American Jewish Archives Journal, Vol 44, No. 01 (1992)

38 American Jewish Archives
That conversion was the official policy of Castile and Aragon is
evident from the intensification of conversionist efforts after the mas-
sacres. Conversionist preaching was particularly evident in Aragon in
the first two decades of the fifteenth century under the fiery Domini-
can, Vincent Ferrer (1350-1419). Connected to the highest echelons of
state and church, and in a position at least twice to call for Pope Bene-
dict's abdication, Ferrer spent the last two decades of his life as an
itinerant apostolic preacher in Iberia, France, Lombardy, Switzerland,
and the Low Countries. Within this activity, he devoted considerable
efforts to the missionization of the Jews.
Ferrer's were also turbulent times, marked by an uneasy political
stalemate between the death of King Marti (1395-1410) without issue
and the enthronement of the Castilian regent, Fernando de Trasta-
mara, as his successor. An outsider, Fernando was tied to no
Aragonese power source aside from the Modern Old Guard establish-
ment. Yet the successes of Fernando I (1412-1416) and the prosperity
under Alfonso V (1416-1458) were insufficient to resolve Aragon's
deeper sociopolitical problems. This was evidenced by the Catalan
revolt under Juan I1 (1458-1479). Encompassing all of Peninsular
Aragon and the Balearic Isles, the revolt was a complex web of civil
strife, urban and rural, with intricate shifts of Old and New Guard
elements. By the end of the century Aragon, drained and debilitated,
was no match for its more populous neighbor, Castile.
Stemming from Ferrer's activity was the Disputation of Tortosa.
Convoked by Benedict XI11 in 1413 and continuing to November of
1414, the disputation's official agenda comprised a discussion of the
Messiah's nature and the Talmud's alleged hostility to Christianity.
But here, too, the real agenda of the disputation appeared to be the
stimulation of conversions and thereby the enhancement of both
Benedict's papacy and the secular establishment.
Appreciable numbers of Jews converted during the disputation
and in its wake. By 1415 the Jewish community of Aragon was only a
pathetic shadow of its former self. In his philosophical chef d'oeuvre,
the Ikkarim, completed that year, Joseph Albo reflects the defensive-
ness of the Jewish community in the wake of the disputation by clas-
sifying the belief in the Messiah not as a root but as a derivative
principle in Judaism.