Note 50 — Chapter VI · THE NEW-CHRISTIANS

In “Claros Varones de España,” Pulgar says that even in the veins of her sometime confessor, Frey Juan de Torquemada, Cardinal of San Sisto, there was a strain of Jewish blood. But the authority is insufficient, and Pulgar, himself a New-Christian, is perhaps anxious to include as many illustrious men of his day as possible in the New-Christian ranks. Zurita, on the other hand, says that the Cardinal’s nephew, Fr. Thomas de Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor, was of “clean blood”—de limpia linaje (lib. xx. cap. xlix.). The term “clean” in this connection arose out of the popular conception that the blood of a Jew was a dark-hued fluid, distinguishable from the bright red blood of the Christian.