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GEROLD NECKER

One of the most serious corrections in the history of biographical writing on Teresa of Ávila was the recognition of her Jewish roots and the background of a converso family, to which her paternal grandfather Juan Sánchez obviously belonged.1 The antecedents of Juan’s self-accusation before the Inquisition in 1485 are not entirely clear, neither when nor to what extent each member of the Sánchez family embraced the Christian faith or secretly remained loyal to Judaism. But the far-reaching consequences of what it meant to be born as a converso in sixteenth-century Spain have been thoroughly examined.2 In these times the ranking of the so-called limpieza de sangre (the notorious “purity of blood”) was even higher than titulos de hidalguía (titles of nobility). Teresa’s realistic concern for her brothers’ social setting may be telling in this regard, as was pointed out by Ulrich Dobhan; that she and her siblings used their mothers’ family name “Ahumada” instead of “Sánchez” and in particular her view of “regrett[ing] more having committed a venial sin than if she were a descendant of the vilest, lowest born peasants and converted Jews in the whole world.”3