Download or read book Feeling Persecuted written by Anthony Bale and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2012-01-01 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Feeling Persecuted, Anthony Bale explores the medieval Christian attitude toward Jews, which included a pervasive fear of persecution and an imagined fear of violence enacted against Christians. As a result, Christians retaliated with expulsions, riots, and murders that systematically denied Jews the right to religious freedom and peace. Through close readings of a wide range of sources, Bale exposes the perceived violence enacted by the Jews and how the images of this Christian suffering and persecution were central to medieval ideas of love, community, and home. The images and texts explored by Bale expose a surprising practice of recreational persecution and show that the violence perpetrated against medieval Jews was far from simple anti-Semitism and was in fact a complex part of medieval life and culture. Bale’s comprehensive look at medieval poetry, drama, visual culture, theology, and philosophy makes Feeling Persecuted an important read for anyone interested in the history of Christian-Jewish relations and the impact of this history on modern culture.

Download or read book Reassessing Jewish Life in Medieval Europe written by Robert Chazan and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-09-27 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book re-evaluates the prevailing notion that Jews in medieval Christian Europe lived under an appalling regime of ecclesiastical limitation, governmental exploitation and expropriation, and unceasing popular violence. Robert Chazan argues that, while Jewish life in medieval Western Christendom was indeed beset with grave difficulties, it was nevertheless an environment rich in opportunities; the Jews of medieval Europe overcame obstacles, grew in number, explored innovative economic options, and fashioned enduring new forms of Jewish living. His research also provides a reconsideration of the legacy of medieval Jewish life, which is often depicted as equally destructive and projected as the underpinning of the twentieth-century catastrophes of antisemitism and the Holocaust. Dr Chazan's research proves that, although Jewish life in the medieval West laid the foundation for much Jewish suffering in the post-medieval world, it also stimulated considerable Jewish ingenuity, which lies at the root of impressive Jewish successes in the modern West.

Download or read book Living Together Living Apart written by Jonathan Elukin and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-12-08 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book challenges the standard conception of the Middle Ages as a time of persecution for Jews. Jonathan Elukin traces the experience of Jews in Europe from late antiquity through the Renaissance and Reformation, revealing how the pluralism of medieval society allowed Jews to feel part of their local communities despite recurrent expressions of hatred against them. Elukin shows that Jews and Christians coexisted more or less peacefully for much of the Middle Ages, and that the violence directed at Jews was largely isolated and did not undermine their participation in the daily rhythms of European society. The extraordinary picture that emerges is one of Jews living comfortably among their Christian neighbors, working with Christians, and occasionally cultivating lasting friendships even as Christian culture often demonized Jews. As Elukin makes clear, the expulsions of Jews from England, France, Spain, and elsewhere were not the inevitable culmination of persecution, but arose from the religious and political expediencies of particular rulers. He demonstrates that the history of successful Jewish-Christian interaction in the Middle Ages in fact laid the social foundations that gave rise to the Jewish communities of modern Europe. Elukin compels us to rethink our assumptions about this fascinating period in history, offering us a new lens through which to appreciate the rich complexities of the Jewish experience in medieval Christendom.

Download or read book Under Crescent and Cross written by Mark R. Cohen and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On the Jews in the Middle ages

Download or read book Jews Christians and Muslims in Medieval and Early Modern Times written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2014-03-27 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together articles on the cultural, religious, social and commercial interactions among Jews, Christians and Muslims in the medieval and early modern periods. Written by leading scholars in Jewish studies, Islamic studies, medieval history and social and economic history, the contributions to this volume reflect the profound influence on these fields of the volume’s honoree, Professor Mark R. Cohen.

Download or read book Blood Inscriptions written by Hillel J. Kieval and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2022-02-15 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although the Enlightenment had seemed to bring an end to the widely held belief that Jews murdered Christian children for ritual purposes, charges of the so-called blood libel were surprisingly widespread in central and eastern Europe on either side of the turn to the twentieth century. Well over one hundred accusations were made against Jews in this period, and prosecutors and government officials in Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia broke with long established precedent to bring six of these cases forward in sensational public trials. In Blood Inscriptions Hillel J. Kieval examines four cases—the prosecutions that took place at Tiszaeszlár in Hungary (1882-83), Xanten in Germany (1891-92), Polná in Austrian Bohemia (1899-1900), and Konitz, then Germany, now in Poland (1900-1902)—to consider the means by which discredited beliefs came to seem once again plausible. Kieval explores how educated elites took up the accusations of Jewish ritual murder and considers the roles played by government bureaucracies, the journalistic establishment, forensic medicine, and advanced legal practices in structuring the investigations and trials. The prosecutors, judges, forensic scientists, criminologists, and academic scholars of Judaism and other expert witnesses all worked hard to establish their epistemological authority as rationalists, Kieval contends. Far from being a throwback to the Middle Ages, these ritual murder trials were in all respects a product of post-Enlightenment politics and culture. Harnessed to and disciplined by the rhetoric of modernity, they were able to proceed precisely because they were framed by the idioms of scientific discourse and rationality.

Download or read book Jews and Christians in Twelfth century Europe written by Michael Alan Signer and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fifteen papers from a conference held at the University of Notre Dame in 1996 which explore the tensions that characterised the relationship between Jews and Christians across Europe during the 12th century. The movement of Jews into Slavic territories and into Anglo-Norman England also led to the creation of their own global language. Subjects include the Jewish Renaissance of the 12th century, changing perceptions of the Christian-Jewish conflict, conversion, expulsions, Christian and Jewish religious and secular texts, Jews in France and England.

Download or read book Communities of Violence written by David Nirenberg and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2015-05-26 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the wake of modern genocide, we tend to think of violence against minorities as a sign of intolerance, or, even worse, a prelude to extermination. Violence in the Middle Ages, however, functioned differently, according to David Nirenberg. In this provocative book, he focuses on specific attacks against minorities in fourteenth-century France and the Crown of Aragon (Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia). He argues that these attacks--ranging from massacres to verbal assaults against Jews, Muslims, lepers, and prostitutes--were often perpetrated not by irrational masses laboring under inherited ideologies and prejudices, but by groups that manipulated and reshaped the available discourses on minorities. Nirenberg shows that their use of violence expressed complex beliefs about topics as diverse as divine history, kinship, sex, money, and disease, and that their actions were frequently contested by competing groups within their own society. Nirenberg's readings of archival and literary sources demonstrates how violence set the terms and limits of coexistence for medieval minorities. The particular and contingent nature of this coexistence is underscored by the book's juxtapositions--some systematic (for example, that of the Crown of Aragon with France, Jew with Muslim, medieval with modern), and some suggestive (such as African ritual rebellion with Catalan riots). Throughout, the book questions the applicability of dichotomies like tolerance versus intolerance to the Middle Ages, and suggests the limitations of those analyses that look for the origins of modern European persecutory violence in the medieval past.

Download or read book The Sufferings of the Jews During the Middle Ages written by Leopold Zunz and published by . This book was released on 2017-08-21 with total page 102 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book A Brief History of Life in the Middle Ages written by Martyn Whittock and published by Robinson. This book was released on 2013-02-07 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using wide-ranging evidence, Martyn Whittock shines a light on Britain in the Middle Ages, bringing it vividly to life in this fascinating new portrait that brings together the everyday and the extraordinary. Thus we glimpse 11th-century rural society through a conversation between a ploughman and his master. The life of Dick Whittington illuminates the rise of the urban elite. The stories of Roger 'the Raker' who drowned in his own sewage, a 'merman' imprisoned in Orford Castle and the sufferings of the Jews of Bristol reveal the extraordinary diversity of medieval society. Through these characters and events - and using the latest discoveries and research - the dynamic and engaging panorama of medieval England is revealed.

Download or read book The Stammheim Missal written by Elizabeth Cover Teviotdale and published by Getty Publications. This book was released on 2001 with total page 102 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Stammheim Missal is one of the most visually dazzling and theologically ambitious works of German Romanesque art. Containing the text recited by the priest and the chants sung by the choir at mass, the manuscript was produced in Lower Saxony around 1160 at Saint Michael's Abbey at Hildesheim, a celebrated abbey in medieval Germany. This informative volume features color illustrations of all the manuscript's major decorations. The author surveys the manuscript, its illuminations, and the circumstances surrounding its creation, then explores the tradition of the illumination of mass books and the representation of Jewish scriptures in Christian art. Teviotdale then considers the iconography of the manuscript's illuminations, identifies and translates many of its numerous Latin inscriptions, and finally considers the missal and its visually sophisticated and religiously complex miniatures as a whole.

Download or read book The Sufferings of the Jews During the Middle Ages written by Leopold Zunz and published by . This book was released on 1907 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Jewish Culture and Society in Medieval France and Germany written by Ivan G. Marcus and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-04-14 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These studies explore the history of the Jewish minority of Ashkenaz (northern France and the German Empire) during the High Middle Ages. Although the Jews in medieval Europe are usually thought to have been isolated from the Christian majority, they actually were part of a 'Jewish-Christian symbiosis.' A number of studies in the collection focus on Jewish-Christian cultural and social interactions, the foundations of the community ascribed to Charlemagne, and especially on the fashioning of a martyrological collective identity in 1096. Even when Jews resisted Christian pressures they often did so by internalizing Christian motifs and turning them on their heads to argue for the truth of Judaism alone. This may be seen especially in the formation of Jews as martyrs, a trope that places Jews as collective Christ figures whose suffering brings about vicarious atonement. The remainder of the studies delve into the lives and writings of a group of Jewish ascetic pietists, Hasidei Ashkenaz, which shaped the religious culture of most European Jews before modernity. In Sefer Hasidim (Book of the Pietists), attributed to Rabbi Judah the Pietist of Regensburg (d. 1217), one finds a mirror of everyday Jewish-Christian interactions even while the author advances a radical view of Jewish religious pietism.

Download or read book The Cambridge History of Judaism Volume 2 The Hellenistic Age written by William David Davies and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1984 with total page 766 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vol. 4 covers the late Roman period to the rise of Islam. Focuses especially on the growth and development of rabbinic Judaism and of the major classical rabbinic sources such as the Mishnah, Jerusalem Talmud, Babylonian Talmud and various Midrashic collections.

Download or read book The Jews of Medieval Western Christendom written by Robert Chazan and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2006-11-23 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between the years AD 1000 and 1500, western Christendom absorbed by conquest and attracted through immigration a growing number of Jews. This community was to make a valuable contribution to rapidly developing European civilisation but was also to suffer some terrible setbacks, culminating in a series of expulsions from the more advanced westerly areas of Europe. At the same time, vigorous new branches of world Jewry emerged and a rich new Jewish cultural legacy was created. In this important historical synthesis, Robert Chazan discusses the Jewish experience over a 500 year period across the entire continent of Europe. As well as being the story of medieval Jewry, the book simultaneously illuminates important aspects of majority life in Europe during this period. This book is essential reading for all students of medieval Jewish history and an important reference for any scholar of medieval Europe.

Download or read book A History of Jewish Philosophy in the Middle Ages written by Colette Sirat and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1990-11-30 with total page 502 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive survey of medieval Jewish philosophy provides in-depth coverage for such major figures as Saadiah Gaon, Maimonides, Abraham Ibn Ezra, Judah Halevi, Abraham Ibn Daoud and Gersonides.

Download or read book Hell and Its Rivals written by Alan E. Bernstein and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2017-06-06 with total page 518 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The idea of punishment after death—whereby the souls of the wicked are consigned to Hell (Gehenna, Gehinnom, or Jahannam)—emerged out of beliefs found across the Mediterranean, from ancient Egypt to Zoroastrian Persia, and became fundamental to the Abrahamic religions. Once Hell achieved doctrinal expression in the New Testament, the Talmud, and the Qur'an, thinkers began to question Hell’s eternity, and to consider possible alternatives—hell’s rivals. Some imagined outright escape, others periodic but temporary relief within the torments. One option, including Purgatory and, in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, the Middle State, was to consider the punishments to be temporary and purifying. Despite these moral and theological hesitations, the idea of Hell has remained a historical and theological force until the present.In Hell and Its Rivals, Alan E. Bernstein examines an array of sources from within and beyond the three Abrahamic faiths—including theology, chronicles, legal charters, edifying tales, and narratives of near-death experiences—to analyze the origins and evolution of belief in Hell. Key social institutions, including slavery, capital punishment, and monarchy, also affected the afterlife beliefs of Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Reflection on hell encouraged a stigmatization of "the other" that in turn emphasized the differences between these religions. Yet, despite these rivalries, each community proclaimed eternal punishment and answered related challenges to it in similar terms. For all that divided them, they agreed on the need for—and fact of—Hell.