Tosafot, Tractate Ketubbot [Ashkenaz: 15th century]

6 leaves (6 ½ x 10 ½ in.; 165 x 270 mm). Written in brown ink on parchment in Ashkenazic semi cursive script; additional marginal texts, sometimes in black ink, in another, contemporary hand; vertically ruled in ink. Lightly soiled and stained; inkstains to f.1, some resulting in small holes, affecting a few words; ink flaked or faded on some portions of the text; some creases.

a rare and unknown text of tosafot

Tosafot (literally: additions) is the name given to a variety of medieval commentaries on the Babylonian Talmud, usually taking the form of critical and explanatory glosses. Tosafot Gornish, composed in the 14th century, is the earliest example of the highly controversial style of Talmud study known as pilpul. This particular collection of Tosafistic material is extant in only a very few manuscripts, scattered in a handful of libraries around the world. Furthermore, these few manuscripts provide commentary to only a small fraction of the hundreds of chapters in the Babylonian Talmud. The text of the present manuscript is believed to comprise the Tosafot Gornish on the opening chapters of Tractate Ketubbot, and is unknown from any other source.

Professor Israel Ta-Shma draws a possible connection between Tosafot Gornish and the concurrent increase in the penetration of philosophical writings into the broader society in general and among Ashkenazic Jewry in particular.  Though different theories have been advanced with regard to the meaning and origin of the word Gornish, Ta-Shma cites an early reference to guri or gurin(indicating combativeness) as the most likely possibility.  Earlier scholars suggested a geographical meaning and posited etymological similarities between “Gornish” and certain Ashkenazic place names.

LITERATURE
Israel Ta-Shema, 'Tosafot Gornish-Mahutan ve-Yahasan el Shitot ha-Pilpul ve-haHilluqim', Sinai 68 (1978), 153–161; idem, "Yedi'ot Hadashot 'al Tosafot Gornish ve-Inyanan," Alei Sefer 2 (1976): 84-90.