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Communities of Violence: Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages
In the wake of modern genocide, we tend to think of violence against minorities as a sign of intolerance, or, even worse, a prelude to extermination. Violence in the Middle Ages, however, functioned differently, according to David Nirenberg. In this provocative book, he focuses on specific attacks against minorities in fourteenth-century France and the Crown of Aragon (Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia). He argues that these attacks--ranging from massacres to verbal assaults against Jews, Muslims, lepers, and prostitutes--were often perpetrated not by irrational masses laboring under inherited ideologies and prejudices, but by groups that manipulated and reshaped the available discourses on minorities. Nirenberg shows that their use of violence expressed complex beliefs about topics as diverse as divine history, kinship, sex, money, and disease, and that their actions were frequently contested by competing groups within their own society.
Nirenberg's readings of archival and literary sources demonstrates how violence set the terms and limits of coexistence for medieval minorities. The particular and contingent nature of this coexistence is underscored by the book's juxtapositions--some systematic (for example, that of the Crown of Aragon with France, Jew with Muslim, medieval with modern), and some suggestive (such as African ritual rebellion with Catalan riots). Throughout, the book questions the applicability of dichotomies like tolerance versus intolerance to the Middle Ages, and suggests the limitations of those analyses that look for the origins of modern European persecutory violence in the medieval past.
Nirenberg's readings of archival and literary sources demonstrates how violence set the terms and limits of coexistence for medieval minorities. The particular and contingent nature of this coexistence is underscored by the book's juxtapositions--some systematic (for example, that of the Crown of Aragon with France, Jew with Muslim, medieval with modern), and some suggestive (such as African ritual rebellion with Catalan riots). Throughout, the book questions the applicability of dichotomies like tolerance versus intolerance to the Middle Ages, and suggests the limitations of those analyses that look for the origins of modern European persecutory violence in the medieval past.
312 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 1996
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About the author
David Nirenberg
20 books39 followersI have spent most of my intellectual life shuttling between the micro and the macro, trying to understand how life and ideas shape and are shaped by each other. One stream of my work has approached these questions through religion, focusing on the ways in which Jewish, Christian, and Islamic cultures constitute themselves by interrelating with or thinking about each other. My first book, Communities of Violence: Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages, studied social interaction between the three groups within the context of Spain and France in order to understand the role of violence in shaping the possibilities for coexistence. In later projects I explored the work that “Judaism,” “Christianity,” and “Islam” do as figures in each other’s thought. One product of that approach, focused on art history, was (jointly with Herb Kessler) Judaism and Christian Art: Aesthetic Anxieties from the Catacombs to Colonialism (2011). In Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition (2013), I attempted to apply the methodology to a very longue durée, studying the work done by pagan, Christian, Muslim, and secular thinking about Jews and Judaism in the history of ideas. More or less simultaneously in Neighboring Faiths: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism Medieval and Modern (2014), I tried to bring the social into conversation with the hermeneutic, in order to show how, in multireligious societies, interactions between lived experiences and conceptual categories shape how adherents of all three religions perceive themselves and each other. Then in Aesthetic Theology and Its Enemies: Judaism in Christian Painting, Poetry, and Politics (2015), I focused on how thinking about Judaism shaped the ways in which Christian cultures could imagine the possibilities and limits of community and communication.
Beginning with my book Anti-Judaism, which stretched from ancient Egypt to the twentieth century in order to try to understand the work done by a family of concepts across history, I have tried to cultivate a new approach to the “long history” of ideas. My most recent book, Uncountable: A Philosophical History of Number and Humanity from Antiquity to the Present, written in collaboration with Ricardo Nirenberg (a mathematician who happens also to be my father), follows this path as well. It explores the long history of the various types of sameness that underpin the claims of different forms of knowledge (from poetry and dreams, to monotheism, math, and physics), using these to think critically about the powers and the limits of the sciences and the humanities. I am now at work on the long history of yet another family of concepts, namely the inter-connected history of race and religion from the Neolithic to the present.
Beginning with my book Anti-Judaism, which stretched from ancient Egypt to the twentieth century in order to try to understand the work done by a family of concepts across history, I have tried to cultivate a new approach to the “long history” of ideas. My most recent book, Uncountable: A Philosophical History of Number and Humanity from Antiquity to the Present, written in collaboration with Ricardo Nirenberg (a mathematician who happens also to be my father), follows this path as well. It explores the long history of the various types of sameness that underpin the claims of different forms of knowledge (from poetry and dreams, to monotheism, math, and physics), using these to think critically about the powers and the limits of the sciences and the humanities. I am now at work on the long history of yet another family of concepts, namely the inter-connected history of race and religion from the Neolithic to the present.
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June 28, 2012
A really fascinating and compelling book. Nirenberg's work (focused, more narrowly than the title implies, on relations between Christians, Jews, and Muslims under the crown of Aragon in the 1320s and 1330s) essentially aims to question two longstanding historical assumptions. The first, which hovers around the edge of his whole narrative, is that 'minority studies' ought to be seen primarily as a study of the margins of society. The second is that the Middle Ages is when Europe 'went wrong' - when it finally gave into the collective and irrational religious violence that would lead to expulsions, pogroms and the Holocaust.
Nirenberg does this in two main ways. In the first, through a study of the 1320-1321 Shepherds' Crusade and surrounding persecutions, Nirenberg argues that these movements were not irrational upswellings of religious hatred. They also weren't manifestations of a European wide 'collective unconscious' that was teetering on the verge of genocide. Rather, they were extremely local phenomena tied into secular issues like the fiscal policy of the French monarchy (which Nirenberg suggests was the real target of attacks on Jewish communities by the Shepherds) or jurisdictional battles between the king and the nobility. In Aragon, for example, rumors of Jews and lepers poisoning wells got reappropriated in order to harass local Genoese citizens (who offended the crown as serious trade rivals of Barcelona). In these cases, underlying religious tensions were exploited for local, specific disputes. Religious hatred played a role, but these events can't be simply categorized as random bursts of irrational bigotry.
In his second section, Nirenberg shows how 'controlled' violence - such as accusations of inter-religious sex or ritualized attacks on the Jewish Quarters of town during Holy Week - often served to promote stability and coexistence between faiths (by establishing clear parameters of behavior) than to promote underlying thoughts of mass persecution or universal violence. The Holy Week attacks, for example, were long used by historians as examples of an escalation of anti-Jewish sentiment that set the precedent for a long road of escalating persecutions. Nirenberg suggests instead that they were a ritualistic form of violence (that usually consisted of 12 year old throwing rocks at the walls of the Jewish quarter and then getting broken up by royal agents). While this isn't particularly indicative of inter-religious cheerfulness, it's also not something that inherently leads to comprehensive or institutional persecution. Nirenberg makes the important point that these outbursts of violence that punctuate the historical landscape of the later medieval / early modern era were accompanied by long stretches of time in which varying religious groups coexisted in relative peace, a rather effective rebuttal to the idea that there was some sort of slowly swelling tide of religious hatred.
Nirenberg never underplays the real violence that underpins all of this. It was undeniably pretty awful, and he doesn't shy away from that. Religious intolerance certainly played a role, often a large one. The important part of this book is that he's willing to examine it and engage with it, instead of simply dismissing it as irrational, universal, and teleological. Instead, Nirenberg's concept of violence against minority groups is something that is local, specific, and part of the broader networks of social interaction between all members of society, majority and minority alike.
I'm not sure I always 100% agree with Nirenberg's conclusions - his Shepherds somehow seem to have an impressive knowledge of political theory, his account of some of the 'standardized' violence his work's second part seem to downplay the long-term effects these could have had on the deterioration of inter-religious relationships, and it's unclear whether any of this holds true in northern Europe - but his arguments are always thought-provoking and well-documented. It's an absolutely essential book for anyone interested in inter-religious coexistence, in the Middle Ages and beyond.
Nirenberg does this in two main ways. In the first, through a study of the 1320-1321 Shepherds' Crusade and surrounding persecutions, Nirenberg argues that these movements were not irrational upswellings of religious hatred. They also weren't manifestations of a European wide 'collective unconscious' that was teetering on the verge of genocide. Rather, they were extremely local phenomena tied into secular issues like the fiscal policy of the French monarchy (which Nirenberg suggests was the real target of attacks on Jewish communities by the Shepherds) or jurisdictional battles between the king and the nobility. In Aragon, for example, rumors of Jews and lepers poisoning wells got reappropriated in order to harass local Genoese citizens (who offended the crown as serious trade rivals of Barcelona). In these cases, underlying religious tensions were exploited for local, specific disputes. Religious hatred played a role, but these events can't be simply categorized as random bursts of irrational bigotry.
In his second section, Nirenberg shows how 'controlled' violence - such as accusations of inter-religious sex or ritualized attacks on the Jewish Quarters of town during Holy Week - often served to promote stability and coexistence between faiths (by establishing clear parameters of behavior) than to promote underlying thoughts of mass persecution or universal violence. The Holy Week attacks, for example, were long used by historians as examples of an escalation of anti-Jewish sentiment that set the precedent for a long road of escalating persecutions. Nirenberg suggests instead that they were a ritualistic form of violence (that usually consisted of 12 year old throwing rocks at the walls of the Jewish quarter and then getting broken up by royal agents). While this isn't particularly indicative of inter-religious cheerfulness, it's also not something that inherently leads to comprehensive or institutional persecution. Nirenberg makes the important point that these outbursts of violence that punctuate the historical landscape of the later medieval / early modern era were accompanied by long stretches of time in which varying religious groups coexisted in relative peace, a rather effective rebuttal to the idea that there was some sort of slowly swelling tide of religious hatred.
Nirenberg never underplays the real violence that underpins all of this. It was undeniably pretty awful, and he doesn't shy away from that. Religious intolerance certainly played a role, often a large one. The important part of this book is that he's willing to examine it and engage with it, instead of simply dismissing it as irrational, universal, and teleological. Instead, Nirenberg's concept of violence against minority groups is something that is local, specific, and part of the broader networks of social interaction between all members of society, majority and minority alike.
I'm not sure I always 100% agree with Nirenberg's conclusions - his Shepherds somehow seem to have an impressive knowledge of political theory, his account of some of the 'standardized' violence his work's second part seem to downplay the long-term effects these could have had on the deterioration of inter-religious relationships, and it's unclear whether any of this holds true in northern Europe - but his arguments are always thought-provoking and well-documented. It's an absolutely essential book for anyone interested in inter-religious coexistence, in the Middle Ages and beyond.
June 10, 2024
Nirenberg gives a flashback to our longstanding, popular traditions of violence to enforce racial or religious segregation, which were commonly focused on sexual segregation, especially for women. For example, the customs of medieval Tortosa, Spain decreed that “If Jewish or Muslim males are found lying with a Christian woman, the Jew or Muslim should be drawn and quartered and the Christian woman should be burned, in such a manner that they should die. And this accusation can be brought by any inhabitant of the town without penalty.”
January 11, 2011
From the Islamic conquest of 711 until the capture of Granada and the expulsion of the Jews in 1492, the Iberian Peninsula was home to three monotheistic faiths. Historiographically, this condition has been given a name: convivencia. Philologist and historian Amèrico Castro coined the term in 1948, using the word “co-existence” to introduce his theory on the origins of “Hispanidad” (Spanishness). The roots of Spanish culture, Castro claimed, lay in the centuries following 711; it was built from the shared cultural experiences of Muslims, Christians, and Jews who, despite their confessional antipathy, often lived side by side in the urban centers of Medieval Iberia. “La España fue única,” he claimed, Spain was different, and convivencia was the reason why.
Since then, however, the notion of convivencia has been appropriated by the historians of Medieval Iberia as a de facto condition for evaluating the history of the peninsula. As historian Jonathan Ray once explained, the terms has become “the lens through which medieval Iberian civilization might be understood.” If it is a lens, however, it is one which over the decades has become increasingly polarized as historians attempt to conflate the nature of convivencia with an argument for or against the existence of tolerance in Medieval Iberia. To further mix metaphors, convivencia is the yardstick of Spain’s pre-modern history; an historian’s assessment of his or her area of interest within the peninsula is held up against the standard of peaceful “coexistence,” and it becomes our task to explain why at times inter-faith relations have flourished, or why at times they have broken down.
To cite one example, Thomas Glick and Oriol Pi-Sunyer, in an article entitled “Acculturation as an Explanatory Concept in Spanish History” attempted the schematize the history of Muslim-Christian relations on the peninsula according to periods of greater and lesser acculturation between Christians and Muslims. Muslim ascendency following the initial conquest set Christian/Gothic culture in opposition to the dominant Arabic/Islamic milieu. Similarly, the rise of Christian kingdoms to power following the “reconquest,” was characterized by “extreme Christian rigidity and intolerance,” culminating in the expulsions of 1492. According to Glick and Pi-Sunyer’s analysis, “culture” was a primarily a function of power, and political and cultural hegemony were coterminous. Convivencia, for them, existed only in periods of political instability, wherein the “free passage of cultural influence in both directions and a general prevalence of tolerance… contrasted sharply with the rigid intolerance” of what came before and after.
Such schematization is alluring, because by assigning causation it renders comprehensible a history that was, from the outset, made messy and complicated by interwoven narratives of religion, warfare, alliance, and intermittent persecution. However experience tells us that reality resists such easy categorizations, why then, should we expect such an easy understanding of the past?
David Nirenberg, in contrast, gives us a glimpse of the complicated nature of interfaith relations in Medieval Spain. His book Communities of Violence analyses breakouts of inter-religious violence in the fourteenth century Crown of Aragon. In search of the meaning of these episodes of violence, Nirenberg combed through the archives of the Crown of Aragon in order to reconstruct the dynamics of interfaith coexistence. What he found were instances of ritualized, institutionalized violence that played a role in the functioning of Aragonese society even during the quieter periods between pogroms; as such episodes of extreme violence and religious unrest could not be disentangled from the more mundane history of day-to-day interactions and clashes that occurred between members of different religious groups living under the Crown.
What studies like Dr. Nirenberg’s show us is that in order to counteract the wide-reaching stereotypes about religious life in the Middle Ages—the assumptions of blind fanaticism, the widely despised epithet “Dark Ages”—we must be willing to push our analysis of precisely those aspects of religious history that we would rather dismiss or avoid. Characterizing moments of conflict as manifestations of the intolerant or irrational absolves the historian from the search for any explanation, any further meaning. To analyze these phenomenon historically and critically we must therefore be wary of this proscriptive “spirit of irrationalism” (to borrow a turn of phrase from historian Richard Lim) “that is at once unhelpfully tautological and mystifying.”
Since then, however, the notion of convivencia has been appropriated by the historians of Medieval Iberia as a de facto condition for evaluating the history of the peninsula. As historian Jonathan Ray once explained, the terms has become “the lens through which medieval Iberian civilization might be understood.” If it is a lens, however, it is one which over the decades has become increasingly polarized as historians attempt to conflate the nature of convivencia with an argument for or against the existence of tolerance in Medieval Iberia. To further mix metaphors, convivencia is the yardstick of Spain’s pre-modern history; an historian’s assessment of his or her area of interest within the peninsula is held up against the standard of peaceful “coexistence,” and it becomes our task to explain why at times inter-faith relations have flourished, or why at times they have broken down.
To cite one example, Thomas Glick and Oriol Pi-Sunyer, in an article entitled “Acculturation as an Explanatory Concept in Spanish History” attempted the schematize the history of Muslim-Christian relations on the peninsula according to periods of greater and lesser acculturation between Christians and Muslims. Muslim ascendency following the initial conquest set Christian/Gothic culture in opposition to the dominant Arabic/Islamic milieu. Similarly, the rise of Christian kingdoms to power following the “reconquest,” was characterized by “extreme Christian rigidity and intolerance,” culminating in the expulsions of 1492. According to Glick and Pi-Sunyer’s analysis, “culture” was a primarily a function of power, and political and cultural hegemony were coterminous. Convivencia, for them, existed only in periods of political instability, wherein the “free passage of cultural influence in both directions and a general prevalence of tolerance… contrasted sharply with the rigid intolerance” of what came before and after.
Such schematization is alluring, because by assigning causation it renders comprehensible a history that was, from the outset, made messy and complicated by interwoven narratives of religion, warfare, alliance, and intermittent persecution. However experience tells us that reality resists such easy categorizations, why then, should we expect such an easy understanding of the past?
David Nirenberg, in contrast, gives us a glimpse of the complicated nature of interfaith relations in Medieval Spain. His book Communities of Violence analyses breakouts of inter-religious violence in the fourteenth century Crown of Aragon. In search of the meaning of these episodes of violence, Nirenberg combed through the archives of the Crown of Aragon in order to reconstruct the dynamics of interfaith coexistence. What he found were instances of ritualized, institutionalized violence that played a role in the functioning of Aragonese society even during the quieter periods between pogroms; as such episodes of extreme violence and religious unrest could not be disentangled from the more mundane history of day-to-day interactions and clashes that occurred between members of different religious groups living under the Crown.
What studies like Dr. Nirenberg’s show us is that in order to counteract the wide-reaching stereotypes about religious life in the Middle Ages—the assumptions of blind fanaticism, the widely despised epithet “Dark Ages”—we must be willing to push our analysis of precisely those aspects of religious history that we would rather dismiss or avoid. Characterizing moments of conflict as manifestations of the intolerant or irrational absolves the historian from the search for any explanation, any further meaning. To analyze these phenomenon historically and critically we must therefore be wary of this proscriptive “spirit of irrationalism” (to borrow a turn of phrase from historian Richard Lim) “that is at once unhelpfully tautological and mystifying.”
September 18, 2007
"Communities of Violence" traces the nature of ethnic relations in France and the Kingdom of Aragon - not all of Europe as the title suggests - in the waning years of the middle ages. David Nirenberg's approach presents many challenges to the conventions of studing intergroup conflict. His methodological technique in particular offers a new means to interpret source documents. Concerning the larger field of Jewish history, Nirenberg seeks to free historians from a reliance on a strict teleology that sees all persecution as leading to the Spanish expulsion of 1492 or even the Holocaust.
Rather than construct a universal theory of ethnic violence, Nirenberg emphasizes local context. In the case of France, anti-Jewish violence is seen to be supportive of the intensely sacred identity of the Crown. In Aragon, by contrast, the Crown actively saught to protect its Jewish subjects. Both examples characterise differing responses to what Nireneberg describes as cataclysmic violence
Nirenberg's analysis explores more than Christian-Jewish relations alone. The difficult place of Muslims, lepers, and prostitutes in this society receive extended attention as well. Perhaps Nirenberg's most remarkable finding is that much of the violence (he uses a liberal definition of the term to be certain) was systematic. In this sense, everday forms of violence stabilized society and served the forces of order more so than chaos.
The book ends with consideration of violence in the wake of the Black Death. Interestingly, here the author finds more continuity than change. Though limited geographically, this conclusion warrants further examination of the frequent invocation of the 1340s as a decisive turning point in the periodization of European history.
Rather than construct a universal theory of ethnic violence, Nirenberg emphasizes local context. In the case of France, anti-Jewish violence is seen to be supportive of the intensely sacred identity of the Crown. In Aragon, by contrast, the Crown actively saught to protect its Jewish subjects. Both examples characterise differing responses to what Nireneberg describes as cataclysmic violence
Nirenberg's analysis explores more than Christian-Jewish relations alone. The difficult place of Muslims, lepers, and prostitutes in this society receive extended attention as well. Perhaps Nirenberg's most remarkable finding is that much of the violence (he uses a liberal definition of the term to be certain) was systematic. In this sense, everday forms of violence stabilized society and served the forces of order more so than chaos.
The book ends with consideration of violence in the wake of the Black Death. Interestingly, here the author finds more continuity than change. Though limited geographically, this conclusion warrants further examination of the frequent invocation of the 1340s as a decisive turning point in the periodization of European history.
July 11, 2013
By coincidence, I came across this passage in Peter Gay’s “The Party of Humanity” soon after I finished Nirenberg’s book. I think that it states with great clarity what Nirenberg spends his whole book trying to prove in relation to the persecution of minorities in the Middle Ages:
“Finally, nominalism in the history of ideas is a defense against a pretentious Geistesgeschichte, which hypostatizes ideas, gives them an independent life, and divorces them from all ties with their world.” 112
Nirenberg also wants to argue against a teleology that leads from the violence of particular times and particular places by particular people “more or less explicitly to the Holocaust” and to show that the acts of violence he discusses served a function (or functions) and were not just irrational outbursts of hatred.
He depends a bit too much on jargon and the book can get repetitive at times since he is repeating his argument but in relation to different minorities (prostitutes, Jews, etc.), but he makes an interesting case for a kind of localism and the negotiability of responses.
“Both parts of this book share as a goal the narrowing of the distance between ‘abnormal’ and ‘normal,’ between cataclysmic violence and the everyday functional evidence of a relatively stable society. Part one achieves this through its insistence on the location and contextualization of episodes of violence within political, economic and cultural frameworks; part two by its emphasis on the systematic production of violence between religious groups and the stabilizing function of that violence within society.” 231
“Finally, nominalism in the history of ideas is a defense against a pretentious Geistesgeschichte, which hypostatizes ideas, gives them an independent life, and divorces them from all ties with their world.” 112
Nirenberg also wants to argue against a teleology that leads from the violence of particular times and particular places by particular people “more or less explicitly to the Holocaust” and to show that the acts of violence he discusses served a function (or functions) and were not just irrational outbursts of hatred.
He depends a bit too much on jargon and the book can get repetitive at times since he is repeating his argument but in relation to different minorities (prostitutes, Jews, etc.), but he makes an interesting case for a kind of localism and the negotiability of responses.
“Both parts of this book share as a goal the narrowing of the distance between ‘abnormal’ and ‘normal,’ between cataclysmic violence and the everyday functional evidence of a relatively stable society. Part one achieves this through its insistence on the location and contextualization of episodes of violence within political, economic and cultural frameworks; part two by its emphasis on the systematic production of violence between religious groups and the stabilizing function of that violence within society.” 231
November 18, 2014
Usual warning for a required reading. There, warned.
Firstly, this book is very dense. The page count is not so daunting, but then the font is tiny (with excerpts managing to be even tinier) and the wording is really scholarly and just... dense. It would seem like the subject matter would make for some awesome parts with violence and gore, but it's done clinically except in the odd incidence where it seems like Nirenberg wanted to throw in a shock. Of course, the shock didn't work since I was basically in a coma from reading the ever so dry prose in the hundred preceding pages. Oh, and this is not for the non-history major/person with a degree in history. The entire introduction is concerned with historiography and there are mentions of teleology and structuralism throughout the entire book. I can imagine this would make the book even slower reading for people that weren't even familiar with the terms.
Conversely, there are times where the author spent ten pages describing events just to lead up to an extremely obvious conclusion. I want something profound if I'm wasting that much of my life reading about obscure people in Medieval Spain and France. His writing was honestly inconsistent and possibly had a few errors (or they're grammatical twists that I'm apparently not educated enough to get?).
I did like the amount of information present, because he did find some very interesting situations and unique people that I believe must have been difficult to find. It's been difficult for me to find sources on Spain, so I respect that.
Firstly, this book is very dense. The page count is not so daunting, but then the font is tiny (with excerpts managing to be even tinier) and the wording is really scholarly and just... dense. It would seem like the subject matter would make for some awesome parts with violence and gore, but it's done clinically except in the odd incidence where it seems like Nirenberg wanted to throw in a shock. Of course, the shock didn't work since I was basically in a coma from reading the ever so dry prose in the hundred preceding pages. Oh, and this is not for the non-history major/person with a degree in history. The entire introduction is concerned with historiography and there are mentions of teleology and structuralism throughout the entire book. I can imagine this would make the book even slower reading for people that weren't even familiar with the terms.
Conversely, there are times where the author spent ten pages describing events just to lead up to an extremely obvious conclusion. I want something profound if I'm wasting that much of my life reading about obscure people in Medieval Spain and France. His writing was honestly inconsistent and possibly had a few errors (or they're grammatical twists that I'm apparently not educated enough to get?).
I did like the amount of information present, because he did find some very interesting situations and unique people that I believe must have been difficult to find. It's been difficult for me to find sources on Spain, so I respect that.
April 6, 2015
The author argues that persecution of religious minorities in Christian and Islamic Europe during the medieval period was often politically or economically motivated rather than religiously motivated.
He also makes the intriguing argument that "margin" and "center" are meaningless terms. I think that this may be true on the macro level. Entire ethnic groups don't always have the same status in all historical periods. Yet I think that "margin" and "center" may hold true in the lives of individuals. These are certainly meaningful terms when discussing how individuals perceive themselves, and how it impacts their own self-concepts. It's of key importance to point out, however, that an individual's perception of his or her own status as "marginal" or part of the "center" is subjective. I don't think that the fact that they are subjective makes them less meaningful, however.
This is nevertheless a very interesting book--particularly regarding the relationships between Jews and Muslims in Spain under Muslim rule.
He also makes the intriguing argument that "margin" and "center" are meaningless terms. I think that this may be true on the macro level. Entire ethnic groups don't always have the same status in all historical periods. Yet I think that "margin" and "center" may hold true in the lives of individuals. These are certainly meaningful terms when discussing how individuals perceive themselves, and how it impacts their own self-concepts. It's of key importance to point out, however, that an individual's perception of his or her own status as "marginal" or part of the "center" is subjective. I don't think that the fact that they are subjective makes them less meaningful, however.
This is nevertheless a very interesting book--particularly regarding the relationships between Jews and Muslims in Spain under Muslim rule.
February 28, 2024
David Nirenberg’s Communities of Violence first entered print over twenty-five years ago. In that time it has received near-unanimous praise for its sensitive iconoclasm against the teleology contained in previous works, its originality of thought when constructing a new model to replace that teleology, and its excellent combination of primary sources and sociological theory to support its arguments. Its influence on the study of the social history of the Middle Ages was great enough that we are still surely living in its shadow. While this review would be more exciting if I tried to step beyond Nirenberg’s paradigm and critique it from without, such a review would be disingenuous. As an undergraduate I regularly consulted the book, and every time, then and since, I did so with the excitement that I would be a better historian for it.
Yet despite this, my first experience of Communities of Violence was one of confusion over its title. Rather than the generalisation implied by ‘the Middle Ages’, this is a book that focuses almost entirely on fourteenth-century Aragon. Nirenberg is careful to emphasise the importance of local contexts on violence between religious groups, arguing that this violence cannot be detached from the ‘political, economic, and cultural structures within which it occurs’ (11). This is all part of an attempt to reintroduce agency to the persecutors and persecuted, which, Nirenberg argues, was taken away under the charge of the ‘irrational’, or subsumed under a teleological longue durée promoting models of collective belief that formed a line of increasing intolerance, culminating in the horrors of the Holocaust. Put succinctly, antagonism ‘against minorities is not only about minorities’ (10-11). The challenge for Nirenberg was to ensure that he did not trivialise the brutality of such violent outbursts of persecution when placing them in their localised contexts. He achieves this through a graceful and sensitive reconstruction of difficult subjects, and manages never to appear cynical. Even when his source material was dry and bureaucratic, he conveys it through language necessary of a social history.
Nirenberg divides his book into two sections that he titles ‘cataclysmic violence’ and ‘systemic violence’. The former analyses how large flashpoints of violence erupted from local contexts, with a particular focus on the ‘Shepherd’s Crusade’ and the Lepers’ Plot in 1320 and 1321. He describes attacks on Jews in France during the Pastoreaux as an exercise in protest against the increasing encroachment of State fiscal apparatus and the moral corruption of the King. In this, he makes characteristically good use of a mix of primary sources and social theory, examining how royal fiscality and bureaucracy were legitimised in France in relation to the Crown’s sacrality (50-1). In Aragon, violence was less widespread, with the exception of the massacre of 300 Jews at Montclus by French Shepherds who crossed the border. Still, Nirenberg raises some important similarities between the two examples, such as the specific targeting of Montclus as a local centre of crediting (88) and the opportunism of the State when responding to these acts of violence in both areas (114-5). The emphasis on local contexts in these conflicts raises important questions over the usefulness of Nirenberg’s thesis. Without overemphasising the concept of Convivencia, it is still true that medieval Iberia was a uniquely diverse part of Christian Europe in the fourteenth century. As useful as the turns away from the ‘irrational’ and the teleology are, it may be difficult to apply that methodology to occasions of violence in Northern France, Germany, or England, for example.
The second section of the book is the more nebulous yet more influential ‘systemic violence’. This demonstrates Nirenberg’s other main argument in the book: that violence between religious groups was a necessary factor in their coexistence. In this section, Nirenberg’s analysis is original and complex. His chapter on sexual relations between Christians and non-Christians is careful to emphasise the presence of ‘situational’ boundaries, with the crossing of such effecting different levels of antagonism (127). This was important when considering fourteenth-century Aragon as ‘a society of six dynamically related genders, rather than of two genders and three religions’ (148). This particular chapter also emphasises the astuteness of Nirenberg’s marriage of social theory and primary evidence. His analysis of the position of the Christian prostitute makes excellent use of the work of Mary Douglas on purity and taboo and James Brundage on sexual categorisation to help make sense of the abundant sources he uses (152-6). Such a pragmatic use of such sources contrasts with the near-dogmatic reliance on Max Weber and Emile Durkheim by Robert Moore in the equally-influential Formation of a Persecuting Society. The chapter on violence between Jews and Muslims in Aragon is an original field, and again very nuanced. The competition between the two minority groups was often performed for the Christian majority, although any victory would only be temporary due to the religious discourse that maintained the authority in the Crown (181-2). The greatest evidence for Nirenberg’s thesis comes in his investigation of the annual Holy Week riots, which ritually reconstructed the Passion as a way of controlling violence between groups so as to maintain the position of Jews in Christian Iberia (228).
Where can this field go from Nirenberg? The new interest in the history of medieval emotions is particularly useful for the analysis of the treatment of Jews. For instance, the role of just revenge established in the work of Stephen White and Daniel Smail is useful for analysing the ritualised attacks on Jews at Holy Week. Additionally, a comparative approach such as that of Geraldine Heng on race would help further nuance Nirenberg’s ‘systemic violence’. Yet these are both evolutionary rather than revolutionary suggestions. Nirenberg’s book remains eminently readable and deservedly influential twenty-five years after its publication. Moreover, it is an inspiring book, encouraging historians of all experiences to challenge their own understandings.
Yet despite this, my first experience of Communities of Violence was one of confusion over its title. Rather than the generalisation implied by ‘the Middle Ages’, this is a book that focuses almost entirely on fourteenth-century Aragon. Nirenberg is careful to emphasise the importance of local contexts on violence between religious groups, arguing that this violence cannot be detached from the ‘political, economic, and cultural structures within which it occurs’ (11). This is all part of an attempt to reintroduce agency to the persecutors and persecuted, which, Nirenberg argues, was taken away under the charge of the ‘irrational’, or subsumed under a teleological longue durée promoting models of collective belief that formed a line of increasing intolerance, culminating in the horrors of the Holocaust. Put succinctly, antagonism ‘against minorities is not only about minorities’ (10-11). The challenge for Nirenberg was to ensure that he did not trivialise the brutality of such violent outbursts of persecution when placing them in their localised contexts. He achieves this through a graceful and sensitive reconstruction of difficult subjects, and manages never to appear cynical. Even when his source material was dry and bureaucratic, he conveys it through language necessary of a social history.
Nirenberg divides his book into two sections that he titles ‘cataclysmic violence’ and ‘systemic violence’. The former analyses how large flashpoints of violence erupted from local contexts, with a particular focus on the ‘Shepherd’s Crusade’ and the Lepers’ Plot in 1320 and 1321. He describes attacks on Jews in France during the Pastoreaux as an exercise in protest against the increasing encroachment of State fiscal apparatus and the moral corruption of the King. In this, he makes characteristically good use of a mix of primary sources and social theory, examining how royal fiscality and bureaucracy were legitimised in France in relation to the Crown’s sacrality (50-1). In Aragon, violence was less widespread, with the exception of the massacre of 300 Jews at Montclus by French Shepherds who crossed the border. Still, Nirenberg raises some important similarities between the two examples, such as the specific targeting of Montclus as a local centre of crediting (88) and the opportunism of the State when responding to these acts of violence in both areas (114-5). The emphasis on local contexts in these conflicts raises important questions over the usefulness of Nirenberg’s thesis. Without overemphasising the concept of Convivencia, it is still true that medieval Iberia was a uniquely diverse part of Christian Europe in the fourteenth century. As useful as the turns away from the ‘irrational’ and the teleology are, it may be difficult to apply that methodology to occasions of violence in Northern France, Germany, or England, for example.
The second section of the book is the more nebulous yet more influential ‘systemic violence’. This demonstrates Nirenberg’s other main argument in the book: that violence between religious groups was a necessary factor in their coexistence. In this section, Nirenberg’s analysis is original and complex. His chapter on sexual relations between Christians and non-Christians is careful to emphasise the presence of ‘situational’ boundaries, with the crossing of such effecting different levels of antagonism (127). This was important when considering fourteenth-century Aragon as ‘a society of six dynamically related genders, rather than of two genders and three religions’ (148). This particular chapter also emphasises the astuteness of Nirenberg’s marriage of social theory and primary evidence. His analysis of the position of the Christian prostitute makes excellent use of the work of Mary Douglas on purity and taboo and James Brundage on sexual categorisation to help make sense of the abundant sources he uses (152-6). Such a pragmatic use of such sources contrasts with the near-dogmatic reliance on Max Weber and Emile Durkheim by Robert Moore in the equally-influential Formation of a Persecuting Society. The chapter on violence between Jews and Muslims in Aragon is an original field, and again very nuanced. The competition between the two minority groups was often performed for the Christian majority, although any victory would only be temporary due to the religious discourse that maintained the authority in the Crown (181-2). The greatest evidence for Nirenberg’s thesis comes in his investigation of the annual Holy Week riots, which ritually reconstructed the Passion as a way of controlling violence between groups so as to maintain the position of Jews in Christian Iberia (228).
Where can this field go from Nirenberg? The new interest in the history of medieval emotions is particularly useful for the analysis of the treatment of Jews. For instance, the role of just revenge established in the work of Stephen White and Daniel Smail is useful for analysing the ritualised attacks on Jews at Holy Week. Additionally, a comparative approach such as that of Geraldine Heng on race would help further nuance Nirenberg’s ‘systemic violence’. Yet these are both evolutionary rather than revolutionary suggestions. Nirenberg’s book remains eminently readable and deservedly influential twenty-five years after its publication. Moreover, it is an inspiring book, encouraging historians of all experiences to challenge their own understandings.
May 23, 2014
The author assumes that violence against persecuted minorities in Medieval Europe was neither random nor irrational. He attempts to understand the language of popular violence, concentrating on 14th century Oregon and on violence against several groups ranging from Muslims and Jews as well as these crossing the lines (these engaged in inter-communal sex as well as these converting to Islam or Judaism) and to lepers. He discovers that violence often had ritualistic properties and as such was limited. He also discovers that violence against ethnic minorities was often directed towards their protector, the king. In fact it was a relatively safe way to attack the king's policies.
Overall, this is an excellent work dealing with violence as a language that should be analyzed as any other text.
Overall, this is an excellent work dealing with violence as a language that should be analyzed as any other text.
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September 27, 2015A study of Christian-Jewish violence in Spain in the fourteenth century, deliberately engaging with the narratives of Jewish persecution which surround Holocaust studies.
November 12, 2015
In Communities of Violence: Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages David Nirenberg argues that one should not view violence against religious minorities as being primarily driven by religious bigotry. Rather, the social and political structure of the society should be taken into consideration. Another theme developed by Nirenberg is the idea of the society being viewed as a body that can become infected by disease. Somewhat Christ like, the king was believed to possess special thaumaturgic powers of healing. For example, if the king touched a sick person it could be salubrious. Yet, if the king were to sin grievously or become corrupt, he in effect became sick. Corruption, like a cancer, risked not only harming the original host cell (the king) but could spread to the entire body (the kingdom). In making sense of religious violence against minorities one is left wondering why violence can break out after a period of peace. Although accusations and reasons for violence against religious minorities generally conform to the same rationales across time and space, “their function and effect are closely dependent on social context and conflict”(124). This answers the, “Why now” question. It is the social conflict that compels a community to commit violence on a minority. So in large regard, the religious element of hatred is subsumed under the social conflict that precipitated the violence.
One criticism I have of the book is how the title is misleading. The title makes the book appear to be about the entirety of the Middle Ages when the book is mostly just about a couple of years in two specific locales. This doesn’t so much undermine the thesis as it does create problems for people who pick up the book assuming it has a broader scope based on the title.
Another criticism I have is that Nirenberg posits that coexistence is predicated on violence. So the Holy Week riots serve to demarcate social boundaries between Christians and Jews. He seems to take the opinion of Rene Girard that violence, hopefully sacrificial, is the linchpin that holds society together. However, Christians had different opinions on the Jews. Were Jews there to remind them of the Crucifixion, and thus deserve to be integrated in society, or has allowing Christ killers into the community caused the Black Death? I think Nirenberg substantiates his stance on context dictating violence theory better than violence leading to coexistence theory.
One criticism I have of the book is how the title is misleading. The title makes the book appear to be about the entirety of the Middle Ages when the book is mostly just about a couple of years in two specific locales. This doesn’t so much undermine the thesis as it does create problems for people who pick up the book assuming it has a broader scope based on the title.
Another criticism I have is that Nirenberg posits that coexistence is predicated on violence. So the Holy Week riots serve to demarcate social boundaries between Christians and Jews. He seems to take the opinion of Rene Girard that violence, hopefully sacrificial, is the linchpin that holds society together. However, Christians had different opinions on the Jews. Were Jews there to remind them of the Crucifixion, and thus deserve to be integrated in society, or has allowing Christ killers into the community caused the Black Death? I think Nirenberg substantiates his stance on context dictating violence theory better than violence leading to coexistence theory.
June 17, 2013
In this book, David Nirenberg argues that the violence and persecutions of the Middle Ages are not the components of a Historical timeline leading, unavoidably to contemporary and recent events of unimaginable destruction. As a main example for this, he uses the persecutions of the Jews throughout History and the way in which events are often portrayed as being a kind of pre-destines prelude to future events, i.e. "a horizontal timeline leading to the Holocaust". He argues that this is unavoidably, and even logically, one way of looking at things, but that in fact, it is much more complicated than that, and we need to look at the bigger picture.
His book does not center solely on the Jews, however. He uses a 200 year period of the Middle Ages to show that violence was forever present, and that it also targeted Muslims and even Christians with slightly differing beliefs to the mainstream Roman Catholicism. He shows how persecutions arose, and how taxes were imposed on those which could be used in an economically effective way. He shows that in essence, human societies have not changed as much as we might like to think, and he uses the Middle Ages in this book to prove this.
This is a great book for anyone interested in minority groups, the Middle Ages in general, or in any aspects of sociology and/or mass psychology.
His book does not center solely on the Jews, however. He uses a 200 year period of the Middle Ages to show that violence was forever present, and that it also targeted Muslims and even Christians with slightly differing beliefs to the mainstream Roman Catholicism. He shows how persecutions arose, and how taxes were imposed on those which could be used in an economically effective way. He shows that in essence, human societies have not changed as much as we might like to think, and he uses the Middle Ages in this book to prove this.
This is a great book for anyone interested in minority groups, the Middle Ages in general, or in any aspects of sociology and/or mass psychology.
August 24, 2010
This book argues that persecution of religious minorities in 14th century Europe was more exceptional than a regularity. To prove his point, Nirenberg uses the diverse kingdom of Aragon where Catholics, Jews, and Muslims live in what amounts to a mutually beneficial coexistence. While there is clearly a hierarchy of statuses, it seems that for the most part all peoples accepted their place in society. For the most part, the balance carries itself over through the Bubonic Plague.
This book is packed with footnotes giving the opportunity to provide many levels of research. I found there to be some interesting information, though much of it I had previously deduced from previous readings. Some chapters are of more interest than others, with some going into too much depth and others not enough.
This book is packed with footnotes giving the opportunity to provide many levels of research. I found there to be some interesting information, though much of it I had previously deduced from previous readings. Some chapters are of more interest than others, with some going into too much depth and others not enough.
April 7, 2013
David Nirenberg's Communities of Violence explores the world of minorities in fourteenth century Europe. Positioning himself as the polar opposite of Carlo Ginzburg's magical realism method of exploring a collective conscious of racial and religious discrimination that reaches its apex during the Holocaust. Nirenberg on the other hand initially opts for a circumstantial understanding of discrimination only to back away from the results of his exploration at the end.
This book was relatively enlightening and a worth-while read. However, I did not care for the shifting narrative that Nirenberg relied upon, as well as the wordy approach to his academic endeavor. Why must academic histories be so inaccessible? I understand Nirenberg was attempting to achieve similar ends to Peter Brown, but he could have benefited from using a similar wording style to Brown as well.
This book was relatively enlightening and a worth-while read. However, I did not care for the shifting narrative that Nirenberg relied upon, as well as the wordy approach to his academic endeavor. Why must academic histories be so inaccessible? I understand Nirenberg was attempting to achieve similar ends to Peter Brown, but he could have benefited from using a similar wording style to Brown as well.
April 15, 2014
This should really be a 3.5 or 3.75 stars review. Nirenberg has a very specialized view of violence against minorities (mainly jews, Lepers, and Muslims) during the Middle Ages and I say specialized because he only looks at violence occurring in France and the Crown of Aragon and both places had very unique monarch structures or special circumstances and so I think some of his conclusions about the cause of violence may fit right for the area he talks about, but I do not know if it can blanket all of Europe... that being said, his ideas about specific local issues, economic relationships, and whether or not a monarch is popular with his people having influence on majority/minority relations make sense.
Interesting read at least.
Interesting read at least.
March 27, 2010
Study of majority-minority relations in 14th century France and Spain, with a particular focus on Christian-Jewish-Muslim relations in the Crown of Aragon. Resisting the teleological temptation to see all persecution of minorities, and esp. of Jews, in light of later persecutions, esp. the expulsion of 1492 and the Holocaust. Nirenberg argues that interethnic violence, far from being meaningless and the result of irrational impulses, is imbued with cultural and ritual meaning and illuminates medieval ideas about kingship, the boundaries of the community, sexuality, and the role of evil, deviance, and sin in the construction of Christian society.
March 13, 2013
This book looks at the relationship between Christians, Muslims and Jews in 14th Century France and Spain (Aragon). Nirenberg makes a lot of valid points and explores the notion of violence between the three. He also attempts to disprove, or show that there was more to the story than the previously held notions of longue duree, convivencia, structuralism etc. An underlying point made in this book is that from the 14th Century on, Jews had a rough go of it up until WWII.
Good scholarly research, but the Sex and Violence chapter was downright confusing and his argument was so subtle it was hard to follow.
Good scholarly research, but the Sex and Violence chapter was downright confusing and his argument was so subtle it was hard to follow.
November 6, 2014
Probably the most important academic book on interconfessional violence written in the last quarter-century. This is a re-read for me, but it holds up well. It's cultural history, so there are bits where I have my issues with his argument (would your average medieval person have understood the complex metaphor about the body and the state that he develops in section one?), and some readers may disagree with his argument about how violence can be a constructive, stabilizing force, but it's a must-read for anyone interested in the history of medieval Spain, or in the history of Jews and/or Muslims in Christian medieval Europe, or the cultural history of violence.
February 13, 2016
I appreciate Mr. Nirenberg's nuanced view of medieval history. (I learned as much from his footnotes and citations as I did from the text.) Working from original documents, Mr. Nirenberg provides a detailed view of daily relations between minority and majority groups on the Iberian peninsula in the 14th century. I learned that relations between these groups (Jews, Christians and Muslims) were more functional and peaceful than I would have thought prior to reading this study. I also learned about the relationship between Jews, Muslims, and the monarchy. Fascinating reading.
March 21, 2017
Nirenberg sets the violence between Christians and their subordinate populations of Muslims and Jews in the Kingdom of Aragon as a local phenomenon that establishes boundaries between the groups. He argues that toleration is not a useful means of understanding these relations but rather that violence permits their co-existence. Particularly insightful is his discussion of miscegenation, in which rather than seeing three religions and two genders Nirenberg finds it more useful to speak of six genders as each has a different relation to the other.
December 14, 2011
As compared to R.I. Moore, it's a better book in that it doesn't make the same assumptions as Moore, that Europe BECAME a persecuting society. Rather, society shifts and changes and the marginalization of various groups alters depending on the circumstances etc. It's a really good book in understanding why groups in medieval Europe were persecuted. We can take that understanding and APPLY it to modern marginalizations so that we can better understand ourselves
October 11, 2016
When I started this book, I was a little worried at the abstract, academic-ness of the introduction, but fortunately was proven quite wrong.
Although it's now 20 years old, Nirenberg's work, while meant for the academic reader, is very much accessible to the lay reader. Numerous anecdotes paint a portrait of a very vibrant society, though one often in conflict, and addresses the often unstudied relationship between the various minority communities in Catalonia.
Although it's now 20 years old, Nirenberg's work, while meant for the academic reader, is very much accessible to the lay reader. Numerous anecdotes paint a portrait of a very vibrant society, though one often in conflict, and addresses the often unstudied relationship between the various minority communities in Catalonia.
June 26, 2011
Specialist book. Fascinating study of medieval Iberian Society. Nirenberg´s theories are cutting edge and sensitive to the ways in which minorities societies develop mechanism for survival in religiously intolerant societies.
November 9, 2009
A very interesting take on violence against Muslims and Jews in 14th-century Spain. The title is a bit misleading, but the book is very well-written and thoroughly researched.
December 31, 2024
This's a look at the coeexistence of Christians, Muslims, and Jews in Aragon and its surroundings in the thirteenth to early fifteenth centuries. It gives the overall perspective, and then digs into several individual instances of violence.
There're some interesting pictures here. The summary of tensions between king and nobles over exactly who got to extort the local Jews, the description of ritualized riots on Good Friday (which Nirenberg argues rarely seriously harmed actual Jews), the analysis of the mystery play of the Fall of Jerusalem (supposedly to Vespasian the Christian, with Pilate leading the Jewish defenders) - all were interesting and eye-opening to read.
But, the overall title oversells the book, and the argument is poorly woven together. Nirenberg's thesis is that violence against minorities is not necessarily on a spectrum leading to extermination. He seems to have largely proven his case by counterexample - until his last chapter, where he admits that the violence did get much worse after the Black Death, and did lead to exiling many Jews and Muslims. He weakly argues the previous violence didn't build up to this; it was rather the outside shock of the Black Death. But that's an unprovable argument, at least from the evidence he gives. So, I'm afraid his thesis is sunk and the book is reduced to merely eye-opening descriptions and anecdotes.
There're some interesting pictures here. The summary of tensions between king and nobles over exactly who got to extort the local Jews, the description of ritualized riots on Good Friday (which Nirenberg argues rarely seriously harmed actual Jews), the analysis of the mystery play of the Fall of Jerusalem (supposedly to Vespasian the Christian, with Pilate leading the Jewish defenders) - all were interesting and eye-opening to read.
But, the overall title oversells the book, and the argument is poorly woven together. Nirenberg's thesis is that violence against minorities is not necessarily on a spectrum leading to extermination. He seems to have largely proven his case by counterexample - until his last chapter, where he admits that the violence did get much worse after the Black Death, and did lead to exiling many Jews and Muslims. He weakly argues the previous violence didn't build up to this; it was rather the outside shock of the Black Death. But that's an unprovable argument, at least from the evidence he gives. So, I'm afraid his thesis is sunk and the book is reduced to merely eye-opening descriptions and anecdotes.
May 21, 2024
“Communities of Violence: Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages” by David Nirenberg offers a detailed and scholarly exploration of the interactions between Christians, Jews, and Muslims during medieval times. While the book provides a thorough and nuanced analysis of how violence was used as a tool for managing these relationships, its dense academic style can be challenging for readers. The depth of research is impressive, making it a valuable resource for those studying medieval history, but the heavy use of historical jargon and complex arguments can make it less accessible. Overall, while I appreciated the historical insights and the book's contribution to the field, the reading experience was somewhat tedious, leading to a three-star rating.
July 30, 2007
Fascinating-- a much more nuanced look at interfaith violence in the middle ages.
January 24, 2012
Concentrates mostly on just the 14th century - its both too specific and too interesting to get the averages reader's attention. Good for what it is.
August 18, 2012
Complex and thought provoking.
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