New Christians in the context of "John of Ávila"

Spanish and Portuguese Jews, also called Western Sephardim, Iberian Jews, or Peninsular Jews, are a distinctive sub-group of Sephardic Jews who are largely descended from Jews who lived as New Christians in the Iberian Peninsula during the few centuries following the forced expulsion of unconverted Jews from Spain in 1492 and from Portugal in 1497. They should therefore be distinguished both from the descendants of those expelled in 1492 and from the present-day Jewish communities of Spain and Portugal.

The main present-day communities of Spanish and Portuguese Jews exist in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada, and several other Jewish communities in the Americas have Spanish and Portuguese Jewish roots though they no longer follow the distinctive customs of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews.

An inquisition was a Catholic judicial procedure in which ecclesiastical judges could initiate, investigate and try cases in their jurisdiction. Popularly the Inquisition became the name for various medieval and reformation-era state-organized tribunals whose aim was to combat heresy, apostasy, blasphemy, witchcraft, and customs considered to be deviant, using this judicial procedure. Violence, isolation, certain torture or the threat of its application, have been used by inquisitions to extract confessions and denunciations. Inquisitions with the aim of combatting religious sedition (e.g. apostasy or heresy) had their start in the 12th-century Kingdom of France, particularly among the Cathars and the Waldensians. The inquisitorial courts from this time until the mid-15th century are together known as the Medieval Inquisition. Other banned groups investigated by medieval inquisitions, which primarily took place in France and Italy, include the Spiritual Franciscans, the Hussites, and the Beguines. Beginning in the 1250s, inquisitors were generally chosen from members of the Dominican Order, replacing the earlier practice of using local clergy as judges.

Inquisitions also expanded to other European countries, resulting in the Spanish Inquisition and the Portuguese Inquisition. The Spanish and Portuguese inquisitions often focused on the New Christians or Conversos (former Jews who converted to Christianity to avoid antisemitic regulations and persecution), the Marranos (people who were forced to abandon Judaism against their will by violence and threats of expulsion), and on the Moriscos (Muslims who had been forced to convert to Catholicism), as a result of suspicions that they had secretly maintained or reverted to their previous religions, as well as the fear of possible rebellions, as had occurred in previous times (such as the First and Second Morisco Rebellions). Spain and Portugal also operated inquisitorial courts not only in Europe, but also throughout their empires: the Goa Inquisition, the Peruvian Inquisition, and the Mexican Inquisition, among others. Inquisitions conducted in the Papal States were known as the Roman Inquisition.