Johnston R.A. All Things Medieval: An Encyclopedia of the Medieval World

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was specially made by a professional scribe. Women lit oil lamps or candles

just before sunset on the Sabbath. Every Jewish home also had a decorative

cup for the ritual blessing of wine on the Sabbath.

Jews had to pay attention to religious rules for washing and food prep-

aration. Next to the bed, there was always a pitcher and basin so they

could wash their hands immediately on waking. Jews were required to do

much more washing and were more likely than Christians to own wooden

bathtubs.

Jewish cooks had to follow the dietary rules known as kashrut, or kosher.

This meant keeping meat and milk separate in all parts of the kitchen and

in all dishes. They did not eat pork, the most common meat of Christian

Europe. They also had to cook an extra meal on Friday and keep it hot in

the coals until noon on Saturday, the Sabbath, since no new ﬁ res could be

lit that day. In Spain, this meal was a vegetable and chickpea dish called

adaﬁ na, while in Northern Europe it was a meat stew called cholent, per-

haps from the medieval French word for “hot.”

Jewish Communities

The ﬁ rst priority of a Jewish community in a European town was to

maintain a public bath for their ritual washing needs. This bath was called

a mikveh. Ritual washing required the whole body to be wet and used run-

ning water if possible. Minority communities did their best to provide this,

from a reserved bit of lake shore to a public bath in town. The second pri-

ority was to organize a school, since prayers, the function of a synagogue,

could be offered at home. Many Jewish communities also put a lot of effort

into maintaining a library. The next priority was a rabbinical court to settle

disputes of family law, such as marriage and inheritance.

Other community functions in the Jewish Quarter could include a com-

munal kitchen, for making the large amount of food needed for a wedding

or holiday, or a hall to meet in. Especially in Germany, many Jewish com-

munities owned a hall for dances and weddings. There were inns for Jewish

visitors in the larger communities. In Muslim Spain, Jews had hospitals, in

addition to hospice care for the poor. Many Jews had been trained as sur-

geons and physicians. Finally, a Jewish community tried to provide its own

cemetery.

Synagogues in Europe were similar to Christian buildings in their basic

aspects, such as a meeting room and high windows, often with glass, for

light . But they were not richly decorated, as Christian churches always were.

In Muslim Spain, synagogues were fairly secure, but in Northern Europe,

there was always a chance that a later medieval Christian mob could decide

to vandalize a synagogue. For this reason, they were kept simple and dark

and were not ﬁ lled with overt signs of the building’s purpose. Christian

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regulations did not permit them to be built as tall as the local church. Even

large, elaborate medieval synagogues were small and simple in comparison

with churches.

The chief possession of a synagogue was its copy of the law, the Torah

scroll. In Europe, this was kept in a built-in structure called an ark, but in

Muslim Spain, it was usually kept in a movable case. Both kinds were elabo-

rately and expensively decorated. The scroll itself was also expensively dec-

orated with gold and silver ornaments on the wooden rods that held the

scrolls. The next most important mark of a medieval synagogue was an oil

lamp kept burning at all times, in memory of the eternal ﬂ ame of the old

temple in Jerusalem. Wealthy European synagogues also kept a large can-

delabra, the menorah, next to the Torah ark.

Synagogues had a central reading desk and lectern, with styles varying

regionally. In Spain, the lectern was elevated with a canopy over it, as in

a mosque. Seating options varied; in Muslim regions, there was often no

seating, and women stood with men. In Italy, some synagogues provided

individual desks for the congregation, and most European synagogues at

least had benches. In these synagogues, women had an upper gallery or a

separate annex.

The Old-New Synagogue of Prague was completed in 1270. There is a Hebrew

inscription with a Star of David over the main door. (Jim Milles)

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The Middle Ages were a very active period in the intellectual life of Juda-

ism. At a time when most Jews were anonymous in the larger Christian cul-

ture, rabbis like Gershom ben Judah of Mainz (10th century) and Solomon

ben Isaac (known as “Rashi”) of Troyes (11th century) wrote very inﬂ uen-

tial interpretations of Jewish law. Medieval Jewish writings were concerned

with how to interpret Jewish law for people living in non-Jewish societies

outside Israel.

The rabbinical structure also provided for Jews to be self-governing to

a high degree. They followed not only the laws of the outside community,

but also their own restrictive laws concerning diet and daily life. They had

their own court system to deal with disputes over Jewish regulations and

family matters such as marriages and adoption. They could impose ﬁ nes as

well as banishment from their community. In Spain, Muslim rule gave them

further power to impose corporal and even capital punishment.

During the Middle Ages, the rabbinical courts developed a system of rul-

ing by probability. Probability was not yet a ﬁ eld of mathematics and was

not applied even loosely to the secular use of games of chance. Rabbis were

often faced with dilemmas concerning cases with inadequate witnesses or

facts that could not be established. They created a method of estimating the

probability of the facts being one way or another way and calculated which

scenario was most likely. They ruled that the most likely situation was the

truth. Although their study of probability did not extend into a modern

level of complexity, they wrote rules for discovering the probability of a case

that had several factors, each with its own probability.

Women

Jews had their own distinctive marriage customs. Like medieval Chris-

tians, they celebrated weddings in public so that everyone knew the wed-

ding had taken place, but the ceremony was not considered a religious

rite. Jewish weddings traditionally had a great deal of music and dancing,

more than Christian wedding feasts at the same time. Their children were

married younger than Christian children, since Jewish law considered girls

adults at 12 and boys at 13. A typical medieval Jewish bride and groom

were not much older than 12 and 14, although they were not expected to

begin living as an independent married couple at that time. Jewish law also

permitted a husband to marry a second wife, but the practice continued

only in Muslim Spain.

The Sabbath prior to the ceremony, the bride was carried on a throne

into the synagogue, as a public announcement of the intended wedding.

On the wedding day, the bride and groom were conducted separately to a

public location, usually outdoors but sometimes in a hall, where they stood

under a canopy made of a prayer shawl ( tallit ). The groom placed a ring on

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the bride’s ﬁ nger, and the rabbi blessed them. The groom gave the bride a

sip of wine from a special cup. Jewish brides in medieval Germany were the

ﬁ rst to wear white, which was the color of mourning, in memory of the de-

struction of Jerusalem. Jews in Germany sometimes threw grains of wheat

on the couple with wishes for fertility.

Wives had rights under Jewish law that they did not have under Chris-

tian law. It was against the law for a Jewish wife to become poorer or in

any way worse off by marrying. A husband could not compel her to move

into a worse house or town, unless it was in Israel itself. The wife herself

had the right to compel her husband to move to Israel, which was con-

sidered a blessing even if they were poor there. Some marriage contracts

stipulated that husbands must buy wives a certain quota of new clothes or

jewelry. If she owned property before marriage, it remained hers, unlike

in Christian law.

Medieval European rabbis like Gershom ben Judah also increased the

wife’s rights in divorce. At a time when the Catholic Church was making it

virtually impossible for married couples to divorce, Jews were permitted to

divorce if the husband gave the wife a certiﬁ cate, called a get. Divorce was

still rare in the Jewish community, but a Jewish wife could both refuse and

demand a divorce. She could choose to divorce a man for making her life

materially worse or for wanting to move to a place she didn’t like. If she had

been married before the age of 12 to a man she didn’t like, she could refuse

to remain his wife once she was considered an adult by Jewish law.

In Muslim Spain, Jewish women had equal rights with men and could

own property or engage in commerce on their own initiative. In Chris-

tian Europe, Jewish women often worked in their husbands’ businesses but

did not usually trade on their own. In some cases, they carried out most

of the business so their husbands could complete rabbinical studies. They

also worked in the same home crafts that Christian women did; they spun,

wove, and sewed and could sell these products.

Most girls did not learn Hebrew or study the Jewish law, but some did.

There are medieval letters in Hebrew written by women, and many learned

the prayers. Many more were familiar with the Hebrew alphabet. Yiddish

ﬁ rst developed during the Middle Ages as a way for uneducated Jews, such

as women, to write. It used Hebrew letters to write medieval German, with

some borrowed Hebrew words. Early Yiddish books explained to women

how to keep the holidays correctly. They also told popular medieval stories,

such as the legends of King Arthur.

School

In Christian Europe, Jewish families taught their children at home or or-

ganized synagogue schools. Their children did not attend Christian Latin

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schools and often did not learn Latin at all. In Muslim Spain, Jewish chil-

dren attended Islamic schools. They were educated in Arabic and in the

Koran and studied Hebrew and rabbinical matters on the side. Since they

were part of a system of schooling within the culture, they tended to stay

in school longer, until age 18. Children in Jewish families were less likely

to work than in Christian families, where learning a trade and helping in

the family’s trade were assumed. A boy’s ﬁ rst responsibility was education,

not work.

A Jewish boy began school around the age of six, with a new student cer-

emony. He was dressed up and carried into the synagogue by his father or

a teacher. They gave him a wooden slate with the ﬁ rst and last letters of the

Hebrew alphabet and an inscription that Moses had commanded to learn

the Torah (the Jewish law). They put drops of honey on the tablet and let

the child lick it off to teach him that learning was sweet. After this, the boys

had to go to school for the same long school days that their slightly older

Christian peers endured—from dawn to about six in the evening.

Jewish boys in both Christian Europe and Muslim Spain studied the

Hebrew language and Jewish law. They were considered responsible for

carrying out the law themselves, so the knowledge was not left to certain

scholars among them. The most promising students went away from home

to a yeshiva, a Hebrew studies school, to complete rabbinical training. Even

then, they did not become rabbis. The title of rabbi was reserved for those

who spent a lifetime learning not only the law and its commentaries, but

also all of the rabbinical commentaries up through the present, a body of

work that grew continually. In Spain, a Jewish boy who continued his stud-

ies past the basic level became an expert in Arabic composition, and many

of these writers and poets tried to improve the state of composition in He-

brew, a closely related language. Medieval Muslim Spain and its network of

communities in North Africa and Egypt became a powerhouse of Hebrew

poetry.

Practical education was whatever training was needed for the family’s

line of business. Jewish boys could not enter Christian guilds, but in some

cases they served apprenticeships for a trade. They learned arithmetic and

accounting and whatever languages were additionally needed, such as Ara-

bic or Latin. Among Jews, business contracts and letters were written in

Hebrew.

Work

Normal education for Jewish boys included the basics of medieval medi-

cine, which pushed a high percentage of Jewish men into the medical pro-

fession. This was especially true in Spain, and books by these learned Jewish

doctors became standard texts. In Christian Spain, most kings had a Jewish

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physician, but in northern countries like France and England, Jews were

not permitted to practice medicine, nor were they admitted to medical

schools. Christian medical students, on the other hand, were not permitted

to study surgery, while the medical tradition in Spain emphasized surgery.

Jewish surgeons taught at Spanish medical schools, and there may have

been some Jewish medical schools in Spain and Provence.

When Jews ﬁ rst came into Europe, they were farmers, like most peas-

ants. Many continued to farm throughout the Middle Ages, even if only

on a small scale to supply the Jewish community with kosher food. Many

in Italy and France also owned vineyards and produced kosher wine. When

Jews farmed, they most often owned their land, instead of holding it in ﬁ ef

from a Christian overlord. As prejudice against them increased in the

12th century, in some places they were barred from owning land, which

pushed them more into commerce and banking.

Many Jews were involved in international trade; among other advan-

tages, they used a common trade language, Hebrew, and often knew sev-

eral other languages. Frankish kings, including Charlemagne, granted trade

privileges to Jews to induce them to come and bring their import business.

In Sicily, they were granted a monopoly on silk dyeing, and they were silk

weavers in many places. In Spain, they had a monopoly on red kermes dye.

The Jews of Barcelona and Majorca, two major Spanish trading hubs, were

almost entirely employed in commerce, much of it for silk or ﬁ ne ceramics.

Jewish merchants became such an integral part of some international fairs

that the organizers shifted the schedule to avoid the Jewish Sabbath.

Jewish law did not permit Jews to lend money at interest to their Jewish

relatives, but they were permitted to lend to foreigners. Since Catholic law

also outlawed charging interest on loans, one important role of Jews in me-

dieval Europe was to lend money at interest. Being creditors to powerful

Christian princes and merchants was dangerous for Jews, and it increased

prejudice against them. Jewish traders further developed some of the meth-

ods of modern ﬁ nance, such as letters of credit and checks, written in Ara-

bic or Hebrew.

Jews were excluded from Christian guilds, but they still learned trades.

Especially under Muslim rule, they were permitted to work in any trade.

Around the Mediterranean, they worked in glass, copper, leather tanning,

shoe making, and weaving silk. They made ﬁ ne instruments such as clocks,

astrolabes, and jewelry. In some places, Jews minted coins.

Persecution

The medieval Catholic Church made ofﬁ cial proclamations that Jews

needed to convert, but Popes routinely issued orders that Jews must be

safe from harassment. Although folk belief came to blame killing Christ on

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Jews, ofﬁ cial doctrine in the Roman Catholic Church did not make these

proclamations. During the early Middle Ages, there were no signiﬁ cant

persecutions or legal discrimination. Even during the period of European

anti-Jewish prejudice, many local Jews and Christians lived and worked

together. There are records of Jews and Christians in joint partnerships,

apprenticeships, and gift exchanges. Jews and Muslims in Spain, and then

Jews and Spanish Christians, were also normally on very good terms. Most

Jews lived peacefully, if overtaxed. However, they were also the group most

singled out for mob violence, especially after the 12th century.

Anti-Jewish feeling in Europe may have begun in the 12th century by as-

sociating the Jews with the Saracens, who were rumored to have destroyed

the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. The First Crusade sent an

army overland through Germany and Hungary in 1096, and it included

a number of criminals who had been pardoned if they would ﬁ ght for the

Holy Land. Part of this army attacked Jews around Mainz and Cologne,

although local rulers attempted to protect the Jewish community. Again, in

1236, Crusaders in France massacred as many as 2,000 Jews. The Jews may

have seemed like foreigners or unbelievers to these mobs.

Jews were subject to discriminatory taxes in all parts of Europe. Under

the Muslims, they paid the jizya tax as non-Muslims. In some Muslim cit-

ies, they shouldered a large part of the tax burden, in addition to support-

ing their own communities. Christian rulers not only taxed them, but also

borrowed from them and then defaulted on the loans. To fund the Cru-

sades, several kings forced Jews to lend large sums to them, never to be re-

paid. The usual way to default on such loans was to expel all Jews, requiring

them to leave all property behind, forfeit to the Crown.

When Jews traveled, they were special targets for robbery and kidnap-

ping. If they dressed as Christians, they were safer. If they were known as

Jews, even Christians who were not robbers as a full-time profession would

consider stealing their merchandise.

Spain was a refuge for most of the Middle Ages, but not always. The

Umayyad emirs and caliphs had been relatively secular and easygoing;

under them, the “Sefara”—the Jewish community—had its Golden Age.

By the 12th century, civil war had permitted a large inﬂ ux of North African

Berber rulers. The Almohad dynasty was puritanical and tried to reform

the lax ways of previous Muslim rulers. Jews were not protected or treated

well, and many left Spain. The most famous medieval Jew, Moses Maimo-

nides (in Arabic, Musa ibn Maymun), was born into a prominent Jewish

family in Cordoba in 1135. The Maimon family left Andalusia and went to

Egypt. They were treated with discrimination in Egypt, too, which pushed

Moses to look harder at his neglected Jewish heritage. Like many well-

educated Arabic Jews, he worked as a doctor in Alexandria. He became one

of the best-known commentators and philosophers, both within Judaism

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and across Europe. His philosophical writings, in Arabic, inﬂ uenced Euro-

pean study of Aristotle and Plato.

Conditions in Northern Europe also became less hospitable. England

and France went through times of expelling and then recalling the Jews.

Jews were chronically put under heavy, discriminatory taxes, and their es-

tates could be conﬁ scated at death on the grounds that they had obtained

their wealth sinfully. According to popular rumor, they were accused of kill-

ing Christian children. The ﬁ rst documented rumor began in 1144 when

a boy was found murdered in Norwich, England, and the people accused

the Jews. The boy became Saint William of Norwich. After this, Jews were

often accused when a child’s body was found dead; just as often, a mob

murdered some Jews in retaliation.

In England, the Plantagenet kings had declared that Jews were the king’s

property and must serve him. The Jews of York were massacred on the day

of Richard I’s coronation because a small number of them were traveling to

London to present gifts, and a rumor spread that they were dangerous. The

Jewish community was then forced to come up with much of the ransom

money when Richard I was held captive in France. King Henry III forbade

Jews from accepting land as security for loans in 1269; Edward I prohibited

them from charging interest in 1275. In 1290, Edward I forced the Jews

to leave England. They left behind all their money and property and went

penniless to France.

In France, King Philip II had conﬁ scated a great deal of Jewish money

in 1180 and then expelled the Jews. He invited them back a few years later,

in 1198. King Louis IX, the Crusader, publicly burned a copy of the Tal-

mud and repeatedly conﬁ scated Jewish property. In 1246, he had the Jews

of Carcassone imprisoned until they could come up with a large enough

ransom. The Shepherds’ Crusade of 1320, led by out-of-work and starving

shepherds, led to widespread massacres of Jews all over France.

There had been an active, relatively free Jewish community in the county

of Champagne. They were involved as bankers and merchants in the suc-

cessful Champagne fairs. When Countess Joan of Navarre married King

Philip the Fair of France in 1284, the county of Champagne was no longer

independent. The fairs began to fail as the French king imposed high taxes

on all transactions. In 1306, he expelled all Jews. Jews were still in southern

France, in the county of Toulouse, and in Germany. Germany had been a

relatively safe place for Jews.

The last blow to Northern Europe’s Jewish communities was the Black

Death plague. The ﬁ rst outbreak in 1347, beginning in Italy and southern

France, was fast and severe. As much as half the population died in many

regions. It spread by an unknown means, and it killed people very quickly.

Nobody knew why it was happening, and many blamed the Jews, among

other scapegoats.

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Even without a solid reason for blaming the Jews, a mob in a village near

Marseille attacked the Jewish population on Palm Sunday. They smashed

property, burned houses, and left 40 Jews dead in the street. The nearby

villages began to follow, and many Jews were burned to death. In some vil-

lages, no Jews were left alive. The city of Marseille itself did not join in these

mob activities, and Marseille’s Jews survived.

As 1347 passed, there were increasing accusations that Jews had poi-

soned the water supply. In September 1348, a Jewish doctor living near

Lake Geneva confessed, probably under torture, that he had imported

poison, passed it around the Jewish community, and used it to poison

wells. He led his interrogators to the spring he had supposedly poisoned

and named conspirators. Many other Jews were interrogated and tortured.

The actual poison was never found, but people believed it was made of rep-

tiles or Christian hearts. The rumors passed quickly through Europe. Mobs

took over and, in fear and anger, began killing Jews. The Jews of Narbonne

and Carcassone, in southern France, were executed by mobs. The Jews of

Basel, Switzerland, were herded into a wooden building and burned. All

over Germany, Jews were attacked and often burned.

The Pope, the king of Aragon, the king of Germany, the duke of Aus-

tria, and the town elders of Cologne, Germany, all tried to stop the mas-

sacres. Although they could protect some Jews in their localities, they were

not able to stop a mass of people who were terriﬁ ed of the horrible plague

around them. After the plague waned, the attacks stopped, but many peo-

ple still thought Jews had poisoned the wells. Most of Northern Europe’s

surviving Jews went to the kingdom of Poland, where they were safe until

modern times.

As the Christian Reconquest of Spain pushed south, Spain became even

less of a refuge for Jews. More of them left and went to North Africa, Pal-

estine, Italy, and even Northern Europe. A signiﬁ cant Jewish community

remained in Spain until the ﬁ nal victory of King Ferdinand and Queen Isa-

bella over the last Sultan at Granada. They expelled all remaining Jews.

See also: Alphabet, Banks, Crusades, Medicine, Muslims, Plague.