Spanish policy pulled simultaneously toward assimilation and isolation of converts

Evidence

At this stage, in the first quarter of the sixteenth century, we can thus detect two contradictory trends in Spanish policy. Contradictions and vacillations characterized the handling of the problem posed by the converts from Islam throughout the period, right up to the Expulsion, but in these opening decades of the century, before attitudes on both sides had had time to set too firmly, the contradictions are perhaps most apparent. On the one hand, there was a desire for wholehearted assimilation, and on the other, we detect a desire to contain, to build a wall round the alien element, isolating it. Contradictions of a similar sort had, of course, arisen often before. Christendom had felt itself tugged in two directions in its dealings with the Jews, perhaps from the days of Saint Paul, but its attitudes were even more confused in the sixteenth century when dealing with Muslims. In the world at large, Islam was felt as a threat, even to the heart of Europe. It could not be ignored. In the Iberian Peninsula, Christians pressed for acculturation, only to resist and reject it when it occurred. — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 395

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in state coercion producing its own opposition — parallels with forced-conversion dynamics in other eras and with the logic of institutions that simultaneously proscribe and police an identity.