Astronomy in particular seems to have spurred his independent intellectual activity. As we will see below, over the course of his life Duran studied an impressive roster of technical astronomical works: among others, Ptolemy’s Almagest, ibn Rushd’s Epitome of the Almagest, Jābir ibn Aflaḥ’s Correction of the Almagest, al-Farghānī’s Elements of Astronomy, Levi ben Gerson’s Astronomy (part of his Wars of the Lord), and Joseph ibn Naḥmias’s Light of the World.
During his early years Duran also pursued philosophical studies, acquiring a thorough grounding in the rationalist intellectual culture of late medieval Iberian Jewry. Later in life, he reflected that he had spent too much time in philosophy as a young man: “Perhaps one will speak and object … that I inclined to the study of the books of the philosophers more than was proper, since apprehending it was easy, and I neglected study of the Torah, which is my life…. I too acknowledge that I strayed in this from the path of intellect and did not listen to the voice of my teachers.”20
Distinguishing among Jewish philosophical cultures in the late Middle Ages, Dov Schwartz has remarked that Iberian thinkers tended toward synthesis and interdisciplinary activity (combining philosophy, science, and kabbalah), whereas Provençal thinkers adopted “extreme and sharply defined positions.”21 In addition, in Schwartz’s view, while Iberian writers were open to their Provençal coreligionists and freely cited them, the reverse was not true.22 In both of these respects, Duran belongs to the Iberian Jewish philosophical culture.
Duran studied the Guide of the Perplexed intensively, writing a now well known commentary on the book discussed in Chapter 3. From references to Rabbi Nissim of Girona (1320–c. 1380), in terms indicating that he is still alive, we may conclude that at least part of the commentary was written at some point in Duran’s twenties.23 He had not yet become a doctor but was nearly mature enough to be appointed consiliarius of the Perpignan aljama (which happened in 1381).24
It is also possible that he wrote a commentary to Judah Halevi’s Kuzari, if one relies on the evidence of a few glosses in one manuscript, perhaps excerpted from a longer work. Those glosses refer to passages from the beginning of book II and, since they also allude to the Guide, suggest a date later than his Guide commentary.25 Like Duran’s glosses to the Guide, those on the Kuzari form a running commentary aimed primarily at clarifying vague referents and awkward syntax. Strikingly, in one of his final comments, referring to a series of passages in the Kuzari that deal with the Jewish calendar, Duran writes that the topic is “a hidden matter that should properly have a treatise of its own devoted to it.” This helps to place the Kuzari glosses earlier than Duran’s 1395 calendrical work Ḥeshev ha-Efod. Indeed, it may have been his study of this particular passage in the Kuzari that led Duran to attempt a full discussion of the subject.
Of Duran’s remaining two commentaries, one, very brief, is on the first book of ibn Sina’s Canon of Medicine , and the other is on the Hebrew translation of the Epitome of Ptolemy’s Almagest by ibn Rushd (Averroes, 1126–1198), a nontechnical summary of the primary textbook of medieval astronomy. The latter commentary will be discussed in Chapter 2.
It is likely that Duran’s commentaries arose directly out of his own pedagogical activity. His remarks on ibn Rushd’s Epitome of the Almagest, for example, seem to have been taken down by his students in the margins of manuscripts and later collected in more elaborate form in a single text.26 Distinctive to all of Duran’s commentaries, in striking contrast to his epistles and independent treatises, is that none opens with an introduction. This, too, suggests that the commentaries derive from marginal glosses and were not conceived as independent works, where, by contrast, Duran is unfailingly conscientious about introducing the subject and clarifying important premises and definitions. Another distinguishing mark is that all are attributed to the Efod, and not (as in the case of several other works) to “Profayt Duran ha-Levi.” This again points to the likelihood that they originated as marginal glosses, which, as noted, were normally signed with an acronymic abbreviation of the glossator’s name, preceded by an alef for amar (“he said”). Stylistically, too, they are all similar: Duran’s glosses are often mere restatements, rephrasing or summarizing difficult sentences and providing cross-references to other relevant works and clarifications of vague allusions and referents.
At some point before 1382, Duran married a woman named Astrugua.27 In the second half of the thirteenth century, Perpignan Jews had tended to marry at about the age of eighteen, sometimes younger; a century later, Duran may have done so as well.28
Like most Jews with some wealth to exploit, Duran lent money to Christians. Starting in the 1370s, both alone and in joint ventures, he did so regularly. Over the next couple of decades, and especially in 1389, 1390, and the early part of 1391, references to him in the archival records frequently concern such transactions.29 This activity, though curtailed after his conversion, continued throughout his life; as late as 1409, he is found collecting old debts through his proctor Cresques Alfaquim. Duran also appears in the archives in a variety of other economic transactions, as witness or proctor for Jews in financial matters. In his first appearance (August 11, 1372), he is held surety for Jusse Leo, the father of the physician and translator Leon Joseph of Carcassonne.30
Duran’s engagement in the activities of the local Jewish communal government seems to have been minimal. As noted earlier, in 1381 he was named a consiliarius, a member of the council of the aljama, but this appears to have been a brief, one-time appointment.31 The council, the highest-level Jewish communal body in Aragon and Catalonia, was responsible for monitoring and guiding a multitude of religious and social functions. It was not, in the late fourteenth century, so dominated by the upper classes of Catalonian Jewish society as had been the case in previous centuries.32 Duran’s brief experience with the council may have informed his ambivalent relation toward Jewish communal leadership. A decade later, a few years after the riots of 1391, his eulogy for Abraham ben Isaac ha-Levi of Girona includes sharp criticism of unnamed Jewish heads.33
CONVERSO
One of the most significant aftereffects of the traumatic events of 1391 was the creation of a substantial population of Christians who had been baptized against their will. Yet treatment by royal and church authorities of the converso communities in places like Barcelona, Girona, and Perpignan seems to have been at the very least inconsistent. In many cases, members of this first generation of forced converts seem to have been simply left alone, neither socially assimilated nor taught the principles of their new faith.34 Some have suggested that uncertainty within the church itself about the legal and religious validity of coerced conversion kept ecclesiastical authorities from looking too closely into the lives of forced converts.35 Often, it appears, they were permitted to remain within the Jewish quarter (the Call), despite formal prohibitions against contact between Jews and conversos. In 1393, Honoratus de Bonafide is recorded as having a house outside the Call, on the “platea” of the Dominicans; the house had belonged to his grandfather.36 Even though the conversos supposedly “formed a society apart, separated from both Jews and Christians,”37 as one scholar has written, the archives offer plenty of evidence of continuing financial transactions between them and Jews as well as Christians.
Engaging in some Jewish practices in these early years may have been, in some places, relatively easy. David Nirenberg concludes that “what is most striking about the earlier period is [the church’s] relative lack of interest in the specific contents of converso religious practice.”38 While we should allow for some rhetorical exaggeration,