North French Hebrew Miscellany folio 117b118a

The North French Hebrew Miscellany or "French Miscellany" or "London Miscellany" (

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...

Add. MS 11639) is an important

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

illuminated manuscript An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared manuscript, document where the text is decorated with flourishes such as marginalia, borders and Miniature (illuminated manuscript), miniature illustrations. Often used in the Roman Catholic Churc ...

from 13th-century

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

, created c. 1278-98. A

miscellany A miscellany (, ) is a collection of various pieces of writing by different authors. Meaning a mixture, medley, or assortment, a miscellany can include pieces on many subjects and in a variety of different forms. In contrast to anthologies, w ...

is a manuscript containing texts of different types and by different authors, and this volume contains a wide range of

Hebrew language Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and remained in regular use as a first language unti ...

texts, mostly religious but many secular. The manuscript is exceptional among medieval Hebrew manuscripts both for its size and the diversity of the texts and the quality and lavishness of its illuminations, which as was often the case were added by Christian specialists. This manuscript was digitized by the British Library's Hebrew Manuscripts Digitisation Project and is available online.

Description

The manuscript (excluding paper flyleaves) has 746 folios (so 1,492 pages), which include a quire of six illuminated pages added at the end; the page dimensions are 16 x 12 cm. The manuscript includes "eighty-four different groups of texts, including hundreds of poems". The Biblical and liturgical texts include the

Pentateuch The Torah ( , "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Torah is also known as the Pentateuch () o ...

, the '' Haftarot'' prophetical readings, '' Tiqqun soferim'', Five Scrolls, and the full annual cycle of the

liturgy Liturgy is the customary public ritual of worship performed by a religious group. As a religious phenomenon, liturgy represents a communal response to and participation in the sacred through activities reflecting praise, thanksgiving, remembra ...

, as well as the

Haggadah The Haggadah (, "telling"; plural: Haggadot) is a foundational Jewish text that sets forth the order of the Passover Seder. According to Jewish practice, reading the Haggadah at the Seder table fulfills the mitzvah incumbent on every Jew to reco ...

(

Passover Passover, also called Pesach (; ), is a major Jewish holidays, Jewish holiday and one of the Three Pilgrimage Festivals. It celebrates the Exodus of the Israelites from slavery in Biblical Egypt, Egypt. According to the Book of Exodus, God in ...

ritual) and the earliest complete Hebrew text of the

Book of Tobit The Book of Tobit (), also known as the Book of Tobias, is a deuterocanonical pre-Christian work from the 3rd or early 2nd century BC which describes how God tests the faithful, responds to prayers, and protects the pre-covenant community (i.e., ...

, which is not included in the

Tanakh The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. ''

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Pirkei Avot Pirkei Avot (; also transliterated as ''Pirqei Avoth'' or ''Pirkei Avos'' or ''Pirke Aboth'', also ''Abhoth''), which translates into English as Chapters of the Fathers, is a compilation of the ethical teachings and maxims from Rabbinic Jewis ...

'', prayers,

gematria In numerology, gematria (; or , plural or ) is the practice of assigning a numerical value to a name, word, or phrase by reading it as a number, or sometimes by using an alphanumeric cipher. The letters of the alphabets involved have standar ...

, legal texts and calendars. The poetry includes a large group of poems by Moses ibn Ezra, the great Spanish

Sephardic Sephardic Jews, also known as Sephardi Jews or Sephardim, and rarely as Iberian Peninsular Jews, are a Jewish diaspora population associated with the historic Jewish communities of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) and their descendant ...

poet of the previous century. The single scribe of the texts is named (in four places) as "Benjamin", who may have compiled the book for his own use; there is no "proper colophon" as might be expected in a commissioned manuscript. Another suggestion is that the unusual number of illustrations including the biblical figure of

Aaron According to the Old Testament of the Bible, Aaron ( or ) was an Israelite prophet, a high priest, and the elder brother of Moses. Information about Aaron comes exclusively from religious texts, such as the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament ...

indicate a patron with this name. North French Hebrew Miscellany 260b

The manuscript is illustrated with a total of 49 full-page miniatures, mostly of Biblical subjects, "which were executed by Christian illuminators attached to three major contemporary Parisian workshops", and probably also worked on at

Amiens Amiens (English: or ; ; , or ) is a city and Communes of France, commune in northern France, located north of Paris and south-west of Lille. It is the capital of the Somme (department), Somme Departments of France, department in the region ...

or another north French city, and reflect the latest Gothic styles, though the execution of the various artists is uneven, and one scholar complains that "broad, flat expanses of crudely painted, often runny pigment; angular, etiolated figures, and unusual colours place it well outside the orbit of the Parisian de luxe book, although its painters were undoubtedly influenced by the Parisian style". The subjects include Jewish mythical beasts whose depiction draws on Christian bestiaries. These are mostly illustrated in roundels with a text caption beneath, while the narrative scenes from the Pentateuch are in rectangular miniatures (the scene with Noah's Ark illustrated here is an exception). There are 2 full-page diagrams in ink of the stars and planets and the signs of the zodiac (ff. 542, 542v) and "numerous inhabited initial-word panels, and inhabited and decorated panels in colours and gold attached to initial words and numerous decorated initial-word panels with gold letters".BM The relatively precise dating comes from aspects of the text including the inclusion of Isaac ben Joseph of Corbeil's legal compendium the '' Sefer Mitzvot Katan'', a text known to have been finished in 1277, mentions of Yehiel of Paris, who died in 1286, as still alive, and "a table of

molad ''Molad'' (מולד, plural ''Moladot'', מולדות) is a Hebrew word meaning "birth" that also generically refers to the time at which the New Moon is "born". The word is ambiguous, however, because depending on the context, it could refer to th ...

ot (lunation-commencements) for the period 1279/80 - 1295/95 (f. 444)". The style of the miniatures accords with this date range.

Provenance

Inscriptions record various points in the manuscript's history, though many gaps remain. It perhaps left France for Germany in the persecutions of 1306. A loan of the book is noted in 1426, and in 1431 it was sold to an Abraham ben Moses of

Coburg Coburg ( , ) is a Town#Germany, town located on the Itz (river), Itz river in the Upper Franconia region of Bavaria, Germany. Long part of one of the Thuringian states of the Ernestine duchies, Wettin line, it joined Bavaria by popular vote only ...

. By 1479 it was in Italy at Mestre on the coast opposite

Venice Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...

, where it went next, followed by

Padua Padua ( ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Veneto, northern Italy, and the capital of the province of Padua. The city lies on the banks of the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice and southeast of Vicenza, and has a population of 20 ...

in 1480 and

Iesi Jesi () is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the province of Ancona, in the Italian region of Marche. It is an important industrial and artistic center in the floodplain on the left (north) bank of the Esino river, before its mouth on the Adria ...

near

Ancona Ancona (, also ; ) is a city and a seaport in the Marche region of central Italy, with a population of around 101,997 . Ancona is the capital of the province of Ancona, homonymous province and of the region. The city is located northeast of Ro ...

in 1481. The 16th century

bookbinding Bookbinding is the process of building a book, usually in codex format, from an ordered stack of paper sheets with one's hands and tools, or in modern publishing, by a series of automated processes. Firstly, one binds the sheets of papers alon ...

has the arms of the Jewish

Rovigo Rovigo (, ; ) is a city and communes of Italy, commune in the region of Veneto, Northeast Italy, the capital of the province of Rovigo, eponymous province. Geography Rovigo stands on the low ground known as Polesine, by rail southwest of Veni ...

family, but in the 17th century the manuscript passed into Christian hands, including the Barberini family. It was examined by the Christian Hebraist Giovanni Bernardo De Rossi and published in his work ''Variae lectionis veteris testamenti'' (

Parma Parma (; ) is a city in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna known for its architecture, Giuseppe Verdi, music, art, prosciutto (ham), Parmesan, cheese and surrounding countryside. With a population of 198,986 inhabitants as of 2025, ...

, 1784). It was bought by a Paris bookseller from a

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

collection for the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

in 1839.Facsimile; BM

Notes

References

*"BM"
British Library catalogue online
with many illustrations and bibliography *"Facsimile"
Facsimile Editions
webpage for the 2003

facsimile A facsimile (from Latin ''fac simile'', "to make alike") is a copy or reproduction of an old book, manuscript, map, art print, or other item of historical value that is as true to the original source as possible. It differs from other forms of r ...

edition, with much detail, a full list of contents, and many illustrations *Tahan, Ilana, ''Hebrew Manuscripts: The Power of Script and Image'', 2007, British Library, *Wolinski, Mary E., "The Compilation of the Montpellier Codex", ''Early Music History'', Vol. 11, (1992), pp. 263–301, Cambridge University Press
JSTOR

External links

British Library Introduction page
{{commonscatinline 13th-century illuminated manuscripts Hebrew manuscripts Jewish illuminated manuscripts British Library additional manuscripts Miscellanies Jewish French history

Description

Provenance

See also

Notes

References

Further reading

External links