tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post1867156033789743187..comments2024-03-10T20:46:19.274-04:00Comments on In the Middle: Medieval Jew Punks Medieval ChristiansCord J. Whitakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06224143153295429986noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-79316653358684354022009-06-19T23:23:04.244-04:002009-06-19T23:23:04.244-04:00Jeffrey -- I'll look at my notes and shoot the...Jeffrey -- I'll look at my notes and shoot them to you.Another Damned Medievalisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05231085915472400163noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-89979487809913947172009-06-16T09:07:01.553-04:002009-06-16T09:07:01.553-04:00Karl, ADM, HC: thanks for your comments.
I'm ...Karl, ADM, HC: thanks for your comments.<br /><br />I'm not sure what internal competition among Christians might have been stoked by the translation of the relics. It's a good question, and one I'll have to think about more.<br /><br />The reason I begin with the passage has less to do with the Jew of Unbelief who figures in it than the offhand reference to Christian servants and nurses within the Jewish household. That's my catalyst. I'll try to post a bit more about it soon.<br /><br />ADM, if there is anything relevant from your notes I would love to learn it!Jeffrey Cohenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17346504393740520542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-76950702385336132952009-06-15T23:25:14.647-04:002009-06-15T23:25:14.647-04:00HC, strikes me that your comment works.
Mine work...HC, strikes me that your comment works.<br /><br />Mine works better w/out the typo:<br /><br /><i>to embody the conflicts with the Xian community of Lincoln</i><br /><br />should be "within"!<br />==<br />(2 kinds of undead? hmmm? you know about the travestite zombie in Geoffrey of Auxerre's Apocalypse Commentary?)Karl Steelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03353370018006849747noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-50592960790393252762009-06-15T22:08:17.275-04:002009-06-15T22:08:17.275-04:00Oh, fun! Gerald and Anglo-Saxon saints!
Interes...Oh, fun! Gerald and Anglo-Saxon saints!<br /><br /><br />Interesting comment, Karl! If the link is to be trusted, and Frideswide was a newly rediscovered saint, being reinterred with a big ceremony -- no doubt to increase the prestige of the Augustinians and Roman church -- I suspect that the tension may have been between the Augustinians and local Christian, but not necessarily Roman Catholic, dissenters. Really, who is a better symbol of the dissenter than a Jew? <br /><br />This seems to be smaller scale, but the same sort of strategy Gerald uses to argue for military colonialism to support the centralized Church's moves into Ireland and Wales. In those cases, disagreeing with the Church put one in the category of lustful, unnatural, bestiality-practicing secretly druid Celt, in this case dissent makes one a Jew. <br />That there are actual Jews in the city makes the story better, because the 'enemy' is already at the gate. Gerald loves a looming threat of difference. <br /><br />Anyway, I don't expect that any of this is helpful to anyone, but I really like the practice of reading Gerald as "reaction to resistance" lit.Heohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15790601758953554870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-62461000059791479252009-06-15T21:38:44.302-04:002009-06-15T21:38:44.302-04:00Did I tell you about the cool 12th C anti-Semitism...Did I tell you about the cool 12th C anti-Semitism panel I went to at the zoo? I have some notes, especially on Michael Staunton's paper that might have some connection (plus it had two kinds of undead) ...Another Damned Medievalisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05231085915472400163noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-84215988596476870032009-06-15T16:17:52.399-04:002009-06-15T16:17:52.399-04:00Great stuff!
Out of curiosity, what kind of cler...Great stuff! <br /><br />Out of curiosity, what kind of clergy would have staffed the shrine church? I ask because I'm expecting that there might be some kind of conflict between the monks, who lost (?) their saint, and the clergy of this (new?) shrine, who stand to gain a lot through this translatio, or, if you like, a legalized furta sacra. If that's the case, part of the rationale for the presence of the Jew at this translation may be to allow Gerald to embody the conflicts with the Xian community of Lincoln by using an 'alien' body, wherein the Jew is made to carry the burden of anger about the relics [think of the way Jews also made to carry anxiety of the filth of Mary's womb during the 13th-c. Talmud debates]. I also can't remember off hand Gerald's attitudes towards monks, or theirs toward him: but that might matter here, too. Not that any of this concerns your Leeds project, but just curious.<br /><br />Also of interest here: the Xian nurses! From a quick check of my notes, prohibitions against Xians serving as wetnurses to the Jews date from the early 13th century at the earliest [perhaps earlier I would guess in Visigothic Code, not that this matters for 12th-c. England], although H. G. Richardson alludes to some secular law concerning this that predates canon law. And, this is far afield, but Gérard Nahon, “From the Rue aux Juifs to the Chemin du Roy: The Classical Age of French Jewry, 1108-1223,” has, on Rabbinical law, “Eight talmudic prohibitions limited relations with non-Jews: it was forbidden to transact with them during their festivals, to keep an animal in their homes or in the care of their shepherds, to sell livestock to them directly, to employ their wet-nurses, to teach them Hebrew, to rent them houses, or to associate with them. Rabbinical law in the 12th century accepted compromises on these points” (320).Karl Steelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03353370018006849747noreply@blogger.com