Acknowledgement
I would like to thank the institutions involved in my cotutelle: the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (EPHE), Hamburg Universität as well as the Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung (BAM), which welcomed in my work. During my studies, I had the privilege to be funded by the Rothschild Foundation (Hanadiv) Europe (Grant 064/15). Most of my travels have been paid by the Mobilité Ile-de-France fellowship (Grant 16 AMIDOC 087) and then by the FB 950 “Manuskriptkulturen in Asien, Afrika und Europa” funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and within the scope of the Centre for the study of manuscript Cultures (CSMC). Those financial help have allowed me to study the Genizah documents in person in Cambridge.
The publication of this work in open access would not have been possible without the financial participation of the EPHE and the Saprat laboratory, the BAM and the Genizah Research Unit, in Cambridge. I would therefore like to thank them for their help and trust in my work.
I am profoundly indebted to my supervisors for their time, their assistance and their guidance throughout this work: Prof. Judith Olszowy-Schlanger from the EPHE as well as Prof. Oliver Hahn and Prof. Ira Rabin from the BAM.
I would like to thank as well all the people in Cambridge – the list is endless – first of all to Dr Ben Outhwaite, then James Bloxam, Rebecca Goldie, Anna Johnson, Emma Nichols and Ngaio Vince-Dewerse from conservation, all the people from DCU: Grant Young and Maciej Pawlikowski, Blazej Mikula, Scott Maloney, Marc Box, Amélie Deblauwe, Domniki Papadimitriou. Thanks also to Huw Jones, and to all the people from the manuscripts room.
I would also like to thank the collections for giving my access to their manuscripts and permission to reproduce their images: the Syndics of the CUL, Prof. Bernhard Palme, Simone Suppan and Andrea Donau from the Papyrussammlung of the Austrian National Library in Vienna, as well as Dr Merchan-Hamann and Dr Rahel Fronda from the Bodleian Library.
Thanks to the colleagues of my division in the BAM, Dr Olivier Bonnerot and Grzegorz Nehring.
Thanks also to those who helped me in more or less important parts of my work: Dr Elodie Winckel and Simon Luck who provided feedback in the statistics part, Wissem Gueddich who provided extensive feedback and advices on the world of Genizah and Muslim legal documents. Thanks to those who proofread and provided feedback during the writing of the manuscript: Sibylle Charlatte and Benjamin Joly, Dr Mathieu Chrétien, Dr Sonia Ostapchouk, Nathalie Aflalo and Dr Sophie Bienenstock. And to those who offered to do it.
Finally, I would like to thank my friends and family for their endless support, patience, and encouragement.