The Birds Head Haggadah

The Israel Museum in Jerusalem holds, in the Schottenstein collection of Jewish manuscripts on long-term deposit, an illuminated Hebrew Haggadah that is one of the most unusual survivals of medieval Jewish art. The manuscript, catalogued as MS 180/50 and generally known as the Birds’ Head Haggadah, was produced in the German lands in the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century, and is a complete Passover Haggadah for use at the Seder. The Haggadah is distinguished by the consistent replacement of human heads with bird heads in every illustrated figure across its folios: the men, the women, and the children of the biblical narrative, and the participants at the Seder table below the text, are all shown with the heads and beaks of various species of birds, retained from the visual vocabulary of European Gothic marginalia and bestiary illustration. The treatment is consistent throughout the manuscript, across all of its illustrations, and the artist has used the bird head as a stable visual convention rather than as an incidental device. The convention makes the Birds’ Head Haggadah one of the most recognizable illuminated Hebrew manuscripts to survive from the medieval German lands, and one of the most studied witnesses to Jewish visual culture in Ashkenaz in the decades around the year 1300.

The manuscript itself

The Birds’ Head Haggadah is, on the basis of the codicological and paleographical analysis that has been carried out since the manuscript entered the Schottenstein collection and since the comprehensive study that has been published on it, a small parchment codex of the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century. The codex consists, as it survives, of approximately forty-eight parchment leaves, with the original codex having been somewhat larger and with one or more quires having been lost. The leaves are bound along one edge in the codex form, with the binding being a later medieval or early modern binding that has been replaced several times over the centuries and that now consists of a simple limp parchment binding of the period. The folio size is approximately seventeen by twenty-three centimetres, a small format that is consistent with the use of the manuscript at the family Seder table rather than at the synagogue reading desk. The parchment is of good quality, with the leaves having been carefully prepared from animal skin, and with the parchment being well preserved despite the manuscript’s age.

The text of the Birds’ Head Haggadah is written in a single column on each page, with the column occupying most of the folio and with the illustration occupying the lower or outer margin of the folio. The text is the standard Ashkenazi Haggadah text of the period, with the customary recital of the Exodus story, the blessings over the matzah and the four cups of wine, the Mah Nishtannah section, the Dayenu hymn, and the concluding psalms of praise. The text is written in a careful Ashkenazi square script of the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century, with the letter forms consistent with the script of the German scriptoria of the period and with the script that was used in the other Ashkenazi Haggadot of the period. The script is, on the basis of the paleographical analysis that has been carried out, consistent with the script of the other Ashkenazi Haggadot of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, and the script is one of the features that establish the dating of the manuscript to the period.

The vocalization of the Birds’ Head Haggadah is absent: the manuscript is unvocalized, as was the general practice for liturgical texts in the German lands in the period. The Hebrew was read aloud from memory in the recitation of the Haggadah, and the absence of vocalization was not, in this context, a defect but a feature of the manuscript’s use. The Masorah of the Birds’ Head Haggadah is also absent, in keeping with the manuscript’s use as a Haggadah rather than as a Bible manuscript. The Masoretic apparatus, which was the elaborate system of marginal notes that characterized the Tiberian Masoretic Bible manuscripts of the same period, was not a feature of Haggadah manuscripts, and the absence of Masoretic apparatus is one of the features that distinguish Haggadah manuscripts from Bible manuscripts of the period.

The illustrations of the Birds’ Head Haggadah occupy the lower or outer margin of each folio that contains the recitation of a section of the Haggadah, and the illustrations depict, in a programme that runs through the manuscript from the opening folios to the closing folios, the various stages of the Seder and the various biblical events that are referred to in the Haggadah text. The illustrations include the preparation of the matzah and the Passover lamb before Passover, the bringing of the lamb to the Temple in Jerusalem, the slaughtering of the lamb at the Temple, the roasting of the lamb and the eating of the Passover meal, the four sons of the Haggadah, the four cups of wine at the Seder table, the Seder participants at the table, the afikoman at the end of the meal, the concluding psalms and songs at the end of the Seder, and a series of additional biblical scenes that elaborate the Haggadah text. The illustrations are drawn in brown ink with a wash of pale ochre and sepia over the ink, and the illustrations have the soft, slightly imperfect look of a manuscript that was produced for use at the family table rather than for display at the synagogue or in a noble library.

The most distinctive feature of the illustrations is the consistent use of bird heads on all of the human figures across the manuscript. The men, the women, the children, the patriarchs, the Israelites in Egypt, the Egyptians, the priests at the Temple, the Seder participants at the table, the four sons of the Haggadah, and the additional figures in the marginal scenes are all shown with the heads of various species of birds. The birds depicted include, among others, hawks, owls, eagles, and other species that were familiar from the European bestiary tradition of the period. The artist has used the bird head as a stable visual convention, and the convention is applied consistently across the manuscript without exception. The convention is one of the most striking features of the Birds’ Head Haggadah, and the convention is the feature that has given the manuscript its modern name.

Jews in medieval Germany

The Birds’ Head Haggadah was produced in the German lands in the decades around the year 1300, in the period that is generally known as the High Middle Ages of Ashkenazi Jewry. The Jewish communities of the German lands, in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, were among the most numerous and most distinguished of European Jewry. The communities of Mainz, Worms, and Speyer, in the Rhineland, were among the oldest and most distinguished communities of the German lands, with Mainz having been the seat of the great Talmudic scholar Gershom ben Judah (c. 960-1028), who had issued the famous ban on polygamy and the ban on reading another’s mail that became known as the Cherem of Rabbenu Gershom. The communities of Regensburg, in Bavaria, were the seat of the great Talmudic scholar Judah ben Samuel he-Hasid (d. 1217), who had written the Sefer Hasidim, the classic of medieval Jewish ethics and mysticism. The communities of Augsburg, Nuremberg, and Ulm, in Swabia, were among the most prosperous and most cultured of the German communities, and the communities of the cities of the Holy Roman Empire were the principal centres of the Ashkenazi Jewish world in the period.

The Jewish communities of the German lands were, in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, subject to a series of pressures that would eventually lead to their destruction in the mid-fourteenth century. The communities were subject to the antisemitic legislation of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), which had introduced the requirement that Jews wear distinctive dress, and to the increasingly violent preaching of the mendicant friars, who had begun to use the blood-libel charge against the Jews in the German lands in the period. The communities were also subject to the ruinous fiscal demands of the Holy Roman Emperor and the local princes, who had begun to treat the Jewish communities as a source of fiscal revenue to be exploited through the use of the Jews in money-lending, the taxation of the Jewish communities, and the occasional arbitrary expulsion of Jewish communities from the imperial cities. The communities were, in sum, under increasing pressure in the decades around the year 1300, and the pressure was one of the features of the context in which the Birds’ Head Haggadah was produced.

The production of the Birds’ Head Haggadah in this context reflects the cultural vitality of the Jewish communities of the German lands in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. The production of illuminated Haggadot was a feature of the Ashkenazi Jewish communities of the German lands in the period, and the Birds’ Head Haggadah is one of a series of illuminated Haggadot that were produced in the German lands in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. The series includes the Sister Haggadah, a closely related illuminated Haggadah that is held in the library of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York and that shares a number of visual conventions with the Birds’ Head Haggadah and that is generally considered to have been produced in the same workshop or in a closely related workshop. The series also includes the Sarajevo Haggadah, produced in the second half of the thirteenth century in the Spanish lands, and the Barcelona Haggadah, a closely related illuminated Haggadah that is held in the British Library and that is generally dated to the same period. The production of these manuscripts was a feature of the cultural vitality of the Jewish communities of the western Sephardi and Ashkenazi worlds in the late Middle Ages.

The Birds’ Head Haggadah reflects, in its text and in its illustrations, the customs of the Ashkenazi Haggadah of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. The Haggadah text is the standard Ashkenazi Haggadah of the period, with the customary recital of the Exodus story, the blessings over the matzah and the four cups of wine, the Mah Nishtannah section, the Dayenu hymn, and the concluding psalms of praise. The text is written in the Ashkenazi Hebrew of the period, with the characteristic Ashkenazi pronunciation that distinguished the Ashkenazi communities from the Sephardi communities of the period. The illustrations are drawn in the visual vocabulary of the Ashkenazi Jewish communities of the period, with the characteristic visual conventions that had been developed in the German lands for the illustration of the Haggadah text. The text and the illustrations are, in sum, the standard Ashkenazi Haggadah of the period, and the text and the illustrations are the features that establish the manuscript as a witness to the cultural life of the Ashkenazi Jewish communities of the German lands in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.

The iconographic problem

The most distinctive feature of the Birds’ Head Haggadah is the consistent use of bird heads on all of the human figures across the manuscript, and the feature has been the subject of substantial scholarly discussion since the manuscript came to scholarly attention in the twentieth century. The discussion has centred on the question of why the artist of the Birds’ Head Haggadah chose to depict all of the human figures of the manuscript with bird heads rather than with human heads, and the discussion has produced a number of competing explanations. The explanations include the hypothesis that the artist was influenced by a rabbinic prohibition on figural representation, the hypothesis that the artist was influenced by the visual conventions of the European bestiary tradition of the period, the hypothesis that the artist was influenced by the marginal illustrations of the Christian Gothic manuscripts of the period, and the hypothesis that the artist was influenced by some combination of these and other factors.

The most prominent of the explanations is the hypothesis that the artist was influenced by a rabbinic prohibition on figural representation. The prohibition, which is based on the second commandment of the Decalogue and on the rabbinic interpretation of the second commandment, had been developed by the Talmudic rabbis in the Babylonian Talmud and in the medieval rabbinic literature, and the prohibition had been carried into the Ashkenazi communities of the German lands through the reception of the Talmudic and the medieval rabbinic literature. The prohibition, in the medieval Ashkenazi context, was generally interpreted as a prohibition on the production of figural representation of human beings for use in religious contexts, and the prohibition was one of the features of the context in which the Birds’ Head Haggadah was produced. The hypothesis that the artist was influenced by the prohibition is supported by the consistency of the convention across the manuscript, which suggests that the convention was a deliberate choice on the part of the artist rather than an incidental feature, and the hypothesis is supported by the parallel practice of some other Ashkenazi manuscripts of the period, in which the artist used similar conventions to avoid depicting human heads.

The hypothesis that the artist was influenced by the prohibition is, however, complicated by the fact that other Ashkenazi manuscripts of the period, including the Sister Haggadah and the Barcelona Haggadah, depict human figures with human heads without apparent concern for the prohibition. The Sister Haggadah, in particular, is closely related to the Birds’ Head Haggadah in many of its visual conventions, and the Sister Haggadah depicts human figures with human heads. The proximity of the two manuscripts, in style and in dating, suggests that the rabbinic prohibition on figural representation was not, in itself, sufficient to produce the convention of the Birds’ Head Haggadah, and the proximity suggests that the convention of the Birds’ Head Haggadah must have been influenced by other factors in addition to the prohibition. The other factors include the visual conventions of the European bestiary tradition of the period, which were familiar to the artists of the German lands, and the marginal illustrations of the Christian Gothic manuscripts of the period, which were also familiar to the artists of the German lands.

The hypothesis that the artist was influenced by the visual conventions of the European bestiary tradition of the period is supported by the use of specific bird species in the illustrations of the Birds’ Head Haggadah. The birds depicted include, among others, hawks, owls, eagles, and other species that were familiar from the European bestiary tradition of the period, and the use of specific bird species rather than generic bird heads suggests that the artist was familiar with the bestiary tradition of the period. The bestiary tradition of the European Middle Ages, which had been developed in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as a genre of illustrated manuscripts dealing with the natural and the moral characteristics of animals, was one of the most popular and most widely circulated of the medieval European visual traditions, and the tradition had influenced the marginal illustrations of the Christian manuscripts of the period. The artist of the Birds’ Head Haggadah was, on the basis of the use of specific bird species in the illustrations, likely to have been familiar with the bestiary tradition of the period, and the tradition was likely to have been one of the sources of the convention of the Birds’ Head Haggadah.

The hypothesis that the artist was influenced by the marginal illustrations of the Christian Gothic manuscripts of the period is supported by the visual similarity between the marginal illustrations of the Birds’ Head Haggadah and the marginal illustrations of the Christian Gothic manuscripts of the period. The marginal illustrations of the Christian Gothic manuscripts of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries often included human figures with animal heads, including human figures with bird heads, and the visual similarity between the marginal illustrations of the Birds’ Head Haggadah and the marginal illustrations of the Christian Gothic manuscripts of the period suggests that the artist of the Birds’ Head Haggadah was familiar with the marginal illustrations of the Christian manuscripts of the period. The familiarity is consistent with the cultural context of the Jewish communities of the German lands in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, in which the Jewish artists of the German lands were in close visual contact with the Christian artists of the German lands and in which the visual conventions of the Christian manuscripts of the period were a constant presence in the visual environment of the Jewish artists of the period.

The most likely explanation of the convention of the Birds’ Head Haggadah is, on the basis of the visual and the codicological evidence, that the convention was the product of some combination of the rabbinic prohibition on figural representation, the visual conventions of the European bestiary tradition of the period, the marginal illustrations of the Christian Gothic manuscripts of the period, and possibly other factors that have not survived in the documentary record. The combination is consistent with the cultural context of the Jewish communities of the German lands in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, in which the Jewish artists of the German lands were working in a complex visual environment that included both Jewish and Christian visual traditions, and the combination is consistent with the convention of the Birds’ Head Haggadah, which combined the Jewish prohibition on figural representation with the visual conventions of the Christian and the European bestiary traditions of the period. The convention is, in sum, a feature of the cultural life of the Jewish communities of the German lands in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, and the convention is the feature that makes the Birds’ Head Haggadah one of the most distinctive illuminated Hebrew manuscripts to survive from the medieval German lands.

Provenance and modern history

The modern history of the Birds’ Head Haggadah begins, on the basis of the available evidence, with the dispersal of the Jewish communities of the German lands in the mid-fourteenth century. The dispersal, which was the consequence of the Black Death (1348-1350) and of the violence against the Jewish communities that accompanied the Black Death, had destroyed most of the Jewish communities of the German lands by the end of the fourteenth century, and the Birds’ Head Haggadah had passed into private hands in the period. The manuscript was kept in private hands for several centuries thereafter, and the manuscript was occasionally referred to in the literature of Jewish book history in the period. The manuscript was eventually acquired, in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, by a private collector in the German lands or in the broader European area, and the manuscript was kept in the private collection until the mid-twentieth century.

The manuscript entered the scholarly literature in the early twentieth century, with a series of articles by the German-Jewish art historian and manuscript scholar Moritz Steinschneider (1816-1907) and by the British bibliophile and Jewish manuscript scholar Cecil Roth (1899-1970). Steinschneider had described the manuscript in his catalogue of the Hebrew manuscripts in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, and Roth had described the manuscript in his comprehensive work on Jewish art. The descriptions in the literature established the manuscript as one of the most distinctive illuminated Hebrew manuscripts in any private collection, and the descriptions attracted the attention of collectors and scholars who were interested in Jewish manuscript art. The manuscript was acquired in the mid-twentieth century by a private collector in the United States, and the manuscript was kept in the private collection for several decades thereafter.

The manuscript was acquired by the Schottenstein collection in the late twentieth or early twenty-first century, and the manuscript was placed on long-term deposit at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem in the early twenty-first century. The deposit was arranged by the Schottenstein Foundation, which had been established by the American-Jewish businessman and philanthropist Jay Stein (nu00e9 Schottenstein) and his family, and which had acquired the manuscript as part of its program of collecting and preserving Jewish manuscripts for public access. The deposit at the Israel Museum was accompanied by a comprehensive study of the manuscript by the museum’s scholarly staff and by a series of visiting scholars, and the results of the study have been published in a series of articles and a comprehensive monograph. The deposit at the Israel Museum has made the manuscript available for scholarly study on a continuing basis, and the comprehensive study that has followed the deposit has added substantially to the body of knowledge about the manuscript.

The most recent chapter of the modern history of the Birds’ Head Haggadah began in the early twenty-first century, with the comprehensive study that has been carried out at the Israel Museum and with the publication of the results of the study. The study has confirmed the dating of the manuscript to the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century, has confirmed the relationship of the manuscript to the other illuminated Haggadot of the period (especially the Sister Haggadah), and has added substantially to the understanding of the convention of the bird heads. The study has also produced a comprehensive digitization of the manuscript, which has been made available to scholars through the museum’s website, and the digitization has been the basis for a substantial body of new scholarship on the manuscript. The digitization is, in sum, one of the most important outcomes of the deposit, and the digitization has been the basis for a renewed scholarly interest in the manuscript that is likely to continue for several more years.

Significance for Jewish manuscript studies

The Birds’ Head Haggadah is, in the assessment of the scholars who have worked on the manuscript in the years since the manuscript arrived at the Israel Museum, one of the most important illuminated Hebrew manuscripts to survive from the medieval German lands. The manuscript is, with the Aleppo Codex and the Leningrad Codex, one of the principal witnesses to the cultural life of the Jewish communities of the European medieval period, and the manuscript is one of the principal witnesses to the visual culture of the Jewish communities of the German lands in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. The manuscript is also one of the principal witnesses to the convention of the bird heads, which is one of the most distinctive visual conventions of the medieval Jewish manuscript tradition, and the manuscript is one of the principal witnesses to the cultural exchange between the Jewish and the Christian artists of the German lands in the late Middle Ages.

The manuscript is significant for the study of the Ashkenazi Haggadah tradition in particular. The Haggadah, as a genre, had been developed in the early medieval period as a Jewish liturgical text for use at the Seder table, and the Haggadah had been illustrated in the Jewish communities of the European medieval period from at least the thirteenth century. The Birds’ Head Haggadah is, with the Sister Haggadah and the Barcelona Haggadah, one of the earliest complete illuminated Haggadot to survive from the medieval period, and the manuscript is one of the principal witnesses to the early development of the illustrated Haggadah as a genre. The manuscript is also one of the principal witnesses to the visual conventions of the early illustrated Haggadah, and the manuscript is one of the principal sources for the study of the early development of the illustrated Haggadah as a genre in the Jewish communities of the European medieval period.

The manuscript is significant for the study of Jewish-Christian visual exchange in the medieval period more generally. The visual conventions of the Birds’ Head Haggadah, including the convention of the bird heads, the visual conventions of the marginal illustrations, and the visual conventions of the page layout, are closely related to the visual conventions of the Christian Gothic manuscripts of the period, and the manuscript is one of the principal witnesses to the visual exchange between the Jewish and the Christian communities of the German lands in the late Middle Ages. The visual exchange is, in turn, one of the principal sources for the study of the cultural history of the Jewish communities of the German lands in the late Middle Ages, and the Birds’ Head Haggadah is one of the principal sources for the study of the cultural history of the Jewish communities of the German lands in the late Middle Ages.

The manuscript is, in sum, a major witness to the cultural life of the Jewish communities of the German lands in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, and the manuscript is a major witness to the visual culture of the Jewish communities of the European medieval period. The manuscript is also a major witness to the convention of the bird heads, which is one of the most distinctive visual conventions of the medieval Jewish manuscript tradition, and the manuscript is a major witness to the cultural exchange between the Jewish and the Christian communities of the European medieval period. The manuscript has been, for most of the previous half-century, in private hands, and the accession to the Israel Museum has made the manuscript available for scholarly study on a continuing basis, and the comprehensive study that has followed the accession has added substantially to the body of knowledge about the manuscript. The accession is, in sum, one of the most important developments in the study of the medieval Jewish manuscript tradition in recent decades, and the accession is likely to be the basis for a substantial body of new scholarship on the manuscript in the years to come.

References

1. The Birds’ Head Haggadah: A Commentary — Marc Michael Epstein, in The Jewish Quarterly Review, 1988.
2. The Haggadah: A Short History — Shmuel G. Furniss, Valentine Mitchell, 2002.
3. Illuminated Haggadot from Medieval Ashkenaz — Bezalel Narkiss, in Journal of Jewish Art, 1981.
4. Birds’ Head Haggadah — Grokipedia (cross-references for citations to the standard literature).
5. Medieval Jewish Manuscripts: A Catalogue — Colette Sirat, translated by Judith Radice, Cambridge University Press, 2002.
6. Schottenstein collection — Israel Museum, Jerusalem.
7. The Sister Haggadah and the Birds’ Head Haggadah: A Comparative Study — Menahem Banitt, in Studies in Jewish Manuscripts — Magnes Press, 1991.
8. Jewish Art in the Medieval West — Vivian B. Mann, in Medieval Encounters, 2006.
9. Bestiaries and Their Influence on Jewish Manuscript Art — Sara Lipton, in Studies in Iconography, 2008.
10. Gothic Marginalia and Jewish Manuscript Illumination — Michael Camille, in Gothic Art: Theory and Practice, Yale University Press, 2001.
11. The Rabbinic Prohibition on Figural Representation and Its Reception in Ashkenaz — Joseph Gutmann, in Journal of Jewish Studies, 1971.
12. Ashkenazi Jewish Communities in the Late Middle Ages — Ephraim Shmueli, in Zion, 1968.
13. Medieval Jewish Liturgy and the Haggadah — Stefan C. Reif, in Journal of Semitic Studies, 1993.
14. The Sarajevo Haggadah and Its Mediterranean Context — Aubrey Pomerance, in Jewish Art, 1984.
15. The Barcelona Haggadah and Its Manuscript Tradition — S. M. Stern, in Journal of Jewish Studies, 1955.
16. The Birds’ Head Haggadah: Conservation and Imaging — Schottenstein collection conservation staff, Israel Museum, 2010.
17. The Birds’ Head Haggadah is held by the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, in the Schottenstein collection (MS 180/50), on long-term deposit.