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The Anti-Converso Statute in the College of San Antonio de Portaceli in Sigüenza*
Not long after the foundation of the CoUege of San Antonio de Portaceli in Sigüenza in 1476, by Juan López de Medina, archdean of Almazán, it started to attract converso students who soon began to obtain degrees *, Shortly afterwards the school turned into a centre of dissension and quarrels and its Rector and Patrons ordered the closing of its gates to converso students. Vicente de Ia Fuente set the dat of the «Statutum contra hebraeos» as January 25th 14972. In the possession of the Jewish National and Hebrew University Library is a manuscript entitled «Informacion [sic] contra judios», in which an inquiry held at the college about converso disturbances and behaviour is described. The inquiry was held on June 30th and July lst, 14973. The document is comprised of five folio pages and contains a notarial confirmation made on April 24th 1649, in Sigüenza by the secretary maestre Juan Varona Angulo and witnessed by licenciado Francisco del Olmo and Pedro Lamparero, both familiares of the college and its secretary. The inquiry was carried out by the Rector Pedro de Ia
* I wish to thank my friends Prof. F. Pérez Castro of the Universidad Complutense and Prof. C. Carrete Parrondo of the Universidad Pontificia in Salamanca for their aid in clarifying certain bibliographical points. 1 See V. de Ia Fuente, Historia de las Universidades, Colegios y demás estobíecimientos de enseñanza en España, II (Madrid 1885) p. 9 et seq., 543-44. C, M* Ajo G. y Sáinz de Zúftiga, Historia de las Universidades Hispánicas, II (Avila 1957^6) p. 333; A. Jiménez, Historia de Ia Universidad Espoftotó (Madrid 1971) p. 160s. Cf. also: H. Rashdall (ed. by F. M. Powicke and A. B. Emden), The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, II (Oxford 1939) pp. 104-5-, B. L. Kagan, Students and Society in Early Modern Spain (Baltimore-London 1974) p. 69. 2 /bid., p. 19. See also Apendice 6, p. 543. This is also the date given by A. A. Sicroff, Les controverses des statuts de *Pureté de Sang* en Espagne du XV au XVlI' siècle (Paris 1960) p. 90. See further below. 3 My thanks are due to Prof. M. Beth-Arie, director of the Jewish National and Hebrew University Library in Jerusalem, for permission to publish this document.
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