The Jew in the Medieval Book: English Antisemitisms 1350–1500: 60 (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature, Series Number 60)
Cambridge University Press
Edition: Illustrated, 1/18/2007
EAN 9780521863544, ISBN10: 0521863546
Hardcover, 284 pages, 22.9 x 15.9 x 1.9 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
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.
Review of the hardback: '... a tremendous book ... meticulously researched and lucidly composed ...' Studies in the Age of Chaucer