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An African servant appears to be setting fire to a righteous person at the command of an exotically costumed prince, while the Lord prepares an intervention from above. The image illustrates a verse in Psalm 9: Dum superbit impius, incenditur pauper—“While the ungodly remains proud, the poor man burns.” There are several devils and demons with similarly dark skin color in the Psalter, mainly in scenes showing the ungodly as they are cast into hellfire, but here the absence of the otherwise standard devilish anatomical littoral, obviates any real basis for racial tensions or active discrimination.” In this respect the Stuttgart Psalter could perhaps be better described as a clumsy attempt at racialism and not an aggressive expression of racism. As we have seen, ideologically the Franks represented themselves as modern Israelites supplanting the historical ones, and what ensued was not persecution, but rather what one might more accurately term a wholesale cultural identity theft.

Figure 12 An African servant appears to be setting fire to a righteous person at the command of an exotically costumed prince, while the Lord prepares an intervention from above. The image illustrates a verse in Psalm 9: Dum superbit impius, incenditur pauper—“While the ungodly remains proud, the poor man burns.” There are several devils and demons with similarly dark skin color in the Psalter, mainly in scenes showing the ungodly as they are cast into hellfire, but here the absence of the otherwise standard devilish anatomical littoral, obviates any real basis for racial tensions or active discrimination.” In this respect the Stuttgart Psalter could perhaps be better described as a clumsy attempt at racialism and not an aggressive expression of racism. As we have seen, ideologically the Franks represented themselves as modern Israelites supplanting the historical ones, and what ensued was not persecution, but rather what one might more accurately term a wholesale cultural identity theft.

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Figure 1. St. Germain-des-Pres in 1368. Francois Ribadeau Dumas, Histoire de St. Germain des Pres, measures undertaken to protect Paris after the first of the Viking invasions in 843.° st. Germain-des-Pres had a succession of abbots with Frankish-sounding names.’ The orestige of the monastery remained intact throughout the Middle Ages, as shown by a jrawing of the surmised physical layout in 1368, shown in an etching dating from the arly eighteenth century (Figure 1). The yet rustic monastery was encircled by a moat with drawbridge and a high wall. Ruined sections of the wall and a watchtower suggest hat the monastery was unusually well-fortified in centuries past, originating with the neasures undertaken to protect Paris after the first of the Viking invasions in 843.8
Figure 1. St. Germain-des-Pres in 1368. Francois Ribadeau Dumas, Histoire de St. Germain des Pres, measures undertaken to protect Paris after the first of the Viking invasions in 843.° st. Germain-des-Pres had a succession of abbots with Frankish-sounding names.’ The orestige of the monastery remained intact throughout the Middle Ages, as shown by a jrawing of the surmised physical layout in 1368, shown in an etching dating from the arly eighteenth century (Figure 1). The yet rustic monastery was encircled by a moat with drawbridge and a high wall. Ruined sections of the wall and a watchtower suggest hat the monastery was unusually well-fortified in centuries past, originating with the neasures undertaken to protect Paris after the first of the Viking invasions in 843.8
Figure 2: Folio 1, v. All images from the Stuttgart Psalter in this paper are taken from the Wurttembergische Landesbibliothek Stuttgart website at http://digital.wlb-stuttgart.de.
Figure 2: Folio 1, v. All images from the Stuttgart Psalter in this paper are taken from the Wurttembergische Landesbibliothek Stuttgart website at http://digital.wlb-stuttgart.de.
Figure 5: Folio 22 r.
Figure 5: Folio 22 r.
But the book has two other primary subjects. One of them more abstractly is the beatus vir the lyric or poetic subject of the narrative, the unnamed righteous man who in the company of the elect will enjoy God’s protection against the deeds of evil-doers and the adverse effects of such natural calamities as floods, fire and famine. The third subject i: King David, recognized as the sponsoring authorial presence and who is ofter indistinguishable from the psalmist and beatus vir in the text. With King David the Stuttgart Psalter enters the Jewish cultural background from which the Book of Psalms originates, and thus we find him imagined on occasion as an imagined, bearded, foreign. looking Jewish king, for example in Figure 9, where he sits in majesty on an outlandist throne and wears a phantastical crown, illustrating the title of Psalm 26: David, priusquan lineretur (“David, before he was anointed”). Solomon, the King of Israel, also makes a brief appearance in the Stuttgart Psalter, notably in the story recounted in 1 Kings 3:16-28, popularly known as the Judgment of Solomon. One of the two mothers prepares to intervene as the King orders the two servants to slice the child in half. Following Isidore’s dictum that the gentes are
But the book has two other primary subjects. One of them more abstractly is the beatus vir the lyric or poetic subject of the narrative, the unnamed righteous man who in the company of the elect will enjoy God’s protection against the deeds of evil-doers and the adverse effects of such natural calamities as floods, fire and famine. The third subject i: King David, recognized as the sponsoring authorial presence and who is ofter indistinguishable from the psalmist and beatus vir in the text. With King David the Stuttgart Psalter enters the Jewish cultural background from which the Book of Psalms originates, and thus we find him imagined on occasion as an imagined, bearded, foreign. looking Jewish king, for example in Figure 9, where he sits in majesty on an outlandist throne and wears a phantastical crown, illustrating the title of Psalm 26: David, priusquan lineretur (“David, before he was anointed”). Solomon, the King of Israel, also makes a brief appearance in the Stuttgart Psalter, notably in the story recounted in 1 Kings 3:16-28, popularly known as the Judgment of Solomon. One of the two mothers prepares to intervene as the King orders the two servants to slice the child in half. Following Isidore’s dictum that the gentes are
In the picture above, a special technique is chosen to represent the Jewish evildoers, for unlike the elect, they are usually drawn in profile, the intention being as it seems to reveal and emphasize their strange and ominous features. If these points can be conceded, it could be said that we may have in the Stuttgart Psalter the first attempt at imaging Jews in the early Middle Ages.
In the picture above, a special technique is chosen to represent the Jewish evildoers, for unlike the elect, they are usually drawn in profile, the intention being as it seems to reveal and emphasize their strange and ominous features. If these points can be conceded, it could be said that we may have in the Stuttgart Psalter the first attempt at imaging Jews in the early Middle Ages.
Figure 12: Folio 71 v. It has been often observed that arms and weaponry are an identifying element in the representation of ethnicity in Late Antiquity and early Middle Ages, as affirmed also by Isidore of Seville.”* In this respect the Stuttgart Psalter provides at least two graphic examples. There are several scenes of military mayhem and carnage throughout the work, mostly showing situations in which the Lord intervenes to offer protection to the victims, but in Figure 12 we see a remarkable confrontation between mounted Frankish soldiers and what is clearly recognizable as a group of armed barbarians:
Figure 12: Folio 71 v. It has been often observed that arms and weaponry are an identifying element in the representation of ethnicity in Late Antiquity and early Middle Ages, as affirmed also by Isidore of Seville.”* In this respect the Stuttgart Psalter provides at least two graphic examples. There are several scenes of military mayhem and carnage throughout the work, mostly showing situations in which the Lord intervenes to offer protection to the victims, but in Figure 12 we see a remarkable confrontation between mounted Frankish soldiers and what is clearly recognizable as a group of armed barbarians:
construction of red-dyed strips of dried leather mounted on a wooden frame: *”
construction of red-dyed strips of dried leather mounted on a wooden frame: *”
We have seen that the artist of the Stuttgart Psalter is quite skilled at pictorializing Frankish warriors and nobility, and at portraying spiritual heroes from the Bible as Germanic in appearance, often in immediate contrast to the different types of evil-doers they are forced to contend with, who unsurprisingly are considerably less attractive. An inevitable question that arises is whether the persons unfavorably depicted are Jewish, and if this tells us anything about racialism or indeed intended racism in the early ninth century. For this purpose I would like to consider three pictures from the Psalter, all of which convey the same basic message that appears again and again, namely that the Lord will intervene to protect the faithful.* In Figure 15, an evangelist is protected from attack by a soldier with a spear:
We have seen that the artist of the Stuttgart Psalter is quite skilled at pictorializing Frankish warriors and nobility, and at portraying spiritual heroes from the Bible as Germanic in appearance, often in immediate contrast to the different types of evil-doers they are forced to contend with, who unsurprisingly are considerably less attractive. An inevitable question that arises is whether the persons unfavorably depicted are Jewish, and if this tells us anything about racialism or indeed intended racism in the early ninth century. For this purpose I would like to consider three pictures from the Psalter, all of which convey the same basic message that appears again and again, namely that the Lord will intervene to protect the faithful.* In Figure 15, an evangelist is protected from attack by a soldier with a spear:
The depiction of tormentors and miscreants with unappealing physiognomies who are dressed in foreign costume appears frequently enough to suggest that the artist may be caricaturing Jews and representing them as agents of oppression and persecutors of the righteous, who are generally, in accordance with Isidore’s definition, more Germanic- looking. One might argue that the artist had no other convenient choice, since malefactors would not logically be portrayed with attractive features, and because all the subjects of the Hebrew Bible, whether good or bad, were Jews to begin with. But the long history of the demonizing of Jews in Christian theology, dating back to the hostility invoked originally in the letters of St. Paul and then augmented and sanctioned in the works of the early Church Fathers afterwards, cannot be overlooked. The particularly virulent anti- Semitic attacks of Isidore of Seville, in which he develops the notion of the Jews as Jesus- killers, must also be noted in this regard, given his prominent position through the citation of his works and the inclusion of his portrait in the introduction to the Stuttgart Psalter.** Assuming the absence of Jewish settlements in France or Germany in the ninth
The depiction of tormentors and miscreants with unappealing physiognomies who are dressed in foreign costume appears frequently enough to suggest that the artist may be caricaturing Jews and representing them as agents of oppression and persecutors of the righteous, who are generally, in accordance with Isidore’s definition, more Germanic- looking. One might argue that the artist had no other convenient choice, since malefactors would not logically be portrayed with attractive features, and because all the subjects of the Hebrew Bible, whether good or bad, were Jews to begin with. But the long history of the demonizing of Jews in Christian theology, dating back to the hostility invoked originally in the letters of St. Paul and then augmented and sanctioned in the works of the early Church Fathers afterwards, cannot be overlooked. The particularly virulent anti- Semitic attacks of Isidore of Seville, in which he develops the notion of the Jews as Jesus- killers, must also be noted in this regard, given his prominent position through the citation of his works and the inclusion of his portrait in the introduction to the Stuttgart Psalter.** Assuming the absence of Jewish settlements in France or Germany in the ninth
century, local clerics were deprived of any actual contact or communication with living Jews, and presumably knew only what they had read in the Old Testament and in the defamatory writings of the Church Fathers. It is hard to estimate to what extent such thoughts were present in the mind of the artist of Stuttgart Psalter, but one cannot avoid viewing the work as a battle-zone in which Jewish and European Christian cultures collided visually. alleged malice toward Christ, and targeting them for conversion, compulsory or not: see Jeremy Cohen, Living Letters of the Law: Ideas of the Jew in Medieval Christianity. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 97.
century, local clerics were deprived of any actual contact or communication with living Jews, and presumably knew only what they had read in the Old Testament and in the defamatory writings of the Church Fathers. It is hard to estimate to what extent such thoughts were present in the mind of the artist of Stuttgart Psalter, but one cannot avoid viewing the work as a battle-zone in which Jewish and European Christian cultures collided visually. alleged malice toward Christ, and targeting them for conversion, compulsory or not: see Jeremy Cohen, Living Letters of the Law: Ideas of the Jew in Medieval Christianity. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 97.
father that “Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine and thy children as olive branches about thy table,” and the vine and the olive branches are shown being held accordingly in the hands of the husband and wife. On the right we see the grandchildren: verse six of the psalm says “Mayst thou see thy children's children” —apparently all males in this case, one of whom holds up a bowl to receive manna from Heaven. 35 A recent article in The New Yorker magazine dates the march of the Green Man across Europe from the eleventh century: Josephine Livingstone, “The Remarkable Persistence of the Green Man,” The New Yorker, March 7, 2016— but in the present drawing we might recognize a green woman dating from two centuries earlier. Perhaps the green man iconography derives from the green woman, and also from the psalm verse that compares her to a fruitful vine
father that “Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine and thy children as olive branches about thy table,” and the vine and the olive branches are shown being held accordingly in the hands of the husband and wife. On the right we see the grandchildren: verse six of the psalm says “Mayst thou see thy children's children” —apparently all males in this case, one of whom holds up a bowl to receive manna from Heaven. 35 A recent article in The New Yorker magazine dates the march of the Green Man across Europe from the eleventh century: Josephine Livingstone, “The Remarkable Persistence of the Green Man,” The New Yorker, March 7, 2016— but in the present drawing we might recognize a green woman dating from two centuries earlier. Perhaps the green man iconography derives from the green woman, and also from the psalm verse that compares her to a fruitful vine
Related topics:
Medieval HistoryMedieval StudiesEarly Medieval HistoryCarolingian StudiesMedieval ArtEarly Medieval ArtIsidore of SevilleCarolingian art and architecture
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