Beautiful death : Jewish poetry and martyrdom in medieval France / Susan L. Einbinder.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Einbinder, Susan L., 1954-

Series:

Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the ancient to the modern world.

Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the ancient to the modern world

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Hebrew literature, Medieval--France, Northern--History and criticism.

Hebrew literature, Medieval.

Martyrdom in literature.

Martyrdom--Judaism.

Martyrdom.

Judaism--France, Northern--History--To 1500.

Judaism.

Jews--France, Northern--History--To 1500.

Jews.

Jews--Persecutions--France, Northern.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (x, 219 pages) : map

Edition:

Course Book

Place of Publication:

Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, c2002.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

When Crusader armies on their way to the Holy Land attacked Jewish communities in the Rhine Valley, many Jews chose suicide over death at the hands of Christian mobs. With their defiant deaths, the medieval Jewish martyr was born. With the literary commemoration of the victims, Jewish martyrology followed. Beautiful Death examines the evolution of a long-neglected corpus of Hebrew poetry, the laments reflecting the specific conditions of Jewish life in northern France. The poems offer insight into everyday life and into the ways medieval French Jews responded to persecution. They also suggest that poetry was used to encourage resistance to intensifying pressures to convert. The educated Jewish elite in northern France was highly acculturated. Their poetry--particularly that emerging from the innovative Tosafist schools--reflects their engagement with the vernacular renaissance unfolding around them, as well as conscious and unconscious absorption of Christian popular beliefs and hagiographical conventions. At the same time, their extraordinary poems signal an increasingly harsh repudiation of Christianity's sacred symbols and beliefs. They reveal a complex relationship to Christian culture as Jews internalized elements of medieval culture even while expressing a powerful revulsion against the forms and beliefs of Christian life. This gracefully written study crosses traditional boundaries of history and literature and of Jewish and general medieval scholarship. Focusing on specific incidents of persecution and the literary commemorations they produced, it offers unique insights into the historical conditions in which these poems were written and performed.

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

INTRODUCTION: The Medieval Poetry of Jewish Martyrdom

ONE. Faith and Fury: Medieval Jewish Martyrological Poetry and Resistance to Conversion

TWO. "The Fire Does Not Burn": The Emergence of a Martyrological Motif

THREE. Burning Jewish Books

FOUR. Wheels within Wheels: Literature, History, and Methodology

FIVE. Une Bele Qedushah: Troyes 1288

SIX. Jonathan and His Magic Book: Paris 1290

Epilogue

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [189]-209) and index.

ISBN:

9786612157783

9781282157781

1282157787

9781400825257

1400825253

OCLC:

436046194