ABSTRACT
In this essay, Maya Soifer Irish explores the role of the archdeacon Ferrán Martínez in inciting anti-Jewish violence by situating his activities within the religious, social, and political context of late fourteenth-century Seville. The archdeacon’s concerns and ambitions were chiefly local: administering the estates of the Cathedral of Seville, finding donors to support the hospital for the poor he had founded, and building up his charismatic authority among the laity. He was part of the new political elite that sought to establish its authority in the city’s reconfigured political landscape during the 1370s and 1380s. His Jew-hatred originated in the specific context of late fourteenth-century Sevillian religious culture and society and the growing crisis of confidence in institutional authority. Inspired by new political ideas and a belief in the primacy of the Bible, Martínez wanted to empower the local clergy and even lay Christians to deal with the Jews as the Scripture commanded, instead of obeying the institutions traditionally entrusted with regulating Jewish affairs.
