“Keeping With the Custom of the Jewry”: Examining the Economic Role of Widows in Pre-Expulsion England (original) (raw)
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Success and Tax Debts : Jewish Women in Late Medieval Austrian Towns
2004
In medieval Austria, the status of the Jews as individuals and as a community was regulated by the privilege given by Duke Frederick II in 1244, providing the legal basis for their settlement by giving them protection in exchange for their usefulness. In their assigned activity of dealing with money, the Jews were treated very favourably, while being banned from other occupations by the regulations of local lords or by urban guild statutes. Jews (judei) were given business privileges that became models for further freedoms in the Late Middle Ages, for instance in Hungary and in Bohemia. Jewish women (judeae) were not mentioned explicitly in these privileges – apart from the paragraph that deals with the punishment of rape – but we come across Jewish women of different standing as moneylenders from the earliest stages of Jewish settlement in Austria. The rabbis of medieval Austria, where Jews had settled from the end of the twelfth century, took over some of these models from France ...
InJanuary 1690, Gliklchen, daughter of Leib Stern, appeared before the lay leaders, or parnassim, of Altona and Hamburg. Gliklchen had agreed to act as a guarantor for Yissakhar ha-Kohen, in order to help him attain hezkat kahal, o⁄cial right of settlement within the Jewish community. Gliklchen took an oath in the presence of witnesses, in which she a⁄rmed that she would take responsibility for ''all that is incumbent upon him [Yissakhar], according to his worth, to pay to the community, and to pay his past and future debts to the community of Altona and of Hamburg, be they what they may, without any condition or limit. '' 1 Gliklchen agreed to pay the hefty sum of up to ¢ve hundred Reichstahler if Yissakhar were to leave the community of Altona without having paid his debts; this responsibility was binding upon her and her heirs. That a woman had access to such a large sum of money highlights the economic heights to which women could ascend. Indeed, legislation governing women's access to, control over, and responsibility for property is generally seen as indicative of the division of labour within the household and the economic life of the household. 2 Women's access to property is also informative with respect to the status of women within their communities. The interaction between Gliklchen and Yissakhar ha-Kohen, for example, was far more than the case of a wealthy benefactress who had agreed to act as a guarantor for debts should the need arise. Yissakhar and Gliklchen performed a legal transaction, known as a kinyan sudar, an * Much of the research for this article was conducted with assistance from a Yad ha-Nadiv/ Beracha Foundation Fellowship. I am grateful to the foundation for the opportunity to work on this project. A portion of this article was also delivered as a paper at the Leo Baeck Institute Jerusalem Summer Workshop entitled 'Overlapping Spheres'. I am grateful to the Institute for the opportunity to participate in the programme, and the academic and ¢nancial assistance that made this work possible. I also thank Edward Fram, whose insights and research encouraged me to write the article, and Elisheva Baumgarten, whose comments helped improve this work. All errors remain my own. 1 Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People (hereafter CAHJP) AHW 14 [147]. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own.
This paper deals with the legal term "medinat ha-yam" (meaning "overseas") in Jewish law, which, among other things, refers to a husband abandoning his wife, and to debtors who refuse to pay their debts, and commercial partners who took someone else's property out of their homeland. That such disparate examples were considered conjointly is explained by the fact that the marital partnership was regarded in the Middle Ages as a commercial deal: the man ritually acquired the woman and provided her with food and clothes, in exchange for a number of services that she was obliged to give to her husband. The difficult consequences that abandoned women might face are listed and examined, as well as legal solutions provided by rabbinical authorities. The paper is intended to show, on the basis of rabbinical Responsa dealing with the Jewish communities of Provence and Languedoc, the controversial nature of the status of abandoned women. On the one hand, they were one of the most disadvantaged social groups within Jewish communities. On the other hand, they enjoyed liberties unavailable to other Jewish women. Some leniency was offered to them by the rabbis. They were more visible in public space than other women and more socially active.
The Jews of Europe in the Middle Ages (Tenth to Fifteenth Centuries): Proceedings of the International Symposium held at Speyer, 20-25 October 2002 (Ed. by Christoph Cluse. Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages 4, Turnhout 2004), 317-330., 2004
It was only relatively late, not until around the mid-1980s, that the methodological approaches developed in women's and gender studies reached the area of medieval 5
Their Husbands' Agents and Emissaries: Talmudic Theory and Lived Law in Medieval Ashkenaz
Diné Israel 38, 2024
A landmark ruling issued in the mid-twelfth century by Rabbi Eliezer b. Nathan of Mainz (Ra’aban, c. 1090–1170) is among the most frequently cited sources for the extensive economic activity of Jewish women in medieval northern Europe. Scholars have read R. Eliezer’s words concerning the legal liabilities of married women as testimony to the critical roles that medieval Ashkenazi women played in the financial affairs of their families and communities. Yet the implications of R. Eliezer’s ruling are more complex than most historical studies acknowledge. In addition to its consequences for the financial agency of married women vis-à-vis the outside world, R. Eliezer’s decision also affected the more intimate relationship between these women and their spouses. This article evaluates the legal underpinnings of R. Eliezer’s ruling, and then examines a set of court records from late thirteenth-century Ashkenaz that showcases a woman entangled in litigation against her spouse, demonstrating just how detrimental the approach promoted by R. Eliezer and his contemporaries could be.