Adolfo de Castro (died October 1898 in

Cádiz Cádiz (, , ) is a city and port in southwestern Spain. It is the capital of the Province of Cádiz, one of eight that make up the autonomous community of Andalusia. Cádiz, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Western Europe, ...

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

) was a Spanish historian and member of the

Real Academia de la Historia The Real Academia de la Historia (RAH, 'Royal Academy of History') is a Spanish institution in Madrid that studies history "ancient and modern, political, civil, ecclesiastical, military, scientific, of letters and arts, that is to say, the diff ...

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

. He lived in Cadiz and died there in 1898.

Biography

Castro wrote the first short history of the Jews in Spain, based on careful studies. His history was so impartial and dispassionate that he found it necessary to assure his readers (p. 8): "Escribo esta historia sin pasion, ni artificio, como de cosas que nada me tocan. Ni soi judio, ni vengo de judaizantes" (I write this history dispassionately and without craft, as concerning things that do not touch me. I am not a Jew, nor am I of Jewish descent.) Castro's book was published under the title, ''Historia de los Judios en España, desde los Tiempos de su Establecimiento hasta Principios del Presente Siglo'', Cádiz, 1847. It was translated into English by Rev. Edward D.G.M. Kirwan, Cambridge, John Deighton, 1851. Unlike

José Amador de los Ríos José Amador de los Ríos y Serrano (30 April 1818 – 17 February 1878) was a Spanish intellectual, primarily a historian and archaeologist of art and literature. He was a graduate in history of the Complutense University of Madrid. In 1844 h ...

, who after him, treated the history of the Jews in Spain, Castro condemned the

Inquisition The Inquisition was a group of institutions within the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy, conducting trials of suspected heretics. Studies of the records have found that the overwhelming majority of sentences consisted of penances, ...

: "Pues los monarcas bien podran regir con las leyes de la fuerza los cuerpos de sus vasallos; pero no podrán sujetar los animos" (For monarchs can indeed command by forcible laws the bodies of their subjects, but cannot subdue their souls).

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Castro, Adolf de 1898 deaths Year of birth missing 19th-century Spanish historians