Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-hvd4g Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-10T20:31:52.896Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

26 - Christianity and Judaism

from Part VI - Christianity and Other Faiths

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

By
Miriam Bodiam
Edited by
R. Po-chia Hsia
R. Po-chia Hsia
Affiliation:
Pennsylvania State University
Get access

Summary

A population map of the Jews in Christian lands in the year 1500 would reveal a striking fact – namely, that in vast areas of Christendom there were no Jews. Practising Jews were permitted to live in only three regions of Europe: the Italian states, the Holy Roman Empire, and Poland-Lithuania. (Even in these regions, they were excluded from many towns and principalities.) Beyond these areas, Jewish life existed only clandestinely, mainly in Spain and Portugal, where members of a population of unwilling converts to Catholicism practised crypto-Judaism.

Where Jewish settlement was permitted, insecurity was a reality of everyday life. Jewish communities were organized as autonomous corporate entities, and did enjoy basic protections, but their members were burdened with numerous restrictions and special taxes. The socio-cultural environment was dominated by images and rituals that conveyed hostility to Jews and Judaism (and evoked a hostile response in Jews themselves). Periodically, the equilibrium was broken by a paroxysm of popular anti-Jewish fury, stirred by clerical incitement or false accusations of ritual crimes. Local expulsions were common. In general, only Christian dependence on the Jews’ economic services ensured the Jews’ continued right to settlement.

Between 1500 and 1660, patterns of Christian–Jewish interaction were profoundly impacted by two major transformations: humanism and the Reformation, on the one hand, and the rise of the Atlantic state-system, on the other. This chapter will focus on changing patterns of Christian–Jewish interaction in the religious sphere, while keeping in mind the political and economic context.

Over the entire period, the largest Jewish population in Europe was that of Poland-Lithuania. (By 1660, it numbered perhaps 300,000 persons.) By the late medieval period it had become a refuge for Jews fleeing persecutions in central Europe.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of Christianity , pp. 483 - 503
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ben-Sasson, Haim Hillel, ‘Jews and Christian sectarians: existential similarity and dialectical tensions in sixteenth-century Moravia and Poland-Lithuania’, Viator 4 (1973).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bodian, Miriam, ‘Biblical Hebrews and the rhetoric of republicanism: seventeenth-century Portuguese Jews on the Jewish community’, AJS Review 22 (Fall/Winter 1997).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bodian, Miriam, ‘In the cross-currents of the Reformation: Crypto-Jewish martyrs of the Inquisition 1570–1670’, Past and Present 178 (2002).Google Scholar
Bodian, Miriam, Hebrews of the Portuguese nation: conversos and community in early modern Amsterdam (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997).Google Scholar
Bonfil, Robert, ‘Change in the cultural patterns of a Jewish society in crisis: Italian Jewry at the close of the sixteenth century’, Jewish History 3 (1988).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Breuer, Mordechai, ‘Modernism and traditionalism in sixteenth-century Jewish historiography: a study of David Gans’ Tzemah David’. In Cooperman, B. D. (ed.), Jewish thought in the sixteenth century (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983).Google Scholar
Buxtorf, Johann, Synagoga Judaica. Noviter restaurata: Das ist: Erneuerte jüdische Synagog, oder Juden-Schul, darinnen der gantze jüdische Glaube, und Glaubens-Ubung … sowohl offentlich als Heimlich im Gebrauch sind (Frankfurt; Leipzig: J. P. Kraussen, 1738).Google Scholar
Carlebach, Elisheva, Divided souls: converts from Judaism in Germany, 1500–1750 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Mark R., ‘Leone da Modena’s Riti: a seventeenth-century plea for social toleration of Jews’, Jewish Social Studies 34 (1972).Google Scholar
Dán, Robert, ‘Isaac Troky and his “antitrinitarian” sources’. In Occident and orient: a tribute to the Memory of A. Scheiber (Leiden: Brill, 1988).Google Scholar
Fishman, Talya, ‘Changing early modern Jewish discourse about Christianity: the efforts of Rabbi Leon Modena’. In Malkiel, David (ed.), The lion shall roar: Leon Modena and his world (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2003).Google Scholar
Friedman, Jerome, The most ancient testimony: sixteenth-century Christian Hebraica in the age of Renaissance nostalgia (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1983).Google Scholar
Gans, David, Zemah David: A chronicle of Jewish and world history (Prague, 1592). [Hebrew]. Ed. Breuer, Mordechai (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1983).Google Scholar
Gelderen, Martin, The political thought of the Dutch revolt, 1555–1590 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldberg, Jacob, ‘ De non tolerandis iudaeis: on the introduction of the anti-Jewish laws into Polish towns and the struggle against them’. In Yeivin, Shmuel (ed.), Studies in Jewish history presented to Raphael Mahler on his seventy-fifth birthday (Merhavyah: Sifriat po’alim, 1974).Google Scholar
Goldberg, Jacob, ‘Die getauften Juden in Polen-Litauen im 16.–18. Jahrhundert’, Jahrbü cher für Geschichte Osteuropas 30 (1982).Google Scholar
Goldberg, Jacob, ‘Poles and Jews in the 17th and 18th centuries: rejection or acceptance?’ Jahrbücher fü r Geschichte Osteuropas 21 (1974).Google Scholar
Guldon, Zenon, and Wijaczka, Jacek, ‘The accusationofritual murderin Poland, 1500–1800’, Polin: A Journal of Polish-Jewish Studies 10 (1997).Google Scholar
Harrán, Don, ‘Jewish musical culture: Leon Modena’. In Davis, Robert C. and Ravid, Benjamin (eds.), The Jewsof early modern Venice (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001).Google Scholar
Hsia, R. Po-chia, The myth of ritual murder: Jews and magic in Reformation Germany (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1988).Google Scholar
Hsia, R. Po-chia, and Lehmann, Hartmut (eds.), Inandout of the ghetto: Jewish–Gentilerelations in late medieval and early modern Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Israel, Jonathan, European Jewry in the age of mercantilism, 1550–1750 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kalik, Judith, ‘Attitudes towards the Jews and Catholic identity in eighteenth-century Poland’. In Craciun, Maria, Ghitta, Ovidiu, and Murdock, Graeme (eds.), Confessional identity in east-central Europe (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2002).Google Scholar
Kalik, Judith, ‘The Catholic Church and the Jews in Poland’ [Hebrew]. In Bartal, Yisra’el and Gutman, Israel, (eds.), Thebroken chain: Polish Jewry through the ages. 2 vols. (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar, 1997), vol. I.Google Scholar
Kaplan, Yosef, From Christianity to Judaism: the story of Isaac Orobio de Castro. Trans. Loewe, Raphael (Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 1989).Google Scholar
Kaplan, Yosef, Mchoulan, Henri, and Popkin, Richard (eds.), Menasseh ben Israel and his world (Leiden: Brill, 1989).Google Scholar
Katchen, Aaron, Christian Hebraists and Dutch rabbis: seventeenth-century apologetics and the study of Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994).Google Scholar
Katz, David, Philo-semitism and the readmission of the Jews to England, 1603–1655 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982).Google Scholar
Katz, Jacob, Exclusiveness and tolerance: studies inJewish-Gentile relations in medieval and modern times (West Orange, NJ: Behrman House, 1961).Google Scholar
Kohut, Zenon, ‘The Khmelnytsky uprising, the image of the Jews, and the shaping of Ukrainian historical memory’, Jewish History 17 (2003).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luther, Martin, D. Martin Luthers Werke: kritische Gesammtausgabe (Weimar: H. Böhlau, 1883–).Google Scholar
Manuel, Frank, The broken staff: Judaism through Christian eyes (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Modena, Leon, The autobiography of a seventeenth-century Venetian rabbi: Leon Modena’s Life of Judah. Ed. and trans. Cohen, Mark R. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988).Google Scholar
Oberman, Heiko, The roots of anti-semitism in the age of Renaissance and Reformation. Trans. Porter, J. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984).Google Scholar
Patterson, Thomas C., ‘Pachacamac: an Andean oracle under Inca rule’. In PeterKvietok, D. and Daniel, H. Sandweiss (eds.), Recent studies in Andean prehistory and protohistory (Ithaca, NY, 1985).Google Scholar
Popkin, Richard H., ‘Some aspects of Jewish–Christian theological interchanges in Holland and England 1640–1700’. In Berg, Johannes and Wall, Ernestine G. E. (eds.), Jewish–Christian relations in the seventeenth century: studies and documents (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1988).Google Scholar
Ravid, Benjamin, ‘A tale of three cities and their raison d’état: Ancona, Venice, Livorno and the competition for Jewish merchants in the sixteenth century’, Mediterranean Historical Review 6 (1991).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ravid, Benjamin, ‘“How profitable the nation of the Jewes are”: the Humble Addresses of Menasseh ben Israel and the Discorso of Simone Luzzatto’.In Reinharz, Judah and Swetschinski, Daniel (eds.), Mystics, philosophers, and politicians: essays in Jewish intellectual history in honor of Alexander Altmann (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1982).Google Scholar
Ravid, Benjamin, ‘The Venetian government and the Jews’. In Davis, Robert C. and Ravid, Benjamin (eds.), The Jews of early modern Venice (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001).Google Scholar
Rosenthal, Judah, ‘Marcin Czechowic and Jacob of Belzyce: Arian–Jewish encounters in 16th century Poland’, Proceedings of the American Academy of Jewish Research 34 (1966).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosheim, Joseph, Joseph of Rosheim: historical writings [Hebrew]. Ed., trans., and intro. Fraenkel-Goldschmidt, Chava (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1996).Google Scholar
Rosman, M. J., ‘Jewish perceptions of insecurity and powerlessness in 16th–18th century Poland’, Polin: A Journal of Polish-Jewish Studies 1 (1986).Google Scholar
Ruderman, David, Jewish thought and scientific discovery in early modern Europe (Detroit: Wayne State University, 2001).Google Scholar
Stow, Kenneth, Catholic thought and papal Jewry policy, 1555–1593 (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1977).Google Scholar
Stow, Kenneth, ‘Conversion, Christian Hebraism, and Hebrew prayer in the sixteenth century’, Hebrew Union College Annual 47 (1976).Google Scholar
Tazbir, Janusz, ‘Anti-Jewish trials in old Poland’, Scripta Hierosolymitana 38 (1998).Google Scholar
Tazbir, Janusz, ‘Images of the Jew in the Polish common wealth’, Polin: A Journal of Polish-Jewish Studies 4 (1989).Google Scholar
Teter, Magda.Jews and heretics in Catholic Poland: A beleaguered Church in the post-Reformation era (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).Google Scholar
Troki, Isaac Avraham, Hizzuk Emunah [Hebrew] (New York: General Lainataip, 1932).Google Scholar
Yerushalmi, Yosef Hayim, From Spanish court to Italian ghetto: Isaac Cardoso, a study in seventeenth-century Marranism and Jewish apologetics (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1981).Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×