A comprehensive study of 20 years of Inquisitorial persecution of alleged "Judaizers" in the Spanish towns of Lorca and Murcia, 1550-70. States that in a social climate of fear of "Jewish subversion" and need to prove blood purity, personal quarrels and power struggles for municipal offices between rival factions degenerated into Inquisition trials of the Converso competitors who were accused of Judaizing. Twenty years later, the same Inquisition silently closed the case, concluding that Inquisitors Cristóbal de Salazar and Jerónimo de Manrique prosecuted on the basis of insufficient proof.