Negros, o de cualquiera monstruosa nación: Juan Martínez Silíceo’s Racial Histories

“Drowned in Blood”:

Genealogical Fictions: Limpieza de Sangre, Religion, and Gender in Colonial Mexico

Reviewed by: Antisemitic Conspiracy Theories in the Early Modern Iberian World: Narratives of Fear and Hatred by François Soyer Claude B. Stuczynski François Soyer. Antisemitic Conspiracy Theories in the Early Modern Iberian World: Narratives of Fear and Hatred. Leiden: Brill, 2019. xvi + 315 pp. doi:10.1017/S036400942100026X Among the many myths spurred by the Covid-19 emergency is the false claim that Jews caused this pandemic to secretly dominate the world.1 Soyer's book confirms how often conspiracy theories entail a perception of Jews—whether openly professing or "hidden," through religious conversion or assimilation—as quintessential conspirators. Karl Popper has argued that conspiracy myths have proliferated since the French Revolution mostly because they offer simple nonreligious answers to complex realities in a secularized world. François Soyer's focus on earlier historical stages shows that conspiracy myths are indeed compatible with a belief in Divine Providence and with theodicy. In cases loaded with theological connotations, such as traditional anti-Jewish hatred, conspiracy myths reveal a dualistic perception of the world, understood as the arena of cosmological strife between the followers of light, good, and/or God and the agents of darkness, evil, and/or Satan. No wonder that Norman R. C. Cohn, a pioneering historian of anti-Jewish conspiracy myths in modern times, also studied the imprint of Christian eschatology and apocalyptic thought on medieval and early modern violence, and the origins of Europe's scapegoating obsessions, which led to witch-hunting.2 Soyer's book thus helps us understand Popper's explanation against the grain: less as an example of Weberian secularization as disenchantment of the world, and rather as a profane appropriation of the religious and the sacred. This implicitly political-theological perspective unifies those scholars who explicitly question the accuracy of the once-consensual periodization of premodern anti-Judaism, understood as theologically grounded, and of modern antisemitism, perceived as equivalent to pseudoscientific and nonreligious racism. [End Page 464] Perhaps Soyer's main contribution to the history of anti-Judaism in the West is precisely its focus. Late medieval and early modern Iberian anticonverso attitudes have already been treated by eminent historians such as Cecil Roth, Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, and David Nirenberg, who identified astonishing analogies with later forms of racism and antisemitism.3 Soyer's contribution to this scholarship is twofold. First, he integrates early modern Iberian conspiracy myths with the better-known "purity of blood" exclusionary laws; second, he convincingly demonstrates that some of those old Iberian stories nurtured later Western myths. Oddly, the author makes no reference to Francisco de Quevedo's satiric episode The Monopantos' Island (La isla de los Monopantos), originally aimed against Count-Duke of Olivares's purported proconverso policies, as one of the probable indirect sources of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, via Hermann Goedsche's Biarritz (1868).4 According to Soyer, Jews and conversos were simply a means, and not the aim, in Quevedo's satirical fiction, which is why there is no single reference to The Monopantos' Island in later early modern Iberian antisemitic literature (82–83). At the same time, Soyer is fully aware of Quevedo's influence during Olivares's times; he identifies Quevedo's circulation of the belief in a converso and Jewish anti-Catholic and anti-Spanish conspiracy plan in a passage from his earlier pamphlet, Execración de los judíos (1633). In this vitriolic leaflet, Quevedo explicitly invoked "the correspondence between the Jews of Spain and the Jews of Constantinople" to denounce Portuguese conversos as a dangerous fifth column in Iberia, although he expressed doubts regarding the authenticity of that epistolary exchange, as if anticipating sympathetic future readers of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.5 In chapter 2 (54–92) and in the epilogue (275–81), Soyer painstakingly probes the origins of these forged letters, which were initially used by Archbishop of Toledo Juan Martínez Silíceo (1477–1547) to support anticonverso exclusionary laws of "purity of blood." Soyer thus sheds light on the way these letters framed anticonverso conspiracy myths in early modern Iberia, and most surprisingly, on the fact that this spurious correspondence (along with a French variant) was still echoed in...

Reviewed by: To Sin No More: Franciscans and Conversion in the Hispanic World, 1683–1830 by David Rex Galindo Thomas M. Cohen To Sin No More: Franciscans and Conversion in the Hispanic World, 1683–1830. By David Rex Galindo. (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press; Oceanside, CA: The Academy of American Franciscan History. 2018. Pp. xvii, 330. $65.00. ISBN 978-1-5036-0-3264.) During the last thirty years, historians, anthropologists, theologians, and scholars in other disciplines have greatly expanded our knowledge of Franciscan missions in the Iberian world. Their studies analyze not only the well-known frontier missions in the Americas and Asia but also the so-called "popular missions" that Franciscans conducted in cities and rural areas of Europe, often in preparation for their work in the overseas empire. In To Sin No More, David Rex Galindo draws on this new scholarship (his introduction provides an excellent survey of the literature), on classic studies of the Franciscan order, and, most importantly, on deep archival work on three continents in order to analyze the theory and practice of the Franciscan missionary enterprise. He argues that this enterprise "contributed to [the] globalization of the Catholic Church and shaped early modern Catholicism" (p. 289). Rex Galindo focuses on the twenty-nine Franciscan Colleges for the Propagation of the Faith in Spain and America. The most famous of these institutions was the Colegio de la Santa Cruz in Querétaro, Mexico, from which generations of missionaries, including the recently canonized Junípero Serra, set off for missions throughout the Americas. Rex Galindo argues that the colleges "invigorated the Franciscan evangelical ministry through missionary instruction and a renovated commitment to pastoral work among both Catholic and non-Christian flocks in Spain and in its American territories and peripheries" (p. 9). The continuity between missionary work in Europe and the Americas is a major theme of the book. The Franciscan missionary enterprise predated that of the Society of Jesus, and the two orders were sometimes at odds. Following the expulsion of the Jesuits from the Spanish empire in 1767, the Franciscans and other orders took over the Jesuit missions, reviving and expanding the scope of the Franciscans' work, especially in the Americas. Building on Francisco Morales's pioneering prosopographical studies of Franciscans in colonial Mexico, Rex Galindo provides an overview of the qualities of the ideal missionary. In addition to the requisite moral and physical qualities, the Franciscans, like other religious orders of the day, sought candidates who could demonstrate their purity of blood (limpieza de sangre). Whenever possible, the Franciscans excluded men who had Muslim, Jewish, native American, or African ancestors. Like Maria Elena Martinez, whose Genealogical Fictions (2008) studies the importation of limpieza statutes to colonial Mexico, Rex Galindo argues that peninsular-born Spaniards were associated with purity of blood and thus received preferential treatment in admission to the Franciscan order (p. 83). Although no collection of documents comparable to the Jesuit Indipitae (petitions to be sent to overseas missions) exists in the Franciscan archives, Rex Galindo succeeds in reconstructing the motives that led young men to petition to be [End Page 563] assigned to the missions. In general, candidates were more concerned with attaining their own salvation than with converting non-Catholics or with achieving martyrdom (p. 104). Missionaries in America faced language barriers that were difficult to overcome, in part because of the diversity of native languages. Franciscans became adept at recruiting native converts to preach to indigenous peoples. Yet this strategy provoked controversy within the Franciscan community, and native collaborators encountered strict limits on the scope of their pastoral work: "most Franciscans were hesitant to recruit native people to the colegios or seminaries . . . and only in special cases did visionary religious foresee the formation of a Franciscan native clergy" (p. 162). Rex Galindo provides a vivid account of life in the propaganda fide colleges, which "took their study programs to new levels of proficiency and commitment. . . . A stringent daily timetable included time for mental prayer, hours of study, classes, dedication to community material needs, and practical preparation for the evangelical ministry" (p. 119). Members of the colleges participated in daily meetings (conferencias) on moral theology. Rex Galindo analyzes in...

In 1575 Juan de Ovando, the president of the Council of the Indies, wrote to Mateo Vázquez de Lecca, Philip II's secretary, about themaestrescuelas(headmaster of the cathedral school) of Mexico City who was under consideration for a position as chaplain to the king. The Council of the Indies believed that he lacked the properlimpieza de sangre, that is, that he may have had a tainted lineage that disqualified him for the post. Ovando declared that this was not true. However, despite the fact that the candidate was indeed an “Old Christian” of unblemished stock, he was not to be given the position. Because it was a royal position, wrote Ovando, it should be given only to one whose purity of blood was “notorious.” In 1590 Vázquez de Lecca expressed a similar sentiment when he wrote of a candidate for the royal council that “It is a pity that Agustín Alvarez is not considered to be pure of blood because … I consider him the best of all possible candidates.”

Reviews 189 paraphrase that glosses the tale by constant reference to the Augustinian matrix. Doubdess the Fall went into the making of the Merchant's tale, but such lengthy paraphrase simply proves how litde the conscious recollection of Augustine's figured narrative of the Fall adds to an understanding of what is going on in Chaucer's story. Jager suggests, for instance, that the smock flung up to May's neck by the urgent Damian connects her with Eve, smocks being latterday fig leaves. If anything, his argument would have seemed more incisive if he had insisted less on typographical conformity and instead acknowledged that sometimes a smock is not a fig leaf. Sometimes a smock is just a smock. Much of Jager's commentary on Genesis B has been published recently in various journals. Perhaps the work that has gone into The tempter's voice might have had more impact if, much trimmed, it had found its way into print in article form. It issues from an interesting idea and, working its way through successive illustrative texts, generates any number of intriguing possibilities, but finally does not succeed in convincing us of then virtue by argument or analysis. It does not add up to the sum of its parts. However, at the very least, Jager does persuade us that the Fall is such a tidy figure for the instability of the sign in discourse that, if it had not happened, someone would certainly have had to invent it. Roger Nicholson Department of English University of Auckland Kamen, Henry, Crisis and change in early modern Spain (CoUected studies series, 415), Aldershot, Variorum, 1993; cloth; pp. x, 290; R.R.P.£42.50. These fourteen studies remind us ofjust how wide-ranging Kamen's interests have been over the last thirty years or so. There are articles on the decline of Spain, including a controversial one of 1978 that set out to show why the notion of decline is unsatisfactory in this case, and attempted to replace it with dependency theory. There are others on clerical violence, on the expulsion of the Jews, on toleration and dissent, on the Inquisition and purity of blood, on banditry in Valencia, on a peasant rising in Catalonia, on a Catalan reformer in the reign of the last Habsburg, on a leading Castilian minister and reformer in the reign of the fhst Bourbon, on Bourbon innovation in the royal bureaucracy, and on the significance of the 190 Reviews destruction of the silver fleet in 1702. These purely Spanish topics are introduced by a section containing 'Golden age, hon age; a conflict of concepts in the Renaissance', and "The economic and social consequences of the Thirty Years'War'. The selections vary considerably in type. The article on the silver fleet, for instance, sets a record straight on a particular event. Those on the reformers, the innovations, banditry, and the peasant revolt, enlarge our knowledge and understanding without raising anything controversial. On the other hand, "The decline of Spain: a historical myth?' (1978) was an important contribution to a debate on a very broad topic. The debate has moved on, but the article remains essential reading for those who are interested in its history. T w o of the studies are useful correctives of some popular views, though one tends to overstate its case. 'Toleration and dissent in sixteenth-century Spain: the alternative tradition' begins by citing the medieval 'convivencia' of the three religions, but admits that this was scarcely toleration in a m o d e m sense. It then shows that sixteenth-century Spaniards could openly deprecate the use of force to convert infidels, scarcely a surprise for anyone who has heard of Las Casas. Finally, there is evidence to show that there was a current of opinion in favour of not using force against heretics in the Netherlands and the Germanies. But all this falls short of demonstrating 'a commitment to pluralism' ( p. 3 ). 'A crisis of conscience in golden age Spain: the Inquisition against "Limpieza de Sangre" ' , proves that there was more criticism of corporate entrance statutes demanding purity of blood (that is, freedom from Jewish, Muslim, or heretic ancestry) made by members...

Several scholars have discussed the impact of the Spanish Civil War on the Black singer, actor, and activist Paul Robeson, including his brief 1938 tour of Republican Spain. Yet none has considered the tour in musical terms, nor taken into account Spanish reaction. Drawing on coverage in the Republican press, along with recent work on vocality and identity, I argue that the tour challenged prior notions of blackness in Spain. Spanish journalists addressed Robeson’s singing from the standpoint of the ‘suspect whiteness of Spain’ (to borrow Fra-Molinero’s apt description) while Robeson himself linked blackness and flamenco and reformulated the ‘sorrow song,’ as W. E. B. Du Bois called the spiritual. I also analyse Robeson’s performances of ‘Ol’ Man River’ from the musical Show Boat in terms of Republic ideology. In sum, Robeson challenged Franco’s vision of ‘blood purity’ (limpieza de sangre) while calling for racial justice worldwide.

El discurso de la limpieza de sangre es esencial para la comprensión de los valores de las sociedades hispanas de la época colonial. En este artículo se muestra cómo un discurso originado en el continente europeo pasó a ser la base del sistema de estratificación social en el nuevo orden colonial y se analiza el impacto de la transferencia de ideas desde España a las sociedades coloniales, a partir del estudio del Colegio de Abogados de Caracas. El concepto de limpieza de sangre en la provincia de Caracas fue distinto del establecido en la metrópolis. En estas tierras, la limpieza de sangre fue preocupación de todos los grupos sociales que conformaban la provincia durante el siglo XVIII y elemento fundamental para que la élite criolla mantuviera el control de las instituciones civiles y eclesiásticas.

The first Jesuits were committed in theory to admitting all qualified men, regardless of lineage. In practice, however, Jesuit unanimity concerning admissions was fragile. The principle of ignoring lineage in admitting new members to the Society was enshrined in the Constitutions and upheld - with a handful of exceptions - throughout Ignatius' life. Jesuits were among the most vocal and effective opponents of statutes of “purity of blood” ( limpieza de sangre ), which required that candidates for a wide range of civil and ecclesiastical positions throughout the Iberian world prove that they were from Old Christian families. Opposition to limpieza among the first Jesuits was rooted in Ignatius' insistence on inclusiveness and on unity within the Society. It was strengthened by the Jesuits' pastoral ideals and above all by their concern that their mission work in Europe and throughout the Iberian empires proceed free of challenges to the validity of conversion. After the death of Ignatius, however, Jesuit unity was threatened from many quarters. The most sustained threat came from Spain and Portugal in the form of opposition to the admission of Christians of Jewish descent - known as New Christians - to the Society. Throughout the sixteenth century, however, Jesuits debated the admission of a wide range of other minorities.

Reviewed by: Friends on the Way: Jesuits Encounter Contemporary Judaism Mary Christine Athans B.V.M. Friends on the Way: Jesuits Encounter Contemporary Judaism, edited by Thomas Michel, S.J. New York: Fordham University Press, 2007. 230 pp. $45.00. Over the years, Jesuits have had both irenic and stormy relationships with the Jews. This volume presents the papers of the Third International Colloquium of Jesuits in Jewish-Christian Dialogue (July 2005) in Zug, Switzerland on "The Importance of Modern Jewish Thought for Jewish-Christian Dialogue." Edited by Thomas Michael, S.J., it has a breadth of topics by mostly Jesuit authors on theology, spirituality, biblical exegesis, and philosophy. Accompanying the Jesuits were Rabbi Tovia Ben-Chorin, Zurich, Switzerland, and Professor Harold Kasimow, Grinnell College, Iowa, whose contributions also appear in the volume. Both Michel's preface and Kasimow's introduction include portions of a decree from the Thirty-Fourth General Congregation of the Society of Jesus (1995): "Dialogue with the Jewish people holds a unique place. The first covenant, which is theirs and which Jesus the Messiah came to fulfill, has never been revoked…. Since the publication of Nostra Aetate in 1965, the Catholic Church has radically renewed the Jewish-Christian dialogue after centuries of polemics and contempt in which our Society shared…." This decree provided the impetus for these colloquia. In the first chapter Marc Rastoin, S.J. describes the Jesuits and the Jews in the early years of the Society. Ignatius was adamant that limpieza de sangre (purity of blood) not be included in the statutes for admission to the Society, as was common in all other religious orders of the era. One of his first companions, Diego Laínez, who became his successor as general, was from a family of conversos, as were Ignatius' secretary Polanco, and Ribaldeneira, the first [End Page 144] historian of the Society. Ignatius never altered his decision. However, at the Fifth General Congregation in 1593 under Claudio Aquaviva, who claimed he was accepting limpieza for the sake of the unity of the Society, it became a requirement. The statute was not eliminated until 1946. This important chapter describes both the uniqueness of Ignatius' stance and the change which ensued. Rabbi Tovia Ben-Chorin discusses "Reflections on the Dialogue between Jew and Non-Jew in the Bible and in Rabbinic Literature." After reflecting on the Noachite Commandments open to Jew and non-Jew, he describes covenant not in legal terms, but as hesed (loving kindness). Ben-Chorin provides examples of dialogue with non-Jews from the Tanach (Jewish Bible) and illustrations from Rabbinic Literature. This Jewish openness to dialogue is foundational for future conversation. "The Goal of the Ignatian Exercises and Soloveitchik's Halakic Spirituality," by Christian M. Rutishauser, S.J., compares the approach of Joseph Dov Soloveitchek, the father of modern Jewish Orthodoxy in the United States, to that of Ignatius. Both accept the subjective experience of God's grace or presence and then integrate it into an ethical framework based on the revelation of God given to the whole community—the Torah and the Gospel respectively. The result is the transformation of religious experience into religious ethics. Both see this as an act of participation in God's on-going creation. Donald Moore, S.J. discusses "An Ignatian Perspective on Contemporary Jewish Spirituality." He reflects on Martin Buber's discussion of God's question to Adam in Genesis, "Where art thou?," as a challenge for humans who want to "hide" and escape responsibility. This resonates with the Spiritual Exercises, as does Abraham Joshua Heschel's emphasis on the uniqueness of each human being, which Moore sees akin to the "Election" of Ignatius. Heschel's "hallowing of all things" parallels the Ignatian emphasis on "finding God in all things" and the concluding contemplatio of the Exercises. Former Jesuit Stanislaw Obirek's "The Jewish Theology of Abraham Joshua Heschel as a Challenge for Catholic Theology" seems more scattered, with introductory comments that seem unrelated to the theme. Heschel's question to Gustav Weigel, S.J., "Is it really the will of God that there be no more Judaism in the world?" (p. 75), challenges all readers. Obirek writes from a Polish perspective...

From Curing to Witchcraft: Afro-Mexicans and the Mediation of Authority Joan Cameron Bristol In 1618 Esteban Dominguez, a Spaniard, reported to Inquisitors in Mexico City that a mulatto woman named Ana de Pinto had treated his sick friend, the Spanish alguacil (constable) Bartolomé Ruiz. Ana had applied a poultice to Bartolomé’s stomach and prepared special drinks for him. She then sewed a small bag embroidered with a cross into his shirt on the side over his heart, and made “the sign of the cross over the chest and ears of the sick man, at the same time making crosses everywhere in the name of the Holy Trinity God the father God the son and God the holy spirit” while murmuring words that Esteban could not decipher.2 Although Esteban had not questioned Ana’s treatment of Ruiz on his first visit to the sickroom, on a subsequent visit he became apprehensive when he saw the small bag sewn into Bartolomé’s shirt. He cut it off and, finding that it contained loose hairs, concluded that Ana was practicing hechicería, or witchcraft. When Bartolomé Ruiz was called to testify, however, he claimed that he had welcomed Ana de Pinto’s treatments. Even when an indigenous observer had speculated that the drinks that she prescribed contained peyote, a hallucinogen associated with indigenous rituals and prohibited by Inquisitorial edicts, Bartolomé had obediently submitted to her cures, apparently without question.3 In fact, when Ana had asked him if he would drink what she gave him, Bartolomé had responded “that to have health there was nothing that he wouldn’t take.”4 The example of a Spanish official deferring so completely to a mulatto woman, a person who would have been considered far inferior to him in terms of gender, wealth, color, and power, seems to contradict what we know about New Spain’s social hierarchy. Novohispano social identities were expressed through the concept of calidad (literally translated as quality or status), used to define people in order to differentiate Spaniards from the non-Spanish majority. Calidad was based on factors such as skin color, clothing, occupation, personal relationships, cultural practices, and limpieza de sangre (purity of blood, meaning that the bearer could prove Christian ancestry).5 Yet, despite differences in calidad between clients and curers, consultations with indigenous and Afro-Mexican curers were routine events for colonial people of every caste. This was due to various factors, including the lack of trained medical personnel in the colony. Between 1607 and 1738 only 438 people earned medical degrees in Mexico. Such a small number of physicians could not satisfy the medical needs of even the Spanish population of New Spain, which numbered 13,780 in 1646, much less the majority non-Spanish population.6 Furthermore, most physicians resided in cities and were thus inaccessible to people in rural areas. Empirics, licensed practitioners such as teeth pullers, bone setters, and midwives who were trained as apprentices, were also concentrated in cities. Furthermore, lower-class patients could not afford to consult physicians and empirics, whose services were more expensive than those of unlicensed curers. The limitations of academic medical knowledge, based on Galen’s humoral theory,7 also made curers an attractive option for ailing people. Even when licensed doctors and empirics were available they did not always have the tools or knowledge to heal illness, and curers might be called in when physicians’ treatments failed.8 Ideas about calidad also may have created demand for non-Spanish practitioners. Spaniards defined Africans, Native Americans, and their descendants as unrefined and close to nature. The idea that they were more in tune with the natural world may have led many to believe that non-Spanish curers had special abilities that were more effective than the scientific methods of Spanish physicians.9 Finally, curers handled a greater range of problems than trained physicians did, including helping with romantic troubles and finding lost things. Thus curers were necessary members of novohispano society, valued for their skills and frequently consulted for the most intimate problems. Given their importance, how did curers and clients, especially those of different castes, negotiate their relationships? What role did the social identities...

As sixteenth-century Spaniards constructed their global empire, they carried with them the racial-religious concept of “limpieza de sangre,” or blood purity, which restricted marginalized communities from exercising prestige and authority. However, the complex demographic arena of early modern America, so different from the late medieval Iberia that gave rise to the discourse, necessarily destabilized and complicated limpieza’s meanings and modes of expression. This article explores a variety of ways by which indigenous elites in late colonial Mexico sought to take advantage of these ambiguities and describe themselves as “pure-blooded,” thereby reframing their local authority in terms recognized and respected by Spanish authorities. Specifically, savvy native lords naturalized the concept by portraying their own ancestors as the originators of “pure” bloodlines in America. In doing so, they reoriented the imagined metrics of purity so as to distinguish themselves from native commoners, mestizos, and the descendants of Africans. However, applying limpieza in native communities could backfire: after two centuries of extensive race mixing, many native lords found themselves vulnerable to accusations of uncleanliness and ancestral shame. Yet successful or not, indigenous participation in the discourse of limpieza helped influence what it meant in New Spain to be “honorable” and “pure,” and therefore eligible for social mobility.

Basques formed a minority ethnic group whose diaspora had a significant impact on the history of colonial Latin America. Basques from the four Spanish or peninsular Basque territories—the Lordship of Vizcaya, the provinces of Álava and Guipúzcoa, and the Kingdom of Navarra—migrated to the New World in significant numbers; the French Basques were also prominent in the Atlantic, particularly in the Newfoundland fisheries. The population density of the Basque Atlantic valleys, which was the highest of any region in Spain, was an important factor that encouraged emigration. And, in response to demographic pressure, in the second half of the 15th century most villages and towns adopted an impartible inheritance system that compelled non-inheriting offspring to seek their fortunes outside the country. Castile was the immediate choice for the Basque émigré, but after 1492 America gradually became an attractive destination. Outside their home country, their unique language and sense of collective nobility (hidalguía universal) were to become two outstanding features of Basque cultural identity. The Basques’ share of total Spanish migration to the New World increased significantly in the second half of the 17th century. By the 18th century they were one of the largest and most influential peninsular regional groups in America. The typical Basque émigré was a young, single man aged between fifteen and thirty. In the New World they left their mark in economic activities that their countrymen had developed in their homeland for centuries: trade, navigation, shipbuilding, and mining. Furthermore, Basques’ collective nobility and limpieza de sangre (blood purity) facilitated their access to important official positions.

Reviewed by: Renaissance Impostors and Proofs of Identity by Miriam Eliav-Feldon Mark S. Dawson Eliav-Feldon, Miriam, Renaissance Impostors and Proofs of Identity, Houndmills, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012; hardback; pp. viii, 292; R.R.P. US$92.00, £60.00; ISBN 9780230547063. This study examines the phenomenon of assumed identity, of passing for somebody one was not, in early modern Europe. It seeks to explain why [End Page 205] people perpetrated such frauds and how the powerful improvised technologies of authentication. Imposture flourished, or doubts about social authenticity were abnormally high in this period, for several reasons. However, the root cause, Miriam Eliav-Feldon contends (in Chapter 2, disproportionately the longest), was religious strife, compounded by serial failures in authentication; those who had claimed or been judged to be of one community were eventually found to belong to another confession or class, prompting further waves of anxiety that all were not as they seemed. The conversion of Jews and Muslims in Spain, Catholics in Protestant territories, and Europeans in the Moorish Mediterranean, triggered religious dissimulation and panic about fifth columns and raised questions concerning the nature of faith and the reliability of knowledge based on sensory perception. Paradoxically, the wars of religion within and without Christendom, between the later fifteenth and early seventeenth centuries, lent plausibility to impostures and otherwise help explain the credulity of contemporaries who took the bait. For example, in the early 1520s, David Reuveni presented himself as the princely emissary for several Tribes of Israel. Both Portuguese and Venetian authorities welcomed him because of the implications for their continuing – yet at times apocalyptic – struggle against Suleiman I. Similarly with the pretence of those alleging they came from the realm of Prester John to aid Western Christendom in its time of need. Layers of deception piled one on top of the other, and this circumstance seems to be the justification for discussing other sorts of impostor: sturdy beggars, false saints, witches, and gypsies (Chapters 4–5). Thus indigents could themselves pretend to be the victims of Ottoman tyranny. Witches masqueraded as proper Christians and mystics were exposed as servants of Satan. And there are suggestions that the Roma presented themselves as pilgrims before they became vagrant. Fatal assumptions were made about their true origin and character: assumptions the Roma may occasionally have owned but which were otherwise foisted on them and appropriated by false gypsies, serving only to tarnish further their reputation. The official response (Chapters 6–8) was varied. Some sought to cure the epidemic with a regime of corporal punishment. Prevention, or at least faltering attempts at it, relied upon policing the appearance of the well-to-do courtesy of sumptuary legislation and watching for bodies marked by earlier run-ins with the law. As more people were thought to be dressing above their station in the context of urban anonymity, or otherwise disguising past stigmas, attempts were made to use bureaucracy rather than bodies to prove identities. Veritable (and verifiable) paper trails were gradually established with central registers, licences and passports, health certificates, and university testimonials. [End Page 206] Citing examples from across Europe, Eliav-Feldon draws extensively on scholarship in several languages. Notwithstanding its ambitious scope and the evidentiary challenges, some will find this collation not quite to their taste. The Introduction avers that this is not a study of identity. However, this seems at odds with establishing imposters’ motives, or arguments for the growing prominence of lineage, and with it the emergence of a racialist mentality. Despite the importance of Spanish edicts concerning blood purity (limpieza de sangre), more than one reference to heraldry’s semiotics (p. 182) would strengthen the case that European elites were preoccupied with who was who. Likewise, consideration of transvestitism, as part of a deliberate fraud, probably requires acknowledgement of ambiguous premodern understandings of sexual difference per se. Notwithstanding some case studies, the book tantalises with terse references to the historiography. Particularly when it comes to the proving of identity, and unmasking impostors, mention is made of archives bearing final witness, but direct quotation from these materials is sparing. This abridges the very processes of identification, of identifying as someone or being identified as somebody else. Some...

In 1570's New Kingdom of Granada (modern Colombia), a new generation of mestizo (half-Spanish, half-indigenous) men sought positions of increasing power in the colony's two largest cities. In response, Spanish nativist factions zealously attacked them as unequal and unqualified, unleashing an intense political battle that lasted almost two decades. At stake was whether membership in the small colonial community and thus access to its most lucrative professions should depend on limpieza de sangre (blood purity) or values-based integration (Christian citizenship). A Tale of Two Granadas examines the vast, trans-Atlantic transformation of political ideas about subjecthood that ultimately allowed some colonial mestizos and indios ladinos (acculturated natives) to establish urban citizenship alongside Spaniards in colonial Santafé de Bogotá and Tunja. In a spirit of comparison, it illustrates how some of the descendants of Spain's last Muslims appealed to the same new conceptions of citizenship to avoid disenfranchisement in the face of growing prejudice.