Exclusion and Reconciliation: Excommunication in Medieval Jewish Communities

This paper discusses differences in the use of excommunication as a punishment in high medieval Ashkenaz and the Crown of Aragon. Where in the Crown of Aragon excommunication was a penalty for crimes and a means of social and communal control, in Ashkenaz it was primarily a threat and much less frequently used to exclude wrongdoers in practice. Moreover, there was a disparity in the emphasis placed on reconciliation with the perpetrator’s local community. This paper will explore the reasons for this stark difference, which are rooted in the local legal and administrative realities of these two regions, and the way in which excommunication shaped local communal affiliation.