Ritual murder and the subjectivity of Christ: A choice in medieval Christianity

Harvard Theological Review

Volumn 91, Issue 2, 1998, Pages 153-192

  Ocker, Christopher ^a  

^a Graduate Theological Union   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 61949384183     PISSN: 00178160     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/s0017816000032041     Document Type: Article

References (124)

1. Karl Mannheim, Man and Society in an Age of Reconstruction (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1940) 279-81.
2. John M. McCulIoh ("Jewish Ritual Murder: William of Norwich, Thomas of Monmouth, and the Early Dissemination of the Myth," Speculum 72 [1997] 698-740) poses a convincing alternative to Gavin Langmuir's argument that Thomas of Monmouth was first responsible for the dissemination of the myth
3. (Gavin Langmuir, "Thomas of Monmouth: Detector of Ritual Murder," Speculum 59 [1984] 820-46;
4. reprinted in idem, Toward a Definition of Antisemitism [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990] 209-36).
5. Israel Jacob Yuval ("Vengeance and Damnation, Blood and Defamation: from Jewish Martyrdom to Blood Libel Accusations") Zion 58 (1993) 33-90;
6. English summary vi-viii) argues that the first libel took place in Würzburg in 1147, that of Norwich only in 1148-49. The Würzburg incident was not strictly an accusation of ritual murder or blood libel but simply an accusation that Jews murdered a Christian boy whose body had been discovered in the Main river. According to both Jewish and Christian sources, this prompted crusaders who had assembled in the city to kill Rabbi Isaac and twenty-one other Jews in vengeance (Julius Aronius, Regesten zur Geschichte der Juden imfränkischen und deutschen Reiche bis zum Jahre 1273 [Berlin: L. Simion, 1902] 114 no. 245).
7. McCulIoh suggests ihat the Würzburg accusation could have been inspired by knowledge of William of Norwich, in defense of Yuval's speculation. The accusation of ritual murder was made in antiquity against both Jews and Christians. Marcel Simon, "Christian Anti-Semitism," in Jeremy Cohen, ed., Essential Papers on Judaism and Christianity in Conflict (New York: New York University Press, 1991) 131-73 esp. 166 n. 16, 167 n. 41, and 152.
8. Ritual murder is the belief that Jews kill Christians for ritual purposes. Blood libel is the allegation that, in so doing, Jews extract blood for their rites or for magic. The first case of blood libel recorded in Latin sources occurred in 1236 in Fulda. Joshua Trachtenberg, The Devil and the Jews (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1961) 124-55;
9. Langmuir, Definition, 263-81. Host desecration is the belief that Jews ritually abused consecrated hosts, usually in trials testing its supernatural identity.
10. Peter Browe, "Die Hostienschändungen der Juden im Mittelalter," Römische Quartalschrift 34 (1926) 167-97;
11. Otto Stobbe, Die Juden in Deutschland während des Mittelalters (1866; reprinted Amsterdam: Grüner, 1968) 280-93;
12. Leopold Zunz, Die synagogale Poesie des Mittelalters (Berlin: Springer, 1855) 9-57 (which one must use as Stobbe did, carefully);
13. Joseph Wertheimer, Die Juden in Oesterreich (Leipzig: Mayer und Wigand, 1842) 95-112;
14. R. Po-Chia Hsia, Trent 1475 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992) 92-93 (fifteenth-century Austrian cases of the ritual murder accusation including persecution that were mentioned in the proceedings concerning Simon of Trent).
15. Stefan Rohrbacher and Michael Schmidt, Judenbilder: Kulturgeschichte antijüdischer Mythen und antisemitischer Vorurteile (Reinbeck bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1991).
16. Peter Buckle, Unruhen in der ständischen Gesellschaft, 1300-1800 (Enzyklopädiedeutscher Geschichte; Munich: Oldenbourg, 1988).
17. The pogroms following the Black Death may have had the most dramatic impact on Jews in that the plague appears to be the only event to have interrupted the previous continuity of Jewish settlement patterns. Michael Toch, "Siedlungsstruktur der Juden Mitteleuropas im Wandel vom Mittelalter zur Neuzeit," in Alfred Haverkamp and Franz-Josef Ziwes, eds., Juden in der christlichen Umwelt währenddes späien Mittelalters (Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, 1992)29-39.
18. Homicide usually involved a small number of accomplices from among one's friends or kin. See James B. Given, Violence and Homicide in Thirteenth-Century England (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1977) 41-65;
19. and Heinrich Mitteis and Heinz Lieberich (Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte [17th ed.; Munich: Beck, 1985] 267-68 and the literature noted there) for the role of guilds in vengeance.
20. Trachtenberg, Devil and the Jews, 109-55.
21. For the variety of media, see also Christopher Ocker, "Contempt for Friars and Contempt for Jews in Late Medieval Germany," in Steven McMichael and Larry Simon, eds. (volume title undetermined [Leiden: Brill, forthcoming]), as well as the literature noted below, n. 110.
22. For scattered examples of resistance to an accusation by citizens of a town, consider Robert Chazan, European Jewry and the First Crusade (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987) 87-88 (evidence of such protection at the beginning of massacres in the First Crusade);
23. Aronius, Regesten, 286 no. 690;
24. Miri Rubin, "Imagining the Jew: The Late Medieval Eucharistic Discourse," in R. Po-chia Hsia and Hartmut Lehman, eds., In and Out of the Ghetto (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995) 177-208, esp. 198 (Regensburg and Augsburg, 1298).
25. Otto Stobbe, Die Juden in Deutschland, 104.
26. William C. Jordan, "Jews on Top: Women and the Availability of Consumption Loans in Northern France in the Mid-Thirteenth Century," JJS 29 (1978) 39-56;
27. idem, "An Aspect of Credit in Picardy in the 1240s: The Deterioration of Jewish-Christian Financial Relations," REJ 142(1983) 141-52;
28. idem, The French Monarchy and the Jews (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989) 26-30.
29. Mark R. Cohen (Under Crescent and Cross [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994] 82-88) provides an excellent brief overview.
30. Fritz Backhaus, "Judenfeindschaft und Judenvertreibungen im Mittelalter. Zur Ausweisung der Juden aus dem Mittelelberaum im 15. Jahrhundert," Jahrbuch für die Geschichte Mittel und Ostdeutschlands 36 (1987) 275-332;
31. Ernst Voltmer, "Zur Geschichte der Juden im spä tmittelalterlichen Speyer. Die Judengemeinde im Spannungsfeld zwischen König, Bischof und Stadt," in Alfred Haverkamp, ed., Zur Geschichte der Juden im Deutschland des späten Mittelalters und derfrühen Neuzeit (Monographien zur Geschichte des Mittelalters 24; Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann, 1981) 94-121.
32. Lester Little, Religious Poverty and the Profit Economy in Medieval Europe (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1978) 42-57.
33. Ezra Fleischer ["Christian-Jewish relations in the Middle Ages distorted"], Zion 49 [1994] 267-316, English summary xiv-xv), in spite of his acerbic tone establishes the weaknesses of Yuval's argument.
34. See Jeremy Cohen, ("The 'Persecutions of 1096' - from Martyrdom to Martyrology: The Sociocultural Context of the Hebrew Crusade Chronicles") Zion 59 (1994) 169-208, English summary xi-xii.
35. Consider also, Daniel F. Callahan, "Ademar of Chabannes, Millennial Fears and the Development of Western Anti-Judaism," JEH 46 (1995) 19-35;
36. he demonstrates the role of anti- Jewish vengeance in Christian apocalypticism of the tenth and eleventh centuries. For Langmuir's emphasis on popular doubt, consider also the criticisms of Robert Chazan, Medieval Stereotypes and Modern Antisemitism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997) 131-34.
37. First argued by Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium (New York: Oxford, 1961) 84-88.
38. Solomon Grayzel, The Church and the Jews in the XIIIth Century, vol. 2:1254-1314 (ed. Kenneth R. Stow; New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1989) 1-45.
39. Shlomo Simonsohn, The Apostolic See and the Jews (7 vols.; Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1988-91) nos. 181-83, 185, 188, 201, 213, 234, 237-38, 242, 247-48, 252, 256, 372-73, 614, 767.
40. Solomon Grayzel, "The Papal Bull Sicut Iudaeis," in Meir Ben-Horin et al., eds. Studies and Essays in Honor of Abraham A. Neuman (Leiden: Brill, 1962) 243-80. In 1475, the papacy for the first time supported the investigation of allegations that Jews murdered a boy named Simon in Trent, only to oppose the bishops' measures against Jews (ibid., nos. 982, 984-89, 999; cf. 1014).
41. Po-Chia Hsia, Trent 1475. Stories of a Ritual Murder Trial (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992) 69-80, 117-31.
42. For information on Jewish knowledge of papal policy, the importance of the Constitutio pro Judaeis (first given by a predecessor of Innocent III to the Jews of Rome in 1120 and following an already established local papal policy), and the role of Bernard of Clairvaux's preaching campaign against persecution in the Jewish reassessment of Church policy, see Kenneth Stow, The "1007 Anonymous" and Papal Sovereignty: Jewish Perceptions of the Papacy and Papal Policy in the High Middle Ages (HUCA Supplements 4; Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College, 1984) 12-20 (Sicut Judaeis), 21 (Bernard of Clairvaux), 23-24 (papal denunciation of pogroms and libels).
43. André Vauchez, The Laity in the Middle Ages (ed. Daniel E. Bornstein; trans. Margery J. Schneider; Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1993) 45-50.
44. For the change of attitudes before and during the Crusades, consider also Hans Liebeschütz, "The Crusading Movement and Its Bearing on the Christian Attitude towards Jewry," 7/5 10 (1959) 97-111;
45. For the climate of crisis during the mid-twelfth century, consider also Chazan, Medieval Stereotypes, 90-91.
46. Aronius, Regesten, 27 n. 76.
47. For the historical development of the Gloss, which achieved its final form in the early thirteenth century, see Guy Lobrichon, "Une nouveauté: les gloses de la Bible," in P. Riché and G. Lobrichon, eds., Le Moyen Age et la Bible (Paris: Beauchesne, 1984) 99-110;
48. Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1964) 46-52;
49. Mark A. Zier, "The Manuscript Tradition of the Glossa Ordinaria for Daniel, and Hints at a Method for a Critical Edition," Scriptorium 47 (1993) 3-25, esp. 3-5. The actual textual history of the Gloss is currently the subject of a massive investigation of the manuscripts begun by Karlfried Froehlich and the late Margaret Gibson. Until this project is finished, any description of the history of the Ordinary Gloss must remain provisional, at best.
50. e siècle," in Riché and Lobrichon, Le Moyen Age et la Bible, 163-97, esp. 195;
51. and for his influence, James H. Morey, "Peter Comestor, Biblical Paraphrase, and the Medieval Popular Bible," Speculum 68 (1993) 6-35.
52. For changes in the patterns of interpretation from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, see Christopher Ocker, "Medieval Exegesis and the Origin of Hermeneutics," SJT (forthcoming in 1999).
53. For authorship, see Lawrence F. Hundersmarck, "Preaching the Passion: Late Medieval 'Lives of Christ' as Sermon Vehicles," in Thomas Amos, Eugene A. Green, and Beverly M. Kienzle, eds., De Ore Domini: Preacher and Word in the Middle Ages (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 1989) 147-67.
54. Jeremy Cohen, "The Jews as Killers of Christ in the Latin Tradition, from Augustine to the Friars," Traditio 39 (1983) 3-27;
55. Examples of Jews among the soldiers in crucifixion scenes, identifiable by the characteristic pointed Judenhut, appears in James H. Marrow, Passion Iconography in Northern Europe in the Late Middle Ages and Early Renaissance (Kortrijk: Van Ghemmert, 1979), pl. xii (crowning with thorns); fig. 43 (Arma Christi, Cologne Master ca. 1350); fig. 103 (Mocking of Christ, Hours of Catherine of Cleves, ca. 1440, in which a high priest also appears with the turned bishop's mitre typical in representations of Caiaphas); fig. 110 (Crucifixion, German early thirteenth century); and fig. 47 (Seizure of Christ, upper Rhenish artist, ca. 1425-1450; the helmet of one soldier has a raised knob reminiscent of a Judenhut).
56. For the devotional use of images, see Sixton Ringbom, Icon to Narrative. The Rise of the Dramatic Close-Up in Sixteenth-Century Painting (Åbo: Åbo akademi, 1965) 11-71, esp. 23-30.
57. Jews press down the crown of thorns and nail Christ to the cross in two frescoes from the parish church in Dietersheim made around 1420 and now in the Landesmuseum Rhineland-Pfalz, Mainz. See also the example given in n. 37 above. The soldiers at the crucifixion were sometimes depicted as Jews in Passion plays as well. See Heinz Schreckenberg, Die christlichen Adversus-Judaeos-Texte und ihr literarisches und historisches Umfeld (13. bis 20. Jh.) (Europäische Hochschulschriften 497; Frankfurt: Lang, 1994) 369-70, 387.
58. Grayzel, Church and the Jews, 1. 94-95.
59. Erwin Iserloh, "Werner von Oberwesel. Zür Tilgung seines Festes im Trierer Kalender," TThZ 72 (1963) 270-85.
60. For the relation of German and Latin versions, see Ferdinand Pauly, "Zur Vita des Werner von Oberwesel. Legende und Wirklichkeit," Archiv für mittelrheinische Kirchengeschichte 16 (1964) 94-109.
61. For the importance of the shrine at Bacharach, see Franz J. Ronig, "Kunst unter Balduin von Luxemburg," in Johannes Mosch and Franz-Joseph Heyen, eds., Balduin von Luxemburg, 1285-1354 (Mainz: Gesellschaft für mittelrheinische Kirchengeschichte, 1985) 493.
62. E. Stierlin, ed., Conrad Justingers Berner-Chronik von Anfang der Stadt Bern bis in das Jahr 1421 (Bern: Haller, 1819) 38-41.
63. The Christians in question may have been Jewish converts to Christianity, who are known to have maintained contact with the Jewish community. Robert C. Stacey, "The Conversion of Jews to Christianity in Thirteenth-Century England," Speculum 67 (1992) 278-80.
64. For sexual liasons, consider also Walter Pakter, Medieval Canon Law and the Jews (Ebelsbach: Gremer, 1988) 289-304.
65. and for the significance of the decline of such interaction given the political circumstances of Jews in Europe, William C. Jordan, French Monarchy, 253-59.
66. For the inscription at the shrine, see Rubin, "Imagining," 199;
67. G. Krotzer, "Der Judenmord von Deggendorf und die Deggendorfer 'Gnad,'" in Willehad Eikert, ed., Judenhass - Schuld der Christen? Versuch eines Gesprächs (Essen: Driever, 1964) 311-12.
68. "Vom Judenmord zu Deggendorf." Rochus von Liliencron, Die historischen Volkslieder der deutschen vom 13. bis 16. Jht. (4 vols.; Leipzig: Vogel, 1865-69) 1. 45-48.
69. Miri Rubin, Corpus Christi (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991) 108-29.
70. Consider also her examination of host desecration stories as a "blueprint for action" (idem, "Desecration of the Host: The Birth of an Accusation," in Diana Wood, ed., Christianity and Judaism [Studies in Church History 29; Oxford: Blackwell, 1992] 169-85, esp. 179-85).
71. A similar, selective ascription of personality also appears in earlier Jewish chronicles; cf. Ivan G. Markus, "From Politics to Martyrdom: Shifting Paradigms in the Hebrew Narratives of the 1096 Crusade Riots," Prooftexts 2 (1982) 40-52;
72. Bernhard von Utzingen, "Vom Würzburger Städtekrieg," in Liliencron, Volkslieder, 1.171- 72, ll. 485-541.
73. The council then prohibited its members from confiscating the remaining Jewish property themselves (Manfred Huiskes, ed., Beschlüsse des Rates der Stadt Köln, 1320-1550, vol. 1: Die Ratsmemoriale und ergänzende Überlieferung, 1320-1543 [Düsseldorf: Droste, 1990] 21).
74. The document is dated 11 July 1349, from a sixteenth-century copy. This is the date of the settlement between the city and the archbishop (for which see below); since it records a city trial that should have taken place before the settlement (the outcome of the trial was a precondition of the settlement), the city trial must date to some time shortly before the settlement. For the alienation of patricians from their community and the increasing strength of the guilds, consider Martin Erbstößer (much of what he says of Hanseatic towns was true of most towns with a well-defined patrician class), "Der Knochenhaueraufstand in Lübeck 1384," in Helmut Kretzschmar, ed., Vom Mittelalter zur Neuzeit. Zum 65. Geburtstag von Heinrich Sproemberg (Berlin: Rütten und Loening, 1956) 126-32.
75. For the general tendency of guilds to rebel after sufficient increase of their power within a city, see Hans Planitz, Die deutsche Stadt im Mittelalter (Graz: Böhlau, 1954) 325-26.
76. For the matter of youth rebellion, consider also the cautions of James A. Schultz, "Medieval Adolescence: The Claims of History and the Silence of German Narrative," Speculum 66 (1991) 519-39.
77. Martin Erbstösser, Sozialreligiöse Strömungen im späten Mittelalter (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1970) 37-38.
78. A brief summary of events, and a description of its place in imperial-papal relations appears in Albert Hauck, Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1954), 5/2. 654-55.
79. Stobbe, Juden in Deutschland, 288-89.
80. The proximity of martyrs (present by means of relics and pictures), the crucified Christ, and the eucharist could be represented in an altarpiece, such as that of the shrine to the holy blood at Wienhausen, where relics and images of saints are part of a composition centered on a monstrance for the consecrated host beneath an image of the Trinity (portrayed in the image of the "Not Gottes," with a Man of Sorrows in the place of the crucifix), with a chalice at the feet of Christ (the Man of Sorrows became an extremely common image upon tabernacles by the fourteenth century). Below, on the altar, was the reliquary in the form of a sarcophagus, out of which stepped the resurrected Christ, gilded and bearing a nimbus adorned with gemstones and crystals, with his hand raised in a blessing, as though enthroned on the sarcophagus. This figure was hollow and preserved a monstrance with a consecrated host, the wound on Christ's side open so that the host could most likely be seen from the front of the altar. In this manner, Christ was actually present in the figure: "Christ himself was enthroned upon the altar in Wienhausen." Horst Appuhn, "Der Auferstandene und das Heilige Blut zu Wienhausen. Über Kult und Kunst im späten Mittelalter," Niederdeutsche Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte 1 (1961) 73-157, esp. 85-87, 101-4 nn. 133-35, and 129.
81. Browe, "Hostienschändungen," 167;
82. Jacobus de Vorgine, The Golden Legend (trans. William Granger Ryan; 2 vols.; Princeton; Princeton University Press, 1993) 2. 171.
83. This is a feature that may have distinguished early medieval western shrines from eastern ones. Consider Cynthia Hahn, "Seeing and Believing: The Construction of Sanctity in Early-Medieval Saints' Shrines," Speculum 72 (1997) 1079-1166, esp. 1085-88, 1099-1101, 1105-6.
84. Franz Pfeiffer, ed., Berthold von Regensburg. Vollständige Ausgabe seiner deutschen Predigten (2 vols.; 1862, 1880; reprinted Berlin: De Gruyter, 1965) 2. 74-80,
85. For passional devotion in general, see Hundersmarck, "Preaching the Passion," 147-67;
86. Richard Kieckhefer, Unquiet Souls: Fourteenth-Century Saints and Their Religious Milieu (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984);
87. idem, "Major Currents in Late Medieval Devotion," in Jill Raitt, ed., Christian Spirituality. High Middle Ages and Reformation (New York: Crossroad, 1988) 83-89.
88. Better known is Ludolf of Saxony's program of imitation of Christ; Charles Abbott Conway, The Vita Christi of Ludolph of Saxony and Late Medieval Devotion Centred on the Incarnation: A Descriptive Analysis (Analecta Cartusiana 34; Salzburg: Institut für Englische Sprache und Literatur, 1975) 122-23.
89. Johannes Nyder, Formicarius (Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1971) 53.
90. For problems with the location of the debate, see Maria Lodovica Arduini (Neue Studien über Rupert von Deutz [Siegburger Studien 17; Siegburg: Respublica-Verlag, 1985] 134-35 n. 46), who also believes that the Anulus refers specifically to the debate (135, 151;
91. Oluf Schönbeck, "Saint Bernard, Peter Damian and the Wounds of Christ," Cistercian Studies 30 (1995) 282;
92. G. Joy Ritson, "Eros, Allegory and Spirituality: The Development of Heavenly Bridegroom Imagery in the Western Christian Church from Origen to Gregory the Great" (Ph.D. diss., Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, 1997) 282.
93. Edgar De Bruyne, Études d'esthétique médié vale (3 vols.; Brugge: De Tempel, 1946) 2. 133-35.
94. Jerome Ep. 53, 3.4 (CSEL 54. 447): "Sancta quippe rusticitas sibi soli prodest et, quantum aedificat ex uitae merito ecclesiam christi, tantum nocet, si contradicentibus non resistit." Erich Auerbach, Literatursprache und Publikum in der lateinischen Spätantike und im Mittelalter, (Bern: Francke, 1958) 25-53;
95. idem, "Sacrae scripturae sermo humilis," Neuphilologische Mitteilungen (1941) 57-67;
96. Gerhardus J. M. Bartelink, "Sermo piscatorius. De 'vissertaal' van de apostelen," Studia Catholica 35 (1960) 267-73;
97. Karlfried Froehlich, "Bibelkommentare - zur Krise einer Gattung," ZTK 84 (1987) 465-92, esp. 472-74.
98. De Bruyne, Études, 3. 3-29.
99. See also J. A. Wayne Hellmann, "The Spirituality of the Franciscans," in Jill Raitt, ed., Christian Spirituality: High Middle Ages and Reformation (New York: Crossroad, 1987) 31-50, esp. 41-45.
100. P. E. Webber, "A Medieval Netherlands Prayer Cycle on the Life of Christ: Princeton University Library, Garrett Ms. 63," Ons Geestelijk Erf 52 (1978) 311-62, esp. 351. The painting of such scenes, with strong eucharistic imagery, increased with dissemination of the Corpus Christi feast after 1264 (the year it was added to the Roman calendar by Pope Urban IV).
101. Appuhn, "Auferstandene," 114.
102. Trachtenburg, Devil and the Jews, 141-55, esp. 148.
103. Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer, 2.627;
104. Karl Joseph Simrock, Handbuch der deutschen Mythologie (Bonn: Marcus, 1887) 75-86;
105. Lexikon des Mittelalters, s.v. "Blutrache." For the religious motivation at the beginning of massacres of Jews, during the First Crusade as retribution for the death of Christ, see Jonathan Riley-Smith, "The First Crusade and the Persecution of the Jews," Persecution and Tolerance (Studies in Church History 21; Oxford: Blackwell, 1984) 51-72;
106. Langmuir, Definition, 362 n. 5;
107. Chazan, European Jewry, 78-79.
108. As Aronius suggested, this may have confused the desecration of an image of Haman during Purim with the desecration of images of Christ. When such a persecuted image performed miracles in the synagogue of Cologne in the late twelfth century, a Jew was said to have converted. Consider also Timothy C. G. Thornton, "The Crucifixion of Haman and the Scandal of the Cross," JTS 37 (1986) 419-26;
109. Cecil Roth, "The Feast of Purim and the Origins of the Blood Accusation," Speculum 8 (1933) 520-26;
110. reprinted Dundes, Blood Libel Legend, 261-72.
111. Trachtenburg, Devil and the Jews, 244 n. 24.
112. and Beinert, Die Kirche, 361.
113. Beginning in the twelfth century with the rationalization of polemics by Anselm of Canterbury and quickly concentrating on the Talmud. Amos Funkenstein, "Polemics, Responses, and Self-Reflection," in idem, Perceptions of Jewish History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993) 169-201.
114. Thirteenth-century friar-theologians not only traced the problem of Judaism to the Talmud, but also redefined the religious value of Old Testament ceremonies in and of themselves. The effectiveness of Jewish biblical rites was, in their minds, determined by the ability to facilitate faith in Christ, and as such, the rites belonged to an authentic covenant and experience of grace (albeit an extrinsic one) and could equal Christian sacraments. (At least one theologian, the Dominican Richard Kilwardby, went further in his concept of Jewish covenant and insisted that Jewish rites intrinsically conveyed grace to Jews, even after the incarnation, remaining valid until they will have facilitated faith.) Richard Schenk, "Die Suche nach dem Bruder Abel. Zum Streit um das analoge Sakramentsverständnis," Jahrbuch für Philosophie des Forschungsinstitut für Philosophie Hannover 5 (1994) 69-87, esp. 79-84;
115. idem, "Covenant Initiation: Thomas Aquinas and Robert Kilwardby on the Sacrament of Circumcision," in Carlos-Josaphat Pinto de Oliveira, ed., Ordo Sapientiae et Amoris. Image et message de Saint Thomas d'Aquin (Fribourg: Éditions Universitaires Fribourg, 1993) 555-93;
116. Cf. Jeremy Cohen, The Friars and the Jews. The Evolution of Medieval Anti-Judaism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982) 51-76;
117. The prohibition of Jewish employment of Christian wet nurses can be traced to synodal legislation of the late eleventh century, namely a Council of Rouen held in 1074 (Bernhard Blumenkranz, "The Roman Church and the Jews," in Cecil Roth, ed., The Dark Ages: The Jews in Christian Europe, 711-1096 [Jerusalem: Masada, 1966] 69-99;
118. Hostiensis Summa, ff. 235vb-237ra. Herve Martin, Le métier de prédicateur àla fin du Moyen Age, 1350-1520 (Paris: du Cerf, 1988) 323-30.
119. Heinz Schreckenberg, Die christlichen Adversus-Judaeos-Texte, 344, 503, 513 (contrast 534, 539).
120. Franco Mormando ("Witches, Jews, and Sodomites in Early Renaissance Italy: The Preaching Campaigns of Bernardino of Siena" [Licentiate in Sacred Theology thesis; Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, 1994] 79-159) demonstrates, contrary to received opinion, that Bernardino maintained the formal doctrine of tolerance while publicizing and advocating enforcement of canon law restrictions and while promoting (albeit in very few sermons) a vivid image of the Jew as a danger to Christians, especially with regard to money-lending.
121. See Hans-Martin Kirn ("Antijudaismus und spätmittelalterliche Bußfrömmigkeit: Die Predigten des Franziskaners Bernhardin von Busti [urn 1450-1513]," ZKG 108 [1997] 147-75) for Bernhard of Busti, whose sermons represent the work of traveling observant Franciscan preachers in northern Italy in the 1480s and 1490s, in response to the immigration of Jews recently exiled from German towns.
122. Larissa Taylor (Soldiers of Christ [New York: Oxford University Press, 1992] 153-54) noted that negative stereotypes of Jews in French sermons that she studied emphasized their role in the crucifixion and the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, but primarily as part of the moral harangue of Christians, which presupposes the undesirability of similarity and contact between Christians and Jews. Papal bulls from 1422, 1429, 1459 addressed to Italian cities and clergy assert that preachers incite Christians against Jews and prohibit all interaction between Christians and Jews; it would seem that this activity was more prominent in Italy than in Germany and carried over from the former to the latter through the activity of a few itinerant preachers. Simonsohn, Apostolic See, 711-13 no. 614, 771-74 no. 658, 1053-54 no. 858.
123. Michel Lauwers,"'Religion populaire,' culture folklorique, mentalités," RHE 82(1987) 221-58;
124. Piero Camporesi, Rustici e buffoni (Turin: Einaudi, 1991) 3-33.