The Jews of Europe in the Middle Ages (Tenth to Fifteenth Centuries): Proceedings of the International Symposium held at Speyer, 20-25 October 2002 (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Jews of Europe in the Middle Ages (Tenth to Fifteenth Centuries): Proceedings of the International Symposium held at Speyer, 20-25 October 2002 Jennifer Shea Cluse, Christoph, ed., Jews of Europe in the Middle Ages (Tenth to Fifteenth Centuries): Proceedings of the International Symposium held at Speyer, 20-25 October 2002 (Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, 4), Turnhout, Brepols, 2004; cloth; pp. xvii, 512; 24 maps, 53 b/w illustrations; RRP €60.00; ISBN 2503516971. All too often, academic studies of Jewish life, culture and thought in the Middle Ages are branded as specialist works of interest to only a small minority of working medievalists, pigeonholed by publishers in 'Jewish studies'. This volume, however, is an important contribution not only to specialists in medieval Jewish thought and culture, but also to medieval generalists working in a range of sub-specialties. It demonstrates conclusively the importance of considering Jewish contributions to life in medieval Western Europe not in isolation, but always in relation to the wider society. The volume presents the edited (and, in some cases, translated) proceedings of the 2002 conference on 'Culture, Mobility, Migration and Settlement of Jews in Medieval Europe' funded by the 'Culture 2000' programme of the European Commission. This major conference was the culmination of a project led by Professor Alfred Haverkamp of the University of Trier. Among the project's stated aims were: to consolidate numerous divergent studies that fell under its umbrella, and to provide an overview of the current state of research a number of fields that come to bear upon the study of Jewish thought and culture in Medieval Europe. In addition to this, the project's directors wished to give a public voice to the work of talented younger scholars in the field. The essay collection therefore showcases the diversity of recent work by up-and-coming scholars of Jewish culture in medieval Western Europe, as well as presenting valuable essays by more established scholars. The volume is organized in five parts: The first section, 'Dimensions of the Subject', contains five keynote essays by some of the preeminent scholars in the field of medieval Jewish history and Jewish/non-Jewish relations in the period: [End Page 178] David Abulafia and Anna Sapir Abulafia of the University of Cambridge, Alfred Haverkamp of Trier, Peter Schäfer of Berlin and Princeton, and Yacov Guggenheim of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Together with Haverkamp's general essay introducing the volume, these keynote essays would be an excellent starting point for students or researchers entering the field. The essays in the second section, 'Around the Mediterranean', provide current thought on the status of Jews in various regions in the Middle Ages: Aragon, Castile, Navarre, Provence, Sicily, and northern and central Italy. Relations between Jews and local rulers receive particular attention, and there is also an excellent overview essay on 'Maimonides and Mediterranean Culture' by Sarah Stroumsa of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The third section, 'The Northern Jewries, France, England, and Ashkenaz', includes recent work on the organization of Jewish communities in northern France, England, and the Rhineland, and the integration or exclusion of these communities from the surrounding regions. There is also an excellent piece by Nora Berend of the University of Cambridge on the status of Jewish communities in medieval Hungary. In section four, 'Aspects of Jewish Social, Economic, and Intellectual History', the involvement of medieval European Jewish communities in a number of disparate fields is explored. There are essays on 'Halakhah', Taboo and the origin of Jewish Moneylending in Germany' (Haym Soloveitchik), 'Jews in Medieval European Medicine' (Kay Peter Jankrift) and a strong essay on the 'Public Roles of Jewish Women in Fourteenth and Fifteenth Century Ashkenaz' by Martha Keil. There are also pieces on the 'Iconography of Medieval Diaspora Synagogues' (Vivian B. Mann) and early Yiddish language studies (Erika Timm). Finally, the essays in section five, 'Individual Jewries Through Archival and Archaeological Studies', look at Jewish communities in medieval Europe in locations including Cologne, Würzburg, Regensburg, Oxford, Speyer, and Worms. This section will be of particular interest to those working in not only Jewish history, but local history studies and historical cartography. The...