Many Conversos, (Marranos and Moriscos) and Sephardi Jews fled to the Ottoman provinces, settling at first in Constantinople, Salonika, Sarajevo, Sofia and Anatolia.
A large number of Anusim (see: Conversos) and Crypto-Jews are said to live in the city, dating back to the 16th and 17th centuries, although most of the town is Catholic.
While pure blood (so-called limpieza de sangre) would come to be placed at a premium, particularly among the nobility, in a 15th-century defense of conversos, Bishop Lope de Barrientos would list what Roth calls "a veritable 'Who's Who' of Spanish nobility" as having converso members or being of converso descent.