NO OF PAGES: 452 SUB CAT I: European Jews SUB CAT II: Jewish Life SUB CAT III: DESCRIPTION: Jewish life in the Middle Ages was hidden from the inquisitive, and not infrequently hostile, gaze of Christian Europe. It was carried on under unsettled and shifting conditions. Though it enjoyed stability, its stability derived less from the outside world than from the resources which Jewish tradition had bequeathed. Its social institutions, amusements, cultural life, family and home life, traditions of love and courtship, dress, theatre, schools and educational system represented first and foremost an effort to preserve the vitalities of Jewish culture. Inescapably its dispersion throughout the European Diaspora produced an effort, often successful, to accommodate agreeable aspects of European life. The rise of a secular poetic tradition, the Jewish troubadour, and chivalric tradition represent such an accommodation. It is to the exposure of the richness, display, and fullness of medieval Jewish life that the great English scholar, Israel Abrahams, has directed his efforts in "Jewish Life in the Middle Ages". Reprinted innumerable times, but unfortunately unavailable for the past few years, it is a pleasure to make "Jewish Life in the Middle Ages" available once more.NOTES: Donated by Dale and Karen Blackwood. SUBTITLE: