Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- A Note on Names
- Introduction
- 1 The Inquisition and the Campo de Calatrava in the Sixteenth Century
- 2 Literacy, Education, and Social Mobility
- 3 Justice and the Law
- 4 From Heretic to Presbyter: The Herrador Family, 1540–1660
- 5 Official Rhetoric versus Local Reality: Propaganda and the Expulsion of the Moriscos
- 6 Opposition to the Expulsion of the Moriscos
- 7 Those Who Stayed
- 8 Those Who Returned
- 9 Rewriting History
- 10 Good and Faithful Christians: The Inquisition and Villarrubia in the Seventeenth Century
- 11 Assimilation: Reality or Fiction?
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
11 - Assimilation: Reality or Fiction?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 April 2014
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- A Note on Names
- Introduction
- 1 The Inquisition and the Campo de Calatrava in the Sixteenth Century
- 2 Literacy, Education, and Social Mobility
- 3 Justice and the Law
- 4 From Heretic to Presbyter: The Herrador Family, 1540–1660
- 5 Official Rhetoric versus Local Reality: Propaganda and the Expulsion of the Moriscos
- 6 Opposition to the Expulsion of the Moriscos
- 7 Those Who Stayed
- 8 Those Who Returned
- 9 Rewriting History
- 10 Good and Faithful Christians: The Inquisition and Villarrubia in the Seventeenth Century
- 11 Assimilation: Reality or Fiction?
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Just over four hundred years ago, on 19 May 1611, a group of leading Morisco villagers from Villarrubia de los Ojos wrote a petition to the king of Spain, Philip III, which was sent via the royal secretary, Antonio de Aróztegui. Two months previously (22 March 1611) the King had published the decree of expulsion of all Moriscos from New and Old Castile, La Mancha, Extremadura, and Andalusia; the two-month period allowing them to sell their possessions and prepare for expulsion to France was now almost up. The petition was a final throw of the dice, as far as they were concerned, to have the decree revoked or at least softened so that it would not affect them in particular. As such, it is one of the most remarkable documents having to do with Spain's Moriscos and merits citing in full:
Pedro Naranjo and Alonso Rodríguez, priests, and Alonso Herrador and Lope Niño de Lira, university graduates and lawyers, citizens of the town of Villarrubia, on their own behalf and in the name of the rest of their neighbours, wish to state that it has come to their notice the decree which Your Majesty ordered to be published this year, which orders that all New Christians and Old Moriscos without exception must leave these kingdoms. And it is the case that those Moriscos of the said village of Villarrubia have resided there since the time of the Catholic King Ferdinand, of glorious memory, all of them held to be Old Christians and as such admitted to the honourable offices of the Republic, because they have been and have exercised the offices of mayor and alderman and other honourable posts in the Republic, from time immemorial to this day.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Tolerance and Coexistence in Early Modern SpainThe Moriscos of the Campo de Calatrava, pp. 225 - 244Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2014