Abstract:
This special issue of Medieval Encounters offers new perspectives for studying the activities and the roles of Jews in the medieval economy.1 Scholarship to date has tended to approach these subjects from a communal perspective, discussing the activities of Jews as an organized group rather than as individuals, and emphasizing collective norms, legislation, ideologies, and policies. In such studies, the status of Jews as a tolerated religious minority was the point of departure and religious difference was paramount.2 While these perspectives were undoubtedly a defining feature of medieval Jewish life, a top-down communal perspective is just one facet, albeit an important one, of the economic activities of medieval Jews. In addition, most studies focused on moments of change, tension, and crisis, rather than on the ongoing roles of Jews both within their communities and in interaction with their Christian neighbors.
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