Anthology of Religious Poetry from the Mexican Inquisition Trials of 16th-Century CryptoJews

By Mark A Schneegurt

Complete Collection of Poetry and Prayers

from the

Carvajal Clan of Jews in Colonial Mexico City

Presented in Spanish with Full English Translation

Jewish Martyrs – Burned at the Stake for the Laws of Moses

All of the Poetry from the Original Inquisition Trial Transcripts of
Luis de Carvajal, el Mozo
Leonor de Andrada
Isabel Rodríguez
Justa Mendez
Francesca de Carvajal
Manuel de Lucena
and Leonor de Cáceres

With excerpts from the trials of Sebastián Rodríguez, Lic. Manuel López de Morales, Francisco López Blandón, and others.

Cantico 6 from Leonor de Carvajal

Cuan suave cossa es deleytossa
muy mas que nayde save ymaginar
sequir aquella via muy gloriossa
por donde Dios nos manda caminar
toda la ley de Dios es muy sabrossa
y aquel que la ossare blasfemar
blasfemados sera en aquella vida
a donde no ay tiempo cierto ni medida...

How pleasant it is, how delightful,
much more than anybody knows to imagine
to follow this very glorious path
whereby God commands us to walk;
the whole law of God is very pleasant,
and he who dares to blaspheme,
cursed will they be in that life
where there is no certain time nor measure...

Keeping Judaism Alive After 100 Years in Exile

A century after being expelled from Portugal, cryptoJews in Mexico, false converts to Christianity, could not speak of their beliefs for fear of becoming embroiled in the imprisonment, torture, and death in flames that characterized the Inquisition. Without written texts, the Jewish liturgy lost, clans of cryptoJews created a unique body of religious poetry, connecting them to the Laws of Moses, seeking redemption from sin, or hoping for an escape from their embittered lives. The Carvajal clan was led by Luis el Mozo, an alumbrado, a mystic, and his Judaizing sisters. Once discovered to be secretly practicing Judaism, years of suffering at the hands of the Inquisitors were meticulously recorded in the transcripts of their long demeaning trials. The Carvajal's friends, spouses, children and grandchildren were implicated as Judaizers, with many being reconciled by the Church to secular authorities to be burned alive at massive public ceremonies. The burning of Luis and his sisters was the main attraction for cheering crowds at the auto de fé of 1596 in Mexico City. The cruelty of the Inquisitors was matched by their attention to legal detail and testimonies made at trial. Buried within thousands of pages of transcripts, hiding in library special collections of rare books around the world are the only remnants of the religious poetry that sustained cryptoJews hiding in Mexico. Anthology uncovers these hidden treasures!

Keeping Judaism Alive Today, 400 Years Later

There is intrinsic historical value in preserving this richest cultural remnant of a Jewish sect from the risk and obscurity of single-copy documents in library special collections. The poems are moving and beautiful, depicting a deep faith in the Lord and a constant striving to live more virtuously to gain His favor. Poems from the tongues of Jewish martyrs, that gave up everything, including their lives, withstanding torture and years of imprisonment, but refusing to abandon the Laws of Moses.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mark A Schneegurt
• Release date: Jan 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005211776

Mark A Schneegurt

Mark A. Schneegurt is an author, educator, scientist, and entrepreneur. His books range from scholarly works on science, religion, and literature to popular books on The Beatles. He has authored 80+ publications and has made 200+ public presentations of his works. Recipient of awards for teaching and research, Dr. Schneegurt holds degrees from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Brown University, with professional appointments at Purdue University, University of Notre Dame, and Wichita State University. OpenCharm LLC was founded in 2013 to support his products and services.

Book preview

Anthology of Religious Poetry from the Mexican Inquisition Trials of 16th-Century CryptoJews

Paleographic Transcription

and Translation into English

by

Mark A. Schneegurt, Ph.D.

Rights Reserved 2020 Mark A. Schneegurt

OpenCharm LLC, Bel Aire, Kansas, USA

ISBN 9781005211776

Smashwords Edition

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Primary and Alternative Versions of Major Poems | Alt

Cantico 1 (Leonor 123r-124r) | Alt

Cantico 2 (Leonor 124r) | Alt

Cantico 3 (Leonor 124r) | Alt

Cantico 4 (Leonor 124v) | Alt

Cantico 5 (Leonor 124v) | Alt

Cantico 6 (Leonor 125r) | Alt

Cantico 7 (Leonor 125r) | Alt

Cantico 8 (Leonor 125v) | Alt

Cantico 9 (Leonor 125v) | Alt

En el Nombre del Senor (Leonor 64v) | Alt

Sabbath Fire (Leonor 69v) | Alt

A Ti Señor Dios Clamamos (Leonor 126r-126v) | Alt

Decalogue Poem (Leonor 126v) | Alt

Cantemos con Alegría (Leonor 196r-196v) | Alt

Mi Amina Atribulada (Leonor 201r) | Alt

Yo Dixe con Gran Dolor (Leonor 217v)

Senor Dios Todopoderosso (Leonor 249r) | Alt

Emperador de los Exercitos Celestiales (Leonor 251r) | Alt

Recibe Mi Ayuno en Penitencia (Luis 86) | Alt

Quien es Fuerte (Luis 144)

Cinco Nombres de Manuel (Luis 184)

Gran Pecado (Luis 334) | Alt

Apiada (Luis 338)

Osen Otros Responder (Luis 428)

Bendicte Tu Nuestro (Isabel 199v)

Sexton Poem (Caceres 21r) | Alt

Alumbrame Señor (Francesca 71)

On Yom Kippur (Lucena 237v)

O Alto Dios (Ysabel Rodriguez 47r)

Se Te Atario (Goncalo Perez Ferro 6v-7r)

Mirame Señor (Francisco López Blandón 4)

Primary and Alternative Versions of Poem Fragments

Noches de Alegría (Leonor 41v)

4 Verses (Leonor 48v-49r) | Alt

3 Verses (Leonor 49r) | Alt

3 Verses (Leonor 51r) | Alt

Solo nos Pide Dios (Leonor 66r) | Alt

Bendito He Alma (Leonor 88v)

List of Phrases (Leonor 107v)

1 Verse (Leonor 220v)

List of Phrases (Leonor 256v)

3 Verses (Luis 135) | Alt

Bienaventurado (Luis 142)

Hizo el Cielo (Luis 408)

Verdadero (Cáceres 5v)81

Sentencias (Francesca 180)

Abrete Cielo (Lucena 231v) | Alt

1 Verse (Lucena 552r)

Señor de los Exercitos (Sebastian 126v)

2 Verses (Morales 42)

Known Prayers, Biblical Verses, and Alternative Versions

Shema (Leonor 49r) | Alt

Salmos 102/103 (Leonor 115r) | Alt

Salmo 103 (Leonor 197v)

Salmos 44/103 (Leonor 197v)

2 Verses (Leonor 232v)

Psalm 6:2 (Leonor 262r) | Alt

Shema & Decalogue (Luis 225)

2 Esdras 1:24 (Luis 391)

Psalm 115 (Luis 439)

Psalm 86 (Cáceres 5r)

Psalm 20:2 (Francesca 43) | Alt

4 Phrases (Francesca 24)

Salmo 136 (Lucena 177r) | Alt

Amidah (Lucena 290v) | Alt

Zecharia 13:7 (Lucena 318r)

5 Phrases (Sebastián 39r)

Isaiah 64:4 (Morales 21) | Alt

3 Phrases (Morales 48)

Shema Torah (Francisco López Blandón 4)

Psalm 121 (Francisco López Blandón 4)

Existing Transcriptions and Translations

Riva Palacio – El Libro Rojo

Pablo Martinez del Rio – Alumbrado

Alfonso Toro – La Familia Carvajal; The Carvajal Family

Seymour Liebman – The Enlightened

Eva A. Uchmany – La Vida entre el Judaísm y el Christianismo en la Nueva España: 1580–1606

Michelle Hamilton – La poesía de Leonor de Carvajal y la tradición de los criptojudíos en Nueva España

Miriam Bodian – Dying the the Law of Moses

Martin A. Cohen – Martyr: The Story of a Secret Jew and the Mexican Inquisition of the Sixteenth Century

Anna Lanyon – Fire and Song

Endnotes

Bibliography

Epilogue

Foreword

O our Lord, cause thy martyrs to inherit eternal life,

bind up the souls of your pure ones in the bond of life,

for their blood was spilt on thy altar.

Today is the 424th anniversary of the auto de fé of 1596, on December 8th, when the central figures of this work were martyred and burnt at the stake. These were Portuguese Jews that escaped to Mexico, living in hiding as Catholics.

Have pity, we pray thee, upon us as we mourn,

cause comfort to spring forth for all Israel,

remember that we are the remnant that has escaped.

Theirs' was a faith that sustained, that comforted, and that created hope that the Lord would show them favor, if they followed the Laws of Moses. The courage and resolve of cryptoJews is testament to the strength and faith of the Jews.

Have mercy, we beseech you, upon our remnants,

place our tears in the thy flask,

preserve in thy storehouse our blood that has been spilled.

I pursued this work to preserve their memory, the story of their faith, and their prayers, the unique liturgy of Iberian cryptoJews. As centuries-old original transcripts in rare library collections, their poems and prayers were at risk of being lost, physically and in our collective consciousness.

In thy abundant mercy, wipe away our tears,

in thy goodness, turn mourning into joy,

in thy kindness, bestow thy splendor on us.

Please find their soulful writings inspirational. They glow with a love of the Lord and a faithfulness that spans the generations.

בימינו במהירות לבוא משיח עשוי

Acknowledgements

The author has been fortunate to gain access to rare original sources, housed in the special collections of academic libraries across America. This work could not have been done without microfilms of original trial transcripts graciously shared by the Latin Americana Collection of the Bancroft Library at University of California, Berkeley. The opportunity provided by Stephanie Arias to examine original trial transcripts from the Walter Douglas Collection at the Munger Research Center of The Huntington Library (Pasadena, CA) is greatly appreciated. These sources were the richest in poetry and comprise the bulk of the materials presented here. A wider group of available transcripts were examined, and in some cases, these contained unique compositions.

The author is most grateful for the photographic reproductions made by Helen Haskin of paleographic transcripts provided by Christine Hernández from the Seymour B. Liebman Collection of The Latin American Library at Tulane University (New Orleans, LA). Thanks are extended to Mitch Fraas, Arthur Kron, and David McKnight at the Kislak Center for Special Collections, University of Pennsylvania Libraries for research support and for sharing unreleased digitized trial transcripts. The author appreciates the Liebman archives shared by Yochai Ben-Ghedalia from The Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People (CAHJP), National Library of Israel, Jerusalem. The author recognizes the research support of Renee Harvey with the G. R. G. Conway Collection at the Helmerich Center for American Research at the Gilcrease Museum, University of Tulsa, OK; Jerry Schwarzbard and Havva Zellner, librarians at The Jewish Theological Seminary, New York, NY; and Elizabeth Hyman of the Center for Jewish History, American Jewish Historical Society, New York, NY. Access was provided by Derby Public Library (KS) to documents available to affiliates of the Family History Center of the LDS Church.

Thanks are extended to Rabbi Michael Gilboa, Rabbi Shmulik Greenberg, and Rabbi Judah Kogen for their valuable comments. Consultation with Rachel Showstack and Kerry Wilks (Wichita State University) and Stanley Hordes (University of New Mexico) substantially improved the manuscript. Special thanks goes to Norman Bent (Wichita State University), who provided invaluable help in editing the new translations presented here.

Introduction

Background of Carvajal family trial transcripts

When Judaism was proclaimed illegal in Spain and Portugal at the end of the 15th Century, followers of the Laws of Moses were given the choice of death, emigration, or conversion (Wiznitzer 1962; Lewin 1967; Greenleaf, 1969). The conversos were baptized and lived as practicing Catholics, but were often held in suspicion of heresy, whether they remained in Iberia or emigrated to Mexico, Central America, or Philippines. Many were charged with Judaizing, tried by tribunals, and martyred during the worldwide Inquisition. There were, in fact, conversos that outwardly practiced Catholicism, but who yet remained loyal to the Laws of Moses. CryptoJews were unable to speak of their beliefs or practice their religion publicly for fear of being embroiled in the imprisonment, torture, and death in flames that characterized the Inquisition (Liebman 1974; Gitlitz 2002). Without written texts, clans of cryptoJews in Mexico lost the Hebrew language and hence the daily Jewish liturgy of prayer practiced before the Inquisition (Criado 1994). An oral tradition maintained altered fragmented versions of a few traditional prayers in Spanish and phrases of transliterated Hebrew. CryptoJews in Mexican relied on a body of religious poetry and prayers created within their community, which connected them to the Laws of Moses, sought redemption from