Anti-converso riot by Pero Sarmiento

A tax levied on Toledo to finance the war, and entrusted to a convert, inflamed the city. The ringleader, Pero Sarmiento, allowed the houses of the *conversos* to be looted and then promulgated an act whose reach exceeded the riot: the *Sentencia-Estatuto*, which excluded from public office any person descended from Jews, whether converted or not.

This is the first statute of "purity of blood." It shifts the question from the realm of faith to that of birth: a baptized person may be an irreproachable Christian and yet remain suspect on account of his ancestors. Pope Nicholas V condemned it, the king disavowed it at first — then the cathedrals, the religious orders, the colleges, and the municipalities adopted it one after another.

These statutes would remain in force in Spain until the nineteenth century. Without them, neither the Inquisition as it was conceived nor the expulsion can be understood.