Dogs in the Margin of a Medieval Jewish Manuscript

Haggadah of Barcelona, c. 1340

There is a page of the mid-fourteenth century Haggadah of Barcelona, presently on display in the Prado Museum in Madrid, which depicts a section of the Passover Seder, Ha lachma anya (“This is the bread of affliction that our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt”).  The original Aramaic text, the catalog of the exhibit explains, was composed after the destruction of the great temple of Jerusalem, perhaps as late as the sixth century CE.

The exhibit at the Prado, The Lost Mirror: Jews and Conversos in Medieval Spain (El espejo perdido. Judíos y Conversos en la España Medieval) seeks to bring a reckoning to the Spanish treatment of the Jews in medieval Spain, culminating in their expulsion in 1492, the same year Columbus began his first voyage across the Atlantic. Multiple viewpoints are given of this troubled history in the exhibit, presented in a stunning catalog, which can be ordered from the museum (available in Spanish and English). 

Conversions from Judaism to Christianity were extensive after pogroms in 1391, but doubts about the sincerity of the conversions led to the Spanish Inquisition of 1478. Whether the primary motive for this persecution was religious—because converts continued to conduct Jewish rituals in secret—or ethnic—because it did not matter to the Inquisitors that many converts had genuinely adopted Catholicism—continues to be a matter of contentious debate. If the persecution was based on ethnic intolerance, then the Inquisition prefigures the Holocaust, where Christian conversions were ignored in the selection of Jews for extermination. See Netanyahu (2001).

Haggadah of Barcelona, detail of central panel

The exhibit focuses on interactions between Christians, Jews, and conversos. The catalog of the exhibit notes that the language of Ha lachma anya is “an implicit response” to Christ’s words at the Last Supper, “Take this and eat; this is my body.” Matthew 26:26 (New English Bible translation). Both passages involved redemption, but the Jewish perspective concerns a redemption from slavery in Egypt while the Christian perspective is a redemption from sin through Christ. 

The central panel of the displayed page from the Barcelona Haggadah shows two moments in the seder ritual: (1) when the head of the family divides the matzo into two portions, wrapping the largest portion, the afikomen, in cloth, and (2) when the mother, at the other end of the table, hides the afikomen under the table. The afikomen will be found by the children, who are seated between their parents, at the end of the meal but always before midnight, the time when God killed the firstborn of the Egyptians and saved the Israelites. 

The catalog notes that the afikomen bears parallels to the host of the Eucharist and is disturbingly similar to an antiquated ritual of the medieval Catholic Church. In that ritual, two hosts were made from one on Holy Thursday. One was used immediately for the Eucharist, but the other was carried in procession to a chapel where it was placed inside a ciborium, which could take several forms but was most commonly a cup. On Good Friday, this saved host was removed, covered with cloth and buried in a ritual called the depositio. On Easter Sunday, it was taken back to the altar in a ritual called the elevatio. The catalog notes that in the rituals of both religions, the unleavened bread, in the form of the afikomen or the consecrated host, becomes a substitute for the sacrificial lamb. For Judaism, the symbolism of the lamb derives from sacrifices at the Temple in Jerusalem prior to its destruction in AD 70. In Christian tradition, the sacrifice of the Lamb of God occurs with the crucifixion of Jesus. Whether the ritual of hiding or burying unleavened bread for a short period began in Judaism or in Christianity remains uncertain. In any case, the catalog notes that a ritual polemic existed between the two religions. This dialogue may have begun in the Near East in the period as Christianity separated itself from its parent religion. 

Haggadah of Barcelona, detail of upper margin

The exhibit catalog observes that though there may have been hostility between the Christian and Jewish communities, and some of this may be apparent in the conflicts that underlie the imagery of the Haggadah, there were other non-polemical elements in the artistry of the Haggadah.  Although not specifically discussed by the catalog, what caught my eye was the imagery of the margins of the page showing the afikomen ritual, which shows animals involved in playing and hunting. These images are surprising as they are similar to much marginal decoration of the Middle Ages and would not be out of place surrounding a Christian, philosophical, or classical text. 

Livre du gouvernment des rois, detail, Morgan Library

At the top, something of a joke is presented by the hare blowing a horn to summon a flummoxed dog to the hunt. Margin art in which roles of dogs and prey are reversed or confused are a feature in medieval margin illustration. See, for instance, the top margin of a frontispiece of a French manuscript, Livre du gouvernment des rois, in the Morgan Library, where a dog duels with a rabbit.  (See discussion of Caviness (2001) at Figure 3.1.)

The bottom margin of the page from the Barcelona Haggadah shows more realistic hunting tableaux, with a greyhound (lebrel) chasing a hare on the left. The hound clearly has a collar and ears that have not been cropped and that flow with the wind of the dog’s fast pace.  The grey animal to the right may be a wolf as there appears to be no collar, and may be barking at a Dachshund or terrier or perhaps at the huntsman blowing a horn. The huntsman carries a pole from which is suspended an animal, perhaps a coney.  The lebrel may be a smaller type of sighthound such as a galgo. If the animal I have designated a wolf wore a collar, I would label it an alano but I do not think the slight darkening at the neck is meant to indicate a collar. 

Haggadah of Barcelona, detail of lower margin

The hound chasing the hare was one of the most common marginal motifs in medieval books and occurred even in texts where the only illustrations were on a frontispiece. Hunting scenes were, according to Camille (2002), evidence of a healthy manorial economy and reminded large landowners of their right to enclose their forest preserves for private hunting. Although the illustrations on the afikomen page may not reflect a hunting proclivity of the original owner of the document, it does indicate that certain decorative themes would be used by the wealthier members of medieval society, regardless of religious disposition.  

References:

Camille, Michael (1992). Image on the Edge: The Margins in Medieval Art. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Caviness, Madeline H. (2001). Reframing Medieval Art: Difference, Margins, Boundaries, posted by the Tufts Archival Research Center. 

Molina Figueras, Joan et al. (2023). Es Espeo Perdido: Judíos y Conversos en la España Medieval. Madrid: Museo Nacional del Prado.

Netanyahu, Benzion (2001). The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth Century Spain, 2d. ed.  New York: New York Review Books. Note: the author was the father of the current Prime Minister of Israel.