Coping with Crises: Christian-Jewish Relations in Catalonia and Aragon, 1380-1391 (original) (raw)
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Anti-Jewish Riots in the Crown of Aragon and the Royal Response, 1391–1392
2016
The most devastating attacks against the Jews of medieval Christian Europe took place during the riots that erupted, in 1391 and 1392, in the lands of Castile and Aragon. For ten horrific months, hundreds if not thousands of Jews were killed, numerous Jewish institutions destroyed, and many Jews forcibly converted to Christianity. Benjamin Gampel explores why the famed convivencia of medieval Iberian society - in which Christians, Muslims and Jews seemingly lived together in relative harmony - was conspicuously absent. Using extensive archival evidence, this critical volume explores the social, religious, political, and economic tensions at play in each affected town. The relationships, biographies and personal dispositions of the royal family are explored to understand why monarchic authority failed to protect the Jews during these violent months. Gampel's extensive study is essential for scholars and graduate students of medieval Iberian and Jewish history.
2018
This dissertation traces the course of Jewish history in the kingdom of Castile from the late-thirteenth century to the Toledo riots of 1449. It shows that the security afforded to Jews through their protection by the Crown, and the high-office gained by Jewish royal administrators and tax-farmers, permitted a crossing of cultural boundaries by Jews, Tax records and the economic status of Christians, Muslims and Jews in Castile ………………………………………..94 Royal revenue from Jewish debt: 'Las Entregas de los Judíos' ……………………………………….107 Conclusion …………………………………………………………109 4. Social Pressures and the Portrayal of Jews in the Fourteenth Century …………………………………………………………………... 111 Together or apart: Jews dwelling among Christians ……………… 112 Desolation, plague and revolt ……………………………………...117 A changing rhetoric: Jews in the Marian literature ………………..124 The representation of the Jew as agent in the conflict between Pedro and Enrique Trastámara …………………………..133 Pedro, the 'Jewish' king ……………………………………. 134 The French and the English in Castile ………………………..139 The desertion of Blanca, a Jewish 'privado' and accusations of magic and fraud ………………………………………….
Coexistence in Medieval Spain: Jews, Christians, and Muslims MOOC
About this course on www.coursera.org: This course explores Jewish, Christian, and Muslim intercultural relations in Iberia from the Visigothic era (6th century CE) until the creation of Queen Isabel I and King Ferdinand II Catholic Spain (late 15th century). We evaluate the many identities of the peninsula known as Christian Hispania, Jewish Sefarad, and Islamic al-Andalus. We trace the origins and trajectory of conflict between these communities (the Muslim conquest of Spain, Christian Reconquista, prohibitions blocking intermixing of peoples, and expulsions). We aim to understand conflicts within communities as well, such as the tensions between Christian Arian Visigoths and native Catholic Iberians or the fundamentalist North African Almohad Dynasty that rejected the Spanish Umayyad Caliphate’s preference for religious tolerance. We delve into an appreciation of collaboration and coexistence among these communities. We explore the unique role of the Jewish community who Muslims and Christians depended upon as political and cultural intermediaries as well as their intellectual collaborators. We find the history of how peoples attempted to create and manage viable diverse communities. As we study this history, the Honors Track will employ an investigative process (“The Historian’s Craft”) that involves viewing, reading, analyzing, and reflecting on events, peoples, places, and artifacts. Enrollment and offerings: Initially offered December 2017 and now continuously enrolling on a bi-monthly basis at https://www.coursera.org/learn/coexistence-in-medieval-spain
A systematic reappraisal of fifteenth century Jewish and Christian convivencia, or coexistence, is long overdue because within it resides a hidden history of cooperation among Old Christians, conversos, and Jews. Utilizing a historiographical lens to evaluate interfaith relations in several Castilian and Aragonese communities, one finds a broader range of communal outcomes than is traditionally acknowledged. New findings pertaining to the cohesive collaboration and intertwined relations of Jews, conversos, and Old Christians in the Extremaduran city of Plasencia refute the long-held assumption that Jews and Christians were routinely segregated from one another and corrects the misguided belief that the converso Santa María family persecuted former co-religionists. This study reveals the previously unknown strategic partnership of the converso Santa María and Old Christian Carvajal family in Plasencia and it's role in maintaining medieval norms of interreligious cooperation.
Study and edition of a letter written in rhymed prose contained in the epistolographic formulary by Yom Tov Ben annah, scribe to the Jewish community of Montalbán, in the Kingdom of Aragon. Written a few years after 1391 by the scribe on behalf of the local aljama, the letter was sent to the trustees of the Jewish community of Daroca, and its purpose was to collect money from Yosef Caro, a Jewish smith who had fled from Montalbán to there, following a dispute with another elderly smith who was an apostate. A reading of the Hebrew text shows that the conflict goes beyond a simple dispute between crafts-men, and involves a clash between Jews and their former brethren. This new phenomenon of mass conversion is also corroborated by a Hebrew poem of the Montalbán's Jewish scribe that is edited and translated in addition. The analysis of the text reflects the tension between Jews and converts in the aftermath of the 1391 riots.