Download or read book The Murder of William of Norwich written by E. M. Rose and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1144, the mutilated body of William of Norwich, a young apprentice leatherworker, was found abandoned outside the city's walls. The boy bore disturbing signs of torture, and a story spread that it was a ritual murder, performed by Jews in imitation of the Crucifixion as a mockery of Christianity. The outline of William's tale eventually gained currency far beyond Norwich, and the idea that Jews engaged in ritual murder became firmly rooted in the European imagination. E.M. Rose's engaging book delves into the story of William's murder and the notorious trial that followed to uncover the origin of the ritual murder accusation - known as the "blood libel" - in western Europe in the Middle Ages. Focusing on the specific historical context - 12th-century ecclesiastical politics, the position of Jews in England, the Second Crusade, and the cult of saints - and suspensefully unraveling the facts of the case, Rose makes a powerful argument for why the Norwich Jews (and particularly one Jewish banker) were accused of killing the youth, and how the malevolent blood libel accusation managed to take hold. She also considers four "copycat" cases, in which Jews were similarly blamed for the death of young Christians, and traces the adaptations of the story over time. In the centuries after its appearance, the ritual murder accusation provoked instances of torture, death and expulsion of thousands of Jews and the extermination of hundreds of communities. Although no charge of ritual murder has withstood historical scrutiny, the concept of the blood libel is so emotionally charged and deeply rooted in cultural memory that it endures even today. Rose's groundbreaking work, driven by fascinating characters, a gripping narrative, and impressive scholarship, provides clear answers as to why the blood libel emerged when it did and how it was able to gain such widespread acceptance, laying the foundations for enduring antisemitic myths that continue to present.

Download or read book Jews and Crime in Medieval Europe written by Ephraim Shoham-Steiner and published by Wayne State University Press. This book was released on 2020-11-10 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jews and Crime in Medieval Europe is a topic laced by prejudice on one hand and apologetics on the other. Beginning in the Middle Ages, Jews were often portrayed as criminals driven by greed. While these accusations were, for the most part, unfounded, in other cases criminal accusations against Jews were not altogether baseless. Drawing on a variety of legal, liturgical, literary, and archival sources, Ephraim Shoham-Steiner examines the reasons for the involvement in crime, the social profile of Jews who performed crimes, and the ways and mechanisms employed by the legal and communal body to deal with Jewish criminals and with crimes committed by Jews. A society’s attitude toward individuals identified as criminals—by others or themselves—can serve as a window into that society’s mores and provide insight into how transgressors understood themselves and society’s attitudes toward them. The book is divided into three main sections. In the first section, Shoham-Steiner examines theft and crimes of a financial nature. In the second section, he discusses physical violence and murder, most importantly among Jews but also incidents when Jews attacked others and cases in which Jews asked non-Jews to commit violence against fellow Jews. In the third section, Shoham-Steiner approaches the role of women in crime and explores the gender differences, surveying the nature of the crimes involving women both as perpetrators and as victims, as well as the reaction to their involvement in criminal activities among medieval European Jews. While the study of crime and social attitudes toward criminals is firmly established in the social sciences, the history of crime and of social attitudes toward crime and criminals is relatively new, especially in the field of medieval studies and all the more so in medieval Jewish studies. Jews and Crime in Medieval Europe blazes a new path for unearthing daily life history from extremely recalcitrant sources. The intended readership goes beyond scholars and students of medieval Jewish studies, medieval European history, and crime in pre-modern society.

Download or read book The Palgrave Dictionary of Medieval Anglo Jewish History written by J. Hillaby and published by Springer. This book was released on 2013-08-15 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using a wide range of rich original sources, this unique reference guide provides a remarkable picture of England's medieval Jewry. Following an extensive introduction, the dictionary includes illustrations, maps, and over 40 topographic, 30 biographic and 80 general entries, including texts of key legislation.

Download or read book On the Word of a Jew written by Nina Caputo and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2019-01-14 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fourteen essays examining the dynamics of trust and mistrust in Jewish history from biblical times to today. What, if anything, does religion have to do with how reliable we perceive one another to be? When and how did religious difference matter in the past when it came to trusting the word of another? In today’s world, we take for granted that being Jewish should not matter when it comes to acting or engaging in the public realm, but this was not always the case. The essays in this volume look at how and when Jews were recognized as reliable and trustworthy in the areas of jurisprudence, medicine, politics, academia, culture, business, and finance. As they explore issues of trust and mistrust, the authors reveal how caricatures of Jews move through religious, political, and legal systems. While the volume is framed as an exploration of Jewish and Christian relations, it grapples with perceptions of Jews and Jewishness from the biblical period to today, from the Middle East to North America, and in Ashkenazi and Sephardi traditions. Taken together these essays reflect on the mechanics of trust, and sometimes mistrust, in everyday interactions involving Jews. “Highly readable and compelling, this volume marks a broadly significant contribution to Jewish studies through the underexplored dynamic of trust.” —Rebekah Klein-Pejšová, author of Mapping Jewish Loyalties in Interwar Slovakia “An exemplary compendium on how to engage with a major concept—trust—while providing load of gripping new information, new theorization of otherwise well-covered material, and meticulous attention to textual and sociological sources.” —Gil Anidjar, author of Blood: A Critique of Christianity

Download or read book New Perspectives on Jewish Christian Relations written by Elisheva Carlebach and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2011-11-25 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work revisits the millennia-old Jewish-Christian encounter by providing a nuanced understanding of its challenges as well as presenting new perspectives on hitherto neglected areas of cultural, religious, and social interchange and influence.

Download or read book Jews and Christians in Thirteenth Century France written by E. Baumgarten and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-05-05 with total page 503 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A period of great change for Europe, the thirteenth-century was a time of both animosity and intimacy for Jewish and Christian communities. In this wide-ranging collection, scholars discuss the changing paradigms in the research and history of Jews and Christians in medieval Europe, discussing law, scholarly pursuits, art, culture, and poetry.

Download or read book Blood Libel written by Magda Teter and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2020-01-07 with total page 561 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A landmark history of the antisemitic blood libel myth—how it took root in Europe, spread with the invention of the printing press, and persists today. Accusations that Jews ritually killed Christian children emerged in the mid-twelfth century, following the death of twelve-year-old William of Norwich, England, in 1144. Later, continental Europeans added a destructive twist: Jews murdered Christian children to use their blood. While charges that Jews poisoned wells and desecrated the communion host waned over the years, the blood libel survived. Initially blood libel stories were confined to monastic chronicles and local lore. But the development of the printing press in the mid-fifteenth century expanded the audience and crystallized the vocabulary, images, and “facts” of the blood libel, providing a lasting template for hate. Tales of Jews killing Christians—notably Simon of Trent, a toddler whose body was found under a Jewish house in 1475—were widely disseminated using the new technology. Following the paper trail across Europe, from England to Italy to Poland, Magda Teter shows how the blood libel was internalized and how Jews and Christians dealt with the repercussions. The pattern established in early modern Europe still plays out today. In 2014 the Anti-Defamation League appealed to Facebook to take down a page titled “Jewish Ritual Murder.” The following year white supremacists gathered in England to honor Little Hugh of Lincoln as a sacrificial victim of the Jews. Based on sources in eight countries and ten languages, Blood Libel captures the long shadow of a pernicious myth.

Download or read book Jurisprudence and Theology written by Joseph E. David and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-09-18 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book provides in depth studies of two epistemological aspects of Jewish Law (Halakhah) as the ‘Word of God’ – the question of legal reasoning and the problem of knowing and remembering. - How different are the epistemological concerns of religious-law in comparison to other legal systems? - In what ways are jurisprudential attitudes prescribed and dependent on theological presumptions? - What specifies legal reasoning and legal knowledge in a religious framework? The author outlines the rabbinic jurisprudential thought rooted in Talmudic literature which underwent systemization and enhancement by the Babylonian Geonim and the Andalusian Rabbis up until the twelfth century. The book develops a synoptic view on the growth of rabbinic legal thought against the background of Christian theological motifs on the one hand and Karaite and Islamic systemized jurisprudence on the other hand. It advances a perspective of legal-theology that combines analysis of jurisprudential reflections and theological views within a broad historical and intellectual framework. The book advocates two approaches to the study of the legal history of the Halakhah: comparative jurisprudence and legal-theology, based on the understanding that jurisprudence and theology are indispensable and inseparable pillars of legal praxis.

Download or read book Medieval Jewish Civilization written by Ivan G. Marcus and published by Markus Wiener Publishers. This book was released on 1988 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Civilization at the University level.

Download or read book Everyday Life in Ancient Mesopotamia written by Jean Bottéro and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2001-09-05 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Described by the editor as unpretentious roamings on the odd little byways of the history of ancient Mesopotamia, these 15 articles were originally published in the French journal L'Histoire and are designed to serve as an introductory sampling of the historical research on the lost civilization. Chapters explore cuisine, sexuality, women's rights, architecture, magic and medicine, myth, legend, and other aspects of Mesopotamian life. Originally published as Initiation a l'Orient ancien . Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Download or read book Treason written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-05-06 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Set against the framework of modern political concerns, Treason: Medieval and Early Modern Adultery, Betrayal, and Shame considers the various forms of treachery in a variety of sources, including literature, historical chronicles, and material culture creating a complex portrait of the development of this high crime.

Download or read book Beautiful Death written by Susan L. Einbinder and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2002-07-01 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Crusader armies on their way to the Holy Land attacked Jewish communities in the Rhine Valley, many Jews chose suicide over death at the hands of Christian mobs. With their defiant deaths, the medieval Jewish martyr was born. With the literary commemoration of the victims, Jewish martyrology followed. Beautiful Death examines the evolution of a long-neglected corpus of Hebrew poetry, the laments reflecting the specific conditions of Jewish life in northern France. The poems offer insight into everyday life and into the ways medieval French Jews responded to persecution. They also suggest that poetry was used to encourage resistance to intensifying pressures to convert. The educated Jewish elite in northern France was highly acculturated. Their poetry--particularly that emerging from the innovative Tosafist schools--reflects their engagement with the vernacular renaissance unfolding around them, as well as conscious and unconscious absorption of Christian popular beliefs and hagiographical conventions. At the same time, their extraordinary poems signal an increasingly harsh repudiation of Christianity's sacred symbols and beliefs. They reveal a complex relationship to Christian culture as Jews internalized elements of medieval culture even while expressing a powerful revulsion against the forms and beliefs of Christian life. This gracefully written study crosses traditional boundaries of history and literature and of Jewish and general medieval scholarship. Focusing on specific incidents of persecution and the literary commemorations they produced, it offers unique insights into the historical conditions in which these poems were written and performed.

Download or read book The Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies written by and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 608 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Jews in Medieval Britain written by Patricia Skinner and published by Boydell Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Britain's medieval Jewish community arrived with the Normans in 1066 and was expelled from the country in 1290. This is the first time in forty years that its life has been comprehensively examined for a student and general readership. Beginning with an introduction setting the medieval British experience into its European context, the book continues with three chapters outlining the history of the Jews' presence and a discussion of where they settled. Further chapters then explore themes such as their relationship with the Christian church, Jewish women's lives, the major types of evidence used by historians, the latest evidence emerging from archaeological exploration, and new approaches from literary studies. The book closes with a reappraisal of one of the best-known communities, that at York. Drawing together the work of experts in the field, and supported by an extensive bibliographical guide, this is a valuable and revealing account of medieval Jewish history in Britain. Patricia Skinner is a Wellcome Research Fellow in the College of Arts and Humanities, Swansea University. Contributors: ANTHONY BALE, SUZANNE BARTLETT, PAUL BRAND, BARRIE DOBSON, JOHN EDWARDS, JOSEPH HILLABY, D.A. HINTON, ROBIN MUNDILL, ROBERT C. STACEY.

Download or read book Numbers 20 36 written by L. Michael Morales and published by Inter-Varsity Press. This book was released on 2024-11-07 with total page 543 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Often overlooked and regularly misunderstood, the Book of Numbers is a daunting prospect for scholars, preachers and students. It covers part of the Israelites' wilderness years between Egypt and the land of the promise - seemingly very different to and detached from our modern context. Yet, God's covenant love remains the same, and the book of Numbers remains extremely relevant for ecclesiology and for the church's life within the already-not yet of the present 'wilderness' era. In his magisterial new commentary, Morales carefully demonstrates the ongoing relevance of Numbers, its positive vision for life and the surprising challenge it offers to contemporary Christians. This detailed and comprehensive commentary sheds fresh light on a part of the Bible often referenced, yet rarely preached and explained. Within this commentary on Numbers 20-36, form and structure sections examine the context, source-critical and form-critical issues and rhetorical devices of each passage. Comment sections offer thorough, detailed exegesis of the historical and theological meaning of each passage, and explanation sections offer a full exposition of the theological message within the framework of biblical theology and a commitment to the inspiration and authority of the Old Testament. Volume 2 covers chapters 20-36 and includes Morales' rigorous bibliography and extensive indices. An annotated Translation of the Hebrew text by L. Michael Morales forms the basis for his comments. The Apollos Old Testament Commentary aims to take with equal seriousness the divine and human aspects of Scripture. It expounds the books of the Old Testament in a scholarly manner, accessible to non-experts, and it shows the relevance of the Old Testament to modern readers. Written by an international team of scholars, these commentaries are intended to serve the needs of those who preach from the Old Testament, as well as scholars and all serious students of the Bible.

Download or read book Let Us Go Up to Zion written by Iain Provan and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2012-07-23 with total page 559 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume honours Professor H. G. M. Williamson, Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford University through a collection of essays by colleagues and former students from across the globe. The various contributions intersect with the previous work of Professor Williamson related to the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible and Hebrew language and texts.

Download or read book Emotion Violence Vengeance and Law in the Middle Ages written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2018-05-01 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contributions to this Festschrift for the renowned American legal and literary scholar William Ian Miller reflect the extraordinary intellectual range of the honorand, who is equally at home discussing legal history, Icelandic sagas, English literature, anger and violence, and contemporary popular culture. Professor Miller's colleagues and former students, including distinguished academic lawyers, historians, and literary scholars from the United States, Canada, and Europe, break important new ground by bringing little-known sources to a wider audience and by shedding new light on familiar sources through innovative modes of analysis. Contributors are Stuart Airlie, Theodore M. Andersson, Nora Bartlett, Robert Bartlett, Jordan Corrente Beck, Carol J. Clover, Lauren DesRosiers, William Eves, John Hudson, Elizabeth Papp Kamali, Kimberley-Joy Knight, Simon MacLean, M.W. McHaffie, Eva Miller, Hans Jacob Orning, Jamie Page, Susanne Pohl-Zucker, Amanda Strick, Helle Vogt, Mark D. West, and Stephen D. White.