The Jew Who Wasn't There: Studies on Jews and Their Absence in Old Norse Literature The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Cole, Richard. 2015. The Jew Who Wasn't There: Studies on Jews and Their Absence in Old Norse Literature. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:23845410 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA The Jew Who Wasn't There: Studies on Jews and their Absence in Old Norse Literature A dissertation presented by Richard Cole to The Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of Germanic Languages and Literatures Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts May 2015 Copyright Notice This copy of the dissertation has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with its author and that no quotation from the dissertation and no information derived from it may be published without the author’s prior consent. © Richard Cole, 2015. Abstract This dissertation explores certain attitudes towards Jews and Judaism in Old Norse literature. Regardless of an apparent lack of actual Jewish settlement in the Nordic region during the Middle Ages, medieval Icelanders and Norwegians frequently turned to the image of 'the Jew' in writing and in art, sometimes using him as an abstract theological model, or elsewhere constructing a similar kind of ethnic Other to the anti-Semitic tropes we find in medieval societies where gentiles really did live alongside Jews. The aim of this dissertation is to investigate the differing histories and functions projected onto the absent Jew in medieval Scandinavia. iii The Jew Who Wasn't There: Studies on Jews and their Absence in Old Norse Literature Chapter 1: Introductory Problems of History, Nomenclature and Absence pp. 1-40. Chapter 2: Learned and Popular Knowledge of Jewish Culture pp. 41-95. Chapter 3: Proto-racial thinking and its application to Jews in Old Norse literature. pp. 96-118. Chapter 4: Snorri Sturluson and the Jews pp. 119-36. Chapter 5: The Importance of Elsewhere: Iceland, Judenreinheit, and Homotopia. pp. 136-73. Chapter 6: Brandr Jónsson, a Philo-Semite between Iceland and Norway pp. 174-231. Conclusion: On “Thinking with Jews”, or “-Semitisms” pp. 232-47. Appendix I: An Analysis of AM 685d 4to, 30v-31r p. 248. Appendix II: N 248 & N A362 - Echoes of the Sefer HaBahir? pp. 249-55. Appendix III: Moyses in Bergen, 3rd November 1340. pp. 256-57. Bibliography pp. 258-300. iv Acknowledgements There are many people without whom this thesis could not have been written. To them I owe great gratitude. In London: Alexis Hatto, the cleverest man I know, Thomas Ottey (thanks for all those Collywood evenings), Israel Sandman, Adam Mowl hustlerus indomitabilis, Toby Ewin, with whom I enjoyed many a roving, eclectic conversation deep into the night, and Helena Forsås-Scott, without whose intervention I doubt I'd have finished my BA, let alone a PhD. Just over the border in my native Surrey and further south to East Sussex too, it is a pleasure to thank my family for their support. In Boston: Jerold Frakes, Andrew Walton, Joel Anderson and Nicole Burgoyne, a good friend who also guided me through many a paperwork nightmare (usually of my own making). John Hamilton and Judith Ryan demonstrated enormous powers contra grapheocrateos to help me get this work defended in a timely fashion. In Copenhagen: Hugh Atkinson, Christian Etheridge, Marteinn Helgi Sigurðsson incantator sub ulmis, Peter Solling Jørgensen, Jacob Mellåker, and Ragnheiður Mósesdóttir, who hosted me at The Arnamagnæan Institute. In Ulster: Andy Foote and the Foote Family, upon whose dining table this thesis was first begun and three years later eventually finished. Andy, thanks for reminding me that I'll always have two sides, one who studies at Harvard and one to whom I leave the more day-to-day affairs. I would also like to thank Antje Vom Lehn for assisting me with Arbman's work at the Carlsberg Glyptotek. Dale Kedwards provided valuable guidance on AM 732b 4to. Richard Perkins was generous both with sharing obscure resources and with his knowledge of the Scandinavian presence in East Anglia. This thesis has had several supervisors, each of whom contributed to it immensely and to whom I am very much indebted. The project began at University College London under Christopher Abram, who first introduced me to the joys of Old Norse literature as an undergraduate. Haki Antonsson and Richard North inherited Chris's stewardship, and from them I learnt a great deal, particularly in the Housman Rooms as mice scurried about our feet. Jonathan Adams, whose work on Jews and Muslims in East Norse Literature I very much admire, then joined as a supervisor. Our supervisions in the cantine at KUA proved most stimulating and caught no shortage of infelicities in this thesis. When I transferred to Harvard University in 2014, Stephen Mitchell took over as my supervisor. We were then joined by Joseph Harris and Jeffrey McDonough. It is a most pleasurable duty to thank Prof. Mitchell for his rabble-rousing wit, which always leaves me feeling that the world will somehow turn out alright in the end, Prof. Harris for his kind, dry humour and boundless gentleman- ness, and Prof. McDonough (and Martha) for their wonderful generosity of spirit. I am happy to thank all three men for sharing their inestimable erudition. Last, but certainly not least, I would like to thanks Kristen Mills, who not only endured but also facilitated my nocturnal writing habits and heard no end of confused reports on this thesis's progress. To Kristen, unicus est, sed possum dicere solummodo cum vulgato dictum, amo te. Richard Cole Newtownards, Ulster. St. Hunegund's Day 2014. v List of Figures and Tables (excluding Appendices) Fig. 1. Jewish settlements and expulsions during the Middle Ages, from: Dan Cohn-Serbok. Atlas of Jewish History. (London: Routledge, 1996) Fig. 2. Carl Gustaf Hellqvist. Valdemar Atterdag brandskattar Visby, 1882, oil on canvas, 2 x 3.3m, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm. Fig. 3. Ecclesia, Vita, Synagoga, Mors from the Gunhildkors. Illustration adapted from Langberg, 1986. Fig. 4. DR 373. Fig. 5. Spurious Hebrew characters in the First Grammatical Treatise. Fig. 6. AM 685d 4to 30v-31r. Fig. 7. Deathbed scene from the Teiknibok 17v. Fig. 8. Malchus struck by St. Peter, Teiknibók 9r. Fig. 9. Bald, hook-nosed Jew helps apply the crown of thorns. Teiknibók 6r. Fig. 10. Jew with effeminate eyelashes from Crucifixion, Teiknibók 6v. Fig. 11. Detail from Crucifixion, Teiknibók 6v. Fig. 12. Dark-skinned Jew? Teiknibók 6v. Fig. 13. "Sechz", "Enos", "Eroas" Codex Upsaliensis 25v. Fig. 14. Illustrations on Codex Upsaliensis 25r. Fig. 15. “Jew” with tally? Codex Upsaliensis 25r. Fig. 16. Female figure on Codex Upsaliensis 26r. Fig. 17. Jews from Passion scene (detail), Ål Stave Church. Photograph by: Eirik Irgens Johnsen. Fig. 18. Malchus detail, Ål Stave Church. Fig. 19. Detail from Last Supper, Ål Stave Church. Fig. 20. Blind Synagoga with St. Paul. From Kinnsarvik Church, Norway. c. 1200. Fig. 21. “ríða þaðan Muspells synir”? Actually a depiction of the Red Jews from: Der Antichrist 14v (1480). Fig. 22. Some metanymic strata in Sverris saga. Fig. 23. Territories of the Icelandic clans in the first half of the thirteenth century. From: Gunnar Karlsson. “Frá Þjóðveldi til Konungsríkis” in Saga Íslands. vol. 2. ed. by Sigurður Líndal (Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka bókmenntafélagið & Sögufélagið, 1975). Fig. 24. A Victorian-era table schematising the various races of mankind according to skull size and therefore assumed intelligence. Fig. 25. Judensau from Uppsala Cathedral, c. 1350. Photograph by: Stephen Mitchell. Table 1. The Sons of Muspell compared to the Red Jews. Table 2. Geographical Settings in which Jews appear in the Old Norse corpus. vi A Note on Sources and Translations Translations from Latin, Hebrew, Yiddish, and the medieval and modern Scandinavian languages are my own unless stated otherwise. I have generally retained the orthography of cited editions, other than two cases where, at the time of writing, the available editions were close enough to being fully diplomatic that it was presumed to be easier for the reader if I standardised the spelling along the lines of Íslenzk Fornrit or Michael Barnes in A New Introduction to Old Norse. These two cases were Dybwad's Messuskýringar and Mundt's Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar. When referring to Old Norse, I have always provided my own translations. When I was discussing particularly well-known Latin texts, e.g. St. Augustine's De Civitate Dei contra Paganos, I saw little point in 'reinventing the wheel' and so reproduced the most commonly used translated version. For less widely studied works, such as the thirteenth century Norwegian De Spinea Corona, I have provided my own translations. The focus of this thesis is on Old Norse, really meaning Old West Norse (i.e. Old Icelandic and Old Norwegian), and what I call the 'Old Norse-speaking world', in this context meaning medieval Iceland and Norway. The cut-off point after which I considered works no longer to represent medieval tradition was 1499, a date as arbitrary as most other periodisations. I have therefore not included any texts from the sixteenth century or later, unless in a couple of rare instances where I felt that I had good reason to suppose they contained earlier, medieval content.