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At 02:33 AM 12/20/00 +0100, you wrote: >At 08:33 19.12.00 -0700, you wrote: > >>every list needs a Certifiably Insane member > >Dear Christopher, > >If this is what's troubling you I should say that we do not have much to >worry as long as you are still with us. hey. don't leave out some of the rest of us. >And now back to business, which on this forum is medieval religion. i'll take this as an opening to ask a big question: the early 11th cn seems (to some of us, at least), to be a time of great religious and social creativity in western europe. indeed, i wd go so far as to say that it marks the beginning of modern europe, and certainly of the "high middle ages" with its romanesque and gothic architecture and art, its pilgrimages, universities, crusades, heresies and inquisitions... curiously, in the same place and the same time (western europe, ca. 1000) ashkenazic jewry becomes a major center of jewish culture. up until that time, we have virtually no rabbinic writings from the area, and lots of evidence that jews sent their children and their questions to rabbis half way around the world for authoritative results. starting with rabenu gershom of mainz "the light of the exile" (died 1028), northern european jewry become one of the major cultural centers of world jewry. any ideas on what this might mean beyond mere coincidence? richard