Hebrew version edited by Zofia Lasman.
English translation by Ilana Goldberg, edited and revised by
Nurit Pasternak.
This volume is the first to use the method of quantitative
codicology to establish a diachronic typology of the medieval book in Hebrew
script, as a field of historical inquiry in its own right. It rests upon
detailed documentation of all the extant dated Hebrew manuscripts preserved in
some two hundred and fifty libraries and private collections around the world, their
comparison with manuscripts in other scripts produced in the same areas, and
presentation of the historical and sociological insights that emerge from this
typology. This work is intended to provide the scholars and students in a range
of fields who use manuscript sources or are engaged in preparing critical
editions of medieval texts with a tool or guide for identifying the provenance
of a manuscript and estimating the time of its copying, recognizing the
manifold scribal practices used in the various regions, and for the purposes of
textual criticism and gaining an understanding of the text’s transmission. Highlighting
the importance and indispensability of a material examination of the codices when
dealing with texts and their transmission, it demonstrates that handwritten books
are not merely receptacles of texts, but cultural artefacts replete with
information without which Jewish medieval history would remain impoverished. In
their production practices, their design and their preservation of the records
of owners and users over the course of time, these tens of thousands of handed-down
objects are in themselves authentic historical sources that shed light upon the
societies that made them. Classifying manuscripts according to their provenance
and period of production enriches historical research with reliable data about
the intellectual character and activity of medieval diasporic Jewish
communities and may even provide evidence of their extent.
Published in Hebrew and English versions as Open Access
digital books, at: