ABSTRACT
This chapter interrogates the uses of “new” and “old,” in late-medieval and early-modern Iberia. Parting from the case of New Christians, a category that was applied to Jews and Muslims converts and that justified, according to contemporaries, their enduring discrimination, I ask what would happen if we inserted these debates regarding new and old converts in a wider and longer perspective. To answer this question, I begin by observing the canon law distinction between new and old converts. I then examine how these were applied to coerced conversions, and how they operated in colonial domains, vis-à-vis both natives and individuals of African descent. In the second part of my paper, I ask how discussions regarding new and old operated in the civic sphere by observing rules in Italian city states regarding the citizenship of newcomers, and in Iberia regarding populations identified as “New Castilians” (Roma), “New Spaniards” (foreign Catholics), and “New Whites” (Spaniards of African descent). I conclude by observing that “old” and “new” were categories mainly dependent on what individuals and societies sought to remember or forget.
