Dissertation

'O, Beastly Jew!': Allegorical Anti-Judaism in Thirteenth-century English Bestiaries

Young, Elizabeth Anastasia

2019

Overview

This thesis outlines the traditional anti-Judaic allegories found in the medieval bestiary genre, demonstrates the transformations of these allegories within the English scriptoria, and examines how these allegories reflect contemporary suspicions of the Anglo-Jewish population. In the thirteenth century, the bestiary experienced a final flourish during which the imagery and text of certain entries, which allegorized Jews, Judaism, and the Old Testament, were amended and amplified. During the first quarter of the century, a previous focus on obstinacy and blindness evolved into an obsessive fear of conspiracy and cannibalism. I argue that these changes were created at the local level and in contradiction with the contemporary canonical consensus regarding the presence of Jews in Christendom. As a result, this explicitly anti-Judaic trend was short lived among clerically produced texts. However, even a brief period of clerical approval at the local level, gave new and lasting strength to a common conception of Jews as inherently deceitful, deviant, and diabolic.

• Publisher: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
• Subject: Isidore, of Seville, Saint (560-636) / Medieval history / Medieval literature / Religion / White, Terence Hanbury (1906-1964)
• ISBN: 1392231965, 9781392231968