INTRODUCTORY STUDY Introduction: The History of the Jews in the Middle Ages in Bohemia until 1347 and its historiography While medieval Jewish history is not an entirely new theme of historical research, it has only appeared as a component of the Czech national history when the events surpassed the boundaries of Jewish everyday life, as was the case for instance in 1096 during the events associated with the crusade, or in connection with the largest attack on the Jewish population in Prague in 1389. Uncovering the history of the Jewish community in medi- eval Bohemia and Moravia is hence enormously complicated by the fact that the absolute majority of records come from normative or other documents of the Christian majority population, which captures them with “its" eyes and only based on its own evaluation. The records often relate to exceptional or conflict situations, such as for instance Jewish pogroms or any real or perceived wrongdoing of the Jews against the existing social or religious order.1 These situations thus do not capture the actual everyday coexistence of the Christian majority and the Jewish minority. The general earlier history of the Jews in the Czech lands has been summarized in several works intended for a general audience, such as in the book by Tomáš Pěkny2, or in highly erudite works which are, however, limited to only part of the territory, such as the work of Bertold Bretholz'. Currently, the interest in Jewish history focuses primarily on the Modern Period and the recent past, which is given by the substantially greater amount of preserved sources and higher topicality of the themes dealt with.4 The previ- ous literature attempting to capture the history of the Jewish population in Bohemia and Moravia had to rely on just two uncritical editions of Jewish written sources.' First of them 1) Specialized literature has mainly noticed the influence of these events on the life of the Christian, majority part of society, not directly the life of the Jewish community and its development. Particular exceptions are works by Samuel Steinherz (see e.g. STEINHERZ 1927) and František Graus (GRAUS 1987, pp. 155-389). 2) PEKNY 2001, where the chapter on the Middle Ages can be found on pp. 11-49. 3) BRETHOLZ 1934. 4) For modern Jewish history, it is for instance the Bohemia, Moravia et Silesia Judaica project (see: http://www.bmsj. eu/ ), the aim of which is a collection of sources on the history of Jewish settlement in 1520-1670, particularly publicati- on of the registers of the Jewish population from this period. Besides this, predominantly partial the matic studies are published, with a list available at the cited internet website. 5) The history of the Prague Jewish community was brilliantly outlined by ŠMAHEL 2008, pp. 413�426. References to the essential literature are provided on p. 637. On the history of the Jews in the Middle Ages generally, see ŽEMLICKA 1997, XXXVII