Review of Suzanne LaVere, Out of the Cloister: Scholastic Exegesis of the Song of Songs, 1100-1250 (Brill, 2016), in the American Historical Review 123/2 (April 2018): 626-629 (original) (raw)
Related papers
Texas Tech University Master's Theses, 2012
This thesis examines the Jewish Other during a period of great upheaval within Christian Europe. It contends that the Jewish Other underwent a great transformation within the period. The papacy began to more aggressively deal with Jews, and use new terminology for them, representations of Synagoga in medieval art took on a more negative tone, and Jews' appearances in the medieval sermon increased and contained many negative images. On the whole, the Jewish Other was malleable and could be used by churchmen, preachers, or artists for various purposes, most of which served to edify the Church at the expense of Jews.
The Attitude of the Catholic Church toward the Jews: An Outline of a Turbulent History
The practice of imprisoning Jews in ghettos and marking them (as was introduced by Pius VI in the Papal States, inter alia, in 1775) is associated more with the Nazism of the Third Reich than with the Roman Catholic Church. Nevertheless, the Church maintained its policy of perfidis Judaeis until the beginning of the 1960s, when it was stopped by Vatican II, probably because of the pressure of social and political factors. This topic is, however, difficult to explain, often very controversial, and subject to many different interpretations. Here we show that some anti-Semitic ideas were present in the Church before Vatican II, and that they have a religious, theological, and philosophical background. We consider those interpretations which, in an ideological sense, connect anti-Semitism in the Church with the genocidal anti-Semitism of the Third Reich. This article underlines the revolutionary change in the Church's attitude toward Jews in Vatican II, a change caused primarily by the Holocaust.
The Latin Talmud and the Extension of Papal Jurisdiction over Jews
Medieval Worlds, 2020
The paper addresses the question of how the Latin translation of the Talmud, known as the Extractiones de Talmud (1245), is related to the changing perception of the Jews and in particular to the reassessment of their legal status during the thirteenth century. It draws particular attention to Pope Gregory IX’s description of the Talmud as another law – an alia lex, as he called it – which challenged the traditional representation of the Jews as witnesses of the Christian truth, depicting them instead as heretics. This new perception of the Jews had far-reaching consequences for their legal status, for the popes used it to subject them to direct papal jurisdiction. To conclude, the question of whether the discovery of the Jewish »Oral Law« can be considered the cause of this new representation of the Jews in the strict sense is addressed. It is argued that it may, conversely, have been the intended representation of the Jews as heretics, who could thus be subsumed under papal jurisdiction, which was instrumental in bringing to light and decrying this body of rabbinic wisdom.
The Jewish-Christian Encounter in Medieval Preaching
2014
This book explores the complexity of preaching as a phenomenon in the medieval Jewish-Christian encounter. This was not only an "encounter" as physical meeting or confrontation (such as the forced attendance of Jews at Christian sermons that took place across Europe), but also an "imaginary" or theological encounter in which Jews remained a figure from a distant constructed time and place who served only to underline and verify Christian teachings. Contributors also explore the Jewish response to Christian anti-Jewish preaching in their own preaching and religious instruction. Contents: 1. Jonathan Adams and Jussi Hanska, Introduction: The Jewish-Christian Encounter in Medieval Preaching Part I: Regional Studies 2. Raúl González Salinero, Preaching and Jews in Late Antique and Visigothic Iberia 3. Regina D. Schiewer, Sub Iudaica Infirmitate — "Under the Jewish Weakness": Jews in Medieval German Sermons 4. Jonathan Adams, Preaching about an Absent Minority: Medieval Danish Sermons and Jews Part II: Preachers and Occasions 5. Kati Ihnat, "Our Sister Is Little and Has No Breasts": Mary and the Jews in the Sermons of Honorius Augustodunensis 6. Filippo Sedda, The Anti-Jewish Sermons of John of Capistrano: Matters and Context 7. Maria Giuseppina Muzzarelli, The Effects of Bernardino da Feltre’s Preaching on the Jews 8. Jussi Hanska, Sermons on the Tenth Sunday After Holy Trinity: Another Occasion for Anti-Jewish Preaching Part III: Symbols and Images 9. David I. Shyovitz, Beauty and the Bestiary: Animals, Wonder, and Polemic in Medieval Ashkenaz 10. Giacomo Todeschini, The Origin of a Medieval Anti-Jewish Stereotype: The Jews as Receivers of Stolen Goods (Twelfth to Thirteenth Centuries) 11. Pietro Delcorno, The Roles of Jews in the Florentine Sacre Rappresentazioni: Loyal Citizens, People to be Converted, Enemies of the Faith 12. Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby, Mendicants and Jews in Florence 13. Martine Boiteux, Preaching to the Jews in Early Modern Rome: Words and Images
2019
Oxford Symposium on Religious Studies, December, 2019. For historians of the medieval Jewry, the pontificate of Pope Innocent III is regarded as a pivotal point for interfaith relations in the Middle Ages. He passed legislation which in theory set the Jews apart from Christians in dress, nurtured an increasingly negative perception of them across Christendom, and limited their economic rights. But, can it be said that Innocent’s policies had a direct negative effect on the daily life of the Jews in the Middle Ages? Or was his effect primarily on the Christian perception of Jews and Judaism? And how can we gauge this difference? This paper will serve as a case study and explore the efficacy of canon 68, In nonnullis ecclesie, promulgated during the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 by Pope Innocent III and track its transmission, repetition, and enforcement through canon law to the local level in western Christendom from Lateran IV to the end of the XIIIth century. Canon 68 was an innovative bull which served as the first instance of canonized Church initiative to visibly separate Jews and Saracens from Christians by the nature of their clothing (habitus). This law was commented on by canonists, defended and retracted by popes, codified in the Liber Extra, caused strife between various members of the Church hierarchy, and was used by secular governments for pious reasons and as an excuse for economic exploitation. Moreover, this paper will also show how the interchanging of the word habitus with signum by various secular and Church authorities altered the tenor of the bull over time. The absence of these regulations in canon law before Lateran IV and the heightened interest of both ecclesiastical and secular authorities in visible distinction following Innocent III’s pontificate begin to demonstrate that his pontificate was a crucial turning point in Jewish-Christian relations which had a direct effect on the daily life of the Jews in the Middle Ages.