Description
Book SynopsisReveals a fluid, often volatile society that transcended religious boundaries and attracted Jewish colonists from throughout the peninsula and beyond.
Trade ReviewRay examines the early development of Jewish communities in the various peninsular kingdoms during the transition from Muslim to Christian rule. He contends that the social, political, and economic factors of the frontier during the second half of the thirteenth century helped to create Jewish communities characterized by a high degree of fluidity.... Insightful and engaging.
* Booklist *
Using rabbinic sources and unpublished archives, Jonathan Ray brings Jewish settlement of the southern Iberian peninsula into clearer focus.... This interesting and lively book challenges the image of medieval Spanish and Portuguese society as invariably corporate and religious in its organization. The high medieval Iberian frontier, at least, was a place where the quest of individuals and families for financial and social opportunity took precedence over loyalty to rigidly defined confessional groups.
-- Jessica A. Coope * American Historical Review *
