(SPAIN).

...

(SPAIN).

MANUSCRIPT of the Last Testament of conversa Sevilla Lopez Carvajal, wife of Alfonso Ruiz de Camargo of Plasencia. pp. 8. 1467.

The Carvajal and the Santa Maria (Halevy) families of Plasencia, as a united family confederation, guided and implemented local governing policies relating to tolerance of Jews. They utilized their domination of the Cathedral of Plasencia and influence on the city council to actively guard the Jewish Community.

These two critical families maintained and promoted the city's traditional residential pattern that was CHARACTERIZED BY BOTH JEWS AND CHRISTIANS LIVING SIDE BY SIDE IN THE CITY AS WELL IN THE JEWISH QUARTER ITSELF.

The Carvajals recognized that if they could secure leadership positions in the cathedral of Plasencia they could enhance their family’s authority, stature, and economic position in the region. The Carvajales offered physical and financial protection and cultural survival to the elite Jewish families in return for religious intellectual skills and financial resources. The genesis and maintenance of Catholic-Jewish cooperation depended on this exchange. If Catholic religious biases against Jews could be overcome by Castilian elites and peasants alike, then the infusion of Jewish skills and resources could help propel some Catholic families into superior positions within the church and the royal bureaucracy in addition to their existing strengths in the Catholic military orders.

For those Jews willing to convert to Catholicism or to work closely with Catholics not only was there the opportunity to find a permanent social space within the broader Castilian society but the chance to influence and shape it. Perhaps even the prospect of a future that recognized and celebrated both its Jewish and Catholic religious and cultural roots.

In 1403, perhaps because the Carvajals lacked other options to improve their financial well being, this low noble family chose to reinitiate the caballeros’ conflict with the cathedral of Plasencia over church taxes. The quarrel was so bitter that Bishop Diego Arias de Balboa excommunicated Diego García de Béjarano (a Carvajal clansman) as punishment for leading the tax revolt. Ultimately, the bishop brought the church’s complaint to the attention of a royal court in Cordoba. The Carvajals’ attempt to free themselves from these church diezmos failed when the court negotiated a settlement between Diego García and the cathedral of Plasencia in 1410.

An investigation of the caballeros’ conflict with the church, as well as an exploration of familial wealth building during this era, demonstrates that the Carvajals pursued their confrontation with the cathedral to improve their economic condition. An unusual outcome of the caballeros’ tax revolt is that it appears to have initiated the Carvajal family’s entry into the ecclesiastical and royal administrative world. Unlike other Placentino caballero clans, the Carvajals recognized that if they could secure leadership positions in the cathedral of Plasencia they could enhance their family’s authority, stature, and economic position in the region. In fact, in a transformative sequence of events, Diego García’s brother, García Gonzalo de Carvajal, would become the cathedral’s Archdeacon of Plasencia and Béjar in the 1420s. Facilitating the Carvajals’ entrance into the cathedral were internal divisions and fissures within the cathedral of Plasencia’s leadership chapter. During this era, the Santa María clan, newcomers to Plasencia, gained initial access to the cathedral chapter. However, the Fernández family of churchmen, the strongest clan on the chapter, largely excluded the Santa Marías from the church’s lucrative patronage and wealth building opportunities. Together, this environment created an opening for the Carvajals to form an alliance with the Santa Marías to garner access, and ultimately control, of the cathedral of Plasencia’s chapter. By acquiring mastery of the cathedral chapter, the Carvajals and Santa Marías could harness the church’s impressive ecclesiastical authority for familial gain, as well as benefit from new patronage and financial enhancement opportunities. Thus, the Carvajal family began its ascension into the ranks of Castile’s learned professions in order to overcome the social limitations of their lower noble status, as well as their inadequate economic resources. Families in Plasencia leveraged their clan’s relations to compete for control over the local church’s primary governing institution—the cathedral chapter—so that they could access valuable church opportunities.

THE CARVAJALS UTILIZED THEIR DOMINATION OF THE CATHEDRAL OF PLASENCIA TO ACTIVELY GUARD THE JEWISH COMMUNITY AND TO MAINTAIN THE CITY'S TRADITIONAL RESIDENTIAL PATTERN OF JEWS AND CHRISTIANS LIVING SIDE BY SIDE.

Description further detailing this manuscript testament available upon request.

LITERATURE:

* Roger Louis Martínez-Dávila, From Sword to Seal: The Ascent of the Carvajal Family in Spain (1391-1516): https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/handle/2152/17987.

* Before the Collapse of Coexistence: Catholics Jews Conversos Collaborated in the Bishopric of Plasencia: https://cryptojews.com/before-the-collapse-of-coexistence/.

* Abraham D. Lavender & Dolores Sloan (Eds.) The Secret Jews of Spain, Portugal, and Southern Italy: Past and Present Effects of the Inquisition (2009) p. 101 and on.

* Roger Louis Martínez-Dávila, Creating Conversos: The Carvajal–Santa María Family in Early Modern Spain (2018).