Document Type
Article
Peer Reviewed
1
Abstract
This study addresses the impact of the cultural homogenization policy in late medieval Castilian and Aragonese societies by analyzing Spanish Inquisition documents through a gendered lens. Specifically, this article illustrates how these records depict the religious experiences of Conversas and Moriscas (Christian women of Jewish and Muslim origin, respectively). Whereas recent investigations within cultural studies have engaged in descriptive analysis of female conversion, this article will provide a causal explanation through a comparative gendered perspective, arguing that women’s heightened involvement in religion was particular to the context of forced conversion. Toward this end, I first examine how Jewish and Muslim women and men experienced and participated in their religions before and after conversion. Second, I investigate how conversion challenged gender roles and power relations between women and men within the religious sphere. To demonstrate how and why women’s heightened involvement in religion was particular to the context of forced conversion, I analyze inquisitorial documents to trace the shift in religious gender roles shaped by gendered spaces, divisions of labor, and women’s adaptation to policies of religious intolerance imposed on these communities over the longue durée.
Acknowledgements
This article is part of the Special Issue, titled, “Intersections of Gender and Genres in Medieval Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.” Research for this article was conducted within the framework of the research projects, "Fuentes medievales y modernas para el estudio de las relaciones transculturales en el Mediterráneo: Redaccion y Transmision II" (ref. no. PGC2018-093472-B-C31) and “Writing Religious, Transcultural, and Gender Identities and Alterities in the Medieval and Early Modern Mediterranean,” (ref. no. PGC2018-093472-B-C32), both of which were financed by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia y Universidades, the Agencia Estatal de Investigación y la Unión Europa (2019-2022).
Keywords
cultural homogenization, conversion, Conversas, Moriscas, gender differences in religiosity, Inquisition records, relaciones de causas
Recommended Citation
Arsić, Ivana "Conversion and the Reconfiguration of Religious Gender Roles: Conversas and Moriscas in Late Medieval Iberia." Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality 61, No. 2 (2026)
