tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post662124245594177112..comments2024-03-10T20:46:19.274-04:00Comments on In the Middle: Flash Review IV: James Simpson, Burning to Read: English Fundamentalism and Its Reformation OpponentsCord J. Whitakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06224143153295429986noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-59809396977446339332009-03-17T19:44:00.000-04:002009-03-17T19:44:00.000-04:00You've got it Karl: I am trying to discern moments...You've got it Karl: I am trying to discern moments -- no matter how ephemeral -- of a convivencia that (no matter how impossible to sustain, and no matter how fraught with possibilities of violence) effervesced in Christian-Jewish cohabitational praxis. As such it is somewhat beneath the "the legal realm where lives are most affected" (as Eileen puts it). I know that's an overly Foucaultian way of putting it. <BR/><BR/>We'll see how this works out ...Jeffrey Cohenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17346504393740520542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-53738516755105964922009-03-17T10:36:00.000-04:002009-03-17T10:36:00.000-04:00EJ, you're welcome. JJC, occurred to me that Commu...EJ, you're welcome. <BR/><BR/>JJC, occurred to me that Communities of Violence is a disenchantment of a supposedly cosmopolitan Iberia. We've seen similar disenchantments, yes?, of Frederick II's Kingdom of Sicily and its melange of Xian, Muslim, and Jewish scholars. No doubt, then, part of what you're doing is a "postdisenchanted" reading?Karl Steelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03353370018006849747noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-62528614319859619862009-03-17T10:19:00.000-04:002009-03-17T10:19:00.000-04:00Karl: thanks for elaborating so much on what happe...Karl: thanks for elaborating so much on what happens, or doesn't, with the Middle Ages in Simpson's book--that's incredibly helpful, and I think you're right to say that the book supplants one supposedly crooked genealogy with another one that puts the Catholics [or at least Thomas More] in a more favorable light while at the same time it is not telling the whole story.<BR/><BR/>Jeffrey: I think two things are true all the time simultaneously--interpretive textual practices both do and don't affect *lived* practices all the time. More often than not, it is in the legal realm where lives are most affected, I think [and in the Middle Ages, also in the realm of Church doctrine, to a certain extent], whether we are talking the stake or a solitary confinement cell in Guantanamo. But I like what you're doing, which you've discussed in other posts, too [and I assume will be discussing in your Leeds plenary talk] by concentrating on the local neighborhood and all the slippages of supposedly "orthodox" identities that would go on there.Eileen Joyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13756965845120441308noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-60536154422634578602009-03-17T09:12:00.000-04:002009-03-17T09:12:00.000-04:00It might be about control of communities, but, as ...It might be about control of communities, but, as with the 13th-century Councils and Synods, you can get a sense of what's happening less violently by what's being forbidden or marked as a disruption.* Every act of violence recorded interrupts lives being lived together.<BR/><BR/>* Assuming that the Canons and Synods are not just mechanically duplicating materials from earlier councils &c without much attention to the lived experience of 13th-century England. This is a strong possibility, I imagine, but arguments can be made from this as well...Karl Steelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03353370018006849747noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-81848514513634071692009-03-17T08:59:00.000-04:002009-03-17T08:59:00.000-04:00Communities of Violence is the dark doppelganger t...<EM>Communities of Violence</EM> is the dark doppelganger to what I am trying to do: that book is mainly about control of community through all kinds of violence (physical and legal) -- and I am trying to get at communities that don't necessarily turn to violence to find their way to live together, if only for a brief space.<BR/><BR/>Karl, you've convinced me I need to read Simpson no matter what.Jeffrey Cohenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17346504393740520542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-60668559842217470332009-03-17T08:43:00.000-04:002009-03-17T08:43:00.000-04:00I still wish that Simpson had included at least ge...I still wish that Simpson had included at least gestures--even if only the one-page 'for further reading' list--towards the 14th and 15th century England. It's not just a matter of 'pointing to.' It's a matter, least of all, of muddling period boundaries and the prejudices that sustain them. It's also simply necessary for the sake of accuracy. I'll quote one appraisal of 14th-century English academia:<BR/><I>Not since Augustine's attack upon the Pelagians in the fourth century had theologians argued so heatedly over the faculty which determines the extent of man's power to act, the ethical nature of his actions, and his dependence upon divine aid to accomplish what is right"</I> (John Bowers, Crisis of Will in Piers Plowman, 41). The relevance to Evangelical debates is obvious, and, once we get R. Pecock's treatise, we very nearly have the full picture. Tyndale/Luther/More did not paint this picture; they belong to it. <BR/><BR/>Also: including this stuff in some way would prevent Simpsons' readers from imagining that these debates originate in the early 16th century, that the placid 'quiet hierarchies' [Robertson] of the Middle Ages broke and out rushed the stars of BtR: Tyndale/Luther/More. I must imagine that very nearly every reader of Burning to Read will be a non-medievalist and thus already prone to making such mistakes: so why not try to stop them?<BR/><BR/>I wouldn't doubt, Jeffrey, that there are studies that treat lived practices of Evangelicals and Catholics in 16th-century England. For better or worse, this material isn't relevant to Burning to Read. He's countering a claim that the liberal tradition begins in a certain reading practice, which means that he's in a textual realm from the beginning. <BR/><BR/>Incidentally, I'm hesitant to follow him because it strikes me that he's finally swapping one [bad] geneaology for one [good] one, and I don't like anything that had the whiff of 'justification from the past' about it. Affective filiations & alliances through time, yadda yadda yadda, sure, that's fine, but not chopping down one tree only to plant another in its place. Again, this complaint grossly simplifies his argument, but I'm imagining that Catholic apologists will only be too happy to read it this way.<BR/><BR/>Jeffrey, perhaps you could reread <I>Communities of Violence</I>? Seems to be a model for some of what you're trying to do.Karl Steelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03353370018006849747noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-69337913909182256612009-03-17T07:41:00.000-04:002009-03-17T07:41:00.000-04:00I think it would be a mistake to assume that inter...<EM>I think it would be a mistake to assume that interpretive practices [orthodox or otherwise] had no effect on *lived* Jewish-Christian, or Christian-any Other relations</EM><BR/><BR/>Agreed ... but I wonder if the opposite isn't true, that we too easily assume (because we are so textual) that dominant interpretive practices predetermined lived relations. Interpretive practices have a tendency towards the dogmatic and the absolute, but cohabitation and the exigencies of daily life don't necessarily foster or enable such rigidity. To what extent was the living together (of Christians and Jews, or of orthodox believers and the potentially unorthodox) pragmatic, adaptive, ad hoc? That's the question I'm trying to follow, the answer to which doesn't lead to the stake so much as to the neighborhood.Jeffrey Cohenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17346504393740520542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-54705289249715251612009-03-16T23:42:00.000-04:002009-03-16T23:42:00.000-04:00In Karl's stead [because secretly, I have always w...In Karl's stead [because secretly, I have always wanted to be in his stead, but . . . all kidding aside], yes, Jeffrey, Simpson's project in "Burning to Read" *is* primarily a textual one, or rather, it seeks to delineate certain aspects of interpretive communities in the English Reformation with specific linkage to certain warnings regarding the dangers of contemporary Protestant fundamentalism. Unlike Karl, I would not fault the book for what it leaves out vis-a-vis the Middle Ages, because I think it is mainly concerned with the Reformation context, but sure [as Karl points out], Simpson [maybe] could have pointed to certain earlier traditions, such as Pelagianism, as models of more "liberal" interpretive practices within Christian "reading" contexts. But his book is not attempting to address "lived practice" in the sense you describe it here; at the same time, I think it would be a mistake to assume that interpretive practices [orthodox or otherwise] had no effect on *lived* Jewish-Christian, or Christian-any Other relations.Eileen Joyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13756965845120441308noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-91441555430190675002009-03-16T16:37:00.000-04:002009-03-16T16:37:00.000-04:00Thanks for those references Karl: excellent.Is Sim...Thanks for those references Karl: excellent.<BR/><BR/>Is Simpson's project wholly a textual one (focused as it is on modes of reading), or is there also analysis of or attention to lived praxis (esp. among those who would not be creating texts themselves)?Jeffrey Cohenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17346504393740520542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-50981699596662040932009-03-16T16:23:00.000-04:002009-03-16T16:23:00.000-04:00My guess is that this Simpson won't help you with ...My guess is that this Simpson won't help you with that project.<BR/><BR/>There must be something good on Guibert of Nogent on the 'judaizing' Count of Soissons though.<BR/><BR/>I also think of the various legislation about nursemaids. See, for example, Powicke, F. M. And C. R. Cheney, eds. Councils and Synods with Other Documents Relating to the English Church, vol. 2, parts I and II. Oxford, 1964, esp<BR/>1219, Statutes of Bishop William de Blois for the dioceses of Winchester, Council of Oxford, 1222, and 1257. Synodal Statutes of Bishop Giles of Bridport for the diocese of Salisbury, with additions, as all these witness to lived practices in contradiction of the antisemitic and antijudaic lessons of mainstream Xianity in this period. From my notes:<BR/><BR/>27. Licet in conciliis Lateranensi et Oxoniensi prohibitum sit expresse [clearly] ne iudei mancipia habeant christiana, plerique tamen iudei nostre diocesis, ut dicitur, huiusmodi prohibitione contempta, nutrices, obstetrices, et alia mancipia christiana dampnabiliter presumunt in suius obsequiis retinere [Jews in contempt of the Oxford and Lateran decrees keep many servants, such as nursemaids, midwives, and other female servants]. Nec huiusmodi transgressione contenti in graviorem prorumpunt audaciam, ut non solum cum chrstianis solutis sed in nostre fidei scandalum et in sue legis contemptum cum mulieribus commisceant coniugatis [and what’s worse they mix with our women in marriage]. Unde presentis synodi approbatione statuimus ut mulieres, tam solute quam coniugate, super huiusmodi crimem confesse vel convicte nominatim excommunicationis sententia percellantur [should be struck down by: our women will be excommunicated if they keep this up], et donec ad arbitrium nostrum vel officialium nostorum satisfecerint artius evitentur. Iudeis vero super hoc convictis vel confessis, donec competenter hoc / emendaverint, omnis christiana communio per censuarm ecclesiastiam denegetur [any Jew who is convicted of this crime or confesses to it until he compensates for it adequately will be denied fellowship with Xians - presumably they can’t sell to them in the market]. Quod vero circa distinctionem habitus cautum est, propter pericula que ex habitus confusione contingunt, omni diligentia statuimus observandum. (560-61.<BR/><BR/>This article also useful on subject (and no doubt his book too):<BR/>Kanarfogel, E. "Attitudes towards children and childhood in medieval Jewish society," Approaches to Judaism in Medieval Times II, ed. David R. Blumenthal, Brown Judaic Studies 57. Chico, CA: Scholars P, 1985, 1-34.<BR/><BR/>I also think that Richard of Devizes' mock ethnography of England would be essential for your project. He has a Jew say of Winchester "for a little I would go there myself and be a Christian among such Christians" "ego vadam illuc cum talibus Christianis fieri Christianus" (The Chronicle of Richard of Devizes of the Time of King Richard the First. Medieval Texts. Ed. and trans. John T. Appleby. London, 1963, 67)Karl Steelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03353370018006849747noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-50797385751758918962009-03-16T16:05:00.000-04:002009-03-16T16:05:00.000-04:00Just back from a New England trip and trying to ca...Just back from a New England trip and trying to catch up on laundry, email and reading ...<BR/><BR/>Thanks for posting this, Karl. The flash format works very well for a blog and I hope everyone will feel free to use it; just as the Tiny Shriner answers to none, so the Flash Review is public property.<BR/><BR/>My interests in the heterodox <A HREF="http://www.inthemedievalmiddle.com/2008/12/between-christian-and-jew.html" REL="nofollow">center right now </A>around the 12th and 13th centuries, when burning to read wasn't quite the constant that became its destiny. And I suppose in the end that I am less interested in arguments over what constitutes proper doctrine and orthodox interpretation than in lived practice: it's one thing to theorize Christian/Jewish supercession, it's another to cohabitate with Jews and buy their goods and let your kids play with their kids. A synonym for heresy is Judaizing (in various Latin verb forms); I'm trying to see what a lived Judaizing looked like outside of its orthodox condemnation.<BR/><BR/>Will Simpson help me in this project?Jeffrey Cohenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17346504393740520542noreply@blogger.com