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Beyond Expulsion

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Contents

List of Illustrations......................................................................................................................................ixAcknowledgments............................................................................................................................................xiNote on Currency, Spelling, and Translations...............................................................................................................xvIntroduction: Beyond Expulsion: A Paradigm Shift...........................................................................................................11. "Our City Is Seen as Greatly Superior": Strasbourg and Its Reformation..................................................................................122. "Without Trees, the Fire Will Be Extinguished": Reinventing Jewish Life in the Rural Sphere.............................................................263. Shared Spaces: Social Interactions in the Countryside...................................................................................................494. Creating Jewish Space in the Christian City: The Jews and Strasbourg's Markets..........................................................................695. "As Is Also Apparent in the Old Chronicles and History Books": Magisterial Laws, Confession Building, and Reformation-Era Tolerance.....................936. "I Listened to the Account of a Jew": Christian Hebraism in Strasbourg..................................................................................1197. Constructing Jewish Memory: Self-Texts, the Reformation, and Narratives of Jewish History...............................................................144Conclusion: Becoming French: Alsatian Jews in the Wake of Confession Building..............................................................................165Notes......................................................................................................................................................173Bibliography...............................................................................................................................................221Index......................................................................................................................................................247

Chapter One

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...