Levi's Vindication: The 1007 Anonymous “as It Really Is.” By Kenneth Stow. Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 2017. xvii + 250 pp. $29.95 hardcover

• Published in: Church History 2021, Vol.90 (1), p.179-180
• Main Author: Frassetto, Michael
• Format: Review
• Language: English
• Subjects: 11th century; 13th century; Book Review Essays; Hebrew language; Jewish people; Popes; Religious history
• ISSN: 0009-6407; 1755-2613
• DOI: 10.1017/S0009640721000962

For Stow, the text, describing persecution of the Jews by Robert the Pious of France and an appeal to the pope by the Jewish leader Jacob ben Yequtiel, offers a cautionary tale against Jewish reliance on secular authorities for protection and a sophisticated understanding of papal authority and papal protection of the Jews rather than an accurate description of historical events. In this context, he demonstrates how the 1007 Anonymous is best understood as a veiled commentary on the increasing threat to the Jews from secular authorities in the thirteenth century and the hope for papal protection against those threats. Stow's claim that the 1007 Anonymous copied a passage from Glaber's history is also erroneous and a consequence of Stow's failure to engage with newer scholarship, which notes the small number and limited geographic dispersal of copies of Glaber's work.