Language:
German
Year of publication:
1991
Titel der Quelle:
Berliner Theologische Zeitschrift
Angaben zur Quelle:
8,1 (1991) 31-50
Keywords:
Christianity and antisemitism History To 1500
;
Antisemitism in literature
;
Jews in literature
;
Judaism in literature
Abstract:
A revised version of a lecture delivered in Bern, November 1988. Analyzes the image of the Jew in popular German-language literature and sermons of the high and late Middle Ages, in particular the Alsatian version of "Legenda aurea", a collection of Christian legends which was the most popular book of the Middle Ages; the sermons of the influential 13th-century preacher Berthold von Regensburg; and the work of the 15th-century Strasbourg chronicler Jakob Twinger von Königshofen. Notes that writers of the time made no distinction between biblical and contemporary Jews, between fable and reality. The legends present stereotypes of Jews, often but not always negative, and include miracle stories of the defeat of Jews or their conversion. Berthold ranks them with other outcasts of society, but uses them mainly as a warning to Christian sinners and heretics. Twinger is an exception in his attempt to present an objective history; he exposes the groundlessness of accusations such as ritual murder or the poisoning of wells, and asserts that the Jews were burned only for the sake of their money.
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