Chapter 30 - Historiography

Summary

The article emphasizes the great variety of Jewish historical writings of the Middle Ages. Based on the explicit perceptions expressed by medieval authors and copyists about their own work, a definition of Jewish historical writings is provided. Already a short survey of important works shows the existence of distinctive traditions in the writing of history: In southern Italy the early works were oriented towards the Second Temple period, local family traditions and the relationship to the Byzantine Empire and the East. The prevailing topics of Ashkenazic historiography were persecution, the Jewish reaction and local history; in southern France, the interest focused on shalshelet ha-qabbalah ( “chain of tradition”), the succession of rabbinic scholars. In Sepharad, both models -- persecution accounts as well as shashelet ha-qabbalah -- were written and merged together. These different traditions have developed in long reception histories and are also visible through the common use of model texts and intertextual relationships. Acknowledgment of agency of Jews, even while applying biblical foils, and interest in the causality of events are obvious in these texts. Further characteristics are inter alia their ethical function, their use as counter-narratives against Christian claims as well as their diverse geographical and chronological scope.