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Marrano Women In The Inquisition:
Isabel Lopes, The Innkeeper Of Torre De
Moncorvo
Fernanda Guimaraes
M. Lopes Azevedo
From HaLapid, Spring 2009
•For
a traveler who arrived in Torre de Moncorvo in the Trásos-Montes
province of northern
Isabel
Lopes, the innkeeper, was born in Torre de Moncorvo in 1516. Her parents were
Jewish, forcibly Christianized in 1497. Isabel, had two more sisters, both
married, and living in a village within the limits of Bragança (also in
Trás-os-Montes), and three brothers, all of who were in the lands of
Isabel
married Pedro Lopes in 1532 and from him had several sons and one daughter,
Leonor Lopes, who married Gabriel Rodrigues, also a New Christian originally
from Galiza. She became a widow after eighteen years, re-marrying in 1552 with
João Rodrigues Trindade. João Trindade was from Miranda do
Francisco
was an accomplished student at Coimbra University, as were many other New
Christians in the 16th century, and came to for a spell (45 or 50 days) at his
father’s house during Passover in 1553. His relationship with his
stepmother was “very friendly”, according to stay him, but
characterized by Isabel as consisting of “great fights”. Francisco Trindade
later headed to
The
proceedings of each one of the cases mentioned will not be examined in detail;
instead some of the more unusual aspects will be highlighted. First, it should
be emphasized that the New Christians of this era were very mobile. Gabriel’s
parents lived in Salvaterra,
With
respect to Gabriel, a tailor, Francisco makes the following denunciation:
He
said that everything the Pope did was deceitful, because he did everything for
money, and gave the example of the King of England and Queen Mary, who were not
able to marry without dispensation from the pope, who would not grant it
without copious amounts of money; and then the king made a submission without
identifying themselves as King and Queen, and the pope immediately conceded for
little money, and then the king said to the people that everything was a
mistake, that nothing could be done in Rome without money. (2)
It
does seem a bit strange that an ordinary tailor in an inn in northern in
Portugal should be so well informed about international events such as the
politics of Henry VIII, king of England, who abandoned the Catholic religion
and established the Anglican Church. The New Christians must already have
developed trustworthy international information networks. Portuguese New
Christians, posing first as Catholics and then as Protestants had settled in
The
Inquisitors wanted to be certain about Francisco’s denunciation, so they
convoked a session with the defendants and the denunciator, to confirm the
accusation that he had made at the casa do despacho on the 6th of June 1556, being present
the male defendant Gabriel Rodrigues. This was a highly unusual procedure
because the procedure of the Inquisition was to withhold the identities of the denunciatores from the defendants.
We are not aware of any other such case.
Gabriel
denied the accusation and said that it was all an invention and the fruit of
hatred, since on many occasions he fought and yielded a knife with the father
and the brother of Francisco Rodrigues Trindade, and one time he was even
wounded in a finger and was put in the jail in Moncorvo. The case proceeded and
Gabriel was freed after abjuring de levi (denying Judaizing) on the Mesa (table, which refers to the court or “bench”
of the Tribunal of the Holy office of the Inquisition where judges,
prosecutors, lawyers, notaries, scribes, and the defendants sat).
The
denunciations against Isabel included allegations arising from “confidential”
conversations with her stepson about the coming of the Messiah* which so
mesmerized the New Christian cultural universe at that time. Francisco alleged
that,
The
said Isabel, his stepmother, said that Christ was not the son of God, but
rather Our Lady was married with Jose, that they had a blacksmith as a
neighbor; and Jose being out of the house, the said blacksmith had been spying
on her; and as he saw him outside the house, he entered and had carnal
relations with her. And upon Jose returning home, he became aware that she had
committed a bad sin; and then Our Lady told him the truth, how she had sinned
and the blacksmith had slept with her. And Joseph told her not to be afraid, that
he would not defame her; saying, his said stepmother that at that time women
who committed adultery were stoned. (4)
It
was without a doubt, the negation of the Mary’s virginity and the divine
nature of Jesus, a basic tenet of Christianity that aggravated Isabel’s
case before the Inquisitors. Following is another allegation of heresy made by
Francisco:
On
another day, being both alone, his said stepmother told him that the reason why
Jesus Christ was called King of the Jews was because, Jesus, living with a
prophet, one night the prophet had a large water basin full of water and had a
lit candle in the basin, or attached to the basin, and that the prophet lay
down to sleep and told him that when the candle reached a certain point to wake
him up; and when the flame of the candle reached that point, Jesus Christ came
to the window and saw the heavens open and heard a voice telling him; “
ask what you want”, and that Jesus Christ said, “Lord, I do not ask
you for anything except that you make me king of all these people”, and
feeling this, the prophet rose, and from then on Jesus Christ was king.
The
Sephardic Jews of Iberia were expelled from
Being
both alone, she told him that there was a locked house in Rome, and that all
the Popes that came would order the installation of a lock and that inside
there was a man (...) that he was the Messiah and that he had shackles on his
feet; and that there was a young boy with a saw sawing it; and as soon as the
irons were finished being sawed, the New Christians would be free, and that
they would return to the land where they first had come from, that it was
Jerusalem and that there they would be great Lords and that they would be taken
from there by the horses of the Old Christians.**
Of
course Francisco said that he reprehended his stepmother, but she did not
accept the rebuke and even retorted, “Poor you that have to remain here
because you are canarim.” Calling an
Old Christian canarin
was
heresy, and he informed the Tribunal of this after confessing to Dr.
Monção who confirm that it was heresy. Isabel recounts a
variation of the same story in another alleged “confidential”
conversation with Francisco,
His
said stepmother told him, both being alone, that a Pope would order the opening
of the house in Rome where the Messiah was and would order a Christian to be
put in it and he would soon die; and that he would order a Moor to be put in it
and he would soon die; and then he would order a Jew to be put in to see what
was going on and that he would survive; And that the Messiah, who was sitting
there, would tell him to enter and to throw out those scum, saying this about
the Moor and Christian, and that the Jew would speak to the Messiah who would
after tell him to go outside and to close the doors as they had been, and that
the Jew would say outside that there was a little left to complete the sawing
of the irons, she (Isabel) saying that she expected to see this in her time and
that she believed it would happen.
Again
Francisco said that he did not believe her and that Isabel responded, that he was the greatest ‘canarim’
of all and that the hell was full of idiots, to which he retorted, it is with, the idiots, I ant to be. Isabel denied
everything, and in her defense, invoked the testimony of many important people
of Torre de Moncorvo. Isabel recounted many scenes of being hit by her husband,
always because of his children and said that,
She
threw them out of the house many times and did not consent to them being at
home; and one day she had so many fights over throwing out the said graduate,
her stepson, that he, Francisco Rodrigues gave her a great big slap on her face
and the defendant took a sword to kill him and advanced towards him and would
kill him if he did not flee out the door; and he, the graduate, fled and never
returned home and became her capital enemy (…) therefore, no credit ought
to be given to the testimony of that graduate, Francisco Rodrigues.
Two
declarations of Francisco are noteworthy and reveal the secret practices of the
New Christians. In the first, he presents both himself and his father as Old
Christians, which does not correspond to the facts. Whitewashing New Christian
heritage was to become a significant practice in later years. Sanitized “Old
Christian genealogies” of New Christians showing “pure or clean”
blood were concocted, perhaps at a price. In the second declaration, Francisco
says his stepmother taught him to do the tani (fasts) and that she spoke, other words in Hebrew that he
did not understand and she was astonished that he did not know Hebrew. Secret
prayers in Hebrew were to survive amongst Portuguese New Christians well into
the 20th century.
Who
should the Inquisitors believe? Should they keep Isabel imprisoned, subject her
to torture, or oblige her to admit her guilt, denounce more people and oblige
her to ask for forgiveness of her guilt? At this time, in the early stages of
the introduction of the Inquisition in Portugal, the well-oiled machinery of
the (un)Holy Tribunal was not fully developed, possibly due to the huge bribes
being paid by the “Men of the Nation” to the Pope and Cardinals in
Rome.
Isabel
Lopes was freed of suspicion of heresy after abjuring de vehementi (vehemently denying
Judaizing). She was a remarkable woman.
References
1.
António Baião, A Inquisição em
2.
A.N.T.T. Inquisição de Lisboa, processo 3123, de Isabel Lopes.
3.
Cecil Roth, The
History of The Jews In
4.
A.N.T.T. Inquisição de Lisboa, processo 16 035, de Gabriel
Rodrigues.
·
In
1525, David Reubeni, a false messiah, met with King John III of
·
**
Maria José Ferro Tavares refers to the prophecies of the messianic prophet/poet
Bandarra (the shoemaker of Trancoso) who predicted the defeat of the Turks and
prophesized that the New Christians of Iberia would be taken to
(Maria
Pimenta Ferro Tavares, “Para o Estudo dos Judeus em Trás-os-Montes sec.
XVI”,
in Historia
e Filosofia,
Vol. VI, 1985, pp. 391-392.)
(Excerpt from Marrano Women in The Inquisition/Mulheres
Na Inquisição, bilingual book forthcoming from Ladina Books)
For Portuguese
version of this article, see: