Castilian negotiators imposed Portuguese Muslim expulsion via marriage leverage

Evidence

Opinion in that body was divided. Much earlier precedents for the expulsion of the Jews were adduced in the debate, but there were absolutely no parallels to adduce for such treatment of Muslims. That the pope himself tolerated Jews in the territories over which he ruled directly was of course a powerful argument against expulsion of the Jews from Portugal, but the other side in the debate, some of those speaking could list many countries from which Jews had already been driven out: England, France, Scotland, and Sweden, among others. The petulance of the speech with which Manuel cut through this inconclusive debate is striking, even when filtered through Dami˜ao de Gois’s reporting: “I am not concerned with the law,” the young king said: “I have made a vow (devoc¸ ˜ao) to do this, and my orders are to be carried out.” He seems to be implying that he had made a promise to his bride-to-be, and he would not be deflected from carrying it out. Before these particular marriage negotiations with the Castilian emissaries, Manuel had not been given to displays of piety. There is absolutely no indication that he had earlier held the creation of an all-Christian kingdom as a cherished objective of his own. We can only conclude that the Castilian negotiators used the leverage provided by his desire (for whatever reason) to finalize the marriage contract in order to impose on their Portuguese neighbor a religious policy that was theirs, rather than his. — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 115

Categorization

• FICTION: The idea that a personal vow to a bride-to-be, not ideology, drove a king to expel an entire religious population is a strong character motivation — a ruler who does a terrible thing for private, romantic reasons.
• SEED: Angle: how dynastic marriage negotiations functioned as covert instruments of religious policy — treaties as religious coercion by proxy.