Marks of Distinction: Christian Perceptions of Jews in the High Middle Ages

410 Pages·2012·2.976 MB·English

by  Irven M. Resnick

Marks
of
distinction

Marks
of
distinction
Christian Perceptions of Jews in
the High Middle Ages
Irven M. resnIck
The Catholic University of America Press
Washington, D.C.
Copyright © 2012
The Catholic University of America Press
All rights reserved
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum
requirements of American National Standards for
Information Science—Permanence of Paper for Printed
Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
∞
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Resnick, Irven Michael.
Marks of distinction : Christian perceptions of Jews in the
high Middle Ages / Irven M. Resnick.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
isbn 978-0-8132-1969-1 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Judaism—
Relations—Christianity. 2. Christianity and other
religions—Judaism. 3. Physiognomy—Religious aspects—
Christianity. 4. Human body—Social aspects—Europe.
5. Human body—Religious aspects—Christianity. 6. Church
history—Middle Ages, 600–1500. I. Title.
bm535 .r+
305.892´4040902—dc23
2011050255
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
Acknowledgments ix
List of Abbreviations xi
Introduction 1
1. Introduction to Medieval Physiognomy 13
2. Physical Deformities and Circumcision 53
3. The Jews and Leprosy 93
4. The Dietary Laws, Food, and Illicit Sexuality 144
5. The Jews and Melancholy 175
6. Planetary Influences; or, the Jews and Saturn 215
7. Case Studies Revealing a Jewish Physiognomy 268
Conclusion 320
Bibliography 325
Index 379

List of Illustrations
following page 178
Figure 1. A friar preaching a (conversionary) sermon to Synagoga
and a synagogue elder, from a fourteenth-century French
Franciscan missal. MS Douce 313, fol. 139r. Used by permission of The
Bodleian Library, University of Oxford.
Figure 2. The circumcision of Isaac, replaced by baptism, from the
thirteenth-century Bible moralisée. MS Bodl. 270b, fol. 14v, roundels A1
and A2. Used by permission of The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford.
Figure 3. Historiated initial depicting a hook-nosed Jew
circumcising boys, from “The Bible of Robert De Bello.” Burney fol.
90r. Used by permission. ©The British Library Board. All Rights Reserved.
Figure 4. Jesus healing a leper (cf. Matt. 8:2), from the Vita
gloriossime virginis Mariae atque venerabilis matris filii dei vivi veri
et unici. MS. Canon. Misc. 476, fol. 66r. Used by permission of The Bodleian
Library, University of Oxford.
Figure 5. The leprous Constantine comforts the women. Santi
Quattro Coronati, Rome, interior: Chapel of Saint Sylvester (c. 1246).
Used by permission of Art Resource.
Figure 6. A crippled leper, seated, with a bell, c. 1400. Lansdowne 451,
fol. 127. Used by permission. ©The British Library Board. All Rights Reserved.
Figure 7. The Third Crusade of the Pastoureaux: Jews throwing their
children from a tower, from the Chroniques de France ou de St. Denis.
Royal 20 C. VII, fol. 55v. Used by permission. ©The British Library Board. All
Rights Reserved.
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viii list of illustrations
Figure 8. Initial E(t), depicting a soldier of Antiochus slaying a Jew
who refused to eat unclean meat, from a thirteenth-century French
bible. MS. Canon. Bibl. Lat. 41, fol. 359v. Used by permission of The Bodleian
Library, University of Oxford.
Figure 9. Saturn eating his children, from a fifteenth-century English
manuscript. MS Rawl. B 214, fol. 197v. Used by permission of The Bodleian
Library, University of Oxford.
Figure 10. Initial showing the Jew Samuel’s wife and son, who convert
to Christianity (10a); and image of the Jew Samuel ritually murdering
the child martyr Adam of Bristol (10b), from the “Passion of Adam of
Bristol.” Harleian MS 957, no. 7, fol. 22r (a fourteenth-century codex). © The
British Library Board. All Rights Reserved.
Figure 11. A hook-nosed Jew menacing Christ, from William of Not-
tingham’s Commentary on the Gospels (fourteenth century). MS Laud
Misc.165, fol. 280r. Used by permission of The Bodleian Library, University of
Oxford.
Acknowledgments
In the course of my research, I have benefitted from the as-
sistance of countless librarians and scholars. Much of this work
was completed during my many research visits to the Oxford
Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, for whose hospitality I
remain grateful. Thanks are also due to the National Endow-
ment for the Humanities, which enabled me to direct a summer
institute for university faculty, “Representations of the ‘Other’:
Jews in Medieval Christendom,” in 2003, 2006, and 2010 at the
Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. Its faculty par-
ticipants prodded me to rethink many of the notions I had con-
sidered well established. Special thanks are due to the visiting
scholars who contributed to the institutes: Anna Sapir Abulafia,
Anthony Bale, Robert Chazan, Jeremy Cohen, Denise Despres,
Chaim Hames, Daniel Lasker, Sara Lipton, Miri Rubin, and
Robert Stacey. In addition, in 2006 I made good use of the won-
derful library resources in London, while a Distinguished Visit-
ing Fellow at Queen Mary, University of London. Finally, I must
thank Luke Demaitre, who carefully read the chapter on leprosy
and the Jews and offered very helpful criticism. Any errors that
remain are, of course, my own.
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