Quatre notes esparses sobre el judaisme medieval

Four scattered notes on medieval Judaism

1. On the name Sepharad in relation to Catalonia

Even though Catalonia is today considered a part of the political entity
called Sepharad, when one speaks or writes in Hebrew (as this is the name used
in Hebrew to designate the group of territories and ancient kingdoms making
up the present-day Spanish state), historians should bear in mind that Catalonia
was not comprised within that denomination in medieval Hebrew usage.
The name Sepharad did not bear any relation to Catalonia. By ascribing the
modern meaning of the name Sepharad to lands such as medieval Catalonia,
scholars get a mistaken picture of the political situation in the Iberian peninsula
in those times, since Sepharad was then the Hebrew equivalent to the Arabic
Al-Andalus, that is to say, the Moslem territories. Many prominent Jewish figures
of medieval Catalonia, such as Moses ben Nahman, Jonah ben Abraham
or Solomon ben Adret bear witness to that situation when they praise the Hebrew
books coming from Sepharad and the accuracy of their writing. Apparently
the name Sepharad was not applied to Catalonia until the 15th-16th centuries,
particularly after the expulsion of the Jews from the Iberian peninsula.
Scholars should be mindful of the risk of falling into this confusing
anachronism.

2. On the restoration of the Hebrew language in the Middle Ages

There can be no doubt that the interest shown by the Arabs of Al-Andalus
in linguistic matters and in the purity of their language aroused the interest of
the Jews in the restoration of Hebrew as a cultural language for all purposes.
According to Abraham ibn Daud, it was Judah ben David Hayyuj (died
around the year 1000) who restored the Hebrew language inasmuch as its use
had been neglected throughout the Diaspora. In Catalonia, Jews spoke the Romance
language of the country as early as the High Middle Ages, when they inhabited
the main towns only, and it continued to be their language until their
expulsion in 1492. Catalan, and not Spanish, was the language of Moses ben
Nahman, Solomon ben Adret, Hasday Crescas, Nissim ben Reuben, Isaac ben
Sheshet Perfet, Menahem ha-Meiri, Shimon ben Semah, etc. However, Catalan
Jews acquired an excellent command of literary Hebrew at an early stage of
its restoration, as proved by the works of Isaac ben Reuben of Barcelona (11th
century) and Abraham bar Hiyya (12th century). Hebrew was the language
used for books of paramount importance in medieval Hebrew literature originating
in Catalonia. The present article contains a translation of chapters VII
and XXXIII of Profiat Duran's grammar, Ma²aøe Efod, which was written towards
the end of the 14th century.

3. On the organization of the Jewish communities in the time of Solomon ben
Adret of Barcelona

In the 13th century, Jewish communities succeeded in being governed by
a sort of statute of autonomy. They administered justice in accordance with Jewish
law, implemented their own educational system, which included the teaching
of the Hebrew language and culture, and made use of traditional Jewish
institutions to manage the activities of the community. As early as 1241, James
I granted ample privileges to the Jewish community in Barcelona. Moreover, at
the beginning of the 13th century, an incipient kind of municipal régime appeared
in the Catalan towns, which developed and became perfectly structured
during the second half of the 13th century. It is now clear that the aljames responded
to similar political and social conditions, developing their governing
bodies along the same lines as the Christian universitas. Later, Jewish communities
linked up in the form of federations, known as collites or col·lectes, with a
view to jointly tackling the payment of taxes. The quarter where Jews used to
live was called call juïc or simply call (the word call has nothing to do with the
Hebrew qahal, but comes from the Latin callis as shown in note 103). One of the most outstanding features of that transformation was the setting-up of a
democratic electoral system, which replaced the hereditary transmission of
power through nesi'im. This section contains a short description of the name
and the characteristics of the various offices filled by the community leaders in
accordance with the data drawn from Solomon ben Adret's responsa.

4. On the distinctive signs that Jews had to bear on their garments in the 13th century

Although Jews had in ancient times voluntarily distinguished themselves
from other peoples as regards their clothing or in the way they cut their hair, just
as other social or ethno-religious groups used to do in most European countries,
the truth is that towards the beginning of the 13th century these differences had
apparently faded away and Jews were easily mistaken for Christians. The
Church looked upon this possibility of confusion with profound distrust. The
Fourth Lateran Council, held in 1215, tried to control the relations between
Jews and Christians in several aspects of their daily life, including clothing. In
spite of the fact that the Conciliar document refers to clothing only, later documents
make it clear that the Church intended to impose a distinctive sign or
badge on the outer garments of the Jews. But Jews did not easily accept that decree
and even started to abandon some Christian lands because of it. Kings were
on various grounds compelled to implement that legislation as leniently as possible.
In 1234, Gregorius IX explained the characteristics of that distinctive sign
to the king of Navarre in clear-cut terms: «One round patch of yellow cloth or linen,
to be worn on the uppermost garment, stitched over the heart [...]. The full
size of this sign shall be four digits in circumference». This notwithstanding, it
seems that neither the insistence of the provincial councils nor the recriminations
of the Popes to both bishops and kings succeeded in having the use of the
badge (called rodella in Catalan) accepted by Jews without many protests and
exceptions. Kings granted not only many individual privileges but also collective
exceptions, such as the one granted by James I to the Jewish community in
Barcelona and to other communities of the crown of Catalonia-Aragon in 1268.