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Add MS 15282

Record Id:
032-003367290
Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
032-003367290
MDARK:
ark:/81055/vdc_100040685595.0x000001
LARK:
SLARK:
Format:
TEI
Reference (shelfmark):
Add MS 15282
Title:
The 'Duke of Sussex's German Pentateuch'
Collection Area:
Oriental Manuscripts
Project / Collection:
Hebrew Manuscripts Digitisation Project
Hierarchy Tree:
[{ "id" : "032-003367290", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Add MS 15282: The 'Duke of Sussex's German Pentateuch'" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
Hierarchy Record Ids:
032-003367290
Is part of:
not applicable
Hierarchy:
032-003367290
Container:
not applicable
Record Type (Level):
Fonds
Extent:
360 folios
Digitised Content:
http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Add_MS_15282 (digital images currently unavailable)
Thumbnail:
Languages:
Hebrew
Jewish Babylonian Aramaic
Scripts:
Hebrew
Start Date:
1300
End Date:
1324
Date Range:
1300-1324
Era:
CE
Access:
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User Conditions:
Material Type:
Archives and Manuscripts
Legal Status:
Not Public Record(s)
Names:
Prince Augustus Frederick
Thomas Rodd the younger
Ya῾aḳov ben Mordekhai
Yeḥiel ben Uri
Ḥayim
TEI:

Hebrew Manuscripts Digitisation Project

Add MS 15282

The 'Duke of Sussex's German Pentateuch'

Contents

Summary of Contents: Pentateuch (aka the 'Duke of Sussex's German Pentateuch') with Targum Onḳelos, small pieces on the feasts, Five Scrolls and Hafṭarot, accompanied by masorah magna and parva.

Language(s): Hebrew, Jewish Babalonia Aramaic

ff. 1r-358v
Title: Torah, megilot ṿe-hafṭarot
Title: תורה,מגילות והפטרות
Language(s): Hebrew, Jewish Babalonia Aramaic

The masorah magna occupies two lines at the top of the page and three at the bottom of the page. In the lower margin it is written in the form of ornamental patterns (micrography).

Number of verses and words given at the end of each weekly portion. At the end of each of the first 4 books of the Torah there is a rubric indicating the number of verses, centremark and number of weekly sections and orders of the respective books (similarly as at the end of Megilot).

Ff. 291r-293v (i.e. between the Torah and Megilot) there are short pieces containing mnemonic words (משך, תורה, קדש, בכסבא, פסל, סמדרבא, שלח, בוכרא) with explanations; a list of lessons for other festivals, fasts and special Sabbaths (סימני הקריאה משאר כל השנה מרב סעדיה); the arrangement of Hafṭarot and weekly portions in accordance with variations in the calendar; rules regarding reading from the Torah; and the benedictions before and after reading from the Hafṭarot.

Scribe's name is mentioned: חזק חיים לא יוזק אמן סלה. f. 313v and חיים חזק. f. 358r

f. 1v 75v 137r 179v 238r Full-page miniature with initial word panel.

Decorated initial-word panel. f. 294r, 296v 302r 307v 314r

ff. 218r-218r
Small lion in ink in the upper corner of the page.

Filiation: The manuscript is related stylistically to the Tripartite Maḥzor (Add MS 22413, Margoliouth, no. 662) and the Gradual of Saint Katharinental (Zürich, Schweizerisches Landesmuseum, Frauenfeld, LM 26117).
ff. 1v-75v
Title: Genesis
ff. 75v-137r
Title: Exodus
ff. 137r-179v
Title: Leviticus
ff. 179v-238r
Title: Numbers
ff. 238r-294r
Title: Deuteronomy
ff. 294r-296v
Title: Ruth
ff. 296v-299r
Title: Song of Songs
ff. 299r-302r
Title: Lamentations
ff. 302r-307v
Title: Ecclesiastes
ff. 307v-314r
Title: Esther
ff. 314r-360v
Title: Hafṭarot

Physical Description

Parchment codex of the first quarter of 14th century.
Form: codex
Material: parchment
Extent: 360 folios
Dimensions (leaf): 230 × 160 mm.
Dimensions (written): 145 × 100 mm.
Foliation:

360 (+ 1 unfoliated paper flyleaf at the beginning and at the end, 1 unfoliated parchment leaf at the beginning [f. 1a]).

Collation

32 quires: i13+1, ii12, iii12, iv8, v8, vi8, vii8, viii8, ix8, x8, xi8, xii8, xiii12, xiv16, xv12, xvi16, xvii16, xviii12, xix12, xx16, xxi10, xxii16, xxiii14, xxiv8, xxv12, xxvi8, xxvii16, xxviii8, xxix12, xxx12, xxxi12, xxxii9+2.

Quires marked by catchwords at the end.

Condition

The margins have been cropped.

Layout

Columns:3

Ruled lines: 31

Written lines: 30

Ruling and pricking are sometimes visible.

Smaller sections of Hafṭarot are marked at the beginning of each pericope with red Hebrew letters (א at the end of the first portion, ב at the beginning of the second, the end of the third portion is indicated by black א marking the end of the first Sabbath lection).

The beginning of each of the five books of the Torah is distinguished by a whole page illumination in gold and colours, with the first word of the respective book in the middle. At the beginning of each of the Five Scrolls and Hafṭarot there is a similar ornament, but smaller.

Masorah in micrographic design in numerous folios, often shaped to illustate the biblical text.

Gilt edges.

Small pen decorations on several folios.

Hand(s)

Main text in Ashkenazi square and semi-cursive script, punctuated; masoretic notes in Ashkenazi semi-cursive, not punctuated, of the 14th century. Ḥayim, inscribed with his name (ff. 313v, 358r); the word חיים is marked on f. 244v).

Additions:

English description of the manuscript, in pencil, partially illegible (19th century?) (f. 1r).

Binding

Pre-1600. 16th-century gold-tooled Venetian binding.

Spine: 'Pentateuch. Hebrew & Aramaic. Brit. Mus. Additional 15,282.'

History

Origin: 1300-1324 1st quarter of 14th century Germany

Provenance and Acquisition

Ya῾aḳov ben Mordekhai: sold to Yeḥiel ben Uri on 28 of the month Iyyar [5]229 (1469): inscribed in a purchase note on f. 358v: לזכות ולעדות ולראייה לר' יחיאל בר' אורי יצו' מודה אני החמ' איך שמכרתי זה החומש לו ודמיו קיבלתי במעות מזומני' מידו לידי והמכירה היא מכירה עולמית דלא למידר בה מן יומא דין לעלם ומעת' אני מוכרח לסלק אותו מכל הזק ועירעורי' שיוכל לבא מצד מכירה דנא ומה שנעשה היום יו' ד' כ"ח אייר רכט לפק נאו' יעקב בר' מרדכי יצו'.

Italian and French translation of the same purchase note on a paper leaf foliated and presently part of quire xxii (dated 1824) (f. 359v).

Italian insrciption: 'Questo libro ... venduto nel 28 Ijar 5229' (18th-19th century) (f. 360r).

Prince Augustus Frederick (b. 1773, d. 1843), duke of Sussex: his armorial book-plate, inscribed 'VI. H. C. 2', and above the book-plate 'Sec. xiii. B.S. Vol. I, Part I, p. xiv, no. 3' (inside upper cover); his sale 2 August 1844, lot 313: inscribed, f. 360v, purchased by the British Museum through Thomas Rodd the younger (b. 1796, d. 1849) for £111.

Record Sources

Manuscript description based on Margoliouth, G.: Catalogue of the Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts in the British Museum, London 1965.

Availability

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Surrogates

http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Add_MS_15282 (digital images currently unavailable)

Bibliography

    Thomas Joseph Pettigrew, Bibliotheca Sussexiana. A Descriptive Catalogue, Accompanied by Historical and Biographical Notices, of the Manuscripts and Printed Books Contained in the Library of His Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex, in Kensington Palace, 2 vols (London: Longman, 1827-1839), I, part 1, pp. xiv-xvi.
    George Margoliouth, Catalogue of the Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: British Museum, 1899-1935; vols I-III repr. 1965); IV, Introduction, Indexes, ed. by Jacob Leveen (London: British Museum, 1977), I, no. 74.
    Bezalel Narkiss, Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts (New York: Macmillan, 1969), p. 104. Joseph Gutmann, Hebrew Manuscript Painting (New York: Braziller, 1978), pp. 76-77.
    Therese and Mendel Metzger, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages: Illuminated Hebrew Manuscripts of the Thirteenth to the Sixteenth Centuries (New York: Alpine Fine Arts Collection, 1982), p. 303.
    Bezalel Narkiss, Kitvei yad ivriyim metzuyarim (Jerusalem: Keter, 1984), pp. 130-31.
    Joseph Gutmann, 'The Sacrifice of Isaac in Medieval Jewish Art', Artibus et Historiae, 8 (1987), 67-89 (p. 83).
    Gabrielle Sed-Rajna, La Bible hébraïque (Fribourg: Office du Livre, 1987), pp. 125 and 128.
    Evelyn M. Cohen, 'The Decoration of Medieval Hebrew Manuscripts', in A Sign and a Witness: 2,000 Years of Hebrew Books and Illuminated Manuscripts, ed. By Leonard Singer Gold (New York: New York Public Library, 1988), p. 57.
    Marc Michael Epstein, 'The Elephant and the Law: The Medieval Jewish Minority Adapts a Christian Motif', Art Bulletin, 76 (1994), 465-78 (pp. 465, 471-73).
    Marc Michael Epstein, Dreams of Subversion in Medieval Jewish Art and Literature (Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997), pp. 58-62, 88-90.
    Ilana Tahan, Hebrew Manuscripts: The Power of Script and Image (London, British Library, 2007), pp. 43-45.
    Sacred: Books of the Three Faiths: Judaism, Christianity, Islam (London: British Library, 2007), p. 150 [exhibition catalogue].
    Alfried Wieczorek and others, Die Wittelsbacher am Rhein: Die Kurpfalz und Europa. Begleitband zur 2. Ausstellung der Länder Baden-Württemberg, Rheinland-Pfalz und Hessen, 2 vols (Regensburg: Schnell and Steiner, 2013), I, pp. 227-29.

Funding of Cataloguing

BL