MARRANI. — This was the name given in Spain to converts from Islam — and there were very few of these — but especially to converts from Judaism, without sincere adherence to the Christian religion.
Shortly before the Middle Ages, despite the opposition of the Visigothic kings, there were very numerous Jews in Spain. As a result of this opposition and in order to overcome it, there were many feigned conversions, certainly not encouraged by the Church, which, on the contrary, at the Council of Toledo in 633 had condemned the decree of the sovereign Sisebuto, who had left the Jews the alternative of embracing the Catholic faith or leaving the kingdom, and had also opposed a similar order of King Wamba. The Twelfth and Thirteenth Councils of Toledo instead encouraged the spontaneous conversion of the children of Israel through privileges. Nevertheless, as the number of these neo-Christians increased, their relations with the other Catholics did not improve; the latter suspected that they were aiding the conquest of the nation by the African Muslims, as unfortunately happened in 711.
During the centuries-long crusade of the new Christian kingdoms of the peninsula for the expulsion of the Saracens, popular fury against the usury and economic oppression exercised by the Jews, and distrust of the neo-converts, often arose.
One cannot recall without horror the almost continuous massacre of Jews throughout the fourteenth century, carried out by fanatical mobs incited by exaggerated accounts of crimes against Christians. It is understandable that very many followers of the Mosaic law should have sought baptism solely to avoid death or persecution, while inwardly retaining their hatred of the religion of their rulers. Many, however, sincerely embraced evangelical doctrine as a result of the remarkable preaching of s. Vincenzo Ferreri, protector in Valencia of those who were unjustly persecuted, or through books written at that time in favor of the faith of Christ, including by several converted Jews.
The instinct for religious unity, rightly manifested in the second half of the fifteenth century as the Catholic conquest of the southern part of the peninsula was completed, aroused animosity against the m., that is, the false neo-converts: the antagonism existing between old and new Christians was incredible. To this state of mind the tribunal of the Spanish Inquisition owed much of its origin; it was established in 1482 at the request of the Catholic sovereigns, by virtue of a bull of Sixtus IV, pursuant to which so many capital sentences were pronounced against hypocritical Judaizers.
The people retained a profound aversion to Christians descended from the ancient Jews, so that in the statutes granting noble titles or admission to confraternities, proof of purity of blood was always required, with the aim of excluding the descendants of Jews from every privilege. This antipathy toward the m. persisted until the eighteenth century; and even today on the island of Majorca it has not entirely disappeared.