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Francisco Millán Before the Mexican Inquisition: 1538-1539

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Richard E. Greenleaf*
Affiliation:
University of the Americas, México, D. F.

Extract

Within the last decades considerable material has been written about Jews before the Mexican Inquisition. All of the studies mention in passing the most famous trial of a Jew before the Inquisition of Bishop Juan de Zumárraga (1536-1543), but no scholar has published a detailed analysis of this proceso of Francisco Millán. The paleography of the document is difficult and the pagination runs to some one hundred folios; however, it is worth the effort to examine this trial in order to obtain a vivid first-hand picture of Mexican Judaism of the 1530’s. The format of this analysis and commentary will follow the organization of the original trial record.

Type
Documents
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1964

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References

1 The most complete analysis excluding the present essay is Greenleaf, Richard E., Zumárraga and the Mexican Inquisition 1536–1543 (Washington, D. C.: Academy of American Franciscan History, 1962), pp. 9599 Google Scholar. Toro, Alfonso in his Los judios en la Nueva España (México: Archivo General de la Nación, 1932)Google Scholar, gives brief comments on the trial as does Wiznitzer, Arnold, “Crypto-Jews in Mexico During Sixteenth Century,” American Jewish Historical Quarterly, LI (1962), 174 Google Scholar. Wainer, Leon K., “Francisco Millan, El Tabernero Sospechoso en el Mexico de 1538,” Comentario (Buenos Aires) XXXVII (1961), 8183 Google Scholar, deals with the more emotional aspects of the case.

2 The original document is entitled “Proceso del Santo Oficio de la Inquisición contra Francisco de Millán por sospechoso de judaizante, 1539” and is contained in Archivo General de la Nación (México), Inquisición, Tomo 30, expediente 8.

3 See Greenleaf, Zuntárraga and the Mexican Inquisition, p. 96.

4 Ibid., pp. 98–99.