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Mobility and Travel in the Middle Ages | Juliana Ossa Martinez
JEWISH MERCHANTS, WIVES AND
WIDOWS: MOBILITY AND TRAVEL IN
THE MIDDLE AGES
Juliana Ossa Martinez
Citation:
Martinez, Juliana Ossa. “Jewish Merchants, Wives and Widows: Mobility and Travel in the
Middle Ages.” Coldnoon: Travel Poetics 3.1 (2014): 99-110.
Abstract:
Human mobility has led to the production and reproduction of new identities, ideologies,
practices and languages, and therefore, travel and mobility constitute rich fields of study for
scholars concerned with the history and evolution humanity. The Jews have traveled around
the world as pilgrims, nomads, settlers, fugitives, merchants, teachers and conquerors. Even in
circumstances of forced migration, travel and mobility have enabled the transmission and
survival of Jewish cultural and religious values. With this in mind, this paper explores the
situation of Jewish women in Christian Europe and the Muslim world, paying special attention
to the ways in which dynamics of displacement affected their daily lives during the middle
ages. Most of the information about Jewish life in the Muslim world and the Mediterranean
during this period comes from letters, court records, contracts and other legal documents
from the Cairo Geniza. Likewise, rabbinical responsa literature provides information about
the lives of Jewish women in northern Europe. The content of these documents proves that in
both contexts Jewish women were highly mobile, and provide the reasons for their travels,
marriage and business being the most popular ones. In spite of being written by men, these
documents attest to situations that had a direct impact on the lives of Jewish women. Thus, in
the absence of primary sources produced by women, this paper shows that the study female
travel is a lens through which the history of women can be observed.
Keywords:
Jewish travel, Medieval travel, Cairo Geniza, Rabbinical responsa, Female travel, Jewish
capitalism, Exile.
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Copyright:
“Jewish Merchants, Wives and Widows: Mobility and Travel in the Middle Ages” (by Juliana
Ossa Martinez) by Coldnoon: Travel Poetics is licensed under a Creative Commons
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Mobility and Travel in the Middle Ages | Juliana Ossa Martinez
JEWISH MERCHANTS, WIVES AND
WIDOWS: MOBILITY AND TRAVEL IN
THE MIDDLE AGES
Juliana Ossa Martinez
eographical movement stands at the core of the origins and
evolution of our species. In the same way, it is central in the Jewish,
Christian and Muslim versions of human origins. Soon after God
creates the first human, he is banished from the Garden of Eden:
The Lord banished him from the Garden of Eden, to till the soil
from which he was taken. He drove the man (and woman) out,
and stationed east of the Garden of Eden the cherubim and the
fiery ever-turning sword, to guard the way to the tree of life
(Genesis 3:23-24, Sarna, 30).
As members of the human species, we are the product of our ancestors’
migrations. Through the study of travel, researchers are able to observe the
history of humanity. Human mobility has led to the production and
reproduction of new identities, ideologies, practices and languages
contributing to their transformation and enabling their transportation. It has
also been a key aspect in the development of economic-systems, facilitating
the flourishing of certain societies while destroying entire civilizations of others.
An example of this is the “discovery” of the New World and the relation of this
event to the development of an Industrial European society. In short, travel
and movement have shaped civilizations and for this reason, their study is
substantial to the understanding of the past and of the present.
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The Jews have traveled around the world under many different
circumstances: as pilgrims, as nomads, as settlers, as fugitives and as
conquerors. They have been in exile and they have colonized lands. They have
transported goods as merchants, and knowledge as scholars (Adler, ix).
Further, migration and mobility, even when forced, has enabled the survival of
the Jewish people. With this in mind, this paper will explore the situation of
Jewish women in the middle ages, in the Muslim world and in Christian
Europe, paying special attention travel and mobility and the ways in which
these shaped their daily lives.
The High Middle Ages (969-1250) was a period of “profound and lasting
changes in the Mediterranean scene…of relatively free trade, of growing
activities of exchange between the nations and of the prominence of a
mercantile middle class” (Goiten, 1978: 29). Most of the evidence about
Jewish life in the Muslim world during this period comes from primary
documents from the Cairo Geniza. A geniza is a storeroom where unusable
sacred writings are placed in order to preserve them from desecration. The
Cairo Geniza is an archive that in addition to discarded writings, on which the
name of God was or might have been written, stored hundreds of documents
of a secular nature. The contents of the geniza comprise business and private
letters, court records, contracts and other legal documents (Goiten, 1973: 3).
Correspondence between members of Jewish communities and religious
authorities, and between family members and business partners, narrate the
events and anxieties of everyday life. In this sense, these documents are
invaluable resources for historians and scholars of the past to create a picture
of Jewish life in the Medieval Mediterranean.
Since short and long distance travel was very common in this context, the
contents of the Cairo Geniza provide great insight about the importance of
geographical movement in the economic, religious and domestic spheres of
Jewish life. The documents “come from almost every country of the IslamicJewish world; most are written in Arabic, the language of Jewish everyday life
in this milieu, although texts in Hebrew, Persian, Spanish, Greek and Yiddish
also survive. Regardless of their language, virtually all of these texts are written
in Hebrew letters” (Baskin, 1998: 102-03). Not only do they reflect that Jewish
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men from different corners of the world traveled frequently and were often
absent for long periods of time; they also reveal that male travel was often a
source of discomfort and anxiety for Jewish women. The frequency with which
medieval men traveled, and the distress it caused for their wives is best
observed in marriage contracts where specific clauses determined the duration
of a husband’s absence and/or what to do if he failed to return. Their
responsibilities with their wives and their homes while gone on business trips
were also stipulated. In this sense, marriage contracts serve as valuable sources
that provide insight about male travel and its effects on the lives of Jewish
women.
The contents of the geniza also convey the different circumstances under
which women traveled. Marriage contracts, written accounts by
contemporaneous authors, and documents where legal and economic
transactions were recorded, provide a record of women’s experience in the
middle ages. Letters and pledges speak of impoverished widows who often
moved from one place to another seeking charity from members of Jewish
communities. Moreover, certain clauses stipulated in marriage contracts
indicate that betrothal and marriage were often motives for women’s mobility.
Yet, most of this evidence provides male understandings of the female
world and therefore, scholars must be careful to treat them as such. Apart from
a very few poems, there are no surviving written works by Jewish women
during this period (Avraham, 3). Thus, first hand evidence about women’s
feelings and experiences, in this context, still remains almost entirely
inaccessible to contemporary scholars. Consequently, any claim about what
we know with regards to the world of Jewish women in the middle ages, shall
not be treated as an absolute truth, but as a partial picture that is still in the
process of being developed.
The Babylonian Talmud, which was completed and codified in Iraq in
the middle of 6th century C. E., provided the model of life to be followed by
Jews and included the normative framework for women’s appropriate
behavior. Further, local traditions influenced their status and freedom of
individuals creating different realities for Jewish women around the world.
They were instructed in domestic activities such as sewing, spinning, weaving
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and cooking as well as they were expected to marry into prestigious or suitable
families. Religious scholarship and a knowledge of the Torah were regarded as
markers of social status and prestige: “a learned middle class merchant — a
rather common phenomenon — ranked as high in society as a rich and
powerful supplier of the court” (Goiten, 1978: 9). This was true in the Muslim
world, where there were Jewish communities in Egypt, North Africa, the
Middle East and Spain, and in Christian Europe, particularly France and
Germany, where Jewish populations were smaller (Baskin, 1998: 101).
However, female responsibilities were not confined to the roles of
women as mothers and wives. Jewish women were “expected to engage in
some work in addition to their household chores” (Goiten, 1978: 127). The
involvement of women in economic activities is revealed in clauses of marriage
contracts that stipulate whether the money earned by their work was to be
enjoyed by the wife alone, or allotted to cover household expenses.
In the Muslim world, women were often employed as bride combers,
professional wailers, midwives and doctors. They had an active role in the
textile industry and were responsible for passing on female knowledge to the
next generation. Further, while men were active in the production of goods
used by women, female brokers were responsible for selling them. Since
common norms stated that women’s place was inside the home, their presence
in the bazaar or market was regarded with disdain. This gave a role to brokers,
who visited different houses collecting and distributing goods from the hands
of one woman to another (ibid, 127-29).
Contrary to the spirit of relative liberalism and religious toleration of the
Fatimid Empire during the 11th and 12th Centuries (Goiten, 1978: 29), the
lives of Ashkenazi Jews in Christian Europe were affected by the spirit of the
Crusades. By the end of the 11th century in some areas of Europe, Jews began
to be barred from virtually any source of livelihood except for money-lending.
They were compelled to wear distinctive clothing and badges, and ultimately,
towards the end of the middle ages, they were either expelled from where they
had longed lived, or forced to live in crowded and unpleasant ghettoes (Baskin,
1998: 109). But, despite living in adverse circumstances, in some areas of
Christian Europe, Jews were able to establish autonomous communities:
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on the main route leading north from the cities of Italy, through
the Mosel valley to Mainz and Trier and from there to central
France, and north to the Loire and Seine valleys. They also settled
along the route that connects the Rhine valley with the Pyrenees, in
the direction to Spain: Verdun, Rheims, Meaux, Paris, Orleans,
Poitiers and Bordeaux (…) Jewish settlements were also found in
relatively small towns located at important crossroads in
agricultural areas” (Goldin, 7).
Women from Jewish communities in Christian Europe enjoyed relatively
more freedom of movement than those in the Muslim world, where they were
expected to limit their activities to the confines of their homes. In contrast, in
Christian Europe they were allowed to work outside their homes and to
engage in economic endeavors. Like Christian women, some Jewish women
achieved literacy and financial skills, and there was no suppression of these
activities by the larger community. Aristocratic Jewish women enjoyed great
authority and influence in their households and communities. Whether their
husbands were absent for prolonged periods or not, they remained in charge
of the family businesses (Grossman, 114). In contrast, in the Muslim world,
they were passed down to male relatives or business partners of absent
husbands, instead of their wives.
Although not much work has been done on this subject, “the available
primary sources show that medieval women traveled frequently, and for a
variety of reasons” (Baskin, 2008). The essay “Mobility and Marriage in Two
Medieval Jewish Societies” by Judith R. Baskin explores marriage as one of the
most common motives for mobility and migration in the middle ages. Since
the social conditions of Jewish women living in France and Germany were
different from those living in the Muslim world, scholars depend on different
sources of evidence to reconstruct a broader picture of the female Jewish
experience during this period. Baskin resorts to evidence from the Cairo
Geniza that supports her claims about Jewish women in the medieval Muslim
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world, while rabbinical responsa literature from the 10th to 13th centuries is
used to addressing the experiences of women in Ashkenazi Europe (ibid).
Marriage, business and the pleasure of spending time with members of
the extended family living elsewhere were some of the motives for female
travel. In addition, impoverished widows and abandoned wives also wandered
around, seeking charity from the community, or trying to find their long gone
husbands. The geniza records contain information about indigent women
who moved from one place to another seeking better life conditions. The
heads of the Jewish communities they visited often supported these women by
giving them charity or letters of recommendation (Goiten, 1978, 341).
Christian, Jewish and Muslim women traveled with the purpose of
visiting holy shrines or cities. However, for Jewish women, this was not a
feature of female mobility in Ashkenazi Europe as it was in the Muslim world.
In Judaism, the term “pilgrim” is not employed in the same way as in Islam or
Christianity; instead, the term refers to women who journeyed
unaccompanied to Jerusalem whereas in Islam and Christianity, a pilgrim is
anybody who goes on pilgrimage (ibid, 337). Further, unlike Jewish wives,
Christian women often accompanied their husbands on their pilgrimages to
the Holy Land.
Rabbinical responsa from the middle ages speaks of European women
who traveled for business and trading, meeting Jewish and gentile men on their
business trips. Since these were times of hostility between religious groups,
female travelers had to take certain measures in order to protect themselves
from the dangers they would encounter on their journeys. For example, when
a woman who was traveling heard of a group of gentiles approaching her, she
was permitted to dress in a nun’s attire so that they would refrain from
attacking her. And when she heard that there was a group of Jewish ruffians
nearby, she was permitted to wear a non-Jewish dress and claim to be a gentile.
She was advised to cry out for help from gentiles, even if this entailed that her
coreligionists would be attacked (Baskin, 1998: 114). This evidence confirms
that women did travel alone, and that the heads of Jewish communities
supported them and provided them with the necessary tools for the successful
completion of their journeys. Moreover, it reveals tensions between Jews and
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non-Jews and suggests that female travelers were often at risk of being
attacked, regardless of belonging to one religious group or another.
From the Cairo Geniza records it can be deduced that even though they
sometimes joined their husbands when they found business opportunities
elsewhere, medieval Jewish women in the Muslim world were often reluctant
to move permanently from one place to another. However, they often traveled
to the places of residence of their extended family members and stayed with
them for prolonged periods of time (Baskin, 1998: 227). This was common,
especially in Jewish holidays, or in cases where a friend or family member
needed support or company. For instance, a relative’s illness, childbirth or
distresses caused by a hostile environment were some of the motives for
female travel. In addition, judges and legal authorities usually lived in capital
cities and therefore, when their intervention or opinion was needed to solve a
dispute, women had to travel.
In the middle ages, it was common for women to travel overseas. These
were usually women who accompanied their husbands in their long journeys
but there are also accounts of single women who traveled by boat. Married
women traveling with or without their husbands had to carry their marriage
certificates with them, while:
…unmarried girls had the opportunity to brave the dangers of sea
travel because overseas marriage was a policy of the mercantile
class. Naturally, the girls didn’t travel alone. But men too, on sea
and on land normally traveled in the company of friends (Goiten,
1978: 340)
Jewish families in the Muslim world preferred to marry their daughters to
people they knew, which often included the extended family. However,
overseas marriages were not uncommon.
The Cairo Geniza records a number of marriages in which the
bride, the daughter of a political and intellectual luminaries, left her
home for a distant place. (…) Marriage alliances that enhanced
family ties were particularly common among the merchant families
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already involved in mutually advantageous businesses. (…) Many
of such marriages were made between families in Egypt and Tyre
in Lebanon, which was engaged in vigorous trade with Cairo
(Baskin, 2008: 229)
While marriage contracts in the Cairo Geniza allow us to see the dynamics
around mobility and marriage in the Muslim world, rabbinical responsa, based
on Talmudic rulings attest to Ashkenazi Europe. Evidence shows that women
in the latter context tended to travel between urban settlements within their
immediate region, rather than across significant distances. Moreover,
according to Talmudic law, “a husband could force his unwilling wife to move
from one town to another of approximately the same size, but not to a
significantly different environment” (Baskin, 2008: 233). In general, Ashkenazi
Jews preferred not to marry their daughters to men from faraway lands. And
women were often protected from dwelling in strange environments.
Conclusion
This essay has drawn a brief description of the situation of Jewish women in
Christian Europe and the Muslim world during the high middle ages, and
shown that in both contexts Jewish women were highly mobile. In Ashkenazi
Europe they enjoyed more freedom than in the Muslim world, but this does
not mean that they traveled less. It only means that they traveled for different
reasons. While in Ashkenazi Europe the Jewish women often traveled for
business and not so often for marriage, in the Muslim world it was the other
way round. And while some women in the Muslim world journeyed to holy
shrines and cities, this was not a feature of Jewish travel in the Christian world.
This is understandable regarding that most of the holy sites are more
accessible from the Mediterranean than from northern or western Europe.
Anyhow, Jewish women in the middle ages traveled for reasons, and with
ideologies, quite different from those that could produce a recognizable
narrative of travel and mapping in the current spectrum of travel literature
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criticism. Newly wed young women traveled to their new homes overseas, old
women journeyed alone or accompanied to visit their families, and wives
accompanied their husbands or traveled to the capital to sue them. Pious
devotees went on pilgrimages and European businesswomen moved around
the world as merchants or traders. Poor women sought charity from the
community everywhere they went.
In the absence of primary sources produced by women, and of
scholarship that focuses on the female versions of the history of the world, it is
important for travel writing scholarship to continue exploring women’s travels
throughout this male-dominated history of travel or, as it appears, this maleread travel history. Many conclusions about daily life, traditions and practices
can be drawn from this kind of scholarship. In addition, the role of women as
active members of the economy and their contributions to the Jewish
civilization can also be explored through their travels, instead of them
becoming mute and picturesque objects of representation, studied as medieval
metaphors.
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References
Adler, E. N. Jewish Travelers in The Middle Ages. New York: Dover Publications, 1987.
Baskin, Judith Reesa. “Jewish Women in the Middle Ages,” in Judith Reesa Baskin ed.
Jewish Women in Historical Perspective. Detroit : Wayne State University Press,
1998; 101-27.
–––, “Mobility and Marriage in Two Medieval Jewish Societies,” in Jewish History,
22.1/2, The Elka Klein Memorial Volume (2008): 223-43.
Goiten, S.D. Letters of Medieval Jewish Traders. Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1973.
–––, A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab world as Portrayed in
the Documents of the Cairo Geniza. Vol. I. Berkeley: University of California Press,
1978.
Goldin, Simah. Jewish Women in Europe in the Middle Ages. Manchester and New York:
Manchester University Press, 2011.
Grossman, Avraham. Pious and Rebellious: Jewish women in Medieval Europe. Brandeis
University Press; University Press of New England, 2004.
Sarna, Nahum M. ed. Genesis: The Traditional Hebrew Text with the New Jps
Translation. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989.
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