The Jew in the Medieval Book: English Antisemitisms 1350–1500

by Anthony Bale

• ISBN13: 9780521863544
• ISBN10: 0521863546
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-01-29
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This interdisciplinary study explores images of Jews and Judaism in late medieval English literature and culture. Using four main categories - history, miracle, cult and Passion - Anthony Bale demonstrates how varied and changing ideas of Judaism coexisted within well-known antisemitic literary and visual models, depending on context, authorship and audience. He examines the ways in which English writers, artists and readers used and abused the Jewish image in the period following the Jews' expulsion from England in 1290. The texts are analysed in their manuscript and print contexts in order to show local responses and changing meanings. This important work opens up new texts, sources and approaches for understanding medieval antisemitism and shows how antisemitic stereotypes came to be such potent images which would endure far beyond the Middle Ages.

Table of Contents

Introduction

History: time, nationhood and the Jew of Tewkesbury

Miracle: shifting definitions in 'The miracle of the boy singer'

Cult: the resurrections of Robert of Bury

Passion: the Arma Christi in medieval culture

Bibliographies

Versions of 'The miracle of the boy singer'

John Lydgate, 'Praier to St Robert'

Vernacular English Arma Christi image-text rolls and codices

Verses on the Arma Christi

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