Trudy Gold
Doña Gracia
Trudy Gold - Doña Gracia
- All right. I think you should be hand over to you because it’s four minutes past the hour. Right. Well thank everybody for joining us.
- Thank you very much, Wendy. And today, having looked at, bearing in mind that we are now looking at the history of the Iberian Peninsula and the main thrust today and tomorrow is going to be looking at the most extraordinary family, the family of Doña Gracia and Joseph Nasi. But before I can do that, I’m going to look at the situation in Portugal before they left. So can I have the first slide, if you don’t mind, Shawna? Thank you. And then let’s have a look at the first cry. Yes, yes. That is King John of Portugal. So thank you very much. And let me begin. So, you’ve got to remember just how important the Jews were after the, how Jews were in the history of Spain and Portugal. And after the Reconquest, as gradually Christianity marched down. And don’t forget that in 1492, they expelled the last Moorish stronghold from Spain. But basically the Jewish community were still very important to the Christian kings of Spain. In fact, in 1189, king Sancho in of Portugal protected the Jewish community from rioting Crusaders. One must always look at this period of history as really the clash between the church and the secular authorities. Basically, the secular authorities found the Jews very, very useful. And we’ve discussed this in the past. They hadn’t been allowed to enter normal occupation patterns. They were merchants, they were money lenders, and they were very useful to the crown.
But beginning really in the 11, in 1096, which is of course the path of the first crusade, the church triumphant, the church usurped its power from the kings, and it had incredible weapons at disposal. It had, of course the power of excommunication. If your country was excommunicated, nobody could be shriven during that period. So it’s very, very dark, and it’s when the church is triumphant, that in the main things are very, very bad for the Jews. Having said that, in Spain, king Sancho made his high steward of the realm. But it’s really after the latter and council of 1215 that I’ve referred to many times that the clergy put huge pressure on the monarchs. That, of course, was the council, which instituted the notion of the Jew badge. And ironically, it was England that was the first country to actually enact that in 1222, but more about that next week. So really right until the 15th century, the Jews are occupying very prominent positions in both the economic and the political life of Portugal. And also in the creative and cultural role. So you’ve got to see the Jews as absolutely intrinsic to the economic, political, and cultural life of the country. But of course, when the Jews are expelled from Spain, which we covered last week, that terrible expulsion of 1492, and I, this came up in questions, what actually were the figures for the expulsion?
Some historians put the figure as high as 200,000, others as low as 50,000. So most historians will go for the mean figure of about a hundred thousand. But you’ve got to remember, this is an extraordinary amount of people. And the country that took in most was actually Portugal. Why? Because it had a land border. Now, king John proposed a head tax metal workers and armors only had to pay half. He wants Jews to come into his country at this stage and officials, but because he also got a lot of money out of it, officials were appointed at the five points and they issued receipts. You had to pay over money for gold for entry into the country. And there were five points of entry of the land border from Spain into Portugal. And after eight months, if the auth, if they hadn’t been able to find settled employment, the authorities for a further fee would provide transport out. Now, 600 of the wealthier families were offered a special contract to actually remain in Portugal. And they were set in return for paying huge taxation. They were settled in the large cities because these, of course are the merchants. And please don’t forget, 1492, it’s now, it’s a very, very important year. Why? Because it’s the year that the, we really begin the exploration of the new world.
The sextant had been developed back in 1475, actually by a Portuguese King Henry, the navigator. And that meant exploration. It’s not just Columbus travelling to what became the new world. It’s also looking for the root around the Cape of Good Hope to the Indies. This is about trade, this is about spice. This is about routes, routes to trade. And if you think about it, the Jews with their international contacts from country to country are very, very well placed to do this. So it’s obviously in the interest of the crown to bring in the 600 of the wealthier families. So those who couldn’t afford the fee after eight months, by the way, the poorer ones, they were the king would actually have their prop. They would be kicked out, and the king would have their property given over. However, king Manuel, can we see the successor? Can we see King Manuel now please? The next king, right? Shawn, can we see the next slide, please? Oh, we sit in minutes, I hope. Yeah. Is it coming? Nevermind. Yeah, there you have. He’s a very, very complicated individual. He realises the usefulness of the Jews, but he is also under a lot of pressure from the church. And the Catholic belief of the time was that in a way, it’s a great deed to save the Jews because you need to save their souls. He doesn’t want to lose his, he doesn’t want to lose these people.
They’re incredibly important to the economy. But does he really want Jews in his country? Because he’s already got a huge converso population. So what he does is he strikes at the parents, through the children, and in one of the, I think the most horrific events in this period of history, he is advised by an apostate, a man called . Unfortunately, you have these renegade Jews, these, I’m going to use the term, say self 18 Jews who turn against their people, and he gives the king his idea and all children. This is Friday, March the 19th. This is actually the Seder, it’s the first night of pacer. All children between the ages of four and 14 are to be presented for baptism. Can you just imagine the horror of that own children who were not presented by their parents are going to be seized by the officials. And there were some terrible instances because to actually, in a religious worldview, forget the secularism of the 21st century, think of a religious worldview. And there were instances of parents actually smothering their children and committing kiddish Hashem, I’m not going to call it suicide, because the sanctification of the name. There is this notion in Juddaism that if you die for the love of the Almighty, that is not a suicide. There were, of course, some parents did convert because that was the only way to keep their children.
So basically, this is a terrible episode in history. And other children were sent away to be rear in Christian households. And we know that some children are actually sent to a Portuguese colony off the coast of Africa. So this is a time of terrible, terrible trouble. And in fact, one of the greatest of the reborn of the time, Isaac Ben Abraham in Zhi, he was a great, he was a , and he committed, he killed himself and all his children. And this is the account of a bishop writing 30 years later. And he’s writing with sympathy. I saw many persons dragged by the hair to the font. Sometimes I saw a father, his head covered inside of grief and pain, lead his son to the font, protesting and calling for God to witness that they wish to die together in the law of Moses. Yet more terrible things were done to them, which I witnessed with my own eyes. Now, ironically, they didn’t touch the Mariscos, the children of the Muslims, because think about the world that we’ve already discussed, the growth of the power of Islam. And one of the important motifs of this period of history is of course the ongoing clash between the two proselytising religions, Islam and Christianity. And ironically, it puts the Jews in a very strange position because when things are less fractured, they can be the people who go between the two empires. But he’s not going to touch the Muslims because he’s quite well aware that if he does that, certain things will happen to Christians in Muslim lands.
And finally, the expulsion date is fixed. What is happening now? I’m going for total conversion it’s 1497. It’s part of my marriage contract because Manuel is marrying the daughter of the king and queen of Spain, Isabella and Ferdinand the zeal Saint Isabella. And so to concretize that the Jews have to be expelled. So since he’s 1497, there are three points of exit, Lisbon or Porto and of course the Algarve, they’re cooped up in vast numbers without food. These are the people who have not given interconversion, and they are, are not even allowed water. They have to see the era of their ways. Some did accept baptism, others were sold as slaves. And gradually, gradually they break the resistance down of the Jewish community. And it’s no accident, of course, that Russian Yahoo skinner writes about this period, because of course, he was such a strong Zionist. And as far as he is concerned, this is the diaspora at its at its worst because these, many of these Jews, like the wealthy families, considered themselves so important to the state. And we looked at that when we looked at the life of Isaac Aberman. Anyway, only a few kept up the opposition. And the last rabbi of Lisbon was half warded up in . After a week he died and he himself had had a tragic life he’d fled from Seville in 1492, he’d had five years, and now he’s totally under threat. Miami and eight leading scholars, including his son-in-law, they all were thrown into a dungeon. They’re half walled up, and the group refused to yield. And as I said, Miami died after a week.
The few that survived were transported to Africa. We’re talking about very eminent scholars like Solomon Imberger, the Chronicle, chronicler Levy, Ben Habib. Can we see the next, yes. Now this is interesting because they… Habib, eventually flees to Salonika, and then to Gallipoli and 18 chief rabbis of that community down the generations are provided by that family. So that’s a family that remained Jewish. Now, so we have a problem. You now have thousands of conversos in Portugal. They suddenly declared Christians, but they’re totally ignorant of the new religion but they’re driven to church at they’re… When I say driven to church, they’re pushed into churches to listen to sermons at regular intervals. Can we see the next slide, please? Here you see Alexander Borgia, the Borgia pope, he was to appeal to for guidance. The King of Portugal writes to Alexander Borgia, how do I deal with these converso? And it’s interesting because the Borgia Pope, who had himself allowed 10,000 Jews into Rome in exchange for report a lot of money. He had a very phlegmatic attitude. He said, toleration, moderation. And the king, therefore, remember Manuel is a very complicated character.
He published a promise that the new Christians, as they were known, should enjoy immunity for offences arising out of Mathers of faith. So for a while, they’re going to be safe. If we make mistakes, it doesn’t matter at the beginning. Now inevitably they’re going to practise their Judaism in secret. Hebrew books were forbidden. But doctors were allowed to keep the Hebrew books because of medical for… So that they could study, of course of this stage of course, Muslim and Jewish doctors were far in advance of Christian doctors, and practically every court in Europe had Jewish doctors. So they can use Hebrew for that. But this is the problem Judaism is a religion of knowledge. So when you lose the prayer books, when you cannot print anymore prayer books, remember the printing press, the first printing press in Venice in 1494, Jewish printing press, how on earth do we distribute knowledge? Now many, but many of them, of course, are traders. And they do begin to flee overseas to Italy, to the Turkish empire as Christians. And then they turn back to Judaism when they are safe. And when I look at the family of Doña Gracia and Joseph Nazi, they are two of the most important ones. They do this, but many of them go in for merchanting. And when you have, and some of the wealthier ones had fleets of ships, how to get out, how’d you get other Jews out?
You take them as far away as possible from the Inquisition. Because let me reiterate, let us make no mistake about this. The Inquisition never had power over Jews. It only had power over Christians who were heretics. These conversos are heretics. Now, the… But in 1499, he publishes a decree that no new Christian could leave without a licence. They realise what’s going on. Also, the indigenous population was forbidden to facilitate their exodus. Nobody can help them. You can’t buy their land. You can’t take over bills of exchange. And of course, what this does, it further strengthens crypto Judaism. They’re forced to stay in Portugal, the success of the… And the other point, these conversos, these converted Jews, are now incredibly successful in every walk of life, just as they were in Spain. And it’s going to lead to huge hostility from aspiring Christian merchants. And also some of the wealthier can even marry into the nobility. And between 1503 and 1506, there’s a period of terrible instability. There’s a harvest failure. It leads to a famine. And of course, we come to the whole notion of the scapegoat. You know, isn’t it fascinating the notion of the scapegoat, the story of Yom Kippur, when a goat is, a black goat is taken out of the tribe and all the sins of the tribe are pushed on the goat, which is then sacrificed.
This notion within Juddaism of the scapegoat is such a fascinating psychological device. Just think about it, a harvest failure, insecurity in the land, people starving. It must be the fault of the Jews. And it culminates in April, 1506 where a group of new Christians, conversos are celebrating the Saviour. They were arrested, but they’re released 10 days later. And the mildness enraged the population. You see, these people are very useful to the state, but whipped up by the church because Passover coincides with Easter. April the 19th, the celebration of the mass in the Great Cathedral in Lisbon. I’m sure many of you have been there. And there was a plague at the time. So the mass was to try ana intercede with the Almighty to stop the plague. So there’s a crucifix, it’s there’s a miracle in the church. A crucifix seems to be particularly luminous. And it led the crowd to be there. There’s a huge mass in the church, and it led the crowd to believe that something wonderful was going to happen, that the Almighty is going to intercede to stop the plague. However, a new Christian laughed at the idea. He said, he explained to them that it’s a normal reflection of light.
Now, this was regarded as a blasphemy that a new Christian, remember he’s dragged out of the church and he’s butchered. And two Dominicans, remember the Dominican order, Dominus Connie, the house of God, the leaders of the Inquisition who had been established just after the fourth latter. And council, these are the zealous ones, the Dominicans, the black fryers, the Franciscans, the grape fryers. Those of you who know London will know black fryers and grape fryers where they had land in the city. Again, it gives you a notion of the power of the church at this period, they owned their own land, they couldn’t be interfered with by the secular authorities. So these Dominicans, they parade through the streets of Lisbon with a cross erect over them. And remember, Lisbon is a seaport. It attracts all sorts of French sailors, Dutch sailors, German sailors. There’s, let’s have a riot. And this is a terrible massacre, a terrible massacre again. And over 500 of the new Christians are murdered. One of the last victims was the richest man in Lisbon. That’s one of the reasons they turn against them. And the mob were rejoicing and it was women at the front of the pogrom. So this is an incredibly terrible period in history. And this is a Christian German eyewitness. On one Monday, I saw things that I certainly would not have believed unless I would’ve witnessed them myself.
Women with children have flown from the windows and caught on spears by those underneath their offscreen were killed. And then it spreads, it spreads to the countryside. And the peasantry follows the example of the townspeople. Now, what is this all about? You know, I personally, having tragically had to study this period for such a long time to study the history of antisemitism, I am going to, I’m actually going to level 90% of the blame at the door of the Christian Church because of this notion of the day aside. And the fact that stemming from that, Jews could not enter normal walks of life. They were traders, they were merchants, they were money lenders. They become the accursed ones. And if you think of a money lender on a personal level, just think of the wedding ring. This is such a potent example. I remember going to a very interesting lecture about this. If you think of the most precious possession, a woman would have her wedding ring. But is it intrinsically worth a lot in gold? You go to the money lender, you wouldn’t get much money from it. This is what causes the hostility. And not only that, in a religious framework, they are the other.
And let me say also that if Muslims in… Muslims were also seen as non-human, just as in the Muslim world, the Christians were treated with huge scorn. But if you think about what’s going on here, there’s riot, there’s murder. And it seems that something that almost 4,000 people were murdered in this terrible, terrible massacre. Ironically, the king was absolutely furious because the Jews are under his protection. This is the mob and the church going crazy. So the two Dominicans were actually burnt as the instigators of it. So the king does restore order. But however, he actually finds any of the perpetrators with money, will find one fifth of their property. And it did lead for a time to a more lenient policy towards the new Christians. So, and it’s going to, certain edicts were passed, that’s going to guarantee them a certain amount of security for another 20 years. There’s going to be no prosecutions for heresy. So you have a brief period, you have this horror in 1906, and then we’re going to have a period of relative quiet. But in that period of relative quiet, an awful lot of conversos use the opportunity to get out. Because think about the expansion of the Portuguese empire.
Just think about where the ships are going. Many of these ships are owned by Converso families. They’re outwardly Christian. I can’t, they had to go to church, they had to baptise their children. They married in the great Cathedral. If they were very wealthy, we know that they would then go home. And the marriage ceremony, according to Jewish rights, would be performed. Many of them married each other. There were some who were really converted to Christianity, and some of them entered high positions in the church. But those who felt themselves to be wanting still to be Jewish, the only way for them is out. And in 1524, as there was a secret inquiry into the new Christians, unfortunately by the Dominicans, and it said that they were still Jews in orbit name. And then in 1525, king John married Katherine, who is the granddaughter of Ferdinand and Isabella and sister of Charles the fifth, we’ve talked about him before. He’s the most powerful monarch in the world. And by this time, he’s king of Spain. So, another marriage into the incredibly, incredibly religious family. And of course, this religious zeal, the granddaughter of Isabella, brings it with her to Portugal. And she was a woman of great power. She’s the sister of the most important man in the world, remember?
And she was the only queen in Portuguese history to herself, have a seat on the Portuguese council. And what she wanted more than anything else was to introduce the real Inquisition into Spain, because it’s not there yet. And it’s also at this stage that David Reubeni will remember I talked about him when I talked about Ben Vanity, Abra Vanel. He was the adventurer who claimed to be the Messiah. Now, it’s important that we take this on. There is this belief in Judaism. When we come to the blackest period of history, the Messiah will come to save us. And you can make the case that after the fall of the second temple, the tried to play it down. Because what happened when the Jews revolted against Rome, you know, Siman Barock was proclaimed Messiah. David Reubeni proclaims himself messiah, he wants to save the Jews. And for a while, he had support from not just Jews, but certain Christian kings thought that maybe it was a religious experience, because don’t forget, we’re also waiting for the second coming of Jesus. Anyway, his dream, David Reubeni, remember, he wanted to persuade the Christian kings to go to war against Islam so the Jews can return to Jerusalem.
Now, the problem was that many Conversos treated him as the Messiah. And if you remember, a very important converso, Diogo Perry’s circumcised himself and emerges a Solomon Moko. He was one of the most important lawyers in Portugal. He worked for the king. So if Jews are doing this, what can happen? And as a result of this, the unrest spreads. The conversos are attacked again. Five conversos were found practising Judaism. And they’re burnt by the Bishop of Cueto. And the this horrible bloodletting, it spreads into the Azores, it spreads to the island of Madeira. And then in 1531, there is a terrible earthquake in Lisbon. Our divine powers manifesting themselves against the duplicitous. New Christians find the scapegoat, blame the Jews. And at this stage, the king’s mind is made up. And his confessor fried Diego DeSilva is appointed in Krista general. Meanwhile, he also forbids any of the new Christians to leave Portugal. For the Portuguese colonies, huge penalties would have to be paid. But it wasn’t established for a while because a group of converters led by Duarte De Paz, who was an old soldier, he was very powerful in Rome, and he managed to bribe the authorities to halt the inquisition.
And this goes on for quite a while. And it’s not reinforced until after the death of the Medici Pope in 1533. And up until then, there was amnesty for new Christians. But it is again renewed and the struggle continues. So what you have is conversos in Rome, knowing that the Christians can be bribed, but that the clerics can be bribed in Rome. Because remember, you have the Dominicans and the Franciscans are a total fanatics, but you have Renaissance’s popes on the throne, and therefore more interested in this world than the next. So, you have conversos of huge wealth doing everything they can to stop the Inquisition in Spain. And it’s at this stage that a man called Manuel DeCosta was accused of laughing at Christianity. What happened was he was in a church. He affixed a notice saying, “The Messiah has not yet come. Jesus Christ was not the true Messiah.” Now, this is a new Christian putting this in a church in Lisbon. You can imagine the population go absolutely crazy. He’s tortured, he confesses, he’s executed. And that’s what led to the institution of the Inquisition. And it also, it became a terrible device because if you wanted to get rid of a business and all you had to say was that he was judaizing in secret, his property would be confiscated. You’d lose a rival. And the church and the crown became much richer. And the danger of this, there is a distinction now between old Christians and new Christians. The latter If you are a new Christian, your descendants are compromised. It became the purity of the bloodline. It was not invented by Adolf Hitler. This is what you have in Christian Portugal and in Christian Spain. The purity of the bloodline. And it was, and what was extraordinary is in spite of everything, there was incredible progress by many of these new Converses. And I’m now going to turn to a fascinating family.
The House of Mendez. The House of Mendez began as a very small business in precious stones. They go into the export trade, as did most conversos families. They came from a line of doctors and of professors and great rabbis in the past. And now they have ships and they are in the business of Merchanting. And can we go on please and see a family tree? Here we are, this is the family of Mendes. Can I suggest you make it a slightly larger so that you can see the family of Nazi and the family of Ben ? If you have a look, can you go down and you’ll see that Diego Mendes and Frederico Mendez, Mary Bi look, Francisco Mendez, I beg your pardon, marries Beatrice Del Luna. Her Jewish name is Garcia Nazi. Go to the Nazi family. You will see Bria Rena, who marries Diego Mendez. Go back to the other side, these are cousin, these are cousins, marrying cousins. And if you go further down, you go to Francisco and Garcia, let’s call her Garcia, that is her Jewish name. She has a daughter, Briana Ben known as Rayna, and she marries Me Guez. Who is Joseph Nazi. Have you all got that? This is… And if you go along the line of the Nazi family doctor, his father is Dr. Miguez, okay? So these are two families, two important religious families living as Conversos who make a match, alright? Now, let me talk a little bit about them. And Mendes, by the time he marries Francisco Mendes is a converso. He is a practising Christian, as is his brother Diego, alright?
These are two brothers with a huge empire. It had begun in the diamond business and he’s going to become one of the richest men in Europe. It starts with diamonds and then it expands to trading. And they actually, those of you who are from South Africa, it’ll be interesting for you to know that that family financed the expeditions around the Cape of Good Hope. That was of course the finding of the Vasco da Gama and the finding of the sea routes to India. It’s not surprising how many Converso families are involved in this because they still see it as a way out. And I may have mentioned to you last time that if you think about those of you who live in America, now, if you think about it, it was a converso, it was Conversos in Recife, which was a Dutch outpost in South America, under Holland they could live safely more about that in a couple of weeks when the Portuguese conquered, because they were Converso who had again become Jewish, they would’ve fallen under the Inquisition. So 23 families flee in a ship descent trials. This is in 1653, and where do they flee to New Amsterdam, a trading post of Peter Stuyvesant. And of course it’s latter taken over by the British and it becomes New York. So this is really the backdrop. I find this one of the most exciting periods in Jewish history actually, because yes, it’s a very dark time, but it’s also a fascinating time because it really is the path into the modern world. So, they also become very important in the emerging spice trade. And they become, they virtually have the monopoly on black pepper.
I want you to think about something that we’re all interested in food. You know, the discovery of the sea route to India, you know, the spices of the east, the spices of the Asia, think of the food that’s going to come in from south and North America. It’s going to change everything. And so many of these families are conversos. And here you have the incredible Mendez family who, as I said before, they start out in the diamond business, they start small, they then go into banking, they have a huge fleet of ships and they are another point remember, they are putting their agents in many of these far flung places like the Cape of Good Hope in Madras in India. Many of these characters, of course, are also conversos who want to get away from the inquisition. Tragically the Inquisition followed them wherever they went. But nevertheless, there is the distance and there is the moving into another world. And this will explain why later on when Holland, which is part of the Hapsburg empire, finally breaks away and becomes Protestant, that is why so many Jews convert those flee to Amsterdam and then of course to Protestant England. Because the pragmatic Dutch and the pragmatic English are going to be very pleased to have these traders come in bringing with them much of the wealth of Spain and Portugal. So one of the issues of Jewish history is such an interesting balance. How much history do we have to study of the outside world in order to understand Jewish history? And of course this was the Zionist argument in the 19th century.
The problem with the Jew, all we can ever do is to react to the outside world. At this period, you have people like the Mendes family who are incredibly wealthy, but the majority of Jews are not wealthy. But we’re also going to see how Mendes with his huge fleet of ships, he’s going to get a lot of conversos out. And the Mendez family also are going to rant some Jews who are captured. And that’s going to be very important. So I want you to understand that these are one of the richest families in the world. They are the Rothschilds as as the Rothschilds were in the 19th century, or the Sassoon, the Rothschilds of the East in this period of history. They’re one of the richest families in the world. And it’s to grow the pepper trade that Francisco sends his brother Diego to Antwerp in 1530s to set up business there. So this is when the Inquisition is being introduced. Why Antwerp? It’s part of the Hapsburg Empire at this stage. And it’s a very important port. It’s one of the most the important trading cities in Europe. Just think where it’s placed geographically. And it’s very, very important, okay? It’s at this stage that Francisco marries Beatrice del Luna linking two of the most important Conversos families. They would’ve married in the Great Cathedral in Lisbon. They would’ve come home, as I said before, washed off the… They would’ve washed their hands, they would’ve had the Jewish ritual marriage. And then they had a daughter, Brianna, but or Anna, but her Jewish name was Rena, okay?
They have this daughter and then Francisco, he dies young, he dies in 1538. So Garcia, who you will notice has a younger sister, Briana, stop. They decide to leave. They were going to Francisco had wanted to go to Antwerp anyway because of the Inquisition. But Beatrice and Breanda now decide to leave to join Francisco’s younger brother in Antwerp. So, now the Mendez have made large scale loans to governments if the governments of the low countries, that’s the Hapsburgs to the Portuguese, to the English and taking advantage of his agents in every country. Diego continues, his brother’s work of setting up the flight of the conversos. If you’d like, if you remember the example in America of the railways of the sort of underground rail, well they called it the Underground Railroad when they got the black community out of the Southern states. This is how you get together. You find people, most of the conversos, most of the agents of the Mendez family, be they in London, wherever there’s trade, where be they in any of the European ports, in the Italian ports in London. These are the people who are, if you like, running the Mendez Empire and they are conversos. That’s why when we come onto the subject of, think of the period we are in, in history, we are soon, we’re in the reign of Henry the eighth, and then we’re going into the reign of his son and then his two daughters.
By the time you get to Queen Elizabeth, and I know that Professor Pimas already been talking about this, there was a secret Converso community in London. So, and we also know that Donna Garcia and her sister and her baby daughter stopped off in London on their way to Antwerp. Now Diego had previously been arrested by the Portuguese Kings, but what had happened was… He’s arrested not by the kings, I beg your pardon by the Inquisition, but the problem was, he was the principal member of consortium that annually purchased Portugal’s entire pepper crop. And it wasn’t paid for yet. And if he hadn’t… If he’s arrested, he’s not going to be able to pay. So, that’s the power of the Mendez family, their great wealth. So the Portuguese monarchs, actually, they want him out. So we also know that the bank traded in silver and it was one of the largest banks in the world. So going back to Donna Garcia, her father had been a wealthy silver trader, and he’d converted. Why?
Because after the appalling situation in Lisbon, which I talked about, it was very dangerous for the family. And as I mentioned before, his daughter is married in the cathedral to one of the most successful merchants in the world. And when I say successful merchants in the world, their clients included Charles the fifth, John the third of Portugal, the king of England. So they’re not just merchants, they are the bankers to the most important monarchs in the world. So, and it had been, they who had been trying to stave off the Inquisition, who’d you think was paying for the bribery in Rome. It was the Mendez family and other very wealthy conversos families. Now, what is interesting about Francisco, he leaves his fortune to his wife. She is going to emerge as one of the great figures of this period. Not only is she one of the richest women in the world, she’s also one of the most interesting because she’s really going to step up to the plate. And it’s interesting because the king was terrified ‘cause she’s in Antwerp. He’s terrified that she’s not going to come back to Portugal and he wants her assets. So what he tries to do, he wants to marry her daughter off to whom? To one of his nobles. So Garcia, you want to know, do you know where we’re going? Donna Garcia manages to get herself out. She negotiates a safe conduct from the English, and this is when she dis she informs the court that she’s only moving to Antwerp on business but basically she’s out, she’s never going back to Portugal.
And it’s interesting 'cause when she stops off in London, who did she meet? Did she go to the court? Very interesting, what would you do when you’ve got, remember she’s still a converso, she’s still a Portuguese Catholic. What would’ve happened to her? We know that she met up with the agents. You know, she’s a woman who’s being rediscovered. There’s a very good book about her by Cecil Roth, but I know there’s all sorts of women’s organisations who are taking on the figure of Donna Garcia because she’s such a character. Anyway, more about that. So Diego dies in 1542, and he has, by the way, he has married her sister, her sister, Granda Rena. And he’s married her. And when he dies in 1592… 1542, I beg your pardon. He leaves his share of the business to his sister-in-law. So it’s fascinating, this woman at a time when, how do women usually achieve power? Well, we’ve discussed this in the past, it’s usually through the bed chamber, unless they are queens in their own right. But she must have been an incredibly astute woman for her brother-in-law to decide to entrust the family fortunes now. And she’s now running one of the largest empires in the world.
And from her position of huge strength, she’s going to do everything she can to help her people. She’s known as Lain Noura. And she really uses every political contact she can to help Jews. She moves hundreds of thousands, not hundreds, hundreds. She moves thousands of them on her spice ships out of Portugal. They go first to Antwerp. And then where do they go to? They go to the Ottoman Empire. They’re outside the control of the church. And I’ve already talked about the reign of Solomon. We’re now in the reign of Solomon the magnificent. It had been one of his ancestors who had welcomed the Conversos into the Ottoman Empire. And it’s interesting because why didn’t the Abra Vernell family go straight to the Ottoman Empire? And the truth, I think was when we talk about these families, they were European. You know, when I talk about Donna Garcia, she would’ve had on one level, against the backdrop of the appalling persecution that her people were facing. She would’ve had a humanistic education. She would’ve known languages, she would’ve known Latin. She would’ve known Greek. And if she’s going to be running a big empire, she would’ve been an incredibly astute businesswoman. But now the decision is being made. Things are becoming so bad in Europe that we have to get the Jews into the empire. And this is part of a trend.
Already a ghetto has been established in Rome. This is the counter reformation now. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago the gate tussle between Christianity, but in within Christianity, Protestantism, and of course Catholicism, when branches of the same religion are fighting to save souls, the arch heretics are the ones most at threat. So for the Jews, it’s a very, very dark time. Already there have been the England English expulsion was in 1290, they’re only just beginning to go back. The expulsion from Spain, the expulsion from Portugal. And now of course more and more expulsions, Jews in the main are moving into the kingdom of Poland, or they’re going into the Ottoman Empire. And then the Inquisition is established in Antwerp in 1545. This remember is part of the Hapsburg Empire. At this stage, the family flee to Venice, where Donna Garcia, through brilliant financial manipulation, had managed to get most of her money out of Antwerp. Remember, she’s got all her ships at sea, but she’s managing to get most of her assets to Venice. Unfortunately, two years later, the Inquisition is established in Venice. This is the Counter Reformation. And her sister, Bianca Rayna, she’s very jealous of her sister. It’s a terrible family story. You see, Garcia controls the money, she controls the empire. So what she does is she tells the Inquisition that she is in fact a secret Jew. Consequently, again, she manages to flee to Ferrara, where the Duke Urkel, who by the way, is the son of Lucretia Borgia, the daughter of Pope Alexander the Sixth.
Think about it, the Borgia Pope, his daughter, her third husband was the Duke of Ferrara. Ferrara was one of the great centres of the Inquisition, beg your pardon of the Renaissance and of trade, and the Duke of Ferrara, he’s a cosmopolitan, he’s a ruthless man, but he’s a cosmopolitan and on one level, intellectually he’s a humanist. He’s interested in Jews. And she, it’s in Ferrara that she washes away any pretence of being a converso and she practises Judaism openly. And slowly in Ferrara, she assembles a consortium of Jewish and Muslim businessmen to trade in all sorts of different commodities. She’s working now mainly with Muslims, wheat, pepper, raw wool for European production. And gradually through her Muslim co-worker, co-partners, now she’s beginning to transfer her assets where? She’s transferring them into the capital of the empire, to the Muslims, Istanbul, to the Christians, Constantinople, one of the greatest cities in the world. And also when she transfers to Constantinople, she becomes very important at the Ottoman Court. This woman has audiences with Solomon and she has the power through her huge wealth. And also I think her intellect, she must have been a very strong and very charming woman because she did persuade him to intervene in Ancona. What happened was, 23 Jews had been burnt at the state by the Inquisition Conversos.
And she managed with Muslim help to organise a boycott of all trade with Ancona, which resulted in the freeing of the remaining Jews. That’s the kind of power she had. And something else but I’m going to be talking about that much more when I talk about her nephew, Joseph Nazi. I’m going to talk about him when we meet tomorrow. Joseph Nazi is a fascinating character. I think one of the most interesting characters I’ve ever come across let’s call him the Duke of Naxos at this stage. She and he are going to secure from Solomon a grant of land in Tiberius for Jewish settlement. So, it’s Joseph Nazi who is going to take that dream further. And he’s going to become one of the most powerful men in the world of Solomon. And even more so in his son, Sellen, who is the youngest son of Solomon and Roxelana. So do you see how it all comes full circle now in Istanbul, let’s call it by its Muslim name. She has a wonderful palace. She sets up a printing press, she becomes a mecca. Can I use that word for all kinds of Jewish scholars who make their way to her court? She has books dedicated, you know, Phil was talking the other day about how you dedicate Jewish books, religious books are dedicated in her honour. She’s practising Judaism. It becomes a her court. She has a court and it becomes a centre for Jewish scholarship because she realises, you know, you also have to, how a conversor is going to survive without knowledge of Juddaism.
So consequently, it’s not just for the Jews who are making it to the Ottoman Empire, it’s also on the ships to send them to all far flung parts of her empire. So this is a woman who spends much of her time 'cause she’s running a huge empire. Yes, but she spends a lot of her time in philanthropy. You know, this is a wonderful, wonderful part of the Jewish experience that wealthy do think they have responsibility. Whenever Jews were in trouble, she would work with other wealthy Jews to ransom, she ransom thousands of Jewish slaves. What she did in Ancona was absolutely extraordinary. Her nephew, who becomes her son-in-law, because Joseph Nazi is going to marry her daughter Rayna. Now it’s fascinating because Rayna was the most, I suppose the most eligible Jewish woman in Europe. And the physician to Solomon, Harmon wanted her for his wife. And if you remember, Charles the fifth wanted her for one of his nobles, thinking when she was a new Christian, but now they’re being brought up as Jews. And in Istanbul there is now a great Jewish court, which is welcomed by Solomon. And Solomon must have found her very, very interesting because if he is prepared to actually interfere in European affairs because of her, and also she would loan him huge amounts of money. So that is the beginnings of the story of the House of Nazi. It’s going to reach its peak with the Duke of Naxos. Duke of Naxos. He’s got a title, sellin gives him an island.
He also gives him title as it starts with Donna Garcia. But title to Land in Tiberius. Was he a Protozionist? It’s a fascinating story and I’m going to continue his story tomorrow and on Saturday, professor Pima is going to talk about the Jew of Malta because the Jew of Malta, that inverted commerce, anti-Semitic clay, written by Christopher Marlow, many think it is based on the life and legend of the Duke of Naxos, because he became world famous, this Jew who had the ear of princes and kings who becomes really the unofficial foreign minister of the Turkish empire. Anyway, Donna Garcia, she lived, can we see a picture of her please, with her daughter? There aren’t, if you don’t mind Shawnna, let’s have oh, sorry, go back go back. I put in a map just to show you the extent of the journey. You can see them coming from Portugal to London, and then they flee to Leon and then to Venice, to Ancona, you see Ferrara. And then finally into the Ottoman Empire. That was her final route. So from Portugal to London through to Antwerp, then to Leon, then to Venice, where she had trouble with her sister who was jealous. And then you will see Ferrara and then to the Ottoman Empire.
And you will also see they would’ve gone by via Solika, which is emerging as a very important Jewish centre. And I know I have friends online whose family came from there. So this is when it really begins in this period under Solomon. So thank you. Let’s have a look at, see if there’s any questions. That is a portrait of her. That is Donna Garcia with her daughter Anna. She only had one child, very much dressed as a figure of the renaissance. This would’ve been painted when she was still a converso. Important to remember, she outwardly was a Catholic. She was a Catholic, almost noble woman. But she, in Farrara, she comes out as a Jew and becomes one of the greatest benefactor actresses of the Jewish world LA in Europe, a woman of huge strength. And it’s interesting because she was in Italy and exactly the same time as Ben Vanity Abra Vinyl, they were both incredibly tough women with huge empires. Now did they like each other? I very much doubt it, but she’s got a very resolute face. They were both great women but they were tough,
[Wendy] 'she’s beautiful, she’s beautiful.
She’s a beauty, isn’t she?
[Wendy] She is.
She’s quite a beauty. Quite a beauty. You know, she’s Wendy. She’s really being rediscovered now. You know, as we’re getting more and more interested in the history of women. Sorry, she’s coming out as a very, and what I think is so marvellous about her, she was an incredible philanthropist and she really worked so hard, save her people. And it’s fascinating. No, it’s, anyway, there’s lots to talk about it with her, isn’t there?
Let’s have a look at the questions.
Q&A and Comments:
Oh, people are saying nice things about us, Wendy, while Dona Garcia my favourite Jewish woman was Monday’s interaction I dunno what that’s about. Oh, this is from Esther to Wendy or Trudy, if you have time to take the ferry for Victoria from Vancouver. It’s not raining. The island is lovely, take you out for lunch. Oh, how lovely to meet you too.
[Trudy] Vancouver. Thank you.
Oh, that’s lovely.
Q: Yeah, well this is from Peter. What is the consequence of excommunication?
A: Trudy, if you are excommunicated, it means that you cannot be saved. I use the word shriven, it’s a Christian word. It means if you are excommunicated, you will go immediately to hell. And in a religion, you’ve got to remember we’re dealing with a religious worldview. Look, I can’t look into the minds on the hearts of the majority of people. You’ve got to remember when you’re dealing with this period of history, we don’t know what ordinary people have really felt because they never wrote it down. But they would’ve gone to church if they were Christian. They would’ve gone to synagogue if they were Jewish. And the belief in Christianity is when you die, you go to purgatory. And if you’ve lived a blameless life, or if you’ve given huge ties to the church, aren’t I cynical you go to heaven. But if you are excommunicated by the church, you can never, you will go, you were burn in hell for all time. So it’s a terrible thing. And it means that children can’t be baptised. Also was a land border with France. Why didn’t, they would’ve had to have gone through Spain, Stephen and the French at this time. Think about the very Catholic, French moments. So it was, Italy was much more of a haven Antwerp because it was a port city. Even though it’s in the Habsburg Empire, it’s a port city. There are all ships on the move. Oh, this is from Mashe to all Hebrew readers, a quartet of historical novels by Israeli writer , Gomen Zanno Goran about Donna Garcia, Mendez, thank you. Presumably Gomen Zanno, he would’ve been, he is Sephardi. Thank you for that Mashe. Was the Jew badge first introduced to the church by Christian rulers, or it was actually first introduced by Christian rulers. But there were times when it was used by Muslim route. When Islam the general rule is this, when Islam is secure in the main Jews were treated better than they were under Christianity. You haven’t got the day aside. But when Islam was fanatical, then you had problems. And there is another issue, Islam, I think already we’ve been discussing this, the notion of Dimmi. Jews are Dimmi. So Jew can be a grand vizier, but he can’t rule. So it’s a very complicated area, which we will, we are dealing with and we will deal with more, right.
- Sorry, sorry, can.
Q: - [Trudy] How many siblings were there in her family and what were the relationships now?
Well, we know she are.
[Trudy] You spoken about her sister?
A: - No, there was she had a brother who was the father of Joseph Nasi they had a good relationship, but she had a terrible relationship with her sister. You see, if you think about it, two sisters married two brothers, but only one sister was given the empire probably because she was far more capable. And her sister became incredibly jealous. And we’ve got no portraits of Brianna. But certainly you can you, I mean you mentioned it, she was incredibly beautiful, wasn’t she Dona Garcia? And you know, she had this beautiful daughter and she and her nephew also the nephew of Brianda, wrote the empire. So psychologically, Wendy, I would think that, I would’ve think also she was incredibly tough. Look, she must have been to run that kind of empire and also psychologically tough. Look, she knew, look, it’s quite likely that when she went to Britain, she would look, she was still a converso. She would be seen as a Catholic.
[Wendy] Well you go up threatened and your people are threatened that whether you do, you know, it does bold strength of characters, especially if you’re going to step up to the plate. You have to.
[Speaker] And she did, she had to be tough. her sister couldn’t cope with it, obviously. And she betrayed her to the Inquisition. I mean, that’s about as terrible as it gets, isn’t it? But she evidently, she had an incredibly close relationship with her nephew who became her son-in-law. And he’s larger than life. The daughter doesn’t really come out of the shadows. Evidently she was an incredibly beautiful woman. And after her husband’s death, they never had children after her husband. I know Patrick says we’re obsessed with that, which is always a joke for me. But Joseph Nazi and Donna Garcia’s daughter had no children, but she kept, he built on Donna Garcia’s library and it became one of the greatest libraries in the Jewish world. And after his death, I’ll talk about this next tomorrow, but I think psychologically they’re a fascinating family.
You are right Wendy, this is from, please expand on your comment regarding Jew Central, yeah. Yes. About 200 young Jewish children at the time of the conversions were sent off to Africa. Yeah, it’s an island just off Africa, San Tommy, Rod Vayner is criticising the Catholic church. Look, let’s be careful here. I’m teaching Jewish history. The Catholic church is also a huge solace for many people. And if you think also, this is something very strange, if you think of the great music and the great art that comes out of Catholicism, and also this is, they believed they had to convert us to save our souls. You see, Christianity is a religion of salvation and damnation. Judaism isn’t. So it’s com look, I think the Catholic church has a lot to answer for. And in fact, historians like Haim Maccabee and Robert Trich, they go as far as to say it’s the look. Yeah, I’m going to say it, that there is a direct progression from the cross to the swastika, even though Hitler was a pagan, I can back that by the way, nevertheless, this, you see, there’s no positive image of a Jew anywhere until the enlightenment, European enlightenment. You can’t, that’s why I think antisemitism is back on the rise again when, look, we are going through economic, social, and political upheaval. Look, I don’t think it’s murderous. So, but what I’m saying, it’s up on the rise because people are feeling very insecure. And we are, I think the favoured scapegoat. One of the problems we face at the moment is other victim groups seem to think of us as perpetrators. There’s so much work to be done on this.
[Trudy] So truly we, I just jump in there and just say that we are going to be doing a seminar in the stage roundabout dealing with antisemitism. Our foundation together with other foundations will be leading this. We’ll be doing it and shine, shine your lights. And we’re going to have maybe, yeah, we’ll have lectures going to integrate into lockdown university curriculum.
[Speaker] It’s very important. I’m Trudy, I’m sure that you’re exhausted and it’s time for you to jump off.
[Speaker] Alright, my darling.
[Trudy] Unless you want to ask a couple more questions. I know that you’re busy today.
Can I answer just one more question and then I’ll go?
[Trudy] Sure.
Q: - [Speaker] 'Cause it’s quite important. Are there any tenants and Judaism condone or encourage putting your family to death rather than fainting conversion?
A: Many Jews in World War II allowed their children to be converted into Christian and very few chose death over conversion. There is this belief in Judaism, it’s called the sanctification of the name, where it does happen in a couple of weeks, I’m going to be talking about the massacre of York. But it’s a very complicated, deeply dark the of you see because they believe that once a child is christened, they believe that child was lost. Look, I personally find this very, very complicated and difficult.
And Mini is saying yes, the first skate goat was actually a goat. It was a black goat. And again, Wendy in psychology, we had to come up with that, didn’t we? Anyway, shall we stop there and I’ll be thank may I thank Shawn for the work she’s done for me with the slides and I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah.
[Trudy] Tomorrow to be continued, thank you very much.
Thanks Shawn and thank you Trudy very much, God bless.
[Speaker] Please change tomorrow thank you everybody for joining us, bye-bye, good night.