The Hispanic biblical tradition

The undeniable richness of the Iberian biblical tradition is due to the interest of the church and the nobility in sacred texts, as well as to the linguistic variety of the Hispanic kingdoms and their vast possessions in Europe throughout the Middle Ages. The territory to be studied here thus includes the western lands of the crown of Castile – that is, the kingdoms of Leon and Galicia and, at one time, the Lusitanian lands recovered from Muslim domination – the kingdom of Navarre, with its solid ties to the French monarchy, and the lands of the Catalan–Aragonese crown, including its possessions in the south of France, which implies an important presence in the regions where the Albigensian and Waldensian heresies were forged and spread. Last, although it will not be treated in this chapter, is the kingdom of Portugal, where the Bible was also translated. Thus to speak of the Bible in the vernacular means to do so about a text that was circulated in Castilian, Galician, Aragonese or Riojan, Catalan, Occitan and Ladino (after the expulsion of the Jews), and in Latin and Arabic or Hebrew alphabets. It means also to speak of apocryphal and canonical texts, and texts for Christian and Jewish use, for liturgy or private piety, and even for reading and access to historical knowledge about the origins of humanity.

That is to say that Hispanic peoples of diverse languages and nations read, handled, adapted and translated the Bible: Christians, Jews, Albigensians, Waldensians or members of other sects that spread throughout Europe between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. Later, in the fifteenth century, when the expulsion of the Jews from the territories of the crowns of Castile and Aragon was completed, it was be the crypto-Jews who found in the vernacular texts a way to follow the religious practices of their elders.