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The History of The Jews in The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. by Joshua Prawer. PP

This document summarizes two books about Jewish history in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Byzantine scholar Nikephoros Blemmydes. The first summary discusses Professor Prawer's book on the history of Jews in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. It describes how Jewish communities suffered during the Crusades but later flourished in cities like Tyre and Acre. Contemporary Jewish writings provide insights into popular beliefs about the Holy Land. The second summary is of a translation of autobiographies by Nikephoros Blemmydes, a prominent Byzantine scholar. It explains that Blemmydes was an important intellectual figure in the Empire of Nicaea who wrote the first known Byz

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Cristian Aiojoaei
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152 views2 pages

The History of The Jews in The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. by Joshua Prawer. PP

This document summarizes two books about Jewish history in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Byzantine scholar Nikephoros Blemmydes. The first summary discusses Professor Prawer's book on the history of Jews in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. It describes how Jewish communities suffered during the Crusades but later flourished in cities like Tyre and Acre. Contemporary Jewish writings provide insights into popular beliefs about the Holy Land. The second summary is of a translation of autobiographies by Nikephoros Blemmydes, a prominent Byzantine scholar. It explains that Blemmydes was an important intellectual figure in the Empire of Nicaea who wrote the first known Byz

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Cristian Aiojoaei
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JOURNAL OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

1152). In law this may be so, but in practice there is a very real difference and
one which Schmidt's approach tends to minimise.
Undoubtedly, there are problems with Mitteis's interpretation. His use of the
term 'Gebliitsrecht' was, for instance, much criticised on the grounds that there
is no warrant for it in contemporary sources. Even so, it may be that his
conceptual framework comes closer to the realities of Hohenstaufen kingship in
the late twelfth century than does Schmidt's blanket insistence on free election.
LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS JOHN GILLINGHAM

The History of the Jews in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. By Joshua Prawer. Pp.
xvi + 310 incl. 5 maps. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988. £32.50. 0 19
822557 1
The Jews are the best documented of all the minorities in the Latin East at the
time of the crusades. In tracing their fortunes, Professor Prawer has had to
contend with disparate and often intractable materials, but, with a lifetime's
experience of research in this and related areas to draw upon, he has managed
to produce a study which opens up new horizons. The Jewish communities
suffered badly at the time of the First Crusade and the Latin conquests which
followed. A slow revival was again jeopardised by the upheavals brought about
by Saladin's conquests and the Third Crusade. The crusaders had excluded the
Jews from living in Jerusalem itself, but, with the resumption of Muslim control
after 1187, there was an opportunity for them to re-establish their presence there.
However, economic decay, growing insecurity leading to the cession of the city
to the crusaders in 1229, and the destruction of the early 1240s meant that hopes
proved vain. What in fact happened in the thirteenth century was that Jewish
communities, reinforced by large numbers of immigrants from Europe, flourished,
apparently unmolested, in the thriving Latin coastal cities of Tyre and Acre. Of
their intellectual vitality there is no doubt; what is less easy to gauge is their
economic condition. Changes of rule helped fuel messianic ideas and encouraged
Jews to see the Eretz Israel as the land in which they should dwell, and it was these
currents, rather than persecutions or hopes of financial betterment, which
stimulated immigration from Europe. Contemporary Jewish attitudes to the
Holy Land are brought out most clearly in the surviving Hebrew itineraries and
descriptions of tombs and places of pilgrimage; far more than the utterances of
scholars, this literature helps in understanding popular Jewish beliefs and
perceptions. This book is a welcome and illuminating study, which, as the work
of a scholar who himself emigrated to Jerusalem in the 1930s, is also an important
personal statement.
UNIVERSITY OF WALES, PETER W. EDBURY
COLLEGE OF CARDIFF

Nikephoros Blemmydes, a Partial Account. Introduction, translation and notes by


Joseph A. Munitiz. (Spicilegium Sacrum Lovaniense, Etudes et documents,
fasc. 48.) Pp. xvi 4- 154 + map. Louvain: Spicilegium Sacrum Lovaniense,
1988
Nicephorus Blemmydes was one of the outstanding figures to emerge from the
Empire of Nicaea. He was its leading scholar. On two occasions he was called
620
SHORT NOTICES
upon to defend the orthodox position on the procession of the Holy Spirit in
debate with representatives of the Latin Church. He was twice in the running for
the patriarchal office, turning it down on one occasion. He enjoyed consideration
both at the imperial court and in patriarchal circles but preferred to abandon
worldly success for a monastic vocation. Quite suddenly, Blemmydes has begun
to attract scholarly attention. New editions of his works are starting to appear.
For a proper assessment of the man his two autobiographies are the essential
starting point. Father Munitiz has now followed his definitive edition of the
Greek text with a quite excellent translation, supplied with judicious notes and
a valuable introduction.
Blemmydes' autobiographies do not just open up another side to a phase of
Byzantine history. They reveal a cast of mind that is indelibly Byzantine:
certainly not attractive, but impressive in its grim, moral certainty. They also
represent an important landmark in Byzantine literature. They are the first fully
fledged Byzantine autobiographies, even if autobiography had long been in the
air at Byzantium. Michael Psellus wrote his history of the eleventh century in the
form of memoirs. Nicephorus Basilakes, a twelfth-century litterateur, prefaced a
collection of his works with a short autobiographical account that concentrated
on his intellectual and literary achievements. It was also quite common for
monastic founders to introduce the typika or rules they drew up for their
communities with a brief autobiography in the form of a spiritual testament.
Blemmydes seems to have drawn on both these sources: his first autobiography
concentrates on his spiritual development, his second on his intellectual life.
Beyond this, his main concern was to leave a memorial of his life for the monastic
community he led. This was not quite unprecedented. There is a sermon of
St Symeon the New Theologian for the monks of St Mamas, which is thinly
disguised autobiography.
Blemmydes' autobiographies come close to hagiography, but this was for the
benefit of his monks, rather than any conscious effort at self-canonisation.
Fr Munitiz now proposes that the occasion is the best explanation for their
composition. The first autobiography was a celebration of Blemmydes' sixty-sixth
year 'to heaven'. In Byzantium this was an occasion for taking stock of one's life
and putting one's affairs in order. The recently published will of Leo,
metropolitan of Synada, is an interesting example of the self-examination that the
age of sixty-six induced. All Byzantinists will be in Fr Munitiz's debt for the
way he has so expertly opened up an important and fascinating text for wider use.
UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH MICHAEL ANGOLD

Donna e Rinascimenlo. By R. De Maio. (La Cultura, 61.) Pp. 345 + 32 plates.


Milan: Saggiatore, 1987. L. 40,000. 0029591 5
De Maio takes on a daunting - though potentially very valuable - task in this
book of bringing together in an accessible synthesis the results of recent research
on every aspect of women's life in the Renaissance, from the impact of Venetian
sumptuary laws to the employment of female slaves in convents in the New
World. The practical difficulties of this project are compounded by the
theoretical question of how far historiographical concepts like 'the Renaissance'
are applicable to women's history. Joan Kelly Gadol's question - 'Did women
have a Renaissance?'- is still one to which we are not equipped to give a
satisfactory answer.
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