The Footprint of Migrations on Surnames Onomastic Changes in the Barcelona Area in the Late Middle Ages (1451-1500)1

The footprint of migrations on surnames Onomastic changes in the Barcelona area in the Late Middle Ages (1451-1500)1 Joan Pau JORDÀ, Joana Maria PUJADAS-MORA, Anna CABRÉ Late medieval Catalan anthroponymy was marked by different historical, social and economic processes that altered their number, prev- alence and distribution substantially. During this period, onomastics in general and surnames in particular were subject of the continuous flows to the cities of the rural population, the homeless, pilgrims and traders, and to a lesser extent, to immigrants from the Kingdom of France, the Crown of Aragon and the rest of Europe.2 These French migrants, mostly originating from the Midi, were the first streams of a much more intense flow that would last until the early seventeenth century, which at its peak would account, in some cases, for more than 20% of the Catalan marriages. Many of the French surnames were very similar to Catalan anthroponyms. This is due in large part to the similarities between the Occitan—the main language in the French Midi at that time—and the Catalan onomastics of the period, although 1 This paper is part of the ongoing PhD research project of Joan-Pau Jordà, ‘Aprox- imación a las migraciones históricas a través del estudio de la información nominal’ [‘Approaching historical migrations through the study of nominal information’] supervised by Dr Anna Cabré and Dr Joana-Maria Pujadas-Mora. The project is funded by the Spanish FPU program (AP 2010-5699) and is part of the larger Advanced Grand Project ‘Five Centuries of Marriages’ (ERC-2010-AdG_20100407) directed by Dr Cabré. The authors would like to acknowledge the collaboration of Dr. Mariona Lozano, Dean Wang and the 5CofM Project research team. 2 The study of population movements in past eras presents several challenges due to the lack of migratory records until very recent times. Accordingly, the analysis of personal names has been shown to provide surprising insights into the multi cultural character and motility of the medieval peoples. For more on these issues, see for example the work of Nadal and Giralt (1960),Vinyoles (1981), Simón (1996), Reher (2000) Cuadrada (2003), Carreras and Tafunell (2005), Lucassen and Lucassen (2009) Bourin and Sopena (2010), Sousino (2012), Ubach (2013). Onoma 49 (2014), 105-136. doi: 10.2143/ONO.49.0.3285500 © Onoma. All rights reserved. 106 J.P. JORDÀ – J.M. PUjADAS-MORA – A. CABRÉ their frequency and distribution within each community were different (Rubio and Lizondo 1997: 48, Vall-Llobera 2010: 47, Peytaví 2010: 122-127). Likewise, the expulsion of the Jewish community in 1492-1493 from the Spanish monarchy also altered the anthroponymic corpus. During these years, about 3,000 individuals or 1.3% of the Catalan population at the time were expulsed due to religious reasons (Hinojosa 1993: 74).3 The rationale behind this decision could have been anti- Semitism feelings, the Monarchs’ desire to increase social cohesion in the recently created Spanish monarchy, the Inquisition’s pressure on the Jewish converts, or the attempt to reduce usury (see for instance, Romera, 2008). This forced emigration led to a contraction of the population, and therefore of the patronymic corpus, and additionally, meant the conversion of those Jews who chose to remain in the terri- tory, who adopted new names as members of the Christian community (Moreu-Rey 1991: 109). At the same time as the expulsion, another event conditioned Catalan onomastics during the last quarter of the fifteenth century: the Sentència Arbitral de Guadalupe or Judgement of Guadalupe (1487). This was decreed by King Ferdinand II of Aragon, ‘the Cath- olic’ in 1486-1487 in order to end the remença conflict. The remences affected an estimated 25,000 peasants (more than 10% of the total population of Catalonia) who were tied to the lands of the nobility in a form of serfdom while also being subject to various tax levies (mals usos) of feudal origin. This situation was considered abusive by the peasantry, who after making several protests to the crown, took up arms in two revolts that devastated the eastern Pyrenees in 1472 and 3 This percentage estimation is computed from Iglésies (1986). To learn more, see for example the synthesis by Martín-Romera (2008). There had been Jewish com- munities in Catalonia since Roman times, though the vast majority were in urban areas, that came to represent about 4% of the total population between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries (Lascorz 2012). However, after the wave of European anti- Semitism that arose during the crisis of the Late Middle Ages, and especially after the pogrom of 1391, the number of conversions to Christianity intensified, as well as the process of acculturising the Jewish community, which greatly reduced the official resident Jewish population after 1391 (Pita 1984: 6, Hinojosa 1993: 74, Lascorz 2012: 43) However, the fact is that in 1493 one of the exit points of the Jewish community after the edict of expulsion was the port of Barcelona (Marcó i Dach 1985: 87). THE FOOtpRINt OF mIGRAtIONS ON SURNAmES 107 from 1484-1486. In the end, the Sentència was passed in 1487 in order to finally end the conflict, thus initiating a cycle of emphyteutic free contract that allowed all the farmers who wanted to (and could) quit their ties of vassalage to pay for their redemption from servitude. This then facilitated a previously nonexistent mobility in the territories where the remences predominated (Vicens-Vives 1945, Serra 1980, 2010, Homs 2005). Thus, there were three extraordinary social and historical phenomena in Catalonia that between 1451 and 1500 could have contributed to substantial changes in the number and distribution of anthroponyms registered in the Barcelona area: migrations, the expulsion of the Jewish community and the Sentència Arbitral de Guadalupe. The aim of this paper is to analyse these changes in depth, describing how they affected the existing surnames in the Barcelona area from the Late Middle Ages to the Early Modern Period (1451- 1500). To achieve the aforementioned aim, four aspects will be ana- lysed in this study. Firstly, a descriptive analysis of surnames that originally referred to a place of origin and residence will be carried out as an indicator of past migration flows. This is an approach taken in several previous works, such as those by Guinot (1999, 2002) Mas (2000, 2002) or Virgili (2010) for the Catalan case. A second aspect to be examined will be the influence of the Jewish community on onomastics throughout the second half of the fifteenth century. The identification of anthroponyms that are potentially those of Jewish converts will be done through the analyses of Christian surnames with Jewish origins (Pita i Mercé 1984, Bonnin 1997, Planas i Marcé 2001, Hernando 2007). Thirdly, the alterations in the structure and distribution of anthroponyms existing in the Barcelona area between 1451 and 1500 will be investigated according to the methods established for the Catalan case by Sánchez-Adell (1978), Redal (1986), Mas i Miralles (1992), Cuadrada (2003) Ferrer-Navarro (2005) and Aparici (2009) among others. Finally, those names introduced by immigrants recog- nised as such in the Barcelona area will be considered.4 4 It should be noted that other factors, such as the fertility rate of the population or the lack of a standard language to regulate the correct transcription of surnames, might have influenced the development of late medieval onomastics. However, while these aspects have been taken into consideration in this study, they are not the objects of study themselves due to their weak influence on the evolution of 108 J.P. JORDÀ – J.M. PUjADAS-MORA – A. CABRÉ The area selected for research is the city of Barcelona and its immediate hinterland. This region was chosen for its demographic, historical and political importance as well as for its anthroponymic diversity.5 Therefore it was necessary to turn to a source such as the catholic Marriage Books (Llibres d’Esposalles) archived in the Cathedral of Barcelona. The information contained in these books has been included in the Barcelona Historical Marriage Database (BHMD), which covers the city of Barcelona and its environs (250 parishes in 1900).6 The Marriage Books are characterised by their information richness and extension through time, which facilitate observation of both the continuities and changes in late medieval Catalan anthroponymy. The historical origin of this source lies in the fifteenth century, when in September 1409 Pope Benedict XIII (1328-1423) granted the Cathedral a tax privilege for its construction and subsequent main- tenance. The information relating to the payment of that fee was the origin of the marriage registry (Carreras i Candi 1913: 24, Baucells 2002: 1-2).7 migrations on late medieval Catalan onomastics (Jordà et al.: 2015). For more on these issues, see for example the work of Salinero and Teston (2010). 5 Barcelona was (and is) the historical and political capital of Catalonia, as the residence and centre of government of the counts of Barcelona (and, later in the fifteenth century, of the viceroys of Catalonia). In the year 865 Charles the Bald divided the March of Septimania (capital, Narbonne) and March of Gothia (capital, Barcelona), naming Bernard of Gothia head of the latter (Salrach 2003: 225-248). Indeed, in the fifteenth century Barcelona approximately represented 10% of the population of Catalonia (Vicens-Vives 1951: 4-5). In 1451 Catalonia was part of the Crown of Aragon, a confederation of territories which included: the Principality of Catalonia, the Kingdom of Aragon, Kingdom of Valencia, Kingdom of Majorca and the Kingdom of Naples, among other minor possessions. Moreover, the King- dom of Castile and the Crown of Aragon were united under the same crown by the Catholic Monarchs (Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon), sovereigns of the Crown of Castile (1474-1504) and the Crown of Aragon (1479-1516).

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