Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

Jews and Christians in Thirteenth-Century France pp 203–216Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Mirroring Samson the Martyr: Reflections of Jewish-Christian Relations in the North French Hebrew Illuminated Miscellany

  • Chapter

Part of the book series: The New Middle Ages ((TNMA))

Abstract

These are the opening and closing remarks of a lament composed in memory of Rabbi Samson of Metz. His story has come down to us via this single source, which is the only extant evidence of his martyrdom, composed by Benjamin the scribe and copied by him in the London Miscellany, British Library Add. MS 11639, also known as The North French Hebrew Miscellany,2 produced in northern France sometime between 1278 and 1280.3 Although earlier scholars studied the story of Samson of Metz, they never considered it in relation to other texts in the manuscript or to the images.4 In this study, I address this lament against the background of the other texts and images in London Miscellany, with a specific focus on one of the illuminations in the manuscript, portraying the biblical Samson and the Lion and in light of Jewish-Christian medieval relations.

Concerning a martyr in Metz, in the Year 1276 … I, Benjamin the Scribe, the writer of this maḥzor, composed this poem for the martyr Samson.1

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   69.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   89.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD   99.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Notes

  1. The North French Hebrew Miscellany: British Library Add. MS 11639, ed. Jeremy Schonfield (London, 2003); George Margoliouth, Catalogue of the Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts in the British Museum (London, 1899), 402–427, sign. 1056;

    Google Scholar 

  2. Sara Offenberg, Illuminated Piety: Pietistic Texts and Images in the North French Hebrew Miscellany (Los Angeles, 2013). The entire manuscript is available online: http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Add_MS_11639&index=0.

    Google Scholar 

  3. The lament appears on fols. 534a–535b. Israel Davidson, Thesaurus of Mediaeval Hebrew Poetry, 4 vols. (New York, 1970), III: 773; Michel Garel, “The Provenance of the Manuscript,” in North French Hebrew Miscellany 27–37, esp. 34–35.

    Google Scholar 

  4. The lament was first published by Adolf Neubauer and in 1932 Nakdimon Doniach published the same text with corrections and a French translation (also correcting the town’s name to Metz). Susan L. Einbinder published the lament in Hebrew with an English translation and analyzed the text and Samson’s martyrdom. Adolf Neubauer, “Elegie auf den Martyrtod eines Simson in Mainz im Jahre 5036=1276 von Binjamin Ha-sofer,” Israelietische Letterbode 8 (1882–1883): 36–37;

    Google Scholar 

  5. Leopold Zunz, Literaturgeschichte der Synagogalen Poesie (Hildesheim, 1966), 487 (first published: Berlin 1865);

    Google Scholar 

  6. Nakdimon Shabbethay Doniach, “Le poème de Benjamin le Scribe sur R. Samson le Martyr,” Revue des études juives 93 (1932): 84–92;

    Google Scholar 

  7. Bernhard Blumenkranz, “En 1306: Chemins d’un exil,” Evidences 13 (1962): 17–23, esp. 20;

    Google Scholar 

  8. William Chester Jordan, The French Monarchy and the Jews: From Philip Augustus to the Last Capetians (Philadelphia, 1989), 218–219; Einbinder, Beautiful Death, 32–34; 100–125; Raphael Loewe, “Description of the Texts,” in North French Hebrew Miscellany, 188–287, esp. 257–258.

    Google Scholar 

  9. The manuscript begins with the Pentateuch, followed by liturgical texts, including the maḥzor in the French rite and commentary on the holiday prayers. We also find the Passover Haggadah, calendar tables, mystical writings, halakhic works and more. Loewe, “Description of the Texts,” 188–287. This is the earliest manuscript containing Sefer mitsvot katan (Semak) composed by Rabbi Isaac ben Joseph of Corbeil in 1277. Ephraim Kanarfogel, “German Pietism in Northern France: The Case of R. Isaac of Corbeil,” Ḥazon Nahum: Studies in Jewish Law, Thought, and History, Presented to Dr. Norman Lamm, ed. Yaakov Elman and Jeffrey S. Gurock (New York, 1997), 207–227;

    Google Scholar 

  10. Ephraim Kanarfogel, Peering through the Lattices: Mystical, Magical and Pietistic Dimensions in the Tosafist Period (Detroit, 2000), 81–92. See Judah Galinsky, “Rabbi Isaac Corbeil and his Amudé Golah (Semak): What Can Manuscripts Teach Us about Their Composition and Intended Audience?” Paper Delivered at the Center for Jewish History (November, 2011). I thank the author for generously sharing his papers with me and see as well his study in chapter 5 of this volume.

    Google Scholar 

  11. On the illuminations in this manuscript, see George Margoliouth, “An Ancient Illuminated Hebrew MS. at the British Museum,” Jewish Quarterly Review 17 (1905): 193–197;

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Zofia Ameisenowa, “The Tree of Life in Jewish Iconography,” Journal of the Warburg Institute 2 (1939): 326–345;

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Jacob Leveen, The Hebrew Bible in Art (London, 1944), 72–84;

    Google Scholar 

  14. Mendel Metzger, “Illustrations Bibliques d’un manuscrit Hébreu du Nord de la France (1278–1340 environs),” Mélanges offerts à René Crozet à l’occasion de son soixante-dixième anniversaire, ed. P. Gallais et Y.-J. Riou (Poitiers, 1966), 1237–1253;

    Google Scholar 

  15. Bezalel Narkiss, Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts (Jerusalem, 1969), 86;

    Google Scholar 

  16. Zofia Ameisenowa, “Die hebräische Sammelhandschrift Add. 11639 des British Museum,” Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 24 (1971): 10–48;

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Joseph Gutmann, Hebrew Manuscript Painting (New York, 1978), 78–80;

    Google Scholar 

  18. Gabrielle Sed-Rajna, “The Paintings of the London Miscellany, British Library Add. Ms 11639,” Journal of Jewish Art 9 (1982): 18–30;

    Google Scholar 

  19. William Chester Jordan, “A Jewish Atelier for Illuminated Hebrew Manuscripts at Amiens?” Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 37 (1984): 155–156;

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Thérèse Metzger, “Les enluminures du Ms. Add. 11639 de la British Library, un manuscrit Hébreu du Nord de la France (fin du 13e siècle—premier quartier du 14e siècle): Problèmes iconographiques et stylistiques,” Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 38 (1985): 59–290;

    Google Scholar 

  21. Gabrielle Sed-Rajna, “Ateliers de manuscrits hébreux dans l’occident médiéval,” in Artistes, artisans et production artistique au Moyen Age: Colloque international, Université de Rennes II—Haute-Bretagne, 2–6 mai 1983, ed. Xavier Barral i Altet, 2 vols. (Paris, 1986), I: 339–352; Offenberg, Illuminated Piety;

    Google Scholar 

  22. Joseph Shatzmiller, Cultural Exchange: Jews, Christians, and Art in the Medieval Marketplace (New Jersey, 2013), 133–137.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  23. On studies specifically referring to this issue see Marc Michael Epstein, Dreams of Subversion in Medieval Jewish Art and Literature (Pennsylvania, 1997);

    Google Scholar 

  24. Katrin Kogman-Appel, “Coping with Christian Pictorial Sources: What Did Jewish Miniaturists Not Paint?” Speculum 75/4 (2000): 816–858;

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Shulamit Laderman, “Two Faces of Eve: Polemics and Controversies Viewed through Pictorial Motifs,” Images 2 (2008): 1–20, esp. 6–7;

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Sara Offenberg, “Bittuyim le-hitmodedut ‘im ha-sevivah ha-notsrit ba-ommanut u-va-sifrut ha-yehudit bi-yemé ha-benayim,” (PhD dissertation, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, 2008).

    Google Scholar 

  27. On the advisors inside the atelier see: Jonathan Alexander, Medieval Illuminators and their Methods of Work (New Haven; London, 1992), 53–54, 63–64.

    Google Scholar 

  28. On the Jurue see: Pierre Mendel, “Les Juifs à Metz,” Annales de l’Est 31 (1979), 239–57, esp. 243–44;

    Google Scholar 

  29. Pierre Mendel, “Les Juifs à Metz avant 1552,” Mémoires de l’academie nationale de Metz 15 (1971–1972), 77–93, esp. 85–86.

    Google Scholar 

  30. Garel, “Provenance of the Manuscript,” 34–37. More on Jewish seals from Metz see Daniel M. Friedenberg, Medieval Jewish Seals from Europe (Detroit, 1987), 111–114.

    Google Scholar 

  31. Metz was an imperial town that became part of France only in the sixteenth century. Henri Gross, Gallia Judaica: Dictionnaire Géographique de la France d’après les sources rabbiniques; avec une préface de Danièle Iancu-Agou et de Gérard Nahon et un supplément de Simon Schwarzfuchs (Leuven, 2011), 346–350 (first published Paris, 1897)

    Google Scholar 

  32. Doniach, “Poème de Benjamin,” 85–87. Solomon Grayzel, The Church and the Jews in the XIIIth Century (New York, 1966), II, 102–104.

    Google Scholar 

  33. “They bring wheels upon wheels within wheels and coals hot for blowing.” Einbinder, Beautiful Death, 32–33, 105, 110, 119 n. 19. On the wheel as a torture device see Mitchell B. Merback, The Thief, the Cross and the Wheel: Pain and the Spectacle of Punishment in Medieval and Renaissance Europe (London 1999), chapter 5.

    Google Scholar 

  34. Simcha Emanuel, Shivré luḥot: sifré halakhah avudim shel ba‘alé ha-tosafot (Jerusalem, 2006), 256–57. I thank Joel Binder for this reference.

    Google Scholar 

  35. It appears in another French manuscript, discussed below. Samson appears in an illuminated haggadah (ca. 1300) from Castile but with a strong affiliation with France. In this haggadah, London, British Library, Or. 2737, fol. 35b, Samson, dressed in red, is rending the lion, and the Hebrew inscription reads: “The brave Samson.” Julie Ann Harris, “Love in the Land of Goshen: Haggadah, History, and the Making of British Library, MS Oriental 2737,” Gesta 52 (2013), 161–180, esp. 178;

    Article  Google Scholar 

  36. Bezalel Narkiss, Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts in the British Isles, 2 vols. (Jerusalem and London, 1982), I, 45–51, esp. 47.

    Google Scholar 

  37. On this manuscript and its relation to France, see Leor Jacobi, “Jewish Hawking in Medieval France: Falconry, Rabbenu Tam, and the Tosafists,” Oqimta 1 (2013), 1–85, esp. 40–46;

    Google Scholar 

  38. Katrin Kogman-Appel, Illuminated Haggadot from Medieval Spain: Biblical Imagery and the Passover Holiday (University Park, PA, 2006), 42–43. See the manuscript on the British Library website: www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=51176. Gabrielle Sed-Rajna discussed four other scenes of Samson from Ashkenazic manuscripts produced in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries: The Hebraic Bible in Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts (Tel Aviv, 1987), 133. To Sed-Rajna’s list we can add two more manuscripts: the Forli Siddur, London, British Library, Add. 26968, fol. 340b, made in Italy 1385; the Ulm Maḥzor, Kaufmann Collection, Budapest, Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Kaufmann Collection, A383, fol. 189a made in Germany in 1430.

    Google Scholar 

  39. On the iconographic development of Samson in medieval sculpture and its Christian meaning see Kirk Ambrose, “Samson, David, or Hercules? Ambiguous Identities in Some Romanesque Sculptures of Lion Fighters,” Konsthistorisk Tidskrift 74 (2005), 131–147;

    Article  Google Scholar 

  40. Vivian Mann, “Samson vs. Hercules: A Carved Cycle of the Twelfth Century,” ACTA 7 (1980), 1–38;

    Google Scholar 

  41. Georg Swarzenski, “Samson Killing the Lion: A Mediaeval Bronze Group,” Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts 38 (1940), 67–74.

    Google Scholar 

  42. Allegoriae Quaedam Sacrae Scripturae, 81, PL 83.112. Swarzenski, “Samson Killing the Lion,” 68. Barbara Nolan, “Promiscuous Fictions: Medieval Bawdy Tales and Their Textual Liaisons,” in The Body and the Soul in Medieval Literature: The J.A.W. Bennett Memorial Lectures, Tenth Series, Perugia, 1998, ed. Piero Boitani and Anna Torti (Suffolk; Rochester, 1999), 79–105, esp. 94.

    Google Scholar 

  43. See also Jonathan Cohen, “On Martyrs and Communal Interests: Rabbinic Readings of the Samson Narrative,” The Review of Rabbinic Judaism 11/1 (2008), 49–72, esp. 49–52.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  44. Due to the expulsion of the Jews from France in 1306, very few illuminated manuscripts from France have come down to us and as far as I know only our Miscellany includes includes the prayer service. These are the only illuminated manuscripts with figurative miniature paintings known to me: a Bible made in 1286, now kept in Ms. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale heb. 4; the Dragon Haggadah, Hamburg, Staats-und Universitätsbibliothek, Cod. Heb. 155, (thirteenth century); a Pentateuch made in 1296 and kept in a private collection; and the Poligny Pentateuch, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Cod. Hébr. 36 (Poligny, 1300), which includes only one miniature. Michel Garel, D’une main Forte: Manuscrits Hébreux des Collections Françaises (Paris, 1991), 102–103;

    Google Scholar 

  45. David Stern, “The Hebrew Bible in Europe in the Middle Ages: A Preliminary Typology,” JSIJ 11 (2012), 1–88, esp. 48–49 (electronic journal: http://www.biu.ac.il/JS/JSIJ/11–2012/Stern.pdf); Narkiss, Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts;

    Google Scholar 

  46. Gabrielle Sed-Rajna, Les manuscrits hébreux enluminés des bibliothèques de France (Leuven, 1994).

    Google Scholar 

  47. On the expulsion see: Susan L. Einbinder, No Place of Rest: Jewish Literature, Expulsion, and the Memory of Medieval France (Philadelphia, 2009).

    Google Scholar 

  48. This manuscript was illuminated by a Christian artist. Sed-Rajna, “Illustrations of the Kaufmann Mishneh Torah.” See also Evelyn M. Cohen, “The Kaufmann Mishneh Torah Illuminations,” in David Kaufmann Memorial Volume: Papers Presented at the David Kaufmann Memorial Conference, November 29, 1999, Budapest, ed. É. Apor (Budapest, 2002), 97–104, esp. 98.

    Google Scholar 

  49. Offenberg, Illuminated Piety, chapter 1. On this piyyut see: Davidson, Thesaurus of Mediaeval Hebrew Poetry, I, 8815; Ismar Elbogen, Studien zur Geschichte des judischen Gottesdienstes (Berlin, 1907), 49–99, esp. 79–81;

    Google Scholar 

  50. Heinrich Graetz, “Die Anfänge der neuhebräischen Poesie,” Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums 9 (1860), 19–29, esp. 20–23;

    Google Scholar 

  51. Leopold Zunz, Die Ritus des synagogalen Gottesdienstes (Berlin, 1919), 101;

    Google Scholar 

  52. Daniel Goldschmidt, Maḥzor la-yamim ha-nora’im: le-fi minhag bené ashkenaz le-khol ‘anfehem: kolel minhag ashkenaz (ha-ma‘aravi), minhag polin u-minhag tsarfat le-she‘avar, 2 vols. (Jerusalem, 1970), II, 465–478;

    Google Scholar 

  53. Andreas Lehnard, “Seder yom ha-kippurim kakh hu”: Zur Entwicklung der synagogalen Liturgie des Versohnungstages,” in The Day of Atonement: Its Interpretations in Early Jewish and Christian Traditions, ed. Thomas Hieke and Tobias Nicklas (Leiden, 2012), 257–269, esp. 262–264;

    Google Scholar 

  54. Zvi Malachi, “Ha-‘‘avodah’ le-yom ha-kipurim: ofyah, toldotehah ve-hitpatḥutah ba-shirah ha-‘ivrit,” (PhD dissertation, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1974), 20–23;

    Google Scholar 

  55. Aharon Mirsky, Piyyuté Yose ben Yose (Jerusalem, 1977), 26–31, 178–203;

    Google Scholar 

  56. Michael D. Swartz and Joseph Yahalom, Avodah: An Anthology of Ancient Poetry for Yom Kippur (University Park, PA, 2005), 1–40, and see the Hebrew text with English translation on 291–341;

    Google Scholar 

  57. Joseph Yahalom, “Az be-’en kol:” seder ha-‘avodah ha-erets-yissre’eli ha-ḳadum le-yom ha-kippurim (Jerusalem, 1996);

    Google Scholar 

  58. Zvi Zohar, “U-mi etaher etkhem — avikhem she-bashamayim: tefillat seder ha-‘avodah shel yom ha-kippurim: tokhen, tifkud u-mashma’ut,” AJS Review 14 (1989), 1–28.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  59. Menashe Raphael Lehmann, “Mi-sefer ben sira u-megillot yam ha-melaḥ la-‘avodat ha-mikdash bi-tefilllot yom ha-kippurim,” in Masoret ha-piyyuṭ, ed. Binyamin Bar-Tikva and Ephraim Hazan (Ramat Gan, 2000), 13–18 (Hebrew); Malachi, “‘Avoda” for Yom Kippur, 163–71; Mirsky, Piyyuté Yose ben Yose, 26–31; Yahalom, “Az be-’en kol,” 15, 21–23, 28–30.

    Google Scholar 

  60. For the entire text of the piyyut commentary see Offenberg, Illuminated Piety, 178–197. For more commentaries on this piyyut see, Elisabeth Hollender, Clavis Commentariorum of Hebrew Liturgical Poetry in Manuscript (Leiden, 2005), 523.

    Google Scholar 

  61. Gérard Genette, Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation (Cambridge, 1997), 218 (originally published in French as Seuils (Paris, 1987).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  62. Madeline Harrison Caviness, “Reception of Images by Medieval Viewers,” in A Companion to Medieval Art: Romanesque and Gothic in Northern Europe, ed. C. Rudolph (Malden, 2006), 65–85, esp. 71–72.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  63. I thank Ephraim Shoham-Steiner for this idea. On the possible Jewish patron of a Romanesque ivory series of the Samson stories, see: Vivian Mann, “The Samson and Hercules Tablemen: A Case for Jewish Patronage in Twelfth-Century Cologne,” in Art & Ceremony in Jewish Life: Essays in the History of Jewish Art (London, 2005), 153–173.

    Google Scholar 

  64. For more on Isaac, blood, and martyrdom, see Israel Jacob Yuval, “God Will See the Blood: Sin, Punishment, and Atonement in the Jewish-Christian Discourse,” in Jewish Blood: Reality and Metaphor in History, Religion, and Culture, ed. M. B. Hart (London, New York, 2009), 83–98.

    Google Scholar 

  65. On Samson as a messianic figure see Shimon Fogel, “Shimson ke-mashiaḥ—mabbat nosaf,” JSIJ 11 (2012), 1–25 (electronic journal: http://www.biu.ac.il/JS/JSIJ/11–2012/Fogel.pdf).

    Google Scholar 

  66. Davidson, Thesaurus of Mediaeval Hebrew Poetry, I, 4273; Goldschmidt, Maḥzor, 2: 568–73; Einbinder, Beautiful Death, 167; Marc Hirshman, “‘Al kiddush ha-shem ba-‘et ha-‘attikah ve-hishtakkefuto ba-piyyut Eleh Ezkera,” in: Neti‘ot le-david: Jubilee Volume for David Weiss Halivni, ed. Y. Elman, E. B. Halivni, and Z. A. Steinfeld (Jerusalem, 2005), 71–81. In our manuscript the lament is written on fols. 455b–456b.

    Google Scholar 

  67. For a selective bibliography on the Ten Martyrs see Ra’anan S. Boustan and Annette Yoshiko Reed, “Blood and Atonement in the Pseudo-Clementines and the ‘Story of the Ten Martyrs’: The Problem of Selectivity in the Study of ‘Judaism’ and ‘Christianity,’” Henoch 30 (2008), 333–364;

    Google Scholar 

  68. Ra’anan S. Boustan, From Martyr to Mystic: Rabbinic Martyrology and the Making of Merkavah Mysticism (Tübingen, 2005);

    Google Scholar 

  69. Joseph Dan, Toldot torat ha-sod ha-‘ivrit: yemé benayim, 7 vols. (Jerusalem, 2008–2012), II, chapter 22;

    Google Scholar 

  70. Shmuel Shepkaru, Jewish Martyrs in the Pagan and Christian Worlds (Cambridge, UK, 2006), chapters 3 and 5.

    Google Scholar 

  71. On memory and visual culture in the Middle Ages see Mary J. Carruthers, The Book of Memory (Cambridge, 1990); Idem., The Craft of Thought: Meditation, Rhetoric, and the Making of Images, 400–1200 (Cambridge, 1998).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors
  1. Sara Offenberg
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Departments of Jewish History and of History, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

    Elisheva Baumgarten (Prof. Yitzchak Becker Chair for Jewish Studies and is an associate professor of medieval Jewish history) (Prof. Yitzchak Becker Chair for Jewish Studies and is an associate professor of medieval Jewish history)

  2. Department of Talmud and Rabbinic Literature, Bar-Ilan University, Israel

    Judah D. Galinsky (senior lecturer) (senior lecturer)

Copyright information

© 2015 Elisheva Baumgarten and Judah D. Galinsky

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Offenberg, S. (2015). Mirroring Samson the Martyr: Reflections of Jewish-Christian Relations in the North French Hebrew Illuminated Miscellany. In: Baumgarten, E., Galinsky, J.D. (eds) Jews and Christians in Thirteenth-Century France. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137317582_14

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation