Description
Book SynopsisThe early sixteenth century saw a major crisis in Christian-Jewish relations: the attempt to confiscate and destroy every Jewish book in Germany. This unprecedented effort to end the practice of Judaism throughout the empire was challenged by Jewish communities, and, unexpectedly, by Johannes Reuchlin (1455-1522), the founder of Christian Hebrew studies. In 1510, Reuchlin wrote an extensive, impassioned, and ultimately successful defense of Jewish writings and legal rights, a stunning intervention later acknowledged by a Jewish leader as a ''''miracle within a miracle.''''The fury that greeted Reuchlin''s defense of Judaism resulted in a protracted heresy trial that polarized Europe. The decade-long controversy promoted acceptance of humanist culture in northern Europe and, in several key settings, created an environment that was receptive to the nascent Reformation movement. The legal and theological battles over charges that Reuchlin''s positions were impermissibly favorable to Jews,
Trade ReviewRichly detailed yet lucid and eminently readable...Price's study is refreshingly balanced in its judgements. He has painstakingly researched original sources and the voluminous previous scholarship in several languages, and has compressed a thorough analysis of the complexities of the topic into a mere 230 pages...Price's penetrating study is an outstanding book with much to offer historians of humanism and the Reformation. * Times Literary Supplement *
Table of Contents1. "Impermissibly Favorable to Jews?" ; 2. Humanist Origins ; 3. Humanism at Court ; 4. Discovery of Hebrew ; 5. Johannes Pfefferkorn and the Campaign against Jews ; 6. Who Saved the Jewish Books? ; 7. Inquisition ; 8. Trial at Rome and the Christian Debates ; 9. The Luther Affair ; 10. "As If the First Martyr of Hebrew Letters" ; Bibliography
