Andalucia had gone on a similar mission to Granada for JAIME I. Again in 1291 Abraham went to Morocco, with a special grant of safeconduct for him and his family. In 1288 Alfonso appointed another Jewish official, Jahuda Abenfa^en, to represent him on a mission to Muslim Granada, and later the king wrote to the Muslim ruler that he was granting full plenipoten tiary authority to Jahuda to make treaties and grant securities. Jaime II (1291) appointed Abraham Ibn Nahmias as official Arabic translator and secretary and also sent him on a mission to Granada. He died during this mission, however. In 1294 the king sent Samuel Abenmenasse on a similar mission to the king of Mo rocco. Jaime entreated the Muslim ruler to listen carefully to all of Samuel’s requests, to which the Muslim king responded in a letter that he sent with his Jewish ambassador, Isaac. The alliance of Granada with Juan Manuel, the Castilian overlord of Murcia, in 1313 caused alarm in Aragon. Jaime again sent Samuel to find out what was going on, and he reported (in a Catalan letter to the king) that the Muslim ruler hoped for peace with Jaime. In fact, a peace treaty was concluded in 1321, confirmed by yet another Jewish ambassador, Shimun (Simon) b. Tubiya (Tobiah). Deteriorating relations between Christian Spain and the Muslim kingdoms of Granada and North Africa, rather than any decrease in the use of Jewish officials during the fifteenth century, was the proba ble cause for the disappearance of Jewish ambas sadors in the service of the kings. NORMAN ROTH BIBLIOGRAPHY Alarcon y Santon, Maximiliano, and Ramon Garcfa de Linares, eds. and tr. Los documentos drahes diplomdticos del Archivo de la Corona de Aragon (Madrid, 1940), passim, on Jaime II. Baron, Salo W. A Social and Religious History o f the Jews (N.Y., Philadelphia, 1953-83), IV, 45 (on Charlemagne, cf. also M. Wiener’s German trans lation of Joseph ha-Cohen, Emek habachja [Leipzig, 1858], pp. 149-50, n. 20). Roth, Norman. “Again Alfonso VI, ‘Imbaratur dhu’l-Millatayn,’ and Some New Data,” Bulletin o fHispanic Studies 61 (1984): 165-69. --------- . Jews, Visigoths and Muslims in Medieval Spain (Leiden, 1994), on Ibn Shaprut and others. Andalucia Andalucia, a province of southern Spain, derives its name from Arabic al-Andalus (which, in turn, was the subject of much discussion among Muslim geog raphers, the most commonly accepted etymology being that it derives from “Vandals”). Al-Andalus was the region of the initial Muslim conquest of Spain (711), at which time it was already well populated by Jews who had lived there for centuries. With increas ing Jewish immigration in the ninth and tenth cen turies, chiefly from Iraq and other Muslim lands, this region became the cultural and social center of Jew ish life in Muslim Spain (although until the end of the tenth century BARCELONA vied in importance with the Muslim region). At the time of the first waves of the Christian Re conquest in the latter half of the twelfth century, large and well-established Jewish communities were to be found in major cities such as Lucena, Granada, Almeria, Malaga, Jerez, Seville, Carmona, Ecija, Cor doba, and Baeza. Much of the territory conquered by the Christians in the twelfth century was again retaken by the Mus lims, and it was not until the mid-thirteenth century that Christian forces were able to finally conquer and hold these cities. Baeza was reconquered by Fernando III in 1226, and then Cordoba (1236), Jaen (1246), Seville (1248), and Jerez (1249; actually by treaty rather than conquest). Fernando and his son AL FONSO X respected the Jews and their rights, and they did not persecute the Muslims or drive them out of the conquered territories. In Jerez there were at least ninety Jewish adult males, representing approxi mately 4 percent of the total population. The Jews had their own quarter and at least two synagogues. Many crafts and occupations are represented, and grants of houses and land were made to Jewish sol diers who served in the Christian conquering forces. Substantial grants were also given by the king to vari ous Jewish officials in his service and even to rabbis. In Cordoba the Jews and Muslims were required to contribute to the repair of the aqueduct and to the fund for the building of the cathedral (the chief mosque was taken over and remodeled). Pope Inno 25