Vernacular Voices: Language and Identity in Medieval French Jewish Communities

Notes

n o t e s introduction 1. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, ms. français 19152, fol. 107v–110v. I consulted the edition in Peri, ‘‘Poems of religious disputations,’’ verifying it against the facsimile in Faral, Le manuscrit . The single correction I have made to Peri’s edition based on my consultation of the facsimile is explained in my notes, as are some of his emendations. 2. Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages; Auerbach, Literary Language and Its Public in Late Latin Antiquity and in the Middle Ages. 3. My definition of ‘‘identity’’ here is strongly influenced by D. Bell’s discussion of the meanings of ‘‘identity’’ and ‘‘nationalism’’ in ‘‘Recent works on early modern French national identity,’’ 89. 4. See Ayres-Bennett, A History of the French Language Through Texts, 11; Chaurand, Nouvelle histoire de la langue française, 105–6; Posner, Linguistic Change in French, 16–19. Most of the Hebraico-French texts treated here were composed in the Old French period. 5. In choosing to use the term ‘‘Hebraico-French’’ as opposed to ‘‘Judeo-French,’’ I am following scholars such as Lazar (cf. the title of one of his articles beginning, ‘‘Epithalames bilingues hébraı̈co-romans’’) and Strolovitch, ‘‘Old Portuguese in Hebrew script.’’ Strolovitch offers valuable and insightful analysis of issues such as the use of the Hebrew alphabet for representing other languages and the challenges this presents for the editor of Hebraico-Romance texts. 6. Levy, The Astrological Works of Abraham ibn Ezra, 19–32, discusses Hagin’s French translation, reviews other scholars’ suggestions regarding the circumstances under which the translation was made, and reviews what is known of Hagin, Obert de Montdidier, and Henry Bate. See also Levy and Cantera, The Beginning of Wisdom. 7. On Mathieu, see, most recently, Rosenberg, ‘‘French songs in Occitan chansonniers .’’ 8. On Darmesteter, see materials gathered in Reliques scientifiques. A fascinating resource on the later life of Blondheim, who married Eleanor Dulles, is Mosley, Dulles, 85–88, 93–95, 104–6. See also the necrology for David S. Blondheim in Modern Language Notes, June 1934, p. 424. Because I am generally concerned in this section with the body 176 notes to pages 6 –10 of work produced by particular scholars rather than selected achievements, the reader should generally look to the bibliography for this information, rather than to the notes. 9. Bibliothèque nationale de France, ms. hébreu 302. Marc Kiwitt (Heidelberg Academy of Sciences) is currently working on an edition and linguistic study of another Hebrew-French glossary: Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, ms. hébreu 301. 10. See especially the extensive discussion of Levy’s work in Banitt, ‘‘Une langue fantôme’’; see also idem, Le glossaire de Leipzig, 4:§2.8.3, and book reviews cited there. 11. On Catane, I consulted C. Catane, ‘‘Moché Catane.’’ See works by M. Catane and Greenberg listed in the bibliography, as well as Catane’s study of the Old French glosses in Kara’s commentary of Job in Ahrend, Le commentaire sur Job de Rabbi Yoséph Qara’. 12. Sala, ‘‘Die romanischen Judensprachen,’’ 386–87. 13. On all of these issues, see Chapter 3. 14. Zumthor, Histoire littéraire de la France médiévale, §§298, 442, 511, 528; Holmes, A History of Old French Literature, 314–15. 15. Rabin, ‘‘Massorah and ‘ad litteras,’’’ 88. 16. Golb, The Jews in Medieval Normandy, 377. 17. Latin was to Christian society what Hebrew was to the Jews. For a summary of the role of Latin in worship, education, ecclesiastical administration, and scholarly affairs, see Chaurand, Nouvelle histoire de la langue française, 95–97. Lodge, French: From Dialect to Standard, 13–15, 118–52, discusses Latin-French diglossia. 18. Banitt, ‘‘L’étude des glossaires bibliques,’’ 195–96, 199, 205 and passim; idem, Rashi, 4, 6–30; idem, ‘‘Une vue d’ensemble,’’ 193–94. 19. Blondheim, Les parlers judéo-romans; Peri, ‘‘Prayer in the vernacular’’; Navè, ‘‘Die romanisch-jüdischen Literaturbeziehungen im Mittelalter’’ and ‘‘Erläuterungen zum Thema der romanisch-jüdischen Literaturbeziehungen im Mittelalter.’’ 20. Vale, The Princely Court, 282–94. 21. Hyams, ‘‘The Jewish minority in mediaeval England,’’ 271; idem, ‘‘The Jews in medieval England,’’ 174; Stacey, ‘‘Jews and Christians in twelfth-century England,’’ 341, 343–44. Mundill (England’s Jewish Solution, 28) goes so far as to write, ‘‘The majority of [English Jewish] males were probably trilingual in Latin, Norman-French and Hebrew.’’ He considers the Jews to...