Reframing the Bible: Genesis and Exodus on Toledo Cathedral's Fourteenth-Century Choir Screen

Abstract

Toledo Cathedral's stone choir screen was carved by local artists in the late fourteenth century, during a period of heightened anti-Jewish rhetoric and widespread conversion. Its fifty-six large reliefs show stories from Genesis and Exodus, and stand out from contemporary choir screens and sculpted ensembles owing to the inclusion of rarely depicted Apocryphal legends and the absence of New Testament stories. The extensive narratives of the Creation, the life of Cain, the death of Adam, the plagues in Egypt, and the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt are particularly unusual. The presence of some of these stories can be explained within a specific local devotional and liturgical context, in which the screen served as a backdrop for processions, preaching, and baptismal ceremonies. The unprecedented iconography of Cain biting Abel on the neck betrays an engagement with Hebrew scholarship and should be understood in the light of patristic and polemical texts then found in the cathedral library. Recurrent themes include an emphasis on stories that were commonly considered types for the division of Jews and Christians. Reliefs showing the Israelites in the desert can be read as a critique of Jewish idolatry, while also articulating ideas about the proper veneration of images in the Christian church.