264 Jacoby
the water-front. Since the accumulation of refuse from their craft was washed
into the harbour, they were ordered to resettle elsewhere within 30 days. The
following month they were instructed to reside exclusively in the suburb.52 In
1464 the Jewish tanners of Modon were the only ones in town.53 Jewish herds-
men grazed their many sheep and goats in the vicinity of Modon by 1483, yet
this was clearly not a recent development.54 The skins of these animals were
most likely tanned in Modon. Pilgrims passing through the city in the late 15th
century record that the Jews lived in the walled suburb. George Lengherand
noted in 1485 that they sold food and refreshments, and Arnold von Harff that
he bought some of the small high-grade silk pieces produced by local Jewish
women, presumably girdles, hoods, veils or kerchiefs.55 The ordinances of the
castellans governing Modon and Coron also record Jewish money-lenders in
1416 and 1433.56
In 1401 there were 380 residents in the suburb of Modon, 80 of them Latins.57
It is unclear how many of the others were Jews. Meshullam of Volterra, who
visited Modon in 1481, claimed that 300 Jewish families were living in the sub-
urb, yet it is unlikely that this area could accommodate so many inhabitants.
The zudecha or Jewish neighbourhood in the suburb is attested in 1437, and the
universita di zudii or organised community in 1457, although it clearly existed
earlier.58 In 1439 Venice ordered special levies to finance its war in Lombardy.
The sum of 200 ducats imposed upon the Jews of Modon and Coron was small,
compared with the amounts demanded from the Jewries of Crete, Negroponte
and Corfu, since many of them, especially tanners, were apparently poor. Still,
some local Jews of Modon were affluent, like the one who engaged a profes-
sional scribe from Toledo to copy a book in 1404.59 Some Jews left Modon in
52 Sathas, Documents, 4:64–65; February 1389 in the Venetian calendar was in fact 1390. For
the identification of Modon, see the reference to Antonio de Cardo, ibid., p. 62. Starr,
Romania, p. 67, has misunderstood the topographic context.
53 Sathas, Documents, 4:33–34. The same public crier is explicitly recorded in Modon: ibid.,
4:34. On tanning, see also Andrea Nanetti, “The Jews in Modon and Coron during the
Second Half of the Fifteenth Century”, Mediterranean Historical Review 27 (2012), 218 and
221–22.
54 Sathas, Documents, 4:127–28.
55 Starr, Romania, p. 64.
56 Sathas, Documents, 4:112, 154.
57 Sathas, Documents, 2:23.
58 Sathas, Documents, 4:159, 161.
59 Hippolyte Noiret, ed., Documents inédits pour servir à l’histoire de la domination véniti-
enne en Crète de 1380 à 1485 (Paris, 1892), p. 387, for Crete; Freddy Thiriet, ed., Régestes des
délibérations du sénat de Venise concernant la Romanie: 1329–1463, 3 vols. (Paris, 1958–61),