ABSTRACT
Until the twelfth century, Jews were relatively well integrated into Christian society, especially in Spain and Italy. Instances of violence were short and did not impair the general attitude of coexistence; the undoubted religious antagonisms did not usually interfere with economic and cultural cooperation (Elukin 2007). While Jews often lived in separate quarters in towns, as did many crafts, only in the sixteenth century – beginning with Venice in 1516 – did ghettos behind walls emerge, and then by no means everywhere. Points of contact between the Jewish and general populations included not only the ubiquitous peddlers but Jewish physicians, whose services were prized by rich and poor alike. Although not generally allowed to own landed property in the Middle Ages, Jews had engaged in local and long-distance trade and many crafts, as well as the money lending with which they are usually associated (Box 1). Only when the guilDs became more powerful and popular resentment grew, especially from the Black Death onwards, were Jews gradually restricted to secondhand trades and lending to the poor. Without political rights, they were nevertheless allowed their own courts and a degree of self-government by elected, if oligarchic, councils (Bell 2008, 95-108). Their exceptionally high degree of literacy meant that some were essential intermediaries in transmitting various classical texts via Arabic translations. Jews also participated in Renaissance literary, musical and scientific endeavours (Bell 2008, 175-9). A leading Italian philosopher, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-94), leaned heavily on the mysticism of Jewish Kabbalah. Few Jews published works other than in Hebrew, but Christian scholars studying Hebrew biblical texts were dependent on Jewish translators and interpreters. Jewish culture overlapped with that of European society while not being accepted as part of it.
