Katelyn Mesler (Mandel Fellow, Scholion Interdisciplinary Research Center, Hebrew U), Conjuring up Jewish Magic: The Role of Jews and Judaism in Fourteenth-Century Sorcery Trials

 

 

Monday, February 17th, at 18:00 PM

Gilman Building, Hall 449

 

Chair: Yossi Schwartz

Among the sorcery trials of the late Middle Ages are more than forty cases in which the defendants were Jews, converts from Judaism,  Christians who claimed to have acted with Jewish accomplices, and even Christians who pretended to be Jews. The surviving records, mostly  from Spain, Southern France, and Italy, sometimes include recorded testimony of Jews or Christians and thus provide remarkable evidence  for aspects of medieval thought and Jewish-Christian relations. This paper will introduce the records of some of the key trials of the  fourteenth century in order to explore how medieval Christians conceived of Jews’ use of magic, what role these conceptions played in  sorcery trials, and how Christians’ understandings of “Jewish” practices may have shaped the ways in which they viewed their own.