The Mother Tongues of Medieval English Jews
-
Adrienne Williams Boyarin
Abstract
Scholars of Anglo-Jewish history have traditionally described medieval English Jews as French-speaking, and there is strong and varied evidence of their facility with French, as well as with Hebrew, Aramaic, and (in some circles) Latin. The question of whether medieval English Jews spoke English, however, remains underdetermined. While many have noted the possibility in recent decades, no sustained study of the question exists. This article, by contrast, explores the likelihood of multiple vernaculars for medieval English Jews, including English. It queries scholarly commitment to a singularly French-speaking English Jewry, and it provides some proof of medieval Anglo-Jews’ use of English, both by summarizing available (written) evidence, and by incorporating the domestic (unwritten) environments of Jewish women into the discussion. Considering English Jews’ uses of literacy alongside an invisible archive of vernacular speech, it argues for more deliberate inclusion of English in Anglo-Jewry’s multilingualism.
Article Note
My thanks to the audiences of the January 2020 meeting of the Modern Language Association in Seattle, Washington, and the March 2022 Penn Premodern Studies Seminar (particularly Rita Copeland and Emily Steiner), to whom I presented versions of this article and from whom I received feedback vital to its current form. Other readers and interlocutors include Daniel Boyarin, Shamma Boyarin, Matilda Bruckner, Tobias Daniels, Thelma Fenster, Iain Higgins, and Nicholas Watson, all of whom provided insights and helpful citations, particularly during my time as a Visiting Scholar in Medieval Studies at Harvard University in the spring of 2024. Any remaining infelicities are, of course, my own.
© 2025 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelseiten
- Introduction
- Die Briefbücher des Erfurter Rates bis 1456 als Quelle für Kredite von Juden
- Jewish Archives, Archival Practices, and Jewish-Christian Business Records in the Medieval Holy Roman Empire
- Mirror of the Community? Jews and Books of Obligations in Eger (Cheb)
- Jewish Life in Kolín in Light of Municipal Sources from the Fourteenth to the Sixteenth Centuries
- The 1262 rotulo de puramento (TNA E 101/249/10)
- The Mother Tongues of Medieval English Jews
- Gender, Jewish Credit Markets, and Notarial Culture in the Crown of Aragon
- Jewish Moneylenders and the Use of Notarial Registers in Late Medieval Provence
- Legal Prohibitions on Usury and the Documents of the Cairo Geniza
- Weitere Beiträge
- Lehmann Isaac Kohen, Grandson of Behrend Lehmann and Student of Albrecht Haller: The (Rightful) First Jewish Medical Graduate of the University of Göttingen, 1739
- Die ›Judenoffnung‹ von 1743. Ein Quellenfund zur jüdischen Geschichte von Randegg
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelseiten
- Introduction
- Die Briefbücher des Erfurter Rates bis 1456 als Quelle für Kredite von Juden
- Jewish Archives, Archival Practices, and Jewish-Christian Business Records in the Medieval Holy Roman Empire
- Mirror of the Community? Jews and Books of Obligations in Eger (Cheb)
- Jewish Life in Kolín in Light of Municipal Sources from the Fourteenth to the Sixteenth Centuries
- The 1262 rotulo de puramento (TNA E 101/249/10)
- The Mother Tongues of Medieval English Jews
- Gender, Jewish Credit Markets, and Notarial Culture in the Crown of Aragon
- Jewish Moneylenders and the Use of Notarial Registers in Late Medieval Provence
- Legal Prohibitions on Usury and the Documents of the Cairo Geniza
- Weitere Beiträge
- Lehmann Isaac Kohen, Grandson of Behrend Lehmann and Student of Albrecht Haller: The (Rightful) First Jewish Medical Graduate of the University of Göttingen, 1739
- Die ›Judenoffnung‹ von 1743. Ein Quellenfund zur jüdischen Geschichte von Randegg
