A Jesuit Utopian Project on Behalf of the Conversos: Fernando de Valdés and the Statutes of Purity of Blood (1632)

What is it about?

1632, the Jesuit Father Fernando de Valdés (1584–1642) completed his Memorial para quitar o limitar Estatutos de limpieza. In this treatise, Valdés sought to abolish the statutes of purity of blood and reassess the longstanding division between New and Old Christians. Additionally, the Memorial offers a novel portrait of Castilian conversos. According to Valdés, New Christians were singled out for discrimination, despite their evident virtues as sincere Catholics and faithful subjects. He did not seek to break the existing social order, but rather to offer a profound critique of the Old Christian hegemony. Ultimately, Valdés proposed an essentially utopian model of society built on personal merits and behavior, rather than blood-based and inherited privileges. This article seeks to study this Memorial in the context of the debate about the statutes of purity of blood and as an important element of that debate within the Society of Jesus.

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Photo by Jonas Allert on Unsplash

Photo by Jonas Allert on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Nuestro artículo muestra que dentro de los cristianos viejos había una corriente intelectual y política que era favorable a la revisión de los estatutos de limpieza de sangre. Mostramos los contenidos principales y las razones de uno de los primeros memoriales que incluso llega a solicitar explícitamente la supresión de los estatutos.