Jews in Early Christian Law
Byzantium and the Latin West, 6th-11th centuries
Edited by John V Tolan Edited by Nicholas de Lange Edited by Laurence Foschia Edited by Capucine Nemo-Pekelman
The scholars whose work has been brought together in this volume shed light on this key period of the history of Jews and of Jewish-Christian relations, focusing on key sources of the period: Byzantine imperial law, the canons of church councils, papal bulls, royal legislation from the Visigoths or Carolingians, inscriptions, and nar
The sixth to eleventh centuries are a crucial formative period for Jewish communities in Byzantium and Latin Europe: this is also a period for which sources are scarce and about which historians have often had to speculate on the basis of scant evidence. The legal sources studied in this volume provide a relative wealth of textual material concerning Jews, and for certain areas and periods are the principal sources. While this makes them particularly valuable, it also makes their interpretation difficult, given the lack of corroborative sources. The scholars whose work has been brought together in this volume shed light on this key period of the history of Jews and of Jewish-Christian relations, focusing on key sources of the period: Byzantine imperial law, the canons of church councils, papal bulls, royal legislation from the Visigoths or Carolingians, inscriptions, and narrative sources in Hebrew, Greek and Latin. The picture that emerges from these studies is variegated. Some scholars, following Bernhard Blumenkranz, have depicted this period as one of relative tolerance towards Jews and Judaism; others have stressed the intolerance shown at key intervals by ecclesiastical authors, church councils and monarchs. Yet perhaps more than revealing general tendencies towards “tolerance” or “intolerance”, these studies bring to light the ways in which law in medieval societies serves a variety of purposes: from providing a theologically-based rationale for social tolerance, to attempting to regulate and restrict inter-religious contact, to using anti-Jewish rhetoric to assert the authority or legitimacy of one party of the Christian elite over and against another. This volume makes an important contribution not only to the history of medieval Jewish-Christian relations, but also to research on the uses and functions of law in medieval societies.
- Edited by John V Tolan
- Edited by Nicholas de Lange
- Edited by Laurence Foschia
- Edited by Capucine Nemo-Pekelman
Other Titles in this Series
Law and Religious Minorities in Medieval Societies
between theory and praxis: De la teoria legal a la practica en el derecho de las minoria religiosas en la Edad Media
Volume 9
Canon Law and Christian Societies Between Christianity and Islam
An Arabic Canon Collection From al-Andalus and its Transcultural Contexts
Volume 11
Jews and Muslims under the Fourth Lateran Council
Papers Commemorating the Octocentenary of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215)
Volume 10
Expulsion and Diaspora Formation
Religious and Ethnic Identities in Flux from Antiquity to the Seventeenth Century
Volume 5
Jews and Christians in Medieval Europe
The Historiographical Legacy of Bernhard Blumenkranz
Volume 7
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