Piecing together Jewish life in medieval Europe
From around 1100 to 1350, medieval Europe was a place of relative calm and plenty. This was a period that also witnessed the expansion of Jewish communities across northern Europe, a diaspora known as the Jews of Ashkenaz. “If you were to look at a map of that time, you would see Jewish communities spreading and growing across what is now Germany, northern France and England,” says investigator Elisheva Baumgarten, professor of Jewish History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel. “This diaspora is critically important to understand. When Jews open any Torah commentary today, much of what they read will have been written by medieval Ashkenazic Jews.” Records of Jewish life during this time however tend to be selective. As with much medieval history, the written word was the preserve of the elite – secular rulers, Christian leaders or learned rabbis – and much of what is recorded has to do with moments of crisis and religious tensions. But as Baumgarten stresses, ordinary Jews continued to live their lives, through good times and bad. “If the current global health pandemic has taught me anything, it is that everyday life goes on, even in moments of crisis,” she adds.
Voices from the past
The BeyondtheElite project sought to give a voice to the thousands of ordinary Jews who interacted daily with their Christian neighbours, signed business deals and led complex lives. To achieve this, Baumgarten and her team collected a range of Hebrew, Latin and vernacular sources, ranging from prayer collections to business contracts. The project focused on four key areas, starting with rituals. “Through rituals, we have been able to learn more about social interactions,” explains Baumgarten. “We also looked at spaces, and found that Jews were everywhere.” The project team looked at objects as well, the assumption being that objects belonged to everyone, not just the elite. And finally, the project looked at people. “Who are these Jewish people?” asks Baumgarten. “What we find is that they are not just money lenders. They had multiple trades. They might not have been part of guilds, but they had professions. The daily reality of their lives is different than the ideas of communal social structure that have been written about based on the lives of communal leaders and scholars.”
Shared European history
BeyondtheElite has demonstrated the importance of listening to everyday voices, and giving ordinary people agency and meaning. “Most medieval Jews weren’t learned rabbis,” she says. “Communal life only happens because ordinary people participate.” By doing so, the project offers a corrective as to how we should view European history as a whole. “We need this narrative of inclusion and exclusion, of living together and apart,” notes Baumgarten. “Jews lived next door to Christians and interacted with them constantly, and we have to show that.” The project team, which includes students from around the world, has produced a number of collected volumes and monographs, a range of materials to help schoolteachers teach the Middle Ages, and a book of primary sources for undergraduate teaching. The project has also partnered with Israeli artists, who will interpret some of the project findings. The hope is that this exhibition will travel, helping to shed new light on this complex, fascinating and critical facet of our shared European history.
Keywords
BeyondtheElite, Jews, medieval, Ashkenaz, Jewish, secular, Christian, rabbis