In a message dated 12/20/00 10:21:45 AM Eastern Standard Time, [log in to unmask]
writes:
> >In art history, the year 1000 is usually regarded as the beginning of the
> >Romanesque period, with much attention to millennial ideas that were in
the
> >air at the time.
>
> any references? because the "regular" historians have so much trouble
> imagining apocalyptic expectations that i had to write a piece called "the
> fear of an apocalyptic year 1000" with reference not to the contemporaries,
> but modern (augustinian) historians.
A good introductory art history text is Janson, History of Art. Don't, as you
did, lump Romanesque and Gothic togetehr.They're two distinctly different art
historical periods (the churches look very different), with the beginning of
the Gothic usually traced to Sugar's work at S. Denis (c. 1137). I don't know
what a "regular" historian is, or what it is you had to say to save them from
error. But for a good popular book on millenial expectations, see Norman
Cohen, The Pursuit of the Millenium. He taught history, I believe at SUNY.
The fact is that there was a great upsurge in church building after the year
1000, and you can find the much-quoted remarks of Raul Glaber (a monk of the
time) on the ORB site. You may find it thin to assume that Europeans were
greatful that the world had not come to an end in the millenial year, and the
churches were being built in gratitude. But at least in art history, that's
one posibility put forward. It would be interesting to know what parallels,
if any, exist between the history of church building and the history of
synagogue building. It's one of many unexplored areas you might want to look
into--but first get a clear idea about the stylistic diff. bet. Romanesque
and Gothic.
> >I'd assume that Jews too could have been caught up in the
> >question of whether the millenial year of the Christians would be
"special,"
> >and if so how.
>
> not likely, altho they may have responded to changes in xn behavior -- for
> better or for worse from their point of view.
You're agreeing with me, which may be more clear if I restate. Jews could
have been caught up in the question through observing changes in the behavior
of Christians.
> there is evidence of apoc expectation among karaites in this period...
But what I suggested finding out was exactly why the Karaites rejected
rabbinical authority and the Talmud.
> i mean the franco-german jews. gershom of mainz and koln, rashi of troyes,
> his sons. this produces a large school of commentators on the bible and
> the talmud which remains to this day the core of talmudic study, even among
> sephardim. there is no venitian school of commentary as far as i know
> (soncino, a printing house in the 16th and 17th cns), and i am unaware of
> jews sending their children to the yeshivas of venice. my point cd be
> stated simply in the notion that in 950 a northern european jew who wanted
> his son to become a rabbi wd send him either east (byzantium, palestine,
> babylon) or south (north africa). by 1050, he'd send him to study with the
> students of gershom in a variety of northern european (lotharingian)
> cities. so in under a cn, northern european jewry goes from being a
> marginal frontier settlement to being a cultural center.
We tend to be talking at cross purposes because you're equating Jewish
culture with study of the Talmud and nothing more. I'm seeing it as much more
than just the study of the Talmud. Venice is important, for example, for the
study of Kabbala, as the site of the first ghetto (the very word "ghetto" is
of Venetian derivation), for Hebrew printing, because the Jewish community
there goes back to the 5th century, because in my opinion there are
Kabbalistic influences in the evolution of the Tarot pack (the oldest extant
packs come from Venice), because many of the Jews expelled from Spain went to
Venice, and for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with the
training of rabbis. Maybe check to see if your understandable enthusiasm for
your chosen subject (the contribution of Ashkenazic Jews to study of the
Talmud?) is leading you to suggest that no other subject is of importance.
pat
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