Publication
Title
Early modern Portuguese Jewish conceptions of Dominium and Libertas and constructions of community
Author
Abstract
The Atlantic trade in enslaved people became an economic, social, political, and legal issue in the seventeenth century. Portuguese Jews became involved in the trade in enslaved people and the debate about its legality in this same chronology. Portuguese Jews, some of whom had lived as so-called New Christians or conversos, blended legal traditions ranging from the Spanish 'School of Salamanca' which was a legal center that grappled with the myriad issues raised by the Spanish colonization of the new territories, Talmudic jurisprudence, Iberian interpretations of Roman Law, and Jewish, Christian, and Greek philosophy, as well as Christian theology. As resident 'foreigners' in the Dutch Republic, some of these people became prominent legal scholars who produced rulings and discussions relating to this Jewish presence in the Dutch Republic. One such jurist was Ishac Athias, who wrote a legal treatise in 1627 with the title of Thesoro de Preceptos [Treasure of Precepts]. In this work he expresses his conceptions of dominium (lordship/ mastery) and libertas (freedom from servitude), framed by a discussion of the Talmudic concept of Canaanite slavery. The focus of this research article is to explore how Athias contributes to the legal debate on slavery and the slave trade, and the naturalization of the law of nations that was raging in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic.
Language
English
Source (journal)
Studia rosenthaliana : journal of the history, culture and heritage of the Jews in the Netherlands. - Leuven, 2003, currens
Publication
Leuven : Peeters , 2023
ISSN
1781-7838 [print]
1783-1792 [online]
DOI
10.5117/SR2023.1.002.ELAZ
Volume/pages
49 :1 (2023) , p. 23-39
ISI
001097712700002
Full text (Publisher's DOI)
Full text (open access)
UAntwerpen
Faculty/Department
Research group
Publication type
Subject
Art 
Affiliation
Publications with a UAntwerp address
External links
Web of Science
Record
Identifier
Creation 04.12.2023
Last edited 18.07.2024
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