The peculiar condition of the Jewish people concerns their minority status within the two dominant cultures of the Middle Ages.  In my paper I will briefly examine the Christian response to the Jewish minority within their midst by looking at the system of charters that developed over time in order to solve the problem of religious pluralism in a culture that wanted absolute uniformity under the banner of the Catholic Church.  Then I will look at the Islamic world and its response to its Jewish minority population, a response which is necessarily different than the one developed in Christendom because of the multi-ethnic and multi-religious nature of the Caliphal Empire.  After this initial investigation, I will then briefly look at the underlying theological concerns which affected the Christian response to Judaism, while simultaneously looking at the pragmatic nature of the Islamic response.  Finally, in addition to this I will focus on the general economic situation and how it may have affected the treatment of the Jewish community.

          As indicated in the class lectures the Christian charter system went through three distinct phases.  In the first phase, beginning during the period of Charlemagne, charters were given to individuals, which in a sense made them protected aliens within the Carolingian Empire.  Since the Jews were very active in the system of merchant trade at this time, the charters allowed them to travel freely and during the reign of Louis the Pius in many cases, they were exempt from paying the various toll charges levied throughout the empire [cf. Glick, 52].  These and other privileges given by Louis to the Jews where not popular with some Church leaders.  Archbishop Agobard of Lyon in particular was not pleased, since he viewed Christianity as the source of civic unity within the realm and saw the conversion of the Jews as a necessity.  The Jewish community knew that the charters would not enable them within a Christian based society to “. . . participate in the social order as full-fledged members” [Glick, 48].

          In the second phase the charters were given to individual communities.  This type of charter originated with the Bishop of Speyer in the eleventh century, though it was related to the earlier charters.  The Bishop gave this charter to the persecuted Jews of Mainz, in order to fulfill his  desire “. . . to make a city of my village” [Glick, 87].  The Speyer Charter gave the local Jewish community various privileges.  Under the charter they were allowed to employ Christians as servants and nurses, and they were given judicial autonomy and were permitted to “. . . judge all cases ‘which arise among them or against them’” [Glick, 87].  In return they were to help the city of Speyer grow economically.  It is important to note, that it was at this time that the Jews were first segregated into their own districts.  The Bishop of Speyer even had a wall built around the Jewish district in order to protect it from the “. . . violence of the mob” [Glick, 87].  It does not appear as if it was a legal requirement that Jews live in these segregated areas at this point, but that would eventually change.

          In the third phase, beginning with Emperor Frederick II, the charters were given to the whole Jewish community living within the empire.  Frederick II saw this as his duty, in that it was a “‘. . . requirement of justice and a demand of reason,’ that he grant due protection to everyone in his empire” [Glick, 168].  It was during this period that the Jews came to be looked upon as servants of the court and were thus  “. . . under [Frederick’s] personal protection” [Glick, 175]; under this form of charter the Jews in a certain sense became the property of the ruler of the nation.  Frederick was fairly benevolent, but this was not the case with King Louis IX of France.  King Louis “. . . detested the Jews on religious grounds alone” [Glick, 165], so the condition of the Jewish community in France was not good.  As Glick points out the Jews were considered to be the property of the local lord, and thus a Jew could not leave the region within which he lived, and if he tried to he could be returned to his lord [cf. Glick, 166].  Sadly in this regard the Church had for centuries declared that the Jews were in a state of perpetual servitude because of the actions of their ancestors as recorded in the Gospels.  Though as Glick points out the phrase tanquam servum had no basis in Christian theology.  From what has been said above it becomes clear that the charter system had in the course of time become a form of slavery (in legal construction, but much less so in reality), though in its initial stages centuries earlier, it was not.

          The condition of the Jewish community was better in the Islamic world, but there it benefited from the diversity which existed in the Islamic empire.  The fact that the Arab Muslims conquered a vast realm in a short period of time, meant that the ruling Muslim elite was in the beginning a minority among several disparate groups.  This initially benefited the Jewish community, since the Muslims set up a system which allowed limited autonomy for the various minority groups under what was called the Pact of Umar (dhimma).  In Arabic tolerated minorities were called Ahl Al-Dhimma (dhimmis), which means the “People of the Pact.”  Lewis asserts that the disabilities suffered by the dhimmis “. . . had a social and symbolic rather than a tangible and practical character” [Lewis, 26].  This statement is of course debatable, but he goes on to say that the main penalty was financial in nature, the dhimmis had to pay a special tax to the state in order to continue in existence.  The dhimmis suffered other social restrictions, but they were not excessively harsh, a dhimmi man could not marry a Muslim woman, and dhimmi could not own Muslim slaves.  Economic restrictions against the dhimmis were not terribly harsh and most professions were open to them.

          Islam had what would be called today a more enlightened and pragmatic approach to the Jewish minority within its midst.  The Muslim rulers did not make the same mistake as the rulers of Byzantium and Persia, who tried to suppress the various religious and ethnic minorities in their realms ultimately weakening their respective empires.  This was one of the reasons why the Muslims conquered so vast a realm so quickly, the minority populations welcomed them as liberators, and this is true not only when looking at the Middle East, but as Barnavi points out the Jews of Visigothic Spain, “. . . welcomed the Muslims as saviors from long persecution” [Barnavi, 81].  The dhimmi system with all its discriminatory practices was viewed by the various minority communities, including the Jewish community, as an improvement over their former condition, at least they did at first (memories are short).

          Lewis in his book tends to minimize the affect of the discriminatory practices put upon the Jews in the Muslim world, and I see this as a weakness in his book.  At one point he says that the Jewish community was not legally segregated into separate districts in Islamic lands, but then admits that they and the other minority groups did in fact live in separate districts.  In fact, all groups (Muslim and non-Muslim) tended to live in their own urban districts in Muslims cities.  He also minimizes the fact that the yellow badge originated in Muslim lands [cf. Lewis, 25], and only later did this practice make its way into Christendom receiving legal sanction at the Fourth Lateran Ecumenical Council.  Lewis goes so far as to justify the discriminatory practice of distinctive clothing in the Islamic world by saying that it was a sign of pride [cf. Lewis, 34] for the dhimmi.  I think that if a scholar made a similar statement concerning this issue but applied it to the Christian world he would be castigated for saying this.  In addition to this Lewis several times makes unsupportable assertions in his book,  an example of this occurs on page 33 where he indicates the motivations underlying the anti-Semitic practices within the two dominant cultures.  Motivations are a subjective quality and one separated by centuries should not make assertions concerning the motivations of the subjects he is investigating, but if he feels compelled to do so, he should indicate clearly that this is only his subjective opinion.  He even discounts the statements of Maimonides concerning Muslim persecution of the Jews, saying that Maimonides “. . . observations certainly contain a proportion of truth” [Lewis, 103; emphasis added].  What conceivable reason would Maimonides have to exaggerate concerning the type of persecution Jews experienced, seeing that he worked in a Muslim court and in anything for his own safety should have avoided mentioning such things altogether.  But by saying this, I do not intend to denigrate the character of Bernard Lewis, and on the whole his book is excellent, and it is actually more entertaining than Glick’s book.  I also want to be clear that I am not myself asserting that the condition of the Jewish community was better in Christendom, sadly it was not.

          In this final portion of the essay I will briefly look at two of the elements which affected the  treatment of the Jewish community in Christendom and how these same elements affected the Jews living in the Islamic world.  The first element is theological in nature, while the second is economic.  Because Christianity originated as a sect within Judaism there is a theological element which has caused tension between the two communities.  Since Christianity sees itself as the fulfillment of Judaism it is put in a position of having to find a way to justify the continued existence of the Jewish community.  Islam does not have this same theological problem, as Lewis rightly points out, thus Islamic hostility to Judaism “. . . is not related to any specific Islamic doctrine” [Lewis, 85].  But for Christianity some form of theological solution had to be found, and one of the ideas put forward was that “. . . the Jews were dispersed not only to punish them but so that they might fulfill a destined role as ‘testimony,’ or witness, to Christian truth” [Glick, 24].  Thus Christians could point to them and say that they are a proof that the Christ has come, for he can be found in their scriptures.  This idea of course carries the seeds of persecution within it, for one of the elements in it concerns the punishment of the Jewish people for their rejection of Christ.

          The other element which caused persecution of the Jewish community was economic in nature.  The economy of Christian Europe was not in good shape during the Middle Ages, and bad economic times affect minority populations to a greater extent than they do the majority.  They also breed a hatred for anyone who gets ahead; especially if they are ethnically or religiously different from the majority population.  These two causes combined to create the violent persecution of the Jews in Christendom.  In the Islamic world the various minority populations, including the Jewish community, benefited from the fact that is was experiencing an economic boom.  One of the things that Lewis does talk about in his book is the fact that the situation of the Jews became more difficult as the economic condition of the Muslim world worsened.  While the condition of the Jews in Europe improved as the economy strengthened, though discrimination did not cease.

          Thus the two dominant cultures of the Middle Ages both had to deal with a social situation which neither system was truly prepared for, but the Islamic system did have the advantage of not having a theological bias against the Jews.  This allowed the rulers of the Muslim world to approach the minority problem within their realm from a more pragmatic position.  This was not true of the situation in Europe and adding to the difficulties in the Christian world was the fact that Church and state were often in conflict with each other.  Church authorities and secular political leaders were constantly trying to gain the upper hand against their opponents, and in this battle the Jewish community was often the pawn of the two squabbling powers.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Eli Barnavi.  A Historical Atlas of the Jewish People.  (New York: Schocken Books, 1992).

Leonard B. Glick.  Abraham’s Heirs: Jews and Christians in Medieval Europe.  (Syracuse:  Syracuse University Press, 1999).

Bernard Lewis.  The Jews of Islam.  (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984).

The Peculiar Condition

by Steven Todd Kaster

San Francisco State University

Jewish Studies 320:  Jewish Historical Experience

Mid-Term Assignment

Professor Fred Astren

2 November 1999

Copyright © 1999-2025 Steven Todd Kaster