Linajudos and Conversos in Seville: Greed and Prejudice in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spain. (Reviews).

Ruth Pike, Linajudos and Conversos in Seville: Greed and Prejudice in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Spain.

(American University Studies, Series IX: History, 195) New York: Peter Lang, 2000.217 pp. $52.95. ISBN: 0-8204-4964-4.

Ruth Pike returns to the great cosmopolitan center of early modern Seville, this time to explore a profession that arose quickly in the late sixteenth century and faded almost as rapidly in the mid-seventeenth. Drawing on literary and historical sources, Pike first very nicely evokes the dynamic energy and diverse population of early modern Seville, and then narrows her focus to address the interactions between candidates for Military Orders, many with at least some Jewish or Moslem ancestry, and men who made careers out of studying and testifying concerning ancestry. While the social context in which the conflict between these two groups took place is everywhere implied, Pike focuses most closely on the interaction itself rather than on larger social meanings.

After mass conversions in response to anti-Jewish mob violence in 1391, New Christians in Seville found their way smoothed to enter public office, marry into noble families, and build up businesses. While certainly only a small proportion of the whole number of these conversos achieved such financial and social success, enough did that by the early sixteenth century most patrician families of Seville had a least some Jewish ancestry. Many of these families grew quite wealthy, often as a result of involvement in the transatlantic trade, and growing resentment at their success contributed to the establishment of limpieza de sangre legislation, requiring "purity of blood" in holders of various public offices, religious benefices, and honors. Among others, candidates for appointments to the Military Orders had to present proof of their lineage at what was essentially a trial. Christian belief was no longer sufficient in itself, one also had to be free of Jewish or Moslem ancestry and many cases required noble st atus as well.

As hearings concerning limpieza became a common occurrence, a number of men built up libraries of genealogical records; scouring church registries, property holdings, family graves, tax rolls, notarial offices, and popular tradition, in order to testify at such investigations or solicit bribes not to testify. Pike argues that the first generation of these linajudos, many of them patrician and themselves lacking "pure" ancestry, acted as much from personal motivations as from greed, but that later practitioners considered their activities primarily as a business. As the royal administration under the Count-Duke of Olivares attempted to reward and woo supporters by granting habits within the Military Orders, political clout as well as money became a central determining factor in who received honors, with actual ancestry having little to do with the result.

Pike examines the careers of successive generations of linajudos and several major court cases in which they were involved. Not all readers will be drawn into the detailed genealogies presented in the accounts of individual investigations, but it is in these details that the richness of Pike's story emerges. The intertwined family histories and the repeated examples of techniques used allow readers to understand the process and to begin to judge the extent of the known truth and the balance of "greed" and "prejudice" that existed in these investigations. At first, the reader will be impressed that so much could be known about ancestries, but then, threading through the various accounts of investigations and genealogies, the possibility emerges that large swathes of this knowledge were simply made up. Candidates fought linajudos with fabricated papers and genealogies, intimidation, and their own false witnesses. The linajudos likewise filled in the blanks, drew not always warranted conclusions, and became les s knowledgeable as they relied on the work of earlier generations rather than their own research. The popular memory and satiric poetry that first seemed flimsy evidence for tracking lineage begin to appear the most reliable.

Linajudos and Conversos may at first seem to be primarily of interest to historians of Spain because of the unique purity of blood statutes addressed but parallels to witchcraft trials or to more modern "inquisitions" suggests the relevance of this study to other manifestations of persecution, intolerance, and scapegoating. The level of scholarship seemingly involved in carrying out these investigations is particularly striking as an example of the uses of knowledge, yet the popular memory also employed suggests the social context of this knowledge. Finally, the apparent importance of greed rather than ideology has implications for all studies of human nature.