bunnyjadwiga (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bunnyjadwiga) wrote2007-06-15 01:39 pm
bunnyjadwiga) wrote2007-06-15 01:39 pm
Hygiene and offense-- deconstruction?
Ok, I'm struggling with whether to use this story in my CA, because it's got social/ethnic/religious/political issues, which may or may not be relevant.
Several of my secondary sources repeat a story in which a Jew falls into a cesspool or privy on a Saturday, and refuses to be pulled out because to do so would violate the Sabbath. The local lordly authority consequently refuses to have him pulled out on the Sunday, since that would violate the Christian sabbath, and he perishes. Even if the story is a piece of history and not merely a Victorian, 'Enlightenment' or medieval urban legend, there is a lot of baggage in it.
First of all, why is the Jew in a position to fall into the privy? It's possible that a floor collapsed under him, of course. I'm unclear on the status of Jewish privies in the middle ages, because I'm not sure that falls within the rule from Deuteronomy. Since it is the Sabbath, the Jew would presumably be within the community rather than in a non-Jewish area-- if he were there voluntarily. But if he were to fall into the privy inside the Jewish quarter, would the news actually come to someone who had the power to forbid him to be removed from it on Sunday?
It's certainly possible that the gentleman in question was maliciously introduced into the privy and/or the cesspool, in which case it could be a non-Jewish privy. If so, who did it? Was it meant as murder or merely a torturous joke? This would explain the clearly malicious intent in leaving him in the privy on the Christian sabbath, though that is unfortunately a reasonable depiction of Anti-semitic trends in the society of the time, and one can imagine the putative lord either angrily or amusedly decreeing such Sabbath-for-Sabbath detention. If so, was the intention to kill the Jew?
For this to be a non-Jewish urban legend, it would need to rely on a certain amount of non-Jewish familiarity with the refusal to do anything that would be considered work on the Sunday. Such a familiarity might be based on information from the Christian Gospels, where Jesus of Nazareth was allegedly chastised for performing miracles on the Sabbath.
The belief that Jewish privies existed is testified by a blood libel repeated in Matthew of Paris' history and in Chaucer, where St. Hugh's body is concealed in a Jewish privy. John Jacobs apparently reconstructed this story to a belief that a small child fell into and drowned in the cesspool of a Jewish widow's house, and that the body surfaced after several weeks; terrified members of the Jewish community moved it to a well in hopes of avoiding charges of murder. (The Knight's Tale of Young Hugh of Lincoln. Gavin I. Langmuir, Speculum, Vol. 47, No. 3. (Jul., 1972), pp. 459-482.)
So, do I mention the story? Do I ignore it? Do I mention the whole jews-privy mess? Do I explicate it?
Several of my secondary sources repeat a story in which a Jew falls into a cesspool or privy on a Saturday, and refuses to be pulled out because to do so would violate the Sabbath. The local lordly authority consequently refuses to have him pulled out on the Sunday, since that would violate the Christian sabbath, and he perishes. Even if the story is a piece of history and not merely a Victorian, 'Enlightenment' or medieval urban legend, there is a lot of baggage in it.
First of all, why is the Jew in a position to fall into the privy? It's possible that a floor collapsed under him, of course. I'm unclear on the status of Jewish privies in the middle ages, because I'm not sure that falls within the rule from Deuteronomy. Since it is the Sabbath, the Jew would presumably be within the community rather than in a non-Jewish area-- if he were there voluntarily. But if he were to fall into the privy inside the Jewish quarter, would the news actually come to someone who had the power to forbid him to be removed from it on Sunday?
It's certainly possible that the gentleman in question was maliciously introduced into the privy and/or the cesspool, in which case it could be a non-Jewish privy. If so, who did it? Was it meant as murder or merely a torturous joke? This would explain the clearly malicious intent in leaving him in the privy on the Christian sabbath, though that is unfortunately a reasonable depiction of Anti-semitic trends in the society of the time, and one can imagine the putative lord either angrily or amusedly decreeing such Sabbath-for-Sabbath detention. If so, was the intention to kill the Jew?
For this to be a non-Jewish urban legend, it would need to rely on a certain amount of non-Jewish familiarity with the refusal to do anything that would be considered work on the Sunday. Such a familiarity might be based on information from the Christian Gospels, where Jesus of Nazareth was allegedly chastised for performing miracles on the Sabbath.
The belief that Jewish privies existed is testified by a blood libel repeated in Matthew of Paris' history and in Chaucer, where St. Hugh's body is concealed in a Jewish privy. John Jacobs apparently reconstructed this story to a belief that a small child fell into and drowned in the cesspool of a Jewish widow's house, and that the body surfaced after several weeks; terrified members of the Jewish community moved it to a well in hopes of avoiding charges of murder. (The Knight's Tale of Young Hugh of Lincoln. Gavin I. Langmuir, Speculum, Vol. 47, No. 3. (Jul., 1972), pp. 459-482.)
So, do I mention the story? Do I ignore it? Do I mention the whole jews-privy mess? Do I explicate it?
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I believe, in fact, that the book was called "The Christian Roots Of Anti-Semitism", although I'd have to dig it out of the garage to be sure that's which one of the textbooks that information was in.
P.S. ICON LUST!
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The second thing that strikes me is that lifting someone out of a hole might not (to my knowledge) fit any of the categories of "work." If someone needed to *carry* him, that might qualify, but I don't know if lifting someone out would. I've always found the categories of work to be rather odd. (Wait, it might qualify as work under the category of separating the bad from the good. I always forget how that one works, but it's weird as heck.)
The third thing is that there's a longstanding tradition of the Shabbos goy, so I would expect said Jew to say that a non-Jew could lift him out on Shabbos, but not a Jew ;) (Seriously, I have no idea how old the idea of the Shabbos goy is, so I have no idea if that's really relevant here.)
None of which actually helps you any, but it amused me...
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Is it germane to the topic of the CA article (which I forget, sorry!)?
Religion was so important in period that just not mentioning things because they might be religiously offensive does a disservice to the study of the middle ages (there, see, I'm a Pel, it all comes back to service!). It's up to you to make it a neutral topic with your treatment (discussing whether Jews had privies with notes that it's a heavily anti-semitic story).
That said, it sounds touchy. get your asbestos gloves on!
work on the sabbath
i would not include it but i would be interested in looking into it further.
IMO...
Also as far as I can tell before coffee kicks in there is way too much conjectures in it and even your understanding of it.
I think I'd skip it (which doesn't preclude mentionning Jewish privies if you have some stronger references).
YMMV
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