Introduction: The Dialectics of Continuity and Discontinuity in Late Medieval Jewish History

Historians have long considered the later Middle Ages as a period of cultural decline for Ashkenazi Jewry; in view of settlement history, the sixteenth century has been characterized as an era of “atomization”. At the same time, the roots of later “rural Jewry” have been identified at this time of transition; also, there is a growing sense of how legal changes in the environment and the spread of printed books contributed to stabilizing Jewish life both without and within. This introductory paper provides examples of such dynamics of continuity and discontinuity and seeks to place them within current developments of resilience theory.