Slaughtering Practices, Rabbinization and the Western Mediterranean in the 9th Century

In the ninth century, a number of sources from the Western Mediterranean refer to the practice of post-slaughter inspection of the viscera of the animal. These include Jewish texts (the letter of Pirqoi ben Baboi, responsa of Natronai Gaon, and the traditions of Eldad Hadani), as well as Christian (Agobard of Lyon) and Muslim (Maliki jurists from Spain and North Africa). These texts and the apparent absence of references to this practice in earlier sources allow us to investigate continuity and differences between late antique and medieval Judaism in the region. In this way, the current article contributes to ongoing questions about »rabbinization« in the fifth through ninth centuries.