Mothers and Children: Jewish Family Life in Medieval Europe (review)

Mothers and Children is overflowing with new sources, new information, new interpretations, and new conceptual and methodological approaches to historical questions. Utilizing an impressive array of sources—from Talmud and halakhic literature, practical Kabbalah, responsa, exegetical and ethical literature to doctors' and circumcisers' handbooks, piyutim, guides to customs, Mahzor Vitry, prayer books, Sefer Hasidim, writings of the Church Fathers, papal bulls, Christian theological, exegetical, and legal tracts, and culminating with art—Baumgarten sheds light for the first time on some of the most basic aspects of life in the past. She allows us to observe Jewish domestic life, especially from the women's perspective (yet never forgetting to explore men's roles and opinions): births, celebrations, the marital relationship, child rearing, neighborliness with Christians, and supervision of servants.

Even more impressive, however, is how she succeeds in using the myriad details she adduces to weave a complex tapestry that illustrates the structure, the organization, and the tacit ideas and values that typified medieval Jewish Ashkenaz and, by extension, Latin Europe in general. Moreover, Baumgarten sets precedents and makes judgments that have ramifications for the writing of historiography at the present historical moment, and this includes Jewish historiography as well. She touches on many crucial historiographical issues that all historians—especially Jewish historians—must confront, staking out clear positions that deserve serious evaluation.

The first of these is the question of the relationship between Jewish historiography and so-called general historiography. The subtitle of this book is "Family Life in Ashkenaz in the Middle Ages." The author could have written a book on "family life in Germany and France in the Middle Ages." She is as completely conversant with the sources and historiography of the Christians in the Middle Ages as she is with those of the Jews and utilizes them, in this instance, to learn more about the Jews. Given that most of the Jewish sources originated with one group, the male rabbinic elite, enriching the source base with Christian literature, folklore, art, and Church documents, and their concomitant varying perspectives, is essential.

In addition, Baumgarten shows that primary phenomena, like the Hollekreisch ceremony (where the infant received a non-Jewish name), the Wachtnacht (the night of watching on the eve of a baby boy's circumcision), and the Sabbath of the Parturient (Shabbat yetsiat ha-yoledet, the first visit of the new mother to the synagogue, approximately a month after the birth), are linked to Christian parallels that simply must be understood if the Jewish phenomena are to be analyzed meaningfully. Similarly, topics such as widowhood, nursing, birth, and parenthood are thoroughly discussed in the existing non-Jewish historiography of the Middle Ages. Anyone seeking to relate to these subjects within a Jewish context must master this huge literature—as Baumgarten has done—or produce a superficial account.

New findings and insights derived from analysis of non-Jewish historiography on the Middle Ages advance the interpretation and the argument of this book in numerous places. In contrast to some other books on medieval European history that group the Jews with marginal social groups, like the poor, the sick, and the mad,¹ here the Jews appear—for all their difference—as partners in the economy, the culture, and the society.

Baumgarten, however, not only establishes that the Jews confirm or illustrate things already known about medieval society. In accord with Elliott Horowitz's long ago call,² she also utilizes Jewish sources and the differences between the behavior and the attitudes of the Jews and the Christians in order to proffer new views of general issues. For example, close examination of the phenomenon of ba'al brit (sandek, conpere, gevater [compater]) expands our understanding of the social function of co-parents (godparents) in general. Thus while it is conventionally held that the choice of co-parents by the biological parents was part of a strategy for reinforcing ties between the different...