medieval worlds • no. 7 • 2018VERGING ON THE POLEMICAL: EXPLORING THE BOUNDARIES OF MEDIEVAL RELIGIOUS POLEMIC ACROSS GENRES AND RESEARCH CULTURES
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Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften Austrian Academy of Sciences Press
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DATUM, UNTERSCHRIFT / DATE, SIGNATURE
BANK AUSTRIA CREDITANSTALT, WIEN (IBAN AT04 1100 0006 2280 0100, BIC BKAUATWW), DEUTSCHE BANK MÜNCHEN (IBAN DE16 7007 0024 0238 8270 00, BIC DEUTDEDBMUC)
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medieval worlds • no. 7 • 2018, pp. 61-79, 2018/06/29
VERGING ON THE POLEMICAL: EXPLORING THE BOUNDARIES OF MEDIEVAL RELIGIOUS POLEMIC ACROSS GENRES AND RESEARCH CULTURES
Anti-Jewish polemics can be found in abundance in medieval theology, literature, and art; yet as for documents that stemmed from economic encounters, little research has been done so far. In late medieval Austrian economic source material, only a few hints at anti-Jewish stances can be found in business documents, most of which stem from either an ecclesiastical or a municipal environment. While these brief references to the Jews’ interest rates, to Jewish counterfeiting and Jewish duplicity might not be categorized as polemical per se, they introduce polemical stereotypes and arguments into scenarios of everyday Jewish-Christian interaction, and thus contribute to making anti-Jewish sentiment part of the Christian mind-set.
Keywords: Jewish history; anti-Jewish polemics; Jewish-Christian interaction; economic history; business documents