Toward a Social and Comparative History of Jewish and Christian Medieval Piety
Research on medieval Jewish piety has primarily focused on reactions in Ashkenaz to the First Crusade (in 1096) and later persecutions, from the Rintfleisch attacks of 1298 in many German communities, repeated expulsions from parts of northern France in the early fourteenth century, to the Black Death in the mid-fourteenth century.25 The deaths of many Jews at their own hands or by attackers during assaults on their communities transformed those who died into martyrs (kedoshim) in a way that has been interpreted by subsequent generations, including modern historians, as the ultimate and uniquely Jewish expression of pious devotion to God.26
A second historical phenomenon that reinforced the association of Jews in medieval northern Europe with piety relates to the rich and varied writings that were produced by the intellectual elite of Jewish communities in medieval Germany and northern France.27 These medieval authors were instrumental in portraying the Jews of this period as pious through their religious guidance for fellow Jews and their overarching approach to Jewish observance. Furthermore, these are the medieval Jewish personages that have been most rigorously studied since the late nineteenth century.28
Whether explicitly or by implication, scholarly narratives have positioned the Jewish community and its piety at odds with their Christian counterparts. After all, when medieval Jews opted for death (kiddush hashem; lit., sanctifying the Divine Name), either actively or passively, that decision was the direct consequence of their refusal to embrace Christianity. Similarly, Jewish intellectual culture was often seen as a significant internal achievement amid, and at times despite, perilous circumstances.29 This approach focuses on points of crisis and confrontation at the expense of considering everyday life, thereby highlighting interreligious tensions in medieval society over harmonious aspects of coexistence, effectively obscuring the interplay of tension and coherence that fostered a sustainable social environment.
A more inclusive approach for evaluating Jewish life in medieval Germany and northern France was suggested during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and has reemerged periodically, recently regaining currency by pointing to the affinities between Jewish and Christian cultures alongside the separate identities that medieval Jews and Christians were actively producing and propagating.30 Present-day scholars have suggested that, despite the clear distinctions between Jews and Christians, in theory and in practice, adherents of these two religions shared far more than previous studies have assumed.31
During this period, the Christian communities among whom Jews resided were undergoing significant social and religious changes and doctrinal revisions. Beyond the Crusade movement, which marked much of the period in question, new doctrines were being instituted and more firmly established, such as celibacy of the clergy, which was transformed in the eleventh century; the growth and expansion of monastic orders throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; and, most notably, the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), which redefined the role of laity in medieval Christian society and reassessed central doctrines, including transubstantiation and the sacraments of baptism, marriage, confession, and the Eucharist.32 Not only were Jews cognizant of many of these changes, but recent studies have demonstrated that they had bearing on their lives as well. Living side by side, Jews and Christians alike were participants in the growing urban life of the High Middle Ages.33
Perhaps most dramatically, the Black Death had significance for Jewish as well as Christian societies while also serving as a catalyst for change in Europe’s Jewish communities and in European attitudes toward Jews; thus, the mid-fourteenth century serves as a suitable closing frame for this inquiry. At that time, the expulsion of Jews, which had begun in England in the late thirteenth century and took place in France during the early fourteenth century, spread to many cities in Germany.34 In response, many French and German Jews moved south to Spain or eastward to Poland.35 One result of these forced and voluntary migrations was the creation of a new Jewish geography as well as a new chapter in Jewish-Christian relations.36
Following this view of medieval Jewish-Christian coexistence, the High Middle Ages can be defined by a shared environment of burgeoning urban centers, with concomitant economic and social expansion. Despite the ideological and theological tensions that existed between Jews and Christians during this period, Jews lived comfortably in medieval urban centers where Jewish scholarship flourished.37 In fact, many religious tensions and polemics of that period were founded on mutually held ideas and common values, and the violence of that era often drew its meaning from the dissonance of coexistence rather than a desire for separation.38
Scholars have also discussed how Jews as a minority culture adopted ideas and practices from their Christian neighbors, even if they may have appropriated them subconsciously.39 Leaders of both religious communities strove to underscore the differences between their religions in an effort to bolster distinct identities in a milieu where Jews and Christians dwelled in close proximity and had similar daily routines. Although Jews often resided in specific city districts during the centuries studied here, they rarely lived in the segregation that typified later periods.40 From a historiographical perspective, modern concerns regarding the process of identity development have informed recent attempts to examine degrees of engagement versus separation of Jews and their neighbors in earlier periods.41
While some scholars view these reassessments as simplistic attempts to formulate “either-or” statements—to categorize Jews as being either so intimately connected to non-Jewish society as to practically belong to “their” world, or so thoroughly set apart that contact was meager at best. In contrast to these approaches, and following other recent studies,42 I have pursued a middle ground by assuming the distinctiveness of the Jewish communities while associating them with their cultural surroundings. With regard to religiosity, there were no intermediate categories of religious belonging: one was either Jewish or Christian.43 The clear designation of membership in the Jewish minority44 (or not) may have allowed Jews and Christians greater latitude for nurturing their beliefs and practices: namely, the pious aspirations that characterized both societies. Devotion to God was not merely a common feature of medieval Jewish and Christian life; it was also a source, if not the driving factor, in the need for distinction and a trigger for the production of marked differences and separate religious identities, a “narcissism of small differences.”45 As I suggest throughout this study, within the medieval atmosphere, a competitive piety46 developed that simultaneously emphasized mutually held ideas about religious expression and heightened divisions between Jews and Christians. These religious connections are herein examined from multiple vantage points—moving along a continuum from seeing Jewish and Christian societies as two separate faith communities to viewing them as a shared unit—but at all times as entangled with each other, bound by what has recently been termed “histoire croisée” or “connected histories.”47 Throughout this book, I reflect on how medieval Jews and Christians might have been aware of one another’s customs, practices, and beliefs.48
The assumption that Jews and Christians were in continuous contact and shared local circumstances as well as many values and understandings is the product of social and cultural perspectives that have become integral elements of historical inquiry, particularly in medieval studies, over the past decades. Historians have increasingly focused not only on the intellectual pursuits of the literary elite but also on how the general population lived in relation to and in contrast with the authors whose texts have reached us.49 Researchers have also sought out the connections between daily life and the cultural mindsets of those who were unlikely to express themselves in writing.50 In studies of medieval Christian Europe, this heightened interest in social and cultural history has translated into