Today the rabbit is closely associated with Easter – the most significant date in the Christian calendar. In the Middle Ages, though, that animal was the donkey.
The New Testament Gospels record that Christ rode a donkey into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. This event fulfilled the Old Testament prophecy (Zechariah 9: 9) that a just king would arrive on a donkey and bring salvation to the people.
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter Jerusalem:
Behold, thy king cometh unto thee: he is just and having salvation;
Lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass.
(Zechariah 9: 9)
Christ’s decision to ride an ass into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday meant that the lowly beast became associated with the Christian virtues of patience and humility. Even more significant, the donkey was the bearer of salvation.
Medieval iconography of Palm Sunday is true to the Gospel accounts. Christ is always depicted riding an ass but is sometimes accompanied by the ass’s foal. Lorenzetti’s painting verifies Christ’s request that his disciples to go to a nearby village and bring him an ass and her foal: “find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me” [Matt 21:3].
Many medieval images, such as this one from the Yates Thompson manuscript, show people throwing garments and palm fronds onto the ground: “Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread branches they had cut in the fields” [Mark 11:9].
During the Middle Ages, a ritual started to observe the feast day of Palm Sunday and commemorated Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem on the fourth Sunday of Lent; it is most well-known as Palmesel (literally ‘Palm ass’). Although not Germanic in origin, the Palmesel ritual was especially prevalent in the Holy Roman Empire, where a wooden effigy of Christ on a donkey would be paraded through the parish along a route lined with the villagers or townsfolk waving palm fronds (or foliage). That ritual still persists today in some Christian communities.
Sources, Further Reading and Images
