The ideology of reform and changing ideas concerning Jews in the works of rupert of deutz and hermannus quondam iudeus
In 1965 Lea Dasberg postulated that one result of the Investiture Struggle was that the political and economic status of the Jews began to erode. Jews, as the perceived allies of the emperor, were cast in the role of the enemies of an increasingly assertive Church intent on establishing its freedom from all non-ecclesiastical interference.' This theory has not received widespread acclaim; nonetheless, there is an obvious appeal in the suggestion that one should investigate possible connections between the Gregorian Reform and changing twelfth-century attitudes of Christians to Jews. The religious revival toward the end of the eleventh century, which spilled over into the twelfth century, was marked by the attempt of the reforming popes to disengage the Church from lay authority. In the eyes of popes such as Gregory VII, only a Church unimpeded by temporal encroachment could play its allotted function to create in society iustitia, or justice. And that meant total compliance of all who lived in that society with the life ordained by Jesus Christ.2 Only a universal Church that was properly steered by Rome, through papal legates and bishops who looked to Rome for instruction, could effectively play this role. One side of the Reform movement thus concentrated on the structure which the Church needed in order to Christianize society.
Rethinking the Schism of 1054: Authority, Heresy, and the Latin Rite
In the year 1053, at the request of the Byzantine patriarch, Michael Kerullarios (1043–58), Archbishop Leo of Ochrid denounced the “priesthood of the Franks and the reverend pope” for observing Jewish rites through their celebration of the Eucharist with azymes, the same kind of unleavened bread used for Passover. Leo made these accusations in a letter addressed to John, archbishop of Trani in southern Italy, a region of coexisting Latin and Greek religious traditions that had been destabilized by the recent invasion of the Normans. The epistle was subsequently passed along to papal confidante Humbert of Silva Candida, who translated it into Latin and presented it to Pope Leo IX (1048–54). Around that same time, the two churchmen also heard news that the Greek patriarch had anathematized all those observing the Latin rite in Constantinople. A flurry of inconclusive correspondence ensued between the pope, the patriarch, and the Byzantine ruler, Constantine IX Monomachos (1042–55). In response to this persistent crisis, Pope Leo dispatched a legation to Constantinople that included Humbert, Frederick of Lorraine, and Peter of Amalfi. On 16 July 1054, after a series of acrimonious debates, the legates deposited a bull of excommunication against Kerullarios and his supporters on the high altar at Hagia Sophia. The patriarch responded in kind by excommunicating Humbert and his followers.
Continents of Liberty: Emerson and Gerald Vizenor’s Chair of Tears
Ralph Waldo Emerson protested what came to be known as the Trail of Tears in a public letter to President Martin Van Buren in 1838. Th e Cherokee Nation, he argued, had been cheated by a “sham treaty” (Emerson, “Letter” 50), the will of the people ignored, and a false acquiescence to removal written into law. In making a passionate appeal to the highest “chair” of the land, Emerson underscored the great political and moral stakes involved: