medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

Nicole,

Thanks for your response: I don't in the least take
your points as an attack on what I'm saying!  By the
same token, please don't think me a terrible pedant
for going on about this but I myself managed to get a
couple of quotations (with difficulty).  I'm including
them partly because I'd already got them by the time I
got your latest response but also because they're
interesting points in themselves, perhaps worth
exploring further.

I take your point entirely about Francis and Waldo --
they could hardly be considered reactionaries (except
perhaps, against commercialism and the growing(?)
riches of the church!).  Nonetheless, Moore makes this
point about such early 'heretics' as Clementius of
Bucy, Tanchelm, Peter of Bruys, the Paterine and Henry
of Laussanne:

pp.75-6 of Origins of European dissent: 'In all these
ways the church was the innovator.. and the protests
of heretics were often conservative in relation to
practice considerably more than to principle'.


On the Jews in 'Formation of a persecuting society' he
says:
p.150 of 'Formation': 'it is hard to evade the
conclusion that the urgent and compelling reason for
the persecution of the jews at this time - a
persecution as we have seen, which reversed the
previous and well-established tendency to integration
between the two cultures - was that they offered a
real alternative, and therefore a real challenge,, to
Christian literati as the advisers of princes and the
agents and beneficieries of bureaucratic power'.

I'm by no means an expert on perceptions of Jews or
heretics and partly for that reason have not seen more
recent studies -- but it would be fascinating to hear
from anyone who has any further thoughts on this
issue.

Best wishes,

Scott



--- Nicole Schulman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval
> religion and culture
>
> Scott,
>
> let me respond to some of your points, and perhaps
> clarify my own
> views.  However, *please* do not take this as an ad
> hominem rebuttal
> -- e-mail tends to obscure tone I'm afraid, and I
> don't mean to to
> attack what you're saying!
>
> >  The reference to conservatives who resisted
> >innovations ecclesiastical innovations may have
> come
> >from Moore's 'Origins of European Dissent' rather
> than
> >'On the formation of  Persecuting Society'.   I'm
> >certain he argues that such 'heretics' were often
> not
> >the ones doing the innovation.
>
> I too do not have _Origins_ at hand, but I would be
> *very* surprised
> if he were to argue that heretics were
> reactionaries.  Many (Moore
> included) have pointed out that the twelfth c.
> heresies appear to
> have drawn upon many of the same themes as
> reformers who made
> substantial contributions to Catholicism (Vitalis of
> Savigny, Bernard
> of Tiron, Robert of Arbrissel for ex).  Both Waldes
> and Francis
> initially followed strikingly similar paths.  One
> was labeled a
> heretic while the other became a Saint and the
> founder of the
> Franciscans...  The line between heresy and reform
> was often a thin
> one (although not in the case of Catharism, but that
> was a bit
> exceptional).
>
> I am sure there *were* reactionaries.  The records
> have many mentions
> of clergy who ignored prohibitions on marriage, for
> example, the
> enforcement of which was a "novelty" of the 12th c.
> But I see no
> evidence that heretics were really among them.
>
> >
> >On those perceived as a threat 'to the upwardly
> mobile
> >literati': I was thinking rather of what Moore says
> >about the persecution of Jews rather than heretics.
> >It wasn't that the Jews held 'wrong' beliefs that
> was
> >a threat, but that they had a culture of learning
> and
> >even an influence at court (e.g. courts of William
> >Rufus?  Frederick II?).  Jews were grouped together
> >along with heretics, lepers and other minorities
> and
> >tarred with the same brush at least in part to
> >extinguish them as potential rivals.
>
> Here I think you touch upon one of the premises that
> Moore is working
> with, but have changed it a bit.  Moore draws upon
> the work of Sandy
> Murray, and notes the apparent antagonism between
> the literati and
> rustici (at least from the point of view of the
> literati).  Let me
> quote (Moore, _The Formation of a Persecuting
> Society_, p. 139):
>
> "The fear which was expressed in the language of
> contamination
> directed against the poor in general, and in
> particular against
> heretics, lepers, Jews, prostitutes, vagrants, and
> others assimilated
> tot hem by the rhetoric of persuasion, was the fear
> which the
> literati harboured of the rustici.  No doubt it
> assisted many of them
> to identify themselves more securely with the
> privilege to which
> their skills had brought them access, by entrenching
> and justifying
> the exclusion of those who lacked them."
>
> He goes on, but my fingers are tiring :)
>
> That the Jews did indeed have a culture of learning
> is beyond
> dispute, but I am skeptical that this was the
> Christian perception in
> the 12-13th c.  I agree that there was a fear lest
> they weld "undue"
> influence (hence the prohibitions in Lateran 3 and 4
> against them),
> but I am doubtful that this was out of respect for
> their learning
> etc...  Jews should not be used as administrators
> for the same reason
> that women should not preach -- they weren't
> considered qualified.
>
> I know that Raimond of Toulouse gets in repeated
> trouble for allowing
> Jews in his administration, but then he also is
> accused (probably
> unfairly) of being a heretic, and (quite fairly) of
> harbouring
> heretics.  His failure to rid his administration of
> the Jews appears
> a part of his general unwillingness to submit to the
> juristiction of
> ecclesiastical authority as to how he should govern
> his land.  But
> was the pope worried that the Jews would gain
> greater power or rather
> was it simply the unwillingness of the count to
> adhere to
> ecclesiastic regulations that upset him so?
>
> I am sure that there are those on the list who know
> far more than I
> about the status and perception of Jews at this
> time, since this is
> not my field.  Is there evidence that they were seen
> as rivals on
> account of their learning (and presumably
> international networking
> abilities)?
>
> So I end up with questions!  Personally I am
> hesitant to see the
> anti-Jewish policies of the High Middle ages as an
> acknowledgement of
> the abilities of the Jews in W. Europe.  In my
> *opinion* the Church
> always considered their teachings wrong.  The
> difference was that
> society, and especially ecclesiastical society,
> became increasingly
> concerned about the spread of "wrong" ideas (ie
> ideas that they did
> not sanction or create) and hence increasingly
> concerned with first
> identifying sanctioned and unsanctioned sources of
> information, and
> then limiting them.
> --
>   Nicole Morgan Schulman
> <[log in to unmask]>
>
>
_._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._.
>
>
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