Little is known about the early history of Barcelona's Jewish Community, except that there were Jews in Barcelona by the time it was reconquered from the Muslims in 801. Only the eleventh century does the community begin to emerge from the shadows. Its political structure remains unclear, but the number of documents dealing with Jewish land holding increases sufficiently to yield a picture of a solidly established and comfortable Jewish population, with a long-established cemetery on Montjuic, the mountain to the south of the city. The Call, the Jewish quarter, is first mentioned in 1082. It consisted roughly of the north-west quarter of the city.
Medieval Barcelona was a good place to be a Jew; Jews were treated generously by the count-kings, and enjoyed relatively stable relations with the local Christians until the very end of the fourteenth century. Many aspects of the lives of Jews and Christians were determined by their religious affiliations, and much of their lives unrolled within the framework of separate religious and educational institutions. Notwithstanding the separate spheres in which they lived, however, we find numerous points of contact, most important the marketplace, but also the courtroom, and the royal court. Jews and Christians in medieval Barcelona may have shared more than they themselves realized. To a historian's eye it is clear that the community and the city of Barcelona developed in parallel ways, as did certain aspects of the private family lives of Christians and Jews. These parallels suggest that behind the very real religious differences which divided Christians and Jews was common cultural substratum.
