Prayer, Literacy, and Literary Memory in the Jewish Communities of Medieval Europe

Abstract

Our knowledge and understanding of the popular history of the Jews in Christian Europe during the high Middle Ages has been significantly enriched in recent years, largely due to new archival research.1 Nonetheless, large gaps remain. The partial results that are sometimes presented on the basis of rabbinic literature reveal the methodological problems inherent in sketching popular history on the basis of the literature of the rabbinic elite, whose educational levels were presumably much higher than those of the average person. Much can be learned from the rabbinic oeuvre about the lives and the intellectual capabilities of scholars. Far less can be learned about the common folk, whose achievements (and frustrations) are not typically included or reflected in this corpus.2¶ ... This study has used rabbinic literature and halakhic formulations to reflect Jewish life and experience on the ground and to identify and distinguish between shared religious traditions. It should be correlated with archival and similar materials. Aspects of the elusive social history of ordinary Jews in medieval Europe during the High Middle Ages still lie among these materials, awaiting further research. It is only through a fuller appreciation of this history that the dynamics of tradition and custom can be properly calibrated.