Challenge: Jewish Guild members and farmers in Europe

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it:

IIRC Jews were not allowed to Join guilds (or Hanzes) nor were they allowed to own land in Northern Europe (if it's also true elsewhere I consider it fair game)

Create a timeline where Jews were allowed to join guilds (as blacksmiths/bakers etc) or own land that they can farm and not forcing them into trading and other professsions. On the whole a more tolerant view of Jews will be needed I'd say. I think there are too many questions that could evolve from the challange so I'll just post three:

- Will antisemism have a smaller role in the future? What role will they play in the reformation?

- How would we be off scientifically today?

- When would we see the first Jewish nobility? (it happenned in A-H)

Regards,
Rhysz
 
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Damn this is a tricky one. Maybe you could have the christian's adopt a different attitude. Instead of seeing the Jews as Jesus' murderers, they could be seen as lost brethren which have to be shown the right path or something like that. Either that or you could have Christianity factionalize to such an extent that they they will vye for support from the Jews some of which are quite rich through banking, trade and making diamonds. I don't know if this is possible. This isn't my area of expertise.
 
I'm surprised that noone is taking a stab at this one. What's wrong with the challenge? Can I fix it?

Regards,
Rhysz
 
I don't think that there were that many Jews in Medieval Europe to begin with. And with much land belonging either to the Church or to the land nobility, I think they might have a better chance at becoming urban burghers than country yeomen. I think you'll need to find a reason for Christian European society to be less Anti-Semitic. What could the Church and the Nobility get out of being tolerant of Jews?
 
IRL they got a lot out of using the Jews as bankers (since Christians, particularly in the 11th-12th Centuries, were forbidden to loan at interest, it was all considered usury). Thus Jews were essentially forced into the role of loaners, and their biggest debtor was the Church which would lay down large tracts of land as collatoral (not that the Jews ever had a chance of seriously collecting). When Philip II in 1182 and Edward I in 1290 expelled the Jews, what they were really doing was remanding all that fat cash the Jews had been making into their own hands. (EDIT: On reviewing Wikipedia, it was actually the land they wanted, the cash they handed out).Thus it behooved a ruler to occasionally expunge the Jews, as it behooved another ruler right next door to accept them.

EDIT: Honestly, I wish I could take up this challenge but I don't know nearly enough about the early Middle Ages, and I suspect you'd have to go very far back to harmonize Jews into European feudal society.
 
The legal disadvantages for Jews were not initially as systematic as they later became. There are traditions you can work with - the problem is that exclusionary policies are the logical outcome of the OTL Middle ages' political thought in Catholic Europe, so the result is likely to be very different from homeline. A limited change having this outcome is hard to see.

One possibility I could see is for the Eastern Roman anti-Jewish legislation not to pass. The exact influence it had on Early Medieval legislation is disputed, but it was certainly one inspiration. Without that, the Western Mediterranean might remain a place where it is natural for Jews to own land and buildings. Later on, there would be no Roman law tradition to influence Canon Law and the Bologna school. That, in turn, was a major influence on late medieval law codes that solidified the exclusion of the Jews. It's probably not going to fully meet your challenge, but it could help.

The guilds are harder: The problem is that guilds are Christian associations by default. A situation much like that in the ancient city state - religious practice was part of life. Even if they had allowed Jews to join (which, theologically, is hard), they would have asked the to pray Christian prayers and take the Eucharist, which is strictly forbidden to them. I think the easier way out if this conundrum is for the guilds never to coime into being as mercantile or artisanal associations. The current assumption is that the power of the guilds arose in response to a labour glut and shrinking markets. A twelfth-century city was still a fairly welcoming place for skilled craftsmen, a fourteenth-century one not so much. Jewish artisans worked in cities throughout much of medieval Europe without being guild members and where the law made allowance for that (e.g. in Spain), they could continue to do so. Perhaps we could posit that the merchant class retains a stronger hold on Europe's cities, or the landholding gentry moves into its walls, and they keep a lid on the guilds because low prices suit them fine? It's a very sketchy idea, but it might do.

How to change Catholic theology is hard to see. After IV Lateran, Jews are technically required to be marked and outcast in Christian communities. The decision is part of a tradition, though. If we just say 'the church is less concerned with social homogeneity', we get a completely different Middle Ages. It would be interesting, though.
 

wormyguy

Banned
Roman Empire conquers all of Germania, and is more tolerant to Jews for whatever reason. Lots of Jews immigrate to Northern Europe, and become accepted members of society. Then the Roman Empire falls, and the Middle Ages begin.

That's the best I can come up with.
 
Is Poland Northern Europe? I've heard arguments that Jewish land ownership lasted into the early Medieval period, but my background in the area is too weak to adequately comment.
 
Is Poland Northern Europe? I've heard arguments that Jewish land ownership lasted into the early Medieval period, but my background in the area is too weak to adequately comment.

Were there Jews in early medieval Poland at all? I doubt they were present in large numbers, even if. Or do Polish historians just use a different definition of 'Early Medieval' than Brits and Germans?

Altogether, it would not really be a surprise, though. It is not always easy to trace these things with the few documents we have, but it looks like in many parts of Europe, the legal apartheid didn't begin to bite until the twelfth or even thirteenth century. Especially in areas where the link between land ownership and military service was not that firmly entrenched.
 

Valdemar II

Banned
Were there Jews in early medieval Poland at all? I doubt they were present in large numbers, even if. Or do Polish historians just use a different definition of 'Early Medieval' than Brits and Germans?

Altogether, it would not really be a surprise, though. It is not always easy to trace these things with the few documents we have, but it looks like in many parts of Europe, the legal apartheid didn't begin to bite until the twelfth or even thirteenth century. Especially in areas where the link between land ownership and military service was not that firmly entrenched.

In many of the countries, Medieval is used for the periode after the conversion to Christianity, and if that's the case for Poland 83gemini is quite likely correct.
 
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