Furnishing Piety: Beds in High Medieval Jewish Domestic Devotion

Albert Kohn

doi:10.3390/rel10080471

Abstract

In recent years, pre-modern beds have generated extensive scholarly interest. Their social, religious, and economic importance has been rightfully highlighted in the study of domestic piety. Yet, concern has primarily focused on beds in late medieval English homes. This essay uses Hebrew texts from thirteenth-century Southern Germany, primarily Sefer Hasidim, to further this analysis of the role of the bed in shaping medieval domestic devotion. Jewish notions about the social, moral, and sexual significance of the bed reflect those identified in late medieval Christian culture. These ideas inspired numerous rituals practiced in Jewish homes. Yet, the bed and the remnants of sex assumed to be found in it also frustrated Jewish attempts to perform domestic devotion. These findings highlight the complicated nature of the home and how medieval people had to navigate both its opportunities and challenges in order to foster a rich culture of domestic devotion.

Highlights

For those interested in pre-modern domestic life, the bed has rightfully generated intrigue.As a central domestic furnishing and one of the most expensive items in the medieval home, the bed demands attention
While there is general continuity between Jewish and Christian perceptions of and practices relating to the bed, Sefer Hasidim assigns an impurity to the bed that is less pronounced in Christian sources
The diverse ideas and practices with which high medieval Jews linked their beds further validates the recent work on the centrality of the bed to pre-modern culture and domestic piety

Summary

Introduction

For those interested in pre-modern domestic life, the bed has rightfully generated intrigue. Others have taken up the embodied experience of the bed by examining its role in transforming the home into a ritual space (Brundin et al 2018; Morgan 2017) Building upon these previous studies, this essay will explore the role the bed played in Jewish domestic piety in thirteenth-century Southern Germany. The most basic use of the bed was, for sleeping Like their Christian neighbors, most Jewish households would have had multiple family members sharing beds. How the bed wasthe a place for intimate and substantive conversation between spouses More than these practical uses, recent on thethe bedsheer has variety emphasized the sheer variety of. While earlier scholarship scores of exempla that describe the realia of Jewish life in medieval Europe.

Jewish Beds

Object of Filth

Bedtime Prayers in the Medieval Bed

Conclusions

A Remembrance of His of Wonders: Nature and the Supernatural in Medieval