Apuntes para la demografia de la aljama judía de Sagunto en los siglos bajomedievales

Abstract

One of the main difficulties found by the scholars of Valencian Judaism is to define the demographics of the Jewish quarters. Our purpose in this paper is to provide a few notices on the Jewish population of Sagunto -the second most important enclave in the kingdom of Valencia- from the two «morabatí» taxation lists that have been preserved, corresponding to the years 1379 and 1445, and also from other scattered information about the 14th and 15th centuries. In contrast with the demographic boom of the 13th century, we find the crisis caused by the plague in 1348 and the war against Castilla, known as the war of «los dos Pedros». The Jewish quarter was not affected by the violence of 1391 and, in the 15th century, the Jewish population continued growing if compared to the population of 1379 -a remarkable contrast with the almost 50 % decrease of the Christian population in that community. In 1492, as a result of the expulsion, seven hundred Jews from Sagunto were sent into exile.