The Imaginary Enemy: Non-Christians in Medieval Iconography

Coats of arms and flags depicting scorpions, exotic turbans and caps, hooked noses, red hair, scarlet-red, black or even blue faces, unnaturally twisted postures, obscene gestures and viciously aggressive grimaces. Many signs were used in the art of the medieval West to mark and denounce non-Christians (Jews, Muslims and pagans), heretics, other sinners and outcasts. They were all correlated with the "father of lies", the devil, as well as with each other, as if they were part of a global conspiracy against Christian society. Pagan Romans were sometimes represented in Jewish caps and pseudo-Jewish inscriptions, Jews in Muslim turbans, and Muslims were accused of worshipping idols and appealing to Roman gods. Mediaevalist Mikhail Maisuls explores in his new book, how the image of the enemy was constructed from the 12th to the 16th century, how stigmatization mechanisms operated in the image area and in streets, and how techniques developed in the Middle Ages were applied in the pamphlets, posters and caricatures of the Modern Age.