Medieval apocalyptic legend placed enclosed Jews as a genocidal threat on Europe’s margin

Evidence

In a chilling passage that Braude has elsewhere characterized as “a warrant for genocide,” the author of Mandeville’s Travels describes the remote northern mountain pass where “the Iewes of x. lynages [tribes] ben enclosed, that men clepen [call] Goth and Magoth” (29; 192.7–9). He recounts the legend, popular throughout the Middle Ages, of how Alexander the Great shut them up there behind great mountainous gates, “so that thei dwellen there all faste ylokked and enclosed” (29; 192.18–19), and explains that “the Iewes han no propre lond of hire owne,” except for “that lond betwene the mountaynes” (29; 192.32–34). So far, it would seem that the “place” of the Jews, in Mandeville’s Travels, is at the margin of the known world: on the mappaemundi, the two enclosing mountains, or ubera aquilonis, appear at the northernmost extreme. Yet in this paranoid vision of the world, the Jews represent a threat located both far away in the wilderness, and in one’s own backyard: “[M]en seyn thei schulle gon out in the tyme of Antecrist, and that thei schulle maken gret slaughter of Cristene men. And therfore alle the Iewes that dwellen in alle londes lernen alleweys to speken Ebrew in hope that whan the other Iewes schulle gon out, that they may vnderstonden hire speche and to leden hem into Cristendom for to destroye the Cristene peple” (29; 193.19–25). — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 299

Categorization

• SEED: The Alexander-the-Great-gates legend of the enclosed ten tribes is a rich essay subject: how an ancient legend became a paranoid framework that designated a people for annihilation once they ‘escaped’ their enclosure.