Shared Stories and Religious Rhetoric: R. Judah the Pious, Peter the Chanter and a Drought

Abstract

Abstract This article discusses a story about a Jewish-Christian interaction during a drought that appears in Peter the Chanter’s Verbum abbreviatum and R. Judah the Pious’ Sefer Hasidim. I suggest that the two authors had a common source, noting that Peter’s version was earlier so that R. Judah might have based his story on an account based on Peter the Chanter’s story, whether oral or written. Analyzing the tale, the article points to narrative strategies used by both authors and to what they can tell us about Jewish and Christian knowledge of each other’s religious practice and belief in medieval Christian Europe.