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Thinking with Jews: Jews and Judaism and the Struggle for Orthodoxy in Late Medieval and Reformation England

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Thinking with Jews: Jews and Judaism and the Struggle for Orthodoxy in Late Medieval and Reformation England Thinking with Jews: Jews and Judaism and the Struggle for Orthodoxy in Late Medieval and Reformation England By Sean Benjamin Bortz Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Vanderbilt University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in History September 30, 2018 Nashville, Tennessee Approved: Peter G. Lake, Ph.D. Joel F. Harrington, Ph.D. William P. Caferro, Ph.D. Paul Chang-Ha Lim, Ph.D. To my beloved wife, Eliza, who has supported me throughout the years with her gentle and quiet spirit and her unending faith ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work would not have been possible without the support of the Department of History at Vanderbilt University. I am deeply grateful for the encouragement and assistance from my Dissertation Committee who has helped me along the way. The mentorship I have received from Joel Harrington, William Caferro and Paul Lim has made me not only a better historian but also a better human being. I would especially like to thank my adviser, Peter Lake, for his magnanimous spirit, his insightful suggestions along the way and his humanity. Professor Lake inspired me way back when this project was in its infancy and has taught me more about being a historian than I could ever give him credit here. I would also like to thank family and friends along the way who have encouraged me along this journey. Most importantly, I would like to thank my loving and supportive wife Eliza, who has endured years of sacrifice and has provided me with support and encouragement that has enabled me to finish this project. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION.................................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS............................................................................................... iii Chapter Introduction..........................................................................................................................1 1. Images of Jews and Judaism in Late Medieval and Reformation England.....................9 2. Wycliffite Dissidents, Images of Jews and the Struggle for Orthodoxy in Late Medieval England..................................................................................................46 3. Thinking with Jews on and off Stage: Confronting Lollardy and the Struggle for Orthodoxy in Late Medieval England..............................................................................105 4. William Tyndale’s Struggle for Orthodoxy.................................................................163 5. Defenders of Traditional Religion during the Early Reformation...............................221 6. Reformers on the Attack: Jews and Judaism and the Struggle for an Evangelical Orthodoxy........................................................................................................................275 7. John Bale’s War of Attrition: Jews, Traditional Religion and the Struggle for Orthodoxy........................................................................................................................315 8. Defending Traditional Religion against the Evangelical Onslaught............................373 Conclusion.......................................................................................................................395 Epilogue: Images of Jews and Judaism, Real and Imagined...........................................402 Bibliography....................................................................................................................409 iv Introduction In 1536, royal servant and humanist Thomas Starkey described the religious climate of England in A preface to the Kynges hyghnes.1 Starkey laments that there has been disobedience, diversity of religious opinions and a “great breche of christian vnitie.”2 More to the point, Starkey asks his readers how can English Christians become unified when one side “estemeth an nother to be an heretike, or at leeste a scysmatyke” and the other side “iudgeth an nother to be a foolyshe Pharisee, or a superstitious papyste.”3 For Starkey, both sides of the religious divide have been corrupted by either superstition on the part of traditional religion or arrogant opinion on the part of evangelicals. And those two sides have a “corrupt iugement one of an other, by the reson wherof, eche one in hart iugeth other to be, eyther pharisee or heretyke, papist or schismatike, to the which iugement consequently is annexed diuision…a manifest dissolution and an open bracke therof by dissention.”4 Starkey attempts to occupy a vantage point from which he can address the faults of both the traditional church and its evangelical dissenters. For example, he argues that although the staunch defense of ceremonies for everyone goes well beyond the reach of ecclesiastical authorities, since the rites and practices of the Christian religion have varied from time to time and place to place, the criticism of those ceremonies by evangelicals is even more wrong because it leads to a general “contempt of religion” and “the ruine of al christen pollicie” which are actually “maynteyned by rytes & customes ecclesiastical…” If reformers had their way and stripped the Christian religion of all ceremonies, rites and 1 Thomas Starkey, A preface to the Kynges hyghnes (London, 1536; STC 23236). 2 Ibid., sig. A2v-A3r. 3 Ibid., sig. D2r. 4 Ibid., sig. G3v. 1 practices, Starkey argues that religion itself would “by littell and lytell vtterly vanyshe away.”5 But he describes the polemic from both sides to be of “false and blynde perswasion” and he repeats the terms used in the discourse, as sort of a refrain: “some of vs are called of the newe fashion, and somme of the olde, somme phariseys, and some schismatykes, and some also playne heretikes.”6 Starkey then explains how the rhetoric does not accurately portray either side of the religious divide and promotes a solution that reflects his king’s wishes. While reformers eschew the pride of Rome, the defenders of traditional religion wrongly label them as heretics or perhaps the lesser charge of schismatics. Starkey, however, makes a suggestive declaration, which more or less implies coercion, that most members of the newe facion only want “the alteration of certayne ceremonies and customes of the churche, to the encrease of all virtue and of true religion” in deference to both God and king as quiet and obedient subjects. Likewise, adherents to traditional religion who “styffely stycke in the olde ceremonies” are “iudged of other to be superstitious and pharisaicall, folyshe and papisticall” have been misjudged as well. But if the king brings about changes to certain practices in the church Starkey expects those who adhere to traditional religion “wyll euer be gladde as true and loyall subiectes, to all suche to be obedient” to accept those reforms. As an olive branch he defends those adherents too: those “who stande in the olde, they are not be blamed as pharisees, but rather deserue prayse, therin declaring their duetie & obedience…”7 Starkey, undoubtedly reflecting his king’s primary concern, emphasizes obedience to the king as the unifying principle for a nation seemingly polarized by religious disagreement. 5 Ibid., sig. G3v-G4r. 6 Ibid., sig. H1v-H2r. 7 Ibid., sig. H2r-v. 2 Starkey’s Preface reveals two fundamental aspects that relate to this thesis: rhetoric that involves images of Jews and Judaism and the employment of that rhetoric by both defenders of the church and its dissidents in the struggle over what constitutes Christian orthodoxy. Here we have English reformers maligning defenders of traditional religion with a term one encounters in the New Testament or devotional literature that refers to the principal Jewish opponents of Christ, the Pharisees. Apparently the term became pervasive enough that Starkey uses it six times as part of a refrain, all in the context of how reformers characterize adherents of traditional religion.8 But he does not address why this term is used by reformers other than by implying that it is a term of abuse on par with other terms of abuse: papist, schismatic and heretic. As for the struggle for orthodoxy, Starkey does not discuss in detail the fundamental issues that divide defenders of the church and evangelical reformers other than he points to a sharp disagreement over certain church practices, or what he calls ‘ceremonies.’ Reformers, and defenders of traditional religion for that matter, would likely raise issue with the way Starkey minimizes what both sides consider foundational beliefs and doctrines: the nature of the church, the issue of religious authority, truth versus error and the fundamental meaning of faith and its relationship with works. Starkey’s Preface provides a glimpse of what constitutes the chapters to follow. This thesis examines religious discourse between defenders of the traditional church and its dissidents in late medieval and Reformation England, from around the turn of the fifteenth century up to approximately 1560. I argue that during this period of religious upheaval both defenders and dissidents associated one another with images of Jews and Judaism, which negatively characterized opponents and were used by sectarians to 8 In one of these six instances, Starkey uses the derivative pharisaicall. 3 demarcate true religion from error as opposing sides struggled over the meaning of Christian orthodoxy. After the expulsion of the Jews from England in 1290, images of Jews and Judaism remained
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