The anti-semitic conspiracy theory in sixteenth-century Spain and Portugal and the origins of the Carta de los Judíos de Constantinopla: new evidence

Abstract

This article examines a largely unknown document preserved in the archives of the Instituto Valencia de Don Juan in Madrid. This rare document –a short memorandum written by the Portuguese Bishop Andrés de Noronha in the 1580s and probably intended for one of the high-ranking royal secretaries or even King Philip II himself– reveals new information regarding the belief that the Jews or judaizing conversos in the Iberian Peninsula were communicating with their coreligionists in the Ottoman Empire and plotting to destroy the Iberian monarchies by infiltrating Christian society. Reporting a conversation between the bishop and a Spanish inquisitor that took place in 1566 or 1567, the memorandum refers to the Carta de los judíos de Constantinopla, an infamous forgery that became the keystone of this powerful anti-Semitic conspiracy theory. Through an analysis of the text, this article sheds light upon the early circulation and dissemination of the Carta de los judíos de Constantinopla in both Spain and Portugal as well as its role in the creation in 1568 of discriminatory bursaries reserved for Old Christians wishing to study medicine at the University of Coimbra.