[325] The subject of this chapter is probably the most difficult and elusive of all those presented in this study, and it seems desirable to preface it with a few general remarks. The subject in question is the oppression of the Mudéjares: the aggregate of problems in living experienced by Aragonese Muslims as a consequence of their religious and/or ethnic differences from the dominant Christian society. Such problems might be economic or legal, religious or moral, major or minor, physical or psychological, individual or generic. Any problem which is not considered in another chapter and which relates to Muslim distinctiveness has been dealt with here.

It is extremely important, therefore, to make clear at the outset what sort of assumptions underlie the observations in this chapter, and what types of implicit comparisons have and. have not been made. A great many of the problems discussed here in reference to the Mudéjares were also encountered by Christians. There has been no effort to show that Muslims were, on the whole, uniquely oppressed or persecuted. The writer has, in fact, for the most part deliberately refrained from drawing explicit parallels between Muslims and Christians. Such analogies would be misleading, both for the lack of parallel documentary evidence and for the great diversity of undeterminable variables involved. Nor is there any comparison drawn or intended between the Jewish communities of Aragon and the Muslim ones. Where it has seemed worthwhile, comments have been made on problems Jews may have encountered which were similar to the problems of Muslims, but this has not been done consistently or [325] thoroughly, and the aim has been merely to shed further light on Muslims rather than to make any general comparisons.

The most misleading parallels are temporal ones. It is almost fatally tempting for the modern historian, living in an egalitarian society and highly sensitive to the interests of minority groups, to draw invidious comparisons between the treatment or status of minorities in his own society and those in the societies he studies. Such comparisons are necessarily extremely risky. It must be remembered that medieval Spain was not and did not pretend to be an egalitarian society. Nobody -- including the Mudéjares -- would have claimed that all were equal under the law, or that religious or ethnic minorities had. a "right" to equal treatment or status. Neither Christians nor Jews had been "equal" under the law in Muslim Spain, and all Christians were certainly not equal under the Crown of Aragon. Fourteenth-century Iberian society was quintessentially hierarchical, and the hierarchy was a Christian one. Muslims could not have expected (and would not have demanded) any lofty rung in a Christian hierarchy.

On the other hand, certain parallels with modern pluralistic societies inevitably present themselves to anyone studying the Spanish Middle Ages, and these parallels cannot be lightly dismissed. Despite the lack of theoretical equality under the law, there was, as has been shown elsewhere in this study, overwhelming de facto equality in many areas of Christian-Muslim co-existence, an equality which might justly evoke the envy of modern minorities. [326] Such practical equality prompts in the historian's mind today, as it did in the Muslim mind then, the expectation of generally equal footing in the quotidian affairs of Aragonese citizens. It is abundantly clear from protests to the king that when such equal footing was denied. Muslims they took it very ill.

Parallels with modern societies, moreover, may be very useful for the purposes of contemporary scholarship. Questions about rights of citizenship or of holding offices ordinarily held by Christians may never have occurred to fourteenth-century Mudéjares, but they will inevitably occur to the modern scholar, and they deserve to be dealt with. One might argue that it is misleading to class mere discrepancies between Christian and. Muslim status as "problems," when the Muslims themselves did not perceive them as such, but such objections stem from a confusion of "problems" with "issues." Inflation was as much a problem in fourteenth-century localities where it was not recognized or discussed as it was in those where its nature was clearly perceived. (Air pollution was a real problem in nineteenth-century London before it became an issue in the twentieth century.) Even if the Mudéjares did not perceive their exclusion from municipal government as oppressive, it was clearly to their disadvantage not to participate in the making of decisions which vitally affected them. It was a problem in their lives directly related to their distinctiveness.

It will be clear to the reader at this point that the general co-existence of Muslims and. Christians under the Crown of Aragon was remarkably successful, considering the energies that had been and [327] were even then being poured into "holy wars" by both Muslims and Christians within and without the Iberian peninsula. One might even take the view that, given this militant fanaticism on both sides, and the rigidly hierarchical structure of nearly all medieval societies, it is ridiculous to speak of the oppression of the Mudéjares at all, since their mere existence within the bosom of Christendom constituted an astounding concession on the part of Iberian Christians.

To argue thus, however, severely distorts the facts. The Muslims of Spain were not simply a tolerated minority. In the South they were not a minority at all, but an enormous majority, and while the evidence is less clear for the North, it seems that in Aragon-Catalonia they comprised only a little less than a third of the rural population, and possibly even more of the urban population of the major centers such as Zaragoza, Huesca, Borja, Lérida, Tortosa, and others. To think of them, in fact, as a tolerated minority is somewhat like thinking of American Indians as a tolerated. minority in North America in the seventeenth century. The Muslim population had not been imported, or admitted as immigrants, or incorporated through centuries of co-existence (like the Iberian Jews): they had been admitted to the Crown of Aragon by treaty and capitulation during a long series of wars between peoples with rival claims to the same soil, struggling as equal adversaries. In return for submission to the Crown of Aragon, nearly every Muslim city in the kingdom had been guaranteed its basic liberties in absolute perpetuity, on the honor of the conquering monarch. Such guarantees resulted not from [328] Christian largesse, but from the fact that the conquests were not absolute or even decisive: the enormous Muslim populations left in the wake of military conquest by Christians had to be dealt with fairly because they were, in many cases, the major part of the king's subjects in a given area.

It is, for this reason, grossly inaccurate to draw comparisons, implicitly or explicitly, between the oppression of Muslim communities and oppression of contemporary Jewish or Christian ones. Their provenance, numbers, and relation to the monarchy were dramatically different. It is, of course, equally misleading to attempt to gauge the extent of their oppression by measuring their living conditions against those of citizens of modern democratic nations, whose ideals and practices are utterly different from those of medieval Spain. Parallels with other minorities in other ages may be suggestive and enlightening, but they cannot be pushed: the likenesses, no matter how fascinating, are generally superficial and will not bear close scrutiny.

One issue which to a modern mind might seem to be of fundamental importance for the well-being of any human, does not seem to have exercised the Muslims at all, though there is some reason to believe they were severely discriminated against in this regard: this is the question of citizenship. It is not at all clear that Muslims were considered citizens of the cities they inhabited in any of the kingdoms under the Aragonese Crown. No municipal codes or cartas de población take up this question. The Costums of Tortosa, which [329] deal with urban Muslims more thoroughly than any contemporary municipal code, do not comment explicitly on this, but define as a citizen anyone born a free Christian, who has lived in the city for ten years, who marries a citizen, or who receives a grant of citizenship.⁽¹⁾ Whether the last three qualifications presuppose the first is moot.

Muslims could not, it is clear, practice law or hold any office over Christians.⁽²⁾ Though a fourteenth-century ordinance of Valls implies that Muslims could. become pahers (town councilmen) ,⁽³⁾ there is no evidence that any Mudéjar ever actually did hold such a post, and a good deal to indicate that everywhere else in the kingdom they were prohibited by law from doing so. In Tortosa Muslims could attend meetings of the town council, but had to sit at the feet of the [330] prohomens, and did not actively participate in the deliberations.⁽⁴⁾ They could not be veguers or hold any other office in the Christian civil administration.⁽⁵⁾ The Furs of Valencia likewise prohibited Muslims from holding an office over Christians.⁽⁶⁾

It is unlikely, nonetheless, that their legal status was perceived as oppressive by urban Muslims, whose aljama enjoyed many of the same legislative privileges and limitations the Christian universitates did. It is true that the Christian community could legislate for the aljama in some matters, whereas the Muslims certainly could not impose any laws on the Christian "university," but Christian municipal authority over Muslim communities was limited. Real oppression of Muslims was either royal -- by the Crown itself or its officials -- or individual -- by nobles or knights who abused their Muslim vassals.

Some forms of oppression were designed to be obvious. The IV Lateran Council of 1215 had demanded. that all Christian monarchs force Muslims and Jews within their dominions to wear distinctive clothing, so they could be easily identified, and these demands were repeated by Honorius III and Gregory IX.⁽⁷⁾ Spanish monarchs acceded. [331] to these without protest, and even added to them.⁽⁸⁾ Between the early thirteenth century, when the laws were enacted, and the mid- fourteenth, there were certain modifications in the efforts to make the Muslims distinctive. Originally Muslims and Jews had had to wear a distinctive outer garment like a cleric's cape, round and gathered, with a hood, and not striped, green, or bright red. They could not wear rings of gold or precious stones, and had to grow their beards long and cut their hair round rather than in Christian fashion.⁽⁹⁾ In the documents of the reign of Peter the Ceremonious there is no reference to distinctive clothing, though the allusions to the laws regarding hair and beard styles are numerous and varied. It appears, indeed, that either the laws were no longer enforced or that the wearing of the specified clothing had become so customary that infractions did not occur. At least two considerations give greater weight to the former possibility: (1) there is no reason to suppose the clothing would have become a part of Mudéjar life when the hair styles did not, and the many violations of the rules about the latter make it quite clear that they were not an accepted part of Muslim life; (2) of the Muslims emigrating from Valencia whose clothing was assessed as part of their departure fee, only a few are [332] described as wearing either of the two articles of clothing supposedly required of Mudéjares.⁽¹⁰⁾

The penalty for being found abroad in violation of the distinctive appearance code varied extravagantly. From l347 on, all Muslims from royal jurisdictions could only be fined -- a maximum of one gold doublet -- for such infractions, while other Muslims found guilty of the same offense were sold into slavery.⁽¹¹⁾ Conscientious nobles -- or those simply afraid of defecting vassals -- often applied to the king to have the privilege enjoyed by royal Mudéjares extended to their vassals. Sometimes the privilege was granted as a favor to the noble; others the Saracens themselves paid for it.⁽¹²⁾

Being sold into slavery was, of course, an ever-present threat for a Mudéjar, and the occasions of its occurrence manifold and capricious. The issue is discussed at more length elsewhere in this study.⁽¹³⁾ Although it is somewhat misleading to speak of "degrees" of slavery, there were, in fact, ways in which a Muslims [333] person might pass out of his control without his being either sold into slavery or imprisoned by a royal. official. It was extremely common throughout the fourteenth century for Muslims to be seized and held for ransom, either by officials or civilians, and for any of a hundred reasons (or for virtually no reason at all). During an inquisition in Atzuena royal officials began seizing Muslims at random and forcing them to redeem themselves at terrific expense; they were forced to desist by the Crown only when the lord of the community complained that Mudéjares were beginning to emigrate in droves out of fear of being held for ransom.⁽¹⁴⁾ The alcayde of Aranda seized the daughters of local Mudéjares and forced their fathers to ransom them until ordered to stop by the king, who professed to be "astounded" at the practice, but imposed no penalty on the alcayde.⁽¹⁵⁾ Saracens were frequently held for ransom to raise money for military levies.⁽¹⁶⁾

During the war Christians often made "citizens arrests" of Moors, whom they then held for ransom. The pretext for such arrests was usually that the Muslim involved was a "rebel," but the real motive was transparent: rather than shady or unknown Muslims who might indeed have been in the service of Castile, those arrested were nearly always prominent, well-to-do Mudéjares, of unquestioned [334] loyalty but great ransom potential. Personal retainers of the king were twice detained thus and held for ransom, and each time the king came to their rescue. Far from punishing the Christian captors, however, he actually allowed them to keep the portion of the ransom already paid (500s in one case; 600s in the other),⁽¹⁷⁾ even though he admitted that in each case the Muslim had been falsely accused.

The redeeming of prisoners of war was, of course, standard practice in the Middle Ages, and Muslim soldiers of the king ran no greater risk of being captured than any others. It is not at all surprising that some Muslims needed to be "redeemed" from Castile by Christians, or that the Christians should then have held them to make good the outlay. Strict rules governed the ransoming of Christians from captivity, however: rules requiring that the ransomed man's family not be held liable for his debt, and that he himself be free when he returned, no matter how great the debt he might owe.⁽¹⁸⁾ In the case of Mudéjares these customs either had. no force or were customarily violated. Redeemed Muslims were regularly recruited as vassals by their redeemers by being forced to dwell in a certain place as a condition of their ransom;⁽¹⁹⁾ if they failed to meet conditions or payments they were sold into slavery;⁽²⁰⁾ if they fled, their wives and children were sold as [335] slaves.⁽²¹⁾The amounts of the ransoms were, in view of the cash disposed of by Mudéjares, staggering: they ranged from about 300s, to be paid at 100s a year for three years,⁽²²⁾ to l,000s, to be paid in two installments of 500s each.⁽²³⁾ Except in cases of royal favorites, an extension of time was the most that could be hoped for from the clemency of the Crown.⁽²⁴⁾

During the war with Castile the Mudéjares were subject to seizure for an altogether different purpose. In 1359, when the Valencian town of Crevillente was threatened, Saracens were forced to co-operate in its defense at a lower salary than Christians performing the same tasks (see Chapter IV), and to ensure their loyalty, their wives and children were taken and held as hostages.⁽²⁵⁾ The taking of Muslim hostages became increasingly common as the war went on. The queen's procurator was ordered to seize the sons and daughters of the same Mudéjares at the mere threat of an enemy approach in 1362, and to keep them in Alcoy, a considerable [336] distance away.⁽²⁶⁾ The Saracens of Seta were forced to place all their movable goods in the castle of Seta at the approach of the enemy in the same year:⁽²⁷⁾ apparently the monarch's faith in the loyalty of the Muslims had already reached rather a low point.

At the peak of the war in 1365 hostages were being held in Segorbe, Eslida, and Elche, from the aljamas of Aspe, Artaria, Espada, Atzuena, Eslida, Elche, Crevillente, and Segorbe.⁽²⁸⁾ Two amins of Segorbe were among those being held by the Bishop of Valencia in his jail: they escaped, but only to fight for the king; their escape was pardoned.⁽²⁹⁾ In general the attitude of the Crown toward the plight of the hostages seems to have been callous in the extreme: acceding to repeated requests from the aljama of Artana, the king finally allowed them to send messengers to Segorbe to negotiate the feeding and care of the hostages there, and promised, in April of 1365, that they would soon be home.⁽³⁰⁾ Only a month later, with no mention of the hostages returning at any time in the near future, the king forbade the aljama to feed its people in Segorbe, alleging that the food they provided for the hostages was falling into enemy hands.⁽³¹⁾

[337] Indeed, the monarch may be justly accused of outright duplicity as well as callousness in the treatment of hostages. The aljamas of Espada, Eslida, and Atzuena all demanded, as a precondition of their returning to the king's service, the free return of the hostages from their communities, and the king solemnly promised, on March 15, that they would be returned absolutely free of any expense.⁽³²⁾ Yet when these hostages were actually released from the castle of Eslida, the official in charge demanded a ransom of l,600s, which was guaranteed, but not paid, by a Christian (Miguel Blasco) and the amin of Eslida.⁽³³⁾ When the official demanded payment from these fiancers, and they turned to the hostages themselves, the outraged Mudéjares complained to the king, who refused to honor his promise and ruled that the official was entitled to collect whatever expenses he had incurred in the process of holding the hostages (though no more).⁽³⁴⁾

The taking of hostages was limited neither to the Crown of Aragon nor to the kingdom of Valencia. A great many hostages were [338] seized by both sides in Aragon, and Peter was constrained in 1366 to write the King of Castile requesting that the Muslims taken hostage by him not be abused:

...we understand that many Moors from the village of Borja and other places within our kingdom of Aragon have been seized as hostages during the war with Castile, and their friends and relatives believe them to be ill treated. We therefore earnestly implore you to see that the said Moors are not badly treated, but rather that you order that they be cared for so that they may later return free and unharmed to their homes.⁽³⁵⁾

Even if a Saracen's person was not confiscated on dubious charge of disloyalty, his goods might be. Beginning in the 1360s an enormous number of false accusations involving the seizure of Muslim property were set aside by the king. The property of the Mudéjares of Bechí was confiscated and sold before their case even came to [339] court,⁽³⁷⁾ but most of their coreligionaries did not have a trial at all: the "rebellious" Muslims of Buruaguena, Teruel, Tarazona, Calatayud, Murviedro (Sagunto), and a host of other towns lost their property by royal decree, without benefit of any legal process at all.⁽³⁸⁾

Loss of property was probably the single greatest problem of Aragonese Mudéjares. They provided a ready source of plunder for any official or private citizen who was in dire need of food, animals, cash, or even a slave. The Muslim thus pillaged could always appeal to the king, who might, if the supplicant was sufficiently important, grant some sort of restitution, but it was extremely unlikely that the Christian would suffer anything greater than a reprimand. Even if he was forced to pay back the Muslim himself, which very rarely happened, he could consider it an interest-free temporary loan. Severe laws and certain retribution made physical resistance by Muslims unheard of.

Thus the documents record cases of monks seizing vineyards from their Muslim owners and selling them to Christians,⁽³⁹⁾ of wealthy nobles robbing the aljama of Borja of its mules and food,⁽⁴⁰⁾ of the officials of Calatayud selling and pawning the goods of Muslims in the city to help fund the rebuilding of the walls (leaving the [340] Muslims destitute), ⁽⁴¹⁾ of groups of nobles despoiling Mudéjar saltcarriers of their mules,⁽⁴²⁾ if mercenary soldiers seizing beds and other goods from the very homes of Saracens of Elche,⁽⁴³⁾ of ordinary soldiers in Huesca appropriating mules and other animals from the Mudéjares and taking them with them when they left,⁽⁴⁴⁾ of Saracens in the king's cavalry being despoiled of horses, arms, and other goods by Christian nobles, and sold into slavery when they tried to prosecute.⁽⁴⁵⁾ Sometimes excuses were offered: when the mules of the Muslims of Bitorp were appropriated, it was claimed that they were selling grain in defiance of a royal decree; ⁽⁴⁶⁾ other times there was no pretense whatever: the portarii confiscated the mules of the Muslims of Játiva simply because they needed them.⁽⁴⁷⁾ For some time the king turned his back on these confiscations by his officials, and when complaints about them reached him he passed the buck to the aljamas: "We also command the said aljamas and their members that if through forgetfulness or some other reason such demand should be made of them for any cause, either by us or our officials, that they should not be held to obey it."⁽⁴⁸⁾

[341] This was obviously useless advice: there was no way an aljama could resist a royal official, who had unquestionable authority over Muslims in any way he might choose to exercise it. Only when such authority was utilized to the manifest detriment of the Crowns interest was the aljama likely to be relieved by the monarch himself. In 1365, for instance, the Count of Ampurias became so engrossed in his depredations on the wealthy Muslim communities in and around Segorbe that the king had to remind him that he had been delegated authority as a military commander, and that his duty lay in defending the city, not sacking it:

...greetings to the Count of Ampurias, our dear cousin, the Captain of Segorbe. We recall that we have, in other letters of ours, strictly charged you not to interfere with the populace of Segorbe or their property, but only with the war itself and the recovery of the castle. Yet we understand that you and your officials there persist in seizing Moors and Jews and their goods, whereof we are much astonished. We therefore direct and decree expressly and unequivocally that you take no action against the said population of Segorbe, Christian, Jew, or Muslim, or their goods, but [that you concern yourself] exclusively with the affairs of the war... ⁽⁴⁹⁾

Even Muslim officials suffered such depredations: the Saracen bailiff left in charge of the estate of Laurence Taxo while he was in Rome was unable to prevent the Christian officials of Carp from seizing his master's grain as part of an unfair tax, and when Taxo returned and complained, the officials avenged themselves on the bailiff by confiscating all the animals of the local aljama, which were in the bailiffs care.⁽⁵⁵⁾ When the Bishop of Tortosa was acting as military commander of Gandia, he seized and tortured the amin of the aljama to extract from him the revenues of the community which were in his keeping. The Christian lord of the town, the rightful possessor of the money, complained to the king, and Peter ordered the sum restored, but took no punitive action against the bishop. The return of the money, in fact, was to be under the supervision of the same Vice-governor of Valencia who had committed a similar [343] offense against a Saracen the same year.⁽⁵⁶⁾

In Teruel poor Muslims with no land of their own rented land from orders or secular clergy to make enough money to pay royal taxes. ⁽⁵⁷⁾ It often happened, apparently, that new procurators appointed to collect the rent would refuse to honor the terms of the rentals effected by former procurators, "especially when the land or property had been improved."⁽⁵⁸⁾ In such cases "it was common for these [new] procurators either to confiscate from the renters the lands and. possessions improved by them, or to force them to pay higher rent, in violation of the agreements signed."⁽⁵⁹⁾

Mudéjares were also oppressed in many areas of their lives, most notably in regard to sexual mores. If a male Muslim [344] slept with a Christian woman, she was theoretically burned, and he could be put to death either by being quartered or burned.⁽⁶⁰⁾ A Christian man who slept with a Muslim woman was liable to no penalty at all, but the Muslim woman was invariably sold into slavery (unless she was already licensed as a prostitute). In short, those members of the society with no power, i.e., Muslims and women, were penalized for unions which were permissible for the members with power, i.e., Christian men. That Muslim women seem to incur a lighter penalty than Christian ones probably an indication that Christian men did not want to erect barriers to their own recreation (see below).⁽⁶¹⁾ (On the other hand, a Jewess of the period found to have had relations with Christian men [as well as Muslims] was ordered by the king to be exiled or [345] dismembered.)⁽⁶²⁾

That these penalties were really inflicted, at least on Muslim males, is patent: in February of 1357, for instance, a Catalan Muslim was actually condemned to be burned to death by the Curia of Lérida.⁽⁶³⁾ The king generally reserved to himself the right to try such cases, since they were capital,⁽⁶⁴⁾ and sometimes pardoned those accused of the crime before the trial, in return for a substantial contribution.⁽⁶⁵⁾ The crime was considered so heinous by the population in general that once a Muslim had been convicted the king had to declare the whole trial invalid to pardon him, rather than merely reversing the decision, as he was wont to do in other cases.⁽⁶⁶⁾ It was common for Jews accused of the same crime to get off with a fine, even when charged under the same inquisition as Muslims who did not get off.⁽⁶⁷⁾ Anyone could bring charges against a Muslim for this crime, including a Christian prostitute who had voluntarily slept with him,⁽⁶⁸⁾ and such accusers enjoyed complete immunity. Abuses of this and the dire consequences for the Mudéjares eventually prompted them to demand that a Muslim be convicted of sleeping with a Christiana only on the testimony of two or three witnesses, [346] one of them a Muslim.⁽⁶⁹⁾

Although Christian males incurred no penalty whatever for sleeping with Saracen women,⁽⁷⁰⁾ the woman violated not just one but two laws by doing so. Under Muslim law they could be stoned or given 100 blows, depending on the leniency of the qadi, and under Christian law they were liable to confiscation and enslavement.⁽⁷¹⁾ [347] All of the women who appear in the documents of the fourteenth century opted for slavery, and the trade in sarracenas thus enslaved was very brisk. In fact, so many women became the property of the Crown in this way that there was lively competition among royal favorites to receive the "rights" over Saracen women caught sleeping with Christian men. The women were either sold, with the proceeds going to the king, queen, or the lord of the scene of the crime, or were granted as rewards to favorites.⁽⁷²⁾The Crown seems to have preferred the cash to the person, and since the enslaved women would naturally tend to be young, the profits were considerable, averaging about 700s per Muslim. ⁽⁷³⁾ Pardons were extremely rare, and granted only at the insistence of a prominent Christian.⁽⁷⁴⁾ Even conversion to Christianity did not guarantee pardon unless accompanied by help from a powerful Christian: a Muslim woman of Teruel who had committed such offenses not only became a Christian, but apparently married the bailiff of the city, yet the townspeople still demanded she be punished.⁽⁷⁵⁾

[348] Rape of Mudéjar women was not uncommon,⁽⁷⁶⁾ but the cruellest aspect of the situation was the potential for abuse in the law of enslavement. A gentleman of the king's Court was granted as a slave a Muslim woman whom he had himself induced to violate the law,⁽⁷⁷⁾ and this double exploitation occurred to others as well: in 1356 Peter granted the monastery of Roda the "rights" over all Saracen women under its jurisdiction caught sleeping with Christians; i.e., they were to have them as slaves, either for their personal use or to sell, and the monarch instructed the General Bailiff of Aragon to honor this.⁽⁷⁸⁾ In the following year, however, he had to alter his original grant, and specify that the monks could not have as slaves those women who had been convicted of sleeping with the monks themselves.⁽⁷⁹⁾

This sexual exploitation of Mudéjar women, with its horrible consequences for them, seems even more deplorable in view of the fact [349] that the lands under the Crown of Aragon abounded in prostitutes, both Muslim and Christian. Fourteenth-century Aragonese monarchs licensed prostitutes throughout Aragon-Catalonia-Valencia, assigned them neighborhoods or specific houses for their practice,⁽⁸⁰⁾ and considered them such a natural part of life that they provided in considerable detail for the quartering of prostitutes kept by mercenaries during the war.⁽⁸¹⁾ Although such women were generally quartered in Muslim homes, there is good reason to believe that Muslims were not allowed to resort to Christian prostitutes;⁽⁸²⁾there is no indication that Christians could not employ Muslim ones.

[350] Indeed, of the prostitutes officially registered with the Maestre Racional of Valencia, the "majority were Muslim."⁽⁸³⁾ Such women had to register themselves to practice in a specific place, designating it as either royal or noble, and could be captured and sold as slaves for plying their trade in a locale for which they were not registered. This provision was apparently seen as burdensome by the women, since those of Peter Boyl (the General Bailiff of Valencia) managed to obtain from the king a dispensation from it:

...we therefore concede to you and your heirs, the lords [of Picasent], by way of special privilege, that despite any custom, practice, or law of the kingdom of Valencia or the law of the Saracens, any female Saracen inhabitants of the said place, or visitors to it, even if they have not been or caused themselves to be registered as prostitutes in royal places, may not be seized or confiscated for the royal treasury by us or our officials, even if they are found operating within [such officials] districts, so long as they have had themselves registered as prostitutes in the said place of Picasent, regardless of where they come from....⁽⁸⁴⁾

Probably the most galling intervention of the Crown into the sexual mores of the Muslim population was its pretense to jurisdiction over cases of fornication and adultery between Muslims, which clearly lay under the jurisdiction of the qadi.⁽⁸⁸⁾ In only one recorded case of such activities during the decade 1355-65 was the qadi allowed to judge (and in this case only on appeal). In all others it was either the king himself who heard the case, or the lord of the place where it occurred.⁽⁸⁹⁾ Jurisdiction over cases of sexual liaisons between Muslims and Jews was also usurped by the Crown, and farmed out to favorites, who were encouraged to realize as much profit as possible from them:

...we hereby grant and concede to you, the said Martius, all rights which we do hold or might or should hold over Maria, a Jewess who had been a Muslim, both for her having recently [352]abandoned the religion of perfidious Muhammad and embraced the law of the Hebrews, and for the crime of adultery which she is alleged to have committed with Jews while she was still a Muslim, as well as for other crimes which she is to have committed. And we accord and allot you, the said Martius, full power and authority to settle with the said Muslim on that sum of money which you shall best be able to agree upon with her, and of keeping and using for your own purpose everything which you shall be able to get from the said settlement..., as well as absolving and sentencing this Jewess for the aforesaid and whatever other crimes may have been committed by her, just as if such absolution were accorded her by us in writing...⁽⁹⁰⁾

A similar disparity obtained in regard to fornication, for which both Muslims might be fined, whereas Christians incurred no penalty at all unless an injured party insisted.⁽⁹³⁾ The monarchy seems to have displayed, moreover, a cavalier disregard for Muslim [353] marriage and morality in general: a Muslim woman who bought pardon for adultery was given permission to remarry, though her first husband was known to be living,⁽⁹⁴⁾ and the children of illegitimate unions between Muslims were ordered to be hung -- a startling provision from a Catholic monarchy.⁽⁹⁵⁾

There were thousands of ways in which Christian officials could, if they wished, harass those Mudéjares under their jurisdiction. A few examples should suffice to demonstrate the sort of oppression Muslims suffered at their hands. In Valencia officials regularly fined Muslims for "offenses" which Christians could commit with impunity, or imposed enormously larger fines on Muslims than on Christians for the same crime.⁽⁹⁶⁾ In Aranda officials harassed and detained a widow trying to settle her husband's estate in Castile. Though their actions were technically within the law, the king himself admitted that they acted "more from malice than love for the kings law's."⁽⁹⁷⁾ In Calatayud, Seta, and Bartaxell Muslims were impressed into municipal service, without pay, and even forced to [354] provide weapons and. materials at their own expense -- all in violation of existing law and custom in those locales.⁽⁹⁸⁾In Crevillente they were illegally forced to keep watch at night without pay, and forced by the Crown itself to work as archers at considerably less than standard pay, a large percentage of which was to be withheld "on account." In fact, it was all withheld for many months, until the Muslims protested.⁽⁹⁹⁾The same Muslims of Crevillente had been storing their own grain in a building in their town, hoping to save enough to pay back a debt they owed the king's brother John, when Prince Ferdinand attempted to seize the grain for himself, offering the aljama a recompense much less than the market value of the grain (by the estimation of the Crown itself).⁽¹⁰⁰⁾ This threat having been dealt with, the Muslims found the grain confiscated by the queen's procurator in the same year, on the grounds of its being needed for provisioning the castle. There had been a plague of locusts in Valencia in 1358-9, and a period of general sterility, due possibly to drought, had preceded this plague for a period of three or four years.⁽¹⁰¹⁾ It was no doubt at great sacrifice that the aljama had managed to store its grain to repay their debt, and they were severely pressed when it was confiscated. The queen offered to allow them to buy grain elsewhere, in defiance of war-time non-exportation laws, but, of course, they had no money to make such purchases. [355] After some hesitation, the queen decided to allow them to withdraw a certain amount of grain from the store, but specified that a sufficient supply be retained for the castle. This still could not meet the needs of the aljama, and when a number of Muslims, driven to desperation, broke in and stole the grain they needed, the queen relented and allowed a period of grace before the final confiscation, during which the Muslims holding grain in the silo could come and withdraw what they needed.⁽¹⁰²⁾

Despite the general goodwill between the Muslim and Christian populations, private citizens as well as officials abused Mudéjares. Sometimes such abuses were obscene: in 1363 Peter had to order the Christians of Huesca to stop pasturing their swine in the Muslim graveyard of the city, since the pigs were exhuming the bodies; the Christians themselves, moreover, were to cease at once their practice of stealing gravestones from the cemetery at night.⁽¹⁰³⁾ In Calatayud, as has been noted, Christians simply occupied the homes of Muslims when theirs were destroyed, to the manifest detriment of the Mudéjares.⁽¹⁰⁴⁾ A group of Christians in Barbastro collaborated in robbing an inn where Faraig de Belvis was staying by actually boring [356] through its walls.⁽¹⁰⁵⁾ An employee of the king in Borja took possession of the kiln of a Muslim and made his living using it, without compensating the Muslim in any way.⁽¹⁰⁶⁾

A Muslim official of Crevillente was severely oppressed by the queen's procurator, Domingo Lull, who tried to force him to provide translations "en crestianesch" of all the account books the Mudéjar was keeping (in Arabic) as tax collector of Elche and Crevillente; he refused to give the Muslim receipts for amounts remitted towards the taxes owed the queen; he extorted "advances" from the collector on the sums to be paid the queen and then refused to reimburse him or credit the aljama with the amounts; and he seized 228 bushels of the aljamas grain for his own personal use.⁽¹⁰⁷⁾

Sometimes prominent Christians terrorized whole communities of Muslims with acts of wanton violence and cruelty. The knight En Francesch d'Alos and his sons wreaked such havoc on the aljama of Jabut that the local Hospitallers finally felt constrained to intercede with the king on behalf of the Mudéjares. They had [357] insulted Muslims viciously, struck them if they replied, beaten them without provocation, punished them for grooming their animals on holydays (while they did precisely the same themselves), beat and crippled a Muslim for pasturing animals on their lands, and one son even broke into the home of a female Muslim and raped her, causing her to move to another town.⁽¹⁰⁸⁾

Many things of this kind probably happened to Christians as well, and most serfs in most European countries in the Middle Ages could have made the same complaints, or similar ones. But this is not the point. Many of the complaints that southern American blacks have made, or American Indians, or gay people, or women, could have been made as well by members of the very groups oppressing them. It is the cause of oppression which makes it intolerable. It is the fact that one is maltreated because of what one is, not because injustices randomly occur; it is the fact that one's oppressor does not feel responsible, considers he is committing no crime, perpetrating no outrage. In the case of fourteenth-century Aragonese Mudéjares nothing could make this clearer than the fact that in every single instance given in the preceding pages the Christian oppressor was let off absolutely free, paid no penalty whatever except -- in a few cases -- making restitution to the Muslims thus injured or maltreated. Any of these same crimes or excesses might have been committed against Christians, or by Muslims against other Muslims,⁽¹⁰⁹⁾ but in [358] either case justice would have been swift and certain by the time the case had reached the point necessary for it to appear in documents of the royal Chancery. Yet, as has been shown, not only did the monarch not punish the Christians guilty in these instances, but he often allowed them to keep the profits and proceeds of their crimes, reimbursing the Muslims out of the royal incomes to prevent their dissatisfaction from getting out of hand. Such a policy was hardly apt to be much of a deterrent to oppression of Mudéjares; in fact, such oppression appears to have grown steadily throughout the fourteenth century, requiring greater and greater royal efforts to control it, and culminating in great pogroms in the 1390s. Already in 1366 the king found it necessary to issue a strong command to the Christian populace of Játiva to cease persecuting the aljama there. This document is particularly interesting, both for the royal attitudes it reveals and for the fact that it addresses itself to a problem which is recognized to be general rather than specific:

...since it pertains to the power of a prince⁽¹¹⁰⁾ to [359] forestall future dangers to subjects and to defend the weak and helpless from the powers of antagonists, so that through the conscientiousness of his care he restrains from his crime the potential evildoer, and rescues the oppressed from evil, and since it behooves us to defend . . . the Saracens dwelling in our cities, towns, and villages more than others residing within the borders of our dominion ..., partly because the yoke of an inferior⁽¹¹¹⁾law burdens them, and more because they constitute a special royal treasure, we therefore, by virtue of this letter, resolutely and for all time establish, receive, and place under our protection, care, security, and special safekeeping you, the said aljama of the city of Játiva, and its members....

[We do so] for your greater safety, even though you . . . are already under our general protection and safekeeping, because we have determined with certainty that the Saracens of the Raval, or morería, of the city of Játiva are very frequently ill-treated by Christians, in regard to their persons as well as their goods, and generally have greater cause to fear measures which are specifically invoked or generally imposed.⁽¹¹²⁾ Henceforth, no one enjoying our grace or favor shall dare or presume .. .to attack, seize, injure, detain, damage, pawn, confiscate, or otherwise cause any harm, misfortune, injury or inconvenience or offense to you or [your goods], either openly or secretly, in any way [360] whatsoever or for whatever cause, fault, or crime committed against or owed to others, unless such things have been settled between you and them personally, or unless you or they are obligated in such matters as principals or co-signers, and not even in these cases except insofar as law, justice, and reason shall permit.

Let him who would rashly presume to act in violation of this protection, safeguard, and command know that he incurs [thereby] our wrath and indignation, and a fine of fifty morabetíns of gold to be collected by our treasurer, without any appeal, plus full and complete restitution for the injury caused.

... And lest anyone should be able to plead ignorance of this our protection, safeguard, and order, we expressly enjoin upon our officials and their subordinates that, at your request, or that of your agent, they shall cause, if requested, our safekeeping, protection, and security . . . to be made known by public crier according to the manner and form expressed above, which is to be strictly adhered to... ⁽¹¹³⁾

Fifty morabetíns (about 350s) was a steep fine, and the king appears to have meant to see it enforced. Certainly the provisions of the decree are as detailed as the Muslims could have wished them to be without diminishing their applicability.

But this edict and others like it were doomed to fall very short of their lofty aims. The tide had turned against the Mudéjares even before Peter ascended the throne. The very nature, in fact, of the Iberian symbiosis made oppression inevitable, because it was not merely a convivencia of Muslims, Jews, and Cbristians, but of upper and lower classes of each, of religious fanatics and cynical mercenaries, of thieves and, ascetics, of "public women" and cloistered nuns. The Crown of Aragon itself was a tense union of disparate political elements, of peoples who spoke at least four different languages. Its power base was weak -- never weaker than in the decades following the revolt of the Union and the Black Plague, though [361] contemporaries did not recognize this -- and it was threatened by enemies within and without the Iberian peninsula. Even if Peter had wished to restrain the oppression of the Mudéjares he could not have. But his own attitude was far from single-minded. The very reasons he adduced for the grant of safe-keeping to Játiva manifest this: a monarch, he realized, must watch over the well-being of all his subjects, but the Muslims especially required attention, not because they were a subject people mistrusted by the masses, not because they occupied a political position which rendered them peculiarly vulnerable to exploitation, not even because their unique contributions to Aragonese society deserved to be protected; the reasons were bald-faced and simple, and pregnant with unfortunate consequences for the Mudéjares: they were simply that they suffered under an "inferior" religion, and constituted a major source of revenue for the Crown ("a special royal treasure").

The conjunction of these two factors would in any society render a minority group's oppression inevitable. The mere conviction that a minority is in some way inferior constitutes oppression when it is held by a majority superior in numbers as well as power.⁽¹¹⁴⁾ It is impossible -- as modern minorities have discovered -- to maintain psychological equilibrium in a society which affirms the wrongness of some aspect of ones being.

One might suppose that the great economic exploitability of the [362] Mudéjares would either increase or mitigate their suffering directly, but in fact this was not the case. The economic needs of the majority contributed to and directed certain forms of exploitation and abuse, but at the same time tempered and dampened the extent of oppression in general. In the long run, the extreme tension created by conflicting desires on the one hand to expel or forcibly convert the "infidels," and on the other to maintain them in an exploitable position, backfired on all concerned, with disastrous political, physical, and psychological consequences. Possibly the oppression of the Mudéjares would have been greater if they had not been economically indispensable, but the subtler, inexorable exploitation brought upon them by the ambivalent needs and desires of the Iberian Christians may well have caused more exquisite suffering than grosser forms of oppression could possibly have wrought.

On the other hand, the temptation to over-dramatize the plight of the Mudéjares is great, especially in an age of much social breast-beating, and when the religious beliefs underlying the intolerance of Iberian Christians are held in low esteem in many countries outside of Spain. It is particularly fortunate, therefore, that in the case of the Mudéjares a sort of "control" is available against the excesses of conscience of modern historiography. During the final years of the war with Castile, when the Castilians had overrun much of the kingdom of Valencia and undermined -- through force or persuasion -- the tenuous loyalty of many Muslim communities, the King of Aragon was forced to grant to these aljamas a great many concessions in order to win them back to his service. Some of these [363]agreements, containing the demands, or "grievances" of the Mudéjares (and the responses of the monarchy), survive in the Chancery documents, and provide a fascinating glimpse into what the Muslims themselves saw as the major forms of oppression they suffered from king and. nobles. Four such sets of demands by the Muslim aljamas are reproduced on the following pages (along with a comparable settlement from the fifteenth century as a point of comparison). It is worth remembering that, enlightening as these documents are, they are not necessarily any more accurate than the judgements of historians centuries removed from the reality: it would be naïve to imagine that the victims of persecution were the most objective judges of its nature, or that the members of a minority group were in the best position to assess their welfare as compared to that of the society as a whole. The comments of the Muslims are appropriate as the final comment on the subject in this chapter: they are not necessarily the last word on the subject.⁽¹¹⁵⁾

[364] Demands of Muslim aljamas made as pre-conditions for their returning to the king's service. Responses of the king are indicated by the sign ¶; where no response is indicated it is to be understood that the king agreed to the condition. The numbering and divisions are the authors.

Eslida -- March of 1365 -- C 1205:145
 

1. that the king reconfirm their royal charter

2. that he grant forgiveness and immunity from prosecution for all crimes committed to date, and remission of monetary fines thereunto appertaining

3. that hostages given to the King of Castile and now held in the castle of Eslida be returned without any charge

4. that they be allowed to chant the çala as before

5. that they be free of all debts to the king for three years, including the sisa (war tax)

6. that he reconfirm all previous privileges

7.that they not pay tithes or first-fruits ¶ so long as there is no debt outstanding

8. that they be given a copy of this document free of charge

9. that the absolution for war crimes comprise the Muslims of Bechí, Vall de Sego, Alfara, Altura, and Guayell, if they also return to the kings service

10.that the Muslims of Laurent be counted under the jurisdiction of Eslida and its qadi by virtue of this settlement

11.that they may not be separated from the Crown for any reason

12.that they may not be compelled to take water to the castle
 

N.B.: the Muslims of Xona were comprised under all the provisions of this document by virtue of an agreement between them and the king signed in the same month: C 1209:55.
 

[365] Serra d'Espada, Vall d'Enveyo, Benicandut, Alcudia, Xenguer, Ayhi -- March of 1365 -- C 1209:1414
 

1. that they receive absolution for all war crimes

2. that their hostages held in the castle at Eslida be returned to them free and quit

3. that they be judged in all cases according to çuna and xara, and not by Fur or any other law

4. that all previous rights and privileges be granted them

5. that for four years they be excused from all exactions, and have free use of the ovens and mills, and not have to pay rent for their rented lands ¶ that they be excused for three years, like the Muslims of Eslida

6. that they be excused from all tax or tribute for four years ¶ they should be required to pay tax and tribute to none but the king for four years

7. that relatives outside their lands may inherit goods of deceased Mudéjares so long as they are subjects of the king, just as in the valley of Uxó

8. that they tithe their crops as before, under Peter de Exerica, and that the amin and jurats collect this along with the qadi, if there is one

9. that they not have to pay çofra to Eslida, nor service the castle there, nor be subject in any way to the qadi of Eslida, but that they be accounted as separate and independent of Eslida

10. that if the king wishes to construct a castle in the Serra d'E pada, they will contribute to that (rather than the one in Eslida)
¶ they must contribute to the repair of the castle of Eslida, since they take refuge in it, unless one should be built at Espada, in which case they would maintain that one

11. that any Muslim be able to sell his lands to whomever be wishes and, depart to Muslim lands or wherever he might wish to go ¶ he must sell to a Muslim, and may leave if he pays what he owes the king

12. that the king remit debts owed by Veyo, Ayhi, Benicandut, Alfara, and Xenguer

13. that they have a copy of this document at no cost to them

[366] Atzuena -- March of 1365 -- C 1209:514

1. that the king pardon all war crimes to date, including the looting of the castles of the Count of Prades and other nobles

2. that all outstanding debts to the Crown be forgiven

3. that the hostages given to the King of Castile be returned from Segorbe and the castle (of Eslida?) without charge

4. that they be able to chant the çala as before

5. that they be excused from all royal exactions and the sisa for three years

6. that the king reconfirm all rights and privileges previously enjoyed by them

7. that they not pay the tithe or first-fruits

8. that they have copies of this document free of charge

9. that they not be required to provide water for the castle

[367] Castro and Alfandequiella -- April of 1365 - C 1204:63⁽¹¹⁶⁾

1. that they be free of all exactions for five years If they may be excused for three years

2. that they have all the privileges they formerly enjoyed under Peter de Exerica

3. that they be free to follow the çuna

4. that no Christian be able to bear witness against a Muslim ¶ this may be as before

5. that no official be able to enter their lands, and that they retain their merimperium

6. that they pay no more tithe or first-fruits than they did before

7. that they be able to chant the çala as they did before

8. that they not be held liable for more than ten barcelles⁽¹¹⁷⁾ of wheat, nor be constrained to pay agricultural taxes such as raims, garafes, ortantes, etc.

9. that they may legally inherit property anywhere in the kingdom of Aragon⁽¹¹⁸⁾ just as they did before the Castilian occupation

10. that any Muslim wishing to sell all he owns and emigrate to Muslim countries shall owe the Crown only one-tenth the value of the goods sold

11. that a Muslim who wishes to move elsewhere within the kings dominion may do so without paying anything

12. that Muslims may collect all debts owed them from sales or purchases anywhere in the kingdom, or from agreements signed with persons who have since been seized or passed to Aragon (proper)

13. that pastures and land-holdings be as they were before

14. that all captives who changed sides be free, and that all crimes committed under the rule of Castile be forgiven

[368]

15. that neither Christians nor Jews be permitted to settle with them

16. that they not be required to pay a çofra to the castle or lord, and that the custom of Eslida be followed in the matter

17. that they not be required to make payments with hens or the like, but only in currency

18. that a public document of this agreement be executed at no charge to them

19. that they never be required to pay the sisa or cavallería ¶ they may be exempt for three years

20. that pasturage and public lands belong to the aljama, and that ovens and mills be free for five years

21. that no captive coming from other parts be questioned by anyone outside the domains of their lord, so long as he is not a subject of the lord (i.e. that they be able to offer sanctuary to runaways from other places)

22. that no one be taken captive without the testimony of a Muslim witness

23. that they be permitted to elect their amin

24. ¶ that they pay for the upkeep of the castle there

[369] Alfajarín -- March of 1446

1. (that they not pay, or that adjustments be made in, a series of agricultural taxes, most of them unknown to the Muslims of Valencia making the previous demands)

2. that they not pay any greater çofra than one cord of wood per year

3. (further agricultural adjustments relating to vineyards and grain)

4. that they not be tortured when accused of crimes

5. that they not be convicted of sleeping with a Christian woman except on the testimony of at least two witnesses, one of whom must be a Muslim

6.  that the estates of Muslims deceased without heirs and intestate revert to the aljama, with no part of them belonging to the lord

7. that the lord may constrain one or two Muslims to work for him anytime but June or July at the rate of 3s and two loaves of bread (for both) each day, or l6d and two loaves for one man

8. that the lord grant two plots of land free and quit of all dues to be used for the support of the mosque

9.  that Muslims may sell or otherwise dispose of their lands as they wish to other vassals of their lord

Published in Macho y Ortega, "Condición Social," pp.241ss.
 

Note that this agreement was not made with the king, but with the lord of Alfajarín, Don Juan de la Mur.

1. Costums, I.9.l4. N.B. the opinion of Küchler ("Besteruerung," p.1) that "die in den Ländern der Krone Aragons ansässigen Juden und Mauren galten landrechtlich als Fremde."

2. Costums, II .7.3. A possible exception to this -- the only one I have seen -- was the Muslim Procurator of Mizlata: see C 706:176 (Aug. 12, 1361).

3. The ordinance prohibits a Muslims holding the office only if he has given aid to runaway slaves: "Encara ordonaren que no sia nuyl saray paher, ne sarrayne, que acula dins sa casa negun catiu, de qualque condició ne stament que sia, et aquel o aquela qui u hará, x sol. li costará, que ya amor non trobará, los quals, si pagar nos pot, pendrá x açots a la quartera, sens que amor non trobará." (Carreras y Candi, "Ordinacions," XII, p.370; I have altered the punctuation, which was incorrectly inserted). The Diccionari Català Baleari uses this passage as an example of the other meaning of paher, i.e., "friendly, peaceful," (from paciarius), but it is obvious that this is not the meaning of the word in this instance. There were no hostile Muslims in the area of Valls at the date of these ordinances (1299- 1325), and legislation concerning them would have been quite superfluous. Even if the edict dated from an earlier time, and was merely incorporated into a later code, the meaning "friendly" simply would not work: the punishment for the infraction under discussion was tobe a fine, and a fine could scarcely be collected from enemy Muslims. Paher is, to my knowledge, never used of Muslim officials, and must apply to the Christian town council.

4. Costums, I.9.5.

5. Ibid., IX

6. Furs, 83.1 ("Sarrahi no pot ser Batlle...").

7. See Corpus Iuris Canonici, II, Decretales, V.6.15. Cf. Roca Traver, "Un Siglo," p.146, nn.117-118.

8. Fernández y González, Estado Social, p.369; Tercera compilación general. Constitutions y altres drets de Cathalunya (Barcelona, 1704), I.12.

9. ". . .omnes et singuli sarraceni cuiuscumque dominationis existant debeant incedere thonsis capillis in rotunda supra fronte et absque garceta..." C 1071:192 (July 7, 1360); cf. C 981:22 (1355): "...suos pilos in circuitu capitis scindi rotunde facere. ..." On the dress codes, see also Costums, I.9.3-l4.

10. I.e., the aljuba or almeixa: RP 1708:9 (1362), HP 1709:10 (1364). N.B. that Christians were forbidden to wear such articles of apparel, at least in Catalonia: see the letter of James II to the school at Lérida (1300), published in Villanueva, Viage literario, XVI, p.231.

11. C 1547:72 (July 11, 1366). It is only fair to point out that at least in Aragon, Muslim hostages were sometimes kept under the surveillance of other Muslims (e.g., C 1170:62 [Mar.11, 1360]), and that it was not unknown for Muslims to offer themselves or their families under certain circumstances (e.g., C 1206:80 [1365]). Cf. Piles Ros, Estudio, p.254, #571.

12. As a favor: C 903:144 (Nov.12, 1359): the king granted his cousin Alfonso, "quod in casu quo sarraceni locorum vestrorum que habetis in regno Valentie reperientur absque garceta sive ropeto rotundo in aliquibus locis regnis, seu aliis dicti regni, in quibus aliqua pena eiusdem sic repertis existeret infligenda, solum teneantur ad solvendum unam duplam auri, prout sarraceni locoruni regiorum tenentur." The Muslims of Peter de Exerica paid 20d apiece for this privilege in Bétera: C 703:55, ut supra.

13. See pp.50 ss.

14. C 695:190 (Sept.24, 1359).

15. ". . . si assi es, mutxo nos maravellanos..." C 1176:29 (Apr.24, 1361). The king merely ordered him "to refrain from such activities in the future."

16. C 695:82 (Apr.1, 1359): ". . .vos tamen multotiens eosdem [sarracenos] ad predicta compellitis et compellere nitimini faciendo eos redimi...."

17. C 1205:69 (Apr.3, 1365); C 1210:95 (May 23, 1365).

18. E.g., Costums, VIII.10.l-3.

19. C 693:75 (Jan.14, 1358).

20. C 901:260 (Jan.11, 1358).

21. C 1206:80 (Sept.9, 1365).

22. C 700:14 (Apr.8, 1360).

23. C 1210:95 (May 23, 1365).

24. Even a Granadan soldier in the king's service could obtain no more than an extension of his ransom payments of 900s: C 700:4 (Feb. 2, 1360). For an account of a fifteenth-century ransom, see C 2338:172 (1403), published in Macho y Ortega, "Documentos," p.155. Jews were also seized and held for ransom, but the king seems to have been more willing to intervene in their behalf: "Manam vos que encontinent nos trametats aquellos juheus et juhies, lo quals foren preses per los almogavers prop de Sogorbe, com nos vullam declarar la questio que es per raho dels dits juheus en nostre consell" C 1205:130 (July 4, 1365).

25. For text and references, see pp. 182ss.

26. C 1569:145 (Aug.17, l362).

27. C 1571:47 (Sept.15, 1362).

28. C 720:77 (1365); C 1205:145 (1365); C 1209:44, 55 (1365); C 1210: 76 (1365); C 1211:44 (1365); C 1547:72 (1365).

29. C 720:77 (Aug.30, 1365), in Appendix.

30. C 1211:44 (Apr.6, 1365); several separate entries.

31. C 1205:74 (May 6, 1365).

32. C 1205:45 (1365).

33. Persons who acted as guarantors for the ransom demanded of hostages were known as fiancers according to the Fueros of Aragon, anyone could act as a fiancer, regardless of his religion, as long as he had twelve sheep and five pigs and one mule (IV.197).

34. C 1210:76 (Apr.16, 1365). The king was even more deceitful in his dealings with the aljama of Artana. They had written him in the spring of 1365, worried about a rumor they had heard that he was going to grant the castle of Artana to Rodrigo Diaç. In April the king wrote back (C 1211:1414), assuring them very specifically that he was not considering such a move, and that there was no need for them to fear his doing so. In September he granted the castle to Rodrigo Diaç (C 986:143).

35. "Entendido hauemos que de la villa de Borgia et de otros lugares del regno nostro dAragon ha muytos moros que fueron levado por manera de rehenas en tempo de la guerra a Castilla, et sus parentes e amigos dubden se que sean mal tratados. Por que vos affetuosament rogamos que providades que los ditos moros no sian mal tratados, ante aquellos mandedes guiar de manera que liberament luego puedan a sus casas et sin danio alguno tornar" C 725:76 (Apr.12, 1366).

36. C 1547:72 (July 11, 1366). It is only fair to point out that at least in Aragon, Muslim hostages were sometimes kept under the surveillance of other Muslims (e.g., C 1170:62 [Mar.11, 1360]), and that it was not unknown for Muslims to offer themselves or their families under certain circumstances (e.g., C 1206:80 [1365]). Cf. Piles Ros, Estudio, p.254, #571.

37. C 714:137 (Sept.14, 1363). The vicar of the Archbishop of Zaragoza interceded for them with the king. Cf. C l385:l48 (1363).

38. C 723:158 (1365); C 1206:44 (1365); C 1573:130 (1365).

39. C 684:196 (Apr.2, 1356), in Lopez de Meneses, Documentos, p.,134.

40. C 983:68 (Jan.9, 1359).

41. C 983:156 (Jan. 21, 1359).

42. C 1402:147 (Feb. 1, 1359).

43. C 1569:26 (Oct. 17, 1359).

44. C 699:161 (Feb. 11, 1360).

45. C 703:241 (Dec. 24, 1360).

46. C 714:165 (Nov. 14, 1363).

47. C 1207:159 (Sept. 26, 1365).

48. "Mandamus etiam dictis aljamis et cuilibet earum quod si forsan pro [sic] oblivionem aut aliter per nos seu dictos officiales nostros aliqua demanda ex quacumque causa eis facta fuerit, eamdem observare minime teneantur" C 1354:137 (Oct, 5, 1359).

49. C 986:28, in Appendix. Cf. C 1569:26-7 (1359).

50. C 1569:76 (Dec.12, 1360).

51. C 702:167 (June 2, 1361). Cf. a similar document, addressed to all nobles of the area around Uxó, where the monarch's attempts to forestall nobles seizing goods brought to castles for provisioning of Muslims taking refuge in them: C 718:87 (Nov. 30, 1364).

52. C 1211:63 (May 26, 1365).

53. C 1205:68 (Apr. 2, 1365).

54. C 730:39 (Sept. 1, 1365) and C 720:88 (Oct. 2, 1365); note that the figures about the animals differ in the two entries.

55. C 702:59 (Dec. 22, 1360).

56. C 1208:78 (Sept.6, 1365); on the vice-governor, note 52. It should be noted in the context of confiscation that Muslims sometimes were the property confiscated, as in the case of the allegedly rebellious commendator of the Order of Calatrava, whose two Saracen slaves were seized along with the rest of his property: C 725:82 (1366). It is also worthy of note that on one occasion the king empowered the aljama to reap the benefits of rest "citizens' arrest" and property confiscation: he allowed the aljama 1363 to confiscate the property of all "rebellious" Muslims in the city in order to meet the tax he had imposed on them for the repair of the castle: "Tenore presentis damus et concedimus vobis, dicte aljame et singularibus vestris, omnia et singula bona mobilia et sedentia omnium sarracenorum in termino dicti loci de Fanzara et eius tenentia habitantium nobis rebellium adhuc nostro dominio non devolutorum, ,,,possitis exigere, petere, et habere et ipsa in reparationem operis dicti castelli et aliis vestris necessitatibus convertere et applicare..." C 909:74 (Dec. 11).

57. C 686:218 (May 10, 1356).

58. "...potissime cum ipse terre seu possessiones melioramentum susceperint..." C 686:218 (May 10, 1356).

59. "...sepe contingit que ipsi procuratores aut afferunt ipsis conductoribus dictas terras et possessiones per eos meliorantas aut ipsi conductores habent augere precium arrendamenti dictarum terrarum insturmentis inde confectis obstantibus nullo modo..." ibid.

60. A rather striking parallel between the oppression of the fourteenth-century Aragonese Mudéjares and the black population of the United States in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is discernible in the attitudes of the dominant majority toward sexual relations between the two groups. No southern gentleman ever protected his daughters purity with more righteous fervor than medieval Catalans defended Christian maidenhood. Nor was there much difference in the inequity of laws or process. "Si jueus o sarrains seran trobats jaen ab crestiana lo jueu o el sarrai deuen esser tiraçats e rocegats, e la crestiana deu esser cremada: en manera que muyren. E aquesta acussacio pot fer tot hom de poble senes pena de talio ne daltra" Costums, IX.2.7. Cf. Furs, IX.2.8-9, where both parties are condemned to be burned. At the time of the Costums the testimony of Christians had the weight of full proof in cases of sexual union between Christian women and Jewish or Muslim males, but this was subsequently modified at the inistence of the Muslims: see below.

61. Their outrage at the idea of a Christian woman's committing such an act no doubt also played a role. A Christian woman tried in Valencia in 1359 for carnal relations with Muslims so appalled her accusers that they refused to call her "Christian": C 1071:76 (Oct. 24, 1359).

62. C 691:127 (Oct. 23, 1357).

63. C 692:36 (Feb.7, 1357).

64. C 1380:108 (Dec.19, 1356).

65. C 905:238 (July l4, 1361); cf. C 903:263, ut infra, where the two Muslims involved pay more than l,800s.

66. C 903:263 (Jan.13, 1360), in Appendix.

67. Viz., the several documents at C 1071:192 (July 17, 1360).

68. C 1239:73 (July 21, 1376).

69. Macho y Ortega, "Condición," pp.193, 241. The penalty may well have been mitigated in the later fourteenth century, when the demand for manpower was great and the supply of Muslim slaves low: the document quoted in n. 68, above, implies that the general penalty in Aragon at the time was confiscation to the Crown as a slave:."com lo dit moro encontinent confessa lo dit crim desius dit, et fur dArago diu generalment que los corsos de los moros son nostres propris...."

70. The law in Valencia which required that a Christian male and Saracen female caught sleeping together be forced to run naked though the streets (Furs, IX.2.8-9) was clearly a dead letter by the mid-fourteenth century. This law is particularly illustrative, however, of the varying standards of sexual morality in vogue at the time of its drafting: Christian males sleeping with Jewesses are to be burned with them, as are Jewish or Saracen males found to have lain with a Christian woman. The penalty for Christian males caught with Saracens seems ludicrously mild compared to these. Cf. Roca Traver, "Un Siglo," p.162, and notes 123-125.

71. In the early fourteenth century the blows seem to have been more frequently assigned by qadis: see C 861:107 (1337), C 862:40 (1337); by mid-century, however, stoning seems to have prevailed: see RP 1710:22, 23ss (1365). Perhaps increased frequency inspired the greater severity. Cases of confiscation for this crime are legion, e.g., C 691:84 (1357), C 1209:114 (1365), C 1071:96 (1360), C 1075:130 (1363). Legislation on the subject dated at least to James II: see Verlinden, L'Esclavage, p.420. Christian males could apparently be liable to some action if their liaisons with Muslims were notorious or scandalous: "Et qui cum judaea vel sarracena, vel quae cum judaeo vel sarraceno vel bruto animali coire ausu temerario, et nepbario presumpserit, si sit publicum, vel fama..." Villanueva, Viage literario, V, p.362 ("Synod of Tortosa" of 1359). Both Verlinden and Ramos y Loscertales quote this text misleadingly: It does not refer to captives, but to Jews and Muslims in general, and only to notorious cases. The extreme frequency of this type of liaison is attested not only by such documents as those mentioned above, but also by numerous legal enactments about the proper treatment of the offspring of such intercourse: see especially Costums, VI.l.l2, 16-8; VIII.8.2.

72. E.g., Garsia de Loriz: C 575:132 (1332); Jacob de Oblitis: C 862:140 (1337); the Abbot of Mons Aragonie: C l209:114 (1365).

73. See RP 1710:23 (1365). Both the accuser and auctioneer received a small percentage of the profits.

^74. The Bishop of Valencia saved a Muslim who had been converted to Christianity (see below) after being condemned to be sold into slavery (Verlinden, L'Esclavage, p.420). Garsia de Vera (who judged the case between the aljama of Aranda and the city mentioned in C 699:202 (Mar.25, 1360), obtained pardon for his own Muslim mistress, Axa, on condition that she no longer engage in relations with Christians (C 576:125 [1335]; published by Verlinden, L'Esclavage, pp.866-7; cf. p.423). I have seen only one apparently spontaneous remission for this offense in all the documentation I consulted -- C 905:251 (l362) -- but Verlinden refers to at least one other case (p.866).

75. The material is in C l566:~8, 75, 157 (May, 1356, to November, 1357). It is possible that the bailiff became her godfather rather than her husband. In the grant of remission she is styled Francesca de Marziefla; the name of the bailiff of Teruel was Franciscus Garcesius de Marziella. It was common for Muslims to adopt the names of their godparents, but one would have expected her to take the name of her godmother. She had been married before she was accused of the crime with Christians. The final settlement required her to pay 250s -- a modest sum, indicating the queen's reluctance to trouble her further. Apparently the Crown did not question the sincerity of her conversion, which further strengthens the idea that she had married the bailiff. Cf. C 211:269 (13l4).

76. E.g., C 705:68 (1361).

77. C 861:107 (1337), mentioned in Verlinden, L'Esclavage, p.862.

78. C 1149:23 (Nov.12, 1356).

79. "Sane cum intentionis nostre non fuerit nec existat concessisse prelibato abbati et eius monasterio sarracenas illas quas cum monachis dicti monasterii repertum fuerit contubernium comisisse..." C 1070:23 (Sept.2, 1357). Such Muslims were to be sold, with the profits accruing to the Crown.

80. There were fines for taking meretrices outside the areas assigned to them: C 686:14 (1355), but they were granted houses in which they could practice with impunity: see the document in the Archivo Municipal de Barcelona, Sección Judicial, Cartas Reales, Oct.18, 1362 (published in López de Meneses, Documentos, no. 152, pp. l38-141), and C 702:194 (1361), which describe the building thus employed as a "bordellum." (It appears to have been constructed by the prostitutes themselves.) It was close to the monastery of St Eulalia, and, upon complaint of the monks, the king ordered it moved elsewhere. The attitude of the Aragonese monarchs was by no means unusual: the English Crown had in its employ at one time a Marshall of Prostitutes (see John Bellaisy, Crime and Public Order in England in the Later Middle Ages [London, 1973], p.60). The precise attitude of the Aragonese populace toward the prostitutes is difficult to ascertain. In Solsona in the fifteenth century they were barred (along with Jews) from practicing agriculture or husbandry, and were required to wear special clothing (Carreras y Candi, "Ordinacions," XI, p.328), but there seems to have been no stigma attached to the men who had recourse to them, provided that they were not married. The king himself refers to their occupation as a "malum propositum," and they are often styled "males fembres" in the documents, but there is little sign of real antipathy or opprobrium.

^81. C 701:50 (1360). If the mercenaries were away, and the prostitutes were Christian, they were to be moved out to another place.

82. E.g., the documents above (note 81), and the efforts of James I to prevent Muslims from associating with Christian prostitutes in taverns: C 38:72 (quoted in Roca Traver, "Un Siglo," p.49, n.127). Cf. the Christian prostitute who accused a Muslim of sleeping with her, above, note 68.

83. See Roca Traver, "Un Siglo," p.47; cf. Piles Ros, Estudio, documents 9,10,12, and passim (all fifteenth-century documents).

84. C 905:176 (May 28, 1361), text in Appendix.

^85. It was 50s: see RP l706:18ss (1360), where it was collected from Huceyt Ribaroja, "per ço corn se deja aquella hauer comes crim de adulteri sera que no sera scrita per fembra publica." On aduteri in this context, see note 88, below.

86. RP 2911:35 (1355).

87. Furs, I.8.2: "Encara fem fur nou, que ningu qui haura serrahina no la tinga per putana sabuda, nen prengue soldada, e si ho fara, que la perda e sia a nos confiscada."

^88. This was supposed to be so even in cases of adultery between Muslim women and Jewish or Christian males: "...sarracenis dicti regni concedimus cum presenti, quod si aliqua sarracena, habens coniugem seu maritum, cum aliquo chirstiano sive iudeo crimen commiserit adulterii, puniatur iuxta eorum çuna et pena inde sibi debita in peccunia nullatenus convertatur..." Aureum Opus, priv.8 of Peter IV, published in Roca Traver, "Un Siglo," p.67, n.205. In the fifteenth-century the General Bailiff of Valencia specifically claimed the right to try cases of adultery between Muslims (Piles Ros, Estudio, p.145), and sometimes imposed stoning as the penalty, from which the Muslim could save him(her)self by paying an enormous fine, although this violated the provision quoted above. There is no distinction in the legal terminology of the day between adultery and fornication, and the researcher must be wary of this.

89. C 1070:74 (Nov. 12, 1357)

90. C 899:60 (Aug.22, 1356), text in Appendix. Her conversion was probably of little concern (note that she is called a "Jewess"; cf. concluding chapter). The real issue was the charge of adultery. Note that this concession directly violates the one given by Peter to the Muslims (note 88, above) in two ways: (1) the sarracena us clearly not going to be judged according to the çuna, which required the qadi to handle such cases, and (2) the penalty is to be a monetary one. Cf. the curious case cited by Verlinde, L'Esclavage,p. 535, where a Jewish father and son compete for the favors of a Muslim captive with apparent impunity.

91. For the penalty: C 1569:26 (1359); RP 1710:22 (1365); for pardons: C 1207:124 (1365), and possibly C 899:60, ut supra.

92. Fueros, VIII,306 (Tilander, p. 179).

93. The fine was about 15s, depending on the evidence: C 898:222 (Apr.l, 1356). Cf. for Christians, Costums, IX.2a.5.

94. C 1207:l24 (1365).

95. C 898:222 (1356): "...et filius sit horco..."; text in Appendix. But note that the king did honor Muslim polygamy, even in regard to the settling of estates: RP 1719:25 (1363).

96. RP 2911:9 (1355); cf. Chapter IV above. Jews and Muslims were also more apt to be dunned for debts than Christians. In 1363 the king ordered Bernard Arlouin to cease prosecuting them for non-payment of a recent demanda which few citizens of any type were able to meet, but allowed him to retain all goods confiscated so far: C 1188:65 (July 7).

97. C 691:95 (1357).

98. C 983:150 (1359); C 1567:124 (1359).

99. C 1569:26, 29, 71 (1359-60); cf. Chapter IV.

100. ". . .minus pretio quam hodie valet vel de cetero valebit. .." C 983:85 (Jan.21, 1359).

101. C 1567:124 (1359).

102. The account of this is in C 1569:26, 27, 70, 72. In 1361 the queen had to order the bailiff to release more of the grain, since the aljama had nothing to plant: C 1569:100.

103. "...continue de die faciunt esse et morari porchos suos intus ciminterium sive fossar que dicta aljama jure suo obtinet juxta dictam civitatem, quiquidem porchi multotiens circumfodiunt et dissepeliunt cadavera inibi cumulata..." C 1188:50 (Oct.7, 1363). Note that, curiously, the Christian officials of Zaragoza had been specifically instructed to prevent violence being done the Muslim cemetery of the city fifty years before by James II: C 860:6 (1314).

104. C 983:149 (1359).

105. ". . .perforarunt quendam parietem qui est inter hospicium Mahome Barbastri, ubi hospitabantur dicti Nicholaus et Guillelmus,et [domum] Brahe de Mogen, sarraceni [ms. has "sarracenorum"] Montissoni, ubi hospitabatur Ffaraig de Bellvis, menescalcus [sic] domus nostre, et per foramen quod fecerunt in dicto pariete intrarunt intus domum dicti Brahe de Mogen, et ab ipso furtive abstraxerunt quasdam vestes novas dicti Ffaraig panni lane de propre [sic], et eas secum duxerunt..." C 711:194 (Mar.14, 1363).

106. C 692:205 (Sept.16, 1357). The kiln was located in a field near the morería.

107. C 1569:75 (Dec.12, 1360). The king ordered restitution, but no punishment for the procurator.

108. C 705:68 (1361), text in Appendix.

109. Such things did, in fact, occur frequently, and always met with summary justice; e.g., C 683:126 (1356), where Muslims co-operate with Christians in defrauding other Muslims; C 683:153 (1356), where Muslims harass other Muslims by bringing false charges against them which they must appear in court to refute; C 688:160 (1357), where a wealthy Muslim is murdered in an elaborate plot involving numerous other Mudéjares (text in Appendix); C 1569:73 (1360), where officials of the aljama of Crevillente defraud it. In each of these cases the guilty party is fined or otherwise severely punished. For injustices of Muslims to Jews, see C 687:189 (1356). There is one case of an injustice of a financial nature perpetrated against the aljama of Borja which elicited from the king a threat to imprison the "capitaneus Burgie" if he did not reimburse the aljama for certain goods he had seized, but again, this is not intended, to be a punishment, or even retribution, but simple restitution: C 983:68 (1359).

110. Ms. has "princes" which I have altered to make the grammar of the rest of the sentence more comprehensible. I have felt obliged to take many liberties in the translation of this document. The text is unusually tortured, even by Chancery standards, with extremely long periods and constant repetition of long, stock phrases, which severely strain the reader's comprehension, even in English. I have rearranged some of the clauses, to make their relationship clearer, and have left out some of the repetitions of phrases, such as "you the said aljama of the Saracens of the city of Játiva and its members, both those dwelling and residing within the Raval, or morería, of the said city, and those who contribute in the taxes, tributes and other duties of the said aljama, wherever they may be or dwell, that is, all generally and each one singly, just as if they were herein mentioned or designated by name, whether living or to come, of whatever sex, rank, estate, or condition they may be, along with their servants, male and female, and any other dependents, and all and sundry of their goods, movable and real and living, goods and merchandise either of their own or of their servants, etc., etc." This phrase, which continues for another four or five clauses, has been deleted from the sentence beginning "[We do so] for your. . .," the deletion here (as elsewhere) being indicated by ellipses.

111. The manuscript has "humilioris"; "humbler" is clearly inadequate. "More modest" is possible, but seems to jar with the much more pejorative sense of "conditio gravat...."

112. I.e., laws aimed at the general populace are applied with greater stringency to Muslims; see above, pp.171, 272, etc.

113. C 913:33 (Sept.16, 1366), text in Appendix.

114. At least as regards the kingdoms as a whole; in Aragon and Catalonia Muslims were a numerical minority; in Valencia a numerical majority, but a subject group. For populatiom figures see the introduction.

115. In addition to those settlements on the following pages, similar agreements were reached between the king and the aljamas of Vila malur (sometime before March, 1365; no text survives, but see C 1209:25); Fanzara (Dec., 1363), which regained "more privileges" not specified in extant documents (see C 909:75); Aranda (June, 1366), which regained its old privileges (C 912:191); Uxó (March₂ 1365), which obtained "favorable treatment" (C 1210:53); Almonacir and Alinodexir (March, 1365), which got "favorable treatment" as well as absolution of war crimes (C 1211:32); Dues Aygues (March, 1365), which only obtained absolution from war crimes (C 1211:35); and Artana (March, 1365), which wrested from the king absolution for war crimes, a guarantee of the rights of çuna and xara, and a two-year remission of royal taxes and all military demands for the war (C 1205:34, 36, 37). Some of these agreements undoubtedly represent more than a return to the king's service: quite likely many of the aljamas are coming under direct royal jurisdiction for the first time, having been previously under noble control. This is implied in several of them, but stated in none, so I have avoided unwarranted inferences.

116. Text in Appendix.

117. A barcella was a unit of dry measure equal to about 17 liters.

118. What is meant by this phrase is unclear: probably any land under Peter's dominion is intended. Castro and Alfandequiella are in Valencia. Cf. number 12.