Pleitos de judios en la Real Chancillería de Valladolid. Regesta de sus cartas ejecutorias (1486-1495)

Abstract

The coexistence of Christian and Jewish communities is an attractive subject in the Spanish History, and one of its most interesting chapters is the administration of justice, of which today we still have very little knowledge. Although the Jews enjoyed a certain judicial autonomy and even some of their rules did not allow them to claim in a Christian court, they did not always observe them, and on numerous occasions they appealed to Christian courts; but, obviously, in the cases in which individuals of both communities were involved, the judges were always Christians. The judicial records are preserved in the Archives of the Royal Chancery of Valladolid. This work tries to bring those documents within the historians' reach; it presents the collection of all the legal proceedings, both civil and criminal, prosecuted by the Jews in the Chancery court at the end of the 15th century.