Medieval antisemitic depictions tracked Jews’ physical proximity to Christian Europe

Evidence

Fleck suggests that the negative treatment of Jews in Mandeville’s Travels is due to “their actual physical proximity to Western Europe,” and goes on to interpret their depiction in terms of Jan Mohamed’s theory of “Manichean Allegory.” — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 908

Categorization

• QUESTION: The physical-proximity explanation for harsher treatment is intriguing — worth chasing the original Fleck article to see how proximity translates into representational hostility.