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Document Details : Title: Hermann's Opusculum de Conversione sua Subtitle: Truth or fiction? Author(s): SALTMAN, Avrom Journal: Revue des Études Juives Volume: 147 Issue: 1-2 Date: janvier-juin 1987 Pages: 31-56 DOI: 10.2143/REJ.147.1.2012891 Abstract : Hermann's Opusculum de Conversione sua has hitherto been accepted as a genuine autobiographical account of the conversion to Christianity of a twelfth century Cologne Jew. The present article attempts to refute this historiographic consensus in favour of the contention that it is a fictional work of pious Chirstian edification. A subsidiary motive of its compilation was to exalt the name of the Premonstratensian monastery of Cappenberg. In the first place it is sought to traverse the internal credibility of the story and in the second place to analyse and collate the sources of the novella, among them the Vita of Godfrey of Cappenberg and the famous Disputatio of Gilbert Crispin. |
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