page_title: History of the Catholic Church in Spain
section_title: Alhambra decree
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Catholic Church in Spain / Alhambra decree
context_page_description: The Catholic Church in Spain has a long history, starting in the 1st century. It is the largest religion in Spain, with 71% of Spaniards identifying as Catholic.
  Attempts were made from the late 1st century to the late 3rd century to establish the church in the Iberian peninsula. Canons of the Synod of Elvira indicate that the church was greatly isolated from the general population even at that time. The situation of the Christians in Iberia improved with the advent of the Edict of Milan in 313 AD, after which Christians were more or less free to practice their religion openly within the Roman Empire. Over the course of the 4th century, the church built significant footholds particularly around Seville, Cordoba and Toledo.
context_section_description: On 31 March 1492, the joint Catholic Monarchs of Spain (Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon) issued the Alhambra decree, accusing Jews of trying "to subvert their holy Catholic faith and try to draw faithful Christians away from their beliefs" and ordering the expulsion of Jews from the Kingdom of Spain and its territories and possessions by 31 July of that year.
  Some Jews were given only four months and ordered to leave the kingdom or convert to Christianity. Under the edict, Jews were promised royal "protection and security" for the effective three-month window before the deadline. They were permitted to take their belongings with them – except "gold or silver or minted money".
  The punishment for any Jew who did not leave or convert by the deadline was death. The punishment for a non-Jew who sheltered or hid Jews was the confiscation of all belongings and hereditary privileges.
  As a result of this expulsion, Spanish Jews dispersed throughout the region of North Africa known as the Maghreb. They also fled to south-eastern Europe where they were granted safety in the Ottoman Empire and formed flourishing local Jewish communities, the largest being those of Thessaloniki and Sarajevo. In those regions, they often intermingled with the already existing Mizrachi (Eastern Jewish) communities.
  Scholars disagree about how many Jews left Spain as a result of the decree; the numbers vary between 130,000 and 800,000. Other Spanish Jews (estimates range between 50,000 and 70,000) chose in the face of the Edict to convert to Christianity and thereby escape expulsion. Their conversion served as poor protection from church hostility after the Spanish Inquisition came into full effect; persecution and expulsion were common. Many of these "New Christians" were eventually forced to either leave the countries or intermarry with the local populace by the dual Inquisitions of Portugal and Spain. Many settled in North Africa or elsewhere in Europe, most notably in the Netherlands and England.
caption: Catholic Monarchs of Spain
exif: {}