Laura Marie Feigen

PhD Student

Thesis:  Material Witnesses: Examining the Migration of Hebrew Manuscripts in Relation to Jewish Displacement 1290-1550

Supervisor: Professor Alixe Bovey, FSA FRHistS  Advisor: Dr Tom Nickson 

Funded by the Consortium for the Humanities and Arts South-East England (CHASE)

This dissertation examines how Jewish thought, ritual, and identity were impacted by the expulsion of Jews from England, France, Germany, and Spain between 1290 and 1492. It focuses on a group of Hebrew manuscripts that migrated from their origin to new cities in north Italy before 1500. The movement of each manuscript can be mapped through their material composition: colophons, censor signatures, ownership inscriptions and the addition of new pages, decorations, and bindings. The manuscripts’ movement to Italy in this period raises vital questions regarding the insight they can provide into the impact of displacement on Jewish communities from England, France, Germany, and Spain as well as the communities to which they moved. Where previous scholarship has discussed these manuscripts primarily in relation to the moments they were made, this dissertation charts their ritual use and interpretation of their images across time periods and geographic borders. In doing so, it addresses crucial, yet unanswered, questions regarding how each manuscript changed over time to reflect the influence of displacement on Jewish mentalités. In this way, the dissertation presents a fresh method for studying Jewish displacement while also giving voice to a minority often overshadowed in studies on medieval history.

Education

2019: The Courtauld Institute of Art, MA History of Art (Distinction)

2018: Stanford University, BAH History of Art (First Class Honours)

2018: Stanford University, BA Italian Language and Literature (First Class Honours)

Conferences and Workshops

Afterlives and Legacies: Interventions in Medieval Hebrew Manuscripts, International Medieval Congress at Leeds, Session Co-organiser and Moderator, 1 July, 2024.

” ‘More Precious than Gold’: Hebrew Manuscripts in Cross-Cultural Contexts,” Courtauld Year Three Symposium, 16-17 May 2024.

Authority and Identity in the Middle Ages, Courtauld Postgraduate Medieval Colloquium, Co-organiser, 15 March 2024.

Exodus and Expulsion: The Barcelona Haggadah as a Material Witness to Sephardi Migration 1391-1459″, Emerging Researchers Symposium 2023: Movement and Transformations in the Making of Iberian and Latin American Art and Visual Cultures, Zurbarán Centre for Spanish and Latin American Art, Durham University, 22-23 June 2023.

“Material Witnesses: Examining the Migration of Hebrew Manuscripts in Relation to Jewish Displacement 1290-1550”, Lecture to the Department of Medieval Art & The Cloisters, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 3 May 2023.

“Mapping Migration: The Barcelona Haggadah (BL MS Add 14761) As A Material Witness to Sephardi Migration 1391-1459”, Mediterranean Seminar: Diasporic Legacies of the  Mediterranean, University of Minnesota, 27-28 April 2023.

Honours and Awards

2022: Juan Facundo Riaño Essay Prize 

2019: Association for Art History Postgraduate Dissertation Prize

2018: Albert Elsen Award in Art History, Stanford University

Research Interests

  • Hebrew manuscripts from England, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy
  • Jewish-Christian relationships and Jewish experience in the Middle Ages
  • Jewish displacement and expulsion in western Europe 1290-1492
  • Marginal images (marginalia) in Hebrew and Latin manuscripts
  • Processes of Hebrew and Latin manuscript production and illumination in western Europe (13th – 15th centuries)
  • Jewish persecution and anti-Jewish sentiment across historical periods
  • Movement of people and books across time periods and geographies

Citations