Medieval stereotypes and modern antisemitism

The twelfth century in Europe has been hailed by historians as a time of intellectual and spiritual vitality, setting the stage for the subsequent flowering of European thought. Robert Chazan points out, however, that the "twelfth-century renaissance" had a dark side: the marginalization of minorities emerged as part of a growing pattern of persecution, and among those stigmatized the Jews figured prominently. The migration of Jews to northern Europe in the late tenth century led to the development of a new set of Jewish communities. This new northern Jewry, which came to be called Ashkenazic, grew strikingly during the eleventh and twelfth centuries and spread from northern France and the Rhineland across the English Channel to the west and eastward through the German lands and into Poland. Despite some difficulties, the northern Jews prospered, tolerated by the dominant Christian society in part because of their contribution as traders and moneylenders. Yet at the end of this period, the rapid growth and development of these Jewish communities came to an end and a sharp decline set in. Chazan locates the cause of the decline primarily in the creation of new, negative images and stereotypes of Jews. Tracing the deterioration of Christian perceptions of the Jew, Chazan shows how these novel and damaging twelfth-century stereotypes developed. He identifies their roots in traditional Christian anti-Jewish thinking, the changing behaviors of the Jewish minority, and the deepening sensitivities and anxieties of the Christian majority. Particularly striking was the new and widely held view that Jews regularly inflicted harm on their neighbors out of profound hostility to Christianity and Christians. Such notions inevitably had an impact on the policies of both church and state, and Chazan goes on to chart the powerful, lasting role of the new anti-Jewish image in the historical development of antisemitism. This coupling of the twelfth century's notable bequests to the institutional and intellectual growth of Western civilization with its legacy of virulent anti-Jewish motifs will be of interest to general readers as well as to specialists in medieval and Jewish history.