THERE ARE FOUR scenes displaying knights in the Rothschild Miscellany (Jerusalem, Israel Museum, MS 180/51), produced in Northern Italy in 1470–1480 (Figs. 1–4). The volume, which has 473 folios and measures 21 by 15.9 cm, was commissioned by Moshe ben Yekutiel ha-Kohen, probably of Ashkenazi origin, and copied by Shabbetay the scribe. It includes thirty-seven different texts—some in the centres of the pages and some in the margins—and many illuminations. Scholars still debate about the workshops where the illuminations were produced, but they all agree that it was produced in Northern Italy. The texts bound together include biblical and liturgical works; rabbinic exegeses (Midrash); texts on Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, and astronomy; historical legends such as Sefer Josippon; the Passover Haggadah (guide to the Passover seder); and the fable book Meshal haQadmoni. In this essay, I refer to images of three knights dressed in Italian armour in four scenes: Sisera on fol. 164v (Fig. 1), Judah the Maccabee on fol. 217r (Fig. 2), and two scenes of the same character from a fable in Meshal haQadmoni on fols. 320v and 321r (Figs. 3–4). I start by contextualizing the manuscript and then relate to each scene and its textual context, focusing primarily on the scene from Meshal haQadmoni. In this preliminary essay, I ask some questions that may better help us understand the ways in which the themes of knights and romance are reflected in fifteenth-century Hebrew manuscripts.

Romance and Jewish Chivalry

The aesthetics of warfare expressed in tournaments, portrayals of aristocracy, nobility, and chivalric symbols was a ubiquitous motif in medieval European Christian literature. This genre includes instruction books, such as such as Ramon Llull's Llibre qui es de l’ordre de cavalleria, as well as romances; some of the latter were actually written by knights so they paint a more accurate picture of the knightly life and mindset than we find in the instruction genre. A Christian warrior's or knight's arms and armour signaled his rank in the feudal hierarchy. Aristocratic symbols marked the difference in status between noblemen from birth and warriors who, through engaging in combat, could earn their knighthoods, but peasants were not allowed to carry swords or lances. Throughout this essay, I emphasize that the characters discussed here are not necessarily knights of noble birth, but could be warriors.