Hebrew Codicology

List of Abbreviations and Selected Bibliography 15
Preface 31
Chapter 1: Introduction 39
  1. The codex 39
  The diffusion of the codex and its late adoption by the Jews 41
  The rotulus 48
  2. Codicology – its development, its approach to the study of the hand-produced book, its trends 51
  3. The Hebrew codicology  
  4. Extant manuscripts, geo-cultural distribution of codicological practices and types of book-script 65
  Table 4: Geo-cultural distribution of genres of manuscripts dated before 1540 70
  Branches and main types of codicological traditions and script styles 77
  Five main types of bookcraft and script 77
  Map of the geo-cultural division of the main types and sub-types of Hebrew bookcraft and script 85
  Tables 5-10: General statistics of the database, geo-cultural, chronological and geo-chronological diffusion of the dated manuscripts until 1540 86
  Table 5: The manuscripts and various types of records in SfarData database 86
  5. The unique character of Hebrew book production 90
  Tables 11-13: Distribution of production destinations and the ratio of user-production versus commissioned production 110
  6. The indispensability of the comparative perspective for Hebrew codicology 118
Chapter 2: Colophon Components and Scribal Formulas 123
  1. Manuscript producers – their names and labour division among them 129
  Vocalisers, Masoretes, illustrators, editors, and binders 130
  Components of the names 139
  Blessing formulas for the living and the deceased 141
  Scribes’ expressions of humility 149
  Appendix: A scribal stratagem for disclosing the copyist’s name by means of the copied text and in multi-handed manuscripts 151
  2. Destination of copying 167
  3. Dating systems 168
  a. The era from the Creation 169
  b. The Seleucid Era 171
  5. Personal and historical information 181
  6. Information on copying circumstances and on the quality of the exemplar 187
  7. The duration of copying and its pace 190
  8. Blessings 199
  9. Scribal formulas: at the end of the copy, at its beginning, and in the margins 202
  Apotropaic wishes at the bottom of the page 209
  Wishes accompanying dates in colophons 212
Chapter 3: Writing Materials 217
  1. Parchment 225
  Ashkenazic parchment 231
  Appendix: Comparison of the parchment of Ashkenazic and Latin manuscripts produced in the same areas 238
  2. Paper 244
  Oriental (Arabic) and Occidental paper 246
  Paper produced during the eleventh to thirteenth centuries in the Western Islamic territories (Spain and the Maghreb) and in thirteenth-century Christian Spain 251
  Watermarks in Occidental paper 252
  Oriental paper typology according to types of disposition of laid and chain lines 256
  a. Unwired paper 258
  b. Laid paper 260
  c. Paper with laid and chain lines 260
  Splitted paper at the folios’ edges 264
  3. Combination of paper and parchment (mixed quiring) 268
  Tables 14-16: Distribution of supports until 1500 274
  Sizes, page layout and formats 277
  4. Ink 283
Chapter 4: Quiring 289
  Disposition of parchment bifolia 295
  The quire’s beginning 298
  Composition of quires 301
  Summary of quiring practices in Hebrew manuscripts according to geo-cultural zones 310
  Tables 17-19: Distribution of quire composition by geo-cultural entities 316
  Binding 317
Chapter 5: Marking the sequence of quires, bifolia, or folios in the codex 325
  1. Catchwords and counter-catchwords 329
  A. Catchwords 331
  A1. Quire catchwords 332
  A2. Bifolium catchwords 335
  A3. Folio catchwords 336
  A4. Page and column catchwords 338
  B. Counter-catchwords 339
  2. Signatures 341
  2a. Quire signatures 343
  The disposition and design of quire signatures 344
  2a (1) Signatures at the head of each quire only 345
  2a (2) Signatures at the end of the quire only 347
  2a (3) Signatures both at the head and end of the quire 347
  2a (4) Numeration at the end of the quire and the same at the head of the next quire (counter-signatures) 348
  2b. Bifolium signatures 349
  2c. Foliation (folio signatures) 350
  3. Marking the central opening of the quire 352
  Decorative Masora in openings between quires 356
  Tables 20-22: Geo-cultural distribution of means for securing the order of the codex 357
Chapter 6: The scaffolding of copying – The architectural disposition of the copied text and its techniques 361
  Ruling patterns 364
  The dynamic ruling, the changeable layout, the grid of the ruling and secondary rulings 364
  a. Pricking 370
  Guiding pricking for horizontals ruling: in outer margins only 375
  Guiding pricking for horizontals ruling: in outer and inner margins 377
  Pair pricking for guiding through horizontal lines 382
  Single prickings unrelated to the horizontal lines 384
  b. Ruling 385
  1. Relief rulings 386
  1a. Relief ruling by hard point 387
  1a1. Ruling by hard point, each unfolded parchment bifolium, on the hair side 388
  1a.2. Relief ruling by hard point: each unfolded parchment bifolium on the flesh side 391
  1.a.3. Ruling by hard point, each unfolded paper bifolium 392
  1.a.4. Ruling by hard point successive parchment bifolia (or folios) in one go on the hair side 393
  1.a.5. Relief ruling folio by folio 398
  1.a.6. Relief ruling of parchment folios on both sides 399
  1. b. Blind ruling by means of ruling boards, frames, or templates 400
  1.b.1. Ruling paper by a ruling board (כַּנָּה) in the Middle East (misṭara/masṭara) and another presumed relief board in Europe 401
  1.b.2. Ruling by folding 408
  2. Coloured rulings 409
  2a. Plummet ruling 410
  The beginnings of the use of plummet and its diffusion 415
  2b. Ruling by engraving plummet 419
  2c. Ruling with ink 422
  Regional summary of ruling practices and their transformations 430
  Tables 23-25: Summary of pricking and ruling practices 439
  Tables 26-34: Diffusion of pricking and ruling practices 442
Chapter 7: Line management and its impact on the copying pace and the comfort of reading 449
  a. Line justification with no interference with the integrity of last words 452
  (1) Dilating or constricting last letters or reducing the size of letters liable to overflow 452
  (2) Inserting graphic fillers 453
  (3) Filling up the line with the first character of the word which heads the next line 455
  (5) Over-spacing 455
  (5) Inscribing slantwise words liable to exceed the margin 456
  b. Line justification by bisecting its last word 457
  (2) Inscribing exceeding characters between the lines 460
  (3) Inscribing exceeding characters vertically along the margin line 460
  (3) Inscribing exceeding characters vertically along the margin line 461
  (4) Inscribing exceeding characters at a distance in the margin 462
  (5) Lexitomy – splitting the word at the end of the line over two consecutive lines 464
  (6) Abridging the last word in the line 466
Chapter 8: Legibility of the text, transparency of its structure, and the graphic hierarchy of its layers 477
  Punctuation system 491
  Accentuation of words, proper nouns, and terms in the body text, or of headings and endings of textual units not rendered in a large script 493
  Marking biblical quotations and lemmata 494
  Proofreading marks 494
Chapter 9: The affinity between the copying of the text and its decoration, illumination, and illustration 501
Chapter 10: Bibliographical, codicological, and palaeographical units: Unitary, homogeneous, composite, merged, and patchwork codices 507
  Distinguishing between hands that shared in copying the text in a single codex 513
  Fragments 525
  Secondary strata 531
  Annotations 532
  Owners’ records 533
Chapter 11: Hebrew Palaeography – The modes and types of script in the Hebrew book of the Middle Ages 535