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From: William Addams Reitwiesner< >
Subject: Re: Jewish Grandmother of Ferdinand?
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 1998 02:04:30 GMT


wrote:

>Does anyone have any information on this grandmother of King Ferdinand?
>(I received this on another List, but want to know)
>Francesca Sutton
>
>From: (COL HARRY E STEIN)
>I am aware of two sephardic families in Spain that are related to the
>Kings of Judah and Israel. There may be more of course. The family
>names are ABRAVANEL and IBN YAHYA. (There are spelling variations to
>both names) I research the family ABRAVANEL. I have found reference
>to two ABRAVANEL sons marrying into Spanish royalty around 1391.
>Unfortunately, I cannot identify the names of the young men, nor
>their brides. The grandmother of King Ferdinand was reportedly
>Jewish. He had her dug up and the body burned.

It's not his grandmother, and he didn't dig her up. Sheesh.

Here's the descent:

Alfonso XI, King of Castile (1311-1350) = Leonor de Guzman (1310-1351)
Fadrique de Castilla (1333/4-1358) = NN
Alonso Enriquez, 1. Admiral of Castile (c1354-1429) m. Juana de Mendoza
Fadrique Enriquez, 2. Admiral of Castile (-1473) m. Marina de Ayala
Juana Enriquez (c1425-1468) m. 1447 Juan II King of Aragon (1397-1479)
Ferdinand II King of Aragon (1452-1516)

The Jewish woman was the mistress of Fadrique and mother of Alonso. For a
fairly complete examination, see Florentino Perez Embid, *El Almirantazgo
de Castilla hasta las Capitulaciones de Santa Fe*, note 430 on pages 142
and 143, though Perez Embid misses the version of the story given by Rabbi
Eliyahu ben Elqana Capsali (c1490-c1555) in his *Seder Eliyahu Zuta*,
recently re-published by the Hebrew University, Jerusalem (1975). See
chapter 58 in volume I, pp. 182-184.

As neither of these sources are easy to find, and Capsali is in Hebrew,
more accessible versions were published twice by Szabolcs de Vajay, once in
"Die Ahnen der Dona Leonor Alvarez de Toledo, Grossfuerstin von Toskana",
*Genealogisches Jahrbuch*, Band 8 (1968), at nr. 73 on p. 13, and again in
"Dona Margarita de Cardona, Mutter des ersten Fuersten von Dietrichstein",
*Jahrbuch der Heraldisch-Genealogischen Gesellschaft "Adler"*, Dritte
Folge, Band 7 (1970), at nr. 41 (and note 87) on p. 144.

And there's always *Europaeische Stammtafeln*, ed. Schwennicke, Band III,
Teilband 3, Tafel 532b, where Alonso Enriquez (Ferdinand's great-
grandfather, see above) is described as a son of Fadrique "aus der
Verbindung mit einem judischen Madchen gt La Paloma (die Taube)".

If you let me know which list your question originally appeared on, I can
post this answer there also.

William Addams Reitwiesner


"Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc."

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