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4 Self-definition and halakhah Apostasy and Jewish identity Self-definition and halakhah T he halakhic definition of Jewishness is one of the prime factors fashioning the Jew’s understanding both of himself and of his environment. The halakhic attitude towards those Jews who voluntarily embraced Christianity, or who were forced to accept that religion, shaped the disposition of those Jews who remained Jews as against those who became Christians. While the halakhic literature contains decisions deriving, by and large, from explicitly halakhic considerations
the chest are clever and intriguing: unlike many scholars, who deal with the front panel in one spatio-temporal moment, she divides it into two, starting with the Wayland scene on the left, moving clockwise (or sunwise) around the box, before returning to the Magi scene on the right- hand side of the front panel. Via this movement, Osborn identifies both a ‘secular story’ and an ‘eschatological history’ running from scene to scene: starting with Wayland, then Romulus and Remus, the exile of the Jews on the back, the riddling ‘Harmberga’ scene and then the approach
3 Theological confrontation with Christianity’s success Apostasy and Jewish identity Theological confrontation with Christianity T he success of the Christians in defeating the Muslims in the Holy Land, conquering it and establishing a Christian colony there, particularly in the Holy City of Jerusalem, was a harsh blow to the Jews from a theological viewpoint. The theological difficulty, which emerged during the course of the twelfth century, became a central issue, one which also affected the status of voluntary converts to Christianity. The Jewish sources
the course of the twelfth century and became far more complex, requiring a different sort of arrangement. During the course of the First Crusade (1096), the Jewish communities that were under the protection both of the emperor and of the bishops, who served as his representatives at the head of cities, were subjected to murderous attacks. The Christians violently forced Jews away from their religion and compelled them to become Christians; those who refused were either murdered or killed themselves as martyrs.1 One of the leaders of the Jews called upon the emperor
details, the story of the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 .8 Titus and Vespasian, Roman leaders and recent converts to Christianity (conversions accomplished through miraculous cures and the Passion twice told), embark upon a crusade against the Jews of Jerusalem to avenge Christ’s death. The Romans lay siege to the city and after a tremendous battle in which many Jews are slain, the Jews retreat within the city walls and the Romans assail the town. The poem relates the diverse details of both Roman and Jewish actions during the two-year siege, including detailed
immanence of Christ’s humanity, in devotional objects such as the crucifix and, especially, in the relic of MUP_McDonald_02_Ch1 29 11/18/03, 16:57 30 Suzanne Conklin Akbari Christ par excellence: that is, the eucharistic host. In this context, it is striking to note the resemblance of the behaviour of the crucifix in the Siege of Melayne to that of the host in the fifteenth-century Croxton Play of the Sacrament: like the crucifix in the earlier poem, the eucharist in the drama moves from being victim to tormentor. When the unscrupulous Jew Jonathas stabs the
nightmare in which cultural prohibitions MUP_McDonald_07_Ch6 124 11/18/03, 17:02 Richard Coeur de Lion 125 are played out against fantasies of race, sex and imperialism. We don’t eat people, they do: medieval mappaemundi, like John Mandeville, conveniently locate the man-eater on the margins of the known world; responsibility for the gruesome tales of anthropophagy that, inevitably, surface nearer home is levelled at those already beyond the pale, Jews and other outcasts.4 Yet for all of its determination to purge itself of blame, and squeamishness aside, Western
the vernacular. The writer treats the narrative of Jerusalem’s fall as an occasion for affective devotion, focused in particular on the theme of vengeance. Critical assessment of the poem has primarily focused on its relationship to the Siege of Jerusalem, with which it shares anti-Semitic sentiment. Discussion of the poem has largely focused on this element in the context of medieval Christian romance and pious discourse, suggesting that it worked affectively to discourage its audience from sympathizing with Jews.21 This research has been critical for understanding
original author nor the English redactor would have much sympathy with the draconian ruling of the late thirteenth-century law treatise Fleta, which recommended live MUP_McDonald_04_Ch3 71 11/18/03, 16:59 72 Sheila Delany burial for those guilty of intercourse with Jews, animals or persons of the same sex.26 In fact, the so-called ‘genre’ question should probably be seen as a covert political question inasmuch as the greater or lesser ecclesiastical content in a given version of our tale creates an alignment on major issues confronting the Church during just this
awakening, the ‘eotenas ond ylfe ond orcneas’ (giants and elves and monsters) (112) that arose or ‘onwocon’ from Cain's crime against Abel. The wonder of the stone angel scene in Andreas , one that prompts the Jews observing it to accuse Jesus of witchcraft, lies partly in its reincarnation of Beowulfian monsters. The angel embodies Grendel as it steps along borderlands, but even before it begins moving it recalls the dragon and its treasure: Ne dorste þa forhylman hælendes