Which pope approved a blood-purity statute for the Hieronymites in 1496?

Pope Alexander VI approved a blood-purity statute for the Hieronymites in 1496.

The statute belonged to the expanding system of limpieza de sangre, or “purity of blood,” rules. These regulations demanded proof that applicants descended from Christians without recent Jewish or Muslim ancestry. Although framed in religious terms, they created hereditary discrimination against conversos and their descendants.

The Hieronymites, formally the Order of Saint Jerome, were among the religious institutions that adopted such restrictions in late-fifteenth-century Spain. The date can be confused with earlier or later measures: the Spanish Inquisition itself was authorized by Pope Sixtus IV in 1478, while other religious orders adopted their own statutes at different times.

Alexander VI’s approval did not mean that he created the entire blood-purity system. Colleges, cathedral chapters, religious orders, and civic bodies often adopted separate statutes. The policy later spread widely and remained influential for centuries, even as church and royal authorities sometimes criticized its severity.