The Encounter between the Jewish Minority and the Moslem Minority in the Kingdom of Navarre in the Late Middle Ages.

In the small Iberian kingdom of Navarre, lived two religious- ethnic minorities- Jews and Moslems. The Jewish community contained 3000 people in 600 households and the Moslems, the descendants of the Moslem occupiers, were 1500 people in 300 households, out of less than 100000 total population left after the Black Death in 1348-1351. They mainly met each other on the markets and the main cooperation between them was on economic basis. Jews were merchants and moneylenders and Moslems were farmers and artisans. Both communities offered important services to the Crown and kingdom.

Nevertheless, Jews and Moslems were involved in many events of crime and violence. The leaderships of both communities were weak, as a result of a hidden or explicit royal instruction or policy that limited their autonomy and restricted their communal authorities only to religious and personal status affairs. They were considered as tolerable minorities. The Crown was eager to exploit their skills for its benefits, which simultaneously contributed to the Crown and to the realm far beyond their portion in the general population, but nevertheless, kept strictly the ethnic segregation among all components of the Navarrese society.

Both minority communities were expelled from the kingdom, first the Jews in 1498 and then the Moslems in 1516. Thus came to an end hundreds of years of neighborhood and economic cooperation between Jews and Moslems in this small kingdom of Navarre in the late Middle Ages.