Farene dui: The separation of the Jewish and Christian universitates in fifteenth-century Apulia

Abstract

This study aims to make a contribution to the understanding of municipal belonging and Jewish–Christian relations in Renaissance Italy through the analysis of charters granted by the Aragonese kings of Naples to the cities and the Jewish communities of Apulia. During the fifteenth century the Jewish and Christian communities of the Kingdom of Naples were neither administratively nor jurisdictionally independent from one another. It was through political action that the Jewish communities attempted and succeeded in loosening the ties with the municipal communities, accentuating the gap between two religiously distinct groups. This study suggests that the administrative and jurisdictional separation of the Jewish community from the Christian universitas was not sought by municipal governments: it constituted, rather, the ultimate political goal of the Jewish communal leaders.