This chapter originated in my doctoral dissertation and was subsequently revised for publication in a Festschrift honouring my Doktormutter, Miri Rubin.

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Abstract

Through the exceptional example of a fourteenth-century legal manuscript copied by a woman, Hannah bat Menaḥem Ẓion of Cologne, Žonca explores how the destabilisation of religious identity through persecution could be reflected in the devotional and study practices of medieval Jews. Analyzing Hannah’s structural choices in rubrication and marginal illustrations, Žonca argues that these elements suggest she read the halakhic text in a distinctly gendered manner, highlighting commandments relevant to women while also emphasising boundaries and resistance to non-Jewish influence. Using contextual evidence about Hannah’s forced conversion and narrow escape from execution, Žonca contends that the illustrations likewise seem to reflect Hannah’s preoccupation with reclaiming her religious identity after her traumatic persecution. In giving insight into how this manuscript, uniquely positioned at the intersection of male and female domains, could serve as a channel to articulate gender identity and religious identity simultaneously, Žonca’s chapter provides insight into devotional lives of women often obscured in medieval sources.

(Abstract from the volume Introduction, pp. 19–20)

Citation

Milan Žonca, “Hannah’s Dragons: Gender and Conversion in a Fourteenth-Century Jewish Woman’s Manuscript,” in Medieval Matters: Europe’s Premodern Religious Cultures: Studies in Honour of Miri Rubin, ed. Matthew S. Champion et al., Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions 252 (Leiden: Brill, 2026), 129–51.

@incollection{zonca2026,
    author    = {Žonca, Milan},
    editor    = {Champion, Matthew S. and Ihnat, Kati and Poleg, Eyal and Žonca, Milan},
    year      = {2026},
    title     = {Hannah's {Dragons}: {Gender} and {Conversion} in a {Fourteenth}-{Century} {Jewish} {Woman}'s {Manuscript}},
    booktitle = {Medieval {Matters}: {Europe}'s {Premodern} {Religious} {Cultures}: {Studies} in {Honour} of {Miri} {Rubin}},
    series    = {Studies in {Medieval} and {Reformation} {Traditions}},
    number    = {252},
    publisher = {Brill},
    address   = {Leiden},
    pages     = {129--151},
    isbn      = {978-90-04-52762-1},
}