Jews Crete

ECONOMIA E SOCIETÀ NELLO STATO DA MAR

09 Occhiello-Jacoby.qxp 18/11/2009 12.58 Pagina 237


DAVID JACOBY

JEWS AND CHRISTIANS IN VENETIAN CRETE:SEGREGATION, INTERACTION, AND CONFLICT

The conquest of Constantinople in April 1204, the culmination of theFourth Crusade, accelerated the process of political and territorial fragmenta-tion affecting Byzantium, initiated by the secession of Cyprus in 11801. Thetreaty between the Latin leaders regarding the partition of Byzantium con-cluded on a month earlier, in March 1204, allocated Crete to Boniface ofMontferrat, who sold his rights over the island to Venice2. However, beforeVenetian forces managed to set foot in Crete, the Genoese Enrico Pescatoreinvaded and occupied large sections of the island in 1206. The following yearVenice captured Chandax, called Candia by the Latins (modern Herakleion),Crete’s main urban and administrative center, yet only after defeatingPescatore in 1211 did it succeed in extending its rule over the island3.

1 Nicolas Oikonomidès, La décomposition de l’Empire byzantin à la veille de 1204 et lesorigines de l’Empire de Nicée: à propos de la “Partitio Romaniae”, XVe Congrès internationald’études byzantines (Athènes, 1976), Rapports et co-rapports, I/ 1, Athènes 1976. – In orderto shorten the notes appearing below the references are limited whenever possible to recentpublications, in which the reader will find earlier bibliography.

2 Thomas F. Madden, Enrico Dandolo and the Rise of Venice, Baltimore 2003, pp. 184-187. 3 Chania was also the ecclesiastical center of Crete. On it functions in the late Byzantine

period, see Dimitris Tsougarakis, Byzantine Crete from the 5th Century to the VenetianConquest, Athens 1988, pp. 72, 233-237, 271, 300, 310-311. On Pescatore and the Venetianconquest, see Silvano Borsari, Il dominio veneziano a Creta nel XIII secolo, Napoli 1963, pp.21-25; David Jacoby, Changing Economic Patterns in Latin Romania: The Impact of the West,in Angeliki E. Laiou and Roy P. Mottahedeh (ed.), The Crusades from the Perspective ofByzantium and the Muslim World, Washington, D. C. 2001, pp. 207 et seq., repr. in DavidJacoby, Commercial Exchange across the Mediterranean: Byzantium, the Crusader Levant,Egypt and Italy, Aldershot 2005, no. IX; David Jacoby, La colonisation militaire vénitienne dela Crète au XIIIe siècle: une nouvelle approche, in Michel Balard et Alain Ducellier (ed.), Lepartage du monde. Échanges et colonisation dans la Méditerranée médiévale (ByzantinaSorbonensia 17), Paris 1998, pp. 297-301.


Venetian dominion over Crete lasted more than four and a half centuries andcame to an end with the fall of Candia to the Ottomans in 1669.

The new ‘colonial’ setting established by Venice in Crete differedmarkedly from the political system existing in the island in the Byzantineperiod. The conquest severed the link of the indigenous Greek Orthodoxpopulation to Byzantine political authority and stripped it of its religiousleaders. The patterns of relationship between the imperial authorities andimperial subjects were replaced by new patterns between the foreignVenetian power, operating with the help of a centralized administration, andthe indigenous Greek and Jewish communities. The transition fromByzantine to Venetian rule in Crete was not limited to a change in politicalauthority. It also altered decisively the island’s social structure and stratifica-tion and had a direct impact on the status of the indigenous communitiesand their members.

In the wake of the Venetian conquest Venetian and other Latin settlersbecame the third component of Crete’s population, alongside the indige-nous Greeks and Jews. Venetian military settlers were granted confiscatedlands and provided the core of the military forces upholding Venice’s rule.The local lay institutions assisting the operation of the state’s administrationwere composed of Venetians, and only few Greeks gained access to themover time. In addition, the Latin Church imposed its authority over the localGreek Orthodox Church, yet another aspect of Venetian domination4. TheVenetian state and the Latin Church jointly promoted the specificity of theheterogeneous Latin community, composed of Venetian and other Westernsettlers and their descendants, in order to bolster their own respective polit-ical and ecclesiastical authority over the Greeks of the island.

In Crete, as elsewhere overseas, Venice considered religious allegiance anethnic marker, as well as a basic criterion of social stratification and individ-ual status. As a result, all Greeks regardless of their rank were socially andlegally demoted. Still, some Greek archontes or great landlords managed touphold their authority, strengthened in the period between the collapse ofimperial government in the island and the Venetian conquest. Greek rural

4 There may have been a Genoese settler in Crete in the twelfth century, yet no Venetianor other Latin settlers: see David Jacoby, Byzantine Crete in the Navigation and TradeNetworks of Venice and Genoa, in Laura Balletto (ed.), Oriente e Occidente tra medioevo edetà moderna. Studi in onore di Geo Pistarino, Acqui Terme 1997 (Università degli Studi diGenova, Sede di Acqui Terme, Collana di Fonti e Studi, 1.1), pp. 539 et seq., repr. in DavidJacoby, Byzantium, Latin Romania and the Mediterranean, Aldershot 2001, no. II. On mili-tary settlers, see Jacoby, La colonisation militaire vénitienne (nota 3), pp. 301-313; SallyMcKee, Uncommon Dominion. Venetian Crete and the Myth of Ethnic Purity, Philadelphia2000, pp. 26-67, 105-107.

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society preserved its internal structure in the areas of Crete governed bythese archontes. Some of them headed Greek rebellions against Venetianrule, also fueled by popular resentment. However, in the course of the thir-teenth century these archontes gradually submitted to Venetian rule inreturn for integration within the Latin social elite.

The indigenous Greek Orthodox Church, deprived of its dominant posi-tion and higher ranks, nevertheless displayed a considerable vitality, espe-cially in rural areas in which Greek priests and monks lived among the peas-antry. It also had a fairly strong presence in Candia, as attested by the con-struction of numerous Greek churches in the city from the first half of thethirteenth century onward, undoubtedly related to the settlement of Greeksimmigrants from various parts of Crete5. In the absence of Greek secularleaders it became the driving force promoting Greek opposition to foreignVenetian rule with its political, ecclesiastical and social sequels. Moreover, itassumed a major role in the crystallization of a new Greek collective identi-ty reflecting the conjunction of religious and cultural sensibilities andresponses to Venetian domination6. This identity therefore, shared some

5 On the churches in the city and the ‘old’suburb, see Maria Georgopoulou, TheTopography of Chandax, Capital of Crete in the second Byzantine Period, in «Cretan Studies»4, 1994, pp. 106-123, 128-132; Maria Georgopoulou, Venice’s Mediterranean Colonies.Architecture and Urbanism, Cambridge 2001, pp. 173-180. A Venetian survey of ecclesiasticalinstitutions compiled in 1320 repeatedly mentions the ‘old suburb’ in singular; the pluralappearing only once may be a scribal or editorial error: for both versions, see Zacharias N.Tsirpanles (ed.), “Kataéstico ekklhsiwén kai monasthriwén tou Koinoué” (1248-1548). Sumbolhésth meleéth sceésewn Politeiéav kai Ekklhsiéav sth benetokratouémenh Krhéth, Ioannina 1985, p.201, no. 108/I and II. Greek immigration to Candia in the thirteenth century was clearlyprompted by the city’s rapidly growing economy, its increasing administrative functions, andthe establishment of Latin settlers. It is likely, therefore, that the ‘old’ suburb came into beingin the Venetian, rather than in the Byzantine period as claimed by Georgopoulou, TheTopography of Chandax, pp. 116-118. Moreover, the entry for the church of Santa Maria‘Panimnito’ in the Venetian survey suggests that the earthquake of 1303, rather than 1266 assuggested by Georgopoulou (ivi), was decisive for the distinction between ‘old’ and ‘new’churches: est ecclesia nova, sed bene habuimus quod fuit ecclesia vetus […] et a terremotu citrafuit reedificata; Tsirpanles, Kataéstico, p. 204, no. 112/I. It follows that the chronological distri-bution of the Greek churches of Candia proposed by Georgopoulou must be partly revised.

6 For the last three paragraphs, see David Jacoby, Social Evolution in Latin Greece, inKenneth M. Setton (ed.), A History of the Crusades, Madison, Wisconsin 1969-1989, VI, pp.185-187, 197 et seq., 201 et seq., 218-221; Chryssa A. Maltezou, Byzantine ‘consuetudines’ inVenetian Crete, in «Dumbarton Oaks Papers» 49, 1995, pp. 270 et seq.; further evidence onthe standing of Alexios Kallergis in Chryssa Maltezou, Creta fra la Serenissima e la Superba,in Balletto, Oriente e Occidente (nota 4), pp. 768-772; Jacoby, Changing Economic Patterns(note 3), pp. 198 et seq., 204-210, 212 et seq.; McKee, Uncommon Dominion (nota 4), pp.101-115; Dimitrios Tsougarakis, La tradizione culturale bizantina nel primo periodo della dom-inazione veneziana a Creta. Alcune osservazioni in merito alla questione dell’identità culturale,

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features with Jewish collective identity based on religion as ethnic marker.Indeed, according to Jewish law and perceptions non-Jews converted toJudaism were integrated within the Jewish ethnic community.

By the mid-fourteenth century the boundaries between the Greek andLatin communities at the individual level and the Greek collective identityhad been weakened to some extent, especially in Candia. The gradual inte-gration of the archontes within the Latin elite, already mentioned, con-tributed to that process. More importantly, economic activities andexchanges fostered everyday social intercourse between Greeks and Latins.There were no religious impediments to intermarriage between them, whichoccurred at all levels of society despite strong opposition of the Venetianauthorities. The weak presence of the Latin Church in cities and its absencein rural areas prompted Latin attendance at religious services in Greekchurches and bequests of Latins as well as Greeks to both Latin and Greekecclesiastical institutions. The conjunction of these factors generated aprocess of acculturation and a certain measure of religious symbiosis7.

Little is known about the Jews of Crete in the period extending from theByzantine recovery of the island in 961 to its occupation by Venice in theearly thirteenth century. In 961 the Byzantine conquest of Chandax was fol-lowed by widespread looting, destruction and presumably also confisca-tions of property. It is likely that the Jews, like the Muslims, heavily sufferedfrom the events and that these prompted some Jews to leave the island. Thisis implied by an undated Hebrew letter found in the Cairo Genizah, inwhich Moshe Agura, formerly a resident of Crete, reported his arrival inRhodes to his relatives presumably living in Egypt8. The emigration ofCretan Jews in 961 did not put an end to the existence of the Cretan Jewry,

in Gherardo Ortalli (ed.), Venezia e Creta (Atti del Convegno internazionale di studi,Iraklion-Chanià, 30 settembre-5 ottobre 1997), Venezia 1998, pp. 509-522.

7 Jacoby, Social Evolution (nota 6), pp. 200-207, 218-221; McKee, Uncommon Dominion(nota 4), esp. pp. 67-115, 168-170.

8 The Genizah, a repository of Jewish writings, was discovered in the late nineteenth cen-tury in a room attached to a synagogue of Fustat or Old Cairo: see Shlomo D. Goitein, AMediterranean Society. The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in theDocuments of the Cairo Geniza, Berkeley 1967-1993, I, pp. 1-28. Edition, translation andcommentary of the letter by Joshua Holo, A Genizah Letter from Rhodes EvidentlyConcerning the Byzantine Reconquest of Crete, in «Journal of Near Eastern Studies» 59, 2000,pp. 1-12. Holo’s interpretation of the letter is flawed: see David Jacoby, The JewishCommunities of the Byzantine World from the Tenth to the Mid-Fifteenth Century: Someaspects of their Evolution, in Nicholas R. M. de Lange, Julia Krivoruchko, Cameron Boyd-Taylor (ed.), The Greek Bible in Byzantine Judaism I. Essays and Studies, Tübingen 2009 (Textand Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Judaism) (in press).

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as suggested inter alia by the survival of the surname Agura in the island9.The continuity of this Jewry is also implied by another undated Genizah let-ter, ascribed to the tenth or eleventh century on paleographic grounds. Itdeals with the dispatch of hides to Crete, presumably to a Jewish tanner, andrefers to Mytilene, which locates its author in the Aegean region. The lettercontains Greek words, as well as several Greek technical terms related tothe condition of hides and the process of tanning, transcribed into Hebrewcharacters10. The expertise of the letter’s author and of his correspondent intanning is of particular interest with respect to Jewish involvement in thatcraft in Crete, examined below.

The existence of a well-structured Jewry in the island is revealed around1105 by a Cretan parnas or communal dignitary visiting Cairo, where hereceived a garment from the local Jewish community11. An eleventh ortwelfth century letter written by a Jew of Alexandria deals with kashercheese produced in Crete, which implies rabbinical supervision over food-stuffs in the island12. In 1224 or 1225 the Greeks of Crete presented a letterof complaint to Doge Pietro Ziani, in which they referred to Jewish housesand synagogues. These suggest a Jewish presence in the island going back tothe Byzantine period13. The set of communal ordinances issued in Candia in1228 leads to the same conclusion. The ordinances were approved by rep-resentatives from “all the four Hebrew communities of Candia,” whichseems to refer to congregations in different locations of Crete rather than inCandia only, since “all the communities established in the island of Candia”

9 Shimon Agura appears among the signatories of ordinances promulgated by the Jewishcommunity in 1228: Elias S. Artom et Humbertus M. D. Cassuto (ed.), Taqqanoth Qandyahwe-Zikhronoteha (Statuta Iudaeorum Candiae eorumque memorabilia), Jerusalem 1943(Hebr.) (hereafter: Taqqanoth Qandyah), pp. 6-7, no. 12, line 10. The Venetian version of thename in 1321 is Angura: Alan M. Stahl (ed.), The Documents of Angelo de Cartura andDonato Fontanella, Venetian Notaries in Fourteenth-Century Crete, Washington, D. C. 2000,p. 226, Donato Fontanella, no. 9.

10 Nicholas de Lange (ed.), Greek Jewish Texts from the Cairo Genizah, Tübingen 1996(Texte und Studien zum Antiken Judentum, herausgegeben von Martin Hengel und PeterSchäfer 51), pp. 21-27, no. 4. For the technical terms, see my review of that publication in«Byzantinische Zeitschrift» 91, 1998, p. 112. In that review I dated the letter to the thirteenthor fourteenth century, based on de Lange’s reading of the name ‘Kalomiti’ in the document(verso, line 7). This reading is rather doubtful, according to Malachi Beit-Arié, FormerDirector of the Hebrew Palaeography Project, Israel Academy of Sciences, Jerusalem, whoascribes the letter to an earlier period (personal communication).

11 See Goitein, A Mediterranean Society (nota 8), II, p. 130 and 444, Appendix B 25.12 Ibid., I, pp. 428 et seq., n. 66. 13 Edited by Giovanni Battista Cervellini (ed.), Documento inedito veneto-cretese del

Dugento, Padova 1906, pp. 13-18: 17.



undertook to abide by them. In fact, only two local communities are attest-ed in 1228, Candia directly and Retimo (Greek Rethymnon) indirectly. Thecommunal ordinances refer to synagogues and to a ritual bath in Candia14.They further reveal the operation of a Jewish economic network dealingwith kasher foodstuffs and wine in Crete, the existence of which was alreadysuggested by the cheese mentioned above15. Neither the self-governingorganization representing the entire Jewry of Crete nor the Jewish econom-ic network could have attained the degree of sophistication they displayedin 1228, only eleven years after the beginning of the Venetian conquest ofCrete, unless they had already functioned before that event16.

Continuity in Candia is also implied by the location of the Jewish neigh-borhood, the site of the major Jewish community in Crete throughout theVenetian period. This neighborhood was situated in the western section ofthe city, along the seawall inherited from the Byzantine period facing theBay of Dermata or ‘Bay of Hides’17. In Byzantium Jewish residential segre-gation was enforced before the Fourth Crusade in Constantinople and pos-sibly also in Thessalonike, yet apparently not elsewhere18. It is likely, there-fore, that in Candia the location of the Judaica had been determined by theJews themselves, in connection with the important function of tanning in

14 Taqqanoth Qandyah (nota 9), p. 3, no. 2, and pp. 6 et seq., no. 13. The use of the west-ern name ‘Candia’ for Crete by the indigenous Jews shortly after the conquest is noteworthy.On Retimo, see below.

15 Taqqanoth Qandyah (nota 9), pp. 3-7, nn. 2-12. 16 Joshua Starr, Jewish Life in Crete under the Rule of Venice, in Proceedings of the

American Academy for Jewish Research 12, 1942, pp. 59-114, paved the way for the investi-gation of Cretan Jewry under Venetian rule. However, his study is exclusively based on pub-lished sources. The subject requires a new treatment taking into account the archivalresearch carried out after the appearance of that study, subsequent publications, and theinsertion of the Cretan Jews within the broader context of the political, social and econom-ic evolution of Venetian Crete in the Venetian period.

17 Literary and archeological evidence regarding the Byzantine wall: Georgopoulou, TheTopography of Chandax (nota 5), pp. 100-103; Georgopoulou, Venice’s MediterraneanColonies (nota 5), pp. 48-50. A document of 1392 refers to the Jews guarding the urban wallalong their quarter, and by 1403 a chunk of that seawall had fallen into the sea: HippolyteNoiret (ed.), Documents inédits pour servir à l’histoire de la domination vénitienne en Crètede 1380 à 1485, Paris 1892, pp. 52, 143 et seq. See also Zvi Ankori, Giacomo Foscarini andthe Jews of Crete – A Reconsideration, in «Michael» 7, 1981, p. 24, n. 30, for a later period.

18 See David Jacoby, Les Juifs de Byzance: une communauté marginalisée, in Chryssa A.Maltezou (ed.), Oi periqwriakoi sto Buzantio (Idruma Goulandrh Corn) [= Marginality inByzantium (Goulandri-Horn Foundation)], Athena 1993, pp. 129-133, repr. in Jacoby,Byzantium (nota 3), no. III. On Thessalonike, see also David Jacoby, Foreigners and theUrban Economy in Thessalonike, c. 1150 – c. 1430, in «Dumbarton Oaks Papers» 57, 2003,pp. 123 et seq.

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their midst19. Indeed, tanning was concentrated along the Bay of Dermataand gave its name to the bay20. It has already been noted that Candia was thedestination of hides mentioned in a tenth or eleventh-century Genizah let-ter, and the communal ordinances of 1228 deal with Jewish tanners. Thissuggests the continuous exercise of tanning by residents of the Jewish quar-ter of Candia from the Byzantine period onward. By 1390 the Jewish quar-ter formed a physically separate entity enclosed by a wall and accessedthrough gates21.

The location of Jewish quarters in two other Cretan localities alsoappears to have been the result of voluntary residential segregation. TheJews of Retimo/Rethymnon are indirectly attested in 1222, when they wereaffected by a Greek rebellion22. Rethymnon had been reduced to a smallunimportant settlement in the Byzantine period, and its urban developmentbegan under Venetian rule23. It is impossible to determine whether the localJewish community already existed in the Byzantine period, or whether itdeveloped only after the Venetian conquest. In any event, by 1320 it residedin the old burgus or suburb, thus outside the ancient Byzantine site.Sabateus Capsali, the Jewish owner of several houses abutting the suburb’swall, was then authorized to open windows in this wall by Pietro Bragadin,rector of Retimo. Somewhat later two Jews were granted vacant land on theother side of the wall (“in parte exteriori dicti burgi,” “extra burgum”) andallowed to build houses. They afterwards obtained permission to buildthem along the wall in which Capsali had opened the windows24. From the

19 Zvi Ankori, Jews and the Jewish Community in the History of Mediaeval Crete, inPepragmena tou B} Dieqnouv Krhtologikou Sunedriou, Athenai 1968, III, pp. 327 et seq., 350,claims that the Jews were “forcibly” relegated “to the degrading rank of tanners” and thatthe location of their quarter in Candia was imposed upon them. However, see previous noteand below, n. 65.

? Based on a document of 1363, Georgopoulou mistakenly claims that there was an addi-tional Jewish quarter in the suburb of Candia, outside the ancient walled city:Georgopoulou, The Topography of Chandax (nota 5), p. 125 and n. 138, and Venice’sMediterranean Colonies (nota 5), p. 193. However, this document merely refers to a vacantfield formerly held by Jews, on which dwellings were to be built in the future; text inSpyridon M. Theotokes (ed.), Qespismata thv Benetikhv Gerousiav, 1281-1385 (AkadhmiaAqhnwn, Mnhmeia Ellhnikhv Istoriav, Tomov B), En Athenais 1936-1937, II, p. 114, reg.XXXI, no. 20: campus […] olim Judeorum […] pro habitationibus et alijs necessarijs fiendis.

21 On later developments regarding the Jewish quarter, see Georgopoulou, Venice’sMediterranean Colonies (nota 5), pp. 194-200, yet the topic requires a new reading of thesources.

22 See below, n. 106.23 Tsougarakis, Byzantine Crete (nota 3), pp. 330 et seq.24 Theotokes, Qespismata (nota 19), I, pp. 115 et seq., reg. XV, no. 19, and 119 et seq.,

reg. XVI, no. 3, petition of 1333 referring to Pietro Bragadin. Roberto Cessi e Paolo Sambin



two petitions documenting these cases it is unclear whether the Jews even-tually resided on both sides of the wall. In any event, the existence of aJewish quarter in Retimo is documented by a request of 1386 for thereopening of a synagogue in the Judaica and by a resolution of the VenetianSenate in 1412. The boundaries of the quarter were marked in 1448 bycrosses, a design obviously conceived as an affirmation and a constantreminder of the superiority of the Christian faith and as a direct challengeto the Jewish population25. The community of Retimo had its own institu-tions well before 1362, when it adopted an ordinance separating two ritualfunctions, synagogue cantor and animal slaughterer26.

Jews presumably settled in Canea (Greek Chania) shortly after 1252. Inthat year Venice granted land to Venetian settlers in the region of Canea andenvisaged the rebuilding of the city or the foundation of a new one. Theinjunction of Doge Marino Morosini mentions the partition of the territory,the reservation of space for a public square and a main street, as well as for theconstruction of houses belonging to the state, a church or several churches,and fortifications27. We may safely assume, therefore, that the site was vacantby 1252. The establishment of Jews in Canea must have followed the buildingor repair of dwellings for the Venetian settlers. In May 1271 Meir son of Eliyahordered the delivery of grain to his house in the city. Another Jewish residentof Canea was trading in the countryside by 127628. In 1325 the city’s rector wasauthorized to transfer the Jewish community to the burgus or suburb29.

(ed.), Le deliberazioni del Consiglio dei Rogati (Senato), Serie “mixtorum” I, Venezia 1960, p.224, reg. VI, no. 36, provides evidence for the dating of his tenure of office in 1320.

25 Noiret, Documents (nota 17), pp. 12, 213 et seq.; David Jacoby, Un agent juif au serv-ice de Venise: David Mavrogonato de Candie, in “Qhsauriésmata” 9, 1972, p. 86, repr. inDavid Jacoby, Recherches sur la Méditerranée orientale du XIIe au XVe siècle. Peuples, sociétés,économies, London 1979, no. XI. Zvi Ankori, The Living and the Dead. The Story of HebrewInscriptions in Crete (Part I: The Lost Records), in «Proceedings of the American Academyfor Jewish Research» 39 et seq., 1970-1971, p. 16, n. 21, is thus clearly mistaken in assertingthat there was no implementation of Jewish residential segregation in Retimo.

26 Taqqanoth Qandyah (nota 9), pp. 44 et seq., no. 48.27 Gottlieb L. Fr. Tafel und Georg M. Thomas (ed.), Urkunden zur älteren Handels- und

Staatsgeschichte der Republik Venedig, Wien 1856-1857, II, pp. 470-480: 471 et seq. Borsari,Il dominio veneziano (nota 3), pp. 45 et seq., mentions ‘foundation’, whereas Tsougarakis,Byzantine Crete (nota 3), pp. 128 and 347, refers respectively to the ‘re-founding’ and ‘reviv-ing’ of an already existing town. None of them addresses the issue of population.

28 Antonino Lombardo (ed.), Imbreviature di Pietro Scardon (1271)(Documenti dellacolonia veneziana di Creta, I), Torino 1942, pp. 111 et seq., no. 299, and Tafel und Thomas,Urkunden (nota 27), III, p. 257; for the dating in 1276, see Gareth Morgan, The VenetianClaims Commission of 1278, in «Byzantinische Zeitschrift» 69, 1976, p. 431 no. 137.

29 Cessi e Sambin, Le deliberazioni (nota 24), p. 299, reg. IX, no. 5. ‘Suburb’ appears insingular, not in plural as stated by Georgopoulou, Venice’s Mediterranean Colonies (nota 5),pp. 202 et seq.

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The three Jewish communities mentioned so far were all situated in citiesalong the northern shore of Crete30. Jews also resided for varying periods oftime in settlements adjoining castles built by Venice to control the island31.Their presence is attested over several centuries in two such settlements ofcentral Crete, Castelnuovo and Bonifacio, located inland along the northernrim of the fertile Mesara plain. The Jew of Castelnuovo granting a loan ingrain to another resident in 1281 provides the earliest evidence suggestingthe presence of a local community32. In 1363 the communal leaders in Candiadisplayed strong suspicion toward the Jewish merchants of Castelnuovo andother places regarding the meat, possibly not fit for Jewish consumption, andthe cheese, bought from Christian producers, which they marketed as kash-er produce33. This seems to imply that the local Jewry lacked then a commu-nal and rabbinical leadership and that it was rather small. The communitywas partly massacred by rebels in 136434. It nevertheless pursued its existencein the following period. A court case of 1370 opposed a woman to her hus-band regarding the validity of a marriage contracted according to Jewish law,and two surgeons are attested in 139935. The local Jews used water in a near-by village in 1377, 1382 and 139536. They are further attested by unpublisheddocuments of 1424 and 143937. The existence of a Judaica in 1448 impliesthat the number of local Jews had grown. Some of them owned houses out-

30 The meager evidence regarding the other Jewish communities has been enriched sincethe publication of Starr’s study (see above, n. 16). It is assembled here for the first time toclarify certain aspects of the topic treated in this paper.

31 On these castle-settlements, see Freddy Thiriet, La Romanie vénitienne au Moyen Âge.Le développement et l’exploitation du domaine colonial vénitien (XIIe-XVe siècles)(Bibliothèque des Écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome 193), Paris 1959, pp. 251-254,with map on p. 253.

32 Marco Chiaudano e Antonino Lombardo (ed.), Leonardo Marcello, notaio in Candia,1278-1281 (Fonti per la storia di Venezia, Sez. III – Archivi notarili), Venezia 1960, p. 131,no. 374.

33 Taqqanoth Qandyah (nota 9), pp. 26-28, nn. 36 et seq. The area of Castelnuovo wasrenowned for its goat cheese: David Jacoby, Cretan Cheese: A Neglected Aspect of VenetianMedieval Trade, in Ellen E. Kittel and Thomas F. Madden (ed.), Medieval and RenaissanceVenice, Urbana 1999, p. 50, repr. in Jacoby, Commercial Exchange (nota 3), no. VIII.

34 See below, n. 109.35 Élisabeth Santschi, Contribution à l’étude de la communauté juive en Crète vénitienne

au XIVe siècle, d’après des sources administratives et judiciaires, in «Studi Veneziani» 15, 1973,pp. 200 et seq. and 209 respectively.

36 Élisabeth Santschi, Régestes des arrêts civils et des mémoriaux (1363-1399) des archivesdu duc de Crète (Venise: Institut hellénique d’études byzantines et post-byzantines 9), Venise1976, p. 236, Memoriali, no. 1091; p. 87, Sentenze civili, no. 341; p. 371, Memoriali, no.1710.

37 Ankori, The Living and the Dead (nota 25), p. 11, n. 10.



side that quarter38. All local Jews were expelled in the 1450s, yet allowed toreturn in 146539. In 1567 the local communal leaders issued their own ordi-nance and claimed the right of excommunication, undermining thereby theauthority of the communal leaders in Candia, who expressed fierce criticismof the move40. In 1577 Giacomo Foscarini, provveditore generale, sindaco andinquisitore of Crete, who wielded extensive powers to reform the govern-ment of Crete, sent a series of ordinances to the Jewry of several localities,among them Castelnuovo41.

The presence of Jews in Bonifacio is first attested in 1321. Three Jewsbought a total of forty tanned hides from a Jew of Candia in 133942. AJewish surgeon resided in Bonifacio in 1379, and another in 139543. Thelocal Jews are mentioned in 1440, and their Judaica is indirectly attested in1450. Like those of Castelnuovo, they were expelled in the 1450s, yetallowed to return in 146544. The community is mentioned in the ordinanceof 1567 adopted in Castelnuovo45. Strangely, however, it is omitted ten yearslater from the list of communities to which Foscarini sent his ordinances46.

Venice built the castles of Castelnuovo and Bonifacio shortly after itsconquest of central and southern Crete, in any event before 1230 when theywere the targets of Byzantine military operations47. It is likely that Jewsalready settled in the two localities in the first half of the thirteenth century,in connection with the operation of the Jewish economic network supplyingkasher agricultural and pastoral commodities, mentioned above. They actedas middlemen between peasants producing foodstuffs and wine and raisinglivestock in their own region, on the one hand, Jewish consumers and mer-

38 Jacoby, Un agent juif (nota 25), p. 94, no. IV.39 Ibid., pp. 85-87.40 Their letter is reproduced in Taqqanoth Qandyah (nota 9), pp. 143 et seq., no. 108.41 Convincing re-evaluation of Foscarini’s attitude toward the Cretan Jewry by Ankori,

Giacomo Foscarini (nota 17), pp. 9-118; for the list of communities, see esp. 98-100.42 Stahl, The Documents of Angelo de Cartura (nota 9), p. 234, Donato Fontanella, no. 33;

Charalambos Gasparis (ed.), Franciscus de Cruce, notaio in Candia, 1338-1339 (IstitutoEllenico di Studi bizantini e postbizantini di Venezia, Greacolatinitas nostra, Fonti 1),Venezia 1999, pp. 232 et seq., nn. 323 et seq. Ankori, The Living and the Dead (nota 25), p.11, n. 10, mentions unpublished documents of the early fifteenth century. See also below, fora later period.

43 Santschi, Régestes (nota 36), pp. 215 and 337, Memoriali, nn. 939 and 1736 respectively.44 Ankori, The Living and the Dead (nota 25), p. 11, n. 10; Jacoby, Un agent juif (nota 25),

pp. 85-87, 94 et seq., no. V.45 See above, n. 40.46 Ankori, Giacomo Foscarini (nota 17), pp. 98-100, speculates that all the Jews had left

Bonifacio in the preceding decade, which seems rather doubtful. 47 Reference to 1230 in Thiriet, La Romanie vénitienne (nota 31), pp. 97 et seq.

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chants in Candia, on the other48. The delivery of meat and cheese fromCastelnuovo has already been mentioned. A Jewish ordinance adoptedaround 1477/1478 refers to the Jewish butchers of Candia buying cattlefrom the ‘Kastiliyani’ or inhabitants of castle-cities49. The role of intermedi-aries fulfilled by the Jews of these localities must have been furthered overtime by the expanding maritime trade of Candia and, to a lesser extent, bythe growth of the city’s Jewish community50.

There are isolated pieces of information regarding Jewish presence in afew other castle-cities. A surgeon resided in 1373 and 1379 in Belvedere,southern Crete51. Some Jews bearing topographical surnames referring toMilopotamo, situated between Candia and Retimo, are registered in 1536.However, by that time they had moved to Canea52. Neither Belvedere norMilopotamo appear in 1577 in the list of Jewish communities. On the otherhand, the list includes Mirabello in northeastern Crete and Priotissa insouth-central Crete, unknown earlier as sites inhabited by Jews53.

So far only one Jew living in a Cretan village has been found. In 1352 heresided with his family in the village of Pala, south of Candia in the districtof Temenos, central Crete. Incidentally, he bought tanned hides from a Jewof Candia, like the Jews of Bonifacio mentioned above54. Auriaki and

48 Castelnuovo and Bonifacio were not inhabited by rural Jews, nor were these directlyinvolved in rural production, as claimed by Ankori, Jews and the Jewish Community (nota19), pp. 349-360. For a refutation of his argumentation regarding the rural Jewry of Crete,see David Jacoby, The Jews in the Byzantine Economy, Seventh to Mid-Fifteenth Century, inReuven Bonfil, Oded Ir-Shai, Guy Stroumsa, Rina Talgam (ed.), The Jews of Byzantium: ACultural History (in press).

49 Taqqanoth Qandyah (nota 9), p. 41, no. 46, lines 56-58, cites Elisha Astruc, who alsoappears in an ordinance of 1477/1478 providing the approximate dating.

50 On the expansion of Cretan exports, see David Jacoby, Creta e Venezia nel contesto eco-nomico del Mediterraneo orientale sino alla metà del Quattrocento, in Ortalli, Venezia e Creta(nota 6), pp. 78-101, repr. in Jacoby, Commercial Exchange (nota 3), no. VII; Jacoby, The Jewsin the Byzantine Economy (nota 48).

51 Santschi, Régestes (nota 36), pp. 169 and 214, Memoriali, nn. 597 and 935 respective-ly.

52 Ankori, The Living and the Dead (nota 25), p. 12, n. 11 and p. 73, n. 101, with referen-ce to unpublished documents.

53 See Ankori, Giacomo Foscarini (nota 17), pp. 98-100. 54 Antonino Lombardo (ed.), Zaccaria de Fredo, notaio in Candia (1352-1357) (Fonti per

la storia di Venezia, Sez. III – Archivi notarili), Venezia 1968, p. 34, no. 43. For the locationof the village, see Charalambos Gasparis (ed.), Catastici feudorum Crete. Catasticum sexteriiDorsoduri, 1227-1418 (National Hellenic Research Foundation, Institute for ByzantineResearch, Sources 6), Athena 2004, I, pp. 160 and 169 (map). Pala was the site of an ancientmonastery owning several villages, lited in 1320: Tsirpanles, Kataéstico (nota 5), pp. 194 etseq., no 105Xb.



Eureaki, transcriptions of colloquial Greek ‘Evreake’ in Latin characters,are the names of a Cretan village situated in the Pediada castellany south-east of Candia, inhabited by 1235, yet we do not know whether there werethen any Jews among its residents55. In any event, the name suggests theirpresence in the village at some unknown time in the past. Similar names sug-gesting Jewish rural settlement also appear in other former Byzantine terri-tories56. Jewish rural activity must have been related to the production andsupply of kasher products.

The bulk of evidence regarding Cretan Jewry under Venetian rule dealswith Candia. This is hardly surprising, since the extant official documents,notarial deeds, and entries in notarial registers from Crete were all draftedin that city. Candia was the most important economic center of the islandand the seat of the Venetian central administration. Finally, the Jewry ofCandia was the largest in Crete. The estimate of 600 households byMeshulam of Volterra, who visited Candia in 1481, is clearly too high giventhe small area of the Jewish quarter, even if the existence of three-storiedhouses is taken into account57. Venetian official estimates of the followingcentury vary between 500 and 800 individuals, with the same number in1627 out of a total population of 11,474 for the entire city. In 1571 the esti-mate for Canea was 300 individuals. There are no quantitative data regard-ing the Jews in Retimo, nor in other Cretan localities. The Venetian censusof 1627 records 1,160 individuals for the entire Cretan Jewry58.

Unfortunately, there is no evidence regarding the interaction betweenGreeks and Jews in Crete from the Byzantine recovery of the island until1204, except for the presumed sequels of the events of 96159. We may nev-ertheless assume that the nature of this interaction did not differ markedly,if at all, from that found in other Byzantine territories. In the Empire pop-

? Maria K. Hairete, Ta palaiotera katastika tou arceiou tou Douka thv Krhthv wvistorikai phgai, in «Krhtika Cronika» 21, 1969, p. 511. The names may also be read Avriakiand Evreaki, since medieval Latin scribes did not differentiate between the letters u and vand, therefore, are in fact phonetic renditions of the Greek name. Another village, calledCasani, is listed in the same document. Ankori, The Living and the Dead (nota 25), p. 12, n.11, speculates that the prominent Cretan Jewish family Casani originated in that village.

56 See Jacoby, The Jews in the Byzantine Economy (nota 48).57 Abraham Yaari (ed.), Massah Meshullam mi-Volterra: be-Erets-Israel bi-shenath rrmm””aa

(1481) [= Meshullam of Volterra’s Pilgrimage: in Erets-Israel in 1481], Jerusalem 1948, p. 82(Hebr.). On high-rise houses, see David Jacoby, Quelques aspects de la vie juive en Crète dansla première moitié du XVe siècle, in Actes du Troisième Congrès international d’études crétois-es (Rethymnon, 1971), Athènes, 1974, II, pp. 115 et seq., repr. in Jacoby, Recherches (nota25), no. X.

58 Starr, Jewish Life (nota 16), pp. 60 et seq. and n. 6.59 See above, n. 8.

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ular Greek attitudes toward the Jews were largely molded by the ByzantineChurch. Indeed, the Church decisively pursued the social marginalizationof the Jews, which was sanctioned, institutionalized and strengthened by thelegal, social and fiscal discrimination implemented by the state. The Churchalso enhanced the perception of Jewish ‘otherness’ by its theology, polemi-cal writings, preaching, hagiographic tales, and visual representations. Itsecclesiastical and theological imprint upon popular attitudes was particular-ly strong in the depiction of the Jews as deicides and desecrators ofChristian symbols60. These factors were reflected in various ways among lay-men at all levels of society. In his Strategikon or Precepts and Anecdotes,composed in the second half of the eleventh century, Kekaumenos, memberof the social elite, assimilated evil-doers who prospered to “Jews, hereticsand Saracens”61. Economic factors also contributed to the creation of socialstereotypes and of emotional and psychological reactions toward the Jews ata lower level of society. Finally, political circumstances had an occasionalimpact on imperial policies toward the Jews and upon Greek-Jewish inter-action in the Empire62.

The Jewish traveler Benjamin of Tudela offers a convincing insight intopopular Greek attitudes toward the Jews in Constantinople between late1161 and the spring of 1163 at the latest: “Their condition is very low, andthere is much hatred against them because of the tanners processing thehides who throw their dirty waters onto the streets […]. And therefore theGreeks hate the Jews, whether good or bad, and subject them to greatoppression and beat them in the streets, and in every way treat them withrigor”63. The blame cast upon the tanners clearly reflects the social bias ofthe local Jewish elite composed of merchants, from whom Benjaminobtained his information, toward a section of their own community engagedin the lowly occupation of tanning. In fact, however, Greek anti-Semitism inConstantinople at the time of Benjamin’s visit was not related to the exer-cise of specific crafts. It was of a more general nature, as attested by verbal

60 Jacoby, Les Juifs de Byzance (nota 18), pp. 108, 111, 139, 143-146.61 Gennadii G. Litavrin (ed.), Sovety I rasskazy Kekavmena, Moscow 1972, p. 268, lines

14-16.62 For this whole paragraph, see Jacoby, Les Juifs de Byzance (nota 18), pp. 103-154.63 M. N. Adler (ed.), The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, London 1907, Hebr. text pp.

16 et seq., Engl. trans., p. 14, which I have slightly emended. On the dating of Benjamin’svisit in Constantinople, see David Jacoby, Benjamin of Tudela and his “Book of Travels”, inKlaus Herbers und Felicitas Schmieder (ed.), Venedig im Schnittpunkt der Kulturen. Aussen-und Innensichten europäischer und nicht-europäischer Reisender im Vergleich (Venezia incro-cio di culture. A confronto le percezioni dall’ interno e dall’ esterno di viaggiatori europei enon), Roma 2008, pp. 135-164.



assaults of contemporary Byzantine lay writers64. Yet Benjamin’s reference tothe tanners inadvertently raises a particular aspect of anti-Jewish percep-tions. Tanning was not an exclusively Jewish occupation in the Empire and,therefore, not imposed upon them, yet was used in anti-Jewish polemics asa metaphor for the Jews and the moral pollution they caused by their sur-vival within the Christian community65.

As noted earlier, the new ‘colonial’ setting established in Crete after theVenetian conquest differed markedly from the political and social regimeexisting in the Byzantine period. The Jews now faced two Christian commu-nities, the Greeks and the Latins, instead of one as before 1207. The impo-sition of Venetian rule also altered their condition and affected their inter-action with the Cretan Greeks in the long term. As a small and defenselessminority the Jews of the Diaspora always depended upon the local politicalpower to uphold their physical existence, property, freedom of worship, andcommunal organization. Not surprisingly, therefore, the Jews of Crete wel-comed Venetian rule, which put an end to the state of turmoil following thecollapse of the imperial government in the island and the latter’s invasion byEnrico Pescatore66. Despite their collective discrimination, they consistent-ly sided with the Venetian authorities, except when subjected to duress inspecific circumstances67. They had faith in the Venetian administration andjudicial system, notwithstanding occasional infringements of their statusand rights, oppression, and extortions of money by state officers, for whichthey sought redress by appealing to the Venetian doges68. Their stanceregarding Venetian rule and the Venetian authorities underlines their vul-nerable position and their constant fear of violence directed against thecommunity and its members. While that stance conformed to the interestsand attitude of the Latin population, it was bound to create occasional ten-sion between the Jews and some sections of the Greek population, especial-ly in periods of political, economic, or social crisis.

The Jews of Crete formed a segregated community by choice. Theirlifestyle, customs, culture, social cohesion and residential segregation em-phasized their identity as a distinct ethnic and religious group. The commu-

64 Jacoby, Les Juifs de Byzance (nota 18), pp. 149-151.65 On Jewish tanning as metaphor, see ibid., pp. 133 et seq., 142 et seq. 66 See above, n. 3. The contention of Goitein, A Mediterranean Society (nota 8), II, p. 79,

that many Jews fled then from Crete is contradicted by the contemporary evidence adducedhere.

67 On which see below. 68 David Jacoby, Venice and the Venetian Jews in the Eastern Mediterranean, in Gaetano

Cozzi (ed.), Gli Ebrei e Venezia, secoli XIV-XVIII, Milano 1987, pp. 42 and 54, n. 43, repr. inDavid Jacoby, Studies on the Crusader States and on Venetian Expansion, Northampton 1989,no. X.

DAVID JACOBY252


nity enjoyed full internal autonomy, had its own institutions headed by acondestabulo residing in Candia, who represented the entire Cretan Jewry.It issued ordinances, recorded from 1228 onward, and supervised theirimplementation with the help of its own officers in charge of communal andritual functions69. The communal structure reinforced voluntary collectivesegregation from within, while Venice enhanced it from the outside. TheJewish community was the only socio-religious body in Crete recognized asa legal entity by the state, a substantial advantage over the Greeks, wholacked any communal or representative organization. The heavy collectivetaxes imposed upon the community, a separate category of taxpayers nextto the fiefholders, the burghers or city-dwellers, and the Church, were yetanother factor furthering segregation in two ways70. They singled out theJews as a socially and legally separate and inferior group among Crete’sinhabitants. In addition, they strengthened from within the authority of thecommunal leadership, which distributed the tax burden among the Jewishpopulation, and bolstered the community’s cohesiveness71.

Venice protected the Jews, their synagogues and cemeteries from indi-vidual and collective violence, both verbal and physical. Several condestab-uli obtained the support of the dukes of Crete against the culprits in theform of fines, floggings and imprisonment72. In 1321 the authorities publiclydecreed under threat of fines that a former Jewish messeta or official mid-dleman, who had operated on behalf of the authorities, should not be insult-ed or molested73. The authorities also protected the Jews from theInquisition of the Roman Church, which it staunchly opposed as a directchallenge to it own authority. This attitude, illustrated in 1314, was in accor-dance with its general policy that any inquisitorial activity required the gov-ernment’s approval and cooperation74. On the other hand, the state force-fully intervened against Jews accused of acts offending the Church andChristian beliefs, as well as against Jewish proselytism and Christian-Jewishsexual promiscuity. It also pursued with varying intensity a more general

69 Starr, Jewish Life (nota 16), pp. 95-102, on the communal institutions. 70 On the tax burden, see below, n. 101.71 On the internal apportioning of the taxes, see below, n. 77.72 Reported in the Taqqanoth Qandyah (nota 9), pp. 40 et seq., no. 46, lines 4-10, 31-38,

56-58. The individual instances can be dated between 1386 and 1478. On the problems con-fronting burial processions on the way to the cemeteries, see Ankori, The Living and the Dead(nota 25), pp. 95 et seq.

73 David Jacoby, Venice, the Inquisition and the Jewish Communities of Crete in the Early14th Century, in «Studi Veneziani» 12, 1970, pp. 137 et seq., repr. in Jacoby, Recherches (nota25), no. IX.

74 Ibid., pp. 129-135.



policy aiming at reducing contacts between Jews and Christians. This fluc-tuating policy reflected opposing tendencies within the Venetian rulingelite, which oscillated between hostility nurtured by religious beliefs andprejudices on the one hand, and pragmatism fueled by economic and fiscalconsiderations, on the other75.

The interference of the state in the internal affairs of the community waslimited. The dukes of Crete approved the election of the condestabulo76, andassisted the Jewish leadership, at the latter’s request, in the exercise of itsauthority in fiscal and disciplinary matters. The distribution of the collectivetax burden among the community’s members was an internal matter77.However, in response to the Jewish leaders, the authorities sent in 1314 anofficial crier to the Judaica to hasten the collection of financial contributionsto the dispatch of a delegation leaving for Venice to intercede with the gov-ernment against the inquisitor Andreas Doto78. On the other hand, in 1391a Venetian court exempted a Jewess who had left Candia from the paymentof taxes to the Cretan community, since she permanently resided in Veniceand held no property in Crete79. Other fiscal exemptions were granted bythe government to individuals as a personal favor, thus increasing the bur-den on other taxpayers80. Several condestabuli obtained the state’s supportfor the implementation of ordinances regarding internal matters such asbetrothal, the cursing of communal leaders, and slanderous allegationsagainst members of the community. The ordinances and the penalties to beinflicted upon transgressors were sanctioned by the dukes of Crete andentered into the registers of their chancery81.

75 On these tendencies, see David Jacoby, Les Juifs à Venise du XIVe au milieu du XVIe

siècle, in Hans-Georg Beck, Manoussos Manoussacas, Agostino Pertusi (ed.), Venezia, centrodi mediazione tra Oriente e Occidente (secoli XV-XVI): aspetti e problemi (Atti del IIConvegno internazionale di storia della civiltà veneziana, Venezia, 1973), Firenze 1977, I, pp.170-174, 205-207, repr. in Jacoby, Recherches (nota 25), no. VIII. On measures to preventJewish-Christian promiscuity in Crete, see Ankori, Giacomo Foscarini (nota 17), pp. 28-46,60-62.

76 Santschi, Contribution (nota 35), p. 205.77 Santschi, ibid., pp. 205-206, wrongly claims that the Venetian noblemen appointed in

1344 and 1345 ad faciendam impositionem […] inter personas civitas et burgi ac Judeis, excep-tis feudatis were to apportion the tax burden among individual taxpayers. In fact, their taskwas to determine the respective share of the two groups, the burghers and the Jews.

78 Jacoby, Venice, the Inquisition and the Jewish Communities (nota 73), pp. 135-137.79 Santschi, Régestes (nota 36), p. 304, Memoriali, no. 1366. 80 Jacoby, Un agent juif (nota 25), pp. 82 et seq.; Jacoby, Quelques aspects (nota 57), p. 113. 81 The names of several dukes who responded to Jewish requests and their ordinances

are reported in the Taqqanoth Qandyah (nota 9), pp. 40 et seq., no. 46, lines 11-16, 20-27, 39-41, 43-45. One of the ordinances even cites the exact reference to «the Memorial of our lordthe duke Alvise Giustinian, folio 181 recto», as well as the full version of the petition

DAVID JACOBY254


Venice recognized the authority of Jewish family law, the proceedings ofrabbinical courts, and the validity of documents drafted in Hebrew. In 1424the Venetian bailo in Constantinople requested information regarding thedowry and dower customary among the Jewry of Crete. The case had beensubmitted by the widow of a former resident of the island, whose representa-tives produced a Hebrew document and its Latin translation in court82. A ver-dict issued in Candia in 1368 was based upon a Hebrew document recordinga divorce83. Hebrew documents were also drafted in other transactionsbetween Jews, such as the renting of a house within the Judaica of Candia in138184. The Venetian officers also assisted rabbinical courts when these wereunable to enforce their verdicts. On the other hand, Venice applied its ownlaw to the material aspects of Jewish law in cases submitted to its courts, aswell as in other cases85. Litigation involving Jews or Greeks alone was broughtto the curia prosoporum, a court whose three judges were Venetians86.

Venice also scrupulously respected the customs of the Jewish communi-ty. The ritual slaughtering of animals was carried out in a separate slaugh-terhouse located outside the city87. According to the safety regulationsenforced in Candia people walking in the streets at night were compelled tocarry torches, so as to be easily identifiable. However, in 1465 Veniceexempted the Jews of this obligation within the Judaica on the eve of theSabbath and of Jewish festivals, at the request of David Mavrogonato88.

addressed to the duke, translated «from the Franco language (i. e. Venetian) into the Hebrewlanguage»: Ibid., p. 155, no. 120, lines 8-11. Another ordinance, adopted on 29 December1439, Ibid., pp. 83 et seq., no. 76, was registered on 19 January 1440: see Ankori, The Livingand the Dead (nota 25), pp. 73-75.

82 David Jacoby, Les quartiers juifs de Constantinople à l’époque byzantine, in «Byzantion»37, 1967, pp. 209, 223-227, repr. in David Jacoby, Société et démographie à Byzance et enRomanie latine, London 1975, no. II. Incidentally, the judges relied on Byzantine customwhen dealing with Greek dowers: Ernst Gerland, Das Archiv des Herzogs von Kandia,Strasbourg 1899, p. 98, par. 2.

83 Santschi, Régestes (nota 36), p. 13, Sentenze civili, no. 51. 84 Ibid., p. 227, Memoriali, no. 1,043.85 Santschi, Contribution (nota 35), pp. 194-195, 197-202; Jacoby, Venice and the Venetian

Jews (nota 68), pp. 42 et seq. On the principles applied, see Élisabeth Santschi, L’apparitiondes considérants de droit dans la jurisprudence vénéto-crétoise du XIVe siècle, in«Qhsauriésmata» 12 (1975), pp. 14-34; McKee, Uncommon Dominion (nota 4), pp. 27-30,yet ratio in the clause dealing with Greek dowers means ‘legal case’, not ‘accounting’ as sta-ted ibid., p. 28.

86 Gerland, Das Archiv (nota 82), p. 98, par. 1, and p. 100, par. 19.87 Johannes Jegerlehner (ed.), Beiträge zur Verwaltungsgeschichte Kandias im XIV.

Jahrhunderts, in «Byzantinische Zeitschrift» 13 (1904), p. 471, par. 90, decree of 1342;Santschi, Contribution (nota 35), pp. 206 et seq.

88 Jegerlehner, Beiträge (nota 87), p. 452, par. 37, decree of 1338; Jacoby, Un agent juif(nota 25), pp. 84 et seq.



As members of an ethnic-religious and legally defined group the CretanJews suffered from individual and collective discrimination. To be sure,Cretan Greeks were also subject to social and legal discrimination, yet themotivation behind the state’s policy with respect to the two groups and itsimplications differed. The parameters of Greek discrimination were prima-rily determined by political and social considerations, in the framework of arestrictive policy aimed at the consolidation of Venetian rule. On the otherhand, the policy applied to the Cretan Jewry was largely, though not exclu-sively inspired by the Latin Church and its theology. The gradual extensionof this policy constituted a departure from Byzantine tradition and prece-dents. As a result, many legal, social, and economic restrictions and fiscalobligations imposed upon the Jews were particular to them.

In Byzantium all subjects were in principle equal before the law. UnderVenetian rule Jews and Greeks were denied Venetian citizenship, which alsoentailed some restrictions on long-distance trading, yet a number of CretanGreeks nevertheless gained access to that status in particular circumstances.On the other hand, as Venetian subjects Cretan Jews and Greeks alikeenjoyed Venetian protection abroad89. Shortly after 1397 Venice imposedupon the Cretan Jews the display of the round yellow badge (rotella) onclothes, replaced in 1496 by a yellow headgear for males, as a distinctivemark of Jewish social inferiority90. The measure was in line with the policyof the Roman Church. No such mark had ever existed in Byzantium. Jewswere also barred from public offices, although some of them obtained byspecial favor the function of messeta or official middlemen, who collectedtaxes imposed by the state upon all commercial transactions. In 1433 theVenetian Senate quashed all earlier appointments and prohibited newones91.

As noted above, Constantinople and possibly Thessalonica too wereapparently the only Byzantine cities in which Byzantium implementedJewish residential segregation before the Fourth Crusade. Around 1325Venice introduced a similar policy in Crete, yet it was never fully imple-mented92. In Candia Christians lived side by side with Jews in the Judaica93.In addition, various credit operations resulted in the transfer of urban and

89 Jacoby, Venice and the Venetian Jews (nota 68), pp. 34-36; Jacoby, Les Juifs à Venise(nota 75), pp. 177 et seq.

90 Jacoby, Venice and the Venetian Jews (nota 68), pp. 36 et seq. Some individual dispen-sations were granted.

91 Jacoby, Venice, the Inquisition and the Jewish Communities (nota 73), pp. 128-132, 137et seq.; Jacoby, Contribution (nota 35), pp. 209 et seq.; Jacoby, Venice and the Venetian Jews(nota 68), p. 50.

92 Ibid., pp. 37 et seq.

DAVID JACOBY256


rural assets into Jewish hands, whether temporarily as collateral for loans orpermanently, in principle, as acquisition from insolvent debtors. Venice wasparticularly opposed to transfers involving property liable to military serv-ice, and a verdict of 1414 ordered its immediate sale94. In 1423 Venice issueda general ban on Jewish acquisitions of real estate outside the Jewish quar-ters in its overseas territories, and enjoined the Jews to sell the property theyheld within two years95. Jews nevertheless continued to acquire propertyand reside outside their quarters to evade crammed conditions or to bolstertheir social standing. Such cases are documented in 1448 and 1450 forRetimo, Castelnuovo and Bonifacio96. It is obvious that the restrictions onproperty had discriminatory and adverse economic implications. Spatialrestrictions on the operation of shops outside the Jewish quarters had simi-lar effects97. It is likely that residential segregation was not imposed uponsmall Jewish groups consisting of one or a few families, as in villages.

The nature of the fiscal burden resting on the Jews in Byzantium remainsa vexing and controversial issue98. There is nevertheless reason to believe thatJews were subject to separate direct taxation and that each local Jewish com-munity was responsible for the payment of its own collective taxes. A collec-tive fine was imposed jointly upon the Rabbanite and Karaite Jews ofConstantinople in the years 1092-109699. In 1153 the Jews of Strobilos in AsiaMinor were liable to a collective tax, regardless of their place of residence100.

93 For an example in 1393, see below. 94 Maria K. Chairete, Anekdota benetika eggrafa peri twn Ebraiwn en Krhth (=

Unpublished Venetian Documents regarding the Jews in Crete), in «Epeteriv EtaireavBuzantinwn Spoudwn», 33 (1964), pp. 171-182, nn. 1-6.

95 Noiret, Documents (nota 17), pp. 297 et seq. 96 Jacoby, Un agent juif (nota 25), pp. 86 et seq. For more evidence, see David Jacoby,

The Jews in Byzantium and the Eastern Mediterranean: Economic Activities from theThirteenth to the Mid-Fifteenth Century, in Michael Toch/Elisabeth Müller-Luckner (ed.),Wirtschaftsgeschichte der mittelalterlichen Juden: Fragen und Einschätzungen, München 2008(in press), n. 166.

97 See below, n. 174.98 The latest overall treatment of the topic, by S. B. Bowman, The Jews of Byzantium,

1204-1453 [Tuscaloosa], Alabama 1985, pp. 41-48, requires various emendations. 99 David Jacoby, The Jewish Community of Constantinople from the Komnenan to the

Palaiologan Period, in «Vizantijskij Vremennik» 55/2 (80), 1998, pp. 32-36, repr. in Jacoby,Byzantium (nota 3), no. V.

100 Joshua Starr, The Jews in the Byzantine Empire, 641-1204 (Texte und Forschungen zurbyzantinisch-neugriechische Philologie 30), Athen 1939, p. 228, no. 181. See also DavidJacoby, What do we learn about Byzantine Asia Minor from the Documents of the CairoGenizah?, in [N. Oikonomides and Sp. Vryonis, Jr. (ed.), H Buzantinh Mikra Asia (60v-12ovai.) [= Byzantine Asia Minor (6th-12th cent.) (Institute for Byzantine Research, NationalHellenic Foundation), Athena 1998, pp. 83-95, repr. in Jacoby, Byzantium (nota 3), no. I.



In Venetian Crete all the local Jewish communities paid jointly regular andextraordinary taxes, the latter to finance Venetian military and naval enter-prises or public works, such as the repair of urban walls and harbor instal-lations101. It is clear that the Jews paid individual rates proportionally heav-ier than those imposed upon the feudatories and the burghers, consideringtheir small number within Crete’s population and their economic condi-tion102. The Cretan Jews also paid a 5 % tax on maritime trade, imposedbefore 1290, as if they were foreigners. When Venice prohibited its citizensand subjects from trading with Mamluk Egypt and Syria in January 1323,the Jews and foreigners residing in Crete argued that the prohibition did notapply to them, since they paid that higher tariff. The following year the pro-hibition was extended to all the island’s residents103.

In Crete and in some other Venetian territories the authorities orderedthe Jewish communities to provide executioners for the carrying out ofdeath sentences issued by Venetian courts, a discriminating and particular-ly degrading requirement. The practice was probably inherited from theByzantine period and expanded after 1204104. In 1465 the Cretan Jew DavidMavrogonato, who lived in Venice, failed in his bid to have this practiceabolished in Crete, yet obtained that executions would not take place on theSabbath or on Jewish holydays105.

As mentioned above, the Jewish stance toward Venetian rule partlyshaped the pattern of interaction between Greeks and Jews. The first crisisin that interaction occurred some fifteen years after the beginning of theVenetian conquest. In 1222 Venice sent a second group of Venetian militarysettlers to Crete, to whom it assigned land in a section of the island that hadoriginally been intended for settlers from the sestiere or quarter of Castelloin Venice. This section, west of Candia, included Retimo. The large-scale

101 Starr, Jewish Life (nota 16), pp. 76-83. Similar system in Venetian Euboea, as evi-denced in 1452 when the Jewish community of Negroponte requested the reduction of taxes,arguing that two communities in the island had ceased to exist: David Jacoby, TheDemographic Evolution of Euboea under Latin Rule, 1205-1470, in Julian Chrysostomides,Charalambos Dendrinos, Jonathan Harris (ed.), The Greek Islands and the Sea (Proceedingsof the First International Colloquium held at the Hellenic Institute, Royal Holloway,University of London, 21-22 September 2001), Camberley, Surrey 2004, p. 166.

102 Jacoby, Venice and the Venetian Jews (nota 68), pp. 40 et seq. 103 Jacoby, Creta e Venezia (nota 50), pp. 97 et seq. The higher tariff on maritime trade

was abolished in 1318 in Negroponte, where the Venetian move was determined by local cir-cumstances: Jacoby, The Demographic Evolution of Euboea (nota 101), pp. 160 et seq.

104 See Bowman, The Jews of Byzantium (nota 98), pp. 340 et seq., Excursus C; alsoAnkori, The Living and the Dead (nota 25), p. 97. There is no evidence supporting the claimthat the criminals were buried in Jewish cemeteries.

105 Jacoby, Un agent juif (nota 25), p. 87.

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confiscation of Greek landed estates triggered a Greek rebellion, repressedafter about two years by the Venetian duke of Crete, Paolo Querini106. Theletter of complaint addressed by the Greeks of Crete to Doge Pietro Zianiin 1224 or 1225, after Querini’s departure, has survived in a somewhat trun-cated Latin version. It accuses him of denial of justice, greediness, arbitrarytaxation, confiscations and destruction of property in various parts of Crete,and contrasts the severe hardships the Greeks endured with the favorablecondition of the Jews, protected by the Venetian authorities. It argues thatthe Jews had retained their synagogues and private property and regainedpossession of several of their houses seized for some time by the Greeks,whereas many Greek dwellings and churches had been destroyed. TheGreeks also accused the Jews of having physically assaulted them107. TheJews had apparently taken advantage of the Venetian repression to avengemistreatments inflicted upon them by the Greeks before or during therebellion. The seizure of Jewish houses by the Greeks presumably occurredin Retimo, the residence of the only major Jewish community in the regionat a later period.

Despite their positive attitude toward Venetian rule, the Jews were com-pelled to support Greek rebels in particular circumstances. The Cretanarchon or landlord Alexios Kallergis headed a long rebellion lasting from1282 to 1299. In these years he extended his rule over large sections of Cretewest of Milopotamo. It is unlikely that he took hold of Rethymnon andCanea, situated in that region. In any event, in order to ensure their ownsafety and property the Jews residing in these cities apparently assistedKallergis with loans or other financial contributions, as suggested by hisintervention on their behalf in 1299. A clause of the treaty he concludedwith Venice in that year allowed Jews, like Greek rebels and Gypsies, to

106 For the division of Crete between the sestieri, see Thiriet, La Romanie vénitienne (nota31), pp. 125 and 126 (map). On the military contingent, see Jacoby, La colonisation militairevénitienne (nota 3), pp. 302 et seq., 307-310. On the region in which the rebellion occurredand on the dating of Querini’s action, see Borsari, Il dominio veneziano (note 3), pp. 39 etseq., 128. The treaty that put an end to the rebellion was concluded between the latter’s lead-ers and Querini on 8 January 1224 (dating 1223 more Veneto): Tafel und Thomas, Urkunden(nota 27), II, pp. 251-253.

107 For the letter, see above, n. 13. It mentions the relief felt by the Greeks after the arrivalof Domenico Davanzago, who succeeded to Paolo Querini as duke of Crete. To be sure, theletter reflects measures implemented by the Venetian authorities soon after the conquest: seeBorsari, Il dominio veneziano (note 3), p. 32 and nn. 17 et seq. However, it also personallyaccuses Querini of misdeed. Many of the complaints were clearly related to his repression ofthe rebellion, while others were in fact the strict implementation of Venetian policies of con-fiscation and taxation.



reside wherever they wished in Crete108. It would seem that Venice had lim-ited the freedom of movement of residents from the region taken over byKallergis to prevent the spreading of the rebellion.

A severe crisis endangered the existence of the Jewish communities ofCrete in the 1360s, during the so-called Great Rebellion. In 1363 membersof the oldest Latin settler families allied with Greeks overthrew Venice’s ruleand occupied large sections of Crete. The Jews of Candia paid large sums tothe leaders of the rebel forces guarding the city in order to prevent an attackon their quarter. What had begun as a movement for political independencefrom Venice turned in 1364 into a popular uprising of Greek peasantsagainst their landlords. The rebels, abandoned by most Latins, attackedCastelnuovo in the south of Crete, burned all the houses belonging to theLatin feudatories and the Jews, and killed many of the latter109. Jewish loy-alty to Venice during the so-called Great Rebellion, a traumatic experiencefor Venice, was confirmed by Venetian official documents and invoked timeand again by representatives of the Cretan Jewry. In 1389 the Jewish leadersrequesting a reduction of the tax burden upon their community remindedthe authorities of the good deeds performed by the Jews during the rebel-lion and the War of Chioggia, fought against Genoa from 1378 to 1381110.This was a clear hint at financial contributions. By 1392 Venice had partlyreimbursed the forced loan contributed by the Jews of Crete during the warwith Genoa, yet 20,000 hyperpers were still due, a sum illustrating theirheavy fiscal burden111. About a century later, in 1463, the Cretan Jew DavidMavrogonato also referred to the Jews’ loyalty to Venice during the GreatRebellion when pleading for the return of the Jews to Castelnuovo and

108 Edition by Konstantinos D. Mertzios, H sunqhkh Enetwn-Kallergh kai oi sunodeuon-tev authn katalogoi [= The Venetian-Kallergis Treaty and the Adjunct Lists], in «KrhtikaCronika» 3, 1949, p. 272, par. 22. On the long rebellion of Kallergis and the treaty, seeBorsari, Il dominio veneziano (nota 3), pp. 55-66; Maltezou, Creta fra la Serenissima e laSuperba (nota 6), pp. 768-772. The Jews remaining under Venetian rule during the rebelliondemanded a reduction of their taxes, a request rejected in 1288: Roberto Cessi (ed.),Deliberazioni del Maggior Consiglio di Venezia, Bologna 1931-1950, III, p. 211, no. 82.

109 Lorenzo de Monacis, Chronicon de rebus venetis ab U. C. ad annum MCCCLIV, edi-tion by Flaminius Cornelius (Corner), Venetiis 1758, pp. 180, 186-187. On the course andevolving nature of the rebellion, yet without reference to the fate of the Jews, see SallyMcKee, Uncommon Dominion (nota 4), pp. 133-168.

110 Noiret, Documents (nota 17), pp. 26 et seq. Three noblemen attested in their favor.Pietro Mocenigo was among the officials sent to Crete in 1365 to repress the revolt in theisland and played an important role in the war against Genoa. In 1381 he served as duke ofCrete. Andrea Dandolo held that office during the Genoese war, and Marco Zeno in 1385:see ibid., p. 26, n. 2, and p. 556.

111 Ibid., pp. 51 et seq.

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Bonifacio, two localities from which they had been expelled some ten yearsearlier. He also argued that their presence in these places would strengthenVenetian rule112.

Large numbers of Greek refugees arrived in Crete following theOttoman conquests of Constantinople and the Peloponnesus, respectivelyin 1453 and 1460. Among them were numerous priests and monks stirredby nationalistic fervor, who conspired against Venetian rule. However, someCretan Greeks loyal to Venice decided to reveal the existence of the plot tothe Venetian authorities and sent a Greek priest to Venice to that effect.While in Venice in 1461 David Mavrogonato, already mentioned above,served as intermediary between the priest and the Venetian authorities.These sent him to Crete to identify the culprits and enable thereby theirarrest. In 1463 he complained that he suffered from the general hatred ofthe Jews and the Christians of the island for having carried out that mission.The Christians he alluded to were obviously Greek. As for the Jews, it isclear that they blamed him for an upsurge in anti-Jewish hostility among theGreeks of the island113.

Another crisis between Jews and Greeks, fueled by famine hysteria andthe Venetian-Turkish war, developed in Candia in 1538. The Jews werethought to harbor Turks in their quarter, a suspicion inspired by the pres-ence of Jews ransomed from Turkish captivity. While the Jewish men weredigging trenches on the order of the authorities, in anticipation of a Turkishinvasion, a Greek mob invaded the quarter. The intervention of the author-ities, backed by armed forces, put an end to the disturbances and prevent-ed bloodshed. From 1541, the year following the end of the war, the com-munity celebrated each year the escape from the pogrom in the form of anannual ‘local Purim’114. Greek animosity is also attested somewhat later.Slanderous denunciations to the authorities presumably entailing arrestsand other serious inconveniences prompted the Cretan Jewish communityto appeal in 1567 to Metrophanes III, Greek Orthodox Patriarch ofConstantinople, who threatened the culprits with excommunication115.

So far we have considered the impact of Venetian rule upon collectiveGreek attitudes toward the Jews. We may now turn to the interaction ofindividual Greeks and Latins with Jews, partly determined by other factors.There were no problems of communication between Greeks and CretanRomaniote Jews, who were Greek speakers, often bore Greek names, and

112 Jacoby, Un agent juif (nota 25), pp. 85-87. 113 Ibid., pp. 68-71, 80.114 Starr, Jewish Life (nota 16), pp. 69 et seq.115 Ibid., pp. 70 et seq.



whose synagogue ritual was partly conducted in Greek, as illustrated by thereading of a Greek translation of the Book of Jonah on Yom Kippur116. ForJewish immigrants from a different linguistic background, who arrived fromthe West in small numbers until the late fifteenth century, the acquisition ofvernacular Greek was a prerequisite for social integration within the Cretancommunities and participation in the island’s economic life. Yet, in addition,dealings with the Venetian administration and with Latins required someknowledge of the Venetian vernacular, in any event at the rudimentary level.Overtime multilingualism gained ground among Cretan Jews. It was clearlya basic requirement for service in specific functions, such as those of messeteor sensarii117. The constant interaction between the Jews and the authoritiesaccounts for the absorption of Venetian judicial and administrative terms inthe institutional vocabulary of the Jewish communities of Crete and theirreproduction in Hebrew characters, such as petizion, terminazion, memorial,ordini, distesa for the full version of a decree, and nodar for notary118. Somepolyglot Jews surely took advantage of their linguistic skills to act privatelyas middlemen or interpreters between merchants of various origins. On theother hand, it is likely that only few Jews, if any, understood Latin, whichremained the main language of official registration in the Venetian adminis-tration and of notarial documents, despite a growing use of the Venetian ver-nacular from the second half of the fourteenth century onward. The recourseto interpreters was thus often indispensable119.

In Crete, as elsewhere, the most common and sustained interactionbetween Jews and Christians at the individual level occurred in the econom-ic field, both in urban centers and in the countryside. Its nature and scopewere determined by the character and location of Jewish economic activi-ty120. No field of activity was monopolized by the Jews, expect for ritual andcommunal functions, there were no legal impediments limiting their occu-pations, and none was ever imposed upon them, as mistakenly argued with

116 Examples of Greek names in Jacoby, Quelques aspects (nota 57), pp. 111 et seq. Onthe Book of Jonah, see Bowman, Jews of Byzantium (nota 98), p. 166 and n. 125.

117 On which see above, n. 91.118 Examples in a fifteenth-century list: Taqqanoth Qandyah (nota 9), pp. 40 et seq., no. 46.119 David Jacoby, Multilingualism and Institutional Patterns of Communication in Latin

Romania (Thirteenth-Fourteenth Centuries), in Alexander D. Beihammer, Maria G. Paraniand Christopher D. Schabel (ed.), Diplomatics in the Eastern Mediterranean 1000-1500.Aspects of Cross-Cultural Communication, Leiden 2008, pp. 38-43, 47-48.

120 On the economic background of Crete, see Jacoby, Changing Economic Patterns (nota3), pp. 199-207, 212-213, 215-223, 229-233; Jacoby, Creta e Venezia (nota 50), pp. 73-106;Benjamin Arbel, Riflessioni sul ruolo di Creta nel commercio mediterraneo del Cinquecento, inOrtalli, Venezia e Creta (nota 6), pp. 245-259; Jacoby, Cretan Cheese (nota 33), pp. 49-68.

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respect to tanning in Byzantium121. In short, Jews operated to varyingdegrees in all sectors of the Cretan economy. Economic interaction andcooperation took place both within and outside the Jewish quarters. Therewas no spatial restriction to that activity before the imposition of residentialsegregation around 1325, which affected exclusively merchants122. Jewscould nevertheless rent shops outside their quarter by special permission ofthe authorities, as attested in Retimo from around 1382 and in Candia in1391. However, in 1412 it was the decided that in Retimo, as in Candia andCanea, the Jews should have shops exclusively within the boundaries oftheir quarters, although being allowed to keep storehouses elsewhere inthese cities, in view of the large volume of cheese, wine and other goods theyhandled123. In the countryside Jews interacted with Christian, mostly Greekproducers, in connection with business deals agreed between them, exam-ined below, or when buying their goods in barter or cash transactions124.

The Jews operated within two distinct, though partly overlapping andstrongly interwoven economic networks. The internal network dealing withthe production, transportation and distribution of Jewish kasher commodities,namely, wine, dairy products and meat, was a closed circuit. However, its oper-ation required close cooperation with Latins and Greeks regarding capitalinvestment, business patterns, production, and delivery of the produce and,therefore, was partly integrated within the regular commercial network125.

In Venetian Crete the purchase of agricultural and pastoral products wasoften connected to advance payments for the delivery of an agreed quanti-ty of produce at a specific date or within a specific period. For Jews this salecredit system, with its concealed loans, was indispensable to ensure constantand close supervision according to rabbinical prescriptions over wine andcheese directly ordered from the producer. Jewish seasonal workers were

121 See above, n. 64. Incidentally, tanning remained an important craft among CretanJews, as illustrated by an ordinance regarding oak bark specifically addressed to them byGiacomo Foscarini in 1577: Ankori, Giacomo Foscarini (nota 17), pp. 79-87.

122 See above, n. 92.123 Noiret, Documents (nota 17), pp. 213-214; Georgopoulou, Venice’s Mediterranean

Colonies (nota 5), p. 200. See also Jacoby, The Jews in Byzantium and the EasternMediterranean (nota 96). The cheese and wine sold to Christians must have been unfit forJewish consumption, yet some unsold kasher surpluses may have also been handled in thatframework.

124 The Jew of Canea trading in the countryside in 1276 appears to have engaged in suchtransactions. He was clearly not an itinerant merchant, considering the commodities he wasrobbed of, namely wax, silk and grain: Tafel und Thomas, Urkunden (nota 27), III, p. 257;for the dating, see Morgan, The Venetian Claims Commission (nota 28), p. 431 no. 137.

125 For an extensive treatment of this topic, see Jacoby, The Jews in Byzantium and theEastern Mediterranean (nota 96).



sent to the countryside to clean the wine press, wine cellar, vats and casks,press the grapes, and supervise the transportation of the must or wine toCandia. The production, transfer and marketing of cheese were similarlysupervised. The ritual slaughter of animals provided an additional area ofeconomic cooperation between Jews and Christians. Jewish butchers actedas middlemen, buying animals in the countryside or in castle-cities and sell-ing their skins to Jewish and Christian tanners. Jews also bought dried andsalted skins from Christian merchants and butchers126.

The moving of goods was yet another field in which Cretan Jews closelycooperated with Christians. Most Jews lacked transportation means of theirown, whether on land or at sea, and were apparently reluctant to invest intheir purchase. The contracts for the delivery of foodstuffs and wine fromthe countryside often stipulate delivery in the city by the producers, whichsuggests that Jews did not own beasts of burden127. Jewish partnership in asea-going vessel seems to have been rather exceptional128. Even when own-ing a ship jointly with Christians, Jews could not operate it on their own.The religious restrictions on sailing during the Sabbath and Jewish holidayswere clearly an indirect, though important factor in that respect and alsoaccount for the absence of Jewish sailors in Crete. As a result, althoughCretan Jews accompanied kasher commodities, they heavily depended uponLatin and especially Greek carriers, who were dominant in land transporta-tion from the countryside to the cities and in short and medium-range ship-ping around the island129.

Joint business ventures between Jews and Christians were common atvarious levels of society. In 1352 a Jew of Candia was co-owner of a smallsea-going vessel used in short and medium-range transportation. The ship-ping of kasher products was clearly the incentive prompting him to enterinto partnership with two Greeks130. In 1420 a Jewish mason and hisChristian partner undertook to repair a cistern in the house of a Jewishphysician, all of them being residents of Candia131. In 1338 a Jew hired two

126 For this whole paragraph, see ibid., nn. 23, 26-31, 78. On castle-cities as cattle mar-kets, see above, n. 49.

127 It is impossible to determine whether the Jew of Canea trading in the countryside in1276 (see above, n. 124) owned beasts of burden or had hired the services of a carrier.

128 For such a case, see below, n. 130.129 David Jacoby, Greeks in the Maritime Trade of Cyprus around the Mid-Fourteenth

Century, in Chryssa Maltezou (ed.), Kuprov – Benetia. Koinev istorikev tucev. Cipro –Venezia: Comuni sorti storiche (Atti del simposio internazionale, Atene, 1-3 marzo 2001),Venezia 2002, pp. 59-83.

130 Ibid., p. 64.131 Chryssa Maltezou, Métiers et salaires en Crète vénitienne (XVe siècle), in

«Byzantinische Forschungen» 12, 1987, p. 326.

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Latin workers to assist him for one year in the operation of a cylinder usedin the finishing of woolens132. There were also continuous and extensivecontacts between Jewish employers, namely tailors and shoemakers, andChristian artisans, apprentices, and other employees, some of whom lived inJewish premises. This was especially the case of wet-nurses133.

Credit was an indispensable tool in local and especially in regional trade,yet its nature varied widely. Advance payments for the delivery of agricul-tural and pastoral produce have already been mentioned. In addition,Cretan Jews granted commercial, exchange and maritime loans toChristians and concluded with them various contracts, like the unilateralcollegancia binding a ‘sedentary’ investor to a ‘traveling’ manager, the soci-etas terre for trade in Crete, and the cambium maritimum for overseas ven-tures. They also received such loans from Latins and Greeks. Jews conduct-ed maritime trade with the assistance of agents or acted as agents, again inassociation with Christians. Many business ventures involved the export ofkasher wine and cheese to various destinations in the Aegean and beyond,mainly to Constantinople and Alexandria. Finally, urban residents, includ-ing prominent Latins and Greeks, took consumption loans or bought goodson credit from Jewish retailers134.

At times indebtedness resulted in the temporary or outright transfer ofrural land and dependent peasants to Jews135. Lingiaco Mavristiri, aCandiote Jew, obtained in 1341 a cavalleria or military tenement fromNiccolò Venier, who was indebted to him, and sold it at profit to the Greekarchon Alexios Kallergis. Both transactions were illegal since Jews were for-bidden to hold fiefs and sergeantries entailing military service and Greekswere barred from acquiring them privately136. Such cases were purely finan-cial transactions and, therefore, did not reflect social attitudes. Jews musthave been eager to obtain rural land with their peasants since they yieldedrevenue and, more importantly, enabled close supervision over the produc-tion of kasher produce. The relations between Jewish landholders anddependent peasants were yet another setting witnessing interaction andcooperation between Jews and Greeks.

132 Élisabeth Santschi, Contrats de travail et d’apprentissage en Crète vénitienne au XIVe

siècle d’après quelques notaires, in «Revue Suisse d’Histoire» 19, 1969, p. 50, has misunder-stood the term chylindra. The cylinder had been rented from the state.

133 On the negative aspects of these contacts, see below.134 Jacoby, The Jews in Byzantium and the Eastern Mediterranean (nota 96).135 See above, n. 94. 136 Jacoby, The Jews in Byzantium and the Eastern Mediterranean (nota 96), n. 193;

McKee, Uncommon Dominion (nota 4), pp. 71, 184-187 (documents).



Interaction between Jews and Christians also occurred in other circum-stances. Numerous Jewish physicians and surgeons attended to the inhabi-tants of Crete, regardless of their ethnic identity or religious creed, despiterepeated injunctions of the Church against recourse to them137. Some ofthese medical practitioners were employed by the Venetian authorities,while others acted privately. The recourse of Jews both to Latin and Greeknotaries was indispensable in the realm of economic activity, yet alsoextended to marriage contracts, wills, and other documents pertaining tothe sphere of private law which occasionally would have to be presented toVenetian courts. It is likely that these deeds duplicated documents draftedin Hebrew, as in 1279 when a Cretan Jew married a Jewess ofNegroponte138. A fairly large number of Jewish wills in Latin and a few inGreek from around 1500 have survived139.

An exceptionally precious testimony of individual Christian attitudetoward Jews deserves to be reported in detail. It appears in the summary ofan inquiry conducted in Candia in 1414, which dealt with a Jewish young-ster from that city whose precise age is not stated. The youngster had trav-eled on his own to Venice, and once there was baptized at his own request.After staying for three months at the mansion of the Patriarch of Venice, hemet on Piazza San Marco, the main urban square, a Greek originally fromCanea who had served on the ship on which he had sailed to Venice. ThisGreek and his wife, who resided in Venice in a two-storied house, contact-ed two Cretan Jews, one of them residing in Venice and the other on busi-ness there, and suggested that they take care of the youngster. Theydeclined, fearing that they would be accused of encouraging a baptized Jewto return to Judaism, an act severely punished by the authorities. Therefore,the Greek decided to return the youngster to his mother in Candia and sent

137 Élisabeth Santschi, Médecine et justice en Crète vénitienne au XIVe siècle, in«Qhsauriésmata» 8, 1971, pp. 26-28; Santschi, Contribution (nota 35), p. 209; McKee,Uncommon Dominion (nota 4), pp. 98, 217 et seq, n. 181; see also below, n. 168, on the oppo-sition of Joseph Bryennios. More extensive treatment of the topic by David Jacoby, JewishPhysicians and Surgeons in Crete under Venetian Rule, in Menahem Ben-Sasson, ReuvenBonfil, Joseph R. Hacker (ed.), Culture and Society in Medieval Jewry. Studies Dedicated tothe Memory of Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson, Jerusalem, 1989, pp. 431-444 (Hebrew).

138 David Jacoby, Les Juifs vénitiens de Constantinople et leur communauté du XIIIe aumilieu du XVe siècle, in «Revue des Études Juives» 131, 1972, pp. 408 et seq., repr. in Jacoby,Recherches (nota 25), no. XII.

139 In Latin: Sally McKee (ed.), Wills from Late Medieval Crete, 1313-1420 Washington,D. C. 1998, passim; in Greek: Konstantinos N. Sathas (ed.), Mesaiwnikh Biblioqhkh, Athenai1872-1894, VI, pp. 661-663, nn. 7-8, and 686 et seq., no. 20, and see also Starr, Jewish Life(nota 16), pp. 90-93.

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him to the island in the company of his own wife140. He obviously knew thathe committed an illegal act and was taking considerable risks. He surelyexpected some financial reward, in addition to the reimbursement of hisexpenses. Yet, as hinted by the reference to the youngster’s mother, appar-ently a widow, it would seem that the Greek was mainly moved by humaneconsiderations, despite the religious factor involved in his action. It shouldbe stressed, though, that his behavior sharply contrasted with the commonattitude of Cretan Greeks toward Jews, which will soon be examined.

At times economic ventures generated anti-Jewish sentiment. Accordingto an internal communal ordinance of 1363, the seasonal Jewish workerssent to the countryside to supervise the production of kasher products oftenendured the violent hostility of Greeks, including physical assault. As aresult, some Jewish workers refrained from fulfilling the task they had beenentrusted with, either out of fear or in return for payment offered by theGreeks141. The economic background of Greek hostility in that context isobvious. It was specifically directed against the Jewish individuals whoseemployment deprived the Greek workers of income. Incidentally, the Jewsof Rhodes appear to have faced similar problems. Ovadiah of Bertinoro,who visited them in 1487, reported that the local Jews had no wine or meat“because of the wickedness of the Greeks”142.

In contrast to the Christian West which considered moneylending atinterest as sinful, such operations were regarded in Byzantium as legitimateand the state permitted them while regulating and controlling the rates ofinterest143. Venice adopted a similar policy in Crete, where Latins, Greeksand Jews alike practiced moneylending and sold on credit. As revealed bythe case of Gregorios Argiropoulos in 1420, Jews were sometimes outnum-bered by Christians in moneylending. There were three of them out of nine-teen, mostly Latins, and the total sum of Jewish loans was substantiallysmaller than the total granted by the others144. However, in other instancesJews appear to have loaned larger sums, especially to Venetian feudatories.The authorities intervened when widespread indebtedness induced peas-

140 Document edited by David Jacoby, Inquisition and Converts in Crete andNegroponte in the 14th and 15th Centuries, in «Sefunot» 5, 1964, pp. 214-216, no. 3.

141 Taqqanoth Qandyah (nota 9), pp. 22 et seq., no. 33.142 Abraham Yaari (ed.), Igroth Eretz Israel [= Letters from the Land of Israel], Ramat-

Gan 21971 (Hebr.), p. 111, and for the dating of his visit, see p. 110, n. 42.143 Angeliki E. Laiou, Economic Thought and Ideology, in Angeliki E. Laiou, The

Economic History of Byzantium, From the Seventh through the Fifteenth Century,Washington, D. C. 2002, III, pp. 1136-1139.

144 Edited by Manoussos I. Manoussakas, Nea anekdota benetika eggrafa peri tou Krhtovpoihtou Leonardou Ntellaporta (seira deutera: 1386-1420), in «Krhtika Cronika»12, 1958,pp 424-427.



ants to abandon their land, urban residents to flee from Crete, and thefinancial crisis caused social unrest. At several occasions they exerted pres-sure and imposed accommodations between lenders and defaulting debtorsby spreading reimbursement over several years or reducing it when credi-tors had declared themselves bankrupt. These solutions offered a way toprevent chronic impoverishment among some sections of the Cretan popu-lation, while preserving Jewish liquid capital as a source of heavy state tax-ation. The pressure on Jewish moneylenders was especially strong, partlybecause of social bias against them, yet also because they appear to havecharged higher interest rate when loans were granted without pledges.These were rather risky credit operations. In 1416 the Jews were ordered tocharge no more than the mandatory interest rates of 12 percent without col-laterals and 10 percent with them145. Despite the higher interested rates,there is no evidence of Cretan Latins or Greeks assimilating Jews collective-ly to usurers, as common in the West, although they resented the pressureof individual Jewish moneylenders and tax collectors146. Popular resentmenttoward these Jews was sometimes expressed in verbal and physical aggres-sion, including murder as attested in 1321147.

In contrast to Christians, individual Jews involved in economic operationsin Crete also elicited collective hostility directed against their community. Twointernal communal ordinances adopted in Candia offer convincing illustra-tions in that respect. One of them, issued in 1228, condemned stealing fromChristians and lying to them as reprehensible on moral grounds and becauseit generated hostility toward the entire Jewry148. Another ordinance, issued in1363, insisted that goods be exclusively acquired at the market or from reli-able merchants. It also warned against the purchase of objects below theirvalue, whether from the servants or slaves of Christians or from the latter,since these objects may have been stolen. Such illegal practices were not par-ticular to Jews. However, it is symptomatic that the ordinance added that “thepeople of the land always suspect the Jews of being robbers and thieves”149.An internal ordinance of 1518 reports that Jews continue to house Christianemployees in their premises, a practice prohibited both by the Venetian and

145 Starr, Jewish Life (nota 16), pp. 83-87. In 1449 the Venetian Senate prohibited CretanJews to lend money without collateral: Noiret, Documents (nota 17), pp. 425 et seq.

146 The term usura was used in Crete in a general sense for loans bearing interest, with-out any negative implications: see Santschi, Contribution (nota 35), pp. 196-197. Yet in 1428the debts of Greek archers to Jews resulting from compound interest were described as prodeprodium et usure usurarum: Noiret, Documents (nota 17), p. 322.

147 Jacoby, Venice, the Inquisition and the Jewish Communities (nota 73), pp. 137 et seq. 148 Taqqanoth Qandyah (nota 9), p. 4, no. 5. 149 Ibid., pp. 34-36, no. 43.

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communal authorities that prompts anti-Jewish feelings and actions.Especially recent Jewish immigrants were accused of mistreating and under-paying their Christian employees, inducing the latter to react by verbalassaults against the Jewish creed and, more generally, by the indiscriminatebeating of Jews150. The issue of Christian employees in Jewish homes wasaddressed anew in 1577 by Giacomo Foscarini. These employees were “spe-cialmente di bassa e vil conditione,” thus mostly, if not exclusively Greek.Both Jewish and Venetian ordinances envisaged the corrosive effects of socialcontacts and promiscuity between Jews and Christians and the benefits ofJewish segregation151.

The Jewish ordinances dealing with the negative aspects of economiccooperation and limited social interaction between individual Jews andChristians refer to social animosity, which should not be confused with reli-giously grounded hostility, although occasionally tainted by the latter. Still,this interaction did not alter Greek popular attitudes. These were largelyshaped by the Greek Church, which under Venetian rule had retained itsvitality, especially in rural areas152.

Only two accusations of ritual murder perpetrated by Jews are known inByzantium, one in the Syrian city of Inmestar in 415 and the other in theCrimean city of Cherson in the late eleventh century153. In the Empire thisaccusation never achieved the widespread credence it gained in the West fromthe twelfth century onward, nor did it ever enjoy institutional backing by theChurch154. On the other hand, at times Jews were collectively accused of sym-bolic crucifixion, perceived as a re-enactment of the killing of Christ155. TheItalian canonist Oldrado da Ponte dealt in his Consilia et quaestiones auraeae,composed between 1320 and 1337, with a case reported to him by theDominican inquisitor Andreas Doto, active in Crete in the late 1320s: “OnGood Friday (or Passover Eve) some Jews crucify a lamb or a sheep, and spiton the cross, and trample it underfoot in contempt of Jesus Christ”156. Since

150 Ibid., pp. 78-80, no. 74.151 Ankori, Giacomo Foscarini (nota 17), pp. 48-56, 60-66. Foscarini also sought to pre-

vent the conversion of Christians to Judaism.152 See above, n. 60.153 Jacoby, Les Juifs de Byzance (nota 18), pp 143-145.154 On the ritual murder charge in the West, see Gavin Langmuir, Toward a Definition of

Antisemitism, Los Angeles 1990, pp. 209-262.155 Jacoby, Les Juifs de Byzance (nota 18), pp. 144 et seq.156 Jacoby, Venice, the Inquisition and the Jewish Communities (nota 73), pp. 138-141.

Text of Doto’s arguments in Norman Zacour, Jews and Saracens in the Consilia of Oldradusde Ponte (Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Studies and Texts 100), Toronto 1990, p.74, Consilium XXXVI; see also pp. 13, 37. The Latin ‘parasceve’ stands both for GoodFriday and Passover Eve.



an inquisitor acting on behalf of the Roman Church handled the case, itwould seem that the author of the accusation was Latin. However, in viewof the centrality of Easter in the Greek Orthodox calendar, its associationwith the slaughtering of the Paschal lamb, and the use of the latter’s bloodfor drawing the cross on doorposts, a Greek informant appears more plau-sible. Despite being Greek, turning to the inquisitor was more likely to trig-ger a punitive action against the Jews than presenting the case to the GreekOrthodox Church.

Many Cretans complained in 1449 about heavy indebtedness towardmoneylenders, especially Jews. In October of that same year the VenetianSenate dispatched three officers to Crete to arrange accommodationsbetween lenders and borrowers157. There is good reason to believe that therewas a connection between the continuous debt crisis and the accusation oflamb crucifixion that resurfaced in Candia in 1451. The local Jews of Candiawere accused of performing this ceremony each year on Holy Friday. DogeFrancesco Foscari ordered Bernardo Balbi, duke of Crete, to launch a thor-ough investigation to discover those responsible for this practice and to pun-ish them with a fine of 2,000 ducats, to be covered by the Jewish communi-ty if they were unable to pay158. In other words, the entire community washeld responsible for the alleged misdeeds of its individual members.

The case of 1451 has been reconstructed in detail with the help of offi-cial Venetian records in conjunction with the writings of Eliyahu Capsali,the sixteenth-century Jewish author of historical works living in Candia159.Nine leaders of the Jewish community in Candia were arrested, transferredto Venice and tortured there, two of them dying in prison. After a lengthylegal procedure in Venice, which lasted until June 1454, they were clearedof the allegation by the Venetian authorities160. Capsali reports an extraordi-

157 Noiret, Documents (nota 17), pp. 425 et seq.158 Flaminio Cornelio (Corner), Creta Sacra sive de episcopis utriusque ritus graeci et Latini

in insula Cretae, Venetiis 1755, II, pp. 382 et seq. Bernardo Balbi served as duke of Cretefrom 1450 to 1453. He is quoted in Taqqanoth Qandyah (nota 9), p. 41, no. 46, lines 31-38,for having severely punished tomb robbers desecrating the Jewish cemetery of Candia.

159 See Ariel Toaff, Pasque di sangue, ebrei d’Europa e omicidi rituali, 2a edizione, Bologna2008, pp. 50-54, where some minor details are incorrect. I wish to stress that I completelydissociate myself from the uncritical assessment of the sources by Toaff, who fails to questionthe validity of confessions and accusations extorted under torture or duress, and leaves theimpression that they can be trusted.

160 Edited by Nathan Porgès, Élie Capsali et sa chronique de Venise, in «Revue des ÉtudesJuives» 79, 1924, p. 29-31, and again by Aryeh Shmuelevitz, Shlomo Simonsohn, MeirBenayahu (ed.), Seder Eliyahu Zuta by Rabbi Eliyahu ben Elqanah Capsali. Histoty of theOttomans and of Venice and that of the Jews in Turkey, Spain and Venice, Jerusalem 1975-1977(Hebr.), II, pp. 225-227.

DAVID JACOBY270


nary judicial procedure implemented in 1499 in Venice in the MaggiorConsiglio, instead of the Senate, similar to the one applied “about the Jewsin [the case of] the accusation of the lamb of which they were accused, aswe have written in the Chronicle of the Kingdom of Venice”161. Capsali men-tions a woman called Ursa or Orsa, ‘komereth’, as the accuser in 1451162.Hebrew ‘komereth’ may either refer to a nun or to the wife of a Greek priestor ‘komer’. The Italian first name rather points to the former. However,according to a resolution of the Avogaria di Comun, a Venetian judicialbody, the accuser was a Jewish woman called Marina Vergi, presumably aservant in the house of Abba son of Moshe Delmedigo, who claimed that hehad crucified a lamb in his house in the presence of other Jews on HolyFriday, as performed each year. This woman had converted to Christianity,obviously joining the Latin Church in order to escape punishment as a wit-ness to the reprehensible ceremony she described163. It is unclear whetherthere were two female accusers, a Latin woman and another originally mem-ber of the Jewish community, or whether the convert had become a nun andhad assumed a new name164.

The Venetian patrician and humanist Lodovico Foscarini, who praisedAntonio Gradenigo for the initial investigation of the case, reports a seriesof events that occurred in the West, which he considered a miracle provingthat the Jews indeed slaughtered lambs to re-enact the crucifixion of Christ.He went even one step further, claiming that Jews crucified both lambs andpeople165. However, the accusation of ritual murder is not attested inVenetian Crete. Foscarini did not reside in the island and, therefore, hisclaim does not reflect the stance of the local Latins.

The deicidal, dehumanized and demonized nature of the Jews, as pro-pounded by the Church in Byzantium, extended to their physical featuresand moral character. Pollution generated by the impure touch of the Jewswas a recurrent topos in Greek popular attitudes toward the Jews166. It isreflected in Crete in various ways. Jewish workers sent to the countryside to

161 Ibid., I, p. 246. 162 Ibid., II, p. 225. 163 Toaff, Pasque di sangue (nota 159), p. 54, 325 et seq., no. 3.164 In this case Capsali may have wished to conceal the Jewish origin of the accuser and,

therefore, did not mention her original name.165 Cornelio, Creta Sacra (nota 158), II, pp. 382-389; Starr, Jewish Life (nota 16), pp. 65

et seq. On accusations of Jewish ritual crucifixion of children in the West, see Langmuir,Toward a Definition of Antisemitism, pp. 237-262. On Foscarini, see also Toaff, Pasque di san-gue, p. 54.

166 Jacoby, Les Juifs de Byzance (nota 18), pp. 142-143.



produce wine suffered from abuse, Greeks shouting at them: “Get away,impure [men], do not touch [the vats]”167.

The accusation of Jewish pollution also appears in another context. TheByzantine monk Joseph Bryennios, who lived in Crete as preacher and mis-sionary from 1382/3 to 1402/3168, cited various causes of divine wrath againstthe Greeks, among them the recourse to Jewish physicians and the consump-tion of food touched by Jews: “those things which are touched by their handsand sullied by their saliva, we thoughtlessly eat”169. This view is attested inVenetian Crete. Meshullam of Volterra, who visited Candia in 1481, reportsthat Jews touching goods or fruit were compelled to buy them at the pricestated by the Greek merchant, obviously because Christians would not buythem. He considered this an illustration of the Greeks’ total wickedness, andmarveled at the fact that they abstained from physically attacking the Jews170.Two other Jewish travelers recorded similar rules regarding Jewish pollutionin other places. Ovadiah of Bertinoro, who passed through Rhodes some-what later, in 1487, reports that the Jews do not touch the goods of theGreeks at the market171. In 1522 Moses Basola noted that in the islands ofCorfu and Zante and in Cypriot Famagusta, then under Venetian rule, “a Jewwill not touch bread or any other foodstuff until he purchases it, for theGreeks do not eat or drink anything a Jew has touched”172.

This issue is also reflected by a Venetian regulation implemented in Creteby the late 1440s, prohibiting Jews from buying foodstuffs, even for privateconsumption, before nine o’clock in the morning, under threat of fines.Apparently at that early hour of the day only few people could see whetherJews were touching goods offered for sale. As a result, later Christian cus-tomers were apprehensive to buy them, a situation detrimental to the mer-chants. It is obvious that by issuing the regulation the local authorities hadbowed to Christian, mainly to Greek popular pressure. By order of the dogeit was abolished some time between 1445 and 1453, yet reinstated after-

167 Taqqanoth Qandyah (nota 9), p. 22, no. 33. 168 Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, ed. Alexander P. Kazhdan et al., New York-Oxford,

1991, I, p. 330, s. v. Bryennios, Joseph. 169 Eugenios Boulgares (ed.), Iosef Monacou tou Bruenniou ta euraqenta, Leipzig

1768-1784, III, pp. 119-123; this volume was in fact edited by Thomas Mandakases. Thechapter is more easily accessible in Lysimachos Oeconomos, L’état intellectuel et moral desByzantins vers le milieu du XIVe siècle d’après une page de Joseph Bryennios, in MélangesCharles Diehl, Paris 1930, I, p. 227.

170 Yaari, Massah Meshullam mi-Volterra (nota 57), p. 82.171 Yaari, Igroth Eretz Israel (nota 142), p. 111, and for the dating, see ibid., p. 110, n. 42.172 Abraham David (ed.), In Zion and Jerusalem. The Itinerary of Rabbi Moses Basola

(1521-1523), Jerusalem 1999, Hebr. text, p. 11. I have corrected the Engl. trans. appearingon p. 53.

DAVID JACOBY272


wards, presumably by the local authorities. It would seem that the time limitfor purchases was lifted before 1459, so that Jews might buy at the marketgoods intended for resale to other Jews. The regulation was abolished a sec-ond time in 1465, at the request of David Mavrogonato, on the grounds thatit did not exist in any other Venetian territory and was contrary to the lib-erty enjoyed by all Venetian subjects, regardless of their ethnic affiliation orsocial status173.

A case brought to the Venetian court in Candia in 1393 sheds addition-al light on the popular linkage between Jewish touch and pollution amongCretan Greeks. The Jew Jostef Missini had acquired in the Jewish quarterof the city some houses auctioned by the Commune, contiguous to that ofthe Greek Caterinus Ialina. When he cleaned one of the houses he discov-ered a hole leading to a cistern that also extended below the house of theGreek neighbor and claimed the right to share its use with him. The Greekobjected, arguing that for fifty-two years the previous Jewish owner of thehouse did not have access to the cistern and that it was excluded that Jewsand Christians should share it.

The Venetian judges inspected the site and established that the channelleading the water to the cistern passed through the wall of the Jew’s houseand that the cistern itself was situated below the house. They decided, there-fore, that both parties had the right to the cistern’s water. However, shouldthe Greek persist in his refusal to share it, the court ordered that a wall beerected at the common expense of the two parties in the midst of the cisternin order to divide it into two distinct sections174. It should be noted that theGreek had presented two arguments. One of them, of a legal nature, reliedon the precedent established in the preceding fifty-two years. The other,opposing the sharing of the cistern by Jews and Christians, was rooted inreligious prejudice and clearly reflected collective Greek attitudes.

These popular attitudes were common to former Byzantine territories,all of which were under Venetian rule at the time they were recorded. Theyare not documented before the fifteenth century, neither in Byzantium norin former Byzantine territories under Latin rule. There is nevertheless goodreason to believe that they reflect a long-standing stance toward the Jews,promoted by the Greek Church. Significantly, all three Italian Jews report-ing on Jewish pollution and contamination of marketed foodstuffs reacted

173 Taqqanoth Qandyah (nota 9), p. 41, no. 46, lines 28-30, 41 et seq.; Jacoby, Un agentjuif (nota 25), pp. 87 et seq.

174 Archivio di Stato di Venezia, Archivio del Duca di Candia, b. 29 bis, foll. 20v-21v.,unpublished. Inaccurate summary in Santschi, Régestes (nota 36), p. 324, Memoriali, no.1459, and inaccurate reference in Santschi, Contribution (nota 35), pp. 186 et seq.



sharply to the Greek attitude, yet omitted any reference to the Latins in thatcontext. One may wonder, therefore, whether the statement of JosephBryennios regarding the Jewish polluting touch, noted above, was inspiredby his long stay in Crete or whether it also represented a view commonamong Byzantine laymen175. The pollution motif appeared from the thir-teenth century onward in Catalonia and Provence, yet since there was nosignificant Christian immigration from these regions to the easternMediterranean it seems unlikely that Latins introduced it to formerByzantine territories. The diffusion of the motif in the West appears to rep-resent a separate development, promoted by the Latin Church in its endeav-or to strengthen Jewish social segregation176.

To conclude. Only few Cretan Jews resided permanently in rural settle-ments, despite continuous Jewish involvement in the economic life of thecountryside. They overwhelmingly lived in three cities along the northernshore of Crete, Candia, Retimo and Canea. This urban concentration con-tributed its share to the process of Jewish marginalization in the island.Significantly, the Venetian decrees dealing with Jewish residential segrega-tion and the limits of Jewish neighborhoods mainly or exclusively refer tothe three cities177. It appears, therefore, that the nature, extent and imple-mentation of these features were more limited in other local Jewries.

As elsewhere, the Cretan Jews displayed a tendency to aggregate, yet thestate fulfilled an important role in the interplay between them and theChristian communities. The restrictive and protective policies it applied tothe Jews underlined the latter’s specific condition, inferior to that of Latinand free Greek subjects178. It also emphasized the social cleavage betweenJews and Christians, enhanced by the emphasis on Jewish ‘otherness’ joint-ly promoted by the Greek Orthodox and the Latin Churches, despite somedifferences between their respective discourses and actions.

Social and cultural dynamics generated a partial symbiosis betweenLatins and Greeks in thirteenth and fourteenth-century Cretan cities, inwhich Jews mainly encountered and confronted their Greek and Latinneighbors on a daily base. Nevertheless, no similar process of acculturation

175 See above, n. 169. 176 Noël Coulet, “Juif intouchable” et interdits alimentaires, in Exclus et systèmes d’exclu-

sion dans la littérature et la civilisation médiévales = «Senefiance» (Aix-en-Provence) 5, 1978,pp. 207-221.

177 See above, n. 123.178 On free and unfree Greeks, see Jacoby, Social Evolution in Latin Greece (nota 6), pp.

207-214.

DAVID JACOBY274


occurred between Jews and Christians, whether individually or collectively.The tightly knit Jewish community remained isolated and segregated. Still,everyday economic ventures and cooperation, as well as various services pro-moted a continuous social interaction at the individual level between Jewsand Christians which, however, remained limited to utilitarian purposes. Attimes this interaction exacerbated individual hostility toward the Jews,although on the whole it opened the way to daily accommodation and some-what tempered ethnic tensions. On the other hand, it failed to alter Greek orLatin collective popular perceptions and attitudes regarding the Jews.

One may wonder whether the institutional aggressiveness displayed byan Italian inquisitor of the Roman Church against the Jews of Crete in theearly fourteenth century was representative of collective Latin attitudes inthe island, about which we are ill informed. In any event, individual Latinviolence appears to have been rather common around 1490 when, at therequest of the Jewry, the Latin bishop Girolamo Lando threatened toexcommunicate inhabitants and soldiers, obviously Latins, committing hos-tile acts against the Jews178. The bishop was also praised by the Jewish lead-ers for introducing other measures protecting them from Christian vio-lence179. The Greek interaction with Jews was also partly shaped by politicalcircumstances. The ‘colonial’ setting created by Venetian rule stimulatedGreek collective hostility against the Jews, yet its impact upon Greek-Jewishinteraction was rather limited, both in time and scope. More importantly, alatent anti-Semitism directed at the Jews as a community existed to varyingdegrees at all ranks of the Greek Orthodox and Latin Christian communi-ties of Crete. This hostility was basically rooted in collective religious, eth-nic and social attitudes, stereotypes and fantasies regarding the Jews, whichprovided a fertile ground for accusations such as ritual crucifixions.

179 Luigi Schiavi, Gli ebrei in Venezia e nelle sue colonie. Appunti storici su documenti editie inediti, in «Nuova Antologia» 131, 1893, pp. 489 et seq., without reference to sources.

180 Taqqanoth Qandyah (nota 9), p. 41, no. 46, lines 52-55.




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