ANTI-SEMITISM
. Anti-Semitism or, more properly for the Middle Ages, anti-Judaism, was the set of
attitudes toward Jews that derived from regarding their religion as inferior to Christianity
and themselves as the heirs of deicides. By their persistence in adhering to their religion,
Jews, it was widely believed, convicted themselves as approvers of the killing of Jesus.
Modern anti-Semitism, contrary to medieval anti-Judaism, is rooted in an ethnic notion of
Judaism. Modern anti-Semites regard converts to Christianity from Judaism and their
lineage as Jews or as having “Jewish blood” and, therefore, as objects of contempt. Yet
there is little evidence that converts or their offspring faced such hatred in the Middle
Ages, a few isolated incidents aside, until the huge wave of forced conversions in Spain
in the late 14th century and after.
Medieval religious attitudes toward Jews were mediated by the political, social, and
economic concerns of various segments of the Christian population in France.
Consequently, neither governmental nor popular actions against the Jews should be
ascribed merely to religious bigotry. It would nonetheless be naive to think that such
actions can be explained without recourse to the fact of religious hostility.
As early as Agobard of Lyon, or even earlier in stories by Gregory of Tours, many of
the higher clergy in France articulated theological positions stressing the inferiority of
contemporary Judaism. One commonplace asserted that the wine of Sinai had
degenerated into the vinegar of postbiblical Judaism. Some French theologians and
canonists also shared with people untrained in formal theology cruder attitudes toward
Jews and Judaism, attitudes rooted in the notion of the inferiority of Judaism and the
corruption of morals that that inferiority was said to imply. The solidarity of the Jewish
communities in the face of this contempt savored of clannishness to many critics, and the
clannishness savored of a dangerous attraction to secrecy. By the end of the 12th century,
many Frenchmen had come to accept the idea that the Jews ritually reenacted the
crucifixion of Jesus by kidnaping innocent Christian children to torment in occulto. By
the end of the 13th century, there is abundant evidence of the widespread acceptance of
the notion that Jews indulged in secret curses and slurs of the Christian religion in their
religious books, notably the Talmud; that they were required to ingest innocent Christian
blood for secret rituals; and that they contrived to get their hands on and desecrate the
consecrated host of the Christian eucharist. They were said to lead simpleminded people,
particularly servingwomen and wet nurses in their employ, away from the Christian faith.
The men were stereotyped as excessively wealthy and avaricious moneylenders and as
occasional seducers of Christian women.
It is impossible to know what proportion of the Christian population in France, or
anywhere else for that matter, indulged in these attitudes, whether urban anti-Judaism
was more intense than rural, whether class or level of education worked effectively to
mitigate or exacerbate attitudes. Many high churchmen and many kings did not take
certain of the charges seriously. While Philip Augustus, for example, believed that Jews
carried out ritual murders, Louis IX seems never to have countenanced the allegation.
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