1 THE COMARCAL ARCHIVE OF CERVERA: A SOURCE FOR THE STUDY LIVES AND ...

753 Pages·2011·2.19 MB·English

THE COMARCAL ARCHIVE OF CERVERA:
A SOURCE FOR THE STUDY LIVES AND LINEAGES
OF JEWS IN MEDIEVAL SPAIN

Maria Jose SURRIBAS CAMPS,
Barcelona

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GOAL

The goal of this project is to learn about the life of the Jews of Cervera as seen through
the Notary books housed in the Arxiu Comarcal de la Segarra (ACSG). This local
archive does not house all the Notary books of Cervera, because many are kept in
Barcelona in the Archivo Histórico de Protocolos Notariales (AHPB) and an unknown
number of books have not survived.

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The study of a portion of the Notary books and municipal documents in this archive
demonstrates the historical and genealogical information that can be extracted by
research in the smaller local archives and the methods used to do so.

The Notary books also contain information about events prior to the dates they were
written because of their frequent reference to older documents. They thus provide
information about earlier periods for which there exist no notarial registers in the
archive or about books that have not survived the passage of time. These references are
also helpful in locating earlier documents that may contain more data or links among
the families. Furthermore they not infrequently point to events such as marriages, deaths
or residential moves that occurred in the intervening period between two available
documents.

For instance, in a document of January 28, 1354, Astruc Cophen and Samuel Cophen,
brothers, sons and general legatees of the late Salamó Suylam Cophen, are making some
concession of rights originating in several documents agreed to by the late Salamó on
previous dates. The first reference goes back to January 1330. Others were agreed to on
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the 19 before the kalends of January 1332, the 8 before the kalends of February 1333,
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and other dates. This document indicates that Salamó Sullam Cofen was alive on those
dates, and that his sons were probably still too young to participate in his father’s
business.

Documents II contain examples of other such documents.

The documents have not been widely transcribed or translated. The information in them
has not been fully analyzed. Their abstracts show the possibilities of further works,
which can be widely enlarged looking in other documents not analyzed yet.

- Deeper research on special time periods: epidemics, riots, expulsions

- Deeper research in family lineages: origins, settlements, family links, residence
moving, actual presence in Spain of their convert descents

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About 130 notary books are the basis of this research, but the remaining books kept in the archive of
Cervera, as well as the notary books of Cervera kept in Barcelona, and the notary books of other localities
containing information about this Community, contain a lot of unknown information about the Jews of
Cervera, and related Communities.

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Described in Documents, and identified as ACS, FN I.1 Ramón Rama. Christianorum Liber 1353, Nov
19- 1355 Mar 2. fols. 62 r- 63 r.
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- Physicians, moneylenders and other occupations’ lineages

- Medical treatments, products utilized by physicians

- Reconstruction of the Jewish quarters, by locating the houses, Synagogues, its
boundaries

- Reconstruction of medieval Jewish homes: rooms, clothes, assets

- Jewish libraries

- Dressing customs

- Laws: local and Jewish laws and customs

- Full collections of wills, inventories, marriage agreements

- A most complete reconstruction of the Jewish families that lived in Cervera and
other towns with Jewish population that are mentioned in the documents

- Situation of their real state properties.

- Area where their cemetery should be located

Most of the people that appears in these documents are listed, but not all of them.

There are printed some family trees, not because they are the larger that can be
produced. They also do not correspond to main families. They are only some samples to
show the possibilities of linking people and localities.

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The International Institute for Jewish Genealogy, Jerusalem

During these eighteen months doing research on the Jewish community of Cervera, on
the documents that were written concerning their lives and relationships - between
themselves, with Jews of other communities; with Christians of their neighborhood, and
with Christians of another localities - I’ve had the opportunity to delve extensively into
their lives and learn a considerable amount about the Iberian Medieval society.

I must thank the International Institute for Jewish Genealogy (IIJG) for sponoring this
project and for giving me this chance to spend these last months in such a special times,
in such a small, provincial town as Medieval Cervera, whose narrow old streets I’ve
paced when being there doing research in the archive. Those old houses are probably
not the same than the ones we read about in the documents, but the place is the same,
the streets, the same. I am endebted to IIJG for making this experience possible and
hope the the results of my research, as presented here, will contribute to its aim of
advancing the status of Jewish genealogy as an academic subject.

While abstracting documents, while reconstructing families, and family lineages, while
trying to find links among different families, trying to find out why some families
arrived to Cervera, why some families left, why some families disappeared in the
Notary books pages, feeling the need to look for more in other archives or
localities, I’ve come to the conclusion that more institutions like IIJG should be
working in promoting Jewish Genealogy as a strong scientific tool to learn History, and
also the best way to learn, from primary sources, how Medieval Jewish Life was.

To conclude, I’d like to add the transcription of a paragraph that was written by Rabbi
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Abraham Neuman ,

« … the king was a Spanish king, the courts were Spanish courts, the institutions, the
government… The Jews could learn the language, but they could not adopt the country.
They could assimilate the culture, but not the people. Consequently, they were strangers
in the land. And though they might have traced their descent to ancestors who had lived
in the Pyrennean peninsula centuries before the remotest ancestors of the royal house
itself, yet they were, in a real sense, foreigners in their country, inasmuch as they never
became an integral part of its political structure. »

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NEUMAN, Abraham A., Rabbi, AM, DHL. Some Phases of the Condition of the Jews in Spain in the
Thirteenth and Fourtheenth Centuries, American Jewish Historical Society, Publications, 22 (1914), p.68.
Copyright © 2003 ProQuest Information and Learning Company
Copyright © Johns Hopkins University Press
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INDEX

I. The Jewish Community of Cervera 8
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Some references to the 13 century Cervera Jews.
Jewish Physicians and Rabbis.
The Jewish quarters
Synagogues
The Jewish Cemetery
Plagues
Jewish assets
Ketubot
Converts

II. Jewish families and individuals 28

III. Family Trees 89

IV. Jewesses given names 96

V. Toponymical names 99

VI. Occupations List 101

VII. Localities with Jewish presence mentioned in the documents 102

VIII. Documents I 104

IX. Documents II 738

X. Documents Pictures 744

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ACA.- Arxiu de la Corona d’Aragó

ACB.- Arxiu de la Catedral de Barcelona

ACSG.- Arxiu Comarcal de la Segarra

A.D.- Anno Domini

AHPB.- Arxiu Històric de Protocols de Barcelona

AMLl.- Arxiu Municipal de Lleida

A.N.D.- Anno a Nativitate Domini

DCVB.- Diccionari Català, Valencià, Balear

FG.- Fons General

FN.- Fons Notarial

FM.- Fons Municipal

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Regni Hispanie

Catalonia area

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I. THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF CERVERA

Located in the province of Lleida, close to the border of the province of Tarragona,
Cervera is a town situated on a main road that passes through Barcelona and Girona on
the way from France to Aragon. Its location on this important route is one of the reasons
why an important Jewish community settled there.

The earliest references to Jews living in Cervera are not to a Jewish community but to
individuals. Their origins, names, and relationships with Cervera inhabitants and
residents of surrounding localities provide an early look at what would develop to
become an important medieval Jewish community in Catalonia.

One of the earliest mentions of the Jewish aljama of Cervera is found in a document
dated June 28, 1277 in which King Pere III orders the Jewish aljamas of Vilafranca,
Tarragona, Montblanc and Cervera to pay their taxes to the Jewish aljama of
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Barcelona.

By 1328 the Jewish population of Cervera had grown sufficiently in size to be assigned
its own Quarter. Four years later, they received permission to reside in the “Carrer del
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Vent”.

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RÉGNE, Jean. History of the Jews in Aragon. Regesta and Documents 1213-1327. Hispania Judaica 1.
Jerusalem 1978. doc nr. 683. ACA Reg. 39, fol. 214 v.

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DURAN SANPERE, Agusti. SCHWAB, Moïse. Les Juifs a Cervera et dans d’autres villes catalanes.
Sefarad XXXIV, page. 82

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Some references to the Jews who lived in Cervera in the 13th century

In August 1281, Reina, wife of Samuel dez Forn, Jew of Cervera, claims to the King,
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because his husband wants to repudiate her.

About one year later, in a document July 3, 1282, Samuel Enoch, Jew of Cervera, is
mentioned concerning a pledge between him, on one side, and Issac Biona and Bonjuha
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de Xinta on the other side.

Mossen Segura i Valls, in his Historia de la vila de Santa Coloma de Queralt (1879),
page 58, mentions Abram Astruc, who in 1283 was a Jew of Cervera.

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Also in 1282, Régné mentions Vidal de Cervera, Jew of Cervera. Vidal de Cervera had
been mentioned by Corbella as buying two houses, situated in the Jewish quarter of
Barcelona. The owner of the houses was Aster, the wife of Astruc d’Espanya.

In November 1282, Vidal Azday was imprisoned in Vilafranca, because of a robbery
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done in Cervera.

Abram de Portella, Jew of Cervera, in 1286 was mentioned together with Bonjuha
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Salamó, Jew of Barcelona.

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During the last decade of the 13 century Astrug Durand, guardian of his late brother’s
children, Abram Saporta, Jucef Bonafeu and his wife Goig, are also mentioned as Jews
of Cervera, as well as Vidal de Cervera and some others.
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There are no Notary books covering the first decades of the 14 century in the ACSG.
Information of the Jews of Cervera concerning these periods is found in Municipal
records of the same archive, and in books and documents kept in other archives.

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RÉGNÉ, Jean. History of the Jews in Aragon. Regesta and Documents 1213-1327. Hispania Judaica 1.
Jerusalem 1978. Nr. 875, ACA Reg 50, fol 168.

“Pedro III a été supplié par Reina, femme de Samuel de Forn, juif de Cervera, de contraindre son mari,
qui cherche à proposer contre elle un libelle de répudiation et qu’elle accuse de dissiper ses biens, à lui
assurer la valeur de sa dote et de son douaire, pour laquelle elle assure d’ailleurs avoir pris hypothèque
sur les biens de son mari; le roi mande au baile de Cervera de pousser le dit Samuel à restituer la dote et
le douaire a la femme, et à pouvoir à son entretien, le tout conformément aux prescriptions du droit
hébraïque.”

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RÉGNÉ 930.- ACA Reg 59, fol. 23

“Don Alfonso, sur l’affirmation produite par Samuel Enoch, Juif de Cervera, suivant laquelle, par
privilège du roi Pedro III, son père, les Juifs catalans sont justiciables d’un juge Juif pour tous les
différends qui s’élèvent entre eux, mande au viguier de Tarragone ou à son lieutenant à Villafranca, de
commettre un Juif compétent et versé dans le droit hébraïque qu jugement du procès pendant entre
Samuel Enoch, d’une part, et Issach Biona et Bonjuha de Xinta d’autre part, au sujet d’un dépôt d’argent
confié à ces derniers par Samuel et sa femme.”

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RÉGNÉ 972 and 989. ACA Reg 59, fols. 108, 163.

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RÉGNÉ 990, ACA reg. 95, fol. 169

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RÉGNÉ, 1606. ACA Reg 67 fol. 228 v

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In a Carta Real issued in the Castle of Montfalcó in March 19, 1301, the following
Jewish creditors of Cervera were mentioned: Cresques Enoch, Vidal de Cervera, Abram
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Astruc, Mair Sentou, Astruc Bonissac and Preciosa, widow of Jucef Maimó.

Migrations of Jews from the Iberian Peninsula to France and vice-versa because of
expulsions, plagues, business, family or other reasons were very common. Cervera was
often not their first settlement locality, but when moving there their names and localities
of origin permit the researcher to go back in time tracing their origins. This is for two
main reasons: when persons first settled in a locality they are mentioned by their names
followed by their locality of origin and frequently these localities of origin became their
family surnames.

Some family names found in Cervera are similar to family names found in France. In
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the work of Isaac Alteras “Jewish Physicians in Southern France during the 13 and
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14 centuries” we find names such as

Astruc Bonsenyor (Bonidomini), of Perpignan, who was inhabitant in Besièrs. (1379
about)
Astruc Leo, son of Mestre Leo Jusse (1414)
Bellshom Bonet (1389-1403), son of Mestre (Magister) Bonet Bellshom.
Bonet Bellshom (1357-1407), magister and fisicus, father of the aforementioned Mestre
Bellshom Bonet and of Mestre Mair Bonet
Cresques Malet, a Jew originating from Perpignan who in 1400 moved to Manresa, in
Catalonia.
Juce Baro was magister in 1401
Mair Cresques, magister, dead by 1380
Massip de Lunell, magister and fisicus from 1355 to 1358 of Thuir, at the Southwest of
Perpignan.
Mosse Alphaquim, physician, 1336-1347
Samuel Alphaquim, Mestre and physician since 1400
Samuel Asday, since 1360
Samuel Cabrit, originating from Peralada, in Girona, was living in Perpignan.
Issac Cabrit (1403-1420) converted into Christianity and adopted the name of Ludovicus
de Rippisaltis.
David de Besalú, physician in Perpignan in 1379-80, son of Astruc of Besalú. His
family might have been originating or resident in Besalú, in the province of Girona.
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Abram de Lunel was in Marseille at the beginning of the 14 century.
Abram Manuel practiced medicine in Avignon from 1376 to 1404.
Bonet Astruc in Carpentras, in 1404, and
Abram ben David Caslar was in Narbonne in 1305. In 1322 he had moved to Besalú, in
the province of Girona, Catalonia.
These names occur also in Cervera. Some Jews of Cervera were mentioned as
originating from France. Other Jews, who arrived to Cervera from other localities they
formerly had settled, were mentioned as originating from France in the documents of
those localities.
The Alfaquim family in Cervera was originating from Perpignan.
The Lunel of Cervera belonged to a physician’s family originating from France.

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YOM TOV ASSIS. The Jews in the Crown of Aragon. Regesta of the Cartas Reales in the ACA. Part I:
1066-1327. Hispania Judaica. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. p. 37
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