Spanish Historiography on the Question of Race, 1940s-2010: How Have Historians Approached Purity of Blood?

Abstract

The concept of "purity of blood" in fifteenth and sixteenth century Iberia is one that has given rise to many historical interpretations throughout the decades. The way that race is conceptualized and understood by both the historians who interpret it, and by the society in which in functioned, has shaped the way in which modern historians have approached the study of race. Three significant contributions to the understanding of the idea of race within the Iberian Peninsula of the late medieval and early modern periods are those of Américo Castro, Henry Kamen and David Nirenberg. Each historian approaches race in a fundamentally distinct manner. While historians construct new ideas and ways of understanding the Iberian concept of limpieza de sangre (purity of blood) and race itself - in the past, it is evident that they wrestle with difficulties that are by no means unique, for scholarship continues to strive to add something new to the problem of classifying and identifying human groups, as is our sociological tendency.