- Anneke Mulder-Bakker, Sanctity and Motherhood: Essays on Holy Mothers in the Middle
Ages(New York, 1995), “Introduction,” 7–8. These figures are popular from the eleventh century
onward. - The story of Anna, mother of Mary, was also used in this context. According to the Proto-
evangelion of Jacob, a text widely accepted in the West during the Middle Ages, the Virgin Mary
was also brought to the temple at a young age as an oblate. Newman, From Virile Woman, 78–96. - Newman, From Virile Woman, 84–99; Kleus Arnold, Kind und Gesellschaft(Paderborn,
1980), 38.
126.Newman, From Virile Woman, 76–89. For Griselda’s story, see Geoffrey Chaucer, Canter-
bury Tales, ed. Walter W. Skeat (Oxford, 1940), 4: The Clerk’s Tale, 1. 1081–85: “She bothe hir
yonge children un-to hir calleth, And in hir armes pitously wepings, Embraceth hem and tendrely
kissinge, Ful lyk a mooder, with her salte teres, She batheth both hir visage and hir heres.” This
story has been studied frequently in recent years. For other interpretations and historical analyses,
see Atkinson, The Oldest Vocation, 144–93, esp. 144–49; and Klapisch-Zuber, “The Griselda Com-
plex,” 213–21. - Newman, From Virile Woman, 105–06.
- Much has been written about the chronicles in recent years. See Marcus, “From Politics
to Martyrdom: Shifting Paradigms in the Hebrew Narratives of the 1096 Crusade Riots,” Prooftexts
2 (1982):40–52; Robert Chazan, European Jewry and the First Crusade(Berkeley, 1981); Jeremy
Cohen, “‘The Persecutions of 1096’—From Martyrdom to Martyrology: The Sociocultural Con-
text of the Hebrew Crusade Chronicles,” Zion59 (1994):169–208 [in Hebrew]; Israel J. Yuval,
“Vengeance and Damnation, Blood and Defamation: From Jewish Martyrdom to Blood Libel Ac-
cusations,” Zion58 (1993):33–90 [in Hebrew]. - The theme of the Sacrifice of Isaac and the First Crusade has been explored at length: See
Spiegel, “Me’aggadot haAkeda,” in Alexander Marx Jubilee Volume, ed. Saul Lieberman (New
York, 1959), Hebrew Section, 471–547; Marcus, “From Politics to Martyrdom,” 40–52. - A hint of this can be found in the tradition of the four tekufot(seasons) of the year in which
blood and water intermingle. This tradition posits that the spirit of Jephthe’s daughter and that of
Isaac hovers over the waters in the wells during the first four dangerous days at the beginning of
each season. See Mah·zor Vitry, no. 580 in the addenda, 14. I thank Professor Israel Yuval for point-
ing this passage out to me. - This is the narrative in Sefer Yossipon, ed. David Flusser (Jerusalem, 1978), 15:60–67, p.
74 as well as in the Crusade chronicles.
132.Sefer Yossipon, Flusser edition, 15:60–67, p. 74, and compare with Sefer Yossipon, Hou-
miner edition (Jerusalem, 1955), 19:76. - 2 Macc. 7:20–23.
- 4 Macc. 16:5–11.
- This idea is expressed in many of the sources quoted by Mc Laughlin, “Survivors and Sur-
rogates,” 123–39. - The Jewish response to 1096 has never been examined in light of what it reflects about re-
lations between parents and children. - For claims that the suicides during the Crusades were proof of the divergent attitudes of
Jews and Christians toward their children: Goldin, “Jewish Children and Christian Missionizing,”
98–99. - “But if a child was ushered into the other religion—how should this matter?... For he
cannot distinguish between right and left,” Mordekhai, Mo’ed Katan, no. 886; Mordekhai, San-
hedrin, no. 716. - For example: Haberman, Gezerot Ashkenaz veZ·arfat, 75; 56; 95; David Malkiel has re-
cently suggested that many families were divided over the question of slaughtering their children:
“Vestiges of Conflict in the Hebrew Crusade Chronicles,” Journal of Jewish Studies52(2001): 323–
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