Massacre of 1391 | |
---|---|
Part of Antisemitism in Europe | |
Location | Crown of Castile, Crown of Aragon |
Date | 1391 |
Target | Jews |
Attack type | Pogrom |
Motive | Antisemitism |
The Massacre of 1391, also known as the pogroms of 1391, refers to a murderous wave of mass violence committed against the Jews of Spain by the Catholic populace in the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, both in present-day Spain, in the year 1391. It was one of the most lethal outbreaks of violence against Jews in medieval European history. Anti-Jewish violence similar to Russian pogroms then continued throughout the "Reconquista", culminating in the 1492 expulsion of the Jews from Spain.[1] The first wave in 1391, however, marked the extreme of such violence.[1]
After the massacres, Jews began to convert en masse to Roman Catholicism[2] across the Iberian Peninsula, resulting in a substantial population[3] of conversos known as Marranos. Catholics then began to accuse—with or without substantiation—the conversos of secretly maintaining Jewish practices,[3] and thus undermining the newly united kingdom's nascent national identity, ultimately leading to their expulsion by royal decree of the "Catholic Monarchs" Ferdinand and Isabella of Castile and León in 1492.[3]