1658. Carta de Francisco Rodríguez Deva para Bernardo López Portelo, lencero y comerciante.

Letter from Francisco Rodríguez Deva to Bernardo López Portelo, a draper and a trader.

The author writes to Bernardo López Portelo begging alms, given he has lost his job and he can not fulfil his family necessities.

Bernardo López Portelo (also just Bernardo Portelo in some letters), was a draper and a trader resident in Madrid and native to Portugal who was accused of judaizer in 1661. Among other offences, he was accused of being an abettor of a judaizers network by means of different alms that he was giving to some people reconciled with the Holy Office of Toledo, Valladolid and Cuenca. A witness stated that they first suspected him when they saw many superscripts that belonged to the Jews from Bayonne with his name on it (fol.41). The letters provided as exhibit to the trial together with the rest of the documents were seized from the defendant´s house: most of them were alms petitions. On the verso there is a note signed by the inquisitor Juan Baptista de Lemos certifying he found that document in the defendant´s house seizure. Eventually, the defendant was condemned to exile and to the payment of 200 ducats.