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Views of Jews from Paris Around 1300: Christian or ‘Scientific’?1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Peter Biller
Peter Biller*
Affiliation:
University of York
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Extract

A Term in many ways inappropriate to the Middle Ages’: so begins AA a recent medieval encyclopaedia article on ‘antisemitism’. It is the first worry of the medievalist. On the one hand, he or she hears the c’est la même chose cry of the non-medievalist when the latter looks at examples of medieval hatred of the Jews. On the other hand, he or she is acutely aware both of the modernity of racial thought and the way in which twelfth-or thirteenth-century texts, when discussing Jews, use religious vocabulary, not ‘racial’. Painful modern Jewish and Christian concern to examine the Church’s guilt pushes in the same direction as the medievalist’s anxiety about anachronism. The effect is to underline religion.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 29: Christianity and Judaism , 1992 , pp. 187 - 207
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1992

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Footnotes

1

Iowe much to David d’Avray, who corrected errors in the edition given in Appendix B; he is not responsible for those which remain. A debt to Bernard Barr is acknowledged in n. 48, below.

References

2 Chazan, R., ‘Antisemitism’, Dictionary of the Middle Ages, 13 vols. (New York, 1982-9), 1, p. 338.Google Scholar

3 Schmitt, J.-C., ‘“Jeunes” et danse des chevaux de bois. Le folklore méridional dans la littérature des “exempla” (XIIIe-XIVe siècles)’, Cahiers de Fanjeaux, 11 (1976), pp. 127–58.Google Scholar

4 Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dialogus miraculorum, ed. Strange, J., 2 vols (Cologne, Bonn, and Brussels, 1851), II.23, 1, p. 92 Google Scholar: ‘Tune enim Judaei laborare dicunrur quadam infirmitate, quae fluxus sanguinis dicuntur.’

5 Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dialogus miraculomm, II.23, 1, p. 93: ‘Judaei cuiusdam filia, et secundum genus suum speciosa. Hanc iuvenis quidem … concupivit … earn quoridie ad commixtionem sollicitaret… nocte eadem ad virginem venit, et usque ad matutinum cum ilia dormivit’; II.24, 1, P. 94; ‘Judaeus quidam manebat, filiam habens formosam. Hanc iuvenis quidam clericus, in vicino habitans, adamavit, devirginavit et impraegnavit.’

6 Ibid., X.69, 2, p. 263: ‘Judaeos, qui corpore … omnino inmundi sunt.’

7 Ibid., II.26, 1, p. 98: ‘Ego, inquit Judaea, tribus vicibus te sursum traham per latrinam.’

8 Ibid., II.25, 1, p. 96: ‘foetor judaicus’. This appears in the German vernacular—ein stinkender Jude—in the vernacular version of Berthold of Regensburg’s sermons, Cruel, J. R., Geschichte der deutschen Predigl im Mittelalter (Detmold, 1879), p. 621.Google Scholar

9 These are cited in Appendix A. The most recent survey is J. F. Wippel, ‘Quodlibetal Questions, Chiefly in Theology Faculties’, in B. C. Bazan, G. Fransen, D. Jacquart, and Wippel, J. W., Les questions disputées et les questions quodlibétiques dans les facultés de theologie, de droit, et de médecine–Typologie des sources du moyen âge occidental, 44–5 (Turnhout, 1985), pp. 153–222.Google Scholar

10 Boyle, L. E., The Quodlibets of St. Thomas and Pastoral Care’, The Thomist, 38 (1974), pp. 232–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 Wippel, , ‘Quodlibetal Questions’, p. 221.Google Scholar

12 Ibid., p. 193.

13 For the texts discussed in this paragraph, see Appendix A.

14 Wippel, , ‘Quodlibetal Questions’, pp. 206 Google Scholar and 204, n. 119.

15 Hauréau, J. B., ‘Notice sur le numéro 16089 des manuscrits latin de la Bibliothèque Nationale’, Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Nationale et des autres bibliothèques, 35.i (1896), pp. 213–19.Google Scholar

16 Grabmann, M., ‘Die Aristoteleskommentare des Heinrich von Brüssel und der Einflüss Alberts des Grosen auf die mittelalterliche Aristoteleserklärung’, Sitzungsberichte der bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, philosophisch-philologisch Klasse, 1943, 10 (Munich, 1944). pp. 17–28.Google Scholar

17 See Hauréau, J. B., ‘Henri de Bruxelles, religieux d’Afflighem’, Histoire littéraire de la France, 27 (1877), pp. 105–8 Google Scholar, and ‘Notice sur le numéro 16089’, p. 214; Grabmann, , ‘Heinrich von Brüssel, pp. 29–39 Google Scholar, and the summary note in Glorieux, P., La Faculté des arts et ses maîtres au XIIIe siècle–Études de philosophie médiévale, 59 (Paris, 1971), p. 182, no. 183.Google Scholar

18 See Hauréau, J. B., ‘Jean Vate, recteur de l’université de Paris’, Histoire littéraire de la France, 27 (1877), pp. 68–70 Google Scholar; Grabmann, M., ‘Gentile da Cingoli, ein Italienischer Aristoteleserklärer aus der Zeit Dantes’, Sitzungsherichte der bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, philosophischphilologisch Klasse, 1940, 9 (Munich, 1941), pp. 14ff. and 49–50 Google Scholar, and ‘Heinrich von Brüssel’, pp. 46–7; Glorieux, , Faculté des arts, p. 240, no. 278.Google Scholar

19 See Hauréau, M., ‘Numéro 16089’, P. 214 Google Scholar; Glorieux, P., Répertoire des maîtres en théologie au XUIe siècle, 2 vols, Études de philosophie médiévale, 17–18 (Paris, 1933–4), 2, p. 317, no. 406 Google Scholar, and Glorieux, , Faculté des arts, p. 179, no. 179 Google Scholar; Grabmann, , ‘Heinrich von Brüssel’, pp. 35–6.Google Scholar

20 A provisional edition is given in Appendix B. Another question in the manuscript, fol. 82vb, not studied here, deserves further attention: ‘Utrum ebrei calefacti a sole maxime gaudent’.

21 Lawn, B., Tlte Saltemitan Questions. An Introduction to the History of Medieval and Renaissance Problem Literature (Oxford, 1963 Google Scholar). The Italian translation, I Quesiti Salernitani (Salerno, 1969), contains additional bibliography.

22 The Prose Salernitan Questions, ed. Lawn, B., Auctores Britannici medii aevi, 5 (London, 1979 Google Scholar).

23 Lawn, , Salernitan Questions, pp. 81–2.Google Scholar

24 Albert the Great, Quaestiones super De animalibus, ed. Filthaut, E., Opera omnia, 12 (Cologne, 1955). PP. 77–351.Google Scholar

25 On this nova translatio, see Lacombe, G., Birkenmajer, A., Dulong, M., Franceschini, E., and Minio-Paluello, L., Aristoteles Latinus. Codices, 2 vols (Rome, 1939, Cambridge, 1955), 1, pp. 86–7 Google Scholar; a specimen text is given pp. 181-2; see 2, p. 1345, for the index entry to MSS of the work.

26 On the translation into Latin of Avicenna’s Canon, see Lemay, R., ‘Gerard of Cremona’, Dictionary of Scientific Biography, 15 (1978), p. 185, no. 63 Google Scholar, and on its spread McVaugh, M., ‘The “Humidum radiale” in Thirteenth-Century Medicine’, Traditio, 30 (1974), p. 265.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

27 Paris, BN, lat. 16089, fol. 57rb: ‘Consequenter queritur utrum melancholia sint luxuriosi … dicit philosophus in De problematibus.’ Aristotle’s statement that melancholies are inclined to sex is in Problemata IV.30 (880330).

28 I have used Avicenna, Liber Canonis Medkinae (Venice, 1527). See liber I, fen 1, doctrina 4, chs 1–2 (fols 5vb–7va) on humours in general, and ch. 1 (fol. 6vb) on melancholy; fen 2, doctrina 2, summa 1, ch. 1 s (fol. 29ra), on the kind of diet which generates sanguisgrossus, and summa 2, ch. 25 (fol. 32vb) on pain brought on by bad humours; doctrina 3, ch. 7 (fol. 3sva), on the signs of dominion of melancholy. In liber 3 see fen 1, tractatus 4, chs 18–19 (fols 150ra–151va) on melancholy and its cure; fen 16, tractatus 2, ch. 5 (fol. 253ra), on cure of the melancholic’s flux; fen 17, tractatus 1, chs 1–10 (fols 264rb-265bv), on haemorrhoids. In this general treatment, ch. 2 (fol. 264ra) discusses the generation of haemorrhoids from melancholy and melancholic blood, while ch. 10, on the appropriate diet, advises abstaining from omnegrossum, and eating only food whose digestion is quick.

29 Ibid., liber 3, fen 1, tractatus 4, ch. 18 (fol. 150va): ‘Signa principii melancholie sunt existimatio mala, et timor sine causa, et velocitas ire, et dilectio solitudinis …’; ‘nigredo pilorum’ is also mentioned.

30 See Appendix B, n. 3.

31 Balbi, J., Catholicon (Mainz, 1460), s.v. ‘melancolia’. The Catholicon was written in 1286.Google Scholar

32 Isidore, Etymologiae, ed. W. M. Lindsay, 2 vols (Oxford, 1911), liber 10, s.v. ‘malus’: 1, 10.176 ‘melancholici appellantur homines qui et conversationem humanam refugiunt et amicorum carorum suspecti sunt.’

33 Caesarius, , Dialogus, II.23, ed. Strange, 1, p. 92 Google Scholar; see n. 4, above. For other occurrences of the story in which this detail appears, see Tubach, F. C., Index Exemplorum. A Handbook of Medieval Religious Tales (Helsinki, 1969), p. 221, no. 2811.Google Scholar See the discussion of early references to flux of blood in Trachtenberg, J., The Devil and the Jews. The Medieval Conception of the Jew and Its Relation to Modern Antisemitism (Yale, 1943), p. 148 Google Scholar, and the statement that haemorrhoids are found in Thomas of Chantimpré. Thomas, referring to ‘sanguis eius super nos’, writes, ‘ut per hanc importune fluidam proles impia inexpiabiliter crucietur, quosque se ream sanguinis Chrisri recognoscat poenitens, et sanetur’: Bonum universale de apibus, II.29, ed. Colvenerius, G. (Douai, 1627), p. 305.Google Scholar Blood and the notion of needing to be healed are present, but not explicitly the medical term.

34 Albert, , Quaestiones super De animalibus, IX.7, ed. Filthaut, p. 206.Google Scholar

35 Bernard of Gordon, Lilium medicinae, V.21.9 (Lyons, 1559), p. 519: ‘Sexto, advertendum, quod Iudei ut plurimum patiuntur fluxum haemorrhoid. propter tria, et quia communiter sunt in ocio, et ideo congregantur superfluitates melancholicae. Secundo, quod communiter sunt in timore et anxietate, ideo multiplicatur sang, melancholicus, iuxta illud Hipp. Timor et pusilanimitas si multum tempus habuerint, melancholicum faciunt hum. Tertio quia hoc ex ulrione divina, iuxta illud. Et percussit eos in posteriora dorsi, opprobrium sempiternum dedit illis.’ On date and place of composition, see Demaitre, L. E., Doctor Bernard de Gordon: Professor and Practitioner–Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, Studies and Texts, 51 (Toronto, 1980), p. 50.Google Scholar

36 Lawn, , Salemitan Questions, pp. 101–2.Google Scholar

37 A convenient modern edition is Problemata Varia Anatomica: MS 1165 The University of Bologna, ed. Lind, L. R., University of Kansas Publications, Humanistic Studies, 38 (Lamence, Kansas, 1968), pp. 38–9 Google Scholar; see also the annotations, p. 92, nn. 157-60. For the reference to Meteora, see Appendix B, n. 4, below; the other references are De caeol., II.7 (289320–30) and De anima, II.4 (416a 10). I have compared this with the passage in Omnes homines in Erfurt Amplon, MS. F.334 fol. 200ra. Apart from omitting ‘et motus est causa sanitatis’ and the reference to ‘secundo de anima’, this passage in the Erfurt MS shows only negligible divergence from the Bologna MS edited here.

38 d’Ascoli, Cecco, In spheram mundi ennaratio iv, in The Sphere of Sacrobosco and Its Commentators, ed. Thorndike, L. (Chicago, 1949), p. 409.Google Scholar On Cecco, see Sarton, G., Introduction to the History of Science, 3 vols in 5 parts (Baltimore, 1927-48), 3, pt 1, pp. 643–5.Google Scholar The statement that Jews emit blood per virgam every month is found in two MSS of the Liber introductorius of Michael Scot (d. c.1235), Thorndike, L., Michael Scot (London, 1965), p. 80.Google Scholar Thorndike’s reference implies that this comes from Scot, but the passage is not discussed in the present article because these MSS contain later, interpolated, material, at least up to 1320 (ibid., p. 7), and there is a clear possibility that the statement about Jewish flux is also a later addition.

39 ‘Percussit eos in posteriora dorsi’, Problemata Varia, p. 39; compare n. 3 5, above. This is a conflation of Ps. 77.66 and 67.14.

40 BN, MS lat. 16089, fols. 57vb, ‘Consequenter queritur utrum homines albi sint audaces’; fol. 63ra, ‘Alia questio fuit utrum mulier alba magis appetit virum quam nigra’; fol. 74va, ‘Utrum albe mulieres magis appetant coire quam nigre’.

41 Bartlett, R., Gerald of Wales, 1146-1223 (Oxford, 1982), pt 3.Google Scholar

42 I have used the Venice, 1591, edition. Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum naturale, XXXI.69-72, pp. 401–2. See also the ch. De coloribus corporum, XXXI. 111, pp. 407–8.

43 Ibid., XXXI.67-8, p. 401.

44 Ibid., XXXI.126-32, pp. 409–11. Much of the monstrous race material is repeated in Vincent, Speculum historiale, 1.76–95, pp. 12–13, following the world geography of chs 63–75 (pp. 9-12), which incorporates material on colours of gentes, their fertility, climatic influences on their physical differences, and variety of diet and mores. Jewish avarice (avaritia Judaeorum) is alluded to ibid., X.24, p. 125.

45 Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum historiale, XXIX.71, p. 420.

46 Demaitre, , Bernard de Gordon, pp. 51–2 and 185–8.Google Scholar

47 Lawn, , Salternitan Questions, pp. 99–102.Google Scholar

48 An example is Aristotle’s Works Illustrated, containing the Masterpiece, Directions for Midwives, Counsel and Advice to Child-bearing Women with Various Useful Remedies (Halifax, c.1880–90), p. 233: ‘Why are the Jews much subject to this disease?’ I am indebted to the librarian of York Minster, Bernard Barr, for the information that there were many undated printings from the late Victorian period onwards, and that copies were still being disseminated in the 1960s to what had been, in his description, ‘a vast underground market’.

Page 206 of note 1 Seen. 28.

Page 206 of note 2 See nn. 29 and 32.

Page 206 of note 3 Hippocrates, Aphorisms 6.23. The Latin translation is conveniently available in the edition of a text of the 1360s, Les commentaires de Martin de Saint-Gitte sur les Amphorismes Ypocras, ed. Lafeuille, G., Travaux d’Humanisme et Renaissance, 66 (Geneva, 1964), p. 172 Google Scholar: ‘Si timor et pusillanimitas multum tempus perficiunt, hujus modi melencholici.’ The Aphorisms were part of the Articella, a compilation of medical texts put together in the twelfth century and hence forth a basic text in medical education.

Page 206 of note 4 Coction is discussed in Aristotle’s Meteora, book 4, 379b-81b. See the text in Thomas Aquinas, In Aristotelis libros de caelo et mundo, De generatione et corruptione Meteorologicorum exposilio, ed. Spiazzi, R. M. (Turin and Rome, 1952), p. 656 Google Scholar: ‘assatum fit et non elixatum (381a26)’. On the Latin translations of the Meteora [Meteorologica] see Lacombe, G., Birkenmajer, A., Dulong, M., Franceschini, E., and Minio-Paluelo, L., Aristoteles Latinus. Codices, 2 vols (Rome, 1939, and Cambridge, 1955), 1, pp. 56–7, nos 23-5, and 2, p. 788 Google Scholar, no. 25. On William of Moerbeke’s translation—new in the case of book 4—see Minio-Paluello, L., Opuscula: the Latin Aristotle (Amsterdam, 1972), pp. 83–6 Google Scholar, and various discussions in Guillaume de Moerbeke. Recueil d’études à l’occasion du yooe anniversaire de sa mort (1286), ed. Brams, J. and Vanhamel, W., Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, De Wulf-Mansion Centre, ser. 1, 7(Louvain, 1989), pp. 25–7 Google Scholar, 136, 147, 291, no. 10; bibliography, pp. 327–8, no. 2.8.