Hernando de Talavera

Hernando de Talavera (Talavera de la Reina, Spain, 1428 - Granada, Spain, 14 May 1507), was a Spanish monk of the Order of Saint Jerome of converso origins.

Around 1458, Hernando de Talavera graduated in Theology from Salamanca University, becoming a Prior of the Monastery of Prado, near Valladolid, Royal Confessor of the ruling Queen Isabel I of Castile (1452–1504). Hernando de Talavera was also a financial Administrator of Salamanca Bishopric, (1483–1485), the Bishop of Avila, (1485–1492), and Archbishop of Granada, (1493–1507) the last conquered Moor Kingdom of Granada.

According to the accusations raised against him by the Spanish Inquisition, Hernando de Talavera was the son of the Lord of Oropesa, province of Toledo, related to Great Master of the Military Order of Santiago, and the bastard son born out of a Jewish mother fathered by King Alfonso XI of Castile.

Therefore Hernando de Talavera might have been the son of Don Garcia, Lord of Talavera de la Reina, born around 1370 and deceased after 1429 and with Royal hebraic blood, or might have been the son of Don Garcia, Fernando, born around 1390, who would have had a relationship with an Hebraic woman from Oropesa, near Talavera de la Reina and would have even been promoted to 1st Count of Oropesa after around 1475 by Queen Isabel I of Castile.

In other words, the Archbishop and Royal Confessor amount of Hebraic genes would be more or less depending on who was the father, either Don Garcia, Lord of Oropesa or Don Fernando, son of Don Garcia later promoted to first Count of Oropesa by the Queen of Castile, according to slanderous documents sent by the Spanish Inquisition to Rome to be revised by Popes from the famous della Rovere family.

There are other "Alvarez de Toledo" families, related to the actual Duchess of Alba however who seem to escape such amount of "family genes" slander brought about at the time concerning Archbishop Don Hernando de Talavera, a.k.a. Hernando de Oropesa.

Apparently, either in newly conquered Granada, as in Seville the other heavily populated Moor and Jewish Conversos city for over two centuries, he was not keen about "miraculous" conversions of thousands to Christianity, men and women, but he was rather a believer in allowing the passing of time whilst reinforcing the "reasoned" preaching and appropriate schooling of children, a line strongly disapproved by the established Inquisitors and many of the new Lords of the new conquered lands, hence the suspicions on his background and in his perceived attachment to his alleged ancestors.

There was also Cardinal Francisco Jimenez de Cisneros, (1436–1517), as interested as Archbishop de Talavera on achieving quick and miraculous results from the losers leading to the disintegration and conquest of the last Moor Kingdom of Granada.

By 1499, Cisneros forced conversions breaching the Royal truce agreements on respecting the beliefs of the submitted non-Christian peoples, mainly traders and agricultural farmers, constituting an armed opposition quickly militarly crushed down again and again.

It was famous and conflicting Diego Rodriguez Lucero, Inquisitor at Cordoba, continuously brought to contention by Archbishop Hernando who sent orders of prison and/with genealogical enquiries on Don Hernando ancestors in 1505, one year after Queen Isabel I died, to Rome, but Pope Julius II della Rovere, (1443 - Pope 1503 - 1513), ordered the release and the stopping of harassments to the Archbishop Hernando family in 1507, just the same year when this energetic religious man died, but which has criticized the Queen Regnant Isabel I of Castile, deceased 1504, and her husband the Regnant King Fernando II of Aragon, deceased 1516, when the Treaty of Granada, 1493, had been signed with the French Crown.

References

• Fernández de Madrid, A ; Martínez Medina, Fco J. ; Olmedo, Félix G. "Vida de Fray Fernando de Talavera: primer Arzobispo de Granada". [Granada]: Universidad de Granada, 1992

• Fradejas Lebrero, J. “Bibliografía crítica de fray Hernando de Talavera”. En: Pensamiento medieval hispano: homenaje a Horacio Santiago-Otero / coord. por Jose María Soto Rábanos, v. 2, 1998, pp. 1347–1358.

• Herrero del Collado, T. “El proceso inquisitorial por delito de herejía contra Hernando de Talavera”. En: Anuario de historia del derecho español, núm. 39, 1969, pp. 671–706

• Iannuzzi, I. “La biografía del reformista fray Hernando de Talavera en tiempos de Carlos V”. En: Carlos V europeísmo y universalidad: [congreso internacional,Granada mayo 2000] / coord. por Francisco Sánchez-Montes González, Juan Luis Castellano Castellano, v. 5, 2001, pp. 315–328

• Kamen, Henry, (1965), The Spanish Inquisition, (London: White Lion Press) ISBN 978-0-300-07880-0