Edict of Expulsion of the Jews from Castile and Aragon

The edict is issued in the names of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile and is addressed to their son, the prelates and nobles, the towns, and the Jewish communities themselves. It ends with the date at Granada, the signatures “I the King” and “I the Queen”, and the name of the secretary Juan de Coloma.

Most of the text is a statement of reasons. The king and queen say that there were bad Christians who judaized, and that contact with Jews was much to blame: Jews, they say, instructed such people in their law, told them the fasts and feasts, and brought them unleavened bread. They recall that at the Cortes of Toledo in 1480 they had ordered the Jews to live in separate quarters, that the Inquisition had been at work for more than twelve years, and that they had ordered the Jews out of Andalusia, and they declare that none of this had been enough. The order follows: all Jews of whatever age to leave by the end of July; death and loss of goods for any who stay or return; loss of property for anyone who shelters them. Until the term they are under royal protection and may sell or exchange their property, and they may take their goods out by sea or land, but not gold, silver, coined money or other things forbidden by law.

This is the rulers’ own account of their motives and says nothing of how the order was carried out; for that see History of the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella. Amador de los Ríos prints it from a manuscript in the Biblioteca Nacional, which his heading does not identify more closely. See the Spanish Inquisition and the Expulsion of the Jews.