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Irish's understanding of Jewish history as an integral part of the history of the areas studied is one of the greatest merits of their work. This embeddedness in general developments is also shown, and above all, in their detailed source analyzesDetailed studies are successfully integrated into the overall narrative and always serve to illustrate general developments. --Birgit Wiedl, Sehepunkte Jews and Christians in Medieval Castile brings to life the situation of the Jews along the Road to Santiago. Working with difficult and often skimpy source material, Maya Soifer Irish not only demonstrates the importance of these communities to the Castilian economy, monarchy, and church, but also undermines conventional assumptions about the importance of the Islamic model for Christian rulers. Without in any sense minimizing the precarious position of the Jews under Castilian rule, Irish shows their wealth, influence, and agency in a perilous but not inflexible regime. Beautifully written, the book is an important revision of the picture of cultural, political, and religious interaction in Spain. - --Paul Freeman, Yale University Rejecting notions of a distinctively Spanish 'convivencia, ' and instead approaching the complex status of Castilian Jews within the framework of their European context, Maya SoiferIrish's study of Jewry in the north of the Iberian peninsula promises to become a seminal work. Mining a wide range of local archival sources, Soifer Irish traces the waxing and waning fortunes of the Jewish community over a three-hundred- year period, all the way to the brink of catastrophic violence. Jews and Christians in Medieval Castile examines the rich fabric of a multiethnic society along the Camino de Santiago and beyond toward the expanding military frontier. While untangling the threads of the social, economic, political, and ecclesiastical relationships between Jews and Christians, the author also allows us to zoom in on urban centers such as Palencia, while reminding us of the many Jews who lived in small towns or in rural settings. An impressive achievement, deeply versed in scholarship from both sides of the Atlantic. - --Simon Doubleday, Hofstra University, and author of The Wise King. A Christian Prince, Muslim Spain, and the Birth of the Renaissance

"""Irish's understanding of Jewish history as an integral part of the history of the areas studied is one of the greatest merits of their work. This embeddedness in general developments is also shown, and above all, in their detailed source analyzesDetailed studies are successfully integrated into the overall narrative and always serve to illustrate general developments.""--Birgit Wiedl, Sehepunkte ""Jews and Christians in Medieval Castile brings to life the situation of the Jews along the Road to Santiago. Working with difficult and often skimpy source material, Maya Soifer Irish not only demonstrates the importance of these communities to the Castilian economy, monarchy, and church, but also undermines conventional assumptions about the importance of the Islamic model for Christian rulers. Without in any sense minimizing the precarious position of the Jews under Castilian rule, Irish shows their wealth, influence, and agency in a perilous but not inflexible regime. Beautifully written, the book is an important revision of the picture of cultural, political, and religious interaction in Spain. -""--Paul Freeman, Yale University ""Rejecting notions of a distinctively Spanish 'convivencia, ' and instead approaching the complex status of Castilian Jews within the framework of their European context, Maya SoiferIrish's study of Jewry in the north of the Iberian peninsula promises to become a seminal work. Mining a wide range of local archival sources, Soifer Irish traces the waxing and waning fortunes of the Jewish community over a three-hundred- year period, all the way to the brink of catastrophic violence. Jews and Christians in Medieval Castile examines the rich fabric of a multiethnic society along the Camino de Santiago and beyond toward the expanding military frontier. While untangling the threads of the social, economic, political, and ecclesiastical relationships between Jews and Christians, the author also allows us to zoom in on urban centers such as Palencia, while reminding us of the many Jews who lived in small towns or in rural settings. An impressive achievement, deeply versed in scholarship from both sides of the Atlantic. -""--Simon Doubleday, Hofstra University, and author of The Wise King. A Christian Prince, Muslim Spain, and the Birth of the Renaissance"

""Irish's understanding of Jewish history as an integral part of the history of the areas studied is one of the greatest merits of their work. This embeddedness in general developments is also shown, and above all, in their detailed source analyzesDetailed studies are successfully integrated into the overall narrative and always serve to illustrate general developments.""--Birgit Wiedl, Sehepunkte ""Jews and Christians in Medieval Castile brings to life the situation of the Jews along the Road to Santiago. Working with difficult and often skimpy source material, Maya Soifer Irish not only demonstrates the importance of these communities to the Castilian economy, monarchy, and church, but also undermines conventional assumptions about the importance of the Islamic model for Christian rulers. Without in any sense minimizing the precarious position of the Jews under Castilian rule, Irish shows their wealth, influence, and agency in a perilous but not inflexible regime. Beautifully written, the book is an important revision of the picture of cultural, political, and religious interaction in Spain. -""--Paul Freeman, Yale University ""Rejecting notions of a distinctively Spanish 'convivencia, ' and instead approaching the complex status of Castilian Jews within the framework of their European context, Maya SoiferIrish's study of Jewry in the north of the Iberian peninsula promises to become a seminal work. Mining a wide range of local archival sources, Soifer Irish traces the waxing and waning fortunes of the Jewish community over a three-hundred- year period, all the way to the brink of catastrophic violence. Jews and Christians in Medieval Castile examines the rich fabric of a multiethnic society along the Camino de Santiago and beyond toward the expanding military frontier. While untangling the threads of the social, economic, political, and ecclesiastical relationships between Jews and Christians, the author also allows us to zoom in on urban centers such as Palencia, while reminding us of the many Jews who lived in small towns or in rural settings. An impressive achievement, deeply versed in scholarship from both sides of the Atlantic. -""--Simon Doubleday, Hofstra University, and author of The Wise King. A Christian Prince, Muslim Spain, and the Birth of the Renaissance

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Maya Soifer Irish is assistant professor of history, Rice University, USA.

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