| Contents |
What is crime? -- Why Crime? -- Methodology and methodological issues -- Historical context -- The concepts of crime and punishment in Medieval Europe -- Temporal and geographical scope -- The scarcity of historical information -- The history of medieval crime -- The history of Jewish medieval crime -- The sources -- The plan of this book -- "The thieves that go from house to house" : Jewish thieves in Medieval Europe -- A time of great risk, opportunity, and change : the late tenth and early to mid-eleventh century -- A guilty conscience needs no accuser? -- For we can do no wrong : Jewish communal regulations on theft -- Stealing from Jews -- Using magic to steal -- People of the book : the rough waters and the solemn banks of the stolen Hebrew book maker -- Battling theft by preaching -- Theft within and from the community -- "Be gone thou man of blood" : murder and murderers in Medieval European Jewish society -- An Israelite and a Levi on the edge of Tzarfat : a case from Limoges, late tenth century -- The status of a murderer : What's in a gaze? -- "He who kills in our times" : from the Gaonic Period to fifteenth-century Europe -- Lethal inclinations, Gentiles, and exile : the homilies of Rabbi Judah the Pious -- A murderer in our midst : addressing extreme violence in the community -- Women and crime -- Methodological problems -- Prostitution -- Violence in the domestic sphere -- Appendix 1. "Lest she go astray" -- Appendix 2. The plundered goods caravan -- Appendix 3. The renegade cleric -- Appendix 4. Letter of deliverance -- Appendix 5. The case from Poland -- Appendix 6. The manual of penance -- Appendix 7. A Hazan who has killed a soul -- Appendix 8. A responsum by Rabbi Haim Eliezer or ZaruaŹ» -- Appendix 11. The case of Isaac and Sara. |
| Abstract |
Jews and Crime in Medieval Europe is a topic laced by prejudice on one hand and apologetics on the other. Beginning in the Middle Ages, Jews were often portrayed as criminals driven by greed. While these accusations were, for the most part, unfounded, in other cases criminal accusations against Jews were not altogether baseless. Drawing on a variety of legal, liturgical, literary, and archival sources, Ephraim Shoham-Steiner examines the reasons for the involvement in crime, the social profile of Jews who performed crimes, and the ways and mechanisms employed by the legal and communal body to deal with Jewish criminals and with crimes committed by Jews. A society's attitude toward individuals identified as criminals - by others or themselves - can serve as a window into that society's mores and provide insight into how transgressors understood themselves and society's attitudes toward them. -- Cover page 4. |
