Additional Manuscripts: Oriental manuscripts
Item
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Country
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GB
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Language of name of institution
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eng
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Contact information: postal address
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96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB
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Contact information: phone number
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0044 (0)1937 546060 (Customer Services)
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Contact information: email
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mss@bl.uk
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Reference number
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Add MS
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Type of reference number
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Archival reference number
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Title (official language of the state)
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Additional Manuscripts: Oriental manuscripts
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Language of title
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eng
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Creator / accumulator
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British Library
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Date note
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bulk (Sephardic-related materials): 14th century/15th century
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Language(s)
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heb
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por
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spa
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Type of material
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Textual Material
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Scope and content
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The British Library preserves one of the most important Hebrew collections in the world, covering all facets of Hebrew literature and a wide range of religious and secular area studies. It includes around 3,000 manuscript volumes and approximately 7,000 manuscript fragments that are contained in several collections, including the Additional Manuscripts.
Among the Oriental manuscripts of this collection are several religious, biblical and liturgical works of Sephardic origin, such as the following:
MS Add. 14761: the "Barcelona Hagadah", dating from the 14th century.
MS Add. 15250: the "Duke of Sussex's Catalan Bible", a Hebrew and Aramaic Bible with Masorah Magna and Parva, dating from the third quarter of the 14th century.
MS Add. 15283: a Pentateuch produced in Lisbon, dating from 1475-1499.
MS Add. 15306: a Pentateuch with Masorah Magna and Parva, produced in Spain in the last quarter of the 14th or first quarter of the 15th century.
MS Add. 27089: a collection of legal and midrashic works, including the travel journey of Benjamin of Tudela.
MS Add. 27126: a Hebrew prayer book written in Sephardic semi-cursive script, produced in Spain in the second half of the 14th or first half of the 15th century.
MS Add. 27167: the "Almanzi Pentateuch", a Pentateuch with Haftarot and the Five Scrolls (Hamesh megillot), in Sephardic square script, produced in Lisbon in the third quarter of the 15th century
MS Add. 27210, fols. 1-101: the "Golden Haggadah", a Haggadah for Passover written in Sephardic square script, presumably produced in Barcelona in the second quarter of the 14th century.
MS Add. 18970: a Hebrew Grammar produced in Spain in the 15th century.
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Archival history
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The Additional Manuscripts collection of the British Library gathers a significant number of the Hebrew manuscripts held by the Library. The British Museum began acquiring these manuscripts over 200 years ago, either through purchase or donation. Since 1973, the British Library has continued to gather more and more Hebrew manuscripts to the collection already accumulated by the British Museum. Currently, the Hebrew collections held at the British Library comprise around 3,000 manuscript volumes and about 75,000 book titles, mostly in Hebrew, but also including works in other languages, such as Aramaic, Judeo-Arabic, Judeo-Italian, Judeo-Persian, Judeo-Spanish, Yiddish, among others. Additionally, the Britsh Library preserves around 7,000 manuscript fragments, mainly from the Cairo Genizah, nearly 1,000 Hebrew and Yiddish periodical and newspaper titles, and considerable numbers of manuscripts, printed books, and periodicals in microforms.
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Sources:
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British Library: Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts
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British Library: Hebrew collections
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Administrative / Biographical history
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The British Library was founded in 1973 in the sequence of the British Library Act. Several organisations were brought together to create a national library, including the British Museum.
The British Museum was created in 1753 as "one general repository" to hold the collections of Sir Hans Sloane, Sir Robert Cotton, and Robert and Edward Harley. When it inherited the library of George III in 1823, its printed books doubled in number, prompting a move to the site of the current British Museum. Opening in 1857, the British Museum Library’s Round Reading Room became an iconic destination in the literary landscape of London. The room welcomed many famous visitors including Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens, Karl Marx, George Bernard Shaw, and Virginia Woolf. During World War II, some of the British Museum Library's most precious treasures were moved to a secure cave in Aberystwyth, with round-the-clock guards.
The actual British Library's building in St Pancras opened its doors to the public in November 1997. The Library became the largest public building constructed in Britain in the last 100 years.
Over the last 250 years, the British Library has become one of the greatest libraries in the world. Its physical collections are growing all the time, and so are its digital collections, which include Digitised Manuscripts, the UK Web Archive, and over one million rights-free images.
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(source: History of the British Library)
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Author of the description
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Joana Rodrigues and Carla Vieira, 2022
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Bibliography
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Cano Pérez, María José. 2002. “Descripción Paleográfica de Tres ‘Aggadot’ Judeoespañolas (Barcelona, Sarajevo y J. Rylands).” Annuari de Filologia: Estudis Hebreus i Arameus, 113–20.
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Epstein, Marc Michael. 1997. Dreams of Subversion in Medieval Jewish Art and Literature. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press.
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Epstein, Marc Michael. 2010. The Medieval Haggadah: Art, Narrative, and Religious Imagination. New Haven: Yale University Press.
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Harris, Julie. 2002. “Polemical Images in the Golden Haggadah (British Library, Add. Ms 27210).” Medieval Encounters 8 (2–3): 105–22. https://doi.org/10.1163/15700670260497006.
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Kogman-Appel, Katrin. 1997. “The Sephardic Picture Cycles and the Rabbinic Tradition: Continuity and Innovation in Jewish Iconography.” Zeitschrift Für Kunstgeschichte 60: 451–81. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1482862.
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Kogman-Appel, Katrin. 2000. “Coping with Christian Pictorial Sources: What Did Jewish Miniaturists Not Paint?” Speculum 75 (4): 816–58. https://doi.org/10.2307/2903543.
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Kogman-Appel, Katrin. 2004. Jewish Book Art Between Islam and Christianity: The Decoration of Hebrew Bibles in Medieval Spain. Leiden: Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789047402961.
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Kogman-Appel, Katrin. 2006. Illuminated Haggadot from Medieval Spain: Biblical Imagery and the Passover Holiday. University Park, Pa: Pennsylvania State University Press.
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Martin, Therese, and Julie Harris, eds. 2005. “Good Jews, Bad Jews, and No Jews at All—Ritual Imagery and Social Standards in the Catalan Haggadot.” In Church, State, Vellum, and Stone, 275–96. Leiden: Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789047416180_014.
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Narkiss, Bezalel. 1969. Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts. New York: Macmillan.
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Shalev-Eyni, Sarit. 2004. “Jerusalem and the Temple in Hebrew illuminated manuscripts: Jewish thought and Christian influence.” In L’interculturalità dell’ebraismo. Ravenna: Longo. https://doi.org/10.1400/44718.
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Yarza, Joaquín, ed. 2007. La miniatura medieval en la Península Ibérica. 1a ed. Medievalia 1. Murcia: Nausícäa.
Linked resources
Items with "Collections (official language of the state): Additional Manuscripts: Oriental manuscripts"
| Title |
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| British Library |
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