Sesion 16

Minorities in a Christian Society:

Jews
1. Jews in Christian Iberia

2. Muslims in Christian Iberia

1. Jews in Christian Iberia
Jews in Christian Iberia

always a minority in all Christian kingdoms of Iberia

– by 1300 a total number of Jews of circa 150.000 Jews in Christian

Iberia. By 1490 circa 250.000. Always less than 5% of the total
population

– after all: Iberia was the land in Western Europe with the largest
Jewish population
Jews in Christian Iberia call and judería

Jews were a essentially an urban population

sectors of towns called call in Catalan speaking Iberia (call of

Barcelona) and judería (judería of Toledo) in Castilian speaking
Iberia

the call had its particular urban topography: the ritual bath (mikvah), the
Jewish market place, the synagogue (scola de jueus), the hospital
(espital dels jueus)
Jews in Christian Iberia

the largest and most important Jewish communities

– Crown of Aragon
Saragossa, Barcelona, Girona, Perpinyà, Valencia, Mallorca…

– Crown of Castile
Toledo, Burgos, Segovia, Sevilla, Cordoba…

– Crown of Navarre
Tudela, Pamplona…

– Crown of Portugal
Coimbra, Braga, Lisbon…
the aljamas and juderías

Jews in Christian Iberia had the right to govern themselves

– they constituted communities

• which relied on special privileges (furs and fueros), privileges granted

by the Christian authorities

• which applied the general Jewish laws (halakha) and the particular
communal ordinances (taqqanot)

– these communities were called aljamas in the Crown of Aragon

(aljama of Barcelona) and juderías (judería of Toledo) in the the
Crown of Castile
the aljama secular self-government

the process of selecting local leaders varied

– in smaller communities, all male members of the community

elected their heads

– in larger communities, electors (borerim) were chosen in

accordance with various rules

the sense: to provide representation to all strata of society and prevent

the undue influence of certain families
the aljama secular self-government

the example of the Jewish aljama of Barcelona in the 14th

century: the aljama chose

– a consell (concilium)

thirty men, ten from each of the three classes into which was divided the
aljama: the great one (ma major), the class of the middle (ma
mitjana) and the class of the small (ma minor); the criterion being the
amount of taxes paid by the members of each class. These thirty
members chose

– the secretaris (secretarii)

seven members: they were the executive body of the community

themitjana
ma secular self-government of the aljama of Barcelona
aljama
secretaris
menor
major
in the 14th century
the aljama secular self-government

the tasks of the secular self-government

– they were responsible to apply law in the community

– they were responsible for protection

– they were responsible for the taxes paid by Jews to the king and the
community
accounts of
Jucef Zabara
presented in
1443 to those
responsible of
the yearly tax
assessment
in the aljama
of Girona
the aljama the rabbi

the responsible for the religious self-government of the aljama:

the rabbi

– the rabbi was a doctor, a man who knew about Jewish ritual,
tradition and laws, a religious guide of the aljama

– the rabbi was a judge (dayyan), he presided a local court, where

disputes over issues of Jewish religious law were settled
fragment of a book
containing Selichot
prayers: prayers for
forgiveness and the
special service of
penitence held at
midnight on the
Saturday night before
Rosh Hashanah (Jewish
New Year celebration in
the fall of the year, the
month of Tishri)

the fragment includes the

beginning of a poem by
Judah Halevi, included in
collections of Jewish
religious hymns after 1391
the king's treasure

the Crown claimed ultimate jurisdiction (supreme judge) over

every Jew living in the lands under its rule. Jews had the right
of direct appeal to the Crown for redress of grievances

the royal jurisdiction over Jews was stressed against the competing
claims of noble, ecclesiastical or municipal authorities.

the king assumed to be the protector of the Jews of his kingdom

the king's treasure

the king used them for its own purposes; for the king the use of
Jews had particular advantages

– Jews were very well trained servants with a high technical

competence

– Jews were docile and they depended on the favor of the king, on
his protection against the attacks of Christian fanatics
serving the Crown administrators and financers

the king used Jews and

– Jews served as administrators and financers: loans granted on

fiscal incomes; Jews collected and farmed taxes; Jews acted as
treasurers of the king

– Jews served the king as diplomats, physicians, as translators (of

Arabic scholars) and as scholars
the Jews of the kingdom
of Mallorca acquired great
fame as cartographers:
portolan charts (practical
aids to navigation, which
gave information about
coastlines, ports, and
distances) and (scientific)
world maps
one of these
cartographers:
Abraham
Cresques, died
1387, in Palma de
Mallorca
Abraham made
several world maps
for the kings Pere
IV and Joan I of
the Crown of
Aragon
his son Jafuda Cresques (died
1410), continued the work of his
father
Abraham's most famous world map is a map known as Catalan world
map of 1375
4. The better Jews
the Jewish elite

the Jewish self-government was to a large amount

controlled by the elite of the community

– the great families

– the rich families

– the wise families

the Jewish elite

the great families

they controlled the aljama and they participated in every generation

in the secular and religious govern of the aljama

the rich families

those who had made their wealth trading and banking (lending
money)
the Jewish elite

the wise families

they were learned in sciences and arts; they read the Arabic and
Jewish scholars; they knew Arabic; they assimilated Aristotelism
(Maimonides); they were patrons and promoters of arts and
sciences

young Jews of the elite studied the religious curriculum, but also the
ulum al-awail of the Arabs and the adab of the Jews, they learned the
particular Sephardic curriculum created in Muslim Iberia and
assimilated by Jews in Christian Iberia in the 12th century
text in Arabic but using Hebrew
alphabet. Probably produced
in Muslim Iberia in the 13th
or 14th century

it is a fragment of a treaty on
medicine written by the
Syriac Ishaq ibn Hunayn
(died 910), son of Hunayn
ibn Ishaq. The fragment is
preserved in an archive of
Girona
the Jewish elite

the Jewish elite in Christian Iberia had a distinctive group ethos:

they were nesiim

– they were better Jews: they financed charitable foundations (funds

for the schools) and public works (construction of a new
synagogue, buying of new Torah-scrolls)

– they were different Jews, with particular ways of behavior

they lead a life similar to the Christian elite, except in religious matters:
poets ate at their table and praised their virtues, teachers educated
their sons, they held the title don, they had intercourse with
Christians, they played games and mounted horses
aChristian
learned
Jewish culture
Jewish
Arabic
Jewish
cultureculture
elite
ChristianMuslim
Iberia Iberia