In 2020, the Portuguese Parliament decided to declare March 31 as the official memorial service for the victims of the Portuguese Inquisition. It is an unprecedented initiative by the Lisbon parliament that indicates the Portuguese government’s desire to acknowledge the historical trauma of many who have been tortured, or punished in other ways by the monarchy and the Inquisition over the years.
Indeed, in 1536 the Catholic Church initiated, at the request of King John III of Portugal, the Inquisition following a mass influx of martyrs into the country who had fled the Spanish Inquisition. As a result of forced conversions and persecution by the Inquisition, hundreds of thousands of Jews were brutally cut off from their religion, although the number of Jewish victims during the years of operation of the Portuguese Inquisition is unknown.
The laws of the Portuguese Inquisition included particularly cruel punishments such as a public outcry. The trials ceased after about 250 years, even before the abolition of the Portuguese Inquisition in 1821.
Now, the Central Archive of the History of the Jewish People in the National Library reveals a manuscript of about 60 pages from the 18th century which documents the tribunal trials of the Inquisition mainly in Lisbon from the first thirty years of its activity. These pages document the trials conducted by the Inquisitors, among others, against members of the Martian families, who were accused of continuing to keep the commandments of Judaism in secret.
From the pages of the bound manuscript, discovered by the Central Archives of the History of the Jewish People, directly document the activities of the tribunals in Lisbon. The book, entitled “Memory of all the Autos-de-Fees that took place in Lisbon”, reveals dozens of pages documenting in a rather concise manner in Portuguese the acts of the Auto-de-Fees (public punishment of infidels) that took place in the Portuguese capital, with a brief mention of sentences from Tomar , Between the years 1540-1669, next to an exact date, the place of the trial and the name of the priest who delivered the sermon.
The description of the Book of Remembrance contains a number of men and women accused of heresy and an indication of the number of those burned in the fire. Among those put on trial were the “new Christians” who were accused of “converting to Judaism.” The punishment mentioned in the pages is the exile “to the ship of the oars,” which in Portugal meant hard labor as slaves.
It should be noted that over the centuries most martyrs in Portugal abandoned any sign that could betray them – circumcision, baptism in a mikveh and the observance of Jewish holidays. Some, however, continued to hold Jewish religious ceremonies in hiding in their homes. Shabbat candles were hidden in pottery; And children under the age of 12 were not allowed to attend religious ceremonies, which were held behind closed doors, so as not to reveal the secret.
The National University says that these discoveries shed light on the complicated reality of life and the devotion of the Jews of Spain to keeping the religious precepts even in times of need.
Dr. Yochai Ben-Gedalia, director of the Central Archives of the History of the Jewish People at the National Library, says that “the manuscript provides solid evidence of the activities of the Inquisition and the preservation of Jewish life by the Martians. There is debate as to how much the story of the martyrs is a historical reality, or perhaps a fabrication that the Inquisition conceived to have a ‘job’. The truth is probably in the middle, and the manuscript illustrates it. “
The new discovery corresponds with other findings that archival researchers have located over the years. “We work a lot in archives abroad to find information about Jewish life, and we have also done a lot of work in the archives in Portugal and Spain, around the Inquisition,” notes Dr. Ben-Gedalia. “Many times we look for documentation in Jewish sources, and this is one example of how extensive documentation comes from non-Jewish sources. Such discoveries shed light on the complicated reality of life and the devotion of the Jews of Spain to keep the religious precepts even in times of need.”
