Barcelona

At the start of Arc de Sant Ramon del Call Street, connected at that time with the current Bajada de Santa Eulàlia, the district takes on a certain Bohemian air. Despite its irregular layout, the streets follow the interior line of the Roman wall, concealed between the houses of this street and Bany Nous street. At the end of the street there was a cul-de-sac which went as far as Bajada de Santa Eulàlia.

From written sources we know that this street may have been the location of the Franceces synagogues and some cold baths, but it has not been possible to find them. There is speculation that they were situated t number 15 alongside the CallInterpretation Centre.

This street had no direct exit to Call Street, but connected directly to Castell Nou via a raised pass. In photos from the end of the 19th century the arch can also be seen which lent its name to this street.

Arc de Santa Eulàlia Street, also accessed via Boqueria, was formed by a medieval tower from the mid-14th century called the Tower of Santa Eulàlia. Some alleys, which are no longer there, went from Volta del Remei to Arc de Santa Eulàlia. It is still possible to find houses with a mezuzah hole in the lintel of their doors. On the Boqueria side, the current constructions still take up the medieval parcels. On the Ferran street side, by contrast, the former parcels were further remodelled with a view to opening this street in the mid-19th century.

In the Middle Ages Sant Sever and bajada de Santa Eulalia made up just one street called Volta which ended at the Roman wall and which was a cul-de-sac until 1394. At number 3 Bajada de Santa Eulalia streets there is an interesting medieval building backing onto the Roman wall and built inside it. The lateral façade of this building looked out onto a street which no longer exists and of which a bricked up segment can be seen, part conserved as a courtyard and the other part, also bricked up, giving out onto a large courtyard large courtyard facing Sant Felip Neri square. . A stone tablet with a Hebrew inscription, in re-used building material with a Hebrew inscription. The building dates from after 1391. These streets form the northern limit of the district and they were crossed on the left by the Roman wall and on the right by the bishop's properties. The Jewish houses did not reach the current Sant Felip Neri Square which was the Bishop's domain.

The Jewish communities, particularly the larger ones, owned specific shops and businesses to ensure compliance with the Kashrut law such as butcher's, fishmonger's etc. with some exceptions such as the oven which, in the case of Barcelona, was located outside the Jewish quarter opposite Portal Mayor on the south side of the current Call street. At these premises food was prepared according to Jewish law and it was sold if declared as fit for consumption by the community.

The name of this street refers to a unique building which characterised it for a long time: the Banys Nous, the medieval public baths of the city. They were situated on that part of the street which forms a corner with the Boqueria, in the space now occupied by a building with notable Baroque esgrafiats.

The baths were founded in 1160 by the alfaquiAbraham Bonastruc, associated with Count Ramon Berenguer. The count granted some land outside the Roman wall under Castell Nou, a place where water was plentiful and Bonastruc had them built and equipped. According to the contract the alfaqui would run them and both would receive a third of the profits. Bonastruc' sons sold them to Guillem Durfort.

The building was built according to the Arab tradition of bathing houses, but with Romanesque techniques and decoration. It had various rooms and outbuildings, including one intended for Mikveh. The most important rooms were the rest room with a vault central shrine and the steam bath rooms. The building remained intact, though unused, buried under the house until 1835 when it was knocked down. Plans and drawings of a scale model can be found at the City History Museum.

The call butcher's was situated at the entrance to the Jewish quarter at Sant Domènec street or, according to the designation of the time, at Carnicería or Sinagoga Mayor street. The cutting of meat was carried out at two workshops in the building located at the Sant Domènec gate and owned by David de Bellcaire since 1369. At this time the butcher was Jaume Rifós who had the premises rented for ten pounds a year. In 1387 the aforementioned David de Bellcaire had both workshops rented to another Christian butcher Ferrer Maiell.

In Manuel Ribé square which opens out on the right of Sant Domènec del Call street there is the new Call Interpretation Centre built on a former Jewish mansion and used as an information and welcoming centre, a place for cultural activities and the point of departure for tourist visits to Jewish quarters. The best conserved part of the building - whose last Jewish owner was Jucef Bonjach, a weaver of silk veils, having died in 1393 - pertains to the corner between the square and Arc de Sant Ramon del Call street which starts at this spot. This 16th century house was built by reusing materials from previous ages such as one of its windows, undoubtedly a door originally, where the hole of the mezuzahfrom the 14th century is still conserved. The remains of a Hebrew inscription inserted on the wall bear testimony to the restoration of the property after the expulsion of the Jews.

The street which lends its name to the district is surprising for its animation and shape; the Roman wall which stands out from a façade reminds us of its origin: a closed cul-de-sac without an exit which led to the Jewish quarter.

At the confluence of Sant Domènec Street with Call Street was the main gate to the Jewish quarter. Call Street, which formed the cardus of the Roman city, underwent changes to its straight layout with the construction in the Middle Ages of Castell Nou, a fortress which was set up on the original Roman gate. Also known as the Tower of Hercules or Cató Tower, the castle suffered a severe collapse in 1553, but its ruins survived until 1848 when they disappeared to make way for Ferran Street.

At number 5 Call Street there are still remains of the Roman wall which was opened to facilitate the thoroughfare to Banys Nous; both his house and that of number 7 maintain their medieval mark after successive restorations.

The crossing of the Call Streets, Avinyó, Boqueria and Banys Nous has been known as «the four corners of call».

Castell Nou, a former Vice-count's castle, was one of the landmark building of the Call. Located in the current Banys Nous street, it occupied the current block between Call, Avinyó and Ferran streets. The castle was one of the strongholds built in the county period above the Roman gate to protect the city's western gate.

Although during the 14th century it was used as a prison, Castell Nou's history is bound up with the slaughters of 1391 when it was used as a refuge for hundreds of persecuted Jews and when it was attacked on August 7th by those critical to the Jews.

The castle gradually became run down with the passage of time. The final remains of this castle - also known by the names of Hercules Tower and Cató Tower - disappeared when Ferran street was opened in the mid-19th century. Call street formed a small square near the castle where the Jewish oven was located. Various documents tell us of collapses and the need to make repairs. A large part of the castle fell in 1553 and the final remains (Torre de Cató) collapsed in 1848 with the opening of Ferran street.

The fishmonger's location is only referred to in a debt acknowledgement document for some works carried out in a house rented by Regina, the widow of Vidal Capdepebre to Astruch Vidal Biona in Call mayor:

Vidal Capdepebre's home opened out onto the street which ran from the Escuela de Mujeres (Women's school) (Marlet street) to Fuente street (Sant Honorat street).

Under Jewish law fish could only be sold with scales and it was forbidden to sell seafood and other aquatic animals.

The so-called Set of Monuments in Plaça del Rei, formed by Palau Reial and Padellàs House, currently forms part of the spacious structure of the City History Museum of Barcelona. The Palau Real was a Count's Palace in the 11th century and later served for centuries as the residence of the kings of Aragón and Catalonia. The Padellàs house, housing the City History Museum, is a Gothic palace which was moved to this square, brick by brick, from its previous location at Mercaders Street in 1931. The visit to both sites can be complemented by a look around the archaeological subsoil of the square. The museum organises guided tours around the Jewish quarters of Barcelona and here you can also find the original headstone of Samuel Ha-Sardi, some of the Hebrew headstones at the Montjuïc cemetery and a scale model of the Banys Nous.

Escuela de los Franceses street or Banys Freds (Cold Baths) street, the former name of Arc de Sant Ramón street, earned its name from the synagogue for Jews of French origin taking refuge in Barcelona who in 1306 received royal permission to build it. The name Banys Freds - in contrast to Banys Nous built in 1160 which was also located on the street - perhaps refers to the existence of a Mikveh in the area.

Marlet Street starts at number 1 with a headstone recalling on its façade the figure of Rabbi Samuel Ha-Sardi and which was found in 1820 during the construction works on the current buildings. On the transcription which appears on the headstone from 1826, a modern reinterpretation would probably run something like:

It is a replica in any case as the original is on show at the City History Museum of Barcelona.

The Montjuïc mountain, one of Barcelona's universal symbols, bears its unforgettable name, a reminder of those Jews who formed part of the city's life for six centuries. In addition to their tombs, 175 of them were discovered in 1945, in Mons Judaicus and its outskirts the Jews had houses and farmland.

We can find inscriptions in Hebrew characters on building walls, in the main on the façades of the Palau del Lloctinent which give out onto Sant Iu square and Plaza del Rei (King's square): they are blocks of stone from the Jewish burial site of Montjuïc. Once the community had disappeared in the 14th century, the King authorised the use of its stones with or without inscriptions as construction material.

Just because the call was a closed space this does not necessarily mean the Jews lived isolated. In Montjuïc, the mount of the Jews, as well as the cemetery they possessed farmland and some houses and towers. On the Barcelona plain they owned a lot of land, in the main vineyards, gardens, farmland and fruit trees; some of this land they cultivated themselves and others loan collateral. The plain area where they had the most properties were, inter alia, Magòria, Bederrida, Les Corts, at Collserola, the outskirts of Rec Comtal... They also had houses and workshops in Sant Jaume square and stalls at the Plaza del Blat market. Around Miracle (the current space of Paradís Street where the Roman temple used to be) was the abode in the 11th century of the Jewish money-changers Bonhom, Enees and David in a space which recalled a residential area and which later was left outside the Main call area.

Main call occupied the north-eastern quadrant of the Roman city. Some remains of the wall can still been found from the Roman urbanisation inside the houses situated between the Bany Nous and Arc de Sant Ramon del Call streets. The Roman streets conserved are those of Sant Domènec and Sant Honorat, former decumani minori; Volta street, the current Sant Sever street and Bajada de Santa Eulàlia; a former cardo minimus and Call street, the former cardo maximus which stretched to the Roman gate and which was diverted at some point and adopted the shape it still has today. Traces can still be found of another cardo minimus, which has now disappeared, and other medieval cul-de-sacs. The limits of Main call were Call street and Castell Nou street to the south; Sant Honorat street, to be precise the line of houses between Sant Honorat and Bisbe street, to the east; Sant Sever street and Bajada de Santa Eulàlia as far as the Roman wall to the north and a dividing line between the streets of Arc de Sant Ramon del Call and Banys Nous to the west. However, in the mid-13th century the King authorised doors and windows to be opened in the Roman wall and the limits were expanded with the urbanisation of Avinyó and Banys Nous streets.

The Jews of Barcelona grouped together in Main call between the 12th and 14th centuries, though in stricter fashion as from the 13th century. In 1275 King Jaime I received a reminder from Pope Gregory X of the need to delimit the Jewish districts which was apparently not being fully complied with in Barcelona.

The Sinagoga Mayor, the oldest of the existing ones in Barcelona, dates back to the 9th century despite the fact there are no documentary references to its existence until the 13th century. It is located at number 7, Sant Domènec del Call street, inside the block lying between the streets Sant Domènec, Marlet and Arc de Sant Ramon del Call and the current Manuel Ribé square. It had tree access doors: via Marlet street, via an alley which has since disappeared which left number 8 of Arc de Sant Ramon del Call street and the entrance at number 9 of Sant Domènec street. At the start of the street there was the entrance portal, the doorkeeper´s house and the Jewish butcher's which, although not an institution, it was the place where kosher meat was sold..

Marlet street is one of the best known streets in the Barcelona Call owing to the headstone embedded in the wall of house number 1. This house was constructed in 1820 and amongst its remains said stone was found which the owners decided to put in the same place it had been before. They also added another headstone bearing an erroneous translation. A plaque was recently installed with a translation which we believe to be the correct one:

It is an irregularly lined street which moves away from the straight lines of the Roman urbanisation.

In the part nearest Sant Domènec del Call a low door can be seen which leads to a passage and which must have been one of the entrances to the synagogue.

Following to Fruita Street , we can observe an image which lets us imagine what the streets of the Call were actually like: small, narrow, winding and with houses which seem to obstruct your journey.

On Marlet street a certain property today introduces itself to the public as the Main Synagogue of Barcelona, coinciding with what, according to researchers, must have been the women's entrance or the sinagoga de les dones (Women´s synagogue). The room may have served as a place of prayer.

The figure of Massot Avengená is not particularly well known and has never been the main object of any study. The Financier of Peter the Ceremonious and a member of the Casa del Infante Juan (Prince John House) was a major figure in the Barcelona Jewish community in the second half of the 14th century and the final owner of the main house of the corn exchange, situated at Sant Honorat street, 3, before the disintegration of the aljama as a consequence of the slaughter of 1391.

The prestige of Massot Avengená amongst the other members of the Jewish community in Barcelona can be seen by the fact that he was the aljama secretary on various occasions.

His status within the community led the King to grant him permission to put up a private synagogue, not in the corn exchange house on Sant Honorat street, but at the current number 15 of Arco de San Ramón street.

In the subsoil of the current Sant Honorat street you can visit a Roman domus built in the 4th century AD Part of the perystilum or central porticoed garden has been conserved with various laci, water tanks and plants. The decoration of the house and its position alongside the colonial settlement as well as its extension (it must have occupied the whole block) tells us that it belonged to a prominent personality of the city.

On the same site you can behold the remains of other historical ages such as six huge silos from the Early Middle Ages which were built in the Barcelona Jewish quarter. Its stands out for its height (four metres) and its construction system. The medieval complex illustrates the economic and commercial vitality of the Barcelona Jewish quarter in the 13th century.

The six silos endowed with large dimensions and the various tanks identified represented a secure storage space for different products (cereals, coral silks...). It may well have formed part of the corn exchangewhich the written documentation locates in said block on the eastern edge of the district, organised around a small open air square with an exit onto the current Sant Honorat street.

The medieval corn exchange was a commercial type equipment which received merchants and their products temporarily - and which this required large storage spaces - generating great commercial activity with all kinds of transactions. The documents indicate that in the mid-14th century one of the house owners was Massot Avengená, a well-off member of the Barcelona Jewish community.

In medieval Barcelona there were two Jewish districts: Main Call and Minor call, also called Sanahuja or Àngela. The two calls were not connected to each other, but we believe that when the streets of Banys Nous, Boqueria and Avinyó began to be urbanised - in other words, after the opening of the Roman wall - the communication was much more direct. In between the two Jewish quarters was Castell Nou (New Castle). And also equidistant between the two districts was the Banys Nous or New Baths building which were public and not restricted on religious, racial or gender grounds.

Minor call is also known as Call de N´Àngela or Call d´En Sanahuja, names which refer to the plot owners. The district is an urbanisation planned in the 13th century formed by five blocks with a synagogue and a square and situated alongside Castell Nou via its external part, in other words, on the exterior of the Roman wall. Minor call had no direct connection to Mayor. Its limits were the streets of Boqueria, Rauric, Lleona and Avinyó. It had two gates, one near Castell Nou, via the exterior side, and the other on Boqueria street, next to Rauric street which was possibly a gate mentioned in 1255. Boqueria street was the street which led to the quarter. Several alleys came out from the latter as far as Trinitat square (which disappeared when Ferran street was opened). This street was later occupied by converts who set up their businesses there: goldsmiths, veil weavers, tailors, cobblers...

Volta del Remei street, entering via Boqueria, also conserves a medieval tower from the 13th century; it had previously been called Arc d´en Sanahuja street. If observed from Ferran street the rear of the so-called tower-house can be seen, much less reworked than the front.

At the opening out of Volta del Remei into Ferran street there used to be Trinitat square and this was the site of theCall menor synagogue, later turned into a church by the converts themselves after the Jewish quarter slaughters of 1391.

The Synagogue may have been built in 1263, the year in which Jaime I granted permission to Bonanasc Salamó to do so at this site. In 1394 the Trinidad church arose at this site. It is very different from the neoclassical profile of the current church, dedicated to Sant Jaume, with the architecture of said synagogue or the Trinidad church, but the stones have withstood the lashings of time, maintaining a space for praying right in the heart of the hustle and bustle of this major city.

Situated right in the heart of the old district, Sant Jaume Square is located on the former forum of the Roman city and indicates the limit of Call mayor or the main Jewish quarters in Barcelona which opened out to the northwest.

In the Middle Ages the square, today a true symbol of Catalan public life, with the palaces of the Generalitat and the Town Hall opposite each other, was little more than a widening between the current Llibretería and Call streets. The presence of Jewish houses and workshops has been documented here outside the limits of the district; as in other Spanish cities before the royal decrees required them to be concentrated in a specific space, the Jews were able to live all over Barcelona.

Before the 14th century Rauric street was a boulevard which stretched to Vilanova dels Còdols and which was «changed» (moved) to Riera del Pi, the current Cardenal Casañas street.

In the centre of the Minor call was the square later called la Trinitat; it was opposite the synagogue and disappeared in the mid-19th century. The synagogue was converted into Trinitat Church by a group of converts.

Plaza del Rei (King's square) is a retiring space which opens out into the heart of the Gothic District and which is as rife with charm as it is with historical references. Here you can find the Palau Reial alongside which in 1263 the notorious Disputation of Barcelona ran its course between the Dominican convert Pau Cristià, a great polemicist and expert in the Talmud, and the Jew from Girona, Moses ben Nahman, or Nahmanides, one of the great learned men of the age. The disputation ran off in five intense sessions presided over by the King and followed by a vast crowd in which the debate about the arrival of the Messiah was in stalemate, at least according to the drafting of the conclusions in Hebrew or in Latin, though it ended up meaning exile for the man from Girona.

Also known as Carnicería (butcher´s) Street or Sinagoga Mayor (Main Synagogue) Street, this was the most important street in the Jewish quarter. At the start of the street there was the entrance portal, the doorkeeper´s house and the Jewish butcher's which, although not an institution, it was the place where koshermeat was sold. The street's current name derives from the fact that on August 5th 1391, when the attack on Calloccurred, it was St. Dominic's day. The existence of a Dominican convent within the limits of Callis not historically accurate as well as all the legends created around it. This was the main street of Main call where the synagogue, butcher's and other notable buildings were located. To the north, the street formed a small square which is no longer there and to the south was the main gateway to the district.

The current Sant Honorat Street was one of the decumani minori of the Roman city and at its confluence with Sant Jaume Square it was closed off by a gate which marked one of the limits of Main call. At the side of the current Palace of the Generalitat, on the right, there is a row of Jewish houses bought by members of the General Delegation in 1400 to erect in its stead this Gothic building designed by the architect Marc Safont, which would later undergo further extensions and transformations.

On the northern side of the street were the homes of Benvenist Samuel and his nephew Samuel Benvenist which were situated at the old walls on Bisbe street. The house which stands out in the line of the street in the 14th century was the most relevant of the set and the only one which had an exit to Bisbe street on the other side of the Jewish quarter. It belonged to the poet Moses Natán and later to the surgeon Bonjuà Cabrit and his heirs. It seems that this area near a gate of the Call, was the residential area inhabited by doctors and surgeons. One reason for this specific location in the Call was the proximity of the royal palace to which they were frequently summonsed. May Jews were frequent visitors to the King's home and were even assigned the category of relations.

Alongside there was a cul-de-sac which is currently bricked up at the end of which was the sinagoga Menor or Poca (minor synagogue).

Sant Sever street was cul-de-sac which did not open until 1394. The area, near the Cathedral, changed greatly in appearance in the 17th century with the construction of the rear of the Palau de la Generalitat building, on the one hand, and that of Sant Sever Church on the other.

In building number 5 of Sant Sever street which forms a corner with Sant Felip Neri street, archaeological investigations have been carried out which have allowed the existence of a domus from the late Roman age, to be confirmed, a press from the 9th to 11th centuries, the remains of constructions from the 13th to 14th centuries as a possible disused market from the first half of the 13th century, wells, three intercommunicated silos and remains from the 18th to 19th centuries. In more recent times, making the most of the free space at Sant Felip Neri square, the façade of this building looking out onto the square was reconstructed with recycled material whilst also moving here the house of the cobblers' guild.

In the 14th century there were at least five synagogues in the Barcelona Call: the Sinagoga Mayor (Main Synagogue), the Women's Synagogue built according to the common features of various Jewish communities to make up for the lack of space and intended for the female members of the community as gathering and prayer places; the French Synagogue founded by Jews of French origin taking refuge in Barcelona who in 1306 received royal permission to build it; and the Massot Synagogue built by the wealthy Massot Avengena in the second half of the 14th century.

There was also a fifth synagoguecalled the Sinagoga Chica or Sinagoga Poca which was erected at the site currently, and since 1434, accommodating the Chapel of Sant Jordi of the Palacio de la Generalitat.

The fountain was built in 1357 alongside the current Sant Jaume Square and it gave its name to the current Sant Honorat street as from the 14th century. Until the time of its construction the Jews had to fetch water from outside the call according to that set out in the municipal ordinances of 1356 which forbade Christians from harming Jews coming to and from the fountain to fetch water:

The fountain's construction inside the call was supposed to solve the problem reflected by this municipal ordinance and, in actual fact, it was a further step in the segregation process in view of the fact that it was no longer necessary to leave the call nor form queues alongside the Christians.