Accusations came from townspeople who feared competition from former Jews and resented the part played by conversos in the king’s service. This kind of anticonverso feeling, saying in effect that a Jew will always be a Jew and baptism did not wipe out his Jewishness, came to a head at about the same time as small images were becoming common. In the inquisitorial trials of conversos in Zaragoza between 1484 and 1515, the inquisitors’ questions during an interrogation focused on the religious behavior of suspects, rather than considering whether their conversion had been authentic or not.¹¹⁸

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Like other early modern Spaniards, Bleda embraced the notion of “blood purity,” according to which any degree of Jewish ancestry renders one unfit to participate fully in Catholic society. The language Bleda uses in his tongue in cheek allegation about Muhammad—that he is “a four-quarters Jew,” which is to say that all his grandparents were Jewish—reflects this racial conception of Jewishness and Christianness alike.

Bleda’s warning about baseless allegations against honorable Spaniards is also no idle remark: David Nirenberg observes with only slight exaggeration that “there is no leading sixteenth‐ or seventeenth‐century Spanish writer or politician who entirely avoided being accused or accusing another of genealogical or cultural ‘Jewishness.’”²⁵

Bleda’s sober description of Muhammad’s ancestry, no less than his intentionally over‐the‐top allegation, reflects the pervasive anxiety about Jewish ancestry within early modern Spain and reinforces the importance of safeguarding the reputation of one’s own Christian lineage.

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