Record of Sale (Barcelona)

We the undersigned witnesses testify unambiguously that the honored marat Bonadona and her husband, the nasi R. Levi son of the nasi Rabbana Moshe said to us:

“Be our witnesses and make a qinyan and write and sign for us with every expression of title and give it to R. Reuven b. Yehuda b. David or his agent for him to have as proof of title, since we are fully willing and under no compulsion whatsoever and we took and received from him 91 large gold Saadia morabetins,¹ fine and select in gold and of full weight.² And for them, we sold him absolutely as one lot,³ with complete qinyan, as of now, that piece of field and vineyard which we have within the borders of this territory, at a place called Alchatarre; this property is shared equally by us and the heirs of the nadiv R. Hanokh son of the nadiv R. Yitzhak, and it consists of four and a half modiatas, more or less. We have sold him any authority or title which I, Bonadona have there, whether by gift, by ketubbah lien, or by possession, or by any other authority or title whatsoever, or I, Levi have whether by gift or taking possession, or by any other authority or title whatsoever, as it is confirmed in our possession by marks and boundaries. These are the boundaries of the aforementioned property: the first boundary is the heirs of the nasi, R. Shemuel ha-Levi, and the vineyard of R. Yitzhak b. Shelomoh; the second is the property of the nasi R. Makhir and of [St.] Paul and Peronet de Menoc; the third and fourth are Guillem Grony. We have sold to R. Reuven the half of everything included within these boundaries, with soil and earth, woods, stones, and vines, trees and plants, planted and unplanted, cultivated and uncultivated, yielding fruit or not, called a vineyard or not, called a field or not, including any income or gain in value there, from the depths of the earth to the heights of the firmament, with its exit and entrance. As of now, the aforementioned R. Reuven may take title and possession of that aforementioned sale; he is authorized to bequeath or bestow [it], to sell, pledge or exchange, to lend or lease, or to give [it] as a gift, to cultivate it as he wishes, to dig, prune, uproot and cut [grapes], to uproot and to plant, to harvest and to gather its fruits and benefits, to remove or introduce a sharecropper, or to do with it whatever his heart desires, he or his agent, without our permission or the permission of any person whatsoever, male or female, since from this day forward we have removed ourselves and our permission and the permission of our agent from the aforementioned sale, and we did not retain for ourselves or our agents any residual possession whatsoever, neither land nor fruits, nor any title or share or benefit whatsoever, since we made this sale wholeheartedly. We are owed none of the price of this sale, for we received it all from him, without any reduction. This sale is a complete sale, decisive and absolute, firm and established, performed according to law and precept, not to be changed or retracted, and it is given and transferred to him and his heirs after him, and no one can protest against him or his agents at all. Anyone who may come from the ends of the earth, in writing or orally, Jew or gentile [lit: Aramean], or any male or female in the world, whether on our account or not, who may stand up and claim or challenge any thing against R. Reuven or his agents, in order to annul any part of this sale, may his words be null and void, considered like a broken potsherd which has no value. It is incumbent on us and our agents to appease and to banish and to remove from him and his agents any challenger whatsoever, and to establish his full ownership and that of his agents over this sale from this day forward, without his or his agents’ incurring any loss, renouncing any declaration [that the sale was coerced]⁴ which we have made or which we may make, all of which we have annulled before you, and from which no meaning may be derived. We have accepted upon ourselves and our heirs after us the lien and substance of this bill of sale on all our property, real and moveables as well, which we have purchased or which we will purchase, like the lien and substance of all valid bills of sale which are used among Jews, written according to the decrees of the sages, [to be valid] from this day forward; it is not to be regarded as mere rhetoric or as perfunctory legal form.”

We performed the qinyan from the honored marat Bonadona and from her husband the nasi R. Levi son of the nasi Rabbana Moshe on behalf of R. Reuven b. Yehudah b. David according to what is written and explained above with an article which is appropriate to use for qinyan on [the first of] the month of Nisan, in the year [4]‌959 since the creation of the world, according to the way we count here in the city of Barcelona, and we wrote and signed [it] and put it in the hand of the aforementioned R. Reuven b. R. Yehuda to be proof of title for him and his agents. “For ourselves,” which was scratched out, there is no need to worry that it is forged because it was [written over] an erasure, and all is firm and established.

Yosef b. R. Abbamari, may he be remembered for the world to come

Hayyim b. R. Moshe, may his soul rest in the Garden.

Source: ACB 3-29-98 (b).