Frauen im Mittelalter by Edith EnnenReview by: Mary Martin McLaughlinThe American Historical Review, Vol. 92, No. 3 (Jun., 1987), pp. 648-649Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1869934 .

Accessed: 25/06/2014 04:43

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Oxford University Press and American Historical Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,preserve and extend access to The American Historical Review.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.125 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 04:43:58 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

648 Reviews of Books

from Eusebius to Machiavelli serves to underline once again the profound differences between me- dieval and Renaissance historical modalities; Renais- sance historical thought was much more deeply indebted to classical rhetoric and, like its ancient predecessor, committed to investigating the mean- ing of events as the product of changing human activity and personality rather than of transcendent, abstract forces.

The editor and authors are to be congratulated for providing a coherent and stimulating investiga- tion of an important topic in the study of medieval historiography, and I hope that my skepticism about the validity of the book's original premise will not deter readers from appreciating their informed and sophisticated approach to the problem.

GABRIELLE M. SPIEGEL

University of Ma?yland

NORMAN GOLB. Lesjuifs de Rouen au moyen dge: Portrait d'une culture oubliee. Publications de l'Universite de Rouen, number 66.) Rouen: The University. 1985. Pp. xxix, 475. 380 fr.

Although economic, intellectual, and literary histo- ries of medieval European Jewish communities ex- ist, profiles of a total civilization, comprising archae- ological, archival, and manuscript evidence respecting virtually every aspect of life and culture, are rare. Norman Golb's monumental book, based on his earlier publication in Hebrew, Histo7y of the Jews in the City of Rouen in the Middle Ages (1976), is such a work. The volume surveys the history and topography of Rouen from the eleventh century through the expulsions of the fourteenth century, covering, inter alia, Abraham Ibn Ezra's sojourn in France and England, the Tosaphists, and other scholars associated by the author with the city. Several relevant documents are translated from Hebrew or Latin into French and are richly anno- tated.

The tone of certainty that reverberates through- out the discussion (even when it might have been preferable to write "probably" or in statements con- cerning controversial subjects) might lead some readers to suspect that material has been stretched to fit the Procrustean bed of the master structure. Can Golb definitely establish that the Torah Statutes are Northern French (and therefore from Rouen)? Is the Cambridge Job commentary published by William Aldis Wright without a doubt the work of Berechiah ha-Naqdan? Must the structure un- earthed during recent archaeological excavations have been a study-house and not a synagogue? Is the issue pivotal, since study-houses have served as prayer-houses and vice versa in traditional Jewish communities until the present? Above all is the

question of Golb's use of what he calls analytic paleography to identify several toponyms that recur in Hebrew manuscripts-DRWM, RDWS, RWM, and so on-as RDWM, that is, Rodom or Rouen. By such reconstructions many central figures in medie- val French Judaism are said to have been born or at least to have resided in Rouen, making the city a major center indeed of medieval Jewish civilization. And yet, if Rouen was central, why was it, as the subtitle states, forgotten? One wishes that RDWM occurred more often as such and not as just a scribal corruption.

Unlike other, less-than-responsible books on other areas of France, which are more creative than methodologically sound, Golb's book is one of con- siderable substance. Many of his hypotheses, indeed perhaps virtually all of them, may eventually be proved correct. Readers would have greater confi- dence if these hypotheses were presented with greater caution. For example, while reading of the ascription of Rouen provenance to the "Great Mah.zor," I wished that there were a colophon that presented certain evidence of this. Then, indeed, the author expresses the same wish and confesses the hypothesis to be precisely that without firmer evidence (pp. 358-59). Would that this approach were more common.

Nonetheless, the material brought together in this volume paints a rich picture of a sampling of Jewish civilization in Northern Europe. Imaginatively pre- sented and carefully analyzed, this book will serve as a window through which to view the richness of French Jewish life.

FRANK TALMAGE

University of Toronto

EDITH ENNEN. Frauen im Mittelalter. 2d ed. Munich: C. H. Beck. 1985. Pp. 300. DM 39.50.

Surveying women's fortunes in medieval society, Edith Ennen cuts a long path through time, from the sixth to the sixteenth century. In other respects, however, her perspectives are significantly re- stricted. Frauen im Mittelalter is a misleading title for a book concerned above all with German women. After broader views of women's status among early Germanic peoples on the Continent and in Frankish society, Ennen focuses essentially on German lands and only occasionally glances across the Rhine, the Alps, and the North Sea, chiefly for comparative purposes or to touch on obligatory figures such as Eleanor of Aquitaine or exemplary cities such as Paris and Florence.

A well-known scholar in medieval German eco- nomic and social history, Ennen looks at women in the Middle Ages most closely through the lenses of her special interests. Traditional in approach,

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.125 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 04:43:58 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Modern Europe 649

largely descriptive in method, meticulous in detail, her survey is a mine of information on certain aspects of medieval women's lives and an extensive review of German scholarship in the areas of her concern. The first of these, the early Middle Ages (500-1050), is dominated by a procession of queens and regents, accompanied by lay and religious no- blewomen, with women of the rural masses more dimly glimpsed. Although these women are not firmly placed in the formative contexts of familial relationships, households, and communities, their roles and activities are described and sometimes illustrated by brief biographical sketches of out- standing individuals.

Two major themes emerge when Ennen reaches the twelfth century and the urban scene that is the heart of her book. One of them, women's often enthusiastic participation in contemporary religious movements, receives a succinct treatment inspired by Herbert Grundmann's "Frauenbewegung," al- though it does not pursue his and more recent insights into the complex significance of women's religious strivings as an active response to the accel- erated institutionalizing of church and society. Much fuller attention is given to a related theme: the expansion of urban life and institutions in later medieval centuries. Urbanization is seen as almost entirely beneficial to women, significantly extending their legal rights, especially in marriage and inheri- tance, and enlarging their economic opportunities. Demonstrating this view are many pages devoted to a tour of late medieval German cities, with emphasis on diversities of evidence, and, most strongly, on Cologne-the European city probably best disposed to the productive economic roles of women. How and why women achieved this prominence in Co- logne and elsewhere and how their work was related to household production, family structures, and economic systems are pressing questions not ade- quately considered within the thematic framework provided here.

In its substance and its concentration on topics dear to German historiography, Ennen's survey seems primarily intended for her compatriots. Its value for American students of women's history will depend on their response not only to what is offered but also to what is missing in a book hardly touched by the concerns and works of American and English scholarship in this field during recent decades. We miss more than convincing interpretive structures and fresh insights in these pages in which no women speak directly or through the kind of analysis that would let their experience speak for them. Empha- sizing important facets of this experience, this useful work also underscores the need for more penetrat- ing examination of the larger problems it poses.

MARY MARTIN MCLAUGHLIN

Millbrook, New York

MODERN EUROPE

ERNST WALTER ZEEDEN. Konfessionsbildung: Studien zur Reformation, Gegenreformation und katholischen Reform. (Tuibinger Beitrage zur Geschichtsforschung, Spat- mittelalter und fruhe Neuzeit, number 15.) Stutt- gart: Klett-Cotta. 1985. Pp. 391.

This is a collection of fourteen articles published between 1950 and 1983 by Ernst Walter Zeeden. When one notes that no fewer than nine appeared before 1960, it is striking that he was working so early on many topics and approaches in Reforma- tion history that only later became fashionable. Among them are concerns with the later sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries; comparisons be- tween the different confessions; interrelationships between the confessions and politics, society, and mentality; the connections between the later medie- val church, Catholic reform, and Counter Reforma- tion; the local and the practical rather than the abstract and theological; a search for common pat- terns of development; and, above all, the ways of promoting confessional identity (Konfessionsbildung) and their limitations. On all these matters Zeeden offers fruitful insights and a multitude of marvel- ous, colorful, and significant examples drawn from his extensive reading in both the sources and the literature.

Yet Zeeden does not seem to enjoy the reputation he deserves. This has prompted me to wonder why some historians are esteemed more highly than they ought to be, whereas others (such as Zeeden) suffer from some degree of unjust neglect. A few reasons come to mind that illuminate both Zeeden's work and the nature of the historical profession, at least in the last few decades. First, Zeeden is personally a modest man, a trait uncommon among the famous. Second, as a scholar he is particularly balanced, equally as ready to cite counterexamples as to es- chew sensationalistic theses that might win him instant fame. In his attempts to discern underlying patterns he never yields to the temptation to con- struct oversimplified models. The widespread pref- erence these days for what is interesting rather than-and even at the expense of-what is right is not to the taste of this admirably careful and subtle scholar. Third, Zeeden has chosen to work on nonmainstream subjects-the later Reformation, Calvinism (five of the fourteen papers treat this subject, which has never been of more than periph- eral interest to German historians), and, worst of all, Catholicism and the Counter Reformation. Zeeden indirectly illumines the old, abiding prejudice on this last issue when he dryly remarks that the term habitually used by historians to label intolerance and the use of force in religious matters is "Counter Reformation," although the various Protestant Ref-

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.125 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 04:43:58 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions