Shatzmiller, Shylock revu et corrigé.
- Condition : very good, clean, minor signs of shelf wear.
Joseph Shatzmiller, professor of medieval history at Duke University (North Carolina), has published extensively on the Jewish communities of Provence in the Middle Ages, Jewish physicians, and medieval society.
With The Merchant of Venice in 1605, Shakespeare etched the image of the Jewish moneylender as a loathsome and cruel moneylender for centuries via his character Shylock. Yet, alongside expressions of resentment and frustration, documents from the Middle and Late Middle Ages (11th-15th centuries) also express gratitude and appreciation for a generous and benevolent Jewish moneylender. This reversal of Shylock's image is detailed in the minutes of the trial held in Marseilles in 1317, in which the Jew Bondavin, from Draguignan, had to defend his reputation as a moneylender. He called twenty-four witnesses in his defence, all Christians, who confirmed the esteem in which he was held. This trial, in its unfolding, gives the opportunity to hear the opinions and feelings of ordinary people (and not theologians or canonists): merchants, lawyers, craftsmen... The Bondavin case, situated in its context, compared to other similar cases, thus allows Shatzmiller to study and analyse the dominant attitudes in medieval Europe towards Jewish credit. His work allows us to abandon the idea of a Middle Ages dominated by an uninterrupted history of hatred and misunderstanding between Jews and Christians, and to recognise, on the contrary, the bonds of friendship, respect, generosity and mutual recognition between the two communities. This book also opens up new perspectives on the situation of interest lending in medieval Europe and, in so doing, sheds new light on the economic thought of the medieval West.
Condition | Used - Very Good |
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Language | France |
Illustrated | No |
Publicaton Date | Jan 1, 2004 |
Year | 2004 |
Author / Cartographer / Photographer | Shatzmiller Joseph |
Editor | Les Belles Lettres |
First edition | No |
Signed edition | No |
Signed binding | No |
Armorial binding | No |
Binding / Format | Softcover |
Size | 21 x 15 cm |