Language:
English
Year of publication:
2002
Titel der Quelle:
Early Medieval Europe
Angaben zur Quelle:
11,3 (2002) 189-207
Keywords:
Sisebut,
;
Isidore,
;
Jews History 7th century
;
Christianity and antisemitism History 7th century
;
Christian converts from Judaism History Middle Ages, 500-1500
;
Baptism (Canon law)
;
Visigoths History
Abstract:
In the early years of his reign (ca. 613-615), King Sisebut ordered the Jews to be baptized. A conciliar canon, most probably from the third Council of Sevilla held in 624, relates that Jewish parents who had been baptized by force tried to prevent their children's baptism, relying on the help of Christian neighbors who lent them their own children (to undergo a second baptism). According to the wording of the canon, Jewish parents thereby retained their children who were viewed as "pagans". The peculiar terminology served as a rhetorical tool to denigrate Judaism, putting it on a par with idolatry, superstition, and backward rural culture. The rhetoric constructed a negative Jewish identity, which in turn served to strengthen a new concept of Gothic identity propagated since the conversion of the Visigoths to Catholicism. Surmises that Isidore of Seville was the author of the canonical text, which means that he changed his views on conversion at this Council. It seems, therefore, that political pressure was exerted on the assembled clerics which induced them to endorse the king's policy of forced conversion.
DOI:
10.1046/j.0963-9462.2002.00108.x
URL:
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