Back to Results
Cover image of A Man of Three Worlds
Cover image of A Man of Three Worlds
Share this Title:

A Man of Three Worlds

Samuel Pallache, a Moroccan Jew in Catholic and Protestant Europe

Mercedes García-Arenal and Gerard Wiegers
translated by Martin Beagles, with a foreword by David Nirenberg and Richard L. Kagan

Publication Date
Binding Type

In the late fifteenth century, many of the Jews expelled from Spain made their way to Morocco and established a dynamic community in Fez. A number of Jewish families became prominent in commerce and public life there. Among the Jews of Fez of Hispanic origin was Samuel Pallache, who served the Moroccan sultan as a commercial and diplomatic agent in Holland until Pallache's death in 1616. Before that, he had tried to return with his family to Spain, and to this end he tried to convert to Catholicism and worked as an informer, intermediary, and spy in Moroccan affairs for the Spanish court...

In the late fifteenth century, many of the Jews expelled from Spain made their way to Morocco and established a dynamic community in Fez. A number of Jewish families became prominent in commerce and public life there. Among the Jews of Fez of Hispanic origin was Samuel Pallache, who served the Moroccan sultan as a commercial and diplomatic agent in Holland until Pallache's death in 1616. Before that, he had tried to return with his family to Spain, and to this end he tried to convert to Catholicism and worked as an informer, intermediary, and spy in Moroccan affairs for the Spanish court. Later he became a privateer against Spanish ships and was tried in London for that reason. His religious identity proved to be as mutable as his political allegiances: when in Amsterdam, he was devoutly Jewish; when in Spain, a loyal converso (a baptized Jew).

In A Man of Three Worlds, Mercedes García-Arenal and Gerard Wiegers view Samuel Pallache's world as a microcosm of early modern society, one far more interconnected, cosmopolitan, and fluid than is often portrayed. Pallache's missions and misadventures took him from Islamic Fez and Catholic Spain to Protestant England and Holland. Through these travels, the authors explore the workings of the Moroccan sultanate and the Spanish court, the Jewish communities of Fez and Amsterdam, and details of the Atlantic-Mediterranean trade. At once a sweeping view of two continents, three faiths, and five nation-states and an intimate story of one man's remarkable life, A Man of Three Worlds is history at its most compelling.

Reviews

Reviews

A fascinating account of the way in which a Jewish family survived and flourished while living at the heart of three warring cultures... The book illuminates a little-known side of the 17th-century world.

Samuel Pallache has gone down in history as an honorable figure, a slightly less successful version of Disraeli's Jewish hero Sidonia... This fascinating little book, however, based on research in the Dutch, Belgian, Spanish, and Portuguese archives, reveals a very different sort of man—a ruthless adventurer, whose duplicity was only matched by his audacity.

Well referenced, with many vignettes that help to paint for the reader a vivid picture of the times.

A coherent and revealing picture of [Samuel Pallache's] complex career... Generally judicious in its conclusions and shrewd in its utilization of detail... Along the way, it explores a hitherto unobserved pattern of ties between North African Jews and moriscos active in Christian Europe... A significant contribution to the history of the political information web of early modern Europe and the men behind it.

Fascinating... A valuable snapshot of the 'new world order' of global powers and grand alliances at the time, and the way in which the members of a relatively poor and socially marginalized family managed to play them to their advantage.

See All Reviews
About

Book Details

Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
6
x
9
Pages
200
ISBN
9780801886232
Table of Contents

Forewords
Preface
Note on Terminology
Introduction
1. From Fez to Madrid
2. Jews in Morocco
3. Between the Dutch Republic and Morocco
4. Privateering, Prison, and Death
5. After Samuel: The Pallache Family
Con

Forewords
Preface
Note on Terminology
Introduction
1. From Fez to Madrid
2. Jews in Morocco
3. Between the Dutch Republic and Morocco
4. Privateering, Prison, and Death
5. After Samuel: The Pallache Family
Conclusion
Notes
Glossary
Bibliography
Index

Author Bios
Featured Contributor

Richard L. Kagan

Richard L. Kagan is a professor of history at the Johns Hopkins University and the translator and editor, with Abigail Dyer, of Inquisitorial Inquiries: Brief Lives of Secret Jews and Other Heretics, also published by Johns Hopkins.