Papal Power and Protection in the Shebet Yehudah

The sixteenth‐century Shebet Yehudah is an account of the persecutions of Jews in various countries and epochs, including their expulsion from Spain in the fifteenth century. It is not a medieval text and was written long after many of the events it describes. Yet although it cannot give us a contemporary medieval standpoint, it provides important insights into how later Jewish writers perceived Jewish–papal relations in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. Although the extent to which Jewish communities came into contact either with the papacy as an institution or the actions of individual popes varied immensely, it is through analysis of Hebrew works such as the Shebet Yehudah that we are able to piece together a certain understanding of Jewish ideas about the medieval papacy as an institution and the policies of individual popes. This article argues that Jews knew only too well that papal protection was not unlimited, but always carefully circumscribed in accordance with Christian theology. It is hoped that it will be a scholarly contribution to our growing understanding of Jewish ideas about the papacy's spiritual and temporal power and authority in the Later Middle Ages and how this impacted on Jewish communities throughout medieval Europe.     

Sclerochronological analysis of archaeological mollusc assemblages: methods,applications and future prospects

Accreting skeletal tissues found in bone, teeth, otoliths and molluscan shell act as sensitive recorders of local environmental and climatic conditions. Owing to their robust nature, ubiquity and abundance in the archaeological record as well as the potential for high-resolution data acquisition, the accreting skeletal tissues of archaeological molluscs are increasingly employed as palaeoenvironmental proxies. Researchers have chiefly utilised such proxies to extend instrumental records of environmental conditions through palaeoenvironmental reconstruction and explore the impact of environmental and climatic change on human populations. However, the use of environmental proxies from the archaeological record can be hampered by a number of methodological challenges including inadequate sampling strategies, appropriate calibration, the use of inappropriate proxies and the broad extrapolation of localised results. This paper reviews the use of molluscan shell from archaeological contexts as palaeoenvironmental proxies. We focus on the application of sclerochronology—a suite of high-resolution physical and geochemical data recovery methods widely used in conjunction with molluscan shell. This paper presents an overview of the potential of these techniques in approaching more nuanced understandings of human-environment interactions and how they can be more successfully incorporated into archaeological research.     

Healthy discretion? Breastfeeding and the mutual maintenance of motherhood and public space

Although idealizations of motherhood are ever in flux, specific historical moments can be said to produce distinctive tropes of ‘good’ motherhood that have very real impacts on how women act and conceptualize themselves as mothers. This article examines good motherhood in its current iteration, and how now-common beliefs about breastfeeding are implicated in its construction. Furthermore, it looks at the ways in which idealizations of motherhood discipline the breastfeeding body so that it will fit into public space without disruption. I discuss the contradictory impacts of characterizations of the good mother as they appeared in the pro-breastfeeding dialogs that arose following a 2007 incident in which a mother was asked to cover herself up while nursing in a Kentucky restaurant. I posit that while these characterizations helped to make breastfeeding a more widely accepted public activity, they also had the effect of reifying a very narrow conception of what it means to be a good mother. I make this claim through an analysis of two common refrains heard in pro-public-breastfeeding arguments: breast milk is exceedingly healthy and mothers should not be persecuted if they nurse discreetly. Although these assertions together are compelling to the general public in that they provide a scientific justification for breastfeeding while at once assuaging fears of discomfort presented by a reproductive act being performed in a public space, I suggest that they also work to discipline women and maintain public-space-as-usual.