As medievalists and scholars who spend our days reading, researching, and teaching the Middle Ages, it is easy to take for granted the vibrancy, intrigue, and importance of the period. But how can we help audiences outside the academy connect to people and cultures so distant from themselves? My own work offers me a readymade solution: animals. For several years, including in my current position as the Public Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow at Notre Dameโs Medieval Institute, I have had the privilege of speaking to many different groups of children and adults across multiple countries about the Middle Ages and its animals. It is always such a great joy to introduce them to the weird and wonderful world of medieval animal riddles and poetry, facts from bestiaries and other encyclopedias, and of course manuscript illuminations.
I usually start these talks with a series of strange animal illustrations from medieval manuscripts, asking the audience simply to guess what the animals are. A recent event for kids at the St Joe County Public Library thus began with these four pictures and more:
Then comes the reveal that all of the wildly different illustrations are meant to be the same animal: a crocodile. What follows are usually cries of incredulity and laughter over how inaccurate all the images are. Theyโre not all terrible, of course, and I do make it clear that I choose the silliest ones available.
The significant question, then, is why there are so many bad medieval animals out there. With animals like crocodiles, one straightforward answer is that the illustrators had never seen the creatures in real life, but were drawing them based on writings from other parts of the globe. This becomes a good opportunity to talk about the interconnectedness of the medieval world โ an animal from the Nile gets written about by a bishop in Seville, whose words inspire a drawing in Peterborough. This can also lead to conversations about the nature of the writers and illustrators themselves, often monks and other holy men and women who are testament to the importance of medieval religious houses as centers of science and learning, thus challenging a popularly held stereotype about the โDark Agesโ.
With children (and their grown ups), thereโs a silly drawing game I like to play to put them in the shoes of these medieval illustrators โ how good can they be at drawing an animal they have never seen before? This can be done by making up an entirely new beast, but I prefer to defamiliarize an animal that the children already know, asking them to draw it one feature at a time, as with this example with information drawn from medieval accounts:
The animal is reddish in colour.
It has four feet and legs like those of a bull or a deer.
Its body is short at the back and tall at the front so it looks like it is always sitting down.
It has a long neck like a horse.
It has a head like a camel.
It is covered in white spots like a leopard.
By the time the kids figure out that they are drawing a giraffe, the results are usually already hilariously wonky, not far from the illustrations they were laughing at a few minutes ago!
Left: Activity sheets from the St Joe County Public Library event. Right: Manuscript illumination from British Library, Additional MS 11390, fol. 22v.
When giving these talks in the UK, often to school groups, I would generally begin with a different animal that they would be fairly familiar with, the badger. As with crocodiles, medieval illustrations of badgers could be ridiculously unrecognizable, as evident in the two images below.
Unlike crocodiles and giraffes, however, medieval Europeans should have been more familiar with badgers; literary, archaeological, and place-name evidence suggests that the animal was a common feature of the British landscape. What excuse, then, could medieval illustrators have in this case? In some instances, there was a method to their madness. According to the Third-Family Bestiary in the above Cambridge manuscript, the badger is called melo in Latin either because of its fondness for honey (mel) or because it is rotundissimo like a melon (melo). Itโs safe to say that this particular illustrator was inspired by the notion of roundness.
The Cambridge illustration also to me recalls Thomas of Cantimprรฉ, the thirteenth-century Flemish Dominican friar and preacher who in his natural encyclopedia, De natura rerum, wrote that the fatness of a badger increases when the moon waxes and diminishes when it wanes. As nocturnal animals, some badger behaviours (notably their mating patterns) are thought to be influenced by lunar cycles. Lunar influence on its rotundity may be more dubious, but did have significant practical implications. Thomas later stated that badger fat is a useful cure for fevers, which means that it was important to know when the animal would be at its fattest and most medicinally useful, and illustrations are a good way to get that lesson across. These may not be the most accurate illustrations, but they are undoubtedly memorable, which makes them extremely effective teaching and memorization tools.
This example thus becomes a good way to demonstrate to audiences beyond the academy that the so-called โDark Agesโ were really a time of curiosity, observation, experimentation, and innovation, when science and medicine were given great importance and there was a deep investment in understanding the world around us. Medieval animal texts are a testament to a love for learning and science and stories, and therefore a great way to help the public, children and adults alike, to connect with the Middle Ages.
Of course, itโs also very possible that many of these illustrators were simply bad at drawing animals and decided to lean into the absurdity of their creations. On this, I am sure we can all relate.
Ashley Castelino, DPhil Public Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow Medieval Institute University of Notre Dame
In 1430, King Henry VI granted Richard Talbot, archbishop of Dublin, members of Dublinโs city council, and other prominent merchants and citizens the right to form a guild dedicated to St. Anne for the purpose of supporting six priests at the altars at St. Audoenโs church, which stood near the High Street on the western end of the medieval walled city of Dublin.[1]
Fig. 1: Map of Medieval Dublin. Blue arrow points out St. Audoenโs Church. From Howard B. Clarke, โDublin c. 840 to c. 1540: The Medieval Town in the Modern City,โ Dublin: Ordinance Survey, 1978.
Guild members were laypeople โ both men and women. Membership in the Guild of St. Anne conferred spiritual, social, and business privileges; members likely supported one another in business, political, marriage, and property transactions. As lessees of Guild property, they received extremely favorable rates. Upon death, members were frequently interred in St. Audoenโs church and its adjoining churchyard; a survey of names on surviving gravestones matches closely with names in Guild records. St Anneโs Guild also appears to have had a close relationship with civic offices. Many of the medieval and early modern mayors, bailiffs, and city officials of Dublin also appear in St. Anneโs Guild documents – both within and outside of their official capacities. There is strong evidence that some of the Guildโs scribes were also active as city clerks or their assistants; these include scribe and author James Yonge (fl. 1404-1438) and his apprentices Thomas Baghill (fl. 1419-1439) and scribe and author Nicholas Bellewe (fl. 1423-74).
Fig. 2: Seal of the Guild of St. Anne, showing the saint instructing the Blessed Virgin Mary. From IMC GSA/17/54, ‘Calendar of the Deeds of the Guild of St Anne, 43 Elizabeth I, Item 54 (8 December 1600)’. Accessed on Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland <https://virtualtreasury.ie/item/IMC-GSA-17-54> PID: <https://arks.org/ark:/75929/i501895> (22 February 2026). Repository: Irish Manuscripts Commission.
The founding charter of the Guild allowed it to develop its own seal and acquire and control property yielding up to 100 marks per annum for the support of St. Audoenโs chaplains, and in its early years, the Guild set about building its portfolio. One of its notable early acquisitions was the bequest of several properties belonging to John Stafford, a wealthy baker, whose name appears on the founding charter.
Fig 3: Grant of lands to the Guild of St. Anne by Joan Richard, widow and executrix of John Stafford, baker, deceased. IMC GSA/9/79, ‘Calendar of the Deeds of the Guild of St Anne, 28 Henry VI, Item 79 (4 March 1450)’. Accessed on Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland <https://virtualtreasury.ie/item/IMC-GSA-9-79> PID: <https://arks.org/ark:/75929/i501617> (22 February 2026). Repository: Irish Manuscripts Commission.
As with the Stafford properties, many additional properties were acquired as bequests from Guild members, and several transactions provide for the grantor or his or her survivors for the rest of their natural lives, at which time the property was to revert to the full ownership of the Guild. The gift of property usually ensured that the grantor and his spouse would be remembered forever in the prayers of the priests of St. Audoenโs. When the Guild acquired a new property, they also received previous grants and quitclaims related to the property, which could be consulted if there were ever a challenge regarding the chain of ownership of a parcel. These older documents, dating back to the 1230s, were kept together with the documents granting the property to the Guild and the Guildโs subsequent leases of the property. By the seventeenth century, these were locked in a stout wooden chest to which the Master and two Wardens of the Guild had keys. To guard against malfeasance, the chest was only to be opened in the presence of at least three Guild members.[2] By the time the Guild was dissolved sometime after 1795, it controlled an extensive portfolio of property largely between Winetavern Street and the western city walls and from the quays to the southern city wall. They also controlled individual properties in Dublinโs suburbs and exurbs, including in Dolphinโs Barn, Oxmantown, Kilmainham, and the area around St. Patrickโs Cathedral. In 1535, the Guild acquired the area to the north of the church, known as Blakeneyโs Inns, in exchange for ยฃ20 and their lands in Saucerstown (near Swords). Blakeneyโs Inns consisted of several buildings including a tower, gallery, cellars, a hall, and a garden. It was home to St. Audoenโs College for a short time before being used as housing for St. Audoenโs priests.[3]
Fig. 4: 1535 Agreement in which the Guild of St. Anne acquired Blakeneyโs Inns from James Blakeney of Rykynhore, in exchange for ยฃ20 and lands held by the Guild in Saucerstown. IMC GSA/14/44, ‘Calendar of the Deeds of the Guild of St Anne, 26 Henry VIII, Item 44 (10 February 1535)’, accessed on VRTI (22 February 2026).
The properties of the Guild became a point of contention in 1620, when in the religious controversies and foment of the Protestant Reformation, the Guild became a target of the officials of the now Protestant Christ Church Cathedral. Not having enough ready cash on hand to effectively fight the legal challenges raised against it and to pay fines and other debts, the Guild in 1620 revoked many of its existing long-term leases, converting them to fee farms, where the grantees paid an up-front fee, then owned the property but owed the Guild an annual rent, in this case at a rate a little higher than the favorable rent on the previous lease. This effectively raised ready cash for the Guild and transferred lands out of Guild ownership while the Guild was able to retain some annual income from them. In 1633, the Guild faced a serious threat to its existence when officials of Christ Church Cathedral, including Thomas Lowe, John Bramhall (Lord Deputy Thomas Wentworthโs personal chaplain), and John Atherton (who would become Bishop of Waterford before his execution in 1640) claimed that the Guild was wealthier than it should be and that the leaders were misappropriating funds. The Guild lost its case before Lord Deputy Thomas Wentworth, who ruled that the fee-farm grants must be converted into sixty-year leases at much higher rents. Bramhall and Atherton were allowed to go through the Guild’s documents. In 1638, they raised rents to ruinous amounts, disregarding tenantsโ investments in the properties, and using threats and intimidation to get tenants to sign new leases. They also packed the membership of the Guild with supporters, voting out the existing Master and Wardens and placing their own hand-picked appointees in leadership positions. The new officers took control of the Guildโs seal matrix and its documents.
This hostile takeover did not last. Some ousted guild members in the crowd may have looked on with satisfaction when Atherton was hanged in Oxmantown โ just across the Liffey from Dublin โ on 5 December 1640. Lord Wentworth himself was executed on May 12, 1641 in London. It took the Guild a few more years after the downfalls of Atherton and Wentworth, however, to undo the damage. A memorandum from a meeting of the Guild in 1653 attempts to turn back the clock, ordering that (1) all tenants would have their leases restored to the terms and rents they had prior to 1638, (2) those who had fallen behind on rent could catch up by paying their original rates, and (3) all of the members who had been placed in the Guild by Bramhall and Atherton be expelled.[4]
Fig. 5: Memorandum of Guild meeting of 26 July 1653 in which properties, rents, and Guild membership was restored to conditions prior to the attacks by Bramhall and Atherton on Guild property and sovereignty. IMC GSA/20/4, ‘Calendar of the Deeds of the Guild of St Anne, Interregnum, Item 4 (26 July 1653)’, accessed on VRTI (22 February 2026).
The Guild continued into the early modern period as a large property owner in Dublin, and as an organization protecting Roman Catholic sympathizers, leaning on ancient legal precedent to continue operating. They continued to keep records, collecting them in an abstract book until ca. 1800. The Wide Streets Commission, formed by an act of Parliament in 1757, set about creating a new city with wide avenues and a center located east of the medieval city. The Commission had the power to purchase property to achieve their goals, and much of the Guildโs property wound up in the hands of the Commission. Buildings, alleyways, and even once-bustling streets were cleared to create a new, planned city. Dublinโs past was further obscured in the disastrous explosion and fire in the Public Record Office at the Four Courts on June 30, 1922. Before then, the Guild had faded into obscurity, and its documents became the property of historian and book collector Charles Haliday (1789-1866). They were given to the Royal Irish Academy by Halidayโs widow, Mary, in 1867. The Royal Irish Academy continues to be the steward of this precious collection of medieval and early modern documents. The documents have, however, entered a new period in their history as featured Gold Seam materials on the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland, made available to the public as of October 22, 2025.[5] Through the efforts of the Royal Irish Academy, former RIA librarian Ludwig Bieler (1906-1981), the Irish Manuscripts Commission, and a large team of researchers, historians, and computer experts at the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland, these documents are now available in a searchable online database. Users can view high-resolution images of each document and its surviving seals. An English-language summary accompanies each document. As a group, these records preserve a great deal of the medieval history of western Dublin, providing glimpses of lost buildings, streets, and alleyways and those who lived and worked there, along with the infrastructure residents used, such as waterways, markets, and places of education and entertainment. Several documents, particularly wills, provide glimpses into the lives of those whose stories would otherwise be lost, particularly women. The collection, formerly a physical manifestation of the wealth of the Guild of St. Anne, now offers its unparalleled treasures to historians, genealogists, sigillographers, and the curious.
Theresa OโByrne, Ph.D., VRTI Associate Researcher Delbarton School
Jewish Kabbalistic writings often construct elaborate systems to assist their metaphysical speculations on the divine realm. Occasionally, these systems are presented through diagrams that map out the structure of divine potencies and the dynamic relationships between these potencies and the created world. The best-known examples are the numerous variations of thetheosophical Sefirotic Tree, whose branching structure has come to epitomize the dynamic order of divine entities and powers, (sefirot). Yet the early 13th century Kabbalists also drew on other types of geometric diagrams that were readily available in the scientific and theological environments of the time, namely, the concentric spherical diagram as generally informed by Ptolemaic astronomy. These diagrams, which consisted of ten spheresโthe 7 traditional planets, the sphere of fixed stars, the diurnal sphere (Primum Mobile), and, in some cases, the Universal Intellectโwere integrated and further modified by Jewish theological and Kabbalistic doctrines of creation.
Kabbalistic texts illustrate how dynamic and adaptive these cosmological models were. So much so, that Kabbalists often integrated elements from markedly different systems, mainly theological or cosmogenic, thereby reconstruing the nature, logic, and order of the cosmic diagrams of the time. One notable case appears in Ginnat Egoz (The Garden of the Nut), a cosmic-Kabbalistic work composed in 1274 by the Castilian Kabbalist Joseph Giqatilla. His text includes a spherical diagram that serves as the structural skeleton of his cosmology (Figures 1โ2).
Figure 1: The British Library, MS Add. 11416, fol. 147r.
As the diagram suggests, Giqatilla reconfigured the concentric model by integrating the first ten Hebrew letters as ciphers which stand for the โparts of the cosmosโ. In the manuscripts of Ginnat Egoz, the diagram usually appears as two concentric circlesโan inner and an outer sphere. On the inner circumference are inscribed the first ten Hebrew letters, ordered counterclockwise: ื, ื, ื, ื, ื, ื, ื, ื, ื, ื. These letters, and the Hebrew alphabet more generally, played a significant role in ciphering complex cosmic structures, also due to their numerical value as established in early Rabbinic tradition. The numerology of the Hebrew letters was constructive tool for recasting the relationship between the spheres and parts of the cosmos, as ciphered by the first ten Hebrew letters:
The ten letters correspond to the โten parts of the universeโ, a term which refers to both the number of spheres and to the 10 cosmic qualities that the Hebrew letters carry together with their respective numerical values. The latter is pivotal for the construction of a dynamic cosmos that operates by the qualities epitomized by these linguistic principles. Another pivotal addition is the symbol ืื, hovering above the inner concentric letter-arrangement. The numerical value of this symbol is 11, or 10 + 1 (ื+ื). In Jewish Neoplatonic literature ืืoften represents the transcendent One in relationship to the tenfold cosmos. In Giqatillaโs diagram it takes on an additional function, namely, the primary principle of divine motion which sustains and governs and spheres.
Figure 2:ย Paris, Bibliothรจque nationale de France, MS Hรฉb,ย 811, fol. 30r.
The categorical distinction between the ten cosmic parts and the principle of divine motion likely prompted later copyists of the Garden of the Nut to render Giqatillaโs cosmic diagram more schematically. Thus, a sixteenth-century manuscript in (Figure 3) arranges the ten letters on one side of the sphere, directly opposite the symbol ืื on the other. Each side bears a heading:แธฅelqe ha-galgal (โparts of the sphereโ) andtenuสฟah ืื (โmotion Yโ), respectively. Whereas the diagram in the Paris and London manuscripts can be considered integrative (in the sense that the hovering symbol ืื is situated in dialogue with the running alphabetic circle), the diagram in the Munich manuscript is pronounceably schematic.
Figure 3:ย Ginnat Egoz, Munich, Bavarian State Library, MS Cod. hebr. 54, fol. 175r.
The idea that the universe consists of the principles embedded in the Hebrew alphabet is central to many Jewish texts, and The Garden of the Nut marks another important moment in this rich speculative tradition. But it also affords us an opportunity to better assess the role that diagrams play in the intersection of cosmology and theology. Particularly, Giqatillaโs letter-cosmography stresses the question whether Kabbalistic diagrams served a goal beyond the mere pedagogical illustration of complex ideas? Addressing this question is also instructive for assessing the manuscript tradition of Giqatillaโs Garden of Nut which includes a markedly distinct rendition of the alphabetic-spherical diagram.
Abraham Ibn Ezraโs 12th century Arithmetic Cycle
Let us begin by noting that Giqatillaโs diagram has a history. It bears striking allusions to a diagram presented by the Andalusian polymath Abraham Ibn Ezra (12 c.), one of Giqatillaโs major influences. In his Sefer ha-Mispar (โBook of Numbersโ), composed over a century prior to The Garden of Nut, Ibn Ezra offered perhaps the earliest systematic Hebrew introduction to the decimal number system. He prefaced it with a brief meditation on the symbolic qualities of the nine numbers and their analogy to the nine spheres encompassing earth:
[The Hebrew word] Sfar refers to the nine numbers, since nine is the end of any reckoning. You should know that the nine are the true numbers which stand against the nine spheres and all the ensuing numbers are assimilated to them
โย Abraham Ibn Ezra, Preface to Sefer ha-Mispar, trans. Shlomo Sela (excerpt; adapted).
The first nine Hebrew letters (ืโื) represent the numbers 1โ9 and the nine celestial spheres surrounding the sublunary realm. The sequence proceeds counterclockwise, with แนญet (ื, 9) at the apex. Ibn Ezra assumes also the additional symbol 0 (‘void’), functioning as a placeholder within a decimal system. Ibn Ezra is not explicit about the cosmic analogue of the 0, though one might wonder if he had the sublunar realm in mind.
Figure 4: Ibn Ezra,ย Sefer ha-Mispar; Vienna, Austrian National Library, MS Cod. hebr. D 194, fol. 90v..
While not figured in the diagram, the letter yod (ื, 10) is implied as the radix of the decimal system, rather than one of its counted elements. What is significant about Ibn Ezra circular diagram is its arithmetic mechanism which demonstrates the harmony of the 9 letters and, consequently, of the spheres: Multiplying 9 by any descending integer yields products whose digits are positioned as diametrically opposite pairs.
Figure 5: The Austrian National Library, MS Cod. hebr.ย ย D 194, fol. 90v.
Reconstructing Giqatillaโs Experiment
Ibn Ezra was a polymathic thinker and several of his ideas, in both areas of linguistics and cosmology, became pivotal to Giqatilla. There are grounds to assume that Ibn Ezraโs cosmic diagram was among these adopted ideas, and not simply because of the graphic and doctrinal allusions. If we read Giqatillaโs diagram through Ibn Ezraโs arithmetical logic, its inner workings become clearer. In the discussion following his diagram, Giqatilla introduces various cosmic constructs by manipulating the elements presented in the alphabetic diagram. One of these hermeneutical products is the following fourfold set of letters: โThe parts of the sphere [are] ืื (AT), ืื (Bแธค), ืื (GZ), ืื (DW).โ
Figure 6: London, British Library, MS Add. 11417, fol. 147r.
This set alludes to an established Rabbinic hermeneutical formula, known asย ืืืืดืย (ATBแธค), where specific letters in the Hebrew alphabetic system are interchangeable with their respective counterparts โ e.g.,ย the letter โaleph (ื) with tet (ื), bet (ื) with แธฅet (ื), and so forth. Giqatilla adopts this hermeneutical device while recasting its function and significance through the logic of Ibn Ezraโs cosmic-decimal system. He does not spell out his methods, but the logic can be construed if we correctly identify the key variables in his diagram while using Ezraโs system as a frame of reference. The same variables are at play in each of the systems:
The multiplicand โ the sequential letters around the circle;
The multiplier โ the letter at the apex (แนญet, 9, in Ibn Ezra; yod, 10, in Giqatilla);
The radix โ the numerical base that determines the systemโs internal coherence.
The crucial change lies in this last variable. The compound symbol ืื, whose numerical value is 11 (โaleph + yod), stands above the circle as a new counting base Giqatillaโs diagram therefore operates not on a decimal but on an undecimal system. (Giqatilla uses the symbol ืื for this undecimal radix, but for the sake of clarity we may use the letter A as a placeholder for the radix 11, by which logic the number 10 is the last of the counted number: 1-10.)
Figure 7: Paris, BnF, MS hรฉb. 811, fol. 30r.
This small adjustment transforms the arithmetic while recasting the parts of the universe. Where Ibn Ezraโs 9 ร 9 produced 81 (ืื), Giqatillaโs multiplication (within an undecimal system) yields 73 (ืื). Each of the ten letters, multiplied by 10, produces a value recalculated according to base 11. The decimal radix and unitsโ places are redefined: 10ยฒ = 9(A) + 1, where A signifies the new radix 11 and, 1 represents the remainder. Similarly, the product 9 ร 10, which equals 90 in decimal terms, becomes 82 in the undecimal system [8(A) + 2]. The letter ืืณ represents the undecimal grouping [8(A)] and 1 constitutes the remainder of the unit digit.
Under this paradigm, Giqatilla reconstructs the ATBแธค letter-pairing formula. From his modified arithmetic emerges the four pairings: ืื (AT), ืื (Bแธค), ืื (GZ), ืื (DW). Each represents a structural correspondence between cosmic parts as sustained by divine motion, echoing but transforming Ibn Ezraโs earlier decimal pairs (ืื, ืื, ืื, ืื). Following Ibn Ezraโs logic, the digits constituting the resulted value stand symmetrically in relationship to the apex (the multiplier), while diametrically opposing each other: ืื (AT), ืื (Bแธค), ืื (GZ), and ืื(DW). Similarly, the addition of the two digits/letter of each pairโe.g. ื+ืโamounts to the apex (10) and thus completes the order of numbers. Diverging from Ibn Ezra, Giqatillaโs apex is the letter ืืณ (rather than ืืณ) and, more importantly, the radix, that is, the basis of the system in toto, is the combine letters ืื (rather than ืืณ).
The addition of ืื to the cosmic diagram is quite instructive. It reveals how established systems are adopted and further modified by new metaphysical and theological ideas, on the one hand, and with the aid of traditional hermeneutical formulas, on the other. Like other 13th century Kabbalists, Giqatilla developed a distinct cosmology which he based on the active principle of the ืื, the latter signifying the One as the direct and active and cause of cosmic motion and its sustainability. No less significant is what Giqatillaโs adopted diagram teaches us about how original theological systems take form. Giqatillaโs model borrows from the available systems of his time while reworking their elements and, at the same time, โreinventingโ a new cosmology whose principles and essence assume a different and perhaps more radical conception of creation. Finally, this process of adaptation also shows us why graphic precision is important. The schematic version of the diagram (Figure 3) loses the entire logic of the spherical letters in relationship to the apex, and their diametric opposition in relationship to each other. I shall conclude this interesting spherical diagram journey, from Ibn Ezra to Giqatilla, with the afterlife of Giqatillaโs Garden of Nut. This work occupies a unique and important place in Kabbalistic literature, and some of its ideas and themes left a noticeable mark on subsequent Kabbalistic developments. One of these themes is the spherical diagram which the fourteenth century Kabbalist Menaแธฅem แนขiyyoni incorporated and further reworked in his commentary on the Pentateuch.
Figure 8: แนขiyyuni, London, British Library, MS Or. 13261, fol. 55r.
Difference and shifts in the process of copying was not unique to The Garden of Nut and here, too, we find interesting variations among manuscripts.
The diagram is modified considerably in a Munich manuscript. (Figure 9) Not only does it reconfigure the diametric order of the letters, running now clockwise, it repositions the letter yod (ื). This letter now initiates a new inner circle consisting of the Hebrew letters ื, ืฆ, ื, ืค, ื, ืข, ื, ืก, ื the latter forming the pairs ืืฆ, ืืค, ืืข, ืืก (These pairs complete the constituents of some version of the Rabbinic ATBแธค hermeneutic formula.)
Giqatillaโs ATBแธค sphere provided the basis for further cosmic-theological diagrams. Some of these were modified and integrated into more complex theosophical systems of divine potencies (structured vertically) while borrowing further elements from the hermeneutical ATBแธค formula (Figure 10).
Figure 10: A marginale with the pairs ืื ืื ืื ืื ืืฆ ืืค ืืข ืืก , and with the additional pairs ืงืฅ ืจืฃ ืฉื ืชื โ in a copy of แธคayyim Vitalโs Kabbalistic Derush ATBแธค (16-17 c.). Moscow, Russian State Library, Gรผnzburg Collection, MS 1446, fol. 182r. The last pair ืชื does not appear in all versions.
All in all, the journey from Ibn Ezra to Giqatilla, and from Giqatilla to later theosophical Kabbalistic texts, offers a glimpse into the workings of a dynamic and creative force of Jewish theological speculation, producing conceptual shifts within a multifaceted intellectual history.
Tzvi Schoenberg, PhD Arts and Letters Provost Postdoctoral Fellow Medieval Institute University of Notre Dame
Sources:
The Bavarian State Library, MS Cod. hebr. 54, fol. 175r
The Bavarian State Library, MS Cod. hebr. 76 fol. 154v
The National Library of France, MS hรฉb. 811, 30v
The British Library, MS Add. 11416, fol. 147r
The British Library, MS Or.13261, fol. 55r
The Austrian National Library, MS Cod. hebr. 194, fol. 90v
The Russian State Library, MS Guenzburg 1446, fol. 182r
Further reading:
Yosef Avivi, Kabbalat ha-Ari, vol. 1 (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi Institute, 2008), 445 (Hebrew)
Avishai Bar-Asher and Jeremy Phillip Brown, Light is Sown: The Cultivation of Kabbalah in Medieval Castile (New York: Oxford University Press, 2025), 73-115 (esp. 99-106)
J.H. Chajes, โSpheres, Sefirot, and the Imaginal Astronomical Discourse of Classical Kabbalah,โ Harvard Theological Review, 113: 2 (2020) 230โ262
J. H. Chajes, The Kabbalistic Tree (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2022)
Elke Morlok, Rabbi Joseph Gikatillaโs Hermeneutics (Tรผbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011)
Yakir Paz and Tzahi Weiss, โFrom Encoding to Decoding: The AแนฌBแธค of R. Hiyya in Light of a Syriac, Greek, and Coptic Cipher,โ Journal of Near Eastern Studies 74: 1 (2015): 95โ114
James T. Robinson, “The ‘Secret of the Heavens’ and the ‘Secret of Number’: Immanuel of Romeโs Mathematical Supercommentaries on Abraham Ibn Ezra in His Commentary on Qohelet 5:7 and 7:27”, Aleph, 21:. 2 (2021): 279-308
Shlomo Sela, Abraham Ibn Ezra and the Rise of Medieval Hebrew Science (Leiden: Brill, 2003)
Judith Weiss, โSpherical Sefirot in Early Kabbalah.โ Harvard Theological Review 117: 4 (2024): 770-792
