shared features on many levels. For this reason, they require more detailed
explanation.
The most apparent parallel in the two rituals is that between the ba’alei brit
and the co-parents. This is also the most novel role within the medieval Ashke-
nazic community. Moreover, from a halakhic point of view, this role was not
an essential component of the ritual. The ba’al brit was far less integral to the
ritual than the baby, the circumciser, or the father who is commanded to cir-
cumcise his son. Hence, the roles of the ba’alei brit compared to those of the
co-parents will be at the core of our discussion.
This comparison is suggested by the medieval sources themselves, in their
choice of the term ba’al brit. As noted, this term is used in twelfth- and
thirteenth-century sources, only to be replaced with the term sandek in late
medieval and early modern texts. There are two other terms used in con-
junction with these terms. R. Moses of Zurich explains that the sandek is the
ba’al brit who is the conpère.^107 A different source, from fifteenth-century Ger-
many, explains: “the ba’al brit, who is called compèreand in my country gevat-
ter.”^108 These comments, using the vernacular term for the Latin compateras
alternative terms for ba’alei brit, recount the terms the Jews used daily for this
task.^109 Joseph Lynch, who investigated medieval co-parenthood in great
depth, has commented on the vernacular and Latin forms of the terms. Ar-
guing that the social function of co-parenthood was the most important, he
has suggested that the terms compater, commater, and, compaternitasconvey
the importance of the spiritual parents acting together with the biological par-
ents.^110 The Hebrew term ba’al britconveys a similar idea, as the ba’al brit
acts together with the person who is commanded to perform the circumci-
sion, the father of the infant.
Over the past two decades, medievalists have turned their attention to the
role of co-parents and especially to their social function. The work of anthro-
pologists such as Eric Wolf and Sidney Mintz, mentioned at the beginning of
this chapter, who studied contemporary co-parenthood practices in Latin
America forty years ago, has also been central in historians’ attempts at under-
standing medieval practices.^111 We will now investigate to what extent these
explanations can be applied to medieval Jewish communities.
As mentioned at the outset of this chapter, one of the spiritual obligations
the co-parents took upon themselves when sponsoring a child at baptism was
the religious education of the godchildren. Despite the focus in ecclesiastical
writings on the importance of co-parents as spiritual counselors and guides,
this does not seem to have been the emphasis medieval Christians placed on
the role.^112 In any event, this understanding of co-parenthood has almost no
parallel in Jewish sources. While the ba’al brit was supposed to be a “good Jew,”
as R. Isaac b. Moses states,^113 there is no discussion of any future obligation of
the ba’alei brit toward the infant.
This accords with another central difference between Christian and Jewish
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