The calendar section in manuscript ex-Sassoon 535 joins the liturgy of יהודים YEHUDIM with calendrical computation and astrology. Stern and Isserles’ 2015 edition places this northern French witness in the twelfth century. Its roster serves sacred timekeeping; the years calculated within it are not dates of copying.1
What does the roster record?
The surviving roster begins within an already running sequence. One entry gives the year, cycle position and molad of Tishri:
ᴏʀɪɢɪɴᴀʟ:
שנת יג׳ למחזור ת׳ת׳ק׳ט׳ו׳ לעולם. מולד תשרי ביום ה׳ ב׳ט׳ו׳ שעות ות׳ת׳ר׳ע׳ח׳ חלקים.2
ᴛʀᴀɴꜱʟᴀᴛɪᴏɴ:
Year thirteen of the cycle, (4)915 of the world era. The molad of Tishri is on the fifth day, at fifteen hours and 1,078 parts.3
A roster records calculations for a year. It supplies neither a copying colophon nor an eyewitness account of every observance.
How does the edition shape the evidence?
The editors state their method explicitly:
The edition presented here is a corrected version of the text.4
They document changes in the apparatus. Readers should therefore distinguish the corrected edition from the handwriting reproduced in its two photographs. TJD uses the edition here, without claiming an independent manuscript collation.5
Why keep the dating as a range?
The editors infer limits of 1123/4–1154/5 from the text’s paradigm year, roster and material features. A missing quire prevents reconstruction of the roster’s original beginning. These are scholarly bounds, not an exact completion anniversary.6
Guided reflections
- What does a calculated roster year establish that a copying colophon would establish differently?
- How should editorial correction affect a reader’s use of a medieval numerical text?
Footnotes
- Stern and Isserles, Maḥzor Vitry calendar, pp.199–205,208 ↩
- Stern and Isserles, Maḥzor Vitry calendar, p.238, manuscript p.454, lines 1–2; edited Hebrew, prime marks represented as geresh and physical wrapping joined; original manuscript not inspected by TJD ↩
- TJD translation of the preceding edited Hebrew; omitted millennium supplied in parentheses. The fifth day means Thursday in this roster. ↩
- Stern and Isserles, Maḥzor Vitry calendar, p.228 ↩
- Stern and Isserles, Maḥzor Vitry calendar, pp.200–203,206–207,228–229 ↩
- Stern and Isserles, Maḥzor Vitry calendar, pp.204–205,208–209 ↩