Ferrand (or Ferrán) Martinez (
fl.
''Floruit'' ( ; usually abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for 'flourished') denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indic ...
14th century) was an elite Spanish cleric at the
Cathedral of Seville and
archdeacon
An archdeacon is a senior clergy position in the Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church, Syriac Orthodox Church, Anglican Communion, St Thomas Christians, Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox churches and some other Christian denomina ...
of
Écija
Écija () is a city and municipality of Spain belonging to the province of Seville, in the autonomous community of Andalusia. It is in the countryside, 85 km east of the city of Seville. According to the 2008 census, Écija had a total popula ...
most noted for being an
antisemitic
Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...
agitator whom historians cite as the prime mover behind the series of
massacres
A massacre is an event of killing people who are not engaged in hostilities or are defenseless. It is generally used to describe a targeted killing of civilians en masse by an armed group or person.
The word is a loan of a French term for "b ...
of the
Spanish Jews in 1391, beginning in the city of
Seville
Seville ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Spain, Spanish autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the Guadalquivir, River Guadalquivir, ...
.
Early life
Little is known of Martínez's early life.
Before taking up the position at Écija, he was the
confessor
In a number of Christian traditions, including Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholicism, Lutheranism and Anglicanism, a confessor is a priest who hears the confessions of penitents and pronounces absolution.
History
During the Diocletianic Persecut ...
of the
queen mother
A queen mother is a former queen, often a queen dowager, who is the mother of the monarch, reigning monarch. The term has been used in English since the early 1560s. It arises in hereditary monarchy, hereditary monarchies in Europe and is also ...
of
Aragón.
Role in the struggle for power
Martínez was made an
alcalde
''Alcalde'' (; ) is the traditional Spanish municipal magistrate, who had both judicial and Administration (government), administrative functions. An ''alcalde'' was, in the absence of a corregidor (position), corregidor, the presiding officer o ...
(royal judge) in 1376.
In 1378 he began preaching
sermons
A sermon is a religious discourse or oration by a preacher, usually a member of clergy. Sermons address a scriptural, theological, or moral topic, usually expounding on a type of belief, law, or behavior within both past and present contexts. E ...
against the Jews.
Although Enriques II's heir
Juan I commanded him to cease his rabble-rousing, he ignored the royal order, as well as commands from the
primate of Spain, Archbishop Barroso
of Toledo. For more than a decade Martínez continued his verbal assaults, telling Catholics to "expel the Jews...and to demolish their
synagogue
A synagogue, also called a shul or a temple, is a place of worship for Jews and Samaritans. It is a place for prayer (the main sanctuary and sometimes smaller chapels) where Jews attend religious services or special ceremonies such as wed ...
s."
The '' aljama's'' 1388 lawsuit against the archdeacon
His preaching alarmed Seville’s Jewish community, known as the ''
aljama
''Aljama'' (, , ) is a term of Arabic origin used in old official documents in Spain and Portugal to designate the self-governing communities of Moors and Jews living under Christian rule in the Iberian Peninsula. In some present-day Spanish cit ...
''.
The Massacre of 1391
A tipping point occurred when both Juan I and Barroso died in 1390, leaving his 11-year-old son
Henry III to rule under the regency of his mother.
Martínez continued his campaign against the Jews of Seville, calling on clergy and people to destroy synagogues and seize Jewish holy books and other items. These events led to a further royal order deposing Martínez from his office and ordering damaged synagogues be repaired at Church expense.
Declaring that neither the state nor the local church authorities had power over him, he ignored the commands.
Imprisonment and death
Martínez was imprisoned again by royal order in 1395, and although he was quickly released, he died soon after, leaving his fortune to a hospital he had founded at San María, Seville.
References
Further reading
* Baer, Yitzhak. ''A History of the Jews in Christian Spain''. Translated by Louis Schoffman. Vols. 1-2. The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1992-93.
*
* Gampel, Benjamin. ''Anti-Jewish Riots in the Crown of Aragon and the Royal Response, 1391-1392''. Cambridge UP, 2016
*
*
* Miguel-Prendes, Sol; Sofier Irish, Maya; Wacks, David A. (eds.). "Ferrán Martínez's speech at the Tribunal del Alcázar in Seville, 19 February, 1388 (English version)". ''Knowledge Commons''. Retrieved September 8, 2024.
* Mitre Fernández, Emilio. ''Los judíos de Castilla en tiempo de Enrique III: El pogrom de 1391''. U de Valladolid, 1994.
* Moore, R. I. ''The Formation of a Persecuting Society'', 2nd ed., Blackwell Publishing, 2007.
* Pérez, Joseph. ''History of a Tragedy: The Expulsion of the Jews from Spain.'' Translated from Spanish by Lysa Hochroth. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2007.
*
Poliakov, Léon''. The History of Anti-Semitism: From Mohammed to the Marranos'' (orig. 1961; tr. 1973; repr. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003) ,
* Nirenberg, David. ''Anti-Judaism: the Western Tradition''. W.W. Norton, 2014.
* Soifer Irish, Maya. “Toward 1391: The Anti-Jewish Preaching of Ferrán Martínez in Seville.” ''The Medieval Roots of Antisemitism: Continuities and Discontinuities from the Middle Ages to the Present Day'', edited by Jonathan Adams and Cordelia Heß, Routledge, 2018, pp. 306-319.
* Wolff, Philippe. ‘The 1391 Pogrom in Spain: Social Crisis or Not?” ''Past and Present'', vol. 50, 1971, pp. 4-18.
External links
Ferrán Martínez’s speech at the ''Tribunal del Alcázar'' in Seville, 19 February, 1388.Maya Soifer Irish, Rice University (2020), https://hcommons.org/deposits/item/hc:32497/
* The Jewish Encyclopedi
Selections in English and Spanish of Ferrán Martínez’s speech at the Tribunal del Alcázar in Seville, 19 February, 1388 (pedagogical edition) with introduction, notes, and bibliography in ''Open Iberia/América'' (open access teaching anthology)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Martinez, Ferrand
14th-century births
Year of death missing
Archdeacons