The proposition that it was primarily the economic downturn and the social instability of the fourteenth century that precipitated violence against the Jewish communities of Castile can be contested from the evidence of the historical record. There was hunger and disease in the first half of the century and escalating social discontent directed particularly at elements of the governing municipalities.2 Yet although Jews were targeted on a few occasions these sporadic outbursts figure little in the record in comparison to widespread and violent confrontations with local officials.
Demonstrating the absence of an event is always more challenging than documenting its presence. It is nevertheless possible to surmise a general lack of violence directed against Jews, when uprisings by the populace are known to have occurred repeatedly in urban environments with a significant Jewish presence. There is evidence, already cited in the previous chapters, for the prominence of Jews in the Castilian economy at all levels, and as we have seen, this was unpopular with the nobility and with municipal and ecclesiastical representatives in the Cortes. Therefore, it is all the more remarkable that the antagonism found so little violent expression at the level of the gente menuda, the disenfranchised urban and rural classes.
A key to the co-existence of Jews with their Christian neighbours in a time of urban turmoil may be found in the pattern of settlement of the minority groups within the
2 María del Carmen Carlé, ‘Tensiones y revueltas’, pp. 325-356.
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towns as well as in the social factors responsible for the unrest. A study of urban demography reveals that, in some of the larger towns, Jews lived cheek by jowl with their Christian neighbours. Baer emphasised the extent to which Jews lived amongst Christians of the towns and cities, even where separate Jewish quarters existed.3 If there had been deep seated animosity, whether religious, cultural or economic, such closeness would either have been unlikely or, if it existed, would have increased opportunities for conflict. Both the physical proximity and the relative tranquillity prevailing between the two communities in Castile during the early part of the fourteenth century, accords with Elukin’s proposition that harmonious interactions between Christians and Jews in the medieval period were much more common than has generally been assumed.4
The best documented evidence for the living conditions of Jews, Christians and Muslims in a town of medium size, is provided by the town of Ávila. The becerro (census) of those living in church-owned property in the town was compiled by the town’s bell ringer and scribe, Pascual Sánchez, in 1306. Around fifty householders cited as Jews or possessing Jewish names appear in the register which provides remarkable detail of location, structure of the dwellings and in many cases the
occupations of the inhabitants and the rental paid.5 Not only did all three confessional groups live as neighbours, they sometimes shared the same court-yard (corral).
Laguzzi’s contention that the majority of the Jews had no profession other than money-lending is not supported by the documentation, which indicates that many of the occupations listed were common between communities.6
3 Baer, JCS, vol.1, p. 198.
4 Jonathan Elukin, Living Together, Living Apart: Rethinking Jewish-Christian Relations in the Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007). See pp. 1-10.
5 Pilar Laguzzi, Ávila a principios del siglo XIV and for the tax revenues of the aljama see chapter III, p.82.
6 Ibid., p. 150, and see Ruiz, ‘Judíos y Cristianos’, p. 75: Ruiz lists 18 occupations of Jews mentioned in the becerro.
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Figure 3. Town plan of Ávila with superimposed boundaries of the juderías in the 14th-15th centuries.7 Households: Jewish Muslim Christian synagogue The district of Santo Tomé was, according to León Tello, the ‘barrio de mayor
densidad de judíos’ until the early fourteenth century.8 In a road leading from the plaza lived the carpenter Martín Díaz who possessed a house with fine doors (con buenas puertas). His neighbours were the Christian physician Master Johan, Abrahem and Abdalla the painter:
The church houses in which lives Martín Lopez Carpenter, and behind are the houses belonging to the archdeacon Martín Díaz where Master Juan the doctor lives…… At the plaza entrance on the other side, Abdalla, painter, and opposite is Master Juan… in that plaza live both Abrahem and Master Juan.9
7 The town plan is from León Tello, Judíos de Ávila, p. 189. Only households whose location is clear from the becerro are superimposed.
8 Ibid.
9 Becerro de la cathedral de Ávila, A.H.N. secc. cód. 879, fols. 93-121vo, p. 151, para: 2, 4, 5, in Pilar Laguzzi, Ávila a principios del siglo XIV: ‘Et las casas de la eglesia en que mora Martin Lopez Carpentero et a las espaldas las casas que tiene Martin Diaz (el arcidiano) en que morava Maestre Iohan físico ….
Yuradero
Santo Tomé Rua de los zapateros
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Further on towards the centre of town on calle del Lomo lived the wife of Acenar Ximeno, a Christian, close by the houses of the Jew Yuçaf Davila. So close by, in fact, that water from the Jew’s roof inundated Acenar’s house:
At the end of calle del Lomo…. on the left side, the house owned by Acenar Ximeno’s wife, touching the houses of Yuçaf Davila….water falls on it from Yuçaf Davila’s roof and it should not.10
It seems that Acenar Ximeno himself shared a courtyard with a Jew and also the wife (or widow) of the presumably Christian Santius Munnoz:
The yard of Acenar Ximeno and Yaco and of the the wife, that was, of Santius Munnoz. 11
Two cobblers, one Jewish and one Christian, worked side by side and the Christian also owned the upper floor (attic) of both houses. Their immediate neighbour was a Christian:
Then there is the cobbler shop of Samuel where he lives, next to cobbler Roman Perez, adjacent to the houses that were those of Domingo
Nunnez. Roman Perez owns the attic of both shops.12
The Yuradero district lay just outside the walls of the town (Figure 3). It was home to a number of Jews: three blacksmiths (ferreros), a seamstress (que affila los pannos), and a milliner (chipelero).13 However, Haziz the locksmith (cerrageo) was probably a Muslim and the houses of Christians, Gonçalo Gonçalez and Vidalez el Luengo, were also there. The Christian tenants, like some others, suffered from inundation (cahe el agua en esta casa y a de aver canal poro oyya fuera).14 There was a single Jewish
A la puerta la dicha plaza et de la otra parte Abdalla el pintor et de la otra las do morava maestre Iohan
…….. La dicha plaça et la casa do mora Abrahem et las dichas de maestre Iohan.’
10 Ibid., p. 159, paras: 41, 42: ‘En somo desta calle del Lomo…a man siniestra la casa que tiene la mujer de Acenar Ximeno que esta arrimada a las casas de Yuçaf Davila …….. Sobresta casa cae el agua del tejado de Yuçaf Davila et non debe y caer.’
11 Ibid., p. 167, para: 84: ‘El corral de Acenar Ximeno y Yaco y la mujer que fue de Santius Munnoz’.
Yaco is probably Yacobo, other Yacos are certainly referred to as Jews: Yaco zapatero (cobbler) and Yaco Merchan albardero (saddler), p. 159, para: 48, and p. 160, para: 50 respectively.
12 Ibid., p.170, para: 100: ‘Y luego la tienda en que mora Semuel çapatero con la otra cabera en que mora Roman Perez çapatero en linde de casas que fueron Domingo Nunnez …….. et el sobrado de amas tiendas tiene el dicho Roman Perez’.
13 León Tello, Judíos de Ávila, p. 9.
14 Becerro, p. 160, paras: 51, 52. ‘water falls from this house and it needs a channel to divert the overflow’.
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butcher close to the houses of Johan Nunnez, Sant Pedro and Yahuda Mucache. The synagogue and the rabbi’s house were nearby, also situated in the Yuradero.15 The 1306 census of Ávila provides a unique insight into the location and proximity of Jewish, Christian and Muslim inhabitants. There is an extensive literature on other juderías of Castile in the late Middle Ages, though none provide quite the detail available for Ávila. Seville, a much larger city, was second only to Toledo in the size of its Jewish population. It numbered perhaps more than 200 Jewish families at the time of the 1290 tax registers of Sancho IV, and up to 500 in 1391. Many of them lived, worshipped and conducted their businesses close to the Christian community and beyond their own quarter.16 A few wealthy families were awarded their own village in the post-reconquest repartimiento: it was situated just outside Seville at Paterna and was known as ‘Paterna de los Judíos’.17
Yet the situation of the Jewish artisan and of his household regarding their Christian neighbours in the fourteenth century was complex and non-uniform. It was dependent on factors such as geographical location, social status and the nature of the local economy. The situation of Jews in Ávila was different from that in Burgos where the majority of Jews live within the judería.18 Physical proximity of Jewish dwellings to Christian neighbours was not the case everywhere nor was there necessarily equality of commercial opportunity. A series of charters and confirmations from the small town of Belorado in the Rioja region of Old Castile shows what restrictions were placed on Jewish commerce there. In the reign of Fernando IV (1301), no Jew was allowed into the centre of town for the Monday market, though a later ordinance of Alfonso XI indicated the opposite, with a stern warning about practices of the Jews:
15 Ibid., p. 164, paras: 71, 72.
16 González Jimenez, ‘El fracaso’, p. 137; Antonio Collantes de Terán Sánchez, Sevilla en la Baja Edad Media: La ciudad y sus hombres (Sevilla: Sección de Publicaciones del Excmo. Ayuntamiento, 1984), pp. 87-93; Isabel Montes Romero-Camacho, 'Notas para el estudio de la judería Sevillana en la Baja Edad Media (1248-1391)', Historia instituciones y documentos (Sevilla: Universidad de Sevilla, 1983), pp. 251-277, n255.
17 Ibid., p. 257.
18 Ruiz, ‘Judíos y Cristianos’, pp.70, 74. Teofilo Ruiz, Crisis and Continuity: Land and Town in Late Medieval Castile, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994). p 277. Ruiz emphasises the extensive Jewish participation in artisanal activities, in a tows such as Ávila with an agricultural economy, compared with Burgos, dominated by a Christian mercantile class involved in long-distance trade and with a geographically distinct judería.
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That they neither deal with, nor trade with old Christians* since these Jews do many frauds and tricks …….. King Alfonso conceded to the town that the Jews should be separate and apart from the Christians and that they do not trade with them except each week on a Monday.19 So, although the pattern of Jewish habitation was not uniform throughout Castile at the beginning of the fourteenth-century, there is sufficient evidence to show that Jews commonly lived and worked outside the confines of a judería. The physical proximity to their Christian neighbours that this entailed must be borne in mind when considering the severe economic and social conditions and the rising discontent throughout the kingdom during the first half of the fourteenth-century.