ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 traces the evolution of multiple iterations of a divine-right monarchy based on the same ideological foundation, from the Visigoths of the sixth century to the Habsburgs of the seventeenth century. Each iteration was an anti-Hebrew Republic that engaged in coercive practices designed to forcibly produce religious unity as an extension of political unity. Each iteration also intensified pressure on Spain’s longstanding Jewish community, many of whom ultimately succumbed to pressure and converted to Roman Catholicism during the period from 1391 until 1492. These converts, or conversos, never achieved assimilation and were instead considered inferior Christians, and as such inferior Spaniards and Portuguese whose religious sincerity was closely policed by Inquisitions that served as extensions of divine-right royal authority. The marginalization of conversos by two Inquisitions that mirrored themselves and through discriminatory statutes that restricted their social mobility were principal factors that drew conversos to more tolerant Amsterdam. In Amsterdam, conversos could practice Judaism, which they learned to do under the supervision of their chief rabbi, Saul Levi Morteira (b. ca. 1590–d. 1660).
