Lot 18

Selichot (Penitential Prayers of the High Holidays), in Hebrew, manuscript on vellum

Estimate

5,000 - 7,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

17 leaves, 130mm. by 198mm., wanting leaves at the beginning and end, collation: i^{12 (xi & xii singletons), ii^{5 (v a singleton), written space 90mm. by 63mm., single column, 8-9 lines in dark brown ink in a Sephardic (probably Provençal) semi-cursive script, some staining and rubbing throughout, last line vertically bisected (now with modern repair), else in good condition, in limp parchment flap-binding made from a Papal bull (or copy of some lines from one) in fourteenth- or fifteenth-century script (vellum now somewhat translucent, but visible under UV light, beginning on back cover and passing through the stitching on the spine: "Reuerendissimo in Christo pat[re et] domino, domino Johan. .../ Sanctissimo in Christo patre domino, domino clementi dei gratia .../ sacra Sancta ...superbo pontifex dignissimo": apparently a grant of Pope Clement VI, who ruled from 1342-52 as the fourth of the Avignon popes, and coincidentally known for his attempts to halt the blame of the Jews for the arrival of the Black Death in 1348, denouncing those who believed this interpretation of the events as having been "seduced by the Devil", and urging clergy to protect Jewish communities in southern Europe against acts of violence)}}

Catalogue Note

text

The manuscript is a substantial fragment and contains the Selichot (Penitential prayers and poems) to be recited during the month of Elul until Yom Kippur, with litanies and five piyyutim (liturgical poems). The script is probably Provençal, and its origin in the medieval Jewish community there is almost certainly confirmed by its survival within a near-contemporary Christian document, evidently from the area around Avignon. Moreover, the presence of this early or original binding indicates that very little has been lost from the ends of the manuscript.

Provençal-rite prayer-books copied before the fifteenth century are very rare. The catalogue of the Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts (IMHM) in Jerusalem lists less than a dozen such prayer-books from the fifteenth century or before, and only two or perhaps three of those are from the fourteenth century. Moreover, while Selichot may be found in a few early Sephardic-rite Machzorim, manuscripts devoted mainly to Sephardic- or Provençal-rite Selichot are exceedingly rare, and the catalogue of the IMHM lists only a few small fragments (none more than 8 leaves) of such manuscripts, all of which are of the Sephardic-rite and none of which are of the Provençal-rite.

Sotheby's gratefully acknowledges the information used here from a scholarly report on this manuscript, prepared for its current owner by Professor Benjamin Richler.