Jewish Dogs: An Image and Its Interpreters
Contents
Cite
Extract
Shylock: Thou call'dst me dog before thou hadst a cause; But, since I am a dog, beware my fangs.
Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice 3.3.6-7
Works of history are supposed to be dispassionate, their authors detached, and the books they write judgmentally neutral. By these standards, this book is a failure. Engagement and emotion are visible on every page.
To produce such a book was far from my mind when I began to write. My intention was to perform a simple scholarly exercise contrasting the discussions of purported ritualistic murders by Jews of Christian children as these discussions appear in late twelfth- and early thirteenth-century Jewish and Christian narrative sources. But a wrinkle soon appeared. I discovered that the key to understanding the medieval Christian narrative lies in the writings of the still little known Jesuit Bollandists of Antwerp and Louvain, or Leuven, the seventeenth-century authors of the multivolume Acta Sanctorum.1Close Theirs was the first attempt accurately to establish and report saints' lives; their purpose was to winnow the false from the true. Yet, in the process, and faithful to their own interpretative standards, they came to validate reports of ritual murder, giving these reports full, and sometimes, forceful credence. But why? My reading quickly became two-layered, and the result was historiography within historiography: to ask why, at least in this instance, medieval historical writing is so well interpreted through the lens of similar writing, and its underlying motivation, in early modernity, each of the two in its own time-specific context.
Sign in
Personal account
- Sign in with email/username & password
- Get email alerts
- Save searches
- Purchase content
- Activate your purchase/trial code
- Add your ORCID iD
Purchase
Metrics
Metrics
| Month: | Total Views: |
|---|---|
| May 2023 | 2 |
| June 2024 | 1 |
| August 2024 | 1 |
| May 2025 | 1 |
Get help with access
Institutional access
Access to content on Oxford Academic is often provided through institutional subscriptions and purchases. If you are a member of an institution with an active account, you may be able to access content in one of the following ways:
IP based access
Typically, access is provided across an institutional network to a range of IP addresses. This authentication occurs automatically, and it is not possible to sign out of an IP authenticated account.
Sign in through your institution
Choose this option to get remote access when outside your institution. Shibboleth/Open Athens technology is used to provide single sign-on between your institution's website and Oxford Academic.
If your institution is not listed or you cannot sign in to your institution's website, please contact your librarian or administrator.
Sign in with a library card
Enter your library card number to sign in. If you cannot sign in, please contact your librarian.
Society Members
Society member access to a journal is achieved in one of the following ways:
Sign in through society site
Many societies offer single sign-on between the society website and Oxford Academic. If you see "Sign in through society site" in the sign in pane within a journal:
If you do not have a society account or have forgotten your username or password, please contact your society.
Sign in using a personal account
Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members. See below.
Personal account
A personal account can be used to get email alerts, save searches, purchase content, and activate subscriptions.
Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members.
Viewing your signed in accounts
Click the account icon in the top right to:
Signed in but can't access content
Oxford Academic is home to a wide variety of products. The institutional subscription may not cover the content that you are trying to access. If you believe you should have access to that content, please contact your librarian.
Institutional account management
For librarians and administrators, your personal account also provides access to institutional account management. Here you will find options to view and activate subscriptions, manage institutional settings and access options, access usage statistics, and more.