The Islamic Rider in the Beatus of Girona

Author(s): O. K. Werckmeister
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Gesta, Vol. 36, No. 2, Visual Culture of Medieval Iberia (1997), pp. 101-106
Published by: International Center of Medieval Art
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/767231 .
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The Islamic Rider in the Beatus of Girona*
O. K. WERCKMEISTER
Northwestern University
Abstract
The image of a rider in Muslim attire spearing a
serpent in a marginalminiatureof the Girona Beatus of
975 is relevant to the question of how recurrentadapta-
tions of Islamic motifs in the Christianart of early medi-
eval Spain relate to the long-termpoliticalconfrontation
of Muslims and Christians in the Iberian peninsula. He
appears in two pictorialcycles added to the core of the
Beatus and Daniel illustrations:a set of images of the
infancy and death of Christ and a series of marginal
figures of monstrous animals derived from the Islamic
iconography of the royal hunt. In the former cycle, he
represents Herodpersecutingthe infantChrist;in the lat-
ter, he is juxtaposed with an illustrationof the sealing of
the elect accordingto Revelations7:1-3. This scene was
evoked as an allegory of Christianmartyrdomin the les-
sons and chants of the Visigothic rite on January 8, the
Feast of the Holy Innocents.The deploymentof the erect
serpent confrontingthe rider without being hurt by his
spear is derived from the Physiologus account of the
serpent as an allegory of the steadfast Christian,based
on Matthew10:16, and from the exegetical traditionre-
lating this allegory to the idea of martyrdom.Eulogius of
C6rdoba,who promotedmartyrdomas the ultimatetesti-
mony of resistance against culturalassimilationto Islam,
drew on this exegetical traditionof Matthew 10. There-
fore the Islamic casting of Herod, persecutor of Chris-
tians, projectsthe commemorationof Mozarabmartyrdom
by the emigrant monastic community of Tabara, where
the codex was produced.
Historiography
On fol. 134v of the Girona Beatus,' in an empty space
below the conclusion of a storia which is illustrated with a
full-page miniature on the facing side, there appears the fig-
ure of a rider attacking with his spear a serpent rising from
the groundbefore him (Cover and P1. 1, a). It does not belong
to the regular illustration cycle of the Beatus commentary.It
is painted on the verso of the folio preceding the full-page il-
lustration of the sealing of the elect and the muzzling of the
winds according to Revelations 7:1-3. Since the rider occurs
in none of the sixteen extant Beatus manuscriptsthat contain
this latter illustration,2we are dealing with an addition made
in the Girona manuscript.The explanatio which follows the
Biblical citation3 makes no reference to anything the rider
figure might have been meant to illustrate. As a type, the
figure is singular. None of the numerous rider figures in the
GESTAXXXVI/2 @ The InternationalCenter of Medieval Art 1997
For John Williams on the Occasion of His Retirement
Girona manuscript'sbody of apocalyptic illustrations looks
like him.
The rider's Islamic features have long been recognized,
with no distinctions made, however, between material con-
tent and artisticform. The most strikingof these features,first
pointed out by Andr6 Grabarin 1951, is material:the tightly-
wrapped shawl that covers the rider's neck and ears against
the desert sand, as in a stucco relief from the Umayyad desert
castle of Khirbat-al-Mafjar.4 A no less clearly oriental, if not
Arab, feature is the stirrup,which matches the decorative de-
tails of the horse'sharness, including the triple knot at the end
of the tail, also found on Islamic riders.5Whether the long
head-band blown back horizontally by the wind is of Sassa-
nian and thence Islamic origin, as Grabarassumed,6 is not
quite so clear. All of these features have nothing to do with
the artistic form, but pertain to costume. They suggest that
the rider is characterized as Islamic. They do not in and of
themselves suggest that the figure has been adapted from
Islamic art.
Since this figure is perhaps the most unequivocal, and
certainlythe most notorious,occurrenceof an Islamic-looking
motif in early medieval Spanish illumination, it can serve as
a test case for one of the fundamentalquestions of Spanish
medieval art history, which is the relationship of Christianto
Islamic art, given at least five centuries of political confron-
tation between the two cultures on the Iberian peninsula. In
the art-historiographicaltradition from the beginning of the
century until now, that relationship has been projected onto
more general ideological propositions about Spanish art de-
rived from the coexistence of Christian and Islamic states,
societies, and cultures. Such projections range from the pos-
tulate of a Spanish cultural identity distinct from that of the
rest of Europe, advanced by the "Generationof 1898," to the
multi-cultural ideal of "Convivencia" promoted by present-
day North American scholars eager for an appeasement of
worldwide political conflicts between capitalist democracies
and militant Muslim governments or disenfranchisedMuslim
populations.
Andr6 Grabar,in an article of 1951 about "Sassanianand
Islamic Elements" in early medieval Spanish illumination,
was the firstto demonstratethe oriental featuresof the Girona
rider figure.' For him, such "Islamic elements" in a Christian
monument posed no historical problems, since he perceived
early medieval Spain as one of those marginal areas of
101
Europe where the regional artistic culture was subject to the
influence of anotherone of wider reach, whose political dom-
inance entailed its aesthetic superiority. It would not have
occurred to Grabarto assume that the adaptationof Islamic
motifs or forms by artistsof Christiancommunitiesoppressed
by Muslims in the south and engaged in wars of reconquest
against Muslims in the north might have been complicated
by any second thoughts abouttheir hostility to Islam. Grabar's
interpretationinserted itself into an historiographical tradi-
tion, particularly strong in Spain itself, which was bent on
validating the exceptional characterof medieval Spanish cul-
ture as a result of the cohabitationof Muslims and Christians,
no matterhow conflict-ridden,in the territoryof Roman Spain.
When fifteen years later I first dealt with the issue,8 I at-
tempted to be mindful of that historical conflict, but was un-
able to advance any analysis of the Girona rider that would
have done justice to the problem. I had to confine myself to
recording the image as one of a limited number of Islamic
adaptations that could be verified in Spanish tenth-century
illumination, contrary to prevailing assumptions about the
profoundly orientalized characterof that art in general.
It was John Williams, in his relatively brief book Early
Spanish Manuscript Illumination of 1977,9 who for the first
time ventureda specific symbolical interpretationof the rider
figure.Expresslypassing over its orientalappearance,he rested
his case on two iconographical considerations: first, a fully
articulate late antique and early medieval tradition in which
single riders spearing serpents or dragons are cast as sym-
bols of the triumph of good over evil; and second, the even
broader Christian tradition of representing the devil in the
form of a serpent, which appears most profusely in the very
illustrationsof the Beatus commentary.A full-page pictureof
a symbolical struggle between a bird representingChrist and
a serpent representingthe devil presents a most pertinentex-
ample of the latter iconography.'0It shows an erect serpent
that so closely resembles the serpent in the rider image that
the conclusion of a similar significance seems unavoidable.
Mainly on the strengthof this comparison, Williams labeled
the figure of the rider "the triumphant Christian warrior,"
overriding his Islamic appearance. Seventeen years later, in
his great work The Illustrated Beatus of 1994, Williams has
expanded his earlier interpretation into an exhaustive art-
historical argument." After reviewing the oriental features of
the rider figure, he rates them as "paradoxical,"that is, not
reconcilable with its presumed Christian significance. In this
essay I am arguing for an alternative interpretationwith no
paradoxical residue. I will attempt to show that the Girona
rider looks Islamic just because he represents Islam.
Context in the Manuscript
A smaller version of exactly the same figure occurs in
an illustration of an iconographically unique subject with no
known match in a Biblical text:12a mounted attack by King
Herod against the infant Christ in person, held in the arms of
102
a protecting angel (P1. 1, b). As if the king were not sure of
having done with Christ in his wholesale massacre of the
children of Bethlehem, he pursues him all the way to Egypt,
recognizes the child as his intended victim, and attempts to
kill him with his own spear. The attack fails, however, be-
cause the king's horse throws him off and he breakshis thigh,
an injurythat eventuallyproves fatal. A comparisonof the two
riders makes it clear that the figure of Herod is a version of
the marginal figure, abbreviated in that it lacks the stirrup,
and the neck, so characteristically covered by the shawl, is
hardlyvisible. We may conclude that the Gironapaintermod-
eled the figure of Herod on the larger and more detailed mar-
ginal figure. He or she wanted Herod to look like the Islamic
rider. Iconographically,I will attempt to demonstratethe re-
ciprocal identification, namely that the Islamic rider in turn
depicts Herod.
With regardto their position in the manuscriptboth rid-
ers have one thing in common: they do not belong to the core
series of standardBeatus illustrations, but form part of two
distinct series of images joined to that core only in the Girona
manuscript.In the case of Herod, it is a large-scale cycle of
six full-page illustrations about the birth and death of Christ,
added to the genealogical tables so as to elaborate on the
theme of incarnation.In the case of the marginalrider, it is a
small-scale set of seven unframed images of monsters and
animals painted at the bottom of several text pages on which
the transcriptionof the storia or explanatio ended without
covering the sheet, yet without leaving sufficientroom for the
following illustration.As a result, the illustrationwas laid out
full-page on the facing folio, and the empty space was filled
with one or more of those figures. They can be called "mar-
ginal" in the strictly technical sense of the term.
The six full-page miniatures of the Christ cycle are not
evenly balanced between infancy and death. Rather, one in-
fancy miniature is followed by five miniatures illustrating
Christ'spassion, death, resurrection,and descent to hell. The
infancy miniaturein turn does not illustrateChrist'sbirth, but
is exclusively focused on the persecution of the Christ child,
with the story of Herod occupying the lower two of its three
registers.It is faced by a two-registerillustrationdepicting the
mocking of Christbefore Caiphas above and Peter'sthreefold
denial of Christ below. Herod'sattack on the newborn Christ
is thusjuxtaposed with the humiliationand betrayalof Christ
before his death. It is not hard to see the common theme.
Of the six miniatures which form the marginal cycle
along with the Islamic rider, three belong to a pictorial tra-
dition of fantastic or natural animals that recall the late an-
tique Physiologus and the medieval bestiary tradition.I am at
present unable to tie them to any textual or pictorial source.
The other three are derived from Islamic decorative arts.
Williams has already recognized that they must be seen as
a group. In fact the famous ivory casket of Abd-el-Malik
at Pamplona (dated 1004/5) contains three of these animals
together, along with the spearing rider himself. Only the
zenmurv is lacking from the casket, as he is from all ivory
carvings of Muslim Spain. In any event, in their combination
with the fantastic animals from the bestiary tradition,the ori-
ental animals are made to appearas partof a series of live be-
ings, illustrative,or at least representational,ratherthanmerely
decorative. One of the miniatures is even inscribed with a ?-iiii
iii -: --

titulus-"The griffin and the eagle at the hunt"-which

converts the juxtaposition of the animals under the trees into -ili~iiiii:i
a scene that takes place in the forest, as if the two predatory
animals existed in some remote part of the world.13It is the :ii~li:i::~::::: iii"~i
:::::::::::
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mythical world of the royal hunt, of Sassanian origin, which i iiiiiiii-i?p__'iiii?irjii-~~iil::-----:
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along with scenes of feasting constitutes the principal ico- :: ---:: -i-i-i:iiiii
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nography of power in Islamic art. The motif of the Islamic :-::::::::::-::::-
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rider forms part of this monstrous oriental world.
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Islamic Features
FIGURE 1. Girona, Museum of the Cathedral, Beatus Commentary,fol.
But what actually is Islamic about the Gironarider?Cer- 18v: Bird and Serpent, detail (photo: author).

tainly his headdressand his gear, but not his form, at least as
far as we can discern, given the extreme scarcity of compar-
ative material from Islamic figurative art of the early middle
ages. This is an importantdistinction which I failed to make
in my article of 1965. Two Coptic textiles14still provide the
closest analogy to the particularsilhouette of the briskly strid-
ing horse and the rider'sarm curved backwardsand down, in-
cluding the contradictoryview of the clasping fingers before
the shaft of the spear and of the spear running behind the
body of the rider but in front of the horse's head. As for the
serpent, it occurs in no Islamic rider image before 1150, but
is a stock-in-tradeof late Roman triumphalimagery adapted
for early medieval Christianiconography. These similarities
and differences were known before, but the conclusion has
not been drawn that we are not dealing here with a motif
taken from an Islamic pictorial tradition, but with a late an-
tique figure, literally dressed up to look Islamic. This is what
distinguishes the rider from the oriental animals of the mar-
ginal cycle. They are altogether Islamic, both in content and
form. The rider, on the other hand, is Islamic only in content,
all the more reason to take his Islamic designation seriously.
The crucial difference between our rider figure and its
late antique prototypes, however, is that the serpent is not
vanquished and prone. There was enough space on the page
to deploy it horizontally in such a way. Instead, the rider's
spear, which in the iconographical traditionappearspiercing
downward, is raised, only slightly more inclined than in the
Herod miniature,where it is horizontally aimed at Christ. In
this confrontation, the erect rebounding serpent is standing
up to the rider without being hurt by his spear. The implied
struggle matches that in the full-page miniaturedepicting the
scene of the fabulous oriental bird defeating the dragon, the
allegory for Christ defeating the devil (P1. 2, a). The text ac-
companying that miniature, which dwells on the confronta-
tion,15implicitly defines the serpent'serect posture as that of
the aggressor. The miniature depicts the serpent as the beak
of the bird hits him in the brain,16and the head goes down in
an instant collapse (Fig. 1).
It is this iconographicalanalogy more than any other that
promptedWilliams to ascribe the same negative significance
to the serpent in our rider image, a conclusion which in mir-
ror reverse entailed a positive, that is, Christian significance
for the rider,notwithstandinghis Islamic appearance.In Wil-
liams's reasoning,the standardiconographicaltraditionwould
have overridden the manifest Islamic features of the figure.
However, the equally manifest relationship with the figure
of Herod in the infancy cycle, whose negative significance is
indisputable, would have been severed. For any coherent un-
derstandingof the image, either the serpent or the rider must
allow for an alternative significance. I will argue for the ser-
pent ratherthan the rider as a candidate for this alternative.
The Serpent
The animatedworld of monstrous beings constituted by
the seven marginalminiaturesof the GironaBeatus suggests
the late antiquelore of animals, fantastic or real, for compar-
ison. The Physiologus, the principal early Christian textual
source for this lore, provides no match for the non-oriental
monsters of the series, but it does contain a chapter on the
serpent which specifies its positive characteras a model for
the Christianfaithful in no less than four different"natures."17
The Carolingiancopy at Bern of ca. 84018 illustratesthe fourth
of those natures with a man on foot going after the serpent
with a spear (P1. 2, b). The text says of the serpent:
When a man comes and wants to kill it, it gives its entire
body away but protects its head. We too must in times
of temptation give our entire body away but protect our
head, that is, by not denying Christ,just as the holy mar-
tyrs did. For the whole head, that is Christ.19
Accordingly, in the Carolingian illustration, the man pierces
the coiled serpent twice through the body and neck, still

103
missing the protectedhead with its wide open eye andjutting
tongue. This is just where the Girona rider aims his spear,
without quite reaching the neck. The serpent is raising its
head alertly,especially in contrastwith the evil serpent,which
has been squarely hit in the brain by the colorful bird. Thus
the two iconographically correlated representations of the
serpent in the Girona manuscript show just the visual differ-
ences that account for their apparentdifferences in meaning.
In the early medieval exegetical tradition, the positive
allegorical interpretationof the serpent in the Physiologus20
was invariably related to Matthew 10:16, where Christ ad-
monishes his followers to be prudent in the face of over-
whelming hostility:
Remember,I am sending you out like sheep among wolves;
so be cunning as serpents and yet as harmless as doves.
Augustine dwells on this connection in his sermon devoted
to the Gospel passage, written for a generic martyrs'feast.
Here he makes the categorical distinction we have been look-
ing for:
Don't abhor the serpent altogether. . . it has features you
should hate, but also features you should imitate.21
And he goes on to dwell on the allegorical significance of
the serpent'shead as Christ in the exegetical interrelationof
the Gospel and Physiologus texts.
In the subsequent literary tradition,the words "cunning
as serpents" in Matthew 10:16 became a crucial phrase for
the characterizationof Christians'appropriatebehavior under
oppression and persecution.22Christ'sentire speech as related
in Matthew 10 was often read as a guide in the validation of
martyrdomover submission to the pagans. Eulogius of C6r-
doba, whose public career was devoted to just this issue,
laced all of his writings with commented quotations from
Matthew 10.23In his Memorialis Sanctorum,he writes about
the comparison with the serpent:
I take the sense of this teaching to be that the flock of the
faithful, mingled with pagans, as if endowed with the in-
nocence of sheep, is forced to bear the brutalityof wolves.
And so that they should not abandon themselves to lassi-
tude and thus fall all the more easily to the enemy's tricks,
they appropriatelyreceive the divine admonition to be al-
ways attentive to suitable caution with the adversaries of
their faith, and everywhere keen (erecti) and ready in the
face of their enemies' sly designs.24
And Eulogius goes on to quote Arnobius's interpretationof
the Gospel passage about doves and serpents:
Go ahead, fight those who fight... Tongues fight against
you, sharpened by heretics, like serpents; towards those
you must be like a sharp-witted serpent too ...25
104
With such quotations from the spiritual leader of the
C6rdoba martyrs'movement, we are coming close to a spir-
itual understandingof the erect serpent facing the onslaught
of the Islamic rider which is in accord with the Physiologus's
account of the serpent'sfourth nature. On these grounds, the
rider who confronts the prudent serpent may be identified
with his double, the figure of Herod in the infancy cycle. For
Herod the persecutor of the Innocents was traditionally in-
terpretedto prefigureany pagan persecutorof Christians.As
Isidore has it in his Allegories of Sacred Scripture:
Herod, who brought death to the children [of Bethlehem],
expresses the shape of the devil, or of the pagans who,
wishing to extinguish Christ'sname from the world, rage
in the slaughter of martyrs.26
In the concluding step of my argument, I will attempt to fit
this interpretationinto the overall iconographic structureof
the Girona manuscript.
The Sealing of the Elect
The full-page miniaturefacing the marginalimage of the
riderdepicts the sealing of the twelve tribes of Judahaccord-
ing to Revelations 7:1-3, the segment of the storia whose
brevity on the facing verso accounts for the space where the
rider could be painted. The tribes congregate within the rect-
angular earth surroundedby the ocean. At the four corners,
four angels muzzle the cardinal winds for their protection.
The subsequent storia, covering Revelations 7:4-12, adds to
the assembly the "huge number,impossible to count, of peo-
ple from every nation, race, tribe and language." It is illus-
tratedwith a two-pageminiatureunitingthe two groups.Beatus
in his commentarytakes great pains to emphasize, somewhat
improbably, that both are in fact one and the same,27thus
investing the smaller group in the first picture with the sig-
nificance of the larger group in the second one.
In the Visigothic liturgy, the feast of the Holy Innocents,
the children of Bethlehem massacred by Herod, was cele-
bratedon 8 January.28 The antiphonalchantof the feast relates
the children to the elect of Revelations 7 and the Christian
martyrsin a triple allegory according to which the children's
murderprefiguresthe martyrs'execution, and the apocalyptic
elect signify the celestial exaltation of both.29This liturgical
association offers the most immediate rationale for the paint-
ers of the Girona manuscriptto place a figure of Herod next
to the picture of the apocalyptic elect. Here Isidore'sallegory
of the pagans slaughteringmartyrsand the Physiologus alle-
gory of the good serpent as the martyrs'symbol were prop-
erly engaged with one another.
However, Beatus, in his explanation of Revelations 7,
expressly contradicts the allegorical association made, as he
writes, by "some," of the elect with either the children of
Bethlehem or the martyrs of Christianity.The first interpre-
tation he rejects out of hand;30 the second he finds too nar-
row, because he reads the 144,000 elect as an allegory of the
whole churchwashed in the blood of Christ, not just the mar-
tyrs washed in their own blood.31 These arguments, literally
copied from Primasius,32were at variance with a widespread
exegetical tradition, according to which the massacred chil-
dren denote Christ'schurch in peril, while Herod denotes the
devil with his hosts persecuting it.33Beatus may even have
aimed his objections, by way of the quotation from Prima-
sius, expressly at the Biblical references of the Visigothic lit-
urgy for the Feast of the Innocents. Thus, if two centuries
later the painters of the Girona Beatus adhered to just these
liturgical associations, they found themselves in contradiction
with the author of their text.
The exegetical alternative between the martyrs and the
Christian church at large recalls the debate about the rela-
tionship between martyrdomand Christianlife raging around
the middle of the ninth century in the Mozarab community
of C6rdoba, whose spiritual champions Eulogius and Alva-
rus made the case for martyrdomwith so much provocative
intransigence. As is well known, both authors insisted that
a determination not to shy away from martyrdom was re-
quired of their Christian community, prone to give in on its
religious identity by adapting to Islamic culture. The pic-
ture facing the Persecution of Christ by Herod in the Girona
manuscript combines two scenes of immediate relevancy to
the terms of this debate. Above, there appearsa multi-figured
scene of Christ's mocking before Caiphas, an insult which,
according to Alvarus of C6rdoba, Muslim authorities were
perpetrating daily.34Below, an equally detailed illustration
shows Peter's denial of Christ, a precedent for the reluctance
of the Christian community to profess its own faith.
Historical Topicality
My argumenthas led me to a point where our rider can
be understood at face value, as Herod, persecutor of martyrs,
in Muslim attire, that is, as a Biblical allegory of Muslim op-
pression as perceived by the militant ninth-century commu-
nity of C6rdoba. The reasons why such a pictorial statement
was worked into a Beatus Commentaryproducedin an abbey
in Christian Spain some hundredand twenty years later must
now be followed up in that altogether different historical
situation.
It is all but certain that the Girona manuscriptwas pro-
duced in the monastery of Taibara,in the reconqueredarea to
the south of Le6n. The Beatus of Tibara, which Emeterius,
one of its two painters, completed five years earlier, in 970,
is the most outspoken extant manuscriptof a Mozarab com-
munity in the north. It is shot throughwith glosses written in
Arabic. Emeterius'spredecessor Magius, who startedthe co-
dex, took care to terminatehis work on the day of St. Faustus,
a C6rdoba martyr.The most glaring projection of a Mozarab
concern may well be the poetic invocation in the colophon of
the distinctive tower of the abbey ("O tower of Tibara, tall
and of stone...") and its depiction in a full-page miniature,
complete with no less than five stories and two conspicuous
bells in towerlets of their own. Christiansin al-Andalus were
expressly forbidden to build stone towers or ring bells, no
matter with how much measured tolerance the Muslim au-
thorities otherwise let them worship. This was an image of
true release.
The Girona Beatus has no Arabic glosses. But the col-
ophon dates the completion of the manuscript with refer-
ence to a military campaign against Toledo and "the cities
of Mauritania"undertaken by Fernando Flaginiz, count of
Salamanca and governor of the Duero region. Of the same
FernandoFlaginiz, the Arab historian Ibn Hayyan wrote that
he sent ambassadorson a diplomatic mission to C6rdoba in
974,35 one year before the GironaBeatus was completed. The
colophon suggests that the monks of Tibara were watching
with some interest the activities of their regional ruler vis-
~a-visthe Muslim enemy. It situates the manuscript at the
heart of the Muslim-Christianconflict zone, with the atten-
dant political give-and-take, the swings of aggression and ac-
commodation,characteristicof early medieval warfareand of
reconquest warfare in particular.
However, the image of the Islamic rider, in its exeget-
ical and liturgical definition, is no testimony to such a fluid
historical situation, but the deliberate expression of an un-
equivocal ideological posture. Its significance was strictly cir-
cumscribedby the social milieu and political setting of one of
the emigrant communities of Mozarab monks resettled by
Christianwarlords in the militant pursuit of their reconquest
projects. For such a community, the ideology of martyrdom,
specifically directedagainstany culturalsymbiosis, againstany
easy convivencia, shaped the pictorial scenario of Christian-
Islamic confrontation.It was driven by the idea of the Militia
Christi, embracingthe steadfastnessof self-provoked martyr-
dom by Mozarab monks in C6rdoba as well as the relentless
drive for reconquest. To express this idea, the painters of
Thibaracomplemented the standard apocalyptic imagery of
the Beatus Commentaryby two sets of exegetical images that
made the manuscript topical. Their pictorial reasoning was
grounded in the liturgical and exegetical outlook of their
community. How relevant such reasoning was for the artistic
culture of early medieval Spain in general is an altogether
different question, still unresolved.
NOTES
* The following text, based on work in progress, is published here at the
urging of the editors, but under my own responsibility for its short-
comings. It is confined to an analytical presentation of my argument.
Accordingly, footnotes are limited to bibliographic references. My
thanks go to David Simon for encouraging me to go forward with this
project.
1. J. Williams, The IllustratedBeatus: A Corpus of the Illustrations of the
Commentary on the Apocalypse, II, The Ninth and Tenth Centuries
(London, 1994), 51-64 and passim, with bibliography.All information
about the manuscript and its miniatures adduced in this article can be
found here and will not be specifically referenced.
105
 2. W. Neuss, Die Apokalypse des Heiligen Johannes in der altspanischen
und altchristlichen Bibelillustration (Mtinster, 1931), 65-69.
3. Beatus, Sancti Beati a Liebana Commentarius in Apocalypsin, ed.
E. Romero Pose (Rome, 1985), I, 596-601.
4. A. Grabar,"El1mentssassanides et islamiques dans les enluminuresdes
manuscritsespagnols du haut moyen age," in Arte delprimo millennio,
ed. E. Arslan (Turin, 1951), 312-19; cf. 314, P1.CLXIX. The fragment
does not appear to be reproducedin R. W. Hamilton, Khirbat al Maf-
jar: An Arabian Mansion in the Jordan Valley, with a contributionby
O. Grabar(Oxford, 1959).
5. A pertinent example is the Pamplona Casket of 1004/5: Al-Andalus:
TheArt of Islamic Spain, ed. J. D. Dodds (New York, 1992), 198-200,
with bibliography.
6. Grabar,"El1ments,"319, n. 10, citing the fresco at Qasral-Hairal-Garbi
(K. A. C. Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture, Umayyads,A.D. 622-
750, 2nd ed. [Oxford, 1969], I, part 2, P1. 91).
7. Grabar,"El6ments,"314, 319.
8. O. K. Werckmeister,"Islamische Formenin spanischenMiniaturendes
10. Jahrhundertsund das Problem der mozarabischen Buchmalerei,"
Settimane di Studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull' Alto Medioevo,
XII (Spoleto, 1965), 933-67, cf. 941-44.
9. J. Williams, Early Spanish Manuscript Illumination (New York,
1977), 99.
10. Neuss, Die Apokalypse, 133-34, with transcriptionof text.
11. Williams, The Illustrated Beatus, II, 59-60.
12. For the uncertain, possibly apocryphal traditions to which this scene
refers, see W. Neuss, Die katalanische Bibelillustration um die Wende
des ersten Jahrtausends und die altspanische Buchmalerei (Bonn and
Leipzig, 1922), 114, n. 41; 135, n. 186; Neuss, Die Apokalypse, 127;
Williams, The Illustrated Beatus, II, 55.
13. Werckmeister, "Islamische Formen,"946.
14. Werckmeister,"Islamische Formen,"P1.2a, b. Berlin, State Museums:
W. Holmqvist, "Zur Herkunft einiger germanischer Figurendarstel-
lungen der V61kerwanderungszeit," IPEK: Jahrbuchfiir priihistorische
und ethnographische Kunst, XII (1938), 78-95, cf. 79, Fig. 1; Wash-
ington, D.C., Dumbarton Oaks Collection, No. 39.13: E. Kitzinger,
"The Horse and Lion Tapestryat DumbartonOaks,"Dumbarton Oaks
Papers, III (1946), 1-72, cf. 35-36.
15. Neuss, Die Apokalypse, 133: "... audaci impetu in caput adversarii
furentis adsurgit . . ."
16. Ibid.: ".... improviso oris sui telo stupentis bestiae cerebrum fodit, et
sic mirae calliditatis ingenio immanem prosternit inimicum."
17. Physiologus Latinus Versio Y, ed. E J. Carmody(University of Califor-
nia Publications in Classical Philology, XII, no. 7) (Berkeley, 1941),
95-134, cf. 110-12.
18. The Utrecht Psalter in Medieval Art, ed. K. van der Horst, W. Noel,
W. C. M. Wtistefeld (Utrecht, 1996), 190-91, No. 9, with literature.
19. Physiologus, XIII, De Serpente, ed. Carmody, 111-12: "... quando
venerit homo et voluerit eum occidere, totum corpus tradit ad penam,
caput autem suum custodit. Debemus et nos in tempore temptationis
totum corpus tradere, caput autem custodire, id est Christum non ne-
gantes; sicut fecerunt sancti martyres: Omnis enim caput Christus est
[I Cor. 11:3]."
106
20. N. Henkel, Studien zum Physiologus im Mittelalter (Ttibingen, 1976),
37, 144, 184.
21. Augustine, Sermo LXIV, Habitus in solemnitate Martyrum, 2, ed.
Migne, PL, XXXVIII, 425-26, cf. 425: "Noli ex omni parte horrere
serpentem ... habet quod oderis, habet quod imiteris."
22. Henkel, Studien, 36-37, 144.
23. Ed. Migne, PL, CXV: Memorialis Sanctorum,I, 5, 742D (Matt. 10:22);
I, 5, 743AB; I, 21, 755BC, 756AB (Matt. 10:16); DocumentumMartyr-
iale, 3, 823C (Matt. 10:28); 17, 829C (Matt. 10:39); De Vitaetpassione
SS. virginum Florae et Mariae, 5, 837A (Matt. 10:32-33); Epistolae,
III, 8, 848D-849A (Matt. 10:40-41); Liber apologeticus martyrum,2,
853C (Matt. 10:40-41); 5, 854D (Matt. 10:22); 5, 855A (Matt. 10:39);
6, 856B (Matt. 10:7-8); 9, 857A (Matt. 10:39); 10, 857B (Matt. 10:22);
24, 864C (Matt. 10:28).
24. Memorialis Sanctorum, I, 21, ed. Migne, PL, CXV, 755BC: "Cuius
praecepti sensum hunc esse arbitror quod immista gentibus caterva
fideli, quasi innocentia praedita ovium, truculentiamferre cogetur lu-
porum. Ac ne segnitiei dediti facilius versutiis succumberent inimici,
congrue divinitus admonentur,ut essent cum adversariis fidei oppor-
tuna semper cautela subnixi, et contra astutias hostium erecti ubique et
providi."
25. Ibid., 756AB: "Sed et Arnobius... aliquid huic simile in eodem
psalmo disseruit, dicens: 'Age ergo, et cum pugnantibus pugna...
Linguae contra te pugnant, quas acuunt haeretici, sicut serpentes; his
et tu esto sicut serpens astutus ...'"
26. Isidore, Allegoriae, 143, ed. Migne, PL, LXXXIII, 118A: "Herodes,
qui infantibus necem intulit diaboli formam exprimit, vel gentium,
qui, cupientes extinguere nomen Christi de mundo, in caede mar-
tyrum saevierunt."
27. Beatus, ed. Romero Pose, I, 658-59.
28. Le Liber Ordinum en usage dans l'dglise wisigothique et mozarabe
d'Espagne du cinquibme au onzieme sikcle, ed. M. F6rotin (Monu-
menta Ecclesiae Liturgica, V) (Paris, 1904; rpt. Westmead, 1969),
451, n. 8.
29. Antifonario visigdtico mozdrabe de la Catedral de Ledn, ed. L. Brou,
J. Vives (Monumenta Hispaniae Sacra, series liturgica, V, 1) (Barce-
lona, 1959), 124-25; Oracional visigdtico, ed. J. Vives (Monumenta
Hispaniae Sacra, series liturgica, I) (Barcelona, 1946), 141-48.
30. Beatus, ed. Romero Pose, I, 660: "Non, ut quidam putant, isti sunt in-
fantes quos Herodes occidit: ... illi enim tantumex tribu luda fuerunt,
isti autem ex omni tribu et gente et lingua."
31. Ibid., 666: "Non, ut aliqui putant, martiressoli sunt, sed omnis eccle-
sia: non enim in sanguine suo lavasse dixit stolas, sed in sanguine
agni, id est, in gratia Dei per Christum ...
32. Primasius, Commentariusin Apocalypsin, II, ed. Migne, PL, LXVIII,
843C; also copied by Paschasius Radpertus,Expositio in Matthaeum,
II, 2, ed. Migne, PL, CXX, 142AB.
33. E.g., Paschasius Radpertus, in Matthaeum, 145D-146A.
34. Alvarus of C6rdoba, Indiculus luminosus, 6, ed. Migne, PL, CXXI,
520-21.
35. Neuss, Die Apokalypse, 22; G. Men6ndez-Pidal, "Mozdirabes y as-
turianos en la cultura de la alta Edad Media," Boletin de la Real
Academia de la Historia, CXXXIV (1954), 137-291, cf. 206-7.
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