Origin from 1492
The Alhambra Decree of 1492, issued by the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, ordered the Jews of Castile and Aragon to convert to Catholicism or leave the kingdom. Those who stayed and converted became conversos, whose sincerity the Spanish Inquisition would go on to police for centuries; those who continued practising Judaism, somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 people by the source's own uncertain range, were expelled outright, ending seven centuries of organised Jewish life on the Iberian Peninsula and scattering its communities across North Africa, the Ottoman Empire and the rest of Europe.
Facts
Dates
Start YearSourced to the subject's own account1492, the Alhambra Decree; the number expelled is carried in the description as the source's own disputed range, 100,000 to 200,000, rather than a single invented figure. StatusSourced to the subject's own account Learn More
How Jews Were Expelled From Spain
This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
The Alhambra Decree of 1492, issued by the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, ordered the Jews of Castile and Aragon to convert to Catholicism or leave their kingdoms outright. Those who stayed and accepted conversion became conversos, a community whose sincerity the Spanish Inquisition would go on to police for generations afterward, treating baptism as a beginning rather than a settled answer.
Those who chose instead to continue practising Judaism openly were expelled, somewhere between one hundred thousand and two hundred thousand people by the source's own uncertain range, since exact figures for an expulsion carried out across a single kingdom in a single year were never reliably recorded. Their departure ended seven centuries of organised Jewish life on the Iberian Peninsula, scattering its communities across North Africa, the Ottoman Empire and the rest of Europe.
What this changed for Judaism's spread was the sudden closing of seven centuries of organised Jewish life on the Iberian Peninsula, and the opening of new centers wherever the expelled communities resettled. The choice the Alhambra Decree forced, conversion or departure, split a single Iberian Jewish community into conversos who remained under Inquisition scrutiny and exiles who carried Sephardic Judaism outward across North Africa, the Ottoman Empire and the rest of Europe.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names Africa directly: "its communities across North Africa, the Ottoman Empire and the rest of Europe."
This source names Europe directly: "the Ottoman Empire and the rest of Europe."
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