Paleography Solution

A few months ago I posted about a set of paleography problems I was having, signatures of the owners of a manuscript I'm working on: 

I'm sharing pre-publication data because the hive mind of the web was so helpful in my getting it sorted out that it seems only fair. (And the individuals who were particularly helpful are, of course, acknowledged by name in the article.) But this is still pre-publication data and my own drawings (that will appear in a chapter entitled 'Meeting the Mediterranean Halfway: The Material Text as a Map of the Maimonidean Controversies' in an as-yet untitled book to be published by Penn Press in or around 2016). Please don't be a jerk.

The first one remains undeciphered. The second two are as follows:

זה הספר שייך להירשל בן צבי

This book belongs to Hirschell ben Ẓvi.

This was a bit disappointing because it didn't add any new information to the provenance of the manuscript, since I already knew that it had belonged to Solomon Hirschell (son of Ẓvi Hirschell), but it was satisfying to sort it out.

שלי

יצחק

בר מנחם

הצ נע

This belongs to me,

Isaac

bar Menaḥem

the F[rench guy whose] s[oul is in] E[den]

It's been suggested to me that the personal name for this last one should be read Yishayahu rather than Yiẓḥaq. However, the grapheme that would have to be either a letter hey or a letter quf is, in the sixteenth century when this MS was copied, far more likely to be the latter. Plus, I can identify a relevant Isaac but no relevant Isaiah.

The names only get us so far and there is more to the story — hate to be cryptic about it but I don't want to run into issues with the editors, who were very clear that the material for the book had to be all new and unpublished elsewhere. I think I'm ok sharing the images, but I may have to take them down at a later date.

So that's that. It was a lot of work and a lot of frustration and a lot of help from others for two little names. (Of course I'm still more than happy for any additional feedback or critique.)

Day Two at the London Metropolitan Archives

When I returned to the London Metropolitan Archives today, I found some references to the manuscript collection, but nothing relevant to the provenance of the manuscript I'm interested in. At this point, I am comfortable saying that it may never have existed; and that if it did ever exist, it no longer does.

I found a very late (1918) letter that was sent along with a historical manuscript, entitled Toledot Yisrael, describing the circumstances under which it was found (under a rock during the shelling of Jerusalem!!) and donated to the library. Unfortunately, there was nothing earlier along those lines, and certainly nothing like this from the pre-Neubauer period, before the 1886 catalogue that contains the entry for my manuscript was published.

One interesting thing is that in the early 20th century, the library was willing to send manuscripts out on loans to other libraries (that, of course, all vouched that they had suitably safe and fireproof places to store them).

There were a number of other somewhat interesting letters in this folder. I'll hold off posting them for now for a really mundane technical reason, though, namely I'm on a ridiculously slow internet connection.

'Frankweiler' is a Jewish Name, Right?

I met with the LSJS library volunteer today, and she gave me permission to tool around in the librarian's files that were in the library proper (but not in the archives in the back), and so I did that while she was taking a class.

To paraphrase Sheldon Cooper: Explain to me an organizational system in which fountain pen refills and Maimonides in a desk drawer is valid.

All of the drawers and files were disorganized and just full of bills, invoices, random correspondence, books, pamphlets, labels that look like they might have been from dinky museum exhibitions. Some of it was tenuously in chronological order.