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Portuguese New Christians and the Portuguese Jewish Diaspora, 1500-1800. A Prosopographical Database Project A PROSOPOGRAHY DATABASE At the centre of A Nação will be a website driven by a relational database which will provide PRINCIPAL RESEARCHERS access to rich, structured, biographical information relating to as wide as possible a number of Aron Sterk PhD (University of Chester) recorded Portuguese Jews and New Christians from the mid 16th to the late 18th century Guilherme Maia de Loureiro PhD (University of Lisbon) drawing initially on primary archives in Portugal and The Netherlands, that will gradually be enriched by archives from other centres; London, Hamburg, the Caribbean and North America PROJECT ADVISERS and the Spanish Inquisition files. The database will also be further enriched and refined by Professor António de Sousa Lara, ISCSP, University of associated research projects that will utilise (and in the process, contribute to) the database. Lisbon. It will serve as a powerful research tool (a meta-archive) suitable for a wide range of users with Dr Katharine S. B. Keats-Rohan (PhD, FSA, FRHistS), an interest in this period: whether academics in various disciplines, local historians, students Linacre College, Oxford. Prof. Laura Liebman, Reed College, Oregon. in schools and universities, or those exploring the past for reasons of their own (e.g. genealogy), enabling its users to make different kinds of searches, to access information about Dr Florbela Veiga Frade, Universidade Nova de Lisboa. particular individuals, relationships, and groups, and to move rapidly from the known into the Mr. Ton Tielen, archivist, Amsterdam unknown through an accessible and user-friendly interface.
Prosopographical databases have been developed for a number of target populations, particularly ancient and medieval, but three developments make it possible for this THE PORTUGUESE HEBREW NATION methodology to be successfully applied to this particular group: After the forced conversion of the Jews of Portugal in 1497 (1) vastly improved computing power that makes possible the rapid processing and storage of and the establishment of The Inquisition there in 1540, large databases many of these ‘New Christians’ or conversos sought refuge (2) the growing use of extended networks of enthusiastic ‘citizen scholars’ to process the large in Italy and northern Europe where they could openly amount of information from the sources return to Judaism - particularly in the tolerant (3) the growing number of relevant, digitised and readily accessible archives that can be atmosphere of the Netherlands and England - constituting actively linked to the database in order to readily access the source material. themselves as a distinct ‘Portuguese Hebrew Nation’ (Port. A Nação) with continuing familial and mercantile ties to ONLINE EDUCATION AND CROWDSOURCING those remaining in the terras de Idolatria of Portugal, A number of recent projects have successfully crowd-sourced enthusiastic ‘citizen researchers’ Spain and their empires, and with cultural and for research as different as Penguin Watch and transcribing ancient manuscripts, recruited commercial ties to other Sephardi Jews in the Eastern through online training. Such citizen scholars are central to the project. Mediterranean; a globalising community along colonial trades routes, linking and crossing intellectual, religious, A vital part of the project will be the development of web-based multimedia educational cultural and national boundaries. material developed by leading experts which will cover ongoing research areas: The research possibilities into the demographic, economic, • The History of Portuguese Jews and the post-1497 diaspora; social and cultural importance of this community with its • Inquisition and Tolerance in the 16-18th centuries. ‘alternative path to modernity’ as Port Jews in the early • Jews and European Imperialism and colonialism in the Early Modern Period. modern Atlantic world will be greatly enhanced by a global • The Religious, Cultural and Social life of the Portuguese Jews. prosopography connecting the network of’ New Jews’ in • Jewish-Christian and Sephardi-Ashkenazi relationships in the Diaspora. the countries of Europe, the Levant, The Americas and the • Introduction to the relevant archives and primary sources. Caribbean with the records of New Christians in Portugal • Portuguese/Spanish and Hebrew paleography. and the Iberian empires. • Prosopographical research methodology. Bernard Picart, engraving of the 1682 Auto da Fé in Lisbon from ‘Cérémonies et coutumes réligieuses de tous les peuples du monde’ 1723.
The Project is supported by the Laboratório de Estudos Judaicos (LEJ) of the Instituto Superior de Ciências Sociais e Politicais, Lisbon. For further information contact: Dr Aron Sterk
[email protected] 0161 339 3746
This material will be available for undergraduate and post-graduate courses and (in a suitably modified form) for engagement with the lay participants involved in the mass processing of archive material through an appropriate MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) provider such as the UK-based ‘FutureLearn’ owned by the Open University and currently partnered with 27 UK and 10 non-UK universities as well as other institutions like the British Museum.
Partnerships in development The project will develop partnerships between a number of academic institutions, national and local archives and local communities.
