Family, Community, and Motherhood: Caring for Fatherless Children in the Jewish Community of Thirteenth-Century Perpignan

This article investigates the guardianship of fatherless children (orphans) in one of the most important Jewish communities of the thirteenth-century realms of Aragon, the aljama of the town of Perpignan. After reviewing some ideals of Solomon ben Abraham ibn Adret of Barcelona, as expressed in his responsa, the article focuses on documents of practice. This documentary basis includes royal charters, Latin wills of Jewish testators, and 148 unedited transactions generated by eighteen panels of guardians between 1266 and 1286, described in an analytical table at the end of the article. The practical evidence reveals that guardians usually served as a group, panels comprised close relatives of the wards and men who were distinguished in their community through official service. Case studies expose the dynamics within these panels and establish that the orphans' widowed mother usually acted as the group's leader. A comparison with her Christian counterpart places the rights and responsibilities of the Jewish widowed mother guardian into relief. Although not autonomous, Jewish widowed guardians were highly effective caretakers of their fatherless children. The idealized view of the Jewish widow held by her medieval contemporaries as helpless and in need of special care from the men of her community enabled already capable widows to benefit from the financial aid of community leaders who otherwise might not have been so keen to foster these women's legal and financial agency.