1666. Carta de Salamanca para Miguel Ramírez.

Letter from Salamanca to Miguel Ramírez.

Salamanca (a pseudonym of an unknown author) asks Miguel Ramírez to find a certain notary who made some important deeds.

Melchor Méndez de los Ríos, alias Mardoqueo, was a Portuguese citizen resident in Madrid. He was accused of being a judaizer by his son, Joseph de los Ríos y Aguilera, a Portuguese citizen resident in Ampudia and an administrator of the 'millones' tax. Melchor declared to be a practicing Jewish, and asked for forgiveness. He declared to have started practising Judaism when he had travelled to Amsterdam for his job as a merchant, were he came into contact with judaizers' circles and was given the name of Mardoqueo. He had come back to Spain in 1653. These letters were found in his bedroom, some of them hidden in the covers of other letters. During the process, various pseudonyms used by the accused were discovered in his correspondence. In the letters, an encoded language was sometimes used to refer to facts or people. All the accusations made against Melchor Méndez were based on these letters and on the supposed network of judaizers the letters seem to refer to. Eventually, the accused was declared guilty as a Jewish and sentenced to excommunication, to the seizing of all his properties, to a penance and to exile.