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Alonzo de Cartagena

The 1901 Jewish Encyclopedia

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Marano; born in Burgos, Spain, in 1385. Alonzo, together with his father, Salomon ha-Levi, or PAUL DE BURGOS, and his brothers and sisters, was baptized in 1391. Having devoted himself to the study of philosophy and the Law, while yet young he became deacon of Santiago and Segovia. Owing to his erudition and adroitness he exerted great influence at the Castilian court, whence he was sent to Lisbon to negotiate peace between the kings of Castile and Portugal. Alvaro de Luna sent him, with Gonzalo Garcia de S. Maria, his brother, to represent Spain at the Council of Basel. Alonzo, who upon the death of his father received the episcopal see of Burgos, inherited also his father's hatred for the Jews. To his influence may be ascribed the malevolent decrees of the Basel Council, especially the bull, so hostile to the Jews, which Pope Eugenius IV., till then a most mild ecclesiastic, issued on August 8, 1442, to the bishops of Castile and Leon, by virtue of which all Christians were prohibited from intercourse with the Jews, and the latter were stripped of all their civil rights, and debarred from holding any public office. Alvaro de Luna, a man very friendly to the Jews, did all in his power to prevent the publication of the bull, and succeeded in winning the king over to a humane treatment of the Jews. This caused Alonzo to become the most violent opponent of Alvaro de Luna. De Luna was ultimately discharged from office, and subsequently assassinated. Alonzo, called "the joy of the Spaniard and the delight of religion," published several philosophical and theological works, as well as some erotic poems.