Allison Bocchino, University of California, Santa Barbara
This video examines vernacular notarial testaments produced by Jews in fifteenth-century Spain. Wills are an important source for medieval social history as they provide information about property, family relationships, and charity among others. It uses the will of Jamila Arueti as an example of the genre. Jamila left significant bequests to Jewish charity organizations and included stipulations to ensure that her granddaughter would be raised Jewish. Together these allow us to consider how Jews reacted to the emergence of the conversos and defined who belonged to their community.
Video
Primary Source Reading
Archivo Histórico de Protocolos Notariales (Zaragoza, Spain):
Juan Doto 1415, fol. 97v-100v
Anton Ximenez del Bosch 1418, hojas sueltas #131
Garcia Gavin 1428, fol. 164v-166v
Blasco Martínez, Asunción. “Mujeres judías zaragozanas ante la muerte.” Aragon en la Edad Media 9 (1991): 77–120.
Further Reading
- Agresta, Abigail. “The Doctor and the Notary: A Latinate Jewish Will from Fourteenth-Century Catalonia.” Viator: Medieval and Renaissance Studies 46, no. 1 (2015): 229–47.
- Burns, Robert Ignatius. Jews in the Notarial Culture: Latinate Wills in Mediterranean Spain, 1250-1350. University of California Press, 1996.
Discussion Questions
- How can wills be used as a source of medieval history? What types of information do they contain? What sorts of history can they be used to reconstruct?
- Why did some Jews chose to produce their testaments in the Chistian notarial system?
- What might the existence of notarial Jewish testaments tell us about the relationship between Jews and Christians in medieval Spain?
Cite
Bocchino, Allison. "Jewish Notarial Wills in Fifteenth-Century Spain," Middle Ages for Educators, December 17, 2024. Accessed [date]. https://middleagesforeducators.princeton.edu/jewish-notarial-wills-fifteenth-century-spain