The population of medieval Sicily has always been portrayed as one of the most ethnically and religiously diverse of the Mediterranean world and often praised for their high level of tolerance and reluctance to adhere to harsh anti-minority regulations. However, episodes of physical and psychological violence against the Jewish community were considered as within the normal range of acceptable, although generally punishable, incidents throughout the middle ages. Christians were always the sole and unique religious group entitled to full citizenship on the island, despite their receptiveness to religious and cultural diversity.

           Using original sources of the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, this paper examines how episodes of anti-Jewish violence in medieval Sicily are described in official documents, church and Inquisition records and how they are perceived by observers who did not belong to the power elites (merchants, travelers and laypersons). Through the examination of coercive measures, like the obligation to listen to sermons by specially appointed friars, the practice of stoning Jews on particular Christian religious festivals, and the comparison to writings of laypersons, like the description of an auto-da-fe’ by a Venetian merchant, I will try to show how the “eye of the time” can be inferred from the texts. I will also try to understand if and how the perception that Sicilian Jews and Judaizers had of their own identity and place in the public sphere may have been shaped by those same views.