is but seldom the dry bones of history, as viewed by the civil servants of the king, can be clothed with the flesh and blood of humanity.

A large proportion of these documents relate to the fiscal contributions of the Jews of the crown of Aragon. As in the rest of Europe, Aragonese Jews constituted indirect taxgatherers for their king, for whom they held their wealth in trust. By the aid of the documents which I have roughly calendared, it will be an easy task for the future student of Spanish annals, who will be fortunate enough to visit Barcelona, to determine the exact proportion of the king's wealth which was sweated out of Jewish usury.

I have myself copied and printed in an appendix several documents which give part of this information, especially one (App. VII.) which gives a sort of budget to the kingdom of Aragon for the year 1270.1 From this it appears their direct contributions only amounted to some three per cent. of the whole revenue. But it would be impossible to accept this as a full statement of the case, as it leaves out of account the individual contributions of the richer Jews which flowed almost daily into the treasury. Later on we shall see some evidence of the extent of this kind of tribute.

The deeds give a certain amount of information as to the occupations of the Jews of Aragon, though not so much as we should have desired. We hear of a broker (122), a dyer (128), a town clerk (258), horse dealers (260), money changers (264), moneyers (163, 361), sheep farmers (525), ship owners (466).

A Court doctor is mentioned in Nos. 400 and 1080, while on one occasion a Jewess is pardoned for prescribing medicines (1082).

1 The late M. Loeb was especially interested in this class of inquiries, and I therefore collected as much as I could on the details relating to the Jewish population of Aragon.

2 Another entry (504) gives the Jewish direct contribution at the much higher figure of 8 per cent. in 1270.

A large number of deeds are merely formal in character, dealing mainly with the king's mercantile transactions with his Jewish subjects. The list given below contains sufficient indication of the character and extent of these deeds.1

These deeds, like similar ones we shall have to note of Pamplona, are of the greatest possible importance in studying the mercantile development of Europe and the early history of European banking.

Very few of the deeds deal with criminal offences (234, 515, 550, 632), though a certain number are connected with cases of false evidence (234, 237, 434).

It is not often that the religious aspect of the Jewish question presents itself in these documents, though of course it really underlies the whole series. The chief entries of interest on this subject relate mainly to the preaching of the Friars to the Jews, or their disputations with them. The Jews do not appear to have been very willing hearers of sermons-at least, from Christian Friars -since it needed the services of the judges to cause them to attend either Franciscans (244) or Dominicans (247), while the Jews of Barcelona were ultimately freed from the infliction altogether (424, 426).

Full details are given of the celebrated disputation between Pablo Christiani and Moses Nachmanides. One and one only of these was known to Graetz from Boffarul (Geschichte VII., 418).2 But besides this deed there are

1 Balance-sheet: 183, 329, 332, 338, 367, 368, 369, 370, 385, 390, 391, 465, 468, 469, 498, 513, 519, 520, 562, 564, 569, 574, 577, 579, 600, 617, 618, 621, 722. Debitorio: 130, 134, 144, 156, 158, 159, 167, et pass. Receipt: 164a, 208, 221, 224, 297, 326, 328, 340, 347, 348, 349, 356, 357, 363, 371, 372, 376, 378, 406, 415, 420, 434a, 453, 559. Confirmation : 516, 726, 727, 1716. Consigna: 350, 352, 354, 355, 359, 360, 367, 368, 380, 384, 373, 516, 623, 702. Donation : 267, 291, 294, 407, 422, 463, 471, 475, 512, 521, 526, 534, 711, 733, 607. Pledge: 266, 269, 272, 405, 447, 535, 548, 565, 713, 725. Promissory note: 580, 731, 738. Pensions: 400, 403, 407, 422, 444, 605, 651, 659, 1105.

Since my visit Père Denifle has published others. See Revue des Études Juives, t. xv. p. 16 seq.

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several pardoning Nachmanides for his "blasphemies" during the disputation (289, 321, 323); while other deeds, in which he occurs under the name of " Astrugo Ravay," show in what favour he was held by the king, who absolved him from all tribute for the rest of his life (319). Others show that he was possessed of considerable means (313, 314, 320, 322, 430, 490). I have given in an appendix to my book the deed in which the king pardons Nachmanides for his blasphemy on account of the favour in which his majesty held his brother, Benvenist de Porta.

It was doubtless in connection with this disputation that a general order was issued to the Jews not to disturb the preaching of Pablo Christiano. Orders were at the same time given that passages of blasphemous character were to be expunged from Jewish books (248, 278). It was on this account doubtless that the writings of Maimonides ("Moyses hijo de Maymon Egipnachus," sic) were ordered to be burnt; it was stated that these works were entitled Soffrim" (243). Somewhat later the Jews of Aragon got free from the Censorship by favour of the king, who ordered that their books need not be submitted to the Dominicans (325).

The above-mentioned Benveniste de Porta, brother of Nachmanides, was one of several Jews who figure largely in the transactions of the time. He was appointed bailiff in several towns of Aragon, and a large number of deeds exist connected with his transactions with the king. Of even greater importance was Jahudan de Cavalleria, who was bailiff of Barcelona itself for many years, and was undoubtedly the Rothschild of Aragon during his lifetime. Materials exist in my collections for determining the part played by this merchant prince in the consolidation of Aragon under James the Conqueror. A third name of almost equal importance is that of Astrugo Jacob Xixon.

One of the most interesting documents to which I obtained access was one relating to the family history of Don Chasdai Crescas, Jewish philosopher and contro

versialist. The late Dr. Joel has proved conclusively that Spinoza owed much that was peculiar and significant in his philosophy to the influence of Crescas' philosophical work, Or Adonai (Light of the Lord). Any detail relating to him must be regarded as of special interest, not alone to Jewish history, but in the general history of European speculation. It is by a mere chance that I fell upon the trail of the document. As I have before mentioned, the indexes to the later documents at Barcelona are very defec-. tive; so much so that I have not thought it worth while even to print the majority of the items I gleaned from these later indexes. They are arranged alphabetically, and I confined my attention to extracting the one item, "Judios"; but, after I had extracted this, I thought it would be worth while giving a cursory glance to the remaining letters of the alphabet, and I did not go unrewarded. Under the very first letter there is an entry relating to "Azday Cresques," which obviously related to the great philosopher. I have given it at length-and it is very lengthy in the appendix to my calendar, and may summarise the effect of the long legal terminology in this place. It is a confirmation by John of Aragon, dated December 5th, 1393, of a privilege granted by his consort at Tortosa on the 15th of November of the same year. It appears from the document that Chasdai Crescas had been one of the executors of the will of his uncle Vitalis Azday, that owing to the disappearance of his co-trustees the estate of the deceased had got in bad order, and Crescas had, the document informs us, applied to the Queen for powers to administrate himself. These powers she grants, and her grant is confirmed by her royal consort. Crescas does not appear to be personally interested in his uncle's will, for the property seems to have been all left to the Jewish poor. It consisted of five tenements at Gerona, the locality and abuttals of each being given.

1 In the liste nominative of 1392, this appears as Atzay Cresques.

These seem to have brought in a modest rental of £2. 4s. 6d. in all, though that sum would probably have to be multiplied by twenty to represent the corresponding value at the present day in Spain, and probably by twenty-five to give some idea of the amount of services and commodities which could be obtained for a similar sum in the contemporary England of to-day. It is obvious, from the terms of the deed and from the result of Crescas' petition, that he was in favour with both the King and Queen of Aragon. We shall see, when we come to Pamplona, that he enjoyed equal favour at the Court of Navarre.1

A few miscellaneous items in the Calendar may be here referred to before summarising the general aspects of the deeds. When the Jews were expelled from France in 1306 permission was given to those of Aragon to receive their persecuted coreligionists (752, 756). It is curious to observe that the executioner's fees were in one case contributed to the erection of Jewish Schools. We find Jews acting as guides to Saracens, but the king had his account in this, and license had to be obtained from him for that purpose (155). Certain articles of furniture were free from seizure for debt (152).

I will now proceed to sum up, somewhat in the form of a Code, various regulations for the Jews of Aragon which can be extracted from the Barcelona deeds. These of course could be largely supplemented from fueros and statutes which exist in print, and many of which are referred to simply as Statutos de Judios in my collections.2 To these have to be added two charters of privileges (149, 414). But statutes may be passed without being observed, whereas in the following list of enactments we have tolerably certain evidence that they were in actual operation.

'I have noted a couple of deeds referring to the commercial transactions of Solomon Adret (215,713). I have printed one of them in Appendix III. * 195, 198, 210, 254, 255, 256, 261, 265, 271, 306, 310, 311, 316, 550, 587, 588, 720, 750, 765.