The accepted other:
Tolerance towards the Jews in Middle Ages
Carlos
Barros
University
of Santiago of Compostela
The Latin term tolerantia,
which was used in the Middle Ages[1] in its ethimological
sense of suffering and patience, will later take on, specifically from the
Enlightenment onwards, a second, more positive meaning referred to the
otherness, where tolerance connotes
accepting the other.
It is our intention, by taking medieval Galicia as an example, to
study Christian tolerance towards the Jewish minority, more as a conscious
practice of the Christian society than as an intellectual conception. Thus, we
will attempt to rebalance the traditional approach by researchers, which -not
without motives- has so far been excessively focused on the anti-Semitic
constant. By questioning history from the perspective of current problems[2], by learning today from
the experiences of the past, in our case, from the irregular medieval historical
process which led , after a century-long coexistence , to the expulsion of Jews
from Spain in 1492 and from Portugal in 1496.
In psychological terms , tolerance, the conceptual tool for our anlysis,
could be defined as an attitude and a
behaviour based on flexivility an self-control in response to external stimuli
which contradict our own beliefs and opinions. A predisposition - and the
subsequent behaviour - to peaceful coexistence with those who are different or
hold diverging opinons as regards religion, race, nationality, social status or
ideology. The tolerant self implies
acceptance and respect towards the other . We are , therefore, speaking
of an identity, whose foundations are to be found in the otherness. A tolerant attitude does not, therefore,
entail the renounce to one’s own convictions. It maintains the discrepancy with
opposing beliefs , and implies persuading the other through dialogue and not
through violence . The resort to violence to impose any given belief or
ideology, by getting rid of those who do not share it, establishes the moment
of hememony of intolerance, that is to say , the predisposition to exclude the
other, often physically through banishment, torture and death.
A postponed issue
The relative exceptionality - sometimes a prolonged one - of tolerance
as a collective attitude has its
explanation in the fact that it often advocates an egalitarian treatment amidst
unequal social groups as regards their number or political influence[3], in the context of a
very polarised society. Eventually, the logic of power and exclusion tends to
impose,pushing into the background, as a consequence, tolerance as a
historiographical theme to the benefit of a violent and triumphalist
anti-Semitism . The final solution of
forcing the conversion and/ or the expulsion of medieval Jews, first in Europe
and much later in the Iberian Peninsule, has- in many cases - made many
historians consign into oblivion the periods of peaceful coexistence - which
indeed were never free from a conflictive dimension- but which, strictly
speaking, occupy most of Spanish Middle Ages.
Jewish-Muslim-Christian coexistence,and the attitudes underlying it,
have therefore been considered secondary issues in recent Spanish
historiography[4]. This cannot be even
justified on the necessity to reconstruct from a professional and democratic
ideological stance a history of Spain which had just undergone an ideological
manipulation by Francoism because the latter did not vindicate the
three-culture Spain but rather the contrary, as it is well known . It is for
this reason that the First International
Conference ”Encuentro de tres culturas”, held in Toledo in 1982, acquires for
some authors relevance as a legitimate search for medieval historical
predecents of “the coexistence of different cultures” in the context of the
fledgling Spanish democracy[5].The Renaissance and
Humanist image of a barbarian Middle Ages obscured the fact that it was at the
time of both the protestant Reform and the Catholic Contrareform in Europe when
religious intolerance was taken to its ultimate consequences. The religious
wars in the second half of the sixteenth century are a good paradigm of it.
Popular pogroms in Late Middle Ages Castile were a child’s play
in comparison to the persecutory violence of the Inquisition throughout the
Modern Age against anyone who believed - and especially practiced- in a way
other than that of the State religion.
The undervaluing of the tolerant part of reality derives from the
characteristic conception of
anti-Semitism as a social
mentality of long duration which bursts in some given social, political and
mental environments, periodically reaching increasingly more extreme levels .
It is not surprising , therefore, that ever since the Jewish genocide and that
of other minorities during the Second World War the pesimistic image of
tolerance and coexistence have been stressed as historical and
historiographical byproducts.
Historians, nonetheless,should
transcend the hindrance posed by the length of time to analyse the Jewish issue on a middle and a
close perspective, being oblivious to the romantic idealisation of a medieval
context free from conflicts. Rather, historians should always seek to reproduce
history in full, that is to say, a dialectic history, by looking at
complementary, and even antagonical views -in the case under discussion- of the
exclusion and/or acceptance of the other.
The scientific aim of objectivity must therefore seek to complete and
confront - something which is not always feasible- the majoritary, Christian
point of view, based on Christian sources and the minoritary, Jewish point of
view based on Hebrew sources. A previous and necessary step for this necessary
assessment of Jewish specificity is the understanding of the changing
Jewish-Christian relationship as a mobile, complex system of tolerance and
intolerance, even of intellectual controversy for and against Judaism[6].
Double tendency
The recovery of tolerance as a research topic may not be possible or may
prove fruitless unless we leave behind the old historiograpic controversy -
intensified around the Fifth Centenary- that took place forty years ago between
Américo Castro and Claudio Sánchez Albornoz. The former posited that Spain was
the consequence of the blend of three cultures, namely the Christian, the
Jewish and the Muslim[7], while the latter
denied it by branding as ‘supposed’ such medieval coexistence of Christian,
Jews and Muslims [8]. Needless to say ,
there is documental evidence to support both stances. Tolerance and
anti-Semitism are, in actual fact,
compatible and complementary attitudes and behaviours. They justify and need
each other. They do not exist in isolation. Strickly speaking, then, the controversity is proven false from the moment we define tolerance as
coexisting with the other[9]: " without
suspending our views on our beliefs and behaviours, but renouncing to use them
as justification for persecution"[10]. In fact, in Medieval
laws , the Partidas in
particular, we find protective rules as well as discriminative rules coexisting
together establishing a feedback relationship, which defines a unique framework
of tolerance among Chistians, Moors and Jews . It is for this reason that we
are going to find in each class or group both hostility and respect towards the
Jewish communities, in variable proportions according to the social background,
the moment and the place.
Underlying the tolerant coexistence there is a dichotomy of interests,
beliefs and images at work, in which
mutual relationships go from acceptance to exclusion, depending on the
situation, the social group and / or the places . In other words, we find in
the tolerant attitude traces of anti-Semitism , obviously in a moderate form;
its opposite would not be intolerance but
philo-Judaism, a phenomenon althogether marginal in Medieval Spain[11], and which, in any
case, springs to the surface only in periods of persecution, when those who were
tolerant in the past are forced to
choose between the hostigating and the protecting sides, between those opposed
to and those in favour of Jews ( or converts for that ).
The value of tolerance could be defined as a theoretical balance point
between the anti-Semitism of some and
the anti-Christianism of the others...
If forces were on a level , but that is not the case, and consequently
the tolerance/ intolerance alternative becomes , more than anything, a
prerogative of dominating Christian society rather than an option of the Hebrew
minority.
A double, contradictory and inseparable tendency is found across Middle Ages Europe: the
accepted other versus the excluded other ( the bridge between both is the
invented other). The subjetivism of the historian, who has the
privilege of knowing the final outcome ( the expulsion in 1492) must not lead
us to deny or ignore the prolonged coexistence
which made that , for the people of the time, the coexistence between
Christians, Jews (and Moors), was the
alternative they were more acquainted with and desired the most ; the most
stable and feasible among both communities . What today seems like a precarious
balance bound to result in persecution and banishment, might not have been
interpreted by contemporaries up to 1492 as a reality of coexistance which was
episodically broken by outbursts of violence and intolerance?
This double medieval tendency, a mixture of friendship and detachment ,
of permissiveness and discrimanation, whose surprising and prolonged stability
is accounted for by the fragmentation of power and the weakness of the State in
feudal times, is materially generated by a daily and economic life to a great extent shared ,
especially in medieval cities. Its
intellectual correspondence is to be found in a religious relativism,
more widespread than it is usually believed, which divided the truth of God
amidst the three “book -based
religions”.
The tolerance towards Jews and Moors was markedly religious ( but also
legal, socio-economic and mental ). Its relativist content is mirrored in
eurdite and courtesan culture in a number of ways, for instance, when it comes
to establishing the different forms of swearing for Christians, Jews and Moors
, each according to their beliefs and in their religious buildings (Christian
church, synagogue or mosque )[12]. This religious
diversity , admitted by the laws, has a
correspondence in a popular and oral vision. Such vision was expressed in in
late fifteenth century Castile by converts and
cristianos viejos ( priests included ) in the following way: "
it was believed that each was salved in their law "; "three laws hath
God made and I could not say which is
the truest "; “fellow man,God made three laws. And it is unknown to
man which is the truest"; "the good Jew would salve and so would the
good Moor in their law"; "none of them knowst which is that God loves
the most"[13]. Obviously enough , the
“everything-is-equally-true mentality” of common people surpasses the tolerant
intentions of the elite culture, which does not renounce to conversion in the
future. Thus writes the jurist, on behalf of
Alfonso XI (1348): "and it is our will that Jews remain in our
domain ; and the Holy Church thus orders because although they have not
converted to our faith nor obtain salvation according to the profecies, being
able to honestly procure a living and sustenance in our domain, we consider
fair that they may own and purchase properties "[14]. This sort of earthly
purgatory - official version of what we call here double tendency- in which
written culture confined the Jews, is in deep contrast with the oral culture
which ensured the same heaven to the observant Jew.
The very Jew minority was interested in a certain degree of separation -
if not the enjoyment of certain legal privileges - in relation to the Christian
majority, and above all, it longed for self-rule, which would enable them to
maintain and practice their religion and abide by their law. It favoured,
therefore, a certain segregation materialized in the existence of the
Jewry (with its synagogue, its burial
ground and sometimes its walls), location and physical identification of the
other- also present in the obligation, usually flouted- of wearing an emblem or
distinctive garments - which in general focalised a tolerant attitude and also,
in given instances, the brutality of a majority.
Were
not the Jews , on the other hand, a necessary part of Medieval Western society?
It would be a serious antimaterialist mistake if we considered that
anti-Semitism had its only source in the
economic basis of feudal society[15]. The production conditions were shared by both
Christians and Jews. The importance of the economic and professional function
of Jews where Christians could not
collaborate efficiently ( loans, tax collection, administration, medicine),
especially on the urban, finantial and courtesan scene reinforced their
economic integration in a social system which, at the same time, structurally
segregated them by definition, because Christians could not assimilate Jews in
the main productive feudal relationship, neither as vassals nor as lords[16]. Jews, consequently,
were organised according to a unique
statute as a private possession of the King , servi
regis: "Jews belong to the King; although they have the power
of wealthy men"[17]. Kings, in some
occasions, delegated this exceptional power over the Jews on lay and
eccesiastic lords, who, like the king, received them in their lands, leving
taxes on them and benefiting from their knowledge [18].We shall mention below
one of such cases in the territory of Ourense in Galicia.
The invented other
Jacques Le Goff pointed out the ambivalent character of medieval
Christianity between the closed religion of the Old Testament and the open
religion of the New Testament, although the latter had a particularist and
hostile tendence towards the other religions: "Your God is unique.Thou
shalt not take the name of thy God in vain"[19]. This ambiguity leads
Christians to both hate and admire Jews - and other segragated minorities,
cutting off- at the same time- any dialogue with them through persecutions and
carnages throughout the Middle Ages[20]. A double sense which
concerns- in different degrees- all classes and groups in medieval society,
depending on time and space coordenates.
The paradoxical basis of the attitude of the Christian society towards
medieval Jews makes the anthropological
notion of otherness[21] a key tool for the
understanding of a relationship which, not doubt, is more contradictory for us
than it was for medieval people, and
one which, if we are to properly comprehend, the classical criteria for
approaching the quantitative ( majority/ minority) or the spatitial ( central/marginal)
problem prove insufficient. We must go
deeper into the psychosocial relationship with the other, regardless of their
number[22], since it is one of
markedly quantitative nature . This notion of otherness is expressed through an
affective, imaginary and unconscious mentality, which explains the mentioned
paradoxical behaviour[23] - along with the
economic contradictions on which it is based . Likewise, this mentality also
accounts for the known function of the Jew as scapegoat in moments of serious
social, political and /or mental crisis.
The violence which characterizes the passing from the near, accepted,
tolerated other to the far, excluded and persecuted other is inseparable
from -thus giving rise to an unconsious
projection in search for an scapegoat - what Marxism appropriately calls‘ false conscience’, the aprehension of reality as something
invented , imaginary . With the notion of otherness, social imagination enters
the picture , especially when we go from peaceful acceptance to refusal, in
search of the extermination of the other . Then, the accepted other is
radically transformed into the invented other ; the diverse becomes the opposed
; the difference turns into the opposite: the difference becomes alienation
and, strickly speaking, otherness turns into
alienidad[24]. It is then the time of
false accusations, of the antisemitic stereotype, of the deformed image of the
Jew as an enemy ,a long-lasting latent image, which as we mentioned above, is
brought to the foregound or pushed into the background depending on the mental
circumstances . The mental change from the acceptance to the fiction of the
other acts as a bridge , paves the way and sets the environment for the great
outburst of sublimating violence against
the bouc émissaire, ultimate
representation of the invented other.
Tolerant Galicia
It has been a general norm of the authors [25] who have studied the
Jews in Medieval Galicia to stress the predominance of tolerance over exclusion
and the remarkable non-existence of Late Middle Ages pogroms listings [26]. Amador de los Ríos
says of the medieval kingdom of Galicia:
"where seldom were Jews victims of the people’s anger "[27]. This is so to the
extent that if research on the Jews were exclusively centred on antisemitic
mentality and practice , it could be said that Hebrew Galicia would hardly
exist. Galicia is, therefore, since the people’s anti-Semitism did not went beyond the threshold of violence
during the Middle Ages, the adequate scenario to study the weight of tolerance on
Jew-Christian relations, without this meaning, of course, that the particular
situation of Galicia may be simply
extrapolated to the other kingdoms of Castile and Leon.
Not only Galicia stood aside from the violent antisemitic wave, the
carnages of 1391 in Castile and Catalonia did not extend to Leon, Portugal or
Navarre[28] either. From a
typological point of view, in the Late Middle Ages, the movements against lords
arise more intensily on the northern
territories of the Crown of Castile, especially in Galicia, whereas the
movements against the Jews are stronger in the South, notably in Andalusia,
where pogroms have their origin in 1391[29]. These regional
differences in the domain of the kingdoms of Castile and Leon as regards
"the level of anti-Semitic manifestations"[30], are also perceived as
regards the level of tolerance towards the Jews.[31]. The legislator is
aware of it. For that reason in the Ordenamiento de Alcalá de 1348, when
purchases by Jews are limited so as to prevent an uncontroled increase in their
properties, greater permissiveness is
shown north of the Douro, Duero allende, in other words, in the
kingdoms of Galicia, Asturias, Leon and the Basque provinces, than South of that river , Duero aquende: "In the north of the
Douro the limit is set in the amount of
thirty thousand mr. for everyone owning
a house there ; and south of the Douro in the remaining counties up to the
amount of twenty thousand each as it has been established"[32].
The greater the tolerance, the more sincere the conversions (i.e. less
forced). It is a shared belief among
fifteenth century narrative sources that northern converts (Old Castile) were
more sincere than southern converts (New
Castile and even more so in Andalusia), more notorious before cristianos viejos . That is the reason why
the Inquisition concentrated its efforts during Late Middle Ages on the
sourthern area[33]. This environment of
growing coexistence as we move north has
to do with the fewer number of Medieval Jewish settlements[34], and underscores the
representativity of Galician tolerance.
Given the evidence of the spectacularly of triumphant anti-Semitism in Castile, its tolerant counterpoint goes
unnoticed , despite its temporal continuity .It even comes back to life in the
places most affected by the 1391 carnage -,hence the value of studying less
tense scenarios such as the Galiacian one in throwing light onto the mentioned
tendency.
Of the Medieval Jewries we have fewer documental traces[35] than in the case of
Castilian ones [36],which were also more
important and conflictive. We know , however, more of the Jews in Medieval Galicia than of those in the
remaining north of the peninsule[37], data being more
abundant from the fifteenth century onwards[38]. In the years previous to the expulsion,
between 1474 y 1491, we know from the royal taxes paid by Jewries
( services and contributions for the war in Granada) in which Galician cities
there were significative Jewish communities ( although the list of places where
there is documental evidence of the presence of Jewish is more comprehensive):
Allariz, Bayona, Betanzos, A Coruña, Monforte, Ourense, Pontedeume, Ribadavia y
Ribadeo[39]. The amount of maravedíes contributed place Galician Jews
living in those towns[40] below the level of the Castilian Jews, which confirms their
relatively reduced number [41]. The attitude of the
Christian majority towards the Jewish minority, is, anyway, a subjective issue.
In other words, it is a qualitative rather than a quantitavity issue[42]. The Jews numerical inferiority favoured on
the one hand, integration and tolerance , as the hegemonic Christian society
felt less threatened , but this should not be
reason enough for anti-Semitism not
to act in a exteme way , exaggerating the number of the enemies of the faith [43]. José María Monsalvo
has already pointed out the role of social psychology[44] in accounting for the
fact that the 1391 carnages did not spread to the Castilian north despite the
size of its Jewries, for instance, to
Burgos (120-150 families) - the second most important Jewry after Toledo[45]. An outburst of popular
wrath against Jews does not actually require a great number of opponents, but
rather factors working as catalysts: an adequate mental universe - the
invention of the other - materialized in false accussations , spread by
overexcited preachers -and latent social tensions whose only letout is to
agitate a well-known medieval stereotype[46], whose origin and
ramifications take us well back into the
distant past.
Tolerance as otherness : Allariz
On May 20th 1289 the local
council of Allariz reach a paradigmatic [47] agreement before the
royal Chief Justice of the village
"and the priests there ", with Isaac Ismael, "Senior Jew of the
Jews with abode in this village", in order to regulate the peaceful
coexistence of Chistrians and Jews: a true pact of otherness . The first
remarkable point is the mediating role of the royal power[48] as well as that of the
Church, together with the equitable and egalitarian nature of the agreement.
The tolerance that is established is mutual; particular care is put in not
making Christian superiority explicit . As regards religions, an agreement is
made to separate Christian and Jewish public celebrations, thus preventing the
ones from attending the celebrations of the others so as to avoid anyone
showing anti-Semitic or anti-Christian opinions.
It is thus established that
"During the prayers and celebrations that the said Jews held on the
outskirts of the village at the foot of our Castelo[49], there should be no
Christian, dweller of the aforementioned village, whose intention be to scorn or disrupt their prayers". Jewish processions took place, significatively
enough, outside the city, thus revealing the original Jewish marginality. A typical form of
anti-Semitism was to cause disruption by
resorting to legal accions in their religious ceremonies, with the apparent
collusion of the local council. A renounce to such accion was established by
mutual agreement .
Most surely these anti-Semitic
actions had prompted retaliatory measures and /or vicerversa.
Jews, on the other hand, were obliged to respect Christian processions:
"and when we take our God and His mother, Holy Mary, out in the streets no
Jew should attend , and Christians will be alert in the streets where we shall
take our God unless there is any mockery, disruption, heinous act or riot as it
is often the case". This disrespectful behaviour was, in fact, habitual
among Jews by way of retaliation for the discrimination they suffered : they
made fun of their God ( Jesus Christ) and His mother, Holy Mary. But it is the
Christian wording of ‘ our God ‘ which we would like to stress upon as it amounts to recognising the plurality of
beliefs, thus moving away from the official nomopolism and proselitistism and
allowing us to glimpse a clear glimmering of religious relativism, which we
have already mentioned and which, in this particular case, demonstrates the
sincerity of the offer of an egalitarian treatment on the part of the
mayoritary religion.
Tolerance and segregation- this time voluntary, accepted- in the urban
scene is the agreed form to articulate the mutual acceptance of the other . Not
only in processions must they be separated, but also in the quarters. "And
no Christian shall dwell on the Jewish quarter", reads the agreement, thus
informing us of the pre-existence of a Jewry in the village[50]; the motivation to live
together and in a non-discrimitatory way derives from the very agreement itself
: "nor there shall be any riot ". From the other party it is
established: "That the aforesaid Senior Jew nor his people purchase,
barter or dwell on any house outside the
Jewry or any other street in the
village where Chistians dwell". It
is therefore agreed that Alarican Jews
cannot open their shops or live outside the Jewry. But by way of compensation
they are entitled to take their victuals and goods across the village:
"and Jews may use the gates of the village to carry to the Jewry whatever
victuals they consider necessary"[51].
In other words, yes, there is segregation . But Jews are not denied the
use of the walled town when they consider it commercially necessary. Thus they
mutally facilitate their daily and economic life by yielding in both civil and
religious issues.
Likewise, it is agreed that the Xudeu
Maior, Isaac Ismael, who happens to be an important proprietor of
real estate outside the Jewry, both in and outside the town walls, should leave
“ the house in the borough’ as security to Xoan de Amoeiro "for the
damages that his Jews may cause"[52]. This compensation for
damages points to a respect for the judicial automony of the Jewry- the Senior
Jew pledges his assets as security , on the understanting that the necessary
legal measures will be taken among themselves
- as a civil basis for accepting the other. Furthermore, the council
obtains another commitment from Isaac Ismael - one to which, we infer , he had
been resisting - which has to do with the tolerance of Jews towards the religion of the Christians ( the latter
yield on the basis of their political power and the former on the basis of
their economic power) "and donate to Sancha Eanez, abbess of the Nunnery
of Saint Clare- under construction- the
perpetual ownership on a price agreed by both parties of the orchard he owns on
the outskirts of the village , so that
the ladies of the nunnery , founded by Queen Lady Violante, may extend
their orchard and build up their graveyard". And thus the nuns of the
Order of Saint Clare will have their graveyard thanks to the Jews living in
Allariz, not far from the Jewry and beyond the walls of the town. The fact that
both the Jewry and the Nunnery of Saint Clare were outside the town walls
demonstrates that it did no longer function as a diviving line between both
communities.
This notarial document is drawn up and endorsed in a joint assembly of
“men” of the council “and Jews” , which gives credit to tolerance as the
articulation of the otherness by the end of the thirteenth century . This
agreement which will be honoured for centuries : Late Middle Ages references
after the 1289 agreement do not contradict it. Rather the contrary seems to be
the case.
On May 5th 1366, shortly before
the civil war, the champion of the cause of King Pedro I in Galicia,
Fernando de Castro, judge and Royal Representative, who is also in charge of
the Royal Fortress in Allariz, proclaims an amnisty for the neighbours of the
village,intended to pardon all
unresolved cases and suspend every judiciary action of the royal Chief Justice: "that any action of
justice that the King took against them, and whoever of them for whatever
reason, for whatever wrongdoing they may have done, or for whatever they may
have failed to do , to everyone both Christians and Jews..., all of them are
pronounced free"[53].This implies the
acknowledgement by the lords and the Crown of the persistence by mid-fourteenth century of two
well-differentiated communities , equally treated as regards civil liability.
Almost two hundred years after the founding agreement , on June 15th
1487, it is the parish priest of the Christian church of Saint Stephen who
provides Jews with an extension of the graveyard of the field of La Mina, at
the foot of the wall, next to the Jewry, ceding on lease a neighbouring estate to
all "the Jews of the Jewry, neighbours and inhabitants of the village of
Allariz... as you have had your burials in the other estate"[54]. The basically
religious nature of mutual tolerance of Christians and Jews underscores the
importance of this reference to illustrate the tacit vigency of the agreement
by the end of the thirteenth century. A witness of this very special scenario
is Juan Alfonso Carpintero, an important
leader of the Irmandiña Revolt in
Allariz, for which several years before (1467) a common front of
Christians,Jews and Moors had been organised against the lords of the kingdom
and their fortresses.
The great stability of the tolerant attitudes among Jews and Christians
in Allariz does not obviously mean that there have not been tensions and
confrontation practices, like the ones which resulted in the 1289 agreement .
What is characteristic of Allariz, however, is its acceptable inter-ethnic
relationships , which will lead Mosé Péres, a royal tax collector, to seek
refuge there in 1488 to protect himself from the discrimatory confinement then
imposed in the capital of Ourense .
Tolerance as integration: Ourense
Ourense, by the end of the Middle Ages, appears as a much more agitated
urban society than Allariz. Notarial documents from the local council and the chapter show a background of revolts and
partisan struggle in the fifteenth century which could not but have an
influence in the coexistence with the Jewry, otherwise deeply integrated in the
city. The Jews from Ourense appear in
documents as a distinguished but accepted category. They are treated as
“neighbours “ -and as such- protected by the council [55] . As usual, they work
in trades of great economic significance (collectors of royal and lord taxes, dealers, silversmiths[56]); and enjoy, apart from
the preceptive religious freedom [57], a finantial autonomy which verges on
self-government : in 1433, the Jewish silversmith Salomón files a complaint to
the city Mayor because ‘the custom’ had not been respected according to which
when the time came to collect the city taxes , Jews would choose one of
them "Under the oath of their law
to collect among them the said payments", thus obtaining from the council
the endorsement of their traditional autonomy: "ruled that from now on
such payment was not made unless on the presence of the said Jew so that they
shared the mentioned mrs among
them."[58].
The council, nothetheless, although it accepted the Jewry, did not
accept anti-Christian attitudes .
In 1441, the mayor had Jewish silversmith Mosé Marcos arrested, "on the
grounds that he affirmed that the former had spoken mocking and infamious words
against God and Holy Mary when he said that Holy Mary had delivered
thrice", and the council procurator demands from the council that justice
falls on him[59]. If torelance implies
that the majority accepts the religion of the minority and marks itself off from
anti-Semitic groups, all the more reason not to accept disrespectful behaviour
on the part of Jews towards the religion of Christians. The irrevence of the
Jews, in any case, reveals that - like in the case of late thirteenth century
Allariz- both ethnias saw themselves on a level, also when it came to
wrongdoing. On this basis it was build the policy of tolerance and integration.
In Ourense, unlike Allariz, it does not seem so urgent to organise
coexistence by separating both communities: mutual tolerance is organised in a
much more natural way, perhaps with not such a clear awareness of otherness.
Both Christians and Jews lived much more mixed, without this implying a
renounce by the latter to claim their rights whenever deemed necessary. Such integration accounts for the fact that
in time rifts tend to happen horizontally.
As to the radicalisation of collective attitudes , consequence and cause
of the increase in social conflictivity around mid-fifteenth century[60], how does it particularly
affect to the good vecinity among Christians and Jews? First, nobiliar
intolerance arises : the assult of the synagogue in 1442. Secondly, the
fraternization within the 1467 popular brotherhood of citizens. Not
surprisingly, the previous good relationships between the Jewish community and
the council lead the city to side with the synagogue and Jews to side with the
citizens.
Nobiliar anti-Semitism
The economic potential of Jews - of some Jews rather - made them into a
target of nobiliar plundering; no doubt, an antisemitic environment- not always
explicit in the sources- would potentially favour the aggressors’ impunity.
On this respect, there are two
precedents in the province of Ourense. In the eleventh century, between the lands of Allariz and Celanova and those of the
capital, there had his domains a nobleman, Menendo González. He protected certain “ Hebrew” traders in rags, who were
attacked and robbed by another nobleman, Arias Oduáriz, who in retaliation is
made a prisoner by Menendo. The latter
eventually obtains the restitutition of what had been robbed after a number of
legal disputes which last several years and imply the transfer of the domain of
several villages from aggreding Arias to nobleman Menendo for whom the Jews worked
when they were attacked [61].
In the fourteenth century, when the troops of the Duke of Lancaster take
Ribadavia (1386) chronicler Froissart, an eyewitness of the event, tells the
following: "Ainsi fut la ville de Ribadave gaignée à force, et eurent
ceulx qui y entrèrent, grant butin d'or de d'argent ès maisons des Juifs par
espécial"[62]. Again , the reference
to the ethnic -religious origin of the victims is linked to wealth as the
objective of nobiliar plundering. In other words, anti-Semitism, like in the
preceding case , is with all assurance the contributory cause of the
aggression.
We get thus to the 1442 assault of the Jewish synagogue in Ourense by
men on the service of Lord Pedro Díaz de
Cadórniga. Apart from the theft of some money (50 old mrs.), affront stands as the primary objective : the
destruction of the synagogue and the theft of the tress were affronts with a
religious significance .Obviously enough, the council sides with the Jews,
honouring the tradition of tolerance , reporting on Lord Cadórniga on April 15th 1442, who pledges to “punish his men"
for the affronts caused "to the Jews of the said city and the synogogue
which was destroyed"[63].
These grievances inflicted on the Jews thus come top in one of those
anti-lord memorials frequently written by Ourense inhabitants in the Late
Middle Ages. The fact that emphasis is made on Jews as victims goes out to
demonstrate the century-long policy of
integration as well as the egalitarianism of the anti-lord denouncement[64]. This policy occassionally gives rise to a division of
opinions among the most influential neighbours, in which Jews also
participated. The latter hesitated when it came to confronting the powerful,
even when it was something so close to their hearts as the attack to a
synagogue.
On June 26th 1442, before several
canons and the men of Pedro Díaz de Cadórniga, four Jews from Ourense
declare before the notary of the cathedral chapter in order to exonerate the
said lord from the theft “in their house of praying” so as to free him from
excomunion, which was the situation in which he found himself for having
destroyed the synagogue, together with some of his men, "despite there
being no lawsuit on the part of the said
Jews". In other words, apart from the above mentioned lawsuit by the city
council , there was another of religious nature which resulted in the
excomunion of the guilty party and of Pedro Díaz himself . This was done
against the advice of the faction of the Cadórnigas, to which undoubtly
belonged the canons, relatives, and -in some way- the Jews who appear in this
notarial document dated on June 26th.
Despite it, the exonerating Jews declare that "Exception were made of anyone who had the trees that were taken away
from the said house of prayer so that they were not aquitted until the trees
were brought back to them"[65]. It was their
intention, therefore, to exonarate the head of the nobiliar group but without
going beyond the mental threshold implied in the seriousness of the religious
crime of the misappropiation of the trees belonging to the Jews, which had not
been restituted . The religious dimension of the affront was above any
partisanism. It was something umpardonable in fifteenth century Ourense, even
for the friends of the lord .
When i