One hundred voices of Quintanar - The Castilian model of Marranism during the Inquisition, Part 1

Marranism, even if taken only in the strictest sense of the term (crypto-Ju daism), is multi-faceted and complex. The model which is delineated here, f rom the collated testimonies of about one hundred "voiceless" prisoners of the Inquisition, is that of La Mancha in late sixteenth-century New Castile in Spain. Having traced back a particularly instructive example of persecu tion, their rites and practices are reconstituted "from the cradle to the t omb" (first article), and also their prayers, transmitted orally through th e generations, and their culture, fashioned by militant readings (second ar ticle). The conclusions drawn are, first, that despite what contemporary hi storiography might sometimes maintain, crypto-judaism in its specifically S panish form was still alive, even thriving one century after the expulsion of the Jews; second, it becomes clear that the archives of the Inquisition are reliable, so long as the critical approach is one that befits religious history.