Medieval descriptions of Jews blurred ethnicity with legal serfdom status

Evidence

The complexities in this rather confusing single sentence are considerable. In fact, it is not as determined as it may appear by ethnic categorisation. The reference to servile status, though on one level certainly an allusion to the legal status of Jews in much of Western Europe as ‘royal serfs’, has a theological origin, and derives from the prevailing notion that Jews had become ‘enslaved to Christ’ through the Resurrection, both in its effective action and through their failure to acknowledge it. — James Renton, Ben Gidley (eds.), Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe, 203