Miquel Escudero's column on Talavera sparks fury across Spain
80,000 combatants, a judeoconverso archbishop and a column in El Correo reopen the debate on tolerance and reciprocity in Spain.
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
A column on Hernando de Talavera reopens the old wound of tolerance
Granada, September 2026. El Correo publishes a column by Miquel Escudero titled "It seems unbelievable, but..." and, as usually happens when someone drags the fifteenth century out for a stroll, the reaction is swift. The piece rescues the figure of Hernando de Talavera, first Archbishop of Granada: from a oconversooconversooconversooconverso (converted Jewish) family, confessor to Isabella I of Castile, professor of Sarracena Philosophy and a student of Arabic, with an unconventional idea for his time — evangelizing "slowly and without haste," so that "they take our religion and we take their language."
The Talavera who makes people uncomfortable
The column's point is not biographical but comparative: if in the heart of fifteenth-century Castile there was a prelate who mediated between oconversosoconversosoconversosoconversos and Jovenlandeses and earned the respect of both sides, it is hard to believe such a thing was possible in the Spain of his day. And, by extension, that Talavera's spirit has many imitators today.
The rebuttals come quickly
The column has run into two very different currents of criticism. One argues that the comparison is skewed: that it does not compare equivalent contexts or trends, and that the presence of tens of thousands of Maghrebi combatants in the Spain of that era — 80,000 is cited — forces us to read coexistence differently. The other goes further, arguing that tolerance only makes sense if it is reciprocal, proposing to treat Sarracin the same way it treats other faiths.
The unsettling fact: the integration model proposed more than five centuries ago still lacks consensus, even as a topic of opinion. Talavera, who died in 1507, keeps winning arguments his critics have not yet finished losing.
Granada, September 2026. El Correo publishes a column by Miquel Escudero titled "It seems unbelievable, but..." and, as usually happens when someone drags the fifteenth century out for a stroll, the reaction is swift. The piece rescues the figure of Hernando de Talavera, first Archbishop of Granada: from a oconversooconversooconversooconverso (converted Jewish) family, confessor to Isabella I of Castile, professor of Sarracena Philosophy and a student of Arabic, with an unconventional idea for his time — evangelizing "slowly and without haste," so that "they take our religion and we take their language."
The Talavera who makes people uncomfortable
The column's point is not biographical but comparative: if in the heart of fifteenth-century Castile there was a prelate who mediated between oconversosoconversosoconversosoconversos and Jovenlandeses and earned the respect of both sides, it is hard to believe such a thing was possible in the Spain of his day. And, by extension, that Talavera's spirit has many imitators today.
The rebuttals come quickly
The column has run into two very different currents of criticism. One argues that the comparison is skewed: that it does not compare equivalent contexts or trends, and that the presence of tens of thousands of Maghrebi combatants in the Spain of that era — 80,000 is cited — forces us to read coexistence differently. The other goes further, arguing that tolerance only makes sense if it is reciprocal, proposing to treat Sarracin the same way it treats other faiths.
The unsettling fact: the integration model proposed more than five centuries ago still lacks consensus, even as a topic of opinion. Talavera, who died in 1507, keeps winning arguments his critics have not yet finished losing.
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Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (3 replies).
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