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ROPS Week 9- Persecution and Tolerance? The Jewish Experience in Medieval…
ROPS Week 9- Persecution and Tolerance? The Jewish Experience in Medieval Europe
Jewish community tended to move eastwards and prosper in Europe over the centuries
Judaism and Christianity in the Roman World
Competition for converts
Conversion of Constantine, 312 CE
Jewish communities in early medieval Europe
The Merovingian and Carolingian courts
Visigoth Spain
St Augustine (354-430)- ‘Slay them not, lest at some time they forget your law. Scatter them’.
The movement north
1063- knights heading for Spain attack Jewish communities
1010- rumours of Jewish/Saracen conspiracy
1095- participants gathering for 1st Crusade attack Jewish communities in France and Germany- a pattern for persecution set?
Restrictions on Jewish life
Movement from merchants to money-lenders
Mobility limited
Jewish communities become 'crown' property
Increasingly seen as 'alien'
Allegation of 'deicide'
Desecration of the host- sacrilege- ‘Judaizing’ Christian servants
The ‘Blood Libel’- Thomas of Monmouth and the ‘murder’ of William the apprentice in Norwich, 1144
Conspiracy of 1321- poisoning of wells by lepers, organised by Jews, backed by Muslims of Spain and North Africa- 1348-49: The ‘Black Death’
Persecution is episodic- limited in scope and duration
Evidence for popular hostility matched by evidence for close social contact
Attempts to police strong inter-faith boundaries
Understanding role of violence and violent language in medieval Europe
Exile and expansion from western countries- expand eastwards
The York Massacre, 1190- religious fervour/debt- Richard Malebisse
‘Holy Week’ and anti-Jewish violence
‘The Sheppard’s Crusades’ of 1320- famine, attack on wealthy and a royal prison
Edward I and the expulsion of 1290s
Contested and problematic relationship of medieval anti-Judaism to modern anti-Semitism- race, religion and prejudice
Longevity of stereotypes and their re-invention for new contexts
Every King of the 12th and 13th centuries extorted the Jews’ wealth- everyone below the King resented the Jews for their wealth and their high rates of interest (
J.J.N. McGurk, ‘The Jews of Medieval Europe’, History Today
)