Book Series Religion and Law in Medieval Christian and Muslim Societies, vol. 7

Jews and Christians in Medieval Europe

The historiographical legacy of Bernhard Blumenkranz

Philippe Buc, Martha Keil, John Victor Tolan (eds)

  • Pages: 383 p.
  • Size:156 x 234 mm
  • Illustrations:59 b/w
  • Language(s):English, French
  • Publication Year:2016

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  • ISBN: 978-2-503-56516-3
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  • ISBN: 978-2-503-56559-0
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Review(s)

 "Bernhard Blumenkranz would be pleased, I think, to accept this collection as a tribute to his achievement.." (William Chester Jordan, in The Medieval Review, 2016.10.27)

« Des index des œuvres, des sujets, des personnes, géographique complètent ce riche ouvrage. » (Jean-Pierre Rothschild, Revue des études juives, 176/1-2, 2017, p. 235)

"Anfang und Schluss des Bandes bilden mit ihrer Konzentration auf das Werk und Vermächtnis des Meisters trotzdem einen Rahmen für eine große Vielfalt thematischer Anregungen, die dem entnommen werden können. Sie machen Lust, Blumenkranz neu zu lesen, und vielleicht regen sie zur Erstellung der noch fehlenden intellektuellen Biografie dieses Menschen an, der sein Engagement für die Sache der christlich-jüdischen Verständigung nach der Schoah so ganz in der kritischen Arbeit an den Quellen sublimieren konnte." (Christoph Cluse, on: Perspectivia.net [http://www.perspectivia.net/publikationen/francia/francia-recensio/2017-2/ma/buc_cluse])

Summary

The name of Bernhard Blumenkranz is well known to all those who study the history of European Jews in the Middle Ages and in particular the history of Jewish-Christian relations.  Blumenkranz was born in Vienna in 1913; he left for Switzerland during the war and obtained a doctorate at the University of Basel on the portrayal of Jews in the works of Augustine.  He subsequently moved to France where his numerous publications revived and renovated the field of Jewish studies.  The international group of scholars who wrote the fifteen essays in this volume, beyond paying homage to Blumenkranz’s work, trace the trajectories of various lines of inquiry that he initiated: Christian theology of Judaism, problems of conversion and proselytism, geography and topography of Medieval Jewish communities, the representation of Jews in Christian art.  These essays provide both an assessment of Blumenkranz’s intellectual legacy and a snapshot of the evolution of the field over the last sixty years.

Erratum: [p.8] We would like to thank the Zukunftsfonds der Republik Österreich for its generous contribution to the organisation of the conference

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Philippe Buc, Martha Keil and John Tolan, foreword

Medieval Christian-Jewish Relations in the Writings of Bernhard Blumenkranz
Robert Chazan

I.          The medieval Church and the Jews

The ambiguous notions of Jewish legal ‘statutes’ and ‘status’in Blumenkranz’s work
Capucine Nemo-Pekelman
Engagement with Judaism and Islam in Gratian's causa 23.
Anna Abulafia
Sacred objects in Jewish hands: Two case studies from late medieval Austria
Birgit Wiedl
Smoke in the Chapel: Jews and Ecclesiastical Institutions in and around Vienna During the Fourteenth Century.
Eveline Brugger

II.          Conversion and proselytism

What happened to the „New Christians“? The „Viennese Geserah“ of 1420/21 and the forced Baptism of the Jews.
Martha Keil 
Nostradamus’ maternal great-grandfather from Marseilles: Neophyte networks and matrimonial strategies (1460-1496).
Danièle Iancu-Agou 
The Epistle of Rabbi Samuel de Fez, what kind of a new strategy against judaism?
Claire Soussen

III.         Art and Material culture

Gazing into Bernhard Blumenkranz’s Mirror of Christian Art: The Fourteenth-Century Tring Tiles and the Jewishness of Jesus in Post-Expulsion England.
Debra Higgs Strickland 
Jewish images on Christian coins: Economy and Symbolism in Medieval Germany.
Eva Haverkamp
Eschatology in the Catalan mappamundi (Mallorca, c. 1375).
Katrin Kogman-Appel

IV.        Places and Encounter

L'Athènes des Juifs. Sources hébraïques sur les Juifs de Paris au Moyen Age.
Gérard Nahon
Isaac Nathan: The last Jewish Intellectual in Provence.
Ram Ben Shalom 
The Peninsula as a Shared Space? Intra-Iberian Migration and Settlement of Jews in the 15th century
Javier Castaño
‘Meet you in court’ : legal practices and Christian-Jewish relations in the Middle Ages
Judith Olszowy-Schlanger
Être historien des juifs médiévaux en France après Bernhard Blumenkranz
Claude Denjean & Juliette Sibon