Obj. ID: 1280
Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts  Vienna Siddur-SeMaK, Lake Constance, 14th century

 The Vienna Siddur-SeMaK is a lavishly decorated codex of small dimensions, containing the text of the Siddur, a halakhic work titled Sefer Mitzvot Katan (Small Book of Precepts), commonly known by the acronym SeMaK, and a calendar. The manuscript was produced in the first quarter of the 14th century in Southern Germany in the region of Lake Constance.

The section of the Siddur contains the daily prayers and prayers for the holidays, as well as many piyyutim (liturgical hymns) most of which follow the Ashkenazi custom and especially the custom practiced in Worms (for example, fol. 85 “אלהים ביתה מושיב יחידים” Davidson I, no. 4686, p. 215; Goldshmidt, Mahzor for Shavuot, p. 37). The Siddur also includes a Book of Customs, which deals with issues of daily Jewish life and laws of prayer, recording mainly the customs of Worms and Meinz. Among the Rabbis mentioned in this book are: R. Meir bar Isaac, R. Isaac Halevi, R. Joseph Tov Elem, R. Isaac bar Judah, Avi Ha’ozri, R. Nathan, R. Eleazar ha-Gadol, R. Eliezer of Worms. Most of these Rabbis lived either in Worms or in Meinz. The Book of Customs also mentions the essays Sefer Basar al Gehalim and Sefer Barzuli (Schwarz, 1925, No. 88, p. 89).

According to Shalev-Eyni (Jews among Christians, in Print), despite the Ashkenazi practice of this period to recite the familiar daily prayers by heart, many people also began to use a personal individual siddur - the daily prayer book for the entire year. In keeping with their personal nature, these siddurim tended to be of small size, as is evidenced by our small codex.

The second part of the manuscript consists of the “SeMaK,” also known as Sefer Amudei Golah (Book of Diaspora Columns), a treatise compiled by the tosaphist Isaac ben Joseph of Corbeil in France before 1280. In this treatise, the author detailed all the precepts practiced in his time, together with moral lessons and texts from the Aggadah. His work was based on the Sefer Mitzvot Gadol (Great Book of Precepts), written by Rabbi Moshe of Coucy in the 13th century, from which Rabbi Isaac omitted the extensive halakhic discussion in order to adapt it for use as a general guide. The combination of Rabbi Isaac’s halakhic work with the regular liturgical prayer book (the siddur), which is paralleled in other codices of the period (e.g. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Mich. Add. 41), is explained by Isaac of Corbeil's in his introduction to his book, where he explains that he arranged the precepts in seven parts against the seven days of the week so that each person might read from them one part every day. Rabbi Isaac wished to turn the daily reading of the precepts into a regular practice, and in order to bestow validity on this practice, he even attempted to establish a special blessing for it. The reading of the precepts in the SeMaK on a daily basis, together with the accompanying blessing, imparts an individual ritual quality to this halakhic work, in keeping with the association between it and the siddur to which it is attached.

Rabbi Isaac attempted to bring about a wide dissemination of his work. In order to expedite its distribution, he devised a plan of action which adapted the system that had been developed at the time for copying texts for study. He planned to furnish the sextons of the congregations with exemplars, who would then finance the copying from the synagogue purse and encourage further copying by the members of the community, free of charge.

Rabbi Isaac expanded his target audience to include not only the male population but the women as well, as he

included in his text also the precepts which women were accustomed to fulfill.  Rabbi Isaac's plan did indeed achieve

the desired results, and, as early as the final decades of the thirteenth century and throughout the fourteenth

century, this work was widely reproduced inFranceand inGermanyand can be found in most collections of Hebrew

manuscripts. We know of approximately 120 copies surviving from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and

another 60 surviving from the 15-16 centuries (Sternthal, Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts, p. 14).

The SeMaK is copied twice in the Vienna manuscript (see Contents). The first copy of the SeMaK includes only R. Isaac’s text, while the second copy contains in addition also the commentary written by R. Perez ben Elijah of Corbeil (d. c.1295) who was R. Isaac’s pupil (Schwarz, 1925, No. 88, p. 89).

The manuscript includes a colophon on fol. 141, near the end of the siddur and close to the beginning of the SeMaK, stating that Menahem son of Eliezer copied a Siddur and a Book of Precepts for Rabbi Meir son of Rabbi Asher Halevi. Rabbi Meir bar Asher Halevi, patron of the Vienna Siddur-SeMaK lived in the town of Überlingen, on the northern banks of Lake Constance (Sternthal, Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts, pp. 13-15). This fact we learn from a deed relating to the sale of a vineyard found in the Main County Archives of Kalsruhe, no. 3/188, which was written and signed in Constance in 1332 (Friedenberg, Jewish Seals, pp. 164-168 (No. 78 on pp. 167-168). The patron's common name, Mayer Aenseli, is mentioned in the document as one of three Überlingen Jews who sold a vineyard to a citizen of their town.[1] The document bears a seal shaped like a shield enclosing three Jewish hats (a common motif in Jewish seals of that period) surrounded by his name in Hebrew, "Meir bar Asher Halevi". From this document we learn of Meir’s high economic status. As a wealthy land owner, who probably enjoyed close connections with the upper classes of the Christian residents of the Lake Constance area, he could well afford to be the patron of a sumptuous manuscript such as the Vienna Siddur-SeMaK. This document strengthens the assumption that this manuscript was produced on the banks of Lake Constance in the first quarter of the fourteenth century.

The scribe signed his name again on fol. 151v after the first SeMaK and it is possible that he also signed his name at the end of the manuscript, but this part of the manuscript is missing. Unfortunately, a date and a place are not mentioned in either of the colophons. We do not know of other manuscripts copied by this scribe, although in the past some scholars pointed to the close similarity between the script of the Vienna Siddur-SeMaK and the script found in two other well-known Hebrew manuscripts, both copied by a scribe named Menahem: the Bird’s Head Haggadah ca. 1300 (Jerusalem, Israel Museum 180/57) and the Leipzig Mahzor (Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek MS. 1102/I-II) ca. 1320, both executed in South Germany. However, despite the similarities, according to a palaeographic comparison these were not written by the scribe of the Vienna Siddur-SeMaK (Narkiss, Mahzor Lipsiae, pp. 85-110; Shalev-Eyni, Tripartite Mahzor, p. 25). It was also suggested that the Vienna Siddur-SeMaK should be compared to the Bible copied in 1302 (Cod. Hebr. 11; Schwarz, 1925, No. 14), both bearing the colophon by the scribe מנחם בן אליעזר  (Menahem ben Eliezer), but their square Ashkenazi script is definitely different.

It seems that the scribe who added the calendar on fols. 152v-154 is Elazar ben Jacob, called Zalman of שוטיגורא (Perhaps Stuttgart), as identified by the Hebrew Palaeography Project J24. This scribe also copied other manuscripts, e.g. Chronicle (גלגול בני חושים), Germany, after 1421 (Frankfurt a Main - Stadt- und Universitaetsbibliothek Oct. 94; Hebrew Palaeography Project G84) and an autographic halakhic and midrashic treatise, North Italy?, 1468-1470 (Vienna, ÖNB, Cod. Hebr. 175; Schwarz, 1925, No. 77; Hebrew Palaeography Project J26). The scribe of the calendar was probably also responsible for the additions of the text on fol. 31 of our Vienna Siddur-SeMaK.

The decoration of the manuscript was executed in two stages. The first stage of illumination is in the style of the late thirteenth - early fourteenth century Lake Constance School, and the second stage of illumination is in the Northern Italian style of the second half of the fifteenth century, where it was added by the well-known scribe–artist Joel Ben Simeon.

The decoration of the first stage is very similar to other illuminated Hebrew manuscripts produced in the Lake Constance School, researched in great detail by Shalev-Eyni ((Shalev-Eyni, Jews among Christians, In Print). Of this School of production remain 6 manuscripts: our Vienna Siddur-SeMaK; a small Bible, which until recently was housed in the Schocken Library in Jerusalem (MS. 14840); the Duke of Sussex Pentateuch from the first quarter of the 14th century (London, B.L. Add. 15282); and three volumes of the Tripartite Mahzor from c. 1322 (Shalev-Eyni, Tripartite Mahzor, p. 1; first volume in Budapest, Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Kaufmann Collection, MS A 384, second volume in London, B.L. Add. 22413, and the third in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Mich. 619). According to palaeographic, codicologic and stylistic analyses these four manuscripts are dated closely to each other and originate from the same workshop, although none of them is precisely dated. The similarities between the Duke of Sussex Pentateuch and the Vienna SeMaK led scholars to suggest that not only were both manuscripts illuminated in the same workshop but possibly even by the same artist. The first set of panels in the Tripartite Mahzor seem to have been produced later and it is probable that the Vienna SeMaK or a similar manusript served as its model (Shalev-Eyni, Tripartite Mahzor, pp. 251 and 253).

The Hebrew manuscripts of the Lake Constance School are characterized by initial words written within full-page and part-page panels, employing an identical repertoire of elements from Gothic architecture such as dome-covered turrets, arches, and trefoil gables with leaf-like shapes arranged along the ribs and tops (e.g. fols. 1v, 37, 41, 45, 154v, 163, 179v, 192v 214v, 244v, 256v of the Vienna Siddur-SeMaK; fols. 10, 17, 33v, 41v, 86v, 92v, 105 of the Schocken Bibleand fols. 238, 302, 307v of the Duke of Sussex Pentateuch). Other features characterizing this group are the many animals, birds and hybrids adorning the panels. Also typical are the grotesque human figures decorating the initial word panels. They are short and fat and have elongated fingers and are usually depicted in profile with their eyes wide-open as can be seen for example on fol. 1v of the Vienna Siddur-SeMaK and 179v of the Duke of Sussex Pentateuch. In many cases the figures fight each other as is evident on fol. 1v and 214v of the Vienna Siddur-