| Limpieza De Sangre |
Website Links For Limpieza |
Information AboutLimpieza De Sangre |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT LIMPIEZA DE SANGRE | |
| basque history | |
| al-andalus | |
| jewish spanish history | |
| spanish inquisition | |
| history of portugal | |
| racism | |
|
''Limpieza de sangre'' (in Spanish), '''''Limpeza de sangue''''' (in Portuguese), both meaning "cleanliness of Blood " was a concept of Iberian Modern History. It referred to being Ethnically Pure " Old Christian ", without Jewish or Muslim ancestors. After the end of the Reconquista and the expulsion of Sephardic Jews, the population of Spain and Portugal was all nominally Christian. However, the descendants of the Christian conquerors despised the New Christians , descendants of baptized Jews ( Converso s or Marrano s) or Mudejar s ( Morisco s). Besides social and economic causes, the accusation was that the New Christians were false converts, keeping their former religion in their homes ( Crypto-Jew s). This was sometimes true, but even people later declared to be Saints by the Church could be suspected. Cleanliness of blood was an issue of ancestry, not of personal religion. This stratification meant that the Old Christian Commoner s could assert a right to honor even if they were not in the Nobility . The Military Order s, Guild s and other organizations incorporated in their Bylaw s clauses demanding proof of cleanliness of blood. Upwardly mobile New Christian families had to either contend with their plight, or bribe and falsify documents attesting generations of good Christian ancestry. The Spanish and Portuguese Inquisition s was more concerned with repressing the New Christians and Heresy than chasing Witches , which was considered to be more a psychological than a religious issue, or Protestantism , which was promptly suffocated. The claim to universal '' Hidalguía '' (lowest nobility) of the Basques was justified because the Arab invasion didn't reach the Basque territory, so it was believed that Basques had maintained their original purity, while the rest of Spain was suspect of Miscegenation . Even in the 19th century, the Basque Nationalism of Sabino Arana demanded a list of original Basque surnames to rule out mixes with Spaniards. In spite of the abolition of the rules with the demise of the Ancien Regime , the discrimination was still present into the twentieth century in some places like Majorca. No Xueta (descendant of the Majorcan Conversos) priest was allowed to say Mass in the cathedral until the 1960s. SEE ALSO REFERENCE |
|
|