This chapter reviews the Jewish culture of early medieval Europe, which is largely hidden by the mists of time and emerges into the light of surviving literary evidence only in the eleventh century. It refers to R. Isaac ben Jacob of Fez and R. Gershom ben Judah of Mainz, who provide a starting point for solid information about what rabbinic Judaism looked like in Spain and Germany. It also mentions R. Solomon ben Isaac (Rashi), who inaugurated the most creative Talmud centre in medieval Europe after he travelled from his home in northern France to the academies of the Rhineland. The chapter talks about historians who theorize about what was going on in the Midi while the Spanish and German academies were putting down roots. It also probes the scholarly consensus that detects an early Ashkenazi orientation in southern France.
