Beyond Expulsion: Jews, Christians, and Reformation Strasbourg 9780804779050

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Beyond Expulsion

Stanford Studies in Jewish History and Culture e d i t e d by

Aron Rodrigue and Steven J. Zipperstein

Beyond Expulsion Jews, Christians, and Reformation Strasbourg

Debra Kaplan

stanford u n i ve rs i t y p res s stan f o rd, ca l i f o rn ia

Stanford University Press Stanford, California ©2011 by Debra Kaplan. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Stanford University Press. Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kaplan, Debra. Beyond expulsion : Jews, Christians, and Reformation Strasbourg / Debra Kaplan. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8047-7442-0 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Jews—France—Strasbourg—History—16th century. 2. Jews—France— Strasbourg—History—17th century. 3. Strasbourg (France)—Ethnic relations— History—16th century. 4. Strasbourg (France)—Ethnic relations—History—17th century. 5. Strasbourg (France)—Church history—16th century. 6. Strasbourg (France)—Church history—17th century. 7. Judaism—Relations—Christianity. 8. Christianity and other religions—Judaism. 9. Reformation—France—Strasbourg. I. Title. DS135.F85S775 2011 305.892’4044395409031—dc22 2010035570 Typeset by Bruce Lundquist in 10.5/14 Galliard

‫  יהושע העשל‬Szyje Heschel Kofman ‫  גיטל‬Gitel Feith Kofman ‫  אליהו‬Elias Kofman ‫  מינדל‬Mina Kofman ‫שם עולם אתן לו אשר לא יכרת‬

Contents

List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Note on Currency, Spelling, and Translations Introduction: Beyond Expulsion: A Paradigm Shift 1. “Our City Is Seen as Greatly Superior”: Strasbourg and Its Reformation 2.

ix xi xv 1 12

“Without Trees, the Fire Will Be Extinguished”: Reinventing Jewish Life in the Rural Sphere

26

3. Shared Spaces: Social Interactions in the Countryside

49

4. Creating Jewish Space in the Christian City: The Jews and Strasbourg’s Markets

69

5. “As Is Also Apparent in the Old Chronicles and History Books”: Magisterial Laws, Confession Building, and Reformation-Era Tolerance

93

6. “I Listened to the Account of a Jew”: Christian Hebraism in Strasbourg 

119

7. Constructing Jewish Memory: Self-Texts, the Reformation, and Narratives of Jewish History 144 Conclusion: Becoming French: Alsatian Jews in the Wake of Confession Building Notes Bibliography Index

165 173 221 247

Illustrations

Figure 1. Map of Strasbourg in the sixteenth century, 1548 Figure 2. Map of Jewish settlements in Alsace, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Figure 3. Money-lending logbook, 1569 Figure 4. Chiaroscuro, Ecclesia, 1572 Figure 5. Chiaroscuro, Synagoga, 1572 Figure 6. A Jewess gives birth to pigs, 1575

14 30 76 108 109 113

Acknowledgments

This book is the product of many years of work, and I am grateful for the opportunity to thank everyone who helped me along the way. The initial project was directed by Thomas Max Safley and David B. ­Ruderman. I thank them for their support, their confidence in me, and for all I learned from them. Tom taught me a love of the archives, and guided me with the palaeographic skills that prevented me from getting lost in a maze of documents. David’s critiques, always given with wit and humor, pushed me to find the voices of Jews that weren’t preserved in the archives. I was truly blessed to study at the University of Pennsylvania, and I benefited tremendously from some of my teachers there, including E. Ann Matter, Ora Limor, and Israel Yuval. Lee ­Wandel’s early comments attuned me to the nuances of Strasbourg as a border city. ­Elisheva Carlebach has served as a mentor, teacher, and friend, and it was her guidance that facilitated each step of the transformation from dissertation to book. I thank Ted Fram for his thoughtful insights, which pushed me to see what was different and new about early modern rural Jewry. Magda Teter’s insistence on the importance of narrative helped me refine my ideas and articulate them clearly. I am grateful to Gabriele Jancke and to Claudia Ulbrich for their insights on selbstzeugnissen. ­Stephen Burnett has graciously shared his seemingly unlimited knowledge of Christian Hebraism with me. Thanks to Erika Rummel and Milton Kooistra for sharing their work on Wolfgang ­Capito with me prior to its publication, which enhanced this work. Several colleagues at Yeshiva have provided both moral and substantive support to me throughout this process. To my friends, especially on the fifth

xi

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Acknowledgments

floor of Belfer Hall, thank you for listening. Thanks go to my editors at Stanford University Press for their assistance with the book manuscript. Rabbi René and Mrs. Sara Gutman of Strasbourg helped me begin to adjust to life in a new city. I also thank the Goetschel and Unterman families for their hospitality and friendship. Professor Jean Daltroff and Dr. André-Marc Haarscher were supportive and interested in my project. Above all, Dr. Jacob and Mrs. Perla Amsellem and their wonderful family truly made Strasbourg a home away from home for me. I was lucky to work in many excellent archives and libraries. In the municipal archives in Strasbourg, I was primarily assisted by M. ­François Schwicker, and his thorough inventory of AMS Series III/174 was an invaluable research tool. Thanks also to M. Jean-Yves Marriotte and M.  Benoît Jordan. M. Daniel Peter and Mme. Marie-Ange Glasgen kindly assisted me in the Archives Départementales du Bas-Rhin. The librarians at the Bibliothèque nationale et universitaire de Strasbourg, and at both the Rare Book Room and the Dorot Jewish Division of the New York Public Library, were extremely kind. I am indebted to the terrific library staff at Yeshiva University. Throughout the years, various foundations supported my work. Fellowships from the Jacob K. Javits Foundation and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation (through a Charlotte W. Newcombe Fellowship) supported me as I worked on the dissertation. One of my early trips to Strasbourg was funded by a Fritz Halbers Fellowship, sponsored by the Leo Baeck Institute in New York and the Deutscher ­Akademischer Austausch Dienst. Revisions to the manuscript were made as I held the Rose and Morris Danzig Postdoctoral Fellowship at Queens College, CUNY, where I truly benefited from the wisdom of Benny Kraut. I was able to procure new materials thanks to a Bernadotte Schmidt grant from the American Historical Association. I completed the book manuscript as a Fellow in Jerusalem through the Yad haNadiv/­Beracha Foundation. Additional funding for this book and for the artwork was granted from the Dr. Kenneth Chelst Book Fund at Yeshiva College, and I thank Dr. Chelst and the college administration for their support. My family continues to be the most important source of support for me. I thank my parents for their encouragement, and single out my mother for her patience in reading my work. I thank my sister Cindy

Acknowledgments

for her technical and bibliographic help. My children Avishai and Noam are inspirations in their own right. And most of all, to my husband Donny, thank you for your unwavering support, your patience, your editing, and, most of all, for your willingness to learn more about Josel, Asher, and Wolfgang Capito than you ever imagined.

xiii

Note on Currency, Spelling, and Translations

Currency

Several currencies were used in the early modern Empire. To elucidate those currencies in use in Strasbourg: Schilling = 12 Pfennig Pfund Pfennig = 240 Pfennig (20 Schilling) Gulden = 15 Batzen (also worth about half of a Strasbourg Pfund, or 10 Schilling) Batzen = 4 Kreutzer Reichstahler = 90 Kreutzer Spelling

The variations inherent to early modern spelling are further complicated by Alsace’s border location, since places and individuals often bear both French and German names. I have followed Tom Brady’s system, described below. For some well-known locations, such as Strasbourg and Saverne, I have used the modern French spelling. For all other locations, I have used the older German names. I have also anglicized familiar names, such as Jacob, rather than using the German Jakob. I have referred to the head of the gymnasium by his French name, Jean Sturm, rather than Johann Sturm. Otherwise, I have spelled names according to the way they appeared most frequently in archival sources. Translations

Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own.

xv

Beyond Expulsion

I n t r o d u c t i o n Beyond Expulsion A Paradigm Shift

“On Saturdays, we Jews have rest, and neither trade nor travel.”1 Thus wrote Jaeckel of Oberbergheim to the magistrates of the city of Strasbourg in May 1548. Jaeckel, a Jew residing in a small village in Upper Alsace, had been summoned to Strasbourg for a court case that was scheduled for the Jewish Sabbath. He sent the magistrates a written request for adjournment of the case, proposing that he appear before the municipal court on a different day of their choice instead. Similarly, Gotlieb of Hagenau negotiated with Strasbourg’s magistracy about extending a court date because of the Sabbath. In 1566, Gotlieb wrote to the magistrates concerning a court case between his wards and a local burgher, Heinrich Preusser: As is evident from the aforementioned writing . . . I should appear before your honors tomorrow, Saturday, at six o’clock. . . . However, Your Honors [know] that as a Jew, on Saturdays I cannot perform certain things; also it is not proper. So, therefore, to Your Honors, is my subservient request. You will show me another day, during the week.2

These brief exchanges have relatively little historical significance, other than that they neatly capture these surprising interactions, which, barring research in archives, would remain hidden. The city of Strasbourg had expelled its Jewish community in 1390.3 Jews were not readmitted into the city until 1791. And yet, despite the apparent exclusion of Jews from Strasbourg for four hundred years, Jews not only entered the city during that period but also appeared as litigants in its courts, corresponded with its magistrates, taught Hebrew and Judaica to the city’s Christian religious reformers, and worked and socialized with local ­residents. Jaeckel’s

1

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Introduction

request to the magistrates suggests that he felt a degree of comfort in corresponding with them; indeed, in other documents, he explained that he had lent various burghers in the city over 800 Gulden and, thus, had great familiarity with the city and its leaders.4 That Jews and Christians interacted with and mutually influenced one another has been established by recent scholars. Older research on medieval Europe prior to the last third of the twentieth century focused on polemics, disputations, and persecutions, and subsequently emphasized Jewish isolation from the Christian world.5 More recent scholarship, however, has recognized that Jews and Christians resided side by side, as Jews often lived in the city center, near the church or local cathedral.6 Proximity allowed Jews and Christians to develop both commercial and social relations with one another, to become familiar with one another’s religious traditions, and to impact one another.7 Countless examples of exchange can be found in polemics, rituals, money-lending logbooks, and contemporaneous and parallel cultural developments.8 A new generation of scholars has demonstrated that despite and alongside the animosity that surely existed between Jews and Christians, an intimacy of sorts also characterized their relationship. The late Middle Ages, however, witnessed the expulsions of Jews from much of Western Europe. The monarchs of England, France, Spain, and Portugal expelled the Jews residing in their lands, as did some of the local and territorial leaders in Italy. In the Holy Roman Empire, Jews were expelled from many of the large cities in which they had resided. Logic would dictate that the relations between Jews and Christians ceased when the Jews were expelled from the areas in which they had lived for centuries. Indeed, many undergraduate survey courses in Jewish history use the expulsions from Western Europe as a divider between semesters, ending one semester with the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, and picking up the narrative the following semester with the flourishing of new Jewish communities in eastern Europe, the Ottoman Empire, Amsterdam, and Italy, places to which refugees of the medieval expulsions had resettled. Not surprisingly, scholars of those lands have aptly demonstrated that the lives and experiences of Jews and their new neighbors, whether Christian or Muslim, were also extensively intertwined.9 The history of Jews in Western

Introduction

Europe is often not revisited until the mid-seventeenth century, when Spanish and Portuguese conversos moved to Amsterdam and London, and when court Jews entered the cities of the Empire from which they had been expelled. This approach, however, implies a gap in Jewish settlement in the Empire between the late medieval expulsions and the reintegration of Jews into cities in the mid-seventeenth century. Unlike the Jews in France, England, Spain, or Portugal, Jews were not expelled from the Empire in its entirety. Jews remained in the Empire throughout the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, despite the expulsions that raged through the cities and other regions in the Empire from the fourteenth through the seventeenth centuries. Nevertheless, until recently, these Jews remained absent from both Jewish and European historiography. Beginning in the mid-fourteenth century, Jewish residential patterns in the Empire shifted. During the medieval period, most Jews resided in cities, but by the fifteenth century most Jews lived in rural areas. The lack of a consolidated political power in the Empire allowed those Jews who had been expelled from a city to resettle in other areas, often in the surrounding countryside.10 As archival records show, there are countless examples of Jews residing in small towns and villages. These Jews paid local taxes, corresponded with local leaders, and adjudicated legal disputes in a variety of courts.11 In addition, these rural Jews preserved their relationships with magistrates and residents in the very cities from which they had been expelled. Beyond Expulsion explores such relations between Jews and Christians in the city of Strasbourg. Located on the Rhine and Ill rivers, Strasbourg, the largest city in Lower Alsace, was a center of trade and essentially served as a regional capital. Its location on the rivers and on the borders between the Empire and France also rendered it an important European marketplace. These economic and geographic attributes had attracted a Jewish community to the city in the twelfth century. However, in 1349, the city’s burghers expelled Strasbourg’s Jews. Though a few families were readmitted two decades later, by 1390, all Jews were expelled from Strasbourg. It was only in 1791 that the ban on Jewish residence in Strasbourg was lifted.

3

4

Introduction

Beyond Expulsion examines Jewish-Christian relations in a city that banned Jewish residence for four centuries. The book advocates looking beyond the official exclusion of Jews by consulting with archival documents that unequivocally demonstrate that Jews actively participated in certain parts of the urban experience. The use of archival sources is the key to unearthing the relations between Jews and Christians that continued through this period. The earlier work of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century scholars of Alsatian Jewry focused only on restrictions against Jews, citing the numerous laws prohibiting Jewish presence in the city as evidence for the complete exclusion of Jews from Strasbourg.12 By looking at the laws alone, it seems as though Jews were simply not permitted in the city, and that the magistrates viewed any violation of this ban as undesirable and punishable by law. This approach recounts the history of Jews in Strasbourg during the medieval period, and picks up the narrative again with the late-eighteenth-­century debates about the emancipation of French Jewry, at which point almost 20,000 Jews lived in Alsace.13 What has not been discussed up to now is the process through which an area that had seemingly expelled its Jewish population came to boast of such a large Jewish population. Documents in Strasbourg tell a completely different story, and establish a Jewish presence in Strasbourg at a time when Jews were not supposed to be there. Although the degree of Jewish presence shifted over time, interactions between local Jews and residents of the city took place on a regular basis throughout the early modern period. Echoes of the continued relationship between Jews and Christians are even discernable in the laws forbidding Jews from the city, as well as in the writings of both Christian theologians and members of the Jewish community. Examined in tandem, the archives and the more traditional sources highlight the nuances of Jewish-Christian relations in the city, and balance the picture of daily contacts between Jews and Christians with the very real restrictions and boundaries that simultaneously limited those contacts. The fact that the urban expulsions did not sever relationships between Christians and Jews raises new and important questions about the extent of Jewish-Christian contact. Since Jews were present inside cities such as Strasbourg during the early modern period, they were

Introduction

undoubtedly affected by the events that took place within the city. Specifically, Jews entered and exited the city as it underwent reform and the gradual transformation from Catholicism to orthodox Lutheranism. This book assesses the direct impact that the Protestant Reformation had upon the Jewish community of the Empire. Previous scholarship has explored this topic in a limited way. Salo Baron, for example, addressed the issue by extolling the theoretical implications of the Reformation for Western Europe’s only minority. Baron argued that the rise of individualism, the diversity of denominations that developed in the Reformation’s wake, the new bridges built between Jews and Christians who focused on the Old Testament, and the formation of “modern” states should have benefited the Jews. Instead, however, Europeans battled one another fiercely, such that years of religious wars and of antisemitic writings such as those of Luther effectively postponed any positive impact on the Jewish community until the Enlightenment.14 Although Baron discussed some of the conditions facing the Jews of the Empire, much of his discussion focused upon individual reformers, princes, and Jewish leaders such as Josel of Rosheim. Indeed, much attention has been given to the subject of the reformers and their attitudes toward the Jews. A large portion of the scholarship dealing with Jews and the Reformation has centered on the question of what Luther thought about the Jews, and whether and why his attitudes toward Jews shifted over his lifetime.15 More recently, important scholarship about other reformers and their attitudes toward Jews has been produced, as have significant treatments of Jewish responses to Christianity during this period.16 Works about cultural parallels between elites of the two communities have also appeared.17 These works greatly enhance the picture of the intellectual exchanges between Jews and Christians during the period of the Reformation. The impact of the religious developments and reforms that had shattered Latin Christendom certainly went beyond the few elite Jews that debated with Christian leaders.18 Scholars have demonstrated that the Counter Reformation affected the Jewish communities of Italy through the establishment of the ghettos and censorship. Recent scholarship has even situated the ghetto in the context of early modern state-­building.19

5

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Introduction

The impact of the Reformation on local Jewish communities and the contextualization of the Jewish experience into local narratives of reform and state building must also be done for Protestant lands.20 ­Jewish-Christian relations in Strasbourg afford a perfect context in which to explore this question. Not only was Strasbourg an important economic marketplace, it was also a center of print culture, home to many artists and humanists. Strasbourg was well known for its religious reformers, whose impact was felt far beyond the city’s walls. After its abolition of the Mass in 1529, the city had extensive involvement in the politics and religious wars of the Empire that continued until 1648. Its location on the border between the Swiss and German Protestants and the French and German Catholics rendered such involvement critical for maintaining the city’s safety and autonomy. Strasbourg has been studied extensively by scholars of the Reformation, so much so that it is ordinarily discussed in contemporary textbooks about the Reformation. Moreover, Strasbourg had a reputation as a moderate or even tolerant city. Both contemporary scholars and early modern men and women have hailed it as such.21 Recent scholarship has examined the respective experiences of religious radicals and Catholics in the city.22 Adding the attitudes of Strasbourg’s magistrates, religious leaders, and residents toward Jews to the picture of the city’s relatively tolerant attitude regarding Catholics and radical reformers refines the scope of early modern tolerance. In addition, a comparison of Jews with various Christian sects permits the contextualization of Jews’ experiences in the Empire.23 Beyond Expulsion is not just the story of how local Jews were influenced by events in the Christian world. Implicit in the paradigm is the notion that Jews were active participants in the lands in which they lived. This is clearly demonstrated in the steps that the Alsatian Jews took in the wake of the expulsions from the cities of Alsace. When the medieval urban Jewish communities disappeared through expulsions, Jewish life gradually shifted to the countryside, often with only one or two Jewish families residing in local villages. This new demographic reality became the norm in the Empire through the mid-seventeenth century, and necessitated a conceptual and physical restructuring of the

Introduction

Jewish community. Although early modern Europe was by no means the first time and place that Jews lived in a rural setting, it was the first time that Jews living in the periphery lacked an urban center on which they could depend. Left without an urban center and its resources, ­Alsatian Jews responded by developing rural kehillot. These communities comprised Jews residing in various settlements, who pooled and shared the few resources they had with one another. New models for burial and prayer were developed, ensuring communal survival. Strategies for physical and economic survival were also necessary after the expulsion. Rural Jews actively maintained a relationship with local urban governments and with local urban residents in the wake of expulsion, and when specific physical conditions, such as wars, threatened local Jews, Strasbourg’s magistrates welcomed them into their fortified city. The Jewish presence in Strasbourg was by no means limited to extraordinary moments. In Alsace, since the economic markets of towns, villages, and cities were intertwined, rural Jews, like rural Christians, entered Strasbourg on a daily basis in order to do business. They sold wine, horses, and food, lent money, and, in a number of cases, also served as local doctors. Rural Jews and Strasbourg’s magistrates even developed a contract that permitted Jews to work in the city as long as they adjudicated disputes in a municipal venue. The correspondence between Jaeckel of Oberbergheim and the city’s magistrates should be understood in this context. From the magisterial point of view, Jews had a role to play in the city, specifically as money lenders who could provide a cash flow to both poorer and wealthier residents. Regulating this necessary and inevitable Jewish commerce was of utmost importance to the city’s magistrates, who sought to protect the city’s social order, its economic stability, and its autonomy in the face of the emperor. Thus, Jews also entered the city in order to participate as both plaintiffs and defendants in municipal courts. Contacts between Jews and Christians were not limited to the economic sphere. Jews and Christians also developed social relationships with one another. The ways in which Jews and Christians interacted daily as neighbors often escaped historical preservation, but traces of these interactions have been preserved in court cases, rabbinic responsa, and municipal and territorial laws. Particularly in those rural areas of

7

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Introduction

Alsace in which Jews and Christians lived side by side as neighbors, there is evidence of shared space and activities, social networks, and alleged sexual liaisons. Jews participated in the social fabric of the towns and villages in which they lived, although they also faced exclusion in the forms of quotas, taxes, and other restrictions. Such participation was not embraced by either Jewish or Christian leaders. Laws, based on ancient and medieval traditions, were reissued by both Jewish and Christian leaders in the hopes of limiting contact between neighbors of the two different faiths. Though these laws were often disregarded, the attempts by religious and political authorities to assert boundaries between the groups is noteworthy, underscoring that although relations between Jews and Christians persisted in this period, such contacts were not seen as trivial nor as acceptable by the leaders of the Christian and Jewish communities. As was the case with economic contacts, any exchanges between Jews and Christians were (in theory) monitored closely by authorities. The definition of what constituted inappropriate contact between Jew and Christian often shifted over time, and was affected by the evolution of religious reform in the city. From 1530 to 1549, the first generation of reformers in Strasbourg began to develop theological and exegetical works. They sought the help of local Jews, who taught them Hebrew, supplied them with Jewish texts, and shared with them firsthand knowledge of Jewish traditions. Jewish help was invaluable to the reformers, who believed that the Hebrew language was necessary for understanding the true meaning of scripture. Nevertheless, too much contact with Jews or with rabbinic sources invariably led to criticism. As Strasbourg’s clerics adopted an increasingly orthodox Lutheran identity, they no longer needed Jewish help, since they already had access to biblical and theological texts designed for reformed believers. They saw the participation of Jews in such endeavors as harmful, recoiled from contact with Jews, and claimed Hebrew as part of a Protestant, rather than a Jewish, heritage. As the process of reform evolved in the city, the attitudes and policies of city leaders toward Jews also shifted. At the onset of reform, Jewish participation in early modern Strasbourg was a daily and normative occurrence, albeit against a backdrop of restrictions and regulations. In

Introduction

one vibrant example, at the same time as Strasbourg’s magistrates developed the contract to govern Jewish-Christian economic trans­actions, they passed laws that rendered any Jewish business transactions illegal. By permitting Jews entrance into the marketplace, and mandating their presence in city courts, the magistrates addressed economic needs and their desire for autonomy; by promulgating laws that excluded the Jews, the magistrates set up boundaries that defined their city and their community as Christian. The Jews served as a rhetorical foil to the Christians during this age of religious definition, and restrictions barring Jews served as proof that Strasbourg was a good Christian city. In reality, these restrictions were ignored, and although they did not reside there, Jews were present in Strasbourg. As the city began to adopt a more orthodox stance, the magistrates also sought to curtail contacts between Jews and local Christians. By 1570, they attempted to halt most economic contacts between Jews and Christians by rescinding the terms of the contract that they had developed thirty-five years earlier. Trade between Jews and Christians persisted, in spite of magisterial laws that not only sought to limit contacts with Jews but also vilified Jews through the use of traditional antisemitic language and stereotypes. The city magistrates, who had protected local Jews by banning the printing of Luther’s antisemitic tracts in 1543, permitted the publication of books and artwork that depicted the Jew as the enemy of the Christian city. As the city’s religious and political leaders each sought to strengthen the adherence to an orthodox Lutheran confession in the city, they erected stronger boundaries between Jews and Christians. Jews were not formally engaged in the process of confession building, and did not possess the political authority to create and revise laws and policies. Nonetheless, they were also involved in a process of selfdefinition. As they wrote about themselves and the community at large, Jewish authors such as Josel of Rosheim and Asher of Reichshofen analyzed the role that Jews played in history, and opined about the relations that Jews had or should have with their Christian neighbors. By constructing such boundaries, categories, and schema, these men were able to answer some of the challenges and questions faced by the Jews of early modern Alsace, including the impact that reformers had

9

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Introduction

upon local Jews, the divine reason for the seemingly constant expulsions and persecutions of Jews, the ways that the lives of contemporary Alsatian Jews connected to past Jewish experiences, and the connections between the local community and more distant Jewish communities. These men’s self-exploration suggests that questions of identity and of constructing and defining community were important to Jews and Christians alike. Both composed “autobiographical” texts, a genre that became increasingly common among contemporary Christian authors. This confirms that even as they constructed boundaries and separate identities, Jews and Christians shared experiences and ideas. The myriad contacts between Jews and Christians and the evolving limits to those contacts illustrate that at the onset of the Reformation, the Jews actively participated in various urban experiences, specifically in the marketplace and the municipal court system. In addition, Strasbourg’s reformers’ need and desire for resources in Hebrew and Judaica created new avenues for Jewish-Christian interaction. Yet Jewish participation in urban life and its culture was not unfettered. Contacts between Jews and Christians were limited by authorities, Jews were forbidden residence in Strasbourg, and quotas governed their residential patterns in the countryside. Laws were designed to limit the extent of the social and economic contact between Jews and Christians. Individual Jews and Christians did not embrace one another, aware of and influenced by the boundaries between the two groups. As the Reformation in Strasbourg progressed, it had a direct and negative impact on local Jews. Salo Baron argued that the Reformation adversely affected the Jews. In Strasbourg, this process was directly related to local developments, rather than to the antisemitic writings of specific reformers. Christians’ increasing need for confessional definition led to a greater rift between them and Jews. As Christian authorities cracked down on the contact between different Christian confessions, they also sought to limit relations between Jews and Christians. In a place like Strasbourg, where Jews were forbidden residence, decreased economic and intellectual exchanges in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries meant that Jews and Christians had increasingly fewer shared spaces. The magistrates’ attitudes and policies toward Jews in Strasbourg were in some ways strikingly similar to their treatment of Catholics and

Introduction

religious radicals in the Lutheran city. Pragmatic concerns, such as local politics or economics, influenced the city’s officials (and at times, its religious reformers) to adopt a moderate stance toward members of different confessions or faiths. At the same time, concerns about preserving the city’s religious identity invariably led to policies that restricted crossconfessional or interfaith exchanges. No doubt Strasbourg’s location on the border, along with its importance as an international market, helped facilitate the more moderate policies for which the city was renowned. Yet this was by no means ideological tolerance. Moderation for moderation’s sake did not exist in this period. The moderation of Strasbourg’s magistrates was realpolitik, fueled by the magistrates’ desire for economic stability, social order, and autonomy from powerful neighbors. The similarities in Strasbourg’s treatment of Jews, Catholics, and radicals firmly underscore the fact that Jews were a part of European society.24 Moreover, the magisterial balance of pragmatism and ideology, which in many ways continued medieval Christian policy toward Jews, affirms that even after the expulsions, Jews remained part of the very lands from which they had been expelled. Beyond Expulsion tells the story of how Jewish-Christian relations continued to be adapted during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in response to shifts in residential patterns, sharp changes in theology and religious identification, and ensuing battles over faith.

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O n e  “Our City Is Seen as Greatly Superior” Strasbourg and Its Reformation

At the turn of the sixteenth century, Strasbourg’s renowned humanist, Jacob Wimpheling, described the “greatly superior” city of Strasbourg: In these things, our city is seen as greatly superior, and more complete than other cities: with churches, chapels, relics, hospitals, convents; with a decorated cathedral; with an Episcopal see; libraries of books; men who are learned in all the arts; with schools of the mendicant orders; architects; the expulsion of the Jews; delightful buildings, beautiful streets and areas; with ramparts, trenches, towers, enclosures, bulwarks, chutes; common land, surrounding countryside; arms, weapons, horses, artillery, rifles; guardians, nobles, knighthood, models of artisanship; a history of reason; the beginning and origin of print; with the health and good of the air, with gentle wind; with wonderful, plentiful water; with communal freedom to hunt [animals and birds]; with fertile land, pastures, meadows, gardens; fish flowing in the current [to be] caught; also cattle, wild game, birds; corn, wine, fruit; wealth and poverty; commerce; tolls, debt collectors, interest; a model, beautiful fish market; fortresses and castles; countryside and people; cities and villages.1

12

Despite the obvious embellishment, Strasbourg did possess many of these features. Its location was a desirable one, for the city was situated on the Rhine and Ill rivers, in close proximity to the fertile Vosges Mountains. It was these resources that led to the establishment of the city, then called Argentoratum, in Roman times.2 Taking great pride in the city’s ancient history, later residents, especially Strasbourg’s humanists, often referred to it by its old Latin name.

Strasbourg and Its Reformation

Similarly, the painter Conrad Morant described the city on a map he designed in 1548: Argentoratum, which is as old as Ptolemy, Saint Jerome, Orosius, ­Eutropius, Marcellinus and other memorable people. The metropolis of Alsace, next to the Rhine River . . . in vernacular called Strasbourg, a city of pious doctrine and virtue . . . .3 (See Figure 1.)

The geographic appeal of Strasbourg served it well during the medieval and early modern periods, for it became the major center in the Lower Rhine, especially in terms of trade.4 Wine produced from grapes grown in Alsatian vineyards in the Vosges was shipped north on the Ill and on the Rhine, as were wheat and barley grown in the surrounding countryside. Madder, a crop that was used industrially as a dye, was shipped south. Strasbourg was a center for the redistribution of cattle, and served as a market for the textiles produced in Lower Alsace.5

The Medieval City During the Middle Ages, Strasbourg’s natural encirclement of the Ill River was reinforced with the construction of walls, towers, and gates. In addition, seven churches and a cathedral chapter were constructed. Renovations on the city’s cathedral, l’Oeuvre Notre Dame, began at the end of the thirteenth century and continued through the mid-­ fourteenth century. Icons, stained glass windows, and scenes from the Song of Songs, the Last Judgment, and other sources in the Old and New Testaments were designed to adorn the cathedral.6 Several convents were also built, as were houses of the mendicant orders. There were several large plazas in the city, including one just outside the cathedral, as well as the Kornmarkt and Rossmarkt, the corn and horse markets. By the twelfth century, Strasbourg also had a Jewish population, attracted by its location and marketplaces.7 Strasbourg’s Jewish community was largely situated in the city center, its synagogue and ritual bath located just blocks from the cathedral and some of the marketplaces. The economic centrality and religious vibrancy of medieval Strasbourg made it an important center beyond the Lower Rhine. Its significance in the Holy Roman Empire was also due to the independent

13

Figure 1.  Map of the city of Strasbourg, designed by Conrad Morant in 1548. AMS Plan I1, Plan Morant. Reproduced courtesy of Archives municipales de Strasbourg.

16

Strasbourg and Its Reformation

legal status that the city had won. The Empire comprised many overlapping political jurisdictions, and while the emperor nominally ruled over the entire Empire, powerful princes, both ecclesiastical and lay, controlled vast territories and wielded great political power. In the early medieval period, Strasbourg had been governed by its bishop, the largest landowner in Lower Alsace. As the city grew institutionally and economically, the city council wrested control from its bishop, gaining legal independence after a war that lasted from 1260 to 1262. The bishop’s official residence was moved from Strasbourg to Saverne.8 From that point on, the council, comprised mainly of patricians called Constoffler, assumed responsibility for governing the city’s affairs.9 The bishop was still tied to the city, for he was elected by the church canons residing there. The city remained part of his diocese, theoretically under his religious guidance, although no longer legally under his political authority.10 Strasbourg’s status as a self-governing city was not uncommon. From the eleventh century on, urban communities throughout the Empire gained their independence, either by overthrowing their lord, as was the case in Strasbourg, or with the help of princes.11 Some of these cities were granted the legal status of a Frei- und Reichstätt, a Free Imperial City. These cities all had the same legal status, yet in other ways they differed tremendously from one another, for several were little more than villages that had been accorded special legal status.12 The category of Free Imperial City placed a city under the control of the emperor and allowed it to participate in the Reichstag, the imperial Diet, in which the princes of the Empire met with the emperor. Strasbourg’s independent standing was formally recognized by the emperor, and it was accorded the status of a Free Imperial City. The city was then granted several important privileges. The magistrates retained the right to regulate who entered and visited their city and who was granted citizenship.13 Strasbourg was also granted autonomy in its courts. By the fifteenth century, decisions rendered in local courts could be appealed to imperial courts, such as the Reichskammergericht, the Imperial Chamber Court. Because of its status as a Free Imperial City, Strasbourg’s municipal court, run by the city councilors, was precluded from such imperial review.14 Moreover, the city and its burghers were largely protected from being sued in a venue other than the municipal

Strasbourg and Its Reformation

court, as in theory (though not in practice) they would only be brought before an imperial court when the other party in the case had the right to appear before one of the imperial courts, whether the Reichskammergericht or the Reichshofrat, the Imperial Aulic Court.15 Other privileges gave the city and its burghers economic protection. No one was permitted to open a new dock for loading or unloading goods on the water or on the land, under penalty of a fine payable to the council.16 Burghers were permitted to attain the status of Ausburger, which allowed them to reside and even to farm outside of the city in areas such as the neighboring countryside without becoming subject to taxes in those areas.17 Without regard to their place of residence, Ausburger remained subject only to Strasbourg. The city’s merchants were also protected against paying damages if they were shipwrecked in another territory.18 Finally, the city was also precluded from paying “unjust” or new tariffs in the Empire, including taxes imposed by the bishop of Strasbourg, whose lands bordered the city.19 The magistrates were also permitted to design their own Jewish policy.20 In 1349, after the Black Death had hit several neighboring cities, the city’s residents expelled the local Jewish community. The magistrates allowed several families back into the city in 1369, only to expel the Jews once again in 1390. The magisterial prerogative to formulate its own Jewish policy led to the absence of Jews from the city from 1390 until 1791, when the newly declared French republic decided to emancipate its Ashkenazic Jewish citizens.

Strasbourg’s Political Structure By the late fourteenth century, a powerful rentier-merchant class rose in the city. Intermarriage between these merchants and local nobles led to the creation of an oligarchy comprising patricians and merchants. By the fifteenth century, patricians held one-third of civic offices, and the remaining two-thirds were held by the mercantile class. After several rebellions, the guilds acquired tremendous power within the city, and during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, guildsmen joined several of the city’s governing bodies. The city’s constitution, drafted in the

17

18

Strasbourg and Its Reformation

late medieval period, and its governing institutions reflected the interests of patricians, merchants, and the guilds.21 The city’s official executive leaders included both a Stettmeister, a rotating position of ceremonial power drawn from among patricians, and an Ammeister, who could not be selected from the patriciate. There were also three city councils. The XIII was the senior council, and its primary role was to deal with foreign affairs. It also served as the city’s appellate court, since Strasbourg was exempted from use of the imperial court as a court of appeals. The XV was responsible for domestic affairs, executing already existing laws and advising on new legislation. It also served as a regulatory council, which supervised the treasury and public works and sought to prevent corruption. The third council, the XXI, was responsible for reviewing new legislation. The Senate served as the city’s court and comprised thirty senators, including ten patricians and twenty guildsmen. Three times a week, the senators held joint sessions with the XXI, forming the Rat und XXI, the highest legislative body of the city, known as the Magistrat.22 By the mid-fifteenth century, when all of these governing structures were in place, Strasbourg had become a relatively large city, boasting 18,000 inhabitants. The population grew to approximately 25,000 inhabitants by 1580 and 29,000 by the early seventeenth century. Comparatively, Strasbourg was approximately the size of Bordeaux or Troyes, and it approached the size of Nuremberg and Cologne, cities with about 30,000 inhabitants by the mid-sixteenth century.23 Other towns, villages, and even small cities in Lower Alsace had populations ranging from under 2,000 inhabitants to 6,000 inhabitants. Strasbourg was clearly the capital and the largest city in Alsace.

The Reformation City The late medieval and early modern period witnessed cultural changes as Strasbourg became a center for humanism. Home to noted preacher Geiler von Kaysersberg and renowned writer Sebastian Munster, Strasbourg also attracted men from Alsace and beyond to study with famed local scholars such as Jacob Wimpheling. These men and their students advocated the study of rhetoric, ancient languages, and the pursuit of

Strasbourg and Its Reformation

morality, and called for the reform of the church.24 Strasbourg’s circle of humanists spread their influence when, following the invention of moveable type, the city quickly became a major center of print culture, with local publishers printing humanist and religious works. A rich, vernacular popular literature, often enhanced with illustrations designed by famous woodcutters and artists of the sixteenth century, was also produced in the city. Many artists, such as Hans Baldung Grien, resided in Strasbourg for a short while.25 The early humanists of Strasbourg all remained within the Catholic Church. Their students, however, brought with them more radical calls for reform. Reform-minded preachers entered the cities’ ranks in the early 1520s. Matthias Zell arrived in the city in 1521, followed in 1523 by Caspar Hedio, Martin Bucer, and Wolfgang Capito. Trained as humanists, these men penned commentaries on the Bible and translated biblical texts. Most importantly, they preached the gospel as evangelical, reform-minded preachers, facilitating the spread of reform among both the literate and illiterate.26 Bucer’s actions also conveyed his calls for reform to the illiterate public, as he publicly defied the Catholic Church by marrying a former nun despite the fact that he had been a Dominican monk. Literate residents had access to Luther’s works, too, available in Strasbourg in 1520. These calls for reform inflamed the people of Strasbourg, who clamored for more evangelical preaching in the city and demanded the right to choose their own pastors. The parishioners of Saint Aurelia’s and Young Saint Peter’s churches insisted that Bucer and Capito serve as their respective pastors. By the mid-1520s, the laity also began to violate the relics, saints, and icons in their parish churches. In 1524–1525, people seized the money laid on the altars, designated for relics and saints, and placed it in the alms box, while verbally condemning the “idols” in the churches. By 1525, the gardeners of Saint Aurelia’s entered the cathedral and Saint Aurelia’s, destroying the paintings, retables, relics, and altars that they had once revered. A second violent wave of iconoclasm came in 1529–1530, just prior to the official adoption of the reformed faith by the city magistrates.27 Faced with the growing desire for reform, the magistrates decided over time that adopting reform would ultimately maintain order in the

19

20

Strasbourg and Its Reformation

city.28 Formal steps toward implementing reforms were taken slowly when compared to the events in other cities. Although some of the magistrates were themselves influenced by Protestant preachers, ­others firmly clung to Catholicism. In 1524–1525, Strasbourg’s magistrates began to take over many of the rights and privileges traditionally held by the Catholic Church, taking control of ecclesiastical institutions and charity, secularizing the houses of monks and nuns, allowing the Mass to be sung in German, and approving the removal of icons from local churches. On February 20, 1529, the city magistrates formally accepted reform with their decision to abolish the Latin Mass. When, just over a year later, at the Reichstag in Augsburg, various Protestant cities and princes declared their solidarity to the Protestant cause in defiance of the emperor, Strasbourg was among them. Whereas most German Protestants adopted the Augsburg Confession, the doctrinal document for the Lutheran faith, Strasbourg’s clerics did not do so. Capito and Bucer differed from Luther, and tended toward Huldrich Zwingli’s interpretation of the Eucharist as a symbol of Jesus’ body, rather than an actual physical presence of his body. As such, they authored the Tetrapolitan Confession, which delineated the doctrinal stance of four cities, Strasbourg, Memmingen, Constance, and Lindau, and which struck a middle ground between the Lutheran and Zwinglian confessions. Even though Strasbourg’s magistrates had formally adopted the Tetra­politan Confession authored by the city’s reformers, the official city doctrine evolved over time as a result of both outside political concerns and internal dissent. Although Strasbourg was not far from the Swiss cities that most closely shared its theology, it directly bordered the Catholic lands of France, the bishop of Strasbourg, the Habsburg emperor, and other local Catholic landowners in Alsace. As a Protestant city, Strasbourg was particularly vulnerable to the Catholic emperor, to whom it reported as a Free Imperial City. The threat faced by Strasbourg was exacerbated by the decision of its reformers not to adopt the Augsburg Confession. Having deviated from the Lutheran doctrines to which the powerful Protestant territorial princes in the Empire adhered, the city did not have many theological allies who might come to its defense. Thus, in order to protect the city, the magistrates signed the Augsburg Confession in 1531, which

Strasbourg and Its Reformation

allowed them to join the Schmalkaldic League, an alliance of Lutheran princes and cities formed to protect its members from a possible onslaught from Emperor Charles V. Nevertheless, the magistrates still maintained the validity of the Tetrapolitan Confession. In 1536, Bucer drafted the Wittenberg Concord, in which he attempted to reconcile the city’s adoption of these two different confessions. Over the next sixty years, the city held the formal position of accepting both the Augsburg and the Tetrapolitan Confessions. This underscores that the Reformation in Strasbourg was shaped by both theological and political concerns. A convergence of the interests of reformers, laity, and magistrates had ushered reform into the city, and continued to affect the pace and decisions of reform in Strasbourg. The pragmatic approach to reform often taken by Strasbourg’s magistrates is also manifest in their policies toward both Catholics and radical reformers in the city. Although the magistrates had taken over local convents, they did not close all of them, allowing some to remain open as schools for women who were not yet married. Protestantism demanded the closing of nunneries, yet practical social concerns factored into the magisterial decision. While they insisted that no new novices be accepted, and that the women hear Protestant preaching and receive confession from a Protestant pastor, the lack of an educational institution for women, which was desired by local wealthy families, pushed the magistrates to retain the convents in a new “acceptable” form.29 Similarly, social connections between Schwenkfeldians and the city magistrates, as well as individual Schwenkfeldians’ wealth and utility to the city, allowed these religious radicals to fare better in Strasbourg than some other groups.30 Strasbourg had a reputation for treating people of various beliefs more moderately than was the case in other places in Europe. John Calvin, for example, fled from France to Strasbourg, where he worked closely with Martin Bucer and served as pastor to a congregation of French refugees. Individual Anabaptists and other religious radicals also were not persecuted in the city; as such, they specifically sought refuge there. This moderate attitude toward members of other confessions was based not only on a communal belief in freedom of conscience but also on pragmatic realpolitik.31 Avoiding the wrath of powerful neighbors of other denominations undoubtedly

21

22

Strasbourg and Its Reformation

influenced the magistrates’ moderation toward other Christian confessions. Treating residents and refugees of these denominations with respect helped the city maintain friendly relations with its neighbors. In addition, economic motives compelled the magistrates to open city walls to immigrants and foreigners in order to increase participation in the marketplace. The city was attractive to immigrants because of its geographic accessibility and the ease with which outsiders could purchase rights within the city.32 A lesser form of citizenship, Schultheissburgerschaft, could be purchased by immigrants who were neither guild members nor patricians.33 Thus, despite the city’s official acceptance of Protestantism, Strasbourg comprised a relatively diverse set of Christians, including Catholics and Protestants of all types. In the 1540s, Strasbourg’s formal identity as a Protestant city led it into war. In 1546–1547, Charles V attacked the members of the Schmalkaldic League in an effort to reinstate Catholicism in the Empire. His success in 1547 led him to impose new policies in the vanquished Protestant areas of the Empire. Entitled the Augsburg Interim, these policies permitted some key aspects of Protestantism to be practiced, including receiving communion in both kinds, preaching the doctrine of justification by faith, and clerical marriage. However, Catholic worship was to be reintroduced in these areas. In Strasbourg, magistrates such as Jacob Sturm negotiated a specific compromise, frowned upon by the clerics, which required Strasbourg to negotiate with its former bishop as to how Catholic practice should be formally accepted within its walls. The terms of this agreement mandated that three of the seven parish churches—including the cathedral—revert to Catholic use, and that Catholic practice be tolerated openly in the city. Despite the Protestant clerics’ resistance, the Augsburg Interim was adopted and implemented in Strasbourg in 1549–1550. Unable to countenance the magisterial decision to permit Catholic practice in the city, reformers Martin Bucer, Paul Fagius, and Immanuel Tremellius departed from the city in exile. The adoption of the Interim had long-term legal consequences for religious practice in Strasbourg. Five years later, in 1555, the emperor and the Protestants reached a formal arrangement for accommodating Catholic and Protestant practice throughout the Empire. The new com-

Strasbourg and Its Reformation

promise, called the Peace of Augsburg, directed that the religion of the rulers of a given city or territory would determine the religion practiced in that location. This policy of cuius regio, eius religio legalized the status quo of religious practice as it had been observed at the moment of the signing in 1555. Thus, since at the time of the adoption of the compromise in 1555, Strasbourg had been officially recognizing Catholics for five years under the terms of the Interim, both Catholic and Lutheran practice would henceforth be permitted in the city. In 1559, in defiance of the Peace of Augsburg, the magistrates purposefully neglected to renew the ten-year privileges of Catholic practice that had been established under the Interim in 1549. When these privileges expired, the city’s Protestant clerics preached against the Catholic priests. After two days of violence, the Protestant laity successfully rid the churches of Catholic priests, which helped revert the cathedral and the other two parish churches to Protestant practice. Individual private Catholic practice continued in the city, although most public city spaces were Protestant once more. During the latter half of the sixteenth century, as the city was embroiled in internal and external struggles, several elite clerics and scholars were engaged in intense debates as to what constituted proper doctrine for the city. The old battle between the Zwinglian-leaning theologians and the Lutherans persisted. Jean Sturm, rector of the gymnasium, sparred with the staunch Lutherans Johann Marbach and his successor, Johannes Pappus, both of whom presided over the Kirchenconvent, the organization of city clerics. Most of Strasbourg’s clerics adhered to Marbach and Pappus’ position, embracing Lutheran theology. At the same time, as a border city looking for allies, Strasbourg often supported Protestants outside the city, including the French Huguenots. Many clerics, especially those who were Lutherans, resented the city’s entanglement in non-Lutheran conflict, and pushed for the city’s commitment to Lutheranism. Beginning in 1570, these clerics sought to persuade the magistrates to adopt Lutheran doctrine and to officially abandon the Tetrapolitan Confession.34 In 1598, this goal was accomplished, as the magistrates signed the Formula of Concord, firmly embracing Lutheran doctrine by accepting the Augsburg Confession and rescinding its adherence to the Tetrapolitan Confession.35

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Strasbourg and Its Reformation

Once the city adopted Lutheran orthodoxy, the magistrates issued various church orders in which they demanded adherence to behaviors fitting for a Lutheran city. Public worship in other churches was not permitted, and parents were expected to baptize and educate their children in accordance with Lutheran doctrine. The process of accepting a confession and prescribing confessionally appropriate behavior was common in the Empire at this time.36 Yet as they regulated public behavior in accordance with Lutheran norms, Strasbourg’s magistrates continued their pragmatic approach toward dealing with non-Lutheran Christians in the city.37 Local economics and foreign relations led magistrates to look the other way with regard to dissent, and also encouraged them to work with members of other confessions on various occasions, specifically with the Catholic bishop.38 Magisterial lenience in Strasbourg should not be mistaken for an ideological tolerance of dissenting views.39 There were limits to the magistrates’ moderate positions. Freedom of conscience was permitted, but actions deemed to be harmful to the city welfare were punished harshly.40 Whereas the magistrates looked the other way when it came to private dissent, by the seventeenth century they had enacted legislation that stressed the public Lutheran identity of the city. At least in principle, if not in practice, late-sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Strasbourg embraced Lutheran orthodoxy. During the Thirty Years War from 1618 to 1648, Alsace, as a borderland between France and the Empire, was particularly hard hit. Following the treaty of Westphalia, which ended the war, Alsace was taken over by the French king, although Louis XIV did not enter Strasbourg itself until 1681.

The Unique Nature of Strasbourg As Jacob Wimpheling wrote, Strasbourg was different from other cities, or in his eyes, “greatly superior, and more complete than other cities.” 41 Its location on the border and its economic role as marketplace for the Lower Rhine greatly influenced the composition of the city’s population and the policies adopted by its magistrates. Even its theological struggles

Strasbourg and Its Reformation

during the Reformation—shifting from the Tetrapolitan Confession to the adoption of both the Tetrapolitan and the Augsburg Confessions, to the sole adoption of the Augsburg Confession—may be attributed to Strasbourg’s location as a city between the Swiss cantons and the Lutheran areas of the Empire. These circumstances forced the magistrates to moderate their policies. Hans Braun, a religious radical who came to Strasbourg as a refugee, explained to the magistrates that Strasbourg’s reputation for religious tolerance had prompted him to migrate to that city.42 Braun’s words suggest that the magisterial attitude of moderation may have been unique or, at the very least, uncommon at the time.43 Strasbourg’s known leniency toward different religious groups begs the question of the nature of the relationship between the city and local Jews. Wimpheling’s enumeration of Strasbourg’s attributes, written more than a century after the expulsion in 1390, includes Jews as an item tacked between architectural descriptions of the city: “architects; the expulsion of the Jews; delightful buildings, beautiful streets and areas.”44 The lack of Jews, even a century after their expulsion, was deserving of mention, and was considered by him to be a quality that rendered Strasbourg attractive in his eyes. The inclusion of Jews in this list illustrates that Jews played a role in Christian rhetoric and discourse. Wimpheling was of course correct that the Jews had been expelled, but they were not absent from the city. They could be found interacting with “men who are learned in all the arts,” training the teachers who took over the “schools of the mendicant orders” in the wake of the Reformation.45 They walked past the “delightful buildings, beautiful streets and areas,” and entered the city from the “common land, surrounding countryside.”46 The “arms, weapons, horses, artillery, [and] rifles” of the city encouraged the Jews to request and receive refuge inside city walls; it was the Jews who provided many residents with their horses.47 On a daily basis, the Jews could be found in the very markets Wimpheling praised. It is to their story, and their experience in the wake of the expulsion, that we will now turn.

25

Tw o  “Without Trees,

the Fire Will Be Extinguished”

Reinventing Jewish Life in the Rural Sphere

26

During the medieval period, Jewish life in the Holy Roman Empire was primarily urban. Those Jews who moved to Ashkenaz first settled in cities along the Roman trade routes. As urbanization increased during the Middle Ages, Jews were invited into various large cities by those local princes attempting to enhance local urban economies. In Strasbourg, evidence gathered from tombstones definitively dates the presence of a Jewish community to the year 1200, although there was already a Jewish community earlier, in the twelfth century.1 As was the case in most other cities in the Empire, Strasbourg’s Jews resided in the heart of the city, and the Judengasse, the Jewish street, was located just northeast of the cathedral. All of the Jewish ritual spaces could be found in this area. The synagogue was located at what is now 13 Rue des Juifs, and the mikveh, or ritual bath, was located around the corner at 20 Rue des Charpentiers, right behind the cathedral.2 The community’s cemetery was located just past the Ill River in the northeast direction, where the Préfecture stands today. Strasbourg’s location on the north-south trading axis of the Rhine and along the axis of eastwest trading routes rendered it an ideal dwelling for the Jews, who had entered the city and settled there in their capacity as merchants and, later, as money lenders. The location of the Jewish community of Strasbourg in the city’s center provided easy access to the city’s marketplaces. The close proximity of Jewish homes and Jewish communal institutions to the marketplace ensured that individual Jews had access to the communal, religious, and economic forums that were necessary for daily life. However, during the late Middle Ages, when anti-Jewish

Jewish Life in the Rural Sphere

sentiment increased, the stability of Jewish life began to decline. The culminating point was reached during the fourteenth century, when rumors of the Black Death reached Strasbourg. Violence against the Jews in Alsace in 1349 followed a wave of massacres in the southeastern region of the Empire and in Swiss cities, beginning in Zoffingen, Berne, and Basel. Charged with poisoning the wells and blamed for the spread of the plague, Jews throughout various cities in the Holy Roman Empire were either killed or expelled from their homes. These accusations spread to Strasbourg as well. In February 1349, the plague had yet to strike. Nevertheless, the people rallied against the Jews, defying the wishes of the Ammeister Peter Schwarber and two other Meisters, Gosze Sturm and Cune von Winter­ thurm.3 Jacob Twinger von Koenigshofen (1346–1420), a chronicler of Strasbourg’s history, recounts the details of the massacre of Jews in Strasbourg: On Saturday, which was Saint Valentine’s Day, the people burned the Jews in their cemetery on a wooden scaffold; there were about two thousand of them. Those who were willing to be baptized were permitted to live. There were also many young children taken from their mothers and fathers who were baptized. That which people owed to the Jews was annulled, and all of the security pledges and letters which [indicated] heavy indebtedness [to the Jews] were returned [to the people of Strasbourg].4

The burghers erected a scaffold in the Jewish cemetery where they burned the Jews, banishing the leaders of the city that stood in their way. Although Koenigshofen and other chroniclers of Alsace claim that two thousand Jews were burned, based on the population figures for that era, scholars estimate that the number of Jews burned was more likely between two hundred fifty and three hundred.5 Those Jews that were not killed were expelled from the city. Throughout Alsace and in other places in the Empire, violence stemming from the plague or from other accusations against the Jews often led to the expulsion of local Jewish communities. While many Jews left the region for Italy and for eastern Europe, some remained in the Empire, often settling in small towns and villages. The political landscape of the Holy Roman Empire allowed the Jews to remain in the country­

27

28

Jewish Life in the Rural Sphere

side. Unlike centralized monarchies such as Spain and England, in which a king’s decision to expel the Jews was universally implemented throughout the land, the Empire’s multilayered and often intersecting jurisdictions allowed Jews who were expelled by a particular city or local authority to request permission to reside in a neighboring area, which often belonged to a different landowner or prince. An additional factor that allowed the Jews to settle in one area as they were expelled from another was an adjustment to their legal status that transpired in the late medieval period. Since the thirteenth century, the Jews had been servi camerae, imperial chamber serfs, who “belonged” solely to the emperor. In an effort to raise revenue, the emperor often sold local authorities the Judenregal, the right to determine local policy governing Jews. Once the Judenregal had been sold, Jewish policy was decided and implemented on a local level, such that Jews were frequently expelled from one location as they were admitted into another.6 Beginning in the fourteenth century, then, the demographics of the Empire began to shift, as the Jewish population moved to the countryside.7 With the exception of Frankfurt, Worms, and Prague, this remained the case for approximately two centuries until the end of the Thirty Years War in 1648, when court Jews began to enter the urban realm.8 The events of 1349 mark the beginning of this transformation from urban to rural Jewish communities in the Empire. Although some locations were unaffected by these events, and other locations readmitted their Jewish populations after the expulsions of the Black Death, 1349 is nevertheless the marker of significant qualitative differences in Jewish communal life.9 Strasbourg is a clear example of this phenomenon. In 1369, twenty years after the Black Death massacre, the city readmitted six Jewish families, granting them a privilege of six years’ residence in the city in exchange for paying various taxes to different authorities. These families did not return to the Judengasse, but instead, lived on the outskirts of the city near their old cemetery. The privilege was renewed, and the Jewish population doubled by 1375. Yet their stay in Strasbourg was beleaguered by heavy taxation and continued false accusations.10 One can hardly compare the tenuous existence of a few families living in the outer reaches of the city with the economi-

Jewish Life in the Rural Sphere

cally and religiously vibrant Jewish community that had been present in Strasbourg’s city center up until the events of 1349. The last Jewish community of Strasbourg was expelled in 1390, just twenty-one years after their readmission to the city. Jews were not permitted to reside in the city again until 1791. Other Alsatian cities also expelled their Jewish populations during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. By 1479, the number of rural towns and villages with Jewish populations exceeded the number of cities with Jewish residents in Alsace.11 This new demographic reality forced the Jewish population to restructure and redefine the framework of a kehilla, a Jewish community. The move from the city to the countryside generated a shift from the medieval, centralized Jewish community, in which hundreds of Jews lived in one area, to scattered Jewish settlements dispersed among various small cities, towns, and villages. By 1449, just one hundred years after the 1349 massacre, there were twenty-seven villages in Alsace with Jewish populations, with no more than two Jewish families per town or village.12 Statistics of Jewish residence do not differ much for the seventeenth century. In the diocese of Strasbourg, forty-eight Jewish heads of households were scattered among eighteen villages. These villages varied in size, most comprising between 1,000 to 2,000 residents. The number of families in these villages ranged from one Jewish family, which was the case in five villages, to a maximum of seven families in Bischheim.13 In the Landvogtei Hagenau, the territorial province near the city of Hagenau in Lower Alsace, there were eight towns with Jewish populations, with a total of thirty-four households that included 137 people. Only one Jewish family lived in Forstheim and Batzendorf, respectively, while the area with the largest Jewish population was Wingersheim, with eleven Jewish households.14 (See Figure 2.) The small number of Jews residing in each of these settlements was often a result of the enforcement of legal quotas that dictated how many Jewish families were permitted residence. For example, letters exchanged between local rulers and members of a Jewish family indicate that the city of Rosheim only permitted residence to eight Jewish families. The magistrates of Rosheim used this law to evict Aron of Rosheim

29

Görsdorf Oberbronn Reichshofen Surburg Forstheim Betschdorf Lützelstein Walk Eschbach Pfaffenhofen Dauendorf Hagenau Ettendorf Batzendorf Stattmatten Hochfelden Kaltenhausen Saverne

Offendorf

Rh in

Romansweiler

e

Brumath Wingersheim Dingsheim

Bischheim Tränheim Strasbourg Dangolsheim Dachstein Mutzig Holzheim Gressweiler Molsheim Rosenweiler Rosheim Westhofen

Erstein Stotzenheim Dambach Altdorff

Orschweiler Bergheim

Selestat Kinzheim Oberbergheim

Altdorff

Markolsheim

Ammerschweier Turckheim Winzenheim Wintzenheim

Sulzmatt Lautenbach

Colmar Colmar Wettelsheim Rufach

Sulz

Rhine

Colmar Uffholtz Sennheim Kötzingen

Major cities (without Jewish populations) Jewish settlements Jewish settlements with cemeteries

Häsingen Basel

Figure 2.  Map of Jewish settlements in Alsace during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Data from relevant collections in AMS and ADBR.

Jewish Life in the Rural Sphere

and his family, whose presence in the small city was over the prescribed quota for Jews.15 Similar conditions existed in Hagenau, a small city in Upper ­Alsace with a total population of just over 6,000 people in the sixteenth century.16 Hagenau limited its Jewish residents to six families. Married sons and sons-in-law were permitted in the city as long as they resided in the homes of their parents and did not establish their own households.17 Jonas, the son of Simon, a Jew who was a legal resident of Hagenau, was permitted to remain in the city as a married man so long as he did not purchase a house and agreed to live with his father. At the same time, though, he was responsible for paying three different types of taxes and was required to store a musket in the armory.18 Similarly, a Jewish widow in Hagenau received permission for her son-in-law to reside in the city and to teach small children, as long as she did not remarry and start a new household. Were she to remarry, the magistrates would no longer have considered her son-in-law as part of her household, and he would be sent back to Sulz, the village from which he came.19 Even when the number of Jews in a given area had dropped below the assigned quota, permission for residence was not easy to obtain. One Jew, Bonus of Vintzenüm, sought to be included among the six families granted official permission for residence in Hagenau following the death of one of the heads of household. Bonus had already lived in the city for two years as a refugee, and was seeking the status of a permanent resident. In exchange for residential rights, Bonus agreed to pay various special taxes, to lend his horses to local riders, and to refrain from buying a house. The language of Bonus’ letter highlights the precariousness of the Jewish resident: I, Bonus, with my Jewish testimony, have spoken and sworn for myself, my heirs and my descendants . . . that . . . I, my wife, and children are dependent on the benevolence of the magistracy, burghers, and the city’s laws, privileges, freedoms, [and] rightful policies. [It is] only [based on] honor and mercy, and not by law, even less [by] responsibility . . . and when the worthy magistracy does not [wish] to tolerate me and my impure or bad ways, and shall revoke its protection, I will move without [having] anything to say.20

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Jewish Life in the Rural Sphere

Bonus thereby acknowledged that his residence was only permitted due to the mercy of Hagenau’s magistrates. The tenuous nature of these privileges, which could be revoked at will, is highlighted by Bonus waiving his right to appeal a future decision to expel him.21

Challenges to the Traditional Notions of Kehilla The presence of a few Jews living in a small town or village was not new to the early modern period. Indeed, concern for Jews living in smaller settlements can already be found in the Mishna. In a discussion of the appropriate day for the ritual reading of the megilla, the biblical Book of Esther, on the holiday of Purim, the rabbis state that the townspeople, defined as those living in a place with fewer than ten men who were not working, could read the megilla early, on the Monday or Thursday preceding the holiday. These two days of the week were market days, and days on which the villagers would enter the cities for the ritual reading of the Torah and for adjudication in local courts.22 Recognizing the limited resources available to the villagers, the rabbis permitted reading the megilla during a time when they were already entering the larger communities with greater resources. Similar strategies of how to meet the communal and ritual needs of villagers continued in medieval Europe. Although medieval rural Jews did not have communal resources available to them locally, larger urban communities that were nearby served the needs of neighboring towns and villages. For example, one of the takkanot, or decrees, attributed to R. Gershom of Mainz (960–1028) and accepted as binding by the Jews of Ashkenaz included the right of the Jews in the villages to light candles in the synagogues of the city on Yom Kippur.23 This decree formally tied rural Jews to neighboring communities. In takkanot attributed to both Rabbenu Gershom and Rabbenu Tam (d. 1171), the structural connection between urban kehillot and settlements in the surrounding countryside is similarly underscored. The rabbis decreed that inhabi­tants of smaller settlements who buried their dead in the urban cemetery were compelled to use the local rabbinical courts in that city; the right to obtain burial space in a city’s cemetery seems to have brought with it

Jewish Life in the Rural Sphere

obligations to defer to local rabbinic judicial practices.24 This practice continued through the fifteenth century in regions of the Empire, and is cited by R. Israel Isserlein (1390–1460).25 Smaller villages also acquired other resources from nearby cities. A responsum of Isaac b. Moses of Vienna (c. 1180–1250) relates an anecdote that highlights this point: There was once an incident in a settlement on the Rhine, five parasangs away from Bonn, and they sent someone to Bonn [to ask] that [the people from Bonn] send them an etrog [the ritual fruit used on the holiday of Sukkot]. And it was written in the note that they had brought an etrog from Cologne on Friday, and it was accidentally smashed into pieces.26

The Or Zaru‘a mentions this incident in the context of a halakhic query, in which he concludes that the residents of the settlement were permitted to use the etrog even though a non-Jew, by carrying it from Bonn on a Friday night, had performed work that was forbidden on the Sabbath. However, read with the lens of social rather than legal history, this responsum portrays the connections between Jews residing in smaller settlements and those in larger cities. The urban expulsions of the late medieval period altered this dynamic, since there were no longer any larger urban communities, and the bulk of Jewry lived scattered in the countryside. The urban synagogues and the cemeteries of Strasbourg, Colmar, and Selestat, which had previously been used by both urban and rural Jews, were closed.27 By this time, the traditional study of Torah in yeshivot in Alsace had also ceased. R. Johanan Loria, a rabbi in Alsace during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, contrasted his youth with the situation in the sixteenth century: When I, Johanan Loria, was a youth, I went from yeshiva to yeshiva, in the good days, when the communities rested upon their foundations in the land of Ashkenaz . . . the hand of God was upon them to stun them, and they were troubled, and expelled, and their paths went astray, and the yeshivot were closed . . . and everyone to whom God granted wisdom sat alone, and thirsted for water and had none.28

Although Loria himself opened a yeshiva in Alsace, it too was closed with the coming of Swedish troops to Alsace in the sixteenth century.

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Similar despair about the circumstances in Alsace was expressed by R. Joseph Colon of Italy (c. 1420–1480). Communal leaders of Regensburg, seeking to impose a tax on the community in order to raise money for institutions of Jewish study, sent a representative to ask Colon if such an action would be appropriate even without the consent of the entire community. Colon approved such a measure and commented: They [the leaders of Regensburg] saw that due to our many sins, the world is desolate and is lacking Torah, and especially in the regions of ­Sundgau, Alsace and Lorraine, lands which had always raised ­warriors in the war of Torah when they were abounding with ­yeshivot and abounding with Torah, and now, they beg after the precious words of God, and there is no frequent vision [1 Sam. 3], for if there is no flour there is no Torah, and without trees, the fire will be ­extinguished. . . .29

Colon’s responsum and Loria’s description indicate that there was a feeling that something had been lost, at the very least among the Jewish lay leaders of Regensburg, and rabbinical leaders more broadly.30 Colon’s citation of the rabbinic dictum, “if there is no flour there is no Torah” alludes to the dearth of local rabbinic leadership, probably precipitated by the lack of funds and resources to sustain local rabbis. After Johanan Loria’s death, no major rabbinic figures resided in Alsace until after the Thirty Years War in 1648, when Alsace was under French rule.31 The communal leadership in Alsace after Loria’s death consisted of parnasim and of political representatives to local authorities.32 Their role as liaisons and tax collectors did not fill the gap in religious leadership that came with the migration of most rabbis and intellectuals eastward. Given these conditions, what constituted a kehilla in early modern Alsace? A dispersed community that lacked local rabbinic leadership, whose former synagogues, cemeteries, and yeshivot were closed, certainly could not rely on medieval models of community in which the periphery was served by the center. The center was no longer extant, and the Jews were scattered throughout the periphery. Rather, the early modern period in Alsace witnessed the development of a variation on the typical medieval kehilla. Unlike medieval rural Jewry, which depended upon a local urban center, the Jews in the various settlements in

Jewish Life in the Rural Sphere

Alsace banded together to form a community based on networks that functioned without a large city as its central resource. References to a Gemeine Judisheit, a Jewish unit or community, appear in archival documents. Early-sixteenth-century petitions to local authorities refer to a Jewish community in Lower Alsace and to one in Upper Alsace, each made up of Jews living in smaller settlements throughout the region, suggesting that a larger communal entity had been forged by linking the small settlements. Although the Jews in a given town did have direct dealings with local authorities, evidence of more expansive communal petitions submitted respectively on behalf of the larger communities of Lower Alsace, Upper Alsace, and Vörderösterreich, the Habsburg-­controlled area of Upper Alsace can be found in Strasbourg’s archives.33 Specific representatives served the communal units of Lower and Upper Alsace. That these demographically dispersed individuals selected shared representation indicates that the Jews living throughout the countryside saw themselves as a discrete and unified group. In 1510, the Jews of Lower Alsace appointed Josel of Rosheim as their leader.34 After Josel’s death, several figures, such as Lazarus of Surburg, Seligman of Walk, and Gotlieb of Hagenau, appear as the representatives of Lower Alsatian Jewry. In a letter from 1575, sent by Lazarus to the magistrates of Hagenau on behalf of the Jews of the Land­vogtei ­Hagenau, an area in Lower Alsace, Lazarus explained, “I am their representative, commander and parnas.”35 The use of the traditional terminology of parnas, the lay leader of the community, highlights that the Jews adapted the typical role of lay communal leader to their new demographic reality. Lazarus was the parnas of a community comprising members who were dispersed among the various small towns and villages in the Landvogtei Hagenau. Other parnasim, including Meier of Hagenau, are also listed sporadically in archival documents. In certain cases, when communal representatives secured rights for the local community, violation of the conditions under which these rights were granted resulted in excommunication from the community. This is another indicator of the community and its cohesive identity, and underscores the Jews’ perception of their kehilla as a unit. One can only be excommunicated from a meaningful and unified entity. The of-

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fenders’ efforts to reintegrate into the community came only days after the bans had been issued, highlighting the strength of the community’s reach, despite scattered demographics.36 Familial and work-related ties served to bolster communal bonds. Members of the same family were often split up between two or three different villages. For example, Jaeckel of Oberbergheim’s brother, Fahel, resided in Kinzheim; Aron of Rosheim’s son Mardocheus lived under the jurisdiction of Henry of Fleckenstein, who was a territorial prince in Alsace; Berlin of Brumath’s brother-in-law Hitzig resided in Dangolsheim. Aside from familial relations, these men also worked with one another though they lived in separate towns. Thus, familial and business connections strengthened the Jews’ conception of living in a unified community. Similar practices and customs in religious observance also bound the Jews of Alsace to one another. A specific Alsatian minhag, or custom, went back to the fourteenth century, reinforcing the communal ties between the different households in the towns and villages.37 Residents of various smaller settlements shared smaller, local resources with one another, since no large, centrally located city remained after the medieval expulsions.38 The Jews needed to acquire new spaces for communal rituals, now that many of their former urban institutions were closed. New spaces were often obtained in noncentral areas, since few communities had enough residents to allow for their own local space. This new model of the rural kehilla without an urban center is most clearly manifest in the acquisition of land for burial. During the late medieval period, the cemeteries of Strasbourg, Selestat, and Colmar were closed.39 Throughout Alsace, new cemeteries were opened in various villages to afford local Jews the separate land that was ritually necessary for burial.40 In 1366, a cemetery was opened in Rosenweiler, a tiny village on the outskirts of the city of Rosheim, located twenty-six kilometers southwest of Strasbourg. Rosenweiler’s arid land was used as a burial area for the Jews of Rosheim.41 Ettendorf, a small city located in the Landvogtei Hagenau about twenty-eight kilometers northwest of Strasbourg, was a primary burial location for many of the Jewish settlements in the region starting in the sixteenth century. Although it was not centrally located, it was used by Jews from several settlements in Lower Alsace.42 An additional cemetery was opened in approximately

Jewish Life in the Rural Sphere

1500 in Dangolsheim, another small city in the Landvogtei, located twenty-one kilometers west of Strasbourg. While it was temporarily closed after an expulsion from the city in 1519, Lazarus of Surburg succeeded in having it reopened in 1554.43 Specific circumstances in the Thirty Years War led to the opening of new and additional Jewish cemeteries in Hagenau during the seventeenth century. In 1622, one of the Jewish refugees from the Thirty Years War who had been permitted to reside in Hagenau passed away. Since local Jews were not permitted to bury any nonresidents in their cemetery, and could not travel outside of the city because of the battling troops, they negotiated a piece of the Stettmeister’s garden, and arranged to bury their dead there for a fee of one Reichstahler per burial, paid directly to the Stettmeister. When this problem came to the magistrates’ attention, they sought to raise the price by one Gulden per burial. Ultimately, both the Stettmeister and the Jews were able to convince the magistrates to maintain the previous arrangement, with the Stett­meister’s garden serving as the cemetery for Jewish nonresidents.44 In 1631, the plots in the cemetery for residents were filled once again, and the Jews purchased an additional burial plot in a local garden. One year later, the magistrates charged that the Jews had exceeded the allocated and agreed-upon number of plots, presumably having buried refugees in that space. Claiming that the additional burials were a misunderstanding, the Jews were permitted to keep their cemetery, as long as nonresidents were to be buried elsewhere.45 Asher ha-Levi of Reichshofen (b. 1598), an Alsatian Jew who composed memoirs detailing his daily experiences, similarly recorded the difficulties that the war posed for burial of the dead. In 1633, Asher was living in the town of Oberbronn, having fled there to escape an attack by troops. He wrote: On the eve of the holy Sabbath, the thirteenth of Elul, three hours after midday, the elderly Reichel, of blessed memory, died. Four days earlier, she had gone from my house to the house of her son-in-law. And we had a great burden, how to find for her a burial plot, because it was not possible to bring her to the graves of our fathers in Ettendorf. Though we searched in various ways, at the end, we went to the authority and judge here and he gave us a burial plot on a hill close to here for a

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large fee, and we buried the elderly woman mentioned above . . . this was Sunday, the fifteenth of Elul, 5393, here in the holy community of Oberborn [sic].46

Similar patterns of burial also existed in Upper Alsace. Jews living in the Sundgau used the cemeteries in Sennheim and Orschweiler, which were opened in the mid-sixteenth century.47 Markolsheim, a village northeast of Colmar, had opened another cemetery serving the Jews of Upper Alsace. A letter from 1629 written by the bailiff of Markolsheim to his superior, the bishop of Strasbourg, records a request from the local Jews seeking permission to buy land in nearby Herbesheim, for additional burial space.48 The establishment of small cemeteries throughout the kehillot of Lower and Upper Alsace underscores a new pattern of communal space that emerged during the early modern period. The Jews from the region no longer shared central, urban burial space as they had in medieval times. Instead, residents of scattered local settlements banded together and pooled available resources and shared less central cemeteries. Constraints such as the physical space of the cemetery, expulsions, and war led to the establishment of other smaller local burial plots. This regional approach, in which settlements joined together and shared available resources, is mirrored in the formation of the quorums of ten men needed for prayer. While a few settlements had enough families to create the minyan, or quorum, settlements with only a handful of families did not have this option on a daily basis. The solution to this problem is noted in a letter from 1562 written by Bishop Erasmus of Strasbourg to Emperor Ferdinand. In an effort to halt all Jewish commerce in his lands, the bishop had sent a notary to serve local Jews with copies of his new mandate forbidding them to work anywhere in Alsace. The notary, Adam von Boys, notified Abraham and Jacob of Rosenweiler of the new law, and asked them whether there were Jews living in Rosheim as well. When they replied in the affirmative, the notary recorded: I needed to similarly announce the form of the enactment to them [the Jews of Rosheim]. Thereupon . . . Abraham and Jacob reported

Jewish Life in the Rural Sphere

to me: It was not necessary to [personally instruct] the Jews from Rosheim, who were so few. They [Abraham and Jacob] also wanted to go home immediately, and reported and pronounced that they, the Jews of Rosenweiler and the Jews from Rosheim, belong together in a communal synagogue [schuol] and could take care of proclaiming the ban.49

Rosenweiler’s Jewish residents probably tended to the Jewish cemetery there that served the Rosheim community. This connection, along with the proximity of Rosheim and Rosenweiler, only two kilometers apart, obviously facilitated the creation of a communal synagogue. Rosheim’s eight households and the two men from Rosenweiler were able to create a quorum, even if none of the families in Rosheim had male children who had reached the requisite age. The tradition of smaller towns and villages collaborating in order to form a quorum persisted in Alsace into the late seventeenth century. The Jews of Pfaffenhofen, too few to constitute their own quorum, joined with those of Dauendorf, a distance of two to three kilometers, for services. Similarly, the Jews of Tränheim traveled to either Westhofen or to Scharrachbergheim in order to pray together.50 There are also records of small settlements joining together in prayer for the holidays. Asher of Reichshofen related that on Rosh ha-Shana and Yom Kippur 1633: I had decided to gather my neighbors, the residents of Görsdorf, to serve as a minyan of ten for us here. Then, my father-in-law, may he live, did not want to provide us with a Sefer Torah, not on loan, and not with collateral, and he forced me to go to the morning prayers, from Reichshofen to Oberborn [sic], on Monday, the first day of Rosh haShana, about two hours before dawn, to serve there as a cantor.51

Asher’s father-in-law, Meir Lippman, had remained in Oberbronn instead of returning to Reichshofen at the end of a siege on that village. None of the three villages had enough men to constitute a quorum, and they also did not each have access to a Torah scroll, so they came together for the holiday prayer. Resources were shared on other holidays as well. In 1630, four days before Sukkot, Asher of Reichshofen received word that there would be

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no etrogim that year, as very few were to be found in all of Ashkenaz. Subsequently, Hirtz and Michel, two otherwise unidentified Jews, arrived with two very small etrogim. These were ruled inadequate, for some of the fruits’ flesh was missing. Asher related: And on the eve of Sukkot, I did not give my eyes rest until I found a way to permit reciting a blessing on this even when [they were] incomplete, and it was not possible [for us to use] another one. And we shared it, Pfaffenhofen, Görsdorf, Surburg, Reichshofen, and Eschbach, and in the hands of messengers it went from strength to strength each day. But when the seventh day was over, I cut into its middle, and [discovered that] it had never been an etrog, only a lemon.52

The rural Jews of various neighboring villages thus shared the “etrogim.” In addition, this occurrence highlights that no local rabbi was available to make the legal determination of whether the fruits brought by Hirtz and Michel were ritually acceptable. The period of time between the eleventh of Tishrei, when the fruits arrived in Alsace, and the start of the festival on the fifteenth of Tishrei was insufficient for reaching a rabbi in a distant community and returning with an answer. Asher, who was somewhat well educated as a local scribe, cantor, and circumciser, took it upon himself to make a decision that may well have been beyond his abilities. This episode clearly highlights the contrast between the medieval and the early modern periods. A comparison of Asher’s experience with the medieval episode related in the aforementioned responsum of Isaac b. Moses of Vienna demonstrates that physical dispersion dramatically impacted access to both ritual items and to rabbinic leadership. As opposed to the medieval period, when rural Jews obtained etrogim for their own use from nearby large cities, during the early modern period in Alsace, etrogim were shared throughout the holiday by small groups of residents dispersed in five neighboring villages. Furthermore, as the Sefer or Zaru‘a reports in that responsum, the medieval residents of the unnamed settlement on the Rhine received a halakhic ruling from R. Joel b. R. Isaac ha-Levi of Bonn and the other students of Torah in that nearby city. This is markedly different from the early modern Alsatian Jews, who did not have a rabbi who was physically close enough to allow for a consultation in time for the holiday.

Jewish Life in the Rural Sphere

The City of Hagenau The city of Hagenau, one of the largest settlements of rural Jews in early modern Alsace, retained some of the properties of the medieval model of center and periphery. Jews had lived in Hagenau since the twelfth century, arriving just after its establishment as a city in 1164. By the thirteenth century, the city had its own synagogue, dedicated in 1252, as well as a ritual bath, a mikveh. Throughout the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, many antisemitic accusations plagued the Jewish community, particularly in 1346, when the Jews were expelled from the city. Subsequently, only six Jewish families were permitted to resettle inside the city. Since their original synagogue was no longer available to them, the Jews purchased two adjacent houses on Hoffersgasse and used these as a synagogue.53 The aforementioned letter written by Bishop Erasmus to the emperor about the new economic restrictions on the Alsatian Jews in 1562 seems to indicate that Hagenau may have played a central role for Jews in other local settlements at this time. On several occasions, the notary, Adam von Boys, sought to inform local Jews about the new laws, only to find that they were not at home: Later, when I, the reported notary, was riding in Pfaffenhofen on Monday, the thirtieth of November, I found no more than one Jew at home, named Matthis. (The other Jews, as he said, were all at a circumcision in Hagenau.)54

On the following Sunday, between seven and eight o’clock in the morning, when the bishop’s emissaries came to the home of the parnas Lazarus of Surburg, his son Mortge informed them that his father was attending a circumcision in Hagenau. The Jews of Eschbach were also not at home that day, for they, too, were attending the circumcision. Similarly, three days later, on Wednesday, the Jews of Winzenheim, including Gottlieb and his father-in-law, Isaac, were not at home between one and two in the afternoon. Gottlieb’s wife, Brevele, explained that they were attending a circumcision in Hagenau. There are two possible interpretations of these events. If the Jews’ absence from their homes was due to circumcisions, and their testimony

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was true, all of these circumcisions took place in Hagenau. Given that only six Jewish families were permitted residence in Hagenau, it seems doubtful that within a ten-day period three circumcisions would have taken place. Thus, if the Jews did attend three circumcisions within the ten-day period, these may have been circumcisions for children from various settlements, with Hagenau and its synagogue serving as a regional center for ritual observance and celebration. Another possibility is that the excuse of attending circumcisions was fabricated, and served as a useful alibi for members of the Jewish community, who undoubtedly had heard that the bishop’s emissaries were coming and sought to avoid meeting them. After all, the bishop’s notary had begun delivering copies of this promulgation to Jews throughout the region two months earlier, in September. Still, even if this was the case, the notary, who was often accompanied by local Christians, accepted this excuse. That Jews from surrounding villages would congregate in Hagenau for circumcisions was a plausible explanation for the Jews’ absence, reinforcing the idea that Hagenau was indeed a center of Jewish activity. Although as a city with only six Jewish families, Hagenau surely did not boast all of the resources of the medieval urban kehilla, it still had some critical assets that could be shared with neighboring Jews in the countryside. The centrality of Hagenau in Lower Alsace continued during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, as records from the year 1575 and the Thirty Years War suggest.55 Local violence and war in Alsace led many neighboring Jews to seek refuge in Hagenau. Despite the official limit of six Jewish families, privileges were granted to house additional Jews during times of crisis in exchange for payment. Despite the heavy taxes that the refugees had incurred in order to remain safe within the city walls, this influx of “foreign Jews” prompted the local magistrates to close the synagogue in 1627.56 As a prerequisite for reopening the synagogue, the magistrates demanded that no foreign Jews pray there, under threat of a fine and heavy punishment.57 According to the new prohibition, only those Jews permitted residence in the city, as well as their children and sons-in-law, were permitted to pray in the synagogue. Asher ha-Levi recalled his move to Hagenau in 1628, precipitated by a search for both a safe haven from the warring troops

Jewish Life in the Rural Sphere

and a quorum with which he could recite the kaddish prayer.58 Asher mentioned the new policies of the magistrates: They began to renew their laws [which were] not good [Ezek. 20:25], under which each man must pay a yearly poll tax of ten Reichstahler, aside from other regular and irregular expenses; also, God forbid, not to attend synagogue anymore. . . .59

The inclusion of this prohibition as one of several harsh directives seems to indicate that the magistrates sought to control the Jewish population, which had grown with the admission of refugees into the city. Asher, however, suggests that these measures were not entirely successful. The six families who were granted official residence and official access to the synagogue were also subject to additional regulations on their worship. The magistrates criticized the “supposed worship” of the Jews, claiming that the Jews yelled, and that they disturbed the population by praying outdoors in public alleys. Their drive to regulate Jewish prayer and to instill it with decorum may be reflective of a Protestant influence, as Hagenau was a bi-confessional city.

The Maintenance of Larger Networks While the Jews of early modern Alsace established a new model of kehilla both spatially and conceptually, networks binding them with other more distant Jewish communities were by no means abandoned. The maintenance of these networks assured rural Jews access to an expanded pool of resources, albeit not on a daily basis. A formal supracommunal structure bound Alsace to larger communities in the Empire and mandated that Alsatian Jews bring their internal disputes before the rabbinical court of Frankfurt am Main, an expectation that was sometimes violated when Jews brought their disputes before local Christian courts.60 Rabbis from other communities took an active interest in the challenges faced by rural Jews.61 The Frankfurt Va‘ad of 1603, a rabbinical assembly of rabbis living throughout the Empire, discussed the difficulties of Jews living in smaller settlements. Among the issues discussed was that in smaller communities, men who were not learned in ritual

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slaughter would nonetheless slaughter animals, and that many of those who had been schooled in the art had forgotten some of the proper methodology. One of their enactments was to send emissaries to these small settlements, to enable local residents to properly observe this Jewish law.62 These emissaries provided rural Jews with resources and connected them to distant, larger communities. Asher ha-Levi similarly recalled that Rabbi Elias Loans from Worms came to Alsace, whereupon he issued a get, a bill of divorce, for Moshe Masla ben Samuel, and instructed Asher in the proper method for writing a get. Although Asher had not been familiar with the proper process for composing bills of divorce, he had previously issued two gittin because “there was no scribe here who could write it . . . even though I had never witnessed the giving of a get, and all the more so, [did not know] how to write one.” 63 Loans’ visit, like those of the emissaries sent by the Frankfurt Va‘ad, furnished local Jews with resources and knowledge, and tied rural Jews to distant urban communities.64 Traveling for the sake of Torah study also strengthened the ties between rabbis of distant communities and rural Jews.65 In the early sixteenth century, Johanan Loria recommended traveling for Torah study, insisting that exposure to different scholars broadened the mind and experience; of course, it was also the only possible educational pattern in Alsace by the mid-sixteenth century.66 The same was true in other areas of the Empire, as demonstrated by two letters published by Chone Shmeruk, which attest to the presence of a young man from Frankfurt and another from a neighboring village at the yeshiva of Cracow.67 These young men later served as melammedim, teaching what they had learned to other young men in rural areas. Asher ha-Levi’s experience is emblematic of this pattern. He set out to study in Metz, Prague, Posen, and Brezhnitz, and then taught children in Heusensteim, near Frankfurt; in Talmessig; in Alesheim, the Bavarian town where he was born; in Walkenberg, near Metz; and in Hagenau, in Alsace. The range of places to which he brought his knowledge demonstrates an extensive network that connected scholars, teachers, and students.68 Studying and teaching in various regions of the Empire and beyond created bonds of tradition, learning, and community across the various communities of the Empire and eastern Europe.

Jewish Life in the Rural Sphere

These bonds were only cemented further by family connections and economic contacts, ties that are mentioned in personal Yiddish correspondence of the period. One of the determining factors for Asher’s decision to embark far from home was the fact that he could board at the home of an uncle, Zanvil Peretz, in Prague.69 Similar patterns can be seen among rural Jews from other areas. The anonymous seventeenthcentury Bohemian Jew who authored a memoir also records receiving meals with an aunt and uncle in Prague when he studied there.70 Family networks bound distant communities to one another, and could serve as the link between residents of the countryside and large Jewish communities. Asher’s extended period of study in Metz may reflect the fact that he had uncles, an aunt, and other relatives in Metz. The printing press also facilitated the creation and dissemination of a larger Jewish cultural world in which the rural Jews could take part. Books that could serve as instruction manuals were marketed as being helpful to the rural Jews, who lacked rabbinic guidance.71 In Alsace, both printed materials and manuscripts connected local Jews with both classical and newly emerging texts. In 1627, the Jewish community of Uffholtz provided books belonging to Hirschle, a Jew from Häsingen, to the Overvogt. The book list gives us an idea of what printed materials were available to and owned by at least some of the Jews living in Alsace.72 The list includes thirteen tractates of the Babylonian Talmud and refers to the name of the censor of the edition, Marco ­Marino ­Brixiense. This indicates that these volumes were from the heavily expurgated Basel edition, printed by Ambrosius Froben. Given the history of the Basel Talmud, it seems likely that local Jews procured these volumes of the Talmud from the fair at Frankfurt, where they were sold.73 Alongside the Talmud, the list records two volumes of a Hebrew Bible, printed in 1525. Given the date and the description of the book’s size, it seems likely that these volumes were from Bom­berg’s edition of the rabbinic Bible, printed in Venice.74 The book list also comprises a Hebrew dictionary and a biblical concordance, about which more identifying details are not available. An additional unidentified and torn volume is also listed. Significantly, the book list includes reference to the Shulhan ‘aruch, R. Joseph Karo’s code of Jewish law that had been printed for the first time about sixty years earlier.

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The only identifying detail included is that the volume was printed in duodecimo format; however, consultation with bibliographic records indicates that there were no editions of the Shulhan ‘aruch printed in this size before 1627.75 Perhaps the scribe of the book list erred in his estimation of the book’s pocket size, and judged it to be a duodecimo since it was a pocket book. There are three editions of the Shulhan ‘aruch, all from Venice, which were printed in 16º format.76 All of these volumes contained only the text of the Shulhan ‘aruch, without the customs of Ashkenazic Jewry as compiled by R. Moses Isserless.77 Regardless of the specific volume, that the community owned a Shulhan ‘aruch indicates that the printing press enabled these rural Jews to access new texts alongside classical works. Alsatian Jews had access to additional Jewish rabbinic and cultural texts from both the medieval period and from contemporary authors through manuscripts. Josel of Rosheim purchased a manuscript containing various rabbinic writings from the thirteenth through the fifteenth centuries, including both philosophy and kabbalah, which he then passed onto his son.78 Another manuscript, the Mordekhai katan, was copied in Rosheim by Josel’s son during the sixteenth century.79 Both books and manuscripts could be purchased or copied when traveling for business, study, or, in Josel’s case, when traveling to serve as the shtadlan. They also could be inherited from previous generations. During the seventeenth century, Asher of Reichshofen copied a manuscript that included a copy of Ephraim of Bonn’s Sefer zekhira and lists of martyrs from the Crusades; also included was Sodot ha-tefilla, a polemic written by Eliezer ha-Rokeah of Worms, one of the leaders of Hasidei Ashkenaz, the medieval German Pietists, against rabbis in France and England who had altered the text of the prayer.80 The chronicles, lists of martyrs, and the Rokeah’s writings all tied the Alsatian Jews to their past, preserving both tradition and memory. In the same manuscript, Asher also copied a letter by Shelumiel from the Holy Land, in which the “greatness of the holy divine man, the honored rabbi Isaac Luria Ashkenazi would be made known.” The letter, which scholars believe was originally sent by Shelumiel to R. Yuspa Hahn of Frankfurt, was written in 1609.81 Asher’s copy from 1631–1632 incorporated recent teachings and lore from other regions

Jewish Life in the Rural Sphere

into the Alsatian Jewish body of knowledge. The use of such letters to disseminate knowledge was an old tradition, which, in this case, created a network of readers familiar with the recent kabbalistic teachings emanating from Safed. On a few folios of his manuscript, Asher also jotted down various Jewish laws and a list of rabbinic texts available to “benei Ashkenaz,” the residents of Germany. The list comprises many of the important works of the medieval rabbis, the rishonim, from the thirteenth through the fifteenth centuries. Although this list does not suggest that Alsatian Jews had direct access to every text on the list, we can surmise that local Jewish secondary elites such as Asher, educated in larger communities, were familiar with the corpus of halakhic literature from the medieval period.

The Meaning of Ashkenaz The experience of the rural Alsatian Jew highlights some of the limits to the traditional model of the kehilla. Jacob Katz defined kehillot by using the model of the highly organized and structured kehilla of eastern Europe as representative of all Jewish life in both eastern Europe and the Empire.82 Yet the preponderance of rural Jewish settlements and of small, rural kehillot in the Empire suggests that, as Elisheva Carlebach has argued, Katz’s model ascribes a geographic unity to “Ashkenaz” that did not exist.83 The example of rural Alsace demonstrates that in some places, there was a spatial and organizational shift in the rural kehilla during the early modern period. In the Empire, and specifically in areas like ­Alsace, where no large urban center remained, the medieval model of rural Jewish communal organization was adapted to the new environment. While economic and family ties and rabbinic responsa continued to facilitate connections between Jews living in different places, in essence, the early modern kehilla in Alsace differed from its medieval predecessor, as it comprised several towns and villages that pooled resources in order to create communal space and fulfill certain religious obligations. This new model of kehilla was not the norm for every location in which Jews resided in the countryside during the early modern

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period. In certain areas of Poland and Lithuania, for example, Jews did reside in small towns and villages, especially after 1569. 84 There, the medieval model of center and periphery persisted, such that villagers made use of the resources found in the nearby urban environment. The existence of different models of kehillot must be integrated into the historical understanding of Jewish communal life, especially since the rural Jewish experience as it transpired in Alsace was the predominant one in the Empire until the mid-seventeenth century. The few Jewish residents residing in each town or village in Alsace did not live their lives cordoned off from their Christian neighbors as Jacob Katz suggests.85 Alsatian Jews interacted extensively with their neighbors in towns and villages, which is the subject of the next chapter.

Th re e Shared Spaces Social Interactions in the Countryside

The typical town, village, or small city in Alsace in which Jewish families resided during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had a population of between one to two thousand residents. Given that the number of Jewish residents constituted such a small percentage of the overall population, it is clear that on a daily basis, Jews had extensive contacts with their Christian neighbors. This, too, challenges the traditional paradigm of the kehilla, as Jacob Katz argued that Jews lived their lives cordoned off from their Christian neighbors.1 Contacts between Jewish and Christian neighbors were by no means a new phenomenon. The proximity of Jews and Christians in the medieval city meant that daily exchanges were the rule, rather than the exception.2 Jews and Christians not only encountered one another as neighbors but were keenly aware of one another’s life cycle rituals.3 In early modern Poland, where Jews and Christians resided side by side as neighbors, extensive contacts between them are recorded in archives, Christian laws, and rabbinic responsa.4 Even in the ghettos of early modern Italy, where Jews and Christians were separated by a physical barrier, exchanges continued in the intellectual, cultural, and social realms.5 The Alsatian village or town likewise constituted a shared space, where Jewish and Christian neighbors lived side by side and encountered one another on a daily basis. The social interactions and relationships between them largely escaped documentation, for these exchanges were informal, and were often irrelevant from the perspective of contemporary record-keepers unless they resulted in conflict or a breach of law. Nevertheless, it is possible to reconstruct the social relationships between local Alsatian Jews and their Christian neighbors

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to some degree. Laws that were designed to regulate contacts between Jewish and Christian residents often shed light on particular behaviors that authorities wished to limit or control. In addition, court cases, rabbinic responsa, and memoirs sometimes contain descriptions of social exchanges and of infractions of social norms.6 Reading both laws and actual cases allows us a glimpse into the private lives of Jews and Christians and reveals how both Jewish and Christian authorities attempted to limit such contacts.

The Case of Meier of Hagenau The extent of the daily contacts between Jewish and Christian neighbors in the Alsatian countryside is recorded in vivid detail in a court case from 1563, in which Hanna and her sons, Jews residing in ­Hagenau, sued the city’s magistrates in imperial court.7 The magistrates had expelled the family from the city, revoking their residential rights after a local case had found Hanna’s husband, Meier, guilty of improper physical conduct with local Christian women. Hanna and her sons appealed the expulsion of the entire household, arguing that Meier’s deeds should not have led to the termination of rights for his wife and children. The appellate dossier contains the records from the initial case decided at Hagenau, including the testimonies of Meier and other local residents, which attest to the routine encounters between local Jews and Christians.8 Meier was a local doctor, serving both Jewish and Christian patients, and he also lent money to local Christians and traded small goods.9 The initial charge against him was brought by Magdalena, a seamstress married to Lorentz Metzger, the local tailor. On Monday, February 15, 1563, Magdalena appeared before the magistrates of ­Hagenau and reported that “either on one or on four occasions,” she and Meier had committed adultery in both his and her homes.10 Both she and Meier were imprisoned as a result of this claim. Three weeks later, Meier was brought before the council to testify. He denied Magdalena’s charge, claiming that the only time that he had entered her home was when he had been summoned there by her hus-

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band, who wanted to send Meier to Sulzberg for business, a proposition which Meier refused.11 He also explained that Magdalena had come to his home in order to make two shirts for his son. Prior to that, Hanna, Meier’s wife, had lent Magdalena 2 Gulden, a loan that also took place in Meier’s home. Magdalena had provided a pledge for the loan, which her husband, the Schneider, or tailor, demanded back. When Meier refused to give the pledge back, the Schneider warned him that if it were not returned, he would claim that Meier and his wife, Magdalena, had “mixed in a fleshly way.”12 During a subsequent interrogation, Meier claimed to have sold Magdalena’s husband a jacket, worth 13 Gulden, but that at the time, they only paid him one Thaler, owing the rest to him. The severity of these charges cannot be underestimated. Adultery between Christians was forbidden, and, as was true in earlier Christian legal systems, the legal code adopted in the Empire thirty years earlier, the Carolina, banned sexual relations between Jews and Christians even if the parties were not married.13 In practice, the sentencing of all criminal offenses did not always conform from one location to another, for the Carolina granted local magistrates leeway in determining sentencing for a variety of offenses.14 Punishments for adultery between Christians could be quite severe, though, ranging from imprisonment to banishment to loss of life and limb.15 The magistrates thus reacted to the accusation of sexual relations between a married Christian woman and a married Jew with seriousness, itself an indication that they deemed such forbidden sexual contact between Jews and Christians possible. Despite Magdalena’s somewhat confused accusation, the magistrates began a thorough investigation, summoning some of Magdalena and Meier’s Christian neighbors as witnesses, and questioning them as to their knowledge of the contacts between the two.16 The council began by summoning Eÿlß, the wife of Jacob von Wintersweiler, a fifty-year-old neighbor of the Metzgers. She testified that she had seen Meier come to the Metzger home, knock on the door, and speak with them. This type of testimony evokes the geographic context in which this accusation took place. Neighbors were expected to know one another, and often also knew about each other’s affairs. Another witness, twenty-four-year-old Nicholas Capito, explained that he

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did not know “if the Jew is [sic] good or bad,” but he did hear Philip, the son of Arbogast Friesen, discuss Meier at the wedding of Valerius Wurtzgartner. Philip testified that at that wedding, he had heard Hans Kurst the Glaser claim that Meier had had relations with Magdalena. Philip further related that on several occasions, both he and Hans had seen Meier and Magdalena talking in front of her house, in front of his house, and on the streets—but he did not know if they had arrived at these locations together.17 Relationships between individuals were thus thrust into the public domain, because of the proximity in which residents of Hagenau lived, and because of the gossip that ensued from daily exchanges. Jews were included in gossip, and were therefore in some sense included in the larger social networks in the city. Jews did not participate in the networks formed by church and parish, but they were an important part of the economic fabric of Hagenau. According to Meier’s story, which was never rebutted by Magdalena, Magdalena had worked for him as a seamstress, and he and his wife had lent her money and sold their family a jacket. This was a reciprocal economic relationship, in which Magdalena and Meier were both consumers and providers. These various economic dealings brought them in and out of one another’s homes. The opportunity for the sexual relationship, or for the fabrication of such a charge, was the direct result of the location in which these contacts took place. Had the loan between Meier and Magdalena been official, it would not have taken place in the privacy of their homes. Furthermore, it would have been notarized, documented, and a matter of public record. Ensuing testimony confirms that daily economic contacts led Jews and Christians into one another’s private spaces. As the council continued its investigation, six other married Christian women came forward with their own charges against Meier.18 The content of the six accusations differ, yet in each case, both the testimony of the accuser and Meier’s rebuttal of that testimony have been preserved. Though their stories contradict one another, both sides demonstrate that relationships developed between Jewish and Christian neighbors who worked with one another. Margareth Cantzen stated: One day . . . when Meier came to the witness’ home, he wanted to purchase a nursing calf that the witness had. She, the witness, showed

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the Jew the stable, and the Jew touched19 the calf. Then, she told the Jew that he should not touch it, but should let it be. Then the Jew was silent, and next touched [her] under her clothing, and desired to undress her. The witness called [out] and pulled on the beard and hair of the Jew, and she was pushed from him, the Jew moved, and she was let free. Following this, when she, the witness and other neighbors were sitting and spinning, the Jew was also sitting near them, and he was speaking of his wishes, intentions, and fancies to the ladies.20

Meier did not completely deny that such an encounter had taken place: The Jew said that he was at the home of Veltin Stahel the Furman, when the Westmannerin [Margareth] was at the door and told him that she had a good calf, and [inquired] whether he wished to buy it. She wanted to show it to him, and led him to the stable of the calf, and then said that he must not touch it. He answered, why should he not touch it, it is permitted for him to touch it. And then he reached out to her skirt and her breast, but he did nothing unchaste with her. They continued to speak, and then he left.21

Meier’s admission that he had engaged in physical contact with Margareth is surprising, given the severity with which sexual relations between Jews and Christians were viewed. The informal manner in which he reported the exchange indicates that casual conversations between Jewish men and Christian women were the norm, and that, in Meier’s view—ultimately proven incorrect by the council’s verdict—a certain level of physical contact between Christians and Jews would not be frowned upon too much by the magistrates. Both Margareth and Meier confirmed that the possibility of a sale led them to be alone together, and that Meier had touched her. This initial encounter did not preclude future contact between them. Margareth reported that Meier sat near the circle of spinning women, bantering about intimate matters. Whether or not Meier had actually joked with the spinning women, Margareth’s testimony squarely placed him in the context of women’s spinning, an activity that early modern authorities feared as a potential avenue for licentious contact between men and women.22 That such a story was considered plausible, and that it may have happened, highlights that Jews were far from isolated from village life.

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Even more telling is the testimony of Agnes, listed alternately as the wife of Balthasar of Dassenheim, or as the wife of his son. Her story reads: Meier the Jew came to her house to fetch a book from her husband. When her husband was not home, she had a young woman with her. The Jew asked her to send the young woman away. This, the witness did not want to do. He, the Jew, told her that he wanted to give her money so that she would be willing [to have relations with him] and then showed her his coin purse from the devil. He pushed it onto the table, and [said] that she should go into a room with him, or show him the dove that her husband had.23 This, she did not want to do. Then, when her husband was not at home, he [Meier] often came, and asked her if she was willing [to have sexual relations], and [he asked her] to show him where she lives and sits [i.e., the inner rooms of the house], and she did not want to show him. And when she made a summer house, the Jew would come and show how he had been to her [regular] house, and that she was not at home, and the door was locked. The witness asked him, what did he want? He answered, he wanted to have that book, and he always had something to say.24

Agnes portrayed Meier as persistently seeking her out, specifically when her husband was not at home, suggesting that Meier would be aware of her husband’s comings and goings. Perhaps to evoke sympathy during her testimony, Agnes also drew upon the stereotype of the devilish Jewish money lender.25 Meier’s version of their interaction differs from Agnes’ narrative: He said that she had pawned several pledges to him, and that 2 Gulden were still unpaid. Her son and daughter-in-law did not want to act as guarantors for the money [that she owed]. He said that he would guarantee it if she slept with him once. She said she would not do it, and he further answered, “If I gave you a crown, you would do it.” This, she also refused. He went to her home with her husband, Balthasar, who had a book about medicine and showed it to him. He spoke to her twice about sleeping with him, she did not want to, and he also did not sleep with her.26

Here, too, Meier acknowledged what at least amount to jokes with sexual innuendos, and what, if taken at face value, constitute sexual advances,

Social Interactions in the Countryside

albeit unsuccessful ones. One is struck by the fact that a Jew would consider volunteering the details of this verbal exchange to a Christian council, especially when he had been charged by multiple Christian women. But Meier added another aspect of the relationship that he had had with Agnes, one which she conveniently did not mention. Meier claimed that Agnes owed him money, and that she had difficulty finding a guarantor for the remaining balance of her loans. Both Agnes and Meier also mentioned Meier’s interest in her husband’s book. Balthasar may have sought to sell Meier the book, either to make a profit or to counterbalance the money that his wife owed to Meier. Alternatively, this could have been a neighborly gesture, since the book was one dealing with science or medicine, and, after all, Meier was a local doctor who also served the non-Jewish population. Neighborly interactions between Jews and Christians were part of the rhythm of daily life. For example, Sara, the wife of Diebolt ­Rochen, began her testimony against Meier explaining that Meier had approached her as she sat greasing her husband’s boots; Meier agreed that this was accurate. Indeed, Meier explained that he had offered her some cream to help her with this routine activity. Similarly, Agatha, the wife of Erasmus Orlians, alleged that “she was sitting in the back by a rock, after completing her housework, when a horse she had was out of its saddle.” Meier offered to help her. These everyday occurrences created the context for interactions between neighbors. Agatha alleged that subsequently, Meier often came to her “when he thought she was alone.” On one of these occasions, he offered to lend her some money. Perhaps their initial meeting led him to attempt to seek her out as a customer. Agatha further claimed: She often closed the door before him [Meier]. . . . The Jew said that when he came back, he wanted to be a rogue . . . when the Jew came back, and desired her once again, that she should be willing, [and] she did not want to do this. And she had a pot of hot water, she wanted to poke it at him. He then came into her home, and asked for her husband, and in the rooms, he desired [her] and was willing. . . . he compelled her, and brought her into a chamber. Then the Jew let his pants fall, and the work of love, according to his will, was completed—but God knows, what love and desire she had!27

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The ordinary context of these interactions, such as a woman cooking, evokes daily life, complete with banter, violence, sex, and humor; it mirrors contemporary cases between Christian neighbors.28 That a Jew could be part of such a narrative—whether in actuality or in testimony that was not disregarded—demonstrates that to some extent, Jews were a part of the towns, villages, and small cities in which they lived. Additional testimony from other residents of Hagenau further highlights that because Jews and Christians lived in shared spaces, they, like any neighbors, shared knowledge of one another’s activities. Margareth Wenndling, the wife of Durrafletzen, reported that her son was carry­ ing water at dawn, and overheard the Schneider approaching Meier, demanding his pledge be returned. When Meier refused, the Schneider threatened Meier, saying that he would claim that the first time that Meier met Magdalena, he slept with her in the Schneider’s home. Margareth’s son heard Metzger repeat this many times, and also heard Hanna, Meier’s wife, say that she knew that it was not so.29 Although there are no extant records indicating exactly where Jews in Hagenau lived, clearly, their presence in the neighborhood was so commonplace that their conversations could be overheard during a routine activity. Margaret Jacob, another Christian from Hagenau, likewise testified that Metzger had plotted to frame Meier. She related that the Schneider and his wife had visited witnesses, and had paid them a Pfennig and half a Batzen to say that Magdalena committed adultery with Meier. ­Margaret explained that this was the Schneider’s response to Meier’s failure to return the pledge.30 The willingness of Christians to testify on behalf of their Jewish neighbors and against other Christian neighbors indicates that there was social rapport between Jews and Christians, where the Jew was not automatically the outsider. Perhaps in light of testimony such as this, Hagenau’s magistrates did not find Meier guilty of adultery with Magdalena, nor with any of the other women who alleged to have had relations with him. Instead, the magistrates found him guilty of “misdeeds.” In a later confession designed to help his family fight banishment, Meier confessed: Out of my own wickedness, I performed and willed, against honorable Christian married women with encouragement and words; I was also partly able with these same women, that they should be involved with

Social Interactions in the Countryside

me in unchastity; and I did, completed, and accomplished bodily and fleshly works of unchastity with them.31

Although the magistrates consented to release Meier from prison, they sentenced him with a fine of 300 Thaler, and revoked his rights, including those of his family and heirs, to reside in Hagenau. The magistrates also seized his property. This included the local synagogue; Meier, together with a few others, had purchased this space from the magistrates for the sum of 600 Gulden.32 The verdict reflects several significant aspects to Jewish life and to ­Jewish-Christian relations in rural areas. First, the magistrates did not find him guilty of adultery with Magdalena. Jews appeared in local courts on a frequent basis, and did not automatically receive negative verdicts. Moreover, the fact that Hanna and the children sued the city magistrates in imperial court reiterates that Jews were able to bring court cases and try to protect their rights. Second, the punishment that the magistrates devised for Meier was an extremely harsh one, particularly given that he was not found guilty of the original charge of adultery. Sentences were often determined by both the severity of the crime and by the perceived need for public punishment.33 By expelling Meier and his family, fining him, and seizing the communal synagogue, the magistrates sent a clear and expedient message to the residents of Hagenau, reaffirming the proper boundaries between Jews and Christians. The severity of his punishment was probably meant to send a message regarding his crime. Any violation of sexual boundaries between Jews and Christians posed a problem for the social order of the city.34 Since Meier, as a Jew, did not have the political connections that would have led to a lighter sentence, there was no compelling reason to lessen the punishment.35 Meier acknowledged that sexual boundaries between Jews and Christians were not supposed to be crossed. In his appeal to Hagenau’s magistrates on behalf of his family, he recognized that adultery was forbidden “according to the Ten Commandments, [and] also sufficiently provided for otherwise in all of the communal laws.” He also noted that he would have been punished by “Jewish law,” and stressed that the general limits on sexual activity between “a married [person] with any other married person” pertained “especially [to] Jews with Christian

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women.”36 Thus, although Meier’s story demonstrates the degree to which Jews participated in local life, there were clear limits to JewishChristian interactions, which, when crossed, resulted in hefty fines, seizure of property, and even banishment. While any citizen of Hagenau could have been expelled by the magistrates for disrupting the social order, Meier’s punishment included one that affected the entire community. Although the magistrates of Hagenau referred to Meier and his family as “an angry household” to justify the expulsion of the entire family, their seizure of the synagogue was far more difficult to defend.37 As Gotlieb, Meier’s son, explained in his plea to the imperial appellate court, his father had not purchased the synagogue alone. Gotlieb claimed that the entire community was victim of collective punishment.38 The magistrates’ seizure of the synagogue raises the question of whether additional political and economic motivations played into the crafting of Meier’s punishment. At the very least, it underscores how the actions of one Jew could affect an entire community. Similar charges against a Christian would have resulted in banishment of the individual, but would not have affected the Christian community at large. How Meier’s case was decided by the imperial court remains unknown, for there is no appellate decision recorded in the Urteilsbuch.39 Records of whether Magdalena and the other women were punished and how are also not extant in Hagenau’s archives.40 However, records of a seventeenth-century synagogue in Hagenau suggest that the Jewish community at large weathered this storm.41

Private Spaces, Shared Spaces Additional records confirm that it was not unusual for Jews and Christians to enter or to work in one another’s homes. A letter from Lazarus of Surburg, the parnas of Lower Alsace, to the magistrates of Strasbourg alleges that Fahel, a Jew from Kinzheim, had impregnated his Christian domestic servant.42 Lazarus asked the magistrates, who had jurisdiction over the woman’s village, for a few days to gather information about what had happened. Although no further records are available, this

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letter indicates that domestic service brought Christian women into Jewish homes, which, in turn, had the possibility of leading to a sexual relationship. The presence of Christian women in Jewish homes is also discussed by R. Josef Juspe Hahn Neurlingen of Frankfurt (1570–1637), who urged Jews to refrain from having a non-Jewish woman enter their homes on Friday evening. In his book of customs, Hahn claimed that it was forbidden to benefit from the light of candles or oil lit or refilled by a non-Jewish woman on the Sabbath. Instead, he recommended that one purchase good oil and a deep or wide vessel, which would allow the candle “to remain lit from the eve of the Sabbath before setting out to the synagogue, until midday on Sabbath day.”43 Hahn noted the inconvenience of his suggestion, sharing that he had lit a candle in a small, wide dish in the bedroom when his children were small, and that it stayed lit for longer than he would have liked, for he did not ask a non-Jew to extinguish the candle. Implicit in his writing is an acknowledgement that other Jews did ask their Christian neighbors to light, extinguish, and refill their candles on the Sabbath. Hahn also mentioned that on the Sabbath day, Christian women would place food in the oven for Jews, and that they would also light the stove in the winter house, the warm room.44 Christians also entered Jewish homes before Passover. Hahn noted that when the eve of Passover fell on the Sabbath, the Jews needed to be sure that their hametz, leavened bread and forbidden grains, was consumed before the start of the holiday. They could not burn it or otherwise rid themselves of it, as was customary, due to the prohibitions on the Sabbath. Hahn explained that a non-Jew was also forbidden from carrying the hametz outside of the eruv, the area in which Jews could carry on the Sabbath. These various restrictions led Hahn to recommend that each Jew “take care to call a Christian man or woman to his home from the streets of the city, so that he might eat what was left” of the hametz.45 In Hahn’s home in Frankfurt, this would mean calling a non-Jew into the space of the ghetto. If this custom was practiced in areas other than Frankfurt, where Jews and Christians lived side by side, it might mean calling a more immediate neighbor into the Jewish home.

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Jews and Christians who resided side by side also shared spaces within towns and villages. The marketplace was an obvious location in which Jews and Christians encountered one another. Both archival and rabbinical sources attest to the presence of Jews (and particularly of Jewish women) in local marketplaces.46 For example, in one unspecified location in the Empire: Some [Jewish] heads of household raised chickens and chicks during the summer time. The wives of the poor also rose early in the morning every day, and went out to the streets with small tubs, called Zuber in German, to milk cows in the homes of non-Jews before they [the cows] went to graze in the field, and the [women] sold them one by one, with measures, in the street.47

Jewish women sold both chicks and milk in the streets, and in this case, one woman had left her tub of milk uncovered, after which the chicks belonging to her neighbor jumped into the tub and drowned. This responsum also indicates that poor Jewish women entered the stables adjacent to Christian homes, and that they made a living by milking cows that likely belonged to their non-Jewish neighbors. More intimate spaces could also be shared by Christians and Jews. Asher of Reichshofen, for example, recalled building three items in his home in order to honor God. One of the three was “a small washroom, behind the oven of the winter house.” His main reason for constructing this washroom was to avoid what was common practice in Reichshofen: An animalistic custom is practiced here, for the uncircumcised, they and their wives go to one [wash]room, and the same was practiced among the circumcised and their wives, they go among the uncircumcised and their wives.48

Asher attributed his desire to refrain from using a bathhouse used by both men and women, and both Christians and Jews, to zeal for God’s honor. The existence of such a bathhouse, though, indicates that Jews and Christians could share such personal spaces.49 Asher’s discomfort with the bathhouse is also noteworthy, as it highlights that the existence of such shared space did not always lead to uncomplicated feelings about using it. Here, it is unclear whether Asher’s discomfort stemmed from the presence of women, Christians, or the combination of the two.

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Asher also recorded other types of social interactions that he had had with his non-Jewish neighbors, and which could have taken place in either private or shared space. He vowed to drink “only wine that I know with certainty has been produced in a kosher manner, as is the law and customary according to Moses, in Israel,” explaining that Jews often drank wine prepared by Christians.50 Furthermore, he vowed that he would stop gambling: Be it with skittles that are called Kegel, or with cards that are called Karten, whether with dice. Whether by myself or in front of another, with the circumcised or the uncircumcised, whether another player ­before me, whether for profit or without profit.51

Gambling with non-Jews was included in his list of potential gambling interactions, reinforcing the idea that as neighbors, Jews and Christians would engage in casual social interactions with one another. The responsa literature contains other references to friendly gestures and social encounters that brought Jewish and Christian neighbors together. Yair Hayyim Bacharach was asked about the permissibility of eating a fish that had been sent to a Jewish parnas by one of the city leaders.52 He was also asked about the status of a glass of vermouth from which the city sheriff had drunk at a circumcision ceremony.53 The fact that a city official was present at the ceremony is not at issue; rather, the question was whether drinking vermouth that had been touched by a non-Jew posed a halakhic problem. Such references indicate that Jews and Christians forged relationships, and even celebrated with one another. A prohibition enacted by the bishop of Strasbourg banning Christians from attending circumcision ceremonies, and from escorting a Jewish corpse to its burial in the cemetery, is further proof that Christians attended both joyous and mournful rituals of their Jewish neighbors.54

Christian Leaders and the Creation of Boundaries Prohibitions aimed at deterring social and sexual relationships between Jews and Christians have a long history in church law. For example, as early as the Council of Elvira in 303, the church ruled that Christians should not eat together with Jews.55 This ban was reenacted and

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echoed in papal correspondence throughout the medieval period, and was included in local Christian enactments during the early modern period as well.56 Using Jewish meat was sometimes singled out in these decrees.57 Medieval church councils also prohibited Christians from using Jewish medical services, which, as we have seen, did not halt the practice.58 Regulations that stipulated that no Christian should serve as a domestic servant or as a wet nurse in a Jew’s home were also enacted at the Third Lateran Council. The church forbade this practice for three reasons, claiming that it was wrong for a Christian to serve a Jew, that such contacts could lead to Jewish proselytizing, and that the intimacy could lead to sexual relations between Jews and Christians. Throughout the thirteenth century, papal letters reiterated these demands.59 For example, in a letter to the bishops and prelates of Germany in 1233, Pope Gregory IX wrote: Indeed, we have heard things which we speak of not without sorrow, and which we write of with shame, that the Jews in Germany have become so insolent, to such a degree. . . . They have, moreover, Christian nurses and maid-servants in their homes and they commit among these servants enormities that are an abomination and a horror to hear.60

The same challenges persisted in the early modern period. Merry ­Wies­ner reports that during the early modern period, most employed women worked as domestic servants; some of these women worked for Jews.61 Allegations such as those brought against Fahel of Kinzheim demonstrate that Gregory’s fears were not necessarily unfounded. Similar concerns about sexual boundaries were behind papal policies requiring that Jews dress differently from their neighbors, or that they wear a Jewish badge. As Solomon Grayzel has noted, the other reason for requiring distinctive dress, namely that Moses had already decreed that Jews should dress differently than gentiles, was more often dropped in later enactments and references.62 As Innocent IV wrote to the bishop of Constance in 1254: Although after careful deliberation, it was decreed in the sacred General Council63 that the Jews should be distinguishable from the Christians by their clothes, lest Christians and Jews be able to have sinful intercourse with women of the other faith, nevertheless, we have been

Social Interactions in the Countryside

informed, the Jews of your province and diocese do not observe this decree, and as a result, they may commit the sin of forbidden intercourse under the veiling (excuse) of error.64

The case of Constance was far from unique. Policies requiring special Jewish dress only enjoyed mild success, and were frequently ignored. Demands in 1551 that the Jews of Hagenau wear a badge did not prevent interactions between Meier and his neighbors. Similarly, in 1616 in Strasbourg, the magistrates claimed that “sometimes, they [Jews] creep in in foreign or changed clothing in this city.”65 It was difficult to tell a Christian from a Jew, for the boundaries that authorities sought to enforce were often disregarded. Other early modern enactments also heavily echo the already established medieval church policies. In Alsace, William of Honstein, the bishop of Strasbourg, enacted a set of prohibitions for the Jewish community living in the diocese that included limiting social contacts with Christians. He ruled that Jews and Christians could not attend banquets in one another’s homes. Since both Jewish law and canon law already prohibited dining together, the bishop’s reiteration suggests that such joint meals continued to take place despite these laws. As mentioned above, the bishop also prohibited Christians from attending Jewish funerals and circumcisions. Jews were forbidden to visit Christian holy places, and Jews and Christians were also forbidden to hold religious debates with one another.66 Such restrictions on Jewish presence at Christian religious occasions and on Jewish-Christian dialogue also dated back to the medieval period.67 As Haim Hillel Ben Sasson has argued, informal debates between Jews and Christians were probably normative in late medieval and early modern Alsace.68 To some extent, limiting Jewish and Christian social contact also ensured that Christians would not be as exposed to Judaism and its doctrines, something that probably took on more importance during this age of religious exploration. Indeed, although such a model was not implemented, the writings of Strasbourg’s reformer Martin Bucer suggest that complete separation between members of different faiths was, at least for him, paramount to the reformed Christian society. In 1538, the privilege granting the Jews residence in Hesse, which had been issued in 1532, was set to expire. The

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landgrave of Hesse, Philip, turned to Martin Bucer, among others, to determine “whether it is fitting that a Christian authority should tolerate the Jews living among Christians, and if so, under what conditions.”69 Following this consultation, two sets of recommendations found their way to the landgrave. One, of unspecified authorship, which was probably initially composed by the Jews, placed certain rather typical economic restrictions on the Jews of Hesse. Bucer drafted his own advice, which left little, if any, room for Jews in the model Christian society. When Philip rejected Bucer’s advice, and local Jews published both the advice and the rejection of it, Bucer responded with an even more ruthless treatise, Von der Juden, often called Letter to a Good Friend.70 Based on both documents, one can see that for Bucer, the model community would include only members of the true faith. Indeed, he argued that the task set before political leaders was to ensure that there were no false beliefs under their jurisdictions. Bucer preferred that the Jews be expelled, but argued that if the Jews were to remain, harsh measures designed to punish the Jews’ blindness and to instruct them in the truth of Christianity should be employed as policy. Included in Bucer’s plan was the interdiction against learning Talmud, the burning of synagogues, and the mandatory attendance of Jews at Christian sermons. Though extreme, and not put into practice, Bucer’s plan provides insight into one way that Christian leaders sought to impose proper boundaries between Jews and Christians living in the Empire. By advocating for a civitas that was united theologically, Bucer recommended taking harsh measures against the Jews, who were to be excluded economically and socially as they were religiously. The only proper way for Jews to continue living in Germany under Bucer’s vision of reform was for them to convert, a goal for which he left instructions in the wake of his own conversion of a young girl in Strasbourg.71 Later Protestant theologians in Strasbourg also attempted to reinforce proper boundaries between Jews and Christians. As the case of Meier of Hagenau demonstrates, Jewish doctors continued to interact with Christian patients, despite multiple regulations banning this practice. In December 1642, Johann Müller, a Lutheran preacher from Hamburg, wrote to the theology faculty of Strasbourg’s university, many of whom were local clerics, and asked them to opine on several

Social Interactions in the Countryside

issues surrounding medicine and Jewish-Christian relations. Their response to him was published in his book, Judaismus.72 The professors wrote of their “astonishment and distress” that Jewish doctors are viewed with some [degree] of respect by Christians, so that often, the [Christians] follow them [the Jewish doctors] when they are ill, they require their advice and cures, and trust them with their bodies and their lives. It comes so far that doctors of the Christian confession hold Jews as co-practitioners, and they stand and cure with and near them in the shop.73

Although contacts between Jews and Christians inside the city of Strasbourg were already significantly restricted by 1642, the wonder expressed by the professors is surely rhetorical, given the ubiquity of Jewish doctors practicing in Strasbourg and throughout the Empire.74 Yet this fear continued to be an issue throughout the Empire, prompting Müller to seek counsel from theologians at Strasbourg, Wittenburg, and Rostock. In their letter, Strasbourg’s theologians strongly condemned all collaboration between Jewish doctors and Christian patients or doctors. They did so on several grounds, citing the New Testament, the “old, famous and pure church leaders,” imperial law, church law, Luther’s writings, other Lutheran directives from universities such as Jena, and Bucer’s Cassel Advice from 1539. Nine reasons are provided for their position. The theologians argued that contact with Jewish doctors goes against “God’s command to avoid blasphemers.”75 Rather, Christians were to seek out advice from their own communal elders; church precedent decried that anyone who did otherwise was subject to an excommunicative ban. Furthermore, the practice of Jewish medicine was forbidden by both religious and “worldly” law. Indeed, Jewish doctors did not even practice medicine with a license or training. The theologians recalled the Jews’ murder of Christ, and explained that the Jews only wished to harm, rather than help Christians. Echoing medieval claims against Jewish doctors, Strasbourg’s theology professors explained that Jewish doctors actually sought to poison their patients, and that the Jews’ “evil mistrust against us and those who belong to us should not be treated lightly.”76 Although their words probably fell

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upon deaf ears, the Lutheran theologians continued to mandate those separations between the two communities that had been common during the medieval period.

Jewish Creation of Boundaries Christian leaders, both secular and religious, were not alone in their attempts to curtail contacts between Jews and Christians. Jewish traditions and contemporary Jewish leaders also sought to maintain proper social boundaries between members of these two communities. In the Jewish tradition, these restrictions had a biblical and Talmudic basis, and were discussed further by medieval rabbis.77 Jewish dietary restrictions were aimed at limiting social contact with non-Jews. Another traditional approach toward interactions with non-Jews, cited by medieval and early modern rabbis in their responsa, involved the rabbinic prohibitions cited in the Babylonian Talmud, tractate Shabbat. There, the rabbis prohibit eating the bread of non-Jews in order to ensure that their oil was not used, and oil was forbidden to ensure that non-Jewish wine was not consumed. Wine was also prohibited lest Jews have relations with the daughters of non-Jews; such an action was deemed likely to lead to idolatry.78 Like their Christian counterparts, medieval rabbis also sought to regulate contacts between Jews and Christian midwives and wet nurses.79 Even when rabbis reluctantly accepted that Jews would hire Christian wet nurses, they sought to insert parameters around such interactions. For example, Isaac b. Moses of Vienna warns that a Christian wet nurse should not eat impure foods, lest the infant imbibe them through the breast milk.80 Concern about Christian wet nurses also appears in papal sources. While reiterating that Christian women were forbidden from serving as wet nurses to Jewish babies, medieval popes claimed that Jews were forcing Christian nurses to spill their breast milk into the latrine for three days after having received the Eucharist.81 While there is no evidence of this in Jewish sources, the fears of the rabbis and the popes reiterate the necessity of creating separation between the two communities in this intimate setting.

Social Interactions in the Countryside

Certain interactions between Jews and Christians were permitted by medieval and early modern rabbis, despite prior Talmudic prohibitions. These were largely in the realm of economics. For example, the ­Tosafists permitted money lending to Christians, since the economic survival of Jews necessitated this approach.82 Rabbis in the early modern period continued to set boundaries between Jews and Christians, often dealing with concerns that were specific to the realities in which they lived.83 Correspondence between two rabbis from the late seventeenth century records that Jewish women entered Christian homes in order to conduct business.84 This was a transgression of yihud, which forbade Jewish women from entering into seclusion with Christian men even if their wives were present.85 Yet as Yair Hayyim Bacharach noted, it was nearly impossible to enforce this halakha: We must send our wives to them to trade and to do business with them, and the community is not able to observe it [the prohibition of yihud].86

Both Bacharach and his correspondent, Meir Stern, sought to find a way to balance the prohibition of yihud with the economic realities of the time. It was significant to these rabbis that the transgression touched upon sexual boundaries. As Stern noted, technically, Jewish men were also forbidden from entering Christian spaces, since in Jewish law, they were suspect of murder: It is established that it is forbidden to enter into seclusion with a nonJew, since they are suspect of murder, and this suspicion would be applicable and identical regarding both men and for women. . . . And in terms of men, no one opens his mouth or utters anything in order to prohibit them from that trade and business which leads to seclusion with the uncircumcised.87

Stern and Bacharach dismissed the halakhic challenges regarding men’s behavior, and dwelled upon the difficulty of justifying the women’s behavior. Although there are potential halakhic concerns that may have contributed to the gravity with which the two rabbis treated the case of women’s seclusion, their stance still highlights that the violation of sexual boundaries was treated with special care.88

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The gravity of the offense as well as the enforceability of the law helped to determine how leaders dealt with various infractions of boundaries and of religious standards. The bishop of Strasbourg, who could not easily implement restrictions against Jews and Christians eating or celebrating together, simply reenacted existing church policy. Sexual boundaries, on the other hand, were fiercely guarded by the magistrates of Hagenau and by early modern rabbis. As the need for restrictions on both sides shows, residential patterns and economic relationships between Jews and Christians inevitably led to social relations, and to contact in both shared and private spaces. Jews were thus very much a part of the fabric of everyday life in the villages and towns in which they lived.

Fo u r Creating Jewish Space

in the Christian City

The Jews and Strasbourg’s Markets

The proximity of Jews and Christians in the Alsatian countryside led to extensive contacts between them. Perhaps paradoxically, rural Jews also maintained relationships with the magistrates and residents of urban centers from which they had been expelled. Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, on almost a daily basis, these Jews entered Strasbourg, a city whose leading humanist had extolled the late medieval expulsion of Jews as a virtue.1 Urban and rural areas were tightly bound together in Alsace, such that travel between city and countryside was the norm. Some rural Christians entered the city in order to celebrate life cycle events, such as baptism.2 While villages and towns had their own churches, people from the countryside sometimes opted to come into the larger urban churches to mark these important occasions; this may have been more prevalent during the Reformation, when different denominations and churches abounded. Church records document the city pastors’ interest in and responsibility for rural churches. After the onset of reform, urban clerics were charged with visiting rural parishes regularly to ensure that the churches in the countryside had adequate resources and that they were engaging in proper ritual and liturgy.3 Different citizenship categories facilitated extensive movement between the city and the countryside. There were Ausburger, burghers who lived in the countryside but remained subject to Strasbourg alone, as well as Schultheissburger, who hailed from the countryside and purchased a lesser form of citizenship that allowed them to reside in the city. The magistrates’ legal reach also extended beyond city borders, as certain portions of the countryside were under Strasbourg’s

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jurisdiction. Marlenheim, an area twenty kilometers west of Strasbourg, comprised at least eight small villages, some of which were under the jurisdiction of the city. The bailiwick of Barr, which comprised five villages and was located between twenty-five and twentynine kilometers southwest of the city, was jointly controlled by the city and by the bishop.4 Most significant were the economic connections between city and countryside.5 Strasbourg’s location on the north-south trade route of the Rhine and the east-west trade route between France and the Empire rendered it an economic center for the entire Alsatian region. ­Village guilds sold textiles or other products in the urban marketplace. Additional economic contacts between rural and urban Alsatians are evident through the loans made (despite canon law prohibitions) by Strasbourg’s wealthy, its cloth merchants, and even its artisans to rural Christians in exchange for property rights or commodity rentes of grain and wine.6 Thus, people from the city and from the countryside were economically interdependent, and travel between the city and the surrounding countryside was not uncommon. The permeability of the boundary between city and countryside extended to the rural Jews. Although Jews no longer entered Strasbourg for residential, ritual, or communal purposes, the jurisdictional and economic ties between city and countryside affected them as well. When Jews lent money or traded with villagers who were also subjects of Strasbourg, transactions that went awry were dealt with by the city’s magistrates and courts. Thus, some transactions between Jewish and Christian residents of the countryside were actually resolved in a legal forum in Strasbourg. Jews also worked directly in the city and with its residents. Towns and villages did not have marketplaces that were large enough for the Jews to earn a living. The city provided a larger marketplace for the sale of horses, food, and wine in which Jews engaged. In addition, the bulk of Jewish livelihood came from money lending. Proximity to the location where most trades took place and, thus, where capital was needed also helped Jews secure a living.

Jewish Space in the Christian City

Jews, Economics, and Strasbourg Both in and out of the city, Jews engaged in a variety of occupations. Selling food was specifically permitted to local Jews, and debt logs from Wasselnheim, Marlenheim, and Barr, all rural areas subject to Strasbourg’s jurisdiction, indicate that local Christians purchased fruit and meat from Jews who acted as middlemen.7 Jews also sold wine, acting as middlemen who resold the products of Alsace’s rich vineyards. In 1552–1553, for example, Martin Krossweiler, a city goldsmith, and Josel of Rosheim, the Commander of German Jewry who resided in Alsace, corresponded with Strasbourg’s magistrates about a business transaction between Krossweiler and Josel’s son-in-law. Krossweiler explained that he had sold wine to Josel’s son-in-law for resale, and claimed that he had not been paid properly for the wine.8 In response, Josel claimed that his son-in-law had gone to meet Krossweiler at an appointed time but found no one present. His son-in-law proceeded to sell the wine, with the knowledge of both the Ammeister and the city gatekeepers.9 Wine was also sometimes used by Christians to pay off existing debt to Jews. During the mid-sixteenth century, for example, Wuchers Lentz of Wasselnheim borrowed 12 Pfund, 1 Schilling, and 6 Pfennig from the Jews of Tränheim. In order to pay some of the interest back, he provided the Jews with a bottle of fine wine, probably because he did not have enough cash on hand.10 It is not clear as to whether the Jews resold the wine, or whether they kept the wine for personal use, which would have been a violation of Jewish law. Jews were also involved in the animal trade, especially in the sale of horses. As in the case of selling wine and food, the Jews were the middlemen in these transactions. In the 1550s, for example, Berlin, a Jew from Brumath, recorded having purchased a horse from Bles Metzger of Marlenheim.11 The Jewish resale of horses took place in both the city and the countryside. City laws specifically refer to the horse marketplace and to the fact that Jews sold horses.12 In the countryside, records of debts owed to local Jews by Christians residing in Wasselnheim, Marlen­heim, and Barr list seventeen cases of debt originating from the sale of a horse or another animal.13 Specific sales are also recorded in both court cases and in notarial records. The parnas Lazarus of Surburg

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sought restitution in imperial court, claiming that he had not been paid properly for a horse that he had sold to Jungsten Fritschen of Marlenheim for 23 Thalers in 1558.14 A receipt from November 22, 1607 records that a Jew named Mohl sold a horse to Hans Heinrich Dielen, a burgher from Mittelbergheim, a village in Barr, for 30 Gulden.15 The involvement of Jews in the horse trade has been recognized as a factor leading to the installation of court Jews after the Thirty Years War.16 Jews also served as local doctors. Both Meier of Hagenau and Abraham of Rosenweiler are recorded as such in archival correspondence from the 1560s, despite the fact that church policy forbade Jewish doctors from treating Christian patients. Evidence that ecclesiastical authorities were aware of and even tacitly accepted the Jewish practice of medicine can be found in the letter written by Bishop Erasmus of Strasbourg to the emperor in 1562, in which he detailed how he implemented his new policy prohibiting Jewish commerce. The notary, Adam von Boys, charged with delivering official copies of the bishop’s law to local Jews, noted: Meanwhile, he [Abraham of Rosenweiler] was a doctor, so that he would be called as a doctor by the sick. He wanted to protest against [the ban forbidding all commerce] before me and the witnesses, [asking] that the aforementioned ban [include] a pronouncement about some access [to get to] the sick, for he alone is a doctor, and should not have a disadvantage. Thereupon, I, the notary, plucked up the courage, and as an official together with the named witnesses, I allowed this fitting [thing] to occur, [I] wanted such an idea [to go forth].17

The notary, together with the witnesses, Hans Lefflers and Michel Warken, both burghers from Saverne, allowed this exception to the ban for Abraham and his medical practice, thereby assenting to his continued practice as a physician. Moreover, his request for an exemption demonstrates that Jews both sought and were sometimes able to protect their economic rights. Jewish doctors may have also entered the city to treat Christian patients. A magisterial law from 1616 aimed at curbing the Jewish presence in the city refers to the fact that Jews entered the city “as doctors,” suggesting that this practice was common in both the city and the countryside.18

Jewish Space in the Christian City

Most Jews, even those who were engaged in selling wine or animals, or in medicine, were also moneylenders. Unlike money lending in other areas, such as Venice, where there was a fixed interest rate, the amount of interest charged in Alsace seems to have varied with each loan.19 Collateral was sometimes used for the loan, though this also does not seem to have been systematic. In one case between several burghers from Strasbourg and Jaeckel, a Jew from Oberbergheim, jewelry and silver were provided by the burghers as collateral for a loan of 1,000 Gulden.20 In another case, Hans, a tailor from Barr, borrowed money from Jews using his home as collateral; likewise, Wagners Tiebold secured a loan from Asher of Reichshofen using his home as collateral.21 Once a loan was made, a record of that loan was often created in order to ensure repayment. At times, a Handschrift and Siegel, a handwritten affirmation of the loan penned by the borrower and sealed with a seal, stood as proof that a loan had been made.22 This was returned upon repayment of the sum and the interest due. Notarial records from money-lending transactions in the Alsatian countryside indicate that such transactions were often recorded formally.23 Dietrich Aliy and his wife appeared before the notary of Andlau, recording a loan that they had borrowed from Wolff, a Jew from Dambach, in 1627.24 ­Andreas Schneid, a burgher from Mittelbergheim, also records his loan of 200 Gulden from Elia of Worms before a notary.25 After payment had been made, a receipt was issued before the notary, clearing the debtor of any charges. Records from May 27, 1608 indicate that Abraham ­Schund, a burgher from somewhere in the Rhineland, and his wife Anna had repaid a loan from Elias, a Jew from Ulm.26 Local logbooks from Marlenheim, Wasselnheim, and Barr also indicate when part or all of a loan was repaid. Such documentation aided the parties to avoid disputes over repayment and the amount owed. Jews lent money to a variety of Christians of different economic levels in both the countryside and the city. Several records detail loans by Alsatian Jews to local princes, towns, and villages. Money-lending logbooks record that the village of Goxweiler, located in Barr, borrowed money from local Jews. Similarly, the Stettmeister of Gertweiler, another village in Barr, borrowed 18 Pfund, 19 Pfennig from local Jews. This loan is earmarked in the logbook separately from individual debts, and seemingly

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refers to a loan made for official purposes.27 Territorial leaders, such as Caspar Bobst of Bolsenheim, borrowed 100 Gulden from Jews, and allowed them residence in Bolsenheim in exchange for their money-­lending services.28 These loans demonstrate that princes, officials acting on behalf of towns, or communities acting as a unit used Jewish loans either as a source of capital for basic functioning or as a way to raise revenue. The majority of the records detailing loans from the countryside were between local residents and Jews, rather than between leaders and Jews. The logbook from Wasselnheim from 1569 lists money-lending clients, the amount they borrowed, and at times, the reason for the loan. (See Figure 3.) Residents borrowed money from individual Jews and groups of Jews in Winzheim, Tränheim, and Saverne. Both men and women borrowed money from local Jews. A total of 352 Pfund, 9 Pfennig was lent over a series of seventy-two loans. The smallest loan was for 8 Schilling, the largest for 28 Gulden.29 This is a remarkably similar picture to the loans listed for the villages in the bailiwick of Barr.30 Small-scale loans were more prevalent, which helps explain the Christian populace’s need for money lending. These small sums of money were often designated for specific purchases. Thus, in the logbook, we see that Wil Weber borrowed 1 Pfund, 6 Schilling from the Jews of Winßheim, so that he could purchase 2 ­Viertel of fruit. The logbooks record many such transactions. Hans Pubell borrowed 2 Pfund, 10 Schilling in order to purchase 3 Gulden worth of fruit—the logbook notes that he had purchased some of the fruit with his own money, and that the loan was a supplement. In other words, these men and women needed immediate cash. Borrowing money from local Jews was the way they obtained the cash to buy their daily necessities. Hans Scherrer of Marlenheim borrowed money to purchase a woman’s jacket. Hans Heüsch of Barr borrowed money so that he could purchase meat. Glade Klinpffel of Wasselnheim borrowed money to purchase a bed. Other loans were made so that the borrower could purchase horses or other animals. These loans were part of daily life, and addressed daily necessities. The logbooks also detail that some loans included the sale of oats, fruit, and horses. Presumably, Christians sought to purchase these items from Jews, and would pay the rest of the price when they had cash available.

Jewish Space in the Christian City

An ordinance of the bishop of Strasbourg, in his capacity as territorial prince, also sheds light on this situation. In 1590, Bishop Johann sought to address a problem with “usurious contracts, specifically those with interest on wine and fruits.”31 This decree forbade all usury, specifically any contract or pact that charged interest on fruit or on wine bought on credit. Such usury would transpire when “some do have too little money and incur interest, or they [buy] so much fruit and wine, that during the year, interest ensues.” This decree does not mention Jews at all, and was directed at Christians who lent other Christians money in contravention of canon law. These same needs, however, led Christians seeking to purchase fruit or wine to borrow money from local Jews. Jewish money lending, then, provided cash flow for the local men and women in the villages. This may also help us to understand the role Jews played in the city. Court cases between Strasbourg’s burghers and Jews indicate that loans made to Strasbourg’s burghers often involved relatively small amounts of money. A comparison of borrowers with contemporary guild lists demonstrates that Jews lent money to gardeners, goldsmiths, and members of the wine-tasting guild. 32 For business to take place as usual in Strasbourg, these residents needed access to petty cash, and thus benefited from access to Jewish money lending. Whereas in other geographic areas, specific alternatives to Jewish money lending were developed, no formal structure or lending institution was available in Strasbourg. In Italy, monti di pietà were established by the churches.33 In the city of Augsburg, laws restricting Jewish money lending were promulgated at the same time as city-run pawnshops were established.34 Similar strategies were employed in the Ottoman Empire as well.35 While Strasbourg’s Christian residents were also engaged in lending money, providing some alternatives to Jewish money lending, the lack of a sanctioned alternative to Jewish money lending facilitated the continuation of the practice both outside the city and within its walls. Large-scale loans in the city also depended on cash that may not necessarily have been readily available other than through Jewish money-lending efforts. Although a few Christian merchant-banking families in Strasbourg were involved in backing large-scale trade,

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Figure 3.  Money-lending logbook of debts owed to Jews by residents of Wasselnheim, 1569. AMS VI 168/6. Reproduced courtesy of Archives municipales de Strasbourg.

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they did not compare with the banking families of Nuremberg and Augsburg.36 Strasbourg’s citizens could then turn to the Jews for larger-scale loans. The loan of 1,000 Gulden made by Jaeckel of Oberbergheim to a group of burghers from Strasbourg, including Johann Entringer, Sebastian Kammerer, Hans Scheber, Andres Myller, Bartholome Sand, Georg Franck, and Ulrich Durninger, is one such example.37 Given that a master artisan might earn 40 to 50 Gulden per year, this truly was an astronomical sum.38 The burghers used various jewelry or gems, as well as a silver goblet, as collateral for the loan. Jaeckel, accused of having stolen the collateral, was imprisoned. In the ensuing case, which continued after Jaeckel’s death, reference is made to Jaeckel’s brother, Fahel of Kinzheim, who was believed to hold the Schuldbrieff and Handschriften detailing the loan. Jaeckel’s wife was also questioned by the Jewish leaders Lazarus of Surburg and Gershon of Ammerschweier, as she was also involved in the trade.39 Thus, this large-scale loan was amassed by a network of Jewish moneylenders headed by Jaeckel, which included his brother Fahel and Jaeckel’s wife, who pooled funds.40 Similarly, in 1548, eleven years before the court case with these burghers from Strasbourg, Jaeckel claimed to have lent burghers of Strasbourg over 800 Gulden. The amount of money that Jaeckel reputedly lent further suggests that he was the head of a network of moneylenders, who pooled their money for the sake of providing loans.41 Jews from other regions also figure in some of the large-scale loans made to Strasbourg’s burghers. Hans Hag, a burgher from Strasbourg, borrowed 600 Gulden, an extremely large sum, from Schalma, a Jew from Frankfurt. The amount of the loan suggests that it was for a business endeavor. Hag was probably attending the Frankfurt fair, and needed some capital for a deal. Like many traders, he sought money from a local Jew.42 In a similar case, Sebastian Schach, another burgher from Strasbourg, borrowed 300 Gulden from Mayer zum Stern and Abraham zur Grünen Thor, two Jews residing in the Frankfurt ghetto.43 Sixtus Moser, a burgher from Frankfurt, guaranteed the loan.44 Moser’s guarantee of the loan indicates that he and Schach were economically involved with one another, and that their business rendered borrowing money from local Jews an expedient course of

Jewish Space in the Christian City

action.45 Loans by local Jews to “foreigners,” or nonresidents of Strasbourg and the areas under its jurisdiction, are specifically mentioned among those transactions prohibited to Jews in a police order from 1628.46 Since all of the other forbidden trades took place despite these laws, it is likely that loans to foreign merchants and tradesmen also continued after 1628. Money-lending logbooks also list women, both married and widowed, among Jewish clientele.47 Jacob Peyers’ widow, who resided in the village of Gertweiler, borrowed money from Abraham of Tränheim so that she could purchase meat. Hans Pubell’s wife also borrowed money from local Jews in 1569. Separate records document that Hans had borrowed money himself on other occasions; this is listed as her loan. Jewish women were also involved in lending, and figure prominently in some of the court cases; in others, they are involved as either business partners or as family members. Their involvement in their families’ business activities parallels their Christian contemporaries, who often worked alongside their husbands.48 In one example from 1561, Strasbourg’s magistrates summoned the Jewess Sara of Rosheim to appear before them personally concerning a case between her and a burgher who resided in Marlenheim, Ruckels Lorrenz.49 Sara reported that previously, Lorrenz had owed her 8 Gulden, and had since purchased wine from her, which increased the amount of the debt. Sara had been summoned to appear in court in Strasbourg on Friday, December 22. Sara’s son Abraham initially responded on her behalf, asking for an adjournment, since his mother had fallen ill.50 Though Abraham’s involvement suggests that Sara and Abraham may have partnered together, it was Sara who was the primary defendant in this case, and she was the one summoned to court. Ultimately, Sara responded to the magistrates with her own letter, though like many men and women, she probably dictated it to someone who could write in German.51 As this case demonstrates, women were involved in commerce, and could both appear before a court and address the court in person and in writing without representation. As requested, the case was adjourned once the magistrates determined that Sara’s health prevented her from coming to the city.

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Regulating Jewish Presence in Strasbourg Although Jews entered the city on a daily basis, they were not automatically received into urban space. They were required to pay an entrance fee, which ranged from 2 Pfund, 7 Pfennig to 3 Pfund, 4 Pfennig. There was also an additional charge of 2 Schilling per horse for those who approached the city by crossing the Rhine River; two extra Pfund was charged for each horse that entered the city.52 Imposing entrance fees on those coming into the city protected local guildsmen and burghers from foreign competition, ensuring that nonresidents would have to pay a tax of sorts before conducting any business whatsoever. Jews also needed safe conducts, granted by local authorities, in order to travel from the village to the city. Once inside the city, the Jews were not permitted to remain overnight. Every night, the Graüselhorn, a horn atop the cathedral, sounded, its toll indicating that the work day was officially over and that Jews were to leave the city limits. The Graüselhorn and its limits remained in effect until the Jews were granted readmission to the city in the late eighteenth century.53 The magistrates also took affirmative steps to ensure that they retained control of money lending and of Jewish commerce within the city. In 1534, Josel of Rosheim petitioned Strasbourg’s magistrates about economic rights. The impetus for his petition was that the magistrates had halted all Jewish commerce in the city. Although municipal law had officially banned Jewish money lending in Strasbourg in 1530, citing concerns about Jewish usury and the resulting Christian poverty, Jewish trade and money lending continued. Indeed, the 1530 law does not seem to have elicited a response from the Jewish community, nor was it—nor probably, could it have been—enforced at all by the city magistrates. Rather, the high interest rates for two specific loans made in 1534 and the subsequent costly litigation had displeased the magistrates; their ensuing actions against the Jews elicited Josel’s petition. As Josel explained: But once again, this same has occurred, with Schmuel the Jew of Eschbach and with Blumel the Jew[ess] of Pfaffenhofen,54 who took

Jewish Space in the Christian City

a ­burgher from the aforementioned city of Strasbourg to court in Rotweil,55 to collect with unusual costs. And therefore now, the aforementioned, our honorable men from Strasbourg are taken and grasped with displeasure and anger towards us, the Jewish community.56

These two Jews, respectively, had lent money to burghers from Strasbourg, with what the magistrates considered to be usurious interest rates. Furthermore, once the transactions had gone awry, both Blumel and Schmuel had brought litigation before the Reichskammergericht, the Imperial Chamber Court, situated in Rotweil. The Jews had the right to bring cases before the imperial court at first because of their initial status as servi camerae, and later because of the inception of Roman law into the Empire.57 However, the city of Strasbourg possessed the privilege of non appelando, which both exempted Strasbourg’s citizens from bringing cases before imperial appellate courts and mandated that all judicial proceedings take place locally before the magistracy. This right gave the magistrates tremendous control over the law and its enforcement in the lands under its jurisdiction. In addition, this privilege shielded Strasbourg’s residents and citizens from the high costs of litigating at Rotweil, which was, for much of this period, the seat of the Reichskammergericht. Indeed, in dossiers from Reichskammergericht processes involving Alsatians, one can see that litigating in this imperial court was an expensive option. In one case, legal and administrative fees amounted to 44 Gulden, 6 Batzen, and 2 Kreutzer.58 Other cases list expenses ranging from 16 Gulden to over 25 Gulden.59 In one of these cases, the fees totaled 25 Gulden, 10 Batzen, and 2 Kreutzer, almost half of the 60 Gulden that were initially in dispute. From the magistrates’ perspective, their burghers and residents were facing the threat of poverty from high interest rates; then, when they could not pay, they were brought before a court with astronomical fees. Furthermore, the Jews’ ability to litigate at Rotweil threatened the control that the magistrates had over local activity. Though Jews could go before an imperial court, Strasbourg’s residents were not supposed to do so. Imperial legal proceedings would give the emperor and his court the opportunity to meddle in local affairs, effectively removing one of Strasbourg’s privileges as a free city.

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In response to Schmuel and Blumel’s actions, the magistrates took a harsh stance toward the rural Jews. Josel wrote: So the aforementioned Sirs, Mayor, and Council decided that we, the Jewish community, can no longer use its city nor [any land under its] jurisdiction and [they] do not want to permit us [entrance] or escort us, so they can prevent such improper costs.60

The magistrates’ response to these individual cases did not simply bar Jewish commerce. They sought to prohibit Jews from even entering city space. No safe conducts were to be granted, which meant that Jews would have difficulty entering both the city as well as the rural areas under the jurisdiction of the city. The severity of this ban is demonstrated by Josel’s swift and strong reaction to it. As Josel explained: They want to stop us poor [from having] safe conduct into the city of Strasbourg, as we had long before. For this reason and for other . . . reasons . . . the Jewish community is at all times well inclined, and of the will to do even less than nothing against the commendable city of Strasbourg. . . .61

In order to allay magisterial concerns, Josel drafted a contract, ­Vertrag, between the Jewish community and the magistrates, in which the terms of Jewish money lending were laid out. Although the correspondence that survived is only one-sided, comprising Josel’s letters to the magistrates without record of their responses, the minor changes between one draft and the next suggest that the terms were worked out between Josel, as representative of the Jewish community, and the magistrates. In the end, both the city and the Jewish community treated these terms as enforceable for thirty-seven years. The terms of the contract between the Jews and the magistrates were actually quite simple. Aside from refraining from high interest rates (no amount is specified), the Jews agreed to bring all disputes before the local magistrates, and to waive their right to bring cases to Rotweil. Josel recounted: We gathered in Rosheim and decided that we, without exception of any of us, according to this letter, will no longer take any burgher, or burgher’s burgher of the city of Strasbourg to a foreign court, and only

Jewish Space in the Christian City

before our honorable men, the law and council of the aforementioned city of Strasbourg, or wherever they direct us, are we permitted to [appear].62

The contract also states that should a Jew wish to appeal the magistrates’ decision, he or she could bring a case before the XIII, the municipal council that served as Strasbourg’s appellate court. In addition, the Jewish community waived another right, which had been the subject of discussion at the Augsburg Reichstag in 1530. In 1530, despite pressure from Christian authorities, the Jews retained the right of Hellersrecht, which stipulated that Jews were not to be held responsible should a stolen good come into their hands as collateral or as a pawn for a loan.63 In 1534, Josel and the Jews of Lower Alsace conceded this right as part of their contract with the magistrates, promising that should any stolen good come to the hand of a Jew, presumably brought as a pawn by the thief, the Jew was to return the item to the rightful owner, forfeiting any money that he or she was owed.64 The Jews thus addressed the magistrates’ concerns about theft by agreeing to this condition, and ensured their continued access to the city’s marketplace. Josel expressed an additional concern about the Jewish relationship with the city. Earlier that year, he had petitioned the magistrates, begging that they provide refuge to rural Jews in Strasbourg. Then, Josel beseeched: Until now, out of mercy to us poor Jews, Your Honors protected us from [troop] movement in all many worrisome [instances] and dangerous perils of war near to you here in the commendable city of Strasbourg . . . now and at the moment, there is a great damaging march, and a swift course in the German nation. . . . So it is to Your Honors, our subservient request and application that once again you will wish to ward off the perils from us . . . and permit us to stay, with our wives and children, goods and possessions, all in the aforementioned commendable city of Strasbourg, until the point when the movements and war courses will stay in quiet and peace.65

Josel’s plea for refuge in 1534 was not the first of its kind in the postexpulsion period. In 1525, nine years earlier, local Jews had written to the magistrates asking for an extension of what had already been an

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eight-day stay in Strasbourg. Although the specific context is not elucidated, given that this was the year of the Peasants’ Rebellion, we can assume that this is documentation of the physical protection afforded to Alsatian Jews by the city during this time.66 Strasbourg’s magistrates had granted refuge to local rural Jews in both 1525 and in 1534. Josel feared that the 1534 loans by local Jews might also jeopardize future use of Strasbourg as a safe haven: We find that the commendable city Strasbourg at all times, in the dangerous peril of war, has proven [to be of] equal honor and good, and presented us accommodation with protection and safety, so the Jewish community has decided also, that where something was stolen, whatever it is, dear God, from their burghers inside of the community of the city of Strasbourg, and it came to [one] of us in the Jewish community, during the day or night, he [the Jew] will by his testimony faithfully [attest that he was not involved] and will return the “damaged” [item] to the city of Strasbourg, in vain, without any fees.67

By waiving the Hellersrecht, Josel attempted to preserve the relationship that Jews had built with Strasbourg’s magistrates, which would guarantee continued access to the city’s markets. In addition, he sought to establish goodwill in the hopes that Strasbourg would continue to offer refuge to Jews as necessary. The contract was signed by Josel as representative of the Jews of Lower Alsace in 1534. In 1536, the Jews of Upper Alsace, led by Abraham of Oberbergheim, signed a document in which they agreed to uphold the same terms.68 In 1543, Haym Jud of Isenach, David of Bergheim, and Joslin of Kötzingen wrote to the magistrates representing the Jews of Ensisheim, asking that the privileges extended to the other Jews be extended to them as well. The 1543 letter was marked with Josel’s seal, indicating his involvement and approval.69 The seriousness with which the Jews viewed this contract can be seen in a letter written by Josel in June 1534. It was addressed to “the Jews of the German nation,” and a copy was sent to the magistrates of Strasbourg as well.70 In this letter, Josel explained that Jacob of ­Schopfen71 had violated the terms of the agreement, by engaging in “unfair trade” and “excessive usury” with an unspecified person under the city’s jurisdiction.72 Josel noted that this action was against

Jewish Space in the Christian City

the agreement that the Jews had come to with the magistrates, and as such, Jacob would be subject to the “judischen Ordnung,” the Jewish regulation, that had been agreed upon by Josel, “as the leader of the Jewish community in German lands, with the counsel of many other  Jews.”  73 The importance of the regulation lies not only in its development as one that was communally sanctioned but, in Josel’s view, it was “crafted with the help of Almighty God.” Violating the contract, be it with heavy usury or with litigation at a court other than the magisterial one, would place the offending Jew under the “Jewish ban.” This ban meant that “no one from us Jews may eat or drink [with him], house nor lodge [him].”74 Using the power of an excommunicative ban, Josel sought to prevent Jews from straying from this contract. In a community and an economy that was completely rooted in networks, this ban would have been extremely powerful. The ban was used several additional times. In 1551, Jaeckel of Oberbergheim, writing on behalf of the community, sought an audience with the magistrates. His aim was to report that in accordance with “the Jewish contract,” he had placed the Jew Jacob from Ehingen under excommunication for bringing a burgher from Dorlisheim to court at Rotweil.75 By excommunicating the guilty party, the community was able to ensure that its trading rights were not revoked as a result of one individual’s actions. Following the creation of the contract, most cases that began in Rotweil were moved to Strasbourg. Nevertheless, a few cases were tried in imperial court, for like any prescriptive document, the money-lending contract was not always honored. Reichskammergericht records include four trials between local Jews and burghers of Strasbourg.76 Ironically, one of these trials involved Abraham of Oberbergheim, signatory of the contract on behalf of the Jews of Upper Alsace; two others involved Martin Krossweiler, who had served on Strasbourg’s council in 1547 and 1548.77 Undoubtedly, both men were familiar with the contract, and had nevertheless decided to litigate in Rotweil. These cases were the exception rather than the rule. Thirteen other cases that had been before the imperial court, initiated by both Jews and Christians, had a change of venue to Strasbourg. For example, Abraham of Tränheim requested a safe conduct from the magistrates

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for his trial, which he had moved from Rotweil to Strasbourg at their request.78 Sometimes, the change in venue was done out of deference to the magistrates, rather than out of strict and literal compliance with the contract. In April and May of 1548, Jaeckel of Oberbergheim sought restitution from Barbara Wunfen, a burgher of Strasbourg, and her patron, Walter Barthel of Bischheim, who owed him money. Jaeckel noted that even though Barthel was not a burgher, and Wunfen had not been a burgher at the time that the case had commenced in Rotweil, Jaeckel would agree to a change of venue, despite the “heavy costs” he had already incurred at Rotweil.79 Similarly, in 1554, Jacob, a Jew from Rosenweiler, wrote to the magistrates about his case against Valentin Schwitzer of Flexburg, whom he had taken to court at Rotweil. Jacob explained: A few days ago, I brought and had before the court at Rotweil—­ although unknowingly—Your Honors’ subject and burgher from Flexburg, Valentin Schwitzer, who, God help me, is none other than a rural burgher. And as soon as I knew that he was a burgher and resident, I bid him [to realize] that [my case] against him in Rotweil was a misunderstanding. Without [receiving] any of my payments, I wanted to further completely remit compensation, since I can and want to prove [that it was a misunderstanding] among Jews and Christians. Then, however . . . the aforementioned Valentin Schwitzer was not satisfied . . . and as I will report, came and reported that I went to Rotweil, in violation of the aforementioned Strasbourg-Jewish contract. He assumed that I traded and dealt with dishonorable men and that I traded and contravened the commandment [the understanding between Jews and Strasbourg]. In comparison, however, Your Honors, I showed that this was done against him only out of a lack of knowledge and an error of judgment. . . . And as soon as I came to learn the credibility of these things, I abandoned all [my claims] against him, and also followed, and want to bring him before your rule.80

The complexity of overlapping jurisdictions led Jacob to believe that proceeding against Valentin Schwitzer of Flexburg before imperial court was permissible. Though Valentin did not believe him, Jacob contacted the magistrates, admitted his error, and sought to remedy the situation by dropping the charges.

Jewish Space in the Christian City

Generally, open dialogue between the Jews and magistrates ensured that the magistrates would be aware of transactions, disputes, and litigation proceedings, thereby assuring their hegemony over that which transpired in Strasbourg. In 1546, Klaus Kempfer, a burgher from Strasbourg, took Hitzig of Dangolsheim to court because of a debt of 5 Gulden held by Hitzig against his father, Jacob. Josel corresponded with Hitzig, instructing him that communal policy required him to inform the magistrates of Strasbourg about the transaction.81 An additional incident involving Hitzig went even further. In 1553, the magistrates wrote to Josel about Hitzig a second time, claiming that Hitzig had brought Blez Metzger to a court proceeding at Rotweil. In his reply to the magistrates, Josel promised to excommunicate Hitzig for breaking the contract, mentioning that he had done the same with Jacob of Niederschopfen in 1534. To enforce this policy, he wrote a letter to the community in which he excommunicated Hitzig and his business associate and brother-in-law, Berlin of Brumath. Josel reminded the community that bringing cases to foreign courts was strictly prohibited. Yet ten days later, Josel wrote to the magistrates, explaining that Metzger had actually taken Hitzig to court at Rotweil, and not vice versa; Hitzig was willing to bring the matter before the Strasbourg court. The magistrates’ letter had reached Josel’s home while he was in Frankfurt. Josel’s wife relayed the message to him, whereupon he immediately excommunicated Hitzig and Berlin, prohibiting “all of the Jews in the Empire from eating, or drinking, speaking or talking with him [Hitzig].” 82 Josel’s next letter, dated ten days later, may have been written upon his return to Alsace, when he would have been able to investigate the details of the transaction. The gravity with which he treated all infractions of the contract can be seen in his immediate attempt to excommunicate Hitzig and Berlin, before hearing all of the details of their case. Josel was clearly willing to enforce the contract, but he expected that Strasbourg’s magistrates reciprocate and verify facts before urging Josel to excommunicate a member of the community. Indeed, the use of the term judische Vertrag, a Jewish contract, by Josel, Jaeckel of Oberbergheim, and Jacob of Rosenweiler suggests that the agreement between the Jews and the magistrates was conceived of as a mutually binding agreement. Although the Jews and the magis-

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trates were not equal parties to this contract, the expectation that each side would uphold its end of the bargain emerges from the literature. Thus, Josel expected that the magistrates investigate matters before urging him to deal with members of his community. Strasbourg seems to have been unique among cities in creating a policy under which the magistrates would control Jewish trade, even if it was for a short duration of time. Although Jews entered many other major cities, no official contracts have been recorded in the secondary literature.83 However, references to Strasbourg’s contract are alluded to in contemporary sources from other regions. When Philip of Hesse sought advice about formulating a proper Jewish policy in Hesse in 1538, he contacted both Martin Bucer, the Strasbourg reformer, and Jacob Sturm, the former Ammeister of Strasbourg. Bucer’s notorious answer as to “whether it is fitting that a Christian authority should tolerate the Jews living among Christians, and if so, under what conditions,” insisted that Jews could not truly participate in a Christian city. Yet Philip may have chosen to contact Sturm precisely because he knew of the contract that had just been instituted in Strasbourg four years prior.84 Perhaps one of the key factors facilitating the creation of a contract in Strasbourg, as opposed to other regions, was the advocacy of Josel of Rosheim, a native resident of Alsace, who had personal relationships with the city magistrates. The specific interests of the city in controlling commerce that was going to take place regardless of their decisions must also be taken into account.

Individuals and the Magistrates The contract codified the longstanding tradition of trade between Jews and subjects of the city, and encouraged local Jewish leaders to negotiate with the magistrates. The same negotiation between Jews and magistrates is echoed in the correspondence between individuals and the magistracy. There are many parallels between communal petitions and individual appeals to the magistrates. Just as historical precedent was used by leaders in their petitions, individual Jews invoked their relationships with the magistrates in their own correspondence. In his

Jewish Space in the Christian City

proceeding against Walther Barthel and Barbara Wunfen, Jaeckel of Oberbergheim reminded the magistrates that he had lent Strasbourg’s burghers over 800 Gulden.85 When seeking restitution from Zackler Thewes, Jaeckel specified having appeared before the magistrates several times.86 Seligman of Hagenau wrote to the magistrates about the 40 Gulden that Jacob Paulus Reichhartz’ son owed to him, noting: “I had not [previously] written about this, but had diligently asked for and sought your help orally.”87 While there is a strategic and rhetorical element to these claims, these assertions of personal knowledge and of prior experience with the magisterial court suggest that, to some extent, Jews were at home in Strasbourg’s courts. That individual Jews felt a certain level of comfort or familiarity in Strasbourg’s courts is documented in the case of Abraham of Rosheim’s adjournment on behalf of his ailing mother Sara, and in the requests made by Jaeckel of Oberbergheim and Gotlieb of Hagenau for adjournments of respective court summons scheduled for Saturdays. As Jaeckel wrote, “On Saturdays, we Jews have rest, and neither trade nor travel.”88 He proposed to appear on Monday instead. Two court cases that concern Jaeckel of Oberbergheim involve his dealings with other Jews. Jaeckel opted to appear before Strasbourg’s magistrates, in one case to seek relief from a Jew from Hagenau, and in the other, from a Jewess from Dangolsheim. 89 Although the alternative option of bringing these Jews before a Jewish court such as the Frankfurt Bet Din, was, from a Jewish legal perspective, the proper and preferred option, Jaeckel chose the municipal court in Strasbourg, strongly suggesting that he expected to receive proper justice—or a more beneficial and speedy verdict—before the magistrates.90 Court records from imperial court confirm that Jews were both familiar and comfortable with the legal structures in the Holy Roman Empire.91 This Jewish knowledge and agency indicate the myriad ways in which Jews were part of the societies in which they lived. Although they faced various and significant restrictions and limitations, they nevertheless were able to carve out space for themselves, even in a city from which they had been banned as residents. Their economic presence in the city allowed them to build relationships with local Christians. Although the court cases between Jews and Christians in Strasbourg

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represent only those transactions that went awry, they nevertheless reveal that Christians often borrowed money from the same Jews time and time again—even when a previous transaction had gone sour. The court cases, letters, and logbooks preserved in Strasbourg’s archives remain silent as to whether social interactions between Jews and Christian stemmed from repeated economic contacts as was the case in the Alsatian country­side. Yet the fact that Jews were permitted refuge in the city, if only for short amounts of time, begs the question of where the Jews stayed, and whether they built relationships with the Christians with whom they must have lodged in times of peril.

Increased Regulation of Jewish Activity On April 19, 1570, the Strasbourg magistrates rescinded the Jews’ right to conduct business, asserting that under no circumstances could Jews make use of the city, its territories, or other areas under Strasbourg’s jurisdiction, with the exception of imperial roads.92 From August 1571 until March 1572, the Jews, led by Gotlieb of Hagenau, Lazarus of Surburg, Seligman of Walk, and Gershon of Turkheim, petitioned the magistrates to reopen the city.93 These Jews used various rationales in order to convince the magistrates that such an action was necessary, mentioning that some aspects of their trade required overnight stays, and pleading for charity and mercy, Barmherzigkeit, from the magistrates. They also appealed to the magistrates on a religious basis, explaining that they were the “children of Israel” and Gottes Volk, the nation of God.94 Furthermore, they invoked their imperial privileges, sending a copy of the 1570 Strasbourg mandate to the Emperor Maximillian II, that he might aid them in their cause. Both Maximillian, in his letter to the magistrates, and the letters of the Jewish petitioners reiterate the same claim: Jews had always been allowed to travel and trade in the city. Maximillian asked the Strasbourg magistrates to respect the ancient rights granted to the Jews, and to punish infractions of the laws on a case-by-case basis, rather than to discriminate against an entire community.95 The Jewish writers made their point more explicitly, reminding the magistrates that Jews had resided in the area for

Jewish Space in the Christian City

“many hundreds of years.” Because of that precedent, they argued, they should be allowed to continue to trade and the city should be reopened to them. A contract between the Jews and the magistracy existed, and was based on historical precedent. The Jews thus appealed to the magistrates based on such precedents when their rights as stipulated by the contract were rescinded. The effectiveness of this Jewish petition was limited. In the thirtysix-year period between 1534 and 1570, thirty-three cases between Jews and Christians were decided in a municipal venue. In contrast, only two court cases appear before the magistrates in the seventy-eight-year period from 1570 to 1648, one from 1592 to 1594, and one in 1610. Thus, the magistrates had some success in curbing Jewish economic activities in Strasbourg. The decline in relations with Jews at this time, which was not just economic, is likely connected to both economic concerns and to the growing Lutheran orthodoxy which began in the 1570s. The magistrates were unable to halt all transactions between Jews and Christians. In 1616, they annulled all contracts between Jews and inhabitants of Strasbourg from 1570 onward, indicating that despite their efforts, some contacts between Jews and Christians persisted.96 They continued their attempts to control Jewish behavior throughout the seventeenth century. In 1616, when they annulled all contracts with Jews, the magistrates also forbade any new Jewish commercial activity, under penalty of 20 Pfund Pfenning. Twelve years later, in 1628, they issued another ban on most forms of Jewish commerce, increasing the fine on anyone who violated this law to 50 Pfund Pfenning.97 In 1639, complaining (correctly) that Jews continued to enter the city, the Senate required that the civil servants, Stattdiener, or the city gatekeepers, Thürnhuttern, search the Jews upon their arrival to the city. Decrees from a slightly later period give insight as to what was expected of the Thürnhuttern. The Thürnhuttern were commanded to keep watch at the city’s gates all night long, from the evening “watch-bell” until eight the next morning. During the day, they were also charged with specific tasks. They should, additionally, regularly pay attention to what the Jews commit against the burghers for trade, and when they find something malicious, through which the burgher could be wronged through il-

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legalities or damages, or if the trade was against or at the limits of the law, this should be reported, beneficially, to the ruling mayor, so that further impurity can be avoided.98

The harsh language, which insinuated that the Jews committed malicious, impure acts against the burghers, is typical for seventeenth-­ century Strasbourg.99 In addition to searching the Jews, the magistrates’ decree from 1639 legislated that all Jews bringing unnecessary wares with them into the city be turned away. Those who were allowed into the city would be accompanied by local officials, presumably so that they would only do business with the knowledge and permission of the Ammeisters.100 Another ordinance echoing the restrictions on Jewish commerce was enacted in 1648.101 Despite this crackdown on Jewish commerce, the magistrates considered certain types of Jewish activity to be necessary. In their ban on Jewish commerce in 1628, the magistrates stated that Jews were to be allowed to sell food and horses.102 There was a need for food and for horses during the Thirty Years War that ravaged Alsace, encouraging the magistrates and the police to lessen these restrictions on Jewish trade. Similarly, the 1648 ordinance forbade all Jewish commerce in the city, specifically on city streets and next to the city gates. Jewish trade was to be restricted solely to the horse market.103 Even as the magistrates constructed a physical boundary, declaring the city streets to be off-limits to Jews, and demarcating city space as Christian, they relegated some space open to Jews, affirming that Jews were present in the city without Jews.

Fi v e  “As Is Also Apparent in the Old Chronicles

and History Books”

Magisterial Laws, Confession Building, and Reformation-Era Tolerance

When designing their policy toward Jews, the magistrates of Strasbourg considered local economic needs, adapting their laws to allow the city’s residents access to the money and goods they required. Other factors, such as maintaining social order and religious propriety in the city, were also of concern. Whereas consideration of religious propriety and social order mandated the exclusion of Jews, economic needs encouraged a Jewish presence. Throughout the period, the magistrates sought to strike a delicate balance between these factors. From 1530 to 1648, Strasbourg’s magistrates issued eleven laws that banned Jewish commerce in the city to varying degrees. These laws provide a window into the minds of the magistracy. Changes in both the content and language used in the laws reflect the different balance of concerns struck by the magistrates as the environment in the city evolved. As the Reformation unfolded in the 1520s, the new faith was established. Throughout the 1540s, Catholics and Protestants waged wars, at times on Strasbourg’s borders, and by 1549, multiple confessions gained legal rights to worship in the city. Internal strife over doctrine raged in the 1570s and led to the adoption of an orthodox Lutheran confession in 1598. These changes affected the magistrates’ concerns and their policy decisions and, as such, affected the policies governing relations between residents of Strasbourg and local Jews. The repeated enactment of policy has been seen as indicative of a gap between prescriptive laws and actual practice. This was the case in Strasbourg, where descriptive materials in the archives testify to extensive and varied Jewish contacts with the city’s subjects both within and outside of the city walls. Yet the repeated enactment of laws forbidding contact

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between Jews and Christians in Strasbourg cannot merely be ascribed to the fact that residents of the city defied policy and continued to interact with Jews. In 1534, local Jews and the city magistrates designed a contract that dictated a concrete policy allowing and governing Jewish trade within the city and with city subjects.1 At the same time as this contract was being negotiated by the magistrates and Jews, and implemented in magisterial courts, the magistrates who were involved in its design and implementation, and who served as the city’s court, enacted laws that were diametrically opposed to the contract, forbidding any Jewish commerce in the city. The coexistence of two contradictory policies that mandated opposing rules of behavior, issued by the same men at the same time, indicates that one set of laws was not designed to regulate policy. Court cases from this period make it clear that the contract was the policy enforced by the magistrates, at least until the 1570s. But paradoxically, any time the magisterial court adjudicated a matter concerning Jewish commerce, as per the contract, the magistrates were breaking the very laws that they continued to enact forbidding Jewish commerce. In some cases, the reenactment of laws has been interpreted by scholars as a society’s attempt to outline its ideological positions. In Puritan Massachusetts, for example, a law punishing a disobedient child with the death penalty was enacted several times, although it was not implemented. Its purpose was to highlight Puritan biblicism.2 The laws in Strasbourg forbidding Jewish economic activity were similarly not intended to be implemented, at least at first. Like the Puritan laws, the laws about Jews in Strasbourg served as a rhetorical tool, through which the magistrates were able to construct a narrative about the Christian nature of the city. The continual legislation restricting Jewish presence in the city affirmed a longstanding tradition in which Strasbourg could be seen as a city without Jews, even as Jews were to be found in the city on a daily basis.

Magisterial Laws and Policy: 1530–1570 Different types of magisterial laws regulating Jewish activity in the city have been preserved from this period, including six municipal laws; one

Reformation-Era Tolerance

joint policy issued by both the archbishop and the city magistrates; one city privilege, which lists the enactment of Jewish policy as the right of the city; and two municipal police orders, one dedicated solely to Jews, the other dealing with multiple issues facing the city and containing one chapter dedicated to Jews. Although these various types of laws had different audiences and goals in mind, their content is strikingly similar. The first law was enacted on March 16, 1530, just after the onset of Protestant reform in the city. Bernhard Wurmbser, the Meister of Strasbourg, and the magisterial council issued a law forbidding money lending between Jews and any residents or subjects of the city. The rationale provided for this law was the protection of families from abandonment and poverty: Many of our burghers, subjects and those who belong to us in the city and in the rural areas have become troubled through borrowing from the Jews and the ensuing usury. . . . And such, that a few desert their wives, children, and their good ways, and come to poverty. . . . Hereupon, we ask each and every of our burghers . . . in the city and in rural areas, that from here on, they borrow or receive nothing, whether a little or a lot, from any Jew. And that, since from this day, they are estopped [from such actions], they free themselves from further [contacts] and completely remove themselves, and no longer in any form should be obligated to the Jews.3

The concern for both the preservation of intact families and economic stability is not unique to Strasbourg, nor is it simply a matter that arose with regards to the Jews. With the onset of the Reformation, Protestant magistrates gained control of many social services that had previously fallen under the church’s auspices. Since institutions such as orphanages now became the responsibility of the city, preventing future orphans was of direct financial and moral concern to city magistrates throughout the Empire.4 Furthermore, regulating poverty was part of the program of social order that was common during the early modern period.5 Although these economic issues were of real concern to the magistrates, as we have seen, the magistrates did not actively halt Jewish commerce in the city in 1530. It was only four years later, when individuals charging high interest rates brought city burghers before the imperial court at Rotweil, that they did so. The ensuing contract drawn up by

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Josel of Rosheim and the magistrates in 1534 further highlighted the fact that usury, poverty, and maintaining city privileges were foremost in the magistrates’ minds. The contract permitted trade between Jews and Christians, provided that money was not loaned at high interest rates; that litigation took place in a municipal venue; and that pawned items that had been stolen, unbeknownst to Jewish pawnbrokers, would be returned to Christian owners without compensation to the Jews.6 With these issues addressed, money lending continued in both the city and in areas under Strasbourg’s jurisdiction, under the watch of the magistrates. The contract provided a framework that met the magistrates’ interests in protecting their rights and their citizens, and it also allowed for the flow of cash that was necessary for both large- and small-scale transactions. Yet despite the contract, the magistrates continued to enact policy barring Jews from economic interactions with Christians. Five years after the initial contract between the Jews of the Lower Rhine and the magistrates had been signed, a new municipal law reiterated the magisterial fears about poverty and usury. This ordinance was more expansive than the 1530 law, as on top of money lending, it forbade buying and trading. In addition, the law was expanded to apply not only to local Jews and Christians, but also to Jewish and Christian foreigners who sought to do business in the city.7 The inclusion of both foreign Jews and foreign Christians as threats to the local economy suggests that the magistrates sought to ensure that outside commodities would not threaten the sale of goods produced by the guilds of Strasbourg, whose growing importance as members of the council must not be overlooked. This new law, however, did not reflect the actual policies adopted by the magistrates, demonstrating that the law was purely rhetorical. Cases involving burghers of Strasbourg and non-Alsatian (foreign) Jews also appeared before the magisterial court. No reference to the prohibition from 1539 was ever made in these cases, indicating that the magistrates tacitly permitted some foreign trade, as long as it conformed to the standards set out by the contract.8 Moreover, by 1539, the Jewish communities from both the Upper and Lower Rhine had signed the contract with the magistrates, allowing them to trade with and to lend money to subjects of the city. Rather

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than discontinue the benefits accorded to these Jews, as one would expect in the wake of a law forbidding Jewish commerce, the magistrates extended the rights of the contract to Jews from another community in Alsace. In 1543, Haym of Isenach, the Jewish representative from ­Ensisheim, asked to sign the contract on behalf of the Jews from Outer Austria in Upper Alsace, and was permitted to do so. 9 The magistrates were thus willing to expand the beneficiaries of the contract, despite the fact that such behavior directly contravened the law they had enacted. As time went on, the magistrates continued to ignore the laws they had enacted, and they also continued to enact laws that they ignored. Again in 1562, the magistrates forbade Jewish economic activity in lands under their jurisdictions.10 Records demonstrate that these same magistrates continued to adjudicate cases between Jews and Christians, in defiance of the laws, and in accordance with the contract. Both the laws and the contract reveal magisterial economic concerns about Jews. They feared that Jewish commercial activity might lead to poverty, abandonment, infringement of municipal rights, and unwanted competition for Strasbourg’s subjects. The contract addressed these concerns by establishing magisterial guidelines and control over Jewish-Christian transactions. Yet for Christian religious and political leaders, the Jews also were symbolic of another concern. Since the early centuries of Christianity, the Jew—in this case a theoretical Jew, not necessarily a local neighbor—had served as a foil to the Christian. Anti-Judaism and antisemitism often served as tools for measuring one’s identity as a loyal Christian.11 As Strasbourg began its journey as a newly Protestant city in 1530, the magistrates issued a law about the Jews, reasserting that the Jews were not welcome in the city of Strasbourg. Legally, if not in reality, Strasbourg resembled Martin Bucer’s vision of a “pure” corpus christianorum, in which it was best not to tolerate Jews at all.12 Between 1530 and 1550, the city of Strasbourg was consumed by doctrinal, legal, and military battles over its religious affiliation and identity. The magistrates were busy navigating between a clergy consumed with defining the new faith, a laity demanding change, and larger regional alliances and threats to the city’s autonomy. At the onset of the city’s overthrowing of traditional Catholic practice, including the Mass, the

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magistrates legally asserted that Jews had no place in the city, whether as residents or as merchants. Laws about the Jews reestablished and reconfirmed that Strasbourg was a good Christian city, devoid of Jewish presence. Although this was certainly not the case in practice, for the Jews were necessary for the city’s economic well-being, the enactment of antiJewish laws reaffirmed Strasbourg’s own religious Christian identity.

Magisterial Laws and Policy: 1570–1648 Beginning in 1570, change in magisterial policy began. The magistrates asserted that for no purpose whatsoever could Jews make use of the city, territories, or other areas under Strasbourg’s jurisdiction.13 Given that this was the only law that elicited a Jewish response, it is clear that the magistrates actually sought to enact this law, and that it had tangible, rather than rhetorical, consequences.14 A decline in the number of court cases after 1570 confirms the impact of this law. In 1570, the magistrates abandoned the contract and sought to halt Jewish activity in the city. Laws promulgated in 1579, 1616, 1628, 1639, and 1648 echoed this new policy, stressing the illegality of Jewish commerce in Strasbourg and in lands under its jurisdiction. Prior to 1570, the assurance of low interest, magisterial jurisdiction, and the waiving of the Hellersrecht had been enough to permit commerce between Jews and Christians in and around the city. No specific transaction is recorded in the municipal or imperial court records as having gone awry, precipitating a dramatic policy shift. The roots of the shift do not lie in any interaction between Jew and Christian, but rather they stem from internal developments within the Christian world of Strasbourg. A heightened concern about identity began in the second half of the sixteenth century, when Catholic practice was once again formally permitted in the city after the implementation of the Augsburg Interim in 1549–1550. The emperor forced the magistrates to negotiate with the bishop of Strasbourg, and as a result, in 1549, the cathedral and two parish churches were returned to the Catholics. With the acceptance of the Peace of Augsburg in 1555, which legalized the status quo in the city, the magistrates were faced with the reality that their city was to tolerate both Catholic and Protestant worship in the city. In

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practice, however, the magistrates did what they could to undermine the bishop’s efforts. When the agreement they had reached with the bishop expired in 1559, the magistrates did not renew it. Protestant clerics preached against the Catholics, leading to two days of riots outside the cathedral. Several years later, Lutheran services were instituted in the cathedral and in both Old and Young Saint Peter’s parishes.15 Internal debates between clerics also raged during this time. Jean Sturm advocated strongly for the maintenance of the Tetrapolitan Confession; he ultimately lost his battle to Johann Marbach and Johannes Pappus, who advocated for the sole adoption of the Augsburg Confession. Disputes between the magistrates and the clergy also persisted in the city, specifically in regard to the degree of support and alliance that the Lutheran magistrates should provide to Huguenots and Calvinists outside the city. The clergy frowned upon the support the magistrates lent to other Protestants, for by 1570, they eagerly sought to impose orthodox Lutheran doctrine in the city and to ally themselves with other Lutheran theologians throughout the Empire. This position was slowly embraced by the magistrates, who recognized that much of Strasbourg’s populace favored the move.16 The shared magisterial and clerical interests facilitated the imposition of orthodoxy through disciplinary demands requiring compliance with Lutheran standards that were formally enacted by the magistrates. As questions of identity became paramount in the city, the clerics and the magistrates began to define their city and their confessional community.17 Strasbourg formalized its adherence to Lutheran orthodoxy with the adoption of the Formula of Concord in 1598. In this church ordinance, the city embraced Lutheranism and disavowed the Tetrapolitan, Swiss-leaning Confession. In addition, recognizing the difficulties inherent in creating a Christian community without proper guidance, the magistrates explained that the purpose of the church ordinance was twofold: That our dear and trusted clergy not only formulate and set an important, thorough report from this city, to preserve the confession which is unanimously held in our churches and schools with great enthusiasm and seriousness, but also those ceremonies and ordinances which at this time are newly in use in our churches.18

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Thus, in addition to their adoption of the Augsburg Confession to the exclusion of the Tetrapolitan Confession, the magistrates included instructions regarding baptism, marriage, preaching, church attendance, education, and alms to ensure that the practice of Strasbourg’s residents would conform properly to Lutheran doctrine. The gradual adoption of Lutheran orthodoxy and the growing concerns about Catholics and Calvinists in the city also led the clerics, and ultimately the magistrates, to reinforce boundaries between Lutherans and other confessions. In a magisterial decree from 1598, which served as a preface to the Kirchenordnung, the magistrates expounded: We have seriously forbidden all others, even those who were not subject to [Strasbourg’s] jurisdiction, who, however, reside in, visit, or use this city, to adopt anything contrary to this church order, whether at home or in public.19

City space was thus legally demarcated as Lutheran, under penalty of banishment. The dawning of orthodoxy in a multiconfessional environment was simultaneous with the drawing of firmer boundaries between the city and rural Jews.20 Although laws restricting Jewish-Christian contact had been enacted prior to 1570, it was in that year, the same year in which the drive to implement Lutheran orthodoxy began, that the magistrates abandoned the contract and sought to implement their extant policies against the Jews. The link in forming boundaries between Lutherans and other confessions on the one hand, and between Lutherans and Jews on the other, is not just temporal but textual as well. In a police order from 1628, which was devised to implement the religious plan of the newly Lutheran city, outlined in the 1598 Formula of Concord, the magistrates reenacted restrictions on Jewish-Christian relations. Explaining that “this ban not to trade with Jews in this city is not new, but has already been stated for more than fifty years,” the magistrates stressed that regulating Jewish presence in Strasbourg was part of their overall attempt to outline proper behavior for the city’s residents.21 The police order comprised seventeen sections: worship and church attendance; blasphemy and false witness; discipline of children; ordinances on domestic service; marriage ordinances; ordinances on child

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baptism; ordinances regulating guests; ordinances regulating proper dress; ordinances governing charity; ordinances concerning the Jews, usurious contracts and exchanges, sales, and monopolies; ordinances concerning falsified business transactions and bankruptcies; ordinances regulating gambling; ordinances regulating mischief, passion, music and merrymaking on city streets and in other parts of the city during both day and night hours; ordinances forbidding defamatory or shameful pamphlets; regulations controlling the printing and sale of books; regulations about funerals; and a section on implementation. When printed, the police order was also accompanied by an appendix, which provided the law’s prior foundations in earlier enactments, and included a few additions that were of a similar vein.22 The religious requirements delineated in the police order reiterated the 1598 Formula of Concord: A church order with good execution was authored and published in the year of Christ 1598, according to us [the magistrates] and our dear ancestors; in it, they and we provided . . . not only a wise order [determining] church ceremonies, but also, and primarily, comprehensive knowledge of our Christian faith, that we had ordered on the fixed ground of the holy writings, the Old and New Testaments, and what is derived from there, the unchanging princely Augsburg Confession and Apologia.23

The text continued to explain that the 1598 order had been reissued in 1611, and now, in 1628, “the entire contents were being repeated, and newly reinforced.” Specific laws were drafted, aiming to ensure church attendance, the taking of sacraments, attendance at sermons, baptism, the proper selection of godparents, and proper church education.24 Attendance at any “foreign churches” was prohibited as a punishable offense. Singled out were the services of “excluded religions”—presumably Catholicism and Calvinism—as well as “the secret sects of Anabaptists, Schwenckfeldians, Wigelians, and other radicals.”25 Other aspects of decorum were stressed, highlighting the magistrates’ desire for social control and the maintenance of order. Work was to be avoided on Sundays, and gambling was to be limited; at most, it was restricted to private homes on Sundays and holidays.26 Children were to go to school.27 “Howling, cheering, singing, and shrieking” were prohibited in city streets and even in guild houses, taverns, and

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inns.28 As “God’s law” mandated, drunkenness was forbidden, and guests coming to the city were to be watched, lest they lose their sobriety.29 The poor were to behave in the streets, or be chased out; it was also incumbent upon them to receive communion in the church.30 Different clothing was designated as appropriate for the male and female residents of Strasbourg, depending on the season and, more importantly, on their economic status.31 Regulating interactions with Jews was thus part of this comprehensive program for maintaining proper and orthodox Lutheran behavior in Strasbourg. The police order reiterated the prohibition on Jews living in Strasbourg and entering the city without a safe conduct. All borrowing, lending, and exchanges between Jews and Christians were forbidden, except for the trade and sale of horses, which was to be conducted in designated areas under supervision. Contracts with Jews were annulled. Jews were forbidden from transacting business with foreigners who entered Strasbourg. The magistrates also reaffirmed their privilege in deciding this policy, explaining that they, rather than the emperor, had the privilege of enacting Jewish policies in their lands.32 Just as Lutheran citizens were to attend church and sermons, receive communion, limit gambling, cease to attend non-Lutheran churches, wear proper clothing, and behave with due decorum, so too were they to avoid interactions with Jews. In their attempts to confessionalize their subjects, which were well under way by 1628, the magistrates demanded, as they had since 1570, that steps be taken to distance good Lutherans from that traditional, anti-Christian foil, the Jew. Two different strategies were used to foster boundaries between Jews and Christians. First, beginning in 1570, the magistrates sought to eliminate contacts between Jews and Christians. Subsequent laws sought to reissue all of the enactments dating back to 1530, although the newer laws do not always explicitly refer to the older laws. Second, when crafting their laws, the magistrates changed their rhetoric to make use of medieval stereotypes pitting the Jew against the Christian. A comparison of the earlier laws promulgated before 1570 with those issued after that date reveals greater hostility toward the Jews in 1570 and beyond. Early laws from 1530 and 1539 referred to traditional economic grievances against the Jew, such as usury and abandonment. In contrast,

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the later laws included harsh indictments of the Jews based on familiar antisemitic stereotypes. The law from 1616 referred to the Jews as “greedy, cheating, usurious, and self-benefiting in all of their dealings.”33 The police order from 1628 referred to the “swift, risky and bloodthirsty practices” of the Jews, visible both in contemporary times and “also apparent in the old chronicles and history books.” The passage continued: Until this day, then, they, the Jews proceed with their deceitful, evidently profitable, usurious and self-interested contracts and dealings in such a way—as they have already done for years [and as was] first hinted to through their great misdeeds—that thereby, they in many different ways, encumber Christians to lose their blessed God, and . . . ruin our means and bring [us] to bitter poverty. . . . Aside from all that, they are open and stated enemies of our only Savior and Redeemer Jesus Christ and all that is known in his holy name. They are not easily to tolerate in Christian communities; on the contrary, as much as it is possible [one should] report them, shun them and when possible, show them the way and completely get rid of them.34

As the police order explicitly explained, these images of the Jew were “also apparent in the old chronicles and history books.” This text evoked multiple examples of the Jew as “enemy” of Christ and as “other” to the Lutheran residents of Strasbourg. For example, the police order claimed that the hardships that Jewish economic activity caused contemporary Christians were “first hinted to through their great misdeed,” the crucifixion. Old as they were, these stereotypes were being put to a new use— defining a Lutheran identity. In the medieval period, the emergence of tales falsely accusing Jews corresponded with moments of doubt in the Christian world. Anxiety about transubstantiation led to tales of host desecration.35 In an age when the definition of what it meant to be a Christian was again at stake, the stereotypes against Jews were put to use as markers and credentials of good Christians. The same was true in other places in Europe. In Poland, host desecration charges were mocked by Protestants, and were utilized by Catholics as proof of the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation.36 In Lutheran Strasbourg, negative descriptions of Jews were used as justifications for and reiterations of a policy of excluding Jews from the city. Distancing from the Jews

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was a part of the program for creating and casting Strasbourg as an orthodox, Lutheran, Christian space. The vituperative language used against Jews was part of the program of social and godly discipline, in which social order and internal identity were maintained by reaffirming the great gulfs that separated Jews and Christians.

Antisemitic Stereotypes and Protestant Print Culture The growing magisterial hostility toward the Jews is not only visible in the content and language of their laws. The tacit approval of animosity toward the Jews can also be found in shifts in censorship, an institution under magisterial control. Censorship was established in Strasbourg in 1524. Although the magistrates were generally lenient as to which books could be printed in the city, parallel evidence for a change in magisterial attitudes toward the Jews is discernible in the printing of antisemitic texts in the city. A comparison of their earlier and later positions demonstrates that the magistrates had an increased tolerance for the publication of antisemitic works beginning in the latter half of the sixteenth century. In 1543, Martin Luther published three notoriously anti-Jewish tracts, On the Jews and Their Lies, On the Last Words of David, and Von Schem Mephoras.37 In response, Josel of Rosheim wrote two letters to Strasbourg’s magistrates, in May and July of 1543, beseeching the magistrates to prohibit the publication of Luther’s works in Strasbourg.38 Explaining that common folk thought that Luther’s writings gave them license to attack Jews, Josel played on the magistrates’ desire for control, claiming that if they banned publication of Luther, “no one shall encumber [matters] for us [Jews] without your knowledge.”39 In May, the magistrates acquiesced to Josel’s request, and “prohibited printing” of Luther’s tracts. Indeed, the magistrates went even further, and exerted their influence to ensure the safety of neighboring Jews in Hochfelden in the wake of the first publication.40 When Josel renewed his request to ban the publication of Luther’s new tract in July of that year, he also asked the magistrates to intervene with the electors of Saxony and with the other members of the Schmalkaldic League on the Jews’ behalf, pleading with them to exert their influence on these leaders

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to protect the privileges granted to the Jews living in their respective realms.41 The magistrates decided to remain uninvolved, for the matter dealt with the larger issues of Jewish rights in the Empire. They did, however, forbid the printing of Luther’s writings in the city.42 Sixteen years later, authors and publishers with far less clout than Luther were permitted to print broadsheets and vernacular antisemitic tracts in the city. Miriam Usher Chrisman’s Bibliography of Strasbourg Imprints, 1480–1599 lists three antisemitic broadsheets, all published in the latter half of the sixteenth century, suggesting that attitudes toward the Jews were shifting in the latter half of the sixteenth century, particularly around the year 1570.43 In two of the broadsheets, the juxtaposition of image and text allowed even the illiterate to access the meaning and implicit stereotypes found in the works.44 The three pamphlets and broadsheets published in the 1560s and 1570s in Strasbourg contain familiar medieval images of the Jews. The first such text published was written by Heinrich Schrötter of Weissen­ berg, who dedicated it to the Landgrave of Hanau, Philip Ludwig, in 1562. It was published in Strasbourg in 1563 by Thiebolt Berger. The text, Etliche wenige: On wider sprechliche Ertzbübe[n]stücke, der von Gott verblendten Juden in gemein, comprised a litany of traditional stereotypes and complaints against the Jews.45 The Jews, Schrötter alleged, taught their children to beat the “Goim.” 46 In addition, he claimed that the Jews cursed the Christians weekly in synagogue.47 Similarly, when the Jews greeted Christians, they were secretly practicing their “poisonous hatred and daily curse” by referring to the devil’s name.48 Schrötter accused the Jews of poisoning Christians with more than just words. He pointed to restrictions barring Jews from sharing wine with Christians as evidence of enmity, and charged that Jews were tampering with wine, milk, and meat to harm Christians.49 Schrötter also claimed that Jews sought to poison Christians with their tainted bodily fluids: When a Jew drinks beer from a canteen with a Christian, and he does not want to drink any more, he takes a mouthful and lets the rest into the canteen, so that the Christian thinks he has drunk. And he has allowed his venom to pour in, which the Christian must drink. Such is the inborn enmity that they have towards us.50

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Everyday encounters between Jews and Christians, including shared meals and greetings, were thus cast under suspicion. Many of the charges listed by Schrötter would be of interest to common folk, as they comprise economic grievances laced with charges of sorcery, black magic, and heresy. The Jews were accused of “betraying and spying on everyone,” of serving as the “devil’s ambassador” as they engaged in usury, and of buying stolen goods. Involved in “black arts,” the Jews cheated Christian farmers, burghers, and children out of their hard-earned money.51 Schrötter included four examples of such exchanges in the text, pointing to the “damages” perpetrated by the enemies of God’s son. Many of these charges merged economic and religious themes. “The Jew,” Schrötter wrote, “is only the devil’s tool.” As such: The Jews further blaspheme publicly against our God and our blessed maker, holding him as not God. And we hear and read therefore, that there can be no usurer among us, and we should not have communion with the devil. God and Belial have no communion with one another.52

These associations of the Jew with the devil, poison, black arts, and trickery were all firmly rooted in medieval culture. In that same vein, Schrötter concluded with another familiar image, urging political leaders such as the landgrave to “stop the bloodsucking.” The persistence of these accusations, which had been prevalent for centuries in Europe, is only striking in that Thiebold Berger, the printer, deemed the publication of this text a worthwhile investment. Similar texts had not been published for several decades in Strasbourg. Berger primarily published vernacular texts, including popular songs.53 By mid-century, something about these texts was seen as relevant and marketable. In a climate in which boundaries between good Christians and others were being delineated, a text haranguing the Jews for the damages that they caused common folk, and accusing them of being utterly “other,” had a certain value. Another set of broadsheets published in 1572 clearly depicts the recasting of familiar medieval images of Jews in the specific context of the post-Reformation city. Designed by Tobias Stimmer, one of the most famous woodcutters of the sixteenth century, these two broadsheets are

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woodcuts that depict the figures of Synagoga and Ecclesia found on the southern entrance to the Strasbourg cathedral.54 The statues of Synagoga and Ecclesia were built in the early thirteenth century, and stand on either side of an icon of Jesus. This series of icons portrayed the triumph of the church over the synagogue, signifying that the Christians had succeeded the Jews as the chosen people. Synagoga, who stands to Jesus’ left, looks away from him, blindfolded. She stands slumped, and in her hands she carries a broken staff and a tablet of law, which is pointed downward. Ecclesia, in contrast, stands on Jesus’ right side, looking directly at him. She stands erect and is crowned, carrying a cross as a scepter in one hand; in her other hand is a chalice. Thus, these two statues visually depicted the replacement of the Old Testament and its laws with the new mystery of the Mass, highlighting the blindness of the synagogue, who had not abandoned the carnal for the spiritual. Their purpose, as was the case with medieval iconography, was to convey this message of Christian affirmation to the illiterate masses.55 The woodcuts, published by Bernhard Jobin in 1572, depict the two female figures, although they are modified in his version.56 (See Figures 4 and 5.) Synagoga is depicted with a crown at her feet, which was common to some statues of the two women; however, in Strasbourg, Synagoga had no such crown. Both women are shown standing in an archway of ruins, with a biblical scene taking place in the background beyond the ruins. The scene behind Synagoga is Moses receiving revelation from God, while the scene behind Ecclesia is the narrative in Luke in which Jesus’ birth is revealed to the local shepherds. The addition of both the fallen crown of Synagoga and a scene in which the new messiah’s birth is contrasted with the revelation given to Moses reiterated the original meaning of these statues, in which the church and the New Testament replaced the synagogue and the Old Testament. Stimmer also updated Synagoga and Ecclesia by using a more contemporary style. Whereas the medieval icons were gothic and lacked detailed features, the woodcuts depict more rounded figures, with clear faces, in the style of the Renaissance. Stimmer kept the figures recognizable and retained the overall symbolism, while updating the images to match the contemporary period for which the woodcuts were intended.57

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Figure 4.  Dasselbige blut das blendet mich (Strassburg: Bernard Jobin, 1572). Tobias Stimmer’s chiaroscuro of Strasbourg’s Ecclesia, 1572. Note the elements that reflect an updated model for the sixteenth century. Reproduced courtesy of the Kunstmuseum Basel, Kupferstichkabinett, Martin P. Bühler.

Figure 5.  Dasselbige blut das blendet mich (Strassburg: Bernard Jobin, 1572). Tobias Stimmer’s chiaroscuro of Strasbourg’s Synagoga, 1572. Note the elements that reflect an updated model for the sixteenth century. Reproduced courtesy of Kunstmuseum Basel, Kupferstichkabinett, Martin P. Bühler.

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More noticeably, Synagoga’s head is turned to the right, rather than to the left, placing her in dialogue with Ecclesia. This modification is reflective of the texts that accompany the woodcut, in which the two statues are speaking with one another. Each woodcut has a heading, and is additionally accompanied by short, rhyming texts, placed below the images. These texts were probably written by Johann Fischart, the brother-in-law of Bernhard Jobin, a noted satirist who often worked together with both Stimmer and Jobin.58 The headings that are placed over the statues create a visual where the two women conduct a dialogue in which they highlight their characteristics. Ecclesia says to Synagoga, “With Christ’s blood I conquer you.” Synagoga responds, “That same blood that blinds me.” Whereas the chalice held by Ecclesia provided salvation in the form of the Mass, the synagogue and the Jews remained blind despite their blood connection to Jesus. The texts that are placed underneath the statues highlight the meaning that the broadsheets had for Stimmer, Fischart, and Jobin. The text for Ecclesia describes the location of the statues: These two old pretty pictures One finds standing in Strasbourg On the back door of the cathedral When one goes forth from the Fronhof From it, one sees the old art And what he had otherwise believed.59

The verses printed under Ecclesia situate the reader in a familiar location, in front of the Fronhof, the manor house that faced the southern door of the cathedral. Any resident or visitor to the city could immediately visualize or find this location. It continued by indicating that these icons confirmed the beliefs that the viewer already held. The text for Synagoga, which explained the symbolism of the statues, continued: From the Gospels and the Law,

How Faith alone holds the place [remains] And how it conquers Both world and law, the power of sin. Therefore, doctrine and falseness One obtains from such pictures today.60

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Synagoga’s text highlighted the message conveyed by both figures. It is critical to note the nuances that situate this text in a Protestant rather than a Catholic context. Both the medieval and Reformation versions of Synagoga were blinded and represented “falseness,” while their respective Ecclesia represented “doctrine.” However, the Reformation Ecclesia demonstrated that faith alone conquered sin and law. The victory of the church over the synagogue was that of the Protestant church, which espoused justification by faith, and renounced both Catholic works and Jewish law. Although most vernacular and propaganda literature printed in Strasbourg shied away from heavy theological topics, Fischart, a Calvinist sympathizer, composed many satirical polemics against Catholics. Both Jews and Catholics may have been the target of this polemic.61 Printing images of icons from the cathedral would have necessitated theological reworking. Although Synagoga and Ecclesia still graced the cathedral’s southern entrance, just forty-three years earlier, the residents of Strasbourg tore down and destroyed many of the other statues in the cathedral, ones that they had once revered.62 Reference to the icons of Synagoga and Ecclesia necessitated that they represent the new doctrine, rather than medieval Catholic superstition. Stimmer further accomplished the “protestantization” of the images by depicting Synagoga and Ecclesia before a church that was in ruins. The Strasbourg cathedral was not in decline, and was once again, by the 1570s, in use as a Lutheran church. Stimmer’s modification to the cathedral reflects that although the message of Synagoga and Ecclesia retained its validity and relevance, the Catholic context from which the statues came was in shambles.63 The protestantization of these images was important to ensure that the public would relate to the material. Moreover, this process confirms that the message sent by Fischart and Stimmer was geared toward bolstering Protestant ideals, if not the nuances of theology. The message that Synagoga was an outsider was not necessary, for one could walk by the cathedral and see that idea carved in stone. These broadsheets instead made use of Synagoga as the already familiar outsider and declared that the true Ecclesia was the Protestant church, rather than the Catholic cathedral, which lay in ruins. Synagoga was once again employed as evidence that the church was chosen; the broadsheets broadcasted the specific message that the Protestant church was the “True Israel.”

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A second broadsheet printed by Jobin also used the Jews, this time as subjects of a story that emphasized Protestant beliefs and morals. Entitled Ain gewisse Wunderzeitung von einer Schwangeren Judin zu Binzwangen, this broadsheet was also composed by Johann Fischart and was published twice, by an unnamed printer in 1574 and by Jobin in 1575. Stimmer may have designed the accompanying woodcut.64 (See Figure 6.) The broadsheet is presented as a Wunderzeitung, news of a wondrous (and in this case, abhorrent) occurrence. It reports of a Jewess in Binzwangen, near Augsburg, who gave birth to two small pigs on September 12, 1574. The woodcut, found on the upper right-hand corner of the broadsheet, depicts the story that is relayed in the text. In the foreground stands a Jewish man, marked by a round badge, a beard, and a hat. He is being shown two small pigs, who are being uncovered by one figure; a second figure stands to the man’s right, calming him. In the background in the right-hand corner is his wife, the mother of the pigs, who is referred to not as the Kindbetterin, the parturient, but as the Saubetterin, the parturient of the pig. She is depicted lying in bed, being tended to by a nurse. In the left-hand corner, two figures are shown digging, preparing graves for these “children,” one who died within an hour of being born, the other who lived for an hour. This broadsheet clearly builds on the medieval Judensau, a depiction linking the Jew to the pig. The medieval Judensau usually displayed Jews suckling from the pig or consuming its feces.65 Here, Fischart merged the Judensau image with contemporary interest in monstrous births, creating a narrative that “reported” the birth of two small pigs to a Jewess as contemporary news.66 As Isaiah Shachar has noted, Fischart based his broadsheet on an earlier one written by Sebastian Brant in 1496. That text is devoid of any links to the Jews, and interpreted a monstrous birth of twin piglets as a warning about the approaching Turks.67 ­Fischart’s broadsheet, on the other hand, links the birth of these pigs to the Jews, and in the accompanying texts, uses other traditional medieval stereotypes of the Jews. The introduction reads: But the True God Has placed before [our] eyes That, as is grasped by the entire world Christ is the correct messiah.68

Figure 6.  Johann Fischart, Ain gewisse Wunderzeitung von einer Schwangeren Judin zu Binzwangen (Strasbourg, 1575). Depiction of the monstrous birth of pigs to a Jewess from Binzwangen. Bildarchive Preussicher Kulturbesitz/Art Resource NY.

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Fischart categorized this monstrous birth as evidence that the Jews had erred in their rejection of Christ. Referring to the Jews as blind, Fischart explained that the future of the Jews lay in “monstrosity,” for rather than selecting Christ as their messiah, the Jews adopted the “terrible animal,” the pig. The motifs of the blind Jews, the Judensau, and the Jewish rejection of Christ are all typical medieval anti-Jewish stereo­t ypes. The text also included references to the Jews as blind and carnal, and terms them the “natural branch,” a theme culled from Romans 11. Aside from medieval imagery and traditional writing, Fischart’s text also drew on Luther. His reference to “das verplent Judisch Talmudgschlecht,” the blind Jewish Talmud-race, in the context of the birth of two pigs echoes the link between the Talmud and the Judensau that was initially made by Luther. As Shachar has discussed at length, Luther was the first among several early modern writers and theologians to identify the pig from which the Jews nursed as a visual depiction of the Talmud from which the Jews gained, in Luther’s eyes, misguided nourishment.69 Fischart thus built on this contemporary interpretation, echoing the notion that the Talmud had blinded the Jews and that this choice, which led to the Jewish rejection of Jesus as Messiah, had subsequently culminated in the birth of the two piglets, a tangible display of the Jews’ errant decision. Fischart urged his readers to see this monstrous birth as a sign of God’s presence in the world and as a manifestation of His will, a ubiquitous feature of contemporary propaganda and journalism. The aim of Fischart’s Wunderzeitung was to reiterate proper Christian beliefs and behaviors. As he wrote, such wonders did not occur in vain: That also, through the warning of the unbelievers Men who believe will also enter the right path: Then for us, the completely blind Jews Will turn us more towards the light . . . Therefore, these signs should Be enough for a warning for Christians and Jews To abandon a sow-like life And with sobriety, to measure ourselves That we, worthy [ones], with austerity Are waiting prepared for God’s future.70

Reformation-Era Tolerance

Fischart’s text is thus a morality tale, in which he reiterated the values of Christianity by using the example of the Jews. The birth of the twin pigs served as a warning for Christians, who would be reminded of the correct path after seeing the misfortune that befell the blind Jews, and who would then “move towards the light.” The Christians were charged with learning from Jewish mistakes. The older stereotype of the Judensau was reworked by Fischart into a new genre, in which the lay perceptions of divine providence and of morality were highlighted by the monstrous birth that befell the Jews. The use of antisemitic images and of vituperative language in both legal and popular genres was obviously not a novelty. On the contrary, these stereotypes were well known and familiar to the laypeople. The blind Jew could be found in medieval texts, was personified in the form of Synagoga, and was also depicted both textually and visually in the writings of sixteenth-century converts.71 The image of the Judensau was made permanent in church architecture, as close by as Colmar and ­Rufach, and the figures of Synagoga and Ecclesia still flanked the southern entrance to the cathedral.72 Links between the Jews and the crucifixion were reiterated visually in books about the passion. 73 One cannot argue that there were no antisemitic images in any of the publications published or sold in Strasbourg before 1570.74 Nevertheless, the resurgence of these negative images and stereotypes about Jews in new genres and in dedicated texts cannot be dismissed as irrelevant. Neither can the magistrates’ new leniency toward censoring antisemitic material, which represented a clear break with their position in the first half of the sixteenth century, and which was contemporaneous with (and served as a justification for) their increasingly harsh policies toward the Jews. The reworking of these stereotypes to fit in with Protestant theology, morals, and understanding is also striking; the image of Jew as outsider was made relevant to the contemporary context, and was utilized in vernacular publications aimed at cultivating identity and morals among Protestants. Indeed, these “protestantized” familiar stereotypes reemerged in a variety of media, including theological writings, art, and literature aimed at a vernacular-reading laity, as well as laws mandating social order. Thus, the various reading publics in Strasbourg—both lay and learned—had newfound access to the notion that the Jew was

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a permanent outsider to the Lutheran Christian community.75 How the broadsheets published in Strasbourg were used, where they were displayed, who read them, and how are all questions that would further elucidate the impact of these materials on the Christians of Strasbourg, and should be considered as social and art historians continue to assess the transmission and understanding of text and image in the Reformation.76 Magisterial approval of the publication of antisemitic images continued into the seventeenth century. The magistrates’ 1628 police order, with its vituperative language and medieval stereotypes, was published locally in Strasbourg. Even more striking is the language used in a letter written by Strasbourg’s theology faculty to Johann Müller, preacher at Hamburg in 1642, forbidding Christians from consulting Jewish doctors. The theologians accused the Jews of using “magical ways” to mix poison into medicines for Christians, a practice which they claimed was permitted by the Talmud. They charged the Jews with “disloyal, murderous and known evil will” toward Christians, and used the crucifixion as a reason not to trust the advice of the Jewish doctors. The Jewish doctors were also accused of trickery, for having not formally studied medicine, their claims to be doctors were “disloyal, a sham, and fraudulent.”77 As evidence, the theologians cite Luther, Bucer, and other Lutheran theologians, thereby casting these “medieval” accusations against Jews as part of the Protestant heritage.78 Strasbourg’s theologians cite specific page numbers from Luther’s On the Jews and Their Lies, the very document whose publication had been banned by the magistrates in 1543, at Josel’s request.79 One hundred years later, it was used by Strasbourg’s theologians as evidence of the Jews’ treachery. The simultaneous changes in legal policies directed at the Jews, in censorship patterns, and in images available in printed text emphasize the significance of the hermeneutical Jew for Christian self-definition. Although laws regulating Jewish behavior in Strasbourg had played this rhetorical function since 1530, beginning in 1570, and certainly by the seventeenth century, these laws were used to create even firmer boundaries between Jews and Christians, necessary in an era in which magistrates and clerics increasingly promoted orthodoxy.

Reformation-Era Tolerance

Strasbourg and Tolerance Analyzing the relationship between the magistrates and the Jews against the backdrop of the unfolding events of Reformation Strasbourg facilitates a comparison of the treatment of Jews and of other non-Lutheran confessions in the city. Laws, harsh language, and propaganda from the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries vilified both Jews and non-Lutherans, who were considered different and even dangerous. And yet, despite laws mandating their exclusion, the magistrates exercised some degree of tolerance toward both non-Lutheran Christians and Jews. Although Strasbourg’s laws seem intent on crushing internal dissent and regulating appropriate behavior, the magistrates had political and practical concerns that sometimes trumped doctrinal matters, highlighting the disconnect between ideals and reality. Economic needs encouraged the magistrates to permit Jews to sell horses and wine in restricted areas.80 Social ties similarly led to a more permissive attitude toward non-Lutheran Christians on the part of the magistrates. Connections between former nuns and important magisterial families as well as the societal need for a women’s school that protected women’s chastity until marriage led the magistrates to permit young Christian women to study in several convents in Strasbourg even after the newly Protestant city took over Catholic institutions.81 Individual Schwenkfeldians were also permitted in the city, often as a result of their connections to magistrates.82 By the 1540s, foreign policy concerns, such as relations with the emperor and with Strasbourg’s powerful neighbors, influenced the magistrates to adopt the Interim and to permit Catholic practice in the city. Perhaps the most striking example of the magistrates’ attempt to balance confessional needs within the city with its foreign policy concerns is the fact that although they took steps against the Calvinist parish in Strasbourg, they also supported French Huguenots.83 Despite their growing adherence to and support for the Lutheran orthodoxy urged by the clergy, the magistrates of Strasbourg balanced pragmatic concerns with doctrinal matters, tolerating both individuals and larger groups of non-Lutheran Christians in city space.84 Differences of opinion were permitted in the city, albeit often tacitly and not officially. The magistrates’ tendency to weigh pragmatic concerns

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alongside doctrinal beliefs won Strasbourg a reputation for being a tolerant or moderate city.85 In the context of Reformation Europe, when modern-day ideological tolerance—tolerance for its own sake—had yet to be born, such top-down moderation, even when based solely on pragmatic principles, is somewhat striking. Pragmatic tolerance of this sort was extended to both non-Lutheran Christians and to Jews. Yet there were concrete differences in the magistrates’ treatment of Jews and of non-Lutherans. Though officially a Lutheran city, Strasbourg’s residents included members of different Christian confessions. Sharing space in the city often led Christians of different confessions to view one another through a more “tolerant” lens despite doctrinal difference.86 In contrast, after 1570, daily Jewish-Christian interactions inside Strasbourg diminished as the magistrates sought to implement restrictions on the Jews’ commercial presence in the city. Such contacts could only take place in designated areas, under watch, outside city walls, or illicitly.87 Internal developments in late Reformation Strasbourg thus distanced the Alsatian Jews from the Lutherans in a much more concrete and tangible way than they did members of other confessions, who still shared physical spaces with Lutherans. The decrease in contact between Jews and Christian in the city after 1570 made it difficult for Strasbourg’s Christians to dispel the negative perceptions of Jews that proliferated at the time. When they did enter the city, Jews may have been faced with increased hostility due to the publication of images, texts, and policies, revamped to reflect Protestant theology, depicting the Jew as the enemy of Christians. One wonders how a Jew who succeeded in entering city space may have felt when looking at these images. Although in other areas of Western Europe, such as the Netherlands, mercantilism transformed the status of Jews and allowed them to flourish in Western society after 1570, in Strasbourg and in rural Alsace, confessional divides and battles ultimately led to a decline for local Jews.88 Although Strasbourg’s outlook was generally one that permitted some private dissent, Jewish-Christian relations in Strasbourg during the height of confession building reveal the limits of tolerance even in the moderate Reformation city.

S i x  “I Listened to the Account of a Jew” Christian Hebraism in Strasbourg

During the first half of the sixteenth century, the presence of Jews in the streets of Strasbourg was hardly extraordinary, given the contract that they had developed with the magistrates, the relationships they had built with local residents and leaders, and the fact that the city had offered them refuge inside its walls on a number of occasions. ­Although economic need on both sides was the primary motivation for initiating relations between local Jews and Christians, some local Jews also interacted with Strasbourg’s elite in an additional sphere, serving as resources of Hebrew and Judaic knowledge to the theologians and professors of the city. The beginning of the Reformation led to a flourishing of Christian Hebraism in the city, abetted by the participation of local Jews. As the Reformation progressed, however, contacts between Jews and Hebraists ceased. Starting in the latter half of the sixteenth century, Christian leaders deliberately solidified the boundaries between the communities as they adopted Lutheran orthodoxy in the city.

The Tradition of Hebraica Veritas before the Reformation Christian interest in the Hebrew language and Judaic sources did not begin in the sixteenth century, although it witnessed a sharp increase at that time. Hebraica Veritas, the notion that Christian truth could be found in the Hebrew language and Jewish sources, was already present in the exegetical works of medieval scholars. In the twelfth century, monks such as Hugh and Andrew of Saint Victor consulted the biblical commentaries of Rashi (d. 1105) in order to compose the

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literal or historical portions of their commentaries.1 Foremost among the exegetes who used Hebrew and rabbinic sources was Nicholas of Lyra (1270–1340), who often favored Rashi’s interpretations over those of the church fathers in his works.2 The Renaissance marked a steep increase in Christian Hebraism in both Italy and the Empire.3 The importance of studying sources in their original languages increased with the advent of humanism. In addition, the growing belief in hermeticism and ancient theology, which advocated that truth had been preserved in ancient writings such as the Kabbalah, led Christian scholars to study both Hebrew and Jewish mystical texts. In Italy, Pico della Mirandola employed converts such as Flavius Mithridates and rabbis such as Johanan Alemmano in his effort to understand Kabbalah.4 Similarly, Cardinal Egidio da Viterbo, perhaps the most prominent cardinal under Popes Clement VII and Leo X, also engaged in the study of Hebrew and Kabbalah with the help of Jewish scholars such as Obadiah Seforno and Elijah Levita.5 In the Empire, Johannes Reuchlin was one of the foremost Hebraists, composing De Arte Kabbalistica and De Verbo Mirifico, in which he used kabbalistic techniques in order to demonstrate the divinity of Jesus.6 Strasbourg was also an important center for humanist learning, where men such as Jacob Wimpheling, Sebastian Brant, and Geiler von Kaysersberg studied, taught, and preached. This circle embraced the study of Hebrew in their endeavors to read texts in the original language. Like Johannes Reuchlin, they called for church reform but did not ultimately break with the Catholic Church. Although these men were avid students of Hebrew, there were limits to the degree to which they could consult Jewish sources or local Jews. Hebraists were often challenged for their use of rabbinic sources and sometimes charged with judaizing due to what was deemed excessive use of Jewish material.7 In order to distance themselves from charges of judaizing, some Hebraists were vociferous in their condemnation of Jews. Jacob Wimpheling, for example, penned polemics against Alsatian Jews, singling out the Jews in nearby Sultz for their usurious activity and referring to them as enemies of the faith who did not believe in the Virgin Mary.8 Similarly, although Johannes Reuchlin’s interest in Hebrew prompted him and other humanists to defend the Talmud and

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other Jewish books when the Dominicans, spurred on by a former Jew, Johannes Pfefferkorn, leveled charges of heresy against these texts in 1510, his writings have also been described as antisemitic.9 Thus, working with Jewish sources was by no means a sign of philosemitism. As the term “Christian Hebraism” indicates, the purpose of the Hebraist enterprise was to reveal Christian truth, not to promote tolerance of, or interaction with, local Jews. Because Christian Hebraism was a phenomenon that was based on internal Christian desires and needs, our analysis of this expanding avenue for Jewish-Christian interaction must be contextualized against the backdrop of the developments in Reformation Strasbourg, which ­fueled the quest for Hebraica Veritas. In Strasbourg, relationships between Jews and Christian Hebraists can be documented for the first half of the sixteenth century, corresponding to the first generation of reformers and Hebraists in the city. In that period, Jews served as resources for Christians seeking knowledge of Hebrew and Judaica. From the mid- to late sixteenth century onward, however, the shifting needs of the city’s theologians resulted in a sharp decline in discernible contacts between Jews and Christians. This chapter focuses on the nature of how Jews were involved in the Hebraist enterprise, as well as on the internal Christian developments that led to the cessation of contacts between Jews and Strasbourg’s intellectuals as the Reformation progressed.

Hebraism in Early-Sixteenth-Century Strasbourg Christian Hebraism in Strasbourg intensified with the coming of the Reformation. The Protestant reformers who had been trained in humanism sought to translate, study, and interpret the biblical text directly, urging for accuracy based on the Hebrew version of the Bible rather than on Jerome’s Vulgate. Two different types of Hebraist activity took place in Strasbourg during the first half of the sixteenth century, albeit with much overlap. First, many of the city’s reformers were themselves Hebraists. The city’s reformers, including Wolfgang Capito, Martin Bucer, and Capito’s student, Paul Fagius, studied Hebrew individually in an attempt to better understand the biblical text.

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Even more pressing was the need to provide appropriate texts for the community. With the onset of reform, new biblical translations were needed, since Protestants rejected the Vulgate and sought vernacular editions of the Bible. Commentaries on these books providing the reformed perspective were also necessary. For the reformers, the Hebrew language was crucial for demonstrating that reformed theology was rooted in scripture. The reformers also used their language skills in order to read Jewish commentaries, which they translated and used heavily in their own exegetical work. Capito’s Hebraist works included grammatical treatises; biblical commentaries on Genesis, Hosea, and Habakuk; and editions of the biblical commentaries penned by his friend and colleague Johannes Oecolampadius, a reformer in Basel.10 In all of these books, Capito made extensive use of Jewish sources. In the Hexameron, his commentary on Genesis, he referred to Onkelos, Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Nahmanides, and Hiskuni.11 Martin Bucer translated the Psalms text into German, and also wrote a Psalms commentary in which he cited Kimhi and Ibn Ezra.12 Similarly, Paul ­Fagius wrote his own grammatical works on Hebrew language and penned a commentary on the first four chapters of Genesis. In addition, he composed Latin translations of texts written by the Jewish scholar ­Elijah Levita, a Pentateuch containing a commentary written by the Jewish commentator Onkelos, and a Psalms commentary written by R. David Kimhi.13 He also translated the Pentateuch into Judeo-German.14 The works of these reformers were influential both in Strasbourg and throughout Europe. For example, in Strasbourg, Bucer’s translation of the Psalms was set to music and was printed in large typescript so that many individuals could consult with it at once. The Strassburger Gesangbuch, as it was called, was used in churches, providing laypeople with access to the Hebraist-inspired Psalms text through ritual music.15 In addition, Bucer’s commentary on the Psalms was penned under the name Aretius Felinus, and was therefore not recognized as his at first. Thus, it became widely influential in both Catholic and Protestant circles.16 This commentary was used as a basis for future Psalms commentaries in the Empire, France, and England.17 Aside from their own literary output, these reformers and several additional Hebraists served as Hebrew teachers for future theologians.

Christian Hebraism in Strasbourg

This was a second outlet through which Hebraism spread in Strasbourg. Shortly after their arrival in Strasbourg, reform-minded clerics began to teach Hebrew to all students in Strasbourg’s three theology schools. Beginning in 1525, five years before the Reformation was formally accepted by the magistrates, these clerics deemed Hebrew necessary for reading the Bible in its original language. Wolfgang Capito taught in one of these three schools, as did Gregor Casel, about whom little is known, and Michael Delius, who later taught Hebrew at Freiburg-im-Breisgau. Once the city adopted reform, the magistrates took control over the educational system. Hebraism was then institutionalized as part of the curriculum for theology students. In 1538, Jean Sturm, one of Jacob Wimpheling’s students, founded a gymnasium in which the humanist curriculum of studying Greek, Latin, and Hebrew was mandated.18 He was aided by Jacob Sturm, who had also studied with Wimpheling, and who was Meister of the city during the height of reform.19 Established in what had been the Dominican convent, the gymnasium was pedagogically influenced by Jean Sturm. Its humanist curriculum stressed rhetoric and eloquence as the basis for morality, and the study of ancient languages was mandated to ensure that students understood texts properly.20 Both Capito and Paul Fagius, Capito’s student who was also a reformer in Strasbourg, served as Hebrew professors in the gymnasium. In addition, Immanuel Tremellius, a convert from Judaism born in Ferrara, taught Hebrew at the gymnasium from 1542 to 1547. Like Capito, Bucer, and Fagius, Tremellius was also engaged in creating Hebraist texts. He translated the Old Testament into Latin, translated the Reformed catechism into Hebrew, and compiled an Aramaic dictionary.21 This first generation of Hebraists, which included Bucer, Capito, Fagius, and Tremellius, was heavily dependent upon Jews as sources for knowledge of Judaica and Hebraica. Although these men were generally trained in Hebrew at the onset of their careers, Jews continued to serve as a resource for them. The roles that Jews played in the Hebraist enterprise can be broken down into three different categories: Jews as teachers of Hebrew language, Jews as providers of texts that were of interest to Hebraists, and Jews as providers of knowledge about Judaism. As was the case throughout Europe, relationships between Hebraists and Jews were mutually beneficial. Local Jews, recent converts, and

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Jewish scholars could share the knowledge that they possessed with Hebraists, who eagerly sought that knowledge in exchange for payment.22 Wolfgang Capito, who grew up in Alsace, began his study of Hebrew with the help of a Jew who had converted to Christianity.23 Caspar Hedio, another reformer in Strasbourg, also had contact with Jews.24 Paul Fagius, who was perhaps the most heavily involved in the Hebraist enterprise, worked closely with an Italian Jew, Elijah Levita.25 Caspar Amman (d. 1524), a reform-minded Augustinian cleric persecuted for his pro-Lutheran leanings, learned Hebrew from the littleknown Alsatian rabbi Raphael Wolf of Hagenau.26 A document preserved in the archives of the Church of Saint Thomas in Strasbourg, where both Bucer and Fagius served as pastors, may shed light on how Christians learned Hebrew from Jews.27 The text, written in Judeo-German, is an oath written by a Jew named Jokef Hirsch, acknowledging that he had reported a matter, for which no context is provided, before some burghers. The presence of this document in church or gymnasium records is bizarre. Documents of this sort written by Jews to local authorities were all stored in municipal archives. Moreover, they were written in Latin, rather than Hebrew characters; at most, they contain a signature in both Latin and Judeo-German characters. It is therefore likely that this document was used by Hebraists to practice their reading of Hebrew characters. Its mundane content made for easy reading, and its composition in Judeo-German would facilitate transliteration from the Hebrew to the German characters.28 It is not improbable that this text is not an archival oath acquired by a Hebraist, but rather, a text written for a Hebraist by someone who knew Judeo-German well, in all likelihood, the Jokef Hirsch to whom the document is ascribed.29 Having learned the Hebrew characters, the Hebraists needed to acquire vocabulary and grammar skills. These were also learned with the aid of Jews, as is exemplified by Paul Fagius, who studied Hebrew with Elijah Levita. Although individual Jews instructed individual Hebraists in vocabulary and grammar, Levita’s contribution to the Hebraist enterprise was more extensive. Levita served as proofreader at Fagius’s Hebrew printing press in Isny, a small imperial city near Constance. Not only did Levita ensure that the Hebrew text would be printed

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correctly, he also published his own grammatical works with Fagius’s press.30 ­Fagius translated these works into Latin, so that he and subsequent ­Hebraists were able to study Hebrew grammar by accessing Levita’s books or Fagius’s translations of those books. With Levita’s help, Fagius accessed, translated, and published other types of Judaica, including several rabbinic biblical commentaries, among them works by Onkelos and R. David Kimhi, that would be helpful for the Hebraist. The relationship between Fagius and Levita was mutually beneficial, providing Levita with employment and the opportunity to publish his work. It provided Fagius with a teacher, a welltrained proofreader, and, above all, a library of texts that he could use as well as publish in translation. A letter from R. Raphael Wolf of Hagenau to R. Naftali Hirsch Treves of Frankfurt attests to the fact that Alsatian Jews also procured books for Hebraists.31 Wolf asked Treves to lend a kabbalistic book, ­Ginnat Egoz, to Caspar Amman, to whom he refers as “a man of great erudition, from among the nations.” Wolf explained that Amman sought to procure Ginnat Egoz as he “desired [to learn] the holy tongue with his soul, and perused through all of the books to find complex matters.”32 Although in the early days of print, few Jews owned books, those that did were an additional source of rabbinic material for the Hebraists. Of course, Hebraists also purchased their books and manuscripts directly from Hebrew presses.33 According to Josel of Rosheim, Wolfgang Capito received a package of Hebrew texts from Constantinople, presumably from a Hebrew printing house there. Along with the other books in this package, Capito received a copy of “a small book . . . and in it, someone wrote such terrible things about the messiah, that I [Josel] do not wish to speak of or write now.”34 The book was undoubtedly a copy of Toldot Yeshu, a Jewish counterhistory to the Gospel that ridiculed Jesus. Although Capito saw the text with his own eyes, he nevertheless sought Josel’s confirmation that it was not normative. Josel denied any familiarity with such a text, and reports that Capito responded: I have read through your Talmud, and I have also looked in all of your books and commentaries, and [I] have seen your prayer books. Had I found such blasphemy comparable to what I found in this booklet,

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I would no longer behave with mercy towards you. But since I did not find anything like this in any place, I can assume that perhaps in ancient times, someone wrote that which entered his head, as also happens in our time.35

Although the Toldot Yeshu manuscript did exist, Capito had not come across it in the course of his Hebraist activities. This is not surprising, given the danger such a text posed to local Jews. Thus, he enlisted Josel’s help in verifying its authenticity, and trusted Josel’s denial of the manuscript, depending on his superior knowledge of Jewish texts. Capito’s apparent ignorance of the Talmudic passages which Christians had long deemed blasphemous is also striking. Since he mentioned elsewhere that he did not have a teacher of Talmud, and had difficulty studying it, perhaps he was unfamiliar with these passages.36 It may also have been the case that he only had access to a censored Talmud. One must also consider the possibility that Capito opted to ignore this inconvenient truth as a way to justify his continued work with Jewish texts. Local Jews also helped Hebraists understand Jewish rituals and customs. Paul Fagius, known for his attempts to understand the life and actions of Jesus in the Jewish context in which he had lived, analyzed the Passover seder and various blessings in order to understand the Last Supper.37 Similarly, in one of his commentaries, he referred to the Jewish tradition of marrying under a canopy in order to explain how Mary and Joseph married.38 Bucer also made use of contemporary Jewish custom in order to compose his biblical commentaries. In his commentary to Psalms 19:3, Bucer did draw upon contemporary observation (or the helpful remark of a Jewish listener) to note that the huppah, traditionally rendered “inner chamber,” was certainly to be understood in relation to the wedding canopy still used at Jewish nuptials.39 This approach toward understanding Jesus in his Jewish context pushed the use of Hebrew and rabbinics further into the realm of contemporary Jews. Although this knowledge could be gleaned from texts, it could more easily be amassed through conversations and discussions with local Jews. In fact, in one of his grammatical treatises, the Compendiarum Isagoge, Fagius included a brief discussion of how to transliterate Judeo-German into German, affirming his interest in more contemporary Jewish sources.40 Aside from its utility as a first step to-

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ward mastering the Hebrew alphabet, understanding the language used by contemporary Jews allowed the Hebraist to discuss Jewish customs with the local Jewish population. The correspondence of Wolfgang Capito contains explicit documentation of conversations between local Jews and Christian Hebraists in the course of the latter’s quest for Hebraica Veritas. In 1529, Capito wrote from Strasbourg to Guillame Farel, a reformer in Geneva, about an alleged relic of Jesus that was held by the Carthusian order in Freiburgim-Breisgau. The Carthusians claimed to possess Jesus’ shroud. Since Protestant reformers abhorred the Catholic use of relics, Capito and Farel sought to discredit the Carthusian claim. Central to Capito’s strategy was procuring knowledge about Jewish burial practices.41 To expose the shroud as a fraud, Capito sought information about how Jews buried their dead, arguing that the shroud possessed by the Carthusians did not match up to the type of shroud in which Jesus would have been buried. As Capito wrote: I saw a copy of that ominous shroud at the Carthusians in Freiburgim-Breisgau. It is a ridiculous fraud and has recently begun to make the rounds. . . . Therefore, I shall describe the burial practice observed by German Jews; then, how it squares with the age of Christ and the subsequent centuries; finally, what affinity that nonsense of a superstition has with the evangelists, although you do not need me to do that.42

In order to ascertain what Jewish burial practices were, Capito spoke with a local Jew about contemporary burial customs, writing to Farel, “Yesterday, I listened to the account of a Jew.” Capito does not name the Jew, suggesting that it was probably not a well-known leader, such as Josel, with whom he spoke. The nature of the Jew’s response merely required that he have knowledge of Jewish burial customs, which was not reserved for rabbis and leaders alone. Given Capito’s friendly relations with Josel, it is possible that Josel introduced a Jew schooled in Jewish burial rites to Capito at the latter’s request. In his conversation with the local Jew, Capito learned about Jewish burial customs. For example, he was told that: After the body has become cold enough, it is carefully cleansed with tepid water, but only the part that is being washed is uncovered—that

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is to say, they handle the body with modesty. The white of one or two eggs, thickened with water, is smeared across the entire head, because this tends to give it brightness and sheen.43

Capito then consulted rabbinic sources in order to find references to the practices about which he had heard, to substantiate it through Jewish texts: They wait for the body parts to cool down. For it has been especially prescribed that they should not defile a living soul in any way or minister to it through funeral rites, that is, they do not wash the body or anoint it, or close its eyes, etc. Otherwise it will be regarded as homicide, according to the author of the book, Yoreh Deah [sic]. Washing is done in place of purification. In this day and age, the head and face are washed in wine and crushed egg white, which seems to be done in place of anointing. For in the land of Israel, they were enjoined to anoint the body with perfumed and aromatic balms.44

Capito thus confirmed what he had heard by consulting Sefer arba‘ah turim, referred to as the Tur, a fourteenth-century Jewish legal compendium, which states that it is forbidden to begin washing the dead until it is certain that the soul has exited the body.45 To explain the contemporary use of egg and wine to anoint the body, Capito explained that a historical shift had taken place since the exile of Jews from Israel.46 In his letter, Capito referenced several Jewish texts, including the Tur; Maimonides’ Code of Jewish Law written in the twelfth century; the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmuds; the Mordekhai, a thirteenth-­ century legal code; and the fifteenth-century work of R. Israel Isserlein, Pesakim u-khtavim. Citing Jewish texts accredited Capito as an erudite Hebraist, who substantiated his claims by reading rabbinic texts on his own. A book list from Strasbourg’s gymnasium includes a copy of the Palestinian Talmud, a copy of the Tur, and a copy of Pesakim u-Ketavim, books that may well have come from Capito’s personal collection.47 Indeed, in a letter written to Conrad Pellican in 1526, Capito related that he owned a Talmud, substantiating the notion that the aforementioned books may have belonged to him.48 A closer inspection of the Jewish sources that are mentioned by ­Capito, however, suggests that his familiarity with these Jewish sources

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was not as complete as he claimed. Capito’s letter contains some misunderstandings of the Hebrew text, suggesting that he had not fully mastered the Hebrew language in terms of vocabulary, grammar, and content. For example, Capito wrote that “the ancients did not clothe the body in the clothes of those living . . . but clothed them in wrappings made of bandages.”49 Capito inserted a Hebrew phrase where I have placed the ellipsis. The phrase reads, “Elle ­malbushe takhrikhin pishtan,” which means that shrouds are made of linen. ­Capito used this phrase to demonstrate that Jews are buried in shrouds, which, although accurate in content, is not the meaning of the inserted citation. Similarly, although Capito was correct in identifying Jewish shrouds as “tachrichin” (sic), he incorrectly identified the word “atiphath” (sic) as the shroud covering the head. This word does mean covering, but it is in the construct state, and according to rules of Hebrew grammar, should be followed by another noun. Capito also mistakenly explained that a tallit, the prayer shawl that covered the corpse, had “phylacteries at its four corners, in Hebrew tzitzith [sic].” Such a shawl does possess tzitzit at its corners, but these are ritual fringes, not phylacteries. These minor mistakes are accompanied by some other, more significant errors. Capito provided incorrect references to Jewish texts. In some cases, the texts that he cited do not contain the information he claimed could be found there. For example, Capito had heard from a local Jew that the corpse’s hands were placed on the side of the body. Although this was the correct practice, Capito substantiated the Jew’s description by claiming that “this was commanded in the Talmud in Mo‘ed katan.” Although Mo‘ed katan is the section of the Talmud that deals with burial rituals, this practice is not mentioned in the tractate. Capito also claimed that the practice of wrapping the body in shrouds, specifically the phrase “u-mekasher ha-’ish,” meaning “and the man ties,” could be found in Mo‘ed katan.50 This phrase is not found in the tractate, and originates in a tractate that is not included in the Talmudic corpus, Massekhet semahot.51 Capito was clearly familiar with the basic content of Jewish sources, and knew that Mo‘ed katan was a likely candidate for the aforementioned references. In this case, though, he did not read the sources directly, and as such, referenced them incorrectly.

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Capito was clearly not reading all of the sources that he claimed to have read, yet the content of the ritual that he discussed was correct. An examination of his descriptions, the Jewish sources he claimed to have read, and the books available to him in his library reveal that his source for this information was the Tur. The Tur uses the phrase “­u-mekasher ­ha-’ish,” meaning “and the man ties,” and introduces this law with the designation “tanya,” meaning “as is learned from the Mishna or ­Beraita.” It seems likely that the Tur’s use of the word “tanya” led to Capito’s mistaken attribution of this phrase to the Talmudic chapter Ellu ­megalhin, found in tractate Mo‘ed katan. Capito read the word “tanya,” and assumed that what followed was found in Mo‘ed katan, the place in the Talmud where one might expect to find this information. He did not realize that it was instead a citation of the extra-Talmudic tractate Semahot. Capito’s reliance on secondary sources as a guide through the Talmud is elucidated by the letter that he wrote to Conrad Pellican, a fellow reformer, three years earlier, in 1526: I already have a Talmud, but I have no teacher, therefore I earnestly ask if you will send me a Talmudic vocabulary. There is, of such opinion, omitting going to Rome, one with the name of Sanctes Pagninus, but I have not seen it.52 People say that there is another printed version, which comes out of Venice, but I have not come across it. I had, some time ago, seen in your place a Chaldean [dictionary], written by your own hand; I want you to send it to me, without you altering it, only for a month.53

Capito’s lack of a Talmud teacher undoubtedly made him dependent on other Jewish legal texts for Talmudic references. His reliance on a dictionary, as opposed to a teacher, explains some of the errors that he made when writing the 1529 letter to Farel. That Capito did not find a Talmud teacher in the mid-1520s in Strasbourg suggests that local Jews may not have been willing to teach him more than the Hebrew language.54 Capito was, however, reading the Tur firsthand, using it as a guide through the Talmud on more than one occasion in this letter. For example, Capito wrote: A tallith [sic] is a linen cloth which has four corners to which are attached the notes of the Law.55 They used to place that type of vestment upon

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the top of the body. Rabbi Nathan seems to explain this. For the dead will rise in the future in the same clothes in which they were buried.56

The statement by Rabbi Nathan can be found in the Palestinian Talmud, tractate Kil’aim, which has no ostensible connection to burial customs.57 Since R. Nathan’s statement is also quoted verbatim by the Tur in Yoreh De‘ah 352, a section that deals explicitly with the preparations of the body for burial that Capito cited elsewhere in his letter, Capito probably read the Tur and saw Rabbi Nathan’s statement. While Capito thought that R. Nathan’s dictum was referring to a prayer shawl, neither the original Talmudic passage nor the Tur was referring to this garment; rather, these are passages describing shrouds, not the tallit that was draped over the shrouds.58 The connection to the tallit was forged by Capito, who was undoubtedly guided by his conversation with the Jew. Capito recounted that the Jew told him, “A linen shawl is placed on the body and another garment is put on top of that, in accordance with the Law. The Jews call this linen shawl a tallith, a four-sided linen cloth with phylacteries at its four corners, in Hebrew tzitzith.”59 Capito’s conversation with the Jew guided him through the Tur, and then through the Talmud. Once he had read the Tur, Capito may have located this citation within the Talmud, which was in his library, and read it there firsthand. He includes other references to the same section of the Palestinian Talmud, also cited by the Tur, in his letter to Farel: The eyes and mouth are closed; among the ancients the nostrils were, moreover, blocked up with a small amount of earth. So the ancient tradition says, which is derived from this [text] of Genesis, and thus they conform with it: Dust you are, etc. (Gen. 3:19). Furthermore, it is written in the Jerusalem Talmud that the often mentioned Rabbi [sic]60 wanted the bier used in the funeral pierced and perforated underneath, because that would be in accordance with the precept Keburath karka, i.e., a burial of earth or a basis of the earth.61

This Talmudic citation is also found in tractate Kil’aim, one sentence prior to the statement attributed to Rabbi Nathan, suggesting that Capito read the Tur, may have found the citation about Rabbi Nathan in the Talmud, and then saw the reference to Rebbi’s funeral. Because

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the passage from the Talmud about Rebbi is also mentioned in a different paragraph of the Tur, this may have furthered Capito’s interest in that particular citation as relevant. In fact, Capito cited the Tur almost verbatim.62 Capito thus applied the Talmudic statements to his letter as he understood them through reading the Tur, rather than using the original context of the Talmudic passage. In this instance, too, Capito’s reading of the Tur disregarded the context of both the Talmud and the Tur, focusing instead on what he claimed the Jew had told him. In both the Talmud and the Tur, the story of Rebbi’s funeral is linked to being buried in the dirt. Capito, however, explained to Farel that: They place earth on the eyes and mouth and then upon the entire prepared body, but only a little. After this, they cover the body to be buried with a flat piece of wood, so that no soil may defile the body, for it is regarded a disgrace to the deceased if it is immediately defiled by earth. These are the great absurdities in which the unfortunate superstition persists.63

Capito’s claim that Jews viewed a body placed in earth as defiled ignores the words of the Talmud and the Tur, which each stress that the Jewish custom was to bury the body in the ground.64 Capito’s guide was, once again, the Jew with whom he conversed, who had reportedly told Capito: After the body is washed, the eyes and mouth are closed; on both eyes is placed either a small piece of pottery or a small rock or a small chunk of earth, and a stone is placed under the chin to keep the mouth shut. They then close the whole bier or coffin, in which lies the body so that no earth can befoul what they regard as sacrosanct relics.65

Since this description does not match any known Jewish burial custom, it is unclear from whence Capito heard this custom. It must be noted that mocking “sacrosanct relics” of the Jews buttressed the main point of Capito’s letter—that relics, such as the Carthusian shroud, were frauduent, akin to Jewish superstition. Similarly, his discussion of R. Nathan’s dictum about resurrection, in which he linked R. Nathan’s words to a tallit, ridiculed the (false) notion that Jews wanted “to be buried in an honorable and holy vestment.” Capito continued, noting,

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“That is the superstition of the Jews, which I do not begrudge telling you, especially a judicious brother like you, keen to learn about their history.”66 By ridiculing the perceived Jewish wish to be resurrected in a “holy vestment,” Capito linked the holy Carthusian shroud to “the superstition of the Jews.” Capito’s Hebraism is not unimpressive, given that his interest in this material was ancillary to his role as a Protestant theologian. However, the limits to his skills suggest that, in this case, the most significant and relevant information came not from the books he read but from his original source of information—the local Jew with whom he had conversed. Moreover, his aim was a Christian one; here, his polemical aims shaped the information that he had learned from both the local Jew and from Jewish texts. Even as Capito used Jewish materials to reveal Christian truth, he was careful to ridicule that which he had learned. He thus created distance between true Christian teaching, represented by the Gospels, and Jewish “superstition.” Farel did the same in his response to Capito. Embracing the knowledge that Capito provided, Farel also wrote disparagingly of the Jews, calling their tradition “superstition, diverging far from the truth.”67 Farel further ridiculed rabbinic tradition, describing Capito’s research into Jewish material as “tedious,” scoffing that the rabbis had not embraced Christianity, writing, “I wonder that those acute dissenters [rabbis] have not progressed further.” The simultaneous valuing and devaluing of Jewish sources was common among Hebraists, who often ridiculed Judaism to ensure that their use of Jewish sources would not be construed as judaizing. As such, they conducted exchanges with local Jews while drawing boundaries between the two communities. Capito likewise included polemics against Jews in various portions of his Hexameron, especially in the conclusion. He stressed the Christian reading of scripture, and rejected the rabbinic reading as lacking insight. For example, like any Christian reader, Capito dismissed rabbinic interpretations for the plural form of God’s name in Genesis, Elohim, insisting that the plural form referred to the Trinity.68 The same trend can be seen in the works of Fagius and Bucer. Although these Hebraists cited Jewish sources and made extensive use of rabbinic interpretation in their commentaries, they also criticized the Jewish faith as ignorant.

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This stance is to be expected; after all, the entire purpose of Hebraism was to establish Christian truth, which was, at its essence, at odds with the position of the rabbis.69

Theological Shifts in Strasbourg Despite their condemnation of Jewish interpretations and practices, contact with Jews was essential to the first generation of reformers. The Hebraist enterprise, with its claims to have found Christian truth, was theologically critical, as it ensured the successful output of reformed translations of the Bible, biblical commentaries, and polemics. Indeed, the connection between Hebraism and theology is underscored by the fact that of the sixteen professors who taught Hebrew at Strasbourg from 1525 to 1648, seven held religious positions in Strasbourg.70 Five of the seven held religious office in at least one other location as well. Their clerical positions ranged from serving as canons or pastors in ­local parishes to serving as preachers in the cathedral, a position held by three of the professors. These men were clerics who also taught Hebrew in the gymnasium, presumably having studied Hebrew for their own theological training. Those professors who held ecclesiastical positions also had a voice in the nominations of future Hebrew professors.71 Similarly, seven professors of Hebrew were members of the Kirchen­ convent, or Church Assembly, which started in the 1520s.72 A clerical council that governed Strasbourg’s clerics, the Church Assembly was charged with ensuring doctrinal uniformity and placing new theologians, largely educated at the gymnasium, into local parishes. Finally, four of the sixteen Hebrew professors went on to serve as theology professors or as theology chairs in Strasbourg’s gymnasium. As was the case in Leiden, many Hebraists used their positions as Hebrew professors to ascend to the level of theology professor within the gymnasium.73 Hebrew was seen as a stepping-stone to theology, not an unreasonable view, considering the Christian uses to which Hebraist study was put. Shifts in theology were thus reflected in Hebraist activity. From 1530 to 1549, Bucer, Capito, and Fagius were among the city’s premier reformers. Capito and Bucer had authored the Tetrapolitan Confession,

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the religious doctrine formally adopted by the city in 1530. In 1549, after having been defeated by the emperor in the Schmalkaldic War, Strasbourg’s magistrates negotiated with the emperor, allowing Catholic practice in the city under the Interim agreement. Bitterly opposed to this magisterial decision, Bucer, Fagius, and Tremellius were exiled from the city, leaving together for Cambridge.74 Beginning in 1549, a new generation of Hebraists and clerics led the city’s churches and programs for theological study.75 The Strasbourg that they led was quite different from the newly reformed community for which their predecessors had composed texts. By mid-century, Strasbourg already boasted resources of the reformed city, including reformed churches and the gymnasium. Strasbourg’s university library holdings indicate that the second generation of reformers also had access to a wealth of Hebraist writings and Jewish and rabbinic material. A 1549 list details those books from Fagius’ press that remained unsold at the time of his exile. These were resold to the gymnasium by Jörgen Messerschmidt, a bookseller who had purchased the inventory from Fagius.76 The list included some of Fagius’ own works, such as the commentary on Genesis, the translation of Onkelos, and the commentaries of David Kimhi, as well as Levita’s Tishbi in both Hebrew and Latin, Sefer ‘ikkarim, several Hebrew grammatical works, an Aramaic dictionary, and a Hebrew Psalter. A second list detailing the Hebraica collection, from 1570, was written down by Johannes Pappus, professor of Hebrew from 1570 to 1576, in his copy of Levita’s Meturgemann. This is the list that included holdings from Capito’s library, including the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmuds, the Tur, and Isserlein’s Pesakim u-khtavim, which Capito consulted for confirmation of Jewish burial practices. The library also possessed an impressive collection of additional rabbinic commentaries and sources, including Bomberg editions of the Bible, midrashic texts, the medieval biblical commentaries of David Kimhi (1160–1235), Nahmanides (1194–1270), and Isaac Abarbanel (1437–1508). The collection also included an unnamed work by Menahem Recanati, the medieval Kabbalist, as well as halakhic literature, such as the medieval Sefer mitzvot gadol.77 This entire library was therefore readily available to both the second-generation Hebraists who taught at the gymnasium and their students. The availability of Jewish

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and Hebraist works to the second-generation Hebraists rendered their involvement in original commentary unnecessary. At the same time, the city and its leaders also faced new challenges by mid-century. With the defeat of the Schmalkaldic League and the ensuing imposition of the Interim in Strasbourg in 1549, the mostly Lutheran magistrates were forced to tolerate Catholic practice within their city. In a climate of competing confessions, what was of interest to Strasbourg’s leaders, both political and religious, was how to implement their religious agenda in the space of the city successfully. The convergence of these two factors—of being an established center of reform, but one that needed to focus on maintaining its religious identity in the wake of confessional compromise—strongly influenced the trajectory of Hebraism in Strasbourg. Publication data from Strasbourg demonstrates that beginning in the 1560s, theologians composed works to ensure the adoption of orthodox Lutheran doctrine, seeking, through print, to impart confessionally appropriate behavior to the city’s residents.78 Of specific interest to the theologians was the exegesis of the Augsburg Confession, and Lutheran understandings of predestination and the Eucharist. The Hebraists at Strasbourg of those same decades clearly shared this agenda of “confessionalizing,” in their capacity as clerics, theologians, and teachers.79 They were charged with cultivating Lutheran identity among their parishioners. This agenda impacted the Hebraist agenda in two ways. First, Strasbourg’s theologians composed pedagogical tools, rather than doctrinal works. These works did not necessitate Jewish help. Second, the process of implementing a Lutheran program in Strasbourg encouraged theologians to draw stricter boundaries between groups, such that intellectual exchanges with Jews were increasingly seen as disadvantageous. By 1550, the focus of Strasbourg’s religious leaders shifted from defining the faith to preserving and protecting it through a variety of institutions.80 Censorship was one such institution. By the seventeenth century, the professors were authorized to help the magistrates’ Obertruckherren, the appointed censors of all books printed and sold in Strasbourg.81 In addition, as teachers, these Hebraists were charged with fostering confessional identity among their students, the future theo-

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logians.82 Not surprisingly, it was during this era that the gymnasium founded by Sturm grew exponentially, becoming a degree-­granting academy in 1566 and a university in 1621. Education was one of the greatest tools for developing confessional identity among students and residents of a given area. By October 1544, six years after its founding, the school comprised nine or ten classes, and educated 644 students. With the continued growth of the institution, more and more students studied Hebrew as part of their theology coursework. Extant matriculation records demonstrate that during the twenty-seven-year period between 1621 and 1648, all 832 theology students would have studied Hebrew.83 It is probable that even more students were present in some of these classes, as attendance rosters for individual theology courses from 1621 to 1622 indicate that nonmatriculated students sat in on these courses.84 Thus, the numbers of students studying theology, and in turn, Hebrew, escalated to a number that probably reached close to 900 in the 1620s. The lists of matriculated students also record some background information about each student, most of whom came from outside of Strasbourg. Of the 98 students recorded as having attended theology classes in 1621–1622, only 28 were from Strasbourg. Out of the 724 students who matriculated into a theology program from 1621 to 1648, only three were born in Strasbourg, although it is important to remember that immigrants also lived in the city. The other matriculated students came from various imperial cities and Protestant territories, both within the Empire and from places such as Hungary, Austria, Poland, Sweden, and London. Strasbourg thus appears to have been a major center of Lutheran study. Many of these students went on to become priests in their hometown, and they exported the theology and methodology they studied in Strasbourg into much of Lutheran Europe. Strasbourg’s importance as a pedagogical center led the second-­ generation professors who composed Hebraist works to write grammatical treatises and textbooks, designed to teach their students the Hebrew language. None of the professors from 1550 to 1648 wrote any biblical commentaries.85 David Kyber, professor from 1549 or 1552 to 1553; Anton Reuchlin, professor from 1554 to 1558; Henning Oldendorf, professor in 1575; Elias Schadeus, professor in 1586; and Friedrich Black-

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enberg, professor in 1615, all composed textbooks of Hebrew grammar.86 These works were often explicitly and heavily indebted to the works of the first generation of reformers, particularly Fagius. The goal of these books was to teach students the fundamentals of Hebrew grammar and language. For example, David Kyber’s De Re Grammatica, a textbook published in 1552 that was divided up into three books, illustrates the pedagogical intent of such books. The first book outlined the basics of Hebrew, such as the alphabet, pronunciation, vowels, syllables, the basic parts of speech, and conjugation of verbs.87 The second book, for the more advanced student, discussed the special functions of specific letters.88 In both the first and second books, the text was in Latin, with examples of Hebrew, often taken from the Bible, inserted into the text or into the margins. The third book was for the extremely advanced student. It began with a fourfold translation of the Book of Lamentations, with Greek and Hebrew on one side of the page, and with Jerome’s Vulgate and Sebastian Munster’s reworking of the Latin on the facing page. After the biblical text, Kyber composed Meditationes Grammaticae ex Threnis Hieremiae, Grammatical Meditations on Jeremiah’s Lamentations. The purpose of this section was definitively not its biblical content but rather its emphasis on grammar. Kyber viewed this section as a grammatical exercise that would allow the student to develop expertise through the repetition of regular study. In this section, Kyber explained each word, its linguistic root, and its place in the sentence. He also provided other examples of where these roots appear in the Bible.89 Kyber justified his choice of Lamentations in the preface to this section, underscoring the grammatical purpose of this work. Whereas a biblical commentary required no justification, Kyber rationalized his enterprise, explaining that he had selected Lamentations because its short length and alphabetical arrangement facilitated reading for his students. In addition, Kyber stressed the relevance of Lamentations to his students, as he saw parallels between Jerusalem and contemporary Germany.90 The sharp difference between the first- and second-generation Hebraists is most clearly seen through a comparison of two works on Psalms. Paul Fagius translated David Kimhi’s commentary on Psalms,

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using it to explain the literal meaning of the biblical text. Fagius’ book included Kimhi’s commentary on the first ten Psalms, and was printed with the Hebrew psalm followed by Kimhi’s Hebrew exposition on the left-hand page, and the Latin psalm followed by Fagius’ own Latin translation of Kimhi on the facing page. Fagius explained the purpose of his translation in a letter to the reader, indicating that although Kimhi was not aware of the apparent christological meanings of the text, his understanding of the text on a literal and historical level was superior.91 For example, when explicating Psalms 1:2, “and in his Torah [he] shall study both day and night,” Kimhi had cited the rabbinic query as to how one would be able to work if he were studying the Torah during both day and night hours. The rabbis’ interpretation was that one could fulfill this precept by wearing phylacteries. Kimhi, whose commentary stressed the literal meaning of the verses, explained that the word used in this Psalm for “study” referred to an oral act. Thus, he interpreted the verse to mean that one was obligated to speak about Torah during parts of the day and parts of the night, when he was free from his job. This exegesis suited Fagius, who both rejected the notion that one was obligated to wear phylacteries and wished to teach the Christian reader how to understand the words of the biblical text.92 By contrast, in 1554, just five years after Fagius’ exile from Strasbourg, Anton Reuchlin, Johannes Reuchlin’s nephew who taught Hebrew at Strasbourg from 1554 to 1558, also composed a book based on Psalms, entitled Lukhot: Hoc est Tabulae Viginti, Institutiones in Linguam Sanctam Absolutas Complectentes.93 Unlike Fagius’ book, Reuchlin’s was a grammatical handbook and dictionary that used the Psalms text to instruct students in Hebrew. Reuchlin never discussed the content or the christological meaning of the Psalms. His book comprised the text of each Psalm in both Hebrew and Latin, followed by a grammatical exposition of each verse, with references to where similar roots appear in other books of scripture. As the subtitle indicated, the purpose of Lukhot was “so that one can study the holy language. It not only has the bare precept, but also explanations as to the [grammatical] form, and how the word is used.”94 For example, on that same verse in Psalms 1:2, Reuchlin parsed the language, explaining the roots of the words, and the grammatical function of the conversive-vav. He, too, cited Kimhi

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only for linguistic purposes, in this case in order to explain why the word “Torah” appeared multiple times in the same verse, noting that this was typical for the Hebrew language.95 The remainder of Reuchlin’s Lukhot comprised twenty grammatical charts, based on those designed by Elijah Levita.96 That both parts of Reuchlin’s Lukhot were intended to help teach students is evident from his introduction, where he highlighted the “multiple uses” that his ­Lukhot had for “the candidates of Hebrew language.”97 He explained that he had used the grammatical charts in his own class in Strasbourg, and that it was “good to read it privately at home, and sometimes to read it to the class of Hebrew candidates.” The second-generation Hebraists needed textbooks that could help them teach Hebrew as part of the material deemed necessary for a theology student. Thus, Reuchlin’s Lukhot resembles Kyber’s Lamentations text in form, content, and pedagogical aims, but bears little resemblance to Fagius’ work on Psalms.98 In fact, rather than using Fagius’ commentary on Psalms as a reference for his own work on Psalms, Reuchlin instead consulted with Fagius’ translations of Elijah Levita’s grammatical works. Conversations with Jews were unnecessary for the composition of these pedagogical works. The second generation of reformers was only interested in language, and, unlike their predecessors, they did not collaborate with Jews in order to study, to procure material, or to learn about Jewish practices. Moreover, they already possessed all of the tools that were necessary for teaching Hebrew grammar. Since the university owned the grammatical works of Levita and Fagius, and also possessed a library of rabbinic texts, Jews were no longer necessary for the Hebraist enterprise, and there is no mention of engagement between Hebraists and local Jews from the second half of the sixteenth century on, other than attempts to convert them by using Judeo-German texts.99 By the late sixteenth century, the entire enterprise of Hebraica Veritas was seen as part of the Protestant heritage, rather than as an exchange of knowledge between Jews and Christians. Elias Schadeus justified the study of Hebrew as mandatory for training future Lutheran theologians by tracing the use and study of language through the generations.

Christian Hebraism in Strasbourg

Schadeus started with God, and continued through Luther and Strasbourg’s reformers, up until Schadeus’ direct predecessor at the academy, Heinrich Oldendorf.100 How to teach the language was intrinsic to the mission of Lutheran educators, and this became their primary focus. The lack of collaboration between Jews and Christians that began in the second half of the sixteenth century was not only due to the fact that as the Hebraist program developed, the utility of Jews decreased. Rather, as time went on, Strasbourg’s theologians actively warned against learning Hebrew with the aid of Jews. In a December 1642 letter to Johann Müller, a Lutheran preacher from Hamburg, the dean and other professors in Strasbourg’s theology faculty included this injunction while opining on whether Christians were permitted to consult with Jewish doctors. The theologians wrote: No Christian should study the Hebrew language with Jews, when he can study with Christian teachers. If [someone] attaches [himself] to one of these despised [people], he will be treated in many unjust and annoying ways, as is self-evident. It is irresponsible to frequent Jesuit schools when an evangelical school is available; it is even more irresponsible to look for Jewish teachers for the study of the Hebrew language, where there is no lack of Christian [teachers].101

The comparison between Jesuit and Jewish teachers of Hebrew is a striking one in the age of confession building. As Strasbourg’s clerics sought to foster an orthodox environment, they created firmer boundaries between themselves and others, be they Catholics or Jews. In the earlier generations, studying with Jews was the simplest, best, and sometimes the only way to access the Hebraica Veritas. Whereas the advantage of studying Hebrew with a Jew should have remained more advantageous than studying with a Jesuit, by the seventeenth century, Strasbourg’s theologians had adopted a dramatically different position: The Hebrew language is, without all doubt, [the one in which] God’s work was practiced, before a Jew was [present] in the world. And it cannot accurately be called a Jewish language, even if sometimes it is in vogue among Jews. It is also through God’s special providence that it [Hebrew] has been preserved in its purity and taintlessness at any time, and that it was not given to the Jews, for they have corrupted and falsified it.102

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Strasbourg’s Lutheran theologians approved of the study of Hebrew, and even mandated it for their theology students. However, as they appropriated the Hebrew language as part of the Lutheran program, they divorced Hebrew from the Jews, claiming that Hebrew was not Jewish in origin, and that Christians possessed superior knowledge of the language. By 1642, Hebraism in Strasbourg had been thoroughly christianized. Although Hebraica Veritas persisted, truth was to be found in the language, not in the Jewish domain.103 The shifts among Strasbourg’s Hebraists were not universal among Hebraists throughout Europe. Among the most famous Hebraists from the late sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries, the initial interest in Hebraica expanded to include another genre, that of the polemical ethnography.104 Both Christian-born Hebraists, such as Johannes Buxtorf and Johann Christoph Wagenseil, and new converts to Christianity, such as Paul Christian Kirschner and Friedrich Albrecht Christiani, penned works describing Jewish practice.105 Their critiques of Jewish ritual life went far beyond those of Strasbourg’s first generation of reformers.106 Strasbourg’s intellectuals did not publish polemical ethnographies. The difference between the results of my survey of Strasbourg and other studies of later early modern Hebraism may be explained by two factors. First, the nature of this analysis is to examine the professors in a given city, which allows us to document specific changes taking place within an institution in a particular location in which demands shifted over time. Moreover, none of Strasbourg’s professors were among the outstanding Hebraists of this generation; most studies focus upon the more well-known, well-read, and prolific Hebraists from the period. Unlike Buxtorf, who devoted his life to Hebraism, the professors of Strasbourg tended to have other careers as well, such that, for the most part, their Hebraism was not their primary lifelong focus. Of the ­second-generation Hebraists, five out of eleven held one or more ecclesiastical positions; four also served as theology professors or chairs in Strasbourg; one served as a professor of both Greek and Hebrew; one, though a Hebrew professor, wrote a botanical dictionary in the three ancient languages; one was a professor of medicine; and one was a professor of physics in Strasbourg.107 As their writings suggest, their own Hebraist publications consisted of ma-

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terial for the classroom. Thus, while many Christian-born Hebraists outside of Strasbourg continued to produce new Hebraist works, and thus worked closely with Jews to learn new skills and to procure Jewish material, the same did not take place in Strasbourg, where Hebraists were university professors and clerics who focused on pedagogy, rather than on developing new works.108 The particular environment of Strasbourg’s university and of the city, with its changing needs, shifted the focus of Hebraism from theology and commentary to pedagogy. The study of Hebrew was seen as a legitimate part of the Protestant heritage, and as a necessary component of Lutheran education. The firm place that Hebrew study had in the Lutheran confession guaranteed that it would be continually taught in the university. Its centrality to the educational mission over the span of more than one generation also ensured that Lutherans would be equipped to teach themselves Hebrew. These internal shifts rendered Jewish participation in Hebraism unnecessary. Indeed, once Hebraism was firmly rooted as part of the Lutheran educational program, it was subject to the politics of confession building. As clerics were focused upon galvanizing the populace’s identification with a particular set of doctrines, and with educating their flock in proper Lutheran beliefs and behaviors, boundaries were more important than ever. Not only was consulting a Jew unnecessary; it was even more threatening to those men pursuing the formation of an orthodox community, in which Hebrew had a part, but Jews did not. By the late sixteenth century, both clerics and magistrates endeavored to sever the ties, both economic and intellectual, that had brought Jews into the city of Strasbourg.

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The religious changes in the Christian world were not theologically relevant for Jews to the same degree that Hebraica and Judaica were critical for Protestant reformers. And yet, aside from the direct impact that the Reformation had upon those Jews living in the Empire, Jews took interest in these events, seeking to determine what the dissolution of a hitherto unified Latin Christendom meant for them. From as far away as Italy and the Ottoman Empire, Jews reported on Luther’s teachings and excitedly discussed the acts of iconoclasm that had accompanied reform in some German cities.1 Among those Jews who reflected on the meaning of these events was Josel of Rosheim, who considered the Reformation in light of the larger narrative of the precarious Jewish position in the Empire, the expulsions and restrictions faced by Jews, and the often difficult relationship between Jews and non-Jews. He discussed the Reformation and its leaders as part of his larger examination of the contemporary Jewish experience, written in Hebrew and designed for Jewish readers. The texts that he composed comprise his interpretation of the Jewish role in the world, the place of Jews in history, and the relationship between Jews and their Christian neighbors. As some of the only remaining Hebrew texts from the Jewish community in sixteenth-century Alsace that were designed for internal Jewish consumption, Josel’s writings allow us a window into his inner world. His view of Jewish history placed the Jews at the center of the historical narrative, which confirmed, in this time of religious definition, that the Jews remained the chosen people of God. An analysis of Josel’s texts in tandem with his correspondence with and about the lay and religious

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leaders of Strasbourg permits a nuanced understanding of his ideology and how he perceived the Reformation. In addition, although the interpretive strategies Josel employed in crafting his texts drew heavily upon those used by previous Jewish authors, they were undertaken in a new genre. His texts, which reflect a mix of his ideology and a description of the events and people with whom he interacted, have been categorized as ego-documents or selftexts, texts in which an author conducted self-exploration.2 This genre, which developed among both Jewish and Christian writers during the early modern period, confirms the shared cultural space inhabited by both Jews and Christians. The memoirs of Asher of Reichshofen, composed in the following century, attest to the persistence of this genre among the Jews of seventeenth-century Alsace.

The Challenge of Jewish Self-Definition The Reformation and the other challenges faced by early modern Alsatian Jews were hardly the first events that required extensive interpretation. Nearly a millennium and a half earlier, the destruction of the Temple and the subsequent exile of the Jews necessitated explication. Understanding why God would destroy his own Temple and why he would permit the expulsion of his “chosen people” from the Holy Land demanded an explanation. The Book of Lamentations, rabbinic writings, and the liturgy all explained the exile in terms of the Jews’ sins, which were seen as the cause of the Temple’s destruction.3 The advent of Christianity and the ensuing Christian polemics against the Jews intensified the need for a Jewish response to the destruction of the Temple and Jewish exile. Christian writers, both ancient and medieval, pointed to the Jewish condition as proof that the Jews had been rejected by God and that the Christians, who had successfully built a world empire, were the true chosen people of God.4 Thus, the Jews needed to address an existential question: How could a nation be chosen if it lacked autonomy? Medieval Jewish thinkers sought to answer this question in a variety of ways. For example, Judah Halevi (d. 1141) claimed that the Jewish

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exile had a specific function, and actually allowed for the ultimate longevity of the Jewish people. According to Halevi, God sought to punish the Jews often, rather than allow their sins to accumulate. As such, their exile was proof that they were the chosen nation.5 Another strategy was to point to autonomous Jewish institutions in the medieval period. In the Disputation at Barcelona in 1263, for example, ­Nahmanides, the rabbi of Gerona, countered the Christian claim that Jews had not had leaders since the time of Jesus by using the example of the exilarchs of Babylonia.6 Similarly, medieval Jews believed that the king of the Khazar kingdom had converted to Judaism and that he ruled over a sovereign Jewish nation. The leader of the Jewish community in tenthcentury Cordova, Hasdai ibn Shaprut, wrote to this “eastern” Jewish king. Judah Halevi used the story of the Khazar king as the backdrop to his work on Jewish philosophy, Sefer ha-Kuzari.7 The notion that a Jewish king ruled over a nation comforted those Jews who did not themselves possess full autonomy. In a related vein, claims to have seen the Ten Tribes of Israel peppered the medieval period.8 The Bible relates their expulsion from the Holy Land by the Assyrians.9 In later centuries, they were believed to live autonomously in a kingdom located beyond the mystical ­Sambation River, a river which could only be crossed on Saturday, when Jews could not travel by boat.10 Belief in the Tribes’ continued and autonomous existence just beyond reach strengthened the Jewish position. In addition, since some of the rabbis in the Talmud claimed that the Ten Tribes would return at the end of days, the resurgence of Ten Tribes sightings was closely linked to anticipating the messianic age.11 The suggestion that the end was near, and that Judaism, rather than Christianity, would be proven as the true religion, further bolstered Jewish faith. Indeed, throughout the medieval period, certain Jews predicted the messianic age in an attempt to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Others actively participated in various messianic movements in which they followed a particular figure as messiah.12 As persecutions against Jews increased during the High Middle Ages, the contemporary situation also required imminent explanation. In the aftermath of the Crusades, Ashkenazic Jews penned liturgy and martyr­ologies, through which they might remember the dead. They

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also wrote chronicles in which they described, bemoaned, commemorated, and justified the martyrdom of the Jews of the Rhineland.13 In these texts, the Jews adopted the position of vengeful messianism, ­asserting that the amount of blood that had been shed by the Christians in massacres such as the Crusades would be measured by God, who would take vengeance upon Jewish enemies at the end of days.14 In addition, they compared their own travails with biblical paradigms, thus linking their experiences to the past.15 The texts justified the ­martyrs’ actions and also helped alleviate the questions that these types of persecutions raised about the Jews’ status as the chosen people. After all, they argued, the biblical characters, who had also suffered, had surely benefited from divine providence. Comparisons between the Bible and contemporary experiences thus buttressed the Jews’ belief that the hand of God was still with them despite the persecutions they had endured. This strategy was used not just in the wake of the Crusades but throughout the medieval period. A few centuries later, for example, Spanish Jews likened their expulsion to the exile from Jerusalem, creating meaning by linking 1492 to other important and devastating past events.16 Martyrologies, liturgical and rabbinic writings, biblical interpretation, and messianic movements all persisted into the early modern period. Liturgy commemorating massacres was in use, and scribes continued to copy the Hebrew Crusade Chronicles.17 Individual Jews still predicted the date for the arrival of the messiah. Two messianic movements, those of Asher Lemlein and of David Reuveni and Shlomo Molkho, took place during the first decades of the sixteenth century.18 The coming of the Reformation prompted additional Jewish messianic hopes, in which some Jews suggested that the Reformation marked the end of the fourth empire referenced in the Book of Daniel, understood by Jews to be Edom, or Christianity. Once the fourth empire fell, the messiah would arrive. Reports of iconoclasm and of Protestant biblicism simply added fuel to the fire. With Christians tearing down the icons they had revered, citing the Second Commandment as justification for their actions, and with Protestant leaders encouraging a return to the biblical text, using Hebrew in order to understand the meaning of scripture, some Jews wondered whether Christians were

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moving ­toward a more Jewish view of God and revelation. They saw these events as a portent of the end of days, when all humanity would recognize the one true God.

Josel of Rosheim: Defining History’s Heroes and Villains Josel of Rosheim was first and foremost among those who did not see the Reformation in a messianic light. Born in about 1480, he had first represented the Jews of Lower Alsace before assuming responsibilities as Befelshaber, or Commander of all of German Jewry. In his capacity as shtadlan, or liaison, he negotiated and interceded on the Jews’ behalf before local leaders, religious reformers, and the Emperor Charles V. Seeking to protect Jews from restrictions, expulsions, and false accusations, he frequently encountered both Protestant and Catholic lay and religious leaders. These encounters shaped his attitudes toward the Reformation and individual reformers. In 1547, Josel penned two different texts in which he recounted and interpreted recent challenges faced by Jews, including events related to the Reformation. First, he composed a chronicle that began with the 1470 ritual murder charges against Jews in Endingen, witnessed by his own relatives, and that ended with a siege on Frankfurt am Main in 1547.19 ­Josel’s second text, entitled Sefer ha-Miknah, the Book of Acquisitions, was divided into two halves. The first half dealt with themes similar to those of the chronicle; the second half comprised a ­theological-philosophical treatise, much of which was derived from an earlier Jewish work.20 In the chronicle and the first half of Sefer ­ha-miknah, Josel used several strategies in his attempt to interpret the troubles faced by the Jewish community of the Empire. First, he asserted the importance of what happened to the Jews by recording their history. Next, he compared contemporary events to events of the past, using biblical paradigms to highlight the divine providence that shaped Jewish history. Finally, he designated different historical players as heroes or villains, underscoring the centrality of the Jews to God’s historical plan. Josel’s chronicle presents the events that transpired by starting with the year and providing a brief description of what had happened in

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the particular episode he wished to recount. Josel thus documented, preserved, and memorialized events from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in his chronicle, asserting the importance of communal history by writing these events down. As sources, he drew upon his own experiences as well as conversations with relatives.21 In addition, in his discussion of the challenges Jews faced during the late-fifteenth-century Burgundian Wars in Alsace, he included “a reproduction that I copied from a prayer book that I found in the holy community of Wurzburg.”22 His text thus preserved earlier oral and written narratives of the past. Josel was not engaged in documenting the past for its own sake. Although recording Jewish history became more common among Jews during the sixteenth century, Josel’s use of history was to impart lessons deemed worthy for contemporary Jews.23 In Sefer ha-miknah, Josel related sixteen past examples in which he claimed that converts or informants had wreaked havoc on the Jewish community. Josel explained that although he had misgivings about “offending the honor of any creature, family or tribe in the world, to mock them or embarrass them,” it was necessary to write about what had happened: Even though it is difficult for me to tell of the evil actions that I witnessed with my eyes and that happened in the past, nevertheless, the needs of the time have compelled me to relate what happened.24

Josel deemed it critical to instruct contemporary Jews about the dangers posed by informants and converts: In order to distance [a person] from those same completely wicked people, I will write on one page some of the events that transpired because of the actions of the informants and telltales, and how their ends will be [sic], and understand [the lessons that derive from these stories].25

Often, Josel traced a convert’s lineage to demonstrate that an ancestor’s misdeeds led to the ultimate crime, conversion, on the part of his descendants. During the aforementioned violence of the Burgundian Wars, for example, Josel reported that one man, Rafael, who was forcibly converted, never had the opportunity to return to Judaism. According to Josel, “heresy had already sparked in his Judaism” prior to this event; “therefore it is certain that he did not merit [the opportunity]

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for repentance, for his sins were rooted in past judgment.”26 As Josel explained: And it is a tradition in our hands, from authorities and texts, that he who filthied himself with the spirit of evil, to engage in informing with the intent to cause damage, either he or his descendants converted in the end.27

According to Josel, converts and informants “had already been cursed with the primordial snake . . . they were already clothed in the curse from the evil seed that was found in and came from the impurity.”28 Further, since it was “their fate that either they or their descendants would lose both worlds,” Josel warned against marrying these evil folk, arguing that there was an inherent danger in marrying the wicked, for one’s children would be destined for a horrible future.29 As such, Josel urged educating oneself about the importance of separating from the wicked.30 Although hostility toward converts was not new in Ashkenaz, Josel’s attitudes surpassed those of his forebears.31 According to Josel, converts and informants were responsible for almost every challenge faced by Jews during this time period.32 This attitude demonstrates the degree to which his own ideas colored his perception of historical events. In one striking example, Josel blamed a convert for the expulsion of Jews from Regensburg, whereas archival sources do not show any evidence of ­Josel’s claim.33 As this example clearly indicates, Josel’s writings are far from a straightforward account of historical events. Rather, they present his personal conceptions and interpretations of the Jewish experience, his views on the relationship between the Jewish and Christian communities, and his theology for understanding the role of Jews in history.34 The convert often played the role of the villain; as someone who had abandoned the Jewish faith, his actions denied Josel’s worldview, in which the Jews remained the chosen people.35 Like many previous Jewish authors, Josel was adamant that the often dire conditions facing Jews in the Empire did not mean that they had been forsaken by God. This is most clearly seen in Josel’s insistence that divine providence guided history. Almost every entry in the chronicle closes with a reference to God, in which Josel expressed notions such

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as the following: “May God continue to perform miracles and wonders on a daily basis.”36 Every time that the Jews were saved reiterated that they were chosen by God. Often, these comments reflect attitudes toward martyrdom that are typical for Ashkenaz. For example, Josel wrote: “And may Blessed God merit us with the merit of those heavenly martyrs who perfected their souls to die for the sanctification of God.”37 Vengeance for the martyrs would come in the form of merit granted to later generations. To reiterate that divine providence guided history, Josel compared contemporary events to the Bible, as had many authors before him. Josel reported his success at deterring territorial landlords in Lower ­Alsace from expelling the Jews in 1528, explaining that at the end of the episode, “the land was quiet until today.” This citation from the Book of Judges evoked the recurring theme of the biblical text for the reader, in which God responded to the cries of Israel by sending them judges, during whose reign “the land was quiet.”38 By choosing this particular language, Josel equated the salvation of the Jews from expulsion in ­Hagenau with the salvation of the Jews in biblical times. Josel also made extensive use of the Book of Esther. He described the privileges extended to Jews during the Peasants War of 1525 by explaining that these were sent “to every city and state.” Echoing the verse from the Book of Esther, he argued that as had been the case in the days of the Bible, this too brought “relief and deliverance to the Jews.”39 Similarly, after interceding with the emperor’s generals in Frankfurt, Josel explained that God answered the Jewish prayers: “thanks to God, their mourning was turned into joy.” 40 These verses were easily recognizable, as the Book of Esther was read aloud each year on the Jewish holiday of Purim. By comparing contemporary events to the biblical story, Josel reaffirmed that just as God had been with the Jews during the time of the Bible, he remained with the Jews during the sixteenth century. Moreover, the tradition of Jewish interpretation of the Book of Esther had stressed the message that although God’s hand was often hidden from the historical process, it surely guided events. Josel’s choice was thus apt for reassuring German Jews that despite expulsions, false accusations, and seeming lack of autonomy, there were hidden and divine forces at work.

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Josel used the Book of Esther to characterize those people whom he saw as the villains of contemporary history. He used the phrase “this wicked man and adversary,” a well-known quote from Esther’s depiction of the evil Haman, to refer to several of the Jews’ adversaries. These including the bishop of Brandenburg, who sought to expel the Jews, and the convert Johannes Pfefferkorn, whose denunciations of Jewish traditions had almost led to the destruction of Jewish books in the Empire.41 Josel explained that Pfefferkorn sought to destroy and annihilate the written Torah and all the holy books. And God showed us a miracle within a miracle, to send a good man, Doctor Reuchlin, from the sages of the nations, to contest him [Pfefferkorn] before the pope, that it is not appropriate to conceal the Talmud and our holy books.42

Pfefferkorn was the Haman of this story, and Josel linked Pfefferkorn’s campaign against Jewish books to Haman’s plan to destroy the Jews by echoing the language from the Book of Esther. Josel saw Reuchlin as the hero of the story, as he helped save the Jewish texts. Although Reuchlin certainly did not advocate for the preservation of Jewish books out of philosemitism (his writings are replete with antisemitic references), his role as hero was determined not by his ideology, but by his actions. Pfefferkorn’s role as villain was due to his ultimate betrayal, his conversion and his indictment and endangering of precious Jewish texts. Josel’s attitudes toward the Reformation also follow this schema, in which those who helped the Jews were seen positively, and those who harmed the Jews were seen in a negative light. According to Josel, Martin Luther was one of the villains of history, and Josel referred to Luther as Haman as well. Josel’s first encounter with Luther took place in 1537, when the privileges of the Jews of Saxony were set to expire. Josel sought a meeting with Luther to ask him to advocate with the elector on the Jews’ behalf. In order to obtain an audience with Luther, Josel solicited letters from the magistrates of Strasbourg and from Wolfgang Capito, both of whom recommended that Luther meet with Josel.43 However, Luther declined the meeting, writing that he would not help those who “had injured the people in body and property, and whose beliefs and superstitions had led many Christians astray.” 44 Subsequently, Luther wrote his notorious tracts against the Jews, beginning with his

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1538 Against the Sabbatarians, in which he laid the blame for the Sabbatarian practice, in which Christians observed a day of rest on Saturday, rather than on Sunday, on Jewish proselytizing among Christians.45 Josel reacted to Luther’s refusal to help and his harsh writings in several ways. He successfully pleaded with the magistrates of Strasbourg to ban the publication of Luther’s antisemitic tracts from the 1540s.46 He also recorded his animosity toward Luther in Sefer ha-miknah: That new faith that was established by the priest named Martin Luther, an impure man [lo tahor], he sought to destroy and to kill all of the Jews from youth to elder. Blessed is God who thwarted his idea, and who spoiled his plans, and who showed us vengeance and many salvations, until this day.47

Josel referred to Luther in Hebrew as lo tahor, words that phonetically sound like Luther’s name but which translate as “impure.” In addition, the language he used to describe Luther’s plans is culled from the Book of Esther, and those words describing God’s reversal and salvation cite the blessing recited at the conclusion of the ritual reading of the Book of Esther on Purim. Thus, Josel used Purim and the Book of Esther to link Luther to the archetypal villain, Haman, and to underscore the ultimate destiny of final salvation. Josel also referred to Martin Bucer of Strasbourg with deep hostility, after sparring with Bucer on the question of Jewish rights. When the Jews’ rights in Hesse were set to expire in 1538, the landgrave Philip of Hesse wrote to several advisors, including both Bucer and Jacob Sturm, the former Meister of Strasbourg, asking what level of tolerance should be granted to local Jews. Bucer’s harsh answer, which demanded restrictions on Jewish practice and economic activities, was ultimately rejected by the landgrave.48 Bucer then published a tract against the Jews. Josel responded by writing Ketav nehama, a letter of consolation written to the Jews in 1541, intended to be read aloud in the synagogue. Josel stressed that Bucer had acted inappropriately, and also defended the Jewish faith against some of the charges that Bucer brought against it.49 He wrote disparagingly of Bucer’s attitudes toward the Jews: Without need and without force [to] stir anew a harsher polemic against us; and not only did he send this to his friend, as he claims,

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but he published it in print, in public, to depress us, the abject poor. Therefore I say: if he did this from a love of the Lord, and this deed is upright in the eyes of the Lord, good. But if he is incorrect, and the Lord is not pleased with this abrupt judgment with which he is cursing us, may God through his will let us know who is the advisor that comes from God, and [who is inspired] from an impure spirit.50

Josel admonished Bucer not only for writing against the Jews, but for publishing those views. He further suggested that it was against God’s will to harm the Jews, underscoring again that the heroes of history were those who helped the Jews. Josel again stressed the importance of being kind to the Jews in an entry in the chronicle, in which he attempted “to prove that it is not as [is found in] the words of Luther and Bucer” before Protestant princes: In 1537, the Duke and Prince Hans of Saxony came to abandon us, and not to allow the Jewish nation walking space [Deut. 2:5] in all of his lands because of the priest who is called Martin Luther, may his soul and body be enshrined in hell, who wrote many heretical books. The idea spread from him that whoever helps the Jews, his hope is lost.51

For Josel, it was clear that whoever helped the Jews was not lost, but that that leader was doing the will of God. As he wrote elsewhere, “To the extent that princes are greater [than one another], in that same measure they are more merciful towards the Jews.”52 Josel expanded on this idea by linking a ruler’s mercy to his knowledge of scripture: God provided great leaders with this wisdom, that they also understand the holy writings, and through this, they protect us with mercy against such [people who attack us], and they are not inclined towards every poisoned cry against us. To the extent that princes are greater [than one another], in that [same] measure is the mercy that God has granted them, and they are also generous towards all mankind.53

Those Christians who were kind to Jews were wise and good. By contrast, Luther and Bucer were described by Josel as having claimed that “whoever helps the Jews, his hope is lost.”54 For Josel, this position rendered Luther heretical; Luther did not recognize the importance of the Jews to God’s divine plan. The way Josel read history, God always saved the Jews, and leaders were best served by protecting them. Thus,

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he referred to Luther, who took the opposite position, as the author of “heretical books.”55 The most recent biographer of Josel has pointed to Josel’s characterizations of Luther as a heretic and of Protestantism as a “new faith” that “had several leniencies, and overthrew a burden.”56 Although she correctly notes that Josel repeatedly urged other Jews not to engage in what was an internal Christian debate, Fraenkel-Goldschmidt wonders whether his own views paralleled the Catholic perspective.57 This close reading of Josel clarifies that in fact, Luther’s heresy was to write against the Jews, rather than to support them, and was not tied to his adoption of Protestantism. An analysis of Josel’s attitudes toward some of the other religious and lay leaders from Strasbourg confirms that Josel’s attitudes toward the Reformation were more nuanced and complicated, for Josel wrote and thought positively about some Protestant leaders. It was only in the context of Luther and Bucer that Josel was so negatively inclined toward Protestants. Josel referred to the reformer Wolfgang Capito as “the great learned doctor.”58 In his Ketav nehama, Josel comforted the Jews of Hesse about the forced sermons to which they were being subjected by recalling his own voluntary attendance at Capito’s sermons: Without being forced, every faithful Jew is permitted to listen to these sermons, just as in Strasbourg, I myself listened several times to the great learned doctor Wolfgang Capito, on account of his great scholarship. However, when he preached about issues of faith and this was uncomfortable for me, I departed. And therefore it should not disturb any Jew to attend sermons under compulsion, as if he were doubting his faith.59

While Josel was clearly trying to reassure the Hessian Jews, and would not have encouraged Jewish attendance at sermons preached by Luther or Bucer, his esteem for Capito is clearly recorded in both words and in past actions. The same regard is manifest in Josel’s description of his encounter with Capito in which Capito asked him about Toldot Yeshu.60 Capito is depicted as knowledgeable in Judaism, and as merciful in his attitude toward Jews. Capito’s mercy toward Jews is also manifest in the letter that he wrote on Josel’s behalf to Martin Luther in 1537, urging Luther to meet with Josel.61

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Josel’s relationship with the magistrates of Strasbourg was similarly positive, and he praised them in his correspondence with Jews of the Empire. They, too, had written to Luther on Josel’s behalf, urging the reformer to listen to Josel’s pleas. Josel acknowledged the mercy that they had shown to the Jews, writing in Ketav nehama: During the peasants’ uprising, if there had not been a place for us in imperial cities—and especially the magistrates of Strasbourg, who in their goodness supported us with them, without fee or gift—we would have been lost. In addition, they wrote short recommendation letters to the aforementioned Kurfurst.62

Josel informed the Jews of Hesse of the refuge that Strasbourg’s magistrates had provided to Jews during wartime, and how they had written letters on his behalf. It was prudent for Josel to acknowledge the magistrates’ generosity, since he furnished them with a (translated) copy of his letter. Yet the fact that he opted to translate and submit his Ketav nehama to the magistrates demonstrates the very esteem with which he held them. An internal Hebrew communication between Josel and the Jews of Hesse did not necessarily require translation and submission to Strasbourg’s magistrates. However, the magistrates clearly knew of the tensions concerning the Jews of Hesse, given that their former Meister, Jacob Sturm, and their beloved reformer, Martin Bucer, had been asked by the landgrave to weigh in on the matter. Josel’s decision to share his refutation of Bucer with the magistrates exhibits the care with which he guarded that relationship. Josel’s other interactions with the magistrates reveal similar esteem. It was in order to protect the Jews’ relationship with the city—both as marketplace and as refuge—that Josel had devised the contract with the magistrates and implemented it by excommunicating those members of the Jewish community who did not comply.63 In his correspondence with the magistrates, Josel often underscored the shared biblical heritage that bound Jews and Protestants, using references from the Bible to bolster his arguments. Josel condemned ­Luther’s decision to publish works against the Jews without hearing Josel’s defense of the Jewish position by using a biblical example: To take someone’s property or to harm him physically, or to annul his rights, and to convert him from his faith, without hearing his claims,

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against imperial and natural law, this cannot, I am sure, ever be considered just. For one is to give everyone, whomever he be, the opportunity to have his claims and answers heard. For God himself, who knows the thoughts of all mankind, did not want to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah until he notified Abraham of this in advance. . . . Dr. Martin Luther, who does not know all mankind’s thoughts, did not do this.64

Arguing that even God, omniscient though he was, had consulted with Abraham before condemning the people of Sodom, Josel questioned Luther’s refusal to hear the Jewish side of the story. Luther, who did not have divine knowledge, did not acquiesce to meet Josel, the Jewish “protagonist” who paralleled Abraham, the “protagonist” for Sodom.65 Josel made similar reference to the Bible to argue that God wished for the Jews to be treated with mercy, rather than with cruelty. Josel cited Isaiah’s reference to the Babylonian king, who had been charged with punishing the Jews, but who had done so with greater pressure than was necessary.66 Josel referred to additional biblical examples as well: Similarly, in chapter 10 [of Isaiah], concerning the Assyrian king, he says: “O Assyria, the stick of my wrath.” And although the stick was designated as a punishment for them [the Jews] by God, nevertheless, God was angry at the punisher, and he was killed by his sons, as is explicitly recorded in 2 Kings. And concerning those who instigate these matters, God is all the more angry. See what happened to those who incited the king to convert Azaria and his friends from their religion and custom, until he threw them into a burning furnace. And God protected them in the furnace, and the instigators were burned in the fire, in Daniel 3. See what happened to those who persuaded the king to convert Daniel from his faith and from the commandments of the Lord, until he threw him into the lion’s den, and God sealed the mouths of the lions. And those who told him to do so, their bones were devoured by the lions.67

According to Josel, the Bible demonstrated that those who acted toward the Jews with cruelty were punished by God. Josel further argued that those who incited political leaders to act with cruelty toward the Jews, namely, those who paralleled Luther, were punished all the more. As he had done in his internal writings to the Jews, Josel made use of

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biblical examples, holy to both Jews and Protestants, to convince the magistrates to act with mercy toward the Jews by banning the publication of Luther’s texts, which Josel feared would incite violence among the masses. For Josel, biblical paradigms were key for understanding how the world was to be governed. Although Josel’s references to the Bible reflect both his familiarity with Protestant devotion to scripture and his own rhetorical skill, his choice to use these examples illustrates his acknowledgment of a sphere shared by Jews and Protestants. Given all that we know of his relations with the religious and lay leaders of Strasbourg, it is nearly impossible to argue that Josel was inherently anti-Protestant. Josel viewed some Protestants with esteem, while he viewed others with utmost derision. For Josel, helping the Jews was the determining factor for what made a Christian a good Christian. Bucer and Luther’s attacks against the Jews placed them in a different camp than Capito and the magistrates, who had always aided the Jews. Josel’s categorization of Christians was determined by their attitudes and behavior toward the Jews, and was not forged along confessional lines. It is important to note that Josel’s assignations of various Christians as heroes or villains were not merely a pragmatic assessment of who he should support, based on who was kind to the Jews. Although Josel’s conduct consistently reflected his practical consideration, his internal texts relate his ideology and do not just recount his behavior. This is most clearly manifest in an episode in which Josel’s actions, driven by pragmatism, diverged from his assessment of the figures involved in the episode. In 1532, a messianic figure named Shlomo Molkho came to the Empire, wishing to speak with Charles V about the possibility of going to war against the Turks, in an alliance between the Christian armies of Europe and the (mythical) army of the Jewish Ten Tribes of Israel. Josel recalled: At that time, a foreign man, the righteous convert named Rabbi ­Shlomo Molkho, who is resting in Eden, came with farfetched plans to stir the emperor by saying that he had come to gather all of the Jews to go to war with the Turks. And when I heard what had come upon his spirit, I wrote a letter to him, to warn him not to stir the emperor, lest the great fire engulf him. And I exited from the city of Regens­burg, so that the emperor would not say that I had been in-

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volved with him in these farfetched plans. And when he came to the emperor, he was imprisoned in iron shackles, and they brought him to Bologna, where he was burned in the sanctification of God’s name and [in] the beliefs of Israel. And he freed many from sin. His soul is enshrined in the Garden of Eden.68

Josel sensed the vulnerability of the Jewish community, and distanced himself from Molkho by leaving Regensburg. Simultaneously, he admired Molkho, and praised him. Molkho, who had formerly lived as a crypto-Jew in Portugal, had circumcised himself, and left Portugal for Italy. For Josel, Molkho was a hero who had openly embraced Judaism as the correct path, and who therefore served as a role model for others. The gap between Josel’s pragmatism, which demanded that he leave the city, and his ideology, which led him to laud Molkho, reiterates that his chronicle and Sefer ha-miknah represent his personal and ideological view of Jewish history, and his own schema for interpreting the world.

Old Strategies, New Genres The types of texts written by Josel, which explore his experiences and surroundings in light of his ideological interpretations, were commonplace during the early modern period. Texts about the self, in which the author examined his life and the events that impacted him, were composed by both Jews and Christians at this time.69 Others who wrote memoirs included the Italian rabbi, Abraham Yagel, who penned his Gei hizzayon, Valley of Vision, which recorded a short period in his life; Leone Modena, a rabbi in seventeenth-century Venice, wrote his memoir, Hayye Yehuda, Life of Judah; Glückl of Hameln, a woman residing in the Empire during the seventeenth century, wrote her memoirs in Yiddish after the death of her first husband; Yom Tov Lippman Heller, a rabbi from Prague; Phoebus Gans, a Jew from Minden; and another Jew from Bohemia, who wrote anonymously.70 Among Christians, individual laypeople began documenting their own lives, starting with merchants who wrote ricordanze, records of their businesses and business contacts, and family histories.71 Christian writers, like their Jewish contemporaries, shared information about their own lives, their

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extended families, their communities, and their business contacts and other networks to which they belonged. They, too, wrote of the divine providence that guided them, and similarly made use of biblical texts to refer to events in their own lives.72 The parallel emergence of similar genres among Jews and Christians reinforces the familiarity and interactions between members of the two faiths that have been demonstrated throughout this book. In Alsace, such writings were not only composed by leaders such as Josel. The seventeenth-century Alsatian Jew Asher of Reichshofen composed Sefer zikhronot, which recounted his life story, indicating that as was the case among early modern Christians, Jewish laypeople began recording their own lives. Whereas Josel’s writings resemble a chronicle of Jewish history, Asher’s Sefer zikhronot is closer to a memoir, and deals explicitly with his personal life and the life of his family.73 He, like Josel, preserved his story, stressed the divine providence that guided his life, and used biblical examples to demonstrate God’s guiding hand in the world. Preserving his story was Asher’s aim in writing the book: To remember and to recall the events and occurrences that befell me and all of my family members from the day that God brought me forth from light to darkness . . . and so, I decided in my heart to engrave with an iron pen [Jer. 17.1], as a keepsake of good and bad, all that which came to pass, in order to thank and give praise for everything— just as one blesses the good, so too does one bless the bad—and I added to this, to record at the end of the book all that happened to my children, and I will testify to that and I will record my business dealings and who my friends were who come to testify for me . . . and I added to this new things which occurred in my time among the Jewish nation.74

Asher reiterated the value of family history by recording the eulogies that he composed for his relatives, including aunts, uncles, and cousins, thereby asserting that they, like he, were worthy of remembrance. This is also reflected in Asher’s memorials for his parents after their deaths. In addition to eulogies, Asher placed markers at their graves, using the language of memorial and permanence to describe his goals. Asher recorded that one year after his father’s death, “I erected a tombstone at his head for the last generation for a memorial and as a glory for

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him, and I inscribed upon it with an iron pen, etched on the tablet of stone, the following lines.”75 Although he did not place a marker at his mother’s grave until eight years after her death, at that time, Asher explained that he was “worried in my soul lest her grave be forgotten, and I raised a marker for her, a pillar of wood as a tombstone, and ‘Hindele’ is inscribed on it.”76 The importance of family and ancestry is also seen through Asher’s family tree, which he appended to the end of ­Sefer Zikhronot. Similarly, his brother-in-law, who possessed the text after Asher’s death, also included his own family tree at the end of the text. Asher, too, recorded pieces of communal history, writing of sieges that affected Jews in other areas in Alsace; rabbinical appointments in Prague, Krakow, Lemburg, Posen, Moravia, Austerlitz, Worms, Mainz, Frankfurt, Fulda, Friedburg, Hanau, Swabia, Burgau, Fürth, Steinach, Ansbach, Alsace, and Metz; to deaths of rabbis in Prague and Posen; to forced sermons in Vienna and Prague; and to plagues in places as far away as England.77 In addition, he claimed to have composed a text dedicated to general history.78 Asher’s commitment to preserving Jewish history is also seen in his work as a scribe, copying the Hebrew Crusade Chronicles, martyrologies, and contemporary writings about R. Isaac Luria.79 Asher’s Sefer zikhronot also described life in the villages of Alsace, and is peppered with detailed reports of fluctuations in the price of grain, changes in the weather, and troop movement during the Thirty Years War. Sefer zikhronot recounts the ways in which Jews and Christians shared space in Alsace, as Asher mentioned the gambling and drinking he did with his neighbors, and the communal bath that was used by some Jews and Christians in Reichshofen.80 Asher neatly captured the shared and distinct spheres of Jewish and Christian Alsatian life in a description of some of the pillage in 1633 during the Thirty Years War: Throughout the month of Heshvan [5]394, in general, there was robbery and violence from the troops of Hagenau in the entire surrounding northern region, especially in Oberborn; there, they came six times in the span of eighteen days, and they seized more than two thousand wagons and carts laden with all good things. The wrath also affected the property of the Jews, and the damage reached me as well; only one chest was emptied.81

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Asher deemed the shared experiences of Jews and Christians relevant to his personal memoir, for both had suffered together. Yet by referring to both Jews and Christians, rather than to all the residents of Alsace, Asher revealed his perception that Jews and Christians remained two fundamentally separate groups. Asher’s work, like that of Josel, provides his commentary on history and contemporary life, rather than a dispassionate record of events, and he used many of the same interpretive strategies. He, too, pointed to the roles that ancestors had in determining the fate of their descendants. When he was saved from a siege in Reichshofen, he attributed the salvation to God, noting that it was through “the merits of our forefathers that He saved us.”82 Upon his father’s death, he also stressed this theme, asking that his forefathers’ “merits stand for me and for my children and for all Israel.”83 Asher also stressed that history was guided by divine providence, and thanked God repeatedly for saving him and his family members from plagues and peril. In the aforementioned example from the siege on Reichshofen, Asher stressed God’s role in determining his fate. Much of Asher’s memoir is dedicated to pleas to God for forgiveness, reflecting his strong belief in divine presence in the world. Asher, like Josel, used the biblical book of Esther as a reference in his memoirs, recounting that: The great miracle that was done to us here in Reichshofen on account of the siege of the Swedish troops, from the leader Reling [Rollinger], and how they stood upon us to kill and to annihilate from youth to elder, [Esther 3.13; 7.4; 8.11] circumcised and uncircumcised . . . to break down and to destroy and to burn [Jer. 31.27] It was after midnight on Wednesday the eve of the eighteenth of Adar. And God in his mercy, and through the merits of our forefathers, saved us—and see in the second part, where I wrote about all of this at length. Therefore, I took it upon myself and my children, as a commemoration of the miracle, to give praise and thanks to the Lord, blessed is he, to fast each and every year, God willing, on the seventeenth day of Adar that is adjacent to Nisan, and on the morrow, on the eighteenth of Adar to rejoice, and to be happy each and every year and to tell of the wonders of God. . . . Thus says Asher Levi, who takes this upon himself and upon his descendants after him.84

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Both the language that Asher used in Sefer zikhronot and the paradigm of fasting followed by feasting is modeled after the story of Purim and the biblical book of Esther. The use of “to kill and to annihilate from youth to elder” to describe those laying siege on Reichshofen mirrors the plan of Haman, whose goal was described in the Book of Esther with the same words. Following the salvation, Asher instituted a fast followed by a feast, mirroring the celebration of Purim and the Jews’ salvation from Haman’s plan. It too was to take place during the month of Adar, just days after the Purim feast. The institution of a “family Purim” was a common way for a family to commemorate an important event in which they had been saved; the Jews of Frankfurt had instituted a Fettmilch Purim to commemorate an uprising in 1614–1616.85 Using the model of Purim to commemorate his own salvation ensured that future generations would understand the meaning that the fast and feast had for Asher. Since future generations would also be familiar with the biblical story and the holiday celebrating Jewish salvation, they would be certain to comprehend the link between the biblical ­Purim and the family Purim that Asher had established. Just as in the biblical story, God was with Asher’s family, and thus, saved them from a perilous fate. What had happened in Reichshofen was one more example of a larger historical trend. Asher invoked the Book of Esther and the themes of Purim in another entry as well, reporting that he had heard that the Jews of Vienna and Prague were being compelled to attend forced sermons: I heard a rumor, which worried my soul . . . that the emperor had issued a decree that the Jews of Vienna and Prague must go to their [Christian] prayer houses, and how in every place to which the decree of the king, the King of Kings, Blessed be He, arrived, there was great mourning for the Jews, fasting, and lamenting, and repentance, prayer and charity . . . may God reverse this for the best.86

The language that Asher used to describe the Jewish reaction to the news stems from two sources, the Book of Esther and the liturgy from Rosh ha-Shana and Yom Kippur, both of which evoke divine providence. Asher begged God to reverse the decree—assuming that God had the power to do so, and again using the motif of Purim, reversal,

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as a frame for his request. Asher also used a play on words, attributing the emperor’s decree to the king, but also to the King of Kings, God. Thus, even the suffering that Jews experienced was designed by God, who could reverse their fate if he so chose. Recording the past, explaining contemporary fates in terms of ancestral actions, and using biblical paradigms for interpreting the past all affirmed the importance and relevance of present events and linked them to the larger chain of Jewish history, thereby confirming that whatever challenges the Jews faced were explicable and were in no way indicative that God had abandoned his people. Thus, both the authors and future generations were provided with interpretive schema which could serve as comfort and as ammunition against any polemics that argued to the contrary. By asserting that God was with the Jewish people, and that some providence and a sort of predestination could be found in the world, Jews were psychologically equipped to deal with expulsions, false accusations, and increased restrictions. The emergence of these age-old Jewish arguments in a new genre during the early modern period, during which time Christian writers similarly engaged in self-exploration, attests that Jews and Christians intersected in the realms of intellectual and cultural development. ­Asher’s and Josel’s respective texts reiterate that Jews and Christians shared an economy, physical space, networks of interaction, and even some strategies for self-definition. At the same time, these texts capture the distinct spheres to which Jews and Christians belonged.

C o n c l u s i o n Becoming French Alsatian Jews in the Wake of Confession Building

In her description of the tensions between Jews and Christians in Alsace in the eighteenth century, Paula Hyman noted that “the presence of both Catholics and Protestants in Alsace seems not to have mitigated tensions between Jewish and Christian Alsatians.”1 Indeed, although the beginning of the Reformation brought with it increased opportunities for Jewish-Christian contact, ultimately, confessional politics intensified the divide between local Jews and Christians. From 1530 to 1570, Jews entered Strasbourg to work, and they also litigated in its courts. Jews established social relationships with their rural Christian neighbors, and seem to have done so with urban Christians as well. Some Jews taught Hebrew to the city’s reformers or shared with them knowledge of Judaism. Not only did the city serve as a refuge to Jews, but the magistrates actively responded to individual Jewish calls for respect of their traditions. The magistrates’ moderate stance regarding the Jews was predicated upon the needs of the city’s residents and was part of their general tendency toward realpolitik. The demands of everyday life dictated that Jews and Christians had to interact to some degree. Thus, although the magistrates did not accept Jews qua Jews, tolerating them to some degree was both necessary and desirable. This was similar to the magisterial treatment of Catholics and radical Protestants. Although the magistrates did not accept the beliefs and practices of these groups, they dealt moderately with other Christian factions in order to maintain ­social order in the city and to preserve positive relationships with neighboring regions of different faiths. As was the case with Catholics and radical Protestants, those spheres

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in which Jews and Christians encountered one another were strictly controlled by Strasbourg’s religious and political leaders. Reformers were cautious about the extent of their collaboration with Jews. The magistrates policed contacts between their subjects and local Jews by formulating the contract that regulated their economic contacts and by adjudicating ensuing disputes in magisterial courts. Laws excluding the Jews were continually promulgated, establishing, at least in the conceptual realm, that Jews were not part of the city. If reality dictated otherwise, that was a necessary evil, and far from an ideal of the nascent Reformation city. Jewish leaders also continued to guard the boundaries between the Jewish community and local Christians. Aside from halakhic injunctions forbidding contact between members of the two faiths, based on Talmudic and medieval precedents, communal leaders such as Josel of Rosheim stressed that certain boundaries were not to be crossed. One could not inform against the Jewish community, and to convert from Judaism to Christianity was complete anathema. The experience of converts clearly demarcates the firm limits to ­Jewish-Christian contacts. Having crossed the boundary between Judaism and Christianity, converts were not situated clearly in either camp. These converts thus faced rejection from both the Jewish and Christian communities. In the Jewish community, they were reviled as a preternatural evil. In the Christian community, they often faced both financial and societal difficulties, appealing to the magistrates and to the clerics who converted them to help with their absorption into Christian society.2 Had anything changed, then, since the Middle Ages? Laws governing the separation between Jews and Christians, Jewish aversion toward converts, and Christian pragmatic tolerance of Jews were all hallmarks of Jewish-Christian relations in the medieval period.3 The early modern period did not witness a drastic transformation of the pragmatic model of Jewish-Christian relations; there was much continuity between the medieval period and the centuries that followed. The late medieval expulsions did not dramatically sever this model of Jewish-Christian relations, for even in Strasbourg, the Reformation city from which Jews were excluded for centuries, myriad forms of contact between Jews and Christians continued to take place.

Conclusion

Nevertheless, several significant changes on the ground transpired from the fourteenth through the seventeenth centuries. These changes strongly affected Jewish-Christian relations on a daily basis, and thus, must be looked at as distinctive elements of the early modern Jewish experience in Alsace. The Jewish community underwent demographic changes, with its dispersion out of the city to the surrounding villages and towns. This affected Jewish communal structures as well as the framework within which they interacted with Christians. The Jews of Alsace actively pursued economic relationships with the cities from which they had been expelled. No longer residents of Strasbourg, the Jews developed an economic contract with the city that addressed the different needs of Jews, Christians, and Strasbourg’s magistrates. Local Jews were provided with economic stability, necessary capital was provided to local Christians, and the magistrates were assured continued control of their marketplace and their court system. The dynamics of how Jews preserved their contacts in a city from which they were expelled demonstrate the continued and active participation of local Jews in the courts, markets, and politics of the cities of the Holy Roman Empire, even centuries after the urban expulsions. In addition, local developments during the Reformation irrevocably altered Jewish-Christian relations in cities such as Strasbourg. The development of multiple confessions had the potential to encourage tolerance of Jews. In Strasbourg, however, this was clearly not the case, for the confession building of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries led to a reduction in Jewish-Christian contact. As the Reformation progressed, the needs of Strasbourg’s leaders shifted. More self-sufficient, they were also more guarded as they sought to cultivate and preserve a proper Lutheran environment. Both religious and political leaders mandated increased distance between Jews and Christians. Intellectual contacts between Hebraists and Jews ceased, and the cities’ magistrates sought to limit Jewish access to the city by rescinding the contract and by enacting harsh legal restrictions. Similarly, whereas previously, the magistrates had agreed to censor incendiary material, by the late sixteenth century, negative descriptions and depictions of the Jews, updated to match contemporary Protestant ideals, began to be disseminated in legal, theological, and popular literature.

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By the seventeenth century, Jews were increasingly excluded from the city. Licit contacts between Jews and urban Christians could take place either outside the city, or in those few spaces, such as the horse market, in which Jews were permitted to sell certain food items. The fact that Jews were not permitted to live in Strasbourg rendered the magisterial attempt to enforce boundaries between Jews and Christians more successful than their efforts to delineate the boundaries between members of different Christian denominations. Lutheran confessional rhetoric condemned Jews, Catholics, and other Protestants. Yet a burgher of Strasbourg might have had a relative who was a Catholic, or a neighbor who was a Calvinist, such that that burgher’s view of Catholics or Calvinists would have been shaped by both personal experience and by rhetoric. In the case of the Jew, however, antisemitic rhetoric became all the more powerful, since the magistrates were often successful in diminishing Jewish-Christian contacts. The deep fissures between Jews and Christians, policed by the magistrates more firmly with the coming of confession building, continued well into the nineteenth century. In 1648, subsequent to the Treaty of Westphalia, the landscape of Alsace changed as gradually Alsace was incorporated into Catholic France. The city of Strasbourg was annexed by Louis XIV in 1681. Both Protestant and Catholic worship continued in the city, although sites such as the cathedral were restored to Catholic hands. Jews, however, continued to be barred from residing in Strasbourg, and were permitted entrance only during daytime hours. The sounding of the Graüselhorn continued to signal that it was time for the Jews to exit the city. During the eighteenth century, the growing urban bourgeoisie disdained Jewish petty commerce, and sought to limit such commerce through the enactment of laws, as had been the case in the previous centuries. Local peasants complained of Jewish usury.4 In the absence of other realms of contact between Jews and Christians, and with an increase in antisemitic literature that built upon economic and religious stereotypes, the gaps between Jews and Christians continued to expand in the century after confession building. At the same time, Jewish life in Alsace changed dramatically during the last century of the ancien régime. The rural communities of Jews

Conclusion

increased in size as immigrants from the Empire moved into the small towns and villages of Alsace. The once tiny settlements expanded rapidly and eventually boasted of relatively large Jewish populations. By 1650, the Jewish population in Alsace reached about 2,000 individuals.5 By 1784, there were 19,624 Jews residing in 183 different towns and villages in Alsace. Jewish communities comprised between one and three hundred members, and within the villages, Jewish residents represented between 5 to 10 percent of the entire population. Indeed, in at least twenty-one villages, Jews represented 15 to 25 percent of all the inhabitants.6 This is of course markedly different from the tiny Jewish settlements of the sixteenth century, in which most villages did not have enough Jewish residents to form a local quorum for prayer. The growth of the Alsatian Jewish communities is reflected in ­myriad communal records from the eighteenth century, including communal ledgers and a pinkas beit din, records of the local rabbinical court.7 Whereas during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there was no local rabbi in Alsace, by the eighteenth century this was a community that was rich in communal resources. Jay Berkovitz has demonstrated that the rural Jews of Alsace clung strongly to traditional practice, mores, and ideas, even through the nineteenth century. Being excluded from local urban life and culture, as well as living in general poverty, had encouraged traditionalism.8 Whereas in nearby Metz, lay parnasim gained communal control at the expense of local rabbis, Alsace remained a bastion of traditional, rather than modernizing, behavior.9 Thus, by the mid- to late eighteenth century, several factors converged to reinforce the deep divisions between Jews and Christians in Alsace. The more traditional mindset of the Alsatian Jews, as well as their use of Yiddish, separated them from elite urban Christians, who had begun to explore issues associated with Enlightenment. This added to the already vast polarization between rural Jews and urban elites, who disdained Jewish commerce. This period also witnessed growing enmity of peasants toward local Alsatian Jews. Thus, as the eighteenth century in France brought with it calls for modernity and the equality of all citizens, the question of how local Jews fit into this picture resounded, and there was a feeling that emancipating the Jews of Alsace would not be easy, if it were indeed possible.

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The gaps between the rural Jews and their urban Christian counterparts in the city of Strasbourg are vividly portrayed in a contest sponsored by the Société des Philantropes de Strasbourg, in which the question was raised of whether the status of Jews should be altered to extend them more tolerance. The society itself was “ambivalent” about the answer to this question, and the program for the contest was mixed with anti-Jewish rhetoric that was popular and religious in nature.10 This particular contest inspired the Abbé Henri Gregoire to think about the question of Jewish absorption into French society. His conclusion, which demanded the complete regeneration of Jews as a precondition for emancipation, highlights the divide between Jews and Christians. Local peasants also feared the consequences of Jewish emancipation. In July 1789, peasants rioted in seventy localities in Alsace, damaging Jewish property and destroying records of the money that was lent to them by local Jews.11 The Jews were vilified by Jean Francois Reubell, who argued that Jewish usury rendered them unsuitable as French citizens.12 It comes as no surprise that the Sephardic merchants of Bordeaux were granted Emancipation a full year before the Ashkenazic Jews of Alsace and Lorraine; they had already received lettres-patentes as early as 1732. Moreover, the urban Jews of France, in contrast to the rural Jews of Alsace, had already begun an internal process of modernization. Indeed, unlike the Jews of Paris, Bordeaux, or Bayonne, the Jews of Alsace at first desired to maintain their communal autonomy.13 Indeed, the Jewish resistance to the dissolution of autonomous corporations simply increased Christians’ skepticism about whether it would even be possible for the Jews of Alsace to “become French.” In Reformation Strasbourg, where Jewish residence was not even tolerated, Jaeckel of Oberbergheim and Gotlieb of Hagenau’s respective observance of the Sabbath was not seen by premodern magistrates as a barrier to their participation in the city’s economic and legal forums, and they were granted court extensions. In the eighteenth century, however, the question of whether observing the Sabbath would preclude Jews from serving in the French military stood as a potential impediment to Jewish emancipation.14 In 1788, the administrative officials of Alsace wrote that Jews would miss too much work because of their

Conclusion

holidays, and that therefore, they could not serve as farmers.15 Christian elites in the eighteenth century increasingly viewed religious particularism as antithetical to participation in the modern nation-state. Local resistance to Jewish integration into French society is demonstrated by the fact that it was only after Emancipation that the ban barring Jewish residence was lifted from cities such as Strasbourg. Moreover, the difficulties that Alsatian Jews faced in integrating into French society even after Emancipation also attest to the gulf between the Jewish and Christian communities in Alsace.16 Scholars have explained the alienation of the Jew before the French Revolution as rooted in medieval restrictions on Jewish activities, including bans on Jewish ownership of land, bans on Jewish participation in guilds, and bans on Jewish residence in cities.17 These restrictions are certainly indicators of the alienation experienced by Jews. However, the early years of the Reformation demonstrate that these restrictions and even expulsion were not enough to sever positive contacts between Jews and Christians. Intellectual, cultural, and social connections persisted between Jews and Christians in the sixteenth century. Had they continued, such contacts would have had the potential to serve as bridges between the two communities and to facilitate Jewish emancipation and absorption into French culture. This, however, did not occur, for the process of confession building intervened. The process of confession building was of simultaneous importance to the development of modern nation-states and to the decline in Jewish-Christian relations. In order to cultivate citizens’ solidarity with burgeoning absolutist states, political leaders made use of confession, urging that residents of given areas self-identify as Saxon and Lutheran, or as French and Catholic. The French, in our example, accepted what was perhaps the most famous absolutist monarchy under Louis XIV, the Sun King, who proclaimed “L’ètat c’est moi.”18 This same process of confession building had significantly curtailed Jewish participation in Alsatian life, specifically in urban areas, and led to the divergent lives led by Jews and Christians in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Indeed, it is possible that separating Jews and Christians was especially important in a region such as Alsace, where both Catholics and Protestants lived side by side.19 The Jew in Alsace would always be an out-

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sider; the presence of a sizeable marginal group may have mitigated tensions between Catholics and Protestants in Alsace. In an ironic reversal of Hyman’s observation, the presence of Jews may have mitigated tensions between Catholics and Protestants. By the end of the eighteenth century, the French Revolution enabled the overthrow of sacral monarchy. Ensuing decisions about citizenship took place in an environment in which the roles of the church and of religion—phenomena which had been used by absolutist monarchs— were challenged. French elites increasingly adopted laicité, secularism, as their mantra. This concept was foreign to the traditionally minded Alsatian Jews, who readily embraced their now flourishing communal life, and who were initially largely removed from modernizing conversations about universalism, particularism, and citizenship. The challenge of integrating Jews into the French nation-state was made more difficult because the building blocks of that state were forged first out of the acceptance and, ultimately, by the rejection of religious identity.

Notes

Abbreviations ADBR Archives départementales du Bas-Rhin AMS Archives municipales de Strasbourg AST Archives du Chapitre de Saint-Thomas de Strasbourg BN Bibliothèque nationale de France BNUS Bibliothèque nationale et universitaire de Strasbourg JNUL Jewish National and University Library JQR Jewish Quarterly Review REJ Revue des études juives WA D. Martin Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe

Introduction 1.  AMS III/174/38/33. 2.  AMS III/174/38/116. Christian awareness of Jewish holiday and Sabbath observance is also seen in legislation regarding the scheduling of fairs, which were sometimes rescheduled to ensure Jewish participation. Elisheva Carlebach, “Mixing Business with Pleasure: Jews at the Markets and Fairs of Christian Europe,” paper presented at the Leo Baeck Institute, Jerusalem, 19 July 2009. 3.  Scholars debate the exact date of the final expulsion of the Jewish community. Dates range from 1388 to 1392. I have adopted the position held by Gerd Ment­ gen, who uses October 1390 as the date after which Jewish privileges were not renewed. See Gerd Mentgen, Studien zur Geschichte der Juden im mittelalterlichen Elsass, Forschungen zur Geschichte der Juden, vol. 2 (Hannover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1995), 169–179. 4.  AMS III/174/38/80. 5.  For an overview of the shift in scholarship, see David Berger, “A Generation of Scholarship on Jewish-Christian Interaction in the Medieval World,” Tradition 38, no. 2 (2004): 4–14. See his comments on page 5. Even Jacob Katz’s social history of Ashkenazic Jews in the medieval and early modern period portrays the

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Notes to Introduction Jews as largely separate from Christian society. See Jacob Katz, Exclusiveness and Tolerance: Studies in Jewish-Gentile Relations in Medieval and Modern Times (London: Oxford University Press, 1961). 6.  Medieval Speyer was an exception, for in that city, the Jews lived in a designated area. See Germania Judaica, ed. Ismar Elbogen, Abraham Friemann, and Haim Tykocinski, vol. 1 (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1963), 328. 7.  For an overview of recent scholarship, see Ivan Marcus, “A Jewish-Christian Symbiosis: The Culture of Early Ashkenaz,” Cultures of the Jews: A New History, ed. David Biale (New York: Schocken, 2002), 449–516. This model is presented in Israel Jacob Yuval, Two Nations in Your Womb: Perceptions of Jews and Christians, trans. Barbara Harshav and Jonathan Chipman (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006). 8.  For some recent examples, see Ivan Marcus, Rituals of Childhood: Jewish Acculturation in Medieval Europe (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996); Elisheva Baumgarten, Mothers and Children: Jewish Family Life in Medieval Europe, Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ancient to the Modern World (Prince­ton: Princeton University Press, 2004); Jeremy Cohen, Sanctifying the Name of God: Jewish Martyrs and Jewish Memories of the First Crusade, Jewish Culture and Contexts (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004); Jonathan Elukin, Living Together, Living Apart: Rethinking Jewish-Christian Relations in the Middle Ages, Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ancient to the Modern World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007). The extent to which Jews shared experiences with the people among whom they lived has been explored extensively by Moshe Rosman, who has asked how “Jewish” Jewish history was. See Moshe Rosman, How Jewish Is Jewish History? (Portland, OR: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2007). 9.  On Poland, see Magda Teter, Jews and Heretics in Catholic Poland: A Beleaguered Church in the Post-Reformation Era (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). For the Ottoman Empire, see Yaron Ben-Naeh, Jews in the Realm of the Sultans (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2006) [Hebrew]. For Italy, see the essays collected in Essential Papers on Jewish Culture in Renaissance and Baroque Italy, ed. David Ruderman, Essential Papers on Jewish Studies (New York: New York University Press, 1992). 10.  There is much literature on the subject. Some examples from different regions include: Germania Judaica, ed. Arye Maimon, Mordechai Breuer, and Yacov Guggenheim, vol. 3 (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1987); Rotraud Ries, Jüdisches Leben in Niedersachsen im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert, Quellen und Untersuchungen zur allgemeinen Geschichte Niedersachsens in der Neuzeit 13 (Hannover: Hahn, 1994); In and Out of the Ghetto: Jewish-Gentile Relations in Late Medieval and Early Modern Germany, ed. R. Po-Chia Hsia and Hartmutt Lehmann (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); Friedrich Battenberg, Quellen zur Geschichte der Juden im Hessischen Staatsarchiv Darmstadt, 1080–1650 (Wiesbaden: Komission für

Notes to Introduction die Geschichte der Juden in Hessen, 1995); Daniel J. Cohen, Die Landjudenschaften in Deutschland als organe jüdischer Selbstverwaltung von der frühen Neuzeit bis ins ­neunzehnte Jahrhundert. eine Quellensammlung (Jerusalem: Israelitische Akademie der Wissenschafte, 1996); Sabine Ullmann, Nachbarschaft und Konkurrenz. Juden und Christen in Dörfern der Markgrafschaft Burgau 1650 bis 1750, Veröffentlichungen des Max-Planck-Instituts Für Geschichte (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999); Stefan Rohrbacher, Die jüdische Landgemeinde im Umbruch der Zeit. Traditionelle Lebensform, Wandel und Kontinuität im 19. Jahrhundert (Göppingen: Jüdisches Museum Göppingen, 2000); Stefan Litt, Juden in Thüringen in der frühen Neuzeit (1520–1650), Veröffentlichungen der Historischen Kommission für Thüringen. Kleine Reihe (Köln: Böhlau, 2003); Hofjuden und Landjuden. jüdisches Leben in der Frühen Neuzeit, ed. Sabine Hödl, Peter Rauscher, and Barbara Staudinger (Berlin: Philo, 2004); Jörg Deventer, Das Abseits Als Sichers Ort? Jüdisches Minderheit und christliche Gesselschaft im Alten Reich am Beispiel der Fürstabei Corvey 1550–1807, Forschungen zur Regionalgeschichte 21 (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 1996); Wolfgang Treue, Landgrafschaft Hesse-Marburg, Germania Judaica, vol. 4, vol. 2, ed. Stefan Rohrbacher, Michael Toch, and Israel Yuval (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009). 11.  Friedrich Battenberg, “Juden am Reichskammergericht in Wetzlar. der Streit um die Privilegien der Judenschaft in Fürth,” Die Politische Funktion des Reichskammergerichts, ed. Bernhard Diestelkamp (Köln: Böhlau, 1993); Barbara Staudinger, “Juden am Reichshofrat. Jüdische Rechtsstellung und Judenfeindschaft am Beispiel der österreichischen, böhmischen und mährischen Juden 1559–1670” (Ph.D. dissertation, Vienna, 2001); Juden im Recht. neue Zugänge zur Rechtsgeschichte der Juden im Alten Reich, Beihefte der Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung 39, ed. A. Gotzmann and S. Wendehorst (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2007). 12.  Isidore Loeb, “Les Juifs à Strasbourg depuis 1349 jusqu’à la Rèvolution,” Annuaire de La Societe des Etudes Juives 2 (Paris: Librairie A. Durlacher, 1883), 137–198; Élie Scheid, Histoire des Juifs d’Alsace (Paris: Librairie Armand Durlacher, 1887); Max Ephraïm, “Histoire des Juifs d’Alsace et particulièrement de Strasbourg: depuis le milieu du XIIIe jusqu’à la fin du XIVe siècle,” REJ (1913): 35–84; Moses Ginsburger, “Strasbourg et les Juifs (1530–1781),” REJ 79 (1924): 61–88. 13.  On Alsace and Lorraine in the later periods, see Vicki Caron, Between France and Germany: The Jews of Alsace-Lorraine, 1871–1918 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988); Paula Hyman, The Emancipation of the Jews of Alsace: Acculturation and Tradition in the Nineteenth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991); Jay Berkovitz, Rites and Passages: The Beginnings of Modern Jewish Culture in France, 1650–1860, Jewish Culture and Contexts (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004). 14.  Salo W. Baron, “Medieval Heritage and Modern Realities in ProtestantJewish Relations,” Diogenes 61 (1968): 32–58; idem, A Social and Religious History of the Jews: Late Middle Ages and Era of European Expansion, vol. 13 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969), 292–296.

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Notes to Chapter Introduction 15.  So many have written on this topic that I have limited the examples to include a variety of types of responses to this issue. See Wilhelm Maurer, “Die Zeit der Reformation,” in Kirche und Synagogue. Handbuch zur Geschichte von Christen und Juden. Darstellung mit Quellen, ed. Karl Heinrich Rengstorf und Siegfried von Kortzfleisch, vol. 1 (Stuttgart: Klett, 1968), 363–452; Carl Cohen, “Martin Luther and His Jewish Contemporaries,” Jewish Social Studies 25 (1963): 195–204; Jerome Friedman, “The Reformation and Jewish Anti-Christian Polemics,” Bibliotheque d’Humanisme et Renaissance 41 (1979): 83–97; Mark U. Edwards, Luther’s Last Battles: Politics and Polemics 1531–1546 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983); Heiko Oberman, The Roots of Antisemitism in the Age of Renaissance and Reformation, trans. James I. Porter (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984). 16.  Haim Hillel Ben Sasson, “The Reformation in Contemporary Jewish Eyes,” Proceedings of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities 4, no. 12 (1970): 239–326; Jerome Friedman, “The Reformation in Alien Eyes: Jewish Perceptions of Christian Troubles,” Sixteenth Century Journal 14 (1983): 23–40; Achim Detmers, Reformation und Judentum. Israel-Lehren und Einstellungen zum Judentum von Luther bis zum Frühen Calvin (Stuttgart: Verlag W. Kohlhammer, 2001). See the recent and critical Jews, Judaism and the Reformation in Sixteenth Century ­Germany, ed. Dean P. Bell and Stephen G. Burnett (Leiden: Brill, 2006). 17.  Dean Phillip Bell, Jewish Identity in Early Modern Germany: Memory, Power and Community (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2007). 18.  Stephen Burnett has written about the impact of the Reformation on print. Burnett, “The Regulation of Hebrew Printing in Germany, 1555–1630: Confessional Politics and the Limits of Jewish Toleration,” in Infinite Boundaries: ­Order, Disorder, and Reorder in Early Modern German Culture, ed. Max Reinhart and Thomas Robisheaux, Sixteenth Century Essays and Studies 40 (Kirksville, MO: Sixteenth Century Publishers, 1998), 329–348; idem, “Christian Hebrew Printing in the Sixteenth Century: Printers, Humanism, and the Impact of the Reformation, Helmantica 51 (2000): 13–42. See also Ronnie Po-Chia Hsia, “Printing, Censorship and Antisemitism in Reformation Germany,” in The Process of Change in Early Modern Europe: Essays in Honor of Miriam Usher Chrisman, ed. Phillip N. Bebb and Sherrin Marshall (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1988), 135–148. In and Out of the Ghetto also addressed some of these questions, although few concrete answers about the direct impact of the Reformation are provided. For a social history of German Jews beginning in the seventeenth century, see Jewish Daily Life in Germany, 1618–1945, ed. Marion Kaplan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). The section on the early modern period, authored by Bob Liberles, is useful for understanding this period; however, given that it begins in 1618, Liberles does not deal with the issues of the Reformation covered here. See 11–92. 19.  Stefanie Siegmund, The Medici State and the Ghetto of Florence: The Construction of an Early Modern Jewish Community, Stanford Series in Jewish History and Culture (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006), 16–39.

Notes to Introduction and Chapter One 20.  Jutta Braden has explored Jewish history in Hamburg during the Reformation. See Jutta Braden, Hamburger Judenpolitik im Zeitalter lutherischer Orthodoxie 1590–1710, Hamburger Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Juden 23 (Hamburg: Hans Christians Verlag, 2001). 21.  See the discussion in chapter 1. 22.  John Derksen, From Radicals to Survivors: Strasbourg’s Religious Nonconformists over Two Generations, 1525–1570, in Bibliotheca humanistica & reformatorica, vol. 61 (’t Goy-Houten: Hes & de Graaf, 2002); Amy Leonard, Nails in the Wall: Catholic Nuns in Reformation Germany, Women in Culture and Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005). 23.  See also Ronnie Po-Chia Hsia, “Between State and Community: Religious and Ethnic Minorities in Early Modern Germany,” in Germania Illustrata: Essays on Early Modern Germany Presented to Gerald Strauss, ed. Andrew C. Fix and Susan C. Karant-Nunn (Kirksville, MO: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1992), 169–180. 24.  Magda Teter and Debra Kaplan, “Out of the Historiographic Ghetto: European Jews and Reformation Narratives,” Sixteenth Century Journal 40, no. 2 (2009): 365–393.

Chapter One 1.  Jacob Wimpheling, “Germania,” in Emil Von Borries, Wimpheling und Murner im kampf die ältere Geschichte des Elsasses. Ein Beitrag zur Charakteristik des deutschen Frühhumanismus (Heidelberg: Carl Winters Universitätsbuchhandlung, 1926), 146–149. 2.  On the Roman city, see François Pétry, “La ville romaine: Argentoratum,” in Histoire de Strasbourg, ed. Georges Livet and Francis Rapp (Toulouse: Privat, 1987), 35–85. 3.  AMS Plan I1, Plan Morant (1548). For details about the map, see Lilliane Châtelet-Lange, Strasbourg en 1548: Le Plan de Conrad Morant (Strasbourg: Presses Universitaires de Strasbourg, 2001). 4.  On the city’s geography, see Georges Livet, “Les solicitations de la géographie,” in Histoire de Strasbourg, 23–34. 5.  Tom Scott, Regional Identity and Economic Change: The Upper Rhine, 1450– 1600 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 82–83. 6.  On the medieval city, see Francis Rapp, “Du royaume franc à la ville libre du Saint-Empire (Ve–XVe siècles),” in Histoire de Strasbourg, 87–124. On the churches and the cathedral, see 93–99. 7.  On the medieval community, see Mentgen, Juden im mittelalterlichen Elsass. 8.  For details, see Rapp, “Du royaume,” 99–105. 9.  For a brief overview of the patriciate in the Empire and in late medieval Strasbourg, see Thomas A. Brady Jr., Ruling Class, Regime and Reformation at

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Notes to Chapter One Strasbourg, 1520–1555, Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought 22 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1978), 53–58. 10.  Le Diocèse de Strasbourg, ed. Francis Rapp (Paris: Beauchesne, 1982). 11.  On the formation of the Free Imperial City, see Bernd Moeller, “Imperial Cities and the Reformation,” in Imperial Cities and the Reformation: Three Essays, ed. and trans. H. C. Erik Midelfort and Mark U. Edwards Jr. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1972), 42–54. 12.  Steven Rowan, “Urban Communities: The Rulers and the Ruled,” in Handbook of European History, 1400–1600, ed. Thomas A. Brady, Heiko A. Oberman, and James Tracy, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: W. B. Eerdmans, 1996), 199. Moeller explains that the degree of direct subordination to the emperor varied from city to city. This is specifically the case with some of the smaller Alsatian cities. Moeller, Imperial Cities and the Reformation, 42n3. 13.  Karl Theodor Eheberg, Verfassungs-, Verwaltungs- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte der Stadt Strassburg bis 1681, vol. 1 (Strassburg: J. H. Ed. Heitz [Heitz & Mündel]), 617–618. 14.  Ibid., 618–619. 15.  Ibid., 616–617. In practice, citizens of Strasbourg did appear before the imperial court. The records in the departmental archives are replete with cases of burghers from Strasbourg who were brought before the Reichskammergericht. See ADBR Series 3B, which deals with Alsatian litigations before the ­Reichskammergericht. In another example, when the city magistrates formally adopted reform, the bishop of Strasbourg brought the city to imperial court, insisting that it was his prerogative to render religious decisions for the city. 16.  Eheberg, Verfassungs-, Verwaltungs und Wirtschaftsgeschichte der Statt Strass­ burg, 619. 17.  Ibid., 616. 18.  Ibid., 618. 19.  Ibid., 617–618. 20.  Ibid., 619–620. 21.  The composition of both the guild aristocracy and of the patriciate, and the social connections between the merchants and the Constoffler, have been dealt with extensively by Brady in his Ruling Class. See chaps. 2–4. His work also provides the most exhaustive treatment of Strasbourg’s political structures. The following descriptions are based on his work, especially 163–184. 22.  These positions were largely held by patricians and merchants. The guildsmen were represented by the Schöffen, a group of 300 powerful guild leaders who were chosen by the city’s guilds. The Schöffen were at times assembled to vote on specific legislation suggested by the regime. However, their vote was not necessary, and indeed, the regime enacted most laws as an oligarchy, without the approval of the Schöffen. 23.  Philip Benedict, “French Cities from the Sixteenth Century to the Revolu-

Notes to Chapter One tion: An Overview,” in Cities and Social Change in Early Modern France, ed. Philip Benedict, 2nd ed. (1989; London: Routledge, 1992), 8; 22. 24.  On the connection between humanism and reform, see Bernd Moeller, “The German Humanists and the Beginnings of the Reformation,” in Imperial Cities and the Reformation: Three Essays, 19–38. 25.  Miriam Usher Chrisman, Lay Culture, Learned Culture: Books and Social Change in Strasbourg, 1480–1599 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982). 26.  Many scholars have worked on the subject of the Reformation in Strasbourg, so much so that it has become a classic case study cited in contemporary textbooks on the Reformation. I have based my overview on their work. Some of the classic works in English include: Brady, Ruling Class; idem, Protestant Politics: Jacob Sturm (1489–1553) and the German Reformation, Studies in German Histories (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press International, 1995); idem, The Politics of the Reformation in Germany: Jacob Sturm (1489–1553) of Strasbourg (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press International, 1997); Miriam Usher Chrisman, Strasbourg and the Reform: A Study in the Process of Change, Yale Historical Publications 87 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967); Lorna Jane Abray, The People’s Reformation: Magistrates, Clergy, and Commons in Strasbourg, 1500–1598 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985); James M. Kittelson, Toward an Established Church: Strasbourg from 1500 to the Dawn of the Seventeenth Century (Mainz: P. von Zabern, 2000). 27.  On iconoclasm in Strasbourg, see Lee Palmer Wandel, Voracious Idols and Violent Hands: Iconoclasm in Reformation Zurich, Strasbourg, and Basel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). 28.  Abray convincingly argues that the ultimate adoption of reform in the city stemmed from a confluence of the demands and actions of the clerics, the laity, and the magistrates. This thesis is explored in detail in Abray, People’s Reformation. 29.  Leonard, Nails in the Wall, 85–106. 30.  Derksen, From Radicals to Survivors, 252–253. 31.  On the link between freedom of conscience and magisterial moderation, see Lorna Abray, “Confession, Conscience and Honor: The Limits of Magisterial Tolerance in Sixteenth-Century Strasbourg,” in Tolerance and Intolerance in the European Reformation, ed. Ole Peter Grell and Robert Scribner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 94–107. 32.  Derksen, From Radicals to Survivors, 93–94. 33.  François Joseph Fuchs, “Droit de bourgeoisie à Strasbourg,” Revue d’Alsace 101 (1962): 19–50. 34.  Scholars differ in their interpretation of these events. Abray argues that generational shifts in the city were a primary factor leading the city into orthodoxy. She claims that the younger magistrates saw eye-to-eye with the increasingly orthodox clerics, as they, unlike their forebears, were not inherently anticlerical. Kittelson disagrees, and much of his work argues that the Reformation must be

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Notes to Chapter One seen as a gradual evolution toward orthodoxy, based on intellectual trends rather than on generational shifts. 35.  Although this development actually represented a break with the past, the clerics involved, such as Pappus, did not describe this as a new theological position. On the contrary, Pappus justified the adoption of the Formula of Concord as ratifying that to which Bucer had already agreed in the Wittenberg Concord. See his lengthy introduction in the Kirchenordnung of 1598. KirchenOrdnung, wie es mit der Lehre Göttliches Worts und den Ceremonien auch mit anderen dazü nothwendigen Sachen in der kirchen zü Straßburg bißher gehalten worden und fürohin mit verleihung Göttlicher Gnade gehalten werden soll (Strasbourg: Jost Martin, 1603). 36.  There is extensive literature on confessionalization. Several good examples that either introduce or summarize this paradigm include R. Po-Chia Hsia, ­Social Discipline in the Reformation (London: Routledge, 1989); Wolfgang Reinhard, “Zwang zur Konfessionalisierung: Prologomena zu einer Theorie des konfessionellen zeitalters,” Zeitschrift fur Historische Forschung 10 (1983): 257–277; idem, “Reformation, Counter Reformation and the Early Modern State: A Reassessment,” Catholic Historical Review 75 (1989): 383–404; Heinz Schilling, “Confessionalization in the Empire: Religious and Societal Change in Germany between 1555 and 1620,” Religion, Political Culture and the Emergence of Early Modern Society: Essays in German and Dutch History (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 205–245. 37.  Amy Leonard’s work on Strasbourg challenges the relevance of the confessionalization model for that city on two fronts. She aptly demonstrates that Catholic culture was fostered from the bottom-up. In addition, she persuasively shows that the magistrates did not always try to please local clerics. See Leonard, Nails in the Wall, 9–11. See also the insightful book review by Joel Harrington, in the Journal for American Academy of Religion 76, no. 1 (2008): 195–198. Other challenges to the confessionalization paradigm include Marc Forster, Catholic Revival in the Age of the Baroque: Religious Identity in Southwest Germany, 1550–1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); Joel F. Harrington and Helmut Walser Smith. “Confessionalization, Community, and State Building in Germany, 1555–1870,” Journal of Modern History 69, no. 1 (1997): 77–101. Magisterial action in Strasbourg after 1570 may be seen as confession building, rather than as strict confessionalization. 38.  Abray, People’s Reformation, 86–87. The magistrates also cooperated with the Catholic Church when it came to regulating policy toward Anabaptists. See Derksen, From Radicals to Survivors, 101–102. 39.  An informative overview of what “moderation” meant in the Reformation period is offered by Luc Racaut and Alec Ryrie, “Introduction: Between Coercion and Persuasion,” in Moderate Voices in the European Reformation, ed. Luc Racaut and Alec Ryrie (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005), 1–12. The argument that much moderation in the Reformation was due to pragmatism, which seems to have been the case in Strasbourg, is offered by Robert Scribner, “Preconditions of

Notes to Chapters One and Two Tolerance and Intolerance in the European Reformation,” in Tolerance and Intolerance in the European Reformation, 38. 40.  Abray, People’s Reformation, 104–141. 41.  Wimpheling, Germania. 42.  His testimony is cited in Derksen, From Radicals to Survivors, 101. 43.  Other examples of moderation during the Reformation are provided in Moderate Voices in the European Reformation, in which Strasbourg and its policies are not included. 44.  Wimpheling, Germania. 45.  Ibid. 46.  Ibid. 47.  Ibid.

Chapter Two 1.  Mentgen, Juden im mittelalterlichen Elsass, 125; Le Judaïsme Alsacien: Histoire, Patrimoine, Traditions, ed. Freddy Raphael (Strasbourg: La Nuée Bleue, 1999), 21–23; Michael Toch, “The Formation of a Diaspora: The Settlement of Jews in the Medieval German Reich,” in Peasants and Jews in Medieval Germany: Studies in Cultural, Social and Economic History (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Variorum, 2003), 62–64. This chapter was originally published in Aschkenas 7 (1997): 58–78. Strasbourg is also mentioned in the travel account of Benjamin of Tudela, who traveled there during the twelfth century. The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela: Critical Text, Translation and Commentary by Marcus Nathan Adler, 2nd ed. (1907; New York: Feldheim, 1964), 72 [Hebrew]; 80 [English]. 2.  On the mikveh and its recent rediscovery, see Jean Daltroff’s entry in Le Judaïsme Alsacien, 24–25. 3.  Jacob Twinger von Koenigshofen, “Chronik,” in Code historique et diplomatique de la Ville de Strasbourg, vol. 1, Chroniques d’Alsace (Strasbourg: 1843), 131–134. 4.  von Koenigshofen, “Chronik,” 134. 5.  Christoph Güntert, “Strassburg und die Judenverfolgungen 1348/1349,” master’s thesis, Zurich, 1988, 29; Mentgen, Juden im mittelalterlichen Elsass, 132–133. A seventeenth-century cleric, Elias Schadeus presents the number as slightly over two hundred. Elias Schadeus, Mysterium: Das ist Geheimnis S. Pauli Rom am II Von Bekherung der Juden als gelegt und geprediget zu Strassburg Munster (Strasbourg, 1592). 6.  Friedrich Battenberg, “Zur Rechtsstellung der Juden am Mittelrhein in Spätmittelalter und früher Neuzeit,” Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung 6 (1979), here see 136–143. 7.  See Mentgen, Juden im mittelalterlichen Elsass, Appendices A–J, for maps that document the movement of the Jews to various settlements in Alsace. 8.  The timing of this shift from an urban to a rural environment differed from region to region. For maps detailing the massacres and the reestablishment of

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Notes to Chapter Two Jewish residences, see Michael Toch, “The Formation of a Diaspora.” The date for the “end” of urban life in the Empire (which is not accurate for Alsace, where rural life begins much earlier) has been set at 1523 by the authors of Germania ­Judaica, who end the third volume, dedicated to medieval Jewish life, in that year. See Germania Judaica, vol. 3. 9.  During the late medieval period, Jews were often readmitted into a location from which they were expelled. Gerd Mentgen points to twenty-seven locations in Alsace from which Jews were expelled and to which they were later readmitted; Mentgen, Juden im mittelalterlichen Elsass, 49–77. 10.  Scheid, Histoire des Juifs d’Alsace, 51–53; Mentgen, Juden im mittelalterlichen Elsass, 137–178. 11.  Mentgen, Juden im mittelalterlichen Elsass, 59–61. Germania Judaica, vol. 3, sets the date about two decades earlier, in the 1450s. For a detailed listing of locations referenced in Germania Judaica, vol. 3, see Michael Toch, “The Formation of a Diaspora,” 77n55. 12.  Mentgen, Juden im mittelalterlichen Elsass, 65. 13.  ADBR 1G 151/11. 14.  ADBR C 78(71). A detailed chart of that data can be found in Debra ­Kaplan, “Creating Community in Rural Alsace—Early Modern Jewish Life after the ­Urban Expulsions,” Leipziger Beiträge zur jüdischen Geschichte und Kultur 2 (2004): 59–73. Similar data has been published for Upper Alsace in Günter Boll, “Dokumente zur Geschichte der Juden in Vorderösterreich und in Fürstbistum Basel, 1526–1578,” Zeitschrift des Breisgau-Geschichstvereins (1996): 29–30. For a complete demographic analysis of Jews in Alsace spanning several centuries, see Georges J. Weill, “­Recherches sur la Demographie des Juifs d’Alsace du XVI au XVIII siècle,” REJ 130 (1971): 51–89. 15.  ADBR C 78. 16.  Knut Schulze, Handwerksgesellen und Lohnarbeiter. Untersuchungen zur oberrheinische und oberdeutschen Statgeschichte des 14. bis 17. Jahrhunderts (Sigmaringen: Jan Thorbecke Verlag, 1985), 35. 17.  Élie Scheid, Histoire des Juifs de Haguenau: suivi des recensements de 1763, 1784 et 1808 (Paris: A. Durlacher, 1885), 20. 18.  Published in Scheid, Histoire des Juifs de Haguenau, xv. 19.  Ibid., 20. 20.  Ibid., xii–xv. 21.  Some of the attempts of local authorities to expel the Jews, both successfully and unsuccessfully, are described by Josel of Rosheim in his chronicle. See Hava Fraenkel-Goldschmidt, ed., Joseph of Rosheim: Historical Writings (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1996), 81–88; 284; 286; 289 [Hebrew]. The expulsion from Oberrehnheim (today Obernai), in Lower Alsace, was extremely difficult, for in addition to the expulsion, authorities there forbade Jews from entering lands under their jurisdiction. As Josel wrote: “The community . . . was forced to circumvent

Notes to Chapter Two the city, to distance from them [when traveling elsewhere], and they pressed us to the point of shame.” Joseph of Rosheim: Historical Writings, 284. 22.  Mishna Megilla, 1.1–3. 23.  Avraham Grossman, The Early Sages of Ashkenaz: The Lives, Their Leadership, and Works (900–1096), 3rd ed. (1981; Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2001), 134 [Hebrew]. 24.  Louis Finkelstein, Jewish Self-Government in the Middle Ages, Abraham Berliner Series (New York: Jewish Publication Society, 1924), 198; 206. 25.  Israel ben Petahiah Isserlein, Terumat ha-Deshen, Pesakim u-khetavim (Warsaw, 1882), responsum 65. See Moshe Frank, Kehillot Ashkenaz u-vatei ­dineihem mehame’ah ha-stem ‘esreh ‘ad sof ha-me’ah ha-hamesh ‘esreh (Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1937), 85–89. As Frank explains, in the fifteenth century, the larger towns sought to impose their takkanot upon the nearby villages as well, and conflict ensued. 26.  Isaac b. Moses, Sefer or zaru‘a, 4 parts, 2 vols. (Zhitomir, 1862); Hilkhot Shabbat, 84. A parasang is estimated as about 5.6 kilometers. 27.  The residents of Upper Alsace used the cemeteries of Selestat and Colmar. In Lower Alsace, residents used the cemeteries in Strasbourg and in Hagenau. The cemetery in Hagenau, which was purchased in the thirteenth century, remained open in the early modern period, and is discussed below. Not all of these institutions closed at the same time, but by the sixteenth century (after the expulsion of the Jews from Colmar), none were operational. 28.  Ms. Opp. Adds. 4° 91, fol. 120r. 29.  Joseph Colon, Shut u-fiske Maharik ha-hadashim le-rabbenu Yosef Colon, ed. Eliyahu Pines (Jerusalem: Defus ‘Akiva Yosef, 1970), responsum 38. 30.  Gerd Mentgen dismisses Colon’s testimony, and points to the establishment of a yeshiva in the Sundgau, a region in Upper Alsace, to claim that Jewish learning was still extant in Alsace during the early sixteenth century. Mentgen, Juden im mittelalterlichen Elsass, 60–61. See also Simon Schwarzfuchs, Les Juifs de France (Paris: A. Michel, 1975), 176. This does not alter the fact that contemporaries felt a loss. 31.  Georges J. Weill, “Rabbins et Parnassim dans l’Alsace du XVIIe siècle,” in Les Juifs dans l’Histoire de France: Premier Colloque International de Haifa, ed. ­Myriam Yardeni (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1980), 96–97; Scheid, Histoire des Juifs d’Alsace, 85. 32.  AMS III/174/38/142–143; ADBR, C 78/5. Beginning in 1406, the Jews were represented by one individual who was recognized by the emperor. Josel was the most famous of these shtadlanim. Scheid, Histoire des Juifs d’Alsace, 8. On Josel, see Selma Stern, Josel of Rosheim: Commander of German Jewry in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, trans. Gertrude Hirschler (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1965); Ludwig Feilchenfeld, Rabbi Josel von Rosheim: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland im Reformationzeite (Strassburg: J. E. Heitz, 1898); Fraenkel-Goldschmidt, Joseph of Rosheim: Historical Writings. 33.  AMS, III/174/21, 25; AMS III/174/33/1–2; AMS III/174/38/142–143; AMS III/174/38/147–148.

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Notes to Chapter Two 34.  Stern, Josel of Rosheim, 50–52. As Stern notes, this predated the more formal organization of the Landsjudenschaft. This fact highlights the point that the Jews living in Alsace saw themselves as a community, at least vis-à-vis the Christians before whom Josel represented them. 35.  This archival material has been published by Élie Scheid, Histoire des Juives de Haguenau, xi–xiii. 36.  See for example AMS III/174/38/64–68, discussed in chapter 4. 37.  Israel Yuval, Hakhamim be-doram: ha-manhigut ha-ruhanit shel Yehude Germanya beshilhe Yeme ha-Benayim (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1988), 45; Mentgen, Juden im mittelalterlichen Elsass, 8. 38.  In some places, which did neighbor larger communities, the medieval model of the rural Jew in the periphery coming to the center for resources still existed. See for example the writings of R. Hayyim b. Bezalel of Friedburg, who noted that “it is fitting for those dwelling in kehillot [larger, more formal Jewish communities] to honor the village folk when they come to the quorum.” Hayyim ben Bezalel, Sefer ha-hayyim (Cracow, 1592/3), 29. The reference can be found in Sefer seliha u-mehila, chap. 2. 39.  The cemetery in Hagenau, which remained open in the early modern period, is discussed below. Use of that cemetery was technically limited to the six families that were permitted residence in Hagenau, and was forbidden to residents of nearby villages. On that cemetery, see Scheid, Histoire des Juives d’Alsace, 275–276; Joseph Bloch, “Le cimitière juif de Haguenau,” REJ 10–11 n.s. (1951/52): 143–186. 40.  For a discussion of the cemeteries in Alsace, see Scheid, Histoire des Juives d’Alsace, 269f. For data on specific cities, including Ettendorf, Dangolsheim, and Rosenweiler, see the respective entries in Germania Judaica, vol. 3. 41.  See Robert Weyl, Le cimitière juif de Rosenwiller (Strasbourg: Éditions Salde, 1988). 42.  See Bloch, “Le cimitière juif,” 144–145, for a list of towns that buried their dead in Ettendorf from the sixteenth through the twentieth centuries. 43.  Mentgen, Juden im mittelalterlichen Elsass, 73; Scheid, Histoire des Juifs d’Alsace, 278–280. 44.  Scheid, Histoire des Juifs de Haguenau, 24–25. This archival data is echoed by Asher ha-Levi of Reichshofen, who records that Jews were obliged to pay taxes in order to bury their dead. See MS JNUL 8° 4051, fol. 25. 45.  Scheid, Histoire des Juifs de Hagenau, 33. 46.  Ms. JNUL 8° 4051, fols. 54–55. 47.  Germania Judaica, 3:2027–2029. 48.  ADBR G 1353. 49.  ADBR G 1370. 50.  André-Marc Haarscher, Les Juifs du Comté de Hanau-Lichtenberg: entre le XIVe siècle et la fin de l’Ancien Régime, Publications de la Société savante d’Alsace et des régions de l’Est 57 (Strasbourg: Société savante d’Alsace, 1997), 74.

Notes to Chapter Two 51.  Ms. JNUL 8° 4051, fol. 55. 52.  Ms. JNUL 8° 4051 fol. 39. 53.  Scheid, Histoire des Juifs de Hagenau, 1–9. 54.  ADBR G 1370. 55.  On 1575, see Scheid, Histoire des Juives de Haguenau, xi–xiii. See also 23–33. 56.  Several of the local Jews appealed to the magistrates, claiming that it was their right to maintain the synagogue. Simon of Hagenau, in whose home the synagogue was housed, claimed that this was a violation of his personal property and his right to do as he wished with it. Scheid, Histoire des Juifs de Hagenau, 27–29. Similar arguments were offered in 1562, when the magistrates seized the synagogue as part of a verdict against the owner of that space, Meier of Hagenau. See chapter 3 for details. 57.  Scheid, Histoire des Juives de Haguenau, xv–xvi. In 1575, the Jews received permission to enter the city for the price of 80 Gulden Strassburgher per month. The fee recorded by Asher of Reichshofen for refuge in Hagenau in 1628 was a poll tax of 10 Reichstahler. See below. 58.  Ms. JNUL 8° 4051, fol. 25. 59.  Ibid. 60.  Eric Zimmer, Harmony and Discord: An Analysis of the Decline of Jewish SelfGovernment in Fifteenth Century Central Europe (New York: Yeshiva University Press, 1970); Zimmer, Jewish Synods in Later Medieval Germany, 1262–1603 (New York: Yeshiva University Press, 1978). For supra-communal structure, see Jacob Katz, Tradition and Crisis: Jewish Society at the End of the Middle Ages (New York: Schocken, 1971). 61.  Various responsa from the early modern period include answers to individual rural Jews, who turned to the rabbis of larger communities with a variety of challenges. For example, see Yair Hayyim Bacharach, Havot Yair (Frankfurt am Main, 1699), responsum 112. In subsequent editions, such as Lemberg 1896, this responsum is number 115. See also Havot Yair, responsum 177; Jehiel Michal ben Abraham Epstein, Kitzur Shelah (Jerusalem: n.p., 1968–1969), 56, 2. Much of this literature is also discussed in Meir Hildesheimer, “The Jews in Germany in the Seventeenth Century based on the Literature of She’elot U- Teshubot,” master’s thesis, Bar Ilan University, 1972 [Hebrew]. 62.  Marcus Horovitz, Die Frankfurter Rabbinerversammlung von Jahre 1603 (Frankfurt am Main, 1897), 23 [Hebrew]. 63.  MS JNUL 8° 4051, fol. 57. 64.  The first of these gittin was given on a Friday, which is not the preferred method according to Jewish law. However, Asher explains that he deemed the giving of the get on Friday to be necessary due to the circumstances of this situation. He does not elaborate on the details. The following get composed by Asher on the second of Ab was done in complete accordance with the halakha. These two ­gittin were written for Jews living in Hagenau, indicating that although Asher lived in

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Notes to Chapter Two Reichshofen, he served as the scribe for other locations in the kehilla of Lower ­A lsace. Given his statement that he was the only scribe available, it is possible that he was the only trained scribe in the community. 65.  Jacob Elbaum, Openness and Insularity: Late Sixteenth Century Jewish Literature in Poland and Ashkenaz (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1990) [Hebrew]. 66.  Ms. Opp Adds. 4° 91; Haim Hillel Ben Sasson, “The Social Teaching of Rabbi Johanan Loria,” Zion 27 (1962): 166–198 [Hebrew]. 67.  Chone Shmeruk, “German Youths in Poland,” in Yitzhak F. Baer Jubilee Volume on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday, ed. S. W. Baron, B. Dinur, S. ­Ettinger, and I. Halpern (Jerusalem: Ha-Hevra ha-Historit ha-Yehudit, 1960), 304–317 [Hebrew]. 68.  Moshe Rosman has demonstrated that this network between eastern Europe and communities in the west even extended to a moral authority, which led communities in Frankfurt, Hamburg, and Amsterdam to consult with the Va‘ad Arba‘ Aratzot. Moshe Rosman, “The Authority of the Council of Four Lands Outside of Poland,” Annual of Bar Ilan University Studies in Judaica and the Humanities 24–25 (1989): 11–30 [Hebrew]. An expanded English version of this essay may be found in “The Authority of the Council of the Four Lands Outside Poland-­Lithuania,” Social and Cultural Boundaries in Pre-Modern Poland, Polin 22, ed. Adam Teller, Magta Teter, and Anthony Polonsky (Portland, OR: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2010), 83–108. 69.  Ms. JNUL 8° 4051, fol. 5. 70.  Alexander Marx, “A Seventeenth Century Autobiography,” JQR n.s. 8 (1917–1918): 269–304, here see 300. 71.  An example of this type of work is Shimon Frankfurter’s Sefer ha-hayyim, a book with detailed instructions on burial rites. The author includes the following audiences as potential readers to whom this book would be of use. “To be a help to women, and also to those who have recently begun to bury [the dead], and who do not know how to wield their hand in mercy and truth [the term for burying the dead]. And to the people of my nation who are dispersed in villages and towns, and who did not learn this mercy and truth, and they do not have whom to teach them. . . .” Shimon Frankfurter, Sefer ha-hayyim (Katen, 1717), 2v. 72.  AMS III/174/43/5, 6, 7. 73.  Marvin Heller, Printing the Talmud: A History of the Earliest Printed Editions of the Talmud (Brooklyn: Im Hasefer, 1992), 244–253; 258–262. It may also have been that the Jew procured it from the publisher, given the proximity of Häsingen to Basel. 74.  Consultation with bibliographic sources indicates that this was the only Bible printed in 1525 whose pages were in full folio length, as described in the book list. See Yeshayahu Vinograd, Thesaurus of the Hebrew Book (Jerusalem: Institute for Computerized Bibliography, 1993); The Bibliography of the Hebrew Book 1473–1960 (http://www.hebrew-bibliography.com [accessed May 19, 2008]). Martin

Notes to Chapter Two Bucer, reformer of Strasbourg, owned the Bomberg rabbinic bibles from 1517 and 1525. See Stephen Burnett, “Reassessing the ‘Basel-Wittenberg Conflict’: Dimensions of the Reformation-Era Discussions of Hebrew Scholarship,” in Hebraica Veritas? Christian Hebraists and the Study of Judaism in Early Modern Europe, ed. Allison Coudert and Jeffrey Shoulson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), 181–201; R. Gerald Hobbs, “How Firm a Foundation? Martin ­Bucer’s Historical Exegesis of the Psalms,” Church History 53 (1984): 486. Bucer and Christian Hebraists living in the Empire also ordered books from Bomberg. See Burnett, “Christian Hebrew Printing in the Sixteenth Century.” 75.  Chaim Bernhard Friedberg, Bibliographical Lexicon of the Whole Hebrew and Jewish-German Literature, Inclusive of the Arab, Greek, French-Provencal, Italian, Latin, Persian, Samaritan, Spanish-Portuguese and Tartarian Works Printed in the Years 1474–1950 with Hebrew Letters, 2nd ed. (1950; Tel Aviv: MA Bar Juda, 1954); Vinograd, Thesaurus of the Hebrew Book; Bibliography of the Hebrew Book. Friedberg mentions one, but did not see it firsthand. The other bibliographers who did see this text firsthand indicate that it was printed in quarto, not in duodecimo. 76.  Braggadini published one version in Venice in 1574 and another in 1597– 1598. Another edition was published in Venice by Gradani in 1577–1578. 77.  See Bibliography of the Hebrew Book. 78.  Moritz Steinschneider, Katalog der hebräischen Handschriften in der ­Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek zu Hamburg (Hamburg, 1878), 20–22; Fraenkel-­ Goldschmidt, Joseph of Rosheim: Historical Writings, 87–88. 79.  See Hava Fraenkel-Goldschmidt, “Introduction,” Josel of Rosheim, Sefer hamiknah (Jerusalem: Mekitse Nirdamim, 1970), 16. Since the author of the Mordehai Katan, R. Samuel Selestat, wrote his opus near Strasbourg, it is not surprising that Alsatian Jews of the early modern period had access to a copy. See FraenkelGoldschmidt’s introduction, 15–18, for information on Samuel Selestat. 80.  BNUS Ms. 371. See Joseph Dan, Torat ha-sod shel Hasidut Ashkenaz (Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik, 1967), 14–20. 81.  For details on this text and on Shelumil, see Meir Benayahu, Sefer toldot ha-Ari: Gilgule nusha’otav ve-‘erko mi-behinah historit: Nosfu ‘alav hanhagot ­ha-Ari ve-azkarot rishonot (Jerusalem: Mekhon Ben-Tsevi ba-Universita ha-‘Ivrit, 1967), 41–42. 82.  Katz, Exclusiveness and Tolerance. 83.  Elisheva Carlebach, “Early Modern Ashkenaz in the Writings of Jacob Katz,” in The Pride of Jacob: Essays on Jacob Katz and His Work, ed. Jay M. Harris (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), 65–83. 84.  References to individual arrendators, or lease-holders, who lived in towns populated by Christians, can be found in Pinkas Va‘ad Arba‘ Aratsot and Pinkas ­Medinat Lita. The councils sought to address a situation in which a single arrendator might travel, leaving his wife behind, such that she would remain at home alone, potentially with Christian men in the house. The council proposed that at

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Notes to Chapters Two and Three least two men hold the lease to avoid violating the prohibition of seclusion between a Jewish woman and a Christian man. Those charged with ensuring that the decree was followed were the rabbis and judges from nearby large Jewish settlements. See Pinkas Va‘ad Arba‘ Aratsot (Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik, 1945), 52 (1607); Pinkas ha-medina, ed. Simon Dubnow, 2nd ed. (1925; Jerusalem, 1968), 132, 259, 356. I thank Ted Fram for these references. 85.  Katz, Exclusiveness and Tolerance. Similar links between Jews and non-­ Jewish neighbors have also been demonstrated in early modern Poland. See Teter, Jews and Heretics in Catholic Poland.

Chapter Three 1.  Katz, Exclusiveness and Tolerance. 2.  The model for looking at the mutual impact that Jews and Christians had on one another can be found in Israel Yuval, Two Nations in Your Womb. For an overview of recent scholarship, see Ivan Marcus, “A Jewish-Christian Symbiosis: The Culture of Early Ashkenaz”; David Berger, “A Generation of Scholarship on Jewish-Christian Interaction in the Medieval World.” 3.  Marcus, Rituals of Childhood; Baumgarten, Mothers and Children. 4.  Teter, Jews and Heretics, 59–79. 5.  See Ruderman, Essential Papers on Jewish Culture in Renaissance and Baroque Italy. 6.  Although these cases are exceptional in that they warranted the attention of authorities, in many instances, these incidents were written down due to conflicts or infractions that had nothing to do with Jewish-Christian relations per se. 7.  ADBR 3 B 602. 8.  Ibid., 13. 9.  His activities as a doctor are also mentioned in ADBR 1G151. 10.  ADBR 3 B 602, 13. 11.  Ibid. 12.  Ibid. 13.  For legislation concerning immoral sex, see John H. Langbein, Prosecuting Crimes in the Renaissance: England, Germany, France (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), 264. 14.  Langbein, Prosecuting Crimes in the Renaissance, 173–174; 293–294. 15.  Ulinka Rublack, The Crimes of Women in Early Modern Germany, Oxford Studies in Social History (New York: Clarendon Press, 1999), 217–222. For a discussion of adultery in Jewish sources, see Edward Fram, “Two Cases of Adultery and the Halakhic Decision-Making Process,” AJS Review 26, no. 2 (2002): 277–294. 16.  It is unclear to me why no Jews were brought to testify. Since some of the witnesses supported Meier’s claim, and some supported Magdalena’s, it is doubtful that the court was seeking a particular verdict in the case. Given the order in

Notes to Chapter Three which witnesses were brought before the court, it seems that the court began by questioning their immediate neighbors, and then summoned other residents who were mentioned by prior witnesses. 17.  ADBR 3 B 602, 13. 18.  I am unable to satisfactorily answer the question as to why Magdalena and six other married Christian women implicated themselves in this scandal. The question is all the more potent since the council did not find Meier guilty of adultery. Since I have not found any punishment of these women in the records, perhaps the stakes of having exaggerated their claims were not as high as one might have expected. 19.  The German word, angreifen, may mean touched or attacked. I have used the more cautious meaning of the term in my translation. 20.  ADBR 3 B 602, 13. 21.  Ibid. 22.  Merry E. Wiesner, Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe, New Approaches to European History 20, 2nd ed. (1993; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 121. 23.  This may be a sexual euphemism. 24.  ADBR 3 B 602, 13. 25.  For more discussion on this stereotype, see Joshua Trachtenberg, The Devil and the Jews, the Medieval Conception of the Jew and Its Relation to Modern Antisemitism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1944). 26.  ADBR 3 B 602, 13. 27.  Ibid. 28.  Natalie Zemon Davis, Fiction in the Archives: Pardon Tales and Their Tellers in Sixteenth-Century France (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1987). 29.  ADBR 3 B 602. 30.  Ibid. 31.  Ibid., 10. Another copy of this letter is recorded in Ibid., 13. 32.  ADBR 3 B 602, 13. 33.  Rublack, Crimes of Women in Early Modern Germany, 44. 34.  The same was true in medieval times. See David Nirenberg, Communities of Violence: Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), 127–165; Rachel Furst, “Captivity, Conversion, and Communal Identity: Sexual Angst and Religious Crisis in Frankfurt, 1241,” Jewish History 22 (2008): 179–221. 35.  Those without social connections to the elite were often denied lighter sentencing due to mitigating circumstances. Rublack, Crimes of Women in Early Modern Germany, 49. Jews would have undoubtedly fallen into a similar category. 36.  ADBR 3 B 602, 10. Another copy can be found in ADBR 3 B 602, 13. 37.  ADBR 3 B 602, 13. 38.  Ibid., 13.

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Notes to Chapter Three 39.  Decisions for this case would be found in the Urteilsbuch currently housed in Koblenz. 40.  I thank M. Michel Traband of Archives de la Ville de Haguenau for confirming this with me. 41.  For data on the synagogue in Hagenau, see chapter 2. 42.  AMS III/174/38/91–92. 43.  Joseph Juspe Hahn Neuerlingen, Sefer Yosif ometz (Frankfurt: Johann Kellner, 1723), 608. These examples are mentioned briefly by Hildesheimer, Jews in Germany in the Seventeenth Century, 99. 44.  Sefer Yosif ometz, 632; 634. For more on this phenomenon, see Jacob Katz, The “Shabbes Goy”: A Study in Halakhic Flexibility (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989). 45.  Sefer Yosif ometz, 730. 46.  For example, see Meir ben Isaac Katzenellenbogen, Responsa Maharam Padua (Cracow, 1881–1882), responsum 26. Archival sources are discussed at length in chapter 4. 47.  Havot Yair, 198; See Hildesheimer, Jews in Germany in the Seventeenth Century, 96. 48.  MS JNUL 8° 4051, fol. 48. 49.  Roughly contemporaneous discussions of whether it was permissible for Jews to bathe in bathhouses frequented by non-Jews can be found in R. Moses Isserles’ and R. Sabbatai Cohen’s commentaries on Yoreh de‘ah 153.3. See Isserles, Darkei Moshe mi-tur yoreh de‘ah (Sulzbach, 1692); and Shabbetai ben Meir ­ha-Kohen, Siftei Kohen (Amsterdam, 1763.) For Polish synods that forbade Christians from bathing with Jews, see Teter, Jews and Heretics, 72–73. 50.  MS JNUL 8° 4051, fol. 40. 51.  MS JNUL 8° 4051, fol. 41. 52.  Havot Yair, 179, in later editions, 44; Hildesheimer, Jews in Germany in the Seventeenth Century, 96. 53.  Havot Yair, 114; Hildesheimer, Jews in Germany in the Seventeenth Century, 96. 54.  ADBR G 2621. 55.  Solomon Grayzel, The Church and the Jews in the XIIIth Century: A Study of Their Relations during the Years 1198–1254, Based on the Papal Letters and the Conciliar Decrees of the Period (Philadelphia: Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning, 1933), 59n85. 56.  Grayzel, Church and the Jews in the XIIIth Century, 59n87; 336–337. See below for an example from early modern Alsace. 57.  Ibid., 300–301; 223–333; 336–337. 58.  Ibid., 318–319; 332–333; 336–337. For examples where Jewish doctors were accused of poisoning their patients, and were subsequently punished, see ibid., 74n147. 59.  Ibid., 106–107; 114–117; 126–129; 198–199; 204–205; 252–253; 298–307; 316– 317; 320–325; 328–333.

Notes to Chapter Three 60.  Ibid., 199. 61.  Wiesner, Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe, 110–116. 62.  Grayzel, The Church and the Jews, 59; 62n99. 63.  The Fourth Lateran Council of 1215. 64.  Grayzel, Church and the Jews in the XIIIth Century, 294–295. 65.  AMS R 7 104–105. 66.  ADBR G 2621. 67.  Grayzel, Church and the Jews in the XIIIth Century, 26–27. 68.  Haim Hillel Ben Sasson, “Jewish-Christian Disputation in the Setting of Humanism and Reformation in the German Empire,” Harvard Theological Review 59 (1966): 369–390. 69.  This is the title of the document that Philip submitted to Bucer. “Ob Christlicher Oberkait gebüren müge, das sye die Juden undter den Christen zu wonen gedulden, und was ye zu gedulden, wölcher gestalt und maß.” See Martin Bucer, Judenratschlag; and idem, Von der Juden: Brief an Einen Guten Freund, in Martin Bucers Deutsche Schriften, 7: Schriften der Jahre 1538–1539, ed. Robert Stupperich (Gütersloh: E. W. Kohl, 1964). 70.  For a discussion of these plans, see Eels, “Bucer’s Plan for the Jews,” 127– 136; Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, 13:241–242; Carl Cohen, “Martin Bucer and His Influence on the Jewish Situation,” Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook 12 (1968): 93–101; Fraenkel-Goldschmidt, Joseph of Rosheim: Historical Writings, 313–322; Hobbs, “Bucer, the Jews, and Judaism,” Jews, Judaism, and the Reformation, 137–169. 71.  1 AST 39. 72.  Johann Müller, Judaismus oder Judenthumb: das ist außfürlicher Bericht von des judisches Volckes Unglauben Blindhaiet und Verstockung (Hamburg: Jacob Reben­lein, 1644), 1441–1449. I thank Stephen Burnett for alerting me to this text, and to the following relevant article: Gerhard Müller, “Der Judenartzt im Urteil ­lutherisch-orthodoxer Theologen 1642–1644,” Wort und Religion: Kalimi na dini. Studien zur Afrikanistik, Missionswissenschaft, Religionswissenschaft, Ernst Dammann zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Hans-Jürgen Greschat und Herrmann Jungraithmayr (Stuttgart: Evangelischer Missionsverlag, 1969), 370–376. 73.  In 1616, Strasbourg’s magistrates mention that Jewish doctors continued to enter the city. AMS R 104–105. See the discussion in chapter 4. Müller, Judaismus, 1441–1442. 74.  See Jütte, “Contacts at the Bedside,” 137–150. 75.  Müller, Judaismus, 1442–1443. 76.  Ibid. 77.  Many of these laws can be found in BT ‘Avoda zara. 78.  BT Shabbat 17b. 79.  BT ‘Avoda zara 26a. A discussion of why non-Jewish wet nurses should be

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Notes to Chapters Three and Four permitted in contemporary times can be found in Yom Tov ben Abraham Ishbili, Hiddushei ha-Ritva, massekhet ‘Avoda zara, ed. Moshe Goldstein (Jerusalem: Mossad ha-Rav Kook, 1978), 26. 80.  Sefer or zaru‘a 4, no. 146. For a thorough discussion of Christian wet nurses and Jews, see Baumgarten, Mothers and Children, 119–153. 81.  Grayzel, Church and the Jews in the XIIIth Century, 114–117; 126–129. 82.  See Haym Soloveitchik, Halakha, kalkala, ve-dimui ‘atzmi: ha-Nashkona’ut bi-Yeme ha-Benayim (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1985). 83.  Edward Fram, Ideals Face Reality: Jewish Law and Life in Poland, 1550–1655, Monographs of the Hebrew Union College 21 (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1997). On early modern Poland, see Magda Teter, “‘There Should be No Love Between Us and Them’: Social Life and the Bounds of Jewish and Canon Law in Early Modern Poland,” in Teller et al., Social and Cultural Boundaries in Pre-Modern Poland, 249–270. 84.  Havot Yair, 66, 73. 85.  BT ‘Avoda zara 25b. 86.  Havot Yair, 73. 87.  Ibid., 66. 88.  Bacharach raises the possibility that seclusion of women transgresses a biblical prohibition, based on a discussion in BT ‘Avoda zara 36b. In addition, he notes that such seclusion is one of the eighteen precepts that cannot even be overturned by a rabbinical court’s decision. See BT ‘Avoda zara 36a.

Chapter Four 1.  See Wimpheling’s words in chapter 1. 2.  This information is based on my consultation with Kirchenbücher from the parishes of Young St. Peter, Old St. Peter, St. Thomas, Neue Kirche, Robertsau, St. Wilhelm, St. Nicholas, St. Aurelie, and the Evangelical Hospital in Strasbourg, held in the AMS. 3.  KirchenOrdnung, 1598. Also see Jean Rott, “Les visites pastorals strasbourgeois aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles,” in Investigationes historicae: églises et société au XVIe siècle: gesammelte Aufsätze zur Kirchen- und Sozialgeschichte, ed. Marijn de Kroon and Marc Lienhard, Société Savante d’Alsace et des Régions de l’Est 31 (Strasbourg: Oberlin, 1986), 551–563. 4.  Gerhard Wunder, Das Straßburger Landgebiet. Territorialgeschichte der inzelnen Teile des städtischen Herrschaftsbereiches vom 13. bis zum 18. Jahrhundert, Schriften zur Verfassungsgeschichte, vol. 5 (Berlin: Duncher and Humbolt, 1967). 5.  Tom Scott, Regional Identity and Economic Change; idem, Town, Country, and Regions in Reformation Germany, Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions 106 (Leiden: Brill, 2005). See also Paul M. Hohenberg and Lynn Hollen

Notes to Chapter Four Lees, The Making of Urban Europe, 1000–1994 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995). 6.  Thomas A. Brady Jr., Ruling Class, Regime and Reformation, 147–152. 7.  AMS X 328; AMS III/174/20/83; AMS VI 168/6; AMS VI/99, 1; AMS VI 13/10. For the history of Strasbourg’s sovereignty in these areas, see Gerhard Wunder, Das Straßburger Landgebiet, 149–196; “Wasselone,” in Encyclopedie d’Alsace, vol. 12 (Strasbourg: Editions Publitotal, 1985), 7688–7692. Some records from the late seventeenth century indicate that Jews were involved in the trade of salt, although there is no evidence of this prior to 1650. See Haarscher, Les Juifs du Comté Hanau-Lichtenberg, 160–161. 8.  AMS III/174/38/52–53. 9.  AMS III/174/38/46–47. 10.  AMS VI 168/6. 11.  AMS III/174/38/56–60. This probably took place before 1553. 12.  AMS X 328; AMS R 104–105; AMS III/174/20/83. 13.  AMS VI 168/6; AMS VI 99/1; AMS VI 13/10. 14.  AMS III/174/38/95. 15.  ADBR 6E2/493 (n. 956). 16.  Jonathan Israel, European Jewry in the Age of Mercantilism, 1550–1750, 3rd ed. (London: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 1998); Mordechai Breuer, “The Dawn of Early Modern Times,” in German-Jewish History in Modern Times, ed. M. Meyer (New York: Columbia University, 1996), 94–101. 17.  ADBR 1G 151. 18.  AMS R 104–105. 19.  Brian Pullan, “Jewish Moneylending in Venice: From Private Enterprise to Public Banking,” Gli Ebrei e Venezia: secoli XIV–XVIII: Atti Del Convegno Internationale Organizzato dall’Istituto Di Storia Della Societá e dello Stato Veneziano della Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venezia, Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore, 5–10 Giugno 1983 (Milano: Edizioni Communitá, 1987), 671–686. 20.  AMS III/174/32/3; AMS III/174/38/88–89. 21.  AMS VI 13/10; Ms. JNUL 8° 4051, fol. 35. 22.  For an example, see AMS III/174/38/76–79. 23.  The remaining notarial records for the city of Strasbourg are from the late seventeenth century. For a complete discussion of such loans based on the notarial records, see Jean Daltroff, Le Pret d’argent des Juifs de Basse-Alsace: d’apreés les Registres de Notaires Royaux Strasbourgeois, 1750–1791, Publications de la Société Savante d’Alsace et des Régions de l’Est 50 (Strasbourg: Société savante d’Alsace et des régions de l’Est, 1993). Daltroff bases his study of money lending in Alsace on the notarial documents. 24.  ADBR 6E2/362. Andlau is part of the bailiwick of Marlenheim. 25.  ADBR 6E2/493, no. 379. Mittelbergheim is part of the Bailiwick of Barr. 26.  ADBR 6E2/494, no. 12.

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Notes to Chapter Four 27.  AMS VI 13/10. 28.  ADBR G 505. 29.  AMS VI 168/6. 30.  The logbook from Marlenheim does not list the amounts owed. 31.  ADBR 1 G 431d. 32.  Jacques Hatt, Liste des Membres du Grande Senat de Strasbourg: des Stettmeisters, des ­Ammeisters, des Conseils des XXI et XV du XIIIe siècle à 1789 (Strasbourg, 1963). 33.  Kenneth Stow, “The Good of the Church, the Good of the State: The Popes and Jewish Money,” in Christianity and Judaism: Papers Read at the 1991 Summer Meeting and the 1992 Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, ed. Diana Wood, Studies in Church History 29 (Oxford: Ecclesiastical History Society, 1992), 237–252; Pullan, “Jewish Money Lending in Venice.” 34.  Ullmann, Nachbarschaft und Konkurrenz, 249–250. 35.  Haim Gerber, “Jews and Moneylending in the Ottoman Empire,” JQR 72, no. 2 (1981): 110–118. 36.  Brady, Ruling Class, 106–107, 122. For details on money lending, see 152–162. 37.  AMS III/174/32; AMS III/174/38/88–89. 38.  Brady, Protestant Politics, xi. In many cities, 50 Gulden was also the poverty level; for a poor Jew to lend one thousand Gulden is therefore remarkable. 39.  AMS III/174/32. 40.  In some documents, Fridrich Trautwein and Hans Clossens are also listed among the other burghers as Jaeckel’s creditors. It is unclear if this was for a different loan. Jaeckel is alternately referred to as Jaeckel of Oberbergheim and Jaeckel of Ensisheim. 41.  AMS III/174/38/80. 42.  AMS III/174/38/16. 43.  The name Meyer recurred as a first name in the Stern family in Frankfurt. I cannot identify the Abraham living in Grünen Tor. See Alexander Dietz, The Jewish Community of Frankfurt: A Genealogical Study 1349–1849, trans. Frances Martin (Camelford, UK: Vanderher, 1988). 44.  AMS III/174/38/11; 26. 45.  On trade relations between Strasbourg and Frankfurt, which were not infrequent, see Brady, Ruling Class, 106–107. 46.  Der Statt Straßburg PoliceyOrdnung (Johann Carölo, 1628). 47.  AMS VI 168/6; AMS VI 99/1; AMS VI 13/10. 48.  Wiesner, Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe; Heide Wunder, He Is the Sun, She Is the Moon: Women in Early Modern Germany, trans. Thomas Dunlap (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998); Claudia Ulbrich, Shulamit and Margarete: Power, Gender, and Religion in a Rural Society in Eighteenth-Century Europe, trans. Thomas Dunlap (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 12f. Jewish women were also economically active in the medieval period. See for example Dobson, “The Role

Notes to Chapter Four of Jewish Women in Medieval England,” 145–168; Suzanne Bartlet, “Three Jewish Women in Thirteenth Century Winchester,” Jewish History and Culture 3, no. 2 (2000): 31–54; Cheryl Tallan, “Medieval Jewish Widows: Their Control of Resources,” Jewish History 5 (1991): 63–74. The example of Glückl of Hameln also applies here. See Glikl: Zikhroynes 1691–1719, ed. and trans. Chava Turniansky (Jerusalem: Hebrew University Press, 2006). 49.  AMS III/174/38/101. 50.  AMS III/174/38/100. 51.  AMS III/174/38/104–105. 52.  Scheid, Histoire des Juifs d’Alsace, 60. I have used the German terms for currencies, rather than the French used by Scheid, to maintain consistency throughout the book. 53.  On the Gräuselhorn, see Freddy Raphael and Robert Weyl, “Grüselhorn,” in Encyclopèdie d’Alsace 6, 3540–3541; Gerd Mentgen, Juden im mittelalterlichen ­Elsass, 8. Raphael and Weyl believe that the Gräuselhorn, which resembles the Jewish shofar, was in fact modeled after it, while Mentgen, who notes the presence of a similar horn in Freiburg, disagrees. 54.  In other correspondence she is identified as Blomel, Abraham of Hochfeld’s daughter. See AMS III/174/21/98–101. 55.  The burghers in question are Mör Claus of Marlenheim, who figures prominently in several cases, and Peter Haman. 56.  AMS III/174/21/96–97. 57.  Peter Stein, Roman Law in European History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Battenberg, “Zur Rechtsstellung der Juden am Mittelrhein in Spaetmittelalter und frueher Neuzeit”; Wilhelm Guede, Die Rechtliche Stellung der Juden in den Schriften deutscher Juristen des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts (Sigmaringen: J. Thorbecke, 1981). 58.  ADBR 3 B 1126. 59.  ADBR 3 B 545; 3 B 1114; 3 B 597; 3 B 603; 3 B 599. 60.  AMS III/174/21/98–101. 61.  AMS III/174/21/96–97. 62.  Ibid. 63.  See Fraenkel-Goldschmidt, Joseph of Rosheim, 355. For a Hebrew translation, see 361. 64.  AMS III/174/21/96–97; 98–101. 65.  AMS III/174/38/9. 66.  AMS V 1/13. On the Jews and the Peasants’ Rebellion, see Fraenkel-Goldschmidt, Joseph of Rosheim, 132–146; Freddy Raphael, “Joselmann de Rosheim et la guerre des paysans,” Société d’Histoire et d’Archéologie de Saverne et Environs: Pays d’Alsace (1975): 87–88. 67.  AMS III/174/21/96–97. Similar language is found in III/174/21/98–101. 68.  AMS III/174/21/95.

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Notes to Chapter Four 69.  AMS III/174/25. 70.  AMS III/174/21/86–87. 71.  Also referred to as Jacob of Niederschopfen. 72.  AMS III/174/21/86–87. 73.  Ibid. 74.  Ibid. 75.  AMS III/174/38/41. 76.  ADBR 3 B 598; 3 B 600; 3 B 601; AMS IV 26/19. A fifth trial, between Abraham of Oberbergheim and Hans Voltz, began in 1534, two years before Abraham had signed the contract. 77.  Hatt, Liste des Membres du Grande Senat de Strasbourg; Chrisman, Reform in Strasbourg, Appendix D, 317. 78.  AMS III/174/40/2. 79.  AMS III/174/38/30–31. 80.  AMS III/174/38/68–70. 81.  AMS III/174/38/19–20. 82.  AMS III/174/38/64–68. 83.  See for example Litt, Juden in Thüringen; Ullman, Nachbarschaft und Konkurrenz; Deventer, Das Als Sicher Ort. 84.  Bucer, “Judenratschlag,” and idem, “Von der Juden. Brief an Einem Guten Freund”; Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, 13:241–242; Eels, “Bucer’s Plan for the Jews”; Cohen, “Martin Bucer and His Influence on the Jewish Situation”; Fraenkel-Goldschmidt, Joseph of Rosheim, 313–322; Hobbs, “Bucer, the Jews, and Judaism.” See my discussion in chapter 3. 85.  AMS III/174/38/30–31. 86.  AMS III/174/38/14. 87.  AMS III/174/38/76–79. 88.  AMS III/174/38/33. 89.  AMS III/174/38/61–62; AMS III/174/38/96–97. 90.  Maria Boes argues that in early modern Frankfurt, a comparison of the crimes and punishments meted out to local Jews and Christians demonstrates that the Jews often received harsher punishment. See Maria R. Boes, “Jews in the Criminal Justice System of Early Modern Germany,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 30, no. 3 (1999): 407–435. However, the fact that Jaeckel of Oberbergheim sought justice in a matter concerning Jews in a Christian court indicates that he did feel that the court would give him a fair hearing. While it may be that it was more convenient to go to a local court, rather than to a Bet Din that was farther away, had Jaeckel felt that Strasbourg’s municipal court would not address his needs, he could have sought justice in a different venue, such as the imperial courts. 91.  For some examples, see J. Friedrich Battenberg, “Rechtliche Rahmenbedingungem jüdischer Existenz in ger Früheneuzeit zwischen Reich und territorium,”

Notes to Chapters Four and Five Judengemeinden in Schwaben Im Kontext des Alten Reiches, ed. Rolf Kießling and Sabine Ullmann (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1995), 53–79; Barbara Staudinger, “Gelangt an eur kayserliche Majestät mein allerunderthenigistes Bitten: Handlungsstrategien der jüdischen Elite am Reichshofrat im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert,” in Hofjuden und Landjuden, 143–183; Juden im Recht. Neue Zugänge zur Rechtsgeschichte der Juden im Alten Reich. For Alsatian Jews in imperial court, see Debra Kaplan, “Conflict and Collaboration: Alsatian Jews and Questions of Authority as Seen through Processes of the Reichskammergericht in the Sixteenth Century,” in Juden im Recht [German]. 92.  Loeb, “Les Juifs à Strasbourg depuis 1349 jusqu’à la Rèvolution,” 141. 93.  AMS III/174/33/1–2; AMS III/174/38/142–143; 147–148. 94.  AMS III/174/33. 95.  AMS III/174/33/3. 96.  AMS R 104–105. 97.  AMS X 328; Der Stadt Strassburg PolicëyOrdnung. 98.  Der Statt Strassburg Thurnhüeter Ordnung (Strasbourg, 1659). A similar law from June 20, 1711 can be found in Der Statt Strassburg revidirte Thurnhüther Ordnung (Strasbourg, 1711). 99.  See chapter 5. 100.  AMS X 342. The Thürnhuttern were already informed about not allowing Jews into the city in a previous law, enacted in 1616. See AMS R 104–105. It is in 1639 that they were charged with the task of searching the Jews. 101.  AMS X 342. 102.  AMS X 328; Der Statt Strassburg PoliceÿOrdnung. 103.  AMS III/174/20/83.

Chapter Five 1.  See chapter 4. 2.  The Laws and Liberties of Massachusetts, 1641–1691: A Facsimile Edition, Containing also Council Orders and Executive Proclamations, ed. John D. Cushing, 3 vols. (Wilmington, NC: Scholarly Resources, 1976). I thank Richard Ross for this reference. 3.  AMS III/174/20/82. 4.  Thomas Max Safley, Charity and Economy in the Orphanages of Early Modern Augsburg, Studies in German Histories (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1997); idem, Children of the Laboring Poor: Expectation and Experience among the Orphans of Early Modern Augsburg, Studies in Central European Histories 38 (Leiden: Brill, 2005). 5.  Robert Jütte, Poverty and Deviance in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

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Notes to Chapter Five 6.  AMS III/174/21/96–97. 7.  AMS III/174/20/81. 8.  AMS III/174/38/11; AMS III/174/38/26; AMS III/174/38/34–35; AMS III/174/38/85–86. 9.  AMS III/174/25. 10.  ADBR 1 G 151. Strasbourg’s bishop and the city each had ownership over different parts of Marlenheim. See Wunder, Das Straßburger Landgebiet, 149–161. 11.  See, for example: Gavin I. Langmuir, Toward a Definition of Antisemitism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990); Ivan Marcus, Rituals of Childhood; Eva Frojmovic, ed., Imagining the Self, Imagining the Other: Visual Representation and Jewish-Christian Dynamics in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period, Cultures, Beliefs and Traditions 15 (Leiden: Brill, 2002); Yuval, Two Nations in Your Womb. 12.  Bucer, Judenratschlag; idem, Von der Juden. 13.  AMS III/174/33/1–2; AMS III/174/38/142–143; AMS/III/174/38/147–148. Imperial roads were not included in this decree. Isidore Loeb, “Les Juifs à Strasbourg depuis 1349 jusqu’à la Rèvolution,” 141. 14.  AMS III/174/33/1–2; AMS III/174/38/142–143; AMS III/174/38/147–148. 15.  Abray, People’s Reformation, 116–141; Kittelson, Toward an Established Church, 82–88. 16.  Abray and Kittelson provide different interpretations of how this came to be. For Abray, the composition of the city council led the magistrates to accept the clergy’s vision. By the 1590s, she argues, the council comprised men that had come of age by 1570, who strongly supported the vision of their Lutheran clerics. Kittelson does not see fundamental conflict between magistrates and clerics, but rather views this process as an evolution toward a more established church, which was sought by both magistrates and clerics. Abray, People’s Reformation, 142–158; Kittelson, Toward an Established Church, 165f. 17.  Chrisman, Lay Culture, Learned Culture, 236–247. 18.  KirchenOrdnung, wie es mit der Lehre Göttliches Worts und den Ceremonien. 19.  Ibid. 20.  The impact of confession building and Lutheran orthodoxy has been explored in the case of Hamburg by Jutta Braden, Hamburger Judenpolitik im Zeit­ alter lutherischer Orthodoxie. 21.  Der Statt Strasbourg PoliceÿOrdnungen. 22.  Ibid., Verzeichnis der Titel und Materien inn dieser PoliceÿOrdnung begriffen. 23.  Der Statt Strassburg PoliceÿOrdnung. 24.  Ibid., 1–8; 31f. 25.  Ibid., 3. 26.  Ibid., 5; 81f. 27.  Ibid., 14. 28.  Ibid., 84.

Notes to Chapter Five 29.  Ibid., 35. 30.  Ibid., 6f. 31.  Ibid., 41–56. 32.  Ibid., 66–71 33.  “Wie gar betrüglich, gewinnsüchtig, wucherlich und eigennützig die Juden in allen ihren und Contracten und Handlungen umbgehen.” AMS R 7 104–105. 34.  Der Statt Strassburg PoliceÿOrdnung, 66–67. 35.  Langmuir, Toward a History of Antisemitism; Miri Rubin, Gentile Tales: The Narrative Assault on Late Medieval Jews (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999). 36.  Debra Kaplan and Magda Teter, “Out of the Historiographic Ghetto: European Jews and Reformation Narratives.” See also Magda Teter, Sinners in Trial: Jews and Sacrilege after the Reformation, forthcoming from Harvard University Press. The relevant section is in chap. 5. I thank Teter for sharing this with me prior to publication. 37.  Martin Luther, Von der Juden und iren Lügen, WA 53, 417–552; idem, Von Schem Mephoras und von Geschlecht Christi, WA 53, 579–648; idem, Von Letzen Wortes Davids, WA 54, 28–200. For an English translation of On the Jews and Their Lies, see Martin Luther, “On the Jews and Their Lies,” trans. Martin H. Bertram, in Luther’s Works: The Christian in Society IV, vol. 47, ed. Helmut T. Lehmann (Philadelphia: Nuhelenberg Press, 1962), 121–306. 38.  AMS III/174/23. 39.  Ibid. 40.  This entire matter has been discussed by Hava Fraenkel-Goldschmidt, Joseph of Rosheim: Historical Writings, 374–390. This section includes her publication and Hebrew translation of Josel’s letter. 41.  AMS III/174/23. 42.  See Fraenkel-Goldschmidt, Joseph of Rosheim: Historical Writings, 374–390. 43.  Miriam Usher Chrisman, Bibliography of Strasbourg Imprints, 1480–1599 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982), 216. 44.  Robert W. Scribner, For the Sake of Simple Folk: Popular Propaganda for the German Reformation, Cambridge Studies in Oral and Literate Culture 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). On these early modern broadsheets, see Walter L. Strauss, The German Single-Leaf Woodcut, 1550–1600, vol. 1 (New York: Abaris Books, 1975), 1–9. 45.  Heinrich Schrötter von Weissenburg, Ettliche wenige: On wider sprechliche Ertzbübe[n]stücke der von Gott verblendten Juden in gemein (Strasbourg: Thiebolt Berger, 1563). 46.  Ibid., 8–9. 47.  Ibid., 7. 48.  Ibid., 7–8. 49.  Ibid., 11–13. 50.  Ibid., 14.

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Notes to Chapter Five 51.  Ibid., 16–23. 52.  Ibid., 24–25. 53.  Chrisman, Lay Culture, Learned Culture, 260; Strauss, German Single-Leaf Woodcut, 1:105. 54.  See Paul Tanner, “Zeittafeln zur Biographie von Tobias Stimmer,” in Spätrenaissance am Oberrhein: Tobias Stimmer, 1539–1584, ed. D. Koepplin and P. Tanner (Basel: Kunstmuseum Basel, 1984), 33–34; August Stolberg, Tobias Stimmer. Sein Leben und seine Werke mit Beiträgen zur Geschichte der deutschen Glasmalerei im sechzehenten Jahrhundert (Strasbourg: Heitz & Mündel, 1901), 1–56; Strauss, German Single-Leaf Woodcut, 3:985–987. 55.  Ecclesia und Synagoga. Das Judentum in der christlichen Kunst. Ausstellungskatalog, Alte Synagoge Essen, Regionalgeschichtliches Museum Saarbrücken, ed. Herbert Jochum (Essen, 1993); Heinz Schreckenberg, The Jews in Christian Art: An Illustrated History (New York: Continuum, 1996), 31–74. The statues from Strasbourg’s cathedral are reproduced on 47. 56.  Reproduced in Spätrenaissance am Oberrhein, Nrs. 147–148 (Abb. 14–15); Walter L. Strauss, Chiaroscuro: The Clair-Obscur Woodcuts by the German and Netherlandish Masters of the XVIth and XVIIth Centuries (Greenwich, CT: New York Graphic Society, 1973), 136–138; Strauss, German Single-Leaf Woodcut, 10011002; Schreckenberg, Jews in Christian Art, 48. On Jobin, see Strauss, German Single-Leaf Woodcut, 459. 57.  See the catalog description in Spätrenaissance am Oberrhein, 253. 58.  On Fischart see Adolf Hauffen, Johann Fischart. Ein Liuteraturbild aus der Zeit der Gegenreformation (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1921). For his work with Stimmer and Jobin, see 1:44f., 2:160f. 59.  Dasselbige blut das blendet mich (Strasbourg: Bernard Jobin, 1572). Strauss provides a rhymed, but inaccurate, translation. See Strauss, Chiaroscuro, 136–139. 60.  Dasselbige blut das blendet mich. 61.  Chrisman, Lay Culture, Learned Culture, 265–269. On the parameters for using confessionalization to discuss literature, see Ute Lotz-Humann and ­Matthias Pohlig, “Confessionalization and Literature in the Empire, 1550–1700,” Central European History 40 (2007): 35–61. 62.  Wandel, Voracious Idols and Violent Hands. 63.  The anti-Catholic reading of the cathedral’s icons can also be seen in some of Johann Fischart’s other work. In 1576, for example, he composed a text in which he satirized some of the stone art found in the cathedral by claiming that some of the figures, including priests and the pope, were actually animals. Hugo Sommer­ halder, Johann Fischarts Werk. Eine Einführung, Quellen und Forschungen zur Sprach- und Kulturgeschichte der germanischen Völker 4 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1960), 108–109. 64.  The two often worked together at Jobin’s shop in the 1570s. Hauffen, ­Johann Fischart, 2:160f. On Stimmer’s moralistic artwork, which generally accom-

Notes to Chapter Five panied Fischart’s text, see Gisela Bucer, “Stimmer als Moralist—Bermerkungen zu einigen Holzschnitten in Fischarts ‘Geschichtsklitterung,’” Spätrenaissance am Oberrhein, 274–286. The woodcut has been reproduced in Strauss, German SingleLeaf Woodcut, 1:462; Schreckenberg, Jews in Christian Art, 298. For a brief discussion of the woodcut, see Hauffen, Johann Fischart, 2:5–7. 65.  Isaiah Shachar, The Judensau: A Medieval Anti-Jewish Motif and Its History, Warburg Institute Surveys 5 (London: Warburg Institute, University of London, 1974); Schreckenberg, Jews in Christian Art, 331–337. 66.  The genre of monstrous birth literature was popular in early modern Germany. Chrisman, Lay Culture, Learned Culture, 263; 370n4. Walter Strauss cites two analyses that relay the popularity of this literature. In one study of 420 broadsheets, 84 (or 20%) dealt with the subject of abnormal births. Strauss, German Single-Leaf Woodcut, 1:5–7. 67.  Shachar, Judensau, 57. 68.  Fischart, Ain gewisse Wunderzeitung von einer Schwangeren Judin zu Binzwangen (Strasbourg, 1575). 69.  Shachar, Judensau, 43–52. 70.  Fischart, Ain gewisse Wunderzeitung von einer Schwangeren Judin zu Binzwangen. 71.  See for example the woodcuts that accompanied Johannes Pfefferkorn’s polemical ethnographies, in which the Jews fulfill their rituals while wearing blindfolds. 72.  On antisemitic artwork in Alsace, see Freddy Raphael, “Juifs et sorcières dans l’Alsace médiévale,” Revue des Sciences Sociales de la France de l’Est 3 (1974): 69–106. 73.  One such book, published in Strasbourg in 1506 and illustrated by Urs Graf, depicted the Jews in contemporary garb, cementing the connection between Jews and the crucifixion. Chrisman, Lay Culture, Learned Culture, 115–120. See the plates reproduced there. 74.  The text illustrated by Urs Graf mentioned in the above note is an example of earlier published material depicting Jews. However, the depiction of Jews in contemporary garb was incidental, unlike the aforementioned antisemitic broadsheets, which were explicitly building on antisemitic imagery. 75.  The distinction between lay and learned readers in Strasbourg, and between Latin and vernacular texts is explored extensively in Chrisman, Lay and Learned Culture. 76.  Mack P. Holt, “The Social History of the Reformation: Recent Trends and Future Agendas,” Journal of Social History 37, no. 1 (2003): 140. 77.  Müller, Judaismus, 1443. 78.  Bucer’s Cassel Advice also contained vituperative language about the Jews. For reformers such as Bucer, who were charged with defining an ideal Protestant society, establishing boundaries with Jews was just as critical as it was during the

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Notes to Chapters Five and Six era of confession building. The overall shift in Jewish-Christian relations in Strasbourg is seen much more clearly through changes in policies formulated and implemented by lay leaders such as the magistrates, including harsher laws and more leniency with regard to censorship of antisemitic materials. It should be recalled that Philip of Hesse rejected Bucer’s advice; it was only in the age of confession building, when religion and politics were used together to forge identity, that actual conditions on the ground changed for the Jews in Alsace. In Strasbourg specifically, these changes began with the dawning of orthodoxy in the 1570s. 79.  Müller, Judaismus, 1445. 80.  See the discussion in chapter 4. 81.  Leonard, Nails in the Wall, 85f. 82.  See Derksen, From Radicals to Survivors. 83.  Abray, People’s Reformation, 140–141. Abray claims that the clergy opposed these theological compromises. Kittelson disagrees, pointing to the “episodic” support of freedom of conscience on the part of the clergy, so long as the dissent was private, and not public. See Kittelson, Toward an Established Church, especially 256n3. Either reading is consistent with the idea that the magistrates also weighed nonreligious factors into their policies. 84.  Abray, “Confession, Conscience and Honor,” 94–107. 85.  See Kittelson’s characterization of the “uncommon approach to what was to be called freedom of religion.” Kittelson, Toward an Established Church, 252. 86.  The common people often did not discern the deep theological rifts between different confessions. In Strasbourg, the fact that Protestant families still sent their daughters to former convents illustrates this point clearly. Leonard, Nails on the Wall, 85–106. For a comparison of some of the beliefs of Strasbourg’s laity, both common folk and magistrates, with clerical dogma, see Abray, People’s Reformation, 163–208. In the early stages of the Reformation in Augsburg, people often attended a variety of services. See Michele Zelinsky Hanson, Religious Identity in an Early Reformation Community: Augsburg, 1517–1555, Studies in Central European Histories 45 (Leiden: Brill, 2008). 87.  See chapter 4. 88.  On the Netherlands, see Israel, European Jews in the Age of Mercantilism, 35–52.

Chapter Six 1.  Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1964); Michael Signer, “Peshat, Sensus Literalis, and Sequential Narrative: Jewish Exegesis and the School of St. Victor in the Twelfth Century,” in The Frank Talmage Memorial Volume 1, ed. Barry Walfish (Haifa: Haifa University Press, 1993), 203–216.

Notes to Chapter Six 2.  See Deeana Copeland Klepper, The Insight of Unbelievers: Nicholas of Lyra and Christian Reading of Jewish Text in the Later Middle Ages, Jewish Culture and Contexts (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007); Herman Hailperin, Rashi and the Christian Scholars (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1963), 137–145. 3.  For a recent anthology on early modern Christian Hebraism, see Hebraica Veritas? Christian Hebraists and the Study of Judaism in Early Modern Europe. 4.  Chaim Wirszubski, Pico Della Mirandola’s Encounter with Jewish Mysticism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989); Moshe Idel, “The Anthropology of Yohanan Alemanno: Sources and Influences,” Topoi 7, no. 3 (1988): 201–210; idem, “Jewish Magic from the Renaissance Period to Early Hasidism,” in Religion, Science and Magic: In Concert and in Conflict, ed. Jacob Neuser, Ernest S. Frerichs, and Paul V. McCracken Flesher (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 82– 117; idem, “Jewish Kabbalah and Platonism in the Middle Ages and Renaissance,” in Neoplatonism and Jewish Thought, ed. Lenn E. Goodman, Studies in Neoplatonism 7 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), 319–351. 5.  Francis X. Martin, Friar, Reformer, and Renaissance Scholar: Life and Work of Giles of Viterbo, 1469–1532, Augustinian Series 18 (Villanova, PA: Augustinian Press, 1992). 6.  On Christian Hebraism in the Empire, see Ludwig Geiger, Das Studium der Hebraïschen Sprache in Deutschland vom Ende des XV. bis zur Mitte des XVI. Jahrhunderts (Breslau: Schletter, 1870); Jerome Friedman, “Sebastian Munster, the Jewish Mission and Protestant Anti-Semitism,” Archiv fur Reformationgeschichte 70 (1979): 238–259; Eric Zimmer, “Jewish and Christian Hebraist Collaboration in Sixteenth Century Germany,” JQR 71 (1981): 69–88; Friedman, The Most Ancient Testimony: Sixteenth-Century Christian-Hebraica in the Age of Renaissance Nostalgia (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1983); Heiko Oberman, “Discovery of Hebrew and Discrimination against the Jews: The Veritas Hebraica as a ­Double-Edged Sword in Renaissance and Reformation,” in Germania Illustrata, ed. Fix and Karant-Nunn, 19–34; Stephen Burnett, “Distorted Mirrors: Anthonius Margaritha, Johann Buxtorf and Christian Ethnographies of the Jews,” Sixteenth Century Journal 25 (1994): 275–287; idem, “Christian Hebrew Printing”; idem, “Reassessing the ‘Basel-­ Wittenberg Conflict.’” For other studies of Christian Hebraism in this period, see Aaron L. Katchen, Christian Hebraists and Dutch Rabbis: Seventeenth Century Apologetics and the Study of Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, Harvard Judaic Texts and Studies 3 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies, 1984); James Kugel, “The Bible in the University,” in The Hebrew Bible and Its Interpreters, ed. William Henry Propp, Baruch Halpern, and David Noel Friedman, Biblical and Judaic Studies 1 (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 143–165; Frank Edward Manuel, The Broken Staff: Judaism through Christian Eyes (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992); Jewish Christians and Christian Jews: From the ­R enaissance to the Enlightenment, ed. Richard Popkin and Gordon M. Weiner (Dordrecht:

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Notes to Chapter Six ­ luwer Academic Publishers, 1994); Stephen G. Burnett, From Christian HebraK ism to Jewish Studies: Johannes Buxtorf I (1564–1629) and Hebrew Learning in the Seventeenth Century, Studies in the History of Christian Thought 68 (Leiden: Brill, 1996); Allison Coudert, The Impact of the Kabbalah in the Seventeenth Century: The Life and Thought of Francis Mercury Van Helmont (1614–1698) (Leiden: Brill, 1999); Adam Sutcliffe, “Hebrew Texts and Protestant Readers: Christian Hebraism and Denominational Self-Definition,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 7, no. 4 (2000): 319–337. 7.  Wolfgang Capito, one of Strasbourg’s reformers, was warned against using too much rabbinic material in his works by his friend and fellow reformer, Conrad Pellican. See R. Gerald Hobbs, “Monitio Amicae: P. à Capiton sur le danger des lectures rabbinique,” in Horizons européens de la réforme en Alsace. Mélange offerts à Jean Rott, ed. Marijn de Kroon and Marc Lienhard (Strasbourg: Librarie Istra, 1980), 81–93. 8.  BNUS Ms. 286, fol. 6v. 9.  Much of the documentation of this controversy has been published in Erika Rummel, The Case against Johann Reuchlin: Religious and Social Controversy in Sixteenth-Century Germany (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002). On Pfefferkorn, see Hava Fraenkel-Goldschmidt, “On the Periphery of Jewish Society: Jewish Converts to Christianity in Germany during the Reformation,” in Culture and Society in Medieval Jewry: Studies Dedicated to the Memory of Haim Hillel Ben Sasson, ed. Menachem Ben Sasson, Reuven Bonfil, and Joseph Hacker (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 1989), 623–654 [Hebrew]. On Reuchlin’s antisemitism see Heiko Oberman, “Three Sixteenth-Century Attitudes towards Judaism: Reuchlin, Erasmus and Luther,” in Jewish Thought in the Sixteenth Century, ed. Bernard Dov Cooperman, Texts and Studies 2 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983), 326–364. 10.  Wolfgang Capito, Hebraicarum institutionum libri duo (Basileae: Frobenium, 1518); idem, In Habakuk Prophetam (Strasbourg: Vuolphium Cephalaeum, 1526); ­Johannes Oecolapmadius, In Prophetam Ezechielem Commentarium per D.  Ioan. Oecolampadii per Vuolfgangus Capionem dictum (Argentorati: Apiarius, 1534); idem, In Jeremiam Prophetam Commentariorum (Geneva: E Typographia Crispiniana, 1558). 11.  Wolfgang Capito, Hexameron Opus Dei explicatum (Argentoratum: Vuendelium Rihelium, 1539), 28–31. These references further suggest that the 1570 list of books found in Strasbourg’s library, discussed below, contained many volumes from Capito’s collection, as all of these volumes can be found on that list. 12.  For a recent study see R. Gerald Hobbs, “Bucer, the Jews and Judaism.” 13.  Elijah Levita, Opusculum recens Hebraicum a doctissimo Hebraeo Eliia ­Levita Germano grammatico elaboratum, cui titulum fecit [Tishbi], id est, Thisbites: in quo 712. vocum, qu[a]e sunt partim Hebraic[a]e, Chaldaicae, Arabic[a]e, Gr[a]ecae & Latinae (Isny: Paul Fagius, 1542); Paul Fagius, Compendiara Isagoge in Lingua Hebream (Constantiae, Paul Fagius, 1543); David Kimhi, Commentarium Hebraicum Rabbi David Kimhi, In Decem Primos Psalmos Davidicos, Cum versione latina

Notes to Chapter Six è regione, pro exercitamento omnibus hebraicae linguae studiosis, quibus ad legenda Hebaeorù commentaria animus est (Constantiae: Paul Fagius, 1544); Paul Fagius, Thargum, hoc est, Paraphrasis Onkeli chaldaica in Sacra Biblia (Strasbourg: Georgium ­Machaeropoeum, 1546); idem, Perush ha-milot ‘al derekh ha-peshat ­le-‘arba simanim, sefer Bereshit: id est, Exegesis sive expositio dictionum hebraicarum literalis & simplex, in quatuor capita Geneseos, pro studiosis linguae hebraicae (Isny: Paul Fagius, 1542). 14.  On using Judeo-German or Yiddish as a tactic to facilitate conversion, see Aya Elyada, “Language of Conversion? Linguistic Adaptation and Its Limits in Early Modern Judenmission,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 53 (2008): 3–29. 15.  Martin Bucer, Strassburger Gesangbuch (Strasbourg, 1541). 16.  Hobbs, “How Firm a Foundation?,” 477–479. 17.  Aretius Felinus, S. Psalmorum Libri Quinque Ad Hebraicam Veritas Versi, Et Familiari Explanatione Elucidati (Argentorati: Georgio Ulrichero Andlano Chalcographo, 1529). 18.  For a history of the gymnasium, see Pierre Schang, Histore du gymnase de Jean Sturm, berceau de l’université de Strasbourg, 1538–1988 (Strasbourg: Oberlin, 1988); Anton Schindling, Humanistische Hochschule und freie Reichsstadt. Gymnasium u. Akademie in Strassburg 1538–1621 (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1977). 19.  Brady, Protestant Politics, 116–125. 20.  Schang, Histoire du gymnase Jean Sturm, 26–27. 21.  Immanuel Tremellius and Francis Junio, Biblia Sacra: Sive Testamentum Vetus (Amstelaedami: Ioannis Blaev, 1651); Jean Calvin, Hinukh: Hoc est Catechesis: Sive Prima Institutio Aut Rudimenta Religionis Christianæ, Ebraicè, Græcè, & Latinè explicata, trans. Immanuel Tremellius (Lugduni Batavorvm: Ex Officina Plantiniana, Apud Franciscum Raphelengium, 1591). As a convert, Tremellius’ Hebrew skills were strong, and this translation was used to attract Jewish converts to Calvinism. 22.  The appropriateness of this practice was debated by contemporary rabbis. See D. Kaufmann, “Elia Menahem Chalfan on Jews Teaching Hebrew to NonJews,” JQR 9, no. 3 (1897): 500–508; Zimmer, “Jewish and Christian Hebraist Collaboration.” 23.  James M. Kittelson, Wolfgang Capito: From Humanist to Reformer, Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought 17 (Leiden: Brill, 1975). 24.  For an analysis of Caspar Hedio’s views on the Jews and on Judaism, see John W. Kleiner, The Attitude of the Strasbourg Reformers towards Jews and Judaism, Ph.D. dissertation, Temple University, 1978. 25.  Friedman, Most Ancient Testimony; Gérard E. Weil, Élie Lévita, Humaniste et Massorète, 1469–1549 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1963). For a discussion of Fagius’ inclusion as a member of the first generation of reformers, see Kleiner, The Attitudes of the Strasbourg Reformers. 26.  Zimmer, “Jewish and Christian Hebraist Collaboration.” Zimmer identifies Wolf as the brother of R. Samuel ben Eliezer Mi’sai, the rabbi of Worms. See 78n24.

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Notes to Chapter Six 27.  1 AST 100/1. 28.  That this document had this potential is evident from the somewhat later accompanying transliteration into Latin characters found in the dossier, in which slash marks in the German text denote where each line of Judeo-German stopped and started. 29.  Although Fagius was interested in Judeo-German, it seems unlikely that he would have written this oath and transliteration, especially since he had the material from his Judeo-German translation of the Pentateuch. 30.  Elijah Levita, Opusculum recens Hebraicum. On Fagius’ print shop, see A. M. Habermann, “The Press of Paul Fagius and the Books of His Print Shop,” reprinted in his Studies in the History of Hebrew Printers and Books (Jerusalem: ­Reuven Mas, 1978), 149–166 [Hebrew]. 31.  Eric Zimmer, “Hebrew Letters of Two Sixteenth Century German Humanists,” REJ 141 (1982): 379–386. 32.  Zimmer, “Jewish and Christian Hebraist Collaboration,” 84. 33.  Burnett, “Christian Hebrew Printing”; idem, “Reassessing the ‘Basel-­ Wittenberg Conflict.’” 34.  AMS III/174/23. Published in the original German and in Hebrew translation in Joseph of Rosheim: Historical Writings, 376–390. The Toldot Yeshu referred to here was probably a manuscript, as the entire text had not been published at this point. It is also possible that Capito had read one of the published excerpts of Toldot Yeshu, such as the 1520 passage published by Pocheto Salvaticus, copied from Martini’s Pugio Fidei, and used by Martin Luther. The excerpt was probably not from Alonso de Espina’s Fortalitium Fidei, as that had been published in Strasbourg, and Capito would not have required a copy from Constantinople. I thank Yaacov Deutsch for his help with Toldot Yeshu texts. 35.  AMS III/174/23. 36.  See the discussion of the letter to Pellican later on in this chapter. 37.  Fagius, Precationes Hebraicae: quibus in solennioribus festis, Iudaei, cum mensae accumbunt, adhuc hodie utuntur, & quo modo, ordine & ritu eas dicant, ex quo videre licet vestigia quaedam, ritus veteris populi, quem & Christus salvator noster in sacrosancta coena sua, ut eam Evangelistae, praesertim Lucas describunt, in quibusdam observavit. Parvus item Tractatulus, ex libello Hebraico excerptus cui nomen est, Sefer emunah, id est, Liber fidei, a doctor quodam Iudaeo, sed ad Christianismum converso (Isnae: Fagius, 1542), preface, 2–3. See the discussion in Friedman, The Most Ancient Testimony, 102–106. 38.  Fagius, Perush ha-milot, 116–117. 39.  Hobbs, “How Firm the Foundation?,” 488. 40.  Paul Fagius, Compendiarum Isagoge. 41.  Capito also used Hebraism in other polemics. He discussed the Anabaptists, the difficulties which he had with the pope, and the theology of the Eucharist in his commentary on Hosea 9:8–9. The verses read: “Speculatorem Ephraim,

Notes to Chapter Six cum Deo meo Prophetam laqueum offendiculi super omnes vias suas, odium in domo Dei sui. In imum defixerunt, corruperunt sicut aetate Gibbea, recordabatur iniquitatis eourum, peccata eorum visitabit.” See Capito, Hoseam, 177–178. For a discussion of Capito’s initial sympathy toward Anabaptists, see Kittelson, Wolfgang Capito, 176–177. 42.  Erika Rummel, ed., The Correspondence of Wolfgang Capito, vol. 2, 1524–1531 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009). Copyright University of Toronto Press Inc. 2009. Reprinted with permission of the publisher. I thank Rummel for sharing this letter and her translation with me prior to its publication, and I thank Stephen Burnett for putting us in touch. This excerpt is from 378. 43.  Correspondence of Wolfgang Capito, 378. 44.  Ibid., 380. 45.  Jacob ben Asher, Arba‘ah Turim, 7 vols. (Jerusalem: Me’orot, 1976), Yoreh de‘ah 339. In her edition, Rummel has mistakenly conflated the Tur with the ­Kitzur shulhan ‘arukh. The correct reference is to the Tur. 46.  The use of egg and wine is found in R. Moses Isserles’ commentary to the Shulhan ‘arukh. See his commentary on Yoreh de‘ah, 352. 47.  I thank Stephen Burnett for the reference to the book list. Burnett explained that while Bucer, Fagius, and Tremellius were able to take their personal libraries with them upon their exile in 1549, Capito’s collection may very well have passed into the library. Capito’s citation of these works suggests that this was the case. 48.  The original letter has been published in Zwingliana 2, no. 12 (1910): 381. See also Christoph Zürcher, Konrad Pellikans Wirken in Zürich, 1526–1556, Zürcher Beiträge zur Reformationsgeschichte 4 (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 1975), 169. See also Christoph Zürcher, Konrad Pellikans Wirken in Zürich, 169. I thank Stephen Burnett for this reference. 49.  Correspondence of Wolfgang Capito, 380. 50.  Ibid., 382. 51.  Tractate Semahot, chapter 12, halakha 10. 52.  Sanctus Pagninus was a sixteenth-century Dominican Hebraist. Capito is undoubtedly referring to hesitations about conferring with Catholic texts. 53.  Zwingliana 2, no. 12 (1910): 381. 54.  Josel of Rosheim and Raphael Wolf of Hagenau clearly had the skills necessary to help him. 55.  A tallit would not be made of linen. This is another example of the errors in Capito’s letter. 56.  Correspondence of Wolfgang Capito, 381. 57.  PT Kila’im 9:3 (32a–b). 58.  Jacob b. Asher, arba‘ah turim, yoreh de‘ah 352, where several Talmudic statements concerning the material, expense, and color of shrouds are recounted. Moreover, Capito’s assumption that Jews wished to be buried in a tallit with an

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Notes to Chapter Six eye toward resurrection was erroneous. The Tur, which he clearly did not read thoroughly, records that a tallit was to be draped over the deceased, and also notes the custom of cutting off the ritual fringes, which was intended to symbolize that the deceased could no longer fulfill commandments. This was a ritual filled with the symbolic meaning of death, and not resurrection. See sefer Arba‘ah turim yoreh de‘ah 351. 59.  Correspondence of Wolfgang Capito, 379. 60.  Capito reads the text as rabbi. It refers to a scholar who was named Rebbi. 61.  Correspondence of Wolfgang Capito, 384. 62.  Jacob b. Asher, Arba‘ah turim, yoreh de‘ah, 362. 63.  Correspondence of Wolfgang Capito, 384. 64.  The Tur recounts an ancient custom of burying the corpse in the earth, allowing the flesh to decompose, and later collecting and placing the bones in a coffin. As an ancient custom, this should have been of particular interest to Capito. Arba‘ah turim, yoreh de‘ah 362. 65.  Correspondence of Wolfgang Capito, 379. 66.  Ibid., 381. 67.  For Farel’s response, see Rummel, The Correspondence of Wolfgang Capito, 384–386. 68.  Capito, Hexaemeron, 66–68; 70–78. 69.  Hobbs, “How Firm a Foundation?” 70.  The major sources for biographical data of Strasbourg’s professors are: ­Oscar Berger-Levrault, Annales des professeurs des académies et universités alsaciennes: 1523–1871 (Nancy: Imprimérie Berger-Levrault, 1892); Edouard Sitzmann, Dictionnaire de biographie des hommes célèbres de l’Alsace depuis les temps les plus reculés jusq’uà nos jours (Rixheim: F. Sutter, 1909); Marie-Joseph Bopp, Die Evangelischen Gemeinden und Hohen Schulen in Elsass und Lothringen von der Reformation bis zur Gegenwart (Neustadt: Verlag Degener, 1965); Nouveau dictionnaire du biographie ­alsacienne (Strasbourg: Fédération des Sociétés d’Histoire et d’Archéologie d’Alsace, 1982–2006). See the specific entries for each professor. 71.  Schang, Histoire du Gymnase, 99. 72.  Abray, People’s Reformation, 242–244. 73.  Peter T. Van Rooden, Theology, Biblical Scholarship and Rabbinic Studies in the Seventeenth Century (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1989). 74.  Capito had died before this, in 1541. 75.  See Abray, People’s Reformation, for a discussion of how understanding the Reformation in Strasbourg depends on dividing the city’s reformers and clerics generationally. 76.  1 AST 353/1. Also see Weil, Élie Levita, 149–151. 77.  I thank Stephen Burnett for this reference. He has published some of the Aramaic holdings in “Christian Aramaism: The Birth and Growth of Aramaic Scholarship in the Sixteenth Century,” in Seeking Out the Wisdom of the Ancients:

Notes to Chapter Six Essays Offered to Honor Michael V. Fox on the Occasion of His Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. Ronald L. Troxel, Kelvin G. Friebel, and Dennis R. Magary (Winona Lake, IN: Eidenbrauns, 2005), 435. The entire list has been published in Rummel, Correspondence of Wolfgang Capito, 499–501. 78.  Chrisman, Lay Culture, Learned Culture, 236–239. Chrisman refers directly to Johann Marbach and Johannes Pappus. Like most other professors of Hebrew at Strasbourg, Pappus was both a theologian and a Hebraist. 79.  There is extensive literature on confessionalization. Several good examples which either summarize or introduce this paradigm include Po-Chia Hsia, Social Discipline in the Reformation; Reinhard, “Zwang zur Konfessionalisierung. Prologomena zu einer Theorie des konfessionellen zeitalter”; idem, “Reformation, Counter Reformation and the Early Modern State: A Reassessment”; Schilling, “Confessionalization in the Empire: Religious and Societal Change in Germany between 1555 and 1620.” As recent work has demonstrated, the confessionalization paradigm cannot be applied in its entirety to Strasbourg, since religious identity was not solely top-down, and since the magistrates often balanced their attempts to build confession with opting to tolerate dissent rather than to strictly enforce confessionally appropriate behavior. I have therefore opted to use the term “confession building,” rather than confessionalization. For critiques of confessionalization, see Marc Forster, Catholic Revival in the Age of the Baroque; Po-Chia Hsia, Social Discipline in the Reformation; Leonard, Nails on the Wall, 9–11. 80.  This is not to say that social discipline was not present in the earlier generation. To the contrary, Martin Bucer’s writings are often pointed to as early examples of social discipline. However, the quest of protecting, rather than solely defining, Protestant identity became more common during the second half of the sixteenth century, as the city’s people and clergy moved toward Lutheranism and away from Swiss-influenced positions, and as institutions such as the university and city-run programs flourished. 81.  Der Statt Strassburg PoliceÿOrdnung. 82.  There is a parallel between Strasbourg in the age of confessionalization and other parts of Europe. Adam Sutcliffe notes that the study of Hebrew was strongest in Elizabethan England, the Dutch Republic, and in Calvinist circles, where theologico-political identities were being forged. See Adam Sutcliffe, Judaism and Enlightenment, Ideas in Context 66 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 26–27. 83.  Gustav Knod, Die Alten Matrikeln der U. Strassburg, 1621–1793: Urkunden und Akten mit Ünterstützung der Landes-und der Stadt-Verwaltung, Dritte Abteilung (Strasbourg: Karl J. Trübner, 1897); Matricula Schola Argentoratensis, 1621–1721: publiée par un groupe de proffeseurs de l’ècole a l’occasion de son 4 centennaire (Strasbourg: Editions Fides, 1935).

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Notes to Chapter Six 84.  This data is preserved due to an anomaly in the records. In 1621–1622, attendance rosters for individual classes were kept in addition to matriculation records. The practice of taking attendance in each course was abandoned in 1622, when one centralized figure kept matriculation records for the entire university. 85.  The only books dedicated to the Bible, rather than grammar, were of a completely different nature. Johannes Pappus wrote a German history about the Israelite kings and prophets, which he claimed was relevant to contemporary German politics. This book contained no explicit Hebraism. I refer to it here simply because Pappus cast it in a Hebraist light, despite its lack of Hebrew or explicitly Jewish content. See Johannes Pappus, Annales Regum et Prophetarum Populi Judaici & Israelitici: das ist historische Beschreibung aller König und Propheten im Volck Gottes (Johannis Cratonis, 1581). Elias Schadeus also translated sections of the New Testament and messianic prophecies from the Old Testament into Judeo-German in an explicit attempt to convert the Jews. This work is discussed below in n99. 86.  David Kyber, Lexicon rei herbariae trilinguae (Argentinesis: Rihelius, 1553); idem, De Re Grammaticae Hebreae Linguae Libri Tres (Basileae Petri, 1592); Elias Schadeus, Grammatica Hebrae linguae ex optimis quibisque authoribus hebraeis et Latinis (1591) as cited in Nouveau Dictionnaire, 33:3387–3388; Henning Oldendorf, Programma de Linguae Hebraea necessitate et utilitate, as cited in Nouveau Dictionnaire, nos. 26–30, 2906; Friedrich Blackenburg, Grammatica linguae sanctae per quaestiones et responsiones composita (Strassburg, 1625). See BN Ms. X 6198. 87.  Kyber, De Re Grammaticae, 1–150. 88.  Ibid., 152–219. 89.  Ibid., Meditationes Grammaticae in Lamentationum Hieremiae, 1–381. 90.  Ibid., Ad Lectorem, fols. 4v–5r. 91.  Commentarivm David Kimhi, Ad Lectorem. This is printed on an unpaginated folio, the equivalent of which would be 66. 92.  Ibid., 6-7. 93.  Antonio Reuchlin, Lukhot: Hoc est Tabulae Viginti, Institutiones in Linguam Sanctam Absolutas Complectentes, Ex Selectissimis Hebreorum Grammaticis, Praesertim ex libris, quos de re Grammatica scripsit Elias Levitas Judaeus Germanus, collectae, ut facile[] is qui viva praeceptoris vice destituitor, suo ipsius ductu, rem Grammaticam discere posit (Basel, 1554). 94.  Ibid., title page. Reuchlin’s other major work, a translation of the dictionary Sefer Yair Nativ, was a completion of Fagius’ preliminary work on this text. This also underscores the influence of the first-generation Hebraists’ work on the second generation. Antonio Reuchlin, Sefer Yair Nativ Concordantiarum Hebraicarum Capita Quae sunt de Vocum Expositionibus a doctissimo Hebraeo Rabbi Mardochai Nathan, ante CIC annos conscripta, nunc vero in gratiam Theologiae candidatorum, ac Linguae Sanctae studiosorum, ad verbum translata (Basil: Heinrichen Petri, 1554).

Notes to Chapter Six 95.  Reuchlin, Lukhot: Hoc est Tabulae Viginti, 8. 96.  Ibid. These begin after 55. 97.  Ibid., 2. 98.  Like Kyber’s text on Lamentations, the choice of Psalms as material for a grammatical exercise was pragmatic, as Psalms was a text that would be familiar to the theology students enrolled in Strasbourg’s academy from their ritual life. 99.  This was true for Strasbourg. In the neighboring village of Altdorff, however, the convert Johann Georgius Schaff taught Hebrew in 1645. See AMS V, 39, 40. For missionary materials, see Elias Schadeus, Mysterium, in which he published translations of various excerpts from the Old and New Testament in JudeoGerman, accompanied by his missionary sermons and a preface comprising a tenpoint letter explaining the reasons for believing in Christ. The translations were likely not his own, and were culled from Fagius’ translation. See Weil, Élie Levita, 151, who cites an unknown statement by Schadeus, crediting Levita and Fagius for translating the bible into Judeo-German. Schadeus converted two Jews in 1581: Josheyl bar Mardochei, baptized as Michael Christenn, and Susanna, whose Jewish name is not recorded. Kirchenbuch, Alt Saint Peter, Taufen. Schadeus’ personal enthusiasm for Hebraism can be seen in the record of his son Hosea’s baptism in 1586, which Schadeus documented in both Latin and Hebrew characters. See Kirchenbuch, Alt Saint Peter, Taufen. 100.  Elias Schadeus, Oratio de Linguae Sanctae Origine, Progresivi et Varia Fortuna, ad nostrum usque Saeculum (Academia Argentinensi, 1591). On Schadeus, also see Wilhelm Horning, Magister Elias Schadäus, Pfarrer an der Alt-St. Peterkirche, Professor der Theologie und Münsterprediger zu Strassburg. Beitrag zur Geschichte der lutherischen Judenmission in Strassburg (16. Jahrhundert) (Leipzig: Akademische Buch­handlung, 1892). Salo Baron claims that Schadeus was a convert. See Baron, Social and Religious History of the Jews, 13:40. However, none of the other biographers of Alsatians, such as Bopp, Berger-Levrault, or Sitzmann, share this claim. Indeed, given Schadeus’ heavy reliance on Fagius for his Judeo-German works, and given that some of his attempts to convert Jews, such as his emulation of converts, showed ignorance of Jewish attitudes toward conversion, I would argue that this claim is erroneous. 101.  Müller, Judaismus, 1449. I thank Stephen Burnett for the reference to ­Judaismus. 102.  Ibid., 1448–1449. 103.  The christianization of Hebraism extended to Jewish texts as well. The work of Balthasar Scheid, an honors theology student who went on to become a professor of logic, Greek, and Hebrew, exemplifies this trend. Scheid’s magnum opus was his Novum Testamentum ex Talmude et Antiquitabus Hebraeorum Illustratum, in which he traced references to and attributes of Jesus in the Talmud. The text is not polemical. Indeed, he presented the Talmud as a corroboration of

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Notes to Chapters Six and Seven the New Testament narrative of Jesus, rather than as a text that fundamentally opposed this construction of Jesus as messiah. The appropriation of the Talmud as a Christian text is further evidence of the de-Judaization of Hebrew and even Judaic material. Balthasar Scheid, Novum Testamentum ex Talmude et Antiquitabus Hebraeorum Illustratum Curis Clarisssimorum Virorum (Lipsiae: Joh. Frid. Barunii, 1736). 104.  Yaakov Deutsch, “‘A View of the Jewish Religion’: Conceptions of Jewish Practice and Ritual in Early Modern Europe,” Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 3 (2000): 273–295; idem, “Polemical Ethnographies: Descriptions of Yom Kippur in the Writings of Christian Hebraists and Jewish Converts to Christianity in Early Modern Europe,” Hebraica Veritas?, 202–233. 105.  In addition to Deutsch, see Ronnie Po-Chia Hsia, “Christian Ethnographies of Jews in Early Modern Germany,” in The Expulsion of the Jews, 1492 and After, ed. Raymond B. Waddington and Arthur H. Williamson (New York: Garland, 1994), 223–235. Note the critical addition of the term “polemical” inserted by Deutsch. See also Burnett, From Christian Hebraism to Jewish Studies. For a discussion of the competition between Hebraists and converts, see Elisheva Carlebach, Divided Souls. On Christiani, also see Carlebach, “Converts and Their Narratives in Early Modern Germany: The Case of Friedrich Albrecht Christiani,” Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook 40 (1995): 65–83. For a discussion of the artwork that sometimes accompanied these ethnographies, see Shalom Sabar, “The Image of the Jewish Wedding in the Eyes of Eighteenth Century German Hebraists” (http://www .earlymodern.org/citation.php?citKey=31&docKey=p [accessed July 15, 2008]). 106.  See for example Johann Buxtorf, Synagoga Judaica: de Judaeorum fide, ­ritibus, ceremoniis, tam publicis & sacris, quàm privatis, in domestica vivendi ratione (Basileae: Sumptibus authoris, apud Johan. Jacobum Deckerum, 1661). The works of sixteenth-century converts such as Johannes Pfefferkorn, Victor von Carben, and Antonius Margaritha also mock Jewish rituals. See Carlebach, Divided Souls, 179–182. 107.  This data is based on entries for each professor from Berger-Levrault, ­Annales des professeurs; Sitzmann, Dictionnaire de Biographie des Hommes Célèbres de l’Alsace; Bopp, Die Evangelischen Gemeinden; Nouveau Dictionnaire. 108.  Johann Christoph Wagenseil (1633–1705) hired several Jews to teach him Hebrew and kabbalistic texts. See Elisheva Carlebach’s discussion of some of Wagenseil’s correspondence. “Letters of Bella Perlhefer” (http://www.earlymodern. org/citation.php?citKey=42&docKey=p [accessed July 15, 2008]).

Chapter Seven 1.  See the discussion of R. Abraham Farissol and R. Abraham ibn Megas in Ben Sasson, “The Reformation in Contemporary Jewish Eyes,” 260–273. For a polemic against Luther written by a German Jew, see Ms. Mich. 121.

Notes to Chapter Seven 2.  Ego-Dokumente: Annäherung an den Menschen in der Geschichte, ed. Winfried Schulze (Berlin: Akademie, 1996); N. Z. Davis, “Boundaries and the Sense of Self in Sixteenth-Century France,” in Reconstructing Individualism: Autonomy, Individuality, and the Self in Western Thought, ed. T. C. Heller, M. Sosna, and D. E. Wellberry (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1986), 53–64; Gabriele Jancke, Autobiographie als soziale Praxis. Beziehungskonzepte in Selbstzeugnissen des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts im deutschsprachigen Raum, Selbstzeugnisse der Neuzeit 10 (Köln: Böhlau, 2002). See also the discussion of “we-self” in Mechal Sobel, “The Revolution of Selves: Black and White Inner Aliens,” in Through a Glass Darkly: Reflections on Personal Identity in Early America, ed. R. Hoffman, M. Sobel, and F. J. Teute (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 164–167. The evolution of two different terms reflects the sentiments of those who developed them. Winfried Schulze has gone beyond others in his characterization of what types of documents can be termed “ego-documents.” Scholars who feel he has gone too far term the texts selbstzeugnissen, self-testimonies. See Jancke for a discussion of why Josel’s texts should be included in this category. 3.  See for example Lamentations 1:8; BT Gittin 55b. The additional service recited on the Sabbath and on festivals, reads, “We were exiled from our lands due to our sins.” For a discussion of Jewish responses to this problem, see Amos Funkenstein, Perceptions of Jewish History (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993), 202–206. 4.  See Matthew 23:34–39. On the development of this polemic during the Middle Ages, see David Berger, The Jewish-Christian Debate in the High Middle Ages: A Critical Edition of the Nizzahon Vetus, Judaica: Texts and Translations 4 (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1979), 3–37. 5.  Yehuda Halevi, Sefer ha-Kuzari (Tel Aviv: Mahbarot le-sifrut, 1948), 2:35–44. For an English translation of this section, see Heritage, Civilization and the Jews: A Source Reader, ed. William Hallo, David Ruderman, and Michael Stanislawski (New York: Praeger, 1984), 112–114. 6.  This was Nahmanides’ exposition of Gen. 49:10 in the forced disputation at Barcelona in 1263. Pablo Christiani, like many Christians before him, claimed that the cessation of leaders from Judah after Jesus’ time was proof that Jesus was the messiah. On the disputation, see Robert Chazan, Barcelona and Beyond: The Disputation of 1263 and Its Aftermath (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992). A relevant excerpt from the Latin account has been published in Robert Chazan, Church, State and Jew in the Middle Ages (New York: Behrman House, 1980), 266–269. 7.  Hasdai’s letter has been translated in Heritage, Civilization and the Jews: A Source Reader, 97–99. This was originally published in Miscellany of Hebrew Literature, ed. Albert Löwy, vol. 1 (London: N. Trübner,1 872), 92–93, 101–103. The framework of Sefer ha-Kuzari also builds on this myth, as it is a dialogue between

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Notes to Chapter Seven the Khazar king, who was seeking the truth, and representatives of philosophy, Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. 8.  For example, Eldad ha-Dani, who claimed to be a descendant from the tribe of Dan, traveled through Jewish communities in the ninth century. On Eldad haDani and the myth of the Ten Tribes, see Joseph Dan, The Hebrew Story in the Middle Ages (Jerusalem: Keter, 1974), 47–61 [Hebrew]. 9.  See 2 Kings 17:6. 10.  See Bereshit Rabba, 73, 6. Christians believed in a similar and competing myth, in which Prester John, a disciple of the apostle Thomas, presided over an apostolic community that could not be reached, for it lay beyond a river that rested only on Sunday. See Avraham Gross, “‘Aseret ha-shevatim u-malhut Prester John: Shemu‘ot ve-hippusim lifnei Gerush Sefarad ve-aharav,” Pe‘amim 48 (1991): 5–41. 11.  BT Sanhedrin 110b. 12.  For an overview of different forms of Jewish messianism, see Gershom Scholem, The Messianic Idea in Judaism and Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality (New York: Schocken, 1995), 1–37. For examples of medieval mystics who held messianic tendencies and at times actively led messianic movements, see Moshe Idel, Messianic Mystics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000). 13.  For the chronicles, see The Jews and the Crusaders: The Hebrew Chronicles of the First and Second Crusades (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1977). There is a tremendous amount of literature on the chronicles. For examples of the various ways that historians read these texts, see Robert Chazan, European Jewry and the First Crusade (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987); Ivan Marcus, “From Politics to Martyrdom: Shifting Paradigms in the Hebrew Narratives of the 1096 Crusade Riots,” Prooftexts 2, no. 1 (1982): 40–52; Cohen, Sanctifying the Name of God. 14.  Yuval, Two Nations in Your Womb, 93f. 15.  The Crusade Chronicles link the events of 1096 to Hannaniah, Mishael, and Azaria. Most notable are references in liturgical texts to the actual sacrifice of Isaac. See Shalom Spiegel, The Last Trial: On the Legends and Lore of the Command to Abraham to Offer Isaac as a Sacrifice, The Akedah, trans. Judah Goldin (New York: Behrman House, 1979). 16.  See for example the writings of Don Isaac Abrabanel about the expulsion. An English translation is available in Memoirs of My People through a Thousand Years, ed. Leo Schwarz (New York: Rinehart, 1943), 46–47. Abrabanel also predicted the coming of the messiah in his writings, indicating that he utilized another traditional approach to catastrophe, namely calculating the End of Days. 17.  BNUS Ms. 371. 18.  Idel, Messianic Mystics, 140–142; 145f. See also the diary of Reuveni. David Reuveni, Sippur David Ha-Re’uveni, ed. A. Z. Aescoly (Jerusalem: ha-Hevrah haErets Yisra’elit le-historyah ve-’etnografyah, 1940). 19.  See I. Kracauer, “Le Journal de Joselman de Rosheim,” REJ 16 (1888):

Notes to Chapter Seven 84–105; H. Breslau, “Aus Straßburger Judenakten II,” Zeitschrift für die Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland 5 (1892): 307–334; Fraenkel-Goldschmidt, “Introduction,” Joseph of Rosheim: Historical Writings, 42–44; Gabriele Jancke, “Autobiographische Texte—Handlungen in einem Beziehungsnetz. Überlegungen zu Gattungsfragen und Machtaspekten im deutschen Sprachraum von 1400 bis 1620,” EgoDokumente. Annäherung an den Menschen in der Geschichte, ed. Winfried Schulze (Berlin: Akademie, 1996), 73–84. See also my “Writing History, Defining Community: The Construction of Historical Space in Josel of Rosheim’s Chronicle,” in Räume des Selbst. Selbstzeugnisforschung transkulturell, ed. Andreas Bähr, Peter Burschel, and Gabriele Jancke (Köln: Bohlau, 2007), 97–109. 20. Josel of Rosheim, Sefer ha-miknah. 21.  See Joseph of Rosheim: Historical Writings, 72. 22.  Ibid., 277–278. For details on the war, see Fraenkel-Goldschmidt, “Introduction,” Joseph of Rosheim: Historical Writings, 68–72. 23.  Beginning in this period, Jews began to craft histories, both of their own people as well as of other nations. For scholarship about the development of early modern historiography, see Yosef Hayyim Yerushalmi, “Clio and the Jews: Reflections on Jewish Historiography in the Sixteenth Century,” in Essential Papers on Jewish Culture in Renaissance and Baroque Italy, 191–218. Also see Yosef Hayyim Yerushalmi, Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory, Samuel and Althea Stroum Lectures in Jewish Studies (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1996). For critiques of Yerushalmi, see Robert Bonfil, “How Golden Was the Age of the Renaissance in Jewish History?” in Essential Papers on Jewish Culture in Renaissance and Baroque Italy, 219–251. See also Funkenstein, Perceptions of Jewish History, 10–21. 24.  Josel of Rosheim, Sefer ha-miknah, 6–7. 25.  Ibid. 26.  Ibid., 280. 27.  Ibid., 7. 28.  Ibid., 25. 29.  Ibid., 5. 30.  Ibid., 6. 31.  Carlebach, Divided Souls, 22–23. 32.  For some of the defensive strategies for understanding conversion that were implemented by medieval Ashkenazic Jews, see Chaviva Levin, Jewish Conversion to Christianity in Medieval Northern Europe Encountered and Imagined, 1100–1300, Ph.D. diss., New York University, 2006, 148–189. Specifically, see her discussion of the attitudes of Hasidei Ashkenaz, which highlight an earlier version of the notion that apostates were predetermined to convert, and that the actions of their forefathers were often the impetus for their own conversion, on 160–162. 33.  Elisheva Carlebach, “Between History and Myth: The Regensburg Expulsion in Josel of Rosheim’s Sefer ha-Miknah,” in Jewish History and Jewish Memory:

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Notes to Chapter Seven Essays in Honor of Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, ed. E. Carlebach, John M. Efron, and David N. Myers (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1998), 40-53. 34.  See Carlebach, “Between History and Myth,” 40. 35.  Contemporary Christians also treated converts with suspicion. See Carlebach, Divided Souls, for the difficulties that converts had in acclimating to their new communities. In Strasbourg, records of two converts who faced such problems are also recorded. One, Susanna, faced financial difficulties, and did not find a suitable marriage partner until age twenty-eight. See Elias Schadeus, Copia einer Supplication an einen Ehrsamen Rath der Statt Strassburg/Anno 91 den 2 January/für eine getauffte Judin gestellt/dadurch ihr beide das Burgrecht und Ehesteuer erlanget, published in his Mysterium. I have provided a translation of this petition at http:// www.earlymodern.org/citation.php?citKey=52&docKey=o (accessed December 13, 2010). Another convert, Johann Georgius Schaff, claimed that his home had been ransacked by troops during the Thirty Years War because he was a former Jew. See AMS V, 39, 40. Medieval Christian suspicion about converts from Judaism is discussed by Rubin, Gentile Tales. 36.  Joseph of Rosheim: Historical Writings, 283. 37.  Ibid., 293. 38.  Judges 3:11; 3:30; 5:31; 8:28. The framework for understanding the biblical text is provided in Judges 2. See Joseph of Rosheim: Historical Writings, 292. 39.  Joseph of Rosheim: Historical Writings, 290; Esther, 4:14. For references to cities and states, see Esther, 1:22; 3:12; 8:9; and 9:28. 40.  Joseph of Rosheim: Historical Writings, 310; Esther, 9:1; 9:22. Although these are not the exact words, this notion of a reversal is a key theme in the Book of Esther, as well as the central motif of the Jewish celebration of Purim. More directly, this quote is taken from the less well known source of Jer. 31:12. 41.  Joseph of Rosheim: Historical Writings, 302; Josel of Rosheim, Sefer ha-­ miknah, 14; Esther, 7:6. For details on the 1510 accusation involving the bishop, Hieronymus, see Fraenkel-Goldschmidt, “Introduction,” Historical Writings, 99–108. 42.  Josel of Rosheim, Sefer ha-miknah, 14. 43.  Martin Luther, WA Briefe, vol. 8, 76–79. 44.  Martin Luther, WA Tischreden, vol. 3, 442; idem, WA Briefe, vol. 8, 89–91. 45.  Martin Luther, Wider die Sabbather. an einem guten Freund, WA 50, 312–377. For an English translation, see Martin Luther, “Against the Sabbatarians: Letter to a Good Friend,” trans. Martin H. Bertram, in Luther’s Works: The Christian in Society IV, ed. H. Lehmann, vol. 47 (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1962,) 59–98. 46.  AMS III/174/23. See the discussion in chapter 5. 47.  Josel of Rosheim, Sefer ha-miknah, 74. 48.  See above, chapters 3 and 5. 49.  The Hebrew version is no longer extant. What remains is Josel’s German translation, submitted to the Strasbourg magistrates. AMS III/174/24. The text

Notes to Chapter Seven has been published in the original German and in translation by Hava FrankelGoldschmidt in Joseph of Rosheim: Historical Writings, 313–349. For a discussion of the translation, see below. 50.  AMS III/174/24. 51.  Joseph of Rosheim: Historical Writings, 301–302. 52.  AMS III/174/24. 53.  Ibid. 54.  Joseph of Rosheim: Historical Writings, 301–302. 55.  Ibid. 56.  Sefer ha-miknah, 74–75. 57.  Joseph of Rosheim: Historical Writings, 301. For her commentary, see ­Fraenkel-Goldschmidt, “Introduction,” Sefer ha-miknah, 64–65; idem, “Introduction,” Joseph of Rosheim: Historical Writings, 39. 58.  AMS III/174/24; AMS III/174/23. 59.  AMS III/174/24. 60.  See chapter 6. 61.  See above n. 43. 62.  AMS III/174/24. 63.  See chapter 4. 64.  AMS III/174/24. 65.  AMS III/174/23. 66.  Ibid. See Isaiah 47. Josel mistakenly attributed this to Isaiah 36. 67.  AMS/III/174/23. 68.  Joseph of Rosheim: Historical Writings, 296. 69.  For an example of an earlier autobiographical writing, see Israel Jacob Yuval, “A German-Jewish Autobiography of the Fourteenth Century,” Binah 3 (1994): 79–99. 70.  David B. Ruderman, A Valley of Vision: The Heavenly Journey of Abraham Ben Hananiah Yagel (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990); The Autobiography of a Seventeenth-Century Venetian Rabbi: Leon Modena’s Life of Judah, ed. and trans. Mark R. Cohen (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988); ­Turniansky, Glikl: Zikhronot 1691–1719; Alexander Marx, “A Seventeenth Century Autobiography,” JQR n.s. 8 (1917–1918): 269–304. Excerpts have also been published under the title “Memories of an Unhappy Childhood,” Memoirs of My People (New York: Rinehart and Company, 1943), 103-114; Eric Zimmer, Fiery Embers of the Scholars; Joseph Davis, Yom-Tov Lippman Heller: Portrait of a SeventeenthCentury Rabbi (Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2004). See also JQR 95, no. 1 (2005), dedicated to this subject. 71.  Thomas Max Safley, Matheus Miller’s Memoir: A Merchant’s Life in the Seventeenth Century, Early Modern History (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000); James S. Amelang, The Flight of Icarus: Artisan Autobiography in Early Modern ­Europe (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998). On the development of

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Notes to Chapter Seven the genre during the Renaissance, see Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, Penguin Classics (London: Penguin Books, 1990); Karl Joachim Weintraub, The Value of the Individual: Self and Circumstance in Autobiography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978); Georges Gursdorf, “Conditions and Limits of Autobiography,” in Autobiography, Essays Theoretical and Critical, ed. and trans. James Olney (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980). For a critique on the inclusion of early modern works in the genre of autobiography, see Marcus Moseley, “Jewish Autobiography: The Elusive Subject,” JQR 95, no. 1 (2005): 16– 59; idem, Being for Myself Alone: Origins of Jewish Autobiography, Stanford Studies in Jewish History and Culture (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006). 72.  For example, Christian thinkers compared the German experience to those of the kings of Israel; expelled Protestants saw themselves as the Jews who had been exiled from Babylon. Johannes Pappus, Annales Regum et Prophetarum Populi Judaici & Israelitici; Theo Pronk, “Crying at the Rivers of Babylon: Public Dissent over the Catholic Occupation of Augsburg and the Loss of a Lutheran Community (1629– 1632),” Frühe Neuzeit Interdisziplinär, Duke University, March 2008; Alexandra Walsham, Providence in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); Kaspar von Greyerz, Vorsehungslaube und Kosmologie. Studien zu englischen Selbstzeugnissen des 17. Jahrhunderts (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990). 73.  See Debra Kaplan, “The Self in Social Context: Asher ha-Levi of Reichshofen’s Sefer Zikhronot,” Jewish Quarterly Review 97, no. 2 (2007): 210–236. 74.  MS JNUL 8º 4051, fol. 1. 75.  Ibid., fol. 23. 76.  He further explained: “And it is above her head, since a tombstone of stone is not fitting and it will not keep.” It is unclear whether gender differences or the fact that his two parents were buried in different cemeteries led to the initial differences between how Asher marked his parents’ grave. Ibid., fol. 38. 77.  MS JNUL 8º 4051, fols. 11, 13, 33. 78.  Ibid., fol. 9. 79.  BNUS Ms. 371. 80.  See chapter 3. 81.  MS JNUL 8º 4051, fol. 56. 82.  Ibid., fol. 45. 83.  Ibid., fol. 22. 84.  Ibid., fol. 45. 85.  Elliott S. Horowitz, Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence, Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ancient to the Modern World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), 279–318. See the discussion of the “Purim Vincenz” or “Purim Fettmilch,” 310. It is plausible that Asher, who had spent time in Frankfurt, was familiar with and perhaps influenced by the local tradition of commemorating the Fettmilch uprising of 1614–1616. 86.  MS JNUL 8º 4051, fol. 39.

Notes to Conclusion

Conclusion 1.  Hyman, The Emancipation of the Jews of Alsace, 13. 2.  Carlebach, Divided Souls. See also chapter 7, n. 35. 3.  Elukin, Living Together, Living Apart, 137–138. 4.  Hyman, The Emancipation of the Jews of Alsace, 14; Caron, Between France and Germany, 13. 5.  Berkovitz, Rites and Passages, 15. 6.  Hyman, The Emancipation of the Jews of Alsace, 12. 7.  Records from the rabbinical court of Niedernai are extant, and are available in Paris, at the Jewish Theological Seminary, and as microfilms in the Jewish National and University Library. Takkanot and the pinkas from Hagenau are available at the BNUS, and are also available at the JNUL. 8.  Berkowitz, Rites and Passages, 58. 9.  Ibid., 59–85. 10.  Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall, The Abbé Grégoire and the French Revolution: The Making of Modern Universalism, S. Mark Taper Foundation Imprint in Jewish Studies (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 31f. 11.  Hyman, The Emancipation of the Jews of Alsace, 14. 12.  Caron, Between France and Germany, 13. 13.  Ibid., 14. 14.  Ibid., 3. 15.  Zosa Szajkowski, Jews and the French Revolutions of 1789, 1830 and 1848 (New York: Ktav, 1970), 786. 16.  Hyman, The Emancipation of the Jews of Alsace. 17.  See, e.g., Caron, Between France and Germany, 13. 18.  James B. Collins, The State in Early Modern France (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995); William Beik, Louis XIV and Absolutism: A Brief Study with Documents, Bedford Series in History and Culture (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2000). 19.  Louis XIV enacted the Edict of Fontainebleau in 1685, which rescinded the Edict of Nantes and the toleration extended to Protestants. Nevertheless, some tolerance was accorded to Protestants in Alsace. Significantly, while some discriminatory measures were implemented against Lutherans in rural Alsace, those Lutherans who resided in Strasbourg were not subject to Louis XIV’s policies. See Collins, The State in Early Modern France, 103–104.

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Selected Bibliography

Archival Sources Archives départementales du Bas-Rhin Series AA 6; AA 25; AA 26; AA 51; AA 76 Series 3B 14; 3B 178; 3B 265; 3B 289; 3B 351; 3B 438; 3B 439; 3B 545; 3B 597; 3B 598; 3B 599; 3B 600; 3B 601; 3B 602; 3B 603; 3B 604; 3B 605; 3B 606; 3B 993; 3B 995; 3B 1114; 3B 1126; 3B 1361 Series BB 2; BB 6; BB 7; BB 9; BB 10; BB 11; BB 12; BB 13; BB 15; BB 16; BB 18; BB 26 Series C 30, 1; C 52; C 55 (6–12); C 65 (47); C 78; C 1 334 (1) Series CC 64; CC 365 Series E 2378 (1); E 2399 (2); E 2510 (1); E 2549 (4) Series 6E2/362; 6E2/493; 6E2/494 Series 8E 21, 169; 8E 539, 32 Series EE 1 Series 1 F1 12/1 Series FF 2 Series 1G 151; 1G 159 (7); 1G 162 (23); 1G 431d Series G 370c; G 392; G 431d; G 491 a, b, c, e2; G 492; G 505; G 1353e; G 1370; G 2621; G 2724 (1); G 2861 Series GG 64; GG 65; GG 66 Series 15 J 65

Archives municipales de Strasbourg Series III/174 Series IV 8/88; IV 9/20; IV 24/48 Series V 1/13; V 39/40; V 83/5; V 107/19 Series VI 13/10; VI 21/3; VI 83/5; VI 99/1; VI 102/9; VI 117/1; VI 166/3; VI 168/61; VI 185/1; VI 190/11; VI 224/4 Series VII 51/2

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Bibliography Series R 104–105 Series X 268; X 328; X 342 Plan I1, Plan Morant (1548)

Archives municipales de Strasbourg, Kirchenbüchen Alt Saint Peter, Taufen Evangelical Hospital, Taufen Neue Kirche, Taufen Neue Saint Peter, Taufen Robertsau, Taufen Saint Aurelie, Taufen Saint Nicholas, Taufen Saint Thomas, Taufen Saint Wilhelm, Taufen

Archives du chapître de Saint-Thomas 1 AST 38 1 AST 39 1 AST 44/38 1 AST 100/1 1 AST 102 1 AST 347/5 1 AST 353/1

Manuscripts Jewish National and University Library Ms. JNUL 8° 4051

Oxford, Bodleian Library Ms. Mich. 121 Ms. Opp. Adds. 4° 91

Paris, Bibliothèque nationale BN Ms. X 6198

Bibliothèque nationale et universitaire de Strasbourg BNUS Ms. 371 BNUS Ms. 286

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Italicized page numbers refer to illustrations. Abrabanel, Don Isaac, 214n16 Abraham of Oberbergheim, 84-85 Abraham of Rosenweiler, 38–39, 72 Abraham of Rosheim, 79, 89 Agatha (Orlians) of Hagenau, 55 Agnes of Hagenau, 54 agreements and contracts, 84–88, 91, 94–96 Ain gewisse Wunderzeitung von einer Schwangeren Judin zu Binzwangen, 112–14, 113 Alsace. See under various topics Amman, Caspar, 124–25 Andrew of Saint Victor, 119–20 animal trade, 71. See also horse trade antisemitism, 97, 152–53. See also expulsion of Jews; persecution of Jews; violence against Jews Hagenau, 41 stereotypes, 102–5, 115–16 Strasbourg, 9–10, 168 texts, 9, 104–5, 121. See also Luther, Martin; Reuchlin, Johannes apostates. See converts to Christianity Argentoratum, 12–13 arrendators (lease-holders), 187–88n84 artists, 6, 19 Asher ha-Levi of Reichshofen, 37–40, 42–47, 60–61, 185n57, 185–86n64 money lending, 73 self-texts and memoirs, 9–10, 145, 160–63 Augsburg Confession, 20–21, 23, 99–101 Augsburg Interim, 22–23, 98, 117, 135–36 Ausburger status, 17, 69

autobiography. See self-texts and memoirs autonomy Jewish, 145–46, 170 of Strasbourg, 6–11, 16, 97 Bacharach, Yair Hayyim (Rabbi), 61, 67, 192n88 Barcelona, disputation at, 146, 213n6 Baron, Salo, 5, 10 bathhouses, 60, 190n49 Berger, Thiebold, 105–6 Berkovitz, Jay, 169 Bible (the) and biblical interpretation/ study, 121–22, 146–47, 151, 157–58, 160. See also Rashi commentary Bibles (Hebrew), 45, 186–87n74 Blumel of Pfaffenhofen, 80–82 Boys, Adam von, 38, 41, 72 Brant, Sebastian, 112, 120 Braun, Hans, 25 broadsheets, 106–16 Bucer, Martin, 19–22, 63–64, 88 commentary on Psalms, 122, 126 Josel of Rosheim and, 153–56, 158 study of Hebrew language/Jewish commentaries, 121, 134–35 Burgundian Wars, 149 burial customs, Jewish, 127–32, 208n59, 208n65. See also cemeteries, Jewish Buxtorf, Johannes, 142, 203n6, 212n107 Calvin, John, 21 Calvinism and Calvinists, 99–100, 117

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Index Capito, Wolfgang, 19–20, 121–35, 206n36, 207n42 correspondence, 127–32 Josel of Rosheim and, 155 study of Talmud and, 128–32, 211–12n104 Carlebach, Elisheva, 47 Carolina, the [legal code], 51 Carthusian shroud, 127, 132–33 catastrophes, response to, 7, 145–47, 214n16. See also expulsion of Jews; violence against Jews Catholic-Protestant relations, 20–23, 168, 171–72, 202n83, 219n19. See also Lutheranism and Lutherans confession building and confessionalization, 93, 171 magistrates of Strasbourg and, 10–11, 98–101, 135–36, 165 Strasbourg, 20–24, 101, 111, 117, 202n86 cemeteries, Jewish, 36–39, 183n27, 184n39. See also burial customs, Jewish censorship of antisemitic tracts, 9, 115–16, 158, 167, 201–2n78 role of Christian Hebraists, 136 Strasbourg, 9, 104–5 Charles V (Emperor), 22, 158–59 chosen people concept, 107, 144–45, 147, 150 Christian Hebraism and Hebraists, 119–43. See also Hebraica Veritas attitudes toward Jews/Jewish texts, 133 confession building and confessionalization, 136–37 Renaissance, 120 shift from theology to pedagogy, 136, 140–43 Strasbourg, 121–23, 135–36, 138–39, 142–43 theological connections, 134 Christian-Jewish relations. See JewishChristian relations chronicles crusades, 147, 161, 214n15 of Josel of Rosheim, 148, 150–51 church law, 61–66. See also legal codes, Christian city and countryside. See urban-rural relations city councils, Strasbourg, 16, 18

clothing, Jewish, 62–63 Colon, Joseph (Rabbi), 34 commerce, 7, 9. See also horse trade; wine trade contracts, 84–88, 94. See also agreements and contracts prohibitions against Jewish trade, 92, 94 urban-rural, 70–75 communal ledgers, 169 communal life and communities, Jewish. See kehillot (Jewish communities) confession. See also Augsburg Confession; Tetrapolitan Confession Lutheran and Zwinglian, 20–22 confession building and confessionalization, 9, 136, 167, 209n80. See also Catholic-Protestant relations; politics, confessional boundaries between Lutherans and others, 100–104, 141, 143 Christian Hebraism and Hebraists and, 136–37, 143 education and, 137 interference of, 171 Strasbourg, 24, 180n35 contracts and agreements. See agreements and contracts conversion of Jews, 64, 140, 211n100 converts to Christianity, 158, 166, 216n34 attitude of Ashkenazic Jews toward, 215n31 Christian Hebraists and, 123–24 impact on Jewish community/history, 149–50, 152 polemical ethnographers, 142 correspondence. See letters and correspondence Council of Elvira, 61–62 Counter Reformation. See Reformation and reformers courts. See legal systems courts, rabbinic, 32–33, 43, 169 crucifixion, the, 115–16, 201n73 Crusade Chronicles and crusades, 146–47, 214n15 currency [monetary], xv Dasselbige blut das blendet mich. See Synagoga and Ecclesia statues

Index Disputation at Barcelona. See Barcelona, disputation at divine providence, 163–64 history and, 148–51, 154 role in individual's life, 160, 162 divorce, bills of (gittin), 185–86n64 doctors. See physicians, Jewish education, Jewish, 44–47, 186n68. See also Bible (the) and biblical interpretation/ study; Josel of Rosheim; self-texts and memoirs education, Protestant. See also Christian Hebraism and Hebraists; gymnasium/ university (Strasbourg); Hebrew language, study of confession building and confessionalization and, 136–37 theological. See Protestant theology, study of of women, 117 Egidio da Viterbo (Cardinal), 120 ego-documents. See self-texts and memoirs emancipation of French Jews, 170–71 Erasmus (Bishop of Strasbourg), 38, 72 Esther, Book of, 151–53, 162–63, 216n39 ethnography, polemical, 142 Etliche wenige, 105 evangelicalism, 19 excommunication, 35, 84–87 exile of Jews. See expulsion of Jews expulsion of Jews, 145–46, 213n3 medieval period, 29, 182n9 from Spain, 147 from Strasbourg, 1, 3, 6, 17, 25, 167–68, 173n3 survival strategies, 7 from Western Europe, 2–3 Fagius, Paul, 22, 121–26, 134–35, 138–40 Fahel of Kintzheim, 58–59, 78 Farel, Guillame, 127, 130–33 Fischart, Johann, 110–15, 200n63 Formula of Concord, 23, 99–101, 180n35 Fraenkel-Goldschmidt, Hava, 155 Frankfurter, Shimon, 186n71 Frankfurt Vaad of 1603, 43–44 Free Imperial City status (Frei- und Reichstätt), 16

Gei hizzayon (Valley of Vision), 159 genres, literary abnormal birth literature, 112–15, 113, 201n66 autobiographies, memoirs, and self-texts, 10, 145, 159–60 educational texts, 137 humanist and religious, 19 polemical ethnographies, 142 responsa literature, 61, 185n61 stereotypes and, 115 gittin. See divorce, bills of (gittin) Goldschmidt, Hava Fraenkel. See FraenkelGoldschmidt, Hava Gotlieb of Hagenau, 1, 58, 90, 170 grammar, Hebrew. See Hebrew language, study of Gregoire, Henri ( Abbé), 170 guilds and guildsmen, 70, 75 exclusion of Jews, 171 protection of, 80 representation of, 178n22 Strasbourg, 17–18, 96, 178n22 gymnasium/university (Strasbourg), 123, 134–35, 137 Hagenau, Alsace, 31, 41–43 Hahn, Josef Juspe Neurlingen of Frankfurt (Rabbi), 59 Halevi, Judah, 145–46 Haman [stand-in for Jewish adversaries], 152–53, 163 Handschrift and Siegel (handwritten affirmation of a loan), 73 Hanna of Hagenau, 50–51, 56–57 Haym of Isenach, 97 Hebraica Veritas, 119, 121, 127, 134, 140–42 Hebraist-Jewish relations, 167 16th-century Strasbourg, 121–23 17th-century Strasbourg, 141–43 Hebrew language, study of, 119, 121, 123, 141 christianization of, 142–43, 211–12n104 in Europe, 209n83 grammar, 138–40 gymnasium/university (Strasbourg), 137–38, 143 texts and tools, 140–41, 211n99 Hedio, Caspar, 19, 124 Hellersrecht (right of), 83–84

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250

Index Hesse, Germany, 63–64. See also Philip of Hesse Hirsch, Jokef, 124 historiography, 148–49, 215n22 history Jewish, 161. See also Josel of Rosheim: writings; self-texts and memoirs role of divine providence, 148–51, 154 Hitzig of Dangolsheim, 87 Holy Roman Empire and emperor, 13, 16– 17, 178n12. See also Charles V (Emperor) horse trade, 25, 70–72, 74, 92, 102, 117 Hugh of Saint Victor, 119–20 humanism and humanists, 6, 12, 18–19, 120–21, 123 Hyman, Paula, 165 iconoclasm, 19, 144, 147 iconography, 107 Ill River, 12–13 imagery, antisemitic, 107–16. See also stereotypes, antisemitic Imperial Aulic Court. See Reichshofrat (­Imperial Aulic Court) Imperial Chamber Court. See Reichskammergericht (Imperial Chamber Court) informants, 149–50, 166 interest rates. See moneylenders and money lending intolerance. See antisemitism; CatholicProtestant relations; Jewish-Christian relations; tolerance of Jews Isaac b. Moses of Vienna (Rabbi), 33, 66 Jacob of Rosenweiler, 38–39, 86–87 Jaeckel of Oberbergheim, 1, 85, 170 contracts and, 87–88 litigation, 89, 196n90 money lending activities, 73, 78, 86, 194n40 Jesus, 107, 213n6 Christian-Hebraist study of, 125–27 proof/rejection as messiah, 114, 211– 12n104, 213n6 Jewish-Christian relations, 2–3, 167, 174n8 Alsace, 1–2, 4–11, 49–50, 161–62, 165–71 attempts to limit or limits of, 50, 58, 100–106, 118

changes in 16th and 17th centuries, 201–2n78 church law and, 61–66 cultural and intellectual, 10, 160, 164. See also Christian Hebraism and Hebraists economic aspects, 52–55, 60, 97 Jewish law and, 63, 66–68 life cycle rituals and, 61, 63 rural areas, 7–8, 57, 89–90, 170. See also space and spheres, private/shared tolerance/intolerance of Jews, 64, 88, 153, 165–67. See also antisemitism; expulsion of Jews; persecution of Jews; tolerance of Jews Jewish settlements, 30 Jews, court, 72 Jews, expulsion of. See expulsion of Jews Jews, readmittance of, 1, 3. See also expulsion of Jews Jews of Alsace, 4, 49–70. See also Asher haLevi of Reichshofen; Jewish-Christian relations; Jews of Strasbourg; Josel of Rosheim; kehillot (Jewish communities); Reformation and reformers 17th century, 168–70 attitudes toward, 104–5 changes from 14th to 19th centuries, 167–69 economic aspects, 70–72, 193n7 integration into French society, 171–72 Reformation and, 166–67 rural Jews and urban Christians, 69, 170 Jews of France, 170–72 Jews of Hesse, 155–56 Jews of Holy Roman Empire, 26–27 Jews of Strasbourg, 69. See also magistrates of Strasbourg: policies toward Jews legal systems and, 7–8 massacre and expulsion of, 27 medieval period. See Strasbourg: medieval period Jobin, Bernhard, 107–12 Josel of Rosheim, 9–10, 35, 46, 96, 166 Bucer, Martin and, 153–55 business transactions, 71 Christian-Hebraists and, 125–26

Index leadership roles, 80–85, 87–88, 104–5, 148–51 magistrates of Strasbourg and, 82, 84, 87, 104, 144–45, 156–57 view of/attitude toward Protestants and Reformation, 152–55, 158. See also Capito, Wolfgang view of converts to Christianity, 149–50 view of Jewish history, 148–59 writings, 144–45, 148–59 Judah Halevi. See Halevi, Judah Judensau images, 112–15 Judges, Book of, 151 Kabbalah, 120 Katz, Jacob, 47, 49 Kaysersberg, Geiler von, 18, 120 kehillot (Jewish communities). See also communal ledgers; Hagenau, Alsace; pinkas beit din Alsace, 7, 29, 33–40 service to rural Jews, 32–33 unity of/cohesion of, 47–48, 184n38. See also networks: communal Khazar king and kingdom, 146, 213–14n7 Kimhi, David, 138–40 Kirchenconvent (Church Assembly clerical council), 134 Koenigshofen, Jacob Twinger von, 27 Krossweiler, Martin, 71, 85 Ktav Nehama, 153–56, 216–17n49 Kuzari, Sefer ha-. See Sefer ha-Kuzari Kyber, David, 137–38 Lamentations, Book of, 138, 140 law, Jewish, 47. See also Talmud Jewish-Christian relations and, 63, 66–68 Shulhan 'arukh, 45–46 lawsuits, 50–52, 57, 189n18. See also legal systems Lazarus of Surburg, 35, 41, 58–59 leadership, communal. See Asher ha-Levi of Reichshofen; Gotlieb of Hagenau; Josel of Rosheim; Lazarus of Surburg leadership, rabbinic, 33–34. See also courts, rabbinic lease-holders. See arrendators (lease-holders)

legal codes, Christian, 51. See also church law legal systems, 16–18, 166–67. See also magistrates of Strasbourg; Reichskammergericht (Imperial Chamber Court) economic aspects, 75, 98 Jews and, 1, 7–8, 50–58, 70–72, 89–91, 94, 188n16, 196n90 women and, 79 letters and correspondence, 38, 41 antisemitic, 116, 141 for disseminating knowledge, 46–47 as indication of economic relations, 67 Jewish-Christian relations and, 65, 72 Jews and magistrates of Strasbourg, 1–3, 7, 71, 88, 90 Josel of Rosheim and magistrates of Strasbourg, 82, 84, 87, 104, 144–45, 156–57 Ketav nehama, 153–56, 216–17n49 Lazarus of Surburg, 35, 58–59 magistrates of Strasbourg on behalf of Josel of Rosheim, 152 papal, 62 Levita, Elijah, 124–25, 135, 140 life cycle rituals Christian celebration of, 69 Jewish-Christian relations and, 61, 63 liturgy, 145–47, 163 loans. See moneylenders and money lending Loans, Elias (Rabbi), 44 logbooks. See moneylenders and money lending: documentation of Loria, Johanan (Rabbi), 33–34, 44 Louis XIV (King), 24, 168, 171, 219n19 Lukhot, 139–40 Luria, Isaac (Rabbi), 46–47 Luther, Martin, 5, 104, 114 censorship of his texts, 9, 104, 158 Josel of Rosheim and, 152–58 Lutheranism and Lutherans, 198n16. See also Reformation and reformers adoption and implementation of, 93, 100, 136, 167, 209n81 attitude of Jews toward, 144. See also Josel of Rosheim attitude toward Jews. See JewishChristian relations

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Index non-Lutheran Christians and, 117–18, 136 Strasbourg, 9, 20–24, 99–104, 137, 179–80n34 study of, 141 study of Hebrew language and, 8, 140–43 Magdalena [Metzger] of Hagenau, 50–52, 188–89n16 magistrates of Hagenau, 42–43 magistrates of Strasbourg, 16–17, 19–21, 24–25, 94–104 Catholics/radical Protestants and, 10–11, 20–23, 165–68 Josel of Rosheim and. See Josel of Rosheim: magistrates of Strasbourg and jurisdiction of, 69–70 money lending and litigation, 80–83 policies toward Jews, 6–9, 11, 90–97, 102–5, 156, 165–68 Marbach, Johann, 23, 99 Margaret (Jacob) of Hagenau, 56 Margareth (Cantzen) of Hagenau, 52–53 Margareth (Wenndling) of Hagenau, 56 martyrdom and martyrologies, 146–47, 151 Meier of Hagenau, 50–58, 72, 188–89n16 memoirs. See self-texts and memoirs merchant class, 17 Messerschmidt, Jörgen, 135 messianic movements and beliefs, 146–47 Metzger, Lorentz [husband of Magdalena], 50–51, 56 Mirandola, Pico della, 120 Molkho, Shlomo, 158–59 moneylenders and money lending, 7, 70, 73–81. See also Jaeckel of Oberbergheim control of, 95–96 documentation of, 73–74 interest rates and collateral, 76–77 women, 79 Morant, Conrad, 13 Müller, Johann, 64–65, 141 municipal courts. See legal systems Munster, Sebastian, 18–19 myths, 146, 214n10 Nahmanides [Rabbi Moses ben Nahman], 146, 213n6

networks communal, 43–44, 185n61 educational, 44–47, 186n68 Nicholas of Lyra, 120 Oecolampadius, Johannes, 122 On the Jews and Their Lies, 104, 116 On the Last Words of David, 104 Pappus, Johannes, 23, 99, 135, 180n35, 210n86 patrician class, 17–18 Peace of Augsburg, 23, 98 peasants, Alsatian, 169–70 Pellican, Conrad, 130, 204n7 persecution of Jews, 146–47. See also antisemitism; expulsion of Jews; violence against Jews petitions communal, 80–88, 90–91 individual, 88–91 Pfefferkorn, Johannes, 121, 152 Philip of Hesse, 63–64, 88, 153, 156 physicians, Jewish, 64–65 Abraham of Rosenweiler, 72 Meier of Hagenau, 50, 72 prohibitions against, 116 pig imagery, 112–14 pinkas beit din (records of the local rabbinical court), 169 police orders, 95, 103 politics, confessional, 165 population, Jewish rural areas, 182–83n21 shifts in, 3–4, 6–7, 27–29, 181n8 Prester John myth, 214n10 protection economic, 17, 95–96 of Jewish rights, 57, 72, 104–5, 148, 154, 156. See also Jewish-Christian relations; magistrates of Strasbourg: policies toward Jews; petitions petitions for, 83–84 political, 20–21 Protestant-Catholic relations. See CatholicProtestant relations Protestant theology, study of. See also Christian Hebraism and Hebraists; Talmud: Christian study of

Index curriculum, 137–40, 142–43. See also Bible (the) and biblical interpretation/ study Hebrew language, study of, 123 Psalms (A. Reuchlin), 139–40, 211n99 Psalms (Fagius), 138–39 Psalms commentary (Bucer), 122, 126 publishing, 19 punishment, 57–58. See also excommunication; expulsion of Jews Purim, 32, 151, 163, 216n39, 218n84 quorum for prayers (minyan), 38–39 Rabbi Nathan, 131–32 rabbinic leadership. See leadership, rabbinic rabbinic sources. See texts, Jewish Rashi commentary, 119–20 readmittance of Jews. See Jews, readmittance of Rebbi's funeral, 131–32 Reformation and reformers Christian-Hebraists and, 121–22 Counter Reformation, 5 Jews of Alsace and, 5–6, 8–10, 119, 144–48, 166–67. See also Josel of Rosheim messianism and, 147–48 Strasbourg and, 19–25, 93, 95, 117–18, 179n28 texts and imagery, 111–16 refuge. See protection; petitions: communal; safe havens Regensburg, 34 Re Grammatica, De, 138 Reichshofen, siege of, 162 Reichshofrat (Imperial Aulic Court), 17 Reichskammergericht (Imperial Chamber Court), 16–17, 81–87, 178n15 relics, 132 responsa literature, 61, 185n61 Reubell, Jean Francois, 170 Reuchlin, Anton, 139–40 Reuchlin, Johannes, 120, 152 Rhine River, 12–13 Rosenweiler, 36, 38–39 Rotweil, 81, 85–87 rural-urban relations. See urban-rural relations

Sabbath observance, 1 Christian awareness of, 173n2 emancipation of French Jews and, 170–71 role of Christian neighbors, 59 safe havens, 83–84 Saint Aurelia's church, 19 salvation, commemorations of, 162–63, 218n84 Sara (Rochen) of Hagenau, 55 Sara of Rosheim, 79 Sasson, Haim Hillel Ben, 63 Schadeus, Elias, 140–41, 211n100 Scheid, Balthasar, 211–12n104 Schmalkaldic League, 21–22 Schmuel of Eschbach, 80–82 Schöffen. See guilds and guildsmen: representation of Schrötter, Heinrich [of Weissenberg], 105–6 Schultheissburger status, 69 Schwenkfeldians, 21 Schwitzer, Valentin [of Flexburg], 86 Sefer arbaah turim (Tur), 128, 130–32 Sefer ha-hayyim, 186n71 Sefer ha-Kuzari, 146, 213–14n7 Sefer ha-miknah, 148–49, 153 Sefer zikhronot, 160–63 self-texts and memoirs, 145, 159–60 of Asher ha-Levi of Reichshofen, 9–10, 145, 160–63 interpretive aspects, 162 of Josel of Rosheim, 148–59 sermons, Christian, 155, 163 sexual relations between Jews and Christians, 50–59, 62–63 Shachar, Isaiah, 112, 114 Shaprut, Hasdai ibn, 146 shrouds, 127, 131–33 Shulhan 'arukh, 45–46 social interaction and relationships. See Jewish-Christian relations social norms, 50–55, 57, 68, 188n6 Société des Philantropes de Strasbourg, 170 space and spheres, private/shared, 49–68, 156, 158, 161–62, 164. See also JewishChristian relations stereotypes, antisemitic, 102–5, 112–15 Stern, Meir (Rabbi), 67 Stimmer, Tobias, 106–12

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Index Strasbourg, 3, 6–11, 70 16th century, 14–15 courts, 16–18, 89–91, 94. See also legal systems expulsion of Jews. See expulsion of Jews: from Strasbourg governance of, 16–18, 178n21 Jews. See Jews of Alsace; Jews of Strasbourg legal systems. See magistrates of Strasbourg Lutheranism and, 20–24, 137, 179–80n34 magistracy. See magistrates of Strasbourg medieval period, 13, 16–18, 29 Reformation and. See Reformation and reformers: Strasbourg religious affiliation and identity, 97–100, 104, 136, 209n81 Strasbourg gymnasium. See gymnasium/ university (Strasbourg) Sturm, Jacob, 22, 88, 153, 156 Sturm, Jean, 23, 123 Synagoga and Ecclesia statues, 107–11, 108–9, 115 synagogues, 107 closing of, 33–34 communal, 39, 57 Hagenau, 41–43, 185n56 synagogues, Hagenau, 57–58 Talmud, 45, 114 Christian study of, 125–26, 128–32, 206n36, 211–12n104. See also Capito, Wolfgang: study of Talmud and Talmudic prohibitions, 66–67, 166 Ten [Lost] Tribes of Israel myth, 146 Tetrapolitan Confession, 20–21, 23, 99–100, 134–35 texts, antisemitic. See antisemitism: texts texts, Jewish, 45–46, 119–21, 186n71. See also Bible (the) and biblical interpretation/

study; Hebrew language, study of; Talmud Thirty Years War, 24, 37, 92, 161 Thürnhuttern (city gatekeepers), 91–92 Toldot Yeshu, 125–26 tolerance, 202n83. See also Catholic-Protestant relations tolerance of Jews, 11, 117–18, 170. See also Jewish-Christian relations Treaty of Westphalia, 24 Tremellius, Immanuel, 22, 123, 135 Treves, Naftali Hirsch (Rabbi), 125 university (Strasbourg). See gymnasium/ university (Strasbourg) urban-rural relations, 44, 69–75, 170. See also village life Vertrag, judische, 82, 87 village life, 29, 161. See also urban-rural relations violence against Jews, 27. See also antisemitism; persecution of Jews Von Schem Mephoras, 104 Vosges Mountains, 12–13 Vulgate, rejection of, 121–22 Wagenseil, Johann Christoph, 142, 212n109 wet nurses, Christian, 66 William of Honstein (Bishop of Strasbourg), 63 Wimpheling, Jacob, 12, 18–19, 24–25, 120 wine trade, 71 Wittenberg Concord, 21 Wolf, Raphael of Hagenau (Rabbi), 124–25 woodcuts, religious, 106–7 Yagel, Abraham, 159 yihud (seclusion), 67, 192n88 Zell, Matthias, 19