Saturday, August 14, 2010

2 book notes involving medieval Jews

by J J Cohen
  1. A work of interest, now in process: The York Massacre of 1190 in Context: Reassessing Relations between Jews and Others in Medieval England. Table of contents here
  2. At lunch today I was reading aloud the dust cover for my copy of Licoricia of Winchester: Marriage, Motherhood and Murder in the Medieval Anglo-Jewish Community and got to these lines about the author: "Suzanne Bartlett was inspired to write this book by the discovery of part of Winchester's Jewish cemetery just outside her back garden. She liked to think that perhaps Licoricia, after her tumultuous life and tragic death, finally came to rest there." Licoricia died of stab wounds inflicted in her own house. To think that she could find peace beneath the geraniums of an English garden struck me as ... odd, and a bit chilling, though I know the author means well.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

recte 'meant' well ...

see here

http://www.jewishbookweek.com/2010/marriage-motherhood-murder.php

Sx

Andrea L said...

I'm so glad that Suzanne Bartlet has written this book. Licoricia keeps appearing in the footnotes every time I read about medieval English Judaism, and I always feel her life deserves a longer and more elaborate retelling than a few footnotes can provide.

Medievalists.net said...

Unfortunately Suzanne Bartlet passed away before the book was completed. Her good friend Patricia Skinner completed it.