Converting the faithful: Dominican mission in the medieval crown of Aragon (ca. 1220--1320)

The thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries mark a turning point in the history of relations between Muslims, Christians and Jews living in the Iberian peninsula and its environs. As the so-called wars of reconquista brought practically all of Muslim al-Andalus under the rule of Christian kings, demographic realities and power structures defining these relationships were irrevokably altered. Christians in medieval Spain faced an unprecedented opportunity to dictate terms to large subject populations of Muslims, a situation which also threatened to throw the status of the peninsula's long-established Jewish communities into flux. Internationally, too, Christian trade and diplomacy became increasingly influential in the Islamic lands of the western Mediterranean basin.;The present dissertation examines one of the most fundamental aspects of inter-religious conflict and coexistence during the reconquista period: the struggle over religious identity itself. Specifically, it explores the ways in which members of the newly-constituted Dominican Order of friars Preacher acted as promoters of a strictly orthodox Latin Christian religious identity and praxis in the region. Traditionally, these friars' alleged "missionary" role (seeking to secure individual and mass conversions to Christianity) has been emphasized, under the assumption that Spanish religious and secular elites saw reconquest as a prelude to conversion and the creation of a unified Christian polity.;In contrast, this dissertation argues that the Dominican Order did not undertake serious proselytizing efforts aimed at securing conversions of Muslims or Jews, either in the medieval Crown of Aragon itself or in neighboring territories. The friars instead conceived of their evangelical mission in broader terms, as a project of working toward the conversion of all sinners to a salvific regime of penitence and participation in the sacraments. Pastoral duties among Christians were emphasized above all, and these included the establishment and enforcement of religious boundaries between Christians and non-Christians. The Dominicans committed themselves to maintaining such barriers by means of inquisitorial prosecutions, by making occasional theological attacks on non-Christian beliefs for the benefit of Christian audiences, and by bringing the sacraments to those Christians whose daily contacts with Islamic society were seen to place them at special risk.