Obj. ID: 1122
Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts  Aberzush Bible, Southern Germany, 1298-99

The manuscript is written by three scribes. Scribes A and B wrote the Prophets and the main part of the Hagiographa, except for Psalms, Proverbs and Job (EMeT Books). Scribe C carried out these three books, which share the same accentuation system, different from the rest of the Bible. 

The letters forms of the scribes are particularly identical, as well as most of the line fillers used by them to keep a straight left margin. Moreover, they all use slightly varying forms of hei, alef, lamed, shin, zadei, and some fine changes in mem, tav, alef, kof, so that distinguishing between them is no easy task.

 However, they can be distinguished by their style of script and the way they use the line fillers. Scribe A has a rounded, compact script with much ink, ending lines with letters or parts of following letters, at time adding the graphic sign in form of the letter zayin, or using it alone. At time trying to complete the word, squeezing the letters together or stretching the last letter in the line. (see mainly fols. 1v-110v). He is also using dilation of last letter of the line (יהוד'(ה), fol. 17 - column 2, line 3). Scribe B has an angular script, using the quill in a flexible manner, especially minims of serifs. The graphic line fillers are mostly the zayin sign, different forms of inverted yod, or broken letters. (see mainly fols. 111-146v). Scribe C has a smooth square script, layer than the rounded and angular hands. His line fillers are the zayin sign (with a squarish foot of an undulating stems done in two strokes). He often uses two or three letters of the word opening the next line or parts of letters, but rarely in combination with the graphic signs, as scribe A does (see fols. 245v-298v). 

The vocalizer-massorator, Aberzush, wrote the colophon of the Bible located on the lower margins of the Psalter along forty one pages. The origin and date of the manuscript established according to the chronicle referred to in this colophon, regarding the "Rindfleisch Massacres" in south-western and central Germany in 1298, when thousands of Jews were killed, among them his wife, two children (son and daughter), brother and sister. In fact, Aberzush's colophon was a well-known source for historians, like Zunz (Synagogale Poesie, pp. 34-5), Graetz (Geschichte,  p. 232, n. 4) and others (see Bibliography), who depend on his statement when recording the number of 146 Jewish communities destroyed in the Rindfleisch Massacres.

Another colophon is of the vocalizer-massorator, Abraham, who signed his name at the end of the Prophets. Schwartz (hebräischen Hss, 1925, No. 5) and Ginsburg (Introduction, pp. 776-778), believed that both names, Aberzush and Abraham, refer to one and the same massorator. Further examination showed, however, that Abraham is a different massorator, who was responsible for the vocalization and the massoretic text in the Prophets, while Aberzush is responsible for the Hagiographa. 

It is also clear that Abraham is scribe B, since the style of the massorah square script in the frame of the carpet page on fol. 226 is similar to the angular hand of scribe B. It seems that Abraham is also the corrector in his part (e.g. fols. 1v, 71, 111). 

Both massorators were responsible for the decoration of the manuscript in massoretic micrography on their parts (see: Decoration Program). We can note the difference in the system of the decoration between them. When we examine, for instance, the decorated initial word panels it seems that in the Prophets the decoration of Abraham is limited mainly to geometric forms, while in the Hagiographa Aberzush uses illustrative designs. In addition, there are differences in the composition of the illuminated titles in the lower margins. While the title of each of the Books of the Prophets which include a one-word name is placed on the right-hand side and decorated by a figure (human, animal or hybrid) on the left, the one-word title of the books of Hagiographa are placed at the centre of the lower margin and mostly flanked by illustrations. In addition, the decoration at the end of the quires are limited to the Prophets. 

The massoratic micrography written in a decorative manner continued a long tradition in the art of the medieval Hebrew Bible. Originating in the Isamic East in the 9th-10th centuries the micrography spread over Sepharad and Ashkenaz in the following centuries. In Ashkenaz it was mentioned in the rabbinical literature (see: Sefer Hasidim by R. Judah ha-Ḥasid  (d. 1217), #282).

One of the earliest extant Ashkenazi manuscripts decorated in micrography is Mahzor Vitry, written in Germany in 1204 (JTS, ms. 8092). In the layout of the page and in decoration program and style our Bible is close to the German school of the Hebrew Bibles written in south-western and central Germany around the year 1300 (see Narkiss, HIM, esp. p. 45 and figs. 41-44). The text of these Bibles is arranged in three columns (except for the books of EMeT in two columns). The text of the massorah magna is written in lines in the upper and lower margins of the pages. They are also decorated by elaborate ornamental patterns or illustrations in micrography around the initial words, which may extend into a full-page illustration as is in our Bible. 

The Bibles of this School, are richly decorated with interlace designs of geometric, vegetable, animal and human motifs combined with zoomorphic and anthropomorphic elements. Although generally smaller in scale, our manuscript contains stylistic parallels to some of these motifs, especially in the depictions of the lion, which is, whether with Jewish connotations (Mellinkoff, Antisemitic, p. 41, the "cubic head" lion) or not, the most repeated animal portrayed in the manuscript. The comparison should be made, for example, between the two rampant lions within small arches displayed at the bottom of the initial word panel on fol. 119 of Solomon ha-Cohen's Pentateuch (BN, Hébreu. 5; Sed-Rajna, Les Manuscrits Hébreux, figure on page 186) and some lions in our Bible: The rampant lion on the right resembles our full-page lion by its position and leafy tail (fol. 226), while the facial features of the lion on the left are similar to our facing cub-head lions supporting an arch (fol. 227v; see also the cub-head lion on our fol. 276). The forming of the hoods are also similar in both manuscripts. The hoods on the heads of the grotesques in our Bible are decorated with rows of short lines and topped by bird's head (fol. 232) similar to the hoods of the rampant hybrids flanking the Menorah in the Pentateuch on fol. 118 (Sed-Rajna, ibid, page 185). Similarities in stylistic motifs are found in other Bibles of this School. For example, the micrographic deer decorating the title of the book of Jeremiah (fol. 111) resembles the deer-drawn in ink in the hunting scene decorating the colophon of Gershom bar Eli'ezer Pentateuch of 1304  (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Can. Or. 91, fol. 307, see Narkiss, HIM, fig. 41). Both deer are in a chased pose leaving a tree behind them, their horns executed in the same horizontal manner behind their heads. On the same page of the Pentateuch, the unicorn whose horn is bent forward should be compared with our unicorn in the initial word panel of Daniel (fol. 299). A comparison to our interlaced winged dragons (fols. 244, 247) is found on fol. 246v of the 13th century Reuchlin Bible (Karlsruhe, Baden, State Library, Cod. Reuchlin 1, see: Narkiss, HIM, fig. 4). 

Micrographic massorah in forming letters for rendering the colophon along the lower margins of the manuscript is known in earlier Ashkenazi Bibles. For example, in the Bible from Western France,La Rochelle, from 1216 (Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica ebr. 482, fols. 551v-555), where the scribe (who was also the massorator) wrote a full colophon in the same hallowed letters outlined in micrography as is the case in our manuscript. Another Ashkenazi biblical manuscript from 1264 (now in London, David Sofer's collection, ms. 1, fols. 17v-18 ) includes the name of the scribe, Yehudah beRabbi Yehudah, written in the margins in the same way. 

In addition to the micrographic decorations and inscriptions, our Bible contains two marginal text illustrations with human figures portrayed in ink: A standing figure at the beginning of Joshua (fol. 1v) and two figures at the beginning of Job (fol. 286) -.both showing Job. On the right he is enthroned, and on the left he is in his suffering. These figures bear another typical element of the Ashkenazi manuscripts of the 13th and 14th centuries, that is, the distortion of the human body and in particular the human face (see Narkiss, HIM, pp. 42-43). Outstanding is the grotesque profile, with the protruding wolf's nose, of the naked Job. The exaggerated features of the face, as well as the body of Job, probably intended to express his suffering, but he pointed out the profile of the enthroned Job, although much more human, and the featureless Joshua, show that it was a stylistic motif. On the other hand, this motif is not repeated in the micrographic hunting scene at the opening of the book of Proverbs (fol. 276), where the figure of the hunter is depicted in a different style. It seems that the artists used more than one model to copy his illustrations. 

In the 14th-15th  century the manuscript belonged to a gentile but by the year 1407 (קסז) the manuscript was again by the hands of a Jew (see: History), when it was purchased together with a Torah Scroll. This Torah Scroll (חומש) may be the lost first volume of our Bible, that is the Five Books of the Torah, unless it was a Scroll of the Law, as Ginsburg (Introduction, p. 778) understood it. The gentile owner was responsible for the Latin additions: the Latin names of the Hebrew books, the foliation, the numeration of chapters and Psalms and the table of contents at the end of the book. He was also responsible for the black ink additions in the original decorations. Schwartz (hebräischen Hss, 1925, No. 5) recognized this gentle hand in another manuscript of the Vienna Library: Cod. Hebr. 4 (see: ibid. No. 2 and Cat. No.##).