Establishing Communication Patterns in a Frontier Zone : The Jewish Communities in the Early Kingdom of Valencia

Abstract

The conquest of eastern al-Andalus and its transformation into the Kingdom of Valencia in the first half of the thirteenth century mark a turning point in the history of the Crown of Aragon. Into a region inhabited almost exclusively by Muslims now poured a steady influx of immigrants from the north, among them many Jews settling in their own newly-formed communities. In the fluid environment of a shifting frontier zone where the overarching administrative system was still being reorganised, these communities likewise had to establish patterns of communication with the outside world. On the basis of representative examples from the conquest period and subsequent decades, this article gives an overview over the variety of patterns utilised in processes of communication between institutions and individuals on different levels. The complexity of these processes, it is argued, can only be grasped very rudimentarily through the limited perspectives of the surviving documentation.