Never a rabbi, Abravanel was a deeply religious
person, with a “fundamentalist” zeal for Jewish tradi-
tion. He wrote various treatises, including important
commentaries on the Bible, all in Hebrew. In these,
and even more in what may be called his “theological”
treatises, he displayed his opposition to Aristotelian and
Muslim philosophy, more than to Maimonides, whom
he greatly revered while still disagreeing cautiously with
some of his views. Contrary to the teachings, rather, of
the more rationalist followers of Maimonides (Gerson
and others), Abravanel believed literally in creation ex
nihilo, and in a literal understanding of miracles. Though
he showed himself ultimately opposed to any attempt to
establish “fundamental principles” of faith in the Bible,
since all of it is divine, these two ideas were bound up
with his understanding of God as omnipotent. Unlike
Maimonides, he believed that man is the “fi nal cause,”
or purpose, of the Creation, and that man’s purpose is
the contemplation of God (perhaps under scholastic
infl uence). Again unlike Maimonides, he was also a
believer in astrology.
His political attitudes, while not systematic enough
to be called (as they have been) a “political philosophy,”
are of interest.
Abravanel played an important role in the messianic
expectations of the generation of the exiles, and had a
lasting infl uence on Jewish thought, and no less on later
Christian thinkers.
It is believed that the Panels of St. Vincent of the
Portuguese artist Nuño Gonçalves (ca. 1481) present
an actual portrait of Abravanel, one of only two known
portraits of a medieval Spanish Jew.
See also Maimonides
Further Reading
Netanyahu, B. Don Isaac Abravanel. Philadelphia, 1972.
Kellner, M. Gersonides and his Cultural Despisers: Arama and
Abravanel. Charlottesville, Va. 1976.
Gomes, P. A. Filosofi a hebraico-portuguesa. Porto, 1981.
Norman Roth
ADAM DE LA HALLE
(ca. 1240–ca. 1285)
Dramatist and poet. Also called “Adam le Bossu” or
“le Bossu d’Arras” (bossu ‘awkward’ or ‘crippled’),
Adam de la Halle lived and wrote in Arras during the
last third of the 13th century. His modern reputation is
based primarily on two plays: a satiric drama, the Jeu de
la feuillée (1,099 octosyllabic lines), and a work often
referred to as a comic opera, the Jeu de Robin et Marion.
Since feuillée has been interpreted to mean the shelter
of branches built to house the reliquary of Notre Dame
at Pentecost, the Jeu de la feuillée is thought to have
been composed for performance in the town of Arras for
this festival. This fi rst extant secular drama in French
contains little plot, presenting mostly a succession of
scenes that tease and ridicule forty-nine named male and
female citizens of Arras. The humor of the play depends
on exploiting character traits known to the audience, as
well as proverbs and puns whose full meaning could be
appreciated only by those familiar with the citizenry of
Arras. Contemporary documents that contain the names
of the characters in the play allow us to date the work
to 1276 or 1277. It provides the earliest example on the
French stage of the ridicule of the medical profession,
which reached its height with Molièere. The extant
manuscripts preserve some of the music for the songs
included in the play.
Closely related to the pastourelle, the Jeu de Robin et
Marion (780 octosyllabic lines) dramatizes the encoun-
ter of a shepherdess and a knight on a spring morning.
When his advances are rebuffed, the knight kidnaps the
young girl and carries her away on his horse after beat-
ing her friend Robin. However, Marion is soon released
unharmed, and friends arrive to sing, dance, eat, and play
games. Spoken dialogue alternates with singing. When
fi rst presented in Arras, the play was preceded by a short
dramatic prologue, in which a pilgrim tells of his travels
in Italy and says that everywhere he went he heard about
a talented, gracious, and noble clerk, native of Arras,
loved and honored by the count of Artois because of
his poetic and musical talent. The pilgrim states that he
visited Adam’s tomb the year before and sings two of
Adam’s songs as examples of his talent.
In addition to the plays, Adam wrote thirty-six
chansons, seventeen jeux-partis, sixteen rondeaux,
fi ve motets, a congé, and the fi rst nineteen laisses of an
epic poem, the Roi de Sicile. Fifteen of the seventeen
jeux-partis by Adam were composed with Jehan Bretel,
who alludes to Adam’s superior education, his youth,
and his loves. Before 1271, the date of Bretel’s death,
Adam was already well enough known to write jeux-
partis with the prince of the Puy. While his chansons
written in the tradition of the Provençal love lyric dwell
on the suffering endured patiently by a lover whose lady
appears indifferent to him, there is no reason to believe
that they were based on true feelings.
Although Adam lived and wrote in Picardy for much
of his life, the language of his songs refl ects relatively
few traits of the Picard dialect, whereas the speech of
the characters in his plays relies more heavily on dialect
and probably resembles the language used in Arras in
the 13th century.
In 1276 or 1277, Adam wrote his Congé (farewell
poem), one of three such poems composed by trouvères
(the others are by Jehan Bodel d’Arras and Baude
Fastoul). In 156 lines divided into strophes of twelve
octosyllabic verses, Adam takes leave for Paris toABRAVANEL, ISAAC