Jews and Christians in Twelfth-Century Europe (review)

Michael A. Signer and John Van Engen, editors. Jews and Christians in Twelfth-Century Europe. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2001. Pp. xi + 380. Cloth, $49.95. Paper, $24.95.

This volume, a collection of conference papers presented at Notre Dame in 1996, draws attention to the twelfth-century renaissance for the evolution of medieval Jewish-Christian relations. Rather than treating the anti-Jewish violence of the first Crusade as a decisive break leading directly to Jewish isolation and, finally, expulsion from medieval Christendom, the editors have selected papers that seek "to integrate the Jewish and Jewish-Christian stories into a larger European story" focusing on "areas of common or parallel activity: in vernacular literature, in biblical exegesis, in piety and mysticism, in the social context of conversion, in relations to prelates and monarchs, in coping with a time of change, renewal, and upheaval" (5, 7). Tensions certainly grew between Jews and the majority culture after 1096, but this was a tension defined by the twin opposing forces of growing intimacy and distance, growing cooperation and conflict. Although the role of individual Jews as translators and vehicles for Greek and Arab philosophy presents perhaps the best-known evidence of Jewish-Christian cooperation during the twelfth century, this collection chooses to explore evidence of cooperation and conflict in other areas. This decision may frustrate readers primarily interested in the history of philosophy, but it produces a fuller picture of interaction.

Despite their variety, these papers may be divided into small groups sharing common themes. Jeremy Cohen, Ivan G. Marcus, and Robert Chazan examine the Hebrew chronicles of the Crusades as historical accounts, as apologetics, and as literary vehicles promoting a certain communal Jewish self-consciousness that responded to renewed Christian emphasis on martyrdom as a sign of faith among the covenanted people of Israel. Martyrdom is also at the center of Elliot Wolfson's discussion of erotic imagery in Ashkenazi piety, which links the religious value attributed to kiddush ha-shem with new Jewish emphases on ascetic practices. Jonathan M. Elukin and William Chester Jordan both examine evidence of voluntary Jewish conversions to Christianity. Elukin investigates a relationship between interiority and Christian suspicion of Jewish conversions; Jordan explores a new demand for individual freedoms among Jewish adolescents, in particular, sometimes seeking romantic fulfillment in Christian culture. Susan Einbinder also relates the rediscovery of the individual's inner life to the appearance of a Hebrew prose genre that reflects the interests of vernacular romance literature, whereas Maureen Bolton explores hardening anti-Jewish attitudes found in Christian twelfth- and thirteenth-century French literature. John Van Engen and Michael Signer both treat the impact of Jewish-Christian mutual awareness on exegetical life. Van Engen considers Ralph of Flaix's commentary on Leviticus as a fairly direct response to the challenge of Jewish biblical exegesis, while Michael Signer explores Rashi's attempts to develop a counternarrative to Christian claims in order to demonstrate God's enduring and unblemished love for Israel. Gérard Nahon and Robert Stacey consider economic and social tensions that increased hostility to Jews in France and England respectively. For Stacey, Jews in England suffered as they were increasingly identified with unpopular royal economic policies and, by their continuing use of French as their vernacular tongue, with the non-indigenous culture of the Norman elite. Nahon attempts to situate growing French popular animosity toward Jews in the conflict between royal and seigneurial interests: to the extent that royal power sought to regulate and control Jewish financial interests to benefit the crown, to that extent Jewish communities often lost the protection of local lords and ecclesiastics and became increasingly marginalized. In two papers that in some ways stand alone, Jan Ziolkowski explores the meaning of the verb "to judaize" in the writings of Guibert of Nogent, while Water Cahn studies a sculpture that once adorned the Milanese Porta Romana and that was understood to show...