“Do Me Justice and Burn Me” – A Repentant Jewish Convert in Late Medieval Vienna*

A short note in an early fifteenth-century manuscript, most likely written at the University of Vienna, describes the hitherto unknown case of a Jewish proselyte who sought active repentance for his apostasy from Judaism by demanding from the Christian authorities that he be burned in retribution for his transgression, and who was consequently executed by fire in 1410. The incident is without parallel in the medieval history of Jews in the Duchy of Austria; prior to the catastrophic persecution of 1420–1421, known as the Vienna Gesera, neither the Habsburg dukes nor church officials showed an active interest in the conversion and baptism of Jews despite an ongoing theological debate on the subject at the University of Vienna. This paper therefore attempts to place the case of the repentant convert in the context of the general attitudes toward Jewish conversion among territorial rulers, ecclesiastical and municipal authorities as well as Jewish communities in late medieval Austria.