Customer Reviews

Communities of Violence

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In the complex and highly-charged debate that is the origins of persecution in the Middle Ages, Nirenberg's contribution is a useful and timely one. Broadly speaking, his thesis is a counter to the long view of Moore _et al_; what interests Nirenberg is the specific, the day-to-day functioning of violence in its social and political context. It is for this reason that he focuses mainly on particular incidents and localities - although certainly not at the expense of broadening his picture where necessary. His method is essentially a comparative one, contrasting particular events in France and Aragon in order to demonstrate the infinite variety and flexibility of medieval attitudes towards minorities. This use of case studies enables Nirenberg to explore his targets in much greater depth than would be possible in a generalised study, and this is, in many ways, his point: a focus on context, not unified theory.

This is an excellent counterpoint to the vast quantity of material on medieval persecution, with an intriguing conclusion: that day-to-day violence could have a systemic, stabilising function in medieval societies - particularly multi-cultural ones such as Aragon.

Nirenberg explores the medieval world of religious communities, always focusing on particular places and people. He finds a checkered pattern of close or explosive relations, not so unlike our modern somewhat paranoid times. The studies of communities in medieval Spain with their unstable mixtures of Muslim, Jewish and Christian communities are particularly fascinating. The long periods of mutually helpful relations are punctuated with episodes of inflammatory fear. Nirenberg shows that where popular superstition ran rampant, the religious leaders often denounced it. But these leaders were partly responsible for teaching people to blame their troubles on unbelievers. And by the late 1200s, the context of holy war was percolating into every corner of Christendom, affecting relations between cultural groups from the Balkans to Spain. Prussia launched a northern crusade against non-Catholic Slavs. France exterminated its Cathar heretics, suppressed the order of Templars, and repeatedly expelled its Jews. The Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 ruled that people of different religions must wear specific clothes to mark them as enemies in enemy uniform. The intent was to draw a social and sexual wall between Christians, Jews and Muslims. To block friendship and love from crossing that wall, the customs of Tortosa (in Spain) warned,

"If Jewish or Muslim males are found lying with a Christian woman, the Jew or Muslim should be drawn and quartered and the Christian woman should be burned, in such a manner that they should die. And this accusation can be brought by any inhabitant of the town without penalty...". (p. 132.)

All told, these studies of real people in real places offer insight we need now.

-author of Correcting Jesus

I think this book put forth some interesting arguments and interpretations of history. As a historian, I can say that it is always important to look at historical events and trends from as many angles as possible. Violence against religious minorities in the medieval era has to be seen as different from violence against minorities in the twentieth century because the settings for the two are completely different. I know that many people will find what the author has to say a bit far-fetched, but I believe it is better to be a little far-fetched than to offer yet another typically-held opinion. If there were no "far-fetched" interpretations, knowledge would never advance. Keep an open mind while reading this book. You will definitely learn something.

How does it affect our understanding of violence when we assume "the killers had motives, that their actions had meaning, and that this meaning is decipherable from context (43)?" In Communities of Violence, Nirenberg explores this question in an attempt to transcend the teleological and contextualize medieval violence against minorities. He argues that the dominant voices in the discourse have been those seeking to trace modern hostilities to a fixed point of entry into western thought; this book seeks to expand the debate and pronounces that the focus on the longue durée imposes modern ideologies upon medieval society. Rather than seeking to grasp the complexities of the medieval mindset, it precludes the "psyche of Everyman (5)"* from exercising any rationality or nuance. Nirenberg endeavors to remodel this reduction, allowing us a fresh perspective of the "Everyman," particularly the treatment of minorities within his midst.

Communities is not an exhaustive study of the "persecution of minorities in the Middle Ages" considering it exclusively addresses Jews, Muslims, and lepers in Southern France and the Crown of Aragon during the first half of the fourteenth-century; thus the subtitle is slightly deceiving. However, this can be overlooked due to the work's valuable contribution. Despite its limited scope, Communities convincingly informs the reader of the functionality and systemic nature of persecution in medieval society as well as the need to question the long assumed marginality of these minorities.

Nirenberg utilizes several outbreaks of violence to demonstrate the inexistence of a universal modus operandi regarding minorities, beginning by examining the "Shepherds' Crusade" of 1320. Eventually crossing the Pyrenees, the Crusade originated in France and reportedly was instigated through the vision of a young boy. Though it initially targeted Muslims, it quickly and savagely encompassed Jews also. Nirenberg's sources for the attacks in France come from chronicles while sources for the events in Aragon are primarily royal and fiscal documents, but the differences in sources are not the author's focus. Instead, Nirenberg reveals disparate regional goals resulting in contrasting responses. In France, he concludes that the persecution occurred in "context of...relations between monarchy and Jews," of which the shepherds were well aware (49). Meanwhile in Aragon, King James II was informed of the encroaching "pastoureaux" and issued orders to "bar them entry." He then sent out communiqués "to nearly every town in the Crown of Aragon with a Jewish or a Muslim population" commanding protection for the Jews (71).

Both regions were majority Christian and ruled by Christian kings, begging the question which Nirenberg deftly answers: why such divergent reactions? He concludes that these events, though under the banner of "Shepherds' Crusade," must be viewed individually - taking into account local sentiments, politics, and relations. Thus, the Crusade of 1320, and the "Cowherds' Crusade" of 1321 directed at lepers, must be analyzed within their individual contexts rather than placed on a linear trajectory to the Nazi's Die Endlösung and the Shoah over seven hundred years later.

Communities not only exposes the prevalent teleological bent most have displayed in the analyses of minority persecution during international incidents, but it also demonstrates it through inter and intra-communal violence. Here is where Nirenberg is at his most controversial. The major example employed is that of the recurrent Holy Week riots. A common, and equally persuasive, explanation for the annual attacks on Jews is the scurrilous title of "Christ-Killers (201)." The accusations of deicide, coupled with the popular spirituality based in Jesus' human suffering and the Easter season, produced a "violent ritual paradigm (201)" and has long marked "a transition from tolerance to intolerance (200)." However, Nirenberg seizes upon this idea of ritual and argues the so-called violence - which he says largely entailed young men hurling rocks at the walls of Jewish settlements, rarely resulting in serious injury - actually served a number of important functions in the community. These functions included: solidifying social boundaries, stabilizing relations, and concurrently acting as exclusive and inclusive by conferring an official - and necessary - position as outsider upon the victims.

Some might view Nirenberg's legitimation of violence towards minorities as pernicious at best and diabolical at worst. However, a careful reader will note Nirenberg's sensitivity to the subject at hand. Communities realizes the precariousness of its position and carefully, yet unapologetically, recovers the proper underpinning of the discussion. Nirenberg does not excuse the violence but impartially pinpoints the contemporary rationalization and systematic methods of medieval persecution. Thus, rather than diminish a teleological approach, Communities enables us to move beyond the excuse of an irrational mob-mentality and perhaps gain insight into specific antecedents of communal violence. Persecutions become even more frightening but possibly more predictable if "the killers had motives" and "their actions had meaning." This makes Communities of Violence an indispensable addition to this field of study.

*Nirenberg is arguing against the idea of an irrational and anxious population found in Carlo Ginzburg, Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches' Sabbath, trans. Raymond Rosenthal (New York: Pantheon, 1991).

The first thing to be said about Communities of Violence: Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages is that the contents do not live up to the title. Perhaps this is an editor's decision rather than the author's, but the fact is that this is NOT anything like a comprehensive history of the subject. A better title might be A Study of a Few Incidents Involving Christians, Muslims, and Jews in Aragon and Catalonia in the First Half of the 14th Century. The buyer of this book will be disappointed on that score if he was expecting something more encompassing. Another disappointing aspect of this book is the author's disconcerting use of trendy post-modern jargon: it is full of talk of "discourses","narratives","structures", turning one's "gaze", "paradigms", and other terms which seem designed more to obtain tenure for the author than to convey real information and to constitute a satisfying work of history. The book does contain many interesting tales arising from the author's research into Catalonian and Aragonese archives, research which seems to be highly original on his part. Thus, we have vignettes of Christians, Jews, and Muslims gambling together and suing each other, incidents of interfaith sex and prostitutiuon, and intercommunal violence. (I was fascinated to learn that of Muslims applying for medical licenses in 14th century Valencia, most of them were women.) The governments of the time seem to have been largely ineffectual (a point the author does not explicitly make) with citizens resorting to assault, arson, and rioting often and refusing to obey the king or his officers, and petty nobles taking the law into their own hands. This book is not without its longeurs, but is in places very interesting; the reader who seeks a comprehensive account of the treatment of Jews and Muslims in Spain, much less in the rest of Europe, will simply have to go elsewhere. One hopes that at least the author made full professor.