Isaac and Antichrist in the Archives
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4993840 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Sara Lipton (State University of New York, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2016 |
| Volume | 232 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 3-44 |
| Publication date | 2016-08-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Past & Present (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0031-2746 • E-ISSN: 1477-464X |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/pastj/gtw009 |
| OpenAlex | W2408665248 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
Medieval England is well known and, in some circles at least, much admired for its administrative precocity. The English Crown generated detailed documentation earlier and more consistently (even obsessively) than any other medieval polity, its judicial and financial records constituting an unparalleled source for the study of medieval society and governance. 1 The archives of medieval England also have a more dubious claim to distinction: they house the earliest known anti-Jewish caricature, a sketch atop an Exchequer Receipt Roll from 1233 showing a crowned and monstrously three-faced Jewish financier named Isaac of Norwich presiding over two beak-nosed Jewish companions and a host of demons (see Plate 1 ). 2 The cartoon, which was first published by Cecil Roth in a Jewish Monthly article in 1950, has its own National Archives educational web page and appears on the cover of several books. 3 But, for all its celebrity, it has been subject to surprisingly little in-depth analysis. Roth’s remarks were very brief: he identified the main characters and compared the scene to a miracle play, but otherwise did not attempt to elucidate the cartoon’s meaning. In his study The Jews of Medieval Norwich , published in 1967, Vivian Lipman linked the cartoon to a charge laid in 1234 against one of the caricatured Jews, without exploring the specific features of the image. 4 The most extended discussion to appear since Roth’s note forms a prologue to a study of anti-Semitic stereotypes in eighteenth-century English popular culture. 5 The sketch has thus been approached exclusively as a chapter in Jewish history, and is generally cited as graphic evidence that in the thirteenth century economic resentment and religious bigotry were combining to breed a newly virulent, even racial, form of anti-Semitism. The overall thrust of the consensus is captured in the notes for teachers on the National Archives website: ‘This lesson is suitable for KS3 History Unit 19: “How and why did the Holocaust happen?” ’ 6 This small image, then, seems to herald the widespread paranoia, prejudice and irrational hatred that would so darken modern European Jewish history
Archaeology · Art · Art history · Judaism · Literature · Miracle · Sketch · Theology · Augustinian Studies and Theology · Biblical Studies and Interpretation · Classics · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies · History · Philosophy
| Unique citing works | 5 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,63 |
| Citation span | 2018 - 2026 (9) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |