Muslims and Jews in Medieval Scandinavian Texts
Post-doc.: Jonathan Adams
Project period: July 2011-June 2013
Funding: Det Frie Forskningsråd | Kultur og Kommunikation
Introduction
Viking-Age runestones in Sweden attest to travellers' voyages east to Serkland (Land of the Saracens), and there were most certainly Jews resident in Danish Normandy long before the twelfth century. The Crusades would also have provided Scandinavians with the opportunity to experience Muslims and Jews at first hand, and in the Late Middle Ages, Jews may have travelled to Scandinavia as traders, although no official community existed there until 1622. On the whole, Scandinavia (here: the area of modern-day Denmark and Sweden) demonstrates an interesting aspect of the complex relationship between Christian and non-Christian groups: there was little physical contact between them, so rather than being individuals who were actually encountered and experienced, Muslims and Jews were "imagined" constructions that were both distinct in geography and religion. Although scholars, particularly during the last 70 years, have investigated the medieval European perception of non-Christian groups, focus has until now tended to be on narrowly defined periods or geographical areas, or on certain events; furthermore, they are frequently based on limited source materials. We still lack knowledge about popular sources from the public and private spheres, not least texts in the vernacular. In particular, there is as yet no comprehensive philological study of vernacular texts from Scandinavia. Furthermore, studies focus on just one of the two principal non-Christian groups (either Muslims or Jews), without any comparison between the perception of the "spiritual" enemy (Jews) and the "political" one (Muslims) in this part of Europe. Just how were these "imagined" groups understood by common folk? Were both groups always viewed in entirely negative terms? How did the perception of Muslims and Jews in the Middle Ages mould Scandinavian political and religious identity and shape relations in the modern era? This project aims to answer these and related questions by analysing the creation, use and circulation of the images of Muslims and Jews in Scandinavian texts until 1515. The results will provide a fresh and original description of the pre-modern religious and non-religious background to today's civil society with respect to tolerance, persecution and intercultural (mis)understanding and create historical perspectives for the future by presenting a "usable past" for our pluralistic society today. [top]
Aim
The project aims to produce a monograph, Muslims and Jews in Medieval Scandinavian Texts: A Cultural Enquiry, in two parts (I and II), that builds on the investigation of images in the medieval Danish and Swedish text corpus. Part I comprises a scholarly edition of the text corpus, with each text, or relevant excerpt, being accompanied by a critical apparatus, commentary and background information. The second part (II) consists of an investigation of each image (or "type") of Muslim or Jew found in the source material and includes information on its origin, development, spread and significance for the East Norse area. These images will be compared with those found elsewhere in Europe (especially Germany) to uncover whether there is anything specifically Danish, Swedish or Scandinavian about them. The types of Muslims and of Jews are also compared with each other. The discussion in II thus builds upon the texts edited in I. The result is an in-depth analysis of the image of Muslims and Jews in the medieval public and private spheres, and furthermore forms an indispensable collection of source material that will benefit researchers within the fields of Jewish and Islamic studies, medieval studies, the history of religion and culture, philology and sociology. [top]
Material and method
The corpus, comprising all those works in East Norse with references to Muslims and/or Jews, numbers over sixty titles. However, it should be noted that at this stage these titles can refer to specific works (e.g. Christiern Pedersen's book On Hearing Mass) and to text collections (e.g. sermons, monastic readings, St Birgitta's Revelations). Many of these texts exist in different versions; the registered material thus totals approx. 105 manuscripts and 15 early books. They cover a range of genres including devotional literature, revelations, sermons, prayers, travel descriptions to the Near East and poems. Borderline texts, e.g. legal documents and runic inscriptions, are included to complement the findings in literary works. No text from after 1515 has been included. This terminus ad quem thus ensures that the vernacular material is written in Old Danish (→ 1515) and Old Swedish (→ 1526), and it covers the rise of Ottoman power but avoids the shift in polemics (first demonstrated in 1516 by Ræff‘s publication of Pfefferkorn‘s Judæorum Secreta in Denmark) and contamination from Reformation thought (e.g. as expressed in Luther's The Fight against Muslim Terror [1528] and On the Jews and Their Lies [1543]). [top]
Editorial practice
Some of the manuscripts to be used have not been edited before (e.g. AM 21, 4º; The Siege of Rhodes; The Fifteen Places) and certainly not discussed in English-language works. Others have appeared in editions or other contexts, largely from the nineteenth century, since when editorial methods, practices and aims have changed and developed greatly. Of course, none of these editions includes a commentary on the portrayal of Muslims or Jews, and many of them are difficult to find outside of university libraries. It is obviously desirable from a scholarly point of view that such material should be made more readily accessible in new editions. The editorial method to be employed here is material philology, best suited for investigating the composition and use of each manuscript on its own terms. Each text is transcribed diplomatically to reflect the form and punctuation of the original. Scribal errors, deletions, changes and additions—all important resources for understanding the creation and use of the manuscript—are placed into a critical apparatus. The transcription is accompanied by an introduction, manuscript description and dating, information about parallel and original texts (and their datings) as well as bibliographical references. [top]
Terminology
A number of terms in these East Norse texts describe Muslims of the Middle East, Europe and Africa, and Jews in both the contemporary and Biblical worlds. E.g. Muslims are referred to as Arabs, Saracens, Turks, Bedouins, occasionally "Black-men", Mohammedans or just as heathens. A Jew, however, is usually just a Jew (juþe), although we also find Israelite, Hebrew, or, if Biblical, a personal name. Invectives are also common (snake, dog). There are a number of compounds that build on these terms, e.g. the Old Danish juþedjakn (rabbi), juþemughe (Jewish mob), juþespyt (Jew spittle), tyrkehær (Turkish/Muslim army). One task will be to investigate how and when these various terms are used. Is there any apparent difference between an Arab, Saracen and Turk in the corpus? What connotations does each term have? Are some terms more common in certain genres or more polemical than others? [top]
Types for investigation
A preliminary survey of the corpus reveals these types to occur and be worthy of investigation:
- Muslims: rather ambivalent view (compared to Jews); divine scourge of Christendom; idolaters and heretics; sexually promiscuous, lecherous; cruel and militaristic; greedy; untrustworthy; Muhammad as an imposter and fraud (several tales connected to him); defenceless against Christianity and its symbols; guardians of religious sites in Jerusalem.
- Jews: manipulating Jewish leaders; manipulated Jewish masses (the "Talmud Jew" deserted "authentic Judaism"); living testimony to the incarnation/crucifixion/resurrection; deliberate non-believer in Christian truth; Christ-killer; "red Jews" imprisoned in the Caspian Mts; violent and mocking Jew; enemy of God/Christendom and collaborator with Satan; supplanted servant of God (supersessionist theology); dispossessed Jew; usurer; weak and feminine Jew. [top]
Progress updates
July—September 2011
Work has begun on editing:
- two letters from the Holy Roman Emperor to King Hans (1511, 1512) about attacks by Tyrcker;
- a number of sermons in Old Danish and Old Swedish that refer to Jews;
- the Danish paraphrase of Guillaume Caoursin's Siege of Rhodes (1508);
- runic inscriptions in Swedish about Serkland and Jerusalem, and in Gotlandic about the Jews;
- the preface to the lapidarium in NkS 66, 8o, that refers to Evax, King of Arabia;
- Christiern Pedersen's comments about Saracens, Turks and Jews in his Danish Chronicle (in or after 1515) and On Hearing Mass (1514).
Furthermore, I have begun work editing a series of articles with Jussi Hanska of Institutum Romanum Finlandiae on preaching about, to and by Jews, putting the final finishes to the next issue of Medieval Sermon Studies, and preparing a paper on language mixture in a Birgittine manuscript for the international Birgitta Conference next month in Stockholm. The project "Muslims and Jews in Medieval Scandinavian Texts" appears on p. 39 in the latest issue of the Woolf Institute's magazine Perspectives. [top]
Further information
If you have any questions or comments about the project , I would be delighted to hear from you. Please contact me by email: jon@dsl.dk. [top]
Projektbeskrivelse
Forskere inden for religion, historie og litteratur er (især i de sidste 70 år) begyndt at undersøge opfattelsen af ikke-kristne grupper i middelalderen. Fokus har dog hidtil været på snævert afgrænsede perioder eller geografiske områder, evt. en bestemt begivenhed, og undersøgelserne har været baseret på et begrænset antal kilder. Derimod savnes viden om de ”populære” kilder fra det offentlige rum, ikke mindst tekster på folkesproget. I særdeleshed mangler der en detaljeret, omfattende og filologisk præcis undersøgelse af de folkelige tekster i Skandinavien indtilrenæssancen. Projektet ”Muslimer og jøder i tekster fra den skandinaviske middelalder” sigter mod at imødekomme dette behov ved at analysere de danske og svenske (østnordiske) tekster indtil 1515. Disse folkesproglige tekster er også af afgørende betydning for tolkningen af middelalderens kirkekunst, herunder kalkmalerierne. Ved at fokusere på teksternes fremstilling af jøder og muslimer (fx i opbyggelig litteratur, åbenbaringer, prædikener, bønner, rejsebeskrivelser til de nærorientalske lande og digte) vil projektet kunne give en hidtil uset beskrivelse af den før-moderne religiøse og ikke-religiøse baggrund for nutidens offentlige rum og civile samfund med hensyn til tolerance, forfølgelse og tværkulturel (mis)forståelse. Hermed vil der blive skabt historiske perspektiver for fremtiden, idet projektet vil præsentere en ”brugbar fortid” for vores pluralistiske samfund i dag. [top]
