The perception of Jewish scholars oscillated between extremes in the Christian Middle Ages: some regarded learned Jews as true authorities of wisdom, while others viewed them as black magicians and servants of the devil. Medievalist Simone Haeberli examines how and on what occasions clerics commented on Jewish scholars, before turning to figures of Jewish scholarship in the fictional literature of the Middle Ages. Against the backdrop of the social upheavals of the late Middle Ages, she demonstrates that the Christian evaluation of Jewish scholarship was closely linked to the economic significance of Jews in medieval society.