The Politics of Limpieza de Sangre: Juan de Ovando and his Circle in the Reign of Philip II

1999 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 359-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stafford Poole
Keyword(s):  
Mexico City ◽  
Philip Ii ◽  
Limpieza De Sangre ◽  
Purity Of Blood

In 1575 Juan de Ovando, the president of the Council of the Indies, wrote to Mateo Vázquez de Lecca, Philip II's secretary, about the maestrescuelas (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 proper limpieza 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.”

Luis de Carvajal and His People

AJS Review ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-100
Author(s):  
Samuel Temkin
Keyword(s):  
Mexico City ◽  
New Spain ◽  
New World ◽  
Religious Activities ◽  
Philip Ii ◽  
Spanish Inquisition

This work discusses some aspects of the life of Luis de Carvajal, the head of the well-known Carvajal family. This man was Portuguese by birth, which meant that he was not allowed to go to the Spanish New World. Nevertheless, in 1579, Philip II awarded him a vast territorial entity in New Spain, called Nuevo Reino de León, and allowed him to bring to it a large number of people without having to certify their being Old Christians. Nearly ten years later, he was apprehended by orders of Viceroy Manrique de Zuñiga and brought to Mexico City, where he was jailed in the Crown's prison. On April 14, 1589, he was transferred to the secret jails of the Spanish Inquisition, where he was subjected to a nine-month-long trial, accused of heresy, of knowingly bringing Jews to New Spain, and of concealing their religious activities. Ultimately, he was found guilty of the last two charges and was sentenced to a six-year exile from New Spain. However, before the sentence was carried out, he was returned to the Crown's jail, where he died a year later.

scholarly journals Figuras impertinentes: Rodrigo Calderón y el Libro de entretenimiento de la pícara Justina (1604)

2021 ◽  
pp. 202-236
Author(s):  
Claudia Mesa Higuera
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Early Modern Spain ◽  
Symbolic Forms ◽  
The Social ◽  
Limpieza De Sangre ◽  
The One ◽  
Purity Of Blood ◽  
Editio Princeps ◽  
Coats Of Arms

RESUMEN: Este ensayo propone una lectura de La pícara Justina y sus paratextos, a partir de la relación de complementariedad entre el self-fashioning y las artes plásticas. Este análisis subraya el potencial de emblemas y jeroglíficos, escudos y empresas, de moldear la identidad individual y así contrarrestar la fijación del orden establecido con la genealogía, el abolengo, y la “limpieza de sangre”. El caso de Rodrigo Calderón, poderoso ministro de Felipe III, cuyo escudo de armas figura en la portada de la editio princeps, sirve como ejemplo para investigar la conexión entre la heráldica y el fenómeno del self-fashioning, en la España de la temprana modernidad. Por una parte, la manipulación de la identidad a partir de formas simbólicas representa un desafío al sistema; por otra, la adopción de sus paradigmas perpetúa y sustenta los idearios culturales sobre los que está construido. ABSTRACT: This essay proposes a reading of La pícara Justina and its paratexts based on the complementary relationship between self-fashioning and artistic modes of expression. This analysis emphasizes the potential of emblems and hieroglyphics, imprese and coats of arms, to shape individual identity in order to counteract the establishment’s fixation with genealogy, ancestry, and the so-called “purity of blood”. The case of Rodrigo Calderón, a powerful political figure at the court of Philip III whose coat of arms is featured on the title page of the first edition, offers an example to investigate the connection between heraldry and the process of self-fashioning in early modern Spain. On the one hand, the exercise of shaping one’s public persona through symbolic forms of representation constitutes a challenge to the social order; on the other hand, the adoption of its own paradigms, contributes to perpetuate discriminatory cultural practices and prevailing ideologies.

scholarly journals Invisible Concealment of Invisibility Crypto-Judaism as a Theological Paradigm of Racial Anti-Semitism

Religions ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 339
Author(s):  
Elad Lapidot
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Basic Premise ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
Limpieza De Sangre ◽  
The Face ◽  
Purity Of Blood ◽  
Conceptual Link ◽  
The Invisible

The motif of secret, crypto-Judaism has a history that reaches further back into the theological tradition. It no doubt structurally arises from or closely related to the epistemo-political challenges posed by the unworldliness and absolutely inner being of faith, which in the political or inter-subjective dimension immediately raises the question of evidence. The question of evidence, i.e., for the invisible faith, becomes acute in the case of conversion, where the basic premise is the initial absence of faith. Paradoxically, conversion is consequently the establishment of the convert’s fundamental faithlessness, of her originally non-Christian element, which the convert, in the very same act of conversion, claims no longer exists. It is easy to see the conceptual constellation that would present the convert as structural deception. At the Iberian threshold of modernity, in the face of mass Jewish conversion and assimilation, this paradox appeared in the image of the “new Christians”, the marranos, structurally suspected to be crypto-Jews, to the effect that the ultimate evidence of faith was a certificate of limpieza de sangre, “purity of blood”. This paper will follow the historian Yosef HayimYerushalmi in tracing the conceptual link between the Inquisition’s notion of crypto-Jews and the racialized figure of the Jew in modern anti-Semitism.

scholarly journals El obispo Lope de Barrientos y la sociedad judeoconversa : su intervención en el debate doctrinal en torno a la "Sentencia-Estatuto" de Pero Sarmiento

1997 ◽  
Author(s):  
Enrique Cantera Montenegro
Keyword(s):  
Civil Service ◽  
Integration Process ◽  
Spanish Society ◽  
Limpieza De Sangre ◽  
Service Jobs ◽  
Purity Of Blood ◽  
The City ◽  
New Religion

El proceso de integración de los judeoconversos en la sociedad hispanocristiana resultó profundamente controvertido, y constituyó una de las cuestiones más relevantes de la Castilla del siglo xv. Los años centrales de la centuria decimoquinta estuvieron marcados por una interesante polémica doctrinal en torno a la llamada «Sentencia-Estatuto» de Pero Sarmiento, que ordenaba la exclusión de los judíos y de los judeoconversos de todos los oficios públicos de la ciudad de Toledo. En este debate intervino el obispo de Cuenca Lope de Barrientos, una de las personalidades más destacadas del panorama político y eclesiástico de la Castilla de mediados del siglo xv. Junto a otras destacadas figuras del momento (Fernán Díaz de Toledo, Alonso de Cartagena, Juan de Torquemada), Barrientos defendió la plena integración de los judeoconversos en la sociedad hispanocristiana, así como la necesidad de tolerancia hacia ios recién convertidos al cristianismo en tanto durase el proceso de adoctrinamiento en su nueva religión. El debate se prolongó durante la segunda mitad del siglo xv, imponiéndose a la larga quienes propugnaban la adopción de medidas restrictivas para con la actuación pública de los cristianos nuevos, que cristalizarían en el apartamiento de los judaizantes y de sus descendientes del ejercicio de oficios públicos y en la aparición de los «estatutos de limpieza de sangre», ya en vísperas de la Modernidad.The integration process of the jewish converts in the christian spanish society was highiy controversial and it suppoused one of the most relevant sub¡ects in the Castile of the XV century. The central years of that century were characterized by an interesting doctrinal debate around the so —called Pero Sarmiento's «Sentencia-Estatuto», that ordered the exclusión of jewish and convert jewish from all civil service jobs of the city of Toledo. The bishop of Cuenca, Lope de Barrientos, one of the most relevant political and ecclesiastic figure of that time, took pan in that debate. In collaboration with other outstanding people (Fernán Díaz de Toledo, Alonso de Cartagena, Juan de Torquemada), Barrientos supported the full integration of the convent jewish in the christian spanish society, as well as the need of tolerance towards the new converts to christianism during the procesa of indoctrination to their new religión. The debate continued along the second half of the XV century, finally won by those who supported the implementation of restrictions for the civil service participation of the new christians. The consequence was the exclusión of the jewish and their descendants from the civil service and the entry into forcé of the «purity of blood protocol», on the eve of the Modernity.

Spaniards in the Nahua City of Xochimilco: Colonial Society and Cultural Change in Central Mexico, 1650–1725

2014 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-35
Author(s):  
Richard Conway
Keyword(s):  
Mexico City ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Social Rank ◽  
Central Mexico ◽  
The South ◽  
Philip Ii ◽  
Colonial Society ◽  
Basin Of Mexico ◽  
Wetland Agriculture ◽  
Economic Vitality

In 1650, a Nahua noble named don Martín Cerón y Alvarado set down his last wishes in a codicil. Eminent but now elderly and frail, don Martin had served many times as governor of the central Mexicanaltepetl(ethnic state) of Xochimilco. Located by the lakes to the south of Mexico City, Xochimilco was a prominent and populous polity, renowned for its bountiful wetland agriculture. Such was its size and economic vitality that Spanish authorities, under King Philip II, decided to award it superior municipal status as a city—one of just four such designations in the basin of Mexico. In keeping with his position as the dynastic ruler of a prestigious alteped, don Martin was a lord of the highest social rank. He could trace his exalted lineage back to Acamapichtli, the Mexica forebear of the Aztec emperor Moteuhcçoma Xocoyotzin. By 1650, though, don Martin was the last of his kind. No person in Xochimilco would again hold his honorific title,tlatoani(dynastic ruler). His codicil and an earlier will and testament, both written in Nahuatl, marked the passing of an era.

Migrant Diplomacies: Rethinking Diplomacy Beyond State-Centric Perspectives. A Civic Bi-Nationality Experience from North America

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonio Alejo
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Mexico City ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Global Politics ◽  
National Interests ◽  
Interdisciplinary Dialogue ◽  
Contemporary Politics ◽  
Migrant Activism ◽  
Point Of Departure

There is a pressing need to extend our thinking about diplomacy beyond state-centric perspectives, as in the name of sovereignty and national interests, people on move are confronting virtual, symbolic and/or material walls and frames of policies inhibiting their free movement. My point of departure is to explore migrant activism and global politics through the transformation of diplomacy in a globalised world. Developing an interdisciplinary dialogue between new diplomacy and sociology, I evidence the emergence of global sociopolitical formations created through civic bi-nationality organisations. Focusing on the agent in interaction with structures, I present a theoretical framework and strategy for analysing the practices of migrant diplomacies as an expression of contemporary politics. A case study from North America regarding returned families in Mexico City provides evidence of how these alternative diplomacies are operating.

Curb Cuts: Crip Displacements and El Edificio de Enfrente

Somatechnics ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 198-215
Author(s):  
Robert McRuer
Keyword(s):  
Mexico City ◽  
Global Capitalism ◽  
Poor People ◽  
Spatial Politics ◽  
Cultural System ◽  
Good Will ◽  
British Embassy ◽  
The Uk

Theorists of neoliberalism have placed dispossession and displacement at the centre of their analyses of the workings of contemporary global capitalism. Disability, however, has not figured centrally into these analyses. This essay attends to what might be comprehended as the crip echoes generated by dispossession, displacement, and a global austerity politics. Centring on British-Mexican relations during a moment of austerity in the UK and gentrification in Mexico City, the essay identifies both the voices of disability that are recognized by and made useful for neoliberalism as well as those shut down or displaced by this dominant economic and cultural system. The spatial politics of austerity in the UK have generated a range of punishing, anti-disabled policies such as the so-called ‘Bedroom Tax.’ The essay critiques such policies (and spatial politics) by particularly focusing on two events from 2013: a British embassy good will event exporting British access to Mexico City and an installation of photographs by Livia Radwanski. Radwanski's photos of the redevelopment of a Mexico City neighbourhood (and the displacement of poor people living in the neighbourhood) are examined in order to attend to the ways in which disability might productively haunt an age of austerity, dispossession, and displacement.

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