Out of the Vessel

The Layered Meaning of the Chalice as a Symbol in Medieval Hebrew Manuscripts

Abstract

This article examines the symbolic role of the chalice in fourteenth-century Hebrew illuminated manuscripts, tracing its layered religious, historical, cultural, and polemical meanings. Focusing on the biblical scene of the "Plundering of Egypt" as depicted in four Catalan Haggadot—the Golden Haggadah, the Sister Haggadah, the Brother Haggadah, and the Rylands Sephardic Haggadah—I argue that the chalice functions not merely as a liturgical vessel, but as a charged visual emblem of Jewish identity and imagined triumph. Through the visual appropriation of Christian iconography, most notably the myth of the Holy Grail, the chalice becomes a site of ideological negotiation and cultural agency. It thus transforms from a simple ritual object into a densely symbolic arena that reflects the community that created it.