Matthew Paris on anti-Christian Desecration by the Jews

Matthew Paris - the subject of my recent article on jews and coin-clipping in medieval England - (1) as I have stated is one of the most important and historically influential English chroniclers in relation to our understanding of the English medieval intellectual, political and social landscape. As part of this chronicling activity Paris mentions that the jews were notorious frauds and coin-clippers (i.e. debasers of the coinage or forgers as we would know them today), but he also mentions an incident that has an equally long jewish pedigree as economic crimes and usury.

That incident has to do with anti-Christian desecrations, which are fairly common historically (2) as well as currently. (3) These are the sort of anti-Christian attitudes common enough in Judaism at the time that Paris wrote as Horowitz and Yuval have described in some detail. (4) These same attitudes I should point out are still common enough in Israel today as Shahak has been at pains to point out. (5)

Thus when we read Paris' account we should not simply dismiss - as jewish and philo-Semitic scholars have tended to - it as an 'anti-Semitic fantasy' precisely because it is actually in-line with what we know of jews in Europe at the time. Indeed as Toaff has noted that the festival of Purim in Judaism was a particular occasion on which jews frequently came out to openly attack Christians or symbols of Christianity. (6)

Thus we should not simply dismiss what Paris has to say and on the contrary we should be generally receptive to his story, while being wary of obvious mythological elements and potential additions. Now let us see whether what Paris has to say is reasonable or not.

He narrates thus:

'There was a certain quite rich Jew, Abraham by name but not in faith, who lived and had property at Berkhamstead and Wallingford. He was friendly with Earl Richard for some improper reason or another. He had a beautiful and faithful wife called Floria. In order to dishonour Christ the more, this Jew brought a nicely carved and painted statue of the blessed Virgin, as usual nursing her son at her bosom. This image the Jew set up in his latrine and, what is thoroughly dishonourable and ignominious to mention, as it were in blasphemy of the blessed Virgin, he inflicted a most filthy and unmentionable thing on it, daily and nightly, and ordered his wife to do the same. Noticing this after some days, by reason of her sex, she felt sorry and, going there secretly, washed the dirt from of the disgracefully defiled statue. When the Jew her husband found out the truth of this, he impiously and secretly suffocated his wife. However, these crimes were discovered and the Jew, clearly proved guilty, although there were other grounds for putting him to death, was thrust into the foulest dungeon in the Tower of London. In a bid to be freed, he promised most positively that he would prove all the Jews in England to be the basest traitors. Thereupon he was gravely accused by almost all the English Jews, who tried to put him to death, but Earl Richard spoke up for him. So the Jews, accusing him of clipping coins and other serious crimes, offered the earl a thousand marks to stop protecting him, which however the earl refused because the Jew was said to be his. This Jew Abraham then paid the king seven hundred marks so that, with the help of the earl, he could be freed from life imprisonment to which he had been condemned.' (7)

In the above account we can see that the sequence of events is in and of itself very plausible in that Abraham is a fairly wealthy and obviously rather misanthropic jew who owned property in  two major settlements in southern England (Berkhamstead and Wallingford) and counted as his protector Earl Richard (who also owned by him [i.e. each jewish family was under obligation to either the king or a family from the high nobility to physically protect them and allow them to operate freely in their domains in exchange for an annual fee]). (8)

Abraham obviously felt secure enough in his social and political position probably due to being wealthy and having a powerful noble protector. So much so that he decided to purchase a devotional statue of the Virgin Mary and install it in his lavatory so that he would urinate and defecate on it whenever he felt the need to relieve himself.

This is very much in line with what we know of jewish habits of privately insulting and attacking Christianity - one similar example cited by Horowitz is the whipping of a crucifix in a private courtyard - (9) nor is it unbelievable that a jew might engage in such behaviour. It was intended to be private and no one would be any the wiser. Even if he was found out Abraham was probably confident that bribery would work as that was the remedy frequently used by Abraham's fellow contemporary jews in relation to any crime for which they were accused as it was for a long time after their deaths. (10)

That Abraham's activity was part of a definitely jewish belief system is demonstrated by the fact that he placed the statue of the Virgin Mary - which he would have regarded as an 'abomination' due to it being regarded as de facto idolatrous - (11) in a place of 'abomination'/'uncleanness' in Judaism: the lavatory (12) (which was also believed to be the domain of evil spirits who wished to harm jews). (13)

We also know, for example, that jews frequently urinated on what they saw as Christian idols - i.e. Christians were idolaters - thus illustrating that it was not even unlikely, but rather a matter of course in the medieval world for religious jews to desecrate Christian symbols. (14)

We can thus see that by regularly urinating and defecating on a statue of the Virgin Mary: Abraham is doing something within the known ideological system propounded by Judaism in relation to Christianity as well as doing something that is both private and difficult to discover without an informant (who were habitually sentenced to death by jewish rabbinical courts and either formally or informally executed depending on whether the local lords had allowed the rabbinic courts the power to do so). (15)

So far Paris' narrative makes perfect sense and passes the important test of demonstrably being in-line with jewish beliefs and practices at the time that it is said by Paris to have occurred.

When we move on to Abraham's wife Floria we can see some minor mythic elements creeping in that Paris tells us that she was 'beautiful and faithful' as a wife, which he clearly was in no position to know let alone judge being a cloistered Benedictine monk from a different time in history.

Paris' description of Floria is likely derived from her treatment of the statue of the Virgin Mary in his narrative in so far that as she had to be ordered by her overbearing jewish husband to comply with his scheme (i.e. was a faithful wife to the rule of her husband while being personally unwilling to perform the demanded act), snook back secretly to clean the statue (hence implying to Paris' mind that she would have willingly converted to Christianity given the chance) and then was killed by her angry jewish husband for doing so (hence implying a pseudo-martyrdom and also suggesting parallels with the crucifixion of Jesus by the jews).

That there is a mythic gloss over the events should not be taken - as it has been done by some jewish academics - to suggest that the whole story is bogus (a hint we should note at their desperation to discredit it regardless of the intellectual cost) or some kind of folk tale like those of Geoffrey Chaucer to educate people with anti-Judaic ideas and attitudes. As I have pointed out the details of the story match those found in Judaism and jewish attitudes to Christianity at the time: this cannot but indicate that regardless of a little rhetorical gloss there is a strong factual basis for Paris' account.

That Abraham strangled his wife to death secretly is also no surprise as what she did could easily be viewed as idolatry: thus punishable by death as if Floria converted then she would be an apostate and thus her husband would regard her as already dead. (16)

We do not know how Abraham was caught and brought to book by the English authorities, but one suspects from Paris' narrative that it had something to do with the suffocation of Floria and that this had - for one reason or another - raised suspicions about Abraham's involvement in her death. Presumably during the investigation the authorities stumbled onto Abraham's (literal) dirty little secret and justifiably disgusted they promptly arraigned Abraham in the King's Court for his behaviour.

Abraham was by this time panicking because as any jew in the medieval world knew: he was liable to face a death sentence for what he had done (hence Paris' comment about how the death penalty should have been used). However presumably due to the influence of his owner-protector Earl Richard: Abraham was able to get away with a mere hefty prison sentence in one of the King's own prisons at the Tower of London.

In a demonstration of his apparent egoistical tendencies Abraham offered to turn king's evidence (this was not an uncommon behaviour among jews) (17) and swear that there was a plot among the jews in England against the country and its monarch (which was in itself a not implausible suggestion (18) considering the Islamo-jewish alliance of the period). (19)

Whether or not this was true or not we cannot reasonably judge: it seems superficially unlikely, but it is somewhat plausible due to the politically and economically well-connected international nature of the jewish Diaspora before, during and after this time (as well as its well-documented history of plots spanning countries and even empires [cf. Cassius Dio as well as the jewish role in the Islamic invasion and occupation of Spain]).

Regardless of that: when the predictable happens and the jews in England accuse Abraham of crimes himself including coin-clipping. We see further proof of the authenticity of the account that Paris gives us in that he tells us that the jews immediately attempted to put Abraham to death: in other words they passed a rabbinical death sentence on him (that, as previously discussed, they frequently did do), (20) which would mean that only the intervention of his owner on Abraham's side and the non-intervention of a higher legal power on the side of the mass of the jews could save Abraham from death.

This again indicates the authenticity of Paris' narrative as it suggests that Paris was familiar with the fact that jews could initiate legal proceedings against their own people in their own courts with impunity and could pass death sentences, which could only be ratified or stopped by the monarch or an influential aristocrat with direct legal involvement (like Earl Richard).

That it once again came down to a war of bribes between Abraham (offering seven hundred marks or seven manors worth of annual rent) and his fellow jews (offering a thousand marks or ten manors worth of annual rent) (21) is perhaps predictable, but it also indicates the authenticity of the narrative as it is the sort of highly litigious behaviour that we tend to associate with jews both historically and currently.

After all why include such an odd and out-of-place detail in a mythic/folkloric account or a cautionary tale?

The only reason that Abraham won out in the end over the rest of the jewish community and - as evidenced by Paris' obvious anger at the proceedings - the Church was simply because he had a powerful protector in Earl Richard and he paid the king a huge amount of money (the income of a noble for a year effectively) as a 'fine' (aka a bribe) to get off scot free (usually the right of the nobility not the jews I might add).

Thus we can clearly see that Paris' account of an anti-Christian desecration by a jew is in all likelihood completely genuine and that the small amount of mythic gloss that he has applied to the story - in order to give it an appropriate Christian moral teaching - does not suggest that the story itself is unhistorical. Rather the fact that the details of the story in relation to Abraham's conduct match the practices of Judaism in the medieval era and are not in and of themselves unlikely to have occurred.

Thus we can reasonably suggest that Paris' account is a factual one and that Abraham did precisely what he tells us he did.

References

(1) This is available at the following address: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/jews-and-coin-clipping-in-medieval

(2) See Elliot Horowitz, 2007, 'Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence', 1^st Edition, Princeton University Press: Princeton

(3) One such very recent incident (as in one month before the time of this writing) is described here: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/21/us-palestinians-israel-monastery-idUSBRE97K0K320130821; http://www.jpost.com/National-News/Molotov-cocktail-thrown-at-monastery-outside-Beit-Shemesh-323777

(4) Horowitz, Op. Cit., pp 46-146; Israel Jacob Yuval, 2008, 'Two Nations in your Womb: Perceptions of Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages', 1^st Edition, University of California Press: Berkeley, pp. 92-115

(5) Israel Shahak, 2002, 'Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years', 3^rd Edition, Pluto Press: Sterling

(6) Ariel Toaff, Gian Marco Lucchese (Trans.) and Pietro Gianetti (Trans.), 2007, 'Blood Passover: European Jews and Ritual Murder', 1^st Edition, Societa Editrice il Mulino: Milan, pp. 130-132

(7) Richard Vaughan, 1986, 'Chronicles of Matthew Paris: Monastic Life in the Thirteenth Century', 1^st Edition, St. Martins Press: New York, pp. 214-215

(8) On this see Anna Foa, Andrea Grover (Trans.), 2000, 'The Jews of Europe after the Black Death', 1^st Edition, University of California Press: Berkeley, pp. 37-39; Barbara Tuchman, 1978, 'A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14^th Century', 1^st Edition, Ballatine: New York, pp. 110-111

(9) Horowitz, Op. Cit., pp. 175-177

(10) Shahak, Op. Cit., pp. 16-17; Myer Lew, 1944, 'The Jews of Poland: Their Political,  Economic, Social and Communal Life in the Sixteenth Century as reflected in the Works of Rabbi Moses Isserls', 1^st Edition, Edward Goldston: London, p. 88

(11) Horowitz, Op. Cit., pp. 157-160; Shahak, Op. Cit., p. 26; Daniel Lasker, 1977, 'Jewish Philosophical Polemics against Christianity in the Middle Ages', 1^st Edition, Ktav: New York, pp. 157-158; also see Guide for the Perplexed 1:1

(12) For example Kitzur Schulchan Aruch 4:1; also see Guide for the Perplexed 3:32

(13) For example Kitzur Schulchan Aruch 2:1; 3-4

(14) Horowitz, Op. Cit., pp. 165-172

(15) Shahak, Op. Cit., pp. 14-17; Lew, Op. Cit., pp. 128-130

(16) Horowitz, Op. Cit., p. 156; Foa, Op. Cit., pp. 70-71; Shahak, Op. Cit., p. 17; also see Guide for the Perplexed 3:37 for the detailed jewish justification of this view

(17) Foa, Op. Cit.,pp. 30-35; also see Hyam Maccoby (Ed.), 1993, 'Judaism on Trial: Jewish-Christian Disputations in the Middle Ages', 2^nd Edition, Littman Library of Jewish Civilization: London

(18) Foa, Op. Cit., p. 14

(19) Bernard Lewis, 1984, 'The Jews of Islam', 1^st Edition, Princeton University Press: Princeton, pp. 18; 62-64; 102; Horowitz, Op. Cit., p. 160

(20) Shahak, Op. Cit., pp. 14-17; Lew, Op. Cit., pp. 128-130

(21) I have based the annual rent calculation on Christopher Dyer, 2002, 'Making a Living in the Middle Ages: The People of Britain 850 – 1520', 1^st Edition, Yale University Press: New Haven, p. 148