Collection ID: 0047 | Metadata type: TEI | TEI XML | Data

Title

Maḥzor (מחזור)

Funders

• The Polonsky Foundation

Call number

Harley MS 5583
(London, United Kingdom, British Library, Hebrew Manuscripts Digitisation Project)

Alternate identifiers

• http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Harley_MS_5583
• https://www.bl.uk/hebrew-manuscripts

Publisher

British Library

Language

Hebrew

Origin

Place

Ottoman Empire

Summary

A daily prayer book for festivals and fasts according to the Romanian rite.

Notes

• Several leaves cancelled (e.g. after folio 203 and 218).
   
• Defective at the beginning.
   
• A lacuna after folio 178.
   
• Yeshaʿyah ben Avraham Kohen and perhaps the patron of this manuscript: inscribed in a note: folio 125r, 247r and 253v.
   
• Mosheh Aboab: inscribed, folio 191r and 253r.
   
• Bernard Mould (b. c. 1683; d. 1744), chaplain at Smyrna: inscribed with his name, Smyrna, 1724 (folio 2r); sold to Edward Harley on 28 July 1725 (see , ). An English description of the manuscript by Bernard Mould: stuck to folio 1v.
   
• Inscription by Harley's librarian, Humfrey Wanley, 28 Julij A.D. 1725 (folio 2r).
   

Extent

313 folios; 313 folios

Support

Parchment

Binding

Post-1600. Red leather Harleian binding, gold-tooled. Spine: 'Mahzor for Festivals and Fasts Rite of Romania. Brit. Mus. Harley MS. 5583.'

Layout

Columns: 1; ruled lines: 24; written lines: 24; Uniform layout. Visible pricking and hard-point ruling. Hair side and flesh side of the folios distinguishable. Initial words written in larger characters. Catchwords on every verso from folio 179 on, only partly preserved.

Script

Sefardi square script of the 14th to 15th century, punctuated. Missing parts of the original completed in a Sefardi semi-cursive script of the 15th century (e.g. folios 113-123, 179-190, 274-313). Mosheh?: the name Mosheh is marked off in the initial lines on folio 147r.

Provenance

• Acquisition: The Harley Collection, formed by Robert Harley (b. 1661, d. 1724), 1st earl of Oxford and Mortimer, politician, and Edward Harley (b. 1689, d. 1741), 2nd earl of Oxford and Mortimer, book collector and patron of the arts. Edward Harley bequeathed the library to his widow, Henrietta Cavendish, née Holles (b. 1694, d. 1755) during her lifetime and thereafter to their daughter, Margaret Cavendish Bentinck (b. 1715, d.1785), duchess of Portland; the manuscripts were sold by the Countess and the Duchess in 1753 to the nation for £10,000 (a fraction of their contemporary value) under the Act of Parliament that also established the British Museum; the Harley manuscripts form one of the foundation collections of the British Library.
   

Related resources

• Manuscript description based on Margoliouth, G.: Catalogue of the Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts in the British Museum, London 1965.

Licenses

• Text

  These images and the content of British Library Harley MS 5583: Maḥzor (מחזור) are free of known copyright restrictions and in the public domain. See the Creative Commons Public Domain Mark page for usage details, http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/.

  URL

  http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

• Text

  To the extent possible under law, British Library has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this metadata about British Library Harley MS 5583: Maḥzor (מחזור). This work is published from: United States. For a summary of CC0, see https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/. Legal code: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode.

  URL

  https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode

Table of contents

• fol. 2r — Services for Pesaḥ
• fol. 113v — Services for Shavu῾ot
• fol. 179v — Poetical pieces for the special Sabbaths
• fol. 191v — Services for fasts and other occasions
• fol. 300v — Ḳinot