Professor Nina Caputo from the History Department of The University of Florida discussed problems with religious conversion in the medieval period on Jan. 21 in Lown 315. Sponsored by The Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry, this event was hosted as part of a series of events called Critical Conversations, which are events that cover specific topics and allow faculty and students to interact with presenters who are discussing their current projects, according to the Brandeis Events page.
The forum centered around Caputo’s work, “The Trouble with Medieval Conversation: Petrus Alfonsi’s Dialogi contra iudaeos and Christian Anxiety about Jewish Conversion.”
Caputo’s draft highlights the issues with medieval conversions from Judaism to Christianity. According to Caputo’s draft, conversion in the medieval period was “culturally, socially, and politically charged during the high middle ages.” Despite sharing Biblical foundations, there were still tensions, “between a policy of protection and the call for mission marked the role of Jews in Christian society as a source of anxiety throughout the Middle Ages,” according to Caputo’s draft.
Caputo’s draft focuses on two 12th-century autobiographical works: “Opusculum de conversione sua” by Hermannus quondam Judaeus and “Dialogi contra judaeos” by Petrus Alfonsi, according to Caputo. The author of the first work, Hermannus, converted to Christianity and later wrote his narrative as a Christian convert, according to Caputo. The author of the other work, Alfonsi, was also a convert who converted in 1106, according to Caputo. These works are pivotal to Caputo’s argument because of the different ways in which they are formatted; while Hermannus provides a narrative leading up to his conversion to Christianity, Alfonsi mentions his conversion briefly while the rest of his text centers around a conversation between a convert and a Jew, according to Caputo.
These narratives are important because both authors announce their status as converts, and based off of historical evidence, one can trace the manuscript copies of these works to members of religious orders, according to Caputo. The religious figures at the time who would have been in possession of these works may have had concerns regarding converts in their communities, therefore the narratives from a convert’s perspective provide insight into the community, according to Caputo.
“In contrast, firsthand conversion accounts offer what may be a more holistic view of the conversion experience,” according to Caputo.
Conversion accounts in the 12th and 13th centuries show the internal spiritual struggle for converts, according to Capulto, since conversion caused shifts socially and psychologically. The later first-hand accounts of conversion articulate the process of conversion in a more strenuous way, according to Capulto.
Caputo is a professor at The University of Florida in the History Department. She has written two books “Nahmanides in Medieval Catalonia: History, Community, Messianism” (2007) and “Debating Truth: The Barcelona Disputation of 1263, A Graphic History” (2017) and co-edited two other books which discuss medieval religion, according to Caputo’s profile page on The University of Florida website. The draft which she presented at Brandeis is the topic of her next book.
Faculty who were in attendance were able to connect some of Caputo’s work to work which they have done and are currently working on. Professor ChaeRan Freeze (NEJS) talked about how Caputo’s work parallels with some of her areas of interest in research in an interview with The Brandeis Hoot. Freeze said she was shocked by the connections she made with her own research involving conversion to Christianity in Jewish communities in 19th century Russia to Caputo’s medieval conversion work. Freeze cited Caputo’s work, which discussed how Christians were suspicious of Jewish converts and the attempt by Christians to distinguish between “authentic and fake or false conversions.” This causes the tension in the conversion narrative, according to Freeze, which affirms Caputo’s argument.
