The fifteenth through the eighteenth centuries were truly an Age of Secrecy in Europe, when arcane knowledge was widely believed to be positive knowledge which extended into all areas of daily life. So asserts Daniel Jรผtte in this engrossing, vivid, and award-winning work. He maintains that the widespread acceptance and even reverence for this โeconomy of secretsโ in premodern Europe created a highly complex and sometimes perilous space for mutual contact between Jews and Christians. Surveying the interactions between the two religious groups in a wide array of secret sciences and practices, the author relates true stories of colorful โprofessors of secretsโ and clandestine encounters.ย In the process Jรผtte examines how our current notion of secrecy is radically different in this era of WikiLeaks, Snowden, etc., as opposed to centuries earlier when the truest, most important knowledge was generally considered to be secret by definition.