Crypto-Jewish practices of a conversa in fifteenth-century Majorca: the proceso and prayers of Esclaramuna Pardo

Description

The Fifty-Second Season of the
TORONTO RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION COLLOQUIUM
Founded by Natalie Zemon Davis and James K. McConica in 1964

This talk will analyse the Jewish prayers that one conversa (a Jewish woman forced to convert to Christianity) recited as part of her confession before the Inquisition in Majorca at the turn of the sixteenth century and will compare them to other Jewish and converso prayers both in her time and today.

Natalie Oeltjen completed her doctorate in January 2012 at the Centre for Medieval Studies and the collaborative program in Jewish Studies at the University of Toronto with a dissertation on the conversos of Majorca from 1391 to 1416. She has published articles on the converso confraternity of Majorca and on the conversos’ economic crises following 1391. She was a Lady Davis postdoctoral fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem before returning to the University of Toronto in August 2013 where she is the Assistant to the Director at Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies.