New Christian (Spanish: Cristiano Nuevo; Portuguese: Cristão-Novo; Catalan: Cristià Nou) was a socio-religious designation and legal distinction in the Spanish Empire and the Portuguese Empire from the 15th century onwards used to describe primarily the descendants of Sephardic Jews and Moors who were baptised into the Catholic Church, following the Edict of Expulsion that required them to convert or be expelled under the Catholic Monarchs on the completion of the Reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula. Most of the history of the "New Christians" refers to the Jewish converts, who were generally known as Conversos (or in a more derogatory fashion Marranos), while the Muslim converts were known as Moriscos.