ENCYCLOPAEDIA of Rebellions

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Anti-Jewish riots in Lisbon 1506

Synopsis
On Sunday 19 April, a week after Easter 1506, in a dangerous context of drought and plague in Lisbon, reports spread of a miracle that had taken place in the local Dominican church. When a New Christian questioned its reality, he was dragged out of the church, lynched by the crowd and his body torn to pieces and burnt. This was the starting point of the massacre. Excited by Dominican friars, the rioters were partly reacting to the discovery, three days earlier, of a group of New Christians practicing rites of the Jewish Passover, but also to the economic and political prominence that those who until 1497 had been Jews were achieving in a way that was impossible to imagine before the conversion. To make matters worse the court was away from Lisbon because of the plague. Three days of massacres followed, in which New Christians were hunted down in the streets and inside their homes. Two large bonfires were lit by the crowd, one in front of São Domingos and the other in Terreiro do Paço, where the dead or still living New Christians were thrown. Between 1,000 and 4,000 men, women and children were murdered, including the tax collector João Rodrigues Mascarenhas. Houses and property were plundered. On 24 April, King Manuel, on hearing of what had happened, sent reinforcements to Lisbon, after which the instigating friars and others directly involved were punished with death sentences and confiscation, and the city of Lisbon itself with a change in its privileges.
Additional info

Starting date: . Ending: . Duration: 3 days. Name in sources: Motim, matança, massacre. Location: Lisbon Country (current): Portugal. Monarchy: Portuguese. Main participants: Clergymen, Undifferentiated. Number of participants: >500. Main reasons & motivations: Others, Political, Religion. Leadership: Dominican friars. Relevance: high.

Further reading
MATEUS, Susana Bastos; PINTO, Paulo Mendes (2007). Lisboa, 19 de abril de 1506: o massacre dos judeus. Lisboa: Alétheia. VOSS, Rita Ribeiro (2017). “O massacre de Lisboa de 1506 e o discurso de ódio antijudaico”. Revista de História das Ideias, 35, 305-333. YERUSHALMI, Yosef Haim (1976). The Lisbon Massacre of 1506 and the royal image in the “Shebet Yehudah”. Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Annual Supplement, nr 1.
Cite this entry

(2023) "Anti-Jewish riots in Lisbon 1506", in J. V. Serrão and M. S. Cunha (coord), Rebellions in the Early Modern Iberian World. (accessed on ).