Medieval Minorities: Persecution, Tolerance, or Co-existence?

                      Course #: 5311-001
                         Wed. 7-9:50 p.m.
                          Room: UH 321

Professor Sarah Davis-Secord
Office: 331 University Hall
Email: sdavis-secord@uta.edu
Office Hours: M.W. 10 a.m. – 11 a.m. or by appointment

 

 

The status of minority populations is a hot topic in the modern world, and modern perceptions of this issue often inform our thinking about how minority groups have been treated in the past.  This colloquium will provide a forum for discussion and debate about works of historical scholarship concerning Muslims, Jews, heretical Christians, and other minority groups within medieval Europe and at its borders.  We will explore and contrast concepts including group identity, toleration, conversion, co-existence, and persecution.  Questions that students will be asked to consider include the following: How did certain groups get chosen as minorities or “outsiders” within medieval European society?  Is there one paradigm with which we should explain the status and conditions of minority groups in medieval Europe , or should each group or place be considered individually?  And, should medieval Christendom be understood as a “persecuting society,” or are there alternative ways to explain the negotiations between majority and minority populations during the Middle Ages?

 

 

As a graduate colloquium, this course will introduce students to the major trends in historical scholarship in this field.  Students will be asked to come to each week’s class meeting prepared to discuss the assigned readings and each student should turn in a written reading response to the week’s text(s).  These weekly readings will take the form of a book or a collection of articles, along with a short selection from a primary source.  The final project for the course will consist of a colloquium paper (historiographical in nature) of approximately 25-30 pages, examining the current state of scholarship and historiographical trends on a question of the student’s selection.

 

Robert Chazan, European Jewry and the First Crusade, University of California Press (1996)

Jeremy Cohen, Living Letters of the Law: Ideas of the Jew in Medieval Christianity, University of California Press (1999)

Mark R. Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages, Princeton University Press (1995)

Jacob Rader Marcus, ed. The Jew in the Medieval World: A Source Book, 315-1791 Hebrew Union College Press (2000)

Maria Rose Menocal, Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain , Little Brown (2003)

R.I. Moore , The Formation of a Persecuting Society: Authority and Deviance in Western Europe 950-1250, 2^nd ed., Blackwell Publishing (2007)

David Nirenberg, Communities of Violence, Princeton University Press (1998)

John Tolan, Saracens, Columbia University Press (2002)

Please note: In addition to the required books, there will be a number of primary source texts and articles that you will be required to read for class discussions. These other materials will be available as PDFs on the webCT page for our course (found at webct.uta.edu).

 

 

1.      Americans With Disabilities Act: The University of Texas at Arlington is on record as being committed to both the spirit and letter of federal equal opportunity legislation.  As a faculty member, I am required by law to provide "reasonable accommodations" to students with disabilities, so as not to discriminate on the basis of that disability. If you require an accommodation based on disability, it is your responsibility to inform me at the beginning of the semester and provide appropriate documentation through designated administrative channels.  Information regarding specific diagnostic criteria and policies for obtaining academic accommodations can be found at www.uta.edu/disability.  Also, you may visit the Office for Students with Disabilities in room 102 of University Hall or at (817) 272-3364.

 

2.      Academic Integrity: Cheating will not be tolerated.  If you need help, ask for it rather than stealing someone else’s work.  It is the philosophy of The University of Texas at Arlington that academic dishonesty is completely unacceptable and will not be tolerated in any form. Anyone involved in academic dishonesty will be disciplined in accordance with University regulations and procedures. Discipline may include suspension or expulsion from the University.  Regents’ Rules and Regulations, Series 50101, Section 2.2 states: "Scholastic dishonesty includes but is not limited to cheating, plagiarism, collusion, the submission for credit of any work or materials that are attributable in whole or in part to another person, taking an examination for another person, any act designed to give unfair advantage to a student or the attempt to commit such acts."

 

 

8/26     Introduction

            - Anna Sapir Abulafia, “From Northern Europe to Southern Europe and from the general to the particular: recent research on Jewish-Christian coexistence in medieval Europe ” Journal of Medieval History 23 (1997): 179-190

            - Robert Chazan, “The Jews in Europe and the Mediterranean Basin” in David Luscombe et al., ed., New Cambridge Medieval History vol. 4.1, p. 623-657

 

9/2       The Paradigm of Persecution

- R.I. Moore , The Formation of a Persecuting Society

 

9/9       The Idea of the Jew in Medieval Europe

            - Jeremy Cohen, Living Letters of the Law

            - Innocent III: Constitution for the Jews (1199)

            - Marcus doc. 22                                                                                          

9/16     Pogroms and Massacres

            - Robert Chazan, European Jewry and the First Crusade

 

9/23     Paradigm of convivencia

- Maria Rose Menocal, Ornament of the World

- Marcus docs. 7, 27, 30

 

9/30     Disputation and the Possibility of Conversion

- Jonathan M. Elukin, “From Jew to Christian? Conversion and Immutability in Medieval Europe ” in James Muldoon, ed., Varieties of Religious Conversion in the Middle Ages, p. 171-189

- Mark D. Johnston, “Ramon Lull and the Compulsory Evangelization of Jews and Muslims” in Larry J. Simon ed., Iberia and the Mediterranean World, p. 3-37

- Moses Nahmanides, “Debate” and “The Christian Account of the Barcelona Disputation” in Hyam Maccoby ed., Judaism on Trial, p. 147-150

- Marcus docs. 7, 28, 72

 

10/7     Alternative Paradigms

- David Nirenberg, Communities of Violence

 

10/14   Comparative Perspectives

- Mark Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross

 

10/21   Blood Libel, Inquisition, and Expulsion

- Harvey J. Hames, “ The limits of conversion: ritual murder and the Virgin Mary in the account of Adam of Bristol” Journal of Medieval History 33:1 (2007): 43-59

- John. M. McCulloh, “Jewish ritual murder: William of Norwich, Thomas of Monmouth, and the early dissemination of the myth” Speculum 72 (1997): 698-740

- Sophia Menache, “Faith, Myth, and Politics: The Stereotype of the Jews and Their Expulsion from England and France ” The Jewish Quarterly Review, New Ser., 75 (1985): 351-374

- Charles of Anjou ’s Edict of Expulsion, 1289

- “Heresy and Inquisition” in Medieval Iberia , p. 330-337

- Marcus docs. 5, 11, 24, 25, 26

 

10/28   Muslims as Minorities in Europe

            - John Tolan, Saracens

- Marcus doc. 27

 

11/4     Sexual Deviants/Homosexuals:

- Judith M. Bennett, “‘Lesbian-Like’ and the Social History of Lesbianisms” Journal of the History of Sexuality 9 (2000): 1-24

- Vern Bullough, “Cross Dressing and Gender Role Change in the Middle Ages” in The Handbook of Medieval Sexuality, p. 223-242

- Ruth Mazo Karras and David Lorenzo Boyd, “‘Ut cum muliere’: A Male Transvestite Prostitute in Fourteenth-Century London” in Premodern Sexualities, p.101-116

- Ruth Mazo Karras, “Prostitution and the Question of Sexual Identity in Medieval Europe” Journal of Women’s History 11 (1999): 159-177

- Ann E. Matter, “My sister, my spouse: Woman-identified women in medieval Christianity” in The Boswell Thesis, p. 152-166

 

11/11   Africans, Slaves and Other “Others”

- Malcolm C. Barber, “Lepers, Jews and Moslems: the plot to overthrow Christendom in 1321” History 66 (1981): 1-17

- Michael W. Dols, “The Leper in Medieval Islamic Society” Speculum 58 (1983): 891-

916

- Jacques Le Goff, “Licit and Illicit Trades in the Medieval West” in Time, Work, and Culture in the Middle Ages, p. 58-70

- Mark D. Meyerson, “Slavery and the Social Order: Mudejars and Christians in the Kingdom of Valencia ” Medieval Encounters 1 (1995): 144-173

- Debra Higgs Strickland, “Demons, Darkness, & Ethiopians” in Saracens, Demons, & Jews, p. 61-93

- Third Lateran Council and Humbert of Romans on Lepers

 

11/18   No class – work on papers

 

11/25   No class - Thanksgiving

 

12/2     Paper discussions