By “siddur” we ordinarily mean a Jewish prayer book, but this volume is not a normal prayer book. It is, rather, a rich compendium of liturgical poetry for Shabbat and the holidays, written in early Ashkenaz. Many of these poems are not included in later prayer books, so what is preserved in this volume offers crucial documentation of otherwise lost Jewish creativity. Also notable in this volume are its numerous miniature illustrations. 

The striking image on the page before you, one of a series of illustrations of the Ten Commandments, is an illustration of the commandment not to covet one’s neighbor’s wife, represented by Eve, Adam, and the snake bearing the forbidden fruit. Eve, in all her nakedness (like Adam), reaches out to take the fruit, but she too, presumably, is “forbidden fruit,” the desire for which the commandment forbids.