ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the two different contexts in which Jews and Muslims, notwithstanding the restrictive legislation imposed on them, were allowed to bear arms in medieval Portugal. Considering the relative scarcity of sources concerning religious minorities in medieval Europe, these licenses offer historians an unusual and very precious insight into the turbulent inner life of one such community. The Muslim minority, though numerically less important than the Jewish one, was not exempt from fear of attacks by Christians. A pardon granted on 26 August 1446 to the Muslim Qsim Lparo, a master carpet maker residing in Lisbon, reveals that he was acutely aware of his community's vulnerability. Revenge killings and blood feuds in the Middle Ages are popularly associated with the turbulent aristocratic and knightly clans of violent frontier areas such as, for instance, the Anglo-Scottish march or the autonomous city states of Italy.
