Abstract

At the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, Pope Innocent III enjoined upon the rulers of Europe the requirement to have their Jewish and Muslim subjects visually distinguished from their Christian counterparts by manner of their dress. What resulted was an uneven, patchwork series of regional ordinances on the matter of Jewish dress across Catholic Europe, some of which were repealed and later reinstated, reflecting the complex relationship between the authority of the Catholic Church, who sought to uphold the sacred canons, and the authority of European monarchs, who had their own political and financial interests. Nonetheless, the form in which the identifying dress took varied from kingdom to empire. In the Holy Roman Empire, later the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, the most consistent identifier from the late 15th to the late 18th century for German Jews took the form of a badge in the shape of a yellow felt ring that was attached to the chest of the outermost garment, also known as a Judenring. This thesis is an investigation into the significance of the Judenring as a symbol in the Christian theology of the period, and how German Christians understood themselves and the Jewish ‘other’ in their society by way of the Judenring. First established in the sermons and treatises of both Catholic and later Lutheran thinkers, commentary on German Jews and the Judenring fascinated German Christians, appearing in popular moral stories and mass produced woodcuts and broadsides.