Jews in East Norse Literature

A Study of Othering in Medieval Denmark and Sweden

Jonathan Adams

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN:
  9783110775662
• eBook ISBN:
  9783110775778
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

What did Danes and Swedes in the Middle Ages imagine and write about Jews and Judaism? This book draws on over 100 medieval Danish and Swedish manuscripts and incunabula as well as runic inscriptions and religious art (c. 1200–1515) to answer this question. There were no resident Jews in Scandinavia before the modern period, yet as this book shows ideas and fantasies about them appear to have been widespread and an integral part of life and culture in the medieval North. Volume 1 investigates the possibility of encounters between Scandinavians and Jews, the terminology used to write about Jews, Judaism, and Hebrew, and how Christian writers imagined the Jewish body. The (mis)use of Jews in different texts, especially miracle tales, exempla, sermons, and Passion treaties, is examined to show how writers employed the figure of the Jew to address doubts concerning doctrine and heresy, fears of violence and mass death, and questions of emotions and sexuality. Volume 2 contains diplomatic editions of 54 texts in Old Danish and Swedish together with translations into English that make these sources available to an international audience for the first time and demonstrate how the image of the Jew was created in medieval Scandinavia.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Medieval Scandinavia and Jews
• Language
• Identifying “the Jew”
• Killing Christ
• Demonstrating Christian Truth
• The Jewish Peril: Past, Present, and Future
• Conclusion
• Texts
• 1 A Jew Converts and Speaks to his Sons from Heaven
• 2 A Jew Predicts St Basil’s Death
• 3 A Pregnant Jewish Woman’s Father Converts
• 4 A Sermon for Good Friday
• 5 A Sermon for Passion Sunday
• 6 Esther
• 7 Jerusalem in The Travels of Sir John Mandeville
• 8 Jesus Raises a Jew from the Dead
• 9 Judith
• 10 Mary of Bethezuba
• 11 Petronia and the Ring
• 12 Sermons for the Feast of the Circumcision
• 13 St Barnabas and the Jews
• 14 St Gamaliel the Elder Speaks to Lucian the Priest
• 15 St James the Great and the Sorcerer Hermogenes
• 16 St James the Great Converts Josiah the Jew
• 17 St James the Just and the Jews of Jerusalem
• 18 St Macarius and the Talking Skull
• 19 St Sylvester and the Disputation with the Twelve Jewish Scholars
• 20 The Antichrist
• 21 The Chains of St Peter
• 22 The Clay Birds
• 23 The Converted Jew and the Devil
• 24 The Disputation and the Miracle
• 25 The Emperor Hadrian
• 26 The Emperor Vespasian and Titus
• 27 The Enclosed Jews
• 28 The Fifteen Places
• 29 The Finding of the Holy Cross
• 30 The Flying Host and the Jew’s Son
• 31 The Helmeted Preface
• 32 The Hermit and the Jewess
• 33 The Host Desecration
• 34 The Jew and the Lightning Strike
• 35 The Jew and the Staff Filled with Gold
• 36 The Jew at the Devils’ Council
• 37 The Jew, the Axe, and St Nicholas
• 38 The Jew, the Fish, and the Host
• 39 The Jew, the Host, the Devil, and the Sieve
• 40 The Jew Who Attacked the Virgin Mary’s Bier
• 41 The Jew Who Stabbed the Icon
• 42 The Jewish Boy in the Oven
• 43 The Jews Who Found and Attacked an Image of Christ
• 44 The Life of Judas Iscariot
• 45 The Little Jewish Girl Rachel Who Joined a Nunnery
• 46 The Merchant’s Surety
• 47 The Pilgrims’ Guide to the Holy Land
• 48 The Punishment of the Jews
• 49 The Stoning of St Stephen
• 50 The Three Young Men in the Oven
• 51 The Virgin Mary Releases and Converts a Jewish Prisoner
• 52 Theophilus and the Devil
• 53 Well poisoning
• 54 Yael
• List of Works
• Bibliography
• Index
• Apparat