Crises and credit: Catalan Jewish women and the economy in late medieval Girona

On June 27, 1398, Regina Saporta, a Jewish widow from Girona, in Catalonia, paid 65 sous to Nicola, the widow of a local Christian as an annuity for a violari, a form of credit in which the borrower sold to the lender the right to receive an annual pension for a fixed length of time, usually one or two lifetimes. Five years earlier, another Regina, this one the widow of Mosse Falcó, from a very wealthy Jewish family in Girona, received a payment of 55 sous from another Nicola, this one the wife of a local barber. Jewish authorities argued that women should preserve their privacy and modesty at all times; however, Regina Saporta, Regina Falcó and many other Jewish widows demonstrate the active role that Jewish women played in the economic life of their families. Based on notarial records from the city of Girona between ca.1385-1450, this paper will focus on the participation of Jewish women in an increasingly competitive credit market during a time of growing debt and fiscal pressure. In some cases, widows and wives concluded credit transactions on their own; in others, they used procurators to represent them for pragmatic reasons. All together, these documents illustrate the crucial role that women played in the economic survival of their families after a time of crisis, engaging in often complex credit arrangements with Christian men and women, as well as other Jews, and therefore complicating the dominant gender ideology which argued for their seclusion.

Alexander Guerson is co-presenter.