Description
Prisons are often a site of cross-cultural encounter and religious illumination. People from different ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds meet each other and inevitably share ideas and experiences. The inquisitorial prison housed individuals who were accused of crimes of conscience and thus the encounters that a prisoner would have in a secret prison of the Inquisition would often enough center on issues of belief and identity. I will look at a case from Lisbon in the early 1600s, where individuals from different socio-economic, ethnic and religious backgrounds meet and transform each other's religious outlook and commitments within prison walls. I will pay attention to other, non-incarceratory places of meeting as a way of appreciating the continuities and disruptions between life inside and outside of the prison space.
Manuel Cardoso de Macedo (1585–1652) was an Azorean Old Christian who found his way to Judaism after first embracing Calvinsim as a teenager living in London and then discovering “the Law of Moses” in a cell he shared with an accused Judaizer in the prison of the Lisbon Holy Office. Cardoso eventually escapes Portugal along with members of a large converso family that he met in prison and he converts to Judaism in Hamburg taking the Hebrew name of Abraham Pelengrino Guer. He settles in Amsterdam where he lives within the Portuguese community until his death in 1653.
Cardoso’s religious odyssey begins in England. His father was in the dye and textile trade and conducted extensive business with England. He sent his teenage son, Manuel to England in 1599 to master the language and apprentice with some business associates presumably in preparation for a life in the family business. While in England he encountered the Bible in English translation. This, according to his telling in the Vida changed his life, setting off a series of independently inspired religious inquiries. He writes: “Scripture was the first thing that they placed in my hand after the ABC.”
He soon became enthralled with Protestant ideas, eventually rejecting “the religion of his parents” for Calvinism. On trips back to the Azores to visit his family he managed to keep his heresy a secret, but eventually word got out and he was arrested while visiting São Miguel and was eventually sent to the Lisbon Holy Office in 1608. It is in prison where he rejects Calvinism after his discovery of Judaism. Cardoso eventually was released from prison and after connecting with a group of Portuguese conversos he knew from his time in prison, he escaped Lisbon for Hamburg where he formally converted, eventually settling in Amsterdam. Around the 1620s he composed his spiritual autobiography La Vida del buenaventurado Abraham Pelengrino Guer.
The encounters with ethnic and religious others within the warped “third space” of the inquisitorial prison allow for much more than an exchange of new ideas or the forging of new friendships. These encounters allow for religious transformations and a radical shift in the subjects’ sense of self. The following texts include scenes where space informs the development of Cardoso’s self presentation as developed in his autobiography. I have selected examples from both within his Inquisitorial experience and outside of it. I look forward to the discussion of what the spatial elements of these scenes of encounter and self reflection add to our understanding of this early modern life.
Start Date
15-8-2018 3:30 PM
End Date
15-8-2018 4:30 PM
Included in
Cultural History Commons, European History Commons, History of Religion Commons, Jewish Studies Commons, Social History Commons
Inquisitorial Prison as a site of Cross-Cultural Encounter: the Case of Manuel Cardoso de Macedo aka Abraham Pelengrino Guer
Prisons are often a site of cross-cultural encounter and religious illumination. People from different ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds meet each other and inevitably share ideas and experiences. The inquisitorial prison housed individuals who were accused of crimes of conscience and thus the encounters that a prisoner would have in a secret prison of the Inquisition would often enough center on issues of belief and identity. I will look at a case from Lisbon in the early 1600s, where individuals from different socio-economic, ethnic and religious backgrounds meet and transform each other's religious outlook and commitments within prison walls. I will pay attention to other, non-incarceratory places of meeting as a way of appreciating the continuities and disruptions between life inside and outside of the prison space.
Manuel Cardoso de Macedo (1585–1652) was an Azorean Old Christian who found his way to Judaism after first embracing Calvinsim as a teenager living in London and then discovering “the Law of Moses” in a cell he shared with an accused Judaizer in the prison of the Lisbon Holy Office. Cardoso eventually escapes Portugal along with members of a large converso family that he met in prison and he converts to Judaism in Hamburg taking the Hebrew name of Abraham Pelengrino Guer. He settles in Amsterdam where he lives within the Portuguese community until his death in 1653.
Cardoso’s religious odyssey begins in England. His father was in the dye and textile trade and conducted extensive business with England. He sent his teenage son, Manuel to England in 1599 to master the language and apprentice with some business associates presumably in preparation for a life in the family business. While in England he encountered the Bible in English translation. This, according to his telling in the Vida changed his life, setting off a series of independently inspired religious inquiries. He writes: “Scripture was the first thing that they placed in my hand after the ABC.”
He soon became enthralled with Protestant ideas, eventually rejecting “the religion of his parents” for Calvinism. On trips back to the Azores to visit his family he managed to keep his heresy a secret, but eventually word got out and he was arrested while visiting São Miguel and was eventually sent to the Lisbon Holy Office in 1608. It is in prison where he rejects Calvinism after his discovery of Judaism. Cardoso eventually was released from prison and after connecting with a group of Portuguese conversos he knew from his time in prison, he escaped Lisbon for Hamburg where he formally converted, eventually settling in Amsterdam. Around the 1620s he composed his spiritual autobiography La Vida del buenaventurado Abraham Pelengrino Guer.
The encounters with ethnic and religious others within the warped “third space” of the inquisitorial prison allow for much more than an exchange of new ideas or the forging of new friendships. These encounters allow for religious transformations and a radical shift in the subjects’ sense of self. The following texts include scenes where space informs the development of Cardoso’s self presentation as developed in his autobiography. I have selected examples from both within his Inquisitorial experience and outside of it. I look forward to the discussion of what the spatial elements of these scenes of encounter and self reflection add to our understanding of this early modern life.
