Vidal Benveniste de Porta ( ca, Vidal Benvenist ça Porta; died 1268) was the

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

'' batlle'' of

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

Girona Girona (officially and in Catalan , Spanish: ''Gerona'' ) is a city in northern Catalonia, Spain, at the confluence of the Ter, Onyar, Galligants, and Güell rivers. The city had an official population of 103,369 in 2020. Girona is the capit ...

and Leida and a brother of

Nahmanides Moses ben Nachman ( he, מֹשֶׁה בֶּן־נָחְמָן ''Mōše ben-Nāḥmān'', "Moses son of Nachman"; 1194–1270), commonly known as Nachmanides (; el, Ναχμανίδης ''Nakhmanídēs''), and also referred to by the acronym Ra ...

. Benveniste was an important official of Barcelona and the tax collector and treasurer (bailiff) of King

Jaume I James I the Conqueror ( es, Jaime el Conquistador, ca, Jaume el Conqueridor; 2 February 1208 – 27 July 1276) was King of Aragon and Lord of Montpellier from 1213 to 1276; King of Majorca from 1231 to 1276; and Valencia from 1238 to 1276 ...

of Aragon. From time to time he advanced to the king payments on the municipal dues owed to the king. Thus on 17 December 1257, he advanced 3,863 ''

sous The Sous region (also spelt Sus, Suss, Souss or Sousse) ( ar, سوس, sūs, shi, ⵙⵓⵙ, sus) is an area in mid-southern Morocco. Geologically, it is the alluvial basin of the Sous River (''Asif n Sus''), separated from the Sahara desert b ...

'' on the dues of his

bailiwick A bailiwick () is usually the area of jurisdiction of a bailiff, and once also applied to territories in which a privately appointed bailiff exercised the sheriff's functions under a royal or imperial writ. The bailiwick is probably modelled on th ...

; and on the 15th of the following month he received the right to sell the tax collection of Barcelona and

for two years. The total advances to the king was no less than 199,483 ''sous'', which Benveniste was allowed to recover by giving to him the tax collection from

Lleida Lleida (, ; Spanish: Lérida ) is a city in the west of Catalonia, Spain. It is the capital city of the province of Lleida. Geographically, it is located in the Catalan Central Depression. It is also the capital city of the Segrià comarca, a ...

and other places of his bailiwick. Part of the payment for the tax advances was made by the Jews of Barcelona who were ordered to hand over (taxes of) 12,000 ''sous'' to Benveniste. Meanwhile, the king continued his orders to Benveniste for the advancement of funds, drawing a check on him for 5,000 ''sous'' on June 12, 1260; while two years later the king acknowledged his indebtedness of 15,221 ''sous'' for payment made on account of the ''

Infanta ''Infante'' (, ; f. ''infanta''), also anglicised as Infant or translated as Prince, is the title and rank given in the Iberian kingdoms of Spain (including the predecessor kingdoms of Aragon, Castile, Navarre, and León) and Portugal to th ...

Donna Joanna Donna may refer to the short form of the honorific ''nobildonna'', the female form of Don (honorific) in Italian. People *Donna (given name); includes name origin and list of people and characters with the name * Roberto Di Donna (born 1968), Ita ...

, on May 21, 1262. In return for the advance, the dues of

Vilafranca Vilafranca is a municipality in the ''comarca'' of Ports, in the province of Castellón, Valencian Community, Spain. Prior to 2022, it was part of a different ''comarca'', l'Alt Maestrat. Its official Spanish language name is Villafranca del Cid ...

(ib. No. 205), as well as twenty squares of land there, and the taxes of the

Balearic Islands The Balearic Islands ( es, Islas Baleares ; or ca, Illes Balears ) are an archipelago in the Balearic Sea, near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula. The archipelago is an autonomous community and a province of Spain; its capital is ...

and of

Perpinyà Perpignan (, , ; ca, Perpinyà ; es, Perpiñán ; it, Perpignano ) is the prefecture of the Pyrénées-Orientales department in southern France, in the heart of the plain of Roussillon, at the foot of the Pyrenees a few kilometres from the Me ...

, were granted to Benveniste. The latter continued to act as the bailiff for the king, since a record is found of acknowledgment of an advancement of 15,000 ''sous'', paid by Benveniste to the bishop of Barcelona when proceeding on an embassy to

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

on 1 January 1254; and as late as 1 February 1268, the tax collection from the Jews of Girona were assigned to Benveniste. Altogether Benveniste stood high in favor with the king and when on May 29, 1264, his brother

was pardoned, two-thirds of the fine he had incurred for the alleged crime of vituperating

Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and relig ...

in the celebrated

disputation In the scholastic system of education of the Middle Ages, disputations (in Latin: ''disputationes'', singular: ''disputatio'') offered a formalized method of debate designed to uncover and establish truths in theology and in sciences. Fixed ru ...

of 1263 was remitted, the king expressly stating that the pardon was given "amore Benveniste de Porta, fratris tui".Jacobs, Appendix, No. 4, p. 130).

Sources

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Porta, Benveniste de 13th-century Catalan Jews