The Black Death and its Consequences for the Jewish Community in Tàrrega: Lessons from History and Archeology

Abstract

In 2007, excavations in a suburb of the Catalan town of Tàrrega identified the possible location of the medieval Jewish cemetery. Subsequent excavations confirmed that multiple individuals buried in six communal graves had suffered violent deaths. The present study argues that these communal graves can be connected to a well-documented assault on the Jews of Tàrrega that occurred in 1348: long known as one of the earliest episodes of anti-Jewish violence related to the Black Death, but never before corroborated by physical remains. This study places textual sources, both Christian and Jewish, alongside the recently discovered archeological evidence of the violence.

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History of Pandemics in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Century

“…One can even argue that it leads to a rise in xenophobia. For example, the outbreak of the Black Death in Europe led to a sharp rise in anti-Semitism in the Middle Ages (Colet, Santiveri, Ventura, Saula, & Galdacano, 2014). The Jews, largely due to the strict hygiene regime imposed on them by Judaism, were exempted from the ravages of the Plague.…”

Archéologie de la santé, anthropologie du soin

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