Pamela A. Patton’s Art of Estrangement: Redefining Jews in Reconquest Spain makes an important contribution to the already rich field of medieval art and Jewish-Christian relations. Scholars such as Bernhard Blumenkranz, Michael Camille, Ruth Mellinkoff, Heinz Schreckenberg, Sara Lipton, Debra Higgs Strickland, Mitchell Merback, Vivian Mann, Nina Rowe, Herbert Kessler, and David Nirenberg, among others, have examined the ways in which Christian art expresses perceptions of Jews and Judaism.¹ As Patton points out, these studies focus primarily on northern European art. Patton expands the scope of this current scholarship by demonstrating that Iberian Christian imagery incorporated, altered, or resisted northern European visual representations of Jews in order to express and shape its unique historical circumstances: the Christian conquest of Muslim-controlled territories in Spain that had significant Jewish populations between the late twelfth century and mid-fourteenth century. Throughout the book, an abundance of beautifully reproduced images invites the reader to closely observe visual details that support Patton’s analysis.

In the introductory chapter, “‘Aliens in Their Midst’: Reimagining Jews in Medieval Iberia,” Patton clearly articulates her methodological goals, which are consistently fulfilled throughout the book. First, recent scholars have increasingly recognized the limitations of either describing Jewish-Christian relations in medieval Spain as a Golden Age of inter-religious coexistence or of charting a steady progression in anti-Judaic and anti-Jewish attitudes and actions during the late Middle Ages (Jonathan Ray, “Whose Golden Age? Some Thoughts on Jewish-Christian Relations in Medieval Iberia,” Studies in Christian-Jewish Relations 6 (2011): 1–11). In response, Patton intentionally resists categorizing Iberian Christian art as a homogenous entity that visualizes a singular Christian attitude toward Jews and Judaism by examining each work of art within its particular micro-context, considering local and regional conditions such as patronage, architectural spaces, artistic workshops, contemporary theology and exegesis, and legal documents. Second, she argues that images of Jews must be understood as constructions—rather than documentations—of Jewish life and beliefs, drawing upon Jeremy Cohen’s concept of a “hermeneutical Jew,” a figure that medieval Christian theologians and exegetes invented in their writing to support Christian doctrine (Jeremy Cohen, Living Letters of the Law: Ideas of the Jew in Medieval Christianity, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999). Third, she defines her collection of artistic objects for analysis as “visual culture,” encapsulating both luxury objects made for wealthy patrons and material goods used in daily life. Patton examines tapestry fragments, illuminated manuscripts, liturgical objects, frescoes, polychromed wood sculpture, scribal drawings, and lusterware dishes.

In her second chapter, “Topos and Narrative: New Signs and Stories for Iberian Jews,” Patton analyzes some of the first Christian images in Spain that depict Jews. By contextualizing representations of Jewish dress, Jews in hagiographic tales, Jewish-Christian disputations, the pairing of Ecclesia and Synagoga, and Jewish moneylenders, Patton argues that northern European iconography was adapted to suit varied Iberian conceptions regarding Jews. For example, in a Latin Bible (1273) from Vic, a Catalan city, an illumination depicts a Jew and Christian debating. Patton links this image to tensions in Vic during the second half of the thirteenth century between the two groups, including conflicts over the establishment of a new synagogue. That the Vic Bible illumination is reproduced with striking clarity and color allows the reader to see dramatic gestures that indicate vigorous and contentious dialogue: a cleric extends a long finger toward a codex in a golden cover while a Jew reaches his hand upwards and opens his mouth to speak. Patton ends this chapter by demonstrating that images depicting Jews attacking the host were less prevalent in Spain than northern Europe between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, which paralleled a comparatively smaller number of ritual murder charges and host desecration accusations.

In the third chapter, “Shaping the Jewish Body in Medieval Iberia,” Patton continues to examine the evolution of Jewish stereotypes by turning to representations of bodily distortions that signify Jewish individuals. For example, Patton selects a scribal doodle in a Catalan financial register that depicts three Jews hung either by the claws of a devil or nooses. Both the devil and the Jews are depicted with similar protruding noses and bulging eyes. Patton grounds this image in regional history, noting the terms of loans were increasingly unfavorable for Jewish moneylenders from the mid-thirteenth to the fourteenth century in Catalonia. Although Patton restricts her discussion regarding this drawing to facial features, it might have been profitable to compare the distortions of the unclothed bodies of both the devil and one of the Jews. Another intriguing point in this chapter will hopefully be explored in greater depth by future scholars. While the parameters of Patton’s project do not extend beyond the fourteenth century, she raises the significant question of how fifteenth-century Spanish representations of Jews can be understood with respect to their Iberian context. To begin to consider this question, Patton proposes the possibility that Master Bartolomé’s painting Christ Among the Doctors (ca. 1480–88) represents stereotypical Jewish facial features that evoke an emerging belief that Jews are ethnically and racially distinct from Christians, which finds legal form in contemporary blood purity laws (limpieza de sangre).

In the subsequent chapter, “Jews and Muslims in the Iberian Christian Imagination,” Patton addresses representations of Jews and Judaism that overlap with depictions of Muslims and Islam. This chapter centers on the following question: As Christians would have had empirical knowledge of differences between Jews and Muslims from their interactions with these populations, why does Christian art conflate their identities? Patton asserts that Jews are symbolically linked to Muslims in order to position both groups in opposition to Christianity, “as imaginary enemies of a single triumphant religion” (119). This chapter begins by analyzing a wooden beam depicting a Passion scene in which Jews are represented with dark skin, a physical feature, Patton argues, that would have signified Muslim identity. The rest of the chapter investigates instances in which the same symbols are used interchangeably to signify Muslims and Jews. One of the most striking examples comes from illuminations in a copy of the Cantigas de Santa María (Songs of the Holy Mary), a richly illustrated manuscript produced for Alfonso X of Castile by 1280. In several illuminations, textiles with pseudo-Arabic script hang in the homes of both Muslims and Jews. This visual confluence resonates with historical reality. As highlighted by Patton, Castilian Jews often translated Arabic texts for both Jewish and Christian audiences. Consequently, Christians in Castile would have associated the Arabic language with both Jews and Muslims.

Patton continues her examination of the Cantigas in the final chapter, “The Cantigas de Santa María and the Jews of Castile.” Composed in Galician-Portuguese, the Cantigas text includes numerous Marian legends whose origins can be found in the works of French authors such as Gautier de Coincy and Vincent of Beauvais, as well as Byzantine and British sources. Patton claims that the Cantigas sources are transformed into visual imagery that expresses several aspects of Iberian Jewish-Christian relations during the Reconquista: restrictions imposed on synagogue architecture in Christian kingdoms, Christian conversion of synagogues into churches, anti-Jewish polemical treatises, Christian ambivalence toward Jewish moneylending, and sermons delivered by Christians in synagogues. A dramatic distinction between the reception of Christian images of Jews in northern Europe and in Castile can be seen in Patton’s discussion of an illumination depicting Jews destroying a sculpture of Christ. Patton complicates current scholarly opinion by noting that this image did not parallel accusations of ritual murder in Castile, as did similar images in England and France. Instead, this Cantigas illumination signified a Christian anxiety that the Jewish aggression, violence, and enmity directed toward Christ during the crucifixion still resides in the minds of contemporary Jews.

If the Art of Estrangement has any drawbacks, it is that the vast array of material instills curiosity within readers concerning the afterlife of these objects. Although Patton thoroughly examines their immediate reception history, the question remains regarding how these works of art might have been understood over time, from the middle of the fourteenth and throughout the fifteenth century, before Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492. As Patton acknowledges, this book is “a beginning rather than an end” (172), and hopefully scholars will continue to examine this material. Nevertheless, Patton’s work generously guides a reader toward a thorough understanding of the varied and fascinating ways in which visual imagery provides insight into Jewish-Christian relations in medieval Iberia.