised into the Catholic Church following the Alhambra Decree. The Alhambra Decree of 1492,also known as the Edict of Expulsion,was an anti-Jewish law made by the Catholic Monarchs upon the Reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula. It required Jews to convert to Catholic Christianity or be expelled from Spain. Most of the history of the "New Christians" refers to the Jewish converts,who were generally known as Conversos while the Muslim converts were known as Moriscos.
The Alhambra Decree was an edict issued on 31 March 1492,by the joint Catholic Monarchs of Spain ordering the expulsion of practising Jews from the Crowns of Castile and Aragon and its territories and possessions by 31 July of that year. The primary purpose was to eliminate the influence of practising Jews on Spain's large formerly-Jewish converso New Christian population,to ensure the latter and their descendants did not revert to Judaism. Over half of Spain's Jews had converted as a result of the religious persecution and pogroms which occurred in 1391. Due to continuing attacks,around 50,000 more had converted by 1415. A further number of those remaining chose to convert to avoid expulsion. As a result of the Alhambra decree and persecution in the years leading up to the expulsion of Spain's estimated 300,000 Jewish origin population,a total of over 200,000 had converted to Catholicism to remain in Spain,and between 40,000 and 100,000 remained Jewish and suffered expulsion. An unknown number of the expelled eventually succumbed to the pressures of life in exile away from formerly-Jewish relatives and networks back in Spain,and so converted to Catholicism to be allowed to return in the years following expulsion.:17
The Mexican Inquisition was an extension of the Spanish Inquisition into New Spain. The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire was not only a political event for the Spanish,but a religious event as well. In the early 16th century,the Reformation,the Counter-Reformation,and the Inquisition were in full force in most of Europe. The Catholic Monarchs of Castile and Aragon had just conquered the last Muslim stronghold in the Iberian Peninsula,the kingdom of Granada,giving them special status within the Catholic realm,including great liberties in the conversion of the native peoples of Mesoamerica. When the Inquisition was brought to the New World,it was employed for many of the same reasons and against the same social groups as suffered in Europe itself,minus the Indigenous to a large extent. Almost all of the events associated with the official establishment of the Palace of the Inquisition occurred in Mexico City,where the Holy Office had its own major building. The official period of the Inquisition lasted from 1571 to 1820,with an unknown number of individuals prosecuted.
Limpieza de sangre,also known as limpeza de sangue or neteja de sang,literally 'cleanliness of blood' and meaning 'blood purity',was a racially discriminatory term used in the Spanish and Portuguese Empires during the early modern period to refer to those who were considered to be Old Christians by virtue of not having Muslim,Jewish,Romani,or Agote ancestors. In both empires,the term played a major role in discrimination against suspected crypto-Jews or crypto-Muslims. Over the years it manifested into law which excluded New Christians from almost every part of society. In Spain's American colonies,it helped define the casta system and was expanded to include those who were not of indigenous or African descent.
The Portuguese Inquisition,officially known as the General Council of the Holy Office of the Inquisition in Portugal,was formally established in Portugal in 1536 at the request of King John III. Although King Manuel I had asked for the installation of the Inquisition in 1515 to fulfill the commitment of his marriage with Maria of Aragon,it was only after his death that Pope Paul III acquiesced. In the period after the Medieval Inquisition,it was one of three different manifestations of the wider Christian Inquisition,along with the Spanish Inquisition and Roman Inquisition. The Goa Inquisition was an extension of the Portuguese Inquisition in colonial-era Portuguese India. The Portuguese Inquisition was terminated in 1821.
Jacob Barsimson was one of the earliest Jewish settlers at New Amsterdam,and the earliest identified Jewish settler within the present limits of the state of New York. He was an Ashkenazi Jew of Central European background.
The historical revision of the Inquisition is a historiographical process that started to emerge in the 1970s,with the opening of formerly closed archives,the development of new historical methodologies,and,in Spain,the death of the ruling dictator Francisco Franco in 1975. New works of historical revisionism changed our knowledge of the history of the Roman and Spanish Inquisitions.
The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition,commonly known as the Spanish Inquisition,was established in 1478 by the Catholic Monarchs,King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile. It began toward the end of the Reconquista and was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms and to replace the Medieval Inquisition,which was under papal control. It became the most substantive of the three different manifestations of the wider Catholic Inquisition,along with the Roman Inquisition and the Portuguese Inquisition. The "Spanish Inquisition" may be defined broadly as operating in Spain and in all Spanish colonies and territories,which included the Canary Islands,the Kingdom of Naples,and all Spanish possessions in North America and South America. According to some modern estimates,around 150,000 people were prosecuted for various offences during the three-century duration of the Spanish Inquisition,of whom between 3,000 and 5,000 were executed,approximately 2.7 percent of all cases. The Inquisition,however,since the creation of the American courts,has never had jurisdiction over the indigenous. The King of Spain ordered "that the inquisitors should never proceed against the Indians,but against the old Christians and their descendants and other persons against whom in these kingdoms of Spain it is customary to proceed".
The history of the Jews in Mexico began in 1519 with the arrival of Conversos,often called Marranos or "Crypto-Jews",referring to those Jews forcibly converted to Catholicism and that then became subject to the Spanish Inquisition.
António Fernando de Vasconcelos Nogueira is a Portuguese philosopher,Social Science researcher,author,dramatist,and freelance journalist.
An auto-da-fé was the ritual of public penance,carried out between the 15th and 19th centuries,of condemned heretics and apostates imposed by the Spanish,Portuguese,or Mexican Inquisition as punishment and enforced by civil authorities. Its most extreme form was death by burning.
The Inquisition in the Netherlands was an extension of the Papal Inquisition in the Netherlands,established during the reign of Charles V. Although it was widely believed at the time that the government intended to introduce the Spanish Inquisition into the Netherlands,the Inquisition in the Netherlands remained separate from that of Spain.
Apart from the short-lived attempt by Charles V to establish a special court for the pursuit of heretics in 1522,there never was any scheme to establish a Holy Office of the sort known in Castile in the Netherlands.
Inés Esteban (1488-1500),also known as Inés of Herrera,was a Spanish-Jewish conversa who,at the age of 11,was considered a prophetess before being executed by the Spanish Inquisition authorities.