Alexandra Bramsen
Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the Age of the Crusades (SP19)
Professor MacEvitt
May 29, 2019
Final Paper; Jewish Merchants
Jewish Merchants living throughout the Mediterranean between the 9th and early 13th century enabled Jews as a group to have more political, religious, social, commercial and judicial freedoms, no matter where they were. They had a well-established system of business and acted well as mediators between the rivaling Christians and Muslims. While being subjugated to these ruling parties, the benefits that their knowledge and networking brought these places, meant that rulers made accommodations for them and became more lenient with former anti-Judaism laws and helped sway the people to more equitable societies. Relations between Jews and their rulers were professional and necessary to both groups. This meant that Jewish merchants had the liberty of migration and were able to settle seamlessly into most lands. Their presence across the Mediterranean and domination of the trades of most goods meant that they had sustainable power over at least one area of Medieval life of the time. Primary sources that were extremely helpful in comprehending their complex ancient livelihoods of these traders, were the Cairo Genizah letters and the Christian Charters of Iberia that had been requests of Jews at the time. These sources allude to both Jews under Christian and Muslim rule, which had varying allowances of Jewish freedom during the Middle Ages. It is crucial to look at both areas as they were what split the Mediterranean, the trade area which these Jewish merchants had control over.
This study of Jewish merchants focuses on the life of the community before the late 13th century changes. This restriction is so that we are looking at the Mediterranean before the heavy effects of the Great Famine and the Black Death that eventually led to the massive exodus of Jews from Spain at the end of the 14th century as they were expelled from Europe. This century marked a significant period of change for the broader Jewish community as both economically and demographically they suffered from the famine and plague.There is a notable decrease in documents in the Cairo Genizah while Egypt was under the Mamluks [1]. The Genizah is an important source used to look at the lives of Jews during the middle ages [2]. This decrease shows this two-fold economic and demographic effect on the Jewish merchants specifically in Cairo, but even more so the broader Mediterranean [3]. At the time, the likelihood was extremely high that if one area, especially a hub like Cairo, was suffering, then those in connection to it would have similar issues. The point of this exclusion of this period is to have the most relatively stable period, with an established Jewish merchant network that spanned across from Spain in the west, to as far as India in the East, be the focus of the research. Both the rise to power of the Mamluks, growing tensions amongst Christian states, and then the catastrophe of the famine and plague disrupted the norms that had been created for Jewish merchants in the middle ages.
The Cairo Genizah, as mentioned before, was an important wealth of sources on the Jewish Merchants, not only just in Cairo but across the Mediterranean. It was a storehouse in the Ben-Ezra Synagogue that housed a variety of documents, from Torah scrolls to contracts and letters, that were all stored for the religious and ritual purpose of not admonishing the name of God through the improper destruction of documents that included it. Genizah documents were traditionally then buried[4]. Through these documents, we can get a precept of both the formal interactions of traders with other Merchants throughout the Mediterranean, but also their social situations and relations to each other. Letters found in the Genizah reveal that there was a structure and formality in how merchants interacted and conducted business with one another. Each letter had a set format of address, which was a common format across this group of merchants, showing their familiarity with each other as their customs at that point had become so developed. An example of one of these customs was that when dealing with trade going east there was usually an accompanying gift of some assortment of items that were not usually traded and were often stated in the accompanying note. Another side to the letters was how they showed social lives and were partially able to give us names to make more connections, through messages of greeting to family and friends and responses about general family welfare, even in business letters. There was a whole network of relatives of different families spreading out around the Mediterranean, and while this fact meant that there were tensions of separation and homesickness expressed in private letters, there too was these more important growing connections to many different places and people. At times there were even relations made outside of their community and religion, which allowed for easy and more effective trading across boundaries, as well as movement between places [5]. One good example is Abraham b. Yiju who was from Tunisia, lived in India for over a decade, stayed in Yemen a while, then went to Old Cairo to marry off his only daughter, and finally settled down in Sicily [6]. He spent his life moving around and building up his business, nurturing his secure trade network. There was often such a large sense of familiarity between connections that readers would identify the letter’s sender from the handwriting[7].
Despite extracting so many useful facts from the Genizah documents, it is dangerous to simply assume everything discovered to be true of all Jewish merchants. The letters that are studied were usually concerned with a very tightly connected group that existed during the 12th and early 13th century [8]. The nature of the Genizah itself works against enabling assumptions as it was such an arbitrary collection of discarded texts over such a long period of time, that making much of it applicable in general, with absolute certainty, is a very precarious objective to attempt. There are going to be gaps in the collection as well as many anomalies due to this haphazard incoherent assortment of documents. However, there is such a vast amassment of commercial correspondence, which has been given a lot of modern critical analysis and evaluation, that it would be useful to still look at the documents as viable sources that can shed some light on the merchant life of Jews in Cairo and their connections [9]. By seriously analyzing the writings of these old, Jewish Traders, it is possible to see the Medieval Mediterranean through their eyes, even if it was such a specific localized group, their scope ran far and wide giving quite a large and detailed portrait of life when long-distance trade was starting to become a significantly viable option, allowing for tremendous growth and development [10].
On the other side of the Mediterranean Sea, Christian Charters were lawful settlements that were usually made upon Jews’ requests and have been used in the past to draw up images of their life under Christian rule in Latin Europe during the Middle Ages [11]. They were often used to understand the protection of Jews under the Crown but have been further evaluated to glean some more insight into how the Jewish community was able to construct a position of some influence in the politics of the area and their relationship with the majority Christian populous [12]. Merchants were seen to be the origin of how the Jews were able to gain such a powerful status and protection in Iberia up until the 13th century [13]. Charters were often bestowed upon Jewish traders enticing them to come and do business in Christian lands, and through them creating a shadowed link to the rest of the Mediterranean. One of the first merchants to have such a right was the Rabbi Domatus and his nephew Samuel, who led the way for many others in establishing valuable relationships with the royalty who constructed these charters. In their case Louis I was in power in France and he made the effort to change the approach to Christian hospitality of Jews in their economy. Their faith of Judaism put them at a lower socio-economic status, and yet there were times when Christians were employed by visiting Jewish merchants creating an irregular power switch where the supposed lower-class citizen were in charge. This gave the two groups some economic and social relation of interdependence. Louis I made this revolutionary charter in the ninth century that meant that Jewish rights where well improved and protected under the crown, giving them more legal sway and freedom of religion [14]. Eventually, the visiting Jewish merchant started to settle in Latin Europe, becoming a more permanent population that continued to gain increasing rights and liberties, as well as royal protection that came with having been under royal control [15]. Moreover, these charters had significant Jewish voices provoking more reforms of laws, showing that the Jewish community was free enough to have some say in court and even have rulings favoring their requests for improvements, and pleas for conviction of felons against them [16]. Jews were even granted their own judicial rights to make judgments within their own community, showing that there was the vague idea of legal equality of all citizens no matter their religion, while still recognizing the possible biases [17]. Jews, despite ancient bans, held positions of power and were considered to have little restriction and subjugation imposed upon them in Iberia during the Middle Ages. However, as we approach the late 13th century efforts changed to try to divide and separate Latin Christians from the settled Jews with restrictive laws on sexual relations and prohibitions of food, such as purchasing fish on Friday’s, a Jewish custom, but as mentioned before we are looking at Jews before this shift [18]. There was a full integration of Jews into Iberia, due to having the initial peace that was extended by Louis I. Charters are important sources to view Jewish attitudes, positions, societal structures, and the general community in Medieval Iberia.
Jewish merchants’, value lay in their chameleon-like ability to fit into spaces that were either ruled by Muslims or Christians, Ishmael or Edom. Even though it varied from place to place the specific treatment of Jews under different rulers at different times, Jewish merchants were valuable enough that they were usually left out of issues, because they could act as a trade connection between the West and East, Edom and Ishmael [19]. The mediators of Jewish traders were necessary because of what Muslims and Christians traded, wanted and needed from each other, while they were unwilling to interact directly with each other to obtain it. Different places were known for producing different goods that they then exported, and needing things, which they didn’t manufacture or had a short supply of, to be outsourced from other places[20]. In Sicily, objects that were popularly exported ranged from raw metals, minerals, fruits, to textiles, and many other different products, but their imports from other areas were just as diverse[21]. Nevertheless, apparently a lot of Jewish merchants, as described in the Genizah letters, complained about the custom tax on foreign imports in Sicily, that were most effectively enforced on dhimmi bringing in goods, so merchants went so far as to fake documentation to make the appearance that the goods belonged to a resident of Sicily nullifying the charges [22]. Jews knew how to work and maneuver the trading system and cornered every market that was possible because they were the go-between that had to handle most transactions between the Christian West and the Muslim East. Another interesting topic covered by the Genizah documents is the debate about differences between Jews living under Muslim rule and Jews under Christian rule. There were definite contrasts between the increasing privileges of Jewish merchants in the Italian maritime republics to that of the more defined paths laid out for Jews in Islamic ruled states, and yet they allowed more fluid movement and opportunity to get citizenship than those in Latin cities and in truth, Jewish culture was more compatible with Islamic traditions and societal structures than Christian. Though under either rule, Jews in positions of political power appeared as potential threats and were at the risk of retaliation as an act of defense from the imposing minority [23]. In general Jews were able to comfortably fit into either Christian or Muslim communities that gave them some liberties of potential successes, and yet both also ran the risk of negative reactions to such assimilations, so that at different points in time one was always acting relatively harsher and more restrictive towards the Jewish minority under them compared to the other.
As a result of having such a valuable position in different cities, Jews were enabled to have a makeshift second-class position. They were not the ruling party, and yet they were simultaneously not the worst off. Jews were considered of the “middling sort” as they encompassed the full breadth of the social and status spectrum from the lowest of low-class poverty to some very important rich high-class figures. The Jewish merchants described in the Genizah letters were known to be able to take on multiple roles that could vary from political to business and even legal spheres. They had social mobility that allowed them to climb the social ladder and have positions of a significant influence in the community. Traditionally, though, their status was attached to that of their family history and what their connections, reputations, and achievements were, yet there was a distinction between social status and professional business reputation, as trade and investment were a necessity for maintaining one’s finances[24]. In a sense, this hierarchical structure of the network of the Jewish community showed simply just how much freedom they had, that they could create such social structures and gain such wealth through their expansive trade connections amongst themselves as a generally persecuted minority. The success of the Jewish merchants helped many places develop their trading systems, one big example was the Taifa Denia in Iberia, which due to the business the merchants brought allowed for multileveled integration of Jews into the new city-state during the 11th century, as it acted as a copy of the Umayyad Caliphate. Jewish scholarship had flourished under the Umayyad Caliphate’s more lenient circumstances that created a scholastic hub that allowed the freedom of intellectual Jewish figures and leaders throughout Al-Andalus during the 10th century. In Denia, Jews, while not having any recordings of Jewish viziers, like Samuel and Joseph HaNagid in Granada, still contributed to the running of the state, with multiple Andalusian Jews as members of its court. There were revered and popular Jewish physicians, philosophers, and authors living in Denia. Even religious conversations were encouraged as the ruling Muslims saw it as a continuance of ‘ulama’ that benefitted the Taifa in that it legitimized, the court’s religious piety and scholarly reputability[25]. Jews could accede religious disassociations through the commercial and intellectual benefits they brought to places, giving them the power of influence and of mobility. Cross-religious, relations were largely, mutually beneficial.
In a sense, even though Jews did not have any actual control over an area of land, they still had an empire, through the amassment of networking and expansion of their diaspora and trade. Jessica Goldberg draws on Goitein’s research on origins and groupings to discuss the merchant identity, specifically those affiliated with Ibn ‘Awkal and Nahray in their letters from the Genizah. Her conclusion was that in fact there was no formal association or guild that the Genizah merchants could identify with. Rather, they were referred to as ashabuna, meaning colleagues or associates, because their group consisted of friends and friends of friends, still making them a distinct faction in the merchant community[26]. Migration was a core component to Genizah merchant lifestyles, though they traditionally did eventually settle, it naturally contributed to the expanding networks, as family members and friends moved from one major city to the next. Such dispersal meant that there were trustworthy contacts across the Mediterranean, giving them a system that they could utilize well in trade. Movement during the 11th century, even under ever-changing polities, was easy for Jewish merchants, despite having non-residential status. Economics and politics of areas did however, influence patterns of their movement. Yet, because of the normalcy of the mobile merchant lifestyle, Jewish immigrants in cities were usually indistinguishable from local Jewry that had settled there[27]. There is a long history of Jewish merchants throughout the Mediterranean, before during and after the rule of Islam in the area. An important group that is seen as, the forefathers of Jewish trade were the Radhanites. Since then, however, there have been other powerful groups of Jewish merchants; Tustaris, the Awkal family, Tahirti family, and other Maghrib families. Nehorai b. Nissim, an important trade businessman, was a leading figure in Fustat and had a very influential position amongst Egyptian Jewry. Knowledge and connections were passed down through these lines of Jewish merchants, making this monopolization of trade the Jewish empire that the different generations inherited, and as in any empire there were its factions and leading families[28]. Such a well-established network of people that in some cases had been so connected, though physically separated, for centuries, showed just how settled the Jewish merchants were throughout the Mediterranean. It did not matter that Judaism was not a ruling power of the time and that they were often subjected to diminutive positions, Jewish merchant networks gave them a crucial foothold in areas, both under Muslims and Christians before the late 13th-century shift.
In conclusion, the combination of the long history of Jewish trade, the necessity for a middleman between Christians and Muslims, and the rapidly expanding networks of Jewish trade because of growing migration leeway, meant that Jews cornered and claimed the Trade system over the Mediterranean. They had a substantial position of power where they controlled the movement of wares between markets, all while being a tradition that was subjugated in almost every other way as Christian and Muslims ruled as military powers and had the true political control of places. No matter how much the Jews were forced to submit, they were needed by the rulers of cities that needed produce coming in and out of their markets. This invaluable need meant that Jews were granted more rights and maintained a pretty satisfactory stance under these beneficial leniencies. In some ways, Jews, despite being oppressed minorities that suffered often, had the most stable position and outlook of the Mediterranean before the 14th-century, as they could fit into most situations with autonomy because of the need of the Jewish merchant empire. Arguably, ruling parties should have been the most comfortable, but they had more significant threats from rivals, to their power than that of the ancient network of the Jewish merchants.
Bibliography
Bruce, Travis. “The Taifa of Denia and the Jewish Networks of the Medieval Mediterranean: A Study of the Cairo Geniza and Other Documents.” Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies 10, no. 2 (2018): 147-66. Accessed May 6, 2019. doi:10.1080/17546559.2017.1409903.
Gil, Moshe, and David Strassler. Jews in Islamic countries in the Middle Ages. Leiden: Brill, 200
Goitein, Shelomo Dov, and Mordechai Akiva. Friedman. India Traders of the Middle Ages: Documents from the Cairo Geniza: India Book. Leiden: Brill, 2008.
Goldberg, Jessica. Trade and institutions in the medieval Mediterranean: the geniza merchants and their business world. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Jewish Virtual Library; A Project of AICE. “Mamluks.” 2019, Accessed May 11, 2019. www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/mamluks
Kahle, Paul. The Cairo Geniza. Oxford: Blackwell, 1959.
Ray, Jonathan. “The Jew in the Text: What Christian Charters Tell us About Medieval Jewish Society.” Medieval Encounters 16, no. 2 (2010): 243-67. doi:10.1163/157006710×497751.
[1] “Mamluks.” Jewish Virtual Library; A Project of AICE, 2019, Accessed May 11, 2019. www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/mamluks.
[2] Shelomo Dov Goitein and Mordechai Akiva Friedman, India Traders of the Middle Ages: Documents from the Cairo Geniza: India Book, (Leiden: Brill, 2008)
[3] “Mamluks.”
[4] Paul Kahle, The Cairo Geniza (Oxford: Blackwell, 1959), 3-4
[5] Goitein and Friedman, India Traders of the Middle Ages, 10-25
[6] Goitein and Friedman, India Traders of the Middle Ages, 13
[7] Goitein and Friedman, India Traders of the Middle Ages, 10
[8] Goitein and Friedman, India Traders of the Middle Ages, 14-5
[9] Jessica Goldberg, Trade and institutions in the medieval Mediterranean: the geniza merchants and their business world, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 8-11
[10] Goldberg, Trade and institutions in the medieval Mediterranean, 337
[11] Jonathan Ray, “The Jew in the Text: What Christian Charters Tell us About Medieval Jewish Society,” Medieval Encounters 16, no. 2 (2010): 243-67, doi:10.1163/157006710×497751
[12] Ray, “The Jew in the Text,” 243-5
[13] Ray, “The Jew in the Text,” 243-67
[14] Ray, “The Jew in the Text,” 246-8
[15] Ray, “The Jew in the Text,” 248-9
[16] Ray, “The Jew in the Text,” 250-2
[17] Ray, “The Jew in the Text,” 252-60
[18] Ray, “The Jew in the Text,” 260-2
[19] Ray, “The Jew in the Text,” 246
[20] Goitein and Friedman, India Traders of the Middle Ages, 16-7
[21] Moshe Gil and David Strassler, Jews in Islamic countries in the Middle Ages, (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 564-5
[22] Gil and Strassler, Jews in Islamic countries in the Middle Ages, 572-4
[23] Goldberg, Trade and institutions in the medieval Mediterranean, 50-5
[24] Goldberg, Trade and institutions in the medieval Mediterranean, 45-50
[25] Travis Bruce, “The Taifa of Denia and the Jewish Networks of the Medieval Mediterranean: A Study of the Cairo Geniza and Other Documents,” Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies 10, no. 2 (2018): 147-66, Accessed May 6, 2019, doi:10.1080/17546559.2017.1409903, 149-55
[26] Goldberg, Trade and institutions in the medieval Mediterranean, 38-9
[27] Goldberg, Trade and institutions in the medieval Mediterranean, 39-45
[28] Gil and Strassler, Jews in Islamic countries in the Middle Ages, 615-721