Medieval manuscripts blog

Among the items in our major exhibition, Medieval Women: In Their Own Words, a handful of volumes bear witness to women’s contributions to early printing. By studying the documentary evidence these women left behind, we can learn more about the types of books they produced, and the nature of their lives and experiences. Today’s blogpost explores the stories of three Jewish women living and working in Europe in the 15th century – Estellina Conat, Teresa de Lucena and Doña Reyna Mendes – highlighting books from the British Library’s Hebrew incunabula (15th-century printed books) and 16th-century printed collections.

Jedaiah ben Araham Bedersi, Behinat ha-’Olam, printed by Estellina Conat; Mantua, c. 1476: C. 50. a. 5. 

Printing with Hebrew moveable type developed approximately fifteen years after the introduction of printing with moveable type in the Latin script thanks to Johannes Gutenberg. The first Hebrew books were probably printed in Rome in the late 1460s and the earliest book with a date was printed in the city of Reggia di Calabria, in 1475. A few years later, an edition of Jedaiah ben Araham Bedersi’s early 14th-century didactic poem Behinat ha-’Olam (The Examination of the World) was published by the printer Estellina Conat in Mantua, Italy around 1476. The volume (C. 50. a. 5) is considered the earliest book made by a named woman and is on display in the exhibition. As is the case for most named 15th-century printers, all of what we know about Estellina is contained in her colophon, a short statement of responsibility found at the book’s conclusion. It usually provides the printer’s name, place and date of publication. Here Estellina’s colophon reads:

I, Estellina, the wife of my lord and husband, the honourable teacher master Abraham Conat (may he see offsprings and length of days, amen) wrote this Epistle on the Examination of the World with the assistance of the young man Jacob Levi from Tarascon in Provence, long may he live, amen.

Estellina is using the word ‘write’ here to describe her involvement in the book’s production because Hebrew did not yet have a word to refer to the emerging technology of printing with moveable type. Estellina and her husband, Abraham, who signs off the later books printed by the Conats, had set up their workshop shortly before the publication of the book. The technology was so new that Estellina’s book was the first edition of the Behinat ha-’Olam to be printed (the other two known 15th-century editions were printed in 1484 and 1499 respectively) and researchers believe it was one of the earliest books printed in the city of Mantua.

The colophon added by Estellina Conat: C. 50. a. 5. 

In 1795, G. B. De Rossi, a Catholic priest and Hebraist, dated the book to c. 1476 arguing that Abraham might have ‘left the glory of publishing the first sample of their wares to his wife’. De Rossi then proceeded to disparage the quality of Estellina’s work:

For in this little book, which is to be sure in Conat’s types, but printed by his wife, or at least issued in her name, the lines and pages are so unequal – now shorter, now longer – as to suggest either the first trial of a beginner or the effort of a woman attempting something beyond her powers.

It’s not only this kind of sexist commentary in some early printing scholarship, which has hidden the legacy of women’s contribution to early book production. The stories of Jewish female printers cannot be told without reference to the antisemitic persecution and violence Jews experienced all around Europe in the 15th century. In Spain, the Inquisition’s actions destroyed many traces of Hebrew book production, leaving us with only limited evidence of its existence. The Alhambra decree in 1492, which forbade any practicing Jews to live in Spain, led to mass forced conversion and the expulsion of up to 100,000 Jews from Spain and Portugal.

The Sister Haggadah includes illustrations of the observance of Jewish life in Spain in the mid-14th century, the practice of which would be repressed by the Inquisition by the end of the medieval period: Or 2884, f. 18r.

One story that survives in records left by the Inquisition is that of the printer Juan de Lucena and his daughter Teresa de Lucena. Although no surviving books can be clearly attributed to the press, it is believed that Juan de Lucena started his printing workshops in Puebla de Montalban and Toledo around the mid-1470s. The de Lucena family were Conversos: Jews who had been (forcibly) converted to Christianity following the massacre of 1391. In the context of antisemitic persecution, Juan de Lucena fled Spain to go to Portugal in 1481, later continuing to Italy. His daughters remained in Spain, where they continued to experience repression. The Inquisition reports on Teresa de Lucena give us a comprehensive view into the Inquisition’s effect on all aspects of Jewish life, including the printing press. Following a call by the Inquisition in Toledo for Conversos to come forward to denounce themselves for secretly practicing Judaism, the 17-year-old Teresa and her sister Leonor made a voluntary confession. Following this, Leonor escaped to Portugal, but Teresa remained behind in Toledo.

In 1530, Teresa was arrested again and this time put on trial for heresy. The inquisitors forced her to expand the limited testimony she had given as a young girl. This included having to provide information about observing Jewish practices and communicating with known heretics (i.e. her own family.) It also included information about her father’s printing press, which she hadn’t mentioned in 1485. Now in her early 60s, she recalled how her father had to flee when she was around 10 or 11. Asked why he fled, she answered, ‘I think it was because he was selling the books he printed in Hebrew’. The inquisitors did not pursue this line of questioning to determine her or her sister’s role in the printing workshop. Both BMC X and BMC XIII (Catalogue of Books Printed in the XVth Century Now Held at the British Library) suggest that Teresa and her sister Juana assisted in the presswork after their father’s escape. In any case, it is only thanks to Teresa’s testimony, given under duress, that we know that her family was probably running a Hebrew printing press at all.

The expulsion of Jews from Spain as well as persecution across Europe meant that many moved to North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean, taking their knowledge of the emerging printing technology with them. Hebrew printing proliferated in the 16th century with both Jewish and Christian printing houses relying on the expertise of Jewish printers. One woman stands out. Doña Reyna Mendes is the only Jewish woman from this period known to have founded and owned her own printing press. Reyna was the daughter of Doña Gracia, patron of literature and one of the wealthiest women in Early Modern Europe. As Conversos (or Anusim Jews), the family had fled Spain after 1492 to live in Lisbon up to the establishment of the Portuguese Inquisition in 1536. Doña Gracia and her infant daughter Reyna then moved to Antwerp, Venice and Ferrera, before ultimately fleeing to the Ottoman Empire in 1553 amidst family turmoil and the effects of the Catholic Reformation.

In the late 15th century, Sultan Bayezid II had welcome many Sephardic Jews after the downfall of the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada and the Alhambra decree. Many Jewish communities developed a thriving cultural life in the Ottoman empire. The first printing press was founded as early as 1493 by two brothers, David and Samuel Ibn Nahmias, two Spanish refugees. Hailing from great wealth and power, Doña Reyna Mendes was afforded opportunities most other women in the printing and printers in general, especially in earlier generations, did not have.

After her husband Joseph Nasi, advisor to the Sultan and one of the most important men in the Ottoman Empire, died, most of her money was confiscated by the authorities. She then used the rest to found her own printing press in Belvedere, just outside of Constantinople (and later a second one in Kuruçeşme), producing at least 15 editions up until her death in 1599. The British Library holds one edition printed by Doña Reyna Mendes (C.50*.a.5). As a founder and owner of a printing press, Reyna was able to take on an extraordinary position for women at the time. The confident tone of an inscription on the title page of one of her books speaks to this:

Printed in the house and with the type of the noble lady of noble lineage Reyna (may she be blessed among women), widow of the Duke, Prince and Noble in Israel, Don Joseph Nasi of blessed memory … near Constantinople, the great city, which is under the rule of the great and mighty Sultan Mohammed.

Doña Reyna Mendes’ printing press highlights the liminal and often precarious status of women in this occupation. Often dictated by familial relationships and the reality of antisemitic persecution, the historical evidence offers only glimpses into the contributions, wives and daughters and many other unnamed women made to early Hebrew book production. While few of their books now survive and the nature of their contributions has been contested in scholarship over the centuries, nonetheless Estellina, Teresa, and Reyna have left important and moving evidence of the brave and defiant efforts to spread Jewish learning through printing in the face of antisemitic persecution.

To see Estellina Conat's printed book in person,  visit our exhibition Medieval Women: In Their Own Words, on show at the British Library from 25 October 2024 to 2 March 2025. You can purchase your tickets online now. 

This exhibition is made possible with support from Joanna and Graham Barker, Unwin Charitable Trust, and Cockayne – Grants for the Arts: a donor advised fund held at the London Community Foundation. 

Alyssa Steiner

References

Catalogue of Books Printed in the XVth Century Now Held at the British Library. XIII Hebraica, 2004.

Catalogue of Books Printed in the XVth Century Now Held at the British Library. X Spain-Portugal, 1971.

Kanner, Ellen, 'Teresa de Lucena, 1467–1545' in: The Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women. URL: https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/de-lucena-teresa#pid-20444

Offenberg, Adri K., 'The Chronology of Hebrew Printing at Mantua in the Fifteenth Century: A Re-examination', The Library, 16/4 (1994), 298-315.

The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, Volume 5. The Early Modern Era, 1500-1750, ed by Yosef Kaplan, 2023.

University of Pennsylvania Guide to Hebrew Printing. URL: https://guides.library.upenn.edu/earlyprintedhebrewbook/intro