Traces of local custom concerning matrimonial property regime among the jews of Castile (Salamanca, 1500)

Abstract

In the summer of 1500, an interrogation regarding a lawsuit litigated before the Royal Court of Justice of Valladolid between Isabel de Cartagena, a Jewish convert, and the convent of Santa Maria de la Anunciacion, because of the inheritance of Isabel’s first husband, Abrahan de la Fuente, was carried out in Salamanca. The information provided by the witnesses, all of them recently converted, contains interesting information concerning local custom (minhag) and Jewish legal communal norms related to marital regime and transmission among Castilian Jews, especially in Salamanca and Zamora, throughout the final decades of the fifteenth century.