The World of Iberian converso practitioners, from Lluís Alcanyís to Isaac Cardoso

Abstract

Between the mid-fifteenth and the late seventeenth century, the fortunes of the Jewish minority in the Iberian kingdoms went through many great difficulties which would to a great extent determine the further history of this minority. This article is intended to portray the sociological profile and the intellectual world of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Iberian Jewish practitioners. Additionally, some historiographical considerations on this topic are provided, and the major features which shaped the early-modern Iberian legal-politic context with respect to the converso physicians, are pointed out.