Tractatus adversus Judaeos in the Gulbenkian Apocalypse

Author(s): Suzanne Lewis

Source: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 68, No. 4 (Dec., 1986), pp. 543-566
Published by: College Art Association
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 TractatusadversusJudaeosin the GulbenkianApocalypse

Suzanne Lewis

Among the little-known commentary illustrations in the Gulbenkian Apocalypse

are a number of images expressing a radical anti-Jewish ideology. This forms an
important focus for the whole manuscript. Dating from the 1260's, the illumina-
tions expand upon the accompanying Berengaudusglosses on Revelation to address
perceived threats posed by the presence of unconverted Jews within contemporary
English society. Most probably made for an influential reformist cleric, the Gul-
benkian Apocalypse not only served as a forceful ideological statement but also
provided stimulus and justification for action in the decades preceding the expul-
sion of the Jews from England in 1290.

Throughout the Middle Ages, the Jews occupied a special
place in Christian theology as the chosen people of the Old
Testament who had given birth to Christ. In the well-known
admonition of Innocent III, "they are not to be severely
oppressed by the faithful, because through them the truth
of our own faith is proved."' But unconverted medieval
Jews were also regarded as the descendants of those held
responsible for the death of Christ. While the doctrinal po-
sition of the Church remained unchanged from the time of
Augustine to the end of the Middle Ages, attitudes toward
Jews as well as their treatment had been shifting away from
a tradition of toleration since the time of the first Crusades.
By the thirteenth century the Jews were perceived as a
"problem" in England as well as in Northern France, to be
dealt with on many different levels by kings and churchmen
alike. Jews' lives and property were still protected by canon
law, but the Church often chose to ignore the increasing
levels of violence against them. Although the popes stopped
short of advocating forced conversions or expulsion, the
policies of Gregory IX and Innocent IV argued for more
militant and aggressive strategies to diminish and control
postbiblical Judaism.2Because the Jews failed to understand
their own Scripture, it was argued, they no longer deserved
to survive as its guardians. The popes condemned the Tal-
mud as a heretical deviation from Scripture and assumed
jurisdiction over Jewish orthodoxy to ensure its conformity
with Christian interpretations of the Old Testament.3 Al-
though the existence of the Jews was still seen as providing
historical proof of christological prophecy, the conception
of medieval Judaism as an intolerable anomaly gained in-
creasing urgency in the thirteenth century's apocalyptic ex-
pectation that the Jews would be converted or destroyed

This article is based on a paper read at the Symposium on Medieval Per-
ceptions of Dissent and Heresy held at Stanford University on April 20,
1985. I wish to thank Gavin Langmuir and Harvey Stahl for their helpful
criticisms.
1 Quoted from the preamble to his reissue in 1199 of the Constitutio pro
Judaeis, expressly forbidding violence against Jews, which was endorsed
by successive popes ten times from its first issue in 1120 until 1250. See
S. Grayzel, The Church and the Jews in the Thirteenth Century, rev. ed.,
New York, 1966, 76-78 and 92-95; J.W. Parkes, The Conflict of Church
and Synagogue, ii, London, 1934, 211ff.; Trachtenberg, 163-65.
2 See Grayzel (as in n. 1), 10-13.
3The Talmud was first condemned in 1239 by Gregory IX. The next year,
following a public debate between rabbis and Christian theologians, held
in Paris at the order of Louis IX, twenty-four wagonloads of Talmuds
were confiscated and burned; see H. Graetz, Histoire des juifs, Iv, Paris,
1897, 197. In his later condemnation of the Talmud, Innocent IV devel-
oped a new legal basis for papal jurisdiction over the Jewish community;
Commentaria super libros quinque Decretalium ad X, 31 34.8, Frankfurt,
1570, 430; and Impia Judaeorum, in Bullarum diplomaticum et privile-
giorum sanctorum romanorum pontificium, iii, Turin, 1858, 508-09; see
J. Muldoon, Popes, Lawyers and Infidels: The Church and the Non-Chris-
tian World, 1250-1550, Philadelphia, 1979, 4-6, 10, 30-31; and Cohen, 97
and 242.

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544 THE ART BULLETIN DECEMBER 1986 VOLUME LXVIII NUMBER 4
at the end of days.4
Innocent III defined the position of the Jewish people in
the later medieval Christian world as the fate of the Wan-
dering Jew: "Christianpiety accepts the Jews who, by their
own guilt, are consigned to perpetual servitude because they
crucified the Lord, although their own prophets had pre-
dicted that he would come in the flesh to redeem Israel ...
and, like Cain, they are [condemned] to be wanderers and
fugitives."5The legend of the Wandering Jew reached a re-
ceptive audience in Western Europe in the early thirteenth
century. The first pictorial representation of the legend was
drawn by Matthew Paris in the Chronica Majora (Fig. 1)
to accompany the report of the man who taunted Christ
on the way to Calvary and was still alive, atoning for his
sin until the end of time.6 In Matthew's drawing the aging
figure bends under the harsh burden that was to be his
vindicating punishment, as he leans on a pickaxe, the at-
tribute of Cain. While the expansive open movement of
Christ suggests an uplifting release from the burden of the
Cross, the knotted, closed figure of the Jew turns inward
upon itself in a pathetic taunting gesture that is quickly
transformed into suffering and remorse. The new legend
and image epitomize the thirteenth century's attitudes to-
ward Judaism and its desire to castigate but at the same
time convert the remnant of Old Testament people who
survived in medieval Europe. The Wandering Jew shares
in the allegation of guilt for Christ's death on the Cross and
is condemned to eternal wandering; although he is con-
verted, he remains a degraded and abject witness to the
triumph of the Christian faith to the end of time.
The radical shift in Christian attitudes gives rise to a new
anti-Jewish imagery in the thirteenth century. In contrast
4 On the general wave of eschatological apprehension that overtook Eu-
rope in the 13th century, see R.W. Southern, "Aspects of the European
Tradition in Historical Writing, 3: History as Prophecy," Transactions of
the Royal Historical Society, xxii, 1972, 173-76; H.M. Schaller, "Endzeit-
Erwartung und Antichrist-Vorstellung in der Politik des 13. Jahrhun-
derts," Festschriftfiir Hermann Heimpel, G6ttingen, 1972, 11,928- 29. In
the belief that the world would end in 1250, Matthew Paris closed his
great chronicle in that year with a resounding announcement of the im-
pending doom, only to resume after his eschatological expectation had
failed to materialize; see Lewis, 1986, 102-06. Similar apprehensions were
expressed throughout the century by such disparate figures as Frederick
II, Gregory IX, Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon, and Dante.
As pointed out by B. Blumenkranz, "Augustin et les juifs; Augustin et
le judaisme," Recherches augustiniennes, I, 1958, 225-41, the ideal of the
Jews' conversion to Christianity at the end of time goes back to Augustine,
De Civitate Dei, 18.46 and 20.29, ed. G.E. McCracken et al., Iv, London,
1972, 50-51 and 432-33; Tractatus adversus Judaeos, in Pat. lat. 42:51-
67, and Sermo 200.2, in Pat. lat. 38:1030; see Cohen, 20. Referring to the
anti-Jewish violence that surged through Western Europe during the Sec-
ond Crusade, Bernard of Clairvaux, in a letter written "To the English
People" (The Letters of St. Bernard, transl. B.S. James, London, 1953,
No. 391), cautioned against the persecution of the Jews, for "we are told
by the Apostle [Romans 11:26] that when the time is ripe all Israel shall
be saved." For the 13th century, see Peter of Blois, Contra perfidiam Ju-
daeorum, Pat. lat. 207:863-64. The 13th-century English tract, Pictor in
carmine, cxxxv ("Reliquie Israel ad Christum convertuntur") gives eight
different Old Testament typologies for the conversion of the remnant of
Jews; see James, 166. Cohen, 246-47, and A. Cutler, "Innocent III and the
Distinctive Clothing of the Jews and Muslims," Studies in Medieval Cul-
ture, III, ed. J.R. Sommerfeldt, Kalamazoo, 1970, 92- 116, argue that the
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1 The WanderingJew, in MatthewParis, ChronicaMajora.
Cambridge,CorpusChristiCollegeMs16, fol. 70v (courtesy
Conway Library,CourtauldInstituteof Art and Masterand
Fellowsof CorpusChristiCollege)
to the casual representations of Jews that occur on the
fringes of medieval art, such as the derisive cartoons in the
margins of the judicial rolls or the derogatory caricatures
of Jews in scenes of the Passion,7 the new images appear
as the major focus in works of high artistic ambition. The
elegant illuminated Apocalypses that were produced in En-
gland during the second half of the thirteenth century for
cultivated audiences of bishops and other clerics provide a
mordant sequel to the anti-Jewish iconography that had
been invented in Paris a few decades earlier for the illus-
trations of the Bible moralisee.8
Although caricatures of Jews occur with insistent regu-
conversion of the Jews was regarded as indispensable in preparing the
way for the Second Coming.
5Letter to the archbishop of Sens and the bishop of Paris, dated July 15,
1205; see Grayzel (as in n. 1), 114-15, No. 18.
6
Cambridge, Corpus Christi College Ms 16, fol. 70v; CM 3:162-63; also
5:340-41. See Lewis, 1986, 300-04. Although Roger Wendover's account
in the Chronica Majora does not specify the wanderer as a Jew, his remark
that "there was much talk in the world" about this remarkable figure
suggests that the author was aware from sources in current oral tradition
of a version similar to that given in the earliest Latin chronicle, dating
from 1223, that the man was a Jew; by 1252, when Matthew Paris wrote
his own account in the chronicle, the Wandering Jew had emerged as a
distinct entity. See G.K. Anderson, The Legend of the Wandering Jew,
Providence, 1965, 11 and 18; and Trachtenberg, 15-17. On the pickaxe
as an attribute of Cain in 13th-century English art, see R. Mellinkoff, The
Mark of Cain, Berkeley-Los Angeles, 1981, 38 and 74-75.
7 See Blumenkranz, 26-32; H. Kraus, Living Theatre of Medieval Art,
Bloomington, 1967, 139-62; C. Roth, Essays and Portraits in Anglo-Jewish
History, Philadelphia, 1962, 22-25 and figs. 5-9.
8 However, no parallels for the anti-Jewish imagery adduced in the Gul-
benkian manuscript can be found in the moralizing illustrations of the
Apocalypse in the various manuscripts of the Bible moralis&e.Eloquent
interpretations of the anti-Jewish imagery in other parts of the Bible mor-
alisee have been made by Blumenkranz, passim, esp. 41-50, 76, and 106;
idem, "La polemique antijuive dans l'art chr6tien du Moyen Age," Bul-
lettino dell'Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo e Archivio Mura-
toriano, LXXVII, 1965, 24-27.
 TRACTATUS ADVERSUS
larity among the followers of Satan and Antichrist in al-
most all thirteenth-century illustrated Apocalypses, their
corrosive intention becomes clear only when they are seen
in the context of the accompanying commentaries, for the
Book of Revelation alone does not warrant their expression
of anti-Jewish sentiments. Most thirteenth-century illus-
trated Apocalypse manuscripts contain a gloss consisting
of excerpts compiled from the twelfth-century commentary
of Berengaudus,9 a text that interprets the Apocalypse as
a vision of the Church struggling against its adversaries
through the six ages from Creation to the apocalyptic end,
when all those who had rejected entry into the fold will be
either converted or destroyed. Two rare and important
Apocalypse manuscripts surviving from the 1260's contain
full cycles of illustrations for the Berengaudus commentary
in addition to those for their biblical text: the Gulbenkian
Apocalypse in Lisbon1oand the closely related Abingdon
manuscript in the British Library, which was given to
Abingdon Abbey by Giles de Bridport, Bishop of Salis-
bury, before his death in 1262.11Both manuscripts descend
from the same prototype.12 Although these are the only
extant Apocalypse manuscripts that translate the anti-Jew-
ish thrust of the glossing texts directly into commentary
illustrations, their distinctive compilation of excerpts from
Berengaudus was an influential one. The same text appears
in several other thirteenth-century Apocalypses and was
copied as late as the sixteenth century.13
The half-page framed illustrations in the Gulbenkian
Apocalypse are executed in a sophisticated, almost man-
nered style of the 1260's (see Fig. 2). In the long series of
dramatic tableaux, the major protagonists are rendered as
9 The Berengaudus commentary on the Apocalypse, Expositio super sep-
tem visiones libri Apocalipsis, was included by Migne among the works
attributed to Ambrose (Pat. lat. 17:843-1058); see F Stegmiiller, Reper-
torium Biblicum Medii Aevi, ii, Madrid, 1950, 196-97, No. 1711. Since
the oldest surviving manuscripts date from the 12th century and the Ber-
engaudus text depends on the Glossa ordinaria, as well as revealing sim-
ilarities with other 12th-century Apocalypse commentaries, it is now gen-
erally regarded as dating from the 12th century. For a succinct summary
of the scholarship, see P. Klein, Endzeiterwartung und Ritterideologie:
Die englischen Bilderapokalypsen der Friihgotik und MS Douce 180, Graz,
1983, 19, n. 106.
10Lisbon, Museu Calouste Gulbenkian,
Ms, L.A. 139 contains seventy-
six folios (268 x 215mm). Its Latin Apocalypse text and abridged Ber-
engaudus commentary are given on alternating pages, although the se-
quence is in some places irregular. The manuscript contains seventy-eight
Apocalypse and seventy-four commentary illustrations. See M.R. James,
A Descriptive Catalogue of the Second Series of Fifty Manuscripts, Nos.
51-100, in the Collection of Henry Yates Thompson, Cambridge, 1902,
20-39, No. 55; G. Henderson, "Studies in English Manuscript Illumina-
tion, II," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, xxx, 1967, 98-
100; idem, "Studies, III,"Journal of the Warburgand Courtauld Institutes,
xxxi, 1968, 137-40; R. Emmerson and S. Lewis, "Census and Bibliography
of Medieval Manuscripts Containing Apocalypse Illustrations, c. 800-1500,
II," Traditio, XLI,1985, No. 98; Morgan, No. 153.
11 B.L. Ms Add. 42555 contains eighty-five folios (330 x 215mm). The
Apocalypse is given in Latin and the abridged Berengaudus commentary
in Anglo-Norman, in single lines, on facing verso and recto pages. The
seventy-nine Apocalypse and seventy-seven commentary illustrations are
half-page framed painted scenes on colored grounds, with gold and silver
details. Like those in the Douce Apocalypse, many illustrations were left
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JUDAEOS IN THE GULBENKIAN APOCALYPSE 545
majestic, tall figures with small heads and narrow sloping
shoulders, rising to almost the full height of the frame and
moving in graceful flowing patterns across a shallow stage-
like space. Smaller secondary figures are frequently ar-
ranged in densely overlapping groups, filling every avail-
able space with restless action (e.g., Figs. 7, 13, 19, and
20). Placed against paneled grounds of contrasting colored
patterns or burnished gold, the scenes are fully painted in
a wide range of resonant colors - plum, vermilion, red,
deep blue, green, pink, orange, and russet,14 lavishly ac-
cented with burnished gold and silver details. The elegant
figures are swathed in heavy drapery, arranged in broad,
angular folds that are frequently modeled or delicately
cross-hatched with white or lighter tones to produce an
impression of satiny sheen. Other remarkable illusionistic
effects occur in the transparent veils, brocaded silks, heavy
burnished gold drapery modeled in deep brown folds,
feathery wings, and diaphanous clouds, which lend an un-
usual degree of textural opulence to the scenes. Ascending
and descending lines of drapery, speech scrolls, and sweep-
ing gestures bind the complex arrangements of figures into
dramatic compositions of juxtaposition and contrast. The
extraordinary richness and elegance of this deluxe manu-
script suggest that it was produced in a large workshop for
an important patron.
The commentary illustrations in the Gulbenkian and
Abingdon Apocalypses present a wide spectrum of medi-
eval ideas about Judaism. Jews can be recognized among
the idealized heroes of the Old Testament as ancestors of
Christ as well as among the wicked followers of Simon
Magus and Antichrist. Like Grosseteste's De cessatione le-
unfinished at various stages of completion throughout. An erased ex dono
inscription at the top of fol. 57v identifies the donor of the book to Abing-
don Abbey as Bishop Giles of Salisbury. See Lewis, 1985, 107-19; R.E.W.
Flower, "A New Thirteenth-Century Pictured Apocalypse," British Mu-
seum Quarterly, vi, 1931-32, 71-73; idem, "The Date of the Abingdon
Apocalypse," British Museum Quarterly, vi, 1931-32, 109-10; Catalogue
of Additions to the Manuscripts of the British Museum, 1931-1935, Lon-
don, 1967, 40-41; Emmerson and Lewis (as in n. 10), No. 71; Morgan,
No. 217.
12 Contrary to current
opinion, the Abingdon Apocalypse is not a copy
of the Gulbenkian manuscript, but descends from a common prototype.
Evidence of this relationship can be observed in the Gulbenkian Apoc-
alypse on fol. 13 where the illustration is based upon a text found only
in Abingdon; see below, p. 562.
13 This text recension includes the Metz Ms Salis 138 (now destroyed),
Lambeth Palace Ms 209, and Bodleian Ms Tanner 184, all dating from the
second half of the 13th century, as well as Cambridge, Magdalene College
Ms 5 and Bodleian Ms Canonici Bibl. 62, which date from the first years
of the 14th century and are related to the Tanner Apocalypse (see L. San-
dler, The Peterborough Psalter and Other Fenland Manuscripts, London,
1974, 100-04). The early 16th-century copy of the lost Metz Apocalypse
has been fully analyzed by R. Haussherr, "EineverspaiteteApokalypsen-
Handschrift und ihre Vorlage," Studies in Late Medieval and Early Ren-
aissance Painting in Honor of Millard Meiss, New York, 1977, 219-40.
14Contrary to an opinion given
long ago by M.R. James, The Apocalypse
in Art, London, 1931, 6, that the painting in the Gulbenkian manuscript
was added later by an Italian artist, the richly painted colors in both the
Gulbenkian and Abingdon Apocalypses are unmistakably English and
clearly contemporary with the rest of their production; see Henderson (as
in n. 10), 144, n. 50.
546 THE ART BULLETIN DECEMBER 1986 VOLUME LXVIII NUMBER 4
galium, the illustrated Berengaudus commentary in these
Apocalypses might be described as a thirteenth-century
Epistle to the Hebrews.15Moreover, the consistent depic-
tion of Moses with flaming rays instead of the usual Vulgate
"horns" in the Gulbenkian manuscript may reflect the se-
rious Hebrew scholarship undertaken at Oxford during this
period,16 but, like Grosseteste's treatise on the Jews, these
illustrations were intended to refute the notion of the per-
manence of Mosaic Law.
As Blumenkranz has pointed out, the struggle of medi-
eval Christianity against Judaismwas the Christian struggle
to master its Jewish heritage." Augustine argued that the
Old Testament belongs more to Christians than to Jews,
who are "slaves who carry our satchels and bear the man-
uscripts while we study them."'s In the concordance of the
two Testaments, the Hebrew Bible was transformed into a
series of typologies prophesying the Messiah who was ful-
filled in the Gospels. However, the pictorial typologies in
the Gulbenkian and Abingdon Apocalypses shift their the-
ological ground to the world of the thirteenth century, and
15sSee ES. Stevenson, Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, London,
1879, 104-05; S.W. Thomson, The Writings of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop
of Lincoln 1235-1253, Cambridge, 1940, 121-22. Contrary to Stevenson's
assertion that Grosseteste's widely circulated treatise was written to sup-
ply material to be used in converting the Jews, B. Smalley, "The Biblical
Scholar," in Robert Grosseteste, Scholar and Bishop, ed. D.A. Callus,
Oxford, 1955, 81, argues that the work is purely theological rather than
missionary in its focus on the reasons why the ceremonial precepts of the
Old Law ceased to be binding, having been superseded by the New Law.
On the other hand, Matthew Paris, CM 4:232- 33, reports that Grosse-
teste came into possession in 1242 of a Greek copy of the Testamenta XII
patriarcharum (now in Cambridge University Library MSFf. 1. 24) and
translated it into Latin with the assistance of Nicholas the Greek, clerk
to the abbot of St. Albans. Indeed, a copy of the Latin translation survives
with an illustration by Matthew Paris in the Bodleian Library(MsAshmole
304); see E Wormald, "More Matthew Paris Drawings," The Walpole So-
ciety, xxxi, 1942-43, 109-12; N. Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts 1190-
1285, Pt. 1, London, 1982, 140-41, No. 89; Lewis, 1986, 388-89 and fig.
231. The apocryphal Christianized text was purported to be from a He-
brew version, which originally formed an authentic part of the Old Tes-
tament and had been hidden "per multa tempora incognita et absondita
per invidiam Judaeorum"(Matthew Paris, CM 4:232). Believed to contain
the "most evident and beautiful messianic prophecies," it was hailed as a
powerful apologia of the Christian religion against the Jews. A few years
after its publication, Vincent of Beauvais inserted extracts from it into his
Speculum Historiale 1.125. See D.A. Callus, "Robert Grosseteste as
Scholar," Robert Grosseteste, 61-62; Stevenson, 224-29. Thomson, 42-44,
No. 1, lists fifteen manuscripts dating from the 13th century.
16 The horns of Moses are
traditionally explained as deriving from Jer-
ome's translation in Exodus 34:29 of the Hebrew word geren, which can
mean "horns"or "rays of light," as cornuta. As R. Mellinkoff, The Horned
Moses in Medieval Art and Thought, Berkeley-Los Angeles, 1970, has
demonstrated, the iconographic tradition of the horned Moses is firmly
rooted and continuous in English art since the early 12th century, after
having been introduced in an isolated instance in the Aelfric Paraphrase
ca. 1050. Although Peter Comestor's Historia scholastica of 1167 could
have played an important role in popularizing the idea that Moses' horns
meant rays (see Pat. lat. 198:1192), representations of the prophet with
rays of light or flames instead of horns are very rare. Outside the isolated
examples in the Bible moralisee, where the cornuta of the text are some-
times depicted as flaring winglike flames, the representations of Moses of
fols. 18, 31v, and 51v in the Gulbenkian Apocalypse are almost unique.
Their vermilion-tinted, flamelike form most clearly resembles the rays
emanating from the head of Moses in the historiated initials found in two
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the Christian struggle to subsume the Old Testament is
waged on another level against contemporary Jews. The
commentary illustrations break with earlier traditions of
medieval typology to dramatize perceived contrasts and
distinctions between Old Testament and contemporary me-
dieval Judaism. They not only insist upon Old Testament
recognitions of Christ through prophecy, but advocate the
conversion or destruction of post-biblical Jews in an anti-
Jewish imagery that documents medieval sentiment in the
decades preceding the expulsion of the Jews from England
in 1290.19
Themes of Rejection and Conversion
The medieval allegory of the Church Triumphant over
a dishonored Synagogue appears only once in the Gulben-
kian commentary illustrations (Fig. 3), as a pictorial ex-
tension of the gloss on fol. 4: "And I saw in the right hand
of the One seated on the throne a book written inside and
out, and sealed with seven seals" (Rev. 5:1). Berengaudus
gives a traditional explanation of the book's outer and inner
large glossed 13th-century Bibles, which have thus far gone unnoticed.
In B.L. MsAdd. 15253, ascribed by Branner,27-29, to the Almagest atelier
in Paris, which produced some of the earliest illuminated copies of the
new University text of the Bible ca. 1210-30 (see also Catalogue of Ad-
ditions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum 1841-1845, London,
1850, 119-20), the flame-rayed Moses appears in the initials for Leviticus,
Numbers, and Deuteronomy, on fols. 27v, 35, and 46v. A similar rep-
resentation appears on fol. 34 in a small historiated initial at the head of
Leviticus in the glossed Bible, B.L. MSRoy. I.B. XII, written in 1254 by
William de Hales for Thomas de la Wyle, master of the cathedral school
at Salisbury. But in the initial on fol. 56, although the draftsman had
intended to depict Moses with flamelike rays, the colorist misunderstood
and painted them silver-gray instead of vermilion; see G.F. Warner and
J.P. Gilson, Catalogue of WesternManuscripts in the Old Royal and Kings'
Collections, i, London, 1921, 12-13; A. Watson, Catalogue of Dated and
Datable Manuscripts 700-1600, Department of Manuscripts, the British
Library, London, 1973, No. 855; P. Brieger, English Art 1216-1307, Ox-
ford, 1957 177; M. Rickert, Painting in Britain: The Middle Ages, 2nd
rev. ed., Baltimore, 1965, 107; A. Hollaender, "The Sarum Illuminator
and His School," The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Mag-
azine, L, 1943, 253-54; and Morgan, No. 102.
On Hebrew scholarship in 13th-century England, see C. Singer, "He-
brew Scholarship in the Middle Ages Among Latin Christians," The Leg-
acy of Israel, ed. E.R. Bevan and C. Singer, Oxford, 1953, 295-301; R.
Loewe, "The Medieval Christian Hebraists of England: The Superscriptio
Lincolniensis," Hebrew Union College Annual, xxvIII, 1957, 205-52; S.A.
Hirsch, "EarlyEnglish Hebraists: Roger Bacon and His Predecessors,"Jew-
ish Quarterly Review, xII, 1900, 34-88.
17Blumenkranz, 41. This view also forms an integral part of the argument
put forth by H. Liebeschuitz,Synagogue und Ecclesia: Religionsgeschicht-
liche Studien iiber die Auseinandersetzung der Kirche mit dem Judentum
im Hochmittelalter, Heidelberg, 1983, 172; see the review by G.I. Lang-
muir in Speculum, Lx, 1985, 430-33.
18Augustine, Enarratio in Psalmum XL, 14; see also idem, Tractatus ad-
versus Judaeos 1.1, Pat. lat. 8:51, where he asserts that the Jews, because
of their unbelief, have been cut off from the root to which the patriarchs
belonged, and that the Gentiles have been grafted on instead.
19The anti-Jewish imagery, which "runslike a black thread"through many
13th- and 14th-century Anglo-French Apocalypse illustrations, has gone
unnoticed or has been ignored. As Kraus (as in n. 7), 162, has observed,
"the antisemitic content of medieval art is often so familiar, so taken for
granted, that it is easily overlooked, contributing to those automatic re-
sponses which have for many centuries remained tragically unchanged."
 TRACTATUS ADVERSUS JUDAEOS IN THE GULBENKIAN APOCALYPSE 547

ii

facesa l p
ri oentn ftapa~udnrn
-
l

aunweptr *tnmbtftum v-ft. pntme -N thtwomf

I ri ewt..ee.41~nmcws scMltem nrl--nent'ww..---... r-s.....~ --Y
farriat ff TetanamutAnathts "tft
tr-t Of.rhumlt-ttm
2 CommentaryIllustrationfor Rev. 8:5, GulbenkianApoca- 3 CommentaryIllustrationfor Rev. 5:1, GulbenkianApoca-
lypse. Lisbon,MuseuCalousteGulbenkianMsL. A. 139, fol. lypse. Lisbon,MuseuCalousteGulbenkianMsL. A. 139, fol. 4
17 (courtesyCalousteGulbenkianFoundation) (courtesyConway Library,CourtauldInstituteof Art)

texts as the Old and New Testaments, and then goes on to

inform us that the powerful angel signifies the patriarchs
of the Old Testament who prophesied Christ's coming to
redeem mankind.20
Four patriarchs, one wearing a pointed hat,21 another
veiled, dominate the center of the commentary illustration.
The first prophet fulfills his typological role by surrender-
ing the authority of his Judaic tradition as he hands over
the sealed book to the Lamb, recalling the prophesy of Is-
aiah (16:1), "O Lord, send the Lamb," frequently cited in
medieval anti-Jewish tracts.22However, the patriarch at the 1 ..
right appears to reject that role as he pulls away from the
others and clutches his closed book protectively to his side. It ~i~:~ ~ i~..
/i
The contrasting gestures drive a visible wedge between the
two figures, creating a division among the Old Testament
patriarchs not called for in the Berengaudus text, but one
that reflects a more antagonistic conception of post-biblical
Jews. The whole composition breaks into a jagged open
pattern, from the edges of Ecclesia's drapery down through 4 Commentary Illustration for Rev. 5:1, Abingdon Apoca-
those of the patriarch and back upward through the broken
lypse. B.L. Ms Add. 42555, fol. 8 (by permission the British
lance of Synagogue. In the Abingdon Apocalypse (Fig. 4) Library)
two of the patriarchs argue, while the mighty angel reap-
pears in the right margin next to the figure of Synagogue
as an aggressive reminder of her superannuated prophetic
role.

20Berengaudus, Expositio 5.1 (Pat. lat. 17:888-89).
21Jews were instructed by their own law, based on Leviticus 18:3, not to
dress as Gentiles; see A. Rubens, A History of Jewish Costume, London,
1967, 91-94, 106; E. Zafran, "The Iconography of Antisemitism: A Study
of the Representation of the Jews in the Visual Arts of Europe 1400-1600,"
Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1973, 10-11. The most typical garment
was a long robe, often worn to cover the head as well, but the most
distinctive form of Jewish dress was the pointed hat (pileum cornutum),
derived from the Phrygian caps worn in the Middle East before the Dias-
pora, which appears to have been worn by European Jews without pe-
jorative connotations until the 13th century when, as a means of com-
plying with canon 68 of Lateran Council IV, the pointed hat became a
designated and imposed part of Jewish dress; see English Historical Doc-
uments, 1189-1327, ed. H. Rothwell, London, 1975, 672; Cutler (as in n.
4), 113-16; Mellinkoff (as in n. 16), 128-31.
22 E.g., Peter Damian, Antilogus contra Judaeos 37 (Pat. lat., 145:54) and
Peter of Blois, Contra perfidiam Judaeorum X (Pat. lat., 207:837), cited
by A.L. Williams, Adversus Judaeos, Cambridge, 1935, 370 and 403.

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548 THE ART BULLETINDECEMBER1986 VOLUME LXVIII NUMBER 4
Although the juxtaposed personifications of Ecclesia and
Synagogue conform to the conventions of thirteenth-cen-
tury art,23their adaptations to the Berengaudus gloss pro-
duce some significant variations. While Ecclesia is tradi-
tionally crowned and holds a victorious cross and banner,
and the blindfolded Synagogue holds a broken lance as she
lets the tablets fall,24the two figures are now isolated within
elaborate buildings whose architectural features emphasize
the contrast between the Old and the New - a domed
Synagogue as opposed to a pinnacled Gothic cathedral.25
In further contrast with the traditional iconography of
standing figures, as in the Abingdon version, Ecclesia sits
on an altar-like throne raised on three steps, while Syn-
agogue rests on a mound of earth. The composition moves
from left to right on a descending diagonal line from the
elevated figure of Ecclesia to the depressed personification
of the Old Law who sinks to the ground beneath the flat-
tened dome of the Synagogue. However, the most striking
23 L. Edwards, "Some English Examples of the Mediaeval Representation
of Church and Synagogue," Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society
of England, xvIII, 1953-55, 70-74, lists several examples in 13th-century
manuscripts, almost all of which represent the personifications of the Old
and New Law not as independent images but as witnesses to the Cruci-
fixion; see also W.S. Seifurth, Synagogue and Church in the Middle Ages:
Two Symbols in Art and Literature, New York, 1970. However, the per-
sonified figures of Ecclesia and Synagoga appear frequently throughout
the commentary illustrations in the Bible moralis"e in various interpretive
contexts comparable to those in the Gulbenkian and Abingdon Apoca-
lypses; see Blumenkranz, "La representation de Synagoga dans les Bibles
moralis'es franCaises,"Proceedings of the Israel Academy of Sciences and
Humanities, v, 1970, 70-91.
24 In 1217 Henry III ordered the Jews to wear a linen or parchment badge
in the shape of the two tablets of the Law on their upper garments. This
was followed in 1222 at the Council of Oxford, and in 1275 under Edward
I with further stipulations of its size and color. However, as Rubens (as
in n. 21), 118, notes, the wearing of the badge was more strictly enforced
after 1253 when Henry III issued a new set of statutes regulating the Jews,
based on the ecclesiastical canons; see F.M. Powicke and C.R. Cheney,
Councils and Synods with Other Documents Relating to the English
Church, II, Pt. 1, Oxford, 1964, 473, No. 31.9. As Mellinkoff (as in n.
16), 131-32, points out, the tablets of the Law bore negative connotations
in 13th-century England; see also G. Kisch, "The Yellow Badge in His-
tory," Historia Judaica, xix, 1957, 104. Graphic reminders of this practice
can be observed in a marginal vignette, ca. 1275, which appears in B.L.
Cotton Ms Nero D. 2, fol. 180, where a bearded man wearing the badge
illustrates a regulation forbidding the practice of usury by English Jews;
another marginal drawing in an Essex Forest Roll of 1277 in the Public
Record Office caricatures a Jew wearing the insigne, labeled "Aaron fil
diaboli." Among the sculptures on the exterior of Lincoln Cathedral, the
figure of Synagogue rests on the shoulders of a bearded man wearing the
Jewish badge; see Roth (as in n. 7), 23-25 and figs. 7 and 9.
The pictorial convention of Synagogue's blindness is based primarily
on the passage from II Corinthians 3:12-18 in which Paul declares that
whenever Jews read the Old Law, the veil of Moses is over their minds;
see Seifurth (as in n. 23) 29-30.
25 A similar architectural distinction is drawn in the commentary illus-
tration on fol. 51v in which the Old Testament desert tabernacle of Moses
is capped by a small dome and stands next to a pinnacled Gothic church.
On the architectural symbolism of the Gothic church as the "novum opus"
and the Romanesque or Byzantine temple as the "vetus," see R. Haussherr,
"Templum Salomonis und Ecclesia Christi: Zu einem Bildvergleich der
Bible moralis&e,"Zeitschrift fiurKunstgeschichte, xxxi, 1968, 101-21. The
domed structure has no basis in architectural practice, for medieval syn-
agogues in England as well as in Europe were modest buildings with no
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innovation to appear in the commentary illustration is the
addition of the Lamb bleeding into the chalice held by Ec-
clesia.26 Although the presence of the animal anticipates the
Apocalypse text on the next page, the image of Ecclesia and
the Lamb approached by Old Testament patriarchs forms
an analogue to the recognition of Christ Incarnate by the
Wise Men in the iconography of the Adoration of the Magi.
Within the context of the Berengaudus commentary it of-
fers an allegorical reprise of the significance of the Epiph-
any, for the Old Testament patriarchs represent Judaism's
acknowledgment of Christ as the Messiah through their
prophecies, just as the Magi represent the pagan recogni-
tion of Christ.27But here the "conversion" is incomplete,
as medieval Jews stubbornly cling to the fallen and dis-
credited Old Temple.
In a similar vein the commentary illustration on fol. 38v
(Fig. 5) contrasts the chosen people of the Old Testament,
who believed in Christ indirectly through the prophets, with
distinguishable external features; see R. Wischnitzer, The Architecture of
the European Synagogue, Philadelphia, 1964; and C. Krinsky, Syn-
agogues of Europe, Cambridge, MA, 1984. The synagogue is only a meet-
ing place for the local congregation, not a shrine related to temple ar-
chitecture. In the Gulbenkian Apocalypse the synagogue was probably
represented as a domed building because of the widely known contem-
porary association of the so-called Templum Salomonis with a domed
mosque in Jerusalem, as it appears in Matthew Paris's mid-13th-century
map of Palestine in CM (Cambridge, Corpus Christi Ms 26, fol. iv); see
Lewis, 1986, 355, fig. 215. Originally the Mosque of al-Aqsa in a wing
of the caliph's palace in Jerusalem, the domed structure was given to the
Templars by King Baldwin II (1118-1130) and was called the "Temple of
Solomon" by the order. After the Saracen conquest of 1187, the Temple
again became a mosque, but in 1243 the Templars returned to their shrine
in Jerusalem, only to be expelled the following year; see M. Benvenisti,
Crusaders in the Holy Land, Jerusalem, 1970, 64-68; and T.S.R. Boase,
Kingdoms and Strongholds of the Crusaders, New York, 1971, 84-87.
26 The figure of Ecclesia collecting the blood of the Lamb in a chalice is
a very old image going back to the late Carolingian period, for example,
in the Fulda Sacramentary (G6ttingen, Niedersachsische Staats- und Univ-
ersititsbibliothek Ms theol. fol. 231) from ca. 975, and the Fulda Lec-
tionary (Aschaffenburg, Hofbibliothek Ms2, fol. lv), from the end of the
10th century; see Ars sacra: Kunst des friihen Mittelalters, Munich, 1950,
38-39, Nos. 83 and 84; G. Schiller, Iconography of Christian Art, ii, New
York, 1972, 119-20. In both manuscripts the Lamb occupies the center of
the page, where it opens the book, while below Ecclesia raises the chalice
to collect the blood, accompanied by an inscription based on Rev. 5:9:
"The sacrificial Lamb is held worthy to take the book and to open its
seven seals. Behold the Church, bowed in adoration, for she is worthy
to receive the blood of the Lamb";see V. Elbern, "Der eucharistische Kelch
im frtihen Mittelalter, 2: Ikonographie und Symbolik," Zeitschrift des
deutschen Vereins fiir Kunstwissenschaft, vii, 1963, 150ff. Although the
motif has no precedent in English Gothic manuscripts, the association of
the Lamb bleeding into a chalice with the iconography of Ecclesia and
Synagoga occurs rather frequently in French service books of the early
13th century; see Branner, figs. 9 and 104; Blumenkranz, fig. 119.
27 Based on the prophecy of Isaiah 60:1-4, the recognition of Christ as the
divine king by the Magi marks the beginning of the Christian conversion
of the pagan world. As Augustine repeatedly emphasized in his Epiphany
sermons, the Magi were "the first fruits of the Gentiles," as opposed to
the shepherds of Judaea to whom the angels announced the birth of Christ
(Sermones 200.1; 119.1; 202.2). For Leo the Great, Sermo 35.1, "the star,
whose light appeared to the wise men and remained visible to the eyes of
the Israelites, on the one hand [illustrates] the illumination of the pagans
and on the other the blindness of the Jews."
 TRACTATUS ADVERSUS
the medieval Jews who reject him and are perceived as fol-
lowers of Antichrist. The Berengaudus gloss on Rev. 13
explains that the second Beast from the earth is
one of the disciples of Antichrist who is worse than the
others. . . . he ascended from the earth because he
emerged from a society of reprobates. . . . The beast had
two horns similar to those of the Lamb, because he can
deceive the Jews and the Gentiles. Although many Jews
believed in Christ through the prophecy of Elijah, the
majority of them will be followers of Antichrist.28
Elijah is traditionally held to be the greatest of the Hebrew
prophets, who returned in the person of John the Baptist
to prepare the way for Christ (Matt. 11:14 and Luke 1:17),
as well as the patron saint of the Carmelite Order, which
flourished in thirteenth-century England under the gener-
alship of Simon Stock (d. 1265).29
In the Gulbenkian commentary illustration, Elijah
preaches to an assembly of Jews. He points to a tree that
is transformed into a cross on which hangs the crucified
Christ, half-hidden by a mantle pulled over his head like
a shroud.30 The image is probably intended as an allusion
to "Dominus regnavit a ligno," which is frequently cited
from Psalm 96 as a prophecy of Christ's triumph over death
on the Cross in tracts against the Jews as, for example, in
the polemical writings of Isidore and the Pseudo-Augus-
tine.31At the left the beast emerges from the earth and then,
in cyclical narrative style, stands on a mound of earth
preaching to another group of Jews seated in rapt attention;
the compositional scheme echoes the right half of the il-
lustration and reveals its evil antipode in the world of the
present and future. On another level, apart from the com-
mentary text, Elijah's preaching forms a strikingly apt Old
Testament prophecy directed against the fate of the apoc-
28 Berengaudus, Expositio 13.11 (Pat. lat. 17:969-70).
29 See E. Lucchesi Palli, "Elias,"Lexikon der christlichen Kunst, i, Rome-
Freiburg, 1968, cols. 607-08. Regarded as a Christian saint in the East,
Elijah became a cult figure in the West in the 13th century with the spread
of the Carmelite Order, which was founded in the Holy Land ca. 1154
and, following the failure of the later Crusades, was reorganized along
the lines of the mendicant friars. In 1229 the Carmelites were recognized
by Gregory IX as mendicants. See D. Knowles, The Religious Orders in
England, i, Cambridge, 1948, 196-98; R. McCaffrey, The White Friars,
Dublin, 1926; L.C. Sheppard, The English Carmelites, Oxford, 1943; C.
Kopp, Elias und Christentum auf dem Karmel, Paderborn, 1929. In a letter
addressed to the Ministers of the Franciscans in England and another to
the archbishop of York, Adam Marsh compared the fearless character of
Robert Grosseteste to Elijah;see Monumenta Franciscana, ed. J.S. Brewer,
London, 1858, 325, 466, and 487.
30The old typology of the Tree of Life from Genesis was reactivated in
the Arbor crucis in the 13th century by Bonaventure's meditations on the
Cross (Tractatus qui lignum vitae dicitur); see Schiller (as in n. 26), 133-
35.
31 Isidore of Seville, De fide Catholica contra Judaeos 1.35.3, "Cruci af-
fixus est" (Pat. lat. 73:485), explains Isaiah 9:6, "id est, vexillum suae
crucis, quod suis praetulit humeris, juxta vaticinium David prophetae,
qui dicit: Dominus regnavit a ligno." In Pseudo-Augustine, De alterca-
tione Ecclesiae et Synagogae (Pat. lat. 42:1135), Ecclesia says: "Audi, Syn-
agoga . . adverte legem, et invenies ubi Salvator manibus extensis cru-
.Et alibi propheta ait: 'Dominus regnavit
cem figuraliter prophetavit.
...
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JUDAEOS IN THE GULBENKIAN APOCALYPSE 549
alyptic beast-worshippers at the left, for he is the Hebrew
prophet who warned of the calamities that would over-
take Israel unless the Jews forsook their evil ways and the
worship of Baal (1 Kings 18-21), as well as the prophet who
would return before the end of time in preparation for the
Day of Judgment to convert Israel.32
A comparable image contrasting the two aspects of Jews
as believers in Christ through the prophets and as idolaters
appears in a contemporary English manuscript of Guil-
laume le Clerc's Bestiary in Anglo-Norman verse, Bibl. Nat.
MSfr. 14969,33 which, like the Lisbon and Abingdon Apoc-
alypses, contains illustrations for the commentary as well
as the main text. The miniature on fol. 29v (Fig. 6) illus-
trates the interpretation of the hyena as a beast who "de-
notes the children of Israel, who at first believed in the true
father omnipotent.. , but forsook him and were so foolish
that they worshipped idols."34In the upper register we see
Old Testament prophets led by Moses kneeling reverently
before the head of Christ, which appears at the summit of
a tree, just as the crucified Christ surmounts a tree in the
Gulbenkian illustration. In this context the figure in the tree
may allude to the Lord appearing to Moses in the burning
bush, or again to the prophecy in Psalm 95, "Dominus reg-
navit a ligno," cited in the anti-Jewish tract of Peter Dam-
ian.35Below, a group of Jews, facing in the opposite direc-
tion to denote their duplicity, worship the golden calf, while
some are already being slain by the sword at the command
of Moses (Exodus 32:27-28).
Another traditional line discrediting Judaism is taken in
the Christian rejection of the harshness of the Old Dispen-
sation. For the gloss on the Opening of the Third Seal in
the Gulbenkian Apocalypse, the thirteenth-century com-
piler omitted the long Berengaudus commentary on Moses,
who is interpreted as a figure of Christ36and gives only the
passage that explicates the meaning of the black horse and
a ligno.' "
32Malachi 4:5, quoted by Berengaudus in the commentary on Rev. 11:12,
where he asserts that the Jews will be converted through the preaching of
Elijah; Pat. lat. 17:955.
33Written in England in 1210 or 1211, Guillaume's Bestiary provides moral
lessons for thirty-seven animals and birds. Paris, Bibl. Nat. Ms fr. 14969
is one of two among the twenty English and French manuscripts of this
text that contain illustrations for the moralizing texts. Although the inter-
pretations follow the descriptions of the animals in Guillaume's text, the
moralizing miniatures are given precedence and are placed at the head of
each section of text in this manuscript. In style and technique, which
combines tinted outline drawing with painted grounds, the illustrations
are closely related to those in the Lambeth Apocalypse (Ms 209). See X.
Muratova, "Lesminiatures du manuscrit fr. 14969 de la Bibliotheque Na-
tionale de Paris (Le Bestiaire de Guillaume le Clerc) et la tradition icon-
ographique franciscaine," Marche romane, xxviII, 1978, 141-48. The An-
glo-Norman text has been edited by Reinsch.
34 Bestiary, 49, 11. 1607-18; cf. Reinsch, 292.
35 A similar illustration is given for Exodus 3:2-4 in the Bible moralisee,
Toledo Ms I, fol. 90; see Branner, fig. 72. Peter Damian, Dialogus inter
Judaeorum et Christianorum (Pat. lat. 145:64): "Quia vero ipse judica-
turus sit mundum, testatur Psalmista, qui postquam praemisit: 'Dominus
regnavit a ligno'; de eodem Domino, qui a ligno regnavit, in fine subjungit
dicens; 'Judicabitorbem terrae in aequitate, et populos in veritate sua.'"
36 Berengaudus, Expositio 6.5 (Pat. lat. 17:905).
550 THE ART BULLETIN DECEMBER 1986 VOLUME LXVIII NUMBER 4

its rider as a contrast between the severity of Judaic Law

and Christ's mercy through the Church. Indeed, the inter-
pretation has been chosen over an alternative reading given
by Berengaudus in which the horse signifies those who are
saved by the Law.37Instead we read:

r By the black horse we may understand the doctors of

the Law. Indeed, the blackness of the horse signifies either
the obscurity or the harshness of the Law they had taught.
For Moses had a veil over his face, insofar as [he] could
not see the splendor which is understood spiritually in
the Law . . . the scales indicate the true impartiality of
legal justice, of such a kind as "a life for a life, an eye
ir for an eye, tooth for tooth, foot for foot." By the voice
heard amidst the four Beasts we may perceive the voice
of the Church pleading for the Lord's mercy.38

unkt hm. rt?.1 etbdhta

abnam asftmum ass
~todawane~i~;l~ The cruelty of the Law is graphically represented at the
5 CommentaryIllustrationfor Rev. 13:11, GulbenkianApoca- left in the Gulbenkian commentary illustration on fol. 10
lypse. Lisbon,MuseuCalousteGulbenkianMSL. A. 139, fol. (Fig. 7), where we see an Old Testament king pronouncing
38v (courtesyConway Library,CourtauldInstituteof Art)
the sentence, "Anima pro anima," inscribed on the speech
scroll next to his upright sword, as a kneeling man vainly
pleads for mercy. At the upper left an angel bearing a sword
represents one of the four Beasts interpreted by Berengau-
dus as a voice of the Church beseeching the Lord. But the
Mier plea is ignored, and below other figures are maimed with
hatchets and swords - one man's eye is gouged, another's
tooth is extracted with pliers, while still another's hands
will be chopped off, in a literal pictorial inventory of ruth-
less punishments under the Law. On the other side of
Christ's mandorla, the lion, another of the four Beasts, no
longer attempts to intercede, but proclaims instead the
harshness of Mosaic justice, quoting the Berengaudus text
on his speech scroll ("Duriciamdesignat nam Moysi"). The
message is directed at a crowd of kneeling figures at the
- -
right, headed by a bishop and two kings, who shall pre-
sumably be the beneficiaries of the Lord's mercy.
I In the center the Lord of the Last Judgment holds the
scales in one hand and with the other gestures toward the
Xl. wound in his side, a symbol of the Church,39while three
apostolic intercessors appear in the clouds at the upper
right. Again, as in the more traditional juxtaposition of
Church and Synagogue, the Christian and Judaic worlds
are shown in confrontation. But the oppositions repre-
i sented here between the Old Testament and the New are
i no longer those drawn between past and present traditions.
Everything now focuses upon Jews and Christians, Church
and Synagogue in the present and future.
In contrast, the commentary illustration on fol. 18 (Fig.
8) gives a very different interpretation of the Old Dispen-
6 MoralizingIllustrationfor the Hyena, Bestiaryof Guillaume
le Clerc.Paris,Bibl. Nat. MSfr. 14969, fol. 29v (photo: Bibl.
Nat.) 37Ibid., 6.6 (Pat. lat. 17:914).
38Ibid., 6.5 (Pat. lat. 17:913).
39Based on Augustine, Enarratio in Psalmum 138 (Pat. lat. 37:1785), the
reference to the Church forged from the wound in the side of Christ also
occurs in the commentary illustration on fol. 2 in the Gulbenkian man-
uscript. On fol. 12 in the Abingdon Apocalypse the typology of the cre-
ation of Eve from Adam's rib is given in a marginal vignette; see Lewis,
1985, 112.

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 TRACTATUS ADVERSUS JUDAEOS IN THE GULBENKIAN APOCALYPSE 551

sation in connection with the sounding of the Second

Trumpet (Rev. 8:8):
Awl&
By the second angel Moses and the other doctors of the
Law are designated. "And it was as if a great mountain,
all on fire, had been dropped into the sea." By the great VL5
mountain is meant the Law of Moses which, because of bt 5, -
its ponderous weight, is compared to the mountain. And,
because of the spiritual knowledge reflected in the Law,
it is said to burn with fire. By the sea itself is truly meant
the Hebrew people, because of their great wickedness
and multitude of sins.40

The Law of Moses is represented literally as the tablets of

the Law held by Moses, who also holds a scroll inscribed,
"Dileges dominum deum tuum" (Love the Lord your God).
In its expansion of the commentary text, this reference to 7 CommentaryIllustrationfor Rev. 6:5, GulbenkianApoca-
Exodus 20 shifts the connotation of harshness stressed in lypse. Lisbon,MuseuCalousteGulbenkianMsL. A. 139, fol.
the illustration on fol. 10 to an allegorical or spiritual un- 10 (courtesyConway Library,CourtauldInstituteof Art)
derstanding of the Decalogue.41 Moses' traditional horns
have been transformed into flames, in a metaphorical rep-
resentation of the Berengaudus reference to the spiritual
knowledge reflected in the Law burning with fire.42Aaron
and Moses look up at a flaming star with a human face
emerging from the clouds above the tablets of the Law. This
is the huge star called Wormwood (Rev. 8:10), which Ber-
engaudus interpreted as the prophets who were inspired by
the fire of the Holy Spirit.43The image of Moses and Aaron
prefiguring the descent of the Holy Spirit in the form of a
pentacostal fire is not unique to the illustration of the Ber-
engaudus commentary in the Gulbenkian Apocalypse, for
it also appears in the widely circulated thirteenth-century
English collection of typologies for artists' use called the
Pictor in carmine.44The Gulbenkian commentary illustra-
tion then concludes at the right with an awkward but literal
representation of the mountain of fire falling into the sea, (mm rt nnasttt U
a ut t c tirm
tut qiit-lt
att~ ? .r.,tca
crushing the unbelieving Jews, while two men representing 8 Commentary Illustration for Rev. 8:8, Gulbenkian Apoca-
the "rulers of the Gentiles" escape in a small boat. lypse. Lisbon,MuseuCalousteGulbenkianMsL. A. 139, fol.
In the commentary illustration on fol. 7 (Fig. 9) for Rev. 18 (courtesyConway Library,CourtauldInstituteof Art)
5:7, the Lisbon Apocalypse poses another polemical ar-
gument in an implied charge of heresy against the Jews. am the Father and the Father is in me, and he who sees me
The Berengaudus text interprets the passage in which the sees the Father also.' In this place, the One sitting on the
Lamb takes the book from the One seated on the throne throne denotes the Father. Therefore the Lamb receives the
as the touchstone of Christian theology: "By the one seated book from the right hand of the One seated on the throne,
on the throne is meant Christ, because he himself said, 'I just as Christ in his divinity became man."45Although there

40 Berengaudus, Expositio 8.8 (Pat. lat. 17:934-35). Although the Apoc- 42 Moses is shown consistently throughout the Gulbenkian illustrations

alypse text and illustration for this segment includes the second, third,
and fourth trumpets, and there is room on the page for much more com-
mentary text, the excerpt from the Berengaudus commentary refers only
to the second trumpet.
41 This view corresponds closely to Grosseteste's characterizationof Moses
as an Old Testament type for Christian prelates, as well as his urging that
"every pastor of souls and every parish priest shall know the Decalogue
... and shall frequently preach and expound on them to the people in
his charge." See Epistola cxxvii, ed. H. R. Luard, Roberti Grosseteste
Episcopi quodam Lincolniensis Epistolae, London, 1861, 358, sent in 1239
to the dean and chapter of Lincoln. Grosseteste's De decem mandatis was
written as a popular manual to aid parish clergy in that task; see Thomson
(as in n. 15), 131, No. 91; and Smalley (as in n. 15), 82.
with flaming rays instead of horns, e.g., on fols. 6, 18, 31v, and 51v, in
contrast to Abingdon where he is always depicted with horns. This sug-
gests that the flaming rays on Moses' head were inspired not only by the
Berengaudus commentary on Rev. 8:8 on fol. 18, but also by a larger and
more pervasive idea emanating from a pictorial or textual source reflecting
the Hebrew scholarship in the universities. See above, n. 16.
43 Berengaudus, Expositio 8.10-11 (Pat. lat. 17:935).
44 James, 164, cites eleven 13th-century English manuscripts that contain
this text, many of which belonged to important cathedral and abbey
libraries.
45 Berengaudus, Expositio 5.7 (Pat. lat. 17:890).

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552 THE ART BULLETIN DECEMBER 1986 VOLUME LXVIII NUMBER 4
is room on this page for more commentary, the compiler
has chosen to focus exclusively upon the unity of Christ
and God the Father, a dogma that had not been challenged
by Christian heresy for several centuries, but one that still
formed the major stumbling block dividing Christians and
Jews.
The left half of the commentary illustration in the Gul-
benkian Apocalypse gives a literal representation of the
Berengaudus text. In the upper left corner God the Father
receives a scroll inscribed "Ego in patre et Pater in me est,"
quoted in the commentary from the Gospel of John. As
indicated by the triumphal cross-staff and banner in the
Gulbenkian illustration and made even clearer in the
Abingdon manuscript (Fig. 10), the standing figure handing
over the scroll is the risen Christ.46The right half of the
Apocalypse commentary illustration, however, appears to
have no reference to the Berengaudus text.47Five nimbed
Apostles led by Peter confront a crowd of skeptical Jews.
The first man48covers his ears, and Peter puts his hand to
his face in a gesture of resignation or dismay. The con-
frontation offers a pictorial demonstration of Jews rejecting
the risen Christ, as opposed to the idea of the veiled proph-
ecy in the Old Testament. In the reworking of this scene
in the Abingdon manuscript the Jew at the right, inspired
by a small demon, confronts Peter and Paul, who sym-
bolize the apostolic guardianship of true doctrine by the
Church. In their pointed focus upon the Jewish rejection
of Christ as the Son of God, these illustrations cast the
people of the Old Testament in a somewhat different light.
By shifting the grounds of hostility to an ancient doctrinal
issue, the commentary image tends to blur traditional dis-
tinctions between heresy and unbelief in medieval
Judaism.49
The Gulbenkian and Abingdon Apocalypses, however,
are not unique in their theological concern with the unity
of Christ and God the Father and its rejection by the Jews.
In the Paris Bestiary of Guillaume le Clerc, the miniature
explicating the meaning of the unicorn (Fig. 11) carries a
similar message:
This wonderful beast,
Which has one horn on its head,
Signifies our Lord
His people of the Jews
46 P. Wilhelm, "Auferstehung Christi," Lexikon der christlichen Kunst, I,
Rome-Freiburg, 1968, cols. 201-18; G. Schiller, Ikonographie der christ-
lichen Kunst, iii, Giitersloh, 1971, 75-76. The iconography of the risen
Christ standing with a long cross-staff and victory banner appears in En-
glish psalters in the early 13th century, e.g., Cambridge, Trinity College
Ms B. 11. 4, fol. 9v, ca. 1220-30, where Christ is nude to the waist with
a mantle over his shoulder; also on fol. 152 in the Missal of Henry of
Chichester, Manchester, John Rylands Library Ms lat. 24.
47 However, the image could conceivably refer to the Berengaudus com-
mentary on the next verse (5:8), which describes how what was obscure
in the Old Testament was revealed to the doctors of the Church by the
Holy Spirit, and, by implication, was rejectedby the Jews; Pat. lat. 17:891.
48 Here, as in many other illustrations in the Gulbenkian Apocalypse and
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Believed him not, but
Condemned him to death.
That horn verily
Signifies his manhood,
As God saith in truth,
In the gospel plain and clear:
We are one - I and my father.50
As in the Lisbon commentary illustration for Rev. 5:7 (Fig.
9), God the Father is represented by a fractional figure in
a mandorla frame surrounded by heavenly clouds, while
the newly risen Christ holding a victorious cross-banner
climbs out of a sarcophagus below. At the left, the "good
priest" Zechariah prophesies Christ's birth to Mary, who
is seated at the right in an abbreviated Annunciation scene
next to a small image of the Crucifixion.51 The bearded pa-
triarchal figure of Zechariah has been transformed into a
medieval Christian bishop standing next to a vested altar
and chalice within a church, preaching to a group of Jews
who depart from those who rejected Christ. Thus, unlike
Gulbenkian's illustration on fol. 7 where Peter and the
Apostles fail to convert post-biblical Jews, the Bestiary's
pictorial interpretation of the unicorn stresses Jewish rec-
ognition of Christ through prophecy before his birth, as in
Gulbenkian fol. 4 (Fig. 3).
Another commentary illustration that deals with the ob-
stinancy of the Jews appears on Fol. 52v (Fig. 12), in which
two preachers, a Franciscan friar and an Old Testament
prophet, stand back-to-back, dividing the composition into
contrasting halves, as they pictorialize the Berengaudus
commentary on Rev. 16:1-2 on the voice from the temple
and the pouring of the first vial. At the right, "the holy
man who was before the Law"holds a scroll inscribed "Vox
domini est precientis," and preaches to "the wicked who
scorn the preaching of the saints sent by God," while at the
left an angel representing the voice from the temple, which
is the voice of God, holds a scroll labeled "predicatoribus"
and points to a Franciscan friar with a cross-staff, accom-
panied by a smaller brother at his feet, preaching to a group
of Jews who reject his message.52 In this case, the image
stresses continuity, not contrast, in its assertion that Jewish
obstinacy prevailed in the Old Testament past as well as
in the post-biblical present. In this period of frequent public
elsewhere, the Jew is represented in strict profile and has no contact with
the viewer, thus reinforcing his "otherness"and precluding any possibility
for empathy or identification. See Zafran (as in n. 21), 21.
49 In this period, the heresies of the Jews were more usually regarded as
misinterpretations of the Old Testament in Talmudic writings, and in ec-
clesiastical documents Judaism is called a "perfidy" rather than heresy;
see Muldoon (as in n. 3), 10, 31. However, Trachtenberg, 172-76, observes
that, despite all evidence to the contrary, the tendency to regard Jews as
heretics who know the truth and reject it was already pronounced in the
apocryphal gospels that began to appear by the middle of the 2nd century.
50
Bestiary, 45, 11. 1425-41; cf. Reinsch, 284-85.
51
Bestiary, 45, 11. 1431-50; cf. Reinsch, 284-85.
52
Berengaudus, Expositio 16.1 (Pat. lat. 17:988).
 TRACTATUS ADVERSUS
,.i
- . -
9 CommentaryIllustrationfor Rev. 5:7, GulbenkianApoca-
lypse. Lisbon,MuseuCalousteGulbenkianMsL. A. 139, fol. 7
(courtesyConway Library,CourtauldInstituteof Art)
U
:..,.
8?i
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10 CommentaryIllustrationfor Rev. 5:7, AbingdonApoca-
lypse. B.L. Ms42555, fol. 11 (permissionthe BritishLibrary)
53 Blumenkranz, 47; idem (as in n. 8), 21-43.
s4 See E. Synan, The Popes and the Jews in the Middle Ages, New York,
1965, 119-20; Cohen, 13, 82-83, 97; Muldoon (as in n. 3), 50-51. Through-
out the commentary illustrations in the Gulbenkian Apocalypse, Fran-
ciscan friars appear frequently in the role of preachers and missionaries,
especially as the adversaries of the Antichrist at the end of time, e.g., fols.
45v, 57v, 58v, 63v, and 66v. In the Abingdon Apocalypse, however, they
are usually replaced by secular bishops; see Lewis, 1985, 116.
ss Augustine, Tractatus adversus Judaeos, Pat. lat. 42:64.
56 P. Browe, Die Judenmission im Mittelalter und die Piipste, Rome, 1942,
173.
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JUDAEOS IN THE GULBENKIAN APOCALYPSE 553
CIA-~'
IIV ?,N
/tA
11 MoralizingIllustrationfor the Unicorn,Bestiaryof Guil-
laumele Clerc.Paris,Bibl. Nat. Msfr. 14969, fol. 26 (photo:
Bibl. Nat.)
debates between Christians and Jews, Gregory IX in 1233
forbade laymen to have religious discussions with Jews.
Thus, in this as well as in similar illustrations in the Bible
moralisee, the Christian spokesman is always a cleric.53The
image further presses the claims of the thirteenth-century
Church to engage in an active campaign of conversion. Al-
though the Franciscans and Dominicans were not formally
charged with preaching and missionizing among the Jews
until 1278, Innocent IV had already asserted the papal right
to compel Jews to listen to conversionist sermons, so that
on one level the Gulbenkian illustration may be read as a
direct reflection of the contemporary mendicant mission,54
in keeping with Augustine's advice to "preach to the Jews
whenever we can . . whether they welcome our words or
spurn them."55In England homes for Jewish converts were
built early in the thirteenth century, the first probably at
Leicester,56perhaps under the influence of Grosseteste; the
domus conversorum built in London in 1233 by Henry III
is illustrated by Matthew Paris in the Chronica Majora.57
57 CM 3:226; Historia Anglorum 2:326. In both cases Matthew added a
sketch of the building in the margin of the manuscript page: on fol. 86
in Cambridge, Corpus Christi Ms 16 and on fol. 121 in B.L. Ms Roy. 14.
C. VIII. See C.T. Martin, "The Domus conversorum," Transactions of
the Jewish Historical Society, I, 1893-94, 15-24. Built "in the New Street
by the Temple," on the present site of the Public Record Office in Chan-
cery Lane, the foundation was probably suggested to the king by his cler-
ical advisers; the order was countersigned by Peter des Roches, Bishop
of Winchester, and William Mauclerc, Bishop of Carlisle; see H.G. Rich-
ardson, The English Jewry under the Angevin Kings, London, 1960, 31.
554 THE ART BULLETIN DECEMBER 1986 VOLUME LXVIII NUMBER 4
The official documents of the period make frequent ref-
erences to the baptism of Jews.58In the commentary illus-
tration on fol. 42v (Fig. 13), baptism is offered as the al-
ternative to destruction. In its radical departure from the
text, the image is bent to stress the idea of conversion vs.
damnation in its interpretation of the contrast between the
two voices in Rev. 14:2.-9 At the left, the voice of many
waters, rendered literally as three human heads floating on
the water below, is seen again in the angel's head and the
stream of water pouring down from Heaven on the heads
of the faithful ("who constantly hear the voices of many
waters"). At the right, the voice like thunder in the usual
form of a beast's head spits forth hail on the cowering crowd
below, as it "strikesterror in the hearts of those who cannot
strive to reach their perfection." Although no reference to
Jews is given in the gloss, the bearded men at the right are
characterized as Jews by their pointed hats. Prodded by a
demon into the gaping jaws of a Hellmouth, they form a
dramatic contrast to the figures being baptized in a large
font on the opposite side, the foremost of whom is a pa-
triarchal bearded man normally associated in the Gulben-
kian manuscript with Old Testament prophets.
In a pictorial format typical of the Apocalypse com-
mentary illustrations, the composition is divided into two
halves, good at the left and evil at the right, by a tree above
which the half-length framed figure of Christ appears in
the clouds. Kneeling at the base of the tree on the left are
a king, bishop, and tonsured clerics. A similar bisection of
the picture space juxtaposing baptized Christians with Jews
condemned to darkness and evil appears on fol. 13 in the
moralizing interpretation of the eagle in Guillaume le
Clerk's Bestiary in Paris (Fig. 14). Here, however, the kneel-
ing bishops and tonsured clerics witness the Baptism of
Christ at the left, demonstrating that "whosoever is bap-
tized can gaze upon the true sun which is Christ," while an
angel covers the eyes of a Jew holding the tablets of the
Law, as a small devil pushes the crowd of unbelievers away
at the right, in a graphic demonstration of the fate of the
unbaptized.60 As in several of the Gulbenkian commentary
illustrations, the anti-Jewish elements in the Paris Bestiary
representation have no basis in the text, but are introduced
as a reinforcing expression of contemporary hostility.
Although the Berengaudus commentary on fol. 42v in-
terprets John in this context as "the faithful of this life" and
58 M. Adler, The Jews of Medieval England, London, 1939, 279.
s9 Cf. Berengaudus, Expositio 16.2 (Pat. lat. 17:972-73).
60 Bestiary, 28, 11. 705-24:
He who of water and the spirit
Should not be so sanctified
Would not be born again and cleansed
Nor could he in any sort of way
Enter into the heavenly kingdom.
Cf. Reinsch, 252-53.
61 For example, on fols. 2v, 9v, 11v, 19v, 24, 42v, 43, 53, 58, 59, 62, 69,
72, 73, and 75v. John is also shown preaching to the Jews at the beginning
of his illustrated Life in the Apocalypse manuscripts in Bodleian MsAuct.
D. 4. 17, fol. 1, and in Cambridge, Trinity Ms R. 2. 16, fol. 1.
62 Pat. lat. 17:951.
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"the people of God constituted on earth," the Evangelist,
who is portrayed as a paradigmatic preacher in the pictorial
Vita that frequently accompanies the illustrated Apoca-
lypse, is characterized as the apostle of the Jews, veiled as
a priest of the Old Dispensation. In contrast to his repre-
sentation in other thirteenth-century Apocalypse manu-
scripts, John is most frequently portrayed throughout the
Gulbenkian Apocalypse and commentary illustrations as a
veiled priest resembling Aaron and other Old Testament
figures.61 In the commentary on Rev. 11:1-2 Berengaudus
maintains that John holds love in his heart for the Jews who
remain outside through their unbelief, quoting Paul from
Romans 9:3-4: "I would willingly be condemned and cut
off from Christ if it could help my brothers of Israel, my
own flesh and blood."62Following Gregory the Great, Hugh
of St. Victor associates John with the Synagogue in contrast
to Peter, who is read as a type for Ecclesia, because John,
although he arrived first at the Lord'stomb on Easter morn-
ing, waited for Peter to enter first.63 This relationship be-
tween Peter and John is illustrated in the Gulbenkian com-
mentary illustration on fol. 19 (Fig. 15), where the bearded,
veiled Evangelist stands behind Peter as the Apostles follow
Christ into a church at the right, having preached the Gos-
pel first to the Jews and then to the Gentiles.64While the
illustration follows the commentary in identifying the eagle
of Rev. 8:13 as Christ and his Apostles, the scroll held by
Christ at the right reads "Dum lucem habetis credire in lu-
cem" (while you still have the light, believe in the light)
from John 12:36, in which Christ foretells his death and
Resurrection to the Apostles upon entering Jerusalem, and
the dorsal view probably refers to the end of the verse where
we are told, "Having said this, Jesus left them and kept
himself hidden." The passage quoted from John's Gospel
in the commentary illustration appears neither in the Apoc-
alypse nor in the Berengaudus commentary, but the verse
introduces a significant text in John's Gospel (12:37-50)
concerning the Jews, thus stressing John's role as Apostle
to the Hebrews. Here, as in fol. 7, it is the Gospel of John
that is invoked as the message to unbelieving Jews.
Antichrist and Simon Magus, Enemies of Christendom
Insistent concern with the conversion of the Jews is fre-
quently expressed in the twelfth-century commentaries on
the Apocalypse; for example, exegetes like Berengaudus ea-
63 Gregory the Great, Homily, xxii (Pat. lat. 75:1175): "per Joannem nisi
Synagoga, quid per Petrum nisi Ecclesia designatur?"Hugh of St. Victor
(d. 1142), Miscellanea 1.96 (Pat. lat. 177:525): "Potest convenienter per
Johannem, qui prior venit, posterior, intravit, Synagoga; per Petrum au-
tem, qui posterior venit, sed prius intravit, Ecclesia gentium designari."
Also Sicardus (d. 1215), Mitrale 6.15 (Pat. lat. 213:359): "Hi [Saints Peter
and John] sunt duo populi: Petrus significat gentes, quae posterius ve-
nerunt ad notitiam passionis, sed tamen ex primis crediderunt. Johannes
Synagogam quae in lege et prophetis prius audivit Dominum passionem,
sed nondum credere in mortuum voluit." See Seifurth (as in n. 23), 17-
18; H. Reiners and W. Ewald, Kunstdenkmialerzwischen Maas and Mosel,
Munich, 1921, 139, n. 128.
64 Berengaudus, Expositio 8.13 (Pat. lat. 17:937).
 TRACTATUS ADVERSUS JUDAEOS IN THE GULBENKIAN APOCALYPSE 555

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gerly embraced Saint Paul's expectation of the final trans-
formation of the Jews at the end of the time (Romans 11:25-
26). In the thirteenth century the conversion of the Jews at
the end of time came to be regarded as a precondition of
the Second Coming. Because the Jews had been tradition-
ally labeled the followers of Antichrist, the presumed im-
minence of the final battle between his satanic forces and
the Christian faithful added further fuel to the fire of anti-
Semitism.6- The legendary association of the Jews with An-
tichrist was fully developed in popular thirteenth-century
pamphlets, tracts, homilies, and plays." While earlier me-
15 CommentaryIllustrationfor Rev. 8:13, GulbenkianApoca-
lypse. Lisbon,MuseuCalousteGulbenkianMsL. A. 139, fol.
19 (courtesyof the ConwayLibrary,CourtauldInstituteof
Art)
dieval Antichrist plays accorded Jews only an incidental
part in the legend, later versions stressed Antichrist's Jewish
parentage and characterized his primary supporters as
Jews.67Elaborating on earlier apocalyptic predictions that
Antichrist will emerge "from the bottomless impiety of the
Jewish people,"68thirteenth-century versions of the legend

65 See Cutler (as in n. 4), 92-116; and Cohen, 247.
66 At least two 13th-century vernacular poems on Antichrist were written
in England, one composed by a Templar named Henri d'Arci and the other
contained in Bodleian MsRawlinson 241; see Histoire litterairede la France,
xxxIII, Paris, 1906, 339.
67 Trachtenberg,34-36; U. Robert, Lesignes d'infamie au moyen
age, Paris,
1891, 104; R. Emmerson, Antichrist in the Middle Ages, Seattle, 1981,
46, 79-83, 91, 217.
68 Pseudo-Alcuin, In Apocalypsim, Pat. lat. 100:148.

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556 THE ART BULLETIN DECEMBER 1986 VOLUME LXVIII NUMBER 4
held that Antichrist will be born of the tribe of Dan, pro-
ceed to Jerusalem where he will be circumcised, and per-
suade the Jews that he is the long-awaited Messiah. Greg-
ory the Great had already asserted that, since the Jews do
not accept Christ and still await the coming of the Messiah,
"they await Antichrist."69
In the Gulbenkian Apocalypse, Antichrist and his Jewish
followers dominate the text and commentary illustrations
for Revelation 13. For example, on fol. 35v (Fig. 16), fol-
lowing a text illustration showing Jews worshipping the
dragon and beast, Antichrist's conversion of the Jews is
represented to accompany the Berengaudus gloss: " 'And
they adored the dragon' (13:4). They do not see that the
dragon whom they worship is the devil. But those who are
designated by the earth [the Jews] adore Antichrist, and in
Antichrist the devil, declaring none comparable to Anti-
christ, nor equal to him in his power."70Dressed in a fash-
ionably elegant surcote with slit sleeves and wearing a
pointed crown, Antichrist sits cross-legged on a faldstool,
holding an oversized upright sword in one hand and in the
other a scroll inscribed "Egosum filius dei et non alius prae-
ter me." A grotesquely bloated dwarf sits at his feet, while
a winged demon flies in from the left to complete the iden-
tification of Antichrist with the Devil in the Berengaudus
gloss. The power of the evil ruler is represented by three
helmeted soldiers in short tunics and mail, who stand be-
fore the worshippers at the right. Following traditional
interpretations of Rev. 13, most thirteenth-century Apoc-
alypse illustrations show a variety of converts being led to
worship Antichrist, including kings, bishops, and priests,
in addition to Jews wearing pointed hats, but throughout
the Gulbenkian sequence of illustrations for Rev. 13, the
worshippers of the dragon and beast, as well as Antichrist
and his followers, are portrayed exclusively as Jews.71
Another connection between the Jews and Antichrist oc-
curs in the legend of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel who be-
came confused in the twelfth century with the apocalyptic
nations of Gog and Magog, who would support Satan dur-
ing the final conflict. A terrible and mysterious mythical
Jewish horde was hidden somewhere in the East, awaiting
the signal of Antichrist to pour out its annihilating force
upon Christendom from their secret mountain retreat
within the Caspian Mountains where they had been con-
fined by Alexander the Great.72The association of Jews
with Antichrist assumed frightening proportions when it
69 Gregory, Moralia 36.24.43, Pat. lat. 76:597; on the Jewish acceptance
of Antichrist, see Victorinus, In Apocalypsim 2.2, CSEL 49:36; Jerome,
De Antichristo, in CCL 75A:918; Haimo of Auxerre, Expositio in Epis-
tolam II ad Thessalonicenses, in Pat. lat. 117:779-780; Bruno of Segni, In
lohannem 1.15, in Pat. lat. 165:492.
70Berengaudus, Expositio 13.4 (Pat. lat. 17:967).
71 E.g., fols. 34, 35, 35v, 36, 36v, 37v, 38v, 39v, and 40v; see Emmerson
(as in n. 67), 134-35.
72 See Trachtenberg, 39; A.R. Anderson, Alexander's Gate, Gog and Ma-
gog, and the Inclosed Nations, Cambridge, MA, 1932, 70-73, 81; G. Cary,
The Medieval Alexander, Cambridge, 1956, 130.
73 CM 4:77: "Creduntur isti Tartari, quorum memoria est detestabilis,
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was linked with the Mongol invasions of eastern Europe in
the 1240's and 1260's. Matthew Paris refers to the identi-
fication of the Mongols with the Ten Tribes in the Chronica
Majora73and reports a rumor that the Jews planned to fur-
nish arms and supplies to the Mongols.74On fol. 70v (Fig.
17) in the Gulbenkian manuscript, the commentary illus-
tration for Rev. 20:7 literally demonstrates how the en-
chaining of Satan in the form of a winged demon bound
within a cave at the left becomes Antichrist commanding
two Jewish disciples in pointed caps representing Gog and
Magog to seduce "the people of the four corners of the
Although Gog and Magog are not identified as
earth."''75
Jews in the Berengaudus text, their Jewish character is em-
phatically stressed in the caricatured figures that appear in
both the Lisbon and Abingdon illustrations.
No longer stressed as apostate, heretic, or pagan, the
Jewish Antichrist is perceived in the thirteenth century as
the last and greatest opponent of Christ and the Church in
the days before Judgment. On fol. 36v in the Gulbenkian
Apocalypse (Fig. 18), an ugly caricatured Antichrist, with
his usual attributes of pointed crown, upright sword, and
demon at his ear, stands at the left unfurling a scroll on
which is inscribed his blasphemy, "Christus deus non est";
in contradiction of Antichrist's claim, Christ appears at the
right as God the Creator, holding the sun and moon. The
Berengaudus gloss reports that he also blasphemed the
Church by saying that the Christian religion brought no
benefit to the faithful.76 In an image that reflects the sen-
timents of the Franciscan Spiritual Peter Olivi (ca. 1248-
98), who called upon the friars to missionize among the
Jews in preparation for the imminent final battle between
Antichrist and the Church,77a mitred bishop kneels within
the beleaguered church, guarded by a formidable Francis-
can friar. The Jewish followers of Antichrist turn their backs
on the friar's warnings, as they reiterate his blasphemies
on their fingers.
Within the eschatological framework of the Gulbenkian
Apocalypse, the destructive force of Antichrist that will
menace the foundations of the Church at the end of time
is heralded by his precursor in the figure of Simon Magus,
Jew, relapsed Christian convert, and heretic. Although Si-
mon is characterized unequivocally as a Jew with Jewish
adherents in the Gulbenkian and Abingdon Apocalypses,
his origins are obscure and ambiguous. In Acts 8:5-24, Si-
mon is a magician of Samaria who is converted and bap-
fuisse de decem tribubus, qui abierunt, relicta lege Mosaica, post vitulos
aureos; quas etiam Alexander Macedo primo conatus est includere in pra-
eruptis montibus Caspiorum molaribus bituminatis."
74 CM 4:131. On his map of the Crusader Kingdom, which appears on
fol. iii verso in Ms26, Matthew inscribed the "Caspian Mountains": "Here
dwell the Jews whom God locked up at the request of King Alexander
[and] who will go forth on the eve of the day of Judgment and will mas-
sacre all manner of peoples." In the Historia Anglorum legend these de-
structive peoples are called Gog and Magog; see Lewis, 1986, 349 and
figs. 214 and 217.
75Berengaudus, Expositio 20.7 (Pat. lat. 17:1018).
76
Ibid., 13.5 (Pat. lat. 17:968).
77Cited by Cohen, 247.
 TRACTATUS ADVERSUS JUDAEOS IN THE GULBENKIAN
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a4
17 CommentaryIllustrationfor Rev. 20:7, GulbenkianApoca-
lypse. Lisbon,MuseuCalousteGulbenkianMsL. A. 139, fol.
70v (courtesyConway Library,CourtauldInstituteof Art)
tized, but by the second century he is confused by Justin
Martyr with another Samaritan who became a heretical
leader in Rome. By the fourth century Simon Magus has
78E. Hennecke, New Testament
Apocrypha, ed. W. Schneemelcher, Phil-
adelphia, 1963, ii, 178; Simon is also characterized as a Jew in the apoc-
ryphal Acts of Peter, vi; M.R. James, The Apocryphal New Testament,
rev. ed., Oxford, 1963, 309. The Simon of scriptural Acts may have been
confused with a Jewish Simon, native of Cyprus, mentioned by Josephus,
Antiquities 20.7.2; see J. Hastings, Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics,
xi, New York, 1921, 522.
79Hegesippus places him at the head of a list of Jewish heresiarchs; see
Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica 4.22. Tertullian, De praescriptione 10,
classes him as a typical representative of Jewish and Samaritan heresy.
See Hastings (as in n. 78), 519.
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APOCALYPSE 557
CtOOF
dno
if hmr,wt Rmftmriinn~t. ~~a
clrn-mfcdtzmn
18 CommentaryIllustrationfor Rev. 13:5, GulbenkianApoca-
lypse. Lisbon,MuseuCalousteGulbenkianMsL. A. 139, fol.
36v (courtesyConway Library,CourtauldInstituteof Art)
become the father of all heresy, who falls at Rome in a
contest with Peter and Paul. Irenaeus, Adversus omnes
haereses 1:16, is the first to characterize Simon as a false
convert who appeared among the Jews as the Son of God,
and it is this aspect of his legend that appears in the apoc-
ryphal Acts of the Apostles, where Simon Magus is called
the "evil servant of the God of the Jews."78As a corollary
to his role as arch-heretic, Simon is regarded by the Fathers
as a heretic from Judaism.79In another context Simon was
accused of pretending to be a Jew in order to deceive the
people who followed him.80
In the commentary illustration on fol. 39v (Fig. 19), Si-
mon Magus is portrayed in his oldest guise, as a false Christ.
In the Berengaudus typology the Samaritan messiah be-
comes the precursor of Antichrist. Both claim the power
to resurrect the dead to credulous Jews who witness the
naked dead emerging from their tombs.81At the left, hold-
ing a book containing his false doctrines, Simon stands next
to the plane tree under which he preached. The hooded
figure of the Jewish sorcerer is also provided with wings,
referring to his doomed flight in the contest with Peter and
Paul at Rome. His head is turned in a grotesque caricatured
profile, as he holds a scroll inscribed "ex morte resurgire"
80 Encyclopedia biblica, iv, London, 1907, col. 4543.
81On the early identification of Simon Magus with the second Beast of
Apocalypse in the Apocalypse of Elias, see Hastings (as in n. 78), 523.
Simon's parody of Christ's Passion and Resurrection is related in detail
by Hippolytus, Refutatio omnium haeresium 6.7, and in the apocryphal
Passio sanctorum Apostolorum Petri et Pauli, ed. R.A. Lipsius and M.
Bonnet, Acta apostolorum apocrypha, i, Leipzig, 1891, 132-68 and 227-
32.
82 The unique juxtaposition of the standing Simon Magus and the seated
Antichrist may have been based on or adapted from the figures of Simon
Magus and Emperor Nero in scenes of the sorcerer's legendary dispute
with Peter and Paul, as seen, for example, in the 12th-century mosaic in
the Norman Palatine Chapel at Palermo.
558 THE ART BULLETIN DECEMBER 1986 VOLUME LXVIII NUMBER 4
ION
44'
krA vi
Amp
Ar-
19 CommentaryIllustrationfor Rev. 13:14, GulbenkianApoc-
alypse. Lisbon,MuseuCalousteGulbenkianMSL. A. 139, fol.
39v (courtesyConway Library,CourtauldInstituteof Art)
above the resurrected dead. Seated next to him is Anti-
christ, elegantly attired in a slit-sleeved surcote, ermine hat,
gloves, and patterned hose, holding a scepter and a scroll
proclaiming "potestatem habeo suscitare mortuos."82The
illustrations in the Gulbenkian and Abingdon manuscripts
interpret the Berengaudus gloss literally: "The statement
that the beast was struck by the sword and has lived may
mean that Antichrist will feign death and resurrection with
diabolical guile in order to deceive men more easily by this
deed. It is said that Simon Magus did the same thing."83
On fol. 16 (Fig. 20) Simon Magus appears with Nero,
who may be understood in this context as another precur-
sor of Antichrist. The commentary text refers to the second
part of Rev. 8:1 ("There was a silence in heaven for half
an hour"), which is interpreted as the Augustan peace at
the birth of Christ. The gloss then digresses by remarking
that it lasted only a short time, for it was interrupted by
the persecutions under Nero, when Peter and Paul were
martyred." The commentary illustration then develops this
digression far beyond the scope of the Berengaudus text
into a densely crowded series of scenes in which Nero wit-
nesses the fall of Simon Magus and then commands the
execution of the two Roman Apostles.85
At the left the winged magus, emphatically identified as
83 Berengaudus, Expositio 13:14 (Pat. lat. 17:970-71).
84 Ibid. (Pat. lat. 17:930- 31).
85 The legendary episode of Simon's contest with Peter and Paul before
Nero in Rome, in which the magician, to prove his divine powers, tries
to fly to Heaven but falls to his death, occurs in Pseudo-Marcellus, Passio
sanctorum Apostolorum Petri et Pauli; Lipsius and Bonnet (as in n. 81),
I, 132-68 and 227-32; see also James (as in n. 78), 77, 470. It recurs in a
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:am
nw A""remtm in in mm" to'hm. mfihemmmntm onina
20 CommentaryIllustrationfor Rev. 8:1, GulbenkianApoca-
lypse. Lisbon,MuseuCalousteGulbenkianMsL. A. 139, fol.
16 (courtesyof the ConwayLibrary,CourtauldInstituteof
Art)
a Jew wearing a pointed cap, plunges to an ignominious
death after being cursed by Peter, while his Jewish followers
and Nero watch in dismay. In the center, the two princes
of the Church kneel together, turning their backs on the
scene to face the Lord who appears before a vested altar
and chalice within a half-mandorla frame at the upper
right.86In the next episodes of the cyclical narrative, Paul
is beheaded at the left of this group, while Peter is being
fastened upside-down to a cross at the right. At the extreme
lower right, in reference to the commentary text, two bish-
ops falling beneath the sword represent Nero's persecution
of "all Christians." Initiated by Nero's angry gesture at the
left, the two episodes of Simon's fall and the Apostles' mar-
tyrdom develop in conflicting directions, right and left as
well as up and down. In the lower left corner Nero provides
an opposing counterpart to Christ at the upper right, while
the plunging figure of Simon Magus at the upper left finds
an adversarial foil in the inverted figure of Peter at the lower
right. In the center the two Apostles kneel in the foreground
facing the Lord, superimposed against two Jewish adher-
ents of Simon Magus who stand, turning the other way.
The Gulbenkian illustration reflects a number of ele-
number of different versions throughout the Middle Ages, including the
Legenda aurea, LXXXIX (89), ca. 1260-70, ed. T. Graesse, Leipzig, 1890,
371-74, where it is followed by the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul.
86 Although Christ holds a trumpet, the image must refer to the Beren-
gaudus commentary (Pat. lat. 17:931), which interprets the angel with the
golden censer, who stood before the altar in Rev. 8:3, as Christ to whom
all the saints offer their prayers.

MMcy 1/C
ru
mamn ap0ias *
Itoi
ai~mfgrg~
k d~~i: g~la r ~ln
21 CommentaryIllustrationfor Rev. 6:7, GulbenkianApoca-
lypse. Lisbon,MuseuCalousteGulbenkianMsL. A. 139, fol.
11 (courtesyConway Library,CourtauldInstituteof Art)
ments that occur in popular thirteenth-centuryLatin hymns
to Saint Peter referring to his encounter with Simon Ma-
gus.87The overthrow of the magician and the subsequent
martyrdoms of Peter and Paul became an increasingly
important iconography for the thirteenth century.88The
falling effigy of Simon Magus appears in an early thir-
teenth-century Purbeck relief on the central portal of Pe-
terborough Cathedral.89About 1250-75 the architrave of the
portico of Old St. Peter'sin Rome was painted with a fresco
cycle that included the dispute of Peter with Simon Magus,
his fall, and the death of Nero.90About the same time, the
new Lady Chapel at Bury St. Edmunds was decorated with
painted medallions of the history of Simon Magus, Nero's
87 See J. Sz6avrffy, "The Legends of St. Peter in Medieval Latin Hymns,"
Traditio, x, 1954, 275-322. For example, the sequence "Petro psallat lae-
tabundus" emphasizes that Simon was assisted by demons; G.M. Dreves
and C. Blume, Analecta hymnica medii aevi 8:202. Several other hymns,
e.g., Analecta hymnica 10:288 and 289, 40:272, and 55:314, stress the
persecution of the Apostles as a direct sequel to Nero's anger at the death
of Simon Magus. The same medieval tradition is repeated by John of
Salisbury, Policraticus 8.18, ed. C.C.I. Webb, Oxford, 1909, 363.IThe
ancient tradition that Peter was crucified upside-down is also repeated in
several hymns, e.g., "Christe, rex clemens," Analecta hymnica 14c:101;
see Sz6verffy, 302. The origin of Peter's tonsure occurs in a hymn that
contains the legend that the magician incited the crowd to shave Peter's
head to humiliate him; Analecta hymnica 3:50; R.A. Lipsius, Die apo-
cryphen Apostelgeschichte und Apostellegenden, ii, Braunschweig, 1887,
257; Legenda aurea, ed. T. Graesse, 182.
88As witnessed by the several windows devoted to the story at Chartres,
Bourges, Angers, and Tours, cited by E. Male, The Gothic Image: Reli-
gious Art in France of the Thirteenth Century, New York, 1958, 296 and
298.
89 G. Henderson, "The Damnation of Nero and Related Themes," The
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TRACTATUS ADVERSUS JUDAEOS IN THE GULBENKIAN APOCALYPSE 559
alliance with him against the Apostles, Simon's magical
flight and fall, and the subsequent martyrdom of Peter and
Paul at Nero's orders.91As in the Gulbenkian and Abing-
don Apocalypses, a historiated initial at the beginning of
B.L. MsRoy. 20. D. VI, a thirteenth-century French hagio-
graphical manuscript, portrays Simon Magus as a Jew in
a tall pointed cap; he appears opposite Peter and Paul, who
stand on either side of the enthroned figure of Nero, above
a text that includes an imaginary sermon preached by Peter
to convert the Jews of Rome.92In this illustrated text as
teC well as in the Gulbenkian Apocalypse, the legend of Simon
Magus has been transformed into an image that epitomizes
the paranoia and pessimism of thirteenth-century percep-
Ilr0#
tions of a Jewish menace to the peace and stability of the
A
Church.
Typologies of Destruction
The most ominous aspects of the anti-Jewish ideology in
the Gulbenkian Apocalypse appear in the pictorialized ar-
guments for divine sanctions of violence against the Jews.
In the commentary illustration on fol. 11 (Fig. 21), for ex-
ample, the destruction of Israel is depicted as a punishment
mandated by God at the Advent of Christ. Having made
a careful selection of passages from the Berengaudus com-
mentary, the thirteenth-centurycompiler begins by quoting
the first paragraph in which the Fourth Seal is interpreted
as David, Elijah, and Elisha, who prophesied Christ's Ad-
vent and the summoning of the people.93In the illustration
at the head of this text we see the three prophets led by
David holding a scroll inscribed "Christus adveniet" as he
points to the Nativity scene in the center. Although the text
makes no specific reference to the prophecy of Isaiah, the
image of the Christ Child atop a leafy pedestal behind the
reclining Virgin recalls the popular thirteenth-century icon-
ography of the Tree of Jesse from whose recumbent figure
VanishingPast: Studies in Medieval Art, Liturgy and Metrology Presented
to Christopher Hohler, ed. A. Borg and A. Martindale, Oxford, 1981,
39-42.
90 See S. Waetzoldt, Die Kopien des 17. Jahrhundertsnach Mosaiken und
Wandmalereien in Rom, Vienna, 1964, 66 and Nos. 865 (Archivio S. Pie-
tro, Album, fol. 41) and 870 (Vat. Barb. MSlat. 2733, fol. 135). The oldest
representation of Simon Magus is known in a 17th-century copy from the
Oratory of John VII (705-07) in Old St. Peter's, showing his flight and
fall next to the dispute before Nero; see J. Wilpert, Die r6mischen Mo-
saiken und Malereien der kirchlichen Bauten vom IV. bis XIII. Jahrhun-
dert, i, Freiberg, 1917, 399-404.
91
M.R. James, On the Abbey of S. Edmund at Bury, Cambridge, 1895,
143 and 194; Henderson (as in n. 89), 43-44.
92Warner and Gilson (as in n. 16), 11, 379-81. The text is an anonymous
French translation from fifty-six Latin legends totally distinct from Jean
de Vignay's version of the Legenda aurea; see Historie litteraire de la
France, xxxIII, Paris, 1906, 411; P. Meyer, in Romania, xvii, 1888, 366.
No single Latin source seems to exist for all the stories.
93 Berengaudus, Expositio 6.7 (Pat. lat. 17:915).
560 THE ART BULLETIN DECEMBER 1986 VOLUME LXVIII NUMBER 4
springs the stem bearing the Messiah,94 to lend further pic-
torial weight to the Birth of Christ as the fulfillment of Old
Testament prophecy, particularly to the "Radix et genus
David" from Rev. 22:16, since the royal son of Jesse stands
next to the Virgin at the left. The Lord bends down from
Heaven to deliver a small blank scroll, which was probably
intended to refer to the "summoning of the people" at
Christ's advent, signified by the opening of the fourth seal
in the Berengaudusgloss. The ox and the ass assume a larger
significance as traditional symbols of pagans and Jews,95
because the Nativity functions in the commentary text as
the turning point at which the pagans accept the divine
summons and the Jews reject it.
The Berengaudus gloss on the Fourth Seal then resumes
to inform us that "Hell follows this horse, because the in-
ferno will swallow up all those who hold in contempt the
warnings of the prophets, [Death and Hades] were given
authority over a quarter of the earth to kill by the sword,
famine, death, and wild beasts. By the fourth part of the
earth is meant all the land of Israel."96 The illustration de-
picts Israel as an isolated land mass cut off from the rest
of the earth, being swallowed up by a Hellmouth at the
right. Some people are being killed by the sword and wild
beasts, while others gnaw at one another's legs and feet to
demonstrate the desperation of famine. However, the fire
burning at the top of the island has no basis in the text
given here, but pertains to another passage in the Beren-
gaudus commentary which, asserting that the fourth rider
is called Death, because the people of Israel fell into mortal
sin, quotes from Deuteronomy: "A fire is kindled by the
Lord's anger . . and it devours the earth . . . and sets on
fire the foundations of the mountains."97 The fire kindled
by God's wrath against Israel also appears in the flaming
94 See A. Thomas, "Wurzel Jesse," Lexikon der christlichen Kunst, iv,
Rome-Freiburg, 1972, cols, 549-58; G. Schiller, Iconography of Christian
Art, i, New York, 1971, 15-17. Following Tertullian, De came Christi
21.5, based on the messianic prophecy of Isaiah 11:1, the rod or shoot of
the tree (virga) represents the Virgin (virgo) and the fruit or flower is
Christ. In the Gulbenkian image the figure of Mary replaces Jesse as the
radix, from which the shoot grows, and the Christ Child appears directly
as the flower, without the intervening figure of David. The 13th-century
Pictor in carmine, viii, "Nascitur infans Christus et reclinatur in prae-
sepio," gives typologies alluding to the flowering of the Tree of Life in
the middle of Paradise and the flowering of Aaron's rod; see James, 152.
The Nativity scene in the Gulbenkian manuscript is typical for the 13th
century. The Virgin reclines in bed, and her gaze is turned away from the
Child, staring intently at some invisible object at the left; according to
Male (as in n. 88), 185, Mary is pondering the words of the Prophets,
which have now come to pass; see also Schiller, I, 70. Joseph traditionally
sits at the end of the bed, and wears the pileus cornutus as a representation
of the Old Testament and its unity with the New Covenant (Schiller, i,
72-73). Mary is associated with the ass and the New Testament, Joseph
with the ox and the Old Testament. The Child does not lie in a manger,
but on a raised altar in the center, following the Glossa ordinaria on Luke
2, "Ponitur in praesepio, id est corpus Christ super altare." In several 13th-
century French Nativity scenes, the foliate capitals of the pedestal beneath
the altar offer a plausible source for the leafy stem in Gulbenkian; see
Branner, figs. 212, 213, and 364. However, an English psalter, B.L. Ms
Add. 28681, dating from the 1260's, provides a closer parallel on fol. 4
in which the leaves extend into the base of the altar. The tradition of the
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bowl held by the veiled horseman in the Apocalypse illus-
tration on the facing page (Fig. 22), so that the images of
Hell, death, and the consuming fire of God's anger dom-
inate the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy for those
who refuse to answer the summoning of the people at
Christ's Advent.
The pictorial juxtaposition of the rejection of the Jews
and the calling of the Gentiles also occurs in two of the
moralizing illustrations in the Paris Bestiary. In the alle-
gorical interpretation of the heron (Caladrius) on fol. 9 (Fig.
23), Christ turns away from the Jews because of their stub-
born unbelief and malice, and turns instead to the Gentiles
whose sins he bears on the Cross.98At the left the body of
the crucified Christ is bent in an exaggerated curve toward
a group of kneeling friars, bishops, and kings, while the
horned Moses, whose prophetic gesture of raising the ser-
pent is mentioned in Guillaume's text, stands in the center
and points toward Christ with one hand and to a burning
Hellmouth filled with Jews in pointed hats at the right, in
another interpolated image of punishment and destruction
not required by the text. In the moralizing illustration on
the Niticorace, the owl's preference for darkness signifies
the Jews' rejection of Christ and is illustrated by a group
of Jews led by a blindfolded teacher, while the light brought
to the Gentiles by Christ is bestowed upon the Apostles led
by Paul, who turns away from the Jews to gaze upon the
scene of the Annunciation at the left.99
Another image of the devastation of the Jews is given in
the Lisbon Apocalypse on fol. 13 (Fig. 24) in connection
with the commentary on the opening of the Sixth Seal. In
the thirteenth century, intense interest in the linked themes
of the destruction of Jerusalemand the rejection of the Jews
occurs in sources ranging from Peter of Blois' Contra per-
image of the Christ Child in the radix Jesse is confirmed by Bonaventura
towards the end of his Lignum vitae (ca. 1259-60): "Sane flos ille pul-
cherrimus de radice Jesse, qui in incarnatione floruit," cited by Eleanor
Greenhill, "The Child in the Tree," Traditio, x, 1954, 354.
95 In representations of the Nativity, the ox and the ass are invariably
placed next to the Child in a pictorial formula expressing the recognition
of Christ by the Jews and the pagans. According to Augustine, Sermones
(Pat. lat. 38:1026), the ox is a symbol of the Jews and the ass a symbol
of the pagans. Gregory of Nazianzus (Pat. grec.. 45:1138) explained that
the ox is yoked to the Law, and the ass is burdened with the sins of idolatry.
96 Berengaudus, Expositio 6.8 (Pat. lat. 17:920-21).
97 Ibid. (17:920).
98 Bestiary, 22-23, 11.495-510; cf. Reinsch, 242:
Christ . . . came in his great majesty
To look upon the sickness of the Jews
And when he saw that they would die
In the unbelief in which they were,
Saw their malice and their stubbornness,
And their evil heart and sloth,
From their gaze he turned his face,
By his benign and holy grace
He turned them towards our race.
99 Paris, Bibl. Nat. Msfr. 14969, fol. 12. Bestiary, 26, 11.623-56; cf. Reinsch,
248.
 TRACTATUS ADVERSUS
Zia
AO? -.10t". . .
22 The FourthHorseman,GulbenkianApocalypse.Lisbon,
MuseuCalousteGulbenkianMSL. A. 139, fol. 10v (courtesy
Conway Library,CourtauldInstituteof Art)
OV,
'OAI?
lo
$WPM
-L
k.wm I mi
23 MoralizingIllustrationfor the Heron, Bestiaryof Guillaume
le Clerc. Paris,Bibl. Nat. MSfr. 14969, fol. 9 (photo:Bibl.
Nat.)
fidiam Judaeorum, ca. 1200,'00to the Pictor in carmine,
which offers five Old Testament typologies for the Roman
devastation of ancient Israel.o10For this illustration the art-
100Peter of Blois, Contra perfidiam Judaeorum xxIII, Pat. lat. 207:850-
51, who quotes the apocryphal letter of Pilate recounting the legend of
Tiberius; in the next chapter (Pat. lat. 207:851-53), Peter, citing Eusebius,
Historia ecclesiastica 2.6, sees the destruction of Jerusalem and the sub-
sequent sufferings of the Jews as a punishment for their rejection of Christ.
101Pictor in carmine cxxxii ("Titus et
Vespasianus obsessam Jerusalem
depopulantur"); James, 147 and 165.
102Berengaudus, Expositio 6.12 (Pat. lat. 17:923).
103Although the destruction of the Jews occurred in Jerusalem, it is con-
flated with the episodes in Rome, as is evident from the River Tiber flow-
ing to the left of the walled gate of the city, as it appears in Matthew
Paris' representation of Rome in a drawing of the seal of Emperor Fred-
erick II in CM; see Lewis, 1986, fig. 37.
104Abingdon, fol. 17:
E cum il overi le sime sel. Le uverture del sime sel partient a lapel de
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JUDAEOS IN THE GULBENKIAN APOCALYPSE 561
Rw
..or
c ;-
0711
IT
24 CommentaryIllustrationfor Rev. 6:12, GulbenkianApoca-
lypse. Lisbon,MuseuCalousteGulbenkianMSL. A. 139, fol.
13 (courtesyConway Library,CourtauldInstituteof Art)
ist of the Gulbenkian Apocalypse drew upon the supple-
mentary text given in the Abingdon manuscript in addition
to the Berengaudus gloss, to expand the idea into an elab-
orate paratactic juxtaposition of the conversion of Rome
and the Roman destruction of Jerusalem. The Berengaudus
gloss reads: "The opening of the sixth seal refers to the
rejection of the Jews and the calling of the Gentiles. And
. . . Christ gave birth to the destruction of the Jews and
the election of the Gentiles . . , 'There was a great earth-
quake.' In this place the earth signifies the Jews, [for] there
was a great earthquake when these people were devastated
by the Romans."102 In the Gulbenkian and Abingdon illus-
trations, "the destruction of the Jews" is commanded by a
Roman emperor at the left.103However, the rest of the for-
mer image is incomprehensible without referringto the text
from an unidentified source that appears only in the Abing-
don version, giving a garbled history of the Roman de-
struction of Jerusalem linked with the Veronica legend.T1c
It claims that Emperor Claudius sent Vespasian to Jerusa-
lem to find Christ to cure him of leprosy, but was told that
genz e a la destruciun e deiectiun e confusiun des guis, kar quant clau-
dius cesar lempere ki fu leprus oit dire de iesu coment il garit la gent
par parole, si envea vaspasien en ierusalem pur quere iesu e quant
vaspasien iuint si trova ke les geus [sic] la veint oscis par lur en vie
dunt il esteit mult corusce. Mes il trova une povere femme ka veit la
semblaunce de la face iesu en un drape e su apele la veronike. E Vas-
pasien la mena a claudius cesar a rome, e illa ura e fu gari de la lepre;
e quant il fu gari de sa maladie, si envea vaspasien a destrure les guis.
E parce ke iesu fu vendu pur trente denies, si fist vaspasien vendre
trente gius pur un dener. E pur ce ke iesu crist ad parle mutes [sic]
choses de la perdiciun de gius e de le electiun des genz par parables:
non designent auskune choses ke il fist. Li overt le sime sel quant ce
kil dit e fist as docturs de seincte eglise par figures: e overt par la grace
des ainspiraciun. Ii overi le sime sel quant ce kil avant dit le empli de
overaynge par tere moete en cest luy: sunt les gius designez. Quant
teremoete est fete, quant la genz des gius est tote desuvastree des
romains.
See Appendix I.
562 THE ART BULLETIN DECEMBER 1986 VOLUME LXVIII NUMBER 4
the Jewshad him killed. However,Vespasianfound an im-
age of Christcalled the Veronicathat he broughtto Rome
where it miraculouslycured the Emperor.Claudiusthen
sent Vespasianback to Jerusalemto destroythe Jews.The
text ends by assertingthat, because Christ was sold for
thirty pieces of silver, Vespasiansold thirty Jews for a
penny, as we see in the illustration,wherea man standing
before the Emperorreachesinto his purse to pay for the
Jewsbound and shackledat his left. The image of a royal
figure selling Jews readily evokes their contemporaryde-
gradedconditionunderthe jurisdictionof the king.105 When
Henry III mortgagedthe Jews of Englandin 1255 to his
brother,Richardof Cornwall, for ?5000, Matthew Paris
dubbedthe king "a second Vespasian.106
The curiouslinkageof the text of the SixthSealwith the
destructionof the Jewsand the Veronicalegendmay refer
to Rev. 6:15, in which the victims of the greatearthquake
try to hide from the face of God, for the Berengauduscom-
mentaryon this verse quotes the Lord'sadmonitionto the
women of Jerusalem:"Weepnot for me, but for yourselves
and your children."''7 In the illustrationwe see the weeping
women lamentingthe Romanmassacreof Jewsat the far
left, while the figure of the Lordpresidesover the scene,
holdingwhat looks to be a huge ecclesiasticalseal, as if to
bestow divine approvalupon the destructionbelow. This
harshimagereflectsan aspectof anti-Jewishsentimentthat
can be found to some extenteven amongthe most enlight-
ened thirteenth-century Englishbishops, as revealedin the
following passage from Grosseteste'sletter to Lady Mar-
garet de Quincy:
105
Contrary to the prevailing conception, G.I. Langmuir,"TanquamServi:
The Change in Jewish Status in French Law about 1200," in Les Juifs dans
I'histoirede France, ed., M. Yardeni, Leiden, 1980, 33-37, has argued that
the status of the Jews in England cannot be described as "Jewishserfdom"
in a legal sense, despite the radical deterioration of their condition by the
middle of the 13th century.
106CM 5:488: "Becoming then a second Titus or
Vespasian, he [the king]
sold the Jews for some years to his brother Earl Richard, that the earl
might disembowel those whom the king had skinned. However, the earl
spared them out of consideration for the diminution of their power and
their ignominious poverty."
107Berengaudus, Expositio 6.15-17 (Pat. lat. 17:924). On the Veronica
image see Appendix II.
108Epistolae v, ed. H.R. Luard, 33. The letter was written by Grosseteste
in 1231 to the widow of the Count of Winchester, when he was Arch-
deacon of Leicester, at a time when some of the barons were trying to rid
their estates of Jews, following the example of Simon de Montfort, Lord
of Leicester. The Countess of Winchester planned to offer the displaced
Jews shelter on her estate and appealed to Grosseteste for guidance. See
L.M. Friedman, Robert Grosseteste and the Jews, Cambridge, MA, 1934,
12-18.
109The fool first appears in the initial for Psalm 52 in Latin psalters in
the early 13th century. Although the club apparently derives from an
earlier mime tradition, the fool does not wear a bicolored costume until
the 15th century. To my knowledge, the earliest example of a bicolored
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Being guilty of murder, in cruelly killing by crucifixion
the Saviour of the world . . . [the Jews] lost their status
unhappily at the hands of Titus and Vespasian, and hav-
ing entered into captivity, were scattered as slaves
throughout the world, and they shall not be restored to
freedom until the end of the world, when in the last days
the Jews shall attain salvation through belief in Christ
. . . In the meantime, however, while the same people
of the Jews persist in their unbelief . . . they will be held
captive under the rulers of the world as a just punishment
for their sin.08s
One of the strongest and most direct expressions of ec-
clesiastical hostility toward the Jews appears in the com-
mentary illustration on fol. 54v in the Gulbenkian Apoc-
alypse (Fig. 25), where mitred bishops are engaged in
physical combat with Jews in pointed hats. An archbishop
wields his long cross-staff like a lance and grasps the first
man by the throat. This distinctive figure, wearing a bi-
colored tunic and holding a club, may have been intended
to represent the God-denying fool from Psalms 13 and 52,
who appears with a club in thirteenth-century English and
Frenchpsalter illustrations and is sometimes shown arguing
with a cleric.1' From Augustine to Peter Lombard, medi-
eval commentators have interpreted "the fool who says in
his heart there is no God" to signify the Jews who killed
Christ, claiming "non est Deus."110In a contemporary En-
glish psalter from York (B.L. Ms Add. 54179) the associa-
tion is set forth unequivocally in the illustrated initial on
fol. 46 for Psalm 52, in which the fool is seated below a
tunic is worn by a musician on fol. 17 in the mid-13th century Maciejewski
Bible (New York, Morgan MsM. 638); see J. Plummer and S. C. Cockerell,
Old Testament Miniatures, New York, 1969, 91. However, its next ap-
pearance in the early 14th century, as the distinctive costume worn by
one of Christ's executioners in the Flagellation scene on fol. 2v in the
Ramsey Psalter (Morgan Ms M. 302), may again allude to the fool from
the Psalms. In an initial for Psalm 52 in a psalter dating ca. 1220 from
the Benedictine priory of St. Neots (London, Lambeth Palace Ms563, fol.
53v), the fool appears before a cleric; see Morgan, 95-96, No. 48. On the
iconography of the fool, see D.J. Gifford, "IconographicalNotes Towards
a Definition of the Medieval Fool," Journal of the Warburgand Courtauld
Institutes, xxxvii, 1974, 336-38; H. Meier, "Die Figur des Narren in der
christlichen Ikonographie des Mittelalters," Das Miinster, viii, 1955, 1-5;
V. Osteneck, "NarrTor,"Lexikon der christlichenIkonographie, iii, Rome-
Freiburg, 1971, cols. 314-16. I am grateful to Del Kolve, who is preparing
a book on the God-denying fool, for his generous advice on the anti-
Jewish aspects of the image.
110Augustine, Enarratione in Psalmum LII (Pat. lat. 36:614):
". dixe-
runt qui eum crucifixerunt: 'Non est Deus' . .. hoc ipsum dicunt ipsi
Judaei." Cassiodorus, Expositio in Psalmum XIII (Pat. lat. 70:103): "Vi-
dens populus Judaeorum Christum humiliter in assumpta carne venisse,
insipienter dixit: 'Non est Deus';" Remigius of Auxerre, Enarratio in Psal-
mos xmiiand LII (Pat. lat. 131:208 and 407); Peter Lombard, Commen-
tarium in Psalmum LII (Pat. lat. 191:501): "ille dicit: Non est Deus. Vel
insipiens, id est Judaeos, dixit in corde suo, id est studio deliberatae mal-
itiae: Hic homo non est Deus."
 TRACTATUS ADVERSUS
11
25 CommentaryIllustrationfor Rev. 6:15, GulbenkianApoca-
lypse. Lisbon,MuseuCalousteGulbenkianMsL. A. 139, fol.
54v (courtesyConway Library,CourtauldInstituteof Art)
scene of Jews stoning Christ."' In the Abingdon version
(Fig. 26), a bishop and Jew struggle over a crozier, while
a king raises a great sword against the adversaries of the
Church.112The explanatory text for the pouring of the
fourth vial informs us that "Christ and his Apostles clearly
predicted that the wicked Jews would be destroyed. And
thus the Romans . .. poured [the fourth vial] on the Jews
to take vengeance for the blood of Christ ... by fire, hun-
ger and the sword . . almost all of the Jews were destroyed
. . because it was mandated by God ... to inflict diverse
calamities on the Jews and to kill some of them.""113
Unlike the illustrations on fols. 11 and 13 in the Lisbon
Apocalypse, this pictorial interpretation of the Berengau-
dus commentary has transferredGod's mandate to destroy
the Jews from the Roman emperors to the Church of Rome,
represented by the Apostles at the left. As Christ thrusts
the keys of authority at Peter, the first bishop appears re-
luctant to accept the command to kill the Jews as a con-
dition of his stewardship, but his thirteenth-century suc-
cessor eagerly rises to the task in a parallel action, aided
in the Abingdon version by a zealous king. While this vi-
olent image offers a highly exaggerated view, it neverthe-
less appears to express a sentiment shared by at least some
thirteenth-centuryEnglishbishops to justify the violence and
persecution of Jewish communities within their dioceses in
the 1260's.114
111E.G. Millar, A Thirteenth-Century YorkPsalter, Cambridge, 1952, pl.
vi. In the Bible moralisee, Bibl. Nat. MSlat. 11560, fol. 5v, the moralizing
text for Psalm 13:1 reads: "In psalmo isto Dominus Deus in persona sua
ut in persona Iesu Christi loquens vituperat insipientiam et duriciam lud-
eorum qui negabant cotidie Christum et desiderabant eum et non cre-
debant," and is accompanied by an illustration of Christ preaching to Jews
in pointed hats, who argue with him and depart with a scroll representing
the Old Law. See A. de Laborde, La Bible moralisee, III, Paris, 1925, pl.
229.
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JUDAEOS IN THE GULBENKIAN APOCALYPSE 563
J;: 71
-YOM
on
26 Commentary Illustration for Rev. 6:15, Abingdon Apoca-
lypse. B. L. MSAdd. 42555, fol. 59 (permission the British
Library)
Although the selection of passages from the Berengaudus
commentary contained in the Gulbenkian Apocalypse lays
inordinate emphasis on its anti-Jewishcomponents, the new
compilation does not change the substance of its twelfth-
century text. As in Guillaume le Clerc's Anglo-Norman
version of the earlier Latin Bestiary, it is the illustrations
that reinterpret the text in terms of thirteenth-century ideas
and perceptions of Judaism. Unlike the Gulbenkian illus-
trations, however, the visual imagery of the Paris Bestiary
does not differentiate between biblical Jews redeemed
through prophecy and unconverted medieval Jews. From
the simpler perspective of both the text and images in the
thirteenth-century Paris Bestiary, all Jews are blind and un-
regenerate, with little or no possibility offered for redemp-
tion or conversion. In contrast, the images in the Gulben-
kian Apocalypse frequently make pointed distinctions
between Old Testament and medieval Jews throughout, cel-
ebrating Moses, Aaron, and Elijah as heroic and noble
prophets of Christ, as on fols. 4, 11, 38v, and 42v. Never-
theless, expressions of untempered hostility dominate the
manuscript, as in the illustrations of the harshness of the
Law (fol. 11), the Jews' unbelief and heresy (fol. 8), stub-
bornness and refusal to heed either the prophets or the
preaching of the friars (fol. 52v), and their sufferings and
112The royal gesture is reminiscent of the sentiment
expressed by Joinville,
The Life of St. Louis, transl. M.R.B. Shaw, Harmondsworth, 1963, 175,
in which the king is reported to have said, "No one, unless he is an expert
theologian, should venture to argue with [the Jews]. But a layman, when-
ever he hears the Christian religion abused, should not attempt to defend
its tenets, except with his sword, and he should thrust it into the scoun-
drel's belly as far as it will enter."
113Berengaudus, Expositio 16.8-9 (Pat. lat. 17:990-91).
114 See below, p. 564.
564 THE ART BULLETIN DECEMBER 1986 VOLUME LXVIII NUMBER 4
destruction by the Romans (fol. 13 and 54v) in "vengeance
for the blood of Christ."
In their renewed insistence upon the spiritual or alle-
gorical exposition of Scripture promoted by their twelfth-
century texts, both the Gulbenkian Apocalypse and the
Paris Bestiary espouse a somewhat old-fashioned exegetical
tradition that was on the decline ca. 1230-60.115 In their
condemnation of the Jews' literal understanding of the Bi-
ble, Berengaudus and Guillaume le Clerc resemble Peter of
Blois whose Contra perfidiam judaeorum dates ca. 1200,116
as well as Bartholomew of Exeter (d. 1184), who writes in
his Dialogues against the Jews: "The chief cause of disa-
greement between ourselves and the Jews seems to me to
be this: they take all the Old Testament literally. ... they
will never accept allegory . . . We interpret not only the
words of Scripture, but the things done, and the deeds
themselves, in a mystical sense."117 In the outlook expressed
both in text and illustration, the Gulbenkian Apocalypse
and the Paris Bestiary also find a later thirteenth-century
counterpart in Grosseteste's writings, which argue that
"light comes when the literal sense of Scripture bursts forth
into the spiritual sense.""'s
In the thirteenth century, however, the "spiritual" ex-
position of Berengaudus on the Apocalypse no longer
served, as it had in the twelfth, as a text for clerical in-
struction or contemplation; within the context of thir-
teenth-century ecclesiastical purposes, words must be
turned into action.119For the contemporary reader of the
Gulbenkian and Abingdon manuscripts, the moral imper-
atives called for in the Berengaudus commentary are lit-
erally transformed into pictorial images of dramatic action
against the Jews. The decade of the 1260's, in which the
Gulbenkian and Abingdon Apocalypses as well as the Paris
Bestiary were made, was a period of devastation and terror
for the Jews of England. With the turning point reached in
1253 when Simon de Montfort carried out his earlier de-
creed expulsion of the Jews from Leicester (the first such
measure since their expulsion from Bury St. Edmunds in
1190) and Henry III issued restrictive legislation based
largely on earlier ecclesiastical canons,120 the situation
steadily worsened until the Jews were expelled in 1290. The
first to suffer severely in the 1260's were the Jews of Can-
terbury in 1261, who were more seriously attacked in 1264.
In 1262, seven hundred Jews were killed by the baronial
armies in London, and the new synagogue was burned in
115 See
Smalley, 281-92.
116Peter of Blois, Contra perfidiam Judaeorum xxxII, Pat. lat. 207:865.
117MSBodl. 482, fol. Id, quoted by Smalley, 170-71; see A. Morey, Bar-
tholomew of Exeter, Cambridge, 1937, 109 and 164.
118Quoted by Smalley (as in n. 15), 85, from Hexaemeron B, fol. 203 on
Genesis 1:4.
119Smalley, 249.
120Richardson (as in n. 57), 187-92.
121 See
S.W. Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, 2nd rev.
ed., x, New York, 1965, 105-06; Roth, A History of the Jews in England,
3rd ed., Oxford, 1964, 59-62; Adler (as in n. 58), 78-79.
122
F.M. Powicke, Henry III and the Lord Edward, Oxford, 1947, 516-17.
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1263-64 during a second siege. Similar attacks occurred at
Worcester, Winchester, Bristol, Bedford, Ely, and Lincoln,
where the synagogue was sacked in 1266.121During the dis-
turbances of the barons' war, the failure of civil, royal, or
ecclesiastical authority to protect Jews against physical at-
tack and destruction of property left the Jewish commu-
nities of Englandin a deplorable condition by the time peace
was declaredin 1268.122
Much has been already made of the role of the Church
in sanctioning and promoting actions against Jews, and it
has been suggested that inordinate clerical interest in the
Jews may have been motivated by economic interests as
well as theological concerns, for many churches, abbeys,
and clerical individuals had borrowed money from them.123
Ecclesiastical assemblies provided a highly visible and well-
documented forum for the venting of anti-Jewish griev-
ances. The synods of Worcester in 1240, Chichester in 1246,
Salisbury in 1256, Merton in 1258, and Lambeth in 1261
all adopted increasingly stronger anti-Jewish canons.124 Af-
ter promoting the restrictive canons adopted by the synod
of Oxford in 1222, Langton, together with the bishops of
Lincoln and Norwich, attempted to initiate a boycott to
starve out their Jewish communities but were thwarted by
the king's justiciar, Hubert de Burgh.125However, as Lang-
muir has pointed out, most churchmen were themselves
influenced by the rising tide of anti-Semitism in the thir-
teenth century, and their advocacy of increasingly harsher
measures against the Jews would have been without effect
if they had not coincided with more pervasive trends in
secular society.126 As Langmuir further reminds us, it is im-
portant to distinguish between the actions of churchmen
that are dictated by dogma and religious authority and
those which are more properly attributable to the passions
of a particular time, place, or group - that is, to preju-
dice.127 The Church reform movement among the secular
bishops in England, beginning with Stephen Langton in the
wake of Lateran IV, with its strong emphasis on authority,
hierarchical order, severe discipline, group loyalty, and re-
ligious conformity, provided a classic framework for the
nurturing of anti-Jewish prejudice.128
Like the Abingdon Apocalypse, which was commis-
sioned by Giles de Bridport,129 the Gulbenkian Apocalypse
was probably created for a reformist secular bishop or high
cleric, and reflects the anti-Jewish prejudices of a small but
influential group of English churchmen in the 1260's. Both
123E.g., Baron (as in n. 121), 101.
124Roth (as in n. 121), 39-54.
125Baron (as in n. 121), 102; Richardson (as in n. 57), 186; Roth (as in
n. 121), 41 and 54.
126 E. Langmuir, "The Jews and the Archives of
Angevin England: Re-
flections on Medieval Anti-Semitism," Traditio, xIx, 1963, 238.
127
Ibid., 243.
128 Ibid.,243, who cites T.W. Adorno et al., The Authoritarian Person-
ality, New York, 1950, 55, 94, 151-52, 385-87, 406, 450; and G.W. Allport,
Nature of Prejudice, Boston, 1954, 396-406.
129 See Lewis, 1985, 107-19.
 TRACTATUS ADVERSUS
illustrated manuscripts are preoccupied with images of
preaching and Church discipline, which in the view of many
if not most thirteenth-century clerics encompassed eccle-
siastical jurisdiction over the Jews. Both books are filled
with images of clerics, including bishops, monks, regular
clergy, and mendicants, mostly Franciscans, and appear to
be addressed to and commissioned by the same or a similar
circle of clerical patrons, most probably made up of secular
bishops who, like Giles de Bridport of Salisbury, were in-
volved in church reform and, like Grosseteste and his suc-
cessor at Lincoln, were closely involved with the friars,
particularly the Franciscans, upon whose charismatic
preaching they depended to advance their cause.130The new
iconography required for the illustration of the Berengau-
dus commentary is consistently drawn from textual rather
than pictorial sources. With its abundant learned references
and biblical allusions in both the text and illustrations, the
Gulbenkian and Abingdon manuscripts were probably de-
signed by and for clerical patrons trained in the Oxford
schools. The intention of these elegant and innovative
Apocalypse manuscripts seems clear. The dramatic and dy-
namic character of their anti-Jewish imagery not only
served as a vehicle for the expression of intense feeling, but
also provided an inspiring stimulus and justification for
action.
Articles on medieval art and architecture by Suzanne Lewis
have appeared in the Art Bulletin, the Journal of the Society
of Architectural Historians, the American Journal of Ar-
chaeology, Traditio, and Viator. Her book, The Art of
Matthew Paris in the Chronica Majora (University of Cal-
ifornia Press), will appear later this year. [Art Department,
Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305]
Appendix I
The Veronica Legend in the Abingdon Apocalypse
As far as I have been able to determine, this version of the Ve-
ronica legend is unique in several respects, especially in the sub-
stitution of Claudius for Tiberius given in the Latin legends, Mors
Pilati and the Cura sanitatis Tiberii, in which Tiberius sends an
emissary named Volusianus to Jerusalem; see C. Tischendorff,
Evangelia Apocrypha, 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1876, 456-58 and 479-86;
James (as in n. 78), 157-58; Hennecke (as in n. 78), I, 464. The
story is inserted into the Golden Legend, LIII:"De passione do-
mini," ed. T. Graesse, 232-35. In the Vindicta salvatoris, which
appears in an Anglo-Saxon version not later than the 11th century
in a copy made for Bishop Leofric of Exeter, King Titus of Bor-
deaux sent Vespasian to besiege Jerusalem for seven years and
sold thirty Jews for a penny; see Tischendorf, 471-86; C.W. Good-
win, ed., The Anglo-Saxon Legends of St. Andrew and St. Ve-
ronica, Cambridge, 1851, 37, 43-47. The Vindicta salvatoris ap-
pears on fols. 127r-v in St. John's College, Cambridge, Ms C. 12,
a mid-13th-century manuscript that also contains the diocesan
constitutions of Giles de Bridport (fols. 107v-111), Robert Grosse-
teste's Templum Domini (fols. 1-9), the Life of Saint Edmund of
130
J.H. Strawley, "Grosseteste's Administration of the Diocese of Lin-
coln," in Robert Grosseteste, Scholar and Bishop, Oxford, 1955, 147-48.
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JUDAEOS IN THE GULBENKIAN APOCALYPSE 565
Abingdon, and some sermons, a book obviously intended for use
by a canon, dean, or bishop, perhaps at Salisbury or Lincoln. In
any case, this manuscript establishes the currency of the story
among cathedral clerical circles in southern England in the 1260's;
see M.R. James, Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the
Library of St. John's College, Cambridge, Cambridge, 1913, 85,
No. 6; this text is also included in the best and most complete
English copy of Guillaume le Clerc's Bestiary, in B.L. Ms Egerton
613, dating from the mid-13th century.
A reference to the Roman destruction of Jerusalem may appear
in the Bible moralisee, Bibl. Nat. Ms lat. 11560, fol. 6, where the
moralizing text for Psalm 17:1 is a prayer of Christ to God the
Father "to repay the Jews for their wickedness, for they lost coun-
try and state for the conservation of that with which they had
killed Christ." As Christ and David kneel in prayer, two crowned
figures, probably Vespasian and Titus, raise enormous swords
against the Jews; see Browe (as in n. 56), 184ff.; Blumenkranz,
76.
The story of Vespasian selling the Jews must have been known
in some form by Matthew Paris, for he alludes to it in his annal
for 1255 (CM 5:488) in which he reports that Henry III, "becoming
a second Vespasian," sold the Jews to his brother, Richard of
Cornwall.
The confusion of Titus and Tiberius with Claudius may have
its origins in an episode reported in Suetonius that Claudius ex-
pelled all the Jews from Rome under the influence of an impulsore
Chresto, which could have been taken to mean Christ, as sug-
gested by P.L. de Feis, "Del Monumento di Paneas e delle im-
magini della Veronica," Bessarione, Iv, 1898, 180. Roger Wen-
dover reports the episode in the Chronica Majora (1:105), but fails
to mention Chrestus: "Anno gratiae XLIX. Claudius imperator
Judaeos tumultuantes Roma expulit. De qua Luca Evangelistis in
Actibus Apostolorum refert."
Appendix II
The Veronica in the Gulbenkian and Abingdon
Apocalypses
The Veronica image in the Gulbenkian manuscript appears to have
been based in part on a type first documented in England ca. 1240-
50 by Matthew Paris as an insertion on fol. 2 in B.L. Ms Arundel
157, a psalter made for Oxford use, and then on fol. 49v in the
Chronica Majora, to accompany the prayer with indulgences
composed by Innocent III in 1216; see Lewis, 1986, 126-130 and
pls. iv-v. Matthew's interest in the celebrated Roman image may
have been inspired by the addition of further indulgences to the
papal Office of the Veronica granted by Innocent IV (1243-54) in
his Ave facies praeclara. Four other Veronicas of this type occur
in English manuscripts dating from the second half of the 13th
century: the endpieces of the Westminster Psalter (MsRoy. 2. A.
xxII, fol. 221v) and the Lambeth Apocalpse (Lambeth Palace Ms
209, fol. 53v), and in the Evesham Psalter (Ms Add. 44874, fol.
6v), and another psalter (Lambeth Palace Ms 368, fol. 95v). In
contrast to the masklike face of the Veronica based on the Laon
mandylion, known as the image of Edessa, which is represented
on fol. 15 in the Psalter and Hours of Yolande de Soissons (Pier-
pont Morgan Library Ms M. 729), dating from ca. 1275-85 (see
K. Gould, The Psalter and Hours of Yolande de Soissons, Cam-
bridge, MA, 1978, 81-94), the English effigy is a bust portrait of
Christ that includes the head and shoulders and was very prob-
ably based on the textual description of the Roman Veronica given
by Gervase of Tilbury in the Otia imperiale 3.25, dating from ca.
1210-15: "Est ergo Veronica pictura Domini vera secundum car-
566 THE ART BULLETIN DECEMBER 1986 VOLUME LXVIII NUMBER 4
nem representans effigiem a pectore superius in basilica S. Petri."
See E. von Dobschiitz, Christusbilder: Untersuchungen zur
christlichen Legend, Leipzig, 1899, 292; 0. Picht, "The Avignon
Diptych and Its Eastern Ancestry," De Artibus Opuscula: Essays
in Honor of Erwin Panofsky, ed. M. Meiss, Princeton, 1961, 408-
09; and F. Lewis, "The Veronica: Image, Legend and Viewer," En-
gland in the Thirteenth Century: Proceedings of the 1984 Har-
laxton Symposium, ed. W.M. Ormrod, Nottingham, 1985, 100-
06. Although the Veronica is clearly characterized in the text of
the Office as an impression of Christ's face miraculously im-
pressed on a white cloth (sudarium), the English bust portraits
that follow Matthew Paris remain faithful to Gervase of Tilbury's
description of the image as a painted icon (in tabula pictura). The
Gulbenkian rendering of the Veronica, however, is unmistakably
a bust portrait of Christ painted on a fringed crimson cloth and
represents the earliest known pictorial documentation of a type
that did not appear to gain currency until the 14th century, when
representations of Saint Veronica holding the cloth image begin
to appear. Under the influence of Rogier d'Argenteuil (ca. 1300)
and the Franciscan Via crucis, the legend began that Veronica
received the cloth portrait of Christ on the way to Calvary; see
E. Male, L'artreligieux de la fin du moyen iige en France, 4th ed.,
Paris, 1931, 64. K. Pearson, Die Fronica: Ein Beitrag zur Ge-
schichte des Christusbilder im Mittelalter, Strasbourg, 1887, 47
and 97-103, mentions a 14th-century manuscript in Cambridge,
University Library Ms Ii. 6. 2, in which Christ's face appears on
a red cloth, and points out that the Veronica often served as a
motif for ecclesiastical banners, as well as Lenten veils and rood-
cloths, but the evidence is very late. A close counterpart to the
Gulbenkian type occurs in a 14th-century manuscript in Milan,
Biblioteca Ambrosiana Ms L. 58 Sup., which contains three il-
lustrations of Saint Veronica holding a fringed cloth, on fols. 66,
66v, and 67, to accompany the text of Mors Pilati; see A.M. Cer-
iani, Canonical Histories and Apocryphal Legends Relating to the
New Testament, Milan, 1873, x and unnumbered pls. This figure
is repeated three times and was probably copied from an earlier
model; similar illustrations appear in a copy of the Legenda aurea
dating from the second half of the 14th century in Cambridge,
Fitzwilliam Museum, Ms 7. E. 7.
Although the Gulbenkian Apocalypse provides isolated and
perhaps unique pictorial evidence for the cloth image of the Ve-
ronica in 13th-century England, there is a very early tradition of
the sudarium Domini reported by Bede, De locis sanctis 5, who
refers to a large linen cloth (linteus). Indeed, Gerald of Wales
(1146-1223), Speculum ecclesiae (ed. J.S. Brewer, Giraldi Cam-
brensis Opera, Iv, London, 1893, 278-79), reports that there were
two Roman images called the Veronica, one an iconic portrait
believed to have been painted by Saint Luke in the Lateran, the
other the miraculous cloth impression of Christ's face that had
cured Emperor Tiberius and was kept in St. Peter's. Gerald con-
tradicts Gervase of Tilbury who described both the Lateran and
Vatican images as painted on panels.
While the Gulbenkian Apocalypse represents the earliest and
perhaps the only pictorial documentation of the cloth Veronica
in 13th-century England, the Abingdon manuscript, despite the
fact that its text specifies a cloth portrait, reveals a third and even
rarer type in its depiction of the miraculous vultus Domini as a
sculptured bust raised on a pedestal in the form of a Graeco-
Roman herm. The sculptured image of Christ stems from an East-
ern tradition reported in Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica 7.18, and
Sozomen, Historia ecclesiastica 5.21, referring to a columnar
bronze image known as the monument of Paneas and purported
to possess miraculous healing powers, which was probably a vo-
tive stele of Asclepius later misidentified as Christ; see de Feis (as
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in Appendix I), 180. The legend made its way into the West
through the 5th-century Latin translation of Eusebius by Rufinus,
Historia ecclesiastica 7.14, which appeared in a Latin versification
as late as ca. 1220, in the Vita Beatae Virginis Mariae et Salvatoris
rhytmica 17 (ed. Vbgtlin, Bibliothek des litterarische Verein in
Stuttgart, CLXXX, 1888). The story of the statue of Christ broken
by Julian the Apostate appears in the Golden Legend 105 (Saint
Martha), with references to Eusebius, Ambrose, and Jerome (ed.
T. Graesse, 445). However, the major Western source is Cassio-
dorus, Historia tripartita 6.41, which was adopted by Vincent of
Beauvais (d. 1264) in his Speculum historiale 15.28. A statue of
the Savior is also mentioned by Peter Comestor, Historia scho-
lastica 61 (Pat. lat. 198:1571) and Gervase of Tilbury, Otia im-
periale 3.50. In Herrad of Landsberg's Hortus deliciarum (after
1150), the legends of the Paneas statue and the painted Veronica
panel are placed side by side. See Dobschiitz, 197-205 and 251-
72. Gerald of Wales, Speculum ecclesiae, 279, also refers to a
sculptured image of Christ, but it is clearly the wooden Volto
Santo of Lucca.
Thus, of the three types of Veronica for which we have evi-
dence, only the painted icon appears to have had any significant
currency as a visual image in the West, mainly in connection with
the Office of the Veronica, which carried increasingly heavy papal
indulgences throughout the 13th century. Evidence for the cir-
culation of copies of the Roman effigies Christi is given in a letter
sent by Jacques Pantaleon (later Pope Urban IV) in 1249 accom-
panying a replica sent to Montreuil (see Dobschiitz, 297; Pearson,
63-65). The sudarium that appears in the Gulbenkian Apocalypse
appears to be unique to the 13th century, and anticipates a type
that only became popular in the next century, while the herm of
Christ given in the Abingdon Apocalypse remains unique and
without pictorial precedent.
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