Introduction
This article, based extensively on the research by Professor Talya Fishman,[1] explores the origins of the extreme teshuvah, or penitential practices of the Chassidei Ashkenaz (also known as the German=Ashkenaz Pietists). This intensely ascetic, pietist and mystical movement was founded by R. Yehuda HeChassid and flourished in Germany and France during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Were some of their self-punishing penitential practices appropriated from the surrounding Christian culture or were they purely of Jewish origin - or somewhere in between?
