There’s a basic argument in the historiography of the Spanish Inquisition as to whether or not the Inquisitional records themselves are to be believed. Historians have tended to trust them, but Benzion Netanyahu broke this mold and argued that the records the conversos left themselves showed them to actually be dedicated Christians. Since the publication of his books, debate has raged: were they Christians or secret Jews? Gutierrez jumps into this debate to say “it’s not as clear cut as all that.”
Gutierrez argues that rather than choose one or the other, one must use both the inquisitional records and the records left by conversos, rabbis, and other laymen. What using all of these sources indicates is that there were some conversos who were loyal Jews and others who were loyal Christians, and others who were neither of the above.
This book does not provide sweeping arguments in any direction, and rather presents us with a variety of case studies of people doing a lot of different things. The most famous case study he presents is Baruch Spinoza, whom he claims was not as original as everyone thinks he was. Rather, he claims that a lot of conversos were dismissing the rabbis as inconsequential to their lives. Spinoza just did it more publicly and therefore drew the ire of the rabbis about something they saw regularly.
This book starts in 586 CE. This is much earlier than most examinations of the conversos, since most books start with the 1361 mass conversions. So that was some interesting information included in the first two chapters.
He then talks about Christian attitudes towards conversos, Jewish attitudes towards conversos, different types of conversos, and even comes to the modern day with many people in Latin America claiming converso descent and returning to Judaism.
Overall this is one of the most interesting pieces on the Spanish Inquisition that I have read, because it really tried to personalize the experience, and make the people involved seem like individuals who lived different lives from one another before they were captured by the Inquisition.
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