King of Aragon baptising Jewish ‘convert’
Today’s double entry tells the sad story of the role and reputation of Jewish Christians in the early middle ages. Trusted by no-one, and with little to help them in their marginalized identities, they were given scant protection or respect by either Jews or Christians. This was symptomatic of the hostility and distrust between the two communities rather than the particular failings of individual ‘converts’.
1320: “Pope John XXII issues Bullarium Romanum, ordering that Jews who convert to Christianity must be allowed to keep their property. The implication is that Jews who don’t convert won’t necessarily have their property rights protected.”
Paola Tartakoff’s fascinating and detailed study of the life of ‘converts’ in Spain in the Middle Ages gives much new detail on the motives, personalities and experiences of Jews who ‘converted’ to Roman Catholicism, the pressures they were placed under to prove themselves…
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