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Conversos, Inquisition, and the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain. By Norman Roth. (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press. 1995. Pp. xvi, 429. $50.00.)
There are many books on the conversion of Iberian Jews to Christianity, the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition, and the Expulsion of 1492. Most scholars, whether Jewish or Christian, have emphasized the forced nature of the conversions, and, as a result of this, the existence of a large number of only nominal Christians, many of them secretly attached to Judaism and therefore persecuted by the Inquisition down to the eighteenth century. While, in his Marranos (1966), Benzion Netanyahu argued that over some decades most conversos became sincere Christians, he accepted the forced nature of the original conversions. In contrast, Professor Roth argues that almost all the conversions were free and that, from the beginning, the great majority of the conversos were sincere Christians.
Roth cites many Spanish and Hebrew sources. In a short review it is impossible to discuss in detail how he uses them. There are three main problems with the book: its claims to originality, its selective use of evidence, and, most important, its adamant insistence on positions adopted a priori.
Roth claims (pp. xii f.) that his book is the first detailed examination of the role of the conversos in Spanish society and the first to connect the fifteenthcentury Inquisition with its predecessor, founded two hundred years earlier. Given previous scholarship, it is hard to take these claims seriously. To establish them, Roth is obliged to attack his predecessors (see below). Two examples of the selective use...