Gentile Tales : The Narrative Assault on Late-Medieval Jews

by Miri Rubin

• ISBN13: 9780300076127
• ISBN10: 0300076126
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 1999-06-10
• Publisher: Yale University Press

Summary

This book tells of the creation and growth of one of the principal anti-Jewish stories of the Middle Ages and the violence that it bred. Beginning in Paris in the year 1290, Jews were accused of abusing Christ by desecrating the eucharist - the manifestation of Christ's body in the communion service. Over the next two centuries this became an authoritative, awe-inspiring tale that spread throughout Europe and led to violent antisemitic activity in areas from Catalonia to Bohemia - particularly in some German-speaking regions, where at times it produced region-wide massacres and 'cleansings'.
In exploring the character, nature, development and eventual decay of this fantasy of host desecration, Rubin presents a vivid picture of the mental world of late medieval Europe and of the culture of anti-semitism.

Author Biography

Miri Rubin is a Reader in medieval history at Oxford University and a Fellow of Pembroke College.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. ix
Acknowledgements	p. xi
Introduction	p. 1
From Jewish Boy to Bleeding Host	p. 7
Patterns of Accusation	p. 40
The 'first' telling of the tale in a well-governed capital: Paris, 1290	p. 40
Regional massacres: Rintfleisch 1298, Armleder 1336-8	p. 48
A town and its precious miracles: Korneuburg, 1305	p. 57
Local upheavals, a town and its hinterland: Pulkau, 1338	p. 65
Persons and Places	p. 70
The perpetrator: the (male) Jew	p. 71
Women	p. 73
Children	p. 77
Priests, sextons and anti-clerical sentiment	p. 78
Thieves and theft-plots	p. 80
Converts	p. 84
The crowd and its violence	p. 88
Order restored: synagogue into chapel	p. 89
Interjection: What did Jews Think of the Eucharist? According to Jews and According to Christians	p. 93
Making the Narrative Work	p. 104
Catalonia-Aragon: dynastic tensions and host desecration accusations	p. 109
Venetian doubt: Crete 1451-2	p. 115
Heresy, crusade and the logic of expulsion: Austria, 1421	p. 116
Preaching and incitement: Wroclaw, 1453	p. 119
Regional infection: the neighbouring dioceses of Regensburg and Passau in the 1470s	p. 129
Violence and the Trails of Memory	p. 132
Texts	p. 134
Clerical parody and Jewish lament: Prague, 1389	p. 135
Tales that exemplify	p. 140
Images	p. 144
Telling the tale	p. 148
Miraculous emphasis and sacramental use	p. 154
One among many: the universal tale	p. 154
Processional afterlife: holy knife and sacred host in fifteenth-century Paris	p. 159
Word and image: image and prayer	p. 161
The Carew-Poyntz Book of Hours	p. 161
The holy host of Dijon	p. 162
Drama	p. 169
Broadsheets and poems: Passau 1477, Sternberg 1492 and Deggendorf 1337	p. 173
The fragility of memory: Brussels 1370, and later	p. 181
Conclusion	p. 190
Appendix: Rabbi Avigdor Kara: All the Afflictions (Et kol ha-tela'a)	p. 196
Notes	p. 199
Index	p. 258
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