Jews and Christians in Twelfth-Century Europe

by Signer, Michael A.; Van Engen, John H.

• ISBN13: 9780268032548
• ISBN10: 0268032548
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-05-01
• Publisher: Univ of Notre Dame Pr

Summary

This collection of original essays covers the years 1050 to 1215, but the story really begins in the summer of 1096, when marauding crusaders attacked Jewish communities in three Rhineland cities. These violent episodes disrupted what had been a fairly peaceful history of coexistence between Jews and Christians for more than two centuries. Although the two groups inhabited fundamentally different religious universes, Jews and Christians lived in the same towns, on the same streets, and pursued their lives with minimal mutual interference and often with considerable cooperation. The events of 1096 destroyed that status quo. Relations between the two communities deteriorated, and the Jewish communities suffered as a result.

Author Biography

Michael A. Signer is Abrams Professor of Jewish Thought and Culture in the Department of Theology at the University of Notre Dame John Van Engen is Andrew V. Tackes Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Abbreviations	xi
Introduction: Jews and Christians Together in the Twelfth Century	1	(8)
John Van Engen
A 1096 Complex? Constructing the First Crusade in Jewish Historical Memory, Medieval and Modern	9	(18)
Jeremy Cohen
The Dynamics of Jewish Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century	27	(19)
Invan G. Marcus
From the First Crusade to the Second: Evolving Perceptions of the Christian-Jewish Conflict	46	(17)
Robert Chazan
The Discovery of the Self: Jews and Conversion in the Twelfth Century	63	(14)
Jonathan M. Elukin
Adolescence and Conversion in the Middle Ages: A Research Agenda	77	(17)
William Chester Jordan
The Expulsion of the Jews as History and Allegory in Painting and Sculpture of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries	94	(16)
Walter Cahn
Put in No-Man's-Land: Guibert of Nogent's Accusations against a Judaizing and Jew-Supporting Christian	110	(13)
Jan M. Ziolkowski
God's Love for Israel: Apologetic and Hermeneutical Strategies in Twelfth-Century Biblical Exegesis	123	(27)
Michael A. Signer
Ralph of Flaix: The Book of Leviticus Interpreted as Christian Community	150	(21)
John Van Engen
Martyrdom, Eroticism, and Asceticism in Twelfth-Century Ashkenazi Piety	171	(50)
Elliot R. Wolfson
Signs of Romance: Hebrew Prose and the Twelfth-Century Renaissance	221	(13)
Susan Einbinder
Anti-Jewish Attitudes in Twelfth-Century French Literature	234	(21)
Maureen Boulton
Baptised Jews in German Lands During the Twelfth Century	255	(56)
Alfred Haverkeamp
From the Rue aux Juifs to the Chemin du Roy: The Classical Age of French Jewry, 1108-1223	311	(29)
Gerard Nahon
Jews and Christians in Twelfth-Century England: Some Dynamics of a Changing Relationship	340	(15)
Robert C. Stacey
Conclusion	355	(6)
Michael A. Signer
Contributors	361	(2)
Index	363