New Christian in the context of "Marrano"

The Alhambra Decree (also known as the Edict of Expulsion; Spanish: Decreto de la Alhambra, Edicto de Granada) was an edict issued on 31 March 1492 by the joint Catholic Monarchs of Spain, Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, ordering the expulsion of unconverted Jews from the Crowns of Castile and Aragon and its territories and possessions by 31 July of that year. Its primary purpose was to eliminate the influence of the remaining Jews on Spain's large converso New Christian population, converted from Judaism, to minimize the possibility that the latter and their descendants would be able to secretly practice their former faith.

Over half of Spain's Jews had converted as a result of the religious persecution and pogroms which occurred in 1391. Due to continuing attacks, around 50,000 more had converted by 1415. A further number of those remaining chose to convert to avoid expulsion. As a result of the Alhambra Decree and persecution in the years leading up to the expulsion of Spain's estimated 300,000 Jewish origin population, a total of over 200,000 had converted to Catholicism in order to remain in Spain, and between 40,000 and 100,000 remained Jewish and suffered expulsion. An unknown number of the expelled eventually succumbed to the pressures of life in exile away from formerly-Jewish relatives and networks back in Spain, and so converted to Catholicism to be allowed to return in the years following expulsion.

The Expulsion of the Jews from Spain, formalized by the Alhambra Decree of March 31, 1492, was a royal edict issued by the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile ordering all unconverted Jews to leave their kingdoms and territories by the end of July that year, unless they converted to Christianity. Motivated by a desire for religious unity following the completion of the Reconquista and amid fears that unconverted Jews were influencing conversos (Jewish converts to Christianity) to revert to Judaism, the decree brought to an end more than a millennium of Jewish presence in the Iberian Peninsula. It also ranks among the most consequential events in Spanish and Jewish history.

In the decades before 1492, successive crises had already thinned Spain's Jewish population through violence, forced conversion, and legal discrimination. In the aftermath of the 1391 massacres, large numbers of Jews converted to Catholicism. Continued attacks produced about 50,000 additional conversions by 1415. Authorities suspected that some conversos continued to practice Judaism in secret; concerns over such "Judaizing" helped motivate the creation of the Spanish Inquisition in 1478, which investigated cases of heresy and, in some instances, used torture and imposed penalties up to execution for the unrepentant. Growing limpieza de sangre ("purity-of-blood") statutes in the 15th century further stigmatized "New Christians" of Jewish descent.

A converso (Spanish: [komˈbeɾso]; Portuguese: [kõˈvɛɾsu]; feminine form conversa, from Latin conversus 'converted, turned around') was a Jew who converted to Catholicism in Spain or Portugal, particularly during the 14th and 15th centuries, or one of their descendants.

To safeguard the Old Christian population and ensure that the converso New Christians were true to their new faith, the Holy Office of the Inquisition was established in Spain in 1478. The Catholic Monarchs of Spain Ferdinand and Isabella expelled the remaining openly practising Jews by the Alhambra Decree of 1492 following the Christian Reconquista (reconquest) of Spain. However, a significant proportion of these remaining practising Jews chose to join the already large converso community rather than face exile.

The Goa Inquisition (Portuguese: Inquisição de Goa, Portuguese pronunciation: [ĩkizɨˈsɐ̃w dɨ ˈɣoɐ]) was an extension of the Portuguese Inquisition in Portuguese India. Its objective was to enforce Catholic orthodoxy and allegiance to the Apostolic See.

The inquisition primarily focused on the New Christians accused of secretly practicing their former religions, and Old Christians accused of involvement in the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. Also among the targets were those suspected of committing sodomy; they were given the second most harsh punishments.

The history of the Jews in the current-day Spanish territory stretches back to Biblical times according to Jewish tradition, but the settlement of organised Jewish communities in the Iberian Peninsula possibly traces back to the times after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. The earliest archaeological evidence of Hebrew presence in Iberia consists of a 2nd-century gravestone found in Mérida. From the late 6th century onward, following the Visigothic monarchs' conversion from Arianism to the Nicene Creed, conditions for Jews in Iberia considerably worsened.

After the Umayyad conquest of Hispania in the early 8th century, Jews lived under the Dhimmi system and progressively Arabised. Jews of Al-Andalus stood out particularly during the 10th and the 11th centuries, in the caliphal and first taifa periods. Scientific and philological study of the Hebrew Bible began, and secular poetry was written in Hebrew for the first time. After the Almoravid and Almohad invasions, many Jews fled to Northern Africa and the Christian Iberian kingdoms. Targets of antisemitic mob violence, Jews living in the Christian kingdoms faced persecution throughout the 14th century, leading to the 1391 pogroms. As a result of the Alhambra Decree of 1492, the remaining practising Jews in Castile and Aragon were forced to convert to Catholicism (thus becoming 'New Christians' who faced discrimination under the limpieza de sangre system) whereas those who continued to practise Judaism (c. 100,000–200,000) were expelled, creating diaspora communities. Tracing back to a 1924 decree, there have been initiatives to favour the return of Sephardi Jews to Spain by facilitating Spanish citizenship on the basis of demonstrated ancestry.