Sacred communities : Jewish and Christian identities in fifteenth-century Germany / Dean Phillip Bell.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bell, Dean Phillip, 1967-

Series:

Studies in Central European histories

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Jews--Germany--History--1096-1800.

Jews.

Christianity and culture.

Germany.

History.

Germany--Ethnic relations.

Ethnic relations.

Germany--Social conditions.

Social conditions.

Christianity and culture--Germany.

Social history--Medieval, 500-1500.

Social history.

Social history--Medieval.

Physical Description:

xi, 301 pages : map ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Boston : Brill Academic, 2001.

Summary:

This book examines the nature and extent of changes in communal structures and self-definition among Jews and Christians in Germany during the century before the Reformation. It argues that Christian community was restructured along civic and religious lines resulting in the development of a local "sacred society" that integrated material and spiritual well being into a moral and legal society, stressing the common good and internal peace, while Jewish community, given a variety of factors, came to be defined through regional communal structures and moral and legal discourse that allowed for broader geographical communal identity. Bell draws from a variety of German, Latin, and Hebrew sources and takes into consideration several methods and viewpoints of studying history.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 261-283) and index.

ISBN:

0391041029

OCLC:

46343095