ABSTRACT
Mari Ruiz's altered statement of reconciliation suggests that, when Judeo-conversa women sat down to write their life histories for the Holy Office of the Inquisition, they did so in the context of a broader community. Ruiz' statement of reconciliation is notable for its lack of explicit condemnation of her parents. At one level, Juana Gonzalez's statement of reconciliation depicts the life history of a Judeo-conversa secretly observing Judaism, just as the inquisitors might have imagined it. Like many early modern women, Hispano-Jewish women and Hispano-Jewish converts to Christianity left behind little written record of their own thought. The women described here were all rough contemporaries, tried by the Inquisition at the end of the fifteenth century at the shrine site of Our Lady of Guadalupe, in Extremadura in western Spain. Records from the Guadalupense inquisitorial trials of 1485 provide a particularly useful vantage point from which to examine the issues.
