Plague Persecution and Philosophy Avigd

Intricate Interfaith Networks
in the Middle Ages

STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF DAILY LIFE (800–1600)
Editorial Board
Gerhard Jaritz, Central European University
David Austin, University of Wales Lampeter
Claude Gauvard, Université Paris 1
Christian Krötzl, University of Tampere
Svetlana Luchitskaya, Russian Academy of Sciences
Daniel Smail, Harvard University
Previously published volumes in this series are listed at the back of the book.
Volume 5
© BREPOLS PUBLISHERS
THIS DOCUMENT MAY BE PRINTED FOR PRIVATE USE ONLY.
IT MAY NOT BE DISTRIBUTED WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE PUBLISHER.
Intricate Interfaith Networks
in the Middle Ages
Quotidian Jewish-Christian Contacts
Edited by
Ephraim Shoham-Steiner
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
© 2016, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the publisher.
D/2016/0095/44
ISBN: 978-2-503-54429-8
e-ISBN: 978-2-503-54483-0
DOI: 10.1484/M.HDL-EB.5.112708
Printed in the EU on acid-free paper
Contents
List of Figures vii
Colour Plates ix
‘For in every city and town the manner of behaviour of the Jews
resembles that of their non-Jewish neighbours’: The Intricate
Network of Interfaith Connections — A Brief Introduction
EPHRAIM SHOHAM-STEINER 1
Jewish Converts in Jewish–Christian Intellectual

Polemics in the Middle Ages
PIERO CAPELLI 33
Plague, Persecution, and Philosophy:

Avigdor Kara and the Consequences of the Black Death
TAMáS VISI 85
Traders, ‘Court Jews’, Town Jews: The Changing Roles of

Hungary’s Jewish Population in the Light of Royal Policy
between the Eleventh and Fourteenth Centuries
KATALIN SzENDE 119
Jewish Neighbourhoods in Christian Towns

(Catalonia, Late Middle Ages)
FLOCEL SABATé 153
vi Contents
Jewish Erotic Encounters with Christians and Muslims

in Late Medieval Iberia: Testing Ibn Verga’s Hypothesis
CARSTEN L. WILKE 193
Lovely Women and Sweet Men: Gendering the Name

and Naming Practices in German-Jewish Communities
(Thirteenth to Fourteenth Centuries)
LILACH ASSAF 231
Christian and Jewish Sumptuary Laws

GERHARD JARITz 251
Neighbours, Business Partners, Victims: Jewish–Christian Interaction

in Austrian Towns during the Persecutions of the Fourteenth Century
EVELINE BRUGGER 267
Joel ben Simeon: Looking at the Margins of Society

KATRIN KOGMAN-APPEL 287
Jewish Sentences in Christian Words:

Christian Iconographical Motifs in the Hamburg Miscellany
zSOFIA BUDA 315
Index 335
Plague, Persecution, and Philosophy:
Avigdor Kara and the
Consequences of the Black Death
Tamás Visi
Interest in Nature in Ashkenaz before the Black Death

The idea that nature exists, that is to say, that there is an identifiable layer of
reality which is governed by immanent and impersonal laws and is independent
of divine and human will to some degree, is not a self-evident one in rabbinic
Judaism. In the Bible itself there is hardly any word which could be rendered
to modern English as ‘nature’; in the Talmud and classical Midrashim the con-
cept is absent too, although natural phenomena are sometimes discussed. In the
Hellenistic period some Jewish intellectuals, most notably Philo of Alexandria,
had combined their religious tradition with Greek natural sciences and philos-
ophy; however, almost nothing of their legacy reached medieval Jewry.1 During
the Middle Ages the Bible, the Talmud, and the classical Midrashim formed
the basis of Jewish intellectual life; other ancient textual corpora, such as the
works of Philo of Alexandria, were not studied systematically, and in fact were
almost totally unknown among Jews. Thus the idea of nature had to be intro-
duced into medieval Jewish discourses once again.
1
On a fragment of a Judaeo-Arabic version of a work by Philo, see Hirschfeld, ‘The
Arabic Portion of the Cairo Genizah at Cambridge’. On Philo’s possible influence on
Judah Halevi and Moses Maimonides, see Wolfson, Studies in the History of Philosophy and
Religion, ii, 105.
Tamás Visi (tamas.visi@upol.cz), Kurt and Ursula Schubert Centre for Jewish Studies,
Palacky University, Olomouc, Czech Republic
Intricate Interfaith Networks in the Middle Ages: Quotidian Jewish-Christian Contacts,

ed. by Ephraim Shoham-Steiner , HDL 5 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016) pp. 85–117
BREPOLS PUBLISHERS 10.1484/M.HDL-EB.5.112699
86 Tamás Visi
Jews living north of the Alps probably encountered the concept of nature
during the twelfth century. Abraham Ibn Ezra (1091/92–1164), an itinerant
scholar from Andalusia, arrived in northern France in 1153 and wrote impor-
tant exegetical and astronomical-astrological works there. His writings are
conceived in the spirit of Graeco-Arabic scientific and philosophical world
views strongly embedded in the Iberian Judaeo-Arabic culture he arrived from,
and consequently ‘nature’ is a fundamental concept in his writing. Ibn Ezra
employed the biblical Hebrew word toledet (originally ‘offspring’, or ‘genera-
tion’) as a technical term for ‘nature’ and read scientific content into certain
passages of the Bible.2 A few years later a Normandian Jew called Berekhiah
ben Natronai ha-Nakdan composed a Hebrew paraphrase of Adelard of Bath’s
Quaestiones naturales, which often employs Ibn Ezra’s terminology to render
Adelard’s Latin text.3 These were the first Hebrew texts composed in the realm
of Ashkenazi Jewry ( Jews living in Germany, northern France, and adjunct
territories such as England or Bohemia and Austria), which were devoted to
the description and explanation of natural phenomena and, to some degree, of
nature in general.
From the second half of the twelfth century we have the first traces of medi-
cal writings in northern France. A physician called Shlomo ben Abin composed
short medical tractates on anatomy, physiology, and uroscopy employing many
Old French and a few Arabic loanwords.4 A thirteenth-century manuscript
preserved a long medical treatise on fever in Old French written in Hebrew
characters.5 Another thirteenth-century Hebrew medical manuscript from
northern France refers to information learned from ‘uncircumcised’ physicians
from Montpellier.6 In Germany there is evidence for the reception of both ear-
lier Hebrew medical literature and more recent medical lore from Christian
physicians, including a certain ‘Maur of Salerno’ who may easily be identified
as the famous master Maurus or Mauro (d. 1214), a central figure in the history
of the Salerno school.7 It seems that medicine was a field where communication
between Jewish and Gentile intellectuals was relatively frequent.
2
See Sela, Abraham Ibn Ezra and the Rise of Medieval Hebrew Science, pp. 93–143.
3
See Visi, ‘Berechiah ben Natronai ha-Naqdan’s Dodi ve-Nekdi’.
4
On this individual, see Langermann, ‘Was There Science in Ashkenaz?’, p. 84, and Visi,
‘Berechiah ben Natronai ha-Naqdan’s Dodi ve-Nekdi’.
5
See Kiwitt, Der altfranzösische Fiebertraktat Fevres; zaun, ‘Fieberbehandlung im Mittel-
alter’.
6
Langermann, ‘Was There Science in Ashkenaz?’, p. 83.
7
See Shatzmiller, ‘Doctors and Medical Practices’, esp. pp. 156–60.
Plague, Persecution, and Philosophy 87
The so-called German pietists (hasidei Ashkenaz) meditated about natural

phenomena as ‘signs’ of the Creator’s infinite power.8 Sefer Hasidim (The Book
of the Pious), whose main contributor and ‘editor’ was Rabbi Judah he-Hasid of
Regensburg (d. 1217) brings forth evidence that learned Jewish physicians who
consulted medical books were by no means unknown in Ashkenaz.9 Short astro-
logical and magical texts are also attested since the twelfth century.10 Besides
these bits of evidence, there are a few atypical Ashkenazi writers who had more
substantial contributions to Hebrew scientific literature, such as Shlomo Simha
bar Eliezer, whose Sefer ha-maskil, written in 1294, contains a theory of the air
that can be traced back to the Stoics, or Elhanan ben Yakar of London’s com-
mentaries on Sefer Yetzira, containing various scientific materials.11
By the end of the thirteenth century certain Jewish intellectuals north of the
Alps occupied themselves with natural sciences and theoretical speculations
about nature. Nevertheless, the interest in nature on the part of Ashkenazi Jews
before the period of the Black Death was very different from the rationalistic
trends that developed among the Jews of the Mediterranean basin and Iberia.12
Ashkenazi Jews did not cultivate the intellect in the same way Maimonides or
Ibn Ezra did. As opposed to the Ashkenazim (the Jews of the Jewish realm of
greater Franco-Germany), the great Jewish philosophers of the Mediterranean
basin perceived themselves as rational beings, wishing to discover and compre-
hend a universal truth using their intellect rather than relying solely on tradi-
tion. The truth they were seeking was accessible to Jews and Gentiles alike, and
it was the patrimony of the intellectual elite which excluded the majority of
humanity, Jews no less than Gentiles. Thus, universalism and elitism were the
most distinctive marks of their concept of knowledge. Natural sciences were
integrated into spiritual-intellectual programmes which attempted to rejuve-
nate religious life by offering a rationalistic interpretation of the fundamental
doctrines and practices of Judaism.
8
Cf. Dan, R. Yehudah he-Hasid, pp. 145–61, and Ta-Shma, ‘Quntres “zekher asa le-
ni flaotav”’ (= Knesset Mehqarim, i, 181–207). Reimund Leicht, Astrologumena Judaica,
pp. 147–52.
9
Cf. Shatzmiller, ‘Doctors and Medical Practice’; Langermann, ‘Was There No Science
in Ashkenaz?’ pp. 82–87; Shoham-Steiner, ‘“This Should not be Shown to a Gentile”’.
10
See Leicht, Astrologumena Judaica, pp. 109–19 and 139–52.
11
On Shlomo Simha bar Eliezer, see Freudenthal, ‘L’héritage de la physique stoïcienne’,
pp. 463–73 with further references. (Also published in Freudenthal, Science in the Medieval
Hebrew and Arabic Traditions, no. XIV). On Elhanan of London, see Langermann, ‘Was There
No Science in Ashkenaz?’, pp. 87–91.
12
Cf. Langermann, ‘Was There No Science in Ashkenaz?’, pp. 91–92.
88 Tamás Visi
Nothing similar took place in Ashkenaz. Knowledge of nature was consid-

ered important, but natural sciences did not form a systematic curriculum of
studies grounding new religious ideals based on the intellect rather than tradi-
tion. Ashkenazi Judaism managed to extend its cultural repertoire by includ-
ing natural sciences without entering into a relationship of dependence on the
Sephardi or other external cultures.13 The study of natural sciences had neither
universalistic nor elitist implications: whereas Maimonides and Ibn Ezra saw
themselves as belonging to an exclusive circle of the few who are worthy of
knowing the ‘truth’, there is no evidence that the holders of scientific knowl-
edge in Ashkenaz had a comparable self-perception.
By the end of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth centuries the
situation began to change. Non-Ashkenazi Jewish intellectual currents, most
notably post-Maimonidean philosophy and Kabbalah, found their paths into
Ashkenaz and began being received and discussed there. The most important
centre of innovation was situated on the eastern periphery of Ashkenaz, in
Bohemia. Three key individuals representing the new intellectual orientation
— Yom-Tov Lipmann Mühlhausen, Menahhem Shalem, and Avigdor Kara —
were active in Eastern Central Europe, and all of them were in Prague in 1413.
All studied Maimonidean philosophical texts, and two of them, Mühlhausen
and Kara, were also kabbalists and believed that philosophy and Kabbalah
taught the same doctrine.14
Why did the situation change? Several explanations are possible. In the
following I will attempt to elaborate one of them: I will argue that the great
pandemics known as the Black Death in 1348/49 and the persecutions of the
Jews in German towns at the same time triggered, on the one hand, a change
in the self-perception of Ashkenazi Jewry. On the other, an originally unrelated
change occurred in the general public’s attitude to natural sciences, and both
together encouraged some Ashkenazi rabbis to seek a new intellectual orienta-
tion. I will also argue that the surrounding society, through an intricate set of
interfaith connections on many levels, must have played a crucial role in this
transformation, especially through contacts between medical practitioners.15
13
Here I employ Itamar Even-zohar’s terminology; cf. Even-zohar, ‘The Making of Reper-
toire’.
14
The significance of this circle has been pointed out by Kupfer, ‘Li-demutah ha-tarbutit
shel yahadut Ashkenaz ve-hakhameha ba-mea ha-14–15’. Kupfer has been criticized for
overgeneralization of the evidence; for a summary of the debate consult Davis, ‘Philosophy,
Dogma, and Exegesis’, pp. 195–202.
15
A very interesting account of relations between marginalized elements in Jewish and
Christian societies is Guggenheim, ‘Meeting on the Road’.
Avigdor Kara’s Kodesh hilulim on a Persecution in 1351/1352

Avigdor Kara, one of the most prominent rabbis in Prague during the second
half of the fourteenth and the first half of the fifteenth centuries, included a
report about a persecution in Germany in 1352 in his esoteric commentary on
Psalm 150.16 This commentary is entitled Kodesh hilulim and was written in the
form of a long epistle addressed apparently to his colleague in Prague, Menahem
ben Ya’acov Shalem, who is in all likelihood known as Menahem Agler in other
sources.17 The text has not been published yet; it is preserved in a unique manu-
script copied in north-west Germany or neighbouring lands around 1583.18
Some sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Lurianic kabbalists were famil-
iar with it, and the historical account, which shall be discussed here, has been
quoted in two printed Lurianic sources: (1) Naftali zvi Bakharakh’s Emek ha-
melekh (Amsterdam, 1648); and (2) the letters of Shlomo Shloml ben Hayyim
Meisterl, an immigrant to Safed and originally from Dressnitz, Moravia (today
Strážnice, Czech Republic), which he wrote in the first decade of the seven-
teenth century and played an important role in spreading the fame of Isaac
Luria and some legends of his life in Europe.19 Further details about Avigdor
Kara’s work and the only surviving manuscript are provided in an excursus at
the end of this paper.
16
The few bits of information we have of his life are summarized in Maimon, Breuer, and
Guggenheim, Germania Judaica, iii, 1126–27. I have suggested elsewhere that Kara may have
been born as early as 1345–46 on the basis of the first sentence of a passage quoted below; see
Visi, ‘On the Peripheries of Ashkenaz’, pp. 162–63. However, the printed versions of the text
attest a superior reading which fails to suggest the same conclusion (see below, note 21).
17
Shalem and Kara often referred to each other by addressing the other as ahi ‘my brother’.
This is probably an expression of intimate friendship but not blood relation since each had a
different father and family name, though one cannot exclude the possibility that they were half-
brothers or cousins. (Note that Menahem Shalem is never called Menahem Kara in primary
sources; the latter form is an invention of modern scholars, and should be avoided.) Shalem’s
commentary on Proverbs 30 begins with the remark that ‘my brother the sage and rabbi Avigdor
Kara […] inspired me to explain this chapter’. Cf. Oxford, Bodl. Lib., MS Opp. 585, fol. 82 r,
edited in Talmage, ‘Mi-kitvei R. Avigdor Qara ve-R. Menahem Shalem’, p. 45. Kara’s present
work begins with a similar remark stating that his ‘brother’ inspired him to explain Psalm 150.
Moreover, two glosses are added to the text bearing the signature of ‘Menahem’ using the same
formula as that of Menahem Shalem in his glosses to Narboni’s commentary on the Guide for
the Perplexed. Therefore, it can be taken for granted that the ‘brother’ whom Kara addresses
throughout the text is Menahem Shalem.
18
zürich, zentralbib., MS Heid. 102, fols 94r–99v.
19
‘Iggerot mi-Tzefat’, ed. by Assaf, pp. 120–21.
90 Tamás Visi
Avigdor Kara’s mystical commentary contains a highly interesting recollec-

tion of a story that he heard from one of his teachers concerning the persecutions
of the period of the Black Death (1348/49). In the entry Kara writes as follows:
You should know that I heard from the mouth of our saint teacher and rabbi [vari-
ant: from my father and teacher] — may God avenge his blood — that in the year
112 [i.e. 1351/52 ce], two years after the persecutions, in a village near Erfurt,
which was not taken by the enemy [i.e. the persecutors], lived a pious man, who
did not know but the plain sense of the Scripture. And he died in old age, when his
time came. And within thirty days after his burial he appeared in a dream to a great
and pious scholar who lived in Erfurt, and he stood in front of him in his shrouds
having a small book in his arm. And then the pious man asked, ‘Aren’t you the man
whom we buried here in this or that day?’ He said, ‘Yes, I am.’ He said, ‘What is
this book with you?’ He said ‘That’s the book of Psalms. And I came to alert you to
escape from this city and to save your souls, because evil will be upon you, escape to
the communities,20 because all the time while I was alive I recited the whole Book
of Psalms twice a day and on account of this merit [your judgement] was prolonged
and postponed and you were protected until now. But now there is nobody left to
protect you.’ And in the morning the soul of that pious one was troubled and he
sent a messenger [with a letter] written in his own hand to alert them.21
The story itself is legendary. It is true that Jews lived in several smaller settlements
in Erfurt’s surrounding hinterland until the middle of the fourteenth century,22
but none of them is known to have escaped the persecution in 1349/50 and
experienced another wave of violence in 1351/52. Moreover, no Jewish com-
munity existed in Erfurt in 1351/52; the resettlement of Jews in the city after
20
It is unclear to which communities specifically the text refers to, although usually in
earlier texts the use of the word ‘communities’ plainly refers to the SHUM communities in the
Rhineland (Speyer, Worms, and Mainz).
21
zürich, zentralbib., MS Heid. 102, fol. 99v; variants are added from Emek ha-melekh
(Amsterdam: Immanuel Benveniste, 1648), 16a. Parentheses indicate that a phrase is present
in the manuscript but missing in the printed text; square brackets indicate the reverse:
‫ודע ששמעתי מפי (מ״ר) [אבי מורי] הקדוש הי״ד [כי] בשנת ק״יב שנתים אחר הגזירות (באחד) [נשאר כפר‬
‫א׳] סמוך לארפורט שלא שלטו בו האויבים והיה מיושב בו איש [מסכן ו]חסיד לא היה יודע כל כך לבד פשוטי‬
‫המקרא וזקן היה נפטר [בשיבה טובה] כי בא יומו ותוך ל› יום אחר פטירתו בא ונגלה בחלום לחכם אחד מופלג‬
‫וחסיד שהיה דר בארפורט והיה עומד לפניו בתכריכיו וספר קטן בזרעו אז אמר החסיד וכי אינך הוא האיש‬
‫אשר קברנוהו פה ביום פלוני אמר לו כן אני הוא א״ל מה הספר אשר לך א״ל הוא ספר תהלים ובאתי להזהירך‬
‫שיברחו מן העיר וימלטו על נפשם כי כלתה אליהם הרעה ימלטו לקהילות כי כל זמן שהייתי חי השלמתי‬
‫וגמרתי ספר תהילים בכל יום שנים ובזכות זה האריכו וניצולו עד הנה ועתה אין מי שיגין עליהם ׳ ויהי בבוקר‬
.‫ותפעם רוח החסיד ושלח שליח מיוחד בכתיבת ידו לשם והזהירם‬
22
For a map consult Avneri, Germania Judaica, ii.1, 222.
the persecutions of 1349 began only in 1354, when records indicate that no
more than two families moved to the city forming the beginning of the ‘Second
Erfurt Community’.23 Thus a rabbi and a community, which could take care of
burying Jews who died in a nearby village, hardly existed in Erfurt in 1352.
One element of the narrative is unusual in the context of medieval Ashkenazi
culture: according to Kara’s account the Jewish community was protected by
the merits of an unlearned man. Although the idea that people who did not
belong to the circles of the learned elite may have merits and may be preferred
by God to the learned ones is not completely unattested in previous Ashkenazi
literature, what we encounter in this text, namely that a community existed
solely due to the merits of an uneducated yet pious individual’s daily readings
of the book of Psalms, is certainly exceptional.24
The standard view was that the Talmudic studies of the highly educated rab-
bis were counted for merits by God, and thus the community existed mainly on
account of the learning of its rabbis and ‘Talmidei Hakhamim’ (lit. the disciples
of the Wise). A famous passage from the Jerusalem Talmud explains that those
cities where the Torah is not studied are going to be destroyed, because a city is
not protected by walls and armours but by the merits its citizens earn by study-
ing Torah.25 In the Babylonian Talmud we find that the rabbis are exempt from
the obligation to contribute to the costs of fortification since their learning
protects them.26 Thus, the idea that learning Torah provides physical protec-
tion was taken quite literally.
The same belief was taken for granted by medieval Ashkenazi rabbis, even
if the legal consequence, that is, the tax exemption for rabbis, was usually
not enforced.27 According to Haym Soloveitchik’s studies, the confidence of
Ashkenazi rabbis in their own tradition was almost absolute.28 Even in cases
when sacred Halakhic texts, such as the Babylonian Talmud, contradicted the
prevalent religious practice in Ashkenaz, the local tradition was maintained
against the authority of the standard sources, since the Ashkenazi rabbis could
not imagine that their tradition was wrong. The self-esteem and conviction of
Ashkenazi rabbis led to a sort of ‘cultural chauvinism’ (Haym Soloveitchik):
23
See Avineri, Germania Judaica, ii.1, 220.
24
Cf. Marcus, Piety and Society, p. 73.
25
Talmud Yerushalmi, Hagiga 1: 7 76c.
26
Baba Batra 7b–8a; cf. Maimonides, Hilkhot Talmud Tora 6:10.
27
See Dinari, Hakhmei Ashkenaz be-shilhei yemei-ha-benaim, pp. 25–26 and 68.
28
Cf. Soloveitchik, ‘Religious Law and Change’ and Soloveitchik, ‘The Halakhic Isolation’.
92 Tamás Visi
they paid almost no attention to the rabbinic scholarship of other territories,

such as Spain or Provence, and adapting non-rabbinic learning, such as natural
sciences or philosophy, was out of the question. Thus, medieval Ashkenazi rab-
bis had no rivals in controlling intellectual and spiritual life.
Nevertheless, the catastrophe of 1348/49 apparently shook the foundations
and self-confidence of Ashkenazi rabbis to some extent. This is evidenced by
Kara’s argument that reading the Psalms may be a more effective way of earning
divine protection from persecutions than anything else — including rabbinic
learning:
And from that day on when he [variant: my saint father and teacher of blessed
memory] heard this thing, he never ceased to recite the book of Psalms every day
according to its seven parts. And you, my brother, let you not be tired of [doing the
same] for whoever gets accustomed to reciting the book of Psalms repeatedly, will
keep away all kinds of trials and tribulations from himself, and from his house, and
from his family, and from all his generation and will bring and draw upon himself
and upon them all the emanations of blessings and bounty and success, and he will
gain merit and make others gain merit.29
According to the story, the rabbi in Erfurt was unaware of the merits of read-
ing the Psalms. The dream, in which the uneducated man appeared to him and
explained that the whole community existed so far only on account of his read-
ing the Psalms, revealed to him the real mechanisms of mercy and judgement in
the heavens. The story suggests that the social role of the rabbis could be chal-
lenged by pious men who were uneducated according to the standards of the
traditional rabbis, but who may have possessed different virtues and knowledge
of religious practices that were more effective in preventing persecutions than
learning the Torah.
Avigdor Kara was profoundly interested in finding new ways of religious
observances and practices to acquire supernatural protection. He turned to
non-Ashkenazi Jewish sources in order to gain proficiency in Kabbalah and
philosophy, which allowed him to understand how divine powers emanate from
the upper world to the lower world. Kara, for example, describes the priestly
blessing (birkat kohanim) as signifying the ten sefirot and bringing down their
power in the form of an emanation that leaves the upper world and is received
29
zürich, zentralbib., MS Heid. 102, fol. 99v: ‫ומיום ההוא ששמע [א״מ הקדוש ז״ל] הדבר הזה‬
‫לא היה מונע לומר ספר תהילים בכל יום כפי הז› חלקים ואתה אחי אל תרפה ידך ממנו כי מי שהורגל ודש‬
‫בספר תילי› הוא דוחה כל מיני פורענות וכל מיני פגעים רעים מעליו ומעל בני ביתו ומעל בני משפחתו ומעל‬
.‫כל בני דורו ומגלגל וממשיך עליו ועליהן כל שפע הברכות והטובות והצלחות וזוכה ומזכה רבים‬
by the priest pronouncing the blessing. The ten fingers signify the ten sefirot
and serve as the organs for receiving the emanation.30
Kara argued that music and singing may also have similar protective effects.
According to his commentary on Psalm 150, the musical instruments and the
music produced by them embody mathematical relations between numbers,
which signify several relationships between angelic and divine entities. When
music is played, the virtual inner relationships in the upper world are activated
and consequently they will influence the lower world and bring about changes
there. As an example, Kara cites a biblical report about King Josaphat’s cam-
paign against Edom in the book of Kings, in which it is mentioned that musi-
cal instruments were played during the battles. In Kara’s opinion the biblical
text illustrates how musical instruments and singing Psalms are able to expel
demonic forces who ‘accuse’ Israel in front of God during the battle, thus help-
ing the troops of the King in defeating the enemy.31 Not surprisingly, the fall of
Jericho’s walls related in the book of Joshua is interpreted along similar lines by
Kara, highlighting the use of musical instruments (the ram’s horns — Shofarot).
Pursuing new religious ideas was probably related to the waning of Kara’s
confidence in the Ashkenazi rabbinic tradition. The merits of that tradition
apparently failed to protect the Jewish communities of Germany from destruc-
tion in 1348/49. Even though persecution was no new phenomenon and
Ashkenazi literature had several ready-made explanations dating back to the
first mass wave of pogroms in 1096, traditional answers failed to prevent cul-
tural innovations in the fourteenth century. According to a widespread idea,
this world was created by God as a preliminary test, in order to elect those who
are worthy to enter the next world, which is going to be the true creation. Thus,
the apparently unjust suffering of the righteous is quite a reasonable feature of
the world we presently inhabit; the righteous gain merits for the next world by
suffering in this one.32 Another type of explanation points to the requirement
of piety (hasidut): it is not enough to study and keep the law; one is obliged to
cope with the hidden will of the Creator, who wants us to be ‘pious’. This idea is
one of the leitmotifs of Judah he-Hasid’s Sefer Hasidim.33
30
Kara devoted to this topic an entire treatise, which is no longer extant, but is mentioned
in his commentary on Psalm 150: zürich, zentralbib., MS Heid. 102, fol. 96v: ‫וטעם נשיאות כפים‬
‫בשתי ידים ירמוז להמשיך השפע מעשר ספירות יחד כנגד עשר אצבעות כאשר ביארתי בספר אשר חברתי‬
.‫למהר״ר כהן על כוונת ברכת כהנים ומצותה וקראתיו יד אהרון שם הארכתי‬
31
zürich, zentralbib., MS Heid. 102, fol. 97r.
32
Cf. Marcus, Piety and Society, pp. 30–35.
33
Cf. Soloveitchik, ‘Three Themes in Sefer Hasidim’, pp. 311–15; Marcus, Piety and
Society, pp. 25–29.
94 Tamás Visi
The available traditional answers may have explained why Jews were perse-
cuted, but they did not prove that the quest for new ways of acquiring religious
merits and supernatural protection was out of place. As we shall see, Avigdor
Kara was not the only Ashkenazi rabbi engaged in this intellectual enterprise.34
New Intellectual Directions

It is difficult to estimate how many of the post-1348 Ashkenazi rabbis expe-
rienced similar doubts. As has been mentioned, Kara’s two colleagues at the
rabbinic court of justice (beit din) in Prague, Yom-Tov Lipmann Mühlhausen
and Menahem Shalem, studied Maimonidean philosophical texts. Mühlhausen
emphasized the importance of doctrine in Judaism: in the introduction to his
famous polemical work Sefer Nitzahon, one of the most copied texts in late
medieval Ashkenaz, he claimed that it was a religious obligation to be punctual
in the articles of faith. The third member of the beit din, Menahem Shalem, was
a full-fledged Maimonidean philosopher. He had a wide knowledge of contem-
porary philosophical literature and wrote, among other things, a supercom-
mentary to Moses Narboni’s commentary to the Guide for the Perplexed.35 All
these rabbis were pursuing new intellectual goals and exploited new textual
sources which were composed outside of Ashkenaz. This implies that they must
have been dissatisfied with the traditional texts or in the very least felt unful-
filled by contemporaneous Ashkenazi cultural resources.
The new intellectual orientation of these Ashkenazi rabbis was probably
strengthened by influences coming from the external environment, both Jewish
and non-Jewish. First we have to consider the appearance of Jewish refugees
from Spain and Provence in the region of Prague. A relatively well-known exam-
ple is the philosopher Solomon ben Judah haNasi, a Jew of Provençal origin
who wrote a commentary on the Guide commissioned by an Ashkenazi patron.
He is referred to by Mühlhausen and Kara, and on the basis of this evidence
Ephraim Kupfer concluded that he must have been active in Prague at the end
of the fourteenth century.36 Another somewhat surprising piece of evidence is
34
An interesting suggestion by Israel J. Yuval is that after the rabbinic title moreinu (‘our
teacher’, doctor) had been established in the late fourteenth century, those rabbis who were not
granted this title may have been discouraged from pursuing their rabbinic education further
and encouraged to turn to other subject matters; see Yuval, Hakhamim be-doram, pp. 310–11.
35
Cf. Visi, ‘The Emergence of Philosophy’, p. 233.
36
See Kupfer, ‘Li-demutah ha-tarbutit shel yahadut Ashkenaz ve-hakhameha ba-mea ha-14–15’,
p. 117, and Kupfer, ‘Sefer ha-brit u-ktavim aherim le-R. Yom Tov Lipman Mülhausen’, pp. 330–31.
a marginal gloss in a fifteenth-century Ashkenazi manuscript, containing the

Guide for the Perplexed with Moses Narboni’s commentary and Menahem
Shalem’s supercommentary. The gloss reports a teaching that was heard from
Hisday Crescas of Barcelona.37 Thus, it is likely that Jews from Catalonia were
present in the region as well and could encourage the new intellectual orienta-
tion of the rabbis of Prague. We should remember that 1391 was a dire year for
Iberian Jewry, and its events prompted both conversion as well as emigration
from the peninsula.
Another possible channel of external influence included itinerant students
and scholars who left Ashkenaz, studied abroad, and then returned. After the
persecutions accompanying the Black Death, some rabbis left Germany and
settled in Jerusalem, Crete, Venice, and other places. Elhanan Reiner argues
that the network of these rabbis played an important role in transmitting cul-
tural influences to Ashkenazi Jews. A relatively well-documented case is that of
Menahem ben Meir Tziyyon, who travelled to Jerusalem during the third quar-
ter of the fourteenth century and studied Kabbalah from ‘pious men’ (hasidim)
on ‘Mount zion’. By 1372 he had returned to Köln and composed a kabbalis-
tic commentary on the Torah, perhaps the first kabbalistic text written by an
Ashkenazi Jew.38 It has been suggested that one of the central figures of the
Prague circle, Menahem Shalem, obtained his last name on account of a visit
to Jerusalem (Shalom, like Zion, is one of the biblical names for Jerusalem).39 If
this is the case, then it is highly probable that Shalem obtained his philosophi-
cal education outside of Ashkenaz.
The non-Jewish influences on the Prague circle, as well as on other Ashkenazi
intellectuals, are much more difficult to gauge. In a previous study I argued that
the installation of the astronomical clock of Prague in 1410 marked a transfer
of scientific knowledge and world view from the universities to public urban
space. An astronomical clock was displayed in a public space because the urban
decision-makers deemed it important that the citizens be able to contemplate
the harmony of the celestial movements as well as to use the clock for astrologi-
cal predictions. The installation of the astronomical clock also implied a public
recognition of the validity of natural sciences as taught at the late medieval uni-
versities. Although there is no evidence of any relationship between the Uni-
37
St Petersburg, Russian Academy, MS C. 47, fol. 49v.
38
See Reiner, ‘Bein Ashkenaz le-Yerushalayim’, p. 54.
39
See Reiner, ‘Bein Ashkenaz li-Yerushalayim’, p. 49; Davis, ‘Philosophy, Dogma, and
Exegesis’, p. 201, esp. n. 23.
96 Tamás Visi
versity of Prague and local Jews during this period, Jews living in Prague could
hardly avoid encountering the astronomical clock and the scientific world view
behind it.40
Another possible channel of influence might have been what Daniel
Hobbins calls ‘the late medieval tract’. Analysing the publicity of late medieval
writers, especially the works of the powerful French theologian Jean Gerson
(1363–1429), Hobbins shows that from the second half of the fourteenth cen-
tury onwards university masters often addressed a larger, non-academic audi-
ence with their short tracts, written swiftly on topics which were of general
interest, and not infrequently connected to recent events.41
When Jean Gerson spoke about the possibility of addressing the wider pub-
lic, he referred to the fact that physicians had already succeeded in accomplish-
ing this task. Gerson alluded to the genre of short medical treatises regarding
the plague, informing the public about the causes of pestilence, its possible
treatments, and the prevention of its spreading. Gerson argued that theologi-
ans should imitate the physicians in this respect. As an example he referred to
the Compendium de epidemia of the Paris medical faculty regarding pestilence,
its causes and remedies.42 This tractate was initially released in October 1348,
and revised versions of it were published and circulated during the second half
of the fourteenth century. Although the text was in Latin and contained tech-
nical scientific discussions, it was intended for the wider public, which natu-
rally took interest in the topic, especially in the wake of the first lethal wave
of the pandemic plague.43 Jean Gerson attempted to write similar tractates on
non-medical topics, for example, his tract on Joan of Arc, which he wrote on
14 May 1429, the day he heard about Joan’s great victory at Orléans. Although
this work comments on recent political and military events and is addressed to
the general public, it begins with a brief treatment of an Aristotelian sentence
on probability.44
To what extent can we assume Jews were cognizant of these short Latin
texts? There were only a few Jews, if any, who read these texts in Latin —
though the genre of epidemiologic tractates was exceptional in this respect to
40
See Visi, ‘The Emergence of Philosophy’, pp. 214–21.
41
Hobbins, Authorship and Publicity before Print, esp. pp. 128–51.
42
On this and other similar short tractates on the plague written in 1348–51, see Arriza-
balaga, ‘Facing the Black Death’, pp. 239–40.
43
Hobbins, Authorship and Publicity before Print, p. 128.
44
Hobbins, Authorship and Publicity before Print, pp. 136 and 145.
some degree (see below).45 More important is the fact that these texts reached
a wide audience within the non-Jewish world. Hobbins argues that unlike the
great scholastic texts of the High Middle Ages, which functioned chiefly as
repositories of knowledge and only seldom addressed some urgent problem
and a wider readership, the ‘late medieval tractate’ was literature in the modern
sense: composed by authors who were increasingly aware of their role as authors
and addressed to a wide public of readers about the most pressing issues that
were highly debated. For example, Gerson’s above-mentioned text about Joan
of Arc’s victory at Orléans can be described as a medieval functional equivalent
of what would be an ‘editorial’ in a newspaper today. Moreover, in addition to
Latin, Gerson and many other writers of the age used vernacular as well; this
made them more accessible to a wider audience, including Jews.
Assuming that Jews were interested in what was happening in the world
around them, and that they took at least some notice of the ‘hot topics’ dis-
cussed in the non-Jewish society — two assumptions which are fairly probable
— it is likely that Jews managed to have at least indirect access to the content
of influential texts even if they could not read them from the original. Reading
was, in fact, not the only vehicle of reaching the information found in these
texts; the content of the tractates circulated among illiterate people as well
as the literati. The illiterate could access oral summaries of the literary texts.
Yet information that seemed essential to everyday life and that one needed to
acquire, but had no relevance for the perpetual topics of Jewish religious litera-
ture, was unlikely to be mentioned in those Hebrew books that survive from
the period.46 Thus, to our misfortune, medieval Jewish interest in the actual
topics of those days and the Jews’ possible access to non-Jewish sources is not
documented in the sources remaining today.
45
On Jewish attitudes to Latin as a language, and on the wider historical context of Latin-
to-Hebrew translations, see Freudenthal, ‘Arabic and Latin Cultures’, esp. pp. 89–95.
46
For example, a Halakhic response of Israel Isserlein contains an apparently truncated
note on the blockade of Wiener Neustadt and the negotiations between Emperor Frederick III
and the Austrian, Hungarian, Czech, and Moravian estates during the summer of 1452.
Isserlein’s original letter probably contained more details which were uninteresting for later
copyists. Cf. Visi, ‘Halakha and Microhistory’, p. 32. On similar examples from earlier times,
see Ta-Shma, ‘Le-toldot ha-yehudim be-Polin be-meot ha-12-ha 13’, pp. 353–54 (also published
in Knesset Mehqarim, i, 224–53), and Ta-Shma, ‘Review of Avraham Grossman’s Hakhmei
Ashkenaz ha-rishonim’, pp. 350–51.
98 Tamás Visi
Plague Tracts by Jews and Non-Jews

Notwithstanding this last remark, in one particular case there seems to be suf-
ficient evidence for us to inquire about Jewish reception of Christian texts,
composed in both Latin and the vernacular languages. The genre in question is
that of tractates on the Plague. The aforementioned Compendium de epidemia
issued by the University of Paris in October 1348 belongs to this genre. Later
texts in Latin and vernaculars often drew rather freely on the Compendium.
It must be noted that the research of Jewish tractates on pestilence is still
in its infancy; when Ron Barkai concludes the announced monograph on the
topic, we shall know more about the extent and the depth of the Christian influ-
ence on the Jewish pestilence-literature. Nevertheless, some preliminary results
can be quoted from Barkai’s recent overview of the material.47 Important data
can be found in Gerrit Bos and Guido Mensching’s critical edition and transla-
tion of Abraham ben Solomon Hen’s tract on pestilence as well.48
The Jewish medical literature concerning pestilence brings forth evidence of
a vivid intellectual interaction between Jewish, Christian, and Muslim schol-
ars. Many short treatises in Hebrew, Judaeo-Arabic, and the Judaeo-Iberian
dialects (both Catalan and Castilian) survived, and they often drew on Latin
and Arabic sources. Jewish doctors cited contemporary Christian doctors by
name and responded to their views. John of Burgundy’s treatise, composed in
1365, circulated in two different Hebrew translations. The aforementioned
Compendium de epidemia of 1348 is quoted in Isaac ben Todros’s treatise Beer
la-hai,49 and he mentions several other theories proposed by Christian doc-
tors, giving them critical responses.
This phenomenon is of special significance if we consider the fact that
the participation of Jewish philosophers in the great debates that dominated
philosophical life in Christian Europe was negligible. The most creative and
encyclopaedic Jewish philosopher of the post-Maimonidean period, Levi ben
Gershon, better known as Gersonides (or by his Hebrew acronym Ralbag ),
had never quoted a Christian philosopher by name. Despite this fact we know
Gersonides was in touch with scholars at the papal court in Avignon and had
the opportunity to acquire information about the theological and philosophi-
47
Barkai, ‘Jewish Treatises on the Black Death’.
48
Bos and Mensching, ‘The Black Death in Hebrew Literature’, consult esp. n. 9 on
pp. 33–34 correcting some mistakes in Barkai’s article.
49
Barkai, ‘Jewish Treatises on the Black Death’, pp. 12–13.
cal debates taking place among Christian thinkers in the region, including John
Peter Olivi, Peter Auriol, Durandus of Saint Pourcain, and William Ockham.
However, there seems to be no systematic and critical response to these think-
ers in Gersonides’ works, and the same is true of all other medieval Jewish phi-
losophers in Provence.50
As opposed to the philosophers’ attitude, Jewish physicians, especially in
Provence, had always had a more serious engagement with Latin medical tradi-
tions.51 The Black Death apparently accelerated the reception of the relevant
medical literature and intensified the critical responses to it. For example, Isaac
ben Todros’s Beer la-hai (A Well of Life) contains references to no less than
three Latin tracts on the plague, one of them written just a year before Isaac’s
own work.52
The ‘great problems’ of medieval Jewish philosophy, such as creation versus
eternity of the world, divine attributes, and providence and free will, had lit-
tle relevance for everyday life. On the other hand, the plague was a pressing
problem from the first massive outbreak in 1348 on. The Jewish audience, in
all likelihood, did not hesitate to acquire medical information from Christian
sources whenever they could do so, and therefore Jewish physicians had to
compete with their Christian colleagues for the attention of the Jewish pub-
lic.53 Consequently, Jewish physicians could not afford the luxury of ignoring
the contribution of their Christian colleagues, for the danger was very real.
The speed of the discourse is also remarkable: Isaac ben Todros criticized
theories that were proposed just a year before he wrote his treatise. He had to
be aware of the latest publications on the topic of the Black Death and respond
to them as quickly as possible. All these features indicate the presence of a very
50
Cf. Freudenthal, ‘Gersonide, génie solitaire’. It is possible that Gersonides was influ-
enced by his Christian environment in many respects, for example, the way he organized his
writings, or in some of the arguments he presents. Cf. Schabel, ‘Philosophy and Theology across
Cultures’. Nevertheless, the total absence of explicit references to Christian philosophers is a
very remarkable fact indicating that Gersonides saw no reason to engage with their thought
seriously. Similarly, Moses Narboni (d. 1362) quotes a version of the principle known today
as ‘Ockham’s razor’ but he did not attribute the principle to Ockham nor did he mention any
other Christian thinker in any context. See Narboni, Perush le-Sefer Moreh Nevukhim, ed. by
Goldenthal, 36b; cf. Steinschneider, Die hebraeischen Übersetzungen, p. 312, n. 333.
51
Cf. Shatzmiller, Jews, Medicine, and Medieval Society, pp. 36–48.
52
Barkai, ‘Jewish Treatises on the Black Death’, pp. 12–13.
53
This had been the case before the Black Death as well as has been suggested by Freuden-
thal, ‘Arabic and Latin Cultures’, pp. 100–103. On Jewish patients and Christian doctors
consult also Shatzmiller, Jews, Medicine, and Medieval Society, pp. 121–24.
100 Tamás Visi
attentive public, which was eager to hear the leading scientists’ opinion regard-
ing the causes and possible remedies of the Black Death. 54 Given the terrible
experiences of 1348/49 and the subsequent, smaller-scale epidemics in the fol-
lowing two centuries, this is hardly surprising. Indeed one result of this situa-
tion was that the general public’s knowledge of scientific principles increased
over the course of time.55 It was the plague that taught sciences to the masses.56
Many proposed explanations to the possible causes of the pestilence invoked
astral influences.57 The theory that the movement of the celestial bodies caused
many of the phenomena of the sublunar world was a key element of the late
medieval scientific world view, since this theory could explain how the upper
world and the lower world served as the building blocks in a unified and well-
arranged cosmos. The Compendium de epidemia traced back the causes of the
great epidemic in 1348/49 to the ‘great conjunction’ of Jupiter, Mars, and
Saturn in the house of Aquarius on 20 March 1345, ‘at one hour after noon’,
and similar constellations were feared and blamed for other outbreaks of the
epidemics subsequently.58 The theory of astral influences was endorsed by
Heinrich Mügeln of Prague, among others, who worked at the imperial court
of Charles IV and wrote a didactic poem about the topic.59
It has to be emphasized that the Black Death of 1348/49 was followed by a
series of subsequent epidemics, such as the pestis secunda in 1361/62 and many
other local outbreaks until the end of the fifteenth century.60 As Gottfried
54
Cf. Byrne, The Black Death, p. 51.
55
One of the earliest texts, Jacme d’Agramont’s Catalan tractate Regiment de preservació
de pestilència, completed on 24 April 1348 in Lerida, a city belonging to the Crown of Aragon,
may serve as an example. This short treatise was addressed to the town councilors of the city
and to the public in general. Since the intended audience was non-professional, as the author
explains, the first two chapters are in fact a rudimentary introduction to natural philosophy,
which is necessary to understand the subsequent practical instructions about the prevention of
plague. See Arrizabalaga, ‘Facing the Black Death’, p. 240.
56
On the spread of medical knowledge, see Gottfried, The Black Death, pp. 119–20.
57
See Arrizabalaga, ‘Facing the Black Death’, pp. 252–54; Byrne, The Black Death,
pp. 42–52.
58
For an English translation of the relevant passage of the Compendium, consult The
Black Death, ed. and trans. by Horrox, p. 159.
59
Cf. Byrne, The Black Death, p. 153. For further tracts on the plague composed in the
Czech lands consult Sudhoff, ‘Pestschriften … VI’; Wondrák, Historie moru v českých zemích;
Nodl, ‘Lékař a mor aneb Intelektuál rezignující i bojující’.
60
Gottfried, The Black Death, pp. 130–35.
writes, ‘as in England, the Continental pattern suggests that plague came at
least two or three times a generation and was sufficiently virulent to keep popu-
lation levels low’.61 Plague was a permanent problem of everyday life in Europe
right up to the end of the Middle Ages and beyond. Consequently, the general
interest in the medical treatises about the plague remained constant through-
out the period.
A Plague Tract in Hebrew Composed in Prague

A highly interesting piece of evidence is a tract on the plague composed by an
Ashkenazi physician in late medieval Prague. The only manuscript preserving
the text belonged to the famous collection of David Oppenheim (1664–1736),
Chief Rabbi of Moravia and Rabbi of Prague, and preserved in the Bodleian
Library today. It was copied in 1632, and the first scholar who examined it, Felix
Klein-Franke, dated it to the post-medieval period (see below). Consequently,
this text has been ignored by researchers of the Middle Ages, but as will be
argued subsequently, Klein-Franke’s dating must be revised on the basis of
internal evidence.
The text itself is entitled Shevet ahim and is attributed to a certain David ben
David, ‘a physician from Landshut’ (rofe mi-Lands Hut), and his friend, whose
name is not revealed in the text (peloni almoni: ‘Mr XY’).62 The fact that one
of the authors was from Landshut, a city in Bavaria some 65 km north-west
from Munich, is an important clue for dating the text. Jews settled in Landshut
during the thirteenth century, but they were expelled in 1450 and were not
permitted to resettle there until the nineteenth century.63 Therefore, a person
could hardly be described as a Jewish physician ‘from Landshut’ later than the
fifteenth century. On the basis of this consideration Shevet ahim can be dated
roughly between 1350 and 1500.
A further piece of evidence is an autobiographical remark by David of
Landshut appended to the end of a recipe for a pill against pestilence, which
he partly invented by ‘improving’ a previous recipe: ‘And isn’t it that these
[pills] I improved/invented in Erfurt, in the house of my pharmacist, for the
sake of the Prince, the Margrave of Meissen (ha-sar markgreb mi-meisn), and
61
Gottfried, The Black Death, p. 133.
62
Oxford, Bodl. Lib., MS Opp. 753, fols 55r–68v.
63
See Maimon, Breuer, and Guggenheim, Germania Judaica, iii.1, 714.
102 Tamás Visi
they were all protected?’64 Now, the Margraviate of Meissen ceased to exist as
a separate political-administrative entity in 1423 when Margrave Frederick IV
(1370–1428; also known as Frederick I of Saxony) was granted the electoral
Duchy of Saxony-Wittenberg by Emperor Sigismund, and consequently the
Margraviate of Meissen was integrated into Saxony.
While the title ‘Margrave of Meissen’ was used until the middle of the six-
teenth century, it was always borne by the Duke of Saxony and was devoid of
any political significance. The territory of the former Margraviate of Meissen
was first integrated into Saxony and then divided into two parts when Saxony
was divided between two branches of the Wettiner dynasty in 1485. Therefore,
it is very unlikely that the Duke of Saxony would be known and referred to only
as Margrave of Meissen in a Hebrew text composed after 1423, after the aboli-
tion of Meissen as an independent territorial unit of the Holy Roman Empire.65
The reference in the Hebrew text seems to reflect political realities prior to
1423. Thus, David of Landshut’s stay in Erfurt can be dated before 1423.
We know about a serious bout of pestilence in Erfurt which took place in
1405.66 At this time the Margrave of Meissen was Wilhelm I, who ruled from
1382 to 1407. Unlike his predecessors and successors, Wilhelm I was only a
Margrave of Meissen and did not hold any other royal titles; thus he is a suitable
candidate for being the Margrave of Meissen mentioned in the text. In addition,
there are administrative records about a Jew called ‘Meister David’ who resided
in Erfurt in 1406 and 1407.67 This evidence is far from being sufficient to prove
that the Hebrew text above refers to the pestilence in Erfurt in 1405; never-
theless, this seems to be the most likely explanation. If this assumption is cor-
rect, then Shevet ahim must have been composed after 1405. Moreover, since
Shevet ahim must have been composed within a few decades after David’s stay
in Erfurt, 1450 is a fair estimation for a terminus ad quem of its composition.
It is worth noting that a Jewish physician called Jacob of Landshut is men-
tioned in late fourteenth-century Christian sources. He was the personal physi-
cian of Stephan the Elder, Duke of Bavaria (1347–75). Recipes are transmitted
in Jacob’s name in fifteenth-century medical compendia written by Christians
64
Oxford, Bodl. Lib., MS Opp. 753, fol. 60v: ‫והלא המה תקנתי בארפורט בבית הרוכל שלי לשר‬
.‫ מרקגרעב ממיישן והיו כולם מצופים ׳‬As for the Hebrew word rokhel in the sense ‘pharmacists’, see
ibid., fol. 60r, quoted in note 77 below.
65
Cf. Groß, Die Wettiner, pp. 74–82.
66
Cf. Sudhoff, ‘Pestschriften … XI’, p. 74.
67
See Maimon, Breuer, and Guggenheim, Germania Judaica, iii.1, 313.
in German.68 The meagre sources we have do not indicate any relationship

between Jacob and David.
The first chapter of Shevet ahim includes a part entitled ‘And this is the text
of the book Almantsur, which has been translated […]’.69 It is taken from al-
Razi’s medical encyclopaedia, Kitab al-tibb al-Mansuri, and is translated from
the Latin (!) version of that book into Hebrew by one or both of the authors.
This part of the text has already been edited by Felix Klein-Franke.70
The editor dated Shevet ahim to the sixteenth century on the basis of some
textual parallels between recipes included in the second chapter of the text and
similar recipes that appear in Marcilio Ficino’s plague tractate. However, these
recipes were probably not Ficino’s alone; they or similar ones may have circu-
lated among Christian and Jewish physicians quite a few years before his time.
As we shall see soon, the authors of Shevet ahim cited the sources of the recipes:
they refer to contemporary physicians, pharmacists, peddlers, and clerics whom
they probably encountered in Prague.71
The text begins with an introductory poem: ‘Pleasant words in the language
of the Christians | authored by expert physicians | with them72 they tell the
causes of pestilence […] their opinion is translated in a little book | into the
language of the Hebrews’.73 Then a short introduction explains the purpose of
the book:
68
See Assion, ‘Jakob von Landshut’.
69
Oxford, Bodl. Lib., MS Opp. 753, fol. 56r: ‫וזה לשון של ספר אלמנצור אשר הועתק‬.
70
Klein-Franke, ‘Targum ivri bilti noda shel “Kitab al-tibb al-Mansuri” le-al Razi’.
71
One may add that Ficino’s theory of plague diverged from earlier theories in some
respects, and it had great impact on sixteenth-century pestilence literature; however, it did not
leave its mark on the theories expounded in Shevet ahim. There is no direct proof that the
authors of Shevet ahim indeed utilized a sixteenth-century printed edition of Ficino’s work,
and it is not necessary to make such a hypothesis in order to explain parallels or common
elements. Therefore, the parallels found by Klein-Franke do not necessitate a revision of the
dating proposed above, although they certainly demand further research, which, unfortunately,
cannot be carried out here.
72
This phrase refers back to ‘pleasant words’ at the beginning of the poem.
73
Oxford, Bodl. Lib., MS Opp. 753, fol. 55r: (I am indebted to Uri Melamed (Hebrew
University) for his help in transcribing this poem.)
‫דברי חפץ בלשון נוצרים ׳ נוסדו על פי רופאים מומחים‬
‫ובם ספרו סבת נגף ׳ כאשר בחנו רעיון טוחים‬
‫דעתם נעתיק אל ספר קט ׳ ללשון עברים מלים צחים‬
‫רופא עם רעהו נסכים ׳ ולספר זה ידם שולחים‬
‫הנה מה טוב ומה נעים ׳ שיקרא ספר זה שבת אחים‬
104 Tamás Visi
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren and friends to dwell together
[cf. Psalm 133. 1] […] as we, the friends, I myself, David, a physician from Landshut,
and my friend, Mr XY. When God, may He be blessed, brought me to the city of
Prague, then I was told about the content of that book, which came out for the
Christians [reflecting] the consensus about plague and bubonic pestilence, and its
functions [lit. usefulness] and its prevention as it was discussed and determined by
their sages. And as we saw that some of their words are correct, we rose and were
decided to translate it into Hebrew and called it Shevet ahim [Dwelling of Brethren
Together] and we divided it into three chapters: The first chapter is [about] the
consensus of their sages about what [pestilence is]. The second is [about] its func-
tion and prevention. And [in] the third chapter we shall state the opinion of the
Talmudic sages about it.74
The first chapter gives a brief account of the causes of plague along familiar
lines: the great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the sign of Aquarius led to
the putrefaction (‘ippush) of the air, and the disease was caused by the inflam-
mation of the poisonous air. The above-mentioned passage translated from al-
Razi offers dietary and other instructions to prevent plague.
The second chapter contains a number of instructions and rules for blood-
letting. A most interesting feature includes a few references to non-Jewish
sources which were, it seems, both oral and written and both in Latin and in the
vernacular, in this case German, as indicated by the great number of Latin and
German glosses in the text. One of the authors’ sources was a certain Christian
priest (komer) called Nila from Leipzig.75 Later in the same chapter the authors
refer to ‘the sage Ankuver’.76 Further on in the text a pharmacist from Vienna is
quoted,77 and this is followed by a medicine which one of the authors, David
ben David of Landshut, claims to have invented. ‘And now we begin [to dis-
cuss] pills as they are made in Prague’, we read at the beginning of the next
74
Oxford, Bodl. Lib., MS Opp. 753, fol. 55r: ‫הנה מה טוב ומה נעים שבת אחים ורעים ׳ בעבור‬
‫כי דבוק החברים וחברת הרעים יעוררו מקצת הענייני› אשר בכח אל הפועל כאשר אנחנו הרעים אני הוא‬
‫דוד רופא מלנד״ש הו״ט ורעי פלוני אלמוני כשהזמיני הש״י לפרג״א העיר אז הגדתי [צ״ל הוגדתי] מענין‬
‫ספר זה שיצא להם לנוצרים הסכמת הנגף והדבר מן הבועות ותועלתו ושמירתו כאשר נמנו וגמרו עליהם‬
‫חכמיהם ׳ וכראותינו כי נראים קצת דבריהם קמנו ונתעודד להעתיקו ללשון עברי ונקראהו שב״ת אחי״ם‬
‫ השער הראשון הסכמת חכמיהם מהו ״ והשער השני תועלתו ושמירתו ״ והשער‬.‫ונחלקהו לג׳ שערים‬
.‫השלישי נאמר דעת חכמי הגמרא בו‬
75
Oxford, Bodl. Lib., MS Opp. 753, fols 57 –58 : ‫נ״א משקה לשתות בעת הדבר מן הכומר‬
v r
.‫מליפצק ]…[ עכ״ל מן הכומר נילא‬

76
Oxford, Bodl. Lib., MS Opp. 753, fol. 58r: .‫והחכם אַ נְ קּובֵ ר מגנה את השום כשהנגף בא ממים רעים‬
77
Oxford, Bodl. Lib., MS Opp. 753, fol. 60r: ‫נ״א מאפיטיקר מווינא ]…[ עכ״ל רוכל מווינא‬.
section.78 Afterwards David ben David of Landshut relates what sort of foods
he ate during a plague.
A section enumerating rules of bloodletting and recipes seems to be closely
related to a German plague tract composed in Prague around 1400.79 Both
texts claim to have derived from the instructions that a ‘king of France’ received
from his scholars.80 Even more interesting is the fact that some Latin phrases
are transliterated into Hebrew characters in the recipes. One cannot avoid the
impression that the Christian informants showed some Latin recipes to the
Jewish authors who copied or transliterated them into Hebrew.81 The evidence
suggests that professional cross-denominational cooperation was part and par-
cel of daily life in early fifteenth-century Prague. Further research will hope-
fully shed more light on the Latin and vernacular sources of Shevet ahim.
The work ends with a third chapter which revisits the theories about the
origins of the plague with occasional references to biblical verses and Talmudic
passages. One of the quotes can be traced back to the famous philosophical-
mystical poem entitled Keter Malkut by Solomon Ibn Gabirol (1021, Málaga
– 1058, Valencia).82 The quotation does not have specific scientific content;
nevertheless, it is a clear proof that the authors had access to and interest in
a Sephardic text of philosophical and mystical content. Thus, the intellectual
orientation of the authors of the plague tract is comparable to two of the great
rabbis of early fifteenth-century Prague, Avigdor Kara and Yom-Tov Lipmann
Mühlhausen, who were also interested in philosophy and Kabbalah.
In sum, the pestilence tract Shevet ahim brings forth evidence for the inten-
sive exchange of medical information between Jewish and Christian physicians
and pharmacists in late medieval Prague. Moreover, the fact that it includes a
78
Oxford, Bodl. Lib., MS Opp. 753, fol. 60v: ‫ומעתה נתחיל פילוליש כאשר עושים בפרגא‬.
79
Cf. Sudhoff, ‘Pestschriften … VI’, pp. 110–12.
80
Oxford, Bodl. Lib., MS Opp. 753, fol. 62v: ‫וקצת רפואו׳ והנהגות והשמירה ממנו כאשר‬
.‫ בחנו ותקנו הכלדיים והרופאי› המומחים ונתנו אותם למלך מוראנקריק‬The last Hebrew word is to
be read as ‘mi-Frankreich’. Compare to Sudhoff, ‘Pestschriften … VI’, p. 112: ‘Item dy erzney
wart geschriben dem kŵnig von frankreich von dem pesten arczt, mayster cze paris, der hayzzt
pestilencia’.
81
For example, Oxford, Bodl. Lib., MS Opp. 753, fol. 60v: ‫פילוליש קונטרא פישטלינציוש‬
which is a somehow unsuccessful attempt to transcribe ‘pilule contra pestilenciam’ (pills against
pestilence); fol. 61r: ‫קום בונו יונו פי› עם יין טוב‬, ‘cum bono vino, explanation: with good wine’.
82
Ibn Gabirol, Keter Malkut, section 18, see Ibn Gabirol, Krone des Königstums, ed. by
Goodman-Thau and Schulte, trans. by Corell; cf. Oxford, Bodl. Lib., MS Opp. 753, fol. 60r:
.‫כמאמר החכם נוחו עדן במליצתו הנעימה מגן גבורהו מאדם כי רגליו לרע ירוצו וימהרו לשפוך דם‬
106 Tamás Visi
short text translated from Latin to Hebrew demonstrates that Latin texts were
not totally inaccessible to Jewish physicians. We might also wonder why the
name of the second author was obfuscated in the book. One explanation might
be that he was a Jew converted to Christianity, who learned Latin and could
help a Jewish colleague in rendering a Latin text into Hebrew.
It should be emphasized, as mentioned earlier, that Shevet ahim is not only a
list of remedies and instructions about a regimen of health. It contains a much
larger body of knowledge. The first chapter gives a very rudimentary account
of the theory of the great celestial conjunction of the astral constellation that
brought about the plague. The third chapter presents a longer theoretical dis-
cussion of the causes of plague, which includes the astrological as well as the
meteorological and humoral aspects. A medieval Jewish reader of this text
would have learned about the four elementary qualities (hot, cold, wet, dry),
the four basic humours, and the human body, including the manner in which
the winds and stars influence the states of human bodies.
Although chronologically it is possible that David of Landshut and his
anonymous co-author arrived in Prague when Avigdor Kara, Yom-Tov Lipmann
Mühlhausen, and Menahem Shalem were active there, I am not aware of exist-
ing evidence of any relationship between them. Nevertheless, the above-cited
examples of cultural interactions between a Jewish physician and his colleague
on the one hand, and non-Jewish medical practitioners on the other hand, are
quite important for grasping the intellectual and social background of the new
interest in philosophy on the part of the traditional rabbinic leaders in Prague.
Medical information about the plague widely circulated among Christians,
and it seems some Jews took part in these processes and managed to transfer
some information they obtained to their coreligionists. Consequently, scien-
tific ideas became more familiar to Jews, and the sciences themselves obtained
more prestige than before. This situation probably encouraged those individu-
als who could access the relevant Hebrew philosophical and scientific literature
to study Maimonidean texts.
Knowledge and Network

The increasing evidence for the Ashkenazi rabbis’ familiarity with certain ele-
ments of scientific knowledge during the late fourteenth and the fifteenth cen-
turies can be explained along the lines described above. Concern with astral
influences that may cause epidemics could be the initial motivation of the
preoccupation with studying astronomy, astrology, and eventually the general
principles of medieval Aristotelian sciences and philosophy. Once the knowl-

edge had been acquired it could have been used for other diverse purposes.
For example, one of the greatest rabbinic authorities of the age, Jacob ben
Moses Halevi Moellin, better known as Maharil (d. 1427), studied the astro-
nomical work Shesh kenafayim by Immanuel ben Jacob Bonfils (Provence,
fourteenth century) and referred to it in Halakhic discussions about the calen-
dar.83 Israel Isserlein, the foremost rabbi of Germany in the fifteenth century,
is reported to have observed the sky and formulated predictions. 84 Another
important rabbi from the region, Israel Bruna (c. 1400–76), Rabbi of Brno and
Regensburg, was familiar with the theory that the outermost celestial sphere
contained no stars, as well as with the Maimonidean doctrine that God will not
annihilate the world in the future. He used the terminology established by the
Ibn Tibbon family in Provence during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.85
Among the ritual customs (minhagim) of another important Austrian rabbi,
Shalom of [Wiener] Neustadt, we find a short comment on Aristotle’s views on
miracles; that is, Aristotle was quoted in a theological context.86
Thus, the Black Death of 1348/49 had apparently a double impact on
Ashkenazi rabbis: While it temporarily shook the confidence in the Ashkenazi
tradition, it also accelerated the spread of scientific knowledge. These two
impacts together may explain why some of the Ashkenazi rabbis started to
explore scientific, philosophical, and mystical sources with the purpose of
inventing or adopting alternative forms of religious practices that had previ-
ously been absent from the earlier Ashkenazi repertoire. If (1) the traditional
learning of the Talmud did not prevent the destruction of Jewish communities
in Germany, and (2) catastrophes are caused by destructive forces emanating
from the upper world to the lower world, then a set of new practices that bring
down protective emanations from the upper world may be worth a try. The
credibility of such methods was probably increased by the fact that the whole
world was talking about the astral influences that brought about epidemics.
There is no proof that Avigdor Kara or Menahem Shalem were directly
influenced by Christian texts, or by the ideas of Christian philosophers or the-
ologians. Mühlhausen had some knowledge of Latin and some contact with
83
See Bíró, ‘Csillagászati vonatkozású halákhikus kérdések’, pp. 29–31 and 76–77; cf.
Visi, ‘The Emergence of Philosophy’, p. 220.
84
Cf. Tamar, ‘Demuto ha-ruhanit shel R. Yisrael Isserlein’, p. 180.
85
Cf. Visi, ‘The Emergence of Philosophy’, pp. 234–38.
86
Hilkhot u-minhagei Rabbeinu Shalom mi-Neustadt, ed. by Spitzer, no. 330.
108 Tamás Visi
Christian intellectuals, but the main sources of his thought were Jewish.87
Nevertheless, it is very likely that the new intellectual fashion represented by
the three rabbis of fifteenth-century Prague was partly generated by a cultural
interference from the non-Jewish world. The primary channel of the interac-
tion was probably neither texts nor oral discussion among Jewish and Gentile
scholars, but rather an ‘interfaith network’ that connected Jews to their non-
Jewish neighbours, business partners, medical practitioners and patients, town
councillors and lords.
It is quite easy to prove that such a network existed. First of all, just as
in other Ashkenazi lands, a major occupation of Jewish men and women in
Bohemia and Moravia was moneylending and related financial activities. This
naturally led to contacts with non-Jewish customers and business partners. For
example, from the records concerning a legal case that was discussed for several
years, between 1437 and 1446, we know that a Jew called Mussel Pohorliczer
from Brno cooperated with a Christian called Jimram from Dubravice: a cru-
cifix that the Jew took as collateral for a loan was deposited by his Christian
partner.88 Another business collaboration between a Jewish businesswoman
called Shifra and several non-Jewish partners is mentioned briefly in one of the
responsa of Israel Bruna.89 Such collaborations, it seems, were common.
Business relations sometimes led to more personal and more intellectual inter-
actions. In the polemical literature of the age it is taken for granted that virtually
any Jew may encounter a situation where a Christian initiates a conversation about
matters of faith. We have referred to Mühlhausen’s warning at the beginning of
his polemical compendium that every Jew is obliged to be punctual in his beliefs,
and his recommendation for studying the arguments he collected regularly.
Drawing freely from Mühlhausen’s work, Eizik Tirna, the author of the famous
Sefer Minhagim, composed a brief handbook of polemics in Brno sometime after
1424. Tirna reports some actual conversations he held with various Christians.90
87
On Mühlhausen’s Christian contacts, see Kaufmann, R. Yom Tov Lipmann Mihlhausen,
p. 53, and Limor and Yuval, ‘Skepticism and Conversion’, p. 175. Note also that a manuscript of
a German literary text composed in Bohemia around 1400 contains an enigmatic dedication to
certain victori judeo — it is possible that Avigdor Kara was meant. See Hausmann, ‘Die Ackermann
aus Böhmen’, p. 317. I owe this reference to Daniel Soukup (Palacky University, Olomouc).
88
Cf. Libri citationum et sententiarum seu knihy půhonvé a nálezové, ed. by Brandl, iii.1,
203 and 228 (nos. 902–03 and 1045–46).
89
See Visi, ‘Halakha and Microhistory’, pp. 32–35.
90
This text has been recently discovered by Abraham David whose critical edition of it is
forthcoming. Cf. David, ‘R. Yitzhak Eizik Tirna ve-hibburo ha-pulmusi Teshuvat ha-minim’.
One of his interlocutors was a ‘priest cardinal’; Tirna must have meant the papal
legate Castiglione Branda, who came to Brno for a few months in the summer
of 1424 to organize a coalition against the Hussites.91 The interfaith network
of Moravian Jews made it possible for a local rabbi to enter the company of the
highest ecclesiastical authority visiting the region. A similar network in Prague
could easily reach the highest secular authority a few years earlier: the Bohemian
King Wencislaw IV had a Jewish doctor called Feifel at his court who became
one of his trustees at the end of his reign.92
Similarly, the Hebrew pestilence tract Shevet ahim evinces a professional
cross- denominational network of doctors and pharmacists in fifteenth-century
Prague that included a Christian cleric (‘the priest Nila’ from Leipzig) and at
least one Jew, David of Landshut, the author of the Hebrew text. This network
provided the Jewish physician access to materia medica, recipes in Latin and
German, medical theories, and even to a Latin medical text, as an excerpt from
the Latin version of al-Razi’s medical encyclopaedia, which is included in the
Hebrew translation in Shevet ahim, demonstrates.
Conclusion
Interest in nature was not absent in Ashkenaz during the earlier period either,
as has been pointed out above; yet after the first wave of pestilence and the
subsequent pogroms we encounter a new phenomenon. The aforementioned
rabbinic texts show that the medieval Aristotelian paradigm of sciences and
philosophy had some inroads in Ashkenaz. Authors, ideas, and texts that were
ignored in Ashkenaz before are mentioned now, and not only in miscellaneous
manuscripts and anonymous compendia but also in core rabbinic texts written
by individuals who enjoyed the highest prestige. This indicates that Ashkenazi
Jews were ready to draw from new sources, while the prestige and interest in
sciences and in nature slightly increased.
This is not to say that all the rabbis had a profound knowledge of sciences
and philosophy. On the contrary, apart from the truly exceptional Prague cir-
cle led by Mühlhausen, Shalem, and Avigdor Kara there is not much evidence
for veritable competence in sciences and philosophy among later medieval
Ashkenazi rabbis. If, nonetheless, the rabbis talked occasionally about such
topics and made some efforts to acquire at least a minimal familiarity with
91
Cf. Visi, ‘The Emergence of Philosophy’, p. 230, n. 58.
92
Cf. Šmahel, Husitské Čechy, p. 421.
110 Tamás Visi
those subjects, this was probably because many other members of their commu-
nities did the same. The fear of the plague maintained the public interest in the
theories regarding the causes of the plague and its optimal treatment — there
is no reason to believe that Ashkenazi Jews were different from their Gentile
neighbours in this respect. As a by-product, elements of scientific knowledge
became common knowledge among Ashkenazi Jews and could be referred to
as such. Rabbis, as part of the general public and in an attempt to retain their
relevance in the eyes of their followers, drew on new sources of knowledge and
incorporated them into their writing.
The fear of the plague was an important motivation to acquire knowledge
of scientific doctrines for everybody. In all likelihood, Ashkenazi Jews were able
and willing to collect information from the Gentiles concerning the plague;
this is documented to some extent by the plague tract Shevet ahim, composed
in late medieval Prague. Once some elements of the scientific-philosophical
world view of the age had been absorbed, the Jewish public became presumably
more receptive to non–Ashkenazi Jewish sources teaching similar scientific-
philosophical doctrines as those current among the Gentiles. Consequently, the
Jewish public began to appreciate the new philosophical and mystical teachings
of Kara, Shalem, and Mühlhausen.
Excursus: Zürich, Zentralbibliothek, MS Heid. 102

and Avigdor Kara’s Commentary on Psalm 150
The manuscript is written by a single Ashkenazi bookhand on paper; it contains
c. 300 folios. Only the first 104 contain text; the rest is left blank. The con-
tent is a collection of mystical-esoterical texts including some writings of the
German pietists, Spanish kabbalists, and the Sefer ha-mefoar by Shlomo Molko.
According to the colophons on fols 11v, 13v, 15v, 25r, 27r, 58v, and 99v the text
was copied in 1583 by a certain Eliya ben Moshe. The date is corroborated by
a watermark attested on both the written and the blank pages of the codex,
which is clearly a variant of Briquet 1374 attested from Utrecht 1575, Leiden
1566 (?), Bremen 1580/83, Koblenz 1583, Héricourt 1585, and Albestroff
1585. Thus, the scribe probably worked either in north-western Germany, the
territory of present-day Belgium and the Netherlands, or on the French side of
the French-German border.
Avigdor Kara’s commentary on Psalm 150 ends with a remark indicating
that the work was composed in Regensburg on the ‘sixth day’, that is Friday, of
the week ‘when the book Genesis is finished’ in the annual liturgical reading
cycle.93 The year is not indicated in the manuscript, but external evidence sug-
gests that the book was written either in 1402 or in 1409.
As a portion of the Pentateuch is publicly read every week in the syna-
gogues, Jewish documents are sometimes dated by references to the annual
reading cycle. The book Genesis is usually finished in December or January.
As has been mentioned, the year of the composition is missing in the only sur-
viving manuscript, but a seventeenth-century text mentions that Kara’s work
was written in Regensburg in the year 5169 of the Jewish era, corresponding to
1408–09 ce.94 It is reasonable to assume that the information is derived from
a manuscript which contained the date missing in the zurich manuscript. Thus,
Kara must have finished writing this book on 13 January 1409, as this was the
Friday of the week when Genesis was finished in the liturgical cycle that year.
However, another early modern source, Shlomo Shloml ben Hayyim Meisterl,
claims that he read the story (to be cited below) in an ‘ancient manuscript
written in the year [5]163’.95 Again, it stands to reason that this information is
derived from another manuscript of Kara’s commentary, and if this is the case,
then this manuscript must have indicated the date 17 December 1402. There is
no way to decide which of the two dates is more reliable. Therefore, the text was
written either in 1402 or in 1409 in Regensburg.
In the text, Avigdor Kara mentions a certain Rabbi Yehiel, who taught
him (and Menahem Shalem) the Bible. The addressee in this text, presumably
Menahem Shalem, is reminded of an interpretation of a biblical verse that they
heard from a certain Rabbi Yehiel in Prague. The latter is apparently not known
from other sources:96
And this explanation we heard — you and me — from our brother in law, my
teacher, the rabbi, the master Yehiel in Prague. I have just presented it here in a
somewhat longer way in accordance with the topic we are presently discussing.97
93
zürich, zentralbib., MS Heid. 102, fol. 99v: ‫עם סיום ספר בראשית יום ו׳ ליצירה פה בקהלות‬
.‫רעגנשפורג הקדושה‬
94
Bakharakh, Emek ha-melekh, 16a.
95
See ‘Iggerot mi-Tzefat’, ed. by Assaf, p. 120.
96
He is not mentioned among the rabbis of Prague in the relevant entry of Maimon,
Breuer, and Guggenheim, Germania Judaica, iii.2, 1116–51.
97
zürich, zentralbib., MS Heid. 102, fol. 95v: ‫והטעם הזה שמענו אני ואתה מגיסנו מורי הר״ר‬
.‫יחיאל בפראג רק כי סדרתיו פה במקצת אריכות דברים לפי העניין מה שאנחנו בו‬
112 Tamás Visi
Furthermore, an interesting textual variant must be commented upon. The

manuscript transmits the story quoted above in the name of an unspecified
teacher of both Kara and Shalem, who is referred to as a martyr.98 Both printed
versions identify him as the father of the speaker, that is to say, the father of
Avigdor Kara.99 The same difference reappears in a later passage: the manu-
script consistently speaks about an unspecified teacher, whereas the printed
versions unambiguously refer to Kara’s father.
We happen to know that Kara’s father, Yitzhak Kara, was indeed a martyr:
he is referred to as ‘saint’ on Avigdor Kara’s tombstone, preserved to this day
in the Old Cemetery in Prague. The epithet ‘saint’ (Kadosh) usually refers to
individuals who suffered a violent death at the hands of non-Jews.100 In the year
1389 there indeed was a massacre in the Jewish community of Prague, and it
is assumed that Yitzhak Kara was among the victims.101 This is possible, but
somehow unlikely in light of the fact that Avigdor Kara himself wrote a famous
lamentation on the 1389 pogrom, in which he does not mention the murder of
his own father. In any case, it is likely that the rabbi referred to in the text was
Yitzhak Kara; I am not aware of any plausible alternatives at this moment.
Having said this, it is still a remarkable fact that the manuscript transmits
the story in the name of an unspecified rabbi. The example of the above-men-
tioned Rabbi Yehiel, who was not known from other sources, shows that there
could have been rabbis and teachers in fourteenth-century Prague whose activi-
ties and fate are not recorded in the sources available to us. Thus the possibility
that the manuscript’s readings are superior to the two printed versions and that
the original text referred to a rabbi other than Avigdor Kara’s father cannot be
entirely ruled out.
98
The epithet ‘saint’ and the eulogic formula ‘may God avenge his blood’ indicate this.
99
There is a slight difference between the two printed versions: Emek ha-melekh has avi
mori, ‘my father, my teacher’, while Shlomo Meisterl’s letter has adoni avi, ‘my lord, my father’
abbreviated as ‫א״א‬. As such formulaic expressions are often interchanged in manuscripts, this
difference has no significance.
100
Muneles, Ketuvot mi-bet ha-alamin ha-yehudi ha-atiq be-Prag, pp. 103–05 and 361–62;
Muneles and Vilimková, Starý židovský hřbitov v Praze, pp. 105–06.
101
Muneles, Ketuvot mi-bet ha-alamin ha-yehudi ha-atiq be-Prag, p. 103.
Acknowledgements
This paper is partly based on research I conducted while I was Fellow at the
Institute for Advanced Study, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in the group
‘Jewish Physicians in Medieval Christian Europe: Professional Knowledge as
an Agent for Cultural Change’ (March–August 2012). I am glad to express
my appreciation to the institute for the excellent working conditions I enjoyed
during my tenure. This research was supported by a Marie Curie European
Reintegration Grant within the seventh European Community Framework
Program and by the Czech Science Foundation (GA ČR standard project,
n. 14-19686S). I am grateful to Ephraim Shoham-Steiner for comments.
Works Cited
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Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Opp. 753 [Neubauer 2288]
St Petersburg, Russian Academy, MS C. 47
zürich, zentralbibliothek, MS Heid. 102
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114 Tamás Visi
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hunderts’, Archiv für Geschichte der Medizin, 7 (1913), 57–114
—— , ‘Pestschriften aus den ersten 150 Jahren nach der Epidemie des “schwarzen Todes,
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Intricate Interfaith Networks

in the Middle Ages

© 2016, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

List of Figures vii

Jewish Converts in Jewish–Christian Intellectual

Plague, Persecution, and Philosophy:

Traders, ‘Court Jews’, Town Jews: The Changing Roles of

Jewish Neighbourhoods in Christian Towns

Jewish Erotic Encounters with Christians and Muslims

Lovely Women and Sweet Men: Gendering the Name

Christian and Jewish Sumptuary Laws

Neighbours, Business Partners, Victims: Jewish–Christian Interaction

Joel ben Simeon: Looking at the Margins of Society

Jewish Sentences in Christian Words:

Interest in Nature in Ashkenaz before the Black Death

Intricate Interfaith Networks in the Middle Ages: Quotidian Jewish-Christian Contacts,

The so-called German pietists (hasidei Ashkenaz) meditated about natural

Nothing similar took place in Ashkenaz. Knowledge of nature was consid-

Avigdor Kara’s Kodesh hilulim on a Persecution in 1351/1352

Avigdor Kara’s mystical commentary contains a highly interesting recollec-

they paid almost no attention to the rabbinic scholarship of other territories,

New Intellectual Directions

a marginal gloss in a fifteenth-century Ashkenazi manuscript, containing the

Plague Tracts by Jews and Non-Jews

A Plague Tract in Hebrew Composed in Prague

in German.68 The meagre sources we have do not indicate any relationship

.‫מליפצק ]…[ עכ״ל מן הכומר נילא‬

Knowledge and Network

principles of medieval Aristotelian sciences and philosophy. Once the knowl-

Excursus: Zürich, Zentralbibliothek, MS Heid. 102

Furthermore, an interesting textual variant must be commented upon. The

Manuscript and Archival Documents

Langermann, Y. Tzvi, ‘Was There Science in Ashkenaz?’, Jahrbuch des Simon-Dubnow-

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