Cisneros replaced irenic preaching with militant conversion tactics against Granadan Muslims

Evidence

One such tidy administrative innovation that had unfortunate consequences was the sharp delimitation in 1498 of two zones within the city, one for Christians and one, the Albaic´ın, for Muslims (Caro 1957, 97). A year later Archbishop Cisneros (of Toledo) arrived on a protracted visit. To have two archbishops working in one city must have seemed rather strange. Cisneros could explain the time he was spending away from his own see by his need to attend on his monarchs, also present in Granada at this time, but it was his position as inquisitor-general that seems to have occupied most of his time. There is every indication that he had come primarily with the intention of giving fresh impetus to a campaign of conversion that, he could point out, was getting nowhere. In a spirit of goodwill he made his services available to the evangelistic campaign of his colleague. But rather than follow the irenic style of preaching that Talavera had made his own, Cisneros and his staff began to adopt a much more outwardly militant, even physically confrontational, approach. He was against the use of Arabic (whereas Talavera had sponsored the production of a dictionary, a grammar, and a prayer book). “Pearls before swine” was how he spoke of such an approach. Nevertheless, without backing it would probably have been difficult for him on his own to upset the modus vivendi that had been established in the city between Muslims and Christians, especially in the face of the opposition of such powerful local figures as Governor-General Tendilla and Archbishop Talavera. — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 173

Categorization

• XREF: The Cisneros vs. Talavera contrast echoes the binary of coercion vs. persuasion in conversion campaigns that recurs in Iberian religious history.
• DEFINE: Defines how the Albaicín zone delimitation of 1498 spawned from ‘tidy administrative innovation’ with violent consequences.