The Jew in the Medieval Book
English Antisemitisms 1350–1500

Bale examines how anti-semitic images developed and came to endure far beyond the Middle Ages.

Anthony Bale (Author)

9780521863544, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 18 January 2007

284 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm, 0.59 kg

Review of the hardback: '… offers new and insightful analyses of the Jew in the medieval book …' Anglia Newspaper for English Philology

This interdisciplinary study explores images of Jews and Judaism in late medieval English literature and culture. Using four main categories - history, miracle, cult and Passion - Anthony Bale demonstrates how varied and changing ideas of Judaism coexisted within well-known anti-semitic literary and visual models, depending on context, authorship and audience. He examines the ways in which English writers, artists and readers used and abused the Jewish image in the period following the Jews' expulsion from England in 1290. The texts are analysed in their manuscript and print contexts in order to show local responses and changing meanings. This important work opens up fresh texts, sources and approaches for understanding medieval anti-semitism and shows how anti-semitic stereotypes came to be such potent images which would endure far beyond the Middle Ages.

List of illustrations
Acknowledgement
Conventions
List of abbreviations
1. Introduction
2. History: time, nationhood and the Jew of Tewkesbury
3. Miracle: shifting definitions in 'The miracle of the boy singer'
4. Cult: the resurrections of Robert of Bury
5. Passion: the Arma Christi in medieval culture
Appendix 1: Versions of 'The miracle of the boy singer'
Appendix 2: John Lydgate, 'Praier to St Robert'
Appendix 3: Vernacular English Arma Christi image-text rolls and codices
Appendix 4: Verses on the Arma Christi
Notes
Bibliographies
Index.

Subject Areas: Early history: c 500 to c 1450/1500 [HBLC], British & Irish history [HBJD1], Literary studies: general [DSB]