Jews of Spain. Spain was, after all, the meeting point of Islam and
Christendom – two very different situations.
It should be noted that until 1470 there was no country called Spain.
Rather, the Iberian Peninsula was a collage of separate states, each with its
own laws and ruling house. The first steps toward a united Spain were taken
in 1230, when Leon and Castille united under Ferdinand III, and Aragon
annexed Catalonia and Valencia. From this point until 1470, Castille and
Aragon comprised most of what would be become Spain. Thus, it would be
more accurate to speak of Spanish Jewries until 1470.
Castille and Aragon were different places in certain respects. Castille was
more independent of foreign influence. Aragon was more influenced by the
pope, the king of France, and European trends, including European attitudes
toward Jews.
A telling difference between Christian Spain and the rest of Europe
stemmed from a very different experience with regard to the Crusades. In
Spain, the great battle between Christendom and Islam was not fought thou-
sands of miles away in the Holy Land, but on the Iberian Peninsula. Thus,
there was no cause for zealous Christians to assault Jews as surrogate infidels;
the actual Muslim infidels were right there. In Christian Spain, therefore, the
great Christian campaign against Islam – known as the Reconquista –worked
to the benefit of Jews. The status of Jews in Christian Spain would rise and
fall with the course of the Reconquistaitself.
Until the mid-thirteenth century, when the southern half of Spain was still
in Muslim hands, Jews flourished in Christian Spain. Jews were well treated
by the Christian conquerors, as they had been by the Muslim conquerors in
the eighth century. For example, when Alphonso VI conquered Toledo, he
appointed a Jewish adviser. The Jews of Toledo were guaranteed horses and
property, and fortified quarters. At a time when Jews in the rest of Christian
Europe began to languish under increasingly harsh conditions during the
thirteenth century, those in Spain reached a high point. After 1250, when all
but the southern tip of Spain, Granada, had been reconquered, the situation
of Spanish Jews plateaued and then, at the end of the fourteenth century,
entered a period of decline.
There were several key differences for Jews in Muslim as compared with
Christian Spain. In Muslim Spain, Jews had a blank slate with Muslim rulers.
In Christian Spain, the church had a legacy of 1,000 years during which it
had formed attitudes, laws, and a theological attitude toward Jews. Moreover,
Muslim Spain reached its heyday at the tail-end of the golden age of Islam,
when Islamic culture was ripe, and somewhat decadent. Christian Spain
reached its heyday when Christianity was beginning a period of resurgence.
However, it is important not to overstate the difference. Massacres and
wholesale expulsion were part of the waning days of Jewish life in late-
eleventh-century Muslim Spain, not unlike in late-fifteenth-century Christian
Spain. In both cases, Jews became outcasts at the moment when their Muslim
The Jews of medieval Christendom 95