In any case, the chronic presence of crypto-Jews eventually convinced
Ferdinand and Isabella that the source of this infidelity was the presence of a
large openly Jewish population; and that expelling the Jews would allow con-
versosto become true Christians. Yet the decision to expel the Jews was far
from inevitable. As late as 1491, Don Isaac Abravanel, one of the last of the
Jewish courtiers in Spain, signed a three-year commercial contract with the
royal crown.
The final straw came in 1492 with the conquest of Granada and the com-
pletion of the Reconquista.Amid the surge of Christian jubilation over the
uniting of all of Spain as a Christian kingdom under Christian rule, an edict
of expulsion was issued in March 1492, which would go into effect in August
- A century of decline since 1492 had reduced the Jews of Spain numer-
ically and economically, and eroded their political situation. Nonetheless, on
an absolute scale, in 1492 Spanish Jewry was still one of the largest, most
affluent, and most prestigious Jewish communities in the world. Thus, the
expulsion set in motion a period of flux for world Jewry.
The Jews of medieval Christendom 101