Beyond Expulsion is a history of Jewish-Christian interactions in early modern Strasbourg, a city from which the Jews had been expelled and banned from residence in the late fourteenth century. This study shows that the Jews who remained in the Alsatian countryside continued to maintain relationships with the city and its residents in the ensuing period. During most of the sixteenth century, Jews entered Strasbourg on a daily basis, where they participated in the city's markets, litigated in its courts, and shared their knowledge of Hebrew and Judaica with Protestant Reformers. By the end of the sixteenth century, Strasbourg became an increasingly orthodox Lutheran city, and city magistrates and religious leaders sought to curtail contact between Jews and Christians. This book unearths the active Jewish participation in early modern society, traces the impact of the Reformation on local Jews, discusses the meaning of tolerance, and describes the shifting boundaries that divided Jewish and Christian communities.
Beyond Expulsion is a history of Jewish-Christian interactions in early modern Strasbourg, a city from which the Jews had been expelled and banned from residence in the late fourteenth century. This study shows that the Jews who remained in the Alsatian countryside continued to maintain relationships with the city and its residents in the ensuing period. During most of the sixteenth century, Jews entered Strasbourg on a daily basis, where they participated in the city's markets, litigated in its courts, and shared their knowledge of Hebrew and Judaica with Protestant Reformers. By the end of the sixteenth century, Strasbourg became an increasingly orthodox Lutheran city, and city magistrates and religious leaders sought to curtail contact between Jews and Christians. This book unearths the active Jewish participation in early modern society, traces the impact of the Reformation on local Jews, discusses the meaning of tolerance, and describes the shifting boundaries that divided Jewish and Christian communities.
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Beyond Expulsion is a history of Jewish-Christian interactions in early modern Strasbourg, a city from which the Jews had been expelled and banned from residence in the late fourteenth century. This study shows that the Jews who remained in the Alsatian countryside continued to maintain relationships with the city and its residents in the ensuing period. During most of the sixteenth century, Jews entered Strasbourg on a daily basis, where they participated in the city's markets, litigated in its courts, and shared their knowledge of Hebrew and Judaica with Protestant Reformers. By the end of the sixteenth century, Strasbourg became an increasingly orthodox Lutheran city, and city magistrates and religious leaders sought to curtail contact between Jews and Christians. This book unearths the active Jewish participation in early modern society, traces the impact of the Reformation on local Jews, discusses the meaning of tolerance, and describes the shifting boundaries that divided Jewish and Christian communities.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780804779050 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Stanford University Press |
| Publication date: | 07/26/2011 |
| Series: | Stanford Studies in Jewish History and Culture |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 272 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Beyond Expulsion
Jews, Christians, and Reformation StrasbourgBy Debra Kaplan
STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright © 2011 Debra KaplanAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8047-7442-0
Chapter One
One "Our City Is Seen as Greatly Superior" Strasbourg and Its Reformation
At the turn of the sixteenth century, Strasbourg's renowned humanist, Jacob Wimpheling, described the "greatly superior" city of Strasbourg:
In these things, our city is seen as greatly superior, and more complete than other cities: with churches, chapels, relics, hospitals, convents; with a decorated cathedral; with an Episcopal see; libraries of books; men who are learned in all the arts; with schools of the mendicant orders; architects; the expulsion of the Jews; delightful buildings, beautiful streets and areas; with ramparts, trenches, towers, enclosures, bulwarks, chutes; common land, surrounding countryside; arms, weapons, horses, artillery, rifles; guardians, nobles, knighthood, models of artisanship; a history of reason; the beginning and origin of print; with the health and good of the air, with gentle wind; with wonderful, plentiful water; with communal freedom to hunt [animals and birds]; with fertile land, pastures, meadows, gardens; fish flowing in the current [to be] caught; also cattle, wild game, birds; corn, wine, fruit; wealth and poverty; commerce; tolls, debt collectors, interest; a model, beautiful fish market; fortresses and castles; countryside and people; cities and villages.
Despite the obvious embellishment, Strasbourg did possess many of these features. Its location was a desirable one, for the city was situated on the Rhine and Ill rivers, in close proximity to the fertile Vosges Mountains. It was these resources that led to the establishment of the city, then called Argentoratum, in Roman times. Taking great pride in the city's ancient history, later residents, especially Strasbourg's humanists, often referred to it by its old Latin name. Similarly, the painter Conrad Morant described the city on a map he designed in 1548:
Argentoratum, which is as old as Ptolemy, Saint Jerome, Orosius, Eutropius, Marcellinus and other memorable people. The metropolis of Alsace, next to the Rhine River ... in vernacular called Strasbourg, a city of pious doctrine and virtue.... (See Figure 1.)
The geographic appeal of Strasbourg served it well during the medieval and early modern periods, for it became the major center in the Lower Rhine, especially in terms of trade. Wine produced from grapes grown in Alsatian vineyards in the Vosges was shipped north on the Ill and on the Rhine, as were wheat and barley grown in the surrounding countryside. Madder, a crop that was used industrially as a dye, was shipped south. Strasbourg was a center for the redistribution of cattle, and served as a market for the textiles produced in Lower Alsace.
The Medieval City
During the Middle Ages, Strasbourg's natural encirclement of the Ill River was reinforced with the construction of walls, towers, and gates. In addition, seven churches and a cathedral chapter were constructed. Renovations on the city's cathedral, l'Oeuvre Notre Dame, began at the end of the thirteenth century and continued through the mid-fourteenth century. Icons, stained glass windows, and scenes from the Song of Songs, the Last Judgment, and other sources in the Old and New Testaments were designed to adorn the cathedral. Several convents were also built, as were houses of the mendicant orders. There were several large plazas in the city, including one just outside the cathedral, as well as the Kornmarkt and Rossmarkt, the corn and horse markets. By the twelfth century, Strasbourg also had a Jewish population, attracted by its location and marketplaces. Strasbourg's Jewish community was largely situated in the city center, its synagogue and ritual bath located just blocks from the cathedral and some of the marketplaces.
The economic centrality and religious vibrancy of medieval Strasbourg made it an important center beyond the Lower Rhine. Its significance in the Holy Roman Empire was also due to the independent legal status that the city had won. The Empire comprised many overlapping political jurisdictions, and while the emperor nominally ruled over the entire Empire, powerful princes, both ecclesiastical and lay, controlled vast territories and wielded great political power. In the early medieval period, Strasbourg had been governed by its bishop, the largest landowner in Lower Alsace. As the city grew institutionally and economically, the city council wrested control from its bishop, gaining legal independence after a war that lasted from 1260 to 1262. The bishop's official residence was moved from Strasbourg to Saverne. From that point on, the council, comprised mainly of patricians called Constoffler, assumed responsibility for governing the city's affairs. The bishop was still tied to the city, for he was elected by the church canons residing there. The city remained part of his diocese, theoretically under his religious guidance, although no longer legally under his political authority.
Strasbourg's status as a self-governing city was not uncommon. From the eleventh century on, urban communities throughout the Empire gained their independence, either by overthrowing their lord, as was the case in Strasbourg, or with the help of princes. Some of these cities were granted the legal status of a Frei- und Reichstätt, a Free Imperial City. These cities all had the same legal status, yet in other ways they differed tremendously from one another, for several were little more than villages that had been accorded special legal status. The category of Free Imperial City placed a city under the control of the emperor and allowed it to participate in the Reichstag, the imperial Diet, in which the princes of the Empire met with the emperor.
Strasbourg's independent standing was formally recognized by the emperor, and it was accorded the status of a Free Imperial City. The city was then granted several important privileges. The magistrates retained the right to regulate who entered and visited their city and who was granted citizenship. Strasbourg was also granted autonomy in its courts. By the fifteenth century, decisions rendered in local courts could be appealed to imperial courts, such as the Reichskammergericht, the Imperial Chamber Court. Because of its status as a Free Imperial City, Strasbourg's municipal court, run by the city councilors, was precluded from such imperial review. Moreover, the city and its burghers were largely protected from being sued in a venue other than the municipal court, as in theory (though not in practice) they would only be brought before an imperial court when the other party in the case had the right to appear before one of the imperial courts, whether the Reichskammergericht or the Reichshofrat, the Imperial Aulic Court.
Other privileges gave the city and its burghers economic protection. No one was permitted to open a new dock for loading or unloading goods on the water or on the land, under penalty of a fine payable to the council. Burghers were permitted to attain the status of Ausburger, which allowed them to reside and even to farm outside of the city in areas such as the neighboring countryside without becoming subject to taxes in those areas. Without regard to their place of residence, Ausburger remained subject only to Strasbourg. The city's merchants were also protected against paying damages if they were shipwrecked in another territory. Finally, the city was also precluded from paying "unjust" or new tariffs in the Empire, including taxes imposed by the bishop of Strasbourg, whose lands bordered the city.
The magistrates were also permitted to design their own Jewish policy. In 1349, after the Black Death had hit several neighboring cities, the city's residents expelled the local Jewish community. The magistrates allowed several families back into the city in 1369, only to expel the Jews once again in 1390. The magisterial prerogative to formulate its own Jewish policy led to the absence of Jews from the city from 1390 until 1791, when the newly declared French republic decided to emancipate its Ashkenazic Jewish citizens.
Strasbourg's Political Structure
By the late fourteenth century, a powerful rentier-merchant class rose in the city. Intermarriage between these merchants and local nobles led to the creation of an oligarchy comprising patricians and merchants. By the fifteenth century, patricians held one-third of civic offices, and the remaining two-thirds were held by the mercantile class. After several rebellions, the guilds acquired tremendous power within the city, and during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, guildsmen joined several of the city's governing bodies. The city's constitution, drafted in the late medieval period, and its governing institutions reflected the interests of patricians, merchants, and the guilds.
The city's official executive leaders included both a Stettmeister, a rotating position of ceremonial power drawn from among patricians, and an Ammeister, who could not be selected from the patriciate. There were also three city councils. The XIII was the senior council, and its primary role was to deal with foreign affairs. It also served as the city's appellate court, since Strasbourg was exempted from use of the imperial court as a court of appeals. The XV was responsible for domestic affairs, executing already existing laws and advising on new legislation. It also served as a regulatory council, which supervised the treasury and public works and sought to prevent corruption. The third council, the XXI, was responsible for reviewing new legislation. The Senate served as the city's court and comprised thirty senators, including ten patricians and twenty guildsmen. Three times a week, the senators held joint sessions with the XXI, forming the Rat und XXI, the highest legislative body of the city, known as the Magistrat.
By the mid-fifteenth century, when all of these governing structures were in place, Strasbourg had become a relatively large city, boasting 18,000 inhabitants. The population grew to approximately 25,000 inhabitants by 1580 and 29,000 by the early seventeenth century. Comparatively, Strasbourg was approximately the size of Bordeaux or Troyes, and it approached the size of Nuremberg and Cologne, cities with about 30,000 inhabitants by the mid-sixteenth century. Other towns, villages, and even small cities in Lower Alsace had populations ranging from under 2,000 inhabitants to 6,000 inhabitants. Strasbourg was clearly the capital and the largest city in Alsace.
The Reformation City
The late medieval and early modern period witnessed cultural changes as Strasbourg became a center for humanism. Home to noted preacher Geiler von Kaysersberg and renowned writer Sebastian Munster, Strasbourg also attracted men from Alsace and beyond to study with famed local scholars such as Jacob Wimpheling. These men and their students advocated the study of rhetoric, ancient languages, and the pursuit of morality, and called for the reform of the church. Strasbourg's circle of humanists spread their influence when, following the invention of moveable type, the city quickly became a major center of print culture, with local publishers printing humanist and religious works. A rich, vernacular popular literature, often enhanced with illustrations designed by famous woodcutters and artists of the sixteenth century, was also produced in the city. Many artists, such as Hans Baldung Grien, resided in Strasbourg for a short while.
The early humanists of Strasbourg all remained within the Catholic Church. Their students, however, brought with them more radical calls for reform. Reform-minded preachers entered the cities' ranks in the early 1520s. Matthias Zell arrived in the city in 1521, followed in 1523 by Caspar Hedio, Martin Bucer, and Wolfgang Capito. Trained as humanists, these men penned commentaries on the Bible and translated biblical texts. Most importantly, they preached the gospel as evangelical, reform-minded preachers, facilitating the spread of reform among both the literate and illiterate. Bucer's actions also conveyed his calls for reform to the illiterate public, as he publicly defied the Catholic Church by marrying a former nun despite the fact that he had been a Dominican monk. Literate residents had access to Luther's works, too, available in Strasbourg in 1520.
These calls for reform inflamed the people of Strasbourg, who clamored for more evangelical preaching in the city and demanded the right to choose their own pastors. The parishioners of Saint Aurelia's and Young Saint Peter's churches insisted that Bucer and Capito serve as their respective pastors. By the mid-1520s, the laity also began to violate the relics, saints, and icons in their parish churches. In 1524–1525, people seized the money laid on the altars, designated for relics and saints, and placed it in the alms box, while verbally condemning the "idols" in the churches. By 1525, the gardeners of Saint Aurelia's entered the cathedral and Saint Aurelia's, destroying the paintings, retables, relics, and altars that they had once revered. A second violent wave of iconoclasm came in 1529–1530, just prior to the official adoption of the reformed faith by the city magistrates.
Faced with the growing desire for reform, the magistrates decided over time that adopting reform would ultimately maintain order in the city. Formal steps toward implementing reforms were taken slowly when compared to the events in other cities. Although some of the magistrates were themselves influenced by Protestant preachers, others firmly clung to Catholicism. In 1524–1525, Strasbourg's magistrates began to take over many of the rights and privileges traditionally held by the Catholic Church, taking control of ecclesiastical institutions and charity, secularizing the houses of monks and nuns, allowing the Mass to be sung in German, and approving the removal of icons from local churches.
On February 20, 1529, the city magistrates formally accepted reform with their decision to abolish the Latin Mass. When, just over a year later, at the Reichstag in Augsburg, various Protestant cities and princes declared their solidarity to the Protestant cause in defiance of the emperor, Strasbourg was among them. Whereas most German Protestants adopted the Augsburg Confession, the doctrinal document for the Lutheran faith, Strasbourg's clerics did not do so. Capito and Bucer differed from Luther, and tended toward Huldrich Zwingli's interpretation of the Eucharist as a symbol of Jesus' body, rather than an actual physical presence of his body. As such, they authored the Tetrapolitan Confession, which delineated the doctrinal stance of four cities, Strasbourg, Memmingen, Constance, and Lindau, and which struck a middle ground between the Lutheran and Zwinglian confessions.
Even though Strasbourg's magistrates had formally adopted the Tetra politan Confession authored by the city's reformers, the official city doctrine evolved over time as a result of both outside political concerns and internal dissent. Although Strasbourg was not far from the Swiss cities that most closely shared its theology, it directly bordered the Catholic lands of France, the bishop of Strasbourg, the Habsburg emperor, and other local Catholic landowners in Alsace. As a Protestant city, Strasbourg was particularly vulnerable to the Catholic emperor, to whom it reported as a Free Imperial City.
The threat faced by Strasbourg was exacerbated by the decision of its reformers not to adopt the Augsburg Confession. Having deviated from the Lutheran doctrines to which the powerful Protestant territorial princes in the Empire adhered, the city did not have many theological allies who might come to its defense. Thus, in order to protect the city, the magistrates signed the Augsburg Confession in 1531, which allowed them to join the Schmalkaldic League, an alliance of Lutheran princes and cities formed to protect its members from a possible onslaught from Emperor Charles V. Nevertheless, the magistrates still maintained the validity of the Tetrapolitan Confession. In 1536, Bucer drafted the Wittenberg Concord, in which he attempted to reconcile the city's adoption of these two different confessions. Over the next sixty years, the city held the formal position of accepting both the Augsburg and the Tetrapolitan Confessions. This underscores that the Reformation in Strasbourg was shaped by both theological and political concerns. A convergence of the interests of reformers, laity, and magistrates had ushered reform into the city, and continued to affect the pace and decisions of reform in Strasbourg.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Beyond Expulsion by Debra Kaplan Copyright © 2011 by Debra Kaplan. Excerpted by permission of STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
Note on Currency, Spelling, and Translations xv
Introduction: Beyond Expulsion: A Paradigm Shift 1
1 "Our City Is Seen as Greatly Superior": Strasbourg and Its Reformation 12
2 "Without Trees, the Fire Will Be Extinguished": Reinventing Jewish Life in the Rural Sphere 26
3 Shared Spaces: Social Interactions in the Countryside 49
4 Creating Jewish Space in the Christian City: The Jews and Strasbourg's Markets 69
5 "As Is Also Apparent in the Old Chronicles and History Books": Magisterial Laws, Confession Building, and Reformation-Era Tolerance 93
6 "I Listened to the Account of a Jew": Christian Hebraism in Strasbourg 119
7 Constructing Jewish Memory: Self-Texts, the Reformation, and Narratives of Jewish History 144
Conclusion: Becoming French: Alsatian Jews in the Wake of Confession Building 165
Notes 173
Bibliography 221
Index 247