Early Medieval Christian Identity and Anti‐Judaism: The Case of the Visigothic Kingdom

Abstract

This article discusses the efforts by Catholic rulers to eliminate the Jewish communities of the Visigothic kingdom in Spain. Their sustained effort to define Christian identity through the forced baptism of Jews and criminalization of Judaism was unusual in early medieval Europe. In explaining Visigothic anti‐Judaism, modern historians have disagreed over the roles of Iberian Jews, Visigothic kings, and Catholic church leaders such as Isidore of Seville. This article suggests that rather than seeking causation in royal greed, religious fanaticism, or ‘crypto‐Judaism’, historians can more fruitfully call upon the approaches used by scholars of later medieval Christian identity and anti‐Judaism in Western Europe.