Anti-Semitism and Isamophobia Flashcards
At a high level, what could be argued about the nature of the difference between hatred and threat when it comes to Jews and Muslims?
Delineate hatred from threat – anti-semitism was fuelled by hatred of the Jew through Biblical teaching, Muslims posed a more apparent threat.
Matteoni: Why is blood so important to Jews and Christians?
Blood is powerful as it comes from God.
Whereas blood unites the Christian individual to the eternity of the soul, it detached Jews from God.
Matteoni: What is it that the Talmud condemns?
The consumption of blood - “At the head of all diseases stand I, the blood, at the head of all remedies stand I, the wine”
Matteoni: What papal dispensations illustrate the absurdity of the accusation of blood libel?
Constitutio pro Judeis, issued by Calixtus II in 1120, and then reinforced by Innocent IV and Gregory X.
Matteoni
Who explained the importance of the mysterious and horrific construct of Jewish murders as a means to justify the persecution of Jews?
Menhasseh ben Israel
Matteoni
What relation did the Jews have to transubstantiation?
Matteoni
Although the Jews had nothing to do with transubstantiation, as pressed by Trachtenberg,
Matteoni
What economic dimension was added to the body and blood aspect of the imagination of the Jewish construct?
Matteoni
As Hsia has noted, economic welfare was equally an important matter during the period. Money to some extent played the same role as blood in society - Jewish usury and moneylending was seen to taint the money supply
Matteoni
What are the dimenions that must be considered in the analysis of blood libel in later medieval society?
Matteoni
The blood libel legend was constructed from ethnical, religious and economical motifs, the ultimate reality of which was based on the emotional world of the people involved.
Matteoni
Why was the blood of a Christian child seen as especially important to Christians (and apparently Jews?)
Matteoni
The blood of a Christian child had been cleansed of original sin, and had not yet been contaminated by the many other sins the imperfect human being commits in the course of life.
Matteoni
What contributed to the ferocious blood-thirst of the Jew?
Matteoni
The dehumanised physical image of the Jew was thought to have led to his ferocious blood-thirst
Abulafia, D., Italy in the Central Middle Ages
Where did Jews appear in the early middle ages?
Abulafia
Jewish communities sprang up around the new centres of commerce that emerged in southern Italy in the early Middle Ages: at Salerno, Amal, and so on, and a Jew of Salerno was, according to legend, involved in founding the famous medical school of Salerno
Abulafia, D., Italy in the Central Middle Ages
What did the Sicilian Jew specialise in?
Abulafia
Luxury trade - among notable imports were dyes, brazilwood, lapis lazuli, silk
Abulafia, D., Italy in the Central Middle Ages
What was an important feature of the Sicilian Jewish community?
Abulafia
The important feature of the trade of the Sicilian Jews in the Islamic and early Norman period is the fluidity of the community itself; Spanish and Egyptian Jews would come to settle in Palermo, buying houses, marrying, and making business deals.
Abulafia, D., Italy in the Central Middle Ages
How did the coming of the Normans undermine the Jewish merchant?
Abulafia
Christian hegemony over the Mediterranean and victories against Islam in Sicily and the Holy Land brought Genoa, Pisa, and Venice saw mastery over the spice trade and over the trade routes past Sicily.
Abulafia, D., Italy in the Central Middle Ages
Despite undermining their trade, what could be said of the relationship of Jews and Normans?
Abulafia
Normans had no difficulty in accepting that the Jews were part of the fabric of local society. Normans and Jews even converged: one of the more colourful figures was the son of a Norman knight, Obadiah the Proselyte, who brought with him, and adapted to Hebrew use, the church music with which he was familiar.
Abulafia, D., Italy in the Central Middle Ages
Nevertheless, as time passed, how did Jews change in the popular imagination, by the 1220s (under Frederick II?)
Abulafia
Jews were classed alongside prostitutes as a group of outcasts who threatened to contaminate those Christians with whom they had contact: each group must be made visible in its costume (male Jews must sport beards); and where appropriate they must be physically segregated from the mass of Christians.
Abulafia, D., Italy in the Central Middle Ages
What was Frederick II’s position on Jews?
Abulafia
Frederick protected Jews - emphasising that Jews and Muslims posessed the same right to intiate legal proceedings as anyone else.
By 1237, Jews were defined as servi camere - servants of the royal chamber - which indicated they were the possession of the ruler, but that the ruler would protect them and expected them to be treated fairly.
This terminology was also applied to the Muslms of Sicily and Lucera
Abulafia, D., Italy in the Central Middle Ages
Where was the oldest and most consistent Jewish population settled?
Abulafia
Rome.
Abulafia, D., Italy in the Central Middle Ages
On what two levels did the relationship between the Pope and the Jews of Rome exist?
Abulafia
- As lord of the city - the pope might claim vexatious special taxes from Jews - as Boniface VIII did in 1295
- As Head of the Catholic Church - The pope presided over the fourth lateran council 1215, which legislated generally concerning Jews - demanded them to wear Jewish badges, preventing the marriage of Jewish and non-Jewish individuals.
Abulafia, D., Italy in the Central Middle Ages
What did Frederick III accelerate vis-a-vis Jews?
Abulafia
- Jews were not to eat with Christians
- Jews were not to possess Christian slaves or servants
Abulafia, D., Italy in the Central Middle Ages
Despite the harsher ruling of Frederick III, how might we check the assumptions of hostility towards Jews
Abulafia
- The thinking of royal courts in Naples and Sicily indicate softer treatment. At Erice in Western Sicily, Jews and Christians lived side-by-side on good terms; with Jews even making internsive use of a Christian notary.
- Anti-Jewish sentiment in the earlier part of the period came from above - it was only the late fourteenth and fifteenth century that it came from below as well
- The decline of relations may be linked to the late spread of moneylending activities among the Jews of the Italian south in the 15th century.
Abulafia, D., Italy in the Central Middle Ages
What must be remembered when considering Italy in our analysis?
Abulafia
- There was not one but many Italies, and in the historiography, it is clear that many did not look very Italian.
Abulafia, D., Mediterranean Encounters
What was Frederick II branded during the crusades?
Abulafia
- A friend of Islam - also critiqued for supporting the Jews of Germany.
- This is ironic - Frederick imposed discriminatory legislation on the Sicilian Jews and who helped launch the Teutonic Knights on their war of conquest and conversion in the pagan lands of Eastern Europe.
Abulafia, D., Mediterranean Encounters
Why was Frederick II moderate?
Abulafia
- part of an established western tradition of toleration (rather than tolerance), which had its roots in the theology of Saint Augustine and in the verdicts of the canon lawyers.
Abulafia, D., Mediterranean Encounters
What was the difference between reality and ‘establishment’ views of the Church on the Jews in the earlier period?
Abulafia
- Popular hatred for the Jews during the early crusades went far beyond what the Church was prepared to permit; but an “establishment” view of the Jews held by the papal curia and influential church leaders (such as Saint Be ard) can be roughly defined, which in addition provided a basis for attitudes to Muslims
Abulafia, D., Mediterranean Encounters
Why were the Jews important to the Christian project?
Abulafia
- Relicts of the religion of Jesus’ time, they would be converted at the end of time; they were obstinate, and wrong, but they were also part of the divine scheme.
Abulafia, D., Mediterranean Encounters
When do we begin to see the myths of blood libel emerging?
Abulafia
- Popular attitudes also took a tum for the worse, with the emergence, first of all in England in the 1140s, of tales that Jews were putting Christian boys to death at Passover.
Abulafia, D., Mediterranean Encounters
What was the status of Christian slaves in 1215?
Abulafia
- Neither Jews nor Muslims could own Christian slaves: the linkage of the two groups in the decrees of 1215 is interesting for two reasons. In the first place, this was part of a process whereby disabilities applied to Jews were also applied by extension to Muslims. Secondly, the Muslims were able to benefit from the tradition of controlled toleration expressed to Jews.
Abulafia, D., Mediterranean Encounters
Why is it that the Christian perception of Muslims was inherently vague by the start of the period?
Abulafia
- Christian understanding of Muslim belief was tenuous, despite, or maybe because of, Peter the Venerable’s commission of a translation of the Koran; and the notion that Islam was some sort of extreme Christian heresy was articulated.
Abulafia, D., Mediterranean Encounters
Why is it that the Christian perception of Muslims was inherently vague by the start of the period?
Abulafia
- Christian understanding of Muslim belief was tenuous, despite, or maybe because of, Peter the Venerable’s commission of a translation of the Koran; and the notion that Islam was some sort of extreme Christian heresy was articulated.
Abulafia, D., Mediterranean Encounters
Why could a Muslim not be denied his property?
Abulafia
- A particularly important argument was that the infidel could not be deprived of his property and of his rule over fellow infidels simply because he was not Christian. A Christian ruler could legitimately judge infidels where they failed to observe the natural law to which all men were subject.
Abulafia, D., Mediterranean Encounters
What happened towards the latter end of the period?
Abulafia
- The conquest of Sicily and the Holy Land, and the Spanish reconquista, resulted for the first time in large numbers of Muslims falling under Christian authority; and both religions found it hard to adjust to the new reality.
Abulafia, D., Mediterranean Encounters
What was a Muslim radical solution to the new attempted imposition of a Catholic hegemony?
Abulafia
- The recreation of a Muslim state in the mountains of western Sicily. A Sicilian intifada broke out,consisting of rebels hopeful of support from Africa and determined to shake off what they saw as foreign rule. The rebels even minted their own coins in defiance of the royal minting laws; they were not mere guerrillas but had actual charge of mountainous territory in western Sicily
Abulafia, D., Mediterranean Encounters
What guided the principles of Frederick II?
Abulafia
- Traditional papal practice and recommendation. He was essentially conservative - rather than lax or sympathetic. It was fully in line with his overall policy of restoring the rights of his predecessors as kings of Sicily and as Christian Roman emperors.
Abulafia, D., Mediterranean Encounters
What happened under Charles II vis-a-vis Saracens?
Abulafia
- The integration of the Lucera Saracens into the administrative structure of the kingdom was also indicated by the apparently paradoxical policy of making servi camere nostre into knights.
- Lucera, a Saracen dense town, was occupied in 1300, and rhe Saracens were take in capitivity to Naples
Abulafia, D., Mediterranean Encounters
Why did the position on the Saracens change rapidly under Charles II?
Abulafia
- For Egidi there was a single explanation of the sudden abandonment of royal tolerance towards the Saracens: “the first and essential motive for the destruction of the community of the Saracens was the avid desire to confiscate their goods and to make money from their persons”
Abulafia, D., Mediterranean Encounters
Evidence supporting the claim that the explusion of the Saracen was to exploit their material wealth
Abulafia
- It is certainly striking that very nearly the first letters in the Angevin archives to deal with the Lucera Saracens after their expulsion in late August address the problem of where the cattle of the Lucerans have gone to.
Abulafia, D., Mediterranean Encounters
What is a non-materialistic justification for the assault on Lucera?
Abulafia
- Charles II gave the Dominicans approval in their attempts to search out Christians who had denied their faith and had fallen under the spell of the Muslims
Abulafia, D., Mediterranean Encounters
How did some Jews avoid having to conform to legal requirements?
Abulafia
- Patronage of Jewish translators did not automatically mean benevolence to the wider Jewish community. Court Jews were frequently exempted from legal requirements such as the wearing of a Jewish badge.
- The status of the court Jews was thus quite different from that of the vast majority of south Italian Jews, who were a town-dwelling population of artisans, active in the textile and dyeing industry and similar pursuits. These Jews were mostly regarded as servi camere regie, as they had been in Frederick II ‘s day, but several communities, such as that of dyers at Salento, had been granted to the Church, whose servants they then became.
Abulafia, D., Mediterranean Encounters
How did some Jews avoid having to conform to legal requirements?
Abulafia
- Patronage of Jewish translators did not automatically mean benevolence to the wider Jewish community. Court Jews were frequently exempted from legal requirements such as the wearing of a Jewish badge
Abulafia, D., Mediterranean Encounters
How did the situation confronting Jews of Anjou mirror the Jews of Lucera?
Abulafia
- The expulsion from Anjou was partly at least motivated by the need for money; the comparison with Lucera is obvious. What is striking is that much of this money was to be raised not from the Jews but from the Christians, who were to pay the count-king for the privilege of having their Jews removed.
Abulafia, D., Mediterranean Encounters
What on the whole could therefore be said of the 1300s?
Abulafia
- The years around 1300 saw, therefore, the coming together, at the court of Naples of the theme of the demonization of the Jew and the Saracen and the Roman law tradition that emphasized the subjection of servi and the rights of rulers over their property and persons. Roman law bolstered the authority of the state, but it also confirmed the lack of rights of non-Christian subjects, all the more so when they had for generations been called servi camere regie.
Berend, N., At the Gate of Christendom: Jews, Muslims and ‘Pagans’ in medieval Hungary
What is notable about the social composition of Hungary that makes it ideal for the analysis of religious subsects?
Berend
The fact that Hungary incorporated three non-Christian groups enables comparison of the treatment of the different groups by both lay and ecclesiastical authorities within one socio-economic and legal framework. Hungary is also unique in that its non-Christians settled there voluntarily. Elsewhere in this period non-Christian groups were incorporated into Christian realms as a result of conquest, as were Muslims in Reconquest Spain or ‘pagans’ in Livonia.
Berend, N., At the Gate of Christendom: Jews, Muslims and ‘Pagans’ in medieval Hungary
What type of society was Hungary?
Berend
A frontier society. (Remember to highlight the contested nature of the term ‘frontier’, which is all too often linked to America)
The importance of the frontier society is the fact that it presents a uniqeu opportunity to see interactions and systems distinct from the established norms
Berend, N., At the Gate of Christendom: Jews, Muslims and ‘Pagans’ in medieval Hungary
What is an important limitation on the study of Jews during this time?
Berend
The more or less ‘mute’ nature of the non-Christian groups analysed.
Berend, N., At the Gate of Christendom: Jews, Muslims and ‘Pagans’ in medieval Hungary
What was the status of coexistence with the Jews in Hungary?
Berend
Coexistence with Jews had a history of several centuries, and because the Christian Bible incorporated the Hebrew Bible as its ‘Old Testament’, a part of Jewish religious beliefs had been known to Christians.
Berend, N., At the Gate of Christendom: Jews, Muslims and ‘Pagans’ in medieval Hungary
Who was the first pope to fully address the infidel?
Berend
Innocent IV was the first pope to develop the legal basis for papal relations with non-Christians and to define their position. He insisted on their natural rights to possess and govern, while upholding the right of the pope to exercise ultimate jurisdiction over them. Innocent IV was innovative in positing that the pope was de iure responsible for the soul of everyone, even ‘infidels’, because he was the vicar of Christ to whom all belonged by right of the Creation.
Berend, N., At the Gate of Christendom: Jews, Muslims and ‘Pagans’ in medieval Hungary
How did the reconquestia reshape the social composition of Spain?
Berend
On the frontiers of Christendom, interaction with non-Christians took many forms. In Spain, the ‘Reconquest’ produced a society with two important religious minorities, Jews and Muslims.
What was the reconquista?
The Reconquista is the period of history of the Iberian Peninsulaspanning approximately 770 years between the Islamic conquest of Hispania in 711 and the fall of the last Islamic state in Iberia at Granada to the expanding Christian kingdoms in 1492.
Berend, N., At the Gate of Christendom: Jews, Muslims and ‘Pagans’ in medieval Hungary
What was the ratio of Muslims to Christians in Valencia?
Berend
5:1, with active functions in government, military and agricultural affairs.
Reconquista
What did the 11th century crusaders encounter?
Reconquista
The Crusades, which started late in the 11th century, bred the religious ideology of a Christian reconquest, confronted at that time with a similarly staunch Muslim Jihad ideology in Al-Andalus by the Almoravids, and to an even greater degree by the Almohads.
Reconquista
How did the fight against the Moors change over time?
In the High Middle Ages, the fight against the Moors in the Iberian Peninsula became linked to the fight of the whole of Christendom. The Reconquista was originally a mere war of conquest. It only later underwent a significant shift in meaning toward a religiously justified war of liberation (see the Augustinian concept of a Just War).
Reconquista
How did the reconquista draw to a close?
Ferdinand and Isabella completed the Reconquista with a war against the Emirate of Granada that started in 1482 and ended with Granada’s surrender on January 2, 1492. The Moors in Castile previously numbered “half a million within the realm.” By 1492 some 100,000 had died or been enslaved, 200,000 had emigrated, and 200,000 remained in Castile. Many of the Muslim elite, including Granada’s former Emir Muhammad XII, who had been given the area of the Alpujarras mountains as a principality, found life under Christian rule intolerable and emigrated to Tlemcen in North Africa.
Reconquista
How did the Islamic administration treat Jews and Christians in Iberia?
During the Islamic administration, Christians and Jews were allowed to retain their religions by paying a tax (jizya). Penalty for not paying it was imprisonment.
Reconquista
How did the Christian administration treat Jews and Muslims in Iberia, post-reconquista?
The new Christian hierarchy demanded heavy taxes from non-Christians and gave them rights, such as in the Treaty of Granada (1491) only for Moors in recently Islamic Granada. On July 30, 1492, all the Jewish community — some 200,000 people — were forcibly expelled
Reconquista
When were the rights given in the Treaty of Granada overturned?
The very next year the Alhambra decree under Archbishop Hernando de Talavera (1492) dismissed the Treaty of Granada and now the Muslim population of Granada was forced to convert or be expelled. In 1502, Queen Isabella I declared conversion to Catholicism compulsory within the Kingdom of Castile.
Reconquista
What happened in 1526, under Charles V?
King Charles V did the same to Moors in the Kingdom of Aragon in 1526, forcing conversions of its Muslim population during the Revolt of the Germanies. Many local officials took advantage of the situation to seize property.
Berend, N., At the Gate of Christendom: Jews, Muslims and ‘Pagans’ in medieval Hungary
What happened to the Papal view of non-christians?
Berend
The papacy increasingly came to see non-Christians as internal and external enemies of Christendom, and Jews and Muslims as a spiritual and temporal threat, undermining Christendom and plotting its destruction. The Mongol attacks, the reversal of the Lithuanian conversion process with the murder of the baptized Prince Mindaugas () and the Mudejar revolt in Iberia, seemed to be signals of the non- Christian threat within and without.
Berend, N., At the Gate of Christendom: Jews, Muslims and ‘Pagans’ in medieval Hungary
When was Innocent IV in power?
Berend
1243-1254
Berend, N., At the Gate of Christendom: Jews, Muslims and ‘Pagans’ in medieval Hungary
How did Jews and Muslims differ from heretics?
Berend
First, heretics were seen as deviant Christians, whereas Jews, Muslims and ‘pagans’ were judged to be – with more or less benevolence – unacquainted with or stubbornly refusing to accept Christian doctrine; in no instance were they seen as people willingly leaving the right path, as was the case with heretics.
Berend, N., At the Gate of Christendom: Jews, Muslims and ‘Pagans’ in medieval Hungary
When did the Pope begin to conflict with the leaders of Hungary over the status of non-christians?
1220s
It centred on the employment of non-Christians in positions of power over Christians, on the issue of separating the former from the latter, and on the alleged attraction that non-Christian life had for the Christian inhabitants of the country
Berend, N., At the Gate of Christendom: Jews, Muslims and ‘Pagans’ in medieval Hungary
What peculiarities did the frontier situation permit Hungary?
Hungary’s frontier situation influenced many of the policies towards non-Christians. The kingdom’s origins on the periphery of Christendom, its not-too-distant pagan past, its traditions barely or not yet extinct, and the constant proximity of the non-Christian world all provided a context very different from the areas of long-standing Christianization.
Berend, N., At the Gate of Christendom: Jews, Muslims and ‘Pagans’ in medieval Hungary
What did Berend conclude from her study?
Non-Christian status was not a monolithic construct of exclusion, victimization and ‘otherness’; economic, social and legal posi- tions did not necessarily correspond, nor in turn conform to religious ideology. These non-Christian groups were ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ Christian society at the same time, that is, they were part of society although not converted and assimilated, and thus not completely integrated into it. Adapting Norbert Elias’s terminology, they were established outsiders. Clear-cut ‘us’and ‘them’, or the opposite, a harmonious ‘we’ group, exist only in exceptional circumstances. The true query, relevant not only to the study of the past but to our own times and very selves, concerns the ways in which individuals or groups participate in society.
Bonfil, R., Jewish Life in Renaissance Italy
How did Jews stand in Renaissance Italy?
Bonfil
They were necesdsary to the economies of the Italian cities - integration was easy. An accelerated process of acculturation inevitably followed, a process that the modern eye can only interpret in terms of cultural assimilation
Bonfil, R., Jewish Life in Renaissance Italy
When did sumptuary laws vis-a-vis Jews come into force in Italy? (Hint: it’s a lot later than elsewhere)
Bonfil
The first sumptuary law of the Jews of Italy known to us goes back to 1418: this and all subsequent provisions seem to be characterized by a constant preoccupation on the part of the Jews with not attracting attention, not standing out.
Catlos, B.A., Muslims of Medieval Latin Christendom
Where can we see a determination to remain in ancestral homelands from Muslims?
Catlos
Interestingly, the most durable and visible impact of Muslims’ determi- nation to remain in their ancestral lands, even at the price of their sub- mission to Christian rule, are the churches that pepper the villages and towns of the territory of Castile-León, Aragon, and Catalunya conquered between 1080 and 1150. In a process that took up to thirty or forty years, depending on the locale, as Christian settlement reached “critical mass,” the mosque-cum-churches were either wholly or partially demolished and replaced with purpose-built churches built in basilica-type style.
Chazan, R., The Jews of Medieval Western Christendom
Where were some of the largest and most vibrant Jewish communities?
Chazan
The oldest, largest, and most creative Jewish communities were located in the Muslim sphere, stretching from Mesopotamia westward through the eastern littoral of the Mediterranean Sea, across North Africa, and over onto the Iberian peninsula.
Chazan, R., The Jews of Medieval Western Christendom
What teleology needs to be avoided with the review of Jewish populations falling under the control of the Christians?
Chazan
There is, however, no intention to project a teleological vision of Jewish history in medieval western Christendom, a sense that Jewish life was doomed in this environ- ment from the outset. Put differently, the Jews who made their way into medieval western Christendom and elected to stay there will not be treated in this book as myopic, unaware that there was no hope for a Jewish future in Christian Europe. They will, rather, be projected as vigorous and adventuresome pioneers, willing to tie their fate to the most rapidly developing sector of the Western world. In the process, these pioneering Jews achieved much and lost much, but such is the way of the world.
Chazan, R., The Jews of Medieval Western Christendom
What did Alexander of Hales (1185-1245 - important in the founding of scholasticism) use to justify the non-toleration of Jews?
Chazan
- Blaspheme against Christ and the Blessed Virgin.
- The Talmud condones blapsheme, and improper law.
- The Jews hold great contempt for the Redeemer.
Chazan, R., The Jews of Medieval Western Christendom
What did the constitutio pro Judeis outline?
Chazan
- “Without the judgment of the authority of the land, no Christian shall presume to wound their persons, to kill them, or rob them of their money.”
Chazan, R., The Jews of Medieval Western Christendom
What did Bernard of Clairvaux contribute to the debate?
Chazan
- Second Crusade in the 1140s and as reports of new incitements to anti-Jewish violence surfaced, the great spiritual figure of the Second Crusade, Bernard of Clairvaux, rejected the arguments for anti-Jewish violence and laid out a powerful case for maintenance of Jewish security, a case grounded – not surprisingly – in the Augustinian position on Judaism and the Jews. Bernard’s case for Jewish safety involved four arguments, two rooted in Scripture and two in empirical considerations. Bernard quotes both Psalms and Paul to show that God himself had decreed the punishment of exile for the Jewish sin of rejection of Jesus as Messiah. In the face of this divine decision, calls for human revenge – reflected in the crusader slogans – are utterly inappropriate. Moreover, according to Bernard, the Muslims became objects of Christian assault because they had in fact attacked first.
Chazan, R., The Jews of Medieval Western Christendom
What did Louis IX do?
Chazan
- authorities of France are guilty of torturing Jews “horribly by means of hunger and thirst, by the privations of prison, and by intol- erable tortures of the body.” He then proceeds to specifics, noting the imposition of a four-year period for the repayment of debts, with annulment of anything beyond the principal, “though all this was contrary to the contracts into which they had publicly entered.” According to Gregory, “at the end of four years, however, the Jews were seized and were kept for a long time under custody in prison, until, having pooled all the debts due them from Christians, they gave the lord of the place whatever security he thought proper that, within a stated period of time, they would not demand any payment of their debts.” Jews thus in effect lost everything
Chazan, R., The Jews of Medieval Western Christendom
Why did German Jewry develop at a slower rate to English and French jewry?
Chazan
- German Jewry was not able to flourish economically during the twelfth century in the way that its French and English counterparts did. Because of the lag in political authority, Germany could never sustain the kind of sophisticated banking arrangements that became the basis for significant Jewish economic achievement in France and England. During the thirteenth century, pawnbroking – decidedly less impressive and profitable than the Jewish banking business in northern France and England – was to emerge as a central Jewish economic activity in Germany. During the twelfth century, however, German Jews seem to have continued the older pattern of trading, carried out on both the local and more wide-ranging level.
Chazan, R., The Jews of Medieval Western Christendom
Evidence of the defence of the Jews in Germany
Chazan
- Ephraim describes an instance of imputed murder in Cologne in 1180 and another in Speyer in 1196. In the latter case, the imperial authorities, who had warned against harming the Jews, were enraged by the violence inflicted by the Speyer burghers and punished the town severely.
Chazan, R., The Jews of Medieval Western Christendom
What did the weakening of Papal control in Germany lead to?
Chazan
- The combination of proliferating anti-Jewish sentiment and dete- riorating political authority in Germany produced a massive outburst of anti-Jewish violence at the close of the thirteenth century, in the so-called Rindfleisch massacres.
Chazan, R., The Jews of Medieval Western Christendom
What was the Rindfleisch massacre?
Chazan
- In April 1298, in the town of Roettlingen, twenty-one Jews were massacred by a mob led by a German knight named Rindfleisch
Chazan, R., The Jews of Medieval Western Christendom
Why were Jews better off in Hungary?
Chazan
- Hungary’s geographic placement involved more than interna- tional ramifications; it also affected the internal demography of the kingdom, which enjoyed or suffered from an unusual diversity of population – Jews, Muslims, and Cumans. This internal diversity, as was generally the case, benefited the Jews. Jewish skills and eco- nomic abilities were, under normal circumstances, best utilized in such heterogeneous settings
Chazan, R., The Jews of Medieval Western Christendom
What was central to the negative Christian perception of the infidel?
Chazan
- Central to this negative Christian view of Jewish presence was an underlying yearning for homogeneity, the generally unarticulated hope for a uniformly Christian society.
Chazan, R., The Jews of Medieval Western Christendom
When did perceptions of Jewish harmfulness escalate?
Chazan
- As we proceed into the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, perce tions of potential Jewish harmfulness escalated, moving well beyond the concern with Jewish blasphemy and Jewish religious influence. Jewish business activities – carried out in a largely agrarian society – elicited a new sense of Jewish harmfulness, for example through the alleged purchase and sale of stolen goods. The Jewish move into moneylending introduced more ramified and more potent imagery of economic harmfulness. The money business has almost always aroused antipathy and anger. While providing capital is perceived as a worthwhile and useful activity, at the point of repayment of borrowed funds discomfort is often the rule.
Daniel, N., The Arabs and Medieval Europe
How did Christian and Muslim treatment of eachother differ?
Daniel
- Muslims tolerated Christians more willingly and persistently than Christians did Muslims.
Edwards, J., The Jews in Western Europe 1400-1600
What was Paul’s outlook on Jews?
Edwards
- He did not consign all subsequent Jews to destruction as a consequence, indeed he saw the Jewish diaspora, or dispersion, as part of God’s will, for their good and that of Christians. (Romans 1:1)
Edwards, J., The Jews in Western Europe 1400-1600
What did Augustine reference to support his case?
Edwards
- Psalm 59 - God will let me see my desires upon my enemies. Slay them not, lest my people forget it, but scatter them abroad with my power.
Edwards, J., The Jews in Western Europe 1400-1600
For how long were Augustine’s words impactful?
Edwards
- The immense prestige of Augustine and his writings ensured that, at least up to the twelfth century, there was no direct pressure for the elimination of Jews from Christian society, or for active efforts to be made to convert them.
Edwards, J., The Jews in Western Europe 1400-1600
Who particularly gunned for the Jews?
Edwards
- The tradition of the Franciscan and Dominican friars to seek out heretics put the jews in the firing line more so than in prior centuries
Hshia, P.C., Trent 1475
What case study does Hshia investigate?
Hshia
- Case study of Trent, where Jews went on trial for ritual murder
Hshia, P.C., Trent 1475
What happened in Trent, 1475?
Hshia
- The well known Franciscan preacher, Bernardino da Feltre, came to Trent to deliver the Lenten sermons, in which he lacerated the Jews for practicing usury and chided Christians for associating with them. He foretold an evil that would soon befall the city.
- In spite of their protestation that the child had drowned accidentally, the podesta believed them to be guilty, because, in the words of the trial record “people who are killed bleed openly in the presence of evil men or murderers”
- the podesta heard three accounts that convinced him that the Jews were guilty.
Jordan, W.C., The French Monarchy and the Jews
What image was popular in Paris?
Jordan
- The image is of a swarm of Jewish “outsiders” (immigrants who have been attracted to Paris) sucking the life’s blood.
Jordan, W.C., The French Monarchy and the Jews
What did Louis’ Stabilimentum state?
Jordan
- The substance of the stabilimentum 1223 (both versions) is absolutely certain. The king began by directing that all existing debts owed to Jews as of the date of the statute were to cease to incur interest. He said nothing about repaying debts.
Langmuir, G., Towards a Definition of Antisemitism
What does Langmuir insist about the nature of antisemitism?
Langmuir
antisemitism cannot be explained primarily as a reaction to some real millennial characteristics of Jews, and antisemitism can be distinguished from anti-Judaism.
Scholars have consistently misapplied antisemtism, especially following Hitler.
Langmuir, G., Towards a Definition of Antisemitism
What does blood libel reaffirm?
Langmuir
- Many now saw Jews as inhuman beings who secretly conspired to commit the worst atrocities on defenseless hosts and children and to destroy Christendom. Antisemitism was firmly implanted.
Moore, R.I., The Formation of a Persecuting Society
What did an appendix item of the Third Lateran Council enforce?
Moore
- 1179 an appendix to the decrees of the Third Lateran Council provides a sufficient commentary on these words, in the pope’s instruction that Jews were not to be deprived of land, money or goods without judgement, nor to be assaulted with sticks and stones during the celebration of their religious festivals, and their cemeteries were not to be invaded or violated.
Moore, R.I., The Formation of a Persecuting Society
What was the purpose of assimilation, what are some exceptions?
Moore
- The exclusion of Jews from craft and merchant guilds, and so from the trades in question, was axiomatic by the end of the twelfth century, but perhaps not absolutely so at its beginning.43 A Jew was admitted, though exceptionally, to a London guild in Henry I’s reign. That London still had Jewish goldsmiths and vintners at that time probably reflects the incompleteness as yet of the guild’s monopoly of the trades rather than the Christian monopoly of the guilds, which were primarily religious associations in name and by origin.
The assimilation of Jews, heretics and lepers into a single rhetoric which depicted them as a single though many-headed threat to the security of Christian order was not simply the continuation of an earlier tradition.
Moore, R.I., The Formation of a Persecuting Society
What is the main argument emerging from The Formation of a Persecuting Society?
Moore
- The main argument of The Formation of a Persecuting Society was, and is, that the persecutions of heretics, Jews, lepers, sodomites and others in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Europe cannot be con- sidered or explained independently of one another, as they almost always had been hitherto.
Moore, R.I., The Formation of a Persecuting Society
What did Nirenberg state?
Moore
- David Nirenberg - , ‘after its birth the persecuting mentality seems to transcend particularities of time and place’.
Moore, R.I., The Formation of a Persecuting Society
What could be said of the fluctuation of persecution across time?
Moore
- Persecution ebbs and flows according (very generally) to the energy of rulers and to the variety and intensity of conflicts in which it has a role to play.
What was an emergent concept in Spain which elevated the superiority of the true Christian Spaniard - inhibiting integration?
Limpieza de Sangre
Stow, K.,Papal and Royal Attitudes Toward Jewish Lending in the Thirteenth Century
Usury hypocrisy under Gregory IX
Stow
the popes had no intention of showing partiality to Jews by permitting immoderate interest. What the canons permitted, the Jews should have, but no more. In contrast to his approval of the 20 percent interest rate allowed by James I of Aragon, Gregory IX wrote angrily to the bishop of Palencia that the Jews of that diocese do not fear “to extort immoderate usury.”
Nirenberg, D., Communities of Violence
Why was maintaining a sexual boundary difficult between Christians and Muslims?
Nirenberg
In the struggle to maintain sexual boundaries vis-a-vis the Jews, Muslims had several disadvantages. One was the prevalence of Mudejar prostitutes, itself partly a by-product of the Christian exploitation of Muslim women
Whilst Jews were killed sporadically in the 11th century, mostly by the likes of rogue knights (1096), what began to happen later on?
Their scale was greatly inflate: in Bavaria in 1298, 3,400 Jews were murdered, and the violence covered the entirety of the Iberian Peninsula in 1391. This deterioration can be ascribed to the loss of balance between anti-Semitic fear and hatred, and realpolitik.
What could be said of regional differences between Jewish settlements in Europe?
North far newer than South - resultantly less integrated into the political system, faced greater restrictions
What does Robert Chazan caution us about?
The available sources (and the practice of historical investigation) has focused in on eruptions of violence - which scatter the timeline. This detracts from the fact that Jews tended to assimilate rapidly into dominant culture - under Muslims, Jews learned Arabic and cultural tendencies of Islam. They did the same under Christians.
What is an example of more symbolic punishment, rather than actual violence?
In Umbria, Christians would stone Jewish houses, not the Jews themselves.
Across the timeframe, what occurs?
intellectual developments in both Judaism and Christianity engendered a more hostile stance by the latter towards the former. Similarly, David Nirenberg warns against assuming that all anti-Semitic violence was irrational and lacking in political aims
What does Carlo Ginsburg suggest about the Jewish in the age of burgeoning monetary economy?
Jews became an easy scapegoat for those fearing the new economy
What must be remembered?
Jews persisted throughout the period - testament to their ulitmate resilience.
What made the Jews more susceptible to Christian violence?
The dependency on Jews became less notable as usury became more acceptable to practice. The Fourth Lateran Council stressed that Christian usurers could repent for their actions, and Gregory IX’s invention of purgatory gave Christians an escape route from damnation.
The liberalisation of views on usury ensured that there was no longer any need to rely so heavily on Jewish usurers for loans, thus they could be persecuted, and indeed expelled, with less financial cost; and indeed Christian Italian merchants tended to replace Jews as money-lenders following their expulsion in the kingdoms of northern Europe
What did Innocent IV argue in a commentary on Quod Super His?
Innocent IV argued, in a comment on Quod super his, a decretal of Innocent III’s, that infidels could have dominium as rational creatures, and thus it was not licit to deprive them of their possessions arbitrarily.
What demonstrates the increasingly hysterical nature of accusations against Jews?
increasingly hysterical accusations: in the early thirteenth century that Jews were murdering Christians in order to stage mocking re-enactments of the Passion, and by the early fourteenth that they were assaulting the host wafer.
Give some population stats about European nations hosting Jews
Expulsions were, in truth, comprehensive neither across Europe nor within individual kingdoms: while between 1300 and 1490, the proportion of Jews in the total population of France declined from 0.7% to 0.1%, in the Holy Roman Empire, it remained fairly steady, falling very slightly from 0.8% to 0.7%. In Italy, it doubled from 0.5% to 1%, and in Spain it increased quite dramatically from 2.7% to 3.5% (though of course these were on the brink of their own expulsion).
What sort of tax burden did French Jewry have to service?
French Jews, expelled in 1306, had by that time been subjected to crippling taxes, including one tallage which had multiplied their tax contribution by twelve
How did Charles II use Jews to bolster his prestige?
Even where solidarity was not so vital, there was a reputational advantage to an expulsion. The Angevin kings of southern Italy, in particular Charles II, stirred up popular prejudice against both Jews and Muslims and ultimately ordered the expulsion of recalcitrant Jews, in order to bolster their credentials as Christian kings of Christian kingdoms.
Hammer/ anvil
Ultimately, the Jews of Europe were caught between the hammer of increasing Christian chauvinism, and the anvil of their own diminishing financial necessity to their rulers.
What did Thomas Aquinas have to say on the matter?
Thomas Aquinas, while allowing that Jewish teachings were not heretical, asserted that they were pervasive and, apparently, contagious, and warned that Jews should not be suffered to mingle excessively with Christians for fear that their ideas would spread.
Felsenstein
What did many medieval ballads do with regards the Jew?
Felsenstein
Medieval tales and ballads often depict Jews who, in their cunning, deliberately impose upon or trick their Christian neighbours
Felsenstein
What does the tallage roll of 1233 tell us of the English perception of the Jew?
Felsenstein
The motifs that appear in the drawing recreate an image of Jewry that is far from savoury, in which Jews are presented at best as coin clippers and money lenders, in league with the Devil.
Glen W. Olsen | The Middle Ages in the History of Toleration
What is the issue at the heart of R.I. Moore’s The Formation of a Persecuting Society?
Whiggish view - general intolerance grows as we move through high and late medieval society.
Persecuting soc is born in 11th c and particularly targetted Jews, heretics, lepers, and sodomites
Glen W. Olsen | The Middle Ages in the History of Toleration
What was John Boswell’s sensational contribution in 1980s?
- Ancient and early medieval Christianity had tolerated homosexuality, and that this toleration only was severely attenuated in the thirteenth century, specifically by the likes of Aquinas.
- Once more powerful institutions and thought systems emerged, de facto toleration was doomed.
How does Olsen describe Moore’s persecuting society?
A convenient tool with which the bludgeon those who note the complexity of things.
Essentially, Moore represents the dominant, if crumbling historiography which is alert to the imposition of views, but gives insufficient attention to resistance or indifference to them.
Glen W. Olsen | The Middle Ages in the History of Toleration
What did the growth of scholasticism and centralised institutions add?
Increased the ability to discriminate by providing legal basis to do so.
Glen W. Olsen | The Middle Ages in the History of Toleration
What did Christine Caldwell Ames’ research add to the mix?
13th/14th century Dominican inquistors’ own words - not to exclude a person from society, but to include them “within God’s transcendent community”
What are the origins of the term toleratio?
Toleratio - Latin, from Cicero - idea of endurance in the sense of bearing or enduring or tolerating something.
What does the parable of the tars (Mt. 13:24-30) in the Ordinary Gloss state?
“We are advised not to amputate quickly, since whoever errs today may perhaps defend the truth tomorrow”
How were Jews exclusionary?
Talmud - cannot be exposed to too many gentiles - could not eat in the presence of members from a different religion.
What does Nirenberg contribute?
- Although biological descent and hostility emerged in the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, their template of complete segregation of religions was never implemented.
Practical considertions had to limit how much violence could be wielded.
Command of the Count of Barcelona in mid-12th century
That all princes who will succeed us in this princely office shall have a sincere and perfect faith and truthful speech for all men… Christians and Sarcens, Jews and heretics.
Glen W. Olsen | The Middle Ages in the History of Toleration
Who attempted to find a place for Jews in the properly ordered Christian world?
Honorius Augustodunensis
Who rejects the notion of a Jewish golden age under the Muslims?
Mark Cohen - though it was not a golden age, it certainly was more favourable to live under a Muslim than a Christian
When does Kenneth Stow, contra to Moore, argue that the emergence of the persecuting society began?
Not in the 11th century but the 13th, when general socio-economic instability and resentment of infidels’ special legal status fuelled hatred.
What is Nederman’s contribution?
Suggests Morr’s concept was a caricature - medieval institutions were too weak to impose conformity.
What does Gavin Langmuir suggest caused the wave of persection?
A crisis of faith - supported by Catlos - who argues that the evident prosperity and technological success of the Islamic world worried Christians who were unsettled by the idea that God would reward unabashed infidels.
What did Bondavid of Marseilles do?
Jewish moneylender - was put on trial. Several Christians defended him - testifying to his generosity.
what does Kenneth stow argue about the nature of Jewish family structure?
That its protobourgeois stability was envious to Christians
David Nirenberg - Conversion, Sex and Segregation - Iberian Jews and Christians after the Massacres of 1391
What occurred in 1391?
Massacres and forced conversions of Jews across the Spanish mainland.
David Nirenberg - Conversion, Sex and Segregation - Iberian Jews and Christians after the Massacres of 1391
What was the regret by 1449?
The conversios were considered a great disaster - one which threatened the health of the Christian community. Conversios were considered clandestine Jews, insincere Christians, or hybrid monsters.
David Nirenberg - Conversion, Sex and Segregation - Iberian Jews and Christians after the Massacres of 1391
What was the concern about sexual relations between Christians and Jews
Every Christian woman was considered a bride of Christ through baptism - His wives, their bodies represented the extension of His authority and community . Again as His wives, they represented the point at which His honour as Father and husband was at risk. Because of this, women’s bodies could become the site of fears concerning God’s honour and that of His Church.
David Nirenberg - Conversion, Sex and Segregation - Iberian Jews and Christians after the Massacres of 1391
When were Jews pelted with rocks?
During Holy Week
Who incited the 1391 Jewish massacre?
Monk Ferdinand Martines
