Serrano de Vargas’s Chapbook in the Time of Philip IV’s Biopolitics: Sounding the Alarm against Foreigners in 1620s Spain

Abstract: By 1623, Philip IV had enacted biopolitical measures to solve the apparent population decline in Spain, including policies to attract Christian immigrants. In response, the chapbook Relación del sacrílego delito presents rhetorical devices to stoke apprehension about immigration and the spread of heresy in Spain. Moreover, the chapbook’s printer, Serrano de Vargas, pursued an antiimmigrant agenda himself, and thus could have used the broadsheet to express his own prejudices against foreigners. As a result, the 1624 chapbook should not be viewed only as religious propaganda, but also as a reaction against the arrival of foreigners stimulated by the Monarchy’s policies.