Overview
The anti-Jewish violence that began in 1391 devastated communities across Castile and the Crown of Aragon. Killings, forced baptisms, flight, property loss, and the destruction of synagogues transformed Iberian Jewish society long before the expulsions of the 1490s. Royal responses varied and often failed to reverse the consequences. Large numbers of converts and their descendants entered Christian society, creating the New Christian population later targeted by statutes of purity and inquisitorial investigation. The violence must therefore be understood not as an isolated riot but as a major turning point in Sephardic history.
