Ashkenazi Jewry in the later Middle Ages. Potentials of Regional Networks towards Coping, Adaptation, and Transformation

该项目调查了阿什肯纳兹犹太少数民族的代理选择和复原策略，即在德意志王国和邻近的讲德语的犹太人定居点地区，面对14世纪和16世纪之间的混乱现象。在第一个资助时期，1348年至1351年的严重迫害和1380年至1420年阿什肯纳兹犹太人经历的加强镇压阶段为两项独立的研究提供了机会。在第二个资助期，鉴于留给犹太家庭和社区的选择，我们将关注新一轮加强的法律和意识形态努力，旨在从1470年开始排除犹太人和破坏性现象。在两个供资期结束时，我们打算评估个人和集体行动者（联网、移民、外交、皈依）采取的中期复原力战略对阿什肯纳兹犹太人生活条件长期发展的影响。我们将检验弹性过程正在发生变化的假设：在一系列破坏性现象的累积影响下，它们不仅具有应对和适应的特征，而且倾向于激活转型的潜力。我们打算证明，这种变化可以追溯到机构和个体代理人之间的关系。除了犹太人在城市社区的传统生活形式之外，从15世纪后期开始，我们越来越多地面对一种犹太人，这种犹太人在之前的研究中被描述为“原子化”，但实际上，这种犹太人的特征是网状的定居点结构和强大的个人代理人的活动，他们共同塑造了在许多重要地区持久形成“农村犹太人”的先决条件。因此，本项目框架内的第三项研究涉及“区域网络中应对、适应和转型的潜力”。它将侧重于对三个地区的比较分析，这三个地区在近代早期的转折时期仍然有大量的犹太人定居点：弗朗哥尼亚、维特劳和阿尔萨斯。在以前的历史研究中，这三者都得到了赞赏，特别是考虑到有利的领主结构。对比分析将使我们能够评估个人、网络和机构（社区）在1470年至16世纪中期的复原力过程中的相对重要性，反映在应对、适应和转型中。因此，实证研究将有助于更好地理解中世纪末期德系犹太人-犹太人社会和基督教-犹太人关系中的动态，将它们视为恢复过程。

This project investigates the options of agency and the resilience strategies of the Jewish minority of Ashkenaz, i.e., in the German Kingdom and the neighbouring areas of settlement of German-speaking Jews, in the face of convulsive phenomena of disruption between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. During the first funding period the serious persecutions of 1348–51 and a phase of intensified repression experienced by the Jews of Ashkenaz between c.1380 and c.1420 offered the occasions for two separate studies. In the second funding period we will look at the new round of intensified legal and ideological efforts aimed at excluding Jews and disruptive phenomena from c.1470, in view of the options left to the Jewish families and communities. By the end of the two funding periods we intend to arrive at an assessment as to the influence of mid-term resilience strategies adopted by individuals and collective agents (networking, migration, diplomacy, conversion) on the long-term development in the conditions of Jewish life in Ashkenaz. We will test the hypothesis that resilience processes were changing: Under the cumulating influence of a series of disruptive phenomena, they feature not only coping and adaptation but tended to activate also potentials of transformation. We propose to show that this change can be traced in the relationship between instuttions and individual agents. Next to the traditional forms of Jewish life in urban communities, from the late-fifteenth century on we increasingly confront a Jewry that has been described as ‘atomized’ in previous research but which, in fact, is characterize by network-like settlement structures and the activity of strong individual agents, who together shaped the preconditions for a durable formation of ‘rural Jewry’ in a number of important regions. The third study in the framework of the present project is hence concerned with ‘Potentials of Coping, Adaptation, and Transformation in Regional Netoworks’. It will focus on a comparative analysis of three regions in which, at the turn of the Early Modern Period, still featured a substantial number of Jewish settlements: Franconia, the Wetterau, and Alsace. The three have all been appreciated in previous historical research, particularly in view of the favourable structures of lordship. Comparative analysis will allow us to assess the relative importance of individuals, networks, and institutions (communities) in the resilience processes between c.1470 and the mid-sixteenth century, reflected in coping, adaptation, and transformation. Empirical research will thus contribute to a better understanding of the dynamics at work in Ashkenazi-Jewish society and in Christian-Jewish relations at the end of the medieval period, by viewing them as resilience processes.