Dialectics of Continuity and Discontinuity
Historians have long considered the later Middle Ages as a period of cultural decline in European Jewish history. As far as Ashkenaz is concerned, i.e., the area of the medieval German kingdom and its adjacent regions, pogroms and persecutions loom large in the memories of late medieval Jews and of modern historians – and rightfully so. At the same time, the first roots of later »rural Jewry« have been identified in htis very period. If we look closer, it appears that German towns and cities contined to play a role, too, even if Jews were often banned from in the major urban centers permanently and lived in nearby suburban spaces. Not least, the Ashkenazim who emigrated to northen Italy since the late-fourteenth century and to Poland during the fifteenth, laid the foundations for thriving early modern communities in these countries.
In short, Jewish history in this period appears to lend itself to analyses in terms of both »disruption« and »resilience«, of discontinuity and continuity. While it remains necessary to analyse the causes of the recurrent breakdowns of Jewish-Christian relations, it is also important to ask the simple question why not everything broke down in late medieval Jewish history, and to look out for the traces of Jewish agency in adverse circumstances. This is why the Jewish experience has been at the focus of a project in the Trier »Resilience« research group.
The present online collection of essays is a result of the resarch group’s workshops and a session at the 18th World Congress of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem in 2022.
Contents
Christoph Cluse, »Disruption and Resilience in Late Medieval Ashkenaz: Dialectics of Continuity and Discontinuity«
Jörg R. Müller, »Jews facing the ›Armleder‹ Pogroms in Franconia, 1336–1337: A New Look at Regional Court Records«
Kajetán Holeček, »When Did the Jews Leave the Town? Credit Trade and the Expulsion of Jews from Eger (Cheb) in 1430/31«
Ruth Bruchertseifer, »Die Antwort von Stadtrat und Judengemeinde zu Frankfurt an Markgraf Albrecht Achilles 1462: Strategien zur Bewältigung einer Steuerforderung zu ungelegener Zeit«
Ivo Köth, »Der Kampf um die jüdischen Bücher: Jonathan Kostheim und der jüdische Widerstand gegen den Konvertiten Johannes Pfefferkorn«
Avi Siluk, »Josel von Rosheims Schrift gegen die Blutbeschuldigung«
Annika Funke, »How to Lobby the Lords: Jewish Agency in the Condominal Power Struggles of the Early-Sixteenth Century Wetterau«
Lucia Raspe, »Jewish ›Lands‹ in Post-Expulsion Ashkenaz: The Evidence of Liturgy«
The open access collection can be downloaded here.
