FOR more than a century the Jews of the Iberian peninsula have been the subject of intensive research. Numerous themes, communities, events, and personalities have been studied in books and articles written in Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese, French, Italian, German, English, Hebrew and other languages. Research on the history of the Jews in the Crown of Aragon has also made great progress. Invaluable collections of sources from the rich Catalan, Aragonese, and Valencian archives published in the past hundred years have enabled historians to describe the life of the Jews in the medieval Crown of Aragon in greater detail and with more precision. Furthermore, historians with easy access to the local archives have uncovered sources which depict the life of the Jews in small towns and villages. Yet despite all this progress, no book has ever been written on the Jews of the Crown of Aragon, a subject treated only in books and monographs dedicated to Spanish Jewry in general. The Golden Age of Aragonese Jewry is an attempt to remedy that situation.

The conditions under which Jews lived in the territories of the Crown of Aragon were different from those that prevailed elsewhere in the Iberian peninsula. Here they were subject to a different regime, enjoyed different privileges, and suffered from different restrictions; even the Christian milieu differed in many respects from the Christian surroundings in other areas of the peninsula. Naturally the influence of Christian society on the local Jews varied from region to region. The geocultural position of the Crown of Aragon, and its most important component Catalonia, exposed the Jews to various and contradictory influences. Even within the the Crown of Aragon, there were significant differences in various fields between the Jews living in Catalonia, Aragon, Valencia, Majorca, or Roussillon. The specific subjects and areas of difference are treated separately in this book.

The book covers a period of u4 years from 1213 to 1327, a period of great achievements for the Crown as well as for the Jews. It deals with three major domains in Jewish life: the structure and organization of the community; the nature of Jewish society, its frameworks and characteristics; and religious conduct and institutions, along with cultural and spiritual trends. Economic life has been completely left out to keep the size of the book within a reasonable compass. The subject is fully treated elsewhere.