Toward a Definition of Antisemitism offers new contributions by Gavin I. Langmuir to the history of antisemitism, together with some that have been published separately. The collection makes Langmuir's innovative work on the subject available to scholars in medieval and Jewish history and religious studies. The underlying question that unites the book is: what is antisemitism, where and when did it emerge, and why? After two chapters that highlight the failure of historians until recently to depict Jews and attitudes toward them fairly, the majority of the chapters are historical studies of crucial developments in the legal status of Jews and in beliefs about them during the Middle Ages. Two concluding chapters provide an overview. In the first, the author summarizes the historical developments, indicating concretely when and where antisemitism as he defines it emerged. In the second, Langmuir criticizes recent theories about prejudice and racism and develops his own general theory about the nature and dynamics of antisemitism.

Part I. HISTORIOGRAPHY
1. Majority History and Post-Biblical Jews
2. Tradition, History, and Prejudice
Part II. ANTI-JUDAISM
3. Anti-Judaism as the Necessary Preparation for Antisemitism
4. The Transformation of Anti-Judaism
5. Doubt in Christendom
Part III. JEWISH LEGAL STATUS
6. "Judei nostri" and the Beginning of Capetian Legislation
7. "Tanquam servi": The Change in Jewish Legal Status in French Law about 1200
Part IV. IRRATIONAL FANTASIES
8. Peter the Venerable: Defense Against Doubts
9. Thomas of Monmouth: Detector of Ritual Murder
10. The Knight's Tale of Young Hugh Lincoln
11. Ritual Cannibalism
12. Historiographic Crucifixion
Part V. ANTISEMITISM
13. Medieval Antisemitism
14. Toward a Definition of Antisemitism

Gavin I. Langmuir, a distinguished medievalist, is Professor of History at Stanford University. He has in preparation a third book on the formation of antisemitism, aimed at a more general audience.

"The learning, passion and unflinching integrity Mr. Langmuir has devoted to unraveling the history of antisemitism show why he is a teacher of legendary reputation, as well as a scholar of high distinction."—New York Times Book Review

"Presently the most erudite historian of antisemitism that I know."—Léon Poliakov, L'envers du destin

“No one has done more over the past thirty years to push such an agenda forward than has Gavin Langmuir.”—Religious Studies Review

“The present volume should disappoint no one. It consists of a collection of Langmuir’s previous brilliant essays on Christian attitudes toward Jews, three new essays, and a skillful introduction offering a historiographical summary and describing the evolution of the author’s own views.”—Journal of Interdisciplinary History

“This is without question an important and thought-provoking collection of essays which should be read by medievalists and non-medievalists alike, whether or not they are particularly interested in the history of the Jews. For if Langmuir makes one thing plain, it is that European history cannot be written without paying due attention to the way in which Christians perceived and treated Jews.”—Ecclesiastical History

“A wide-ranging exploration of the nature of the beliefs and practices prescribed by constituted authority, and of individual cosmology, aspirations and convictions, largely in terms of a further distinction, ultimately based on the physiology of cognition, between rational and empirical thought and nonrational thought.”—New York Times Book Review