Title: European Genizah. A Collection of 8 Medieval Hebrew Manuscript Fragments on Vellum, Circa 1200-1300. Rare Examples of Recently Excised Manuscript Waste, Likely from a Passover Haggadah or Siddur Prayer Book
Condition: Good
A rather rare, 13th to early 14th century collection of eight medieval Hebrew manuscript fragments, also more popularly known as European Genizah.
As the practice of reusing medieval manuscript fragments was more commonplace centuries ago, so too, were thousands of individual pages from Hebrew manuscripts torn from their parents, or damaged examples reused to help bind books or archival documents and the like. Fragments such as these were spread out far and wide, being found in Italian archives, Germany, Spain, France, and more. It was common to find fragments deriving from works such as various scripture and related commentaries, prayer books, the Talmud and its traditional commentaries, and familiar halakhic works.
Since the early 20th century, it should also be noted that several digitization and cataloging projects have been undertaken by dedicated researchers and professors. This includes the one conducted at the Nationalbibliothek in Vienna at the initiative of J.N. Epstein and A.Z. Schwarz, the project undertaken at the Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts at the Jewish National and University Library, a rather dedicated effort by Prof. Andreas Lehnardt of Mainz, and many more.
The present fragments appear to derive from a Passover Haggadah or Siddur Prayer Book, with related prayers for the former, and possible Yom Kippur fragments too.
Some of the identified text includes:
עבדים היינו במצרים מרור
ביד חזקה ובזרוע נטויה
Translated as: “We were slaves in Egypt, with a strong hand and an outstretched arm.”
The small fragments have a single column of text preserved, while the larger ones have anywhere from two to three columns of text, with up to 20 lines of text per fragment, in brown ink.
Provenance. Private collection in France, extracted from a binding dated 1650 by the same owner of the collection.
Eight fragments of varying size (four of smaller size and four of larger size), 11.5 x 10 cm to 12.3 cm x 25.5 cm
These manuscripts are in good shape, with some staining and wear, heaviest to the smaller fragments, and one of the larger fragments with several sharp curls. Several lines of text are faded in places, with some character loss. Refer to the photos for a full impression of condition.