ABSTRACT
Legal provisions to regulate economic exchanges between Christians and non-Christians Though records of individual transactions may be scarce indeed, the ordinances of the cortes provide revealing glimpses of their frequency and character. From the mid-thirteenth century until the end of the Middle Ages, the legislation of the cortes sought to restrict and regulate economic exchanges between the dominant Christian population and Muslims and Jews. The frequency of these prohibitions, and the tedious repetition of restrictive measures against Muslims and Jews, tell us how often these injunctions were ignored or circumvented; they also signal the importance of these transactions in the economic life of the realm. Not all of these measures, were economic in nature; at least, they were not overtly so. Some of the cortes' ordinances sought to prevent Jews and Muslims from having intimate contact with Christians and to differentiate them by regulating their clothing and hairstyle. But even these ordinances were seldom enforced; and the fluid movement across religious lines
66 Medieval Spain
Economic Exchange in Late Medieval Castile 67
68 Medieval Spain
Retail transactions among Christians, Jews, and Muslim merchants and artisans
Economic Exchange in Late Medieval Castile 69
Moneylending
70 Medieval Spain
Economic Exchange in Late Medieval Castile 71
72 Medieval Spain
Buying from and selling property to the 'other'
Economic Exchange in Late Medieval Castile 73
Table 4.1 Number of transactions in Burgos, 1200-1350
Number of transactions Purchases by religious minorities Sales by religious minorities Percentage of Jewish and Muslim transactions
377 1 2 0.78%
74 Medieval Spain
Table 4.2 Other Transactions and monies exchanged in 1209 Burgos
5 mrs (gold) 8 mrs (gold)
10 mrs (gold) 17 mrs (gold)
29 mrs 60 mrs (gold)
150 mrs 220 mrs
Economic Exchange in Late Medieval Castile 75
Table 4.3 Urban real-estate markets of Avila and Salamanca (1240-1360)
Avila Salamanca
Total number of extant transactions 34 60 Number of transactions involving Jews 14 13(1 purchase) Percentage of total 41% 22% Lowest price paid for Je wish-owned property 143 mrs 15.5 mrs Highest price paid for Jewish-owned property 1300 mrs 450 mrs Average price per transaction 620 mrs 174.6 mrs
Identity of Jewish sellers No. of transactions Couples 5 5 Female 2 4 Male 6 2 (including a rabbi) Siblings 1 (brothers) 1 (brother and sister)
Table 4.4 Real-estate transactions in Avila, 1290-1300
Number of property Transactions among Transactions among transactions Christians Christians and
non-Christians
76 Medieval Spain
Trading with the 'other'
Notes
3 This was most powerfully presented in Castro's The Structure o f Spanish History, trans. E. L. King (Princeton, 1954).
