Anti-Judaism and Anti-Semitism in the Middle Ages

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The Shipmans Tale the last of the fabliaux The
Lovers Gift Regained   an immoral tale told
by an immoral manDonald Howard "the neatness
of the tale is appallingly satisfactoryDerek
Pearsall   "sensitivity to other values besides
cash has been submitted to appraisal and, having
been found nonconvertible, has been thrown away
E.T. Donaldson   "But to what extent does the
Canterbury Tales as a whole represent an effort
to define a form of life that at once derives
from mercantile canons of value and disguises
that derivation, that projects, in a classic
bourgeois fashion, a class-specific version of
reality as if it were reality per se? ...
Chaucerian poetry does indeed, profoundly and
even self-consciously, embrace the ideology of
commerce. But it embraces it through an act of
dehistoricization, representing it not as a
specific historical form of social life but as
life itself. Lee Patterson
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Puns, Double Entendres, and Collapsing
Distinctions in the Shipmans Tale I
the merchant The thridde day, this marchant up
ariseth, And on his nedes sadly hym
avyseth, And up into his countour-hous gooth
he To rekene with hymself, wel may be, Of
thilke yeer how that it with hym
stood (75-79)     the wife and the
monk This faire wyf gan for to shake hir
heed And seyde thus, "Ye, God woot al," quod
she. "Nay, cosyn myn, it stant nat so with
me For, by that God that yaf me soule and
lyf, In al the reawme of France is ther no
wyf That lasse lust hath to that sory
pley. For I may synge allas and
weylawey That I was born, but to no wight,"
quod she, "Dar I nat telle how that it stant
with me. (112-120)
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Puns, Double Entendres, and Collapsing
Distinctions in the Shipmans Tale II
the merchant to his wife  "Wyf," quod this
man, "litel kanstow devyne  The curious
bisynesse that we have.  For of us chapmen. . .
Scarsly amonges twelve tweye shul
thryve  Continuelly, lastynge unto oure
age. (224-229) the merchant The morwe
cam, and forth this marchant rideth To
Flaundres-ward his prentys wel hym gydeth Til
he came into Brugges murily. Now gooth this
marchant faste and bisily Aboute his nede, and
byeth and creaunceth. (299-303)  the wife
and the monk This faire wyf acorded with
daun John That for thise hundred frankes he
sholde al nyght Have hire in his armes bolt
upright And this acord parfourned was in
dede. In myrthe al nyght a bisy lyf they
lede Til it was day (314-319)
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Puns, Double Entendres, and Collapsing
Distinctions in the Shipmans Tale III
The end of the tale For I wol paye yow wel
and redily Fro day to day, and if so be I
faille, I am youre wyf score it upon my
taille, And I shal paye as soone as ever I
may. Ye shal my joly body have to wedde By
God, I wol nat paye yow but abedde! Forgyve it
me, myn owene spouse deere Turne hiderward,
and maketh bettre cheere." This marchant saugh
ther was no remedie, And for to chide it nere
but folie, Sith that the thyng may nat amended
be. "Now wyf," he seyde, "and I foryeve it
thee But, by thy lyf, ne be namoore so
large. Keep bet thy good, this yeve I thee in
charge." Thus endeth my tale, and God us
sende Taillynge ynough unto oure lyves ende.
Amen (414-434)
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Affective Piety
From Cultures of piety medieval English
devotional literature in translation, Anne Clark
Bartlett, Thomas Howard Bestul (Cornell
University Press, 1999) p.2
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Anti-Judaism and Anti-Semitism in the Middle Ages
I

• Massacres of c. 10,000 Jews in Northern France
  and Germany on the eve of the First Crusade
• 1215 Fourth Lateran Council mandates the wearing
  of badges (enacted in England, 1218)
• 1239 Papal condemnation of the Talmud (mass
  book-burnings in Paris in 1242 and throughout the
  century)
• 1290 Jews expelled from England (other expulsions
  in France 1306, 1394, Germany)

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Anti-Judaism and Anti-Semitism in the Middle Ages
II

• Anti-Semitic charges, after 1144
• Ritual murder (re-enactment of crucifixion), from
  1144
• (Prioresses Tale and analogues
  www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/ chaucer/canttales/pr
  iort/pri-anal.html
• 2. Ritual cannibalism (the blood libel), from
  early 13th c.
• (see Gregory Xs letter on this accusation
• http//www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/g10-jews.h
  tml)
• 3. Host desecration, from late 13th c.
• (Croxton Play of the Sacrament, 15th c.)
• 4. Well-poisoning (i.e., causing the Black
  Death), after 1348

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Ritual murder charge episodes in England
1144 Norwich 1168 Gloucester 1181 Bury St.
Edmunds 1183 Bristol 1192 Winchester 1202
Lincoln 1222 Stanford 1225 Winchester 1232
Winchester 1244 London 1255 Lincoln (St. Hugh of
Lincoln) 1276 London 1279 Northampton