MONTIEL

MONTIEL, town in Castile, central Spain, in the frontier district of La Mancha. The small community there had close relations with the Order of Santiago, on whose lands it was situated. In 1273 the head of the Order, Pelayo Pérez, gave Don Samuel, Don Bono, and Don Jacob, all of them Jews under the jurisdiction of the Order, the right to settle their debts out of tax farming. They not only farmed the general taxes in Montiel but also in other lands belonging to the Order. At that time, tax farming produced considerable revenues. In 1290 the taxes paid to the king by the community of Montiel amounted to about 1,522 maravedis. The community probably suffered during the persecutions of 1391 when most of the La Mancha communities were destroyed. Nevertheless, a community may have existed in Montiel in the second half of the 15th century; Don Isaac Abudarham, a resident of Toledo, farmed the alcabala ("indirect taxes") there in 1462. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Baer, Urkunden, 2 (1936), 62ff., 81, 310. (Haim Beinart)