Agobard and his relations with the Jews.

One of the major1 problems in dealing with medieval anti-Semitism is determining an historical point at which to begin. Anti-Semitic Churchmen justified their position by means of the Bible and the writings of the Fathers, and it is necessary for the historian who wishes to deal with medieval anti-Semitism as a whole to begin with the attitudes of the Primitive Church and of the Fathers. The purpose of this paper is modest; it deals only with the relations between Bishop Agobard of Lyon and the Jews of that city. Agobard, however, relied heavily on the canons of the Merovingian Church in determining his solution to the ninthcentury Jewish problem, and it is therefore with that epoch that this paper begins