A Jewish Glass-Blower from Spain

A ]E\VISH OLASS-BLO\VER FROM SP AIN A series of documents have been published recen tI y which merit doser consideration, not on1y for the information they provide about a little-known field of Jewish activity, but beca use they throw new light on the glass industr,y in Spain in general. In spite of the vigour and originality which chamcterises the early glass industry of Spain (of which the Mexican is an off-shoot), its origins and development have always been something of a mystery. The above-mentioned documents contain the stQry of Juan Robles, a 16th-centurlY glass-blo:wer of Cadalso de los Vidrios in Spain. They indude an eye-witness description of the young man, and a number of his letters, which have been preserved through the clrcurristance that he -Juan RobIesfell under the displeasure of the Spanish Inquisition, and was tried in abseniia in Toledo in a process which extended from 1532-351• Cadalso de los Vidrios, in the Provjnce of Toledo, at this period was an important center of the glass industry, providing high quality domestic glass for the whole kingdom of Castile. Although 1 The documen1ts were the subject oí a pa¡per published by Dr. Haim Beinart of the Hebrew University, Jerusa)em, in the Isaac Ben Zvi Memorial Volume (Hebrew) J964, under the title "Fez, Centre of Proselytiza1tion and Seúlement of Conversos to Judaism in the 16th Century)). 1 take Ithis opportunity of thanking him again for permission to use the material and for giving so generously of his time in discussing it. 44 ANITA ENGLE BERKOFF it is believed that many glass furnaces must have been in aperation there, to judge from the quantities of Cadalso glass which appear on the inventaries of the great houses of the period (induding that of Philip U), there are few details about the glass~making community itself. Juan Robles was the son of a glass~blower of Cadalso, Hernan~ do de Robles, a convert to Christ¡anity. His mother, a Christian of 'oId' Christian descent, whQ was about 60 ~ears oId when she was caIled upon to give evidenee before the Inquisition Court at Toledo, declared that she had never had the slightest suspieion that her husband was not of pure Spanish decent, and there is no reason to doubt her evidence. lt appears that she married him a few years before the expulsion of Jews froro Spain 149:2, So Hernando de Robles must have como from a family which had been nominally Christian for sorne generations. (lt will be remembered that the nrst ]arge~scale conversions :rook place in 139 r, and after 1412 there were centres throughout Spain where practieally the entire Jewish ·cOJ:pmunity adopted Christianity.) As doseIy as de Robles guarded the farnil.y secret, there must have been sorne point at which he feh obliged to pass on to his son Juan the truth about his origino This may have been on Juan's 13th birthday (when, according to Jewish law, a boy reaches the age of religious responsibility); or, more likely, it was just before Hernando's deaj:h, for the glass-blower died, leaving Juan at an early age, the head of a family which consisted of the mother, Maria Alonso, and several children. It was as apprentice to a master glass~blower, one Francisco Ydobro or Y drobo, that Juan Ieft the place of his birth and set out for the independent Sultanate of Fez in Moroeeo. Before following Juan on his journey to Fez, it may be of ~nterest to stop here and eonsider how muehQf his background we can glean from the clues provided in his letters to his mQther, and the information given about his father, Hernando de Robles. Slight as these details are, they gain bod y when fitted into the context ·of what is known about guilds and glass~making communities in Spain and elsewhere. That Jews formed a large proportion of the glass-makers of the A jEWISH GLASS-BLOWER FROM SPAIN 45 anejent and medieval world is at~ested by references in the Mishnah and the Talmud (e.g., from about the 1st to the 6th cent. A.D.)2. These are elaborated by eontraets and references found among the' eairo Geniza documents (11th-12th centuries)", which provide a vivid eommentar.y to Benjamin of Tudela's famous statement about the Jewish glass-makers of T yre and Antioeh (late 12th century)·l. It is all the more remarkable, therefore, ihat there seems to be no direet referenees in Jewish writings to glassmakers' guilds as sacho This may be due tQ the faet that glass-makers were included in other guilds, aecording to the braneh of the industry to which they belonged. F or example, makers of artificial ge»ts and those who worked glas:s in lapidary fashion eould be induded with \)ankers, goldsmiths and/or beadmakers. Other likely guilds would be lanterners; masons or sorne other divsion of the building trade for those who provided the eoloured glass slabs for mosaies, and the pot metal for windows; c1yers (which would explain the signature 'Hyacinthus' found on an early speeimen of blown glass); and potters' guilds, as suggested by another early vessel signed 'Bounneri the potter'; and perhaps glass-makers would even be included within the framework oí shippers, as in Benjamin's referenee to the community of Tyre. «The Jews own sea-going vesseIs, and there are glass-makers. amongst ihem who make that fine T yrian glass-ware whieh is prizeL: in all countries.)) Benjamin, who himseh carne from Navarre, mentinos among the th¡:ee leading men of Tyre Qne Rabbi Meir from Careasonne in far-away Provence, a fact which is of sorne signifieance. The Jewish community of the Mediterranean basin formed a closelyknit unirla. This ist true far the whole of Spain, but particularIy 2 ANITA ENGLE, «Does Western Galilee Contain the Secrets of Glass-Blowing?». Janus (Brill/Leiden). Ut 2, 1964. pp. 125-35. 3 Prof. S. D. GOITEIN, "The Main Industries of the Mediterran.ean Area as reflected in tht:; Records of the Geniz2)). JOtwnal oi the Economic .md Social Hi'Story oi the Orient,. IV. 1961. -1 The Itinerary of Benjamín oi Tudela, ed. Adler. p. 18. 4_ a Prof. GOITEIN, Jews and Arabs (U.S.A.), pp'. 1°9-112. 4b S. KATZ, The Jews in the Wsigothic and Frankish Kingd01r.1S of Spain and Gau~ (U.S.A.), 1937. ANITA ENGLE BERKOFF so for Andalusia. Here Jewish settlement is attested without a break from Roman and Visigothic times, reaching its peak during the Moslem periodo The Cairo Ceniza documents reveal that Spain was the leading countí"y for silk producti9n, and it is thought that this may have been due to the fact that in earTy IsIamic times Spain was chiefly ·colonized by people coming from S~ria and Lebanon, countries with an ancient sericulture5• There is nq reason to doubt that members of the even more ancient glass~making industry of these areas were transferred at the sanie time, and were ·constantly l'einforced and revitalised by the stead y movement between the Jewish communities of the East and those of North Africa and Spain up to the 15th century. And indeed, students of Spanish glass have found that as late as the 18th centruy gIass vessels from Andalusia (show the inHuence of early Islamic forms and of the blowing technique and plastic ornamentation used in Roman gIa·ss centres of Syria and Palestine.)) 6 That there were Jewish glass~makers in Spain is attested by the case of Hernando de Robles and his son Juan Robles, the subject of this paper. Several others will be dealt with in sorne detail in future publications. Bearing in mind the tight, self~ ·contained craft traditions and co~ditions of the pre~rriachine age, -ane must condude that these are not isolated instances, but rather the tips of a submerged iceburg whose true dirriensions can, as yet, only be guessed at. Although, as stated earlier, glass~making is not specifically mentioned, the guilds to which the glass~makers belonged would have been subject to the same laws as the other guiIds creafed by Spanish Jews for the protection and perpetuation of their craft, . .and of these we have record in the Responsa literature (i.e. replies to questions sent to famous Rabbis)Ga. 5 Prof. S. D. GOITEIN, Jews and Arabs, 1964, pp. 172-3. 6 A. W. FROTHINGHAM, Spamish G/ass (London), 1963, p. 14'- ALSO R. RbCKHAM, -Burlíngton Magazine <m SpmJísh Are, 1927, ¡p. 85. 6a For further information 011 Spanish guilds, see M. Wischnitzer, A History oi Jewish ·Crafts mJd Gleilds (U:S.A.i), 1965, chaps. lO, II and 12. and AiPpendices 1 and n. ·[5J A jEWISH GLASS-BLOWER FROM SPAIN 47 The foIlowing inforrpation ahout guild practices is derived from the Responsas of Rabbi Solomon Ben Abraham Adret who was born in Barcelona in 1235 and died there in 1310. AIso known as lbn Adret, or more commonly as Rashba, from the initiaIs of his name in Hebrew, his fame was such that questions on the most varied topics were addressed to him from Spain) Portugal, ltaly, F rance, Germany, and even from Asia Minor. The guilds were calIed in Hebrew haburot, a word which Was in use for trading organisations along the Phoenician coast as far back as the 2nd millenium B. C. From Adret, IV, 1,85 we learn that a member of a guild was succeeded after his death by his son who had to be above 13 years 'oE age. In default d succession, the place was to be voted by the members of the guild to the relative best qualified for admission lnto the organisation. «F urthermore, if alI the artisans of the city in anO' one craft, such as butchers, dyers, or sailors, pass an Qrdinance regarding their trade, this is as binding as the laws of the T orah upon the individuals of the trade ; and every trade organisations, is a ci~y unto itself, and does not require the consent of the outer cQmmunity for its enactments... In conclusion, the members Qf an association are as autonomous in their own affairs as are the citizens of the city, and so each group 01" community is permitted to regulate its aHaÍrs and to prescribe fines and punishments which are not in the laws of the T orah. " This is the practice of all the hol y (i.e. Jewish) congregations and no one has ever questioned its legality.» 7 There i8 no doubt that from earliest times there were conver~ sions to Christianity on the part Qf individual gIassmakers or whole families, either because of economic or politicaI pressure, or simply .th:rough the process of assimilatiQn. Any or aIl of these conditÍons would ha ve been particularly active during medieval times when the monast!Íes were the centers of arts and crafts, and only within .their precincts CQuld be found a livelihood and sotrie measure of 1 As quoted by A. A. NEUMAN, The Jews oi Spail1, Vol. 1 (U.S.A.), 1942, p. 18 3. ANITA ENGLE BERKOFF securityS. The Christian glass~making communities in Spain would have been augmented by the large-scale conversions which took place beiween 1391 and 1412, and certainly well before the expul~ sion in J 492 there would not have been any nominally Jewish glass~ making guilds ldt. The likelihood is that they followed the common practice of converting in a body, and puJting their guilds under the protection of sorne Christian saint". Perhaps we have an echo of this in the information that in 1455 the gIassmakers of Barcelona united with the weavers of esparto grass to form a new guild and brotherhood under the protection of Saint Bernardino. In the same year one of their rriembers was elected to sit on the municipal council, the hrst time the glassmakers were accorder such a privilege, althoguh documentary evidence indicates that there was an active industr:y in Barcelona well before the 14th centurylO. As we already know, the Jewish glassmakers did not forget their origin even though they married Christian wives who, in all likelihood, would have come from glass~making families themselves. Glassmakers have always formed a tightly~lmit community, bound by ties of marriage even more than by their guild. From .luan'g letters to his mother, Qne gains the i).-ppression that Maria Alonso' s family were also glassmakers. T o explain the reasons for thinking SQ, one must go bade a little. Although it is evident from the letters that Maria Alonso was in straightened circumstances, there is nQthing to indicate that the de Robles family was poor while the father was alive. Juan could read and write. His Ietters are written in rather a crude hand, but they are :Ruent and legible ll • He writes to his mother as a proud persono He sends her two leather bags from Fez, and s FROTHINGHAM, Ibid, p. 20; W. A. THoRPE, "The Presel1Jt State of Glass Studies)), Part r, The Antique Conector (London), VoL 33, No. 2, April I962, p. 70. () Prof. GECIL ROTH, A Hist01'Y oi the Marranos (U.S.A.), I960, p. I9 and note 2, P·3 80. 10 FROTHINGHAM, Ibid, pp. I9-20, 23. 11 Inforrnation cornrnunicated by Dr. Beinart, and based on his study of ,the four letters, which ,are now in the Archivo Histórico Nacional, Inquisición de Toledo, Legajo 176. No. II, fols.22r, 22r-22V, 2gv-30v, 38r'38v. [7] A jEWISH GLASS-BLOWER FROM SPAlN 49 apologizes because ({they are not sufficÍently valuable foy your honour.» Juan works out his way of life with independence and self-respect, and sets the highest pyofessÍonal goal foy himself, not like someone who is accustomed to being underpriviliged and of Iow social status. As we sha11 shortly see, this is in striking contrast to the behavIour of Y dobro, who was already a mature and independent artisan. The impression is that the straightened circumstances indicated by the letters, and Juan's dependence on help fram his mother's family, carne about as the result of his father's death before he had had time to establish Juan in his profession. An interview which appeared in the Israelí newspaper Mam-iv not long ago gives sorne idea of the sudden change which such a catastrophe could bring about in the life of a family. The subject of the interview was Rav-Seren (Major) Menachem Amosi who was born in Yemen where, until the mass exodus to Israel after the creation of the State, the social structure of the Jewish community had remained unchanged since medieval times. Rav-Seren Arnosi' s father han been a lJlaster silversmith earning a good living and highly respected in the community for the excellence of his worlc, and for the generosity of his hospitality and his almisgiving. The little boy was very happy in his earI y years. He learned to read the Torah, and was the pet of the village. Then, when he was eight Iyears nId, the oIdest of the family, his father became ill and died. ((The burden felI on my mother, who had be en a pampered wornan, and she was shattered. F or three years after my father died we lived off his possessiQns, which we soldo Eventually my mother had to go to work, and she wandered amQng distant Arab villages, selling perfumes and spices. My father's death not only brought a sud den change in my way of life, but there was also a com;lete change in the attitude of the people of the town towards rne. 1 feh ashamed and disgraced bv the sudden lade of interest on the part of all those who had for~erIy honoured me by caHing me to the T orah, by giving me sweets or patting me on the head)). «Why this sudden change?)) Rav-Seren Amosi was asl<:ed. ((Quite simple», he replied. ((My father had died, and ndw 50 ANITA ENGLE BERKOFF [8] 1 was an orphan. 1 was an unfortunate, and everypne treated me as SUCh.ll Juan's situatjon would have been worse, because of the complex hierarchy of the glass~makers' organization. Glass~makers, like other guilds, were divided into categories subordinated to one another: masters, apprentices and journeymen. The masters were the dominant class, upon whom the pther two depended. They were the proprietors of small wQrkshops, owning their raw materials and tools. Thus the manufactured article belon~ ged to thern, tQgether with the profits from its sale. The appren~ tices were initiated into the trade under their direction, and no one was adrnitted to the craft unless passed by an authorizing com~ rnittee. Finally, the jorunevrnen were paid workrnen who had com~ pleted their apprenticeship, but had not yet risen to the rank of master, and, in fact, sometimes never did, for opportunities outside the circle of the big glass~rnaking families were rare. T o beco me an apprentice, a youth needed guarantors, and sorne one to provide the lump sum which had to be payed to the master in advance for his training. He also required a rneasure of goodwill on the part of a glass~house master, for only one or at most two apprentices were permitted to each. Prornotion would depend on the boy' s ability to secure a work place near the fire (the furnace), where the actual manipulation of the molten glass took place. But it was just this sort of work which was hardest to achieve, since the glas~house masters invariably gave preference to their own children, or th e children of their nearest relatives. Without the help of his father, Juan's formal apprenticeship and eventual rise in status could onl y come through his next of kin in the trade. In Juan's case it appears that only rnembers of the mother's famay (notably hre brother, who seems to have been the head of the farriily), were in a position of any authority in CadalsQ at ihat time 12 • And they, apparently, were not prepared to 12 The Journal oi the American, Jewish Historica.! Society, No. 18, p. 18 ff, contains a lisi: of marr.iages solemnised by the Dutch Portugal Jewish Congregation at Surinam: from 1642-1750. Among themappear the names of Rachel Robles de Medina, David de Robles, Abigail Robles de Medina, Ester Robles de Medina, Rosa Robles de Medina, Rahel de Robles. If ,these names have any bearirig on ,the case, the possibil:ity arises that Her- A ¡EWISH GLASS-BLOWER FROM SPAlN SI help him get the necessary qualifications wjthout which he could neve! ho~ to gain advancement and financial independence. It must have been at some point of frustratiQn and anger brdught about by the behaviour of his mothers' s family that the young man decided to turn his back on the harsh Christian world and return to his father's people. This seems to be the only explanation for the warmth and devotion which Juan showed towards his sisters and brothers and other relations in his letters, in contrast to the bitternessof his referenees to his mother' s family. The siuation is clearly expressed in Juan' s first letter to his mother. This was written in reply to a communication from her, the first he had received in the two years that he had been in Fez. His mother' s position had deteriorated after Juan left Cadalso. Perhaps too proud tQ seek manual work in her own town, Maria Alonso moved to Toledo where she did housework by the da,y. It would seem that people, or more possibl y her family, were taunting the mother with the fact that her son had gone off to work for Y dobro, someone not of their Qwn family, and had left her aJone in her old age. There is also the suggestion that he was under some obligation to them. Juan wrote in reply: (You send to tell me that 1 have denied you and yours, and 1 assure ,you that no such thing could happen, as you should know. h is because 1 could not find any good among your people that 1 ]eft you. Then 1 met Y drobo, and he showed me a goodness such as 1 never met froíri a single one of my relations. They never did anything for me except to use me without pay. There was not even one who was prepared to do the smalIets thing that was necessar.y. 1 don't owe anything to anyone but to Ydrobd, who carne here for my sake. And if 1 live, 1 will repay him for the ]o5ses which he suffered because of me.)) It is not clear whether Y dobro was from Cadalso or the neighnando de Robles was 'not a Cadalso man, bui: belonged to a famüy centered on Medina del Campo. Famous ror ilts fairs, this town is almost equidistant from Toledo and Burg05, where another converso Jew.ish glassmaker, Pedro de Medina is referred to in a document mentioned by FROTHtNGHAM, [bid, p. 26. [16] Ai'<lTA ENGLE BERKOFF considered by the Inquisition io bring this young man tQ judgement. Perhaps .the church authorities were a180 anxious to stop the breakup of the glass-making community in Cadalso de los VidriQs. Juan 's was the eight and 1ast file from Cadalso. (However, it i8 not known to the writer of this paper whetcr the other files deahs with members of the glass-making 01' aUied crafts.) The first information about Abraham the convert was brought by a monk who carne back and reported to the Inquisition in T aleda in J 530. This was recorded in the book of evidence. Threequarters of a :year la ter , more information was recroded by a monk named Pedro de Mata, whQ gave his evidence in San Martin de Valdeigleisas when he returned from Fez. Pedro de Mata' s evidence was passed to the lnquisition Head Quarters in Toledo, and another year and a haH elapsed unti! the c:ourt decided to take legal action against Juan's conversíon was presented by 9 witnesses, the court postponed the case several times by giving orders that public procIamation demanding his retum should be made in Cadalso, and extending the time limit within which he oould appear. When the mother, Maria Alonso, appeared before the Inquisition in January 1535, she begged that the case of her son should be delayed again to give hím a chance to return, and once again an extension of sorne months was granted. After that Maria AlonsO' wrote to her SiOn in another attempt to persuade hím to return, but on April 24th the prosecutor presented to the judges a letter frem Fez in which Juan stated quite dearly that he had no intention of returning, and the judges were asked to consider this as sufficient evidence. F rorri then on the case proceeded quickl y, and Juan Robles (Abraham the proselyte) was convcted on Dec. 21, 1535, and sentenced to be burnt in effigy. More than 5 years had elapsed from the time that the Inquisition received their first informatlon about the C'onvert. We have no further information about Juan Robles of Fez, as he signed himself in one of his letters. And even if he did chance to turn up in sorne later document, we WQuld not recognise him, for his identity would be masked, perhaps deliberately, under ane [17] A jEWISH GLASS-BLOWER FROM SPAIN 59' of the :rpany complicated names adopted by the Jews of the Moslem world. There may, hawever, be sorne traces of famiLy connectjons tQ be found in the western World, and it is worth considering some of these possibilities here. The name of ano!her glass-maker who was wQrking at Cadalso around the same period, that of Juan Rodríguez, has come down to US I6 • It is not clear when he lef! Cadalso de los Vidrios, but after working for sorne years in Ven ice and Barcelona, he is recorded as being a Seville in 1 557, when he applied for permission to set up a furnace there. Seville was Qne of the centres from which the conversos of Spain and Portugal left for the Netherlands andjor England, or the New World. Several people by the name of Riodrigues or Rodrigues appear in Inquisition documents aS Portuguese, where thousands of the Spanish conversos Red for refuge. In a lis! of the Jews of the Spanish and Portuguese com:Wunity in England who were made citizens in the time of Charles U (1-661f 687), we find the following names: A braharn Rodrigues, Alphonso Rodrigues, and Antonio Rodrigues Robles". The name of Robles appears 'Once again, this time in an unmistakably glass context. Among the names of Spanish glassmakersis that of the Sala family of which members are recorded in the Barcelona area fram 1 41 7 to 1 489, one of them. Francisco Sala appearing in Barcelona records of 1485 18 • This name, in the form of de Sala, Salas or de Salas is one which is known among Jews of that area from the J 3th century onwards '9 . At a later period we find the name of Francisco de Salhas (the Portuguese spelling) appearing again, this time among records of the Inquisition. He was a gIass merchant of Alhos Vedros, and later of Lisbon, whose daughter UrsuIa Maria Salas was banished to Brazil in 1682 fnr 16 FROTHINGHAM, lbid, pp. 57-8. 61, quoting GESTOSO y PÉREZ, El1sayo de ~t1I di!> cionario de las artífices que florecieron en Sevilla (Sevilla}, 1909., Vol. 2, p. 40I. 17 The American Jewish Hist01'ical Society, No. 20, p. IIO. 18 FROTHINGHAM, Ibid, p. 24. 19 .'ACOB JACOBS, Mss. Sources far Spanish Jewis)¡ History (London), 1894; PraL FruTZ BAER, Die Juden im c)¡1'istlic)¡en j\panien, Vol. l, part 1, 1929, part 2, 1936. '60 ANITA ENGLE BERKOFF judaizing2fl. One of the famiLy married a Sarah Robles of Seville in Amsterdam early in the 18th century21. The Salas family apparently Red from Lisbon to Leghorn from where they later migrated to Amsterdam, Cura<;ao and Surinam 22 • Surinam, it will be recalled, was also the destination of a large contingent of the Robles de Medina family, as referred to in Note 12. T aking these facts into ,consideration, it would seem more 1:han a coincidence that Sarah Robles, who marrÍed a Salas, bears a name given to female converts fo Judaism. just as Abraham is the name taken by male converts; and that Francisco de Salhas, the Portuguese converso, has the same name as the member of the glass~making Sala famiLy mentioned in the Barcelona record s <Df 1485. F rom the point of view of the 20th century, private, and even family na mes may seem flimsy evide11.lce on which to Jbase a relationship extending over 200 years. But it should be taken into account that it was a custom among the Jews of the Spanish and Portuguese communities to naí:Iíe a grandchild after his paternal or maternal grandparents. Those who have made a study of such communities have found that ver,y often grandpa~ents and childless relatives left Iarge Iegacies to their namesakes, born or unborn, as indicatÍons of their appreciation 23 • F urthermore, gIass~inakers have always had a tradition of marrying within their own cirde, presumabl y to perpetua te the secrets of their craft. This gives a continuity tQ glass~making fami~ lies which may not exist in other fields, and we have examples of even longer duration than that indicated aboye. In present~day haly there are glass~making communities whose fmilies have been <Dutstanding in gIass history from the -15th century, with the same 20 Publica'bjon oi the American Jewish Hiso1'ica! Sor;iety (U.S.A.}. Vol. IV. p. I73' 21 Portuguese Jewish Community Archive of Amsterdam, Ket. vol. 9. no. 234; Doop. Tren and Begraafregisters, Records of the Ci'ty of Amsterdam, 7I4, f. II7V. (Qncting fl'Om Rev. ISAAC S. EMMANUEL, Precious Stones of The Jews oi Curafilo (New York), I957. p. 4 00 • 22 EMMANUEL, lbid, ¡p. 400. 23 EMMANUEL, Ibid, p. 98. [19] A )EWISH GLASS-BLOWER FROM SPAIN 61 prívate names appearing ,ºver and over again during the period of more than 500 yea):'s. The is every likelihood, therefore, that investigation into the files os Spanish and Portuguese Jews in Amsterdam and elsewhere would reveal further ramih<:atÍons of the family of Juan Robles, glassmaker of CadalsQ de los Vidrios. A nita Engle Berk.off (This article is copyright and no part of it may be quoted without permission of the author.)