SINGING SONGS AND CARRYING CANDLES: THE DEVELOPMENT OF ASHKENAZI JEWISH MARRIAGE CUSTOMS AND RITUALS FROM TALMUDIC AND CHRISTIAN SOURCES, C. 850- 1300 CE

Abstract

This theses studies the communication of wedding traditions between Jews and Christians in medieval Europe, focusing specifically on the Jews of the Ashkenazi region, and challenging the traditional understanding of the origins of medieval Jewish wedding rites. While the "inward acculturation” phenomenon as defined by Ivan G. Marcus has become a larger focus of the historical study of medieval Ashkenazi Judaism, there has been very little study of how living among medieval European Christians affected Jewish wedding rituals. This theses argues that the long history of shared community between medieval Ashkenazi Jews and Christians allowed Jews to borrow, adopt, and adapt Christian rituals to fit their own desires for wedding practices, while the rise and fall of an intensifying adversarial relationship between Ashkenazi Jews and Christians led the newly powerful Ashkenazi rabbis to reject these origins in favor of the Biblically-focused approach which would come to dominate traditional Judaism.