Anti-Jewish Attitudes in Anglo-Norman Religious Texts

The first chapter of the history of the Jews in England was brief, beginning with their arrival in the wake of William’s conquest and ending with their expulsion by Edward I in 1290. Though their residency during these two centuries was often peaceful and prosperous, it was also punctuated by periodic violent attacks of increasing frequency, and the final half century is a catalogue of extortion and legal attack by the crown. This story is well known in its outlines, ¹ and a recent collection of essays nuances the picture of the economic and legal status of English Jews. ² Paralleling the economic causes of resentment of the Jews in medieval England was a strong current of anti-Jewish sentiment that found expression in a variety of literary sources. Anthony Bale provides an overview of fictional portrayals of Judaism in Latin sources up to 1290, mainly chronicles and exempla. Much less known are the portraits of Jews in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Anglo-Norman religious texts. These are particularly important because they circulated among the social and political elites of medieval England and thus both formed and reflected the anti-Jewish attitudes that culminated in the outrages inflicted on Jewish communities in 1190 (King’s Lynn, Norwich, and York), 1215 (London), 1234 (Norwich), 1239 (London), and 1255 (Lincoln). ³ This essay examines a group of religious texts that were either composed or copied in England in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. One of the oldest of these is the Jeu d’Adam, the earliest surviving French play, whereas the most recent is a poem commemorating an accusation of ritual murder in Lincoln. Other works are Anglo-Norman translations of Latin texts like Transitus Beate Virginae, the Gospel of Nicodemus (Gesta Pilati and Descensus ad Infernos), and Cura Sanitatis Tiberii; although they did not break new ground in their anti-Jewish sentiments, they were important vehicles for extending these attitudes beyond clerical circles. 152If it is difficult to establish any more than a relative chronology for these works, nevertheless a hardening of attitudes is clearly discernible between the earliest and the latest texts: In the middle of the twelfth century, Jews of the time of Christ were criticized for their failure to recognize him. A century later, it was English Jews of the mid-thirteenth century who were portrayed as not only blind but also violent and deserving of the harshest punishment.