Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Heterogeneity and exchange: Safe-conducts in Medieval Spain

  • Published:
The Review of Austrian Economics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

During a time when religious animosities were reaching their peak in Medieval Europe leading up to the violent crusades, Christians, Jews, and Muslims residing in close proximity in Medieval Spain experienced a period of relative peace, prosperity, and cultural exchange. This historical episode, referred to as La Convivencia, or the coexistence, is a puzzle to many period historians. This paper argues that this anomalistic period arose due to the emergence of commerce, which generated cooperation and mitigated conflict among these heterogeneous groups, à la the Doux-Commerce Thesis of the Scottish Enlightenment. Commercial exchange between Christians, Jews, and Muslims was established through the use of safe-conducts, a promise of protection sold to foreign merchants. This paper details the operation of safe-conducts and the civilizing role that commerce played among Christians, Jews, and Muslims in Medieval Spain.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. The term Convivencia was first used by Ramon Menendez Pidal and his student Americo Castro (1948) to describe this period (Glick 1992, 1).

  2. For instance, even into the 14th century, the established legal codes reflected this. The Siete Partidas explicitly stated that Muslims could live “…among the Christians, keeping their own law, and not contemning ours” (Partida, VII, xxv, I as quoted in Castro 1954, 226).

  3. What is commonly referred to as “Christian Spain” was actually a collection of independent city-states and principalities (Catlos 2004, 4 & 13). Even with the recognition of a substantial degree of polycentrism, one must be careful not to ascribe too large of a role to the weak and ill-defined territories of lords and barons. As Scott (2009) finds in his history of Southeast Asia, history is often state-centric due the fact that governments often left the biggest piles of rubble and surviving paper trails, so governments are granted a larger role in historical and archaeological accounts than they really deserve (see also Hayek 1988, 44).

  4. This practice was eventually outlawed in Christian Spain in 1309 by Ferdinand IV (Neuman 1942, 208).

  5. In addition to the assurances offered by a system of private law utilized amongst the merchants at the Champagne fairs (Milgrom, North, and Weingast 1990)

  6. Safe-conducts were also issued in order to assure that an accused criminal could be safely brought to trial. Often, a local representative would “…stand surety for the accused” for a certain length of time in order that a peaceful arrangement could be made between the accused and the accuser (Burns 1995, 60 & 62). The historian Francisco Roca Traver found Safe-conducts issued in Tortosa to be all issued by private citizens dealing with legal issues in their courts (Burns 1995, 62). For example, a banker from Valencia, Pons Fibra, had fled in 1296 and obtained a safe-conduct to come back in order to settle accounts with his creditors (Burns 1995, 63). They were also used to protect witnesses slated to testify at trials (Burns 1995, 87).

References

  • Abu-Lughod, J. (1989). Before European hegemony: The world system A.D. 1250–1350. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Anderson, T., & Hill, P. (2004). The not so wild, wild west. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ashtor, E. (1972). Banking instruments between the Muslim East and the Christian West. The Journal of European Economic History, 1(3), 553–573.

    Google Scholar 

  • Assis, Y. (1997). The golden age of aragonese Jewry: Community and society in the crown of Aragon, 1213–1327. Portland: Vallentine Mitchell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baer, Y. F. (1961). A history of the Jews in Christian Spain, volume 1 (schoffman, trans). Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America.

    Google Scholar 

  • Benson, B. (1988). Legal evolution in primitive societies. Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, 144(5), 772–778.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bernstein, L. (1992). Opting out of the legal system: Extralegal contractual relations in the diamond industry. Journal of Legal Studies, 21(1), 115–157.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boettke, P. J. & Smith, D. J. (2013). The theory of social cooperation historically and robustly contemplated. SSRN working paper. Available online: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2173338

  • Boettke, P. J., Coyne, C. J., & Leeson, P. T. (2008). Institutional stickiness and the new development economics. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 67(2), 331–358.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boorstin, D. J. (1983). The discovers: A history of man’s search to know his world and himself. New York: Random House.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brodman, J. (1999). Fable and royal power: The origins of the Mercedarian foundation story. Journal of Medieval History, 25(3), 229–241.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burns, R. (1984). Muslims, Christians and Jews in the crusader kingdom of Valencia: Societies in symbiosis. Great Britain: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Burns, R. (1995). The guidaticum safe-conduct in medieval arago-catlonia; a mini-institution for Muslims, Christians and Jews. Medieval Encounters: Jewish Christian, and Muslim Culture in Confluence and Dialogue, 1, 51–113.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carpenter, D. (1986). Alfonso X and the Jews: An edition and commentary on “siete partidas” 7.24 “de los judios. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Castro, A. (1948). Espana en su Historia. Mexico City: Porrua.

    Google Scholar 

  • Castro, A. (1954). The structure of Spanish history (E. King, trans). Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Catlos, B. A. (2004). The victors and the vanquished: Christians and Muslims of Catalonia and Aragon, 1050–1300. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Clay, K. (1997). Trade without law: private-order institutions in Mexican California. Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization, 13(1), 202–231.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Collier, P. (2009). Wars, guns, and votes: Democracy in dangerous places. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Collins, R. (1995). Early medieval Spain: Unity in diversity, 400–1000 (2nd ed.). New York: St. Marten’s Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Constable, O. (1996). Trade and traders in Muslim Spain. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Constable, O. (1997). Medieval Iberia: readings from Christian, Muslim, and Jewish sources. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cox, G. W., North, D. C., & Weingast, B. R. (2013). The violence trap: A political-economic approach to the problems of development,” working paper. Available online: http://cddrl.stanford.edu/publications/the_violence_trap_a_politicaleconomic_approach o_the_problems_of_development/

  • Coyne, C. (2008). After war: The political economy of exporting democracy. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Delong, B., & Shleifer, A. (1993). Princes and merchants: European city growth before the Industrial Revolution. Journal of Law and Economics, 36(2), 671–702.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dixit, A. (2004–5). Two-tiered market institution. Chicago Journal of International Law 5(10), 139–155.

    Google Scholar 

  • Djankov, S., Montalvo, J. G., & Reynal-Querol, M. (2006). Does foreign aid help? Cato Journal, 26(1), 1–28.

    Google Scholar 

  • Djankov, S., Montalvo, J. G., & Reynal-Querol, M. (2008). The curse of aid. Journal of Economic Growth, 13(3), 169–94.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Easterly, W. (2001). Can institutions resolve ethnic conflict? Economic Development and Cultural Change, 49(4), 687–706.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Easterly, W. (2006). The white man’s burden. New York: The Penguin Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Edwards, J., & Ogilvie, S. (2012). What lessons for economic development can we draw from the Champagne fairs? Explorations in Economic History, 49(2), 131–148.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ellickson, R. (1989). A hypothesis of wealth-maximizing norms: evidence from the whaling industry. Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization, 5(1), 83–97.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ellickson, R. (1991). Order without law: How neighbors settle disputes. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Epalza, M. (1999). Negotiating culture: Bilingual surrender treaties in Muslim-Crusader Spain under James the Conqueror. Boston: Brill Academic Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frey, B. (2005). Functional, overlapping, competing jurisdictions: Redrawing the geographic borders of administration. European Journal of Law Reform, V(3/4), 543–555.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frey, B., & Eichenberger, R. (2001). Federalism with overlapping jurisdictions and variable levels of integration: The concept of FOCJ. In J. von Hagen & M. Widgren (Eds.), Regionalism in Europe: geometries and strategies after 2000 (pp. 3–21). Boston: Kluwer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Frey, L., & Frey, M. (1999). The history of diplomatic immunity. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Friedman, D. (1979). Private creation and enforcement of law – A historical case. Journal of Legal Studies, 8(2), 399–415.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Glick, T. (1992). Convivencia: An introductory note. In V. Mann, T. Glick, & J. Dodds (Eds.), Convivencia: Jews, Muslims, and Christians in medieval Spain (pp. 1–10). New York: The Jewish Museum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goitein, S. (1973). Letters of medieval Jewish traders. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grayzel, S. (1966). The Church and the Jews in the XIIIth century. New York: Hermon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Greif, A. (2002). Institutions and impersonal exchange: From communal to individual responsibility. Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, 158(1), 168–204.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Greif, A. (2005). Commitment, coercion, and markets: The nature and dynamics of institutions supporting exchange. In C. M´enard & M. Shirley (Eds.), Handbook of New institutional economics (pp. 727–786). Netherlands: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Hayek, F. A. (1988). The fatal conceit: The errors of socialism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Hirschman, A. (1982). Rival interpretations of market society: Civilizing, destructive, or Feeble? Journal of Economic Literature, 20(4), 1463–1484.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kamen, H. (1997). The Spanish inquisition. London: The Orion Publishing Group Ltd.

    Google Scholar 

  • Khadduri, M. (1955). War and peace in the Law of Islam. Baltimore: The John Hopkins Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kim, K. (2000). Aliens in medieval law: The origins of modern citizenship. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Knack, S. (2004). Aid dependence and the quality of governance: cross-country empirical tests. Southern Economic Journal, 68(2), 310–29.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kyriaciou, A. (2006). Functional, overlapping, competing jurisdictions and ethnic conflict management. Kyklos, 59(1), 63–83.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Landa, J. (1981). A theory of the ethnically homogeneous middleman group: an institutional alternative to contract law. Journal of Legal Studies, 10(2), 349–362.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Landa, J. (1983). The enigma of the Kula Ping: Gift-exchanges and primitive law and order. International Review of Law and Economics, 3(2), 137–160.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Landa, J. (1994). Trust, ethnicity, and identity: Beyond the new institutional economics of ethnic trading networks, contract law, and gift-exchange. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leeson, P. (2005). Endogenizing fractionalization. Journal of Institutional Economics, 1(1), 75–98.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leeson, P. (2006). Cooperation and conflict: Evidence on self-enforcing arrangements among socially heterogeneous groups. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 65(4), 891–907.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leeson, P. (2007a). An-arrgh-chy: the law and economics of pirate organization. Journal of Political Economy, 115(6), 1049–1094.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leeson, P. (2007b). Balkanization and assimilation: examining the effects of state-created homogeneity. Review of Social Economy, 65(2), 141–164.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leeson, P. (2007c). Trading with bandits. Journal of Law and Economics, 50(2), 303–321.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leeson, P. (2008). Social distance and self-enforcing exchange. Journal of Legal Studies, 37(1), 161–188.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lesson, P. (2009). Law of lawlessness. Journal of Legal Studies, 38(2), 471–503.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lewis, B. (1987). The Jews of Islam. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewis, B. (2001). The Muslim discovery of Europe. New York: W. W. Norton & Co.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lieber, A. E. (1968). Eastern business practices and Medieval European commerce. The Economic History Review, 21(2), 230–243.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lindo, E. (1848). The history of the Jews of Spain and Portugal. London: J. Wertheimer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lourie, E. (1990). Crusade and colonisation: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Medieval Aragon. Aldershot: Variorum (Gower Publishing Group).

    Google Scholar 

  • MacKay, A. (1977). Spain in the middle ages: From frontier to empire, 1000–1500. Houdmills: Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mann, V. B., Glick, T. F., & Dodds, J. D. (1992). Convivencia: Jews, Muslims and Christians in Medieval Spain. New York: George Braziller, Inc.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mansfield, E. D., & Synder, J. (2005). Electing to fight: why emerging democracies go to war. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Menocal, M. (2002). The ornament of the world: How Muslims, Jews and Christians created a culture of tolerance in Medieval Spain. New York: First Bay Back.

    Google Scholar 

  • Meyerson, M. (2004). Jews in an Iberian Frontier Kingdom: Society, economy, and politics in Morvedre, 1248–1391. Boston: Brill Academic Publisher.

    Google Scholar 

  • Milgrom, P., North, D., & Weingast, B. (1990). The role of institutions in the revival of trade: the law merchant, private judges, and the champagne fairs. Economics and Politics, 2(1), 1–24.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Montesquieu (1748[2009]). The Spirit of the Laws (A. M. Cohler, B.C. Miller, & H. S. Stone, Eds.). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

  • Moss, T., Pettersson, G., & Van de Walle, N. (2008). An aid-institutions paradox? A review essay on aid dependency and state building in Sub-Saharan Africa. In W. Easterly (Ed.), Reinvesting foreign aid (pp. 255–82). Cambridge: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Munquiz, R. H. (2001). Encounters in crisis. In S. Charles (Ed.), Jewish-Muslim encounters. St. Paul: Paragon House.

    Google Scholar 

  • Netanyahu, B. (1995). The origins of the inquisition in fifteenth century Spain. New York: Random House.

    Google Scholar 

  • Neuman, A. (1942). The Jews in Spain: Their social, political and cultural life during the middle ages (Vol. 1). Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nirenberg, D. (1996). Communities of violence: Persecution of minorities in the middle ages. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • North, D. C., Wallis, J. J., & Weingast, B. R. (2009). Violence and social orders: A conceptual framework for interpreting recorded human history. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • North, D. C., Wallis, J. J., Webb, S. B., & Weingast, B. R. (2013). In the shadow of violence: Politics, economics, and the problems of development. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Callaghan, J. F. (1975). A history of Medieval Spain. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pedan, J. (1977). Property rights in Celtic Irish law. Journal of Libertarian Studies, 1(2), 81–95.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ploger, K. (2003). England and the Avignon Popes: The practice of diplomacy in late Medieval Europe. Great Britain: Modern Humanities Research Association and Maney Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rajan, R. (2004). Assume anarchy: Why an orthodox economic model may not be the best guide for policy. Finance & development, September: 56–57. Available online: https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2004/09/pdf/straight.pdf

  • Ray, J. (2005). Beyond tolerance and persecution: reassessing our approach to Medieval Convivencia. Jewish Social Studies, 11(2), 1–18.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ray, J. (2006). The Sephardic frontier: The Reconquista and the Jewish community in Medieval Iberia. Ithaca: Cornell University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rehrmann, N. (2003). A legendary place of encounter. In D. Hoerder, C. Harzig, & A. Shubert (Eds.), The historical practice of diversity (pp. 35–53). New York: Berghahn Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reilly, B. (1993). The Medieval Spains. Great Britain: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Reilly, B. (1995). The contest of Christian and Muslim Spain. Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers Inc.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rodriguez, J. (2007). Captives & their saviors in the Medieval Crown of Aragon. Washington D.C.: Catholic University Press of America.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roth, N. (1994). Jews, Visigoths and Muslims in Medieval Spain: Cooperation and conflict. Leiden: E.J. Brill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roth, N. (2005). Daily life of the Jews in the middle ages. Westport: Greenwood Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Salter, M. (2003). Rights of passage: The passport in international relations. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scott, J. (2009). The art of not being governed: An anarchist history of upland Southeast Asia. New Haven: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Strayer, J. R., & Munro D. C. (1921[1959]). The middle ages: 395–1500, fourth edition. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc.

  • Valerian, D. (1999). Ifrîqiyan Muslim merchants in the Mediterranean at the end of the Middle Ages. Mediterranean Historical Review, 14(2), 47–66.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wansbrough, J. (1971). The safe-conduct in Muslim chancery practice. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 34(1), 20–35.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wansbrough, J. (1996). Lingua franca in the Mediterranean. Richmond: Curzon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wasserstein, D. (1985). The rise and fall of the party-kings: Politics and society in Islamic Spain, 1002–1086. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Webb, D. (2000). Pilgrimage in Medieval England. London: Hambledon and London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williamson, C. R. (2009). Informal institutions rule: Institutional arrangements and economic performance. Public Choice, 139, 371–387.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wolf, K. (2009). Convivencia in Medieval Spain: A brief history of an idea. Religion Compass, 3(1), 72–85.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Young, A. T. and Sheehan, K. M. (2013). Foreign aid, institutional quality, and growth. SSRN Working Paper. Available online: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2058567

Download references

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Peter J. Boettke, Christopher Coyne, Thomas K. Duncan, Alexander Fink, David J. Hebert, Thomas L. Hogan, Peter T. Leeson, Douglas B. Rogers, David B. Skarbek, Daniel Sutter, Sasha Volokh, Richard E. Wagner, and two anonymous referees for useful comments on earlier drafts. Earlier drafts of this paper were presented at the Graduate Student Paper Workshop at George Mason University, the Southern Economic Association Annual Conference, and the Association of Private Enterprise Education Annual Conference. The generous financial support of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University is gratefully acknowledged. The helpful research assistance of Rania Al-Bawwab is also gratefully acknowledged.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Manuel H. Johnson Center for Political Economy, Troy University, Bibb Graves Hall 137F, Troy, AL, 36082, USA

    Daniel J. Smith

Authors
  1. Daniel J. Smith
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Daniel J. Smith.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Smith, D.J. Heterogeneity and exchange: Safe-conducts in Medieval Spain. Rev Austrian Econ 27, 183–197 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11138-014-0251-2

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11138-014-0251-2

Keywords

JEL codes

Search

Navigation