Pub Date : 2022-02-15DOI: 10.1163/15700674-12340120
Yosi Yisraeli
{"title":"Conversion, Circumcision, and Ritual Murder in Medieval Europe, written by Paula Tartakoff","authors":"Yosi Yisraeli","doi":"10.1163/15700674-12340120","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700674-12340120","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":52521,"journal":{"name":"Medieval Encounters","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-02-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45080344","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-02-15DOI: 10.1163/15700674-12340118
Matthew Delvaux
{"title":"That Most Precious Merchandise: The Mediterranean Trade in Black Sea Slaves, 1260–1500, written by Hannah Barker","authors":"Matthew Delvaux","doi":"10.1163/15700674-12340118","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700674-12340118","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":52521,"journal":{"name":"Medieval Encounters","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-02-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44069203","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-02-15DOI: 10.1163/15700674-12340116
Amir Lerner
This paper focuses on what can be identified as ancient Davidic and Solomonic biblical and midrashic narratives, echoed in some of the core stories of The Hundred and One Nights, a story collection in Arabic that took shape among lower strata of medieval society in western part of the Muslim world. We do not identify any specific written Jewish sources as having had a direct influence on the collection. Rather, we would like to reveal some of the contents of an ancient well of themes that were available, mostly through Muslim tradition, to those involved in the formation of the work in question. We would also like to point out some of the transformations that such contents have undergone in their shifting between religious, historical and literary levels. The existence of Jewish backgrounds in medieval Arabic literature in general is well-known. However, a more complete picture of this existence requires a comprehensive study of popular literature. As the theme of The Hundred and One Nights and its Jewish background has been overlooked by research until very recently, our study strives to address this lacuna.
{"title":"Hidden Davidic and Solomonic Legends in The Hundred and One Nights: Backgrounds in Muslim Tradition Echoing the Bible and Midrash","authors":"Amir Lerner","doi":"10.1163/15700674-12340116","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700674-12340116","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This paper focuses on what can be identified as ancient Davidic and Solomonic biblical and midrashic narratives, echoed in some of the core stories of The Hundred and One Nights, a story collection in Arabic that took shape among lower strata of medieval society in western part of the Muslim world. We do not identify any specific written Jewish sources as having had a direct influence on the collection. Rather, we would like to reveal some of the contents of an ancient well of themes that were available, mostly through Muslim tradition, to those involved in the formation of the work in question. We would also like to point out some of the transformations that such contents have undergone in their shifting between religious, historical and literary levels. The existence of Jewish backgrounds in medieval Arabic literature in general is well-known. However, a more complete picture of this existence requires a comprehensive study of popular literature. As the theme of The Hundred and One Nights and its Jewish background has been overlooked by research until very recently, our study strives to address this lacuna.","PeriodicalId":52521,"journal":{"name":"Medieval Encounters","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-02-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44962620","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-02-15DOI: 10.1163/15700674-12340119
Phillip I. Lieberman
{"title":"Islamic Law of the Sea: Freedom of Navigation and Passage Rights in Islamic Thought, written by Hassan S. Khalilieh","authors":"Phillip I. Lieberman","doi":"10.1163/15700674-12340119","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700674-12340119","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":52521,"journal":{"name":"Medieval Encounters","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-02-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47239883","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-22DOI: 10.1163/15700674-12340111
D. Irwin
This article examines on document acknowledging debt to Maruna, a Jewish woman, to John of Kent that was deposited in a chest in Canterbury in 1264. Using this document, the article examines what can be learned about the archae system in thirteenth-century England from the perspective of the documents which were produced there. A series of chests (Lat. pl. archae) were established across England following the introduction of the Articles of the Jewry (1194), which regulated the production, use, and storage of the records generated by Jewish moneylending activities in medieval England. Additionally, the Articles of the Jewry required that more general business transactions, such as the sale and purchase of property, also be recorded at the archae. This paper considers not only the legal and administrative structures which governed the production of such records but also how these systems manifested themselves within the documents which produced at the archae. Finally, it will consider the role that ritual and gender had to play in such transactions and the documents which recorded them.
{"title":"The Archae System Revisited: The Records of Indebtedness to Medieval Jews","authors":"D. Irwin","doi":"10.1163/15700674-12340111","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700674-12340111","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article examines on document acknowledging debt to Maruna, a Jewish woman, to John of Kent that was deposited in a chest in Canterbury in 1264. Using this document, the article examines what can be learned about the archae system in thirteenth-century England from the perspective of the documents which were produced there. A series of chests (Lat. pl. archae) were established across England following the introduction of the Articles of the Jewry (1194), which regulated the production, use, and storage of the records generated by Jewish moneylending activities in medieval England. Additionally, the Articles of the Jewry required that more general business transactions, such as the sale and purchase of property, also be recorded at the archae. This paper considers not only the legal and administrative structures which governed the production of such records but also how these systems manifested themselves within the documents which produced at the archae. Finally, it will consider the role that ritual and gender had to play in such transactions and the documents which recorded them.","PeriodicalId":52521,"journal":{"name":"Medieval Encounters","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45825154","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-22DOI: 10.1163/15700674-12340112
Andreas Lehnertz
This essay presents a case study from Erfurt (Germany) concerning the production of shofarot (i.e., animal horns blown for ritual purposes, primarily on the Jewish New Year). By the early 1420s, Jews from all over the Holy Roman Empire had been purchasing shofarot from one Christian workshop in Erfurt that produced these ritual Jewish objects in cooperation with an unnamed Jewish craftsman. At the same time, two Jews from Erfurt were training in this craft, and started to produce shofarot of their own making. One of these Jewish craftsmen claimed that the Christian workshop had been deceiving the Jews for decades by providing improper shofarot made with materials unsuitable for Jewish ritual use. The local rabbi, Yomtov Lipman, exposed this as a scandal, writing letters to the German Jewish communities about the Christian workshop’s fraud and urging them all to buy new shofarot from the new Jewish craftsmen in Erfurt instead. This article will first examine the fraud attributed to the Christian workshop. Then, after analyzing the historical context of Yomtov Lipman’s letter, it will explore the underlying motivations of this rabbi to expose the Christian workshop’s fraud throughout German Jewish communities at this time. I will argue that, while Yomtov Lipman uses halakhic explanations in his letter, his chief motivation in exposing this fraud was to discredit the Christian workshop, create an artificial demand for shofarot, and promote the new Jewish workshop in Erfurt, whose craftsmen the rabbi himself had likely trained in the art of shofar making.
{"title":"Dismantling a Monopoly: Jews, Christians, and the Production of Shofarot in Fifteenth-Century Germany","authors":"Andreas Lehnertz","doi":"10.1163/15700674-12340112","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700674-12340112","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This essay presents a case study from Erfurt (Germany) concerning the production of shofarot (i.e., animal horns blown for ritual purposes, primarily on the Jewish New Year). By the early 1420s, Jews from all over the Holy Roman Empire had been purchasing shofarot from one Christian workshop in Erfurt that produced these ritual Jewish objects in cooperation with an unnamed Jewish craftsman. At the same time, two Jews from Erfurt were training in this craft, and started to produce shofarot of their own making. One of these Jewish craftsmen claimed that the Christian workshop had been deceiving the Jews for decades by providing improper shofarot made with materials unsuitable for Jewish ritual use. The local rabbi, Yomtov Lipman, exposed this as a scandal, writing letters to the German Jewish communities about the Christian workshop’s fraud and urging them all to buy new shofarot from the new Jewish craftsmen in Erfurt instead. This article will first examine the fraud attributed to the Christian workshop. Then, after analyzing the historical context of Yomtov Lipman’s letter, it will explore the underlying motivations of this rabbi to expose the Christian workshop’s fraud throughout German Jewish communities at this time. I will argue that, while Yomtov Lipman uses halakhic explanations in his letter, his chief motivation in exposing this fraud was to discredit the Christian workshop, create an artificial demand for shofarot, and promote the new Jewish workshop in Erfurt, whose craftsmen the rabbi himself had likely trained in the art of shofar making.","PeriodicalId":52521,"journal":{"name":"Medieval Encounters","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46098727","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-22DOI: 10.1163/15700674-12340114
D. Smail
This study uses an extensive body of archival evidence from Latin-Christian sources to explore economic and social interactions between Provençal Jews and Christians. Evidence discussed in section one indicates that the city’s Jewish and Christian communities interacted to a significant degree, and not just in the domain of moneylending. Data derived from a network analysis suggests that Jews were prominent in providing brokerage services. In the second section, analysis of a small sample of Jewish estate inventories indicates that the material profiles of Jewish and Christian families were very similar. In the third section, an analysis of a register of debt collection shows that Jews were involved in credit relations at a rate that was proportional to their population. Jewish moneylenders filled an economic niche by providing Christians with the liquidity to pay off structural debts generated by the political economy of rents and taxes.
{"title":"Interactions between Jews and Christians in Later Medieval Provence","authors":"D. Smail","doi":"10.1163/15700674-12340114","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700674-12340114","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This study uses an extensive body of archival evidence from Latin-Christian sources to explore economic and social interactions between Provençal Jews and Christians. Evidence discussed in section one indicates that the city’s Jewish and Christian communities interacted to a significant degree, and not just in the domain of moneylending. Data derived from a network analysis suggests that Jews were prominent in providing brokerage services. In the second section, analysis of a small sample of Jewish estate inventories indicates that the material profiles of Jewish and Christian families were very similar. In the third section, an analysis of a register of debt collection shows that Jews were involved in credit relations at a rate that was proportional to their population. Jewish moneylenders filled an economic niche by providing Christians with the liquidity to pay off structural debts generated by the political economy of rents and taxes.","PeriodicalId":52521,"journal":{"name":"Medieval Encounters","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47280083","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-22DOI: 10.1163/15700674-12340113
Aviya Doron
Many Jewish-Christian credit transactions relied on pawns as collateral, which presumably eliminated the risk in the case of debtors’ default. However, keeping and maintaining certain pawns involved particular risks that further complicated these transactions. This paper focuses on live pawns, specifically horses, where the safekeeping of the animal involved far greater difficulties and risks than with other valuable objects that were pawned with Jews. By tracing how legal norms and practices addressed some of the unique risks attached to receiving horses as pawns, this article will outline the expectations both Jews and Christians had when engaging in credit transaction secured by horses. Relying on responsa literature, urban legislation, and court cases from the late thirteenth to mid-fourteenth centuries, this analysis will discuss some of the complications relating to liability over live pawns, with the goal of demonstrating how a specific type of pawn, and its unique risks and benefits, reflects previous assumptions and expectations regarding risk and trust.
{"title":"Pawned Horses: Risk and Liability in Fourteenth Century German Small-Credit Market","authors":"Aviya Doron","doi":"10.1163/15700674-12340113","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700674-12340113","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Many Jewish-Christian credit transactions relied on pawns as collateral, which presumably eliminated the risk in the case of debtors’ default. However, keeping and maintaining certain pawns involved particular risks that further complicated these transactions. This paper focuses on live pawns, specifically horses, where the safekeeping of the animal involved far greater difficulties and risks than with other valuable objects that were pawned with Jews. By tracing how legal norms and practices addressed some of the unique risks attached to receiving horses as pawns, this article will outline the expectations both Jews and Christians had when engaging in credit transaction secured by horses. Relying on responsa literature, urban legislation, and court cases from the late thirteenth to mid-fourteenth centuries, this analysis will discuss some of the complications relating to liability over live pawns, with the goal of demonstrating how a specific type of pawn, and its unique risks and benefits, reflects previous assumptions and expectations regarding risk and trust.","PeriodicalId":52521,"journal":{"name":"Medieval Encounters","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45882248","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-22DOI: 10.1163/15700674-12340110
Nureet Dermer
An unpublished document from late thirteenth-century Paris contains evidence of a Jewish-Christian public confrontation, on the one hand, and of Jewish-Christian economic criminal collaboration on the other. Using methods of micro-history, this article traces the story of Merot the Jew and his father-in-law, Benoait of St. Denis, who were caught attempting to smuggle merchandise by way of the River Seine. Their story is told in a verdict handed down by the parloir de Paris, the municipal judicial authority in charge of economic infractions. The parloir decreed the complete confiscation of Merot and Benoait’s merchandise on the grounds that “they were foreigners.” Taking this terminology as a point of departure, this paper tackles broader socio-economic aspects of belonging and foreignness among medieval Parisian Jews, and asks: in what ways were Jews considered “foreigners” in late thirteenth-century Paris? What were the implications of such a designation, and how did these perceptions change in the years leading up to the expulsion of 1306?
{"title":"Between Foreigners, Strangers and Jews: The Changing Perception of Parisian Jews on the Eve of the 1306 Expulsion","authors":"Nureet Dermer","doi":"10.1163/15700674-12340110","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700674-12340110","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000An unpublished document from late thirteenth-century Paris contains evidence of a Jewish-Christian public confrontation, on the one hand, and of Jewish-Christian economic criminal collaboration on the other. Using methods of micro-history, this article traces the story of Merot the Jew and his father-in-law, Benoait of St. Denis, who were caught attempting to smuggle merchandise by way of the River Seine. Their story is told in a verdict handed down by the parloir de Paris, the municipal judicial authority in charge of economic infractions. The parloir decreed the complete confiscation of Merot and Benoait’s merchandise on the grounds that “they were foreigners.” Taking this terminology as a point of departure, this paper tackles broader socio-economic aspects of belonging and foreignness among medieval Parisian Jews, and asks: in what ways were Jews considered “foreigners” in late thirteenth-century Paris? What were the implications of such a designation, and how did these perceptions change in the years leading up to the expulsion of 1306?","PeriodicalId":52521,"journal":{"name":"Medieval Encounters","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46447399","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-22DOI: 10.1163/15700674-12340109
Elisheva Baumgarten
This special issue of Medieval Encounters offers new perspectives for studying the activities and the roles of Jews in the medieval economy.1 Scholarship to date has tended to approach these subjects from a communal perspective, discussing the activities of Jews as an organized group rather than as individuals, and emphasizing collective norms, legislation, ideologies, and policies. In such studies, the status of Jews as a tolerated religious minority was the point of departure and religious difference was paramount.2 While these perspectives were undoubtedly a defining feature of medieval Jewish life, a top-down communal perspective is just one facet, albeit an important one, of the economic activities of medieval Jews. In addition, most studies focused on moments of change, tension, and crisis, rather than on the ongoing roles of Jews both within their communities and in interaction with their Christian neighbors. This collection of articles looks at the Jews’ everyday economic interactions, primarily with Christians, shining a particular light on the choices and
{"title":"Money Matters: Individuals, Communities and Everyday Economic Interactions between Jews and Christians in Medieval Europe","authors":"Elisheva Baumgarten","doi":"10.1163/15700674-12340109","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700674-12340109","url":null,"abstract":"This special issue of Medieval Encounters offers new perspectives for studying the activities and the roles of Jews in the medieval economy.1 Scholarship to date has tended to approach these subjects from a communal perspective, discussing the activities of Jews as an organized group rather than as individuals, and emphasizing collective norms, legislation, ideologies, and policies. In such studies, the status of Jews as a tolerated religious minority was the point of departure and religious difference was paramount.2 While these perspectives were undoubtedly a defining feature of medieval Jewish life, a top-down communal perspective is just one facet, albeit an important one, of the economic activities of medieval Jews. In addition, most studies focused on moments of change, tension, and crisis, rather than on the ongoing roles of Jews both within their communities and in interaction with their Christian neighbors. This collection of articles looks at the Jews’ everyday economic interactions, primarily with Christians, shining a particular light on the choices and","PeriodicalId":52521,"journal":{"name":"Medieval Encounters","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41842486","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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