THE WESTERN MEDITERRA.NE/1.1\ KINGDOMS 1~00-1500Political boundaries were no barrier to the spread of the
pogroms towards Valencia and Barcelona, and even, by 1392,
to Sicily. On 9 July 1391, in Valencia, a crowd of thugs began
to abuse the Jews. A few managed to penetrate into the ghetto
area, which was walled off. They then found themselves
trapped behind closed gates which the Jews refused to reopen
for fear of letting in the mob baying outside. The result was
that the Christian mob assaulted the ghetto walls, found a
way in, and began to massacre the defenceless Jews. Jewish
property was seized. Jews were forced to convert under threat
of death. Throughout Spain vast numbers of Jews under-
went immediate forced conversions, either at the point of a
sword or out of terror at the certain consequences of what
would happen if they refused to convert.^17
In Majorca, too, violence could not be contained. Here,
social unrest was certainly a major factor. What began as a
march on the governor's residence by a motley crowd of dis-
contented peasants was deflected from Bellver Castle on the
edge of the city into an attack on the Jewish Call in Majorca
City which left very many dead, and many others forcibly
baptised. As the violence exploded, townspeople joined the
peasants in slaughtering Jews and despoiling their property.
In Girona, an importantJewish centre, there were demands
for the abolition of taxes levied at the city gates; in other
words, the attack on the Jews was part of a wider set of issues.
In Barcelona, massacres broke out on a Sabbath afternoon
in August, and many of the Jews who escaped with their lives
fled to the New Castle, only to find themselves besieged
by a peasant militia. Faced with starvation, the Jews came
out, to find that what faced them was once again the choice
between death and baptism. Many women in particular are
said to have refused to convert, and to have been massacred.
The artisans and peasants involved in these ugly events
had other ambitions, too. The issue was not simply the hatred
for Jewish beliefs and practices which Ferran Martinez had
spread to such deadly effect. The city of Barcelona seemed
about to fall under mob rule; vigorous demands, under threat
of death, were made against rich Christian citizens and even
against clerics, for-though enemies of the Jews-the rioters
- Y. Baer, A. History of the Jnvs in Christian Spain, 2 vols (Philadelphia,
1961), vol. 2, pp. 95-Hi9.