The word “Mahzor,” means “cycle" and is familiar to most Jews as the term used for the prayer book for the High Holidays and festivals. However, in medieval times, the term Mahzor was used to refer to prayerbooks that contained the complete cycle of prayers for the entire year.

The Bamberg Mahzor, completed in Bamberg, Germany, in 1279, includes prayers for the entire year according to Ashkenazi custom. It is distinguished by its Ashkenazi script and the style of its decoration. 

Typical of the Mahzor’s decoration is the large encircled “aleph,” accompanied by fanciful, “grotesque” creatures near the bottom of the page. If you look carefully at the hybrid creature to the left, you may recognize its top part as a typical “birds-head” representation of a Jew (such representations were found in medieval Ashkenazi manuscripts). The bird’s beak, along with the “Jew hat” on top, unmistakably locate this manuscript in time and place, though the meaning of this sort of image is unclear and much debated.