POLITICS AI\'D RELIGIOI\' IN THE ER-\ OF RAMO/\' LLL'l.LPrecisely because of the strength of their Christian faith,
the Aragonese kings did not forget that they were rulers over
a substantial Jewish and Muslim population whose spiritual
salvation, by conversion, was an urgent aspiration of the
Church. Methods of dealing with the non-Christian popula-
tion varied from reign to reign. It has been seen that Alfonso
III was responsible for a novel approach to the problem of
the existence within his kingdoms of a Muslim population,
cruelly expelled from Minorca, and of substantial Jewish com-
munities; he enclosed the Jews of Majorca City within what
was arguably the first real ghetto in Europe (in the sense that
it was a place where they had to live, was walled in, and was
not fully accessible to non:Jews). In order to understand the
changing relationship between the Mediterranean monarchs
and their non-Christian subjects, it is necessary to start with
an analysis of the approach they adopted to the Jews, which
then did much to mould their attitude to the Muslims. It is
also essential to recall that, as they acquired more territory
in southern Spain during the course of the thirteenth cen-
tury, they became more aware than ever that they were no
longer Christian rulers over primarily Christian subjects;
in Valencia or Murcia they were Christian sultans trying to
hold in check a restive 'infidel' mass.^14
The idea of a Jewish problem' is one which has, after
the horrors of the mid-twentieth century, at last been laid
to rest, amid denunciations of anti-Semitism by the Catholic
and other Churches, as well as by all responsible govern-
ments. However, in the thirteenth and early fourteenth
centuries the survival of large numbers of non-Christians
in Christian society was seen as an anomaly; society was by
definition Christian; those who lived under Christian rule
but were not Christian, whether Jews, Muslims or pagans,
could only occupy a marginal role. Yet the status of Jews
was especially complex. The Church permitted the practice
of the Jewish religion by existing Jews, but strictly forbade
conversion to Judaism, which had been quite frequent in
the days of the Roman Empire. A minority of Jews was seen,
as St Augustine had argued, as a demonstration of Christian
truth; these were the guardians of the sacred texts which in
- L.P. Harvey, Islamic Spain, 1250-1500 (Chicago, 1991), pp. 55-73, for
evolving attitudes to subject Muslims.