Old Jewish District of Valencia: public (Hamman) and Ritual Batahs (Mikweh)

Old Valencia Jewish district

The old Jewry of Valencia, called El Call, after the conquest of Jaime I (1236), spread along the northern side of the present Calle de la Paz (Peace Street) to the south. Among the most remarkable buildings from jews past we can highlight the bathrooms and the Butcher's, and near the present “Plaza de la reina” was located the Jewish Market or Suk. 

                                

                                        Map of Islamic Valencia (Sanchis Guarner)

Following this map, entering the portal de la Figuera we have at the map the Jewish baths just below.
 

Jews baths were of two types, public and rituals (in Hebrew called miqweh) and they represent an institution both hygienic and religious.
We must then diferenciate between public and ritual bath (Miqweh) within Judaism. 

                             

                              Valencia Medieval District at Medieval Time

Public baths in many parts of Spain were know as a Hamman , and the institution was shared betwen jews and muslims, and afterwards wiht christians too. The Jewish Quarter of Valencia were indeed very similar to the Arab baths and the late one also influenced the Christian Bath Institution still surviving in the city, with their warm rooms in the center and both hot and cold at both sides. In Valencia we had of this type the well knowb "Baños del Almirante ((Admiral Baths) of Christian period (1320). 

 

Similars and  olders in  Medieval Spain, known as Sefarad, are those of Saragoza, of jewish origins and arabic influences, with its columns much like those of our "Baños del Almirante". These baths of Zaragoza are cited in some documents from the thirteenth century, the earliest reference corresponding to 1266. They are located in the Jewish quarter opposite the fortress called "Castle of the Jews" (a complex with jail, synagogue, hospital, butchers). Today it remains only a part of the baths : a room, of substantially  rectangular section with vaulted ceiling, covered with 8 point-stars lighting windows. This large room could communicate with another room colder vaulted with a two arched section perhaps the caldarium and frigidarium. They are XIIIth century Mudejar (moors living under christian rule)  with formal elements of christian Cistercian style.

 

   Jews Baths of Saragosa                                 Small Room

The next step was the ritual Bath or Miqweh. To participate in the ritual bath, the Jewish oral tradition of the Talmud requires the cleaning of any physical dirt, before gaining admission to pass the second barrier of physical and spiritual purification. The ritual bath is attached to the synagogue. Oral Law speaks about natural waters of "sources and wells" (Leviticus 11:36). To participate in the liturgy of the Jewish Temple and Jewish piety ceremonies one had to be purify of such contamination as the menstrual period by means of the immersion of the whole body in a ritual bath. The Talmud describes how it should be built a “Mikweh” and its conditions. Therefore, the entrance to the public baths preceds the miqweh immersion. In biblical times John the Baptist reshape this purifying sense to penitential one and Jesus focused on the personal sanctification. Archaeologists have found in Qumran baths from I century b.C and in the Judeo-Christian period others have been discovered in Nazareth, with seven steps of descent and ascent that symbolizes the new creation of the person . 

 Ancient Miqweh at the Holy Land

The source of ritual bath water should be running canals or rain water when gathered in an underground cistern.
 

 The characteristics of the ritual bath or Miqweh can be observed which is in the town of Besalu, near Girona. It is the only of its kind discovered in the Iberian Peninsula and of the few known in Europe.

                                                          
                                                                    Miqweh of Besalu

Now we are already able to answer about two questions: Was there a public jew bathhouse in Valencia? Yes and possibly it followed the pattern of Zaragoza Hammam and in Valencia were it was located near the Portal de la Figuera.

Did we have a Mikweh in Valencia? We do not have the security whether about this point nor about the site, but they would probably located between the public baths and the synagogue. In the village of Sagunto, 30 km north to Valencia, a supposed miqweh house has been discovered, dating from the fourteenth century, in the so called Casa dels Bereguer. The room is vaulted and retains the ancient seven steps symbol, and the tank that was used to collect rainwater.

                            

 

Supposed Miqweh of Sagunto

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Visite Valencia con nosotros

 

Modernist Art Temporary Exhibition in Valencia: Sorolla and Benlliure

 

We were at the Bellas Artes San Pio V (Fine Arts Museum). There we assisted to the new temporary exhibition about Clotilde de Sorolla, the wife of the famous Valenican painter Joaquín Sorolla (1863-1923). About 20 paintings and 25 drawings that deal with the wife and muse that constantly accompanied the artist, from his youth until the painter's death. Their romance started around 1879, in their youth. The visitor, through light paintings, enables to open the door to the privacy of the family of Joaquin, a painter of light in Valencia and expressiveness of the look of his woman, laughing, playing and accompanying the birth of their children. 

            Fishermen                Royal Bridge in Valencia

Another set of pictures show us portraits reading in the garden of his home in Madrid. The last section shows Clotilde assisting to the creation of the last art-pieces and having vaccation and leisure around Spain. Finally, Clotilda takes care of her husband at the last days and the public impact of his death.

                                       Clotilde de Sorolla in Blue dress

Alongside this exhibition visit please the pavilion dedicated to Mariano Benlliure in a small chapel next to the Jardines de Viveros (Royal Gardens) where one can admire the artistic talent of a contemporary of Sorolla, the Sculptor Mariano Benlliure. Between different sketches turning around nature and dame portraits you will admire the splendid mausoleum of the great Toreador of the beginning of XXth Century, Joselito. This splendid bronze piece represents the devotional line that accompanied crying his coffin in his last paseíllo (walking ceremony before the corrida)till the cemetery. José Gómez Ortega was a bullfighter of gipsy background who reached the summit of this art, according to his critics. But around 1920, he failed in Madrid, and agreed to fight a corrida in Talavera, with his brother in law Ignacio Sanchez Mejias. That was his very last one. The fifth bull' sharp horns pierced his stomach and he died. The famous sculptor of this time, Benlliure composed the sculpture in 1926, and it was exposed to the public at the Palace of Fine Arts, settling permanently in the Cemetery San Fernando of Seville.

 

Sketch for the Mausoleum of Joselito

                                         

                                                    

 

Mausoleum of Joselito in San Fernando 

Cemetery of Seville

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 ¿Have a visit?

Visit to the Medieval Jews District of Valencia, Spain

Valencian Medieval Jewish District: The Jewish Valencia is an unknown for many people so that we I will propose you today this detailed itinerary across the jewish ghetto about 1390 BC-

The name for Jewish Ghetto in local language was jueria and officially was called the Call to some coming from qahal legal community, to other from Latin Callis, the "street".

The extent of Jewish district Valencia matched the parish of Santo Tomás around 1240 and its expansion in 1390 with San Andrés Parish church.

We begin our tour of the call walking along r the expansion of 1390, highlighted in blue color on map

Wall. Inside the cloister of the ancient University, in the way toward the history library, one can see see on the ground some houses beneath the Christian wall canvas from the time of Pedro el Ceremonioso, King of Aragon, from 1356 around. The Jewish quarter of that time contained the expansion of the ancient settlement by population growth or new families coming in the fourteenth century.

According to the some historians close to the later Palacio del Patriarca (Patriarch Palace) stood the synagogue Çamalhesit, perhaps the last synagogue built. The Hebrew word would sound as shem - a (l) - hesed, "The Name of the Pious One" or “compassionate Lord”. The hasidies are the current orthodox in Jerusalem. The synagogue was called in Hebrew Beth-hakeneset, “The House of the Community” and next to it was the Bet-midrash "the" House of Study ".

The walls of the Jewish district bordered the present University and Palace “Marques de Dos Aguas” until reaching the Plaza Margarita Valdaura.  

Margarita De Valdaura and Luis VIves streets

Next to which was the Market or souk, the busiest part of this craftsmanship and hand-working people. The Jews lived devoted to crafts and trade in luxury items and making loans. The craft had been represented by items of inlay, gold and silver. In this souk lived workers engaged in crafts, with artisans dedicated to footwear, textile (tailors, weavers, dyers, metal), paying oft renting for the obrador (Stall). Near here, to the Market square, Jewish merchants were intermediaries in the trade of oriental silks and leather pieces and weapons from Northern Europe. This call was semi-destroyed in the assault on the wall that took place by the summer of 1391, when a priest from Andalucia (archdeacon of Ecija)) made some anti-Semitic sermons in Seville's Cathedral and sparked a wave of antisemitism that lighted the flame of hate at northern Spain, following the destruction of the Call.

Between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the golden age of Valencian culture, three illustrious Jews lived around this site. According to tradition on the edge of the old souk, near Plaza of Margaret of Valdaura, the great humanist Juan Luis Vives (1492-1540). The illustrious Renaissance man studied at the newly founded University of Valencia around 1508 and in Paris from 1509 to 1512 and then moved to Flanders in 1512. Meanwhile, both his father and grandmother in Valencia fell into the hands of the Inquisition. His friendship with Erasmus of Rotterdam led him to teach at the renowned Leuven University, then got a friendship with Thomas More which opened to him the doors of Oxford University. Back in Leuven, Vives tutored many noble persons from the environment of Emperor Charles V and came to consult supporters both of Reformation and Counter-Reformation. His classical thought seeks to give the Prince a harmonious education which will bring peace among states. His theory of education based on the Bible and the Greek classics in a transfer of tradition from master to disciple may have influenced the Essays of Michel de Montaigne. His wife, Margarita of Valdaura born in 1505 in the heart of a wealthy Jewish family, moved to Bruges shortly thereafter, considered an extension of the Crown. Luis Vives was his preceptor when she was only seven years old, and Margarita was his faithful wife and the secretary of this encyclopedic man and secular intellectual model for the time. Also dramatic was the end of another Valencian family of the mid-15th century, the Alcanyis. Lluís Alcanyís was born in Xàtiva and moved to Valencia where he followed medical studies from1467 to 1462, period in which he joins the local cultural life, and highlighting interest in letters and medical research. He was married twice, with Jewish converts women. His second wife, Elionor Esparça gave him four daughters and a young, Francesc, also a doctor. In his teaching as Professor Lluís Alcanyís was medical examiner from 1467 to 1477 and taught surgery until 1487. With the founding of the University of Valencia in 1499 Lluís took the medicine and surgery chair, and between 1500 and 1504 he taught in the chair of "Principles and Practice of Medicine". As a part of this discipline he wrote a treatise against epidemics whose title Regiment contra la Pestilencia shows his concern for the prevention of diseases, due to the recent Valencia plague of 1490. Luis Alcanys along with his wife, Eleanor Esparza, were condemned by the Inquisition to the stake in Valencia.

 Original Map of P. Tosca, of XVIIth Valencia

at St Thomas Church 

Finally Luis de Santángel, born in Valencia the same year than Luis Vives in 1492, was born in a family of converted Jewish who came from Aragon. His grandfather Azariah, was founder of the Jewish community of Daroca, and moved to Valencia for commercial reasons , where he settled nearby the parish of St. Thomas. His son Luis Santángel was enriched through the leasing fees and taxes for the crown to the Genovese community. When he died, his son Luis Santángel Vilamarchant was granted by King Ferdinand of Aragon the printing money supervision from 1479 to 1481 when he was charged with general supervision of Royal Finances. Luis met with a Cristobal Colon discouraged in his projects at 1486 and Santangel intercession was essential for the acceptance of the “Capitulaciones de Santa Fe”, signed by the same Santángel, who advanced part of the sum for the expedition. Columbus himself will write to him the first letter with the relationship of the discovery of the New World. In 1497 Santangel obtained a status of limpieza de sangre (Blood cleaned statute), a privilege that protected him before the Holy Office. Louis died in 1544.

Three such important Louis for so small neighborhood, don't you think?

Ask for a guided visit

Bibliografia:

Hinojosa, José , la judería de Valencia en la Edad Media, Valencia 2007.

Niclós,José Vicente, Tres culturas tres religiones en la Península Ibérica, Salamanca 2012, pp.285-340.
 Rodrigo y Pertegas, José, La judería de Valencia, apéndice a la obra de José Sánchis Sivera, La iglesia parroquial de san Esteban, Valencia 1913, pp.245-267.


Sanz Ruíz, Fernando,“Guía de recorridos históricos de Valencia”, Valencia 2006.

Teixidor de Otto, Mª J.-Boira i Marqués, El entorno urbano de la Universitat, pp. 164-165.

“Un paseo por la judería de Valencia”, Levante-Emt, 28-01-2006


“Los judíos en la Valencia medieval”, Las Provincias, 23-09-2012


"Plano de la judería", Esther Blanco Tamayo (UPV), basado en plano de Rodrigo y Pertegás.


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