ESCALONA:
City of Castile; said to have been named after Ascalon in Palestine. Jews were living there at a very early date. The fuero or charter granted to the city in 1130 by D. Alfonso VII. decreed that neither a Jew nor a Moor might sit in judgment against a Christian, and that the murder of a Jew should be punished by a fine of 300 sueldos. In 1391 many of the Jews of Escalona werekilled, and others forced to accept baptism. The ghetto of the city existed until the general expulsion; as late as 1474 it paid a tax of 1,000 maravedis.
Bibliography:
- Muñoz, Colecc. de Fueros, p. 485;
- Gedaliah ibn Yaḥya, Shalshelet ha-Kabbalah, ed. Amsterdam, 94a;
- J. Amador de los Rios, Historia de los Judios de España, iii. 599.
