Resumen de Salamon Abnarrabi – A Jewish rentier in late fourteenth-century Zaragoza
Investment in real estate by Jews in medieval Aragon/Catalonia has been discussed by previous authors but detailed studies of their economic activities focus on finance, with some analysis of crafts and trading. No previous work analyses the economic role of real estate investment, other than stemming from secured lending, and some have challenged the idea of property as an attractive investment. In Barcelona, whilst property investment by Jews was notable up to the late thirteenth century, it declined thereafter. This study employs the case study of a prominent family of Zaragoza in the late fourteenth century, Salamon Abnarrabi and sons, to challenge these notions. It finds that real estate was a major asset, acquired and often held for long periods, sometimes leased to Christians for cash rentals, often with no clear link to lending but as an independent source of income. The events of 1391, which theory suggests might render a long-term, fixed asset less attractive to a persecuted minority, seems to have had no such effect and acquisitions persisted throughout the 1390s. These behaviours seem more consistent with modern portfolio theory, favouring diversification of assets, than with traditional views of medieval Jews as principally money-lenders
