The Jewish Communities in the Social Fabric of Latin Greece 273
from the second half of the 13th century Chios fulfilled a pivotal role in the
Genoese network of maritime trade in the Eastern Mediterranean.104
Evidence on the Jews of Chios is again available after the renewal of
Genoese rule over the island in 1346, which stimulated much economic activ-
ity. A scholar is attested in 1362.105 The number of Jews in the city of Chios must
have markedly increased in the following decades, although some left Chios for
Pera, the Genoese quarter in Constantinople.106 Genoese notary charters offer
evidence about the local Jewry from 1394 onward, when the Jewish neighbour-
hood is first attested. The fairly sizeable and prosperous Jewish community
resided alongside the Genoese in the castrum, a fortified section within the
city, probably in the area the Greeks had been compelled to vacate in 1347. The
Greek population resided outside the fortified section. Spanish Jews appear
in the late 14th century, Raffael Catalanus in 1394 and Samaria Bonavita in
1398.107 The Spanish refugee Abraham Zakut lived in Chios after 1492.108
The Jews were well integrated in the economy of Chios. They handled two
commodities closely supervised by the local authorities, namely grain and
mastic. The Officium provisionis, composed of two Latins, two Greeks and one
Jew, was responsible for the supply of grain to Chios. It concluded agreements
with merchants undertaking to import specific quantities of grain, among
them Jews. The gross sale of mastic was a monopoly of the Mahonna of Chios,
the body composed of Genoese settlers governing the island. Jews obtained
mastic in return for loans to that institution and traded in that commodity.
Jews also engaged in local and regional trade in other commodities, money-
lending and various crafts.109
104 Michel Balard, La Romanie génoise (XIIe–début du xve siècle), 2 vols. (Rome, 1978),
passim.
105 Bowman, The Jews of Byzantium, p. 283, no. 87.
106 David Jacoby, “The Jewish Communities of the Byzantine World from the Tenth to the
Mid-Fifteenth Century: Some Aspects of their Evolution,” in Jewish Reception of Greek
Bible Versions: Studies in their Use in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, ed. Nicholas de
Lange, Julia G. Krivoruchko and Cameron Boyd-Taylor (Tübingen, 2009), p. 168.
107 David Jacoby, “Ha-Yehudim be-Chios takhath shilton Genua (1346–1566)” [“The Jews in
Chios under Genoese Rule (1346–1566)”], Zion. Quarterly for Research in Jewish History 26
(1960/61), 180–97 (Hebrew, with English summary); Balard, La Romanie génoise, 1:279–83.
108 See above, p. 263.
109 Jacoby, “The Jews in Byzantium,” pp. 36–37, 40; Laura Balletto, “Il mondo del lavoro a Chio
intorno alla metà del xv secolo,” in Maltezou, Πλούσιοι, p. 135, a Jew practicing both the
tanning and dyeing of hides in 1449.