ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses exclusively on medieval Jewish civilization, from the fall of the Roman Empire to about 1492. It includes alphabetically organized entries, written by scholars from around the world, include biographies, countries, events, social history, and religious concepts. Jews appear to have settled in the Valencian territories from ancient times, although precise dates are unknown. Traditions invented in the fifteenth century, intended to demonstrate the existence of Jewish settlement in ancient times in order to avoid the sentence of Expulsion, allude to a Jewish presence in Murviedro, current Sagunto. The reign of Pedro III had important consequences for the Jewish communities of the kingdom. The Jews formed their own society, even though they were part of the majority Christian society that had the power and dictated the norms of coexistence to which the Jews had to submit. Relations between Jews and Christians in Valencia were always guided by one principle: the superiority of the Christian over the Jew.