and that Christians were aware of that fact. From this exchange, and from the other evidence, both positive and negative, available to us, we can infer that the typical French-speaking Jew did not know Latin well, whether he or she was literate in Hebrew or not. Although here and there individual medieval French-speaking Jews like Joseph Bekhor Shor studied Latin, on a communal level, Latin remained the language of the Christian other.65
Returning to the debate, the Christian obliges the Jew’s request and begins to explain the mystery in French.
Ge paroil du filz dieu qui ci nasqui en terre;
S’ooille avoit perdu qu’il est venuz requerre.
Il est nez de la virge come d’espine rose.
Issuz est de sa chanbre parmi la porte close:
Si entra et oissi du ventre de la feme
Que sa virginité n’i perdi onc la dame,
N’i ot corrupcïon ne avant ne arriere.
Au concevoir, au nestre et enprés fu entiere.
Si con puet par le voirre et issir et passer
Li soleus, sanz le voirre maumetre et dequasser,
Ensement et encor par plus soutil maniere
Entra diex en la virge et s’en rissi arriere. (ll. 9–20)66
(I speak of the son of God who was born here on earth;
He had lost his flock and came to seek it out.
He was born of the virgin like a rose on its thorn bush.
He emerged from her womb through its closed door:
He entered and emerged from the belly of the woman,
In such a way that the lady never lost her virginity,
Nor was defiled before or after.
During conception, during the birth, and afterward she remained whole.
In the same way the sun can pass through glass
Without damaging or shattering it,
In a similar way, but even more adeptly,
God entered into the virgin and afterward came out again.)
If the Christian thinks he has stumbled across a fool, the Jew declares, he most assuredly has not (ll. 35–36)! How could a virgin give birth? How could God, so great that the whole world cannot contain him, be enclosed in the belly of a woman? How could the One who has always existed have had a beginning? How could one God be three? Speech follows speech, with the eloquence of the Christian matching that of the Jew. The turning point comes when the Christian interprets for the Jew the prophecy of Isa. 11:1–2: “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding” (NRSV). The Christian explains, “La verge c’est la virge; par la flor doiz entendre celui qui en la virge daigna por nos descendre” (ll. 385–86) (The branch is the virgin; by the flower you must understand the one who deigned to come down for us in the virgin). Other verses from Isaiah and Jeremiah are offered by the Christian and, finally, a paraphrase of Moses’ words in Deut. 28:66, which medieval Christians commonly understood as referring to the Jews’ failure to recognize Christ.67
Sez que dit de sa mort Moÿsés, vostre maistre[s]?
“El fust verras ta vie devant tes ieus pendue.
Ta vie ert devant toi, ne par toi n’ert creüe.”
Cil qui fu mis en croiz, cist estoit nostre vie
Qui pendoit devant vos et nel creüstes mie. (ll. 419–23)68
(Do you know what Moses, your teacher, said about His death?
“You will see your life hanging before you on the cross.
Your life will be before you, but you will not believe it.”
The one who was placed on a cross, He was our life,
Which was hanging right before you, and yet you did not believe.)
The Jew, finally convinced of the Christian’s authority, proclaims that the Messiah has come and says, “ge me vo[i]s baptoier et ma mauvaitie secte gerpir et renoier” (ll. 429–30)69 (I am going to get baptized and forsake and renounce my wicked sect). The Christian has the last words: “Bien est; bien ai tendu a ce que j’ai mené, puis que j’ai un juÿf a creance amené” (ll. 431–32) (Good. Rightly I persevered in accomplishing my task, for I led a Jew to faith). We might add: in French.
Hebrew-French Diglossia
The characteristics of the use of Old French versus Hebrew among medieval French-speaking Jews fall into a classic pattern that scholars call “diglossia.” Diglossia is the stable and widespread use of two or more distinct codes (styles, dialects, languages) in a culture, each with specific functions. Traditionally, it has referred to the use of two related languages or dialects, a usage established by Charles Ferguson using such examples as the coexistence of Standard French and Haitian Creole in Haiti.70 Here I assume the broader interpretation of diglossia introduced by Joshua Fishman that covers the coexistence of unrelated languages, each with separate functions.71
In a diglossic situation, high (H) linguistic varieties are prestige tongues, generally learned through formal education, and low (L) varieties are mother tongues, acquired by infants. Among medieval French-speaking Jews, Hebrew was the high linguistic variety and a regional variety of French the low one. This diglossic situation was set in a larger society that was itself diglossic, with the high variety being Latin and the low one again regional varieties of French.
Drawing on Fishman’s work, within a diglossic culture, the high linguistic variety
(1) typically has greater prestige than the low variety;
(2) has a rich literary heritage, which often includes the liturgy and sacred texts;
(3) is learned in formal settings;
(4) is highly codified, with fairly established rules of grammar, spelling, pronunciation, and so on;
(5) is used for most written and formal spoken purposes; and
(6) is generally not used for ordinary conversation.
All of this is true of Hebrew during the period in question. Hebrew’s prestige was great. It was believed to be the language in which God’s finger wrote the tablets of the covenant given at Horeb (Deut. 9:10).72 Its rich literary tradition stretches back to antiquity. It was transmitted through formal education, whether in the home or outside it, and its spelling and grammar were standardized to a great extent, even if, to quote Angel Sáenz-Badillos, the Romance-speaking Jews who wrote in Hebrew sometimes used “poor style, dubious morphology, and questionable syntax.”73 Within a descriptive, rather than prescriptive, linguistic framework, these irregularities of style and grammar are best viewed less subjectively. Sara Japhet and Robert
