Illuminations I: Lights, Material Culture and the Society of Spectacle in the Late Middle Ages

Abstract

A feature of modernity is the visit to the synagogue –not for fulfilling religious obligations but rather– to gaze, experience or as one seventeenth century visitor put it “for observation sake”. This we call “the synagogue as spectacle”. In the Middle Ages there were visits but of a markedly different character. The fifteenth century is a point of transition. The lights of the synagogue are a central part of the spectacle. Their symbolism and meaning is rich in variations which are frequently constructed and reconstructed. There seems to be more evidence for contributions to the Synagogue lights than to those of the Midrash but the latter is also represented. The corpus of testimonies from the fifteenth century showing benefactions for illuminations is immense. Women are prominent. The drive to contribute cuts across differences of gender, socioeconomic status, professions, locality.