Contested Treasure: Jews and Authority in The Crown of Aragon by Thomas W. Barton (review)

Thomas Barton’s book is not another general work about the Spanish Medieval Jewry, but a deep analysis of a very specific reality in the Kingdom of Aragon. Barton studies the city of Tortosa and is structured around the status of the Jews as a part of the royal treasure. But the Crown was not the only power attempting to exert jurisdiction over the Jewish population. In addition, control over the Jews was, for nobles and local authorities, another way to show their political supremacy. In this context, being able to maintain dominion over the Jewish population was a clear signal of power and wealth. In other words, Jews were nothing more than a proof of war potential. Therefore, Jews were like a warfare trophy in the rivalry between the rulers of Aragon and the local nobility, since both sides tried to show their supremacy by claiming jurisdiction over Tortosa’s Jews.

During the Middle Ages, the legal status of the Jews depended on religious and political majorities. The Jews were a non-independent religious minority under the Muslim rule, and the same situation would persist after the Christian Reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula. Due to the victory of the Christian armies, many Jews came under the domain of the Counts of Barcelona, who would later become the Kings of Aragon. In the 12th century, Jews were declared the royal treasure of the count-kings. That is why they fell under the jurisdiction of the rulers in Barcelona and lived according to their rules and were protected by their authority. But—as mentioned above—inside the kingdom there were different political institutions and legal systems struggled with the question of who would exert the power on the religious minorities.

More specifically, around 1176, King Alfonso II promulgated a number of local laws and privileges known as the Fueros de Teruel. The Fueros made clear the condition of the Jews as serfs of the king (servi regis) assigned to the royal fiscus. This dictum signified the first royal alliance between the kings of Aragon and the Jews who were living in their domains. Concerning the Fue-ros, it is important to emphasize that any alliance between the royal power and the Jews during the Middle Ages was mainly based on economic interests rather than on humanitarian principles. Therefore, the king offered the Jews his protection and the guarantee of communal autonomy, but, in return, the Jews had to show their loyalty to the monarch, pay taxes, and serve as fiscal agents, among other duties.

Nevertheless, exclusive authority over the Jews claimed by the royal power was contested by many other forms of political power, such as the nobility, the clergy, and—in the particular case of Tortosa—the local order of the Templars. Due to the fact that the Jews were not a permanent property for any of those political factions, Barton insists on the failure of royal claims to exclusive jurisdiction over the Jewish population. This particular example located at Tortosa, discussed by Barton, reflects a broad reality across Europe in the Middle Ages, and it is ultimately related to the status of the Jews as properties or goods. On a political level, the case studied by Barton also provides a valuable example of the emerging conception developed in that time related to the centralized power and its tense interaction with local power structures.

Works like Barton’s are especially valuable because they allow us to understand in a deeper way the situation of the Spanish Jewry in its complex political context. This is especially important in order to avoid the kind of generalization that could lead to a huge misunderstanding of a historical period marked by political confrontations and internal wars, even after the Reconquista. Due to a very broad range of interests, the reality of the Jews in the Iberian Peninsula has been depicted as an oasis of mutual toleration and cultural interchange with their...