CHAPTER 14

The Law of the Non-Christian Peoples

Los Grandes Señores de los Christianos Siempre Sufrieron que Biuiessen entre Ellos

Although Alfonso X presided over a predominantly Christian society, a significant number of his people professed Judaism or Islam.1 Rather than describe their beliefs and rituals, he regulated their interaction with Christians. Just as the Islamic rulers treated the Christian minority as a protected people (dhimmís), Alfonso regarded Jews and Muslims as privileged minorities, permitted to live according to their own private law, founded on their distinctive religious beliefs. They could worship freely and govern themselves, provided that they did not challenge him. In the Fuero real (4, 1–2), after discussing those who abandoned Christianity, he commented briefly on the Jews but ignored the Muslims. Any discussion of either religious community in the Espéculo may have been included in one of its lost books. The treatment of Jews and Muslims in the Partidas (7, 24–25) relied on the restrictive legislation of the Christian Roman emperors concerning the Jews that was incorporated into the Visigothic Fuero Juzgo (12, 2, 3–18; 12, 3, 1–28), as well as the municipal fueros, and Ramon de Penyafort’s canonical writings.² By placing this in the midst of his exposition of criminal law, the king manifested his abhorrence of both religions.

A Question of Identity

In general, Christians knew more about Judaism than Islam. Whereas the Fuero real ignored any ideological explanation of the status of the Jews, the Partidas (7, 24, pr.) explained that “Iudios son una manera de gente que como quier que no creen la fe de nuestro señor Iesu Christo, pero los grandes señores de los Christianos siempre sufrieron que biuiessen entre ellos” (The Jews are a sort of people, who, though they do not believe in the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the great rulers of the Christians always suffered them to live among them). The word “suffered” implies that they were not particularly welcome. As the royal jurists remarked, just as diviners and soothsayers despised God by striving to discern God’s innermost secrets, so too did the Jews who refused to acknowledge that God “sent his son our Lord Jesus Christ into the world to save sinners.”3 Following Ramon de Penyafort, the Partidas described a Jew as a circumcised believer in the law of Moses, but added that the Jews were descendants of those who crucified Jesus Christ. Rulers suffered them to live among Christians in a state of perpetual captivity as a remembrance of Jesus’s crucifixion (SP 7, 24, 1). The Poem of the Cid (canto 18, lines 347–48) recorded that the Jews placed Jesus on the cross, and the Cantigas de Santa Maria charged them with killing him.⁴

Muslims believed that Muḥammad was God’s Prophet, but “his religion (ley) was, as it were, an insult to God.” By following him, Muslims, according to the king’s men, foolishly believed that they would be saved. Like the Jews, they were expected to observe their religion and not to disparage Christianity. The stipulation, however, that they were not to “make their sacrifice publicly before men” suggests an ignorance of Muslim practice (SP 7, 25, pr., 1).⁵

Castilians ordinarily called Muslims moros or Moors, a word derived from mauri, the inhabitants of Mauritania, the old Roman province in North Africa, who had invaded Spain in the eighth century. That was an ethnic description lacking any sense of opprobrium, though that developed in time. The royal jurists explained that the word Moor was the equivalent of Saracenus or Saracen, a descendant of Sarah, Abraham’s free wife. However, as Sarah was unable to conceive, the Moors were descended from Abraham’s slave girl Hagar, by whom he had a son, Ishmael. Thus, Muslims were termed Ishmaelites or Agarenes.⁶

Medieval Christians frequently denounced Muḥammad as a false prophet and deprecated his followers as infidels and “enemies of the cross of Christ.”⁷ The Poema de Fernán González (lines 7, 268) condemned Muḥammad as “the man of wicked belief,” whose “power isn’t worth three fig trees.” The Libro de Alexandre dismissed Muslims as “a renegade people, who pray to Muḥammad, a proven traitor.”⁸ Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada incorporated a life of Muḥammad in his History of the Arabs.9 In order to refute Islam, he directed Mark, a canon of Toledo, to prepare a Latin translation of the Quʾrān; but otherwise neither Rodrigo nor his colleagues seem to have troubled themselves about the conversion of the Mudéjars.¹⁰ Bishop Lucas of Túy also provided a rather lurid account of Muḥammad’s life and teaching.¹¹

Reflecting the prevailing attitude, Alfonso X reviled Islam as “a wicked sect” created by Muḥammad “for the perdition of souls.” Utilizing the writings of Rodrigo, Lucas, and others, he summarized the life of Muḥammad in the Estoria de Espanna. Born in Mecca, “the false prophet,” descended from Ishmael, borrowed many of his ideas from the Jews and Christians he encountered along the trade routes. Accompanied by the Archangel Gabriel, he explored the heavens, ascending even to the seventh heaven, where God chose him as a prophet. Supposedly afflicted with epilepsy, he received revelations from God and began to preach that there was only one God. Rejected by the Quraysh, the ruling tribe in Mecca, who were polytheists, he made his hijra or journey to Medina. After subjugating Mecca, he incorporated the pilgrimage to the shrine of the Ka’aba into his religion. His doctrine was said to be drawn from Nicholas of Antioch, one of the original seven deacons, and purportedly the founder of the Nicolaites, a heretical sect. Muḥammad taught that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit but that he was not divine. Muslims, summoned to prayer, gathered in their mosques and, using a lunar calendar, fasted during the month of Ramadan. Those who killed their enemies would enter paradise where they would enjoy feasting and the embrace of lovely maidens. His words were recorded in the Quʾrān, a book filled with “so much iniquity and falsehood.” Though married to Khadija, a wealthy widow, he committed “adultery and fornication” with eighteen women. When he died, he yielded his soul to the devil and, as Lucas remarked, his body was devoured by dogs.¹²

Juan Manuel related that the king caused to be translated into Castilian “the entire sect of the Moors,” so as to reveal the errors of Muḥammad, the “false prophet.” Those translations included the Liber scale Machumeti or Muḥammad’s Ladder, which recounted his journey to the seventh heaven.¹³ The king surely had the opportunity to consult Muslim leaders about their beliefs and to study the Quʾrān, but he seems to have relied on polemical Christian sources for his knowledge of Islam.

The Jewish and Moorish Aljamas

By the middle of the thirteenth century, as a consequence of the conquest of Andalucía and Murcia, the Jewish and Muslim populations in Castile had grown substantially. Jewish colonies were located in urban centers where most lived as artisans and shopkeepers. A few gained wealth and prominence as moneylenders, tax collectors, and physicians to the king. Settled in Spain from the earliest times, the Jews were not perceived as a political threat.14

Jews, though mainly city dwellers, were never integrated into municipal political and juridical life. Usually residing in a separate urban district called the judería, they formed their own community or aljama (ar. al-jama, the gathering) headed by a viejo mayor, “the chief old man.”¹⁵ The Jews of Allariz, for example, in 1289 agreed to live within the judería, and Christians were forbidden to live there.¹⁶ Although Roman and canon law prohibited Jews from holding public office or exercising authority over Christians, Castilian kings often violated that principle.¹⁷ The Partidas (7, 24, 3) explained that the Jews, as God’s People, committed treason by failing to recognize Jesus as the Messiah and crucifying him. Thus, emperors forbade them to hold any office with power to oppress Christians. In 1271, for example, Alfonso X barred any non-Christian from public office in Lorca and declared that no Jew or “New Christian,” a convert, except a royal almojarife or tax collector, should have authority over Christians.¹⁸ Despite that, he ordinarily employed Jews as tax farmers.¹⁹

In contrast to the Jews, Muslims were viewed as enemies to be driven from Spain. Fernando III, on receiving the surrender of the principal cities, required the Muslim population to evacuate. As Muslim jurisconsults held that a good Muslim ought not to submit to Christian authority, many affluent Muslims emigrated to Granada or Morocco. In 1254 Alfonso X authorized Christians to purchase the holdings of Moors departing from Seville.²⁰ While the emirs of Murcia, Granada, and Niebla were compelled to become Castilian vassals, thousands of Muslims in Murcia and Andalucía were subject to Christian rule. They were known as Mudéjars, a word derived from al-mudajjan, “those allowed to remain.”²¹ As freemen, some engaged in agricultural and pastoral pursuits, while others were tradesmen or artisans. Still others were held as slaves.²² In 1260 Alfonso X observed that “the Moors who are in all our realms are ours and we have to guard and protect them and to have our rights from them.”²³ Although they had a protected status, their allegiance was always suspect, and their revolt in 1264 confirmed that view.

Moors were also banned from wielding authority over Christians, and there is no evidence that the king employed them in his government. Organized in their own self-governing aljama, in the towns they usually lived in certain neighborhoods known as morerías, where they were assured of security in their persons and property (SP 7, 25, 1). Their alcaldes (ar. al-qādī) administered justice and collected tributes owed to the crown. Sometimes the alcalde was called alcaide or alcayat, a word derived from al-qāʾid, a military commander. The similarity of the words, despite their distinct meanings, confused Christian minds. In 1254 Ibn Sabah, alcayde de moros, promised the royal alcalde Gonzalo Vicente to transfer the aljama of Morón southward to Silibar by 31 August. If anyone failed to move by that date, the king would seize his property. Given safe conduct to their new village, the Moors were permitted to build houses, shops, mills, baths, and warehouses. Ibn Sabah would govern them according to their own law, and no Christian was allowed to live there except the royal almojarife. For three years from 1 September they were exempt from taxes, but thereafter they would owe the king a tenth of the harvest and varying sums for marshy land (almarjal).24 This was part of a broader plan to reduce the Muslim population in the vicinity of Seville, about forty miles to the northwest. Manuel González Jiménez counted eight aljamas in the old kingdom of Jaén, fifteen in the kingdom of Córdoba, and twenty in the kingdom of Seville before the Mudéjar revolt of 1264.²⁵ There were others in Alicante, Lorca, Elche, and Murcia. Chancery registers for 1284–85 recorded aljamas in Badajoz, Moura, Serpa, Valencia, Hornachos, Magacela, Benquerencia, and Alcántara, as well as others in the lands of the military orders.²⁶ CSM 169 related that ʿAbd Allāh, “rey de los moros del Arrixaca,” a vassal of Alfonso X, vetoed a proposal to remove the Christian church from the Arrixaca of Murcia, even though the king had authorized it.²⁷

Social and Legal Constraints

The separation of Jews and Muslims from Christians was intended to inhibit the possibility of conversion. Jewish and Muslim leaders were equally anxious to preserve their community from unnecessary contact with Christians. All three religious traditions opposed intermarriage with persons of other religions, and the ban was incorporated into both Roman and canon law.²⁸

All sexual contact between Christians and Jews was forbidden. Lest a Christian woman be seduced by a Jew or persuaded to give up her faith, in 1252 Alfonso X prohibited her from residing with Jews as a servant or nursing their children.²⁹ Christian and Jewish women were forbidden to nurse children of a different religion, and if a Christian woman married a Jew or a Moor, both would suffer the death penalty (FR 4, 2, 4; 4, 11, 3). Declaring that Christian women were spiritually wedded to Jesus Christ, the royal jurists threatened those who had intercourse with Jews or Moors with confiscation, scourging, or death (SP 7, 24, 9). The husband of a guilty woman could cast her out, burn her, or punish her however he wished. Moors engaging in liaisons with Christian women would be stoned to death. By contrast, anyone who raped a Muslim woman had only to pay 10 percent of the fine due to a Christian victim of rape (SP 7, 25, 10). CSM 186 told of a Christian woman, wrongly accused of adultery, who was saved from the flames by the Virgin Mary, though her putative paramour, a Moorish slave, was totally burned. Christian men were also banned from cohabiting with Jews.30

A Jew might have Christian servants, provided they did not live in his house where they might be susceptible to proselytization. Christians and Jews were forbidden to eat or drink together, and Christians were warned not to drink wine made by Jews, just as Jewish law forbade the use of wine made by Christians. Nor were Christians to use medicines prepared by Jews, though presumably a Jewish physician might prescribe medication that a Christian could take if it were prepared by a Christian who was familiar with its ingredients. Lest Christians, Jews, or Muslims bathe together, certain days were assigned in the public baths to each of the three religions (SP 7, 24, 8).³¹

In order to thwart the assimilation of Jews, they were not permitted to adopt Christian names (Jerez 1268, art. 7). Just as the Almoravids and the Almohads in the eleventh and twelfth centuries obliged Jews to wear distinctive dress, so too did the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 (canon 68). Thus enabled to identify Jews, Christians presumably would keep their distance from them. Fernando III, protesting that many Jews, rather than submit to this indignity, preferred to withdraw to Muslim lands and that some even conspired against him, appealed to Pope Honorius III in 1219 to suspend the canon. Later evidence reveals that the canon was not observed.³² In this respect one ought to recall Peter Linehan’s judgment that the Castilian Church, dominated by the monarchy, was woefully negligent in implementing the decrees of the Fourth Lateran Council.³³

The Cortes did not require Jews to wear a badge, but it did regulate colors and types of clothing. In the Cortes of Seville in 1252 (art. 40) Alfonso X required Moors to live in enclosed districts in the towns, to wear their hair parted without a tuft, and their beards as long as their law required. They could not wear brightly colored clothing, or white or gilded shoes, or gold and silver adornments. The penalty for the first offense was one hundred maravedís and two hundred for the second. The Cantigas de Santa Maria usually portrayed bearded Moors wearing turbans and long-flowing gowns. This ban was later extended to the Jews.³⁴ As these ordinances also specified the types and colors of clothing permissible to various ranks in society, including the king, it was not a matter of singling out Jews or Moors.

Nevertheless, the royal jurists, commenting that wicked things occurred when Christians and Jews dressed alike, endorsed canon 68 of the Fourth Lateran Council and ordered Jews to wear some distinguishing sign on their heads so that they could be easily recognized (SP 7, 24, 11). The Cantigas de Santa María depict Jews wearing capes and hoods, but there is no identifying badge or other sign on their clothing.35 The law in the Partidas, however, does not seem to have been enforced. When the Cortes of Palencia in 1313 asked Infante Juan, then regent for Alfonso XI, to require Jews to wear a yellow badge as in France, he demurred, saying that he would do what seemed best in this regard (arts. 26 J, 34 J).³⁶

Ordinarily judges of each religious community resolved litigation among their own members, but complications occurred when people of different groups came into conflict. For example, Alfonso X declared that Christian judges, rather than Jewish elders, should adjudicate suits between Christians and Jews. Christians were admonished not to take unauthorized pledges or otherwise injure the Jews, but to bring their quarrels before royal judges. No one should summon a Jew to court on the Sabbath, and a Jew could not be constrained to appear on that day (FR 4, 2, 7; SP 7, 24, 5; LEst 87–90). In 1263, the king, rejecting the practice in Burgos of requiring the testimony of a Christian and a Jew in a suit between Christians and Jews, stated that two Christian witnesses were sufficient.³⁷ When the aljama of Burgos complained that judges favored Christians over Jews, he ordered the municipal alcaldes to do justice to the Jews, as was customary, and to permit them to appeal to him.³⁸ The aljama, after agreeing to an annual payment of 330⅓ maravedís for the city’s judges, vainly protested his appointment of Simón Raínez and Garcí Pérez as special alcaldes to hear suits between Christians and Jews.³⁹ In the Cortes of Palencia in 1286 (art. 15) Sancho IV curtailed the right of Jews to be judged by their own judges by declaring that they would be justiciable by royal judges in each town. Subsequent Cortes repeated that principle.⁴⁰

Muslim alcaldes, at least in the kingdom of Murcia, were responsible for administering justice among their own people, but occasionally they seem to have been negligent. Alfonso X directed the municipal alcaldes of Cartagena to compel the alcalde moro to adjudicate pleas between Moors should he fail to do so. That may have been a step toward subjecting litigation among Moors to royal judges. He also assured the people of Alicante and Lorca that only a Christian judge could settle cases between Christians and Moors. As lord of Elche, Infante Manuel also affirmed the authority of the alcalde de los moros. However, in Burgos, and perhaps elsewhere, the municipal alcaldes, according to Sancho IV, customarily had jurisdiction over the Moors, who evidently did not have their own judge.⁴¹ Mudéjars were also forbidden to act as advocates except in cases involving their coreligionists (E 4, 9, 2; FR 1, 9, 4; SP 3, 6, 5).

In cases involving different religious groups, the law usually required proof by witnesses representing each religion, but the inferior status of Jews and Muslims was manifest. In all pleas the testimony of two Christians of good repute was admissible against Jews or Moors.42 Moors, Jews, and heretics were forbidden to bear witness against a Christian, unless they could personally testify when there were no Christian witnesses, or in a case of treason in which they personally participated (E 4, 7, 5; SP 3, 16, 9). Whenever Christians, Jews, or Moors engaged in litigation with one another they were obliged to swear in a prescribed manner. In the Cortes of Seville in 1252 (art. 38) Alfonso X ordered them to do so as in the past, but as noted in chapter 8 above, he specified the exact wording of the oaths in his law codes (E 5, 11, 16–17; SP 3, 11, 20–21).⁴³

The Leyes del estilo (83–84, 103) stipulated that monetary penalties for crimes would be levied in accordance with local fueros and not Jewish or Muslim privileges. The law favored Christians, whose lives were valued more highly than those of Muslims or Jews. If the dead body of a Jew or a Moor was found within the municipal district, the town would have to pay a homicide fine of one thousand maravedís.

Tributes

The Jewish aljama was responsible for collecting the annual tribute owed to the king in accordance with the principle enunciated in the Fuero of Cuenca (art. 29): “The Jews belong to the king and they are assigned to the treasury.”⁴⁴ That principle was illustrated in 1270 when he gave a Jewish community to Las Huelgas de Burgos with the stipulation that they would pay tribute to the nuns.⁴⁵ The principal tax was a capitation or poll tax, but the Jews also paid a multiplicity of other taxes.⁴⁶

The king also claimed ownership of the Muslims, declaring that those “who live in all our kingdoms are ours.” They paid a capitation tax (pecho de los moros, alfitra, alfitran). In 1260 he set that at one maravedí for sharecroppers, shopkeepers, and craftsmen in Alicante, but at one half for men making their living from the sea.⁴⁷ The Moors of Andalucía also paid a land tax (almarjal) and a tenth of the harvest (diezmo). Some owed labor services, such as Moorish craftsmen, who had to work on the cathedral of Córdoba two days each year.⁴⁸ Occasionally, the king obliged the Moorish and Jewish communities to pay an extraordinary tax such as the oncenas or eleventh in 1252. When the Jews of Badajoz refused to pay it, in 1253 he ordered them to do so and to pay an additional sum. In 1279 he also required the Jews of San Felices, who refused to pay tribute on taxable property they acquired, to do so.⁴⁹

During the Cortes of Seville in 1252 (art. 41), the king stated that no one was authorized to exempt Moors from taxation, but he sometimes conceded their tributes to the towns. In 1254, for example, he granted Córdoba five hundred maravedís from the tribute owed by the aljama at Michaelmas for repair of the city walls. Two years later he gave the Muslim tenth to Alicante; in 1261, for the maintenance of the walls he gave the town the capitation tax. Orihuela received a similar concession in 1274.50

Both Jews and Moors had to pay tithes on lands formerly belonging to Christians. However incongruous it may seem, the primary reason was economic rather than religious. The transfer of lands from Christians to non-Christians meant a decrease in episcopal revenues from the tithe and would also deprive the king of the tercias. Thus, he affirmed the obligation of the Jews and Muslims to pay tithes on lands once Christian.⁵¹

The Jewish communities paid a much higher tribute than the Moors. Early in 1281 the king arrested all the Jewish aljamas and forced them to pay a ransom of 4,380,000 maravedís annually.⁵² That seems to be twice the usual amount, as the Cortes of Valladolid in 1312 (art. 102) claimed that the aljamas paid Alfonso X and Sancho IV 6,000 maravedís daily (or 2,190,000 annually); in Fernando IV’s time that sum had declined to one fifth (1,200 maravedís daily). More than five thousand of the richest Jews were excused from payment, so the burden fell upon poor Jews.⁵³ In September 1290 the capitation tax was almost 2,000,000 maravedís of which the largest portion was paid by Toledo (216,505), followed by Burgos (87,760), and Carrión (73,480). The total for the frontier, including Seville and Córdoba (191,898) was less than for Toledo and for the kingdom of León (218,300). The kingdom of Murcia paid a paltry 22,424 maravedís.⁵⁴

The crown’s total income from Mudéjar tributes is unknown, though royal accounts for the half year from December 1293 to June 1294 reveal the following sums: Seville, 8,000 maravedís; Córdoba, Constantina, and other towns, 5,000; Madrid, 1,300; Burgos, 1,092; Coria, 569; León, 480; Santa Olalla, 423; and Almoguera, 414. Moors in the diocese of Palencia owed 5,692 maravedís, and those in the dioceses of Ávila and Segovia taken together, 6,705. The accounts for the year ending in November 1294 show the Moors of Seville paid 5,500 maravedís, those of Córdoba, 2,000, and those of Constantina, 1,150. Amounts were given for the combined Jewish and Moorish communities of the archdiocese of Toledo, the kingdom of León, and the dioceses of Plasencia and Cuenca, but there is no way of determining the relative contribution of each community. Most of the money was likely paid by the Jewish aljamas who were wealthier than the Moors. The Jews of Ávila, for example, paid 59,592 maravedís in 1290 while the Moors of Seville paid 5,500 in 1294.⁵⁵

Religious Freedom

Jews and Muslims were guaranteed religious liberty, but its practical exercise was circumscribed. Jews were admonished to observe the law of Moses peacefully, without speaking ill of the Christian faith. Alfonso X declared: “we do not prohibit the Jews from observing their Sabbaths and the other feasts that their law commands and their usage of all the other things granted by Holy Church and by kings” (FR 4, 2, 7). Saturday was their day of worship, on which they remained in their houses and did not work or engage in business (SP 7, 24, 2).56

The king also confirmed their right “to read and to have all the books of their law, as it was given to them by Moses and by the other prophets” (FR 4, 2, 1). Yet they were warned not to read books that might undermine their faith; such books would be burned. While that seems to reflect a concern to preserve authentic Jewish teaching, the law may also have been prompted by fear that the books might contain anti-Christian ideas. Jews were also forbidden knowingly to possess books that attacked Christianity (FR 4, 2, 1). That law may have been inspired by Gregory IX’s order in 1239 to seize and scrutinize the Talmud for passages offensive to Christians. Although copies of the Talmud were burned in France, there was no similar expurgation in Castile-León.⁵⁷

The synagogue, a house where Jews praised God’s name, was under royal protection, and no one was to destroy it or plunder it. However, the king claimed the right to arrest criminals seeking refuge there, just as he did in Christian churches. Christians were forbidden to use a synagogue as a stable or for lodgings or to interfere with Jews praying there.⁵⁸ In accordance with Roman and canon law, already existing synagogues could be repaired but could not be increased in size or height or painted. If that were done, the synagogue would be turned over to the local church. In 1250 Pope Innocent IV prohibited the Jews of Córdoba from erecting a new synagogue.⁵⁹ Nevertheless, Alfonso X reserved the right to authorize construction of new synagogues (SP 7, 24, 4), thereby affirming that he did not intend to allow ecclesiastical authorities to determine his policy.

Although the law assured Mudéjars of security in their property, there was always a discrepancy between the letter of the law and its implementation.⁶⁰ The Moors were not permitted to have mosques in Christian towns, though they might retain smaller mosques and cemeteries outside the walls. The Christians, however, had no compunction in appropriating mosques and turning them into churches. When Fernando III captured Córdoba, the chief mosque was cleansed of “the filthiness of Muḥammad” and dedicated as a cathedral.61 That process also occurred in other cities. Alfonso X gave the archbishopric all the mosques in Seville except three in the Jewish quarter that were transformed into synagogues. In 1266 Jaime I demanded that the Mudéjars of Murcia yield the mosque adjacent to the alcázar so that it could be consecrated as a church. When they objected, he insisted that he did not wish to hear the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer while he was asleep.⁶² Other mosques and cemeteries in the kingdom of Murcia were transferred to Christian hands.⁶³ The conversion of churches to mosques and mosques to churches symbolized the alternating ascendancy of one religion over the other.

Despite promises of religious liberty, Jews and Muslims were expressly forbidden to propagate their beliefs. The ban on any public display of their religion and the restraints on sexual and social relations among Christians, Muslims, and Jews were intended to obstruct proselytization. The law, furthermore, made it dangerous for anyone to convert to Islam or Judaism. On penalty of death, confiscation, and eternal infamy, Jews and Muslims were prohibited from seeking converts among Christians. If perchance a Christian, losing “his sense and true understanding,” committed “the very great treason” of becoming a Muslim or a Jew, his property would be confiscated and he risked losing his life. Should he return to the Christian faith, he would be forever infamous and be banned from testifying in court, holding public office, making a will, inheriting property, or concluding a contract (SP 7, 24, 2, 7; 7, 25, 4–8; FR 4, 1, 1; 4, 2, 2).

The Cortes of Seville in 1252 (art. 45) explicitly forbade Muslims to convert to Judaism or Jews to become Muslims. Converts or those counseling conversion were fined one hundred maravedís and became the king’s “captives.” Their children would inherit their property, but if there were none, the king would be the beneficiary. The Partidas (7, 24, 10), intent on discouraging Jews from seeking converts among slaves, declared that a slave who accepted Judaism would become free. Moors who were captives of Jews could also gain their freedom by becoming Christians. If Jews purchased or owned Christian slaves, which they were forbidden to do by law, those slaves would also be set at liberty.⁶⁴

Jews and Muslims were enjoined not to insult the Christian religion. A Jew who blasphemed God would be fined ten maravedís for each offense and would suffer ten lashes (FR 4, 2, 3). Reflecting that law, CSM 286 related that when Jews laughed at a barking dog interrupting a Christian’s prayers, God, on Mary’s intercession, caused a door to fall on them and crush them. Muslims and Jews who spit on the cross or the altar, defaced paintings or images, or threw stones at churches would lose a quarter of their goods for the first offense, a third for the second, half for the third, and beyond that they would be banished. If the delinquent was a propertyless minor, his hand would be cut off. A Jew or a Muslim who spoke wrongly of God, the Virgin Mary, or the saints while playing with dice would suffer the lash. On the third offense, his tongue would be cut out, and his body and his goods would be at the king’s disposal.65 While acknowledging that Jews and Moors should not be pressured to accept Christianity, Alfonso X explained that just as the Moors prohibited Christians to insult Muḥammad or Islam, it was only right that Jews and Moors, “whom we permit to live in our realms, though they do not believe in our faith,” should be similarly castigated (SP 7, 28, 6).

The rumor of ritual murder of Christian children by Jews in northern Europe was echoed in the Partidas (7, 24, 2). It was said that Jews, on Good Friday, in contempt of Christ’s passion, crucified children or wax images. Anyone convicted of this crime in the king’s presence would be executed. Given the possibility of violence against the Jews on Good Friday, the king ordered them to remain inside their district until Saturday morning. Otherwise they would not be entitled to compensation for injuries inflicted by Christians. While the Cantigas de Santa María do not include any story of ritual murder, CSM 12 related that when the Virgin Mary complained of “the perfidy of the Jews who killed my son,” the people of Toledo rushed to the Jewish quarter where they found the Jews crucifying an image of Jesus on the feast of the Assumption.⁶⁶

Unlike Jews and Muslims, Christians were not denied the right to seek converts. They were admonished, however, to win over Jews by good example and the teachings of sacred scripture and not to compel them, because “our Lord Jesus Christ does not wish and does not love service given by force.” If a Jew wished to become a Christian, other Jews were not to impede him. If they wounded or killed him, they would be burned to death (SP 7, 24, 6). CSM 4, describing how a Jewish father was burned for attempting to burn his son, who had received communion with Christian children, may reflect this law.⁶⁷

Nor was anyone to threaten a Muslim wishing to accept Christianity. Echoing Pope Gregory the Great, the royal jurists counseled Christians “to labor by good words and suitable preaching to convert the Moors and cause them to believe in our faith and to lead them to it, not by force or by pressure… for [the Lord] is not pleased by service that men give him through fear, but with what they do willingly and without any pressure” (SP 7, 25, 2).⁶⁸ A generation later Juan Manuel repeated a commonplace of Christian theology: “involuntary and forced services do not please God…. Jesus Christ never commanded that anyone should be killed or compelled to accept his religion, because he does not want forced service, but rather that which is done willingly and with the right disposition.”69 Ana Echevarría suggested that the mendicant friars in Seville may have converted those Muslims whom the municipal council described as “new Christians” in 1274.⁷⁰

Converts often found that their situation was not a happy one. Christians were commanded to treat a convert from Judaism with honor and respect, and not to insult him or his descendants because they had once been Jews. Anyone who assaulted a convert would be punished and had to make compensation. A convert was entitled to retain his property and his share in his family’s inheritance. No longer excluded from public office, he could hold every office or dignity open to a Christian (SP 7, 24, 6). The Council of Peñafiel in 1302 acknowledged the difficulties facing potential converts who were fearful of losing their goods if they did so.⁷¹

Muslim converts were often insulted as turncoats. When there was only a handful of Moors in a Christian community, as was probably the case in the north, conversion or assimilation took place inevitably, as the Moors opted to conform to the lifestyle of their neighbors. In the larger towns where the number of Mudéjars was more substantial and they were organized in aljamas, the possibility of maintaining their separate identity was greater. The Cantigas de Santa Maria (167, 192) attributed some conversions to the intercession of the Virgin Mary.

Nevertheless, Alfonso X made no concerted effort to convert either Jews or Muslims. The impetus for missionary activity among the Muslims came from outside the peninsula. Jaime I admonished him for not displaying greater zeal in this respect. While Alfonso X supported the Dominican Arabic language school at Murcia, and in 1254 established a studium generale for Latin and Arabic studies at Seville,⁷² he seems to have been prompted chiefly by his interest in Arabic culture rather than a missionary impulse. Still, as the years passed he developed a more hostile attitude toward Muslims and Jews.

Although his son Sancho IV revealed a superficial knowledge of Muḥammad’s life and various aspects of Islamic doctrine, Sancho also never suggested that the conversion of the Muslims was a royal responsibility. He stated bluntly that “the Moor is nothing but a dog.” The majority of Christians more than likely would have agreed with him.⁷³

The Mudéjar Revolt and Its Aftermath

In the second decade of Alfonso X’s reign the situation of the Mudéjars changed for the worse. In 1262 the king seized Niebla, dispossessing his vassal Ibn Maḥfūt and forcing the Moors to evacuate the town. Next, he expelled the Mudéjars from Écija and introduced Christian settlers. Then, intent on controlling the Strait of Gibraltar, he demanded that Ibn al-Aḥmar, emir of Granada, surrender Tarifa and Gibraltar. Rather than comply, the emir incited the Mudéjars of Andalucía and Murcia to revolt in 1264. After the emir submitted in 1267, Alfonso X expelled the Moors from the frontier towns and replaced them with Christians. Meanwhile, Jaime I vanquished the Mudéjars of Murcia. In 1272 Alfonso X, fearing a future insurrection, directed the Moors to move from the city to the suburb of Arrixaca. They were forbidden to damage the houses they left or to remove doors, locks, or armoires. Christians living in the Arrixaca had to leave their houses for the Moors. A wall separating the Arrixaca from the city proper was to be built; gates and bridges connecting the city and the suburb were to be sealed or torn down. The Moors of Orihuela were also restricted to the suburb.74 During his remaining years, the number of Christian settlers steadily increased, while more prosperous Mudéjars emigrated to Granada or North Africa.⁷⁵

In the Cantigas de Santa Maria the king described the emir’s attempt to seize the castle of Chincoya (CSM 185), the uprising in Jerez in 1264 (CSM 345), and the proposed removal of the Christian church from the Arrixaca (CSM 169). But he also denounced “the false, vain, very crazy villain, the dog Muḥammad” (CSM 192.102–4) and expressed the hope that the name of Muḥammad would be erased (CSM 328.5–8). He also prayed to “be able to expel the sect of Muḥammad from Spain” (CSM 360.27), to “destroy the unbelieving Moors,” and “to drive out those who, to my distress, occupy the land of Ultramar and a great part of Spain” (CSM 401.12–31; CSM 406.33–41).

The Jews, His Other Enemies

As the king’s reign drew to a close, the Jews also incurred his wrath. For years Solomon ibn Zadok of Toledo was his almojarife mayor, but when he died in 1273, Alfonso X confiscated his estates and gave them to the cathedral of Seville. Despite that, Solomon’s son Isaac ibn Zadok, known to the Christians as Zag de la Maleha, served the king in a similar capacity.⁷⁶ In five contracts concluded between October 1276 and January 1277, the king authorized Zag de la Maleha, Roy Fernández of Sahagún, a Christian, Abraham ibn Shoshan, son-in-law of the almojarife Meir ibn Shoshan, and Meir’s sons Zag and Yusuf to collect arrears of taxes owing since the conquest of Niebla in 1262. All told he expected to receive 1,670,000 maravedís. The intensive scrutiny of royal accounts dating back fifteen years was bound to exacerbate relations between the king and his people and to rouse hostility toward the Jews.⁷⁷

A few years later, Zag de la Maleha and the Jewish community suffered cruelly at the king’s hands. Requiring substantial funds to blockade Algeciras, the king fined Christian usurers and solicited servicios from the Cortes. In February 1279, Burgos contracted with the tax collector Yusuf Pimintiella to pay six servicios in five years instead of outstanding taxes and fines.78 Trouble ensued not long after. As the king’s behavior became more erratic, probably as a result of a painful cancer in his face, Queen Violante fled to the court of her brother, Pedro III of Aragón. Infante Sancho, anxious to reconcile his parents, compelled Zag de la Maleha to give him tax moneys collected for the siege of Algeciras so that he could bring his mother home. Thereafter, Castilian forces, weakened by illness and hunger, abandoned the siege, and in June 1280 the knights of Santiago were decimated at Moclín. In September, the king vented his fury by ordering the arrest of the Jewish tax collectors. Then, in order to chastise Sancho as well, he had Zag de la Maleha taken to Sancho’s residence at the friary of San Francisco in Seville and dragged through the streets to the Arenal on the eastern bank of the Guadalquivir. The Chronicle of Alfonso X says nothing of a trial, but the king likely denounced Zag as a traitor deserving the most degrading execution. Although Sancho thought to intervene, his advisers warned him not to. Then, on 19 January 1281, Alfonso X ordered the arrest of all the Jews gathered in their synagogues on the Sabbath and demanded a daily ransom of 12,000 gold maravedís, or 4,380,000 annually.⁷⁹ In a moving poem written in prison, the courtier-poet Todros b. Judah ha-Levi accepted his imprisonment and impoverishment and the possibility of execution as “a mark of [God’s] love.”⁸⁰

These events are the hidden story behind CSM 348 telling of a king (obviously Alfonso X) who had insufficient funds for the war against Granada, because those in charge of his revenues failed to assist him. While he was sleeping, the Virgin Mary told him she would reveal a buried treasure, but a search yielded nothing. A year later, however, she showed him an abundance of silver, gold, jewels, silks, and tapestries belonging to the “judeos, seus enemigos, a que quer peor ca mouros” (the Jews, his enemies who are worse than the Moors). This was not buried treasure, but the ransom exacted from the imprisoned Jews. The vehemence of the poet’s animosity toward the Jews reflects the king’s perception of betrayal by Zag de la Maleha.

Deuen Biuir… entre los Christianos… Guardando su Ley e Non Denostando la Nuestra

Alfonso X regulated relations among members of the three religions according to this principle: “Deuen biuir los Moros entre los Christianos en aquella mesma manera… que lo deuen los judios, guardando su ley e non denostando la nuestra” (the Moors should live among Christians in the same manner… as the Jews ought to do, observing their religion [ley] and not insulting ours) (SP 7, 25, 1). Different religions were designated as leyes or laws, because the law was all embracing, including the substance of religious belief, which in turn determined the habits of daily life. Jews and Muslims were assured of religious freedom and jurisdictional autonomy so long as they did not contest Christian ascendancy.

In order to preserve the separate identities of the three religions, the law prohibited Christians from converting to Judaism or Islam, banned Christian women from nursing children of other religions, forbade Christians to cohabit with Jews or Muslims, and required non-Christians to dress in a certain way and not to assume Christian names. The Jewish synagogue was protected as a house of worship and might be repaired, but new ones could not be erected without royal permission. Conversely, the king, perceiving Islam as a greater political threat, routinely transformed mosques into churches, just as the Muslims had once turned churches into mosques. As a clear mark of their inferiority, non-Christians could not hold public office or exercise authority over Christians.

Alfonso X’s legislation concerning non-Christians was not particularly original, as it conformed to the centuries-old tradition of Roman and canon law. What is striking is that he seems to have ignored the considerably more hostile anti-Jewish laws in the Visigothic Code and the Councils of Toledo.81 The condition of the Jews or Muslims seems not to have worsened because of his legislation, but the laws were conveniently summarized in the Partidas for future generations to use.

Enforcement of the laws depended largely upon local authorities, but illustrative court records are lacking. Despite the laws and his unflattering depiction of the Jews in the Cantigas de Santa María, Alfonso X seems to have been tolerant of them. Contrary to the canonical prohibition, he employed many of them as physicians and tax collectors. Attracted to Islamic culture, he directed many Jews to translate Arabic texts, particularly those of a scientific nature. He even proposed to establish a studium generale in Seville where Latin and Arabic would be taught. In his last years, frustrated by the disappointment of his imperial ambitions, threatened by Moroccan invasion, and suffering from various illnesses, he became more hostile to those surrounding him. Lest the Mudéjars threaten his rule again, after their revolt in 1264, he uprooted them from frontier towns. His arrest and execution of Zag de la Maleha and his plundering of the Jewish aljamas severed his close relationship with Jewish leaders.

As a final reflection, it is well to recognize that medieval society was not inherently pluralistic. Christianity, Islam, and Judaism were exclusive religions in which religious beliefs and customs were inextricably linked. Unlike our society, which is professedly neutral in matters of religion and in which everyone, irrespective of religious beliefs, is equal before the law, in medieval Europe the law of the dominant religious group prevailed. As Castilian society was fundamentally Christian, only Christians could participate fully in public life. Jews and Muslims, hedged about by legal and social restraints, remained peoples apart. A degree of assimilation was possible in terms of language and external habits, but unless a Jew or a Muslim abandoned his religion, which encompassed the totality of his existence, he could not be wholly integrated into a society proclaiming itself Christian.