Which Archbishop of Seville helped convince Isabella that crypto-Judaism existed in Andalusia?

Pedro González de Mendoza, Archbishop of Seville, helped convince Isabella that crypto-Judaism existed in Andalusia.

The wording compresses two connected roles. During the Catholic Monarchs’ stay in Seville in 1477–1478, the Dominican Alonso de Hojeda raised the alarm about Andalusian conversos who were allegedly continuing Jewish practices in secret. At the monarchs’ request, Mendoza and the Dominican Tomás de Torquemada produced a report that corroborated the allegation.

Mendoza was Archbishop of Seville from 1474 to 1482 and was one of Isabella’s most influential advisers. His report gave the royal court an ecclesiastical endorsement of the claim that some converts—often called conversos or crypto-Jews—had not sincerely abandoned Judaism. The episode helped create the political momentum for a new tribunal.

Pope Sixtus IV issued the authorizing bull in 1478, allowing Ferdinand and Isabella to appoint inquisitors in Castile. The first inquisitors, Miguel de Morillo and Juan de San Martín, were appointed in 1480. Alonso de Fonseca and the later archbishops Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros and Hernando de Talavera were associated with other ecclesiastical offices or periods, not this initial report.