Conversion and Narrative: Reading and Religious Authority in Medieval Polemic

In 1322, a Jewish doctor named Abner entered a synagogue in the Castilian city of Burgos and began to weep in prayer. Falling asleep, he dreamed of a "great man" who urged him to awaken from his slumber. Shortly thereafter, he converted to Christianity and wrote a number of works attacking his old faith. Abner tells the story in fantastic detail in the opening to his Hebrew—language but anti—Jewish polemical treatise, Teacher of Righteousness.

In the religiously plural context of the medieva...