FUNES

city, Navarre provincia and comunidad autnoma (autonomous community), northern Spain. It lies along the Arga River. Funes is a centre for sugar-beet cultivation, and there are gypsum quarries in the vicinity. At the beginning of the 12th century, Funes and the neighbouring town of Viguera were granted a charter that included regulations governing relations between the Christian and Jewish communities; rules of evidence in litigation between Christians and Jews were established; ordeal by battle was forbidden and a high blood price was fixed for the murder of a Jew. Jewish landowners were required to pay tithes to the church, but in 1171 King Sancho VI freed the Jews from payment of all dues in return for an undertaking to maintain the citadel. The Jewish community had its own executive official. A list of fines levied against persons who broke the regulations survives from the 13th century, but little is known of the Jewish community of Funes after that time. Pop. (1981) 1,950.