The Jews lived on a basis of good understanding with their
neighbors, and came into frequent intercourse with them. Even
the clergy maintained relations with Jewish scholars. It was the
incessant efforts of the higher ecclesiastics and of the papacy
that little by little created animosity against the Jews, which
at the epoch of Rashi was still not very apparent. The
collections of canonical law by force of tradition renewed the
humiliating measures prescribed by the last Roman emperors.
The Jews throughout France spoke French; and they either had
French names or gave their Hebrew names a French form. In the
rabbinical writings cities are designated by their real names, or
by Hebrew names more or less ingeniously adapted from the Latin
or Romance. With the secularization of their names, the Jews
adopted, at least partially, the customs and, naturally, also the
superstitions of their countrymen. The valuable researches of
Gudemann and Israel Levi show how much the folklore of the two
races have in common. Moreover, when two peoples come in contact,
no matter how great the differences distinguishing them, they are
bound to exert mutual influence upon each other. No impervious
partitions exist in sociology.
It would thus be an anachronism to represent the Jews of the
eleventh century as pale and shabby, ever bearing the look of
hunted animals, shamefaced, depressed by clerical hate, royal
greed, and the brutality of the masses.
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