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New Light on the Jews of Mozarabic Toledo

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 October 2009

Norman Roth
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin Madison Wis
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Extract

Medieval Spain represents a unique phenomenon in the history of Jewish civilization. Not only did the Jews live longer in Spain than in any other land in their history (indeed, almost as long as they occupied their homeland in the land of Israel from Abraham to the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E.), but the Jewish population of medieval Spain was greater than that of all other lands combined, and the rich achievements of Jewish culture there were unequaled elsewhere. Of all the cities in Spain which served as major centers of Jewish life and culture, Toledo perhaps stands out as the most important. Studies dealing with Jewish life in Spain have recognized this, and the long-awaited appearance of a recent two-volume work in Spanish devoted to the Jews of Toledo has helped focus attention once again on the vast archival material available.

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Copyright © Association for Jewish Studies 1986

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References

1. Tello, Pilar Leon, Los judios de Toledo, 2 vols. (Madrid, 1979)Google Scholar he collection of Mozarabic documents, in Arabic and Hebrew, which will be frequently cited here is AngelGonzalez, Palencia, ed., Los Mozdrabes de Toledo en los siglos XII y XIII, 4 vols. (Madrid, 1926–30)Google Scholar (hereafter cited as Mozdrabes).

2. Daud, Abraham Ibn he first Jewish historian in medieval Spain and himself a resident of Toledo, used this spelling in his chronicle, Sefer ha-Qabbalah, The Book of Tradition ed. and trans. Cohen, son D (Philadelphia, 1967), text, p.53Google Scholar, etc. It is also found in the responsa of early rabbis of Muslim Spain, such as Isaac al-Fasi, Joseph Ibn Megash, Moses b. Maimon (Maimonides), and in numerous other Jewish sources. On the connection with the passage in Isaiah, we have direct evidence only from later authoirities, such as Asher b. Yehiel, rabbi of the community of Toledo in the fourteenth century, and Isaac Abravanel in the fifteenth (see, e.g., his commentary on I Kings 10:22); yet there are hints to it already in a poem of Judah ha-Levy. Neither the commentaries of Abraham Ibn Ezra nor of David Qimhi (who lived in Toledo) on Isaiah offer any comment. Toledo can have no symbolic relation to Hebrew toldot (“generations”), as Leon Tello, Losjudios, 1:4, suggests, because the Hebrew name for Toledo is spelled with a let, whereas toldot is spelled with a tav.

3. Musa al-Razi, Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn, Cronica del Moro Rasis, ed. Diego Catalan, Pidal et al. (Madrid, 1975), p. 262.Google Scholar

4. Tahkemoni, ed. Toporovsky, Yehudah (Tel Aviv, 1952), p. 345.Google Scholar See in general the chapter “Maimonides as Spaniard” in Roth, , Maimonides: Essays and Texts(Madison, 1986).Google Scholar

5. Septimus, BernardHispano-Jewish Culture in Transition: The Career and Controversies of Ramah(Cambridge, Mass., 1982), p. 137,Google Scholar n. Ill (see the critical review of this book in American Historical Review 89 [1984]: 420–421).

6. While most of the papers in the two-volume Simposio Toledo judaico(Madrid, 1972) are disappointing in quality, Julio Porres Martin-Cleto, “Los barrios judios de Toledo” (vol. 1, pp. 45–75), is quite informative. Neither he nor the scholars he cites (p. 47), however, have apparently seen the fundamental study of Leopoldo Torres Balbas, “Plazas, zocos y tiendas de las ciudades hispanomusulmanes, ” Al-Andalus12 (1947), especially pp. 461–462. Note also the ”tendis de halhanatesque sunt in vico Judeorum” mentioned in a document of Alfonso VIII (1183), cited by Gonzalez Palencia, Mozdrabes, 1:76, n. 1 (this also escaped the notice of Torres). Here, there can be no doubt that this word derives from Arabic fianat, “stores, ” i.e., a marketplace. Were it not for the unquestioned authority of Torres, I would venture another etymology for Alcana, however: Arabic al-kann, a place of shelter, or al-kunna, an awning, and thus a marketplace (covered by awnings). For the adarve de la Sueca, see Mozdrabes, 1:75; Torres Balbas, “Plazas, zocas y tiendas, ” p. 450 (it must be located near the “Puerto de Assuica”on the map in Martin-Cleto, “Los barrios judios, ” p. 71, no.l).

7. Mozdrabes3, no. 605. See the rather vague discussion in Martin-Cleto, “Los barrios judios, ” pp. 61–63.

8. Balbas, Torres, iudades hispanomusulmanas, 2 vols. (s.l.s.a. [Madrid, 1971]), 1:210.Google Scholar

9. Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Mu'nim al-Himyari, Kitdb al-rawd al-mi'tdr, ed. and trans. Levi-Provencal, E, a peninsule iberique au moyen age Leiden, 1938),Google Scholar reports that a Jabal al-kuhl was found near Baza, from which antinomy was extracted (p. 45, text; p. 57, trans.).

10. Mentioned only in 1382; Mozdrabes 4, nos. 1138 and 1139. For the name, cf. Abraham b. Moses Abgalon (1391), Ibid., no. 1140.

11. For the Bab al-purtiel, see the eighteenth-century map in Martin-Cleto, “Los barrios judios, ” p. 65, on which it is the site marked no. 1, and p. 71, no. 3. The name of the synagogue is given, in Hebrew, in Mozdrabes4, no. 1144, and frequently in the Arabic documents. The earliest recorded mention is in documents of 1270 (no. 1135) and 1271 (the Hebrew document mentioned).

12. It is mentioned also in the famous eulogy on the pogroms of 1391; for details on this, and other references, see Burgos Burgos Burgos, Francisco Cantera, Sinagogas espanolas (Madrid, 1955), pp. 4748Google Scholar. Cantera apparently believed that the synagogue might have been built earlier than the thirteenth century, but gave no reason for this.

13. For the location, see Martin-Cleto's map, p. 71, no. 4.

14. Mozarabes4, no. 1135 (all documents are Arabic, unless otherwise stated). On the map in Martin-Cleto, “Los barrios judios, ” p. 71, no. 5, a “Castillo de los judios” is indicated, but not whether it is the “new” or the “old” castle of the Jews. Apparently it is the latter, since Gonzales Palencia says this was located “over” (near) the Tajo River (Mozarabes, 1:76). In 1163, a Christian qa'id(military commander) loaned 170 gold coins (mithqals) to the Jew Ishaq Ibn Abu Yusuf, the security for which included two houses in the Jewish barrio, some property, and part of another home he owned with his brother in the Jewish castle (Ibid 4, no. 897). I have elsewhere delivered a paper on Jewish castles in Spain, which may yet appear in print.

15. Details on the extant Muslim houses in Al-Andalus 2:380–387, 9:173–190 and 469–475. See Balbas, generally Torres, “Algunos aspectos de la casa hispanomusulmana, “ Al-Andalus 15 (1950): 178191;Google Scholar “Al-Madina al-Zahira, la ciudad de Almanzor, ” Ibid 21 (1956): 353–359.

16. In addition to the above, see Castejon, Rafael, “Cordoba califal, ” Boietin de la real academia de ciencias bellas letras y nobles artes de Cordoba 8 (1920): 269270;Google Scholar Abu'l-Walid Isma'il ibn Muhammad al-Shaqundi, Elogio del Islam espanol, ed. and trans. E.Garcia, Gomez (Madrid, 1934). pp. 95, 97, 99.Google Scholar

17. Ibn Megash, “Shemoneh Teshuvol Hadashot, ”ed. Israel Ta-Shema and Haggai Ben-Shammai, Qoves al Yad 18 (n.s. 8) (1975): 168 (Arabic), 176 (Hebrew). The measurement “fist” (Arabic ddr, Hebrew tefah) is common in the Talmud and later Jewish law.

18. Torres Balbas, Leopoldo“Extension y demografia de los ciudades hispanomusulmanas, ” Studia lslamica 3 (1955): 5556,Google Scholar reprinted in abridged form in his Ciudades hispanomusulmanas, 1:106. Goitein, S.D., A Mediterranean Society, vol. 3, The Family (Berkeley, 1978),Google Scholar gives no satisfactory data or conclusions on population, but leaves the impression that four to six sons in a family were not uncommon, whereas there are insufficient data on daughters to enable any guess (pp. 237–240). This would have to be a corrective to Torres Balbas's estimate of an average of six personsto a (Muslim) family. We must not forget that Jewish families tended to be large. (Fritz)Baer, Yitzhak, Toldot ha- Yehudim bi-Sefarad a-Nosrit, 2d ed. (Tel Aviv, 1965), p. 113;Google Scholar the abridged English translation, A History of the Jews in Christian Spain(Philadelphia, 1966), 1:190 estimated a Jewish population of no more than 350 families in Toledo in the thirteenth century, but his estimates, based largely on incomplete tax records, are not reliable.

19. Zakut, Abraham, Sefer Yuhasin ha-Shalem, ed. Herschell, Filipowski (London, 1857; photo rpt., Jerusalem, 1963)Google Scholar, fol. 221b (the statement is not in the printed edition of Abraham b. Natan's work, however); Zamora, Juan Gil de, “Liber de preconciis hispaniae, ”ed. Fidel, Fita, in Bolelin de la real academia de la historia 5 (1884): 138; cf. also Baer (Hebrew ed.), p. 497, n. 2, (English), p. 418, n. 2.Google Scholar

20. Ashtor, Eliahu“Mispar ha-Yehudim be Sefarad ha-Muslamit”[The number of Jews in Muslim Spain], Zion 28 (1963): 40.Google Scholar Ashtor, however, correctly criticizes those, like Baer, who rely on tax lists for population estimates (p. 35). Not only are these figures liable to change significantly from year to year, as he observed, but they are also very incomplete and even inaccurate. Ashtor's own figures should be used with caution.

21. Tahkemoni, as cited in n. 4 above; I use here the generally reliable translation by Victor Reichert (Jerusalem, 1965, 1973), 2:98.

22. Cantera Burgos, Sinagogas espanolas, pp. 35–55; actually eleven synagogues, including the synagogue of the sofer(“scribe”) mentioned on p. 52. Cf. also Leon Tello, Judios de Toledo,index, s.v. “Sinagoga: de Toledo.” Note that she presents documentation of yet another synagogue, that of the barrioof Caleros, not mentioned in Cantera Burgos (it is unfortunate that she made no use of his excellent monograph). On Santa Maria la Blanca, see Cantera Burgos, op. cit., pp. 42–45 and 55–64, with plates and drawings. (Cantera Burgos. Sinagogas de Toledo, Segovia y Cordoba[Madrid, 1973] is a reprint of the chapters on those synagogues from the above book, without the notes or bibliography.) There are also some observations and interesting illustrations in Halperin, Don A., The Ancient Synagogues of the Iberian Peninsula (Gainesville, Fla., 1969) (see my review in Judaism 21 [1972]: 122123).Google Scholar

23. Garcia-Gallo, Alfonso, “Los fueros de Toledo, ” Anuario de historia del derecho espanol 45 (1975): 432.Google Scholar

24. “Mataron a los Judios en Toledo dia de Domingo, Vispera de Santa Maria de Agosto, Era MCXLVI” (Espafia sagrada, ed. Enrique Florez [Madrid, 1767], 23:386). Fita, in his discussion of Juan Gil de Zamora's tale (see following note), thought the date was in error, for he claimed that August 15 was on a Saturday in 1108, and therefore he suggested 1109, after the death of Alfonso VI. Juan Francisco Rivera Recio, La iglesia de Toledo en el siglo XII(Rome, 1966), 1:57, objected to Fita's conclusions, but he himself mistakenly places the feast on August 14. In fact, it is August 15, which wason a Sunday in 1108, and there is thus no reason to make any changes. Vincent of Beauvais. Speculum historiale(Graz, 1965), 8: lxxxi, erroneously gave the date 1080 (his account is totally legendary, one of the “tale” versions). Garcia-Gallo, apparently unaware either of the actual event or of the literary versions or of Rivera Recio's discussion, independently came to the conclusion that the law referred to below in the article had to do with an event in the reign of Alfonso VI; and this is correct (op. cit., p. 357).

25. Juan Gil de Zamora, “Liber Mariae, ” excerpts ed. Fidel Fita in Boletin de la real academia de la historia 6–7 (1885): 75; Berceo, Gonzalo de, Milagros de nueslra senora, ed. Solalinde, Antonio G (Madrid, 1968), stanzas 416 ff. (for Spanish literature students, I am aware that there are other editions, but this one is probably the most widely accessible); Cantigas de Santa Maria, ed. Walter Mettman (Coimbra, 1959–64), 1:37–38. I am preparing a complete study of the tales concerning Jews in Berceo and the Cantigasand their sources.Google Scholar

26. Because of the difficulty of the text, I give here the original Latin text of the fuero and the Spanish translation (in the confirmation by Fernando III in 1222): si aliquis Castellanus ad suum forum ire volverit, vadat, et super hoc totum, exaltet Dominus imperium suum, dimissit illis omnia peccata, que acciderunt de occisione judeorum, et de rebus illorum, et de totis perquisitionibus tarn maioribus, quam minoribus. (Latin text in Romero, Tomas Munoz y, ed., Collecion de fueros municipals y cartas pueblas [Madrid, 1847], p. 366.)Google Scholar Et si algun cristiano quisiere yr a su fuero, que vaya, et sobre todo aquesto ensalze a Dios su imperio, perdono todos los pecados que acaescieron de la muerte de los judios, y de todas los cosas dellos et do todos los pesuisamientos, asi de los mayores como de los menores.; no, perdono todos los pecados que acaescieron de la muerte de los judios, y cosas dellos et do todos los pesuisamientos, asi de los mayores como de los (Spanish text in y Parody, Joaquin Guichot, Wstoria de la muy noble, muy leal, muy heroica e invicta ciudad de Sevilla [Seville, 1896], 1:35,Google Scholar and in Gomero, Antonio Martin, Historia de la ciudad de Toledo [Toledo, 1862], p. 1053.Google Scholar The relationship of this fueroto the massacre was already noted by los Rios, Jose Amador de, Estudios historicos, politicos y lilerarios sobre los judios de Espaha, 2d ed. (Buenos Aires, 1942), p. 27Google Scholar, and Historia social, politico y religiosa de los judios de Espana y Portugal(Madrid, 1875), 1:189. Baer, History of the Jews, 1:51, makes only vague and incorrect observations on all this.

27. Al-Himyari (see above, n. 9), p. 148 (text), 176 (trans.); Ibn 'Idhari, al-Bayan al-mugrib, nuevos fragmentos, ed. Miranda, Ambrosio Huici (Valencia, 1963), pp. 198,Google Scholar 201, and n. 30.

28. Sefer ha-Qabbalah. p. 96 (trans.), and cf. Cohen there, p. 261.

29. On the meaning of this term (nuper renatus; not “super” as in the abridged version in Leon Tello, Judios de Toledo, 2:6, no. 8), see Mufioz's note to the Latin text, p. 365. The Spanish confirmation (above, n. 26) omits any reference to “recent converts, ” perhaps because they no longer understood the meaning of the Latin expression mentioned (the text of the Spanish version is, in any case, very inaccurate, as Muhoz already noted). The dates of the confirmations are 1174 (not 1176) and 1222 (not 1226); most of the conversions of Eradates to Anodates in Mufioz are incorrect. Garcia-Gallo apparently had an erroneous text, according to which Jews and Muslims wereallowed to hold public office over Christians! He expressed his surprise at this, which he thought was without precedent (it would be if the text said this); cf. his “Los fueros de Toledo, ” p. 357.

30. Cited in Maimon, Moses b. (Maimonides), Qoves Teshuvot, ed. Abraham, Lichtenberg (Leipzig, 1859; photo rpt. Farnborough, England, 1969),Google Scholar vol. 1, fol. 46c, no. 237 (Leon Tello, Judios, 1:30, n. 12, mentions the responsum, derived from some other secondary source, but incorrectly gives the number as 257 and cites the responsa of Ibn Megash, no. 1112, as the source. Not knowing Hebrew, she could not consult the actual sources and thus did not realize that there is no such number in the responsa of Ibn Migash, and that the responsum in fact does not appear in his responsa at all, but only as cited in Maimonides).

31. "Shemoneh Teshuvot”(see above, n. 17), Arabic text, p. 172; trans., pp. 181–82. Admittedly the phrase la-mlrkan fiha la'am al-sultanis difficult, but I would suggest that the root of the first word is kariya, one of the meanings of which is “lease, rent out, ” and la dm(usually “food”) also can mean “tax” in medieval Arabic. The alternative would be to understand it as “preparing food for the government, ” as the editors tentatively translate, but this does not seem to fit the context (besides, what benefit would there be for the Jewish claimant in this?).

32. Ibid p. 181, n. 16. (My comments in the next few lines are not meant to criticize the editors, neither of whom is an historian, but to suggest a context which more correctly fits the situation.)

33. See Ashtor, generally Eliahu, “Prix et salaires dans l' Espagne musulmane aux Xe et XIe siecles, ” Annales economies, societes, civilisations 20 (1965): 668669.Google Scholar The letter, by Isaac Ibn Barukh (notIbn Baron, as stated there), has been translated in full by Goitein, D., Letters of Medieval Jewish Travelers(Princeton, 1973), pp. 260263. (Goitein, however, gives an incorrect interpretation of the letter, as I shall show in my book on Jewish, Muslim, and Christian relations in Spain.)Google Scholar

34. Maurice, archdeacon of Toledo, bought property on behalf of the newly elected archbishop on April 5, 1208 (first recorded mention of him as archdeacon); cf. the Arabic document in Mozdrabes, 2:373. We can trace the acquisition of the property of Ibn Susan: Ibid., 2:276, 279, 280, 284, and 290, and this is rare documentation of the growing wealth of one Jewish notable.

35. 4:959; cf. also no. 964. For a similar case, see there no. 960, where in spite of a complicated procedure involving a house kept as surety and finally sold, the Jewish lender never fully recovered his debt.

36. In strictly talmudic law, the use of gentile courts was permitted (cf. M. Gittin1:5), but medieval authorities nevertheless enacted strong prohibitions against the practice. Obviously, however “universal” these may have been among Ashkenazic Jewry, they were not accepted in Spain. See Kisch, generally Guido, “Relations Between Jewish and Christian Courts in the Middle Ages, ” Louis Ginzberg Jubilee Volume(New York, 1945), 1:201–225 (with references to other important literature), and note his criticism of David Shohet, Jewish Claris in the Middle Ages(now reprinted as vol. 3 of Studies in Jewish Jurisprudence [New York, 1974]), in his Jews in Medieval Germany(Chicago, 1949), p. 442, n. 4. There is additional bibliography on the subject, but this is not the place to list it. The subject will be dealt with extensively in my book.Google Scholar

37. Megash, Joseph Ibn, Teshuvot(Warsaw, 1870), no. 96.Google Scholar

38. See, e.g., Mozdrabes, 3:674 and 4:1147, the donation of houses by Gedaliah Ibn al-Sabi to his sister Dona. It escaped both Gonzalez Palencia and Millas Vallicrosa that the Arabic and the Hebrew documents are the same. This is also true of other documents there.

39. al-Fasi, Isaac, She'elot u-Teshuvol(Bilgoraj, 1935), no. 167.Google Scholar

40. For the letter of Pope Gregory VII to Alfonso, see Baer, , Die Juden im chrisllichen Spanien(Berlin, 1936),Google Scholar vol. 2, no. 12; for the orders by Alfonso himself, Baer, Jews in Christian Spain, 1:386 and n. 14d, and the document overlooked by Baer which was published in Espana sagrada, 72:411–414. For Joseph in our documents, see above at n. 31.

41. De rebus Hispaniae, lib. VI, xxxiii, in PP. Toletanorum…Opera, ed. Cardinal de, Lorenzana (Madrid, 1793),Google Scholar vol. 3 (photo rpt. as Rodericus Ximenius de Rada, Opera[Valencia, 1968], pp.145–146). This must have occurred in 1107, when Ramon de Bergono, the husband of Urraca, died, and thus surely before the massacre of the Jews in Toledo in 1108.

42. ha-Levy, Judah, Divan, ed. Haim, Brody (Berlin, 1894–1930),Google Scholar 1:14–15, no. 13; also in Hayyim (Jefim), Schirmann, ed., Ha-Shirah ha-lwit bi-Sefarad u-ve-Provens (Jerusalem, 1954),Google Scholar 1:457–459. There is no translation, but it will appear in an anthology of medieval Hebrew verse in translation which I am preparing. On Judah ha-Levy, see my article in Critical Survey of Poetry: Foreign Language Series, ed. Magill, Frank N (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1984), 2:776–782 (available in all reference collections).Google Scholar

43. See Millas Vallicrosa, Jose Maria, Yehuda Ha-Levi conto poeta y apologista(Madrid-Barcelona, 1947), p. 62,Google Scholar with a translation of the eulogy on pp. 63–64; cf. Schirmann, Hayyim, “fciayyei Yehudah ha-Levy, ” Tarbiz 9 (1937–38): 219220.Google Scholar On the basis of these, and other, poems, Schirmann concluded that ha-Levy then lived in Toledo.

44. Baer, Die Juden, vol. 2, no. 29. Probably also the property given by the king to the monastery of San Servando (Leon Tello, Judios de Toledo, vol. 2, no. 15).

45. Divan, ed. Brody, 1:157–158.1 have here omitted all the textual notes which will appear in my anthology.

46. The italicized words are Arabic, the rest Romance. For the final couplet, see Stern, Samuel M., Hispano-Arabic Strophic Poetry(Oxford, 1974), pp. 133134Google Scholar (originally in French in Al-Andalus 13 [1948]: 299–346). Camera Burgos suggested the reading'desd' cand'” inSefarad 9 (1949): 210–211, and I have accepted this as the most likely reading. Stern, of course, had not yet had access to Camera's article when he published his original French article, but in his “Rationalists and Kabbalists in Medieval Allegory, ” Journal of Jewish Studies 6 (1955): 73, he appears to have accepted Camera's reading, though without acknowledgment. (Some corrections need to be made to his remarks there: first, Ibn Ferrusiel was not a “rabbi”; secondly, the king was Alfonso VI, not VII; and thirdly, Ibn Ferrusiel did not “visit” Guadalajara, but fled there to escape the wrath of the king.)

47. Ibn Daud, Sefer ha-Qabbalah, p. 69 (text), p. 95 (trans.). Cohen argues that the name should be spelled “Ferrizuel” (Ibid., p. 144, Supplementary Note 57), but his reasoning is not convincing; as to the form of the Hebrew word in the MS which baffled him, I would suggest it is Arabic al-kabiri, “the great one.”

48. Baer, Jews in Christian Spain, 1:51 and p. 387, n. 20. Baer was certain that this was Ibn Ferrusiel, but in fact the name in the text is only "Citiello iudeo.” The name is not that uncommon in the period; cf. “Cidelo” in Gonzalez Palencia, Mozdrabes, 1, no. 2, and dona Maria de Cidiello, Ibid., Vol. Preliminar, p. 11, n. 2; also in Manuel Gonzalez Jimenez and Antonio Gonzalez Gomez, eds., El libro del reparlimienlo de Jerez de la Frontera (Cadiz, 1980), nos. 1930, 1931; also in Burgos in 1270 (document of Alfonso X in Baer, Die Juden, 2:61, no. 80).

49. See, for instance, my “Two Jewish Courtiers of Alfonso X Called Zag (Isaac), ” Sefarad 43 (1983): 75–85.

50. Mozdrabes, 1:222–223. The documents, of course, are in Arabic, and thus there was no reason for the editor to “transliterate” these titles into medieval Spanish. Similarly, the transliteration of names is alwaysincorrect.

51. On the meaning of Negro (“black, colorless”) as a name in medieval Spanish, see Frauca, Julio Cejador y, Vocabulario medieval castellano(Madrid, 1929), s.v. The Poema del mio Cid, 936, uses it in the sense of desolate, sterile (lands). It also has the meaning of “melancholy, unfortunate.” The name appears later in the medieval Spanish Jewish Ibn Yahya family.Google Scholar

52. The only apparent reason that Gonzalez had for including this name was the reference to Abu'1-Rabi' Sulayman “son of al-wazir al-hakimIbn Zabara” (4:905), which he misread as “Abenziza” (cf. 1:142); but the name is clearly Ibn Zabara, the same as that of the well-known Jewish doctor and poet, author of The Book of Delights, trans. Moses Hadas (New York, 1932; 1960). There is also a Jewish bricklayer, Isaac b. El'azar al-Bana Ibn Zabara in the thirteenth century (Mozdrabes, 4, nos. 1142, 1144).

53. Labla is Arabic for Niebla, a town in Spain.

54. Mozdrabes, 1:219–221; documents Ibid., 2, nos. 320, 373, and 4:1083; 4, no. 854 (Istalja). See also the document of property sold by “don Mose abenxaat” to Archdeacon Maurice (later archbishop of Burgos) on behalf of Rada, Rodrigo Jimenez de, in Boletin de la real academia de la historia 11 (1887): 440441.Google Scholar

55. Often in popular works on Muslim Spain, and in many works on the Jews of Spain; cf., e.g., Garcia-Gallo, “Los fueros de Toledo, ” p. 410.

56. Cf. Levi-Provencal, E., L'Espagne musulmane Xeme siecle(Paris, 1932), p. 69,Google Scholar and especially al-Maqqarl, Ahmad ibn Muhammad, The History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain, trans. Pascual de Gayangos (London, 1840–83; rpt. New York, 1964), 1:102–104. His main source for government offices was an apparently lost work of Ibn Khaldun.Google Scholar There is no good modern study of Muslim government and institutions (the most recent, Lambton, Ann K. S., State and Government in MedievalIslam [Oxford, 1981] is also unsatisfactory).Google Scholar On this title for Moses Ibn Ezra, see Schirmann, “Hayyei Yehudah ha-Levy, ” p. 40; also Abu 'Umar (Joseph b. Barukh), who accompanied ha-Levy to Egypt on the poet's trip to Palestine (cf. Goitein, “Miktav el Rabbenu [sic]Yehudah ha-Levy, ” Tarbiz28 [1959]: 348).

57. Mozdrabes, 4, no. 1055, dated 1192. He owned property in Olias, as did many Jews of Toledo.

58. Mozdrabes.1: 90–91, n. 1 (hereditatem de Fazania quondam almoxarifo Avenzara dicto Bonvida nomine possessam). “Bonvida, ” of course, is merely the equivalent of Abu'l-Hasan, or Judah.

59. Cf. Idris for biblical Ezra, and also the name of a mythical hero in Islam, probably derived from Greek Esdras. See especially Charles Cutler Torrey, The Jewish Foundation of Islam(New York, 1933), p. 72 (I do not understand why this perfectly correct explanation was ignored in the article “Idris” in Shorter Encyclopedia of Islam, in favor of older theories which Torrey disproved).

60. See Baer, Jews in Christian Spain, 1:60 ff. on this family; there is no doubt, of course, that this is the same Judah Ibn Ezra who desired to join Judah ha-Levy on his last journey to Palestine (cf. S. D. Goitein, “Ha-Parshah ha-Aharonah be-Hayyei Rabbenu [sic]Yehudah ha-Levy, ” Tarbiz24 [1954]: 32 and 35. Goitein was apparently unaware that this Judah was the same as the one mentioned by Ibn Daud, although this was already pointed out by Baer, , “Ha-Masav ha-Politiy shel Yehudei Sefarad be-Doro shel R. Yehudah ha-Levy, ” Zion 1 (1938):Google Scholar 18. None of the authors here mentioned, nor anyone else, has realized that the longavailable Mozarabic documents contain this important information on Judah Ibn Ezra.

61. Sefer ha-Qabbalah, The Book of Tradition, pp. 97–98 (trans.).

62. See Cohen's note there to lines 109–110 for his justification of this translation. However, all that Abraham Ibn Ezra (no relation to Judah or Moses) says in his commentary to Psalm 68:31 (cited by Cohen there) is that qanain Arabic means “spear”; but the word “spear” is not even mentioned in Ibn Daud's text, and at best is only hinted at.

63. Ibid., p. 98, note to lines 109–110.

64. See also Cohen's analysis of Ibn Daud's motives in thus praising Judah, pp. 274–275 and p. 294 (yet it is not true that Ibn Daud claimed “Davidic lineage” for Ibn Ezra, as asserted on p. 275; cf. Cohen's own observation to the contrary on p. 145, n. 99–100). Leon Tello incorrectly states that Ibn Daud reported that Alfonso gave “all the royal part of Calatrava” to Ibn Ezra (Los judios de Toledo, 1:32; she was probably misled by Americo Castro, Espana en su historia[Buenos Aires, 1948], p. 195, who also believed that Judah was made governor of Calatrava). The Hebrew phrase, in Ibn Daud, 'a! kol manat ha-melekh could indeed have this meaning (I have not consulted the Spanish translation of Ibn Daud, which Leon may have used), but it is probably more correctly translated as Cohen has: “to place all the royal provision in his charge.” It is hardly likely that he would have been made governor of the region, but he may well have been in charge of provisions for the troops.

65. Document edited by Fidel Fita in Boletin de la real academia de la historia3 (1885): 344–346; cf. also L. Torres Balbas, “Ciudades yermas de la Espana musulmana, ” Ibid. 141 (1957): 87. The data on attacks on Toledo are taken from Reyna Pastor de Togneri, “Los Mozarabes de Tolede de 1085 a la fin du XIIIe siecle, ” Amales25 (1970): 367 (overlooked by her was another attack, during the Christian siege of Cuenca in 1177, when the Muslims undertook a diversionary attack on Toledo, and Talavera, [Ibn' Ldhari, al-Bayan al-mugrib, trans. Ambrosio Huici Miranda (Tetuan, 1953–54), 1:28]).Google Scholar

66. Ed. Fidel, Fita, “Templarios, Calatravas y Hebreos, ” Boletin de la real academia de la historia 14 (1890): 264265,Google Scholar 267; also in Baer, Die Juden, 2, no. 34, and in Gonzalez, Julio, El reino de Castillo en la epoca de Alfonso VIII(Madrid, 1960), 2:70–71, no. 39. None of these references was known to Cohen, Sefer ha-Qabbalah. “Boniuda” in the document is, of course, Judah. Yugadameans a section of land which can be plowed by a yoke of oxen in a day; about 33 hectares.Google Scholar

67. Mozarabes, 2, no. 175. Judah is described as a “youth” in 1147 by Ibn Daud, but he must have been at least thirty (his father died in 1128, and judging from Moses Ibn Ezra's poem to him-see below-he must have been at least thirteen at that time). The 1164 document was cited by Leon Tello, Losjudios, 2, no. 23, and edited there, 1:372–373, no. 2, but she appears unaware that this “Juda el almoxerif' was none other than Judah Ibn Ezra, and the same as referred to in the previous document, mentioned in n. 66 above, of which she was also unaware. There exists also a confirmation of the ownership of the property in Alzana by the cathedral, signed by Alfonso VIII, but with no mention that it was sold to the cathedral by the daughters of Judah (ed. Fita, “Templarios, Calatravos y Hebreos, ” pp. 366–367; Gonzalez, Alfonso VIII, 2:757–758, no. 440; this is cited by Leon Tello, Judlos, 2, no. 36. Gonzalez, Alfonso VIII, 1:134–135, discusses Judah briefly, but the information that he was in office in Granada is without foundation (taken from Manuel Vallecillo Avila, “Los judios de Castilla en la alta Edad Media, ” Cuadernos de historia de Espana14 [1950]: 17–110, which Gonzalez cites frequently merely as “Vallecillo, ” but omits in his bibliography. This article, while sometimes correct, contains a great deal of faulty information which has misled many scholars). Also, Gonzalez's statement (1:249) that Judah was also almoxarifeof Sancho III is without any foundation; true, Sancho refers to the service which Judah performed for his father and for himself, but this is too general to allow the conclusion that he held the office oi almoxarifealso under Sancho.

68. Moses Ibn Ezra, Shireiha-Hol, ed. H. Brody (Berlin, 1935), 1, no. 105 (my translation). The “pain” to which the poet refers in line 45 is probably due to the death of Joseph (Brody gives another explanation). This poem has gone unnoticed by Baer, Cohen, et al.

69. Gonzalez, Alfonso VIII, 2, no. 93; Baer, Die Juden, 2, no. 35 (a faulty transcription). Baer also recognized that this Abenlahacer was a Jew, but made no further effort to identify him, yet it is obvious that this is another form of the name Ibn Al'azar, and the date of the document (1166), by which time he was deceased, coincides quite well with this official who lived at the time of Moses Ibn Ezra. It is apparent that this family survived to the late fourteenth century, for Leon Tello cites a document in which the name of “Samuel Abelhazar” appears (perhaps, indeed, an error in transcription, for in the index she gives the name as “Abenlahazar”) (Los judios, 2, no. 5).

70. Mozdrabes, 3:530; 4:841; 3:564, 573; 4:913, 960; 3:639, 716, 554, 555, 639; 4:1082, 1143, 1083, 793 (B). Some of these are also cited by Leon Tello, but by no means all. The document in which Benjamin is an agent for Rodrigo Jimenez de Rada is 3:564, also cited by Leon Tello, Judios, 2, no. 137 (though without making it clear that this is, in fact, de Rada).

71. The confusion of Ibn 'Aqnin, a contemporary of Maimonides, with Joseph Ibn Shimon of Ceuta, his disciple, has plagued scholars for a century or more, for reasons which are hard to understand. One of the sources of this confusion was the edition of Ibn 'Aqnin's important commentary on Pirkei Avol, entitled Sefer Musar, ed. W. Z. Bacher (Berlin, 1910; photo rpt., Jerusalem, 1967), which the editor erroneously attributed to Joseph b. Judah (Ibn Shimon) of Ceuta (see there, p. viii, n. 3, for the author's genealogy). This important work also seems to show signs of its origin in Muslim, not Christian, Spain, and even precisely in Toledo (I shall deal elsewhere with this).

72. Letter, ed. Halberstamm, S.Z.H. in Jeschurun 8 (1872–75); 41; rpt. as Qevufat Miktavim (Bamberg, 1875). p. 25.Google Scholar

73. Israeli, Sefer Yesod Olam(Berlin, 1777), fol. 86a; ed. B. Goldberg (Berlin, 1846–48), fol. 35c. Ibn $addik, “Qissur Zekher Saddik, ” in A. Neubauer, ed., Medieval Jewish Chronicles (Oxford, 1887–95), 1:94. Zakut, Sefer Yuhasin ha-Sholem(see n. 19 above), fol. 220a. Ibn Verga, Sefer Shevet Yehudah, ed. Israel Shochet and Yitzhak Baer (Jerusalem, 1947), p. 22, line 21.

74. Sefer ha-Qabbalahp. 303, n. 193.

75. Almanzi, Joseph (and S.D., Luzzatto), ed., Avnei Zikaron(Prague, 1841), pp. 5051,Google Scholar no 49.