Toledo: Memorial to a Might-Have-Been Spain
During an uncharacteristically-warm winter weekend in January I took a trip to Toledo in the heart of Spain. Yes, the same city that Toledo, Ohio, is named after (although in Spain it’s pronounced “toe-LAY-doe” [toˈle.ðo]). So what is Toledo all “about”? For me personally, it was almost like a peek into a pre-1492 Spain where Christians lived alongside Jews and Muslims. High on victory after completing the Reconquista that won “back” the peninsula from the Moors in 1492, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella basically ordered everyone to convert to Catholicism…or get out. Many non-Christians chose the latter option, and within a hundred years Spain was one of the most Catholic countries anywhere. Toledo These actions weren’t without precedent in European history (England, for example, expelled its Jews in 1290) and weren’t the last act of intolerance, either, but they put the nation that would become Spain on a very clear mono-cultural path, rather than the mix of cultures that ha...