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

Abstract

T hese are the opening and closing remarks of a lament composed in memory of Rabbi Samson of Metz. His story has come down to us via this single source, which is the only extant evidence of his martyrdom, composed by Benjamin the scribe and copied by him in the London Miscellany , British Library Add. MS 11639, also known as The North French Hebrew Miscellany , 2 produced in northern France sometime between 1278 and 1280. 3 Although earlier scholars studied the story of Samson of Metz, they never considered it in relation to other texts in the manuscript or to the images. 4 In this study, I address this lament against the background of the other texts and images in London Miscellany , with a specific focus on one of the illuminations in the manuscript, portraying the biblical Samson and the Lion and in light of Jewish-Christian medieval relations. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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