Conversos y nobleza o las desventuras de un corregidor

Abstract

After the indictment by the Holy Office at Valladolid of a seigniorial corregidor and his family, we have tried to explain the relationship established among the converted Portuguese that started to come to Castile at the end of XVI century and the nobility, specially those whose territories were near the Portuguese frontier. From a microhistorical point of view, this case can also be helpful to analyze the tensions among elite classes and the seigniorial administration and its agents. Arguments as the blood cleanness or a supposed criptojudaism had a great importance and could determine the intervention of the Inquisition. Under these circumstances, the Holy Office was more implicated in a fight between local factions than in a heresy persecution.