Marrano
Marranos were Spanish and Portuguese Jews, as well as Navarrese Jews, who converted to Christianity, either voluntarily or by Spanish or Portuguese royal coercion, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but who continued to practice Judaism in secret or were suspected of it. They are also called crypto-Jews, a term increasingly preferred in scholarly works over Marranos.
The related term converso was used for the wider population of Jewish converts to Catholicism, whether or not they secretly still practised Jewish rites. Converts from either Judaism or Islam were referred to by the more general term "New Christians".
The term marrano came into use in 1492 with the Castilian Alhambra Decree, which prohibited the practice of Judaism in Spain and required all remaining Jews to convert or leave. The vast majority of Jews in Spain had already converted to Catholicism, perhaps under pressure from the Massacre of 1391, and conversos numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Suspected by Old Christians of the secret practice of Judaism, the Spanish Inquisition, established prior to the decree, surveilled New Christians to try to detect whether their conversion to Christianity was sincere.
In modern Spanish, marrano means "pig", or, more often, "dirty person". For this reason, although its etymology is contested, present-day use of the term can be considered pejorative and offensive. Some scholars, however, continue to use marrano interchangeably with crypto-Jew, or even converso.
Etymology
The origin of the term Marrano as applied to crypto-Jews is unclear, since there have been several proposed etymologies in addition to swine.The Hebrew word for מְשֻׁמָּד Meshumad, literally standing for "self-destroyed" or a heretic to Judaism, for a Jew who deliberately rebels against the observance of Jewish law.
The main difference between a Min, a Meshumad, and the Anusim is that the act of abandonment of Judaism is voluntary for a Min and a Meshumad, while for the Anusim it is not.
One source of the term derives from an Arabic word for "forbidden, illicit", مُحَرّمٌ Muḥarram. The Arabic word in this context means "swine" or "pork", and either expresses the same repulsion towards the converts that the converts previously had for such ritually unclean meat.
However, as applied to Crypto-Jews, the term Marrano derives from the Spanish & Portuguese verb "marrar" and "amarrar" meaning "to fail", "to plan to go wrong", "to break away", "to defraud", "to target", "to tie up", "to refrain", "to deviate", "to clinch", "to moor", illuminating that those targeted and forced by the Spanish Crown had no choice but to adopt Christianity, either leave the Kingdom of Spain all while the Crown seized their property and money and gave them no support to leave, be murdered either for not showing complete loyalty to Christianity or for leaving Spain and coming back showing that these Jews were traitors to the Spanish Crown.
It also has Arabic origin meaning "to deviate" or "to err", in the sense that they deviated from their newly adopted faith by secretly continuing to practice Judaism. A third origin has been cited from Galician-Portuguese, where marrar means "to force" and marrano means "forced one", indicating the compulsory nature of the religious conversions. José Meir Estrugo Hazán writes in his book Los Sefardíes that "marrano" is the term the Spanish Jews prefer.
Demographics
Under state pressure in the late 14th and early 15th century, over half of Jews in the Iberian Peninsula converted to Christianity, thus avoiding the Decree of Expulsion which affected Spain's remaining openly Jewish population in 1492. The numbers who converted and the effects of various migrations in and out of the area have been the subject of historical debate. A phylogeographic study in 2008 of 1,150 volunteer Y-chromosome DNA haplogroups appeared to support the idea that the number of conversions has been significantly underestimated, as 20% of the tested Iberian population had haplogroups consistent with Sephardi ancestry. This percentage was suggested as representing the proportion of Sephardi in the population at the time of mass conversions in the 14th and 15th centuries. However, the authors concede that other historical population movements from the Near East such as Syrians and Phoenicians may also account for these results.Portugal
Some Portuguese conversos or cristãos-novos continued to practice as crypto-Jews. In the early 20th century, historian Samuel Schwartz wrote about crypto-Jewish communities discovered in northeastern Portugal. He claimed that members had managed to survive more than four centuries without being fully assimilated into the Old Christian population. The last remaining crypto-Jewish community in Belmonte officially returned to Judaism in the 1970s and opened a synagogue in 1996. In 2003, the American Sephardi Federation founded the Belmonte Project to raise funds to acquire Judaic educational material and services for the Belmonte community, who then numbered 160–180.Two documentary films have been made in north-eastern Portugal where present-day descendants of marranos were interviewed about their lives. In 1974 for The Marranos of Portugal, the Israel Broadcasting Authority sent reporter Ron Ben-Yishai to conduct interviews with families about their religious practice. After being asked to prove he knew Hebrew before they would talk, he found people still reluctant to speak openly. Nevertheless, he did eventually gain a remarkable insight into their version of Jewish customs, prayers and songs. The film was commended at the 1976 Jerusalem Jewish Film and TV Festival. Another documentary, The Last Marranos, was made by the New York Jewish Media Fund in 1997.
After the expulsion of Jews and Muslims from Spain and the Forced Conversion by Portugal's King Manuel I in Portugal, conversos continued to be suspect in socially strained times. In Lisbon in 1506, a months-long plague caused people to look for scapegoats. Some became suspicious that conversos might be practicing Judaism and therefore be at fault. On April 17, 1506, several conversos were discovered who had in their possession "some lambs and poultry prepared according to Jewish custom; also unleavened bread and bitter herbs according to the regulations for the Passover, which festival they celebrated far into the night." Officials seized several but released them after a few days.
On the same day on which the conversos were freed, the Dominicans displayed a crucifix and a reliquary in glass from which a peculiar light issued in a side-chapel of their church, where several New Christians were present. A New Christian who tried to explain the miracle as due to natural causes was dragged from the church and killed by an infuriated woman. A Dominican roused the populace still more. Friar João Mocho and the Aragonese friar Bernardo, crucifix in hand, were said to have gone through the streets of the city, crying "Heresy!" and calling upon the people to destroy the conversos. Attracted by the outcry, sailors from Holland, Zeeland and others from ships in the port of Lisbon, joined the Dominicans and formed a mob with local men to pursue the conversos.
The mob dragged converso victims from their houses and killed some. Old Christians who were in any way associated with New Christians were also attacked. The mob attacked the tax-farmer João Rodrigo Mascarenhas, a New Christian; although a wealthy and distinguished man, his work also made him resented by many. They demolished his house. Within 48 hours, many "conversos" were killed; by the third day all who could leave escaped, often with the help of other Portuguese. The killing spree lasted from 19 to 21 April, in what came to be known as the Lisbon massacre.
King Manuel severely punished those who took part in the killings. The ringleaders and the Dominicans who encouraged the riot were also executed. Local people convicted of murder or pillage suffered corporal punishment and their property was confiscated. The king granted religious freedom for 20 years to all conversos in an attempt at compensation. Lisbon lost Foral privileges. The foreigners who had taken part generally escaped punishment, leaving with their ships.
New Christians were attacked in Gouveia, Alentejo, Olivença, Santarém, and other places. In the Azores and the island of Madeira, mobs massacred former Jews. Because of these excesses, the king began to believe that a Portuguese Inquisition might help control such outbreaks.
The Portuguese conversos worked to forestall such actions, and spent immense sums to win over the Curia and most influential cardinals. Spanish and Portuguese conversos made financial sacrifices. Alfonso Gutierrez, Garcia Alvarez "el Rico", and the Zapatas, conversos from Toledo, offered 80,000 gold crowns to Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, if he would mitigate the harshness of the Inquisition.
The Mendes of Lisbon and Flanders also tried to help. None was successful in preventing the Inquisition Papal Bull Meditatio Cordis of July 16, 1547, Inquisition in Portugal. This Bull Meditatio Cordis still did not have the "Power of Confiscation". Portuguese Marranos continued, with many bribes of the Popes in Rome, and with prolonged negotiation against this "Power of Confiscation" succeeded to delay it 32 years, but finally conceded this "deadly weapon" in 1579. The Portuguese Inquisition now had been endowed, 101 years after the Spanish Inquisition of November 1, 1478, with the same extremities of rigor as the Spanish prototype. The conversos suffered immensely both from mob violence and interrogation and testing by the Inquisition. Attacks and murders were recorded at Trancoso, Lamego, Miranda, Viseu, Guarda, and Braga.
At Covilhã, there were rumors that the people planned to massacre all the New Christians on one day. In 1562, prelates petitioned the Cortes to require conversos to wear special badges, and to order Jewish descendants to live in ghettos in cities and villages as their ancestors had before the conversions.
In 1641, João IV of Portugal ennobled the Curiel family, a Marrano family who initially served the Crown of Castile, defecting to Portugal after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1498. They went on serving the King of Portugal in diplomatic positions across Europe until the late 18th century.
In the 1970s, the Marranos of Belmonte officially rejoined Judaism and reestablished ties with the Jews of Israel. The Museu Judaico de Belmonte was opened in 2005 in Belmonte, it is the first Jewish museum in Portugal.