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Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations

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Blasphemy and Protection of the Faith: LegalPerspectives from the Middle Ages

John Tolan

To cite this article: John Tolan (2016) Blasphemy and Protection of the Faith: LegalPerspectives from the Middle Ages, Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations, 27:1, 35-50, DOI:10.1080/09596410.2015.1087671

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Blasphemy and Protection of the Faith: Legal Perspectivesfrom the Middle AgesJohn Tolan

History Department, University of Nantes, Nantes, France

ABSTRACT

Jewish, Christian, and Muslim legal traditions have all attempted tode ne and prohibit blasphemy: insult or verbal attack against theirreligion, against its rites and symbols, against God and his humanrepresentatives. Such laws could be internal (prohibiting blasphemy

by members of the faith group) or external (prohibiting insult bythose outside the faith). This article will rst brie y trace the former,looking at how Jewish, Christian, and Muslim legal traditions fromAntiquity and the Middle Ages de ne and prohibit blasphemy. Thesecond part of the article will then focus on the second issue,looking at how Christian and Muslim legal traditions attempted toprohibit insults to the faith by adherents of other religions. We shalllook, for example, at various Christian laws dealing with what wasperceived as Jewish mockery of Christian ritual and sacred objects:from mock cruci xions allegedly practiced by Jews as part of Purimcelebrations in the fth-century Roman Empire to Jews whosupposedly derided the Eucharist during thirteenth-century CorpusChristi processions. We shall in parallel examine prohibitions inMuslim legal texts (including the so-called Pact of ‘Umar) of dhimm ī s insulting the Prophet Muhammad or the Qur ’an. Thiscomparison will show that, while blasphemy was illegal and couldbe harshly sanctioned and there were lines that religious minoritiesmust not cross, these lines were often not clearly delimited, andbecame the object of con ict and negotiation.

ARTICLE HISTORY

Received 11 July 2015Accepted 20 August 2015

KEYWORDS

Blasphemy; law; insult;religion; Islam; Christianity;Judaism

In the context of this special issue on blasphemy and apostasy, which focuses primarily oncontemporary societies that have Christian and Muslim heritage, let us rst look at the

development of the concept of blasphemy and related concepts (even when the authorsinvolved do not use the term “blasphemy ” itself). The concept meant different things todifferent authors within Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions, and can be found,mutatis mutandis , in other traditions as well.1

1. Laws against blasphemy as means for internal regulation of religiouscommunity

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have long legal traditions of prohibition of blasphemy.Insulting the name of God is an affront to the doctrines of the faith and to both clericaland secular authority.

© 2015 University of Birmingham

CONTACT John Tolan [email protected]

ISLAM AND CHRISTIAN–MUSLIM RELATIONS, 2016VOL. 27, NO. 1, 35–50http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09596410.2015.1087671

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The Ten Commandments prohibit insulting God ’s name. The third commandmentreads: (Exodus 20.7), which the King James Bible translatesas “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.” In the Hebrew, it is speci -cally the name of the tetragrammaton, at-shem-YHWH , that must not be abused. Indeed,according to Leviticus, blasphemy is punishable by stoning:

Now the son of an Israelite mother and an Egyptian father went out among the Israelites, anda ght broke out in the camp between him and an Israelite. The son of the Israelite womanblasphemed [ ] the Name with a curse; so they brought him to Moses. … They put him incustody until the will of the Lord should be made clear to them. Then the Lord said to Moses:“Take the blasphemer [ ] outside the camp. All those who heard him are to lay theirhands on his head, and the entire assembly is to stone him. Say to the Israelites: ‘Anyone whocurses their God will be held responsible; anyone who blasphemes [ ] the name of theLord is to be put to death’. The entire assembly must stone them. Whether foreigner ornative-born, when they blaspheme the Name they are to be put to death. ” (Leviticus24.10– 16).

The verb used, , means to “perforate” or injure, used with the direct object “name of the Lord” ( ). The crime of “piercing the divine name” here occurred in a ghtbetween two men, one of whom uttered a curse. God himself, according to Leviticus,orders Moses to have all those who have heard the proffered blasphemy put the blasphe-mer to death. Khillul Hashem ( ), desecration of the Holy Name, is the Hebrew term subsequently used in Jewish law to designate the crime of blasphemy. In thispassage of Leviticus, we see two themes that will recur in medieval and early modernEurope: blasphemy is associated with male bravado (in this case, ghting), and it isoften particularly problematic when it involves those on the borders of the faith group:

here, the son of a mixed marriage; in medieval Europe, converts and their offspring.While Leviticus dictates death by stoning as the appropriate punishment for blas-phemy, the Mishna issues important restrictions limiting the application of the deathpenalty: the blasphemer must have used the divine name (the tetragrammaton), musthave proffered a malediction, must have spoken clearly and audibly and must havebeen clearly heard by at least two witnesses, who have submitted the case to a rabbinicalcourt. In other words, the rabbis took care to render inoperative the punishments pre-scribed in Leviticus without, of course, explicitly annulling the biblical text (see Gergely 2012). In the Babylonian Talmud, the sages discuss the profanation of the divine nameas the ultimate crime against God. Yet at the same time it becomes a metaphor for lack of zeal in devotion to God:

What constitutes profanation of the Name? – Rab said: If, e.g. I take meat from the butcherand do not pay him at once. Abaye said: That we have learnt [to regard as profanation] only in a place wherein one does not go out to collect payment, but in a place where one does notgo out to collect, there is no harm in it [not paying at once]. … R. Johanan said: In my case [itis a profanation if] I walk four cubits without [uttering words of] Torah or [wearing] te llin.2

The Greek word βλασφημία occurs several times in the Septuagint to designate insult tothings sacred (though not limited to profanation of the divine name). 3 In classical Greek,the noun βλασφημία and the verb βλασφημέω were used (for example, by Democritus

[d. 370BC]) to mean “slander” against persons, but they also carried the meaning of offense given against gods.4 While it was natural for the translators of the Septuagint toreach for these words to describe the profanation of God’s name, the classical Greek

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concept is in fact quite different. As Cheyronnaud and Lenclud (1992) explain : “Le blas-phème grec est un faux-ami du blasphème chrétien. La permanence linguistique, du grecau latin d’église, est un obstacle à la traduction culturelle, une invite au faux-sens.” We cantake the example of Euripides’ Ion, where a plot to poison the wine of the eponymous herois foiled when a slave inadvertently utters an ill-omened word (“βλασφημίαν τις οἰκετῶν

ἐφθέγξατο,” Ion 1189); subsequently, all are obliged to pour out their wine (which savesIon’s life). We are very far from Exodus and Leviticus. Socrates, in Plato’s Republic (381e), says that no poet should be allowed to utter falsehoods about the gods, citing (as examples of ideas to be banned) verses from Homer and Aeschylus that related how gods disguised themselves as humans and moved among us. Mothers, he concludes,should be prohibited from relating such tales to their children, from “μὲν εἰς θεοὺς βλασ -φημῶσιν” (blaspheming against the gods).

In the synoptic gospels, the Pharisees accuse Jesus of blasphemy when he heals a paraly-tic and tells him that his sins are forgiven (Matthew 9.3; Luke 5.21; Mark 14.64). In John10.33, the “Jews” wish to stone Jesus for his “blasphemies” (βλασφημίας) because heaf rms that he is God. As Thomas Gergely has pointed out, there is little probability that Jesus was guilty of khillul hashem in the restricted legal sense; indeed the gospelaccounts are anachronistic in having Jesus appear before the Sanhedrin, an institutionthat did not exist in 33 CE (but which would be created after the destruction of theTemple in 70) (Gergely 2012). The gospels have Jesus af rm that blasphemy againsthimself (the Son of Man) may be forgiven, but not blasphemy against the Holy Spirit(Matthew 12.31– 32; Mark 3.29; Luke 12.11). Jews accuse Jesus and his disciples of blas-phemy and, according to Acts 8, punish Stephen with death by stoning, with the compli-city of Saul. Yet with Saul’s conversion (as he becomes Paul), the accusation of blasphemy

changes sides: Paul “who was before a blasphemer and a persecutor” (1 Timothy 1.13)confesses: “I punished them [Christians] often, in every synagogue, and compelledthem to blaspheme” (Acts 26.11) (see Lawton 1993, 49).

In the early Christian centuries, various Christian authors accused other Christians(who did not share their views on, say, Christology or ecclesiology) of being “blasphemers:” their deviant doctrines were seen as so many insults to God. Thus,blasphemy and heresy were for authors such as Augustine almost synonyms (seeLevy 1987). It is the Emperor Justinian (r. 527– 65) who rst provides civil legislationprohibiting blasphemy. Novel 77 prohibits “unnatural ” sexual liaisons alongside blas-phemy: both of these crimes, the emperor fears, may provoke divine wrath andpunishment.

Since some men … use blasphemies and swear oaths by the Deity, thereby inciting the wrathof God, we also call upon them to abstain from such blasphemies and from taking oaths by “the hairs” and “by the head” and by similar words. For if maledictions upon men do notremain unavenged, much more is he who blasphemes God himself worthy of punishment.We therefore exhort all such men to abstain from the sins mentioned, to have in mind thefear of God and to imitate those who live uprightly. For famine and earthquakes and pesti-lences are caused by such sins, and we therefore admonish them to refrain from the crimesmentioned, lest they lose their souls. And if there are any who persevere in such iniquity afterthis, our admonition, they in the rst place show themselves unworthy of the clemency of God, and they will, in the next place be subjected to the punishment xed by law. For wehave ordered the glorious prefect of this imperial city to arrest those who after this, ourwarning, persist in such unlawful and impious acts, and in ict the punishment of death

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upon them, lest by disregarding such sinners, the city and the republic may be injured by reason of their impious acts. 5

Here, blasphemy is not associated with heterodoxy: there is no suggestion that these blas-phemers ascribe to deviant doctrine. Nor is there any sense that these men deliberately insult God. The problem is with oath-taking: men swear by the hairs or head of God,no doubt, from their point of view, to lend solemnity and credibility to their oaths. Yetfor Justinian this is blasphemy, and the perpetrators are to be severely punished, lestGod in wrath send punishment on the empire in the form of earthquake or disease.This law is the rst in a long series of European laws that, as we shall see, associate blas-phemy with swearing, imprecations, and oath-taking.

In Islamic law, the common term for blasphemy is shatm, a word that does not appearin the Qur ’an, though a word with a related meaning, sabb, appears once.6 The basicmeaning of shatm is insult or vili cation. To insult God or Muhammad (or for some jurists, Muhammad ’s Companions), was a crime equivalent, for some legal scholars, to

apostasy (ridda) or unbelief (kufr ), each of which could warrant the death penalty incertain cases.The absence of this issue in the Qur’an and its presence in a number of texts from the

second/eighth and third/ninth centuries (including Hadith collections) suggests that by then the place of Muhammad and his Companions had become a potentially explosiveissue, and ending up on the wrong side of a theological dispute could provoke condemna-tion and execution. Such was the case of Muh ̣ammad b. Saʿ īd b. H ̣assā n al-Urdunn ī , whohad w ritten that Muhammad was the seal of the prophets “if God does not intend other-wise.” 7 While this was a dispute within Sunni Islam, at times Sunni authorities punishedShi’is for insulting Companions of Muhammad – in particular the early caliphs. Insultproffered to Muhammad or the Qur ’an by non-Muslims was also considered a seriouscrime, as we shall see in the second part of this article.8

In medieval Europe, there is little speci c legislation concerning blasphemy before thethirteenth century. Blasphemy is mentioned as a sin in various early medieval penitentials,where it is generally associated with perjury and excessive oath-taking (Leveleux 2001,65– 70). The same is true of the canon law compilations of the eleventh and twelfth cen-turies, where repeated discussion of penance to be imposed on those who swear by the hairor head of God shows how Novel 77 continued to be the standard reference (70– 78).

It is in the Liber extra, the decretal collection put together under the direction of

Raymond of Penyafort (1175– 1275) for Pope Gregory IX (r. 1227– 41), that we rst see aclear prohibition of blasphemy as a sin and a crime independent of the issues of perjury and oaths. 9 Titulus 26 is “de maledicis,” a term meaning slanderers or those who speak ill; it consists of two chapters. The rst is a bull of Clement III (r. 1187– 91) prohibiting insulting the pope or the papal of ce: “He who speaks ill of the pope is to be punished, sothat others may be deterred from doing so and that he may be imprisoned. ” It is thesecond, longer chapter that uses the term blasphemia: “here punishment is imposed onthose who blaspheme God or any saint, especially the most glorious Virgin.” Whatfollows is the text of Gregory IX ’s own bull Statuimus, which both provides a de nitionof blasphemy and mandates speci c punishments. To incur punishment, the blasphemy must involve a publicly proffered insult against God, one of His saints, or the Virgin. Thepunishment is dual, involving rst of all public penance: the blasphemer is to stand at the

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entrance to the church for seven successive Sundays after having fasted Saturday. Onthe lastSunday, he should wear neither cloak nor shoes and is to wear a rope around his neck.During this time, he is not allowed to set foot inside the church; at the same time he is topay to feed one, two, or three paupers. Completion of this public penance makes him eligibleto be received back into the Church. To this is added a ne varying from 5 to 40 solidi,

depending on his wealth. If he refuses to submit to this penance and ne, he may neitherenter a church nor be buried in a consecrated cemetery.

In the thirteenth century, too, lay rulers impose punishments on blasphemers. EmperorFrederick II (r. 1220– 50), in his Constitutions of Mel , declares (in September 1231): “wepunish those who blaspheme against God and the glorious Virgin with the mutilation of the ill-speaking tongue” (Constitutiones 1996, 450). A harsh penalty indeed, though wemay wonder how often judges really imposed it. We might wonder the same thing con-cerning the long passage devoted to blasphemy in the vast, encyclopedic Siete partidas,a law code compiled under the patronage of King Alfonso X of Castile and León(r. 1252– 84) but not promulgated during his reign. The twenty-eighth chapter (ortitulo) of book seven concerns blasphemers, or in the words of Alfonso’s jurists: “thosewho offer insults to [denuestan] God, to Holy Mary, and to the other saints ” (AlfonsoX 2001, 1448– 1449). These insults might be verbal, but might also be acts such as striking or spitting at a cross or at the walls or doors of a church, or spitting toward heaven. Thepunishment, for a noble or knight who owns land, is to lose his land for one year for a rstoffense, two years for a second offense, and permanently for a third. An urban dweller for-feits a quarter of his property for a rst offense, a third for the second offense, and a half forthe third; the fourth time, he is to be banished. A blasphemer of inferior rank with noproperty risks having his hand cut off.

In another legislative work, the Libro de las tahurer ıas (Book of gambling, 1276),Alfonso promulgates laws meant to control the behavior of gamblers. We see a closeassociation between gambling and blasphemy (see Carpenter 1998). Unlucky gamblerswho blame God or the saints for their losses and utter blasphemies are to be punishedwith monetary nes (based on their wealth and status); repeat offenders are to havepart of their tongue sliced off. We nd this same association between gambling and blas-phemy in nine of the miracles of the Virgin Mary that Alfonso relates in his Cantigas deSanta Maria. In one of them, an unlucky gambler hurls a stone at a statue of the Virginand child: the baby Jesus’ arm is shattered and begins to bleed, the virgin miraculously restores the limb, and devils drag the blasphemer down to hell. Other blasphemers areluckier in the Cantigas: they repent, make amends, and are forgiven by the Virgin.

The French King Louis IX (r. 1226– 70) legislated concerning blasphemy at least fourtimes (Leveleux 2001, 297– 306). On the rst occasion, words of “insult or contempt forGod, His Mother and his Saints” are prohibited (the term blasphemy is not used) along-side other practices: gambling, fornication, consorting with prostitutes. Blasphemy is oneof the sins that provokes God’s ire, and here it is associated not with heresy but with dis-solute male subculture. Louis was famously said to have ordered that a blasphemer’s lips bemarked with a hot iron. His fourth and nal law on the subject, in June 1270, distinguishesdifferent levels of punishment based on the severity of the blasphemy and the solvency of

the culprit, with harsher penalties for repeat offenders. As Leveleux (2001) has shown, thesuccessive laws show how Louis sought more ef ciently and justly to combat blasphemy:earlier laws dictating corporal penalties were revised (in part in response to papal concerns


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about their excessive harshness); the nal law shows close attention to questions of enfor-ceability and distinguishes between gradations of punishment according to the gravity of the blasphemy proffered.

Delumeau (1978, 400) has characterized sixteenth– seventeenth-century Europe as a“civilization of blasphemy.” To cite one prominent example, Charles V (Holy Roman

Emperor 1519– 56) issues an ordinance in Flanders in 1517 in which he remarks that“many of our subjects, frequenting taverns, cabarets, and other places of dissolution,daily indulge in swearing, taking oaths and insulting the name of God and of theVirgin Mary. ” Christian princes should not tolerate such behavior, says Charles, butrather impose “major and severe punishment and correction as a n example to all, lestdivine ire, malediction and punishment ” fall on the whole society.10 Various historianshave shown the explosion of anti-blasphemy statutes issued by various European rulersbetween the fteenth and seventeenth centuries: Cabantous ( 1998), Hoareau-Dodinau(2003), and Leveleux (2001) for France, Schwerhoff (2005) for Germany, Loetz (2002)for Switzerland, and Villa-Flores (2006) for New Spain, among others. While it isbeyond the scope of this article to trace this legislation in detail, blasphemy is increasingly seen as a problem of public order and public morals: men who gamble, drink, and frequentprostitutes are likely to swear and blaspheme.

2. Blasphemy law as protection from external enemies

In sixteenth-century Europe, the explosion of legislation regarding blasphemy was closely related to the af rmation of the power of states, for which blasphemy was potentially achallenge not only to God, but to their own authority: an act of lèse majesté against

both God and the sovereign. Accusations of blasphemy were also a key weapon in therhetorical wars between Catholics and Protestants: Protestant attacks on the cult of thesaints, the authority of the Church, and various Catholic doctrines were so many actsof blasphemy for Catholics, while Catholic polemics against Protestants were blasphemy for the latter (Weis 2012). A Protestant is ipso facto a blasphemer in the eyes of many six-teenth-century Catholics, and vice versa. The accusation of blasphemy and its juridicalde nition could serve as a means to construct barriers delimiting the true religion andprotecting it from hostile outsiders. The same issues are found well before the sixteenthcentury in medieval laws (canon and civil) meant to prohibit outsiders from insulting or mocking the true religion. At times, indeed, a rival religion is portrayed as in itsessence blasphemous: this is particularly the case with Latin Christian portrayals of Judaism beginning in the thirteenth century. This second part of the present article willexamine the development of laws prohibiting blasphemy by those outside the faith.

The Theodosian code, promulgated by Emperor Theodosius II (r. 408– 50) in 438,brings together a large number of laws issued by Christian emperors from Constantine(r. 306– 37) to Theodosius II himself. While the term “blasphemia” does not occur inthe code, one law in particular (issued in 408) addresses the question of Jews insulting or mocking Christianity:

Emperors Honorius and Theodosius Augustuses to Anthemius, Praetorian Prefect. The gov-ernors of the provinces shall prohibit the Jews from setting re to Haman in memory of hispast punishment, in a certain ceremony of their festival, and from burning with sacrilegiousintent a form made to resemble the holy cross in contempt of the Christian faith, lest they

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introduce the sign of our faith into their places, and they shall restrain their rites from ridi-culing the Christian law, for they are bound to lose what ha d been permitted them till now unless they abstain from those matters which are forbidden. 11

This law suggests that, in their celebrations of the festival of Purim, Jews deliberately mocked Christianity by burning a cruci ed ef gy of Haman. Not only does the law pro-

hibit this custom, but the Emperors Honorius (r. 395 – 408) and Theodosius II under whoseauthority the law is issued, warn Jews to refrain from associating Christian symbols withJewish rites and in general from ridiculing Christianity. The implicit threat is that, if they fail to heed this injunction, they risk losing their privileges in Christian Roman society.This text testi es to the fact that Jews in the fourth-century empire celebrated Purim,the festival commemorating the defeat of Haman, who had attempted to have PersianJews put to death by accusing them of treason, but whose plot was foiled by the Jewishcourtier, Mordecai, and the Jewish queen, Esther: the Persian king nally had Hamanput to death. The festivities, attested in various Jewish and non-Jewish sources in Antiquity

and the Middle Ages, often involved the burning of an ef gy of Haman –

in this case,apparently a cruci ed one (see Tolan 2013). We know that on later occasions Jews ident-i ed their ancient enemy Haman with their modern (Christian) persecutors; they perhapsalready did so in 408. In the end, it is impossible to say who these Jews were, what exactly they did in their rites, or with what aims and in what spirit. The law, it seems, tells us littleconcrete about the acts and beliefs of these fth-century Jews.

Yet it does tell us something important about how the emperor and his of cers perceivethe Jews and their place in a Christian Empire. In a period when various church fathers(such as John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople 398 – 404) attempted to limitJewish– Christian contact (by, for example, prohibiting Christians from frequenting syna-gogues), we see that Christian authorities seek to separate the two communities, Jews andChristians. While the Theodosian code frequently quali es Judaism as a “superstition, ” itnevertheless offers protection to Jews and to their synagogues. Various laws prohibit vio-lence against synagogues, prohibit judges from summoning Jews to court on the Sabbath,and offer privileges to Jewish religious of cials (Nemo Pekelman 2010). Here, the emper-ors af rm that in order to conserve these privileges, Jews must avoid ridiculing Christian-ity. In particular, incorporation of Christian objects or symbols into Jewish rites, and intoJewish religious space, is prohibited. So, while Theodosius does not use the term “blas-phemy, ” he clearly de nes these rites as in “contempt of the Christian faith ” (contemptum

christianae dei) with “

sacrilegious intent” (sacrilega mente). Jews are not allowed to mock the Christian faith in words or in actions; those who do so risk losing their protection

under the rule of the Christian emperor.Forcible conversions in seventh-century Spain caused new problems of blasphemy, if

we are to believe the clerics assembled for the f ourth council of Toledo in 633, presidedover by Visigothic King Sisenand (r. 631– 36).12 Recent converts from Judaism are blas-pheming against Christ, proclaim the assembled prelates. Between 612 and 616, Sisenand’spredecessor, Sisebut (r. 612– 20), had ordered the Jews of Spain to convert to Christianity.Many of the Jews who were baptized apparently returned to Judaism shortly thereafter.Twenty years later, this council issued a series of canons concerning Jews, baptizedJews, and their children, including one that instructs bishops to correct wayward converts.It also mandates taking circumcised children from their parents, and manumitting


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circumcised slaves. Insincere converts are a threat to the unity of the Church and their actsand words are seen as blasphemous.

Muslim texts concerning the protected status of dhimmī s often contain clauses obliging dhimm ī s to show respect and deference to Muslims and prohibiting them from insulting Muhammad, the Qur ’an, or the Muslim faith. For example, al-Shā ʿ ī (d. 820), founder of

the eponymous Shāʿ

ī madhhab , provided in his Kit ā b al-umm a model dhimma contractsetting out in detail the rights and duties of the dhimmī s. Among other things, the contractstipulates:

If any one of you speaks improperly of Muhammad, may God bless and save him, the Book of God, or of His religion, he forfeits the protection (dhimma ) of God, of the Commander of theFaithful, and of all the Muslims; he has contravened the conditions upon which he was givenhis safe-conduct; his property and his life are at the disposal of the Commander of the Faith-ful, like the property and lives of the people of the house of war.13

In a ninth-century society in which the adherents of the politically dominant religion,

Islam, were numerically inferior to those of Christianity, such dhimma contractsattempted to protect Islam from insult and guarantee its ascendency.Two centuries later, the Shā ʿ ī jurist al-Mā wardī (d. 1058) pens his Al-Ah ̣kā m al-sult ̣ā -

niyya wa-al-wil ā y ā t al-d ī niyya (Ordinances of government). He too presents the prin-ciples of a dhimma contract to be made between the Muslim ruler and the subjectedcommunity. He gives 12 conditions that may be included in a dhimma contract: six of them optional and six obligatory. The six optional stipulations involve restrictions onthe outward manifestations of dhimmī religion and culture: requiring dhimmī s to weardistinctive clothing or restricting their rights to ride on horseback, ring church bells, or“to aunt their drinking, their crosses, or their swine.” These regulations need to berespected only if they are explicitly included in the speci c dhimma contract. The six obli-gatory conditions, however, must be respected whether or not they are speci cally included in a dhimma contract.

There are two sets of conditions to include in a tribute contract: one obligatory and the otherdesirable. The requisite conditions are six in number: rst, to refrain from any defamation ordistortion of God Almighty ’s scripture; second, not to talk of the Apostle, God bless him andgrant him salvation, in terms of denial or disparagement; third, not to talk of the Islamic faithin derogatory or slanderous language; fourth, not to commit adultery or enter into anunauthorized marriage with a Muslim female; fth, not to entice a Muslim to renouncehis faith, encroach on his property or assault his religion; sixth, not to assist the enemiesof Islam or maintain cordial relations with thei r associates. These six conditions are compul-sory even if not mentioned in so many words.14

Of these six obligatory conditions regulating the status of dhimmī s, three involve theprohibition of verbal insults to the Qur ’an, the Prophet Muhammad, or the Muslim reli-gion. The rst of these prohibitions is of tah ̣r ī f , distortion of the holy book, an accusationfrequently made against Jews and Christian regarding the transmission and interpretationof their own scriptures (Lazarus-Yafeh 2000). In order to continue enjoying their status asprotected minorities and their right to practice their religions, Jews and Christians mustrefrain from blaspheming against Islam.

In the 850s, a number of Christians in Cordoba insulted Muhammad and the Qur ’an inthe presence of Muslim authorities (in particular, the qā d ̣ī ). A number of them were put to

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death as blasphemers, apparently having been given the choice between converting toIslam or death.15 Starting in the thirteenth century, a number of Franciscans also wentto Muslim lands, sought out Muslim rulers or qā d ̣ī s, and deliberately insulted Muhammadin order to obtain the palm of martyrdom (Heullant-Donat 2004; MacEvitt 2011; RosaDias 2009; Ryan 2004).

In Christian as in Muslim society, prohibition of insults against the majority religion isa key element of the legal restrictions imposed on religious minorities. One of the principalrestrictions on Jews in Christian polities was the prohibition of exercising authority overChristians, and in particular of holding pu blic of ce and of owning Christian slaves orhaving Christian servants in their homes. 16 In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries,Jewish “blasphemy ” is commonly invoked as a justi cation or explanation for such pro-hibitions. Gratian ’s Decretum (c. 1140) forbids Jews from owning Christian slaves“because it is wrong for a blasphemer of the Christian religion to keep someone infetters, whom Christ the Lord redeemed with the spilling of his blood.” 17 For similarreasons, the Decretum allows a convert to Christianity to dissolve a previous marriagewith a spouse who remains in del, lest the new Christian have to hear “insults againstthe creator” (contumelia creatoris).18

Pope Innocent III (r. 1198 – 1216) frequently equates Jews with blasphemers and repeat-edly uses the charge of their blasphemy to promote strict enforcement of rules imposing separation between Jews and Christians. On January 16, 1205, Innocent sent a letter toKing Philip II Augustus of France (r. 1180– 1223). In this bull, Etsi non displiceat Domino, the pope complains of the privileged status that the king accords to Jews,which unconscionably places them above Christians.19 The Jews of the French kingdomhave become “insolent,” claims the pope. He attacks in particular the practice of

money-lending, which inverses the normal power relationships between Christians andJews: Jews abscond with the property of Christians and of the Church. Particularly unac-ceptable to the pope is the trampling of traditional jurisprudence based on oral testimony (in which Christian witnesses were accorded more authority than Jews). Here, on the con-trary, more credence is given to signed documents (contracts in the Jews’ possession),inverting traditional hierarchies. The letter is a bitter if implicit criticism of the aid andabetment that the king and his of cers grant to Jewish lenders, to the detriment of Chris-tian debtors. Beyond the question of usury, the pope lambasts what for him are otherexamples of Jewish “insolence”: they construct new synagogues (one of which is tallerthan the neighboring church); they have Christian servants, in clear violation of Churchlaw; they openly mock Christians and make jest of veneration of the cross during Holy Week. The pope accuses the Jews of being accomplices to thieves and even of killing Chris-tians. Three times in the bull he charges the Jews with “blaspheming against the name of the Lord,” and at the end of the bull he exhorts the king to “turn against these blasphemersthat the punishment of some should be a source of fear to all.”

Innocent sent another bull, Ut esset Cain, to Count Hervé IV de Donzy of Nevers(1173– 1223) on January 17, 1208.20 He here takes up the same themes he had already addressed in his Etsi non displiceat Domino. He tells the count that “blasphemers of theChristian name ought not to be aided by Christian princes to oppress the servants of

the Lord.” He warns him that he should “dread divine anger because you are not afraidto show favor to those who dared to nail to the Cross the only-begotten Son of God,and to this moment have not ceased to blaspheme (against Him). ” Jews are blasphemers


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against the Lord whom they cruci ed, and any Christian prince who helps them oppressChristians (by, for example, helping them collect the usurious interest they charge toChristians) will incur God’s wrath.

At the fourth Lateran Council, called by Innocent III and presided over by him inNovember 1215, Jewish blasphemy is evoked twice as a justication for restrictive legis-

lation. In canon 68, the council rules that, during Holy Week, Jews and Muslimsought not to appear publicly at all, since we understand that some of them do not blush toparade about splendidly attired, and are not afraid of ridiculing Christians who displaying tokens of grief observe the memory of the most sacred passion. But, we stringently forbidthis, lest they presume to break out in abuse of the Redeemer in any way. And since, weought not ignore the abuse of him who erased our sins, we prescribe that the presumptuous,lest they presume to blaspheme the one who was cruci ed f or us in any way, be curbed by thewholly deserved addition of censure from secular princes. 21

The following Canon (69) is an explicit reiteration of canons issued at Toledo III in 589and Toledo IV in 633, which barred Jews from holding public of ces. Like the 633council, this canon invokes the Jews’ blasphemy as the justi cation for this prohibition:

Since it is more than absurd that a blasphemer of Christ should exercise the power of magis-tracy over Christians, in this general council we renew what the council of Toledo presciently established on this matterbecause of the transgressors ’ temerity: we forbid that the Jewsbe p re-ferred for public of ce, since under such a pretense they are highly inimical to Christians. 22

Here, moreover, the prohibition is explicitly extended to “pagans” (that is, Muslims).Royal legislation also seeks to prohibit and punish blasphemy, as we have seen, begin-

ning in the thirteenth century. A number of laws seek in particular to prevent Jews and

Muslims from blaspheming against Christ and the Christian religion. We shall examinetwo examples from thirteenth-century monarchs Henry III of England (r. 1215 – 72),and Alfonso X of Castile and León. On January 31, 1253, Henry III issued a mandatein which Jews were prohibited both from disparaging the Christian faith and from disput-ing with Christians about it. Once again, these prohibitions are part of a broad effort toregulate Jewish behavior and in particular Jewish– Christian relations. 23 In this mandate,the king orders that “no Jew disparage the Christian Faith, or publicly dispute concerning the same” as part of a long series of regulations and restrictions concerning the Jews’ placein Christian society. The king af rms his authority over Jews while at the same timelending royal authority to various measures concerning Jews taken by church councilsin Rome (Lateran III in 1179 and Lateran IV in 1215) and in England (Oxford in 1222,among others). 24 The king begins by af rming that no Jew, of whatever age or sex, may remain in England unless he provide service to the king. This is a strong af rmation of the direct dependency of Jews on the person of the king. There is a clear desire to limitexpansion of Jewish settlement and to prohibit the building of new synagogues. A seriesof stipulations echo measures taken at earlier church councils (notably Lateran IV andthe Council of Oxford in 1222): Jews are prohibited from having Christian servants andfrom sexual relations with Christians, are obliged to pay tithes on their lands andhouses to the parish rector, and to the wear a badge in the shape of “tablets” (referring

to the tablets of the Law that Moses received at Sinai).As we have seen, Alfonso X ’s Siete partidas devoted a section (título) to blasphemy. Itsprimary concern is with Christians who blaspheme, but the last of the título’s six chapters

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concerns Jews and Moors who proffer such insults. The chapter recalls that Jews andMoors are permitted to live in “our land ” even though they do not believe in “ourfaith,” but that the condition for this permission is that they do nothing to insultChrist, his mother, or the other saints. Not only is verbal insult prohibited, but also spitting on crosses, altars, or images of the saints, or striking such a holy object with hand, foot, or

other object, or throwing stones at churches. “Whoever acts against this prohibition wewill punish him in his body and in his possessions according to what we judge hemerits for the crime that he committed. ” Alfonso gives the following justi cation forthis prohibition:

If the Moors, in all the places where they have power over the Christians, prohibit them frominsulting Muhammad and from saying anything against his doctrine, and for this offensethey beat them and hurt them in many ways and decapitate them, how much more appro-priate it is that we prohibit them (and others who do not believe in our faith) from daring tocriticize or insult our faith.25

If Muslims punish those who blaspheme their religion, we are justi ed in punishing thosewho blaspheme against Christianity, Alfonso argues. Unlike Innocent III, who had por-trayed in dels (especially Jews) as blasphemers per se, Alfonso sees Muslims as modelsin the prohibition of blasphemy. Yet elsewhere, in the introduction to his section onIslam (VII, 25) he af rms that, because Muhammad did not lead a life of sanctity appro-priate for a prophet, his religion is “as it were, an insult to God” (como un denuesto deDios) (Alfonso X 2001, 1438).

The Partidas devote a section to Jews, in which the king af rms:

Jews ought to conduct themselves meekly and without disorder among Christians, observing

their own law and not speaking ill of the faith of Our Lord Jesus Christ which Christiansobserve. Furthermore, they must take grea t care not to preach or convert any Christian,praising their own law and maligning ours. 26

Alfonso goes on to say that he has heard that in some places Jews capture and crucify Christian children on Good Friday in reenactment of the Passion, or that, when they are unable to procure children, they crucify wax images. This, of course, corresponds tothe charge of blood libel, an accusation that we nd rst in England: William of Norwich (1144); similar accusations in Gloucester (1168), Bury St Edmunds (1181),and Bristol (1183); Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln (1255; mentioned by Chaucer in thePrioress’s tale, another story of Jews murdering a Christian boy – but not strictly aritual murder). On the continent: Blois (1171), then, starting in the thirteenth century,widespread accusations (Empire, Spain … ). Various popes, emperors and othersdenounce such accusations and try to protect Jews from the ensuing violence (Hsia1988).27 While Alfonso’s law seems to lend credence to the accusations, the king retainsthe sole right to try and to punish this crime. In an echo of Lateran IV, this law prohibitsJews from leaving their quarters on Good Friday.

The blood libel accusation marks the Jew as the absolute enemies of Christ and Chris-tians and in the late Middle Ages we nd the accusation used to justify separation, exclu-sion, and at times massacre of Jews. One of the most infamous instances is the case of

Simon of Trent, a two-year-old boy whose disappearance was attributed to kidnapping and cruci xion at the hands of the small Jewish community of Trent. A number of Jews were arrested, put on to trial, and, thanks to confessions obtained through torture,


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put to death (Esposito and Quaglioni 1990; Treue 1996). In the extensive depositions fromthe Trent trial, a number of the witnesses testi ed not only to torturing and killing thechild, but to ritually uttering repeated blasphemies against Christ, making obscene ges-tures, spitting at the child, and so on. They also confessed to mixing Simon’s bloodwith their wine and incorporating it into bread for Passover. Ritually uttered blasphemies

included referring to the Virgin Mary as a “menstruating prostitute ” and to Jesus as the“son of a prostitute” and a “hanged scoundrel.” 28 These testimonies, obtained undertorture, of course re ect not the attitudes of the tortured Jews but those of their torturers,who sought to con rm that Jews were by nature hostile toward Christianity and that theessence of their cult was an elaborate and violent anti-Christianity. Judaism, for theseChristians, was in essence blasphemy.

Martin Luther was born in 1483, eight years after the Trent trial. While Luther’s view of the place of Jews in the Christian scheme of history is in many respects the same as thatestablished over a thousand years earlier by church fathers from Eusebius to Augustine, itis distinguished by two essential elements: rst a keen apocalyptic sense that the end of history is near, and second a conviction, in his early works, that if the Jews have yet tosee the light of Christian truth, the fault lies not so much with the Jews themselves butwith the papacy and clergy, who have failed both to preach the gospel to the Jews andto show through their life and works a true example of Christian piety. In his That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew (Daß Jesus Christus ein geborner Jude sei), Luther af rmsthat, if Jews have not wanted to convert, it is largely because they have been so persecutedby Christians: if the Apostles had treated the Gentiles so poorly, none of them would haveconverted either. We treat them like dogs, refuse their commerce, force them into the baseprofession of usury, make absurd accusations against them. “If I had been a Jew and had

seen such dolts and blockheads govern and teach the Christ ian faith, I would sooner havebecome a hog than a Christian ” (Luther 1955– 86, 45: 200).29

Luther’s attitude toward Jews hardened later, perhaps because he realized that they wereno likelier to be convinced by Protestant arguments than they had been by those of Catho-lics. He came to see Jews as the Devil’s agents who sought to weaken the faith of Christians.In his later works, Luther comes to the conclusion that Jews should be expelled by Chris-tian princes in order to protect the true Church. The tone is particularly virulent in On the Jews and Their Lies (Von den Juden und ihren Lügen), a long and rambling diatribe writtenin response to a Jewish anti-Christian tract that Luther had read. He lambasts the Jews fortheir triple arrogance: they show undue pride in their birth, in their circumcision, and inthe fact that they received the Law from God on Mount Sinai. This pride leads them todespise the Goyim, whom they believe it is legal to rob, cheat, and kill. Whereas inearlier works Luther had dismissed the hostile stories of how Jews poisoned wells andkilled Christian children, he now asserts that these stories and worse are probably true.They curse us Christians in their synagogues every Saturday, Luther asserts, and af rmthat our Lord is the son of a whore. “Learn from this, dear Christian, what you aredoing if you permit the blind Jews to mislead you,” he warns his reader: “Be on yourguard against the Jews” (Luther 1955– 1986, 47:142). Luther proposes burning the Jews’synagogues and schools and razing their houses to the ground. In an age of vehement

anti-Jewish polemics, Luther’s stand out as particularly violent.In late medieval and early modern Europe, blasphemy (or accusations of blasphemy)

played an important role in af rming the authority and legitimacy of rulers. Blasphemy

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is often associated with rambunctious, unruly men, whose blasphemy is associated with adissolute life of gambling and drinking. Cursing and blaspheming are part of machoculture for many in sixteenth-century Europe and in its far- ung colonies. In someways this is already true in biblical times, if we are to believe the text of Leviticus,where a ght between men leads to one of them cursing God’s name.

And as we also see in Leviticus, blasphemy can be the marker that separates “us” from“them ”: Israelite from Egyptian, Christian from Jew, Protestant from Catholic. Rulers andmen of religion also used blasphemy legislation to help mark the boundaries between reli-gious groups: the faithful on one side and on the other the blasphemers (Jews, Catholics, orProtestants – and later Deists and atheists). In both Muslim and Christian societies in theMiddle Ages, religious minorities were allowed to live and practice their religions, withincertain limits. Blasphemy law was one of the means to de ne and regulate those limits, tomake sure that minorities accepted the boundaries of their subservient status. In the f-teenth and sixteenth centuries, the limited tolerance that medieval rulers had given to reli-gious minorities gives way, in many parts of Europe, to expulsions of Jews and Muslimsand to violence between Catholics and Protestants. Here, accusations of blasphemy areused to justify violence and exclusion.

Acknowledgement

This publication is part of the research project RELMIN “The Legal Status of Religious Minorities inthe Euro-Mediterranean World (5th – 15th centuries).”

Disclosure statement

No potential con ict of interest was reported by the author.

Funding

The research leading to this publication has received funding from the European Research Councilunder the European Union ’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/RC grant agree-ment n°249416. See www.relmin.eu.

Notes

1. See Levy (1987). See also the critique of Levy ’s article, along with a re ection on the use of theterm in ethnology (Cheyronnaud and Lenclud 1992).

2. Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 86a, translation online at http://juchre.org/talmud/yoma/yoma4.htm#86a .

3. For example: “καὶ ε ἶπεν αὐτο ῖ ς Ησαιας τάδε ἐρε ῖ τε πρὸς τὸν κύριον ὑμῶν τάδε λέγει κύριος μὴφοβηθῇς ἀπὸ τῶν λόγων ὧν ἤκουσας ὧν ἐβλασφήμησαν τὰ παιδάρια βασιλέως Ἀσσυρίων”(“Isaiah said to them, ‘Say to your master, “Thus says the Lord: Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have reviledme”’” [2 Kings 19.6; cf. 2 Kings 19.22]); “καὶ νῦν τί ὧδέ ἐστε τάδε λέγει κύριος ὅτι ἐλήμφθηὁ λαός μου δωρεάν θαυμάζετε καὶ ὀλολύζετε τάδε λέγει κύριος δἰ ὑμᾶς διὰ παντὸς τὸὄνομά μου βλασφημε ῖ ται ἐν το ῖ ς ἔθνεσιν” (“Now therefore what am I doing here, says theLord, seeing that my people are taken away without cause? Their rulers howl, says the Lord,and continually, all day long, my name is despised” [Isaiah 52.5]); “Καὶ γνώσ ῃ ὅτι ἐγώ εἰμικύριος ἤκουσα τῆς φωνῆς τῶν βλασφημιῶν σου ὅτι ε ἶπας τὰ ὄρη Ισραηλ ἔρημα ἡμ ῖ ν


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δέδοται εἰς κατάβρωμα” (“You shall know that I, the Lord, have heard all the abusive speechthat you uttered against the mountains of Israel, saying, ‘They are laid desolate, they are givenus to devour’” [Ezekiel 35.12]).

4. See articles βλασφημέω and βλασφημία in Liddell, Scott, and Drisler (1897, 284– 285).5. Corpus Iuris Civilis 3:381– 383, translation by Fred Blume, from http://www.uwyo.edu/lawlib/

blume-justinian/ajc-edition-2/novels/61-80/Novel%2077_Replacement.pdf (accessed August

20, 2015).6. See L. Wiederhold, art. “Shatm.” In EI 2 ; Ernst (1987) and Wiederhold ( 1997).7. Wiederhold, “Shatm.”8. On medieval Mā lik ī law on blasphemy, see Fierro (1991). For an example of a treatment of the

subject in the medieval Maghreb, in the Mukhtas ạr by the Mā lik ī jurist Sīdī Khalīl (d. 1374), seeBercher (1923).

9. X, v, 26; the text is available online at http://www.hs-augsburg.de/~harsch/Chronologia/Lspost13/GregoriusIX/gre_5t26.html (accessed August 20, 2015). See Schwerhoff (2005,118– 119) and Leveleux (2001, 78– 82).

10. Ordonnance de Charles, roi de Castille, contre les blasphémateurs (November 30, 1517), cited inWeis (2012, 69).

11. CTh 16.8.18, in Theodosiani libri 16 , edited by T. Mommsen and P. Meyer, p. 891; C. Pharr,trans. The Corpus of Roman Law . I prefer the reading “ locis” to “ iocis” (extant in some manu-scripts), and have modi ed the citations of the Latin text and English translation accordingly.For the text, commentary and bibliography on this law, see http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait979/ (accessed August 20, 2015).

12. See Jessie Sherwood, “Concilium Toletanum quartum, c. 59: De iudaeis dudum christianis etpostea in priorem ritum conversis. ” http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait1058/ (accessedAugust 20, 2015).

13. From Ahmed Oulddali, “Shā ʿ ī , Moh ạmmad b. Idr īs, The terms of a peace treaty with non-Muslims.” http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait243424/ (accessed August 20, 2015).

14. Ahmed Oulddali, “Mā wardī , ʿ AIī b. Muh ạmmad, Conditions inherent in dhimmī status.”

http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait136306/ (accessed August 20, 2015).15. On the Cordoba martyr movement, see Tolan ( 2002, 85– 100), Coope (1995), Wolf (1988), andPochoshajew (2007).

16. For an example of the prohibition of Jews owning Christian slaves, see Capucine Nemo-Pekel-man, “Codex Theodosianus [16.9.2].” http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait103892/ (accessedAugust 20, 2015). On the prohibition of Jews holding public of ce, see Jessie Sherwood,“Concilium Toletantum quartum [c. 65: Ne iudaei of cia publica agant].” http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait1071/ (accessed August 20, 2015).

17. Jessie Sherwood, “Decretum [D. 54, c. 18].” http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait30497/(accessed August 20, 2015).

18. Decretum C XXVIII, 2, 2.19. John Tolan, “Etsi non displiceat Domino. ” http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait30385/

(accessed August 20, 2015); Tolan (2015).20. John Tolan, “Ut esset Cain.” http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait30493/ (accessed August 20,

2015).21. Jessie Sherwood, “Lateran IV, c. 68.” http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait30326/ (accessed

August 20, 2015).22. Jessie Sherwood, “Lateran IV, c. 69.” http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait30331/ (accessed

August 20, 2015).23. Latin text and English translation from Rigg (1902, xlviii– xlvix). For an online version of the

full Latin text, English and French translations, commentary, and bibliography, see http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait252152/ (accessed August 20, 2015).

24. On this mandate and the context explaining the adoption by the king of restrictions on Jewspreviously issued by English church councils, see Carpenter (2013) and Stacey (2003). For theOxford council, see http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/auteur1816/ (accessed August 20, 2015).

25. Siete partidas 7.28.6; Alfonso X (2001, 1450); see Simon (1987).

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http://www.uwyo.edu/lawlib/blume-justinian/ajc-edition-2/novels/61-80/Novel%2077_Replacement.pdfhttp://www.uwyo.edu/lawlib/blume-justinian/ajc-edition-2/novels/61-80/Novel%2077_Replacement.pdfhttp://www.hs-augsburg.de/~harsch/Chronologia/Lspost13/GregoriusIX/gre_5t26.htmlhttp://www.hs-augsburg.de/~harsch/Chronologia/Lspost13/GregoriusIX/gre_5t26.htmlhttp://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait979/http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait979/http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait1058/http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait243424/http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait136306/http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait103892/http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait1071/http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait1071/http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait30497/http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait30385/http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait30493/http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait30326/http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait30331/http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait252152/http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait252152/http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/auteur1816/http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/auteur1816/http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait252152/http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait252152/http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait30331/http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait30326/http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait30493/http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait30385/http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait30497/http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait1071/http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait1071/http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait103892/http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait136306/http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait243424/http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait1058/http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait979/http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait979/http://www.hs-augsburg.de/~harsch/Chronologia/Lspost13/GregoriusIX/gre_5t26.htmlhttp://www.hs-augsburg.de/~harsch/Chronologia/Lspost13/GregoriusIX/gre_5t26.htmlhttp://www.uwyo.edu/lawlib/blume-justinian/ajc-edition-2/novels/61-80/Novel%2077_Replacement.pdfhttp://www.uwyo.edu/lawlib/blume-justinian/ajc-edition-2/novels/61-80/Novel%2077_Replacement.pdf


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26. Siete Partidas VII.24.2, translated in Carpenter (1986). See Marisa Bueno, “Siete Partidas[VII.24.2].” http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait238333/ (accessed August 20, 2015).

27. For an overview of recent historiography on the subject, see Johnson (2012).28. See the trial extracts reproduced, translated, and commented by Aleida Paudice, http://www.

cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait254556/ ; http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait254557/ ; http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait254558/ ; http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait254559/ (all accessed

August 20, 2015).29. On Luther’s attitudes toward the Jews, see Kaufmann (2006) and Probst (2012).

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