1492-1700: Early modern Iberian-Jewish cultural history

This chapter presents a general picture of the cultural, social and religious life of Iberian Judeo-converts and their Jewish descendants between 1497 and 1700. It aims to provide a glimpse of some of the many problems involved in describing their lives and paths such as the fluidity of religious identity, transcontinental migration, early modern tolerance and confessionalisation. While some of those who accepted Christianity under duress continued steadfast in that faith, many others, after careful negotiations, managed to secure places in Europe and even the New World in which forms of Jewish belief and practice were able to flourish either in secret or overtly. Basing itself on the most up-to-date bibliography this chapter gives a general overview of the situation of New Christians in Portugal and Spain, as well as the Western Sephardic diaspora in the Mediterranean, Northern Europe, and the Americas in a constantly changing political and social landscape during the early modern period.