Massacre of 1391

Last updated
Massacre of 1391
Part of Antisemitism in Europe
Matanza de judios en Barcelona - ano 1391.jpg
Slaughter of Jews in Barcelona in 1391 (Josep Segrelles, c. 1910)
Location Crown of Castile, Crown of Aragon
Date1391
Target Jews
Attack type
Pogrom
Motive Antisemitism

The Massacre of 1391, also known as the pogroms of 1391, was a display of antisemitism and violence against Jews in Castile and Aragon. It was one of the Middle Ages' worst antisemitic outbreaks. Jews in the Iberian Peninsula at this time were generally disliked, and violence against them was common even until the 15th century. [1] The year 1391, however, marked a peak of anti-Jewish violence. [1] Facing death, many Jews converted en masse to Christianity from 1391 on. [2]

Contents

Attitudes toward Jews in the 1300s

In the years leading up to the Massacre of 1391, Jews were not particularly liked by the Catholic church because they were believed to have crucified Christ. However, there was tolerance as they were under the protection of Spain[ who? ] and had crucial roles in banking and finance that made them a financial asset. [3] In the early fourteenth century (1311–12) the general council of Vienne met and decided to censor the Moors' religious freedoms, and 19th century historian Henry Charles Lea claimed that the general council became aware of what their neighbors thought of their tolerance of Jews, and therefore returned to Spain with a newfound goal to damage the peaceful tolerance among Jews, Moors, and larger Spanish population. [3] However, while it is likely that this inspired ill feelings towards Jews, there was no drastic result because of the current tax on the Jewish people which contributed greatly to the kingdom and the church. Thus, Jews were too much of an economic asset to be violently discriminated against. [3]

Violence in the early 1300s

Peter (Pedro) I (known by his enemies as Peter the Cruel) was the king of Castile from 1350 to 1365. [1] Unlike the norm of abusing Jews financially, Peter was sympathetic to them. [1] Some[ who? ] would explain his Jewish sympathy by claiming that he was illegitimately Jewish himself. [1]

While a rebel against the church, Peter the Cruel had become a sort of protector of Jews against Henry of Trastámara, his half-brother. [3] Henry had killed around 1,200 Jews in 1355, ordered a Jewish massacre in 1360, and was involved in the murder of many other Jews in 1366. [3] When Peter's half-brother Henry killed him during a battle in a civil war in 1369, Jews lost their royal protection and became the subject of attacks in Castile. [1] They also were greatly taxed. [1] While Henry had criticized his brother for being in support of Jews, he himself became tolerant of them because of the financial burdens placed on them and the services they provided. [1] Because of Henry's violence toward them, the common people of Spain began to accept this violent antisemitism, but Jews were too important financially to be completely annihilated. [3]

The tragedy of 1391 would not have been possible without the Archdeacon of Ecija, Ferrand Martinez, whose actions ignited this tragedy against the Jewish people. [3] Ferrand Martinez was a well-respected and prominent member of the Catholic church, but in his preaching, Martinez would use political anti-Judaism [4] to aid him as he harshly criticized Jews and would stir the people up against them. [3] Martinez would carry his prejudices with him as a religious judge as he would illegally wrong Jews because of his negative feelings toward them. [3] He even went so far as to write to the nearby authorities and command them to remove Jews from living among them. [3]

The Jews of Seville became greatly concerned with Martinez's orders, so they reached out to the King of Castile. [3] Because of their importance to his finances, Henry sided with Jews in 1378 and told Martinez to stop his persecution of Jews. [3] However, Martinez ignored Henry and continued to preach violence against Jews as he abused his power in the religious judiciary. [3] Jews continued to complain to the king about the injustices against them, and Martinez was warned in 1382, 1383, and 1388 to stop abusing his power and preaching that the king would not punish anyone who attacked or killed Jews. [3]

When Martinez continued to declare his strong beliefs against Jews, the king was once again informed of his harmful actions, but rather than take immediate action, he simply commended Martinez for his religious zeal but also reminded him that Jews were still under the crown's protection. [3] This only fed Martinez as he continued to stir up the people through his harmful sermons against Jews. [3] It wasn't until 1389 that Archbishop Barroso suspended Martinez from both preaching and his judicial position because he had publicly and inaccurately preached on the Pope's power. [3]

While Martinez' suspension did give Jews some relief, it was short lived; in 1390 both Archbishop Barroso and the king died, resulting in Martinez gaining a higher position in the church and his suspension being terminated. [3] Martinez used his newfound position and power to order the Jewish synagogues to be destroyed, the materials used in Catholic churches, and the Jewish books to be sent to him. [3] This destruction and the force used to fulfill it rightly frightened Jews of Seville, who once again reached out to the authorities to protect them from Martinez' oppression. [3] In early 1391, the authorities wrote to the religious leaders in Seville and claimed that they were responsible for electing Martinez in a position of such power and they ordered that he right his wrongdoings to Jews, that he rebuild their synagogues, and that he be removed from his religious position. [3] In response to the crown's orders, Martinez claimed that the crown had no authority over him and that he was subject to only the Catholic church. He ignored his orders to rebuild the synagogues and stop preaching against Jews. [3]

Martinez' refusal to obey the crown's orders only illustrated his zeal for his belief that he was doing the right thing by persecuting Jews, and his followers shared the same zeal because he had been riling them up for so long. [3] As his preaching of violence against Jews continued, so did the uneasiness of the mob as they were anxiously awaiting the opportunity to attack and raid Jews. [3] Around March the mob broke out and plundered and killed Jews, and while they were stopped from even further violence, the antisemitic mob mentality had already spread to nearby cities. [3]

Violence in 1391

Violence in Castile

Martinez continued to stir up the people against Jews as he preached that they should be forced to convert to Christianity. [3] Violence finally erupted on 6 June [5] when around 4,000 Jews in Seville were murdered, their houses were attacked and destroyed, and those that weren't killed were terrified into converting in an attempt to not be murdered as well. [3]

The violence against Jews originated in Castile, and acted as a catalyst for further violence against Jews. [4] This pattern of violence continued through over 70 other cities and towns within three months, [5] as city after city followed the example set in Seville and Jews faced either conversion and baptism or death, their homes were attacked, and the authorities did nothing to stop or prevent the violence and pillaging of the Jewish people. [3] As this fanaticism and persecution spread throughout the rest of the kingdom of Castile, there was no accountability held for the murders and sacking of the Jewish houses, and estimations[ whose? ] claim that there were 50,000 victims (though it is likely this number was exaggerated). [3]

Violence in Aragon

This religious mob spread even to Aragon, as the authorities could do nothing to prevent the same pattern of plunder, murder, and fanaticism (although it did not go completely unpunished). [3]

About 100,000 Jews in Aragon converted rather than face death or attempt to flee. [3]

Valencia

One of the first of the cities the antisemitic violence spread to was the city of Valencia, capital of the Kingdom of Valencia, one of the realms forming the Crown of Aragon. [5]

After the violence in Seville and Castile, on 28 June, Queen Violant of Bar ordered city officials to be especially protective of Jews. [5] [6] However, the situation continued to escalate and in July Prince Martin (King John's brother) was placed in charge of protecting Jews against persecution. [5] Martin had gallows set up outside the Jewish area as a threat to those who would be inclined to attack Jews, extra surveillance for security, and criers would go around proclaiming that Jews were under the crown's protection (although the criers were revoked on 6 July). [5]

The Jews in Valencia were attacked on 9 July. [5] The violence started out with several youths outside the Jewish community shouting that Jews should convert or be killed, and the situation continued to escalate to the point of violence. [5] As a crowd began to gather, they began throwing stones at the guards, and, against Martin's attempts to stop the crowd, they used pipes to break through the walls and forcefully enter the gates of the Jewish community and attack Jews. [5] The Jewish houses were pillaged and they themselves were killed and raped by the angry mob. [5] Prince Martin recorded that nearly 300 Jews had been killed that day and that there weren't Jews left who could have been baptized. [5] Other sources claim around 230 Jews were murdered and many of the remainders were forced to be convert. [4] There were around 2,500 Jews in the community, and only about 200 escaped murder and conversion. [4]

While Martin was quick to state that this violence against Jews could have only been explained as judgment from God, King John was not so willing to give up his sovereignty over his people who had explicitly disobeyed both him and his brother, who was present at the attack trying to prevent it. [5] John told Martin that there must be harsh consequences and that the mob must be brutally punished lest the violence spread and cause harm to more Jews. [5] As punishment, Martin imprisoned several of the attackers and had a man hanged (he had tried to attack Muslims). [5] King John criticized his brother's minimal punishments for such brazen disobedience to the crown, and said that he would have had three to four hundred people killed, but now they must put the law on hold and serve punishment on their own. [5]

Around 11,000 Jews in Valencia converted rather than face death or attempt to flee. [3]

Related Research Articles

<i>Marrano</i> Jews from the Iberian Peninsula forcibly converted to Catholicism

Marranos is one of the terms used in relation to Spanish and Portuguese Jews who converted or were forced by the Spanish and Portuguese crowns to convert to Christianity during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but continued to practice Judaism in secrecy or were suspected of it, referred to as Crypto-Jews. "Crypto-Jew" is the term increasingly preferred in scholarly works, instead of Marrano.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry III of Castile</span> King of Castile and León from 1390 to 1406

Henry III of Castile, called the Suffering due to his ill health, was the son of John I and Eleanor of Aragon. He succeeded his father as King of Castile in 1390.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tomás de Torquemada</span> Grand Inquisitor of Spain (1420–1498)

Tomás de Torquemada, also anglicized as Thomas of Torquemada, was a Castilian Dominican friar and first Grand Inquisitor of the Tribunal of the Holy Office. The Spanish Inquisition was a group of ecclesiastical prelates that was created in 1478, and which was charged with the somewhat ill-defined task of "upholding Catholic religious orthodoxy" within the lands of the newly formed union of the crowns of Castile and Aragon. The lands of this newly formed royal union are now known as the Kingdom of Spain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Catholic Monarchs of Spain</span> Title for Isabella I and Ferdinand II

The Catholic Monarchs were Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon, whose marriage and joint rule marked the de facto unification of Spain. They were both from the House of Trastámara and were second cousins, being both descended from John I of Castile; to remove the obstacle that this consanguinity would otherwise have posed to their marriage under canon law, they were given a papal dispensation by Sixtus IV. They married on October 19, 1469, in the city of Valladolid; Isabella was 18 years old and Ferdinand a year younger. It is generally accepted by most scholars that the unification of Spain can essentially be traced back to the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella. Their reign was called by W.H. Prescott "the most glorious epoch in the annals of Spain".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diego de Deza</span> Grand Inquisitor of Spain (1444–1523)

Diego de Deza y Tavera was a theologian and inquisitor of Spain. He was one of the more notable figures in the Spanish Inquisition, and succeeded Tomás de Torquemada to the post of Grand Inquisitor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of the Jews in England (1066–1290)</span>

The first Jews in England arrived after the Norman Conquest of the country by William the Conqueror in 1066, and the first written record of Jewish settlement in England dates from 1070. Jews suffered massacres in 1189–90, and after a period of rising persecution, all Jews were expelled from England after the Edict of Expulsion in 1290.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vincent Ferrer</span> Valencian Dominican friar (1350–1419)

Vincent Ferrer, OP was a Valencian Dominican friar and preacher, who gained acclaim as a missionary and a logician. He is honored as a saint of the Catholic Church and other churches of Catholic traditions.

History of European Jews in the Middle Ages covers Jewish history in the period from the 5th to the 15th century. During the course of this period, the Jewish population gradually started shifting from the Levant to Europe, primarily Central Europe dominated by the Holy Roman Empire or Southern Europe dominated by the Iberian kingdoms. As with Christianity, the Middle Ages were the period when Judaism became mostly insignificant in the Middle East, and a front-of-mind part of Europe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rhineland massacres</span> Pogroms of 1096

The Rhineland massacres, also known as the German Crusade of 1096 or Gzerot Tatnó, were a series of mass murders of Jews perpetrated by mobs of French and German Christians of the People's Crusade in the year 1096, or 4856 according to the Hebrew calendar. These massacres are often seen as the first in a sequence of antisemitic events in Europe which culminated in the Holocaust.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alhambra Decree</span> 1492 decree expelling Jews from Spain

The Alhambra Decree was an edict issued on 31 March 1492, by the joint Catholic Monarchs of Spain ordering the expulsion of practising Jews from the Crowns of Castile and Aragon and its territories and possessions by 31 July of that year. The primary purpose was to eliminate the influence of practising Jews on Spain's large formerly-Jewish converso New Christian population, to ensure the latter and their descendants did not revert to Judaism. Over half of Spain's Jews had converted as a result of the religious persecution and pogroms which occurred in 1391. Due to continuing attacks, around 50,000 more had converted by 1415. A further number of those remaining chose to convert to avoid expulsion. As a result of the Alhambra decree and persecution in the years leading up to the expulsion of Spain's estimated 300,000 Jewish origin population, a total of over 200,000 had converted to Catholicism to remain in Spain, and between 40,000 and 100,000 remained Jewish and suffered expulsion. An unknown number of the expelled eventually succumbed to the pressures of life in exile away from formerly-Jewish relatives and networks back in Spain, and so converted to Catholicism to be allowed to return in the years following expulsion.:17

This is a timeline of notable events during the period of Muslim presence in Iberia, starting with the Umayyad conquest in the 8th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of the Jews in Spain</span>

The history of the Jews in the current-day Spanish territory stretches back to Biblical times according to Jewish tradition, but the settlement of organised Jewish communities in the Iberian Peninsula possibly traces back to the times after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. The earliest archaeological evidence of Hebrew presence in Iberia consists of a 2nd-century gravestone found in Mérida. From the late 6th century onward, following the Visigothic monarchs' conversion from Arianism to the Nicene Creed, conditions for Jews in Iberia considerably worsened.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">House of Trastámara</span> Royal house of Castilian origin

The House of Trastámara was a royal dynasty which first ruled in the Crown of Castile and then expanded to the Crown of Aragon from the Late Middle Ages to the early modern period.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crown of Castile</span> Former country in the Iberian Peninsula from 1230 to 1715

The Crown of Castile was a medieval polity in the Iberian Peninsula that formed in 1230 as a result of the third and definitive union of the crowns and, some decades later, the parliaments of the kingdoms of Castile and León upon the accession of the then Castilian king, Ferdinand III, to the vacant Leonese throne. It continued to exist as a separate entity after the personal union in 1469 of the crowns of Castile and Aragon with the marriage of the Catholic Monarchs up to the promulgation of the Nueva Planta decrees by Philip V in 1715.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lope de Barrientos</span> Castilian statesman

Lope de Barrientos (1382–1469), sometimes called Obispo Barrientos, was a powerful clergyman and statesman of the Crown of Castile during the 15th century, although his prominence and the influence he wielded during his lifetime is not a subject of common study in Spanish history.

Antisemitism in the history of the Jews in the Middle Ages became increasingly prevalent in the Late Middle Ages. Early instances of pogroms against Jews are recorded in the context of the First Crusade. Expulsions of Jews from cities and instances of blood libel became increasingly common from the 13th to the 15th century. This trend only peaked after the end of the medieval period, and it only subsided with Jewish emancipation in the late 18th and 19th centuries.

This timeline of antisemitism chronicles events in the history of antisemitism, hostile actions or discrimination against Jews as members of a religious and/or ethnic group. It includes events in Jewish history and the history of antisemitic thought, actions which were undertaken in order to counter antisemitism or alleviate its effects, and events that affected the prevalence of antisemitism in later years. The history of antisemitism can be traced from ancient times to the present day.

Ferrand Martinez was a Spanish cleric and archdeacon of Écija, most noted for being an antisemitic agitator whom historians cite as the prime mover behind the series of pogroms against the Spanish Jews in 1391, beginning in the city of Seville.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Forced conversions of Muslims in Spain</span> 1502–1526 edicts outlawing Islam

The forced conversions of Muslims in Spain were enacted through a series of edicts outlawing Islam in the lands of the Spanish Monarchy. This persecution was pursued by three Spanish kingdoms during the early 16th century: the Crown of Castile in 1500–1502, followed by Navarre in 1515–1516, and lastly the Crown of Aragon in 1523–1526.

The Expulsion of Jews from Spain was the expulsion of practicing Jews following the Alhambra Decree in 1492, which was enacted to eliminate their influence on Spain's large converso population and to ensure its members did not revert to Judaism. Over half of Spain's Jews had converted to Catholicism as a result of the Massacre of 1391. Due to continuing attacks, around 50,000 more had converted by 1415. Many of those who remained decided to convert to avoid expulsion. As a result of the Alhambra decree and the prior persecution, over 200,000 Jews converted to Catholicism, and between 40,000 and 100,000 were expelled. An unknown number returned to Spain in the following years. The expulsion led to mass migration of Jews from Spain to Italy, Greece, Turkey and the Mediterranean Basin. One result of the migration was new Jewish surnames appearing in Italy and Greece. The surnames Faraggi, Farag and Farachi, for example, originated from the Spanish city of Fraga.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Freund, Scarlett; Ruiz (1994). "Jews, Conversos, and the Inquisition in Spain, 1391–1492: The Ambiguities of History". In Perry, Marvin; Schweitzer, Frederick M. (eds.). Jewish-Christian Encounters Over the Centuries: Symbiosis, Prejudice, Holocaust, Dialogue. P. Lang. pp. 169–195. ISBN   978-0-8204-2082-0.
  2. Illescas Nájera, Francisco (2003). "De la convivencia al fracaso de la conversión: algunos aspectos que promovieron el racismo antijudío en la España de la Reconquista" (PDF). Revista de Humanidades: Tecnológico de Monterrey. Monterrey: Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (14): 243. ISSN   1405-4167.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 Lea, Henry Charles (1896). "Ferrand Martinez and the Massacres of 1391". The American Historical Review. 1 (2): 209–219. doi: 10.1086/ahr/1.2.209 . JSTOR   1833647.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Meyerson, Mark (2004). "Conclusion". Jews in an Iberian Frontier Kingdom. Brill. pp. 272–281. doi:10.1163/9789047404934. ISBN   978-90-474-0493-4.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Nirenberg 2014, p. [ page needed ].
  6. Gampel, Benjamin R. (2016). Anti-Jewish Riots in the Crown of Aragon and the Royal Response, 1391–1392. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 271–314. ISBN   978-1-107-16451-2.

Sources