The Jew in the Medieval World a Sourcebook : 315-1791

From the back cover:The history if medieval Judaism may be considered under two aspects: what the world did the the Jew ans what the Jew did for himself. Both aspects are interrelated, but not necessarily dependent. Whether the world had been benign and pacific or - as it was - hostile and cruel, the Jew would still have prayed, studied, entered professions, traveled, organized communal endeavors, in a phrase, pursued the normal activities of social life. To the extent, however, that he was harassed and persecuted, the Jew responded: he defended himself and replied to his enemies. In this reprint of the 1938 classic source book, Jacob Rader Marcus, the Dean of American Jewish History, has gathered, edited, and introduced those documents from the medieval literature which illuminate the Jewish community in both aspects: as self contained society (Jewish self-government: Jewish sectarianism, mysticism, messianism; the inner life of the Jew, the lives and works of Jewish notable - Rashi, Maimonides, Gluckel of Hameln, Solomon Maimon, among others)and in relation to the outside world (the Jewish situation under Roman law, under Islam, under the Visigoths; treatmnt at the hands of the feudal and monarchal societies, the Roman Catholic Church, and the reformers).Cover drawing based on illumination from a fourteenth-century Haggadah, possible Spanish, in the British Museum, London.Cover Design by Adrienne Vanady