Cristiani ed Ebrei nell'Italia Meridionale tra Antichità e Medioevo

Publisher: UniorPress

Series: Archivio di Studi Ebraici

Pages: 464

Language: English

NBN: http://nbn.depositolegale.it/urn:nbn:it:unina-28028

Abstract: Through a critical examination of extensive documentation ‒ archival, epigraphic, historical and literary ‒ this study reconstructs, for the first time in its entirety, the geography of the Jewish population in Late Antique and Early Medieval Southern Italy. It highlights the gradual changes of the position of Jews in the context of the shaping of identity in the Christian West. Between the 6^th and 10^th centuries, two distinct areas of civilization thereby emerged: on the one hand, the Kingdom of the Lombards, which was characterized by a lack of interest on the part of public powers towards the Jewish population and, on the other hand, the Byzantine Empire, in which the anti-Judaism of the State and of the ecclesiastical hierarchies periodically affected the Jews without, however, having any real structural impact on them. The turning point was the 11^th century and the Norman invasion. With the triumph of the Reform of the Church, the precursors to the spirit of the Crusades and the configuring of new frameworks for living there was a change in the relations between Christians and Jews in urban contexts which was marked by the social retreat and the growing marginalization of the Jewish population.