The Rare Oxford Machzor Vitry: A Rosh Hashana essay
The Machzor Vitry work is, as mentioned above, not just a prayer book but includes much more, including many laws and a commentary. It consists of three portions; the halakhic legal portion, the liturgical formulae, and commentaries to the prayers taken from the aggadah.
Jewish Collaborators in Alfonso’s Scientific Work
What is remarkable about the Jewish translators whose work was sponsored by Alfonso, following an already old tradition of Jewish translation activity, was their concentration almost exclusively on scientific literature and their significant contribution to the development of the Spanish language.
The Bones of Saint Peter
Sometime in AD 48, Peter had a tense meeting in Jerusalem with an enthusiastic missionary called Paul, who had been travelling among the peoples of the Near East, spreading news of Jesus’ teachings. Peter and his Jewish friends in Jerusalem were anxious that male converts to the new sect should be circumcised, as a sign that their commitment was genuine.
The Sufi Influence on Spanish Jews
By reintroducing true stories of positive interactions between Muslims and Jews, we can begin to change the contemporary dialogue away from the schoolyard “you’re either with us or against us” attitude of this young millennia, towards a more Gandhian approach, where a just peace for everyone involved is the only true option…
Of Milk and Blood: Innocent III and the Jews, revisited
Much of the past century of scholarship devoted to the history of Medieval European Jewry has attempted to trace and explain the waning of Christian tolerance and the rise of anti-Jewish prejudice and violence, as measured by a number of macabre indices
The Jews in England, 1272-1290
Edward I’s Jewish policy attempted to curb usury and transform the lives and financial practices of the Jews. Historians have claimed that the policy, which is embodied in the Statutum de Judeismo of 1275, was a failure and resulted in the Expulsion of 1290.
The Secret Society: Descendants of Crypto-Jews in the San Antonio Area
The history of the converso Jews began in medieval Catholic Spain, which was constantly wracked with anti-Semitism that, many times, led to mass conversions or massacres of the Jewish population.
The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise
The existence of a Muslim kingdom in Medieval Spain where different races and religions lived harmoniously in multicultural tolerance is one of today’s most widespread myths.
Dialogues between religions in Andalusia
The distinctive way of life that developed in the Umayyad and Abbasid periods lasted for eight centuries in the Muslim West, in the fertile lands of North Africa and Andalusia, until 1492.
The Black Road – Trade and State-building in Medieval Sub-Saharan Africa
By the early fourteenth century, the Mediterranean was approaching maturity as a commercial structure. Various arteries of exchange brought into its scope the full range of European, African and Asian commodities.
The Riddle of Gollum: Was Tolkien Inspired by Old Norse Gold, the Jewish Golem, and the Christian Gospel?
I would like to speculate on Tolkien’s sources for Gollum. As a start, it is likely that Tolkien’s conscious sources for Gollum were the same as his sources for ents.
Jews and Dogs Prohibited: The Psychology of Medieval Anti-Semitism
Professor Stow speaks about the image of ‘Jewish dogs’ found in the Middle Ages, and on his research related to the treatment of the Jewish minority in medieval Europe.
Qui coierit cum muliere in fluxu menstruo… interficientur ambo (Lev. 20:18) – The Biblical Prohibition of Sexual Relations with a Menstruant in the Eyes of Some Medieval Christian Theologians
What attitudes did medieval Christian theologians have towards the prohibition in Leviticus of sexual relations with a menstruating woman?
Homicidal Pigs and the Antisemitic Imagination
This is not parody. It is not carnival. It is not a bestiary. The case of the black-snouted sow of Senlis is an actual legal document – one of upwards of thirty-five such cases known-in which various beasts were tried, convicted, and punished for criminal acts of brutality.
Labor Markets After the Black Death: Landlord Collusion and the Imposition of Serfdom in Eastern Europe and the Middle East
The differences in the imposition of serfdom led to different economic and political effects for the peasantry in Europe. In Western Europe, wages rose, grain prices fell, and the consumption of meat, dairy products, and beer increased. More and more peasants moved into a widening “middle class” that could afford to buy manufactured goods.
A Tale of “Benevolent” Governments: Private Credit Markets, Public Finance, and the Role of Jewish Lenders in Medieval and Renaissance Italy
In Tuscan private credit markets, Jewish lending helped households to smooth consumption, buy working capital, and provide dowries for daughters.
Vicente Ferrer and the Kings’ Jews: Reassessing the Modern Image of a Medieval Dominican
This investigation of his sermons will provide insight into Ferrer’s goals, his lasting impact on Jewish communities, and will provide a new lens through which to view Ferrer’s place in the history of the Sephardim.
Moses Ibn ‘Ezra’s “Treatise of the Garden” and Maimonides’ “Guide of the Perplexed”
The Spanish poet Moses Ibn ‘Ezra (1055-1138 ca.) is also known for a Judeo-Arabic book dealing with philosophical and philological questions, the Treatise of the Garden.
ARABIC CONFLUENCE FROM CONSTANTINE TO HERACLIUS: The Preparation for a 7th Century Religio-Racial Explosion
This paper’s argument is purposeless without the reader knowing the seventh century events of the so-called explosion of Islam, and the interpretation of which I find so contentious. Thus a brief description of the episode is necessary.
Mary and the Jews in Anglo-Norman Monastic Culture
This thesis looks at the ways in which Benedictine monks contributed to the fashioning of images of Jews in sources related to the Marian cult in the post-Conquest period, 1066-1154.
Jews and Magic in Medici Florence
Between 1615 and 1620, Benedetto Blanis (c.1580-c.1647), a Jewish scholar and businessman in the Florentine ghetto, sent 196 letters to Don Giovanni dei Medici (1567-1621), an influential member of the ruling family.
‘Crossing Borders: Manuscripts from the Bodleian Libraries’ comes to New York this fall
The Jewish Museum in New York will be featuring over 60 medieval Hebrew, Arabic, and Latin manuscripts this fall as it presents a new exhibition based on works found in the Bodleian Library at Oxford University.
Jewish trading in Fes on the eve of the Almohad conquest
The status of Jewish communities under Almohad rule has been the subject of scholarly interest for different reasons notably in the framework of the disruption of convivencia in al-Andalus among the people of the three abrahamic faiths.
Captives or prisoners: society and obligation in medieval Iberia
In medieval Iberia, particularly from the twelfth century onward, warfare took on some religious overtones. As a consequence, the prisoners of war that appear in the sources were for the most part defined by their religious status, as either Muslims or Christians.