Creditors and Converts: The Impact of Royal Policy and Corporate Debt on the Collective Identity of Majorcan Conversos after 1391

Natalie Oeltjen

doi:10.3989/sefarad.013.005

Abstract

Royal correspondence of the Kingdom of Majorca reveals that “external” economic factors and royal policies forced the first generations of 1391 conversos to remain a distinct social group. Not long after the anti-Jewish violence and mass conversions of 1391, the conversos of Majorca granted a percentage of their assets to King Joan I. At the same time, the conversos and surviving Jews had to repay the creditors of the former aljama , which had been dissolved following the attack against the Jewish quarter. These two collective financial obligations required the conversos to organize themselves as a group, following the precedent of the aljama , with elected leaders who organized an internal tax collection in order to pay these debts, and who lobbied on behalf of the conversos before the king and before their creditors. This administrative structure set the foundation for the converso confraternity of Sant Miquel, founded in 1404.

Highlights

Reyes, acreedores y conversos: el impacto de la política real y de la deuda corporativa en la identidad colectiva de los conversos de Mallorca después de 1391.— Un examen detallado de la correspondencia real relativa a Mallorca muestra que factores económicos «externos» y directivas políticas reales obligaron a la primera generación de conversos de 1391 a permanecer como grupo social distintivo
The conversos and surviving Jews had to repay the creditors of the former aljama, which had been dissolved following the attack against the Jewish quarter. These two collective financial obligations required the conversos to organize themselves as a group, following the precedent of the aljama, with elected leaders who organized an internal tax collection in order to pay these debts, and who lobbied on behalf of the conversos before the king and before their creditors
It is well known that during the summer of 1391 violence erupted against Jewish communities across the kingdom of Castile and the Crown of Aragon that resulted in the loss of thousands of Jewish lives, and even more forced baptisms

Summary

The Anti-Jewish Violence of 1391 in Majorca

Modern scholars have often attributed the 1391 violence in the Crown of Aragon to the increasing religious intolerance and clerical anti-Judaism concomitant with the friars’ missionizing campaigns beginning in descendants de juifs convertis à Majorque (1435-1750) (Paris: Kimé, 1995); Álvaro Santamaría Arández, “Sobre la condición de los conversos y chuetas de Majorca,” Espacio, Tiempo y Forma, Serie III, Historia Medieval 10 (1997), 219-262; Antoni Picazo Muntaner, Els Xuetes de Mallorca: grups de poder i criptojudaisme al segle xvii (Palma de Mallorca: El Tall, 2006). 30 He was, much more diligent in capitalizing on the revolts after the fact His letters express understandable anxieties over the “damage” they caused to the royal fisc, but rather than investing in long-term goals such as reviving the kingdom’s devastated Jewish communities, educating and integrating the new converts, or even addressing wider social tensions, King Joan’s initial responses to the violence focused conspicuously on its revenue potential. He imposed fines on those who participated in the assaults, promising these anticipated revenues as collateral for loans and as salaries for high officials. When there was no longer an aljama to extract funds from, in 1395, he ordered the transfer of revenues from confiscated loans originally owed to conversos to the noble Francesc Sa Garriga who was headed to Sicily with the captain of the royal armada

The Donatio

Collective Debt

Findings

The Trials and Tribulations of Tax Collection