Limpieza de sangre is also a novel in the Captain Alatriste series by Arturo Pérez-Reverte.

Limpieza de sangre (in Spanish), Limpeza de sangue (in Portuguese), both meaning "cleanliness of blood" was a concept of Iberian Modern History. It referred to being ethnically pure "Old Christian", without Jewish or Muslim ancestors.

After the end of the Reconquista and the expulsion of Sephardic Jews, the population of Spain and Portugal was all nominally Christian. However, the descendants of the Christian conquerors despised the New Christians, descendants of baptized Jews (Conversos or Marranos) or Mudejars (Moriscos). Besides social and economic causes, the accusation was that the New Christians were false converts, keeping their former religion in their homes (Crypto-Jews). This was sometimes true, but even people later declared to be Saints by the Church could be suspected. Cleanliness of blood was an issue of ancestry, not of personal religion.

This stratification meant that the Old Christian commoners could assert a right to honor even if they were not in the nobility. The military orders, guilds and other organizations incorporated in their bylaws clauses demanding proof of cleanliness of blood. Upwardly mobile New Christian families had to either contend with their plight, or bribe and falsify documents attesting generations of good Christian ancestry. The Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions was more concerned with repressing the New Christians and heresy than chasing witches, which was considered to be more a psychological than a religious issue, or Protestantism, which was promptly suffocated.

The claim to universal hidalguía (lowest nobility) of the Basques was justified because the Arab invasion didn't reach the Basque territory, so it was believed that Basques had maintained their original purity, while the rest of Spain was suspect of miscegenation. Even in the 19th century, the Basque nationalism of Sabino Arana demanded a list of original Basque surnames to rule out mixes with Spaniards.

In spite of the abolition of the rules with the demise of the Ancien Regime, the discrimination was still present into the twentieth century in some places like Majorca. No Xueta (descendant of the Majorcan Conversos) priest was allowed to say Mass in the cathedral until the 1960s.

See also

• Caste system
• Racism
• Apartheid
• Nuremberg laws
• Black Legend

Reference

• Los judíos en España, Joseph Pérez. Marcial Pons. Madrid (2005).

Basque history | Islamic history | Jewish Spanish history | Spanish Inquisition | History of Portugal | Racism

Limpieza de sangre | Limpieza de sangre | Limpieza de sangre