The Road Out of Trent

Abstract

The image of the converso as an enemy within grows in Counter-Reformation Spain as both the Crown and Church continue to associate New Christians with the practice of clandestine Protestantism. In this atmosphere of suspicion, conversos continue to wrestle with orthodox religious practice. It is now that Teresa of Ávila (later Saint Teresa of Ávila) encourages private mystical communion through her Barefoot Carmelite movement, while a group of Biblical scholars from the University of Salamanca promote Hebrew Biblical study in their classrooms, leading to their incarceration by the Inquisition. Meanwhile, converso humanists at the royal court begin to champion Philip II as the second Solomon in an attempt to emphasize the ties between Jewish and Catholic cultures, thus promoting greater concordance among Old and New Christian society.