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>So what's the actual picture? Considering that the 4th Lateran Council of the >Church decreed that Jews should live apart from the Christian community, I >thought it was established that they lived in ghettos, apart from the >Christian community. > >pat sloane Canons 67 to 70 of Lateran IV concern the Jews. Canon 67 orders Christians to have no contact with Jews who charged excessive interest and it required Jews to pay tithes on property formerly owned by Christians. C. 68 enjoins Jews and Muslims to wear distinctive dress to prevent accidental sexual congress between Christians and Muslims or Jews from occuring. It also forbids them from going out in public on Passion Sunday and days of lamentation, lest they mock Christians on those days. C. 69 forbids Jews and Muslims from holding office over Christians. C. 70 forbids converts from returning to their former practices. The final canon, number 71, is primarily concerned with preparations for the upcoming crusade, but it does contain a provision that Jews may not charge interest to crusaders. There is nothing here restricting Jews to ghettos, but you are not the first person to think this. Lateran IV has attracted all sorts of popular misconceptions. The only part of this program which is truly original, in a Christian context (there is a Muslim precedent), is the requirement that Jews and Muslims wear distinctive dress (not a Jew badge, not yet). What I think is significant is the way all these canons are grouped together, at the end of the long number of canons defining the spiritual borders of Christians and the duties and responsibilities of those who called themselves Christians. On ghettos: in the Christian Spanish kingdoms, which I am most familiar with, Jews often gained as a special privilege the right to live in a specific part of the town, frequently fortified, which they then had the right to defend against enemies (their own and those of the town at large). They were not obligated to live there and, for instance, in Toledo Jews had property holdings all over the town. So far as I know, the first ghetto to be so named was in Venice and the year 1498 sticks in my head, although I am prepared to be corrected. Jews were compelled to live there in increasingly cramped quarters and they were forced to pay people to "protect" them. So ghettos seem to be, dare I say it, a Renaissance phenomenon. As for the actual picture of Jewish life in the Middle Ages, I think you will find it was complex and varied. You will not find ready agreement among scholars on the subject, and it will be difficult to encapsulate in a chapter correcting popular misconceptions without creating stlll more misconceptions. Regards, Lucy Pick ****************************************** Lucy K. Pick Nuveen Instructor Divinity School University of Chicago 1025 East 58th Street Chicago, IL 60637 [log in to unmask] %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%