Wesleyan University

Representation of Events in the Middle Ages

Author(s): Robert Chazan
Source: History and Theory, Vol. 27, No. 4, Beiheft 27: Essays in Jewish Historiography (Dec.,
1988), pp. 40-55
Published by: Blackwell Publishing for Wesleyan University
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2504995
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 REPRESENTATION OF EVENTS IN THE MIDDLE AGES

ROBERTCHAZAN

Medieval Jews saw themselves as links in an unending chain of Jewish experience

that began with the divine call to Abraham; stretchedthrough the great moments
of exodus from Egypt, conquest of the Land of Israel, First and Second Com-
monwealth achievement; included the difficult circumstances of dispersion and
subjugation; and would culminate in the splendor of redemption. They viewed
themselves as the direct and incontestable heirs -on every level and in every
sense -of the legacy of Israel's past and the hope of Israel's future. Confronted
by vigorous claims on the part of both Christians and Muslims for usurpation
of their place in the scheme of covenantal history, medieval Jews argued with
deep conviction for the unbroken and unbreakable continuity of their historical
experience as the true people of Israel. This view of Jewish past, present, and
future colored every aspect of medieval Jewish perception and representation
of self and other. There was an inevitable tendency to see and portray present-
day Jewish behavior and experience as part of an overall and ongoing pattern
of behavior and experience that stretched from Abraham down into the farthest
reaches of the imaginable future.1 Immensely popular and influential expressions
of this sense are found throughout the Passover liturgy:
Wewerethe servantsof Pharaohin Egypt,and the Lordour God took us out of there
with a mightyhandand an outstretchedarm. Indeed,had the Holy One,blessedbe he,
not takenour ancestorsout of Egypt,then we and our childrenand our children'schil-
drenwould still be enslavedto Pharaohin Egypt.2
In everygenerationa Jew must see himselfas if he personallyexitedfrom Egypt,as is
said:"Andyou shallexplainto yourson on that day,'It [thePassoverritual]is because
of whatthe Lorddid for me whenI wentfreefromEgypt."'3 Not only did the Holy One,

1. I am delightedthat the organizersof this volume assigned me the more modest title of "Represen-
tation of Events in the Middle Ages," rather than the considerably more difficult "Medieval Jewish
Historiography."The most useful observations on both topics available thus far are to be found
in Yosef Haim Yerushalmi's small but extremely stimulating Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish
Memory (Seattle and London, 1982). I have also found helpful Alan Mintz, Hurban: Responses
to Catastrophe in Hebrew Literature (New York, 1984); David G. Roskies, Against the Apocalypse:
Responses to Catastrophe in Modern Jewish Literature (Cambridge, Mass., 1984); and James E.
Young, Writing and Rewriting the Holocaust (Bloomington, 1988).
2. The Hebrew text with English translation is conveniently available in the Haggadah edited and
translated by Menahem M. Kasher(New York, 1956), 48-53. Except when otherwise noted, all trans-
lations in this essay will be my own.
3. Exodus 13:8.
 REPRESENTATION OF EVENTS IN THE MIDDLE AGES 41
blessed be he, redeem our ancestors, he also redeemed us along with them, as is said:
"And us he freed from there,that he might take us and give us the land that he had promised
on oath to our fathers."4
Indeed Jewishbehavioris only part of this continuum stretchingfrom Abraham
through messianic times; the activities of the oppressors of the Jews find a place
in the same chain. They too are part and parcel of a recurringhistorical drama
which plays itself out repeatedly.To cite once more the popular Passover liturgy:
It [the divine promise to Israel] has remained in place for our ancestors and for us. For
more than one [oppressor- a referenceto Pharaonicoppressionhighlightedin the preceding
paragraph]has risen against us in order to destroy us. Indeed, in every generation they
[the oppressors] rise against us in order to destroy us. But the Holy One, blessed be he,
saves us from their hand.5
Thus both Jewish behavior and the experiences to which Jews are subjected by
outside forces form part of an historical chain which stretches from the dimmest
past to the most remote future.
Medieval Jews felt more than simply a broad sense of historical continuity,
expressed in their perception of themselves as Israel and of their oppressors as
latter-dayPharaohs and Hamans. For medieval Jews, there existed a number of
specific and readily discernible elements that bound Jewish life of all ages. These
included, for example, a sense of one promised land, the Land of Israel. To be
sure, Jewish possession of that land was temporarily suspended. However, it had
been the Promised Land of old and that promise would be realized once more
as part of the overall pattern of redemption. Likewise there was a continuous
legitimate dynasty of Jewish political power, the house of David. Once more,
that continuity was in temporary eclipse, but this suspension would likewise be
abrogated by the onset of redemption. Yet a third element -not so prominent
as the first two, but not insignificant either - was the historic language of the
Jewish people. The language of the Jews was not in eclipse; it continued to serve
as the vehicle for much communication and, in particular, for certain kinds of
literary and religious expression.
Most tangible of all, during the Middle Ages, was the conviction of an
identifiable chain of halachic tradition that bound the teachings of the rabbinic
authorities of the Middle Ages to their predecessors in earlier centuries and ulti-
mately back to the point of origin of Oral Torah, that is, the revelation to Moses
at Mount Sinai. Not coincidentally, the most influential medieval halachic
compendium - Moses ben Maimon's Mishneh-Torah- and the most widely-read
Jewish historical work of the Middle Ages -Abraham ibn Daud's Sefer ha-
Kabbalah- both emphasize heavily this uninterruptedchain of rabbinicteaching.
In the introductory remarks to his code, Maimonides articulates his view that
the Oral Torah was given to Moses at Mount Sinai, was passed on orally to a
succession of authorities, and was codified by Rabbi Judah the Nasi in the Mish-
nah. Maimonides proceeds to describe the compilation of the two Talmuds as

4. The Kasher edition of the Haggadah, 152-155.

5. Ibid., 84-85.
42 ROBERT CHAZAN

the next stage in this historic chain and concludes with a discussion of post-
talmudic teachers and teachings. The net result is a chain of rabbinic authority
that reaches from Sinai down to the point of composition of the Mishneh-Torah
in the year 4937 A.M. (1177C.E.). Writing out a parallel concern to substantiate
the chain of rabbinic teaching, ibn Daud similarly traces the chain of rabbinic
leadership from Moses through the sages of his very own day, the middle de-
cades of the twelfth century.6
Thus the sense of a chain of rabbinic teachers and teachings, of a language
that served Jews of all epochs, of one legitimate political dynasty, and of a cen-
trallocus for the Jewishexperiencefirmlyreinforcedthe looser sense of the historic
continuity of Jewish and anti-Jewish experience. The net result was the deeply
held conviction that the past, present, and future of the Jews were inextricably
intertwined, that the past provided the foundation for present and future, and
that the paradigms of the past are readily observable in present experience.
The implications of this deeply held sense of continuity for perception and
representation of events are, of course, profound. While the management of
human activity requiresthe clustering of experience into identifiable and repeti-
tive patterns, the normal human tendency towardpatterning was much enhanced
by the sense of historical continuum that we have just now identified. Medieval
Jews saw themselves and their neighbors in highly archetypical paradigms, in
terms drawnfrom the vast reservoirof biblical and rabbinicimagery.This propen-
sity toward archetypes is readily apparent in many genres of medieval Jewish
literarycreativity.An obvious example of this tendency can be found in the cen-
tral genre of biblical exegesis. The assumption of an unbroken Jewish experience
pervades medieval Jewish treatment of the biblical text. Biblical events are as-
sumed to serve as precedents for subsequent Jewish experience. There is a con-
viction of repetition, with key patterns recurringthroughout all phases of Jewish
life. Let us note a classic expression of this sense, in the introductory remarks
of Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac (Rashi) to his commentary on Song of Songs:
I say that Solomon saw through divine inspiration that Israel was fated to suffer exile
after exile, destruction after destruction and to bewail during this exile its original glory
and to recall the original love that had been apportioned to it out of all the nations. [It
would] say, "I shall go and return to my original husband, for it was better for me then
than now."They will recall his kindnesses and their transgressionwhich they transgressed
and the bounties that he intended to give them at the end of days. He [Solomon] com-
posed this book under divine inspiration in terms of a woman afflictedwith living widow-
hood, yearning for her husband, longing for her lover, recalling her young love for him,
and acknowledging her sin. Likewise her lover sufferedin her suffering, recalling the kind-
nesses of her youth, the splendor of her beauty, and the propriety of her actions, through
which he had been engaged in a loving relation with her. [He wrote thus] to inform them
[the Jews] that [God] had not punished capriciously and that her rejection was not true

6. See Maimonides' introduction to his Mishneh-Torahin all standard editions of that work. An
English translation of the entire introduction can be conveniently found in A Maimonides Reader,
ed. Isadore Twersky(New York, 1972), 35-41. For Abraham ibn Daud's history, see the critical edi-
tion and translation by Gerson D. Cohen (Philadelphia, 1987).
 REPRESENTATION OF EVENTS IN THE MIDDLE AGES 43
rejection.Forshe is yet his wife and he is yet her husbandand he will ultimatelyreturn
to her.7
Reflectedhere is the sense of continuum that pervades much of medieval Jewish
reading of Scriptures.
The conviction of continuity is perhaps even clearerin rabbinic literature.The
bulk of medievaltalmudic exegesis is, after all, aimed at showing directcontinuity
either within the various strands of tannaitic and amoraic writing or between
those classicaltexts and the latermedievalrealities.When, for example,the twelfth-
and thirteenth-centuryTosafistsask about ostensible differencesbetweentalmudic
statements and the observable behavior patterns of their own times, they clearly
assume that true differences are inconceivable. The question is rhetorical only,
based on the assumption that real discontinuity could not possibly exist. The
entire legal outlook of the period presupposes thorough consistency within the
corpus of talmudic law and between that corpus and contemporary normative
Jewish behavior.
Synagogue liturgy is another area of Jewish creativity in which the strands
of continuity are most readily manifest. The core of Jewish liturgy bequeathed
from antiquity to the medieval Jews was suffused with recollections of the past.
Biblical passages abound; the deity is regularlyaddressedas the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob; recollections of the exodus from Egypt and the Temple service
are omnipresent. Indeed the various services of the Jewish year were seen as sur-
rogates for the temporarily suspended sacrifices of the Jerusalem Temple. Not
surprisingly,the original liturgical compositions of medieval Jews are rich in ar-
chetyping, in which the lines of demarcation between present Jewish experience
and past occurrence are blurred. Let us note only one such composition, penned
by RabbiMeir ben Baruchof Rothenburgin the wake of the burningof the Talmud
in Paris in 1242. While the incident is fairly well documented and the details
that led up to it have been amply identified and discussed,8 the poetic dirge is
devoid of historicaldetail and aims ratherat a sense of timeless loss and mourning:
Seekthe welfareof thosewho mournyou, you who havebeenburnedin fire[a reference
to the Talmud],
Those who long to dwellin the courtyardof your habitation,
Who yearn[for you, while prostrate]in the dust of the earth,
Who are grievedand astoundedover the scorchingof your parchments,
Who walk in darknessunillumined,
Hoping for the light of day that will shine upon them and upon you,
[Seek]the welfareof the man of sighs,
Who crieswith brokenheart, lamentingunceasinglythe pangs of your agony,
Who howls like the jackal and the ostrich

7. R. Solomon ben Isaac's introduction to his commentary on Song of Songs, to be found in

all standard editions of that commentary.
8. See, among others, C. Merhavia, Ha-Talmud be-Re'i ha-Nagrut (Jerusalem, 1970), 227-360;
Robert Chazan, Medieval Jewry in Northern France (Baltimore, 1973), 124-133; JeremyCohen, The
Friarsand the Jews (Ithaca, 1982), 60-76; Robert Chazan, "The Condemnation of the TalmudRecon-
sidered (1239-1248)," Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 54 (1988), 1-20.
44 ROBERT CHAZAN

And rendersbittereulogy over you.

How was it that [you], given by the ConsumingFire,wereconsumedby mortalfire,
Whilethose strangerswerenot burnedby your coals.9
While this is a mere fragment of the lengthy dirge, it is illustrative of the whole
in its tone. What is especially striking here is the utter lack of historical specificity.
All the imagery- and it is potent imagery - achieves its force through the depic-
tion of the medieval reality in powerful terms drawn from the Jewish past, par-
ticularly the imagery associated with prior lamentation. One might almost sug-
gest that the author resolutelyrejectsany tendencytowardthe specific.It is precisely
the timelessness of the depiction that makes it appropriate to the synagogue set-
ting and that ensures preservation and repetition of this lament. Jews living in
widely varying circumstances-Jews who might have no inkling of the partic-
ulars of the event in question - could still be moved by the poignant and ahistor-
ical portrayal of Jewish suffering.
Not infrequently the same tendency, so common and so appropriate to the
synagogue setting, was drawnover into prosaicdepiction of historicaloccurrences.
Thus, for example, we might note the following prose Hebrew account of a perse-
cution suffered by northern European Jewry during the early years of the elev-
enth century. Although a number of sources derive from this set of incidents,
it is most difficultto reconstructthe historicalreality.The lengthiest Jewish source,
which is essentially a biographical sketch of the Jewish hero who intervened suc-
cessfully on behalf of his endangered brethren, tells the tale in the following
paradigmatic terms:
It cameto passin the year4767A.M. [1007C.E.]thatthe wickedkingdomdecreedforced
baptismagainstIsrael,duringthe daysof Robert,kingof France.Thegentilesmurmured
and plottedto destroy,to kill, and to annihilateall the Jewsin the land. The king and
queentook counselwith his officersand baronsthroughouthis kingdom.Theysaid to
him:"Thereis one peoplespreadthroughoutall the provinces,whichdoes not heed us.
Its lawsand doctrinearedifferentfromall otherpeoples.Now let us proceedand oblit-
eratethem, so that the nameof Israelbe no longerrecalled.Fortheyarea snarefor us.
Letus announcethroughoutyourlandthat whoeverdoes not join us and does not heed
our wordwill be killed."The heartsof the king and his officerswereunited,and they
agreed upon this plan."1
Patent here is a presentation of this incident, whatever its precise details might
have been, in terms drawn from the Bible, in particular the Book of Esther. The
reality has been so thoroughly seen in biblical terms that the precise contours
of the specific events cannot be reconstructed.
Similar tendencies toward patterning are manifest in the most important and

9. This dirge can be conveniently found in Sefer Gezerot Ashkenaz ve-Zarfat, ed. A. M. Haber-
mann (Jerusalem, 1945), 183-185. An English translationof the entirepoem is availablein TheAutho-
rized Kinot for the Ninth of Av, ed. and transl. Abraham Rosenfeld (London, 1965), 161-162.
10. Conveniently available in Habermann, Sefer Gezerot, 19. On the incident, see Robert Chazan,
"1007-1012:Initial Crisis for Northern-European Jewry,"Proceedings of the American Academy
for Jewish Research38-39 (1970-1971), 101-117;Kenneth R. Stow, The "1007Anonymous"and Papal
Policy in the High Middle Ages (Cincinnati, 1984); and my review of the Stow book in Speculum
62 (1987), 728-731.
 REPRESENTATION OF EVENTS IN THE MIDDLE AGES 45
most original Hebrew historical compositions of the Middle Ages, the chronicles
penned in the wake of the crusader assaults of 1096.11 While we shall shortly
see that thereare remarkablebreakswith the tendencytowardhistoricalpatterning
in these narratives,there is substantial evidence, nonetheless, of the propensity
for archetypes. This appears first of all in the speeches attributed by the authors
to the Jewish martyrs of 1096. These Jews are portrayed by the chroniclers as
intensely aware of their linkage with the Jewish past. A striking instance of
identification with the past, more specifically with a major hero figure of early
Jewish history, is provided by the soliloquy of Meshullam ben Isaac of Worms.
Therewas a certainyoungman, namedR. Meshullamben Isaac.He calledout loudly
to all those standingthereand to Zipporahhis helpmate:"Listento me both greatand
small.This son God gaveme. My wife Zipporahborehim in her old age and his name
is Isaac.Now I shallofferhim up as did our ancestorAbrahamwithhis son Isaac."Zip-
porahreplied:"Mylord,my lord.Waita bit. Do not stretchforthyourhandagainstthe
lad whom I haveraisedand broughtup and whom I borein my old age. Slaughterme
first,so that I not witnessthe deathof the child."He thenreplied:"Ishallnot delayeven
a moment.He who gave him to us will take him as his portion. He will place him in
the bosomof Abrahamour ancestor."He thenboundIsaachis son andtook in his hand
the knifewithwhichto slaughterhis son and madethe benedictionfor slaughtering.The
lad answeredamen. He then slaughteredthe lad. He took his screamingwife. The two
of them departedtogetherfrom the chamberand the crusaderskilled them."
The identification of Meshullam ben Isaac with his progenitor, the biblical
Abraham, reaches unusual lengths in this harrowing episode. The speech attrib-
uted to him illustrates perfectly the inclination of medieval Jews to see them-
selves as part of a never-ending historical continuum.
The lengthiest and most impressive of the martyrological exhortations from
1096 is the one delivered by Rabbi Moses the cohen of Cologne to those of his
brethrenwho havesought refugein Xantes. In it appearmany of the centralthemes
of the martyrdom of the period and a striking set of images of historical con-
tinuity. Let us note only the opening segment of this remarkable address:
Thenthe pious and faithfulone-the priestwho stood abovehis brethren-said to the
congregationseatedaroundhim at the table:"Letus recitethe graceto the livingGod
and to our Fatherin heaven.Forthe tableis set beforeus in placeof the altar.Now let
us riseup and ascendto the house of the Lordand do speedilythe will of our Creator.
Fortheenemyhascomeuponus today.Wemustslaughteron the Sabbathsons,daughters,
and brothers,so that he bestowupon us this day a blessing.Let no one havemercy-
eitheron himselfnor on his companions.The last one remainingshallslaughterhimself
by the throatwith his knife or piercehis belly with his sword,so that the impureand
the handof evil ones not sully us with theirabominations.Let us offerourselvesup as

11. On the assaults and the Hebrew chronicles, see Robert Chazan, European Jewry and the First
Crusade (Berkeley, 1987).
12. The best edition of the Hebrew chronicles is Hebraische Berichte aber die Judenverfolgungen
wdhrendder Kreuzzuge, ed. and transl. Adolf Neubauer and Moritz Stern (Berlin, 1892). The pas-
sage quoted can be found there on p. 50. See alternatively Habermann, Sefer Gezerot, 96. An En-
glish translation of the entire passage can be found in Shlomo Eidelberg, The Jews and the Crusaders
(Madison, 1977), 103-104, and in Chazan, European Jewry and the First Crusade, 230.
46 ROBERT CHAZAN

a sacrificeto the Lord,like a wholeburntofferingto the Most High offeredon the altar
of the Lord.""3
Strikinghere are two themes of continuity. The Jews faced with impending doom
are first called upon to insert themselves into the historic continuum of past and
present Jewish ritual by reciting the grace after meals, despite the harrowing cir-
cumstances in which they find themselves. Far more noteworthy is the invocation
of Temple ritual. In a potently innovative manner, the Jews in Xantes are ex-
horted to recreatethe cultic rites of old, offering themselves up as sacrifices in
a renewalof the long-suspended Temple service. The notion is a most audacious
one, but it again depends for its force upon the readiness of these medieval Jews
to see themselves as part of the chain of Jewish historical experience, albeit in
daring and novel fashion.
The third-person chroniclersshare in this tendency to place their heroes within
the chain of historic Jewish experience. They too call up heroic human images
from their people's past:
All these things were done by those whom we have singled out by name.... The rest
of the communityand the notablesof the congregation,for whomwe havenot detailed
theiractivitiesandtheirpiety,theydid all the more.The activitieswhichtheyundertook
in orderto proclaimthe unityof the Name of the Kingof kings,the Holy One blessed
be he, [were]like those of RabbiAkiba and his associates,and they stood the test like
Hananiah,Mishael,and Azariah.14
For these chroniclers, the Jewish martyrs of 1096 were securely embedded in the
fabric of Jewish experience, part and parcel of a chain of historic figures who
had responded heroically to the unending pressures of the non-Jewish world.
Thus, in a variety of styles of Jewish creativity the impact of paradigms from
the Jewish past is readily apparent. Jews approached the world around them with
a rich stock of images that helped them make sense of the diversity of human
experience or - to put the matter somewhat more negatively - that limited their
responses to ever-shifting realities. The question that we must next proceed to
pose concerns the extent to which these medieval Jews show a capacity to free
themselves from this limiting imagery and encounter their immediate circum-
stances from a fresh and less constricted perspective.

In order to ascertain the openness of Jewish response to contemporary occur-

rences, the ability of Jews to see and portray events around them in new and
different ways, we shall ask two questions: Was there any sense of disjuncture
that developed among medieval Jews, any sense of circumstances differentfrom
those that obtained during prior epochs of Jewish history? Does Jewish depic-
tion of events show the capacity to move beyond archetypes and to portray cir-
cumstances in their fullness and diversity? To be sure, our answers to these two

13. Neubauer and Stern, Hebrdische Berichte, 21-22; Habermann, Sefer Gezerot, 48; Eidelberg,
The Jews and the Crusaders, 56; Chazan, European Jewry and the First Crusade, 281.
14. Neubauer and Stern, Hebrdische Berichte, 14; Habermann, Sefer Gezerot, 39; Eidelberg, The
Jews and the Crusaders, 43; Chazan, European Jewry and the First Crusade, 267.
 REPRESENTATION OF EVENTS IN THE MIDDLE AGES 47
questions will constitute a broad overview, rather than an exhaustive examina-
tion; they will, however, suffice to chart some fundamental directions in the
medieval Jewish perception of contemporary reality.
The sense of historical continuum is surely the dominant view among medi-
eval Jews. Nonetheless, from time to time, circumstances forced a reconsidera-
tion of the notion of an unbroken continuum of Jewish experience. Curiously
enough, one of the goads to such reconsideration lay in the realm of halachic
realities.On occasion, medieval authorities became awareof apparentdivergence
between the dictates of classical texts -the Mishnah and the Babylonian
Talmud- and the realities of medieval Jewish behavior. Unwilling to posit either
wide-ranging Jewish malfeasance or abrogation of the chain of halachic tradi-
tion, medieval commentators normally tended to search for ahistorical halachic
grounds on which the seeming discrepanciescould be resolved. In some instances,
however,limited historical change was cautiously acknowledged. To cite but one
instance, a mishnah in TractateAvodah Zarah indicates that large domesticated
animals were not to be sold to non-Jews. The matter is discussed at length in
the Talmud and by the twelfth- and thirteenth-century Tosafists. At one point
the latter note the seeming disregard by their fellow Jews of this prohibition. A
number of suggestions are advanced as to the reason for contemporary Jewish
disregard of the prohibition. One of the suggestions involves recognition of a
significant distinction between the circumstances of the mishnaic and talmudic
period and those obtaining during the twelfth and thirteenth century:
Surely the prohibition of selling an unclean animal refers specifically to their [the rabbis
of the Mishnah and the Talmud] days, when many Jews lived among one another. Thus
if a person had an animal for which he had no need, he would sell it to his fellow-Jew
and would not lose its value. But now what would he [a Jew in similar circumstances]
do? Since he would not be able to sell [it, because of the prohibition], he would lose its
value. Therefore the authorities in the Diaspora accorded permission [to sell] in such cir-
cumstances.15
The notion of historical disjuncture is a mild one. The observation involves the
empirical sense that there is a difference in Jewish circumstances between the
medieval centuries and the earlier epoch of the Mishnah and the Talmud, and
the goad to the observation is a problem in Jewish law. As minimal as this aware-
ness of discontinuity is, it is nonetheless worth noting.
Another - and in many ways parallel- instance in which limited recognition
of the realityof historicalchanges is occasioned by a specificchallenge is provided
by the already-noted assault on the Talmud of the middle decades of the thir-
teenth century. At that point, longstanding Christian suspicions that authorita-
tive Jewish literaturecontained blasphemies against the regnant faith were seem-
ingly substantiatedby evidence adduced from the Talmuditself by a convert from
Judaism to Christianity. This apostate, Nicholas Donin, came before the papal
court with a series of allegations against rabbinic literature and succeeded in
securing papal backing for an examination of this literature. Were the allega-

15. Tosafist commentary on Tractate 'Avodah Zarah, 15a, s. v. Emor.

48 ROBERT CHAZAN

tions to be substantiated, proper steps would then be instituted against the Jews
and their books. One of the major accusations was that the Talmud and related
texts legitimated,indeed demanded, antisocialbehavioron the part of Jews against
their Christian neighbors. In support of this charge, Donin advanced a number
of talmudic injunctions that requirednegatives behavior vis-a-vis "gentiles."As
part of his defense of the Jewish texts under indictment, Rabbi Yehiel of Paris
responded by noting a specific historical disjuncture, that is, the shift from the
dissolute living style of earlier epochs to the more civilized behavior of the Jews'
thirteenth-century neighbors:
I shall further prove to you that all [those references to] gentiles cannot be understood
simplistically. Indeed you know that we observe the Torah with all our souls. How many
of us are stoned, burned, drowned, killed, and strangled on its [the Torah's]behalf. Yet
all that is forbidden in [those references to] gentiles we practice with respect to you. It
is taught: "Three days before the festivals of gentiles it is forbidden to do business with
them." Now go out to the Jews' street and see how much [business] they do, even on the
festival day itself. It is further taught: "One must not lodge an animal in a gentile's inn."
Yetevery day we sell in them to gentiles, and establish with them partnerships. We remain
alone with them, and give over our infants in their houses to be nursed. We teach Torah
to gentiles, for there are a number of priests who know how to read a Jewish book. .
. . Rather these [references to gentiles] concern the Egyptians, who were mired in lust
and copulation.... It is written: "Youshall not copy the practices of the land of Egypt
where you dwelt, or of the land of Canaan to which I am taking you." Thus we see that
the Egyptians and the Canaanites were mired in lust and copulation. But not so you,
for there are among [today's] gentiles no unmarried.16
Again a very specificstimulus fostersrecognitionof disjunctureand change. Rabbi
Yehiel,operatingto be sure under externalpressureand constraint, acknowledges
the reality of historical change. While oppression of Israel and the broad be-
haviorof the non-Jewishworld may show recurrentpatterns,thereare also changes
that can be noted as well. For all that is wrong with them from the Jewish per-
spective, the Christians of the thirteenth century are portrayed by the rabbi as
differentfrom the gentiles against whom the mishnaic stipulations are addressed.
The most striking - because broadest - evidence of the awareness of histor-
ical change and discontinuity is provided by Rabbi Moses ben Maimon. While
we have already noted Maimonides' powerful statement of the unbroken con-
tinuity of Jewish law in its widest sense, the same authority reveals a subtle sense
of historicalchange. In his lengthyintroductionto his Mishneh-Torah,Maimonides
notes three specific instances of historical disjuncture, resulting in changes for
the processes of Jewish law. The first significantdisjuncturetook place, according
to Maimonides, at the time of Rabbi Judah the Nasi, at the end of the second
post-Christian century. After tracing the chain of tradition that extended from
Moses down through Rabbi Judah the Nasi, Maimonides notes that the latter
composed the Mishnah. This simple fact requires significant elaboration. Mai-
monides notes that, during the lengthy interval between Moses and Rabbi Judah
the Nasi, the norm was oral transmission of Oral Torah. With Rabbi Judah the

16. Vikuah Rabbenu Yehiel me-Pariz, ed. Reuven Margolis (Lvov, 1928), 21.
 REPRESENTATION OF EVENTS IN THE MIDDLE AGES 49
Nasi came codification of all this material in writing, public teaching from the
Mishnah, and writingdown this materialby all and sundry.Such significantchange
required from Maimonides full explanation, which he proceeds to offer:
Why did our holy Rabbi do this and why did he not leave the matter as it was? Because
he saw that the students weredeclining and the tribulationswereincreasingand the Roman
Empire was spreadingthroughout the world and intensifying its power and the Jews were
being dispersed to distant lands. He composed one composition so that it might be in
the hands of all, so that they might learn it rapidly and that it would not be forgotten.17
Without judging the precise details of historical reconstruction- that is, whether
in fact the late second century did constitute a period of enhanced Roman power
and of declining Jewish fortunes - it is clear that Moses ben Maimon allows for
the possibility of changing circumstances and in fact connects a major alteration
in Jewish law to those changing circumstances.
Maimonides discerns a second point of considerabledisjunctureafter the com-
pletion of the Talmud. According to him, once more the general circumstances
of Jewish life changed, occasioning yet another shift in Jewish law:
The Jews were dispersed radically into all lands and reached the extremities [of the earth]
and the far-off islands. Discord increased in the world and the roads were disrupted by
militias. The study of Torah declined and Jews did not enter their academies to study
by the thousands and the ten thousands, as they had previously done. Rather, only iso-
lated individuals gathered, whom the Lord called from each city and province. They oc-
cupied themselves with Torah and studied all the compositions of the sages and under-
stood from them the thrust of the law. With respect to every court that existed after the
Gemara in every province and decreed or ordained or instituted for the citizens of its
own provinceor of many provinces, its deeds did not spread throughout the Jewish world,
because of the distance separating their settlements and the disruptions of the roads.18
Thus, according to Maimonides, a discernible localization of Jewish law took
place after the completion of the Talmud, as a result once more of changing his-
torical circumstances. The third disjuncture noted by Maimonides took place
in his own times. It involved once more the increasing instability of Jewish life
and a concomitant decline in the study of Torah. In this instance, the change
called forth an effortparallelto that of Rabbi Judah the Nasi, namely Maimonides'
own codification of Jewish Law in a manner that would make the totality of
Jewishlaw readilyavailableto a generation for whom the circumstancesof Jewish
life no longer afforded the optimal conditions for study. As noted previously,
whether the precise delineation of historical change is accurate or not lies be-
yond our purview. What is important for us is Maimonides' awareness of the
reality of historical disjuncture, his willingness to identify points of important
historical change, and his conviction that internal changes in Jewish life and law
flowed from broad shifts on the world and Jewish scene. In his case, the firm
belief in an unbroken chain of Jewish tradition did not preclude the reality of
substantial alteration of historical circumstance and of internal Jewish living.

17. Maimonides'introductionto the Mishneh-Torahin all standardeditions;Twersky,A Maimonides

Reader.
18. Idem.
50 ROBERT CHAZAN

While a sense of continuities surely dominated medieval Jewish conscious-

ness, we have seen that it was possible, under certain circumstances, for medieval
Jews to recognize shifting patterns of historical experience and to acknowledge
points of disjunctureon at least a limited scale. For our effort at discerning Jewish
approachesto contemporaryevents, this readinessto countenance the possibility
of disjuncture is of no small significance. I suggested earlier a second gauge of
the readiness to abandon archetypic thinking, namely the capacity to describe
events in their full measure of diversity. Do medieval Jews in fact show such a
capacity?
Let us begin modestly with private communications that reveal a rootedness
in the diversities of contemporary living. An interesting letter from the Cairo
Genizah shows us a twelfth-century Jew with a lively capacity for description
of his circumstances:
Dear brother,may God protect and never forsake you, may he be your help and sustainer,
your support and trust from this time forth and forever.
I entered Sicily with my family, coming from Tunis because of the privations suffered
there and the horrors witnessed in Ifriqiya and also because of my longings for you. I
intended to travelto Egypt via Sicily, for it is no longer possible to travelto Egypt directly
from Ifriqiya. I planned to arrive in Egypt this very year, but God had willed otherwise.
The obstacle to my travel and coming to you was illness in the family, which lasted four
months. By Israel's religion, my misfortune forced me to spend 50 Murabiti dinars, for
the wife fell ill and also the two little ones, and God willed that one of them died, the
baby-he was one and a half years old-may your life be prolonged.
Then on the voyage to Sicily I was overcome by a disaster, the like of which I have
never witnessed. A great storm seized us on the seas and we were forced to land on an
island called Ghumur. We stayed there for twenty days with no food other than nettles.
When we set out from there, we did not have the look of human beings any more. The
seas tormented us for thirty-fivedays and we were regardedas lost. For we set sail in four
barges, but only ours survived. After arrival in Sicily, we were so exhausted from our
sufferings at sea that we were unable to eat bread or to understand what was said to us
for a full month.
This is the reason which prevented us from coming to Egypt this year. After all we
have endured this year, we are not prone to travel. You must see us with your own eyes;
no description can do justice to our state.19
It may well be that "no description can do justice" to the author's state; his por-
trayal of the events that befell him and his family is, however, remarkably fresh,
straightforward, and affecting.
Interestinglyenough, the requirementsof Jewish law often necessitated a close
and detailed depiction of contemporary events. The accurate description of cir-
cumstances was a crucial prerequisitefor eliciting proper halachic information.
Only when precise details were provided in a question could a proper response
be delivered by a revered legal authority. The end result is careful delineation
of detail. Let us note as characteristic a question that sketches a dramatic and
eventually tragic set of circumstances. The query, addressed to Rabbi Gershom
ben Judah of Mainz, concerned an eleventh-century Jewish trader who bought
from and sold to the predatory nobles in his area. He would often sell on credit

19. Translation taken from S. D. Goitein, Letters of Jewish Traders(Princeton, 1974), 325-326.
 REPRESENTATION OF EVENTS IN THE MIDDLE AGES 51
or exchange goods with them, taking the cattle that they had plundered. He would buy
them cheaply, bring them home and sell them at a high price, and thus profit. He followed
this practice for six or seven years. He was despised by the plundered villagers and by
their overlords, the [other] barons, who said: "This Jew incites our enemies against us,
since he is always preparedto buy up the plunder. Therefore they are accustomed to as-
sault us and proceed securely."Moreover, many of the overlords [with whom the Jew
dealt] quarreled with him on a number of occasions concerning the pledges entrusted
to him and concerning the interest which he charged. They would continually threaten
him.... A number of times they took him in custody and held him for ransom, but
he was saved. A number of times other Jews were taken for ransom and thus lost money
on his account. On another occasion some of his children were taken, but were saved.
. . . He thus continued to come and go, he and others, until a time when the king of
France came with his troops, along with the duke of Burgundy, and placed under siege
a town a half day's journey from that of the Jew. His fellow townsmen were accustomed
to go thereamong the soldiers, to sell to them their needs and to buy from them the plunder.
This Reuben went there, to that area, as was his custom. The army remained there about
three months. Soldiers from the army would plunder all that they could. Those near to
their towns would send their booty home, and, when they left the king, they carried much
booty with them. Many of these plundering barons hated Reuben. Prior to the withdrawal
of the barons, a rumor spread in his city that he had been imprisoned -that his enemies
had found him and led him off. Others came and said that he was held captive in a far-off
place, for his far-off enemies had also been involved in the siege. It was further said that
he had been killed.20
This is a fascinatingly detailed account, in which stereotyping is eschewed. To
be sure, there is no interest in identifying particulars-for example, the names
of the king of France, the duke of Burgundy, the specific Jew, or the site of the
siege; such particulars are irrelevantto the legalities involved. There is, however,
a profound commitment to depicting the salient aspects of the incident, so that
Rabbi Gershom of Mainz could respond properlyto the halachic questions which
the incident posed. The needs of Jewish law dictated an eye for careful delinea-
tion of diversity and detail.
In addition to the needs of halachic decision-making, the practicalities of po-
litical life required, on many occasions, accurate and detailed depiction of im-
portant events. Let us note one interestingexample of this type of realistic narra-
tive. In the wake of the distressing Blois episode of 1171, in which more than
thirty Jews perished at the command of Count Theobald of Blois, a badly shaken
northern-French Jewry organized itself to deal with a number of issues raised
by the unprecedentedbaronial support for the new anti-Jewishslanders that had
been developing during the previous few decades.21Under the centralizingleader-
ship of Rabbi Jacob Tam, wide-ranging activities were undertaken, aimed at al-
leviating the distress of the surviving Jews of Blois, of memorializing those who
had lost their lives, and of preventing the recurrenceof such egregious miscar-
riages of justice. One of the simplest elements in this multifaceted program was
to inform Jews, all across northern Europe, of what had transpired.For this pur-

20. Teshuvot Hakhmei Zarfat ve-Lotir, ed. Joel Muller (Vienna, 1881), 58b, no. 101. For an En-
glish translation of the entire responsum, see Urban Civilization in Pre-Crusade Europe, 2 vols.,
ed. and transl. Irving A. Agus (New York, 1966), I, 99-103.
21. See Robert Chazan, "The Blois Incident of 1171:A Study in Jewish Intercommunal Organiza-
tion," Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 36 (1968), 13-31.
52 ROBERT CHAZAN

pose, careful transmission of accurate and detailed information was required.

It fell to the Jewish community of Orleans, the nearest large Jewish settlement,
to pen a missive of information. Interestingly,the opening paragraphis couched
in the poetic and stereotyped style of the dirge literaturethat we have noted ear-
lier. Midway in the epistle, however, there is a striking shift in style and tone.
When the author or authors turn their attention from Jewish heroism to a depic-
tion of the development of the tragedy, detailed prosaic information takes the
place of stereotypic rhetoric.
The occasion of this evil event was as follows. On the accursed fifth day [of the week],
in the evening, at dusk, R. Isaac ben R. Elazar of Blois went out and watered his horse
in the river. He carried fresh skins in his pouch, which he was bringing from the home
of a burgher.One of the edges of the skin, which is called peau, slipped out and appeared
under his tunic. At the same time a strapping fellow also came to water his horse. When
he arrived, the horse of the fellow saw the whiteness of the skin and bolted backwards.
He [the fellow] could not bring him [the horse] to the water. He neither cried out nor
said anything, until he reached his master. He then said: "Do you know that I met so-and-
so the Jew and he was setting into the water a small corpse. It took place in the dark.
My horse fled in fear and carried me off; it would not drink." His master said to him:
"Remainsilent. This is the day for which I have hoped. Thus-and-so the Jewess intended;
thus-and-so shall I do. As she brought harm to me, so shall I bring harm to her." Indeed
she [the Jewess in question] was as hard as stone with her fellow-townsmen, because of
the support of the count. She behaved haughtily with all who came in contact with her.
The count loved her. She was harsh toward the countess and her guardian. When they
[all the aforecited] saw that she no longer enjoyed the count's favor as heretofore, her
fellow-townsmen plotted to do her in.22
In this instance, the need for detailed information necessitated a realistic depic-
tion of events. The paradigmsof the past, which under other circumstancesmight
have made their appearance, are suppressed in favor of direct and accurate
reportage.
On occasion medieval Jews exhibited a broader and less focused concern with
the specific details that came to their attention. During the 1160sa Spanish Jew
named Benjamin set out from Tudela in Spain on a journey that would eventu-
ally take him thousands of miles across the MediterraneanBasin and back. Upon
his return he was enjoined to write down recollections of his trip. The result is
a major item in medieval western travel literatureand a major source for recon-
struction of twelfth-century Jewish and general history. Benjamin's account is
far from riveting. It does include, however, clear-eyed depiction of a variety of
locales. Precisely the prosaic quality of much of the depiction is reflectiveof the
capacity to see events in rather down-to-earth terms. Let us cite as an example
Benjamin's description of the city of Montpellier and its Jewry, as he saw it in
the mid-twelfth century:
From there [Beziers] it is two days [travel] to Har Ga'ash, which is called Montpellier.
It is a fine place for trade, approximately a parasang from the sea. People come to it from
everywhere for trade, from both the world of Christendom and Islam - from the land

22. Habermann, Sefer Gezerot, 143.

 OF EVENTS IN THE MIDDLEAGES
REPRESENTATION 53
of Algarve and Lombardy and greater Rome, from all the land of Egypt and the land
of Israel and Greece, from Franceand Asia and England. Peoples of all tongues are found
there for trade, [which they carry on through] the Genoese and Pisans. There are found
sage scholars, the important leaders of the generation, at the head of whom [stand] R.
Reubenben Todrosand R. Nathan bar Zechariahand R. Samuel theirrabbiand R. Solomon
and R. Mordechai. There exist among them established schools for the study of Talmud.
There are among them wealthy men and philanthropists, who stand in the breach for
all that come into their orbit.23
Again we sense the capacity to see medieval reality in its own everyday terms.
Unquestionably the most striking instance of Jewish capacity to rise beyond
the archetypic is provided by the Hebrew narratives that were composed in the
wake of the crusader assaults of 1096. Here we would normally anticipate a high
level of stereotyping, characteristic in general of commemorative literature.As
we have already noted, the Jewish martyrs were themselves highly sensitive to
their place in the scheme of Jewish history, recurrentlyseeing themselves in su-
perchargedterms drawn from the Jewish past. Similarly, narratorswho depicted
the attacks upon these Jewish martyrs were aware of precedents and went out
of their way to link their heroes with the great figures of antiquity. Nonetheless,
despite this orientation toward the past, there is an equally powerful commit-
ment to telling the tale in all its diversity and complexity. This is true for por-
trayal of both Christian and Jewish responses.
Let us begin with the depiction of Christian behavior. Right from the begin-
ning of these remarkablechroniclesthere is evidence of an eschewingof paradigms
and a focus on the real events of 1096. The opening sentences in the shorter and
probably earlier of the two original Hebrew First-Crusade chronicles set a
noteworthy tone:
It came to pass in the year one thousand twenty-eight after the destruction of the Temple
that this evil befell Israel. There first arose the princes and nobles and common folk in
France, who took counsel and set plans to ascend and to rise up like eagles and to do
battle and to clear the way for journeying to Jerusalem.24
Notably absent here are stereotypes from the Jewish past. This is a brief, but
accuratedepiction of the early developmentof the FirstCrusade,with the German-
Jewish author well aware of the fact that the original movement was spawned
in France. This clear grasp of the development of the First Crusade manifests
itself throughout both original Hebrew First-Crusade chronicles. Indeed, the
Jewish authors know that the assaults on Rhineland Jewry involved more than
just the animosity of the crusaders; they are sensitive to the potent hostility of
the Jews' urban neighbors as well. Early on, the same Hebrew chronicle that we
have already cited makes explicit reference to the place of the burghers in the
tragedy that struck the Jews of the Rhineland. "The burghers in every city to
which the crusaders came were hostile to us, for their [the burghers']hands were

23. The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, ed. and transl. Marcus Nathan Adler (London, 1907),
Heb. sec., p. 3; Eng. transl., p. 3.
24. Neubauer and Stern, Hebrdische Berichte, 47; Habermann, Sefer Gezerot, 93; Eidelberg, The
Jews and the Crusaders, 99; Chazan, European Jewry and the First Crusade, 225.
54 ROBERT CHAZAN

also with them [thecrusaders]to destroyvine and stock all the way to Jerusalem."25
This is the opposite of broad patterning. Reflected here is a desire to identify
and specify a variety of strands in the animosity that was so costly to German
Jewry in 1096.
In fact awarenessof the diversity and complexity of Christian behavior goes
yet deeper. While the post-1096 Jewish chroniclers were profoundly hostile, in
the wake of the catastrophe, to Christianity and to their Christian neighbors,
they did not neglect the reality of what was from their perspectivepositive Chris-
tian actions. Repeatedly, these Jewish chroniclers note sympathetic Christians
and their efforts to save Jews. Perhaps most striking is the multifaceted portrayal
of Archbishop Ruthardof Mainz. The Jewish narratorsindicate the archbishop's
intention to save his Jews and castigate him for the failure of these efforts. To
this the lengthier extant account adds a postscript. On the day of the massacre
of Mainz Jewry,a small group of Jews, underthe leadershipof the parnas Kalony-
mous, saved itself by going into hiding in the archbishop's palace. Learning of
the survival of these Jews, the archbishop sent armed retainers to bring them
across the Rhine River to the village of Rfidesheim,in which he had taken refuge.
The Jewish author completes this account of the transfer of Kalonymous and
his followers in the following terms:
Theminister[of thearchbishop]placedthem[Kalonymous andhiscompanions]in boats
and ferriedthem acrossthe RhineRiverand broughtthem at night to the placewhere
the archbishopwas,in the villageof Rudesheim.The archbishopwasexceedinglyhappy
overR. Kalonymous,that he was still alive,and intendedto savehim and the men that
werewith him.26
In point of fact, the archbishop failed here again as well, a failure which the
Jewishauthor once more highlights.Nonetheless, both the earlierand later failures
did not cause the Jewish narratorto distort the complex realityof the archbishop's
relation to his Jews. While it would have been easy enough to omit the evidence
of positive intentions, particularly in the middle of the story, and to paint the
archbishop in thoroughly negative hues, the Jewish chronicler remained faithful
to the complexity of the events as he knew them. Such commitment to complexi-
ties is strikingly differentfrom the invocation of archetypes that we noted at the
outset. In these First-Crusadechronicles, where there is strong desireto link anti-
Jewish behavior and Jewish behavior to earlier patterns, there is manifest also
a serious commitment to full delineation of multifaceted realities.
The same commitment to accurate and nuanced depiction of complex realities
is found in the portrayal of Jewish behavior. The obvious goal of the Jewish
authors is to highlight the martyrdom of the Rhineland Jews of 1096. They see
this heroism as rooted in the Jewish past and part of the historical pattern of
Jewish resistanceto persecutionand faithfulnessto God; indeed they see the events

25. Neubauer and Stern, Hebraische Berichte, 48; Habermann, Sefer Gezerot, 94; Eidelberg, The
Jews and the Crusaders,100;Chazan,EuropeanJewryand the First Crusade,226.
26. Neubauer and Stern, Hebraische Berichte, 15; Habermann, Sefer Gezerot, 40-41; Eidelberg,
TheJews and the Crusaders,45; Chazan,EuropeanJewryand the First Crusade,269.
 REPRESENTATION OF EVENTS IN THE MIDDLE AGES 55
of 1096as a transcendentinstanceof Jewishheroism,setting a new standard
of historicJewishdevotionto the divine.Despitethis awarenessof andemphasis
on the chainof heroisminto whichthe Jewishmartyrsof the FirstCrusadewere
subsumed,the depictionof actualJewishactionsis againdetailedanddiversified.
In the firstplace,the authorsidentifya broadspectrumof Jewishbehavior,be-
ginningwith effortsat escapefrom calamity,largelythroughnegotiationwith
the establishedpoliticaland ecclesiasticalauthorities.On those occasionswhen
sucheffortsbrokedownand Jewswereconfrontedwiththe painfulalternatives
of conversionor martyrdom,theydid not unanimouslychoosemartyrdom.The
realityof conversionis acknowledgedrepeatedlyandunabashedlybythe chroni-
clers.Evenwhentheyturntheirattentionto the martyrsthemselves, the chroni-
clersexhibitfull sensitivityto the varietyof forms of Jewishmartyrdom.Not
all Jewswillinglybecamemartyrs.A numberof incidentsreflectthe unwilling-
nessof individualJews- portrayedin all theirirreducibleindividuality- to give
up theirlivesfor the sanctificationof the DivineName.Eventhe willingmartyrs
exhibitvaryingpatternsof behavior,rangingfrompassiveacceptanceof death
at the hand of the crusadersto an activetaking of one's own life to the most
extremeformof Jewishsacrifice,the takingof the lives of others,in particular
of children."Again the point is that nowheredo we encountera tendencyto
reducethe diversityof Jewishbehaviorto one historicparadigm.Oncemorethere
is readiness,evenaviddesire,to highlightthe wide rangeof actionsundertaken
by the RhinelandJewsin 1096.The variabilityof behavioris in no sense felt
to detractfrom the remarkableimpressivenessof Jewishloyaltyand heroism.
On the contrary,thereseemsto be a sense that the moreaccuratelythe tale is
told, the more strikingit becomes.

In sum, then, we must be as nuancedin our depictionof the medievalJewish

perceptionandrepresentation of contemporary eventsas werethoseJewsin their
perceptionsandrepresentations. willsufficein portraying
No over-simplification
the medievalJewishgraspof historicalrealities.Therewas, on the one hand,
a propensitytowardviewingcurrenthappeningsthroughthe prismof the past.
The generalhumaninclinationtowardpatterning,acting in combinationwith
a strongJewishsenseof historiccontinuum,produceda pronouncedtendency
towardarchetypicalrepresentation. Of thattendencytherecan be no realdoubt.
At the sametime,a host of specificneedsand a similarlybroadhumaninclina-
tion towardsparticularityproducedperceptionsand descriptionsthat werere-
markablyfreeof stereotyping- perceptionsand descriptionsthat arerootedin
full awarenessof the inevitablecomplexityof everydayhumanexperience.

New York University

27. Fora full discussionof all theseactions,seeEuropeanJewryandtheFirstCrusade,106-113.