Peasant mobs mass-baptized Muslims as an economic competition elimination tactic

Evidence

The tactic adopted by the Christian mobs had a mad logic: eliminate competition by making the Muslims into Christians. Such “conversion” was in these revolutionary circumstances a summary process: a mob would arrive at a settlement of Muslims and call on them to convert— on the spot. Christenings might be affected on occasion by aspersion from a bucket filled from an irrigation ditch, although in other cases priests were found to carry out the baptisms (if indeed one may use that solemn word to describe an act inflicted upon a nonconsenting adult). — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 463

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to coercion-as-conversion themes in contemporary religious violence and to the general pattern of forced baptism in Iberian history.