Email: a.rodasanchez@qmul.ac.uk
Racialisation and social segregation of Jewish converts (conversos) in late medieval Iberia
My research focuses on processes of race-making and racialised social segregation in late medieval Iberia. I am particularly looking into the community of Jewish converts – conversos – in Toledo in the second half of the fifteenth century (1449-1492). In 1449, Toledo was the first city in Iberia to enact a statute of blood purity which discriminated Jewish converts on the basis of their Jewish origin. From that moment on, social confrontation and violent attacks against conversos did not cease to increase. At the same time, the newly-established monarchy of Isabella and Ferdinand, later known as 'the Catholic Kings', laid the foundations for the formation of the early modern Spanish state. My PhD project will explore the extent to which racialisation of conversos responded to the political agendas of socioeconomic elites. By doing so, my research aims to provide new insights into premodern race and its impact on the formation of new political entities more broadly at the transition from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern era.