Jewish Free Cities in the middle ages

Were there any cities ruled by Jews in medieval times? All I ever hear of are Jewish villages getting massacred by Crusaders. However, in the lands of the various caliphates, were there any cities with a predominantly Jewish ruling class?

I'm thinking of a "Catharism survives" ATL, in which if Languedoc and the French Cathar lands fall, they have an exodus to Iberia. I was wondering if something like that occurred the Muslims would grant them autonomy. The precedence of non-Muslim ruled cities under greater Muslim rule would be helpful.

There were some Jewish majority cities around the black sea and middle east, but never cities ruled by Jews. The only occasion of an absolute Jewish ruling class is the Khazar kingdom.

Jewish villages? I think you mean Jewish quarters, or ghettos. Jews weren't allowed to own land.

Neither were any other villagers, dude. Feudalism is a harsh mistress.

Empror Mike said:

There were some Jewish majority cities around the black sea and middle east, but never cities ruled by Jews. The only occasion of an absolute Jewish ruling class is the Khazar kingdom.

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I saw a TV programme where the gentlemen, who was looking of the "lost tribes" of Israel, theorized that the ruling caste of Samarkand was at one point Jewish, but I forget which period. This guy was managing to find hidden Jews everywhere from Great Zimbabwe to China, though so I take it with a spoonful of salt.

Empror Mike said:

Neither were any other villagers, dude. Feudalism is a harsh mistress.

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Actually, under most fewudal systems the concept of 'ownership' we get from Roman law does not apply. Jews can not hold land in heredity under most medieval law codes (not all), and thus would be excluded from being both landlords and peasants.

The only place I can see it happen is the wild and wooly fringes, and not for long. Just about everybody would regard it as either an annoyance, a threat, or an easy target (what with having precious few friends).

Sir Isaac Brock said:

I saw a TV programme where the gentlemen, who was looking of the "lost tribes" of Israel, theorized that the ruling caste of Samarkand was at one point Jewish, but I forget which period. This guy was managing to find hidden Jews everywhere from Great Zimbabwe to China, though so I take it with a spoonful of salt.

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There indeed was a strong Jewish community in the great cities of Central Asia, but I don't know wether the Jews of cities like Samarkand and Bukhara have ever ruled those cities.

...on the other hand, IIRC these cities have been independant or semi-independant for a good part of their history, and if there indeed was a wealthy and powerful Jewish community there, then there is quite a good chance that at least some of these cities have been ruled by a Jewish aristocracy at some point in history.

...after all, there were Jewish-ruled kingdoms in the area of Yemen in pre-Islamic times as well.

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And about any independant Jewish cities in the Medieval Ages; the Ethiopian Jews, a.k.a. Beta Israel or Falasha's, had more or less independant domains and small kingdoms during the late Medieval Ages in several parts of the Ethiopian highlands.

The idea of giving any land with Muslim inhabitants autonomy under a non-Muslim leadership would be impossible. The Ummah must control all Muslim land.

The Jews did have a lot of liberty in Poland, and many cities in that country would have had Jews amongst its ruling classes, by meritocratic/aristocratic virtue however, not by virtue of simply being Jewish.

Perhaps a stronger version of the Khazar Khanate arises, and a Jewish city is founded on key trading route? Dunno about the where, who, or when, but how could that work?

It seems to me that a few Western Jews were among the very few, rich free-commoners (not peasants, slaves or aristocrats) in most places and as time went on, baring expulsion, Jews seemed to have become and more integrated with the local elites until someone got jealous of their wealth and had them kicked out. There was a very interesting book I read part of some time ago, but the title escapes me (it might have been something incredible general, like A History of Jews In Europe, or something) that talked about rich Jews (the descendant of merchants and bankers) were advisers to the Iberian Kings and, in many cases, converted and became knights, lords and Catholic clergy. Following 1492, many of these converts and their descendants were targeted over the next 300 years until there was basically nothing left of these Jew-descended aristocrats/rich. Wikipedia has a good article on this and many of the Spanish nobility (including the Royal family, although never the monarch him/herself. I believe a cousin or uncle of one of the Spanish monarchs married a converso, but I could be wrong) at least had some Jewish ancestors by the year 1500 only to be steadily killed, imprisoned, exiled or forced to hid their identity. Both wikipedia's List of Spanish Jews and List of Iberian Jews are helpful in this regard as well.

Nosb is quite correct but it wasn't just Jews. Spain went insane as a nation for nearly a century and anyone who had converted or was the descendent of a convert, ie, a genuine Catholic, would ultimately be targeted.

As an example, the Moriscos or desecendents of Moorish(Muslim) converts were destroyed to the tune of a minimum 250,000. With them went the last remains of fiscal sanity and fiscal solvency in Spain.

As a result Spain went from an estimated 8 million people circa 1588 to 5 million when the grandson of the French Sun King took the throne and gave Spain a new chance at survival.

Not to mention the point nearly reached where the non-aristocracy nearly became an endangered species, which would have rendered the whole point of the nobility moot.



There were almost certainly points in the early history of Muslim Iberia where cities were held by the Jews as reward for supporting the Muslims, but the Muslims would still have ruled. Of course, one reason for that was that the Jews very much preferred the Muslims, with good reason.

I would just throw out there that land isn't always power.

Why not be economically successful, especially if you live in a place that isn't your promised land. Did they have strong ties to the land, or were they primarily craftsmen, and traders? Assuming such, how important would land be? Even if they gained a good bit of it, they would be a nobles snit from having it taken away. just sayin.