Morisco

(noun)

A term used to refer to former Muslims who converted or were coerced into converting to Christianity, after Spain outlawed the open practice of Islam by its Mudejar population in the early 16th century. The group was subject to systematic expulsions from Spain's various kingdoms between 1609 and 1614, the most severe of which occurred in the eastern Kingdom of Valencia.

Related Terms

Examples of Morisco in the following topics:

  • The Reconquista

    • People who converted to Catholicism were not subject to expulsion, but between 1480 and 1492 hundreds of those who had converted (conversos and moriscos) were accused of secretly practicing their original religion (crypto-Judaism or crypto-Islam) and arrested, imprisoned, interrogated under torture, and in some cases burned to death, in both Castile and Aragon.
    • Most of the descendants of the Muslims who submitted to conversion to Christianity rather than exile during the early periods of the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisition, the Moriscos, were later expelled from Spain after serious social upheaval, when the Inquisition was at its height.
    • The expulsions were carried out more severely in eastern Spain (Valencia and Aragon) due to local animosity towards Muslims and Moriscos where they were seen as economic rivals by local workers who saw them as cheap labor undermining their bargaining position with the landlords.

  • Philip II and the Spanish Armada

    • He also grappled with the problem of the large Morisco population in Spain, who were forcibly converted to Christianity by his predecessors.
    • In 1569, the Morisco Revolt broke out in the southern province of Granada in defiance of attempts to suppress Moorish customs and Philip ordered the expulsion of the Moriscos from Granada and their dispersal to other provinces.

  • Louis XIV and the Huguenots

    • The Edict of Fontainebleau is compared by historians with the 1492 Alhambra Decree, ordering the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain, and with Expulsion of the Moriscos during 1609-1614.