{"product_id":"jewish-life-in-the-crown-richard-bruno-9798177160474","title":"Jewish Life in the Crown of Aragon: Between the Twelfth and Fifteenth Centuries: The Jewish Aljama of Monzón","description":"One of the largest Jewish communities in the Crown of Aragon, and one of the least studied\u003cp\u003eIn 1492, on the eve of the expulsion, more than six hundred and fifty Jews lived in Monzón, in the Aragonese \u003ci\u003ecomarca\u003c\/i\u003e of the Cinca Medio. They had been there for four centuries. Almost nothing has been written about them.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDrawing on nearly thirty years of work in the Archive of the Crown of Aragon and in provincial, municipal and notarial archives, and on Hebrew sources long neglected by historians of medieval Spain, F. Andreu Lascorz Arcas reconstructs Jewish life across Aragon and Catalonia between the twelfth and the fifteenth centuries. Reading Hebrew, Catalan, Aragonese and Latin, he sets the \u003ci\u003eresponsa\u003c\/i\u003e of Rabbi Salomon ben Adret and Rabbi Yishaq bar Seset beside royal orders, wills, tax rolls and notarial deeds, and lets the communities speak in their own words.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe book opens with daily life: the languages spoken in the Jewish quarters, food and the laws of \u003ci\u003ekashrut\u003c\/i\u003e, marriage and the place of women, synagogues and schools, courts, hospitals and confraternities, taxes and trades, festivals and dress, the ritual baths and the cemeteries. It then follows four centuries through the community of Monzón, from the Templar fortress and the Barcelona Disputation of 1263, through the Shepherds' Crusade of 1320, the Black Death and the massacres of 1391, to the Disputation of Tortosa, the Inquisition, the \u003ci\u003econversos\u003c\/i\u003e, and the edict of expulsion.\u003c\/p\u003eWhat makes this book unusual\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eHebrew sources read directly.\u003c\/b\u003e The \u003ci\u003eresponsa\u003c\/i\u003e record disputes Christian archives never saw: a widow's dowry, a contested inheritance, a Torah reader's competence, a quarrel over a silo.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eWomen in the documents.\u003c\/b\u003e Their rights in marriage, divorce and property, and their part in teaching the next generation, set out from the record rather than assumed.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eThe king, the nobility and the Church.\u003c\/b\u003e Why the Crown protected its Jewish communities, why the Templars so often defended them, and how Rome's edicts followed the money.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eAn onomastic index\u003c\/b\u003e of the Jews of Monzón, name by name and year by year, with a glossary of Hebrew, Aragonese and Judeo-Spanish terms. A starting point for anyone tracing Sephardic ancestry.\u003c\/li\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003c\/ul\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat emerges is not a chronicle of persecution alone, but a portrait of a plural society: what was shared, what was disputed, and what was lost.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis is the first English edition of a doctoral thesis presented at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, in 2021. It carries a foreword by Richard Bruno, Ph.D., and an afterword by Jeffrey Malka, M.D., author of \u003ci\u003eSephardic Genealogy\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003eAbout the author\u003cp\u003eF. Andreu Lascorz Arcas is a Hebraist and historian. Raised in a Catholic family, he learned at thirteen that his forebears were Jews, and has spent his life since recovering the history of the Jewish communities of Aragon. He has published nine books and fifty-nine articles on the subject, has lectured in Spain and Israel, and led the effort to mark the surviving Jewish buildings of Monzón so that visitors and residents could read their own town.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Richard Bruno,Andreu Lascorz Arcas\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9798177160474\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Independently Published\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 09\/28\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 524\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.53lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.00h x 6.00w x 1.05d","brand":"Richard Bruno","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":50666321051903,"sku":"9798177160474","price":26.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/jewish-life-in-the-crown-richard-bruno-9798177160474","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}