Skip to content
EntityQ1061030· pop 42· linked from 532 articles

Alhambra Decree

Sign in to save

Also known as Alahambra Decree

1492 decree expelling Jews from Spain

~24 min read

Encyclopedic overview

A service in a Spanish synagogue, from the Sister Haggadah (c. 1350). The Alhambra Decree would bring Spanish Jewish life to a sudden end.

The Alhambra Decree (also known as the Edict of Expulsion; Spanish: Decreto de la Alhambra, Edicto de Granada) was an edict issued on 31 March 1492 by the joint Catholic Monarchs of Spain, Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, ordering the expulsion of unconverted Jews from the Crowns of Castile and Aragon and its territories and possessions by 31 July of that year. Its primary purpose was to minimize the influence of the remaining Jews on Spain's large converso New Christian population, converted from Judaism, to minimize the possibility that the latter and their descendants would be able to secretly practice their former faith.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Alhambra Decree” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.