Christian heresy and Jewish polemic in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries

Abstract

The suggestion that there was meaningful contact between Christian heretics and Jews during the middle ages is entirely plausible, quite significant, and generally unproved.' That the existence of heresy had some impact upon the status of medieval Jews is, of course, beyond question. Inquisitorial proceedings aimed at heretics affected not only crypto-Jews (whether real or alleged) but members of the established Jewish community as well. Jews were accused of harboring heretics, encouraging them, and even of leading orthodox Christians into heresy. On several important occasions, procedures usually directed against heretical works were turned against the Talmud, the works of Maimonides, and certain sections of the Jewish liturgy. By the end of the middle ages, Jews were very well a ware of the Church's lack of affection for heretics. 2 (from Introduction)