German and Russian Guest Lecture: Kristin Skottki (University of Bayreuth), "Pilgrimage and Expulsion: The Case of Sternberg 1492 and Forced Jewish Migrations"

Public Lecture by Spring 2023 Max Kade Visiting Professor Kristin Skottki, Junior Professor of Medieval History at the University of Bayreuth, Germany

In 2007 Caroline Walker Bynum drew international scholarly attention to the relevance of late medieval Holy Blood sites in Northern Germany with her seminal study ‘Wonderful Blood’. One of her major examples was the pilgrimage site in the small town of Sternberg (Mecklenburg) which was established in 1492 after a trial in which Jews were blamed for having tortured four consecrated hosts. On 24 October 1492, 25 men and two women of Jewish faith were burned at the stake outside the town of Sternberg – and all other Jewish inhabitants were expelled from the dutchy of Mecklenburg, disrupting Jewish life and presence in this area for about 150 years. 

While Bynum and other scholars have mainly focused on the site and objects in Sternberg, in this lecture Kristin Skottki will try to follow the trails of those Jewish men and women who were forced to leave their homes in Mecklenburg and nearby territories. Although available source material on the fate of these refugees and migrants is scarce, the few hints on the destinations they probably went to, such as Nuremberg, Venice and maybe even Jerusalem, will be discussed. 

The aim is to put acts of anti-Jewish violence in a remote part of the medieval German Empire into the perspective of ‘early globalities’ (G. Heng) and migration history. Special attention will therefore be paid to the spatial aspect of such incidents like the one in Sternberg, as the very same paths used by Christians for pilgrimage, by Jews and Christians alike for trade, travel and (forced) migration, were also channels of communication, spreading news and rumors over long distances in the ‘Eufrasian world zone’ (M. Borgolte). 

Possible connections to the simultaneous events in the Iberian Peninsula will also be addressed.

Originally published at germanandrussian.nd.edu. Please check their event page for details, since this event section may not reflect any changes to the event.