Carmona

City in the archbishopric of Seville, Spain, where Jews resided in very early times. In an old "Fuero de Carmona" it was ordained that no Jew should command a Christian in Carmona or in any of the territory under its jurisdiction.The Jews of Carmona, who were very wealthy and lived in a separate quarter, were in June, 1391, either murdered or forced to accept baptism, and their synagogue was destroyed in the following December. With the same celerity which had characterized the persecution of Jews in 1391, the persecution of the Maranos spread to Carmona from Cordova in 1474, the local Maranos being plundered and killed in a most horrible manner. "Would that you, illustrious king, had seen the sack and devastation of the city of Carmona!" cries the poet Anton de Montoro in a poem dedicated to the king; "not one thought to cry halt to these excesses."

Bibliography:

  * Amador de los Rios, Historia, i. 376, ii. 360;
  * Jacobs, Sources, No. 1318 (read 1390 for 1395);
  * Fidel Fita, La España Hebrea, pp. 211 et seq.;
  * Cancionero de Anton de Montoro, p. 90, Madrid, 1900.



J. M. K.