Forced mass conversion failed to produce religious uniformity and instead spawned the Inquisition

Evidence

The sizeable Jewish and Muslim populations residing under Christian rule in Spain and Portugal were either expelled or forced to convert by various royal edicts promulgated in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. The end of the toleration of religious pluralism in the Iberian Peninsula did not, however, bring about the religious uniformity and harmony wished by the Catholic rulers of Spain and Portugal. The number of converts and their descendants, judeoconversos and moriscos, was so great that they did not assimilate and disappear into the wider Christian population. Moreover, the reluctant converts and their descendants were commonly suspected of remaining faithful to Judaism and Islam while publicly pretending to be Christian. The resulting social tensions between the ‘New’ and ‘Old’ Christians led the rulers of Spain and Portugal to establish tribunals of the Holy Office of the Inquisition in 1480 and 1536, respectively. — James Renton, Ben Gidley (eds.), Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe, 356

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies the historical definitions of judeoconversos (converted Jews) and moriscos (converted Muslims) and their parallel fates under Iberian Catholicism.
• XREF: Connects to the Milgrom law-merchant material — similar theme of forced conversion/asymmetric integration straining social trust and creating demand for suspicion-based institutions.