Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T01:50:04.539Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

8 - The Church and the Jews

from Part II - The Church in the Thirteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

David Abulafia
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Get access

Summary

BY the early thirteenth century, the situation of European Jewry had become a precarious one. No longer considered a separate genus with well-defined rights, legally and constitutionally, the Jews had become directly dependent on feudal suzerains and were prey to arbitrary rule. Their mode of earning a living, largely through lending at interest (in northern Europe, at any rate), was viewed with general suspicion and disdain. Their affective nuclear family ideal and structure, wholly sustained by Jewish religious and political leadership alike, often seemed — and was — foreign to that of their Christian neighbours, and certainly to the ideal sustained by Christian clerics. Finally, their image in Christian eyes had universally become that of the nemesis of the Christian polity. They were alternately viewed as the personification — and, by projection, the incarnation — of perverse, unhuman, reason and reasoning; as the object on which to project and transfer irrational doubts and frightening convictions, most notably the conviction of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist; and as the foil for promoting, conjointly with theories of worldwide conspiracies, the Marian cult and other local cults of saints, often in association with libels of ritual murder. Any, or all, of these views was sufficient to generate an image of the Jew as a mythical threat to Christian society. As the source, first, of spiritual pollution, then of the corruption of the Christian body politic, and eventually, in the sixteenth century, if not earlier, of pollution by infection of the physical and individual Christian body itself, occasionally accompanied by charges of magic, although pointedly not of witchcraft, the Jew was deemed capable of subverting a Christian society’s legitimate aims and goals. Since 1096, during the First Crusade, such conclusions increasingly exposed the Jews to libel and physical attack. What role, we can now ask, did the institution of the Catholic Church, its leaders and their ideologies play in either fomenting or moderating this state of affairs?

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1999

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

(Nicholas de Tudeschi), Panormitanus , Lectura super libros V Decretalium (1559)
Abulafia, Anna Sapir (1995), Christians and Jews in the twelfth-century Renaissance, London
Abulafia, David (1992), ‘From privilege to persecution: crown, Church and Synagogue in the city of Majorca, 1229–1343’, in Abulafia, D., Rubin, M. and Franklin, M. (eds.), Church and city, 1000–1500 essays in honour of Christopher Brooke, Cambridge Google Scholar
Abulafia, David (1996), ‘Monarchs and minorities in the late medieval western Mediterranean: Lucera and its analogues,’ in Waugh, Scott L. and Diehl, Peter D. (eds.), Christendom and its discontents: exclusion, persecution and rebellion, 1000–1500, Cambridge Google Scholar
Albert, Bat Sheva (1974), The case of Baruch, Ramat Gan
,Alexander of Hales, Summa theologica, Quaracchi (1925)
Aquinas, Thomas , Summa theologica, New York (1947)
Baer, Y.F. (1961), A history of the Jews in Christian Spain, trans. Schoffman, L., 2 vols., Philadelphia
Baron, S.W. (1952), A social and religious history of the Jews, XI, Philadelphia
Baron, S.W. (1972), ‘Plenitude of apostolic powers and medieval Jewish serfdom’, in his Ancient and medieval Jewish history, New Brunswick Google Scholar
Ben Sasson, H.H. (1976), A history of the Jewish people, Cambridge, MA
Berger, David (1986), ‘Mission to the Jews and Jewish–Christian contacts in the polemical literature of the high Middle Ages’, American Historical Review 91:Google Scholar
Bonfil, Robert (1971), ‘The nature of Judaism in Raymundus Martini’s Pugio Fidei ’, Tarbiz 40 Google Scholar
Boureau, Alain (1986), ‘L’inceste de Judas: essai sur la genèse de la haine antisémite au XIIe siècle’, L’amour de la haine: nouvelle revue de psychanalyse 32 Google Scholar
Browe, Petrus (1942), Die Judenmission im Mittelalter und die Päpste, Rome
Brundage, James (1988), ‘Intermarriage between Christians and Jews in medieval canon law’, Jewish Histoy 3, 1 Google Scholar
Chazan, (1980)
Chazan, Robert , Church, state, and Jew in the Middle Ages, New York (1980)
Chazan, Robert (1992), Barcelona and beyond: the disputation of 1263 and its aftermath, Berkeley and Los Angeles
Chazan, Robert (1972), ‘1007–1012, initial crisis for northern European Jewry’, Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 38–9 Google Scholar
Chazan, Robert (1989), Daggers of faith: thirteenth-centuy Christian missionizing and Jewish response, Berkeley
Cohen, Jeremy (1982), The friars and the Jews, Ithaca
Cohen, Jeremy (1983), ‘The Jews as killers of Christ in the Latin tradition, from St Augustine to the Friars’, Traditio 39 Google Scholar
Cohen, Jeremy (1986), ‘Scholarship and intolerance in the medieval academy: the study and evaluation of Judaism in European Christendom’, American Historical Review 91 Google Scholar
Cohen, Jeremy (1989), ‘Recent historiography on the medieval Church and the decline of European Jewry’, in Sweeney, J.R. and Chodorow, Stanley (eds.), Popes, teachers and canon law in the Middle Ages, Ithaca Google Scholar
de Susannis, Marquardus , De iudaeis et aliis infidelibus, Venice (1558)
Finkelstein, Louis (1972), Jewish self-government in the Middle Ages, Westport, CT
Foa, Anna (1984), ‘Il nuovo e il vecchio: l’insorgere della sifilide (1494–1530)’, Quaderni Storici 19: ; English trans. in Muir, E. and Ruggiero, G. (eds.), Sex and gender in his-torical perspective, Baltimore and London (1990)Google Scholar
Foa, Anna (1988), ‘Il gioco del proselitimismo: politica della conversione e controllo della violenza nella Roma del Cinquecento’, in Luzzati, M., et al (eds.), Ebrei e Cristiani nell’Italia medievale e moderna: conversioni, scambi, contrasti, Rome Google Scholar
Fox, Marvin (1989), ‘Nahmanides on the status of Aggadot: perspectives on the disputation at Barcelona, 1263’, Journal of Jewish Studies 40 Google Scholar
Friedberg, Emil (1965), De finium inter ecclesiam et civitatem regundorum judicio, Leipzig
Frugoni, Arsenio (ed.) (1957), Adversus Judaeos di Gioacchino di Fiore, Rome
Gafni, Isaiah and Ravitzky, Aviezer (eds.) (1992), Sanctity of life and martyrdom: studies in memory of Amir Yequtiel (in Hebrew), Jerusalem
Gilchrist, John (1988), ‘The perception of Jews in the canon law in the period of the first two crusades’, Jewish History 3, 1 Google Scholar
Ginzburg, Carlo (1989), Storia notturna, Turin
Grayzel, Solomon (1958), ‘The confessions of a medieval convert’, Historia Judaica 17 Google Scholar
Grayzel, Solomon (1966), The popes and the Jews in the thirteenth century, I, New York
Grayzel, Solomon (1977), ‘Popes, Jews, and Inquisition, from “Sicut” to “Turbato corde”’, in Essays on the occasion of the seventieth anniversary of the Dropsie University, Philadelphia Google Scholar
Grayzel, Solomon (1989), The Church and the Jews in the thirteenth century, II: 1254–1314, ed. and revised by Stow, K.R., New York and Detroit
Greenbaum, Shmuel (ed.) (1873), Vikuah R. Yehiel, Thorn
Jordan, W.C. (1989), The French monarchy and the Jews: from Philip Augustus to the last Capetians, Philadelphia
Kedar, B.Z. (1979), ‘Canon law and the burning of the Talmud’, Bulletin of Medieval Canon Law 9 Google Scholar
Kriegel, Maurice (1979), Les Jufs à la fin du moyen âge dans lEurope méditerranéenne, Paris
Kriegel, Maurice (1978), ‘Premarranisme et Inquisition dans la Provence des XIIIe et XIVe siècles’, Provence historique 29 Google Scholar
Langmuir, Gavin (1963), ‘The Jews and the archives of Angevin England’, Traditio 19 Google Scholar
Lotter, Friedrich (1988a), ‘Hostienfrevelvorwurf und Blutwunderfälschung bei den Judenverfolgungen von 1298 (“Rintfleisch”) und 1336–1338 (“Armleder”)’, in Fälschungen im Mittelalter: Fingierte Brief, Frömmigkeit and Fälschung, Realienfälschungen, Hanover Google Scholar
Lotter, Friedrich (1988b), ‘Die Judenverfolgung des “König Rintfleisch” in Franken um 1298’, Zeitschrift fuer Historische Forschung 15:Google Scholar
Maccoby, (1982)
Maccoby, H. , Judaism on trial: Jewish–Christian disputations in the Middle Ages, East Brunswick, NJ (1982)
Martinus, Raymundus , Pugio fidei adversus Mauros et Judaeos, ed. Carpzov, J.B., Leipzig (1687)
Merchavia, Ch. M. (1973), The Church versus Talmudic and Midrashic literature, Jerusalem
Milano, Attilio (1963), Storia degli ebrei in Italia, Turin
Morrison, K.F. (1969), Tradition and authority in the western Church, 300–1140, Princeton
Mundy, John (1973), Europe in the high Middle Ages, New York
Pakter, Walter (1974), ‘De his qui foris sunt: the teachings of the medieval canon and civil lawyers concerning the Jews’, PhD diss., Johns Hopkins University
Pales-Gobilliard, A. (1977), ‘L’Inquisition et les juifs: le cas de Jacques Fournier’, in Blumenkranz, B. and Vicaire, M.H. (eds.), Juifs et Judaisme en Languedoc, Toulouse Google Scholar
Parkes, James (1938), The Jew in the medieval community, London
Parkes, James (1934), The conflict of the Church and the Synagogue, Toronto
Rosenthal, Judah (1956), ‘The Talmud on trial’, Jewish Quarterly Review 47 Google Scholar
Roth, Cecil (1946), The history of the Jews of Italy, Philadelphia
Roth, Cecil (1964), A history of the Jews in England, 3rd edn, Oxford
Shatzmiller, J. and Simonsohn, S. (eds.) (1991), Michael: on the history of the Jews in the diaspora, XII: The Jews of France in medieval and modern times, Tel Aviv
Shatzmiller, Joseph (1973), ‘L’Inquisition et les juifs de Provence au XIIIe siècle’, Provence historique 23 Google Scholar
Simonsohn, Shlomo (1990), The apostolic see and the Jews, 8 vols., Toronto
Stacey, Robert (1992), ‘The conversion of Jews to Christianity in thirteenth century England’, Speculum 67 Google Scholar
Starr, Joshua (1946), ‘The mass conversion of Jews in southern Italy 1200–1293’, Speculum 21 Google Scholar
Stow, Kenneth R. (1991), ‘The papacy and the Jews, Catholic Reformation and beyond’, in Walfish, B. (ed.), Frank Talmage memorial volume=Jewish History 6 Google Scholar
Stow, Kenneth R. (1972), ‘The burning of the Talmud in 1553, in the light of sixteenth century Catholic attitudes toward the Talmud’, Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance 34 Google Scholar
Stow, Kenneth R. (1977), Catholic thought and papal Jewry policy, 1555–1593, New York
Stow, Kenneth R. (1981), ‘Papal and royal attitudes toward Jewish lending in the thirteenth century ’, AJS Review 6 Google Scholar
Stow, Kenneth R. (1984), The ‘1007 anonymous’ and papal sovereignty: Jewish perceptions of the papacy and papal policy in the high Middle Ages, Cincinnati
Stow, Kenneth R. (1988), ‘Expulsion Italian style: the case of Lucio Ferraris’, Jewish History 3, 1 Google Scholar
Toaff, Ariel (1989), Il vino e la carne, Bologna
Yerushalmi, Y.H. (1970), ‘The Inquisition and the Jews of France in the time of Bernard Gui’, Harvard Theological Review 63 Google Scholar
Yuval, Yisrael (1993), ‘Vengeance and curse, blood and libel’ (in Hebrew), Zion 58: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
×