Marrano: Encyclopedia II - Marrano - Riots at Córdoba

Marrano - Riots at Córdoba

The example set by Toledo was imitated six years later by Córdoba, in which city the Christians and the Marranos formed two hostile parties. On March 14, 1473, during a procession in honor of the dedication of a society which had been formed under the auspices of the fanatical Bishop D. Pedro, and from which all "conversos" were excluded, a little girl seems to have accidentally thrown some dirty water from the window of the house of one of the wealthiest Marranos, so that it splashed over an image of the Virgin. Thousands immediately joined in the fierce shout for revenge which was raised by a smith named Alonso Rodriguez; and the rapacious mob straightway fell upon the Marranos, denouncing them as heretics, killing them, and plundering and burning their houses. To stop the excesses, the highly respected D. Alonso Fernandez de Aguilar, whose wife was a member of the widely ramified Marrano family of Pacheco, together with his brother D. Gonzalo Fernandez de Cordova ("el gran Capitan"), the glory of the Spanish army, and a troop of soldiers, hastened to protect the New Christians. D. Alonso called upon the mob to retire, but instead of obeying, the smith insulted the count, who immediately felled him with his lance. The people, blinded by fanaticism, regarded their slain leader as a martyr. Incited by Alonso de Aguilar's enemy, the knight Diego de Aguayo, they seized weapons and again attacked the Marranos. Girls were raped, and men, women, and children were pitilessly slain. The massacre and pillage lasted three days; those who escaped seeking refuge in the castle, whither their protectors also had to retire. It was then decreed that, in order to prevent the repetition of such excesses, no Marrano should thenceforth live in Cordoba or its vicinity, nor should one ever again hold public office.

Like the persecution of the Jews in 1391, the attack on the Marranos in 1473 spread to other cities. At Montoro, Bujalance, Adamuz, La Rambla, Santaella, and elsewhere, they were killed, and their houses were plundered. At Jaén the populace was so bitter against them that the constable Miguel Lucas de Iranzo, who undertook to protect them, was himself killed in church by the ringleaders (March 21, 22). The Marranos were fiercely attacked by the populace in Andujar, Úbeda, Baeza, and Almodovar del Campo also. In Valladolid the populace was content with plundering the New Christians, but the massacre was very fierce at Segovia (May 16, 1474). Here the attack, instigated by D. Juan Pacheco, himself a member of a Marrano family, was terrible; corpses lay in heaps in all the streets and squares, and not a New Christian would have escaped alive had not the alcalde Andreas de Cabrera interfered. At Carmona every Marrano was killed.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Riots at Córdoba", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki