Muslim Rule and the High Middle Ages
The Shadow of the Cross, Goldberg and Rayner notes
p.96 - Muslim empire fractures into smaller, independent Muslim states, including Moorish Spain
vibrant intellectual climate encourages work of the masoretes in developing a system for vocalising and punctuating the Bible
Fatamid dynasty in Egypt - tolerant
Encouraged the flowering of old Jewish communities there
Kairouan became centre of Egyptian Jewish learning by 10thC - written exchanges with Babylon, geonim
Fez (now in Morocco) also became site of noted Talmud academy
Isaac Alfasi most famous of these talmudists from Fez, but 1088, left for Spain
Spain became the most important and vibrant area in Jewish intellectual and cultural life
p.97 - Jewish middle class of scholars, physicians, merchants, bankers etc
→ Sephardim (from Obadiah 1:20: And the captivity of this host of the children of Israel shall possess that of the Canaanites, even unto Zarephath; and the captivity of Jerusalem, which is in Sepharad, shall possess the cities of the south.)
Jews important in diplomacy because of global Jewish links
Chasdai ibn Shaprut (c.915-970) most important of the court Jews - originally court physician, then important bureaucratic post (customs officer of Cordova), diplomat and advisor to two of the Ummayad Caliphs)
→ created an influential yeshiva in Cordova, with an important intellectual elite
Samuel ibn Nagrela (c.993-1056) vizier of Granada for 30 yrs, multitalented soldier and intellectual
p.98 - 1068 - arrival of Almoravides, fundamentalist Berbers coming to defend Muslim Spain against Christians in north
when they gained power they purged all Jews from office, imposed heavy dhimmi fines to coerce Jews into conversion
eased off, but more to come
great Sephardi poets, exegetes and scholars before further persecution - Moses ibn Ezra, Judah Halevi, Abraham ibn Ezra, Abraham ibn Daud
1146 - more Berbers to fight more Christians - the Almohades (fundamentalist)
p.98 - persecution of Jews and Christians, schools closed, forced conversions, expulsions
some Jews converted but remained Jewish secretly, others fled to Christian Spain, or to Middle East
1172 - Spain united under Muslim Almohad dynasty
Publicly professing Jews eliminated from Spain
[July 1212 - Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa] - Alliance of 5 Christian princes defeat Almohads [King Alfonso VIII of Castille, Sancho VII of Navarre, Peter II of Aragon, and Alfonso II of Portugal, if I remember correctly - a feat of Christian unity made all the more remarkable by the extremely bad terms on which the princes were]
Whole of Spain under nominal Christian control [Nasrid Kingdom of Granada remained Muslim, but a vassal state to Christian Castile]
For 280 years then, Spanish Jewry clung on, but under Christian rule
p.99 - Europe and the Crusades
p.100 - Ashkenazi broadly = Jews of Europe above Spain
(name from Genesis 10:3: And the sons of Gomer; Ashkenaz, and Riphath, and Togarmah.)
Charlemagne (742-814) favoured Jews - [felt kinship, as considered the Carolingian Franks the new chosen people]
Encouraged Jewish immigration, protections enacted, favoured Jewish merchants for their international links
797 - Isaac the Jew a member of a delegation to Caliph Harun-al-Rashid, Baghdad - brought an elephant as a gift from the Caliph to Charles
[oh fgs, I’m not taking any more notes on ruddy Charlemagne from this, after all those weeks on Carolingian Frankia.]
traders started Jewish communities across Europe, from Frankia to Russia, and then into India and China - economic value to European rulers
these small, autonomous communities, with no exilarch to represent all Jews
each kahal governed through own law court, conducted own relations with rulers and neighbours
p.101 - gradual concentration of Jews in these settlements in Europe, more than in Middle East
These communities became as important, or more important, as Sephardic ones
Ashkenazi intellectual activity centred around the study of halakha and its texts; several academies became preeminent in this - Mainz and Worms in the Rhineland, Troyes and Sens (northern France)
Rabbi Gershom ben Judah (c.965-1028) - known as “the Light of Exile” for pre-eminence in scholarship, founded academy at Mainz
Many takkanot (legal rulings) attributed to him - including the Ashkenazic ban on polygamy (though it hadn’t been practiced in a long time anyway)
Rashi a student at the Mainz academy - Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac (1040-1105)
Went home to Troyes aged 25 and worked as a winemaker while studying in spare time
Produced commentaries on the Torah, Tanakh and Talmud that have become canonical educational texts in themselves
His intellectual and physical descendents developed his methods further to create a new, subtle mode of exegesis focussing on the subtle legal implications of laws or rulings, and dialectic reasoning → called the tosafists (tosafot = additions)
p.102 - Their schools spread right across the Rhineland, eastern France and Lorraine
Crusades inaugurated 200 years of woe for Jews
[but my antisemitism essay more or less covers this, no more notes here]
p.103 - [moneylending stuff also covered by antisemitism essay]
[Doctrine, blood libel, mobs and martyrdom also covered by antisemitism essay]
p.104 - Pogroms and Exile
[much of this also covered in antisemitism essay]
Judah the Pious of Regensburg - most famous of the Ashkenazi pietists in the 12thC and 13thCs
Contemp with St Francis
Called the Chasidei Ashkenaz - ascetic, pietistic, read and wrote esorteric and mystical literature like the Sefer Yetzirah
Based in Rhineland
Led by Kalonymos family
Stressed “selfless love for God”, encouraged martyrdom and living by the highest, strictest, most ascetic standards - as a chasid, pious one
[Franciscan pentitentialism like woah]
further expulsions etc in High Medieval Europe
[see antisemitism essay and notes for this stuff - expulsions, repressive legislation, massacres (inc wake of Black Death) and pogroms]
p.106 - movement into Poland and Spain to escape persecution
German territories - Jews fled from place to place, various princes taking them in for financial reasons
Legal status was servi camerae nostri - property (serfs) of the Roman emperor
The Decline of the Spanish Communities
Period of coexistence of Muslims, Christians and Jews under Christian rule
Some Jews able to gain high positions at court - e.g. Samuel Abulafia (1320-61) treasurer to Pedro the Cruel of Castile)
Jews involved in urban trade and commerce, as well as joining craft guilds - few moneylenders
p.107 - Had charters protecting their rights and outlining responsibilities
Sephardi communities called alijamas, largely self-governing
Intellectual vigour in several fields : religion, mysticism, maths, sciences, astronomy, medicine, philosophy
- Zohar received final form during this period
Jacob ben Asher (c.1270-1340), son of a student from Meir of Rothenburg’s academy, wrote the Arba’ah Turim, a large and important compilation of halakha
Largely peaceful until later 14thC, given land grants etc
Change with defeat of Pedro the Cruel in civil war with half-brother, Henry of Trastanara
Jews backed the losing side and were punished - several communities sacked, Jews forced to wear the badge prescribed at Lateran IV
1391 - anti-Jewish riots and massacres started in Seville, spread to Castile and Aragon, leading to thousands killed
rather than choosing martyrdom, huge numbers converted to Christianity - severe blow to Spanish Jewry
p.108 - this viewed as a success by Church, and conversionary activities increased
Dominicans particularly heavily involved in coercing people into conversion
Called ‘New Christians’, or conversos
[see handwritten notes on article on blood purity and conversion in pre-expulsion Spain]
1413 - Domincans organised a public disputation in Tortosa, Jewish scholars forced to dispute about the Messiah, Pope presided
21 months of this led to a papal bull forbidding the study of the Talmud and ordering all Jews to attend three conversionary sermons per year
[all this also in antisemitism essay]
brief period where the NCs were privileged, promoted in the Church and secular life, to encourage conversion
→ resentment from OCs - by middle of 15thC, clergy and laity turned against them, accused of being secret Jews
name of marranos (‘pigs’), given
1449, Toledo - first of the anti-converso riots
1479 - Castile and Aragon united by marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella
1480 - Spanish Inquisition set up to investigate possible cases of heresy
1481 - First auto-de-fe¬ - results in 6 people of Jewish descent being burnt alive
property of over 30,000 conversos confiscated in first 20 yrs
persecution of open Jews too - blood libel at Avila
p.109 - → led to the 1492 expulsion - given 4 months to leave
supposed to protect conversos, prevent them falling back under the influence of Jews
attempts to reverse the decree - Don Isaac Abravanel (1437-1508), Jewish leader and banker, tried to persuade them against it
but to no end; it remained in force
100,000-150,000 Jews fled that summer - to North Africa, Ottoman Turkey, Portugal [bad move], Sicily [also bad move], Naples [also bad move], some to Avignon
1497 - Emmanuel I of Portugal decreed (at the start of Pesach) that all Jewish children between 4 and 14 were to be baptised that Sunday - most of the Portugese Jews converted.
1506 - Portugese marranos massacred in Lisbon - 2000 people killed