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1 Introduction Writing at the end of the nineteenth century, French scholar Julius robert reported that the legend inscribed over the gate to the medieval Les Innocents cemetery in Paris read: “Beware the company of the madman, the Jew, and the leper.” While this is merely an anecdote, it is nevertheless a telling one. Jews, lepers, and madmen were among the disvalued people in the medieval Western European society that robert was investigating.1 This mindset, which says much about the way in which madmen and lepers were perceived in society at large, sharpens the need for us to understand attitudes toward them within a society that was itself a marginal group in medieval Europe: the Jewish community. In medieval Europe, individuals belonging to the Jewish faith were considered Other, an abstract entity against which society defines itself by negation . Every society examines the Other within it as it considers the real or imagined elements of its own identity. The study of attitudes toward what sociologists have termed “involuntary marginals” and their placement within the mentality of past societies has flourished in recent years. The sense is that investigating those at the margins of historical inquiry can provide the observer with tools for understanding the cultural mentality and atmosphere of societies.2 Thus, the present study takes as its subject men and women within the Jewish minority in medieval Europe who found themselves, to their detriment , in situations in which they were tagged and classified as different, whether because of their physical or mental condition. Although the issues to be discussed in this book apply to societies of all periods, they will be investigated within the temporal boundaries of the European Middle Ages and the geographical and cultural borders of the region that Jews called “Ashkenaz.” It is imperative to state at this early stage that the use of the word “marginal ” for individuals with challenging mental and physical situations refers to the medieval designation; it is in no way meant to reflect a contemporary categorization of individuals with disabilities. For the purposes of this study, 2 INTRODUCTION I have chosen to focus on three categories of extreme marginality: individuals with degenerative diseases such as leprosy, persons deemed mad or insane, and those with visible physical deformities that rendered them dysfunctional. Irene Metzler writes in Disability in Medieval Europe the following about the use of terms: “Some terminological tolerance, however, is needed by the modern reader, in that since I am dealing with a historical topic, I perforce have to quote historical words, labels and terms. Hence I will use the now archaic, abusive or politically incorrect terms ‘cripple,’ ‘dumb,’ ‘mute,’ and such like without in future placing them in quotes.”3 Like Metzler, I too will be using terms that to the modern reader may seem archaic and to some even abusive. Indeed, the terms used in this book refer to the way the individuals who are at the center of this book were identified, labeled, and referred to in the European Middle Ages, and these identifications and labels in turn led to the activation of a social system of explicit and implicit rules of behavior toward them. In contrast with cultural, national, religious, ideological , and social Others, whose perceived marginal statuses derive from their departure from standards set by a particular group, class, political elite, or society, the Others that this study addresses were marginal by more universal human criteria.4 Physical deformity, disability, and disease, as well as mental instability, are first and foremost involuntary conditions juxtaposed on the men and woman who bear them without the ability to reject them. Nevertheless, these are phenomena found in every society, from the most simple hunter-gatherer bands to complex modern and postindustrial societies . Feelings like dread of disease, of misshapen bodies, and of warped personalities are universal, and some responses to individuals who are in these situations display similarities among societies distant from one another in time and place. Whatever the differences between nations, religions, and societies, disease (especially salient and disfiguring disease, such as leprosy), insanity, and obvious disability are a challenge to those who suffer from them and elicit reactions from those around them. Liminal states of this sort have always presented a challenge to society as a whole, and in particular to social institutions such as the nuclear family, extended family, and community. Marginal physical and mental states challenge the perceived “proper” order and confidence in human capacity, and such confidence is a key factor...

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