Taylor-Schechter Collection Research Articles

A Previously Unpublished Letter of Introduction by an Andalusi Karaite (T-S 8J41.7)

The document published in this article is a letter of introduction written by a Karaite Andalusi Jew upon his arrival to Egypt, on his route to Jerusalem. The text, which was deposited in the Cairo Genizah, is currently held at Cambridge University Library in the Taylor-Schechter Collection (Genizah Research Unit). Although undated, the text has the distinction of being the only known letter written by an Andalusi who presents himself as a Karaite, and is thus a first-person confirmation of the presence of this religious group in al-Andalus.

Legacies and Prospects in Geniza Studies and the History of Medicine: Reconstruction of the Medical Bookshelf of Medieval (Jewish) Practitioners

This essay deals mainly with the future of research on the history of Arabic medicine and pharmacology based on the documents of the Cairo Geniza. It starts with a very brief review of the research of the history of medicine (which was using the Cairo Geniza documents as a main source) until 2003. Later, it presents the work that I and my research group have done during the last fifteen years. Finally, it presents two work-in-progress projects: “Jewish Medical Practitioners in Medieval Muslim Lands” and “Reconstructing the Medical ‘Book Shelf’ of Jewish Practitioners in 11th–14th Century Cairo.” The outcome of the first project will be published soon, and the second one is still at the stage of searching for major funding and building the research group. This second research project aims to study and analyze the hundreds of fragments of medical texts found in the Cairo Geniza. The main source for this research will be about 1,360 Geniza fragments that have been identified as parts of medical books in the Taylor-Schechter collection and several dozen more scattered about in various Geniza collections around the world. Lists of books are another source of unique information about the existence of medical books in the community. Several dozens of such lists of books that were owned by practitioners or other members of the community and sometimes sold after an owner’s death include information on medical books.

New Identifications Among the Sixth-Century Fragments of Augustine in Cambridge University Library

This article offers a re-examination of the palimpsest fragments from a sixth-century codex of Augustine which were found in the Cairo Genizah and are now held in Cambridge University Library. The three largest fragments, with the shelfmark MS Add. 4320a–c, have already been identified as containing the end of De sermone domini and the beginning of Sermo 118. More recently, a smaller fragment of this manuscript was discovered in the Taylor-Schechter collection, also with text from De sermone domini (T-S AS 139.1). A full transcription of this fragment is published here for the first time. In addition, this article identifies the undertext on the two remaining substantial fragments of this manuscript (MS Add. 4320d). These contain part of Sermo 225 auct. and Contra sermonem Arrianorum, which means that they provide the oldest surviving witness to these works by several centuries. In addition to the editio princeps and images of these fragments, the article offers a small correction to Mutzenbecher’s edition of De sermone domini and briefly considers the nature of the original codex as a compilation of multiple writings by Augustine.

Three Early Witnesses of the “Dormition Of Mary” in Christian Palestinian Aramaic from the Cairo Genizah (Taylor-Schechter Collection) and the New Finds in St Catherine’s Monastery

In St Catherine’s Monastery two early versions of the “Dormition of Mary” (Liber requiei Mariae) in Christian Palestinian Aramaic have surfaced in the form of palimpsest fragments, which are very difficult to decipher, and date from the fifth to sixth centuries. While these two are hidden as underwriting in double palimpsests with Georgian and Greek script above (Sinai, Georgian NF 19), another early palimpsest version is attested in the Taylor-Schechter Collection from the Cairo Genizah, which is overwritten with a rabbinic text Midrash Sifra. This paper proposes a primary edition and translation of these five palimpsests fragments.

A New Fragment of the Book of Ben Sira

AbstractIn their article, the authors announce the discovery of a new fragment of the Hebrew Book of Ben Sira in the Cairo Genizah, in the Taylor-Schechter collection of the Cambridge University Library: T-S AS 118.78. The fragment is a part of ms. D. After a brief introduction, a critical edition of the text of the fragment is presented, including variant readings from parallel sources and notes to the text.

Efraim Lev and Zohar Amar, Practical materia medica of the medieval eastern Mediterranean according to the Cairo Genizah, Sir Henry Wellcome Asian Series, vol. 7, Leiden and Boston, Brill, 2008, pp. x, 619, €169.00, $237.00 (hardback 978-90-04-16120-7).

Efraim Lev and Zohar Amar, Practical materia medica of the medieval eastern Mediterranean according to the Cairo Genizah, Sir Henry Wellcome Asian Series, vol. 7, Leiden and Boston, Brill, 2008, pp. x, 619, €169.00, $237.00 (hardback 978-90-04-16120-7).

Practice versus Theory: Medieval Materia Medica according to the Cairo Genizah

Much information on medicine and the use of materia medica in the medieval period exists, but it is mainly based on the vast medical literature of that period both in the East and the West. Such books composed in the Arab world cover various subjects: medical theories and doctrines, the maintenance of good health (regimen sanitatis)1 or preventive medicine, different diseases and ailments, and qualities of medicinal substances,2 pharmacopoeias listing remedies and how to make them,3 and materia medica—medicinal substances, their different names and medical uses.4 Most of these books were written by qualified and learned physicians and pharmacists, are well organized, and were meant for teaching as well as references for theory and practice.5 Each author presents the optimal materia medica that should be used (to the best of his extensive knowledge) out of a very large inventory of medicinal substances from all over the Old World. Little in-depth research seems to have been conducted with the aim of exploring what may have taken place in medieval medical practice in the East.6 However, an exception lies in the recent studies of both Graeco-Roman and original Islamic records of medical case histories, namely those written by al-Rāzī (d. 930) in his Kitāb al-Ḥāwī.7 Each physician used the medical knowledge he acquired from his teachers and the medical literature of his time; however, many of the books had been written centuries earlier, often in other parts of the world, and were later translated and copied many times in different geographical locations.8 Other books were written by court physicians, commissioned by the local ruler, especially in the Ayyubid period.9 Authors of such theoretical books were never limited in choosing the materia medica: for example, Maimonides counselled the sultan al-Afḍal (d. 1225) to supply the court pharmacy with the best substances possible.10 In contrast, practitioners who had to treat people from the lower socio-economic strata had to prescribe formulas based on the substances they knew and could rely on, and which were available in the vicinity and were stocked by pharmacists. Even then, the availability of the substances was not guaranteed, and sometimes practitioners had to prescribe a substitute formula based on the less expensive and tried and trusted substances at hand.11 In reality, the practical inventory of materia medica was thus smaller than the theoretical inventory, which was based upon the books that physicians had in their possession. It was only logical that some medicines and medicinal substances were used more often than others, according to price, availability, practitioners’ choices, and even local medical trends. The main goal of this study was to learn about the practical medicinal uses of various substances by the members of the Jewish community of Cairo as a reflection of the Mediterranean Arab world as a whole. We were able to do this thanks to the Cairo Jewish community’s unique habit, based on religious law, of gathering all written documents and keeping them in the attic of their synagogue. These are the Genizah collections, whose survival is also linked to the dry climate of Old Cairo, which contributed much to the preservation of the fragments for more than a thousand years. The Genizah collections, especially the Taylor-Schechter Collection at Cambridge University Library, which include, inter alia, various medical documents, provide a golden opportunity to assess the quantities of both the practical and theoretical inventories of the Genizah people, and to display the gap between the two. Moreover, we would like to probe the commercial cycle of physicians, patients, herbalists, pharmacists, merchants, local markets, and international trade in the areas under Islamic rule and cultural/scientific influence. This being our objective, what can we learn about the practical uses of materia medica? How can we discover the main diseases that afflicted people in the communities under study? And finally, what were the most frequently prescribed medicines and medicinal substances in eastern medieval society?

Eleven Medieval Arabic Block Prints in the Cambridge University Library

A MONG the items in two collections held by the Cambridge University Library are eleven medieval Arabic block prints. Six of these block prints are in the Michaelides collection; the remaining five are found in the Taylor-Schechter collection. Together, these eleven items comprise the second largest assemblage of such block prints to be found, to date, in any single European or North American institution.' The Cambridge block prints came to my attention as I was in the process

A New Autograph Fragment of Maimonides'sEpitomesof Galen (De Locis Affectis)

Unlike most of the medical works of Maimonides (1135–1204), which enjoyed wide circulation both in their original Arabic form and in Hebrew or Latin translations, hisEpitomesof Galen seem never to have become widespread or popular. Whereas his other medical compositions are usually extant in a good number of manuscripts, and in their original language are often available in both Hebrew and Arabic script, the manuscript attestation of Maimonides'sEpitomesof Galen is rather meagre. Steinschneider, whose splendid works remain the basic tools of reference for all research in this field, devotes to the ArabicEpitomesa mere three lines and lists only three manuscripts containing them (in fact, containing only a small part of them); Hebrew translations are not known to have been made, and not one of theEpitomesappears to have found its way into Latin. In 1966 two further manuscripts, both of them fragments from the Taylor-Schechter collection in the hand of Maimonides himself, became available when S. M. Stern published his ‘Ten autographs by Maimonides—fragments of medical works, responsa, letters and prescriptions’ inMaimonidis Commentarius in Mischnam… Vol. III, Corpus Codicum Hebraicorum Medii Aevi, ed. R. Edelmann, Pars I (Hafniae, 1966),11–29. The first two of these ten autographs are fragments of theEpitomesof Galen, to the publication of which Stern prefixed a fine discussion of the contents of these Maimonidean Epitomes and a summary of what is known about them.

An unidentified Christian-Palestinian-Aramaic fragment in the Taylor-Schechter Collection: Isaiah 36: 16–37:4

Among the Taylor-Schechter Collection in the University Library Cambridge there are still Christian-Palestinian-Aramaic (CPA) fragments which have yet to be identified. One such fragment, T-S 12.742, was published for the first time in 1900 by A. Lewis and M. Gibson, though scarcely any of the text had been read.2 Like all the other CPA fragments of earlier date, T-S 12.742 is a vellum palimpsest, and has a small part of another page attached to it (see plates). The CPA script underneath the Hebrew square letters is very faint and consists of two unheaded columns of 24 lines each on both sides of the fragment. It is one of the most difficult CPA palimpsests to decipher.

Simon Hopkins: A miscellany of literary pieces from the Cambridge Genizah collections: a catalogue and selection of texts in the Taylor–Schechter collection, Old Series, Box A45. (Cambridge University Library Genizah series, 3.) x, 110 pp. Cambridge: University Library, 1978. £16.

Simon Hopkins: A miscellany of literary pieces from the Cambridge Genizah collections: a catalogue and selection of texts in the Taylor–Schechter collection, Old Series, Box A45. (Cambridge University Library Genizah series, 3.) x, 110 pp. Cambridge: University Library, 1978. £16.

S. HOPKINS, A Miscellany of Literary Pieces from the Cambridge Genizah Collections. A Catalogue and Selection of Texts in the Taylor-Schechter Collection, Old Series, Box A 45

S. HOPKINS, A Miscellany of Literary Pieces from the Cambridge Genizah Collections. A Catalogue and Selection of Texts in the Taylor-Schechter Collection, Old Series, Box A 45