She'elot Teshuvot le-ha-Rosh, Asher ben Jehiel, Constantinople: Samuel ben David ibn Nahmias and his son Moses, 1517

190 leaves (10 5/8 x 8 in.; 270 x 203 mm). COLLATION: ( )^{12, 1-218, 2210=190 leaves. Numerous leaves mended, mounted, and washed; f. 61 from a shorter copy; ownership inscriptions on title page, censors' inscriptions (Luigi da Bologna, 1600; Heuesas of Parma, 158[1]) on f. 180v; dampstains, mostly marginal. Modern brown blind-tooled leather, spine with titles stamped in gilt.}

Vinograd, Constantinople 95; Yaari, Constantinople 56; Hacker 56; Mehlman 701.

Asher ben Jehiel (c. 1250–1327) was the leading disciple of the outstanding German rabbinic scholar Meir of Rothenburg. After the latter's imprisonment, Asher became the acknowledged leader of German Jewry and headed the unsuccessful efforts to obtain his master's release. Fearing a fate similar to that of his teacher, Asher left Germany in 1303 and after passing through northern Italy and Provence reached Barcelona the following year. There he accepted the position of rabbi in Toledo and found himself drawn into the contemporary conflict concerning the study of philosophy. Sensitive to the danger of discord, he proposed an inter-communal conference to reconcile the opposing views.

His greatest legacy was the introduction of French and German methodology into the discipline of Talmud study in Spain. He synthesized the positions of his teachers in Ashkenaz with Spanish tradition and custom. He was the acknowledged Halakhic authority on both sides of the Pyrenees and students flocked to his academy. A prolific author, he penned more than 1,000 responsa as well as commentaries on numerous Talmudic tractates.

Asher's responsa, or replies to legal questions, are among the more important and influential of this genre. He was frequently called upon to interpret communal ordinances and their relationship to classical Jewish law, and to decide which local Spanish customs should be honored and which should be opposed.

A bridge between the great rabbinic centers of Germany and of Spain, Asher had a lasting impact on the development of Jewish law. His son Jacob, used his father's legal oeuvre as the basis for his own magnum opus, the Arba'ah Turim, a code of operative Jewish law with a new structure independent of the Talmud and earlier codes, which in turn became the basis for Joseph Karo's Shulhan Arukh.