The Ribadavia Process
Between 1492 and 1595, the Jews of Ribadavia lived relatively peacefully, pretending to be Christians while secretly practicing their religion. They were particularly careful to initiate the young people into adolescence. This generational shift, which spanned four generations, was crucial in ensuring the historical continuity of Judaism in Ribadavia. In fact, most of those arrested and condemned between 1606 and 1610 were young people in their twenties. The primary role in passing on the tradition was played by women, mothers, and grandmothers, as well as Jewish matriarchs like Branca Vázquez and Ana Méndez, who had passed away by the time the repression came. They too taught the rituals and ceremonies of the Mosaic Law within the Jewish community of Ribadavia.
Ethnologic Museum
The Inquisitorial Process: Persecution, Torture, and Resistance
At the end of the 16th century, the Inquisition began its visits to Ribadavia. In 1595, they processed the lawyer Xerónimo Rodríguez: a warning. On March 7, 1606, the Santiago Tribunal received a letter from the Council of the General and Supreme Inquisition ordering action: “Arrest eleven of them.” There would be many more, as a young man named Xerónimo Bautista de Mena, who had been sent by the community to synagogues in Venice, Pisa, and Salonica to study and later teach the old law in Ribadavia, denounced them for repentance, grudges, and/or simple mental imbalance. He confessed to the inquisitors that two years prior, when his mother had died, he tried to resurrect her as the prophet Elisha did with the widow’s son.
The phenomenon of the “malsín” (informer) is common in the history of Judaism, especially when persecution forced them to form secret societies. The informer from Ribadavia initially denounced 200 Jewish sympathizers, half of the town (450/500 inhabitants in 1517-23; 460 in 1645), starting with his deceased mother and his 13- and 15-year-old siblings. Xerónimo was found dead (under strange circumstances, as is often the case in these situations) during the process, and the Tribunal, which, like Rome, does not reward traitors, sentenced him in the final moments (1610) to be burned in effigy, along with his bones, which were exhumed for this purpose. Xerónimo Bautista de Mena dies twice, first as a false Jew, then as a false Christian.
In the end, there were 40 people condemned in Ribadavia, with significant confiscations of property, though this was difficult to execute due to the efforts of the Jewish sympathizers to conceal their goods. Among the sentenced were two town councilors, seven merchants, two landowners, various professionals, and fourteen women. Most of the accused were born in Ribadavia, while others were from nearby places in Ourense, Galicia, and Northern Portugal (several from Vila Flor, Braga), attracted by their flourishing community. Twenty-one Jewish sympathizers were sentenced to life imprisonment after the Supreme Court in Madrid reprimanded the Santiago Tribunal for being too lenient. Two were sentenced to be executed in person, meaning they would be burned at the stake: Felipe Álvarez and his more rebellious son, Antonio Méndez. The rest received prison sentences ranging from 6 months to 4 years. The regular sentences included, in addition to the immediate seizure of property, the obligation to wear the habit (sambenito).
It is unclear whether the condemned actually served the harsher penalties, death and life imprisonment, due to economic deals with the Inquisition and the difficulties it faced in keeping the prisoners in secret prisons, as well as the fall from grace of the inquisitors who signed the Ribadavia sentences, Juan Muñoz Cuesta and Juan Ochoa, by the year the process ended.
25% of the prisoners who reconciled with the Church in 17th century Spain bought their penalties. Of course, not everyone had the same resources, though it must be said that social and economic status did not spare anyone from suffering in the torture, quite the opposite.
The system, called the “rack,” to torment the prisoners was quite simple: they were placed on a ladder with ropes tied to their arms and legs, which were tightened by turning pulleys until the bone was exposed, if necessary. This way, 32% of the imprisoned residents of Ribadavia were tortured: thirteen prisoners in total, mostly older people, five women and eight men. According to the Tribunal, most of them overcame the torture: all the women, and some men (specifically three). Who was tortured? The most prominent people in the Jewish community from a political, economic, and religious standpoint, meaning the two members of the town council, Xerónimo de Morais and Xoán López Hurtado (and their wives), those accused who were merchants and merchants’ wives (53% of those who went through the rack were traders), and the widow of the late Marcos López, a lawyer who was executed in effigy. They especially targeted Felipe Álvarez, who acted as the rabbi for them all, and his loyal son Antonio, the only ones condemned to death. They tortured them to obtain confessions, which they believed would bring in good economic returns, and also out of pure revenge.
The Supreme Council in Madrid and the Santiago Tribunal wanted to make an example out of Ribadavia, cutting it off at the root, to serve as a warning for all of Galicia’s Jewish sympathizers: they pursued those who had hidden property and helped Jews escape; they pursued the families of the condemned, even minors; they pursued the memory and reputation of the deceased who had taught the Law of Moses in Ribadavia in the second half of the 16th century.
However, the condemned and tortured people of Ribadavia soon obtained moral satisfaction. In 1611, the Supreme Inquisition sent an inspector with 60 charges of ineffectiveness against the two main inquisitors of Galicia during the Ribadavia process, who were accused of irregularities in the confiscation, storage, and auction of the Jewish sympathizers’ property, of illegally repeating torture sessions, and of failing to maintain personal conduct appropriate for their role in the Holy Office and within the clergy. Ochoa was accused of saying mass drunk, of being living with a married woman who even co-presided over the Tribunal hearings with him. Muñoz Cuesta was accused of consorting with prostitutes and seducing 14- and 15-year-old girls. Months after the final auto de fe, where the effigies of the last Ribadavia prisoners were burned in the Santiago Cathedral, Juan Ochoa and Juan Muñoz Cuesta were expelled from Galicia, banned from holding positions in the Inquisition for years, and financially fined. These penalties seem mild compared to the ones they imposed on Rabbi Felipe Álvarez and his followers for not working on Saturdays or reciting the Psalms of David in the Magdalena church without the “Gloria Patri.” The public sanctioning of the immorality of the highest-ranking officials of the Holy Office in Galicia immediately helped to negotiate the death sentences (Felipe Álvarez) and life imprisonment (Simón Pereira), and we assume the same applies to other sentences against the residents of Ribadavia.
Four centuries after these regrettable events, the rehabilitation of the victims is still pending, the restoration of historical truth, and the return of fame and memory to the unknown descendants of the last Jews of Ribadavia: the Álvarez, Méndez, Gómez, López, Hurtado, Pereira, Vázquez, Duarte, Coronel, Mena, Blandón, Morais, Oliveira, Díaz, Fernández, Rodríguez, Sousa, León, Chaves, whom we believe still live in Ribadavia, and other parts of Galicia. Surnames generally common, due to the efforts of the conversos to remain unnoticed, remind us that we may all have Jewish roots. More accurately, if someone arrested and tortured a person for having a different belief, nation, or religion, we are all victims, we are all Jews, and we are all therefore neighbors of Ribadavia in those years of terror: 1606, 1607, 1608, 1609, 1610, as we like to celebrate during the “Festas da Istoria,” which take place every year during the grape harvest and the “Ayuno Grande” of our ancestors.
