This book explores two areas of interest: the Papal Inquisition in Modena and the status of Jews in an early modern Italian duchy. Its purpose is to deepen existing insights into the role of the former and thus lead to a better understanding of how an Inquisitorial court assumed jurisdiction over a practising Jewish community in the seventeenth century. The book highlights one specific aspect of the history of the Jews in Italy: the trials of professing Jews before the Papal Inquisition at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Inquisitorial processi against professing Jews provide the earliest known evidence of a branch of the Papal Inquisition taking judicial actions against Jews on an unprecedented scale and attempting systematically to discipline a Jewish community, pursuing this aim for several centuries. The book focuses on Inquisitorial activity during the first 40 years of the history of the tribunal in Modena, from 1598 to 1638, the year of the Jews' enclosure in the ghetto, the period which historians have argued was the most active in the Inquisition's history. It argues that trials of the two groups are different because the ecclesiastical tribunals viewed conversos as heretics but Jews as infidels. The book emphasizes the fundamental disparity in Inquisitorial procedure regarding Jews, as well as the evidence examined, especially in Modena. This was where the Duke uses the detailed testimony to be found in Inquisitorial trial transcripts to analyse Jewish interaction with Christian society in an early modern community.
Conclusion This book has highlighted one specific aspect of the history of the Jews in Italy: the trials of professing Jews before the Papal Inquisition at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Inquisitorial processi against professing Jews provide the earliest known evidence of a branch of the Papal Inquisition taking judicial actions against Jews on an unprecedented scale and attempting systematically to discipline a Jewish community, pursuing this aim for several centuries. Our purpose has been to deepen existing insights into the role of the Papal
3 The Jewish household: Jewish masters and Christian servants There are more Inquisitorial processi against Jews for hiring Christian servants than for any other breach of ecclesiastical regulations. It was an offence that alarmed Inquisitors, implying intimate contact between a Jewish master and a subordinate Christian behind closed doors, in the private space of a Jewish household, and as such representing an unknown level of promiscuity. When Christian servants entered Jewish households they became exposed to the Jewish family’s daily routine and the real
-Beller_01_TextAll.indd 151 18/02/2011 14:22 152 a study of jewish offences Finally, Inquisitorial processi for verbal offences have important implications for the issues of morality, discipline and communal conflict that were prevalent within the Jewish community. Although it is not surprising perhaps that Jewish communities, like their Christian counterparts, experienced internal discord and friction among its members, what is remarkable is that Jews, far from communal power, were clearly ready to perceive and use the Holy Office as a court they might turn to should
courtroom, a point research on the Holy Office has affirmed time and again. The trials Although proceedings conducted against Jews and Christians were similar, close study of the Inquisitorial processi reveals in detail the procedural adjustments made by the Holy Office in its treatment of Jews. These processi were recorded by the same Modenese notaries who recorded the processi of Christians: the clerics Tomasso Panini da Florano, Domenico de Cesena, Vincenzo de Recanato, Stephano de Friganzio, Marco de Verona, Nicholai de Finali and Virgino de Modena. During