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Kosher Wine in Medieval Provence and Languedoc – Production and Commerce∗

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Kosher Wine in Medieval Provence and Languedoc – Production and Commerce∗ Pinchas ROTH Bar-IlanUniversity KOSHER WINE IN MEDIEVAL PROVENCE AND LANGUEDOC – PRODUCTION AND COMMERCE∗ ABSTRACT Responsa literature from southern France provides detailed information about the production of and commerce in kosher wine. Because the cases in medieval rabbinic sources were recorded for their legal significance rather than their economic impor- tance, they can shed light on aspects of medieval life that escape the reach of histo- rians working with notarial or municipal documents. For example, piquette (pressed grapes mixed with water) was considered a low quality beverage, and is not men- tioned in commercial records from the Middle Ages as much as wine is. However, Provençal rabbis devoted many discussions to the status of piquette in Jewish law. The responsa preserve detailed information about the ways in which kosher wine was produced on a commercial scale, and how it was marketed to kosher consumers in local and international markets. Read critically, these sources also demonstrate that the Jewish laity in medieval Provence and Languedoc were more conscientious in upholding the laws of kosher wine than is often assumed. RÉSUMÉ Les responsa du sud de la France fournissent des informations détaillées sur la production et le commerce de vin kašer. C’est pour leur intérêt juridique et non pour leur importance économique que les cas examinés ont été consignés dans les sources rabbiniques et, pour cette raison, ils éclairent des aspects de la vie médiévale qui échappent aux historiens travaillant sur des documents d’archives notariaux ou municipaux. On pourrait citer, à titre d’exemple, le cas de la piquette, fabriquée à partir de raisins pressés mélangés à de l’eau, qui, considérée comme une boisson de qualité inférieure, n’est pas autant mentionnée que le vin dans les registres com- merciaux. En revanche, les rabbins provençaux, qui s’intéressaient à son statut dans ∗ An earlier version of this paper was delivered at a workshop titled “Les acteurs écono- miques juifs médiévaux face à la Halakha: autour du vin et de la viticulture”, in Paris on 16 November 2015. My thanks to Juliette Sibon and Claude Denjean for organizing the work- shop and for their comments, and to Judith Kogel, Simcha Emanuel and Menachem Butler for their help. Revuedesétudesjuives,178(1-2),janvier-juin2019,pp.59-78. doi:10.2143/REJ.178.1.3286067 60 KOSHERWINEINMEDIEVALPROVENCEANDLANGUEDOC le droit juif, lui ont consacré de nombreuses discussions. Des informations précises concernant la production de vin kašer à l’échelle commerciale et sa distribution sur les marchés locaux et internationaux pour les consommateurs qui mangeaient kašer, ont également été conservées dans les responsa. Une lecture critique de ces sources prouve aussi que les juifs du Languedoc et de la Provence, à l’époque médiévale, étaient plus soucieux de respecter les lois du vin kašer que ce qu’on suppose sou- vent. Rabbinic law imposes limitations on many aspects of food preparation and consumption. Medieval works devoted to those laws are replete with discus- sions regarding specific situations or circumstances, which threw the permis- sibility of certain food products into question. The laws pertaining to wine were particularly strict, due to wine’s multiple and significant roles as a staple of European diet, social lubricant and ritual instrument for both Juda- ism and Christianity. The wine of non-Jews was known as yennesekh, liba- tory wine, and was strictly forbidden. Even wine produced by and belonging to Jews could become forbidden if it was touched by a non-Jew.1 Like their co-religionists in the communities of Ashkenaz and northern France, the Jews of southern France lived mostly in wine-growing regions – the southern coast, from Roussillon to Marseilles, and the Rhône valley.2 But viticulture was only one of many agricultural pursuits in the Midi, and eco- nomically it was not especially significant.3 Almost every landowner owned a vineyard, and little need was felt to transport wine from one place to another because local wine was readily available. Export of wine was undeveloped, since most of the ports reached by ships from southern France were well sup- plied with local product.4 The Rhône, the major artery of river trade, flows 1. The laws of kosher wine can be found in Moses Maimonides’ MišnehTorah, Laws of Forbidden Foods, chapters 11-13, English translation in TheCodeofMaimonides–TheBook ofHoliness, trans. L. I. RABINOWITZ, P. GROSSMAN, New Haven 1965, p. 208-226. For a brief overview see S. ROSE, The Wine Trade in Medieval Europe 1000-1500, London 2011, p. 150-153. 2. H. SOLOVEITCHIK, CollectedEssays, vol. 1, Oxford 2013, p. 224-236. On the medieval Jewish communities of southern France, see I. TWERSKY, “Aspects of the Social and Cultural History of Provençal Jewry”, JournalofWorldHistory 11 (1968), p. 185-207 (reprinted in I. TWERSKY, StudiesinJewishLawandPhilosophy, New York 1982, p. 180-202); D. and C. IANCU, LesjuifsduMidi,unehistoiremillénaire, Avignon 1995; D. IANCU, Provincia Judaica. Dictionnaire de géographie historique des juifs en Provence médiévale, Leuven 2010. 3. L. STOUFF, RavitaillementetalimentationenProvenceaux XIVeet XVe siècles, Paris 1970, p. 86-96; F. BRAUDEL, TheIdentityofFrance, vol. 1, trans. S. REYNOLDS, London 1988, p. 45; N. PLACK,CommonLand,WineandtheFrenchRevolution:RuralSocietyandEcon- omyinSouthernFrance,c.1789-1820, Farnham (Surrey) 2009, p. 19-24. 4. R. DION, HistoiredelavigneetduvinenFrance, Paris 1990, p. 311-312; M. LACHIVER, Vins,vignesetvignerons.Histoireduvignoblefrançais, Paris 1988, p. 80-81; É. BARATIER, KOSHERWINEINMEDIEVALPROVENCEANDLANGUEDOC 61 from north to south, and although it was technically feasible to pull boats upstream, this was slow and difficult work.5 Land routes to the north were better suited to light, expensive goods and not to heavy barrels of wine.6 There is evidence that spiced wine from Montpellier reached royal courts in the north,7 but on the whole, the wine market was local and limited.8 According to rabbinic law, wine that was touched by a Gentile is forbid- den, out of concern that while touching it the Gentile performed a religious act that dedicated the wine to his pagan religion.9 Wine used for pagan worship is not only forbidden for consumption by Jews. A Jew is also for- bidden to derive any benefit from such wine – it may not be sold to Gen- tiles, since the Jew would then receive the benefit of the money he received for selling it. The economic pressures which bore down upon Jews in northern France and in Germany in their struggle to maintain the observance of ritual laws pertaining to wine, and which “deflected” Halakhah off its natural course (to use Soloveitchik’s term), did not exist to the same degree in southern “Production et exportation du vin du terroir de Marseille du XIIIe au XVIe siècle”, Bulletin philologiqueethistorique(jusqu’à1610) (1959), p. 239-249; E. LE ROY LADURIE, ThePeas- antsofLanguedoc, trans. J. DAY, Urbana 1974, p. 60-66. On a map of medieval wine export routes, southern France does not appear at all, T. UNWIN, WineandtheVine.AnHistorical GeographyofViticultureandtheWineTrade, London 1991, p. 183. 5. A certain amount of wine did travel in this direction, but it was only from the 14th cen- tury onwards that moving goods upriver became profitable. L. STOUFF, Latableprovençale. BoireetmangerenProvenceàlafinduMoyenÂge, Avignon 1996, p. 49-50; R.-H. BAUTIER, “La circulation fluviale dans la France médiévale”, in Recherches sur l’économie de la Francemédiévale.Actesdu112econgrèsnationaldessociétéssavantes(Lyon,1987),section d’histoire médiévale, Paris 1989, p. 32-33 (= id., Sur l’histoire économique de la France médiévale, Aldershot 1991, chapter V, p. 32-33). See also W. D. PADEN, TwoMedievalOccitan TollRegistersfromTarascon, Toronto 2016, p. 30-32. For the common trade routes of wine in western Europe, see P. SPUFFORD, PowerandProfit.TheMerchantinMedievalEurope, New York 2002, p. 294-295. 6. For a comparison of the costs of moving wine by land and by river during the 14th cen- tury, see H. DUBOIS, LesfoiresdeChalonetlecommercedanslavalléedelaSaôneàlafin duMoyenÂge(vers1280-vers1430), Paris 1976, p. 451-461. 7. See DION, Histoiredelavigne, p. 315; LACHIVER, Vins, p. 81-82; K. L. REYERSON, CommerceandSocietyinMontpellier:1250-1350, Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University 1974, p. 233: “These prestigious outlets for wine of the region of Montpellier prove the existence of an export trade in wine, the details of which escape analysis… The means of wine transport to Paris are… unknown.” 8. See also G. GALTIER, “Le vignoble et le vin dans le Languedoc oriental, de la fin du XIe siècle à la Guerre de cent ans”, in ÉtudesmédiévalesoffertesàAugustinFliche, Montpellier 1952, p. 101-122; W. PFEFFER, “Lifting a Glass”, in “Desensrassis”.Essaysinhonorof RupertT.Pickens, Amsterdam 2005, p. 529-542; ead., LeFestindutroubadour.Nourriture, sociétéetlittératureenOccitanie,1100-1500, Cahors 2016, p. 114-123. 9. Mishnah, Tractate Abhodah zarah 4; J. KARO, Šulhan arukh, Yoreh de῾ah, §§ 123-124. 62 KOSHERWINEINMEDIEVALPROVENCEANDLANGUEDOC France.10 Nevertheless, the legal doctrines and rulings of rabbis in southern France were inextricably tied to the circumstances in which they lived and worked.11 The halakhic sources from the twelfth century – that is, from the earliest period of written evidence about rabbinic legal activity in southern France – say very little about wine.12 Thus, in the edition of responsa by Rabbi Abraham ben Isaac of Narbonne (d. 1158) published by Joseph Kafih in 1962, there is not a single original comment on the topic. All that can be found are citations by Rabbi Abraham from other scholars.13 But in sources from later periods, particularly from the late thirteenth- and fourteenth-cen- turies, a great deal of information about kosher wine can be found. This information provides a vital addition to the data about kosher wine that can be gleaned from medieval Latin notarial and civic records, since it illumi- nates the practical aspects of kosher wine production and trade that usually went unmentioned by contemporary record-keepers whose concern was gen- erally financial.14 10.
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