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Heretics and Jews in the Writings of Ademar of Chabannes and the Origins of Medieval Anti-Semitism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Michael Frassetto
Michael Frassetto
Affiliation:
The Religion Editor for the Encyclopaedia Britannica
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Extract

Although many scholars now recognize the turn of the millennium as the key point in the development of medieval civilization and the birth of Europe, there remains a tendency to look to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as the period in which cultural and intellectual norms emerged that would define medieval civilization. This cultural flourishing, long ago recognized as a renaissance by Charles Henry Haskins, has, in recent years, taken on more ominous tones. Certainly this was a period of great intellectual fervor, but it was also, as R. I. Moore has shown, a time of persecution. Just as medieval theologians offered positive definitions of the Christian faith and Christian society, they defined the “other”—the enemy who stood in stark contrast to all that was true and good in society. And in Western Christendom there were no greater enemies than the Jew and the heretic. Indeed, it has generally been recognized that Jewish fortunes increasingly worsened during the course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

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Articles
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Church History , Volume 71 , Issue 1 , March 2002 , pp. 1 - 15
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Copyright © American Society of Church History 2002

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References

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18. For Jewish immigration see Chazan, Medieval Stereotypes, 1–18, and for the connection with heresy see below and Chazan, “1007–1012: Initial Crisis for Northern European Jewry,” American Academy for Jewish Research (1970–71): 111–13. Bredero, Christendom and Christianity, 299–302, raises similar points concerning the importance of population pressures for the emergence of anti-Jewishattitudes.Google ScholarFor the influence of apocalypticism, see Callahan, Daniel, “Ademar of Chabannes, Millennial Fears and the Development of Western Anti-Judaism,” The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 46 (1995): 19–35, esp. 23–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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22. On the Antichrist legend see McGinn, Bernard, Antichrist: Two Thousand Years of the Human Fascination with Evil (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1994), 57–113, especially 74–75 and 85–87.Google Scholar

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24. D.S. MS Lat Phillipps, 1664, fol. 91v. “Iudei adhuc expectant Incarnationem … et pro Christo Antichristo recipient.”Google Scholar

25. Callahan, “Western Anti-Judaism,” 24, notes that Ademar is the only source recording the earthquake in Rome and persecution, a fact that raises doubts of the authenticity of the incident. These doubts are reinforced for Callahan because of the similarity of the account to the Gospel of Nicodemus. On the incident at Rome, see also Moore, Persecuting Society, 31–34.Google Scholar

26. Chronique, 3:52, 175. The execution of the Jews was, for Ademar, a victory over the enemies of Christ, and it may not be coincidental that the rest of chap. 52 addresses an invasion of Narbonne by a fleet of Saracens that was repelled by Christian armies. Thus Ademar describes two victories over the enemies of Christ and Christendom in this chapter.Google Scholar

27. Bredero, Christendom and Christianity, 276 and 295; Moore, Formation of a Persecuting Society, 34–39; and Trachtenberg, Devil and the jews, 109–23.Google Scholar

28. For heresy in the early eleventh century see Lambert, Malcolm, Medieval Heresy: Popular Movements from the Gregorian Reform to the Reformation, 2d ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), 3–32.Google Scholar

29. Chronique, 3:49, 173. “Paulo post exorti sunt per Aquitaniam Manichei. ”Google Scholar

30. Lobrichon, Guy, “The Chiaroscuro of Heresy: Early Eleventh-Century Aquitaine as Seen from Auxerre,” in The Peace of God: Social Violence and Religious Response in France around Year 1000, eds. Head, Thomas and Landes, Richard (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1992): 348. “Crucem seu vultum domini non adorant, sed et adorantes prout possunt prohibent, ita ut ante uultum stantes fando dicant ‘O quam miseri sunt qui te adorant, dicente psalmista Simulacra gentium, et cetera.’”Google ScholarSee also Frassetto, Michael, “The Sermons of Ademar of Chabannes and the Letter of Heribert: New Sources Concerning the Origins of Medieval Heresy,” Revue bénédictine 109 (1999): 324–40;CrossRefGoogle Scholarand Taylor, Claire, “The letter of Héribert of Périgord as a source for dualist heresy in the society of early eleventh-century Aquitaine,” Journal of Medieval History 26 (2000): 313–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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34. Chronique, 3:52, 175. See also Callahan “Western Anti-Judaism,” 24–25; and Moore, Formation of a Persecuting Society, 32–33.Google Scholar

35. Not only did much of Northern Europe witness the sudden reappearance of religious dissent but it also saw the immigration of a large population who would come to be known as the Ashkenazy Jews. On the resurgence of heresy, see Moore, Origins of European Dissent, 3–32; and on the Jews, Chazan, Medieval Stereotypes, 1–18.Google Scholar

36. For fuller discussions of Ademar's interest in heresy see Frassetto, Michael, “Reaction and Reform: Reception of Heresy in Arras and Aquitaine in the Early Eleventh Century,” Catholic Historical Review 83 (1995): 385–400; and Frassetto, “Sermons of Ademar of Chabannes and the Letter of Heribert,” 324–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

37. D.S. MS Lat Phillipps, 1664, fol. 72r–72v. “Credimus quia redemptor noster non est conceprus de Ioseph sicut Iudei et haeretici blasphemant sed de spiritu sancto id est per administrationem et virtutem spiritus sancti.”Google Scholar

38. D.S. MS Lat Phillipps, 1664, fol. 74v. “inter congregationem Christianorum qui veriter fidem credunt et inter congregationem Iudeorum, paganorum, Sarracenorum, et omnium haereticorum.” On the significance of this see Cohen, Living Letters of the Law, 156–59 and 167–218, and above.Google Scholar

39. D.S. MS Lat Phillipps, 1664, fol. 74v.Google Scholar

40. Trachtenberg, Devil and the Jews, 11–52.Google Scholar

41. D.S. MS Lat Phillipps, 1664, fol. 97r. “In capite concilii primum debetis audire de fide Catholica quod est principalitas et maior virtus nostra et tocius Christiani imperil saluset Iudeorum atque Sarracenorum et paganorum et haereticorum et Antichristi et diaboli et inferni destructio et confusio.”Google Scholar

42. D.S. MS Lat Phillipps, 1664, fol. 102v. “[E]t ipse diabolus qui Deo contrarius est et ipsi impii homines Iudei Sarraceni pagani haeretici qui Deo contrari sunt.”Google Scholar

43. D.S. MS Lat Phillipps, 1664, fol. 107v–108r.Google Scholar

44. On host desecration and the anti-Jewish stereotype, see Bredero, Christendom and Christianity, 295; Miri Rubin, “Desecration of the Host: The Birth of An Accusation,” in Christianity and Judaism, 169–85; and Trachtenberg, The Devil and the Jews, 109–23.Google Scholar

45. D.S. MS Lat Phillipps, 1664, fols. 103r–103v. “Multi corporeis oculis viderunt aliquotiens oblationem sanctificatam a sacerdote super altare veram carnem et verum cruorem multi viderunt infantem partiri super altare in manibus sacerdotis hoc est ipsum Dominum nostrum qui natus est de Virgine qui cotidie in altari immolatur et sine fine regnat in caelo. Alii antequam frangeretur hostia viderunt puerum sedentem in corporate et non viderunt panem neque vinum et iterum ipsum puerum viderunt transmutatum in figura partis et vini. Alii viderunt angelos super altare in circuitu pueri adstare. Alii viderunt agni partiri in manibus sacerdotum et sanguinem eius fundere in calicem.”Google Scholar

46. Bredero, Christendom and Christianity, 345–46.Google ScholarSee also Rubin, Miri, Corpus Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991) for a broader discussion of the Eurcharist in medieval belief.Google Scholar

47. D.S. MS Lat Phillipps, 1664, fol. 84r.Google Scholar

48. For a fuller discussion and citations to the manuscript, see Frassetto, “Sermons of Ademar,” “Chapter Six: Heresy and Heresies in the Sermons of Ademar of Chabannes,” 231–61.Google Scholar

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50. D.S. MS Lat Phillipps, 1664, fol. 84r. “Iudei tarn in suis libris inveniunt trinitatem atque ascensionem Domini in omnia quae de Domino Ihesus Christo credimus ipsi inveniunt praedicta a prophetis in suis libris sed non credunt quia non praedestinati ad vitam aeternam.” See Trachtenberg, Devil and the Jews, 15–18 for discussion of Jewish rejection of the “truth” of Scripture.Google Scholar

51. McGinn, Antichrist, 74–75.Google Scholar

52. D.S. MS Lat Phillipps, 1664, fol. 91v.Google Scholar

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54. For a fuller consideration of the Jewish role in the Antichrist legend, see Trachtenberg, Devil and the Jews, 39–42. For a useful introduction to the history of Antichrist, see McGinn, Antichrist.Google Scholar

55. Trachtenberg, Devil and the Jews, 43.Google Scholar

56. See Chazan, Medieval Stereotypes, 88–94 on twelfth-century anti-Semitism and the humanization of Christ. Ademar's concerns with St. Martial and the apostolic period suggest growing interest in the human Christ already in the early eleventh century.Google Scholar

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58. D.S. MS Lat Phillipps, 1664, fol. 107r.Google Scholar

59. D.S. MS Lat Phillipps, 1664, fol. 108v. “Quia in passione Domini corpus eius immolatum est in cruce et sanguinis eius confusses est et ille verus et vivus panis qui de caelo descendit in terram quando natus est qui etiam angelos ante saecula pascebat in caelo postquam a Iudeis crucifixus est.”Google Scholar

60. D.S. MS Lat Phillipps, 1664, fol. HOv.Google Scholar

61. D.S. MS Lat Phillipps, 1664, fol. 97v. “Sed in cruce ab impius Iudeis in altari a sanctiset benignis sacerdotibus passionem suscipit. Quia Iudei pro impietate Dominum crucifixerunt ut delerent nomen eius de terra…”Google Scholar

62. D.S. MS Lat Phillipps, 1664, fol. 102v. “Nam sicut tune de Monte Oliveti descendit quando Iudei immolaverunt ipsum agnum Dei in cruce per invidiam, ita cotidie … ipsum verum agnum Dei inmaculatum non per invidiam sed per benignitatem et oboedientiam voluntas eius in altari in sancto immolant.”Google Scholar

63. Trachtenberg, Devil and the Jews, 109–23 for discussion of this association.Google Scholar

64. D.S. MS Lat Phillipps, 1664, fol. 73r.Google Scholar

65. D.S. MS Lat Phillipps, 1664, fol. 73r. “Et quern multocies Iudei zelantes imagines crucifixi… lanceis vulnerarunt et sanguine et aqua ex eis profluit tamquam quondam ex latere Domini.” See Callahan, “Western Anti-Judaism,” 24.Google Scholar