Jews heretics and the sign of the cat in the Bible moralisée

The commentary text and images of the thirteenth-century Bible moralisée - an illuminated paraphrase of the Bible with illuminated commentarycontain a striking and as yet unexplained aspect: A mordant polemic against the Jews. Particularly revealing of the nature of this anti-Jewish polemic is the linkage of Jews and Christian heretics in both the text and illustrations of the Bible moralisée. This linkage is conspicuous in the two earliest Bible moralisee manuscripts: A Latin exemplar (Vienna ÖNB cod. 1179) and a closely related French version (Vienna ONB cod. 2554), both of which date fi’om the 1220S, and are counted among the most important creations of the largest and most productive atelier in early thirteenthcentury Paris.¹.