Source E

Inés Lopez, a resident of Ciudad Real, describes a number of the customs that identify her as a Jewish woman when confessing at her Inquisitorial Trial on 22 October 1495.

I, Inés López, appear before Your Reverences with the greatest contrition [remorse] and repentance for my sins … I declare, My Lords, that I did not do servants’ work on some Saturdays, and on Sundays I put on clean clothes. And, sometimes I ate food that was prepared on Friday for Saturday, and I lit candles on Friday evening in accordance with Jewish ritual.

Likewise, I observed some of the Jewish fasts, [fasting] until nightfall. Moreover, I sometimes observed Jewish holidays, when I found out about them from a cousin of mine named Isabel de Lobón, when I was [staying] with her, for she was a widow. And she told me, for the benefit of my soul, to especially observe Passover, for the aforementioned Isabel de Lobón every so often gave me [unleavened bread], warning me not to tell anyone. The aforementioned Isabel de Lobón has left Villarreal [Ciudad Real]; for where, no one knows.

Likewise, I removed the fat from meat whenever I could. Likewise, My Lords, I declare that I ate on low tables at funeral banquets.

[Source: “Inquisitorial Trials of Inés López” by Ronald Surtz in Medieval Iberia by Olivia Remi-Constable and Damian Zurro, p.333, 1997. Reprinted with permission of the University of Pennsylvania Press.]

Source F

Mihály Zichy, an artist, depicts the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in the painting Jewish Martyrs (1871).