In July of 1391, thousands of Jews in Spain were forced to convert to Christianity or die. The century following this abrupt and massive pogrom is typically understood as a long, steady decline until the final expulsion from the Iberian Peninsula at the end of the 15th century. Mark Meyerson has written an impeccably researched study of one corner of Spain in which that description of the 15th century would be wildly inaccurate.
Morvedre (medieval Sagunto), the second city of Renaissance Valencia, is the center of this story, and through an exhaustive analysis of its history, Meyerson constructs a subtle understanding of Spain before the Expulsion. He details not only the political relationship between the kings and “their” Jews, but even more interestingly, the complex relationship between open Jews and the conversos of 1391.
Meyerson is a clear adherent of the importance of local history over the general. For students of the “master narrative of Sephardic history,” this “counternarrative” will prove an important contribution.
