Jewish Legislation

These laws are very one-dimensional overall. They just show the Christian perspective. Thanks to the dissertation by Elisheva Baumgarten,²³⁶it is possible to see the Jewish view as well. Baumgarten has traced Jewish family life through the various stages of the infant’s life such as birth, circumcision and nursing. Instead of conveying an internal perspective of Jewish family and community life, she has placed the emphasis on Judeo-Christian relations and thus provides interesting insights into the everyday coexistence of Jews and Christians. However, it should be noted that the author studied the Ashkenazic situation in Germany and northern France, with a focus on the High Middle Ages.

A comparison with the situation of the Sepharad on the Iberian Peninsula can therefore only be made to a limited extent. Nevertheless, I think such a study is worthwhile because, on the one hand, Baumgarten’s work concentrates in particular on the Halachic Responsa literature, which was also adopted by the Sephardi Jews, while, on the other, there is still no correspondingly detailed study on the Sephardic situation. According to Baumgarten, Christian wet nurses were part of everyday life in the Jewish household. In part, scholars found the non-Kosher diet of the Christian wet nurse or the Christian lullabies that the wet nurse sang to be problematic. In this context, however, Baumgarten raises the following objection:

“It is noteworthy that despite their objections [those of the rabbis] – whether it be fear for the soul and future Jewish character of the child, or concern for the parent’s educational authority, none of the sources state outright that Jews should not employ Christian wet nurses.”²³⁷ By contrast, some rabbinical scholars explicitly forbade the practice of placing the child in the household of a Christian wet nurse and thus in a Christian household.²³⁸ The background of the prohibitions and restrictions was, on the one hand, the fear that the Christian wet nurse could kill

234 “E la razon por que la eglesia e los emperadores e los reyes e los otros principes sofrieron a los judios beuir entre los cristianos es esta: por que ellos biuiessen como en catiuerio pora siempre e fuesse remembrança a los omnes que ellos uienen del linaje daquellos que crucificaron a Nuestro Sennor Jhesu Christo.” CARPENTER: Alfonso X and the Jews (see n. 227), 28.

235 Ibidem, 59.

236 Elisheva BAUMGARTEN: Mothers and Children: Jewish Family Life in Medieval Europe, Princeton 2007.

237 Ibidem, 138.

238 Ibidem, 140.

the child in the absence of supervision, and, on the other, from a Jewish point of view, the ritual-impure and non-Kosher lifestyle of the Christian household, which could negatively influence the child.

In this context, it is striking that several of the scholars quoted by Baumgarten speak of Christians being suspected of shedding blood.²³⁹If one considers the significance of blood as important, if not the most important impurity factor both within Tahara, ritual purity, and Kashrut, food laws, it is not surprising that the spilling of blood was regarded as particularly delicate and dangerous.

In everyday practice, however, Baumgarten can prove for the northern French region that Jewish parents certainly gave their children to the Christian households of the wet nurses. Since hiring a wet nurse in one’s own household was generally associated with considerably higher costs than giving the child to the wet nurse’s household, as Christiane Klapisch-Zuber could prove from the Florentine household diaries, thericordanze, for the transition from the Late Middle Ages to the Early Modern Age, it can be assumed that there was, above all, a financial motivation.²⁴⁰ Elisheva Baumgarten considers the economic aspect of choosing the wet nurse to be critical.²⁴¹

It remains unclear to what extent these findings can also be applied to the Iberian Peninsula.

The legal basis in the Late Middle Ages, theTaqqanotby the rabbi Abraham Benveniste, generally forbade a Christian from living in a Jewish household. Meyer Kayserling, who translated, annotated and published theTaqqanotunder the title of Das Castilianische Gemeindestatut²⁴²in German, de-scribes the influential position of Benveniste, who was not only appointed Court Rabbi,Rab de la Corte, in 1432, but also Chief Justice,Juez mayor, over all Sephardic communities in the Castilian Kingdom. In the same year, theTaqqanotwere enacted in Valladolid.²⁴³There it says:

“Further, we order that no Jew shall keep a Christian to serve nor may a Jew live permanently with a Christian in his house, either for pay or free of charge, because great tribulations may arise and will arise out of it, and in earlier times, when the communities enjoyed more peace and quiet, this arrangement was made by them.”²⁴⁴

This shows a clear ban and, moreover, the argument of conflict avoidance is used, as in the Christian legal texts of the Iberian Peninsula. In addition, reference is made to the tradition of such a ban.

Now it is necessary to address the question of which sources provide insight into the practical

239 Ibidem, 140.

240 KLAPISCH-ZUBER: Blood Parents and Milk Parents (see n. 144), 136.

241 BAUMGARTEN: Mothers and Children (see n. 236), 143.

242 The Castilian Community Statute.

243 Meyer KAYSERLING: Das Castilianische Gemeindestatut: Zugleich ein Beitrag zu den Rechts-, Rabbinats- und Gemeindeverhältnissen der Juden in Spanien, in: Jahrbuch für die Geschichte der Juden und des Judenthums 4 (1869), 263– 334, here 267, 291.

244 Translation of Meyer Kayserling’s German translation; “Otrosi ordonamos que ningun Judio non pueda tener pora que le sierva ó more con el dentro en su casa!תויבקבcristiana alguna!Mנחב לו רבשב לpor cuanto pueden nascer, y nascen grandes!תולקת; y en los!Mינומדק Mינמזque tenian mas!טקשהו הולשlos!וייצי תולהק, habia esta!הנקתentre ellos.” Ibidem, 319.

everyday life of a wet nurse on the Iberian Peninsula. José María Madurell Marimón²⁴⁵ published a total of 107 documents on late medieval employment contracts of Jews and New Christians in Barcelona from 1349 to 1416 in the journalSefarad. Among them are six wet nurse contracts, docu-ments 21, 41, 47, 49, 50 and 53.

Jewish wet nurses were employed for Jewish children in all cases. Christians are mentioned in the contracts only as witnesses or composers. The contracts were concluded between the child’s father and the husband of the wet nurse in ideal cases. However, there are already two exceptions among the six contracts. In one case, the child’s mother concluded the contract with the wet nurse’s husband (Doc. 41). In another case, the parties signing the contract were the father of the child’s mother and the wet nurse (Doc. 53), but with the permission of her husband, as explicitly stated in the text. The child’s father also confirmed the contract, but he did not appear as one of the main parties to the contract. In the mirror for princes by Antonio de Guevara, which Carolyn Nadeau studied, Guevara also claims that the mother selects the wet nurse and the father solely makes the decision as to whether or not a wet nurse should be employed at all.²⁴⁶ Such a practice cannot be seen in the late medieval wet nurse contracts from Barcelona.

In regard to the exact arrangements, the payments were quite different, and, in one case, no mention is made of the household in which the wet nurse breastfed the child (Doc. 53). All the wet nurses, more precisely the couple themselves, received monthly payments. However, additional one-off payments (Doc. 21 & 49) were made in some cases and should not be left out of consideration in a comparison. Furthermore, it is necessary to remember that food and lodging were provided by the employer when the wet nurse came into the household, but there are exceptions here too. For example, Juceffus (Doc. 21), whose wife Cici was to work as a wet nurse for the employer Abomario Isaachi in his household, promised that he would provide his wife with all the necessities during this time:

“I, the aforesaid Juceffus, promise you, under the aforesaid penalty [10 Barcelonesian pounds]

and, by virtue of the signed oath, that I will provide you [Abomario Isaachi] with the food and everything needed by my wife during the indicated period of eight months.”²⁴⁷

In this case, the employer only paid for the wet nurse’s accommodation, but not for her meals.

On the other hand, if the wet nurse had the child in her own household, it can also be found that the employer paid a residence allowance,logerium,²⁴⁸(Doc. 21 & 47) for the child.

245 José María MADURELL MARIMÓN: La contratación laboral judaica y conversa en Barcelona (1349 – 1416) I: Docu-mentos para su estudio, in: Sefarad 16 (1956), 33– 71; José María MADURELL MARIMÓN: La contratación laboral judaica y conversa en Barcelona (1349 – 1416) II: Documentos para su estudio (Continuación), in: Sefarad 16 (1956), 369 – 398; José María MADURELL MARIMÓN: La contratación laboral judaica y conversa en Barcelona (1349 – 1416) III: Documentos para su estudio (Conclusión), in: Sefarad 17 (1957), 73– 102.

246 NADEAU: Blood Mother/ Milk Mother (see n. 145), 166.

247 “Insuper ego dictus Juceffus, promito vobis, sub dicta pena [X librarum barchinonensium] et virtute juramenti subscripti, quod infra dictum tempus octo mensium providebo te uxore mee, in comestione et aliis sibi necessariis.”

MADURELL MARIMÓN: La contratación laboral judaica y conversa en Barcelona (1349 – 1416) I (see n. 245), 66.

248 Ibidem, 66.

However, two documents offer us a very direct comparison since they involve the same employer, Asquia de Millan, who tried to hire a wet nurse for his daughter Benadominam (Doc. 49)²⁴⁹ or Benadonam (Doc. 50).²⁵⁰ Despite the different spelling of the daughter’s name, it can be assumed, due to the proximity and sequence of the contracts, that this was the same infant since Document 49 was issued on February 14, 1387, with the contract being terminated by one party on March 1, and Document 50 was issued on March 11.

The first contract stipulated that Benadominam should be nursed with half the milk in the household of wet nurse Joyam and her husband Centou Guebbay, a die maker, “cum media lacte,”²⁵¹ whereby the wet nurse was also supposed to spend a few nights with the child in the household of the employer. For this service, the couple was to receive 20 Barcelonesian shillings per month and a one-off payment of 44 shillings on the celebration of Passover.

The second contract, by contrast, laid out that Benadonam would remain in the house of her father and be nursed by wet nurse Aster from there. For this, the wet nurse and her husband, the shoemaker Salamonus Issach, were to receive 26 shillings per month. The higher monthly salary could be due not only to residency in the employer’s household, but also to the fact that the infant was apparently nursed exclusively in the second case. A clear additional financial expenditure, as Klapisch-Zuber noted for Florence, cannot therefore be proven by the six documents from late medieval Barcelona for nursing in the employer’s household. Another reason could be that when the wet nurses had the child in their own household for nursing, they were in Barcelona, in the immediate urban environment and within easy reach of their employers. Klapisch-Zuber, however, compares, above all, the different payment of the wet nurses in the employer’s household with those who were in the greater Florentine area (within a radius of fifteen kilometers and beyond).²⁵² This example shows that these comparisons require caution and regional differences should not be underestimated. Such a comparison must sometimes be dared due to the extremely scarce sources.

The Jewish legal texts to date have exclusively dealt with the Christian wet nurse in a Jewish household. As for the reverse case, that of a Jewish wet nurse for a Christian child, the Talmudic treatiseAvodah Zara strictly forbade this. Medieval Halachic literature paid little attention to this phenomenon and only reflected the Talmudic position without further remarks or commentary.

Baumgarten could not find a single reference to such a case in everyday practice and comes to the conclusion:

“Jewish women were forbidden to serve as wet nurses for non-Jewish children under any circumstances. The reason for their absolute and complete denial of permission was theolog-ical – a Jewish woman who nursed the son of a gentile idol worshiper was helping to raise a future idol worshiper, a practice no Jew should abet. Finding such cases in medieval sources is difficult. Considering all the practical problems that might arise from such a situation, it is hard to imagine a situation in which Jewish women would work in Christian homes. One

249 MADURELL MARIMÓN: La contratación laboral judaica y conversa en Barcelona (1349 – 1416) II (see n. 245), 383–384.

250 Ibidem, 384.

251 Ibidem, 383.

252 KLAPISCH-ZUBER: Blood Parents and Milk Parents (see n. 144), 137.

can assume that such women, if they existed, were on the margins of Jewish society.”²⁵³ This ban was apparently also known in early modern Christian circles. Accordingly, the Italian Dominican Giovanni Ludovici Vivaldi († 1540)²⁵⁴reports of the atrocities that would be committed against the Christians according to the Jewish Talmud, and writes: “Because the Jewish woman commits a great sin when she nurses the son of Christians.”²⁵⁵

But if there were no Jewish wet nurses for Christian children, why did theCortes, the Provincial Synods and the Papacy repeatedly impose such bans? Was the legislation perhaps not based on everyday practice at all, but simply aimed at preventing any possibility of private contact between Jews and Christians, even hypothetical cases? Or were there regional differences? Should Sephardic wet nurses for Christian children have possibly been customary on the Iberian Peninsula, while the care of Christian children was unthinkable for Ashkenazic wet nurses in Germany and northern France?

The six wet nurse contracts of late medieval Barcelona do not contain such a case; not even New Christian employers appear here. Overall, only one can be found in the 107 employment contracts, a case where a Jewish goldsmith worked for a Christian employer (Doc. 5).²⁵⁶Christian witnesses, also in the wet nurse contracts, are not uncommon, by contrast. They can even be clergy, for example, with Document 47 naming the parish priest of the Church of Beata Maria of Mollet²⁵⁷ from the diocese Elne²⁵⁸Poncio de Conomines, “rectore eclesie beate Marie de Molleto, elnensis diocesis,”²⁵⁹ as witness.

That there were at least New Christian employers, however, is proven by an Inquisition trial, studied by Hering Torres, in the Aragonese kingdom, more precisely in Teruel, which was sought at the end of the 15th century against the merchant Luís Santángel and his wife Brianda Besante.

They were accused of secretly practicing the Jewish faith. For Brianda Besante, however, the fact that she had hired a Jewish wet nurse for her daughter became fatal.²⁶⁰This trial will be addressed in more detail later. In this context, it is initially only intended to serve as proof that there were at least Jewish wet nurses for New Christian children.

Furthermore, there is also evidence of a Christian wet nurse for a New Christian child in a regional

253 BAUMGARTEN: Mothers and Children (see n. 236), 143.

254 In regard to Giovanni Ludovici Vivaldi, see also chapter3. 4.3 The Special Case of Juan de Quiñones, since Quiñones cites him as one of his theological references.

255 “Etiam quia mulier iudea committit magnum peccatum in lactando filio christiani.” Johannes Ludovicus VIVALDUS:

Opus regale, Lyon: Stephano Gueynard, 1508, 181v.

256 See MADURELL MARIMÓN: La contratación laboral judaica y conversa en Barcelona (1349 – 1416) I (see n. 245), 43, 52–53.

257 This is presumably the place we know of as Mollet de Peralada today. The church no longer exists.

258 Elne is located in the Oriental Pyrenees and belongs to the French region of Languedoc-Roussillon today.

259 MADURELL MARIMÓN: La contratación laboral judaica y conversa en Barcelona (1349 – 1416) II (see n. 245), 382.

260 Max Sebastián HERING TORRES (ed.): Cuerpos anómalos, Bogotá 2008, 116; Max Sebastián HERING TORRES: Cuerpo, Misoginia y Raza. España y América en los siglos XVI–XVII, in: Yolanda AIXELÀ CABRÉ et al. (ed.): Desvelando el cuerpo, Madrid 2010, 145 – 156, here 151; Manuel SÁNCHEZ MOYA/Jasone MONASTERIO ASPIRI: Los judaizantes turolenses en el siglo XV. Continuación, in: Sefarad 32 (1972), 307 – 340, here 335.

study by Sara T. Nalle²⁶¹ on the Conversos of Sigüenza. The infant is Juan de Torres, an up-and-coming Converso in the highest service, who was persecuted by the Inquisition. Before it came to this, however, his father made every effort to enable his son to integrate as completely as possible – one could probably also speak of assimilation here – into Old Christian society. Accordingly, he sent his child to the countryside, to one of the villages near Sigüenza, and had an Old Christian wet nurse raise him there. Nalle also sees in this act a break with social taboos,²⁶² which shows even more strongly the Torres family’s desire to ensure the smooth inclusion of the child in Old Christian society if they were prepared to ignore social taboos. And the remarkable rise that Juan Torres initially enjoyed in his career seems to suggest that the family was right on this point. However, it cannot be ruled out that financial considerations did not play an additional role in the decision to send the child to a wet nurse in the countryside since the wet nurse in the countryside – whether a New or Old Christian – was probably the cheaper alternative to a wet nurse in the city.