ACOMÉ DE MAIORCA - JAHUDA CRESQUES
Jahuda (also Judah) Cresques, the name by which he was originally known, was born in the Iberian province of Catalonia, probably on the island of Majorca in or around 1350, give or take a few years.
At an early age, he took up the trade of his father, Abraham Cresques, who was a noted cartographer and instrument maker in the town of Palma.
| Abraham (d. 1387), sometimes called
"Cresques lo Juheu", is best known as the creator of the Catalan world atlas of
1375, the most famous example of medieval cartography. Although some attempt has been made
to attribute this atlas to Jahuda, the most reasoned opinion is that it was, at best, a
joint father-son effort. In 1391, Christians in the
Aragonese kingdom, to which Catalonia was subject, were incited to violence by the fiery
sermons of a popular Dominican friar named Vicente Ferrer who called for the conversion to
Christianity of all Jews in the country. |
|
| fury, killed Jews in the thousands. In some areas, Jewish residents were virtually annihilated. In the Ballearics (which includes Majorca), more than 300 were killed in a single day. |
Jahuda escaped the carnage by converting to Christianity and adopting the name Jacomé Ribas.
Jacomé de Maiorca, as he was better known in Portugal, arrived in that kingdom shortly after the discovery of Madeira island, probably in the early 1420s. He would have been pushing seventy years of age, at his very youngest.
Although it has been claimed that he was forced to emigrate, the slackening of Jewish persecution and restoration of some Jewish rights in Aragon in 1419 makes this claim improbable.
Another view is found in Duarte Pacheco's "ESMERALDO DE SITU ORBIS," written in 1505-8. Translated, it reads:
"Further, he [Prince Henry] sent to Majorca for Master Jacome, a skilled maker of charts - it was on this island that these charts were first made - and by many gifts and favors brought him to these realms, where he taught this skill to men who in turn taught men who are alive at the present time ..."
In other words, Jacomé came to make charts, or at least to teach others to make charts. Further, according to the late Prof. Armando Cortesão of Coimbra University, the Catalan Jew must have also taught others his skill in making instruments, given the primitive nature of what was then known about navigational science and the need of Portuguese navigators to find their way at sea.
Marriage? Children? No record exists. Neither have any references to his death been found, although he could not have lived long as a Portuguese given his advanced age. And no charts made by Jacomé in Portugal, if any, have survived.
Even the place where he taught students cannot be identified with any certainty. Early in this century, a 1427 document was discovered, referring to a Mestre Jacomé as living in Alverca, near Lisbon. But there exists no proof that this Alverca resident was the eminent Majorcan mapmaker.
In summary, the picture of Jacomé de Maiorca that emerges from the few bits of written material that have come down to us is of a Catalan Jew who followed the mapmaking and instrument making profession of his talented father. To save himself, he became a Christian, and to enrich himself, he came to Portugal. His arrival occurred during the very early years of the Portuguese discoveries when navigational science was in its infancy and the need for someone who could make, or teach others to make, charts and navigational instruments was great.
Thus, Jacomé's efforts to train young men in the field of cartography and instrument making should be seen as an important, even critical, component of Portugal's eventual success in finding an ocean route to the East.
Bibliography:
1. ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA (1978); see "Cresques", 5:1078, and
"Majorca," 11:802.
2. Daniel Boorstin, THE DISCOVERERS (1985), 149-50, 162.
3. Armando Cortesão, HISTORY OF PORTUGUESE CARTOGRAPHY (1971), II:44-45,
93-97; and THE NAUTICAL CHART OF 1424 (1954), 45-6.
4. Edgar Prestage, THE PORTUGUESE PIONEERS (1933), 327.
5. Nahmans of Gerona Internet website:
E-mail: Rufina Bernardetti Silva Mausenbaum
