Jewish Life in the Middle Ages

CHAPTER XI. TRADES AND OCCUPATIONS

CHAPTER XI TRADES AND OCCUPATIONS IN the year 1160, or thereabouts, a Jewish merchant left Tudela, his native town in Navarre, on a journey round the world. Of the incidents of this journey, Benjamin of Tudela's Itinerary has preserved the precious record.l Benjamin travelled from Saragossa by way of Catalonia, the South of France, Italy, Greece, the Archipelago, Rhodes, Cyprus, and Cilicia. to Syria, Palestine, the lands of the Caliphate, and Persia. His return route took him to the Indian Ocean, the coast towns of Yemen, Egypt, Sicily, and Castile, whither he returned, after an absence of about fourteen years.a This Benjamin was a typical Jewish trader of the middle ages, yet he was no financier, usurer, hawker, or dealer in secondhand goods. As a merchant, he records the state of trade, and the nature of the products, of each country which he visited. His Itinerary furnishes the oldest material for the history of the commerce of Europe, Asia, and Mrica in the twelfth century. But with an almost modern large-mindedness, Benjamin was equally interested in the general life of the peoples into whose midst he strayed. Countries and men interest him as 1 The be$t edition (Hebrew and Ebglblh) is rAe Itinerary ofR. Bmjatlfi" of Tudtla, ed. A. Asher, :I vols. (London, 1840-41). , cr. Zan&, op. cit. ii. p. 2SI. 211 ZIZ Trades and Occupations much as their commerce and handicrafts. Courtly gossip, popular superstitions, are entered in his diary side by side with business-like statements concerning trade and traders. Here, says he, may be obtained the brightest pearls. There, he tells us, again, arose the latest new Persian-Jewish Messiah. Art and archaeology have attractions for him. He revels in the picturesque with all the ardour of an enthusiastic sightseer. He invariably tells us the number of Jewish residents in the various parts of the world through which he passed, and reports on their manner of life, their schools, and their trades. But he devotes much of his space to topics of wider interest. He describes the Assassins in Syria and Persia, the dangers of navigating the China seas; he gives a full account of Rome, with its buildings and relics; he has several brilliant paragraphs descriptive of Constantinople and Bagdad; Jerusalem and Damascus are depicted vigorously and vividly. Kings and peoples, their learning and their customs, their dress and their burials, all fall within the purview of this medieval merchant. His Hebrew style is that of a plain merchant, but it says a good deal that a plain merchant could write with so much simplicity and with so many graceful touches. Jews of the type represented by Benjamin of Tudela were not confined to Spain. The double motive of feeling and preserving the magic bond between Jews scattered to the four corners of the world and of finding new outlets for trade, made the Jewish merchants of Italy and the Levant active and farseeing beyond their confreres of other faiths. Greed for information and greed for gain form a not undesirable business combination. But, for the moment, our interest lies in the Jewish mercantile operations , in so far as they brought nation into contact with Bnljamin of Tudela 21 3 nation. MontpeUier in the twelfth century was a convenient clearing-house for the trade between Italy and the Levant. 'You meet there,' says Benjamin of Tudela,l 'with Christian and Mohammedan merchants from all parts: from Portugal, Lombardy, the Roman Empire, from Egypt, Palestine, Greece, France, Spain, and England. People of all tongues are met there, principally in consequence of the traffic of the Genoese and of the Pisans.' Yet Montpellier was the seat of an extremely active and wealthy commercial colony of Jews, as well as of a learned and famous Rabbinical college. A similar remark applies to Marseilles and to all the Mediterranean seaports. Regensburg, to take a typical town of another description, formed one of the chief inland centres from which the products of the East reached central and northern Germany. From Constantinople the cargo boats fined with Eastern commodities worked up the Danube until they reached Regensburg, and the vessels returned laden with the agricultural products and manufactured articles of Germany,a In this international trade the Jews took a foremost part, and their extensive wholesale operations had an excellent effect on the traffic, which extended to and from Germany in all directions. Another characteristic instance...