Interfaith Iberia

Interfaith love, sex, and marriage in medieval Iberia When the Umayyads conqured the Visigoths in 711, they began almost eight centuries of coexistence between Muslims, Christians, and Jews in the Iberian peninsula. That coexistence was not always easy. As Christian and Muslim rulers fought over control of the peninsula, they structured societies where members of their religion had legal supremacy over members of minority groups. Still, Jews, Muslims, and Christians did coexist – working, socializing, and even occasionally falling in love with one another. This project explores the [[legal norms-> Legal]] surrounding interfaith relationships as well as the [[cultural meanings->Cultural]] with which they were invested. It also considers how [[individuals-> Individuals]] navigated love and desire in the landscapes these norms and meanings shaped. You can navigate this project by clicking on the blue links. Click the links at the bottom of each page to return to the introduction to the page's thread or just explore by following the links within the text. --- [[Bibliography->bib]] Project created by Claire McMahon Fishman ([email protected]).

Iberia’s laws do not describe exactly what its societies were like, but they do express what lawmakers wanted the society to be: what concerned, scared, or angered them. While Christians and Muslims each imposed their own legal systems in areas they controlled, each also gave latitude to minority religions. Under [[Islamic law]], Christians and [[Jews->Jewish]] were considered dhimmi communities and were allowed to be self-governing except in cases which involved other religious groups or violations of Islamic law. [[Muslims->Mudejar]] and [[Jews->Jewish]] similarly had some ability to operate under their own laws rather than [[canon]] or [[civil]] law in Christian areas. The legal reasoning for this freedom was different, however. Rather than being considered members of a protected group, Jews and Muslims were technically slaves of the king – his “royal treasure” – and thus legally could not be harmed except by the king’s order. --- [[Bibliography->bib]] - [[Return to introduction->Welcome ]]

Whether because of love, lust, or as an unfortunate side effect of conversion, many Iberians found themselves engaged in relationships with members of other faiths. Many - like Oro de Par, a Jewish Zaragozan woman whose community sought to disfigure and exile for having sex with Muslims and Christians or [[Amiri->M/J]], a Muslim woman enslaved for her interfaith liaisons – [[were punished->enforcement]] for their transgressions of societal norms. Some, like a young Muslim woman who left her father’s house and converted to marry her Jewish lover, [[converted->convert]] to be with the one they loved (or lusted after). Others, usually men, found loopholes in the law, [[having sex with enslaved women, taking concubines,->slaves]] or else taking advantage of [[the legal ambiguity over sex between members of minority groups->M/J]]. Jewish Abulfacem and Axona, his Muslim concubine, took advantage of multiple of these. When they were arrested, they appealed to the king together, and he ruled that their relationship was allowable since neither was Christian. [[A few managed to get away with just plain flouting the law.->luck]] --- [[Bibliography->bib]] - [[Return to introduction->Welcome ]]

Christian civil law Like [[canon lawyers->canon]], civil Christian lawmakers in Christian ruled areas paid more attention to interfaith relationships after the twelfth century due to increased concern over mixing between Christians and non-Christians. While before many law codes had neglected to mention interfaith sex at all, local laws in places like Teruel and Cuenca now dictated that Christian women and Muslim or Jewish men discovered having sex together should be burned alive. Law varied over the peninsula though, with some areas either enforcing lesser punishments or not mentioning the subject at all. [[Enforcement->enforcement]] also varied from town to town. One near universal was that unlike [[canon lawyers->canon]], civil lawmakers focused on sex between Christian women and non-Christians, either ignoring [[sex between Christian men and non-Christians->dominance]] or according it a lesser punishment. In the 13th century, King Alfonso X created a law code for the entire kingdom of Castile which included a provision condemning all Jews who had sex with Christian women to death. The code compared sex with Christian women to adultery, stating that all Christian women were “spiritually espoused to Our Lord Jesus Christ by virtue of the faith and baptism they received in His name”. (1) Alfonso X thus specifically identified Christian women as the locus of concern over interfaith sex. While Christian men were also baptized, only Christian women were responsible for upholding Christian honor by not making Christ a cuckold. Lawmakers not only policed Christian men less; they also gave them loopholes. Under Alfonso X’s law code, unmarried Christian men could take free or enslaved women of any religion as [[concubines->slaves]]. (1) Dwayne E. Carpenter, trans., Alfonso X and the Jews: An Edition of and Commentary on Siete Partidas 7.24 “De Los Judíos,” University of California Publications in Modern Philology, v. 115 (Berkeley University of California Press, 1986), 35. --- [[Bibliography->bib]] - [[Return to main section-> Legal]]

Canon law The Catholic Church banned its members from marrying non-Christians as well as having sex with them. The ban on intermarriage had existed since the early days of the Church. The punishment for violating it was technically excommunication, though this appears to have been rarely [[enforced->enforcement]]. While prohibitions on intermarriage had long roots, beginning in the eleventh century canon lawyers not only created new writings reiterating the ban but also explicitly outlawed any sexual contact between Christians and non-Christians. They reasoned that if other forms of interfaith social contact like eating together were banned, then surely earlier Church leaders had also intended to ban interfaith sex. The Church also showed [[an increased interest in segregating religious groups,->difference]] concerned that social interactions would lead to sex. While this increased scrutiny began in canon law, it also spread to [[civil law->civil]]. This increase occurred because of increased anxiety over interfaith mixing. As social and economic interaction and assimilation between Christians, Jews, and Muslims increased, Church leaders feared that a rise in interfaith sex would inevitably follow, causing [[apostasy]]. --- [[Bibliography->bib]] - [[Return to main section-> Legal]]

Islamic law Classical Islamic law as followed both in al-Andalus (Muslim Iberia) and in [[Muslim communities under Christian control->Mudejar]] did allow Muslim men to marry Jewish and Christian women. As both Judaism and Christianity share holy texts with Islam, they were considered to be linked. Non-Muslim wives held virtually the same legal rights as a Muslim wife would have. This meant that not only could a Muslim man marry a Jew or Christian, but men who [[converted->convert]] to Islam did not have to divorce their non-Muslim spouse. The law also permitted Muslim men to have sex with [[female slaves->slaves]]. The law; however, forbade Muslim women from marrying non-Muslims or having sexual relationships with slaves. Violating the law could lead to corporal punishment, imprisonment, or even execution. Only men were allowed to intermarry because legal scholars assumed that husbands controlled their households. Thus, a Muslim man could have a Muslim household and raise Muslim [[children]] (and was in fact required to) even if his wife was not Muslim, while a Muslim woman married to a non-Muslim was presumed to have to defer to her husband’s wishes. This legal reasoning reflects a desire to preserve Muslim [[dominance]] by avoiding a situation which would make a Muslim subordinate to a non-Muslim. However, while Muslim scholars acknowledged that men were allowed to intermarry, many did not encourage it. They worried that intimate contact between Muslims and non-Muslims would corrupt both [[the Muslims involved->apostasy]] and [[the community as a whole->difference]]. --- [[Bibliography->bib]] - [[Return to main section-> Legal]]

Jewish law While medieval Iberian Jewish or Sephardi law forbade both marriage and sex with non-Jews, this had not always been the case in Jewish communities. The Hebrew bible or Tanakh, the earliest and most authoritative source of Jewish law, did not have a general prohibition on marriage with non-Jews, only forbidding marriage with specific Canaanite nations. The prohibitions on interfaith sex and marriage stemmed instead from the Talmud, codified in the 6th century. The rabbis who created the Talmud outlawed interfaith marriage because they feared that if a Jew had a relationship with someone who engaged in idolatry and other practices they considered immoral, they or [[their children->children]] would be led astray as well. While considered actually less serious due to its casual nature, sex with non-Jews was also forbidden by the rabbis. The rabbis even took a story of an Israelite man, Phineas, killing a Midianite woman and Israelite man he found having sex as precedent for allowing others to immediately kill those they find engaging in interfaith sex if they found themselves overcome by moral outrage. Medieval Jewish leaders shared the ancient rabbis fear of [apostasy]. Maimonides, the influential Sephardi philosopher, noted his approval of Phineas’ actions. Sephardi leaders both [[enforced->enforcement]] and expanded restrictions against interfaith relationships, specifically outlawing sex with [[non-Jewish slaves or concubines->slaves]]. While Jewish communities in both Christian and Muslim controlled parts of Iberia had some autonomy, they also had to contend with both [[Christian->civil]] and [[Islamic->Islamic law]] law, which often [[contradicted their own rules->M/J]]. --- [[Bibliography->bib]] - [[Return to main section-> Legal]]

Islamic law in Mudejar communities Muslim communities under Christian rule, known as Mudejars, continued to follow [[classical Islamic law->Islamic law]] in their law codes, permitting men but not women to marry and sleep with non-Muslims. However, due to [[Christian prohibitions->civil]] on sex between non-Christians and Christians, Mudejar communities could not [[in practice->enforcement]] completely follow the parts of the law codes allowing Muslim men to have interfaith relationships. This reality was reflected in the 1462 Breviario Sunni from Segovia, a handbook of religious instruction, which dictated that no Muslim regardless of gender should “sleep with nor marry infidels”. Mudejars also had to contend with [[Christian laws which allowed sexual behavior they themselves prohibited->M/J]]. --- [[Bibliography->bib]] - [[Return to main section-> Legal]]

Difference Enforcing restrictions on interfaith sex and relationships required the ability to tell what religion someone belonged to. In an era of increasing social assimilation, this was not always a simple task. Muslim jurists wrote opinions about what a Muslim man should do if he unknowingly married a Christian woman, mistaking her for a Muslim – suggesting that such a scenario was considered possible. Similarly, [[Christian prostitutes->prostitute]] in Christian Iberia accused of sex with a non-Christian could use the argument that they believed their client was Christian as a defense. In an attempt to make boundaries clearer, both al-Andalus and Christian Iberia required members of minority religions to wear distinctive clothing, though such rules were rarely strictly [[enforced->enforcement]]. In 1215, the Church [[required->canon]] Jews to wear a distinctive cape and colored cloth circle. A [[thirteenth century Castilian law code->civil]] echoed the Council, dictating that Jews wear a “distinctive mark” because “many errors and offensive acts occur between Christian men and Jewish women and between Christian women and Jewish men as a consequence of their living together in cities and dressing alike” (1). Concerns about distinguishing between members of different religions were not just caused by the need to enforce bans on interfaith sex and relationships – they were also themselves a cause of those bans. All three religions believed that they were set apart from others. Jews believed that they had a unique relationship with God, that in the words of Sephardi philosopher Maimonides, “the Omnipresent One has sanctified us and separated us from the heathens” (2). Muslims similarly viewed themselves as a united community dedicated to the teachings of the Prophet, a solidarity scholars worried [[intermarriage could threaten->apostasy]]. Christianity took this rhetoric of difference to the furthest extreme. Beginning in the twelfth century, rulers across Christian Europe increased restrictions on non-Christians, setting them apart from Christians as part of an increasing belief that those who were not part of the Church were essentially subhuman. (1) Dwayne E. Carpenter, trans., Alfonso X and the Jews: An Edition of and Commentary on Siete Partidas 7.24 “De Los Judíos,” University of California Publications in Modern Philology, v. 115 (Berkeley University of California Press, 1986), 36. (2) David Nirenberg, Communities of Violence Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996), 134. --- [[Bibliography->bib]] - [[Return to main section->Cultural]]

Enforcement Laws are rarely enforced exactly as given, and medieval Iberia was no exception. Some laws, like [[prohibitions on interfaith social contact->canon]], had little energy put into their enforcement. Others were on the books but were in fact unenforceable, like [[Mudejar communities’ allowance of sex between Muslim men and Christian women->Mudejar]]. Punishments were also softened in practice. Instead of excommunicating Christians who married non-Christians as [[canon law->canon]] proscribed, the Church more frequently just voided the couple’s marriage and forced them to separate. Similarly, the majority of those found guilty of interfaith sex under [[civil law->civil]] were not executed but rather forced to pay a fine. That does not mean; however, that no one suffered the extreme consequences many laws about interfaith relationships dictated. Both Mudejar and Jewish communities in Christian Iberia often insisted on carrying out harsh punishments against women accused of interfaith sex, even as [[Jewish men frequently escaped punishment from the Jewish community for having sex with Muslim women.->luck]] Enforcement of civil law also varied. Convictions were rare, partially because it was widely acknowledged that many accusations of interfaith sex were actually opportunistic. When punishments were carried out, it was generally against members of the community who lacked social standing and protection like [[prostitutes->prostitute]]. By making an example of prostitutes and others on the margins of society, Christian Iberian communities could reinforce their stability by demonstrating the consequences of deviating from social norms. --- [[Bibliography->bib]] - [[Return to main section-> Legal]]

Christian prostitutes In the fourteenth century, the Jews of Daroca, a town in Christian Iberia, complained that Christian prostitutes lived near the route they had to take to draw water from the river, a situation they feared would leave them open to accusations of interfaith sex. They were not wrong to be worried, as the vast majority of accusations of sex between Christians and non-Christians [[involved prostitutes->enforcement]]. There are few existent records at all of accusations against married women or women otherwise in good standing in their communities. In medieval Christian Iberian communities, Christian prostitutes not only embodied [[a boundary between Christian and non-Christian->difference]] but were responsible for enforcing that boundary, as they faced consequences up to [[being burned alive->civil]] if found guilty of knowingly having a non-Christian client. There are an array of reasons why prostitutes were the most likely to be accused. Other cases might have been less likely to reported, perhaps due to the embarrassment of husbands. Or perhaps other Christian women simply had less opportunity to have sex with non-Christians, given increasingly strict social restrictions. However, Christian anxieties over interfaith sex also fell specifically on prostitutes because of what they represented. For many Christians, [[the satirical Galician-Portuguese story of a Christian prostitute who had sex with a Christian, Muslim, and Jew all in the same day->descriptive]] would have been their worst nightmare. Medieval people believed that vaginal intercourse created a bond between those involved. In their view, ejaculating inside a vagina was akin to the man and woman mixing blood and formed a familial relationship akin to that between two relatives or a godparent and godchild. They thus became related not only to each other but to everyone else with whom their partner had slept. In this view, a prostitute was a hub linking together all her clients. If she had sex with a non-Christian, that ad hoc community would be [[contaminated->apostasy]]. --- [[Bibliography->bib]] - [[Return to main section->Cultural]]

[[Elite lawmakers-> Legal]] were not the only ones in medieval Iberia anxious about interfaith relationships. Many Iberians worried about their coreligionists having sex or a relationship with members of other religions. Their concerns reflected fears about [[faith->apostasy]], power, and [[identity->difference]]. Despite these myriad worries, [[sex and love did occur between members of different religions-> Individuals]]. Literature reflected both these realities. Some works simply demonstrated [[the existence of interfaith sex and love->descriptive]]. Others used interfaith relationships, particularly those between Christian men and Jewish women, as [[metaphors for relations betwen religions->dominance]]. --- [[Bibliography->bib]] - [[Return to introduction->Welcome ]]

Interfaith sex in Iberian literature Major Garcia, [[a Christian prostitute->prostitute]], is a recurring character in the Galician-Portuguese cantigas d’escarnho e de mal dizer, a collection of satirical stories. In one story, desperate to repay her debt to a Christian squire, she has sex with him, a Jew, and a Muslim – all on the same day. Works like the cantigas d’escarnho and [[the poems of Todros Abulafia->Abulafia]] demonstrated that despite [[legal restrictions->civil]], people understood interfaith sex as something that occurred in Iberia society. In the ending of the story, Major becomes pregnant, but it is of course unclear which client is the father. There are a variety of ways [[the child’s->children]] religious status could be interpreted. Actual prostitutes in Major’s position would likely have raised the child themselves in their religion – in Major’s case, Christianity. Under [[Islamic law]], however, if the Muslim was understood to be the father, the child would be legally Muslim. And while the child would not be considered Jewish under [[Jewish law->Jewish]], if Major had lived in Muslim Iberia or had been Muslim instead of Christian, the Jewish community would likely have tried [[to convert her and the child->M/J]]. Major’s baby could thus be understood to have a tie to all three religions. Despite [[the clear boundaries that the law often tried to draw between religious identities,->difference]] the story of Major and her baby demonstrates that religious identity could in practice be ambiguous. --- [[Bibliography->bib]] - [[Return to main section->Cultural]]

Enslaved women and concubines Slaves were a feature of society of across Iberia, and many men had sex either with their own slaves or with other men’s slaves. [[Islamic law]] allowed men but not women to have sex with enslaved women, though it did not permit Christians or Jews to enslave Muslims and required that Muslims raise any [[children]] they had with their slaves as Muslims. Similarly, [[Christian civil law->civil]] allowed unmarried men to take either an enslaved or free woman as a concubine. While Jews owned slaves from the other minority religion in both Christian and Muslim Iberia, [[Jewish law->Jewish]] prohibited sex with slaves. Due to concern about sexual relationships, women were actually banned from owning male slaves. Jewish leaders also worried about Jewish men violating the rule against sex with slaves. One source of their concern was that since Jewish descent is traditionally matrilineal, [[any children Jewish men had with enslaved women->children]] would not be legally Jewish. Community leaders worked to prevent sex with slaves by reiterating and expanding existent rules against it. Men who had sex with slaves could be flogged, have their heads shaved, and be excommunicated for thirty days. However, despite the prohibitions against it, many Jewish men both slept with their Muslim slaves and made free Muslim women their concubines. In Zaragoza, a Jewish man was accused of poisoning his son because they had both fallen in love with one of their Muslim slaves and the son was threatening to convert to Christianity if his father did not leave her alone. Some Jewish fathers attempted to prevent their daughter’s husbands from cheating by including a monogamy clause in their ketubah, or marriage contract. This was not always effective. One Aragonese husband just ignored the clause, leaving his wife for a concubine. His wife, Durona, did pursue legal action though, having her husband imprisoned, and after losing an appeal, ultimately bringing the case all the way to the king. When Jewish men did have relationships with slaves or concubines or impregnated them, community leaders often tried to force them to free, [[convert]], and marry the women. This often led to [[conflict with Muslim communities->M/J]] who sought to prevent both the conversions and sex between Jewish men and Muslim women more generally. --- [[Bibliography->bib]] - [[Return to main section-> Individuals]]

Apostasy and purity In [[the story of King Alfonso XVIII and his lover the Jewess of Toledo->dominance]], God punishes Alfonso for his transgression of [[Christian law->canon]] with military defeat. The story describes Alfonso as inconsolable about his lover’s death until an angel chastises him and leaves behind a good smelling scent, suggesting that the Jewess’ corrupting influence extended beyond Alfonso’s faith to his very person. Christians were not alone in their fears that interfaith relationships would lead believers to sin. Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Iberians’ anxieties about interfaith sex and marriage were rooted in worry about not only apostasy, deviation from the faith, but also bodily impurity. Apostasy motivated restrictions on interfaith sex and marriage in all three religions. Christian fear that increased social integration between religions would create more opportunities for intimate relationships and thus apostasy helped motivate [[increased attention to outlawing interfaith sex after the eleventh century->canon]]. Concern that marriage with non-Jews would lead to apostasy similarly motivated [[Jewish law’s->Jewish]] ban on intermarriage. And while intermarriage was legal for Muslim men under [[Islamic law]], many Muslim jurists in al-Andalus did worry that increased intermarriage and the close contact with non-Muslims it entailed would cause Muslims to deviate from correct religious practice and ultimately lead to the End Times. Iberians worried that intimate association with non-believers would corrupt not only believers’ faith but their very bodies. This is reflected in [[canon law->canon]], which allowed betrothal between Christian men and non-Christian women but forbade consummation until the woman’s [[conversion->convert]] was formalized. The prohibition on consummation until after baptism would not have been necessary if canon lawyers’ only concern was with the risk of apostasy – rather, it reflected a fear that non-believers’ bodies could contaminate believers. Jewish law similarly believed that non-Jews were in some ways ritually impure, according them a similar status to those with gonorrhea. Some Jewish families who employed Christian wet-nurses forbade the nurses from suckling their infants for three days after receiving Communion for fear they would pass the impurity through their breastmilk. Muslim jurists were similarly concerned that relationships with non-Muslim loved ones could make Muslims impure. They produced copious writings on how Muslims should navigate activities with non-Muslim family members, ranging from whether they could participate in their funerals to whether they could walk with them to their places of worship. --- [[Bibliography->bib]] - [[Return to main section->Cultural]]

Bibliography [[Return to introduction->Welcome ]] Ali, Kecia. Sexual Ethics and Islam Feminist Reflections on Qur’an, Hadith, and Jurisprudence. Oxford: Oneworld, 2006. Barton, Simon. Conquerors, Brides, and Concubines : Interfaith Relations and Social Power in Medieval Iberia. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015. Blackmore, Josiah, and Gregory S. Hutcheson, eds. Queer Iberia: Sexualities, Cultures, and Crossings from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. Durham, NC: Duke University Press Books, 1999. Brann, Ross. The Compunctious Poet : Cultural Ambiguity and Hebrew Poetry in Muslim Spain. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991. Brundage, James A. “Intermarriage between Christians and Jews in Medieval Canon Law.” Jewish History 3, no. 1 (Spring 1988): 25–40. Burger, Michael S., ed. “Maimonides on Sex and Marriage.” In Marriage, Sex, and Family in Judaism. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2005. Carpenter, Dwayne E., trans. Alfonso X and the Jews: An Edition of and Commentary on Siete Partidas 7.24 “De Los Judíos.” University of California Publications in Modern Philology, v. 115. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986. Cole, Peter, ed. The Dream of the Poem: Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain, 950-1492. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009. Coope, Jessica A. The Martyrs of Córdoba: Community and Family Conflict Inan Age of Mass Conversion. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995. Epstein, Louis M. Marriage Laws in the Bible and the Talmud. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1942. ———. Sex Laws and Customs in Judaism. New York: Bloch Pub. Co., 1948. Melammed, Renée Levine, ed. “Sephardi Women in the Medieval and Early Modern Periods.” In Jewish Women in Historical Perspective. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1991. Melammed, Renée Levine, Jonathan, ed. “The Jewish Woman in Medieval Iberia.” In The Jew in Medieval Iberia: 1100 - 1500. Boston: Acad. Studies Press, 2012. Mirrer, Louise. Women, Jews, and Muslims in the Texts of Reconquest Castile. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996. Nirenberg, David. Communities of Violence Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996. ———. “Love Between Muslim and Jew in Medieval Spain: A Triangular Affair.” In Jews, Muslims, and Christians in and around the Crown of Aragon: Essays in Honour of Professor Elena Lourie, 127–55. Leiden, Netherlands; Boston: Brill, 2004. http://site.ebrary.com/id/10089751. Safran, Janina M. Defining Boundaries in Al-Andalus: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Islamic Iberia. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013. Tartakoff, Paola. Between Christian and Jew : Conversion and Inquisition in the Crown of Aragon, 1250-1391. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012. Zorgati, Ragnhild Johnsrud. Pluralism in the Middle Ages: Hybrid Identities, Conversion, and Mixed Marriages in Medieval Iberia. Routledge Research in Medieval Studies 2. New York: Routledge, 2012.

Conversion The categories of Jew, Christian, and Muslim were not always stable. All three groups allowed – and often encouraged – non-members to join through conversion. In both Christian and Muslim Iberia, members of the majority religion were not allowed to convert to a different religion, but members of minority religions could convert to the majority religion. [[Conversions between minority religions->M/J]] were also sometimes allowed, though their legal status was murkier. For many conversion was a solution to the problems caused by interfaith relationships. Both Christianity and Judaism encouraged conversion as a way to regularize otherwise illegal or disreputable relationships. Many non-Christians accused of sex with Christians converted [[to escape punishment->enforcement]] under [[Christian civil law->civil]]. Canon law also permitted non-Christian women to be betrothed to Christian men [[as long as they converted before consummating the marriage->apostasy]]. [[Both the Muslim and Jewish communities in Christian Iberia also encouraged (or coerced) men having sex with women of the other group to convert and marry the women.->M/J]] Individuals also sometimes found more creative ways to use conversion. Legal writings of thirteenth century Barcelona Rabbi Solon ben Avraham ibn Aderet tell of a married Judaism woman who converted to Christianity in order to get a divorce from her Jewish husband. She then promptly moved with her Jewish lover to Toledo, where they lived as married Jews. As that story suggests, conversion could also create interfaith relationships. [[Islamic law]] required female converts to leave non-Muslim spouses but allowed male converts to stay with their non-Muslim wives as long as [[any children under seven were raised as Muslims->children]]. Christian law required all converts to leave their spouses, though it did permit them to remarry and generally gave them [[preferential custody over any children->children]]. This could pose problems for Jewish women whose husbands converted, who often found themselves separated from not only their spouse but their children. Additionally, even though rabbis encouraged women married to converts to, in the words of Rabbi ben Avraham ibn Aderet, run away from their husbands like “one runs away from a snake,” under Jewish law, women could not be legally divorced unless their husbands consented, something convert husbands were not always willing to do (1). Like the rabbis concerned about convert husbands affecting their Jewish wives, both Christians and Muslims worried about converts being [[corrupted->apostasy]] by loved ones of other religions. Additionally, even if they still loved their convert spouses, some Jewish women may also have feared being held responsible under Christian civil law for their husband’s [[“re-Judaizing"->apostasy]] if they stayed in close contact with him. (1) Paola Tartakoff, Between Christian and Jew : Conversion and Inquisition in the Crown of Aragon, 1250-1391 (Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012), 113. --- [[Bibliography->bib]] - [[Return to main section-> Individuals]]

Children from interfaith relationships Muslims, Christians, and Jews were all concerned with ensuring that children from relationships between their coreligionists and people from other religions would be raised in their religion – even when they did not approve of the relationship itself. Under [[Islamic law,->Islamic law]] a core rationale for why men were permitted to have interfaith relationships was the assumption they would be able to raise their children as Muslims. Even male [[converts->convert]] were required to raise their kids as converts if the child was younger than seven at the time of the conversion. Children Muslim men had with [[enslaved women->slaves]] were also legally born both free and Muslim, and their enslaved mothers could not be legally sold or given away. Christian lawmakers were similarly concerned with ensuring that children Christians had with non-Christians were raised as Christians. Men could even legitimize children they had with [[non-Christian concubines->slaves]]. The law also favored [[converts->convert]] in custody issues if their spouse refused to convert. One convert, Pablo Christiani, was chastised by a former friend for the pain he had caused his wife when he had left her and raised their children as converts. The friend wrote, “You have not had mercy on your wife, your faultless pigeon…. While she still nested on her chicks, you took her children [from] under her wings and removed them from their tradition. You shaved them, and you changed their garments. All of this (your wife’s) eyes saw and her ears heard. Woe to her eyes that saw this! Woe to her ears that heard this!.... Who shall console (her)?’” (1). Jewish leaders were often dismayed by the idea of Jews having children with non-Jews, especially since under Jewish law descent was matrilineal. The subject could provoke intense passions; in 1311, Jewish men murdered their sister who had married a Christian after learning she was pregnant. Concern over children with Jewish heritage being non-Jews motivated Jewish leaders to seek to prevent Jewish men from having sex with [[slaves]]. As Jewish philosopher Maimonides opined, “for the son of a slave woman is a slave and not an Israelite; thus one causes holy seed to be profaned and become slaves” (2). Upon discovering that a Jewish man had impregnated a Muslim slave, Jewish leaders often tried to [[convert]] the child, which could cause [[conflict with local Muslim leaders->M/J]]. Individuals sometimes took more tragic measures, such as Gironan Jew Abraham de Turri, who in the 1280s suffocated his two children by one of his Muslim slaves. (1) As quoted in Paola Tartakoff, Between Christian and Jew: Conversion and Inquisition in the Crown of Aragon, 1250-1391 (Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012), 113. (2) As quoted in Louis M. Epstein, Sex Laws and Customs in Judaism (New York: Bloch Pub. Co., 1948), 177. --- [[Bibliography->bib]] - [[Return to main section-> Legal]]

Jewish women in Christian texts Beautiful Jewesses function prominently in both the Cantigas of Santa Maria and the story of Alfonso X and the Jewess of Toledo. One of the thirteenth century cantigas, or songs, features the beautiful Marisaltos, who is thrown from a cliff by Jewish men for having sex with a Christian. Luckly, she is ultimately saved by the Virgin Mary and converts to Christianity. While Marisaltos is a heroine, the Jewess of Toledo is a villain in her story, which also originated in the thirteenth century. She enchants the king with her beauty (and love spells), distracting him from all his responsibilities for seven years before the king’s brave nobles save the kingdom by killing her. While they view their own particular Jewesses differently, both stories use the women and their relationships to represent Christian domination of Jews. The cantiga’s characterizations of both Marisaltos and Jewish men draw on classic Christian medieval tropes. Like in many texts by Christian authors about Jewish women, it is made clear that Marisaltos is both beautiful and sexually available- illustrations accompanying the text depict Marisaltos in only her shift. Like in Jewish poet Todros Abulafia's [[descriptions of Muslim women,->Abulafia]] Marisaltos is sexualized. In contrast to her femininity, the Jewish men who throw her over the cliff are demasculinized. They are ineffectual and powerless, their plan to punish her thwarted by the Virgin’s intervention. Christian authors often depicted Jewish men as impotent or akin to women, emphasizing their weakness. The illness Christian texts most often attributed to Jewish men was menstruation. Depicting Jewish men as unable to keep their women away from not only Christian men but Christianity itself emphasized Christian dominance over Jews. This dynamic is also reflected in the story of the Jewess of Toledo, as she enters into a seven year affair with Alfonso X. However, their relationship is shown to be harmful for the kingdom and [[sinful->apostasy]], with God later punishing Alfonso X for it with a military defeat. Alfonso X is not in control of the relationship; the Jewess has bewitched him, forcing him to love her. Christian kings during this period were often influenced by or otherwise reliant upon Jewish courtiers, a trend Christian nobility resisted. The story of the Jewess of Toledo is a literal interpretation of “Jew-loving”, an insult common in political discourse of the time. The nobles’ defeat of the Jewess, releasing the king from her influence, demonstrates Christians’ ability to control the threat Jews supposedly posed. Neither Marisaltos’ nor the Jewess of Toledo’s relationships would have been illegal in Christian Iberia. Relationships between Christian women and Jewish or Muslim men were [[highly criminalized,->civil]] but there were fewer explicit prohibitions in civil law of sex between Christian men and minority women. Like the stories of Marisaltos and the Jewess of Toledo, Christian men playing out the dynamics of domination through their sexual action only strengthened Christian hegemony. --- [[Bibliography->bib]] - [[Return to main section->Cultural]]

Muslim-Jewish relationships in Christian Iberia Amiri, a Muslim woman, had already been caught having sex with Christian and Jewish men twice when she was found having sex in Zaragoza’s Jewish Quarter. Local Muslims and Jews came to blows over the discovery. While confrontations were not usually quite so physical, Muslims and Jews living in Christian Iberia constantly fought over sexual interactions between members of their communities. Sex between Muslims and Jews was relatively unregulated by [[Christian civil law->civil]], even as their respective communities forbade [[Muslim women->Islamic law]] and [[Jewish men and women->Jewish]] from sleeping with people from other faiths. Prior to 1400, Jewish men were generally more able to have relationships with Muslim women than Muslim men were to have relationships with Jewish women. Some, like the notorious thirteenth century playboy [[Todros Abulafia->Abulafia]], even had a number of affairs. This dynamic existed for a variety of reasons, including the ability of the Jewish community due to its resources and influence to generally keep their women away from Muslim and Christian men. There were also simply a relatively large number of [[enslaved Muslim women->slaves]], partially because under Christian civil law Muslim women could be enslaved for having sex with non-Muslims, a punishment Muslim communities [[often insisted be enforced->enforcement]] as a deterrent to other women. For example, after the fight had settled, Amiri was sold to a Christian for 120 sous. The Jewish community often tried to have Muslim women in relationships with Jewish men [[converted->convert]] so that the relationship could be regularized through marriage. Muslim communities often tried to stop this process by objecting to Christian lawmakers about the legality of the conversions, claiming that they constituted apostasy. After 1400, the balance of power between Jewish and Muslim communities in Christian Iberia began to shift due to rising anti-Semitism among Christians. It was now Jewish men who had trouble stopping Muslims from having relationships with Jewish women and who found themselves arguing against the legality of the conversion of Jewish women to Islam. --- [[Bibliography->bib]] - [[Return to main section-> Individuals]]

Interfaith love in the poetry of Todros Abulafia Read some of Abulafia's poems [[here->poems]] A poem by Todros Abulafia about his love for Muslim women defiantly opens with the line, “There’s nothing wrong in wanting a woman,” (1). A thirteenth century Jewish poet living in Christian Toledo, Abulafia not only regularly wrote about his attraction to Muslim women but was known for his frequent affairs with them, including with [[his Muslim female servants.->slaves]] Despite his flouting of [[his community's norms around interfaith sex,->Jewish]] Abulafia was fully a part of Toledo’s Jewish community, securing a Jewish courtier as his patron and writing poems praising God. Abulafia’s expression in his poetry both of his lust for non-Jewish women and his acknowledgment of that lust’s taboo nature demonstrate the liminal space interfaith love affairs occupied in thirteenth century Toledo. The passion for Muslim women Abulafia described in his poetry is chiefly lust. In one poem, he claimed that Arab women are better than Spanish Christian women because they’ll “give you pleasure when the day arrives… her legs gripped tightly around your head, crying out Lord!!- and raising the dead”. For him, love is defined by desire for physical pleasure. He described his soul as craving “a kiss her mouth” and getting drunk on the experience of tasting a woman. Abulafia did acknowledge that his affairs transgressed the norms of both Jewish and broader Toledan society. In one poem, he described choosing the pleasures of his lover over his friends’ pleas to break away from “that daughter of Canaan,” a reference to [[the Torah’s prohibition on marriage with specific Canaanite tribes->Jewish]]. He also appeared to recognize the danger involved in entanglements with Christian women, which was [[highly illegal->civil]] for a Jewish man in Christian Toledo. In his poem expressing preference for Muslim women over Christian women, he denigrated Christian women as whores, perhaps as an attempt to justify sexual patterns motivated in reality by a concern for safety. However, even as Abulafia acknowledged his ability to muddle at least some boundaries between religions, he also reinforced the existence of those categories. His poem about Christian and Muslim women depicts both as [[clearly definable categories->difference]]. Like [[Christian texts objectifying Jewish women,->dominance]] he reduced both Christian and Muslim women to their sexuality. As viscerally captured in a description of their fancy dresses as ruined by “dung and crud”, Christian women are dirtied by what Abulafia termed “their heartless whoring”. He contrasted them with Muslim women, who he stated always look “graceful”, like they are “decked out in gold” – not because of their moral worth but rather because of their skill at seduction. In his poetry, Abulafia navigated sexual norms in thirteenth century Toledo. He both transgressed them, expressing desire for women of other religions and even sexually describing women forbidden to him, but he also reinforced them, reducing both Christian and Muslim women to stereotypes. To express attraction to all Muslim women demonstrated a disregard for the boundaries between identity categories but not a denial of those categories’ existence. Like the life of their creator, Abulafia’s poems demonstrate the balancing act interfaith love in medieval Iberia required. (1) All quotes from Peter Cole, ed., The Dream of the Poem: Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain, 950-1492 (Princeton Princeton University Press, 2009). --- [[Bibliography->bib]] - [[Return to main section->Cultural]]

Selected poems by Todros Abulafia (1247-1300) All poems from Peter Cole, ed., The Dream of the Poem: Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain, 950-1492 (Princeton Princeton University Press, 2009). "I've Labored in Love" I’ve labored in love and brought nothing forth, and I’m trapped in the trap of that fawn of an Arab girl. My soul so craves a kiss from her mouth, that I long to turn myself into a woman: for women she’ll kiss- but I’m lost as long as I’m male "There's Nothing Wrong in Wanting a Woman" There’s nothing wrong in wanting a woman, and loving girls is hardly a sin- but whether or not they’re pretty or pure, Arabia’s daughters are what you should look for. Stay far away from the Spanish Christians, although they’re fair and bright as the sun, for they’ll provide neither comfort nor ease, even with shawls and silken sleeves: their dresses are always covered with mud, as their hems are dragged through dung and crud. Their minds are empty from heartless whoring- when it comes to seduction, they know not a thing. But the Arab woman’s grace is her glory, ravishing spirits, banishing worry. And whether or not she’s wearing her clothes, she looks as though she’s decked out in gold. She’ll give you pleasure when the day arrives, for in lewdness’s ways and desire she’s wise, her legs gripped tightly around your head, crying out Lord!!- and raising the dead. The love who opts for the Christian feast is just like a man who’d lie with a beast. "I Take Delight In My Cup and Wine" I take delight in my cup and wine and go down to the garden and spring – and hearing the song of doves and swifts, I, too, begin to sing… I tell plainly of all my loves, despite my jealous friends’ concern. I sing with a beautiful doe whose cheek is like the crescent moon – the melody rises up in the groves and my lips there in the garden move and like the birds above me call, as like from the branches they respond. I hold the goblet in my hand- a graceful girl is at my feet; I take in the fragrance of the cinnamon’s scent and eat thin slices of roasted meat. I taste her lips and drink the wine, and waken my flute, as desires rise- and drink my fill of nectar with her, until my thirst is wholly quenched. My friends speak and plead with me to loosen myself from the grip of that girl: "How could you let that daughter of Canaan, hold you in desire’s spell?" And I, in turn, answer them: "If love of that girl is a burden to me, I’ll wear it on my head like a crown- or around my neck like a string of pearls." Now like a miser, she holds back. In my largesse, I scatter tears. I look at my plight, and think "Just maybe, she’ll have mercy and see my ordeal." I’m wearing away in my desire- if only I would grow so thin that to these spies I’d disappear, and never be seen by them again. Come back, my doe, and sit by my side. With the balm of your mouth, heal my pain. "I can’t," she says, "I’ll be rebuked if they see us," and I respond: "Within my illness I’ve been consumed and so no longer possess a body- and in my thinness if a man stared at me he wouldn’t find me?" --- [[Bibliography->bib]] - [[Return to main section->Cultural]]

Flouting the law – with luck and privilege Some managed to not simply find loopholes in regulations on interfaith relationships but to outright flout them. This was the case for many Jewish men, [[who were much less likely than women to be punished by their communities for sex with non-Jews->enforcement]]. But some women also managed to flout social norms. Some were able to accomplish this due to wealth and social status. In the mid-1260s, a Jewish woman named Goig de Palafols petitioned King James I to extend his permission for her to live with her Christian lover Guillemó. She wrote that they were “burning in their love for each other” and that she had brought Guillemó “into her house, her living quarters, and her bedchamber” (1). Now that the king’s permission was about to expire, they felt like “a thief whom the lord has ordered to be hanged” (2). The fact that Goig and Guillemó had received [[a special legal exemption->civil]] from the king in the first place was likely because Goig was a prominent woman and likely one of King James’ creditors. Another woman, name unknown, had pulled off a similar feat to Goig’s a few centuries earlier, though hers took not only social status but a remarkable amount of luck. In the late eleventh century, an upper-class Christian woman from Provence [[converted->convert]] to Judaism to marry her lover. The couple had to flee to Castile to escape her furious brothers. There, they unfortunately were the victims of Christian anti-Jewish violence – the woman’s husband was killed and two of her children were captured. The woman managed to rebuild her life and remarry, but many years later her brothers tracked her down and had her sentenced to death for [[apostasy]]. Other Jews managed to bribe the prison officials and smuggle her out of her cell in the middle of the night, and she escaped to Cairo. (1) & (2): David Nirenberg, Communities of Violence Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996), 140. --- [[Bibliography->bib]] - [[Return to main section-> Individuals]]