Sensation and olfaction : experiencing image and text in the Golden Haggadah

The illustrated Haggadah, the liturgical manuscript used during the Seder on the first nights of Passover, emerged in thirteenth-century Europe and quickly became a conduit for expressing Jewish identity. This study focuses on the use of sensorial cues within the Golden Haggadah (London, British Library, MS 27210) to evoke responses related to personal and collective memory. These memories, of Seders past, of the persecution that Israelites endured under the pharaohs of ancient Egypt and under the Christians of medieval Europe, show how the manuscript cognitively and sensorially engaged its beholders. This study introduces questions of materiality and perception to consider how the Haggadah prompted Seder participants to experience intimately the Exodus narrative and how the senses – especially smell – were invoked by the narrative, the images, and the lived experiences of the beholders interacting with the codex. From poems referencing the incense of the Temple to images like Jacob's betrayal of Esau to the very smell of the manuscript itself, olfaction became aconsistent part of the Seder. Rabbinic writings contemporaneous to the Golden Haggadah's creation further reveal the importance attributed to the sense of smell in the medieval period.