Hebrew Manuscripts
Item
Country
GB
Name of institution (official language of the state)
Language of name of institution
eng
Contact information: postal address
West Road, Cambridge CB3 9DR
Contact information: phone number
0044 (0) 1223 333000
Contact information: web address
Contact information: email
library@lib.cam.ac.uk
Reference number
MS Add.
Type of reference number
Archival reference number
Title (official language of the state)
Hebrew Manuscripts
Language of title
eng
Creator / accumulator
Cambridge University Library
Language(s)
ara
heb
ita
lad
por
spa
Type of material
Textual Material
Scope and content
The collection of Hebrew Manuscripts of the Cambridge University Library holds significant numbers of Bibles and biblical and Talmudic commentaries, along with important halakhic, liturgical, poetic, philosophical, kabbalistic, and scientific manuscripts. Chief among the treasures are the famous Nash Papyrus, one of the earliest known manuscripts containing the words of the Hebrew Bible and an artefact that continues to excite debate more than a hundred years after its discovery, and the Cambridge Mishnah, one of only three complete manuscript codices of this central text of Jewish law. Among its holdings, there is the so-called "Cambridge Spanish Prayer Book", a Siddur dating from the second half of the 15th century (MS Add. 1204), as well as an illuminated Siddur produced in Lisbon between 1485 and 1490, including Ibn Gabirol's Keter Malkhut (MS Add. 541). Also of particular interest are two poems in Judeo-Spanish (MS Add. 3355), including "Coplas de Yoçef", a Spanish poem on the biblical story of Joseph (fols. 1r-8v), and "Proverbios Morales" of Shem Tov b. Isaac Ardutiel (fols. 9r-61v). The collection also includes some items in Portuguese and Judeo-Portuguese, such as a collection of miscellaneous notes by Joseph b. Isaac Penso, including a homiletic discourse on Pesah in Spanish and Portuguese interspersed with Hebrew (fols. 21-29), and a tract containing divination and gnomic verse in rhyme, concerning love, women, and marriage, written in Hebrew, Judeo-Spanish, and Judeo-Portuguese (MS Add. 639.2).
The collection holds several works related to medical and pharmaceutical subjects, such as a manuscript with notes on diseases and remedies (MS Add. 639.5), including prescription notes in Judeo-Spanish (fol. 20); and a fragment of an illuminated Judeo-Spanish treatise on head wounds (MS Add. 1198.3). Within this collection is also a Responsa of Asher b. Yehiel Faro, completed in Faro (Portugal) in February 1481 for Ephraim Caro (MS Add. 503). A collection of kabbalistic works (MS Add. 644) contains a tract on the unity of the divine name authored by Shem Tov b. Jacob of Faro (fols. 37v-40). Among the various commentaries on Maimonides's Guide for the Perplexed, the collection includes one authored by Moses b. Joshua of Narbonne, initiated in Toledo and completed in Soria in April 1363 (MS Add. 1030).
The collection holds several works related to medical and pharmaceutical subjects, such as a manuscript with notes on diseases and remedies (MS Add. 639.5), including prescription notes in Judeo-Spanish (fol. 20); and a fragment of an illuminated Judeo-Spanish treatise on head wounds (MS Add. 1198.3). Within this collection is also a Responsa of Asher b. Yehiel Faro, completed in Faro (Portugal) in February 1481 for Ephraim Caro (MS Add. 503). A collection of kabbalistic works (MS Add. 644) contains a tract on the unity of the divine name authored by Shem Tov b. Jacob of Faro (fols. 37v-40). Among the various commentaries on Maimonides's Guide for the Perplexed, the collection includes one authored by Moses b. Joshua of Narbonne, initiated in Toledo and completed in Soria in April 1363 (MS Add. 1030).
Archival history
For over five hundred years, Cambridge University has been building up one of the world’s most important collections of Hebrew manuscripts. The first Hebrew manuscripts were probably acquired from local pre-expulsion Jewish communities in the late 13th century. Later, Christian clerics gave an impetus to the study of Hebrew for scholarly purposes. A sounder basis for Hebrew study grew in Cambridge University from the 16th century, after the Regius Professorship in Hebrew was founded in 1540, and many significant manuscript collections came from Cambridge scholars who collected texts for their own use.
Notable collectors from early times include the Arabist Abraham Whelock (1593-1653), whose efforts brought about significant additions to both the Arabic and Hebrew collections, including the transfer to Cambridge of the collection of the Dutch orientalist Thomas van Erpe’s (Erpenius) (1584-1624), which contained thirteen Hebrew manuscripts and one written in Judaeo-Arabic.
A second important collection was that of Isaac Faraji (Pragi) whose collection of ten Hebrew manuscripts was purchased by John Selden (1584-1654), the jurist and scholar and a name more often associated with the Bodleian. He was responsible for the acquisition of the collection from the London bookseller George Thomason in 1648.
More manuscripts and books came to the Library in the 17th century from the collections of the scholars Richard Holdsworth (1590-1649), Henry Lucas (1610-63), and Edmund Castell (1606-85), who left nineteen Hebrew manuscripts to the Library. The acquisition by the Library of the Royal Collection of George I in 1715 brought with it a small number of Hebrew volumes, including a 14th-century Bible from Spain.
In the early 19th century, the missionary Claudius Buchanan (1766-1815) presented twenty-one Hebrew manuscripts, some relating to Jewish communities in South India. During the late 19th century, when the post of librarian was held by Henry Bradshaw (1831-86) and the Bible scholar William Robertson Smith (1846-94), the collections of Hebrew manuscripts were greatly increased. Under the influence of Dr. Solomon Schiller-Szinessy (1820-90), who exercised a formative influence on 19th-century Hebrew studies in Cambridge, many manuscripts were purchased from dealers in Continental Europe.
Catalogues of the Hebrew manuscript collections have been made over the years by several scholars including Solomon Schiller-Szinessy and Herbert Loewe (1882–1940). In 1975, responsibility for this task was taken over by Stefan and Shulamit Reif, whose catalogue of the complete collection, incorporating much of the work from earlier listings, was published in 1997.
Notable collectors from early times include the Arabist Abraham Whelock (1593-1653), whose efforts brought about significant additions to both the Arabic and Hebrew collections, including the transfer to Cambridge of the collection of the Dutch orientalist Thomas van Erpe’s (Erpenius) (1584-1624), which contained thirteen Hebrew manuscripts and one written in Judaeo-Arabic.
A second important collection was that of Isaac Faraji (Pragi) whose collection of ten Hebrew manuscripts was purchased by John Selden (1584-1654), the jurist and scholar and a name more often associated with the Bodleian. He was responsible for the acquisition of the collection from the London bookseller George Thomason in 1648.
More manuscripts and books came to the Library in the 17th century from the collections of the scholars Richard Holdsworth (1590-1649), Henry Lucas (1610-63), and Edmund Castell (1606-85), who left nineteen Hebrew manuscripts to the Library. The acquisition by the Library of the Royal Collection of George I in 1715 brought with it a small number of Hebrew volumes, including a 14th-century Bible from Spain.
In the early 19th century, the missionary Claudius Buchanan (1766-1815) presented twenty-one Hebrew manuscripts, some relating to Jewish communities in South India. During the late 19th century, when the post of librarian was held by Henry Bradshaw (1831-86) and the Bible scholar William Robertson Smith (1846-94), the collections of Hebrew manuscripts were greatly increased. Under the influence of Dr. Solomon Schiller-Szinessy (1820-90), who exercised a formative influence on 19th-century Hebrew studies in Cambridge, many manuscripts were purchased from dealers in Continental Europe.
Catalogues of the Hebrew manuscript collections have been made over the years by several scholars including Solomon Schiller-Szinessy and Herbert Loewe (1882–1940). In 1975, responsibility for this task was taken over by Stefan and Shulamit Reif, whose catalogue of the complete collection, incorporating much of the work from earlier listings, was published in 1997.
Administrative / Biographical history
Founded in the early 15th century, Cambridge University Library is one of the world's oldest university libraries.
A catalogue of the Library drawn up in 1557 lists fewer than 200 volumes. Like other English libraries, it suffered from the destruction and neglect of the Reformation and the years that followed it. In 1574, Andrew Perne (1519-89) engaged the support of Matthew Parker (1504-75), Archbishop of Canterbury, and other benefactors to restore the Library's collections. Their generous gifts stimulated other benefactions, and by the end of the 16th century, the Library's holdings approached 1,000 volumes.
The first half of the 17th century saw a number of important additions, including a collection of Arabic and other manuscripts presented by the Duchess of Buckingham in 1632, and a collection of Hebrew books purchased in 1647. In that same year, Lambeth Library's collection of 10,000 volumes was bequeathed to the Library but returned at the request of the new Archbishop William Juxon (1582-1663) following the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. In its place, the library of Richard Holdsworth (1590-1649) was adjudged to the university in 1664, containing 10,095 printed volumes and 186 manuscripts, including more than 200 incunabula.
The beginning of the 18th century saw two events that prompted a turning point in the status of the Library. The first was in 1710 when the University Library was included among the nine privileged libraries of copyright deposit under the first Copyright Act. This was followed in 1715 by King George I's presentation of the renowned library of John Moore (1646-1714), Bishop of Ely, subsequently known as the Royal Library, which contained some 30,000 volumes and 1,790 manuscripts.
From 1867 to 1886, the librarianship was held by distinguished collector and scholar, Henry Bradshaw (1831-86), who established efficient structures and procedures, some of which survive in practice today, and set about restoring to order the Library's collections of manuscripts and rare books. Bradshaw and his two successors, Francis Jenkinson (librarian from 1889 to 1923) and Alwyn Faber Scholfield (librarian from 1923 to 1949), transformed the Library into a place where scholarship might be pursued and its needs adequately served. This was achieved through their developments of classification and cataloguing systems and their acquisitions of important book and manuscript collections, including the arrival of the Taylor-Schechter fragments from the Cairo genizah in 1898 and the bequest of the A. W. Young in 1933, which included a copy of the Gutenberg Bible.
Under the librarianship of Scholfield and with the generous aid of the Rockefeller Foundation, the Library was built a new, and considerably larger, home designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, which opened in 1934. A number of major acquisitions in all departments came to the Library during the course of the 20th century, prompting the need to build an additional closed-stack extension, which was taken into use in 1972.
Since the turn of the 21st century, as well as continuing to grow its physical collections, the Library has focused on its digital collections through the Legal Deposit Libraries Act which extended legal deposit to include electronic materials in 2003, and the launch of the Cambridge Digital Library in 2010.
A catalogue of the Library drawn up in 1557 lists fewer than 200 volumes. Like other English libraries, it suffered from the destruction and neglect of the Reformation and the years that followed it. In 1574, Andrew Perne (1519-89) engaged the support of Matthew Parker (1504-75), Archbishop of Canterbury, and other benefactors to restore the Library's collections. Their generous gifts stimulated other benefactions, and by the end of the 16th century, the Library's holdings approached 1,000 volumes.
The first half of the 17th century saw a number of important additions, including a collection of Arabic and other manuscripts presented by the Duchess of Buckingham in 1632, and a collection of Hebrew books purchased in 1647. In that same year, Lambeth Library's collection of 10,000 volumes was bequeathed to the Library but returned at the request of the new Archbishop William Juxon (1582-1663) following the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. In its place, the library of Richard Holdsworth (1590-1649) was adjudged to the university in 1664, containing 10,095 printed volumes and 186 manuscripts, including more than 200 incunabula.
The beginning of the 18th century saw two events that prompted a turning point in the status of the Library. The first was in 1710 when the University Library was included among the nine privileged libraries of copyright deposit under the first Copyright Act. This was followed in 1715 by King George I's presentation of the renowned library of John Moore (1646-1714), Bishop of Ely, subsequently known as the Royal Library, which contained some 30,000 volumes and 1,790 manuscripts.
From 1867 to 1886, the librarianship was held by distinguished collector and scholar, Henry Bradshaw (1831-86), who established efficient structures and procedures, some of which survive in practice today, and set about restoring to order the Library's collections of manuscripts and rare books. Bradshaw and his two successors, Francis Jenkinson (librarian from 1889 to 1923) and Alwyn Faber Scholfield (librarian from 1923 to 1949), transformed the Library into a place where scholarship might be pursued and its needs adequately served. This was achieved through their developments of classification and cataloguing systems and their acquisitions of important book and manuscript collections, including the arrival of the Taylor-Schechter fragments from the Cairo genizah in 1898 and the bequest of the A. W. Young in 1933, which included a copy of the Gutenberg Bible.
Under the librarianship of Scholfield and with the generous aid of the Rockefeller Foundation, the Library was built a new, and considerably larger, home designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, which opened in 1934. A number of major acquisitions in all departments came to the Library during the course of the 20th century, prompting the need to build an additional closed-stack extension, which was taken into use in 1972.
Since the turn of the 21st century, as well as continuing to grow its physical collections, the Library has focused on its digital collections through the Legal Deposit Libraries Act which extended legal deposit to include electronic materials in 2003, and the launch of the Cambridge Digital Library in 2010.
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Author of the description
Joana Rodrigues, 2022
Bibliography
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