https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1984-9595
![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
Prior to the Christian conquest of Valencia (1233–1245), the hostelries for merchants (fanādiq) were numerous in the cities and also widely present in rural areas, where local communities seemed to have controlled them. Most urban fanādiq were privately owned, although some were likely held by the government (makhzan) or pious endowments (ḥubūs). After the conquest, the fanādiq were distributed among settlers who converted them into dwellings, warehouses, or workshops. By the early fourteenth century, most of the fanādiq had disappeared, and their original functions were split into new types of facilities. Accommodation was moved to ordinary inns known as hostals, while government interventions occurred in the almodí, or public granary. However, the king and other lords maintained some alfòndecs (the Catalan name for funduq), while also building new ones. The new alfòndecs were mainly used to provide compulsory segregated accommodation for Muslim traders and muleteers.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 This study was carried out within the framework of the research project “Mercados, instituciones e integración económica en el Mediterráneo occidental, siglos XIII-XVI” (PID2021-128038NB-I00).
2 Constable, Housing the Stranger, 158–81.
3 The so-called Repartiment of Valencia consists of three volumes kept in the Archivo de la Corona de Aragón (Barcelona). The first two volumes contain a disorganized collection of preparatory notes for notarial deeds of property donations. One of them contains grants made in the city and district of Valencia, mainly in 1237–1238; the other primarily covers those made in various parts of the kingdom in 1248–1249. The notes are marked with crosses or oblique slashes if the donation document has been issued; if the donation has been canceled, the text appears crossed out. The third volume presents the resulting list from an inspection of the houses distributed in Valencia, carried out in 1239, street by street and neighborhood by neighborhood, indicating the name of the former Andalusi owner and the new Christian owner.
4 Constable, Housing the Stranger, 166.
5 Martí and Burriel, “Comerciar en tierra extraña,” 49–50.
6 Hernández Robles, “La pervivencia del funduq,” 241–43. On this question, see Guinot, “El repartiment feudal,” 122–23.
7 Cabanes and Ferrer, Libre del Repartiment.
8 Documentary corpus used: Huici and Cabanes, Documentos de Jaime I, II: no. 308 (1240), no. 335 (1241); IV: no. 1224 (1261); Burns, Diplomatarium, III: no. 810 (1268); Guinot et al., Llibre de la Cort, I: 264–69 (1282), 276–77 (1282), 350–51 (1282); II: 417 (1283), 464–66 (1283), 731–33 (1284); Barcelona, Archivo de la Corona de Aragón (hereafter, ACA), Cancillería, reg. 215, f. 256v (1318); reg. 219, f. 274v (1321); Madrid, Archivo Histórico Nacional (hereafter, AHN), Clero, Pergs., c. 3274, no. 1 (1257); c. 3276, no. 3 (1269) and no. 6 (1270); c. 3360, no. 13 (1255); Valencia, Archivo de la Catedral de Valencia (hereafter ACV), Pergs., no. 86 (1286), no. 1712 (1323), no. 1829 (1258), no. 2331 (1241).
9 Burns, “Baths and Caravanserais,” 449; Martí and Burriel, “Comerciar en tierra extraña,” 50.
10 Constable, Housing the Stranger, 166.
11 Hernández Robles, “La pervivencia del funduq,” 250–51.
12 Hernández Robles, “Comercio y alojamiento.”
13 González, Reinado y diplomas, no. 671 (1241).
14 As well as the Repartiment (see above, note 7) the following documents have been used: Burns, Diplomatarium, III: no. 660 (1266); IV: no. 1024 (1270); Guinot et al., Llibre de la Cort, II: 664–65 (1284); ACA, Cancillería, reg. 38, fol. 34v (1276); reg. 209, fol. 149r (1312); Varia, 465 (1303); AHN, Clero, Pergs., c. 3274, no. 9 (1258); Órdenes Militares, Pergs., c. 482, no. 100 (1252) and c. 515, no. 188 (1254); ACV, Pergs., no. 4713 (1252), no. 5031 (1305).
15 Cabanes and Ferrer, Libre del Repartiment, II: no. 222 (Alzira, 1245), no. 961 (Alzira, 1249); Huici and Cabanes, Documentos de Jaime I, II: no. 420 (Dénia, 1246); Burns, Diplomatarium, IV: no. 1072 (Borriana, 1233); ACA, Cancillería, Pergs., Jaime I, no. 503 (Borriana, 1233); reg. 198, fol. 290v (Dénia, 1301); reg. 289, fol. 95r (Dénia, 1309); AHN, Clero, Pergs., c. 3193, no. 4 (Dénia, 1245); c. 3660, no. 16 (Alzira-Alquenència, 1255).
16 Al-Ḥimyarī, Rawḍ al-Mi‘ṭār, 349.
17 Gisbert, “Dāniya, reflejo,” 210, 213.
18 Cabanes and Ferrer, Libre del Repartiment, II: no. 263 (Bairén); Huici and Cabanes, Documentos de Jaime I, III: no. 594 (Ontinyent); Guinot, Cartes de poblament, no. 45 (Eslida), no. 163 (Beniarrés), no. 207 (Almussafes), no. 232 (Buñol), no. 221 (Montesa), no. 239 (Caudete); Burns, Diplomatarium, II: no 25 (Biar), no. 322 (Segorbe), no. 389 (Biar), no. 519 (Ontinyent); III: no. 774 (Biar); Torró, Llibre de la Cort, I: 25, 126, 232 (Cocentaina); Guinot et al., Llibre de la Cort, I: 138–39 (Chiva); Bofarull, Colección de documentos, XXXIX: 121 (Novelda); ACA, Cancillería, Pergs., Jaime I, no. 2289 (Morvedre); reg. 35, fol. 4rv (Pego); no. 48, fol. 8r (Morvedre); no. 194, fol. 231r (Alicante); no. 290, fol. 41v (Novelda).
19 ACA, Cancillería, reg. 35, fols. 3v-4r.
20 ACV, Pergs., no. 1324.
21 ACA, Cancillería, reg. 19, fol. 83r.
22 Ferrer Mallol, Els sarraïns, 9.
23 Bensch, Barcelona and its Rulers, 38, 58, 218, 231; Jenkins, The Mediterranean World, 93–94.
24 ACA, Cancillería, reg. 215, fol. 211r; reg. 219, fol. 170v; Anyó, Primer manual, 203–04, 232–34.
25 Boira and Serra, El Grau de València, 28–29.
26 Olaso, El Manual de Consells, 272.
27 In 1291 Alfonso III gave instructions for it to be granted in exchange for perpetual rent. ACA, Cancillería, reg. 84, fol. 27r.
28 ACA, Cancillería, reg. 214, fol. 74r-75r.
29 Burns, Diplomatarium, IV: no. 1072; Cabanes and Ferrer, Libre del Repartiment, II: no. 599: alfundico de Alcapri.
30 Guichard, Les musulmans de Valence, II: 319.
31 One of the juridical consultations dealt with by Mufti Ibn Lubb in fourteenth-century Granada refers to a funduq that was owned jointly by two men. Lagardère, Histoire et société, 366.
32 Huici and Cabanes, Documentos de Jaime I, V: no. 1483 (Murcia); Cabanes and Ferrer, Libre del Repartiment, I: no. 1672 (Valencia, 1242).
33 Huici and Cabanes, Documentos de Jaime I, I: no. 155 (Mallorca); AHN, Clero, Pergs., c. 3193, no. 4 (Dénia).
34 Constable, Housing the Stranger, 127–28. Similarly, the emir of Mallorca promised the Genoese merchants a fondaco, perhaps the one mentioned in 1231.
35 Constable, Housing the Stranger, 42, 68–72, 81–85; García Sanjuan, Till God, 118–19, 405.
36 Cabanes and Ferrer, Libre del Repartiment, II: no. 222.
37 Lévi-Provençal, “Un document,” 208, 286. Anyone arrested at night must be locked up in a funduq, where those lodging there would be responsible for them until the following morning.
38 Chalmeta, El señor del zoco, 168–69.
39 González Jiménez, Diplomatario andaluz, no. 147.
40 Guinot, Cartes de poblament, no. 45 (Eslida); Burns, Diplomatarium, II, no. 774 (Biar); ACA, Cancillería, reg. 35, fols. 3v-4r (Pego).
41 Cabanes and Ferrer, Libre del Repartiment, I: nos. 1344, 1374, 1498, and II: no. 291(noblemen and knights); III: nos. 772, 1508, 1866, 3009 (archbishop and Templars); I: nos. 1349, 1437, 1475, 1507, 1510, 1530, 1669, 1694, 1711, and III: nos. 2252, 2263, 2265, 3210, 3346 (common settlers).
42 Cabanes and Ferrer, Libre del Repartiment, II: nos. 285, 291 (knights), 546 (Dominicans), 604, 656, 669 (settlers); AHN Órdenes Militares, Pergs., c. 482, no. 100 (Hospitallers); Burns, Diplomatarium, II: no. 660 (settlers), and IV: no. 1024 (knights).
43 ACA, Cancillería, Pergs., Jaime I, no. 503 (Borriana); Cabanes and Ferrer, Libre del Repartiment, II: no. 222 (Alzira).
44 Burns, Diplomatarium, IV: no. 1072 (Borriana); AHN, Clero, Pergs., c. 3193, no. 4 (Dénia).
45 ACA, Cancillería, reg. no. 48, fol. 8r (Morvedre); Cabanes and Ferrer, Libre del Repartiment, II: no. 961 (Alzira), and III: nos. 2265, 3346 (Pedro Sánchez in Valencia).
46 Guinot, Cartes de poblament, no. 308.
47 Between 1268 and 1275 the alfòndec in Cocentaina was leased together with the market taxes (toll, weight) for about 1,000 sous a year. See above, note 18.
48 Cabanes and Ferrer, Libre del Repartiment, II: no. 604.
49 Burns, Diplomatarium, III: no. 692.
50 Torres Balbás, “Las alhóndigas,” 463–68; Orihuela, “La Alhóndiga Nueva.”
51 An overview in Jiménez Roldán, “Del funduq a la alhóndiga,” 320–22.
52 Guinot et al., Llibre de la Cort, I: 276–77 (1282); ACV, Pergs., no. 1712 (1323).
53 Martí and Burriel, “Comerciar en tierra extraña,” 54–57; Gisbert, “Dāniya, reflejo,” 213.
54 Cabanes and Ferrer, Libre del Repartiment, I: no. 1498.
55 Burns, Diplomatarium, II: no. 25.
56 AHN, Clero, Pergs., c. 3360, no. 16 (Alquenència); Burns, Diplomatarium, III: no. 810 (Valencia).
57 AHN, Clero, Pergs., c. 3274, no. 1.
58 Constable, Housing the Stranger, 71–72, 95. This was also the case in other Muslim cities.
59 ACA, Cancillería, Pergs., Jaime I, no. 503.
60 Cabanes and Ferrer, Libre del Repartiment, II: no. 669.
61 Cabanes and Ferrer, Libre del Repartiment, I: no. 1672.
62 Torres Balbás, “Las alhóndigas,” 452–53.
63 Cabanes and Ferrer, Libre del Repartiment, II: no. 599.
64 See Jiménez Roldán, “Del funduq a la alhóndiga,” 324–25.
65 Burns, Diplomatarium, II: no. 195.
66 ACA, Cancillería, reg. 78, fol. 63rv (1289); Valencia, Arxiu del Regne de València (hereafter, ARV), Real, reg. 655, fol. 44v (1292); reg. 612, fols. 22v-24r (1399).
67 Huici and Cabanes, Documentos de Jaime I, I: no. 155.
68 Cabanes and Ferrer, Libre del Repartiment, II: nos. 656, 291.
69 Martí and Burriel, “Comerciar en tierra extraña,” 57–58.
70 Guinot et al., Llibre de la Cort, II: 464–66; ACV, Pergs., no. 1712.
71 See above, note 13.
72 ACA, Cancillería, Pergs. Jaime I, no. 503: cases … que fuerunt alfondicum (Borriana 1233); Cabanes and Ferrer, Libre del Repartiment, I: no. 1530: domos … que dicebantur alfundicum (Valencia 1240); II, no. 961: ad usum domorum (Alzira, 1249); AHN, Órdenes Militares, Pergs., c. 482, no. 100: ad opus faciendi domos (Xàtiva 1252).
73 Huici and Cabanes, Documentos de Jaime I, IV: no. 1225 (1261); ACA, Cancillería, reg. 195, fol. 102r (1297); reg. 38, fol. 34v (1276).
74 AHN, Clero, Pergs., c. 3193, no. 4.
75 Cabanes and Ferrer, Libre del Repartiment, II: no. 716; Burns, Diplomatarium, III: no. 660.
76 Hernández Robles, “La pervivencia del funduq,” 249, 252–53; Jiménez Roldán, “Del funduq a la alhóndiga,” 331–32; Torres Balbás, “Las alhóndigas,” 452, 460.
77 Real Academia de la Historia, Las Siete Partidas, III.30.7, VII.14.7.
78 Constable, Housing the Stranger, 171–72.
79 Neuvonen, Los arabismos, 253–54; Corriente, Dictionary of Arabic, 155. Although Arabic textual testimonies are lacking.
80 AHN, Órdenes Militares, Pergs., c. 482, no. 100.
81 In Sanaa (Yemen) there was a “caravanserai of the scales” (samsarat al-mizān) which was the site of the customs house and of the obligatory weighing of products entering the city. Mermier, Le Cheikh de la nuit, 134.
82 In 1298 James II assured the Jewish community of Xàtiva that he would not change the site of the almodí and the weighing house. ACA, Cancillería, reg. 196, fol. 172v.
83 It is probably the "granary of Valencia" (bladeria Valency) which is mentioned in 1250 as the place where grain, brought to the capital by foreigners arriving by land, must be sold. Cortès, Liber privilegiorum, I: no. 8, 34.
84 Camps, “Intervención arqueológica,” 112–19.
85 Anyó, Primer Manual, 83–85, 185–86.
86 Colón and Garcia, Furs, IX.34.42.
87 Anyó, Primer Manual, 315, 415 (1323, 1327).
88 There was one almodí in Alzira in about 1257 and the intention to build another one in Cocentaina in 1261. Burns, Diplomatarium, II: no. 54, 338. Also in Jérica, see Guinot, Cartes de poblament, no. 280 (1367).
89 Anyó, Primer Manual, 185, 307, 312–14, 371, 391–93.
90 Colón and Garcia, Furs, II.16.1, 4–6; IX.34.23–27. The terms alberg (Catalan) and hospicium (Latin) are not always used for public inns in the documents, they normally refer to private mansions.
91 Guinot et al., Llibre de la Cort, II: 418; III: 916–17, 926–29, 934–36.
92 Anyó, Primer Manual, 136, 170.
93 González, Repartimiento de Sevilla, I: 510–11.
94 Torres Balbás, “Las alhóndigas,” 472–78; Jiménez Roldán, “Del funduq a la alhóndiga,” 331–34.
95 See too Anyó, Primer Manual, 360–62. In 1364 King Peter IV forbade the hostalers of the city of Valencia to practice the profession of broker. Gual, “El hospedaje,” 532.
96 Garrisson, “Les hôtes et l’hébergement,” 212.
97 When an Ayyubid vizir ordered the private fanādiq in Cairo to be closed at the beginning of the thirteenth century, the brokerage fees were transferred to the sultan. See Constable, Housing the Stranger, 76. Gual, “El hospedaje,” 532, suspects that the profession of broker derives from the original mediation of the innkeeper or his employees.
98 González Jiménez, Diplomatario andaluz, no. 80. In 1267 the same king reserved the alhóndiga of Murcia for himself in which the Muslims were obliged to purchase wines. Hernández Robles, “La pervivencia del funduq,” 252.
99 Burns, Diplomatarium, IV: no. 1106.
100 ACA, Cancillería, reg. 19, fol. 83r.
101 ACA, Cancillería, reg. 46, 66v (1282); reg. 46, fol. 78v (a Muslim from Xàtiva captured in 1286 for furtively taking paper from the alfòndec); Ferrer Mallol, Els sarraïns, 8, 238.
102 Tomás and Laliena, Acta Curiarum, I: 1, 229, 235, 237, 241, 247, 249: “las alfondegas que faze el seynor rey por toda la tierra, et fuerça los moros de los cavalleros et de los omnes buenos de la tierra que vengan a posar-hi, e si non posan-hi, an a pagar su ostalage.” Similar acts were also denounced in Zaragoza and Teruel.
103 ACA, Cancillería, reg. 47, fols. 55v-56r; Colón and Garcia, Furs, I.5.5.
104 ARV, Real, reg. 655, fol. 89v.
105 ACA, Cancillería, reg. 38, fol. 48r, 66v; reg. 4r, fol. 94r; reg. 44, fol. 170r, 175r; reg. 64, fol. 119r; reg. 74, fol. 6r, 85v; reg. 78, fol. 11v, 44v, 64rv, 75v; reg. 85, fol. 116r; reg. 95, fol. 89rv; reg. 192, fol. 6v; reg. 193, fol. 159r; reg. 204, fol. 52r; reg. 207, fol. 160v; ARV, Real, reg. 655, fol. 44v, 79v.
106 Bofarull, Colección de documentos, XXXIX: 88; ACA, Cancillería, reg. 221, fol. 195v.
107 Burns, “Baths and Caravanserais,” 449–53; Constable, Housing the Stranger, 176–77.
108 ARV, Real, reg. 612, f. 75rv. It should be borne in mind that in this period Valencian currency had slightly depreciated.
109 ARV, Real, reg. 611, fol. 5r; reg. 612, fol. 1rv, 76r, 78rv.
110 ARV, Real, reg. 612, fol. 5v-6v.
111 Meyerson, The Muslims of Valencia, 154–55.
112 Meyerson, The Muslims of Valencia, 49, 154–56; Barceló, Minorías islámicas, 97.
113 Torró, “El urbanismo mudéjar,” 578–79.
114 Camps and Torró, “Baños, hornos y pueblas,” 126–29.
115 Constable, Housing the Stranger, 161–62.
116 Regarding specific places in which to do business, it must be said that in the fourteenth century the merchants of Valencia created the llotja, completely separate from the funduq. We know very little about how it functioned before the end of the fifteenth century. See Igual, “Il loco ove si riducono,” 180–82.
117 The Partidas clearly distinguish “those that have hostalage in their house” from the officials looking after the customs house and the wheat granary: Real Academia de la Historia, Las Siete Partidas, VII.14.7. The loss of the accommodation function in the change from Andalusi funduq to the Castilian alhóndiga is stressed by Jiménez Roldán, “Del funduq a la alhóndiga,” 332–33; Hernández Robles, “La pervivencia del funduq,” 240.
118 Constable, Housing the Stranger, 74.
119 See Dufourcq, “Les consulats catalans;” Duran, “Consolats nàutics,” 751–58. The alfòndec that had to be built in Minorca could be added to this list, paying tax to James I in 1258. Huici and Cabanes, Documentos de Jaime I, IV: no. 1052.
120 Constable, Housing the Stranger, 8, 110, 132–33, 357.
121 Valérian, “Le fondouk,” 694.
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Josep Torró
Josep Torró is Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor in Medieval History at the Universitat de València. He is the author of El naixement d’una colonia. Dominació i resistència a la frontera valenciana (1238–1276) (PUV, 1999, second ed. 2006), and co-editor of From al-Andalus to the Americas (13th-17th Centuries). Destruction and Construction of Societies (Brill, 2018). His primary research interest lies in the Iberian Christian expansion and frontier dynamics, with particular focus on the Kingdom of Valencia. He is currently studying the military organization of conquests, procedures for the distribution of booty, the seigniorial domination of subdued Muslim populations, and the organization of urban and rural spaces.