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A converso (Spanish: [komˈberso]; Portuguese: [kõˈvɛɾsu]; Catalan: convers [kumˈbɛrs, komˈvɛɾs]; "a convert", from Latin conversvs, "converted, turned around") and its feminine form conversa was a Jew or Muslim who converted to Catholicism in Spain or Portugal, particularly during the 14th and 15th centuries, or one of their descendents. Mass conversions once took place under significant government pressure. The Treaty of Granada (1491) at the last surrender of Al-Andalus issued clear protections of religious rights; the Alhambra Decree (1492) began the reversal.

New Christians of Moorish origin were known as moriscos (Galician and Portuguese: Mourisco). The term morisco may also refer to Crypto-Muslims, i.e. those who secretly continued to practice Islam. New Christians of Jewish origin were referred to as marranos. The term marrano may also refer to Crypto-Jews, i.e. those who secretly continued to practice Judaism.

Description[link]

Conversos were subject to suspicion and harassment from both the community they were leaving and that which they were joining. Both Christians and Jews called them tornadizo (renegade). James I, Alfonso X and John I passed laws forbidding the use of this epithet. This was part of a larger pattern of royal protection, as laws were promulgated to protect their property, forbid attempts to reconvert them, and regulate the behavior of the conversos themselves, preventing their cohabitation or even dining with Jews, lest they convert back.

The conversos did not enjoy legal equality. Alfonso VII prohibited the "recently converted" from holding office in Toledo. They had both supporters and bitter opponents within the Christian secular and religious leadership. Conversos could be found in various roles within the Iberian kingdoms, from bishop to royal mistress, showing a degree of general acceptance, yet they became targets of occasional pogroms during times of extreme social tension (as during an epidemic and after an earthquake). They were subject to the Spanish and Portuguese inquisitions.

While pure blood (so-called limpieza de sangre) would come to be placed at a premium, particularly among the nobility, in a 15th-century defense of conversos, Bishop Lope de Barrientos would list what Roth calls "a veritable 'Who's Who' of Spanish nobility" as having converso members or being of converso descent. He pointed out that given the near-universal conversion of Iberian Jews during Visigothic times, (quoting Roth) "[W]ho among the Christians of Spain could be certain that he is not a descendant of those conversos?"

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According to a widely publicised study (December 2008) published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, 19.8 percent of modern Spaniards (and Portuguese) have DNA reflecting Sephardic Jewish ancestry (compared to 10.6 percent having DNA reflecting Moorish ancestors).^[1] The Sephardic result is in contradiction ^[2][3][4] or not replicated in all the body of genetic studies done in Iberia and has been relativized by the authors themselves^[1][5][6][7] and questioned by Stephen Oppenheimer who estimates that much earlier migrations, 5,000 to 10,000 years ago from the Eastern Mediterranean, might also have accounted for the Sephardic estimates. "They are really assuming that they are looking at this migration of Jewish immigrants, but the same lineages could have been introduced in the Neolithic".^[8] The same authors in also a recent study (October 2008) attributed most of those same lineages in Iberia and the Balearic Islands as of Phoenician origin.^[9] The rest of genetic studies done in Spain estimate the Moorish contribution ranging from 2.5/3.4%^[10] to 7.7%.^[11]

See also[link]

• Anusim
• Crypto-Jew
• Crypto-Muslim

Citations[link]

References[link]

This article lacks ISBNs for the books listed in it. Please make it easier to conduct research by listing ISBNs. If the {{Cite book}} or {{citation}} templates are in use, you may add ISBNs automatically, or discuss this issue on the talk page. (March 2012)

• Gitlitz, David. 'Secrecy and Deceit: The Religion of the Crypto-Jews', Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 2002.
• Brooks, Andrée Aelion. 'The Woman who Defied Kings: the life and times of Dona Gracia Nasi'. Paragon House, 2002.
• Roth, Norman, Conversos, Inquisition, and the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain, Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995.

External links[link]

• Out of Spain educational materials
• Converso lectures and activities

Miguel Hernández
Miguel Hernández
Born	Miguel Hernández Gilabert (1910-10-30)30 October 1910 Orihuela, Spain
Died	28 March 1942(1942-03-28) (aged 31) Alicante, Spain
Occupation	Poet
Language	Spanish
Nationality	Spain

Miguel Hernández Gilabert was born the 30 October 1910-Orihuela and died the 28 March 1942-Alicante. was a 20th century Spanish poet and playwright associated with the Generation of '27 movement and the Generation of '36 movement.

Biography[link]

Hernández was born in Orihuela, in the Valencian Community, to a poor family and received little formal education; he published his first book of poetry at 23, and gained considerable fame before his death. He spent his childhood as a goatherd and farmhand, and was, for the most part, self-taught, although he did receive basic education from state schools and the Jesuits.^[1] He was introduced to literature by friend Ramon Sijé. As a youth, Hernández greatly admired the Spanish Baroque lyric poet Luis de Góngora, who was an influence in his early works.^[1] Shaped by both Golden Age writers such as Francisco de Quevedo and, like many Spanish poets of his era, by European vanguard movements, notably by Surrealism, he joined a generation of socially conscious Spanish authors concerned with workers rights.^[2] Though Hernández employed novel images and concepts in his verses, he never abandoned classical, popular rhythms and rhymes. Hernández campaigned for the Republic during the Spanish Civil War, writing poetry and addressing troops deployed to the front.

During the Civil War, on the ninth of March in 1937, he married Josefina Manresa Marhuenda, whom he had met in 1933 in Orihuela. His wife inspired him to write most of his romantic work. Their first son, Manuel Ramon, was born on 19 December 1937 but died in infancy on 19 October 1938. Months later came their second son, Manuel Miguel (b. 4 January 1939, d. 1984).

Unlike others, he could not escape Spain after the Republican surrender and was arrested multiple times after the war for his anti-fascist sympathies, and was eventually sentenced to death. His death sentence, however, was commuted to a prison term of 30 years, leading to incarceration in multiple jails under extraordinarily harsh conditions until he eventually succumbed to tuberculosis in 1942.^[3] Just before his death, Hernández scrawled his last verse on the wall of the hospital: Goodbye, brothers, comrades, friends: let me take my leave of the sun and the fields.^[1] Some of his verses were kept by his jailers.

While in prison, Hernández produced an extraordinary amount of poetry, much of it in the form of simple songs, which the poet collected in his papers and sent to his wife and others. These poems are now known as his Cancionero y romancero de ausencia (Songs and Ballads of Absence). In these works, the poet writes not only of the tragedy of the Spanish Civil War and his own incarceration, but also of the death of an infant son and the struggle of his wife and another son to survive in poverty. The intensity and simplicity of the poems, combined with the extraordinary situation of the poet, give them remarkable power.

Perhaps Hernández's best known poem is "Nanas de cebolla" ("Onion Lullaby"), a reply in verse to a letter from his wife in which she informed him that she was surviving on bread and onions. In the poem, the poet envisions his son breastfeeding on his mother's onion blood (sangre de cebolla), and uses the child's laughter as a counterpoint to the mother's desperation. In this as in other poems, the poet turns his wife's body into a mythic symbol of desperation and hope, of regenerative power desperately needed in a broken Spain.

The poet's works include:

• Perito en lunas (1934)
• El rayo que no cesa (1936)
• Vientos del pueblo me llevan (1937)
• El hombre acecha (1938–1939)
• Cancionero y Romancero de Ausencias (incomplete, 1938–1942)

In July 2010 the poet's family filed a law suit in the Spanish Supreme Court in which they asked for his guilty verdict ( for his supposed crime of left wing sympathies), to be annulled. In 1939 he had been condemned to death as " an extremely dangerous and despicable element to all good Spaniards." Franco later reduced the sentence so that he would not become an international martyr, as Lorca did. In March 2010 the family had a posthumous " declaration of reparation" from the Spanish government, but, his daughter-in-law Lucía Izquierdo said ; " We want something more, that they void the death sentence.. that they hand down a ruling of innocent." Lawyers for the poet's family had new evidence, a 1939 letter from a fascist military official, Juan Bellod, testifying to his innocence. "I have known Miguel Hernandez since he was a boy", the letter began. "He is a person with an impeccable past, generous sentiments and deep religious and humanist training, but whose excessive sensitivity and poetic temperament have led him to act in accordance with the passion of the moment rather than calm, firm will. I fully guarantee his behaviour and his patriotic and religious fervour. Franco and his Vatican supporters had actually called their mutiny a 'crusade'.^[4] I do not believe that he is, at heart, an enemy of our Glorious Movement."^[5]

See also[link]

• Miguel Hernández University of Elche

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Miguel Hernández

• 40 poems (English) (Spanish)
• Poems (Spanish)
• Association of friends of Miguel Hernández (Spanish)
• Hernandian Center of studies and investigation (Spanish)
• Biography (site of the Miguel Hernández Foundation) (Spanish)
• Miguel Hernández non-profit foundation (Spanish)
• El Eco Hernandiano (Spanish)
• Miguel Hernández University (Spanish)
• More information about the author (Spanish)
• Sounds and videos about Miguel Hernandez and his works. Web site about poetry in general. Internet Radio (Spanish)