| For the Christian kingdoms of the Iberian peninsula, the rapid territorial expansion which took place between the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212 and the fall of Seville in 1248 created a broad frontier with Muslim al-Andalus which would stand for two and a half centuries. This study is the first synthetic attempt to examine the impact which the reconquista and subsequent colonization of the thirteenth century had on Jewish settlement and communal development in the territories of Mallorca, Valencia, Murcia, Andalusia and southern Portugal.;The dissertation begins with an analysis of the reestablishment of a Jewish presence in southern Iberia as the region passed from Muslim to Christian rule. The first three chapters focus on the individual Jew, tracing the process of Jewish immigration and settlement, as well as examining Jewish landownership, and the nature and diversity of economic opportunities which drew Jews to the frontier. Over the course of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, the early settlements founded by these immigrants matured into more organized and elaborate communities, and the second half of this study explores the social and political dynamics of Jewish society on the frontier. Chapters four, five and six discuss the effects which royal, ecclesiastical, and municipal authorities had on the development of their legal status, the organization and autonomy of their communities, and their relationships with their non-Jewish neighbors.;Part II also examines the crown's efforts to exert greater control over the boundaries of the Jewish community during the latter half of the thirteenth century, and the degree to which this royal program met with resistance from individual Jews and Christians alike. The resulting portrait of Jewish communities in the wake of the reconquista is one which elucidates the complex texture of Jewish social, political, and economic life on the frontier of Christendom during the high Middle Ages. |
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