Abstract
Between 1391–1480, in the wake of the forced conversions of thousands of Jews, Spanish Catholics were divided over how, or even if, to incorporate converts into Christian society. Those in favor of recognizing the converts as fully Christian appealed to multiple theological ideas: the incorporating power of baptism, the non-hereditary principle of membership, the unity of the body of Christ, and the conversion of the Jews as part of God's work in history. Old Christians, on the opposing side, argued for placing converts in a new, lower class of Christians (New Christians and conversos ) who would have restricted access to public, legal, and ecclesial offices and rights. The latter racialized converts, designating Jewish heritage as an essential and absolute difference that needed to be managed and converts as irredeemably suspect and dangerous. These arguments eventually won. This paper examines how three generations of theologians from the Santa María-Cartagena family (Pablo de Santa María, Alfonso de Cartagena, and Teresa de Cartagena) highlighted or obscured their Jewish heritage during the fifteenth century to discover how conversos attempted to negotiate racializing and marginalizing rhetoric, laws, and theologies that were projected onto them by Old Christians.