The Jew, the Blood and the Body in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe

Matteoni, Francesca

doi:10.1080/00155870802056985

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 12 publications

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“…Throughout the history of European culture, it was very often Jews who -due to their different religion and ethnic background -were typically scapegoats, were attributed supernatural powers, and accused of carrying out magic procedures (Belova 2007: 339 ff. ;Bronner 2007: 383;Bystroń 1980: 330-331;Matteoni 2008;Mlakar 2019: 108-109). The Roma were similarly considered magicians, for instance in Poland (Bystroń 1980: 330-331).…”

Section: Ethnic and Religious Others In Folklorementioning

confidence: 99%

The Werewolf as a Religious and Ethnic Other in a Herzegovinian Legend

Mencej¹

2019

FEJF

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The paper focuses on a particular legend about a wrestling match between a human and a dead werewolf, which I recorded during my fieldwork in the Croat (i.e. Catholic) community in Herzegovina in 2017. Based on the analysis of a legend about a wrestling match between a human of Catholic faith and a Muslim werewolf, I aim to show how latent inter-ethnic and inter-religious tensions in multi-ethnic and multi-religious Bosnia and Herzegovina are reflected in this legend about the restless dead. I pay particular attention to how the ethnic and religious Other is constructed in the legend, and demonstrate the prejudices against the religious and ethnic Others that are reflected in it. I argue that its main function was, and still is, first and foremost to emphasise the superiority of the narrator's religion, i.e. Catholicism, over Islam, and to serve as a warning to Catholics against abandoning their faith and converting to another religion.

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Section: Ethnic and Religious Others In Folklorementioning

confidence: 99%

The Werewolf as a Religious and Ethnic Other in a Herzegovinian Legend

Mencej¹

2019

FEJF

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Blood Libel/Child Murder

Placzynta

2024

Postdisciplinary Studies in Discourse

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The classic antisemitic topos of blood libel has a history spanning many centuries and still looms large in the present-day antisemitic discourse. The claim that Jews kidnap non-Jewish children in order to abuse and kill them in the religious rite of human sacrifice (especially around the Jewish holidays of Passover and Purim) paints a grotesque picture of Jews: not only separate and different, but irreconcilably and unacceptably so. While it could be read as an expression of the more general topoi of inherent Jewish “evil” or “immorality,” blood libel transmits distinct connotations of monstrousness and bloodthirst, emphasised further by the youth, innocence and vulnerability of the alleged victims. It carries considerable emotional intensity, which makes blood libel a powerful tool of antisemitic manipulation and misinformation, and its ability to capture imaginations is perhaps one of the reasons for its longevity. In Israel-related discourse, it is frequently utilised in updated form, through the accusation that Israel routinely and deliberately seeks to kill children as a central objective in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

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Crafting True Religio in Early Christianity

Moyaert

2024

Religions

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Most studies of the religio-racial constellation begin with the medieval taxonomy of Christians, ‘Jews’, ‘pagans’ and ‘heretics’. Some scholars examine how this medieval taxonomy functioned as a system of dehumanization in the Middle Ages; others are more interested in how it has been adopted and adapted in modern racist taxonomies; and still others examine how religious images continue to influence the way non-white, non-European, non-Christian, and non-secular bodies are seen and treated today. What is lacking in the literature to date is an in-depth examination of how this fourfold taxonomy came to be. To understand how modern racialized taxonomies incorporated the earlier “religious” categories—a question that is beyond the scope of this article—we also need to better understand the genealogy of these religious categories, their scope, and their implication in processes of unequal power distribution. To that end, we must address the following questions: Where did the distinction between true and false religion come from; how did the figure of the pagan emerge; what about the Jews as anti-Christian? Rather than focusing on contemporary expressions of religio-racialization, or directing our attention to modern or even late medieval expressions of the religio-racial constellation, this article turns to the period of early Christianity when Christian apologists created the key religionized taxonomies that would shape the way Christians imagined, related to, and, in a later stage of history, governed Christianity’s others: the Jews, the heretics, and the pagans.

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The Jew, the Blood and the Body in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe

Cited by 4 publications

References 12 publications

The Werewolf as a Religious and Ethnic Other in a Herzegovinian Legend

The Werewolf as a Religious and Ethnic Other in a Herzegovinian Legend

Blood Libel/Child Murder

Crafting True Religio in Early Christianity

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