The Self in the Eyes of the Other: Creating Violent Expectations in Late-Medieval German Drama

Summary

The maid saw him and began again to say to the bystanders, “This man is one of them.” Once again he denied it.

(Mark 14: 69–70)

An investigation of the spread of perceptions and prejudices should examine in particular, how Christians in the later Middle Ages thought Jews thought of Christians. That is, how did Christians expect Jews to interact with them? Each person's interactions with another are colored by numerous pre-formed opinions: expectations about the other person's intentions and character are often associated with larger sets of identifications given that person or group, and often these expectations are based upon perceived, and sometimes actual, power relationships. Thus, members of different ethnic and religious groups, such as Christians and Jews, have expectations or prejudices—at times violent ones—concerning how the other views him/herself.

What is described in the following are the pre-formed opinions which many Christians held toward Jews in the later Middle Ages, as found in German plays written for performance on a stage in front of an audience. The Christian authors of these plays placed words into the mouths of the Jewish characters which were to reflect both alleged Jewish opinions of and threats of violence against Christians; it is often not the Jews themselves, who speak in these plays, but rather Christians representing expected Jewish beliefs. There is an inherent violence in having these opinions thrust upon a minority group by the majority, isolating the minority culturally and emotionally, as we shall see; at the same time, the violence expressed in such statements awakens deep-rooted fears in the audience. In fact, threats of physical violence occur later in the secular plays. In what perhaps should have been the slogan for the current study, Hans Folz's (Christian) Doctor addresses the Rabbi in Die alt und neu ee (The Old and New Covenant): “Then tell me one more thing, Jew! / What do you think of us Christians?”

Literature serving to isolate minority groups is by no means new: much has been written in the last twenty years about the anti-Jewish stance of late-medieval Christian drama, especially German plays. In general, this modern research has focussed upon the negative image of the Jews as being “broadcast” through an early mass-medium.