Coping with Crises: Christian –Jewish Relations in Catalonia and Aragon, 1380‐1391 by Alexandra Eni Paiva Guerson de Oliveira A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of History University of Toronto © Copyright by Alexandra Eni Paiva Guerson de Oliveira (2012) Abstract Coping with Crises: Christian –Jewish Relations in Catalonia and Aragon, 1380-1391 by Alexandra Eni Paiva Guerson de Oliveira Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of History University of Toronto 2012 This dissertation explores Christian-Jewish relations in the decades prior to the watershed of 1391, when Christian mobs throughout Castile and the Crown of Aragon killed or, more often, forcibly converted many Jews. My research indicates that the explosive violence of 1391 was not the predictable, inevitable result of growing interfaith animosity in the Crown of Aragon but was sparked by developments in Castile. Because of the resultant converso problem many historians consider 1391 to be a turning point in Iberian history. Yet historians have not closely explored Jewish-Christian interaction in the crucial later fourteenth century, particularly not in the Crown of Aragon, and have assumed, wrongly I believe, that the period following the Black Death (1348) saw a steady deterioration in the Jews’ relations with Christians. The first three chapters of the dissertation deal with the “crises” that marked late fourteenth-century Catalonia and Aragon. In the first chapter I outline the long-term precedents - the Black Death and successive wars – of the economic crisis that would follow. The second chapter focuses on economic matters – the Jewish contribution to the economy as well as the impact of growing debt and the development of new credit mechanisms. Chapter three, in turn, focuses on the impact of increasing taxation on Jewish communities. The final three chapters explore ways in which Jews and Christians coped with crises: chapter four deals ii with sources of conflict within Jewish communities, chapter five with conflict between Jews and Christians, while the last chapter looks at conversion as a way of coping with the crises of the fourteenth century. Throughout, my research shows how Jews and their Christian neighbours and rulers developed strategies and means of coping with the effects of epidemic disease, famine, and frequent warfare. I pay particular attention at how the law became a mechanism for coping with the worsening of economic conditions. iii For Alan Bell and Heloisa Bezzi iv Acknowledgements The seed from which this dissertation grew was planted in a seminar on Crime and Disorder in Medieval Society taught by Shannon McSheffrey at Concordia University, Montreal, in the Fall of 2002. Being of Iberian background, I originally resisted the pull towards Iberian history but I am glad its diversity and complexity proved too attractive to resist. I have to confess that four Montreal winters also helped moving to a field that required constant trips to Spain. A Canada Graduate Scholarship by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada enabled me to spend a year at the archives in Barcelona and Girona. An Ontario Graduate Scholarship and a grant from the Fond québécois de la recherche sur la société et la culture supported the early stages of my doctoral degree. I would not have gone far at the archives without the patience and generosity of Joaquín García Porcar, Virginia Moreno García-Cano, Rosa Gregori i Roig, José Luis Cabo Pan, and endless conversations with Felix de la Fuente Andrés at the Archives of the Crown of Aragon. At the Historical Archive of the City of Girona, I could not have located certain volumes without the help of Albina Varés. Mark Meyerson’s work attracted me to the University of Toronto, where his humanity, engagement, passion, and wisdom have served as an example during the eight years of my doctoral degree. His confidence in me kept me going when the challenges seemed insurmountable. My debt to him far exceeds what I can express here. At the University of Toronto, I had the privilege of receiving some of the best training a medievalist could dream. Virginia Brown, A. G. Rigg, Jill Ross, Joseph Goering, all ensured I had the technical and linguistic skills necessary to access the archival sources upon which this dissertation is based. The credit for introducing me to the wonders of the Iberian world goes, oddly enough, to a historian of medieval England, Shannon McSheffrey, my undergraduate advisor. Kenneth Mills made the comprehensive exams a more enjoyable experience and v pushed me to think more broadly and comparatively. Nicholas Terpstra, Barbara Todd, Jennifer Mori, Nicholas Everett, David Stiles, John Christopoulous, Julie Gilmour, and other members of the Premodern Discussion Group at the Department of History heard me present parts of this thesis and provided important feedback and encouragement. Natalie Oeltjen, Paola Tartakoff, Jamie Smith, Joanna Carraway, and Sara McDougall shared valuable information on conversion, Jewish history, or the intricacies of medieval law. More recently, Doris Bergen, Ariel Beaujot, Carol Chin, and other members of the history community at U of T have also provided encouragement at key moments. My graduate school years were some of the best of my life and I owe much of that to the incredible friends I made in Toronto and Barcelona. My dearest friend Dana Wessell Lightfoot was a mentor from my very first visit to Toronto and has continued to be my wisest sounding board. She kept me afloat when I thought I would drown. A gifted teacher, I have to credit her any success I may have in the classroom. In Barcelona, I will never forget the hospitality of Sebastian and Jacqueline Breitinger, Joy Henderson and Jesús Villagran, Sara Castro Benito and her husband Andrea. Pau Parès and Mireia Coma brought us into the heart of Catalonia and its wonderful people. I will never forget our lunch on the top of the mountain. Naomi Ebert Smith, an Aussie living in Barcelona, incorporated my husband and I to her incredibly diverse group of friends. The experience of twelve-hour lunches at Jackie & Sebastian’s in the company of twenty very smart and very funny people from around Catalonia, Spain, and the world will remain some of my fondest memories. Francesca D’Alfonso, Sylvie Rotter, Matt Green and Elena Santiago, Citlali Vazquez Echeverria, Andres (who taught me to make mate), Yaniré Andrade, Francisca Fonseca Pietro, Eli Alfaro, made the year in Barcelona a turning point in my life. Estrella (“la jefa”), Paco, and Kiko, at Estrella de Galicia, our neighbourhood bar, made us feel at home. vi In Toronto, Janine Rivière, Heidi Diepstra, Kathleen Gibbons, Martha Solomon, Wilson Bell, Hallie Fischel, Lizzie and Alfred, have become friends for life. Pam Pessoa, Veronica Heringer & Myke Ames, Otavio Gouvea and Atila Meira, Maureen Bitencourt, have reconnected me to my Brazilian roots. In Montreal, Norbert and Carole Manger, Gordon Knowles and Jean Schaeffer, Christine Picard, Jennifer Patterson, have remained the wisest friends anyone could want. I probably would not have considered becoming an academic if not for the collegial atmosphere I found at Concordia University’s History department, led at the time by the very considerate and thoughtful Ronald Rudin. At Concordia, Graham Carr, Norman Ingram, Rosemary Schade, Franziska E. Shlosser, Dana Sajdi, Shannon McSheffrey, and Frank Chalk made every course I took both challenging and fascinating. The breadth and depth of my training there shaped my graduate career and when I began to teach, I was fortunate to be able to draw from the experience of so many gifted teachers. My classmates Geneviève Vallerand, Ingrid Ravary-Konopka, and James Dodson became life-long friends. The writing of this dissertation coincided with the development of a rich café culture in Toronto. Over a period of four years, many of the chapters were sketched and written over countless hours in the many excellent independent cafés of this diverse city I now call home. I have to acknowledge the support of the wonderful staff at Manic Coffee, Te Aro, Crafted, B Espresso, Jet Fuel, Rooster Coffee House, Dark Horse, Seven Grams, and Pamenar. Thiago Trovo taught me much about coffee during the past few years and the baristas in Barcelona taught my husband and I to appreciate cortados, which Toronto baristas were happy to make for us. I was fortunate to find the most collegial working environment at New College, at the University of Toronto, during the final year of my doctoral degree. At New College, I would like to acknowledge the encouragement of Yves Roberge, June Larkin, and Deborah Knott. At the International Foundation Program, Kevin Fray, Bruce Russel, Lily Kwiatkowski, Andrew vii Berthiaume, Tyson Seburn, Rasa Mazeika, Ellen Servinis, Katherine Anderson, Patrick Dixon, Tracy Manning, Ross Brooks, Hong Si, Tim Clarke could not have made for a more welcoming and positive working environment. I am enormously grateful to my family in Brazil. My parents Marcos Heleno Guerson de Oliveira and Zilmar Bezzi Paiva Guerson de Oliveira raised me for the world. My older brother Marcos Jr taught me to read and write when I was four and instilled in me a love of books and of learning. My younger brother Marcelo did not want to have anything to do with books but patiently suffered through endless lessons as we played “school” and I discovered my love of teaching. I owe special debt to my late grandmother, Heloisa Bezzi, who turned her back to a life of leisure in search of a life of meaning. She went to university in a day and place when few women did, and faced any difficulty life threw at her with unfaltering strength. Ultimately, however, I could not have found the confidence or energy to write this dissertation without the unwavering support of my soul mate, Alan Bell.

Load more

Table of Contents