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Dear Frank, The question is by no means stupid (it's actually quite tricky), and you've got me to take a closer look at the book I mentioned earlier. Andrew Colin GOW, *The Red Jews: Antisemitism in an apocalyptic age*, Studies in Medieval and Reformation thought, 55 (Leiden, New York, Cologne: Brill, 1995), pp. 7-11, 66-69, 91- 92, explains red hair as a mark of wickedness / faithlessness, but admits that 'The "Red Jews" consistently have baffled the very few scholars who have taken explicit note of them. No-one has ever been able to make much sense of the name," which of course he's the one to do. He refers to Ruth MELLINKOFF, 'Judas's Red Hair and the Jews', in *Journal of Jewish Art*, 9 (1982):31-46, and adds that 'in Middle High German, *rot* (red) had an important secondary meaning: duplicitous, wicked, faithless, cunning. The name given to the language of beggars and thieves, *Rotwelsch*, reflects the notion of falseness' (p. 67). Gow also claims that Jews were stereotyped in manuscript illuminations as red-haired, and states that as far as his 'research has been able to uncover, only German-language texts use the term Red Jews' (pp. 69- 70). E.g., 'the Middle High German version of the *Passau Anonymous* (c.1330) identifies the destroyers Gog and Magog as "Jews, who are called the Red Jews". However, the original Latin (1260/65) contains only the traditional story of Gog and Magog, without identifying the destroyers with the Ten Tribes, and lacks the German appellation "Red Jews"' (p. 75). - On the other hand, a Jewish convert to the Lutheran faith, Friedrich Albrecht Augusti, in his *Geheimnisse der Jueden von dem Wunder-Fluss Sambathjon ...*, published 1748, claimed that the name derived from the Jewish view that Ten Lost Tribes (of course not identified with Gog and Magog here) wore 'precious purple clothes'. Gow (pp. 183-186) argues that this is merely a Jewish adaptation of the Christian legend that was around in Germany. Another book to have a look at (it comes in two volumes, with lots of pictures), is Ruth MELLINKOFF's *Outcasts*, but I haven't seen it and can't give you the bibliographical details right now. Anyway, I hope this helps! Cheers, Christoph > >> Medieval-religion: 'where there are no stupid questions' > > George's tactful note emboldens me to repeat a question to which I > got no answer previously: why were the Jews referred to as "Red > Jews"? > > Frank Schaer > Medieval Studies, CEU, Budapest %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%