Hebrew Manuscripts at Cambridge University Library

Hebrew Manuscripts at Cambridge University Library
Author: Cambridge University Library
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 688
Release: 1997-01-09
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9780521583398

For some five hundred years, Hebrew books have been counted among the treasures of the University of Cambridge, and Cambridge University Library's current holdings of Hebrew manuscripts (excluding most of the 140,000 fragments in its Genizah collections) are in excess of a thousand items. A wide range of Hebrew literature is represented, with substantial numbers in Bible, Bible Versions and Commentaries, Talmud, Halakhah, Liturgy, Science, Poetry, Philosophy and Kabbalah. The bulk of the material is late mediaeval but there are also earlier items, among them the famous Nash Papyrus from the second pre-Christian century. Although this collection is among the world's most important, attempts, beginning in the mid-Victorian period, to describe it in detail, and to publish the results, have never met with success. In this volume, Stefan Reif, assisted by Shulamit Reif, has attempted to set the situation right by providing careful descriptions that will guide researchers in codicologial matters and will alert them to data of special scholarly significance, without overwhelming them with the kind of prolix treatment that characterised manuscript study in the nineteenth century. The volume has benefited not only from local Cambridge expertise but also from world-wide scholarly co-operation and includes many references to recent publications, as well as a representative selection of photographed folios. There are essays on the history of Hebraists and Hebraic at Cambridge that will interest historians, as well as extensive indexes that will provide easy access to the rich and varied contents of the descriptions.

Books within Books

Books within Books
Author: Andreas Lehnardt
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 362
Release: 2013-09-25
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004258507

Books within Books presents some recent findings and research projects on the fragments of medieval Hebrew manuscripts discovered in the bindings of other manuscripts and early printed books across Europe. This is the second collection of interdisciplinary articles on Hebrew binding fragments presenting current scholarship and its international scope. From the contemporary perspective, the fragments of medieval Hebrew manuscripts preserved until today, through their numbers (estimated 30,000 fragments, so more than double of the number of the known Hebrew volumes produced in medieval Europe ), the texts they carry (some of them have been previously unknown), the insights into book making techniques and finally their economic impact, are an unprecedented source for our knowledge of the Hebrew book culture and literacy as well as the economic and intellectual exchanges between the Jewish minority and their non-Jewish neighbours.

Jewish Prayer Texts from the Cairo Genizah

Jewish Prayer Texts from the Cairo Genizah
Author: Stefan C. Reif
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2016-03-11
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 900431332X

Jewish Prayer Texts from the Cairo Genizah, which sets a new tone for future studies, consists of a selection of transcribed and translated Genizah fragments that contain some of the earliest known texts of rabbinic prayers. Reif describes in detail the physical makeup of each manuscript and assesses the manner in which the scribe has tackled the matter of recording a preferred version. He then places the prayer texts included in the manuscript within the context of Jewish liturgical history, explaining the degree to which they were innovative and whether they established precedents to be followed in later prayer-books. He offers specialists and more general readers a fresh understanding of the historical, theological, linguistic, and social factors that may have motivated adjustments to their liturgical formulations.

ケンブリッジ大学所蔵和漢古書総合目錄 : アストン・サトウ・シーボルト・コレクション

ケンブリッジ大学所蔵和漢古書総合目錄 : アストン・サトウ・シーボルト・コレクション
Author: Cambridge University Library
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 553
Release: 1991-03-28
Genre: Antiques & Collectibles
ISBN: 0521364965

A complete catalogue of early books acquired by the diplomats W. G. Aston, Ernest Satow, and Heinrich von Siebold in Japan. The bulk of the 2,500 items are wood-block printed books of the Edo period. The editors' introduction is followed by entries giving title, author/editor/illustrator, date of publication and/or printing, all participating publishers, and the seals of previous owners.

The Cambridge Book of Magic

The Cambridge Book of Magic
Author: Paul Foreman
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 182
Release: 2015
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 0992640423

The Cambridge Book of Magic is an edition of a hitherto unpublished sixteenth-century manuscript of necromancy (ritual magic), now in Cambridge University Library. Written in England between 1532 and 1558, the manuscript consists of 91 'experiments', most of them involving the conjuration of angels and demons, for purposes as diverse as knowing the future, inflicting bodily harm, and recovering stolen property. However, the author's interests went beyond spirit conjuration to include a variety of forms of natural magic. The treatise drew on astrological image magic and magico-medical texts, and the author had a particular fascination with the properties of plants and herbs. The Cambridge Book of Magic gives an insight into the practice and thought of one sixteenth-century magician, who may have been acting on behalf of clients as well as working for his own benefit.

Julian Among the Books

Julian Among the Books
Author: Julia Bolton Holloway
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2016-04-26
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1443892513

Julian among the Books: Julian of Norwich’s Theological Library brings together innovative research on aspects of the Showing of Love, especially the Pan-European background of its manuscripts, and their contexts, arguing for the concept of ‘Holy Conversations’ in a mise en abyme, where her readers, breaking the frame, participate in her contemplative visions. It discusses the three versions of her text, her knowledge of Hebrew, and her Benedictine context and its lectio divina, including textual and physical links with the Norwich monk, Cardinal Adam Easton, OSB, his collegial friendship with St Catherine of Siena and St Catherine of Sweden, and his support for St Birgitta of Sweden’s canonisation. The book also explores the library of texts of the ‘Friends of God’ movement, including the Mirror of Simple Souls of Marguerite Porete, presents the texts of Julian’s conversation with Margery Kemp, and discusses the exiled Brigittine and Benedictine nuns who continued to treasure and copy Julian’s text on the Continent following England’s Reformation. Scholarly methods used in this study include palaeography, codicology, iconography, reader reception, discourse on the Body, use of Hebrew, Greek and Latin, and the concepts of ‘Holy Conversation’ and ‘Textual Communities’. It gives much of the text of the Westminster Manuscript in translation, along with many quotations from the Westminster, Paris and Sloane manuscripts in their original layout and spelling. Illustrated with colour plates of the Julian manuscripts in the centrefold and other images, and black and white figures throughout the body of the text, it brings the reader as close as possible to Julian’s writing, her context, and her preservation by other women contemplatives throughout time.

A Medieval Book of Magical Stones: The Peterborough Lapidary

A Medieval Book of Magical Stones: The Peterborough Lapidary
Author: Francis Young
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 152
Release: 2016
Genre: Design
ISBN: 099264044X

A Medieval Book of Magical Stones is the first translation of the longest and most comprehensive medieval English treatise on the occult powers of stones and gems, the Peterborough Lapidary. Lapidaries (encyclopaedias of the 'virtues' of stones and minerals) were an essential resource for practitioners of natural and ritual magic as well as medicine. This late fifteenth-century manuscript from the library of Peterborough Cathedral describes 145 stones, portraying them as living beings whose properties range from giving the bearer the power to command spirits and foretell the future to healing numerous illnesses and communicating with spirits and the dead, along with instructions on how to release latent occult power from within stones. Many of the proposed uses of stones resemble the concerns of medieval necromancers, such as invisibility, love magic, power over animals and the creation of magical mirrors. pp. xliii+106; 2 column text; introduction; bibliography; analytical index; 8 b/w illustrations

The Harley Psalter

The Harley Psalter
Author: William Noel
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 260
Release: 1995
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9780521464956

A study of the making of the Harley Psalter at Christ Church Canterbury c.1020-1130.